by Rachel Hore
On the bus to Paddington, Paul wrote in it and presented it to her. She read what he’d written: To meine leibe Sarah with my true affection, Paul, and whispered her thanks, then spent the rest of the journey poring over it, examining the captions until he nudged her gently and said, ‘hey’ and she looked up to find him smiling tenderly at her. ‘I’m still here, you know!’ She’d not seen his face so closely before, the dark stubble beneath the smooth skin, the gentle curve of his brows and the sweep of his smoky lashes, and something melted within her.
‘Of course you are!’ She took his hand in hers and they sat together in companionable silence. Her heart beat in her chest as though to a new rhythm. She didn’t want this journey to end and nor, she sensed, did he.
The station concourse echoed with the shriek of whistles, the huff of steam and the slamming of doors, each one like a blow. On the platform, Paul turned to her, took her into his arms and hugged her. ‘You will write?’ he said into her ear.
‘Of course I will. And you, too.’
‘As often as I can. Don’t forget me, Sarah.’
She held him from her. ‘How could I, silly?’ and for a second they were frozen, staring into one another’s eyes, she astonished at this transition, stirred almost to tears.
‘May I?’ he whispered, leaning in, and her lips met his in a kiss that was light at first, then more urgent as he crushed her to him. ‘Oh, my liebchen,’ he murmured, ‘my darling’ and, pressed against his breast, she felt the beat of his heart against her own. He must have sensed she was trying not to cry for he asked, ‘What’s the matter?’
‘It’s all too late,’ she gulped. ‘Because you’re going again.’
‘But there will be leave. We will see each other.’
‘You promise me?’
‘I promise.’
Beside them the train doors were closing. ‘I must go,’ he said, forcing her away and shouldering his knapsack. ‘Here, don’t forget your book.’ He rescued the brown paper parcel from the ground and pushed it into her hand.
‘Goodbye.’ He kissed her once more, then reached to catch a door before it closed. ‘Take care, my Sarah!’ he cried, leaning from the open window. She stepped forward and grasped his hand, then the moving train tore them apart.
‘Goodbye, goodbye.’
She waited until the train was a puff of black smoke in the distance then turned and walked slowly away in a daze. What had just happened she could not properly gauge. Just that her feelings had performed a volte-face and she realized it was Paul she’d wanted all along, Paul, not Ivor at all. Then came anger, anger at herself for not recognizing this sooner. Now Paul had gone and she did not know when she’d see him again.
Two days later young Derek distributed the morning post, which arrived just as he was leaving for school. Seeing Paul’s neat hand on the letter he handed her, Sarah slipped upstairs to read it, her fingers shaking with eagerness as she slit open the envelope. She stood at the window where cold lemony sunshine cast diamond shapes across the page. As she read, she heard Paul’s voice in her mind, his soft consonants like a caress.
My dearest Sarah, he’d written and her heart gave a flutter of joy.
I hope you will allow me to call you this. It is certainly how I have come to think of you, but because of what happened yesterday I now have the courage to say it. Dearest Sarah. Yes, I’ve said it again. It sounds very good.
I trust this letter is not unwelcome. Oh, how my hopes have risen and fallen in these few hours since we parted. Do you regret what happened in the moment of our farewell? If you do you must tell me at once. I shall be miserable for a while, but recover and we shall return to being friends. I fear so much that I’ve damaged our friendship, which is the most valuable thing in my life.
Dearest Sarah (there, I cannot stop saying it), I beg you to write to me as soon as you can. I know you will be kind, but you must tell me the truth. I am strong enough to bear it. It would be worse to go on without knowing, or believing in a lie.
Goodnight, my dearest Sarah (ah, the pleasure in writing these words),
Your Paul
Sarah lay down on the bed, reread the letter more slowly, and for a long time smiled unseeingly up at the ceiling as she mulled over its contents. He loved her. But he was far away. He loved her. She might not see him for weeks. Or months. He loved her. He might be sent somewhere dangerous, he might be killed. He loved her . . .
She sat up. He didn’t know that she loved him. She must write to him at once. And maybe send him a photograph. There was a recent one she had. Harry had taken it at that afternoon tea party at Westbury Hall in 1939, a day that seemed so long ago now, but was in reality hardly any time at all. It was in a drawer in the writing desk, she was sure it was. She almost flew down the stairs to find it, catching sight of the hands on the sober old grandfather clock as she sped through the hall. She was late for work, well hang work, there were more important things to do today! She found the photograph under an old cigar box of her father’s in which she kept Paul’s letters. She looked so serious in it, the photo made her smile.
‘Sarah, is that you?’ Her mother appeared in the doorway to the dining room, an envelope in hand. It was late on a Friday afternoon in the middle of February.
Sarah, who was sorting buttons, stopped still at the queer expression on Mrs Bailey’s face.
‘It’s from Diane. She says she’s coming home. Something’s wrong. Here, what do you make of it?’
Sarah took the letter from her with a sense of foreboding. It was a bravely written little note, quite unlike Diane’s usual desultory, wooden style. Her fingers brushed the smudges on the paper. Were those tears? Did Diane ever cry?
Dearest Mummy
I’m afraid I’ve done a very silly thing and have been discharged. I’ll tell you both why when I get home, but I’m not too cut up about it so don’t go worrying that I am. I’m cross at myself if anything. Don’t go telling anyone either. I won’t be able to stand the likes of Aunt Margo and La Bulldock gushing over me. I’ve made my own bed and I’m jolly well going to lie on it. Simply dying to see you and Sarah. Tell Mrs Allman a lovely Dutch officer has given me half a pound of sugar and maybe she will make a cake with it. I long for proper sponge cake, really sweet and buttery and moist. I’ll see you tomorrow.
Tons of love from your bad daughter, Diane.
The following afternoon as the light was fading from the sky, it was a small, sad-eyed figure that stepped down from the publican’s dray that had brought her from the station. But Diane’s chin lifted bravely and she gave coins to the lad who’d driven her with the air of a great, but doomed, lady, so that he tipped his cap to her in due deference and struggled gallantly up the path with her trunk without being asked.
After he’d gone, Sarah and her mother hugged her, at which her bright red lips twisted and she burst into weeping such as they’d never known of her, not even after she’d found her father dying. They were horrified. Sarah led her into the drawing room and tried to comfort her, while their mother called to Mrs Allman to bring them tea right away and to give Derek his meal in the kitchen when he came in.
The tea revived Diane enough for her to exclaim that she was glad she was home and that she never wanted to go back, even if they’d have her, which to Sarah didn’t seem likely after her sister told them what had happened.
Mrs Bailey had been right in one respect – there had been plenty of parties for Diane. At one impromptu gathering at the dockyard before Christmas, she’d drunk more gin than was good for her and had gone stumbling out in search of fresh air when she’d almost bumped into a distinguished-looking officer who was passing on the quay and who spoke to her with annoyance, at which point she’d promptly been sick. He had softened enough to assist this Wren in distress by offering his handkerchief and escorting her safely back to her quarters.
When she next encountered him, it was in the high street and when she stopped him to thank him, she was surprised to learn that he was a se
nior officer on a destroyer that had recently docked. One thing led to another, and before long she became his mistress – yes of course he was married, Mummy, or it wouldn’t be as bad, would it? Then somehow his wife found out and she had arrived and complained to Diane’s commanding officer. The scandal that threatened to engulf the guilty couple could only have one outcome. The officer kept his post. Diane was discharged in disgrace.
There was one crucial strand of this sad but all too common tale that Diane omitted to tell her mother and sister, but she confided in Sarah the next day.
It was a Sunday. Diane came downstairs late to breakfast and refused point blank to attend divine service, so Sarah suggested the two of them go for a walk instead.
They took the footpath beside the river, glad of their rubber boots given the mud from the recent rain. It was wonderful to experience the world coming to life again after the long winter; the birds singing their hearts out, hazel catkins like lamb’s tails scattering pollen, coltsfoot and celandine everywhere in splattered dots of yellow. All these things Sarah noticed as though for the first time, unable to keep her mind bursting out into little thoughts of happiness about Paul, promising herself she would write to him about spring in Westbury.
But for now she must concentrate on Diane, who was walking along sadly, seemingly fixed on a scene far away rather than the beauty all around. As they followed the bend of the river, they came upon the sight of a pair of swans treading against the current under the willows and stopped to watch. Diane gave a deep, shuddering sigh and her wan expression moved Sarah to say, ‘Oh, Diane, dear, don’t take it all to heart so. It must be awful, I know, but you’re here safe with us. Do you still love him very much?’
Diane shook her head. ‘It might sound better if I had done, but I didn’t.’ This stunned Sarah, but before she could respond her sister went on. ‘He was kind and so grateful. His wife is the most selfish old tartar you can imagine and I made him happy for a while. There, I’ve shocked you, haven’t I, but you know me. I can never do anything right. The other Wrens were complete bitches about it. I’m glad to be done with them.’
‘It’s good that you’re home then. There’ll be something else you can do instead.’
Diane turned to her, her blue eyes pools of desperation. ‘I have to tell you, Sarah. I’m so sorry, I never meant to hurt you and Mummy, but the situation is not that simple. I . . . I think I’m having his baby. One of the bitches said I must be and I went to the doctor. I don’t know how my CO found out about it, but she did. That’s why they didn’t simply reassign me.’
‘Diane, gosh, I’m so . . . sorry.’ For a moment Sarah felt numb, then the sight of her sister’s distress made sympathy flow and her mind began to work again. ‘No wonder you’re so upset.’ Another thought occurred to her, something ugly and dangerous. ‘You haven’t tried anything, have you? To . . . get rid of it, I mean.’
‘No. I heard of a girl in Dundee who nearly died doing that. I’ll have to have the baby and give it away. Sarah, I can’t tell Mummy, it’ll kill her. You’ll have to do it for me.’
‘I certainly will not,’ Sarah retorted. ‘Of course it won’t kill her. She’ll be jolly cross for a bit, but she’ll come round.’ She remembered once walking in on a conversation her parents were having in India about one of the junior officers who’d got a local girl into trouble. The boy concerned had wanted to marry her, but that was unthinkable. Mrs Bailey took charge, visiting the Indian girl’s parents and arranging for a payment to be made. Sarah had asked her mother about it later. ‘Oh, they’d have found some young man for her whose family was glad of the money,’ Mrs Bailey had said dismissively. Sarah sometimes thought of this girl and wondered about her fate. At least Diane wouldn’t be cast out of the family or ritually killed or any of the other nasty things that she’d heard rumours of in India. Sarah’s mind worked quickly. This was something she’d inherited from her mother, the ability to think clearly in a crisis and do the sensible thing. Maybe Diane could be sent away somewhere – to Aunt Susan in London perhaps – and return once the baby was born . . . A little niece or nephew; no, it wouldn’t do to think about it like that, if she would never get to know it . . . Oh, why had Diane been so stupid.
Pull yourself together, she told herself. Right now, her sad, prickly little sister needed love and reassurance and she was ready to give it. ‘Come on,’ she said, taking Diane’s hand and steering her away from the water’s edge. ‘Wait until after lunch and Mrs Allman goes off. I’ll take Derek to look for early frogspawn and you can tell Mummy then.’
Later, on her return to the house with Derek, who found no frogspawn but had netted a single bewildered minnow now swimming in his pail, Sarah half-expected to see the roof of the house raised several inches, but all appeared calm as usual. She entered with caution, to find it silent. A scribbled note on the console table in the hall informed her that her mother had taken Diane up to Aunt Margo’s. Poor Diane, she sighed. The two women would doubtless plot her fate. But in this she was wrong.
‘Mummy actually lied to her.’ Diane’s eyes were full of wild fun later. ‘She told Margo that I’m on leave and am going to be transferred somewhere else, that’s the story. Mummy’s going to write to Aunt Susan this evening and everything will be all right. It’s such a relief, Sarah.’
‘What about the baby?’ Sarah couldn’t stop herself saying. ‘Aren’t you going to be terribly sad to give it away?’
‘Possibly, but what else can I do? It’s like Mummy says. It’s no good crying over spilt milk. What’s done is done.’
Sometimes Diane took her sister’s breath away. That closed expression had come down across her face. Did her callous remark indicate shallowness or stoicism? The girl was ultimately unknowable.
Twenty-nine
OK to pop by this morning?
Briony replied immediately to Luke’s text. Please do. Working, but will stop for elevenses.
She motored quickly through two hours’ editing, fuelled by pleasant anticipation of Luke and Aruna’s arrival. On the dot of eleven she looked up at the sound of crunching gravel to see Luke’s tall lithe figure coming down up the path. Of Aruna there was no sign.
Curious, she went to the door. When she admitted Luke the summer breeze came too. He was like a breath of fresh air in her dusty hall, in pressed T-shirt and jeans, his mane of toffee-coloured hair blown about.
‘Hi,’ he said, hugging her briefly. His eyes crinkled as he smiled, but there was something distracted about him today.
‘Are you all right?’ she enquired. ‘Where’s Aruna?’
‘Gone back to London. Work commitments. Yeah, I’m great, thanks. You?’
‘Fine,’ she said hurriedly, wondering why he’d come and if she’d misread his subdued expression. ‘Come through, I’ll put the kettle on.’
In the kitchen he leaned against a work surface and watched her spoon coffee into mugs.
‘I’m sorry not to see Aruna.’
‘There was some crisis in her office. I offered to drive her, but she said Mum and Dad would be disappointed if I left early too, so she took the train.’
Briony nodded. It was on the tip of her tongue to mention having seen Aruna in Cockley Market the other morning, but she decided that discretion was probably the best course. Luke probably knew Aruna had met someone there – but suppose he didn’t? Aruna was her friend, she’d never make things difficult for her.
‘So . . . I took the opportunity to come over. I might look round the walled garden later in case Greg Richards gets in touch.’
‘Good idea.’ Luke had been pleased that Briony had recommended him to Greg.
‘Hey, there’s another thing. Do you remember Mum mentioned meeting a David Andrews at a wine-tasting?’
‘Yes, why?’ she said, passing him his coffee and grabbing a packet of chocolate biscuits. ‘Let’s sit outside.’
She wrenched open the back door and they settled themselves at the table on the patio. It was a glorious morning,
with clouds chasing across the sky and the wind rustling the beech trees.
‘Typical Mum. She chatted up the guy at the farm shop, who checked his mailing lists and told her where he lives and everything.’ Luke consulted his phone. ‘Thicket Farm near Westbury. There’s a postcode and a landline number.’
‘Thicket Farm?’ Briony frowned. ‘Just a moment.’ She licked some chocolate off her fingers and went inside. Under a pile of papers she found the local history booklet the old priest had given her and returned with it, flicking through the pages till she came to the photograph she wanted.
It was the grainy picture of the Home Guard. In a paragraph further down the page came the name Thicket Farm, home of the Andrews family.
‘It must be the family farm then,’ she said, laying the booklet between them on the table. ‘I should have checked it out.’
The man who answered the phone spoke gruffly with a hint of a local accent. ‘Harry Andrews, you say? You’re his granddaughter?’
‘Yes.’
‘Wait a second, please.’ He put down the receiver and she heard the sound of retreating footsteps, then some distant conversation that she couldn’t make out. Finally, his voice came once more. ‘I’m sorry to keep you waiting, young lady, but my wife and I are puzzled. Are you sure you mean Harry Andrews of Thicket Farm?’
‘I don’t know exactly where he lived, but my grandfather was definitely called Harry Andrews and he was from here.’
‘You’re staying in Westbury?’
‘Yes, as I said, at the Hall in one of the cottages.’
‘Well, I never. I suppose you’d better come over then. We’re here this afternoon if you like.’
‘Something’s odd,’ she called to Luke when she finished on the phone. He was strolling round the cottage garden, inspecting the overgrown borders. She described the hesitancy in the man’s voice. ‘Do you think I should go?’
