The Light Over London

by Julia Kelly

  When her feet touched the ground, Louise sagged against the wall to catch her breath. Even through the glass of the kitchen window she could hear her parents’ raised voices. They might still be in the entryway, but it was more likely that her mother had marched into the dining room, drawing the curtains so that none of the neighbors would see the fight. Even though the room faced the sea, Rose Keene would take no chances that a passing neighbor might catch a glimpse of anything but the perfect picture of domesticity she worked so hard to craft.

  Moving carefully, Louise made her way through the garden. Once on the street and out of sight of the house, she broke into a run. It was only ten minutes to Uncle Jack’s house. Louise made it in five, gasping for breath as she skidded to a stop. There was no fence, so it was nothing to skirt around the box hedge that separated the cottage from its neighbor and tap on Kate’s window.

  Her cousin glanced up from her bed, throwing the book she was reading down when she spotted her.

  “Louise!” Kate looked astonished as she opened the window.

  “Help me in,” Louise said, handing her cousin her bag.

  Kate gave her a look but took the satchel without question. Then she helped haul her into the room.

  Louise slumped on the floor under the windowsill, sucking in air.

  “Is everything okay?” Kate asked, bustling over with a half-drunk cup of tea that was rapidly cooling in a cheap chipped mug.

  Louise took a sip and shook her head. “No, it’s not.” She told her cousin of coming home to find Paul sitting in the front room. Of his departure and his making her promise to write. Of her mother’s rage and her father’s anger. Of climbing out the window and racing here.

  “So you’ve run off?” Kate asked. “This will be the first place they’ll look tomorrow when they realize you aren’t at home.”

  “I know that,” she said, “but by then it won’t matter.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “How do you feel about doing your part for the war effort?”

  Kate scrunched her nose. “You mean knitting more socks? I don’t know that my wrists can take it.”

  “No.” Louise lifted her chin. “I mean, how do you feel about joining up?”

  8

  CARA

  Cara wiped her hands on her apron. The worry that she’d forgotten something nagged at her even though she’d nearly memorized the checklist she’d written out two days ago. The wine was chilling, and the chicken was in the oven with leeks, carrots, and parsnips. The cottage was clean, and she hadn’t splattered anything on her clothes as she cooked. Whether or not she felt it, she was ready to host her first dinner in years.

  She’d spent the better part of the week convincing herself that tonight was a good idea, but twice as she’d been cooking she’d picked up the phone to cancel. She’d made herself set down the phone and think like a rational person, because turning all the lights off and hiding in her bedroom was not an option. It was a Thursday night—low pressure—and Liam had a good reason to be showing up on her doorstep: the diary. This was friendly, neighborly. Tonight was a chance to recapture a bit of the person she used to be—one who enjoyed cooking and entertaining and opening herself up to new friends. It had been so long, she’d almost forgotten who that woman was.

  “And who on earth dates their neighbor?” she murmured to herself, banishing the last of the teasing texts Nicole had been sending her all week to the back of her mind.

  When a sharp triple knock announced Liam’s arrival, she hurried to open the front door. He grinned at her from the bottom step. He’d worn a blue sweater, white collared shirt, and gray slacks, and the tips of his hair were just a little dark with damp, as though he’d just showered.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Hi. I like your apron.”

  She looked down, realizing, to her horror, that she was still wearing it. A splash of wine marred the heavy cream fabric, and a couple of bright orange carrot peelings poked out of one of the pockets.

  “Oh, I meant to take this off.” She tugged at the ties frantically, but one end slipped through her hand, tightening the knot. Her cheeks burning, she tried to stick her thumbnail into it while stepping back, “I’m being rude and leaving you standing on the front step. Come in. I’ll just—”

  Liam mounted the steps, set down the bottle of wine he’d been holding, and placed one gentle hand on either of her forearms. She stilled immediately, her eyes wide and blinking as she gazed up at his soft smile. “Let me help.”

  Carefully, he turned her around. She held her breath as he leaned down, his fingers light on the ties, barely brushing her back. The fabric tugged this way and then that.

  “It’s pretty tight,” he said.

  Her head dropped back as she sent up a silent prayer that the god watching over awkward divorced women would take pity on her and either imbue her with a shot of confidence or make the earth open up to swallow her. She wasn’t sure which would be better.

  “One sec. I think I’ve got it . . .”

  The fabric gave and she sagged forward, lifting the neck strap of the apron over her head.

  “Thanks,” she said, balling the fabric up in her hands.

  “Is everything okay?” he asked.

  “Yes. I just—” She laughed. “I’m nervous. It’s been a long time since I had anyone over for dinner.”

  Since I had a man over for dinner.

  He leaned in a little, a conspiratorial glint in his eye. “I have a confession to make.”

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “This is the first time in a long time I’ve been to dinner at someone’s house, but I remembered to bring wine.” He held up the bottle to show it off. “And it’s chilled.”

  She smiled at the sight of the bottle, sweating condensation so that the spray of festive, curling silver ribbon stuck on with a bit of tape threatened to slip off at any moment. “And it has a bow.”

  “Mum would never speak to me again if she found out I showed up empty-handed,” he said. “Leah either.”

  She thanked him and took the bottle, keeping a finger discreetly on the bow to make sure it didn’t fall off.

  He looked openly around the entryway as he crossed the threshold. “Your cottage is different from mine.”

  “How so?” she asked, leading him past the sitting room and down the narrow corridor. Her hands, she was pleased to discover, no longer shook despite the nerves that had been sitting in her stomach all afternoon.

  “I think someone gutted my place a few years ago and fitted it with all modern fixtures. The only real period details left are a couple beams. But this,” he said as they passed into the kitchen, “this is almost like stepping back in time.”

  Her shoulders relaxed a little as she watched him take in the space. It was a pretty room—her favorite in the house—with a small, black iron wood-burning stove on the wall opposite the oven, her reclaimed farmhouse table she’d set for two, and the gray-and-white-painted Welsh dresser Gran had given her because it was too big for her Widcote Manor flat. “I wouldn’t have the heart to gut a place like this. I love the feel of the old cottages. Cozy, comfortable, lived-in. It was one of the reasons I took this house.”

  “What were the others?” he asked.

  “Just the garden, really,” she said, nodding out the kitchen window to where two large bushes of bold pink Skylark roses bloomed, casting their apple pie scent into the air, and white-and-gold Japanese anemones swayed in the border along the fence separating their two yards. “I’ve had a few good afternoons sitting out there.”

  “I wondered about that,” he said.

  “You have?”

  “There’s a gap in the top of the hedge by my kitchen and I can see your back patio.” Then, all at once, he looked horrified. “Not that I’ve been watching you. That would be creepy. I just meant—”

  She burst out laughing and, inexplicably, relaxed.

  He ran his hand over the back of his neck and shot he
r a rueful smile. “We’re making a hash of this, aren’t we?”

  “We really are.”

  “What are we going to do about it?” he asked.

  Watching him leaning against her kitchen counter, long arms crossed over his chest, she could think of several things, but that was for a future Cara. One who hadn’t just finalized her divorce and uprooted her life. Right here, right now, what she found herself wanting most was a friend’s company.

  “I should finish dinner,” she said.

  He nodded. “I would offer to help, but I don’t trust myself not to ruin everything. Why don’t I open the wine?”

  “The corkscrew is in the drawer to your left. Glasses are above your head.”

  He set about cutting the foil while Cara slipped on a pair of mitts. She stood a little back as she opened the oven door, heat bursting forth in an angry cloud. Focusing on not burning herself while pulling out the heavy iron pot gave her something to concentrate on other than the tall man standing in her kitchen opening a bottle as though it was the most normal thing in the world.

  Grabbing a little cream from the fridge, she removed the cast-iron lid and poured in a dash, stirring the broth that had formed in the bottom of the pot. Then she tested the flavor, added a touch of salt, and stirred again.

  She looked up. Liam was watching her, the corners of his lips tilted slightly, glass of wine in his hand.

  “You love cooking, don’t you?” he asked.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “You look peaceful.”

  Those three words startled her in their accuracy. She did feel at peace when she cooked, all of her worries falling away. She tucked his observation away, wanting to unpack it later, when he’d gone.

  “For a long time I didn’t cook much. My career back in London was too busy, with too many late nights. But I realized about a year and a half ago that I missed it.”

  “You cook just for yourself?” he asked.

  She nodded. “I cook exactly what I want, every night. There’s no one to tell me that they’d rather have takeaway or a dish is too spicy for them.”

  “It’s one of the best parts of being single,” he said. “Along with not having to fight about whose family to visit at Christmas.”

  “Or waking up freezing because your partner’s stolen the entire duvet. Dinner’s ready. Shall we eat?” she asked.

  She maneuvered the chicken out of the pot and carved the meat. Then, into shallow pasta bowls, she spooned vegetables before layering the chicken on top, followed by a healthy ladleful of creamy broth. Her hand hesitated over her kitchen scissors to cut sprigs of thyme from the pot she’d carried inside earlier, wondering if Liam would think she was showing off. So what if she was? It was what she’d do for herself. She cut the herb and popped two sprigs each on top of the dishes as garnish.

  Liam placed a glass of wine by her right hand as she sat down. When he picked up his knife and fork, she dropped her gaze to her own bowl, but she couldn’t help sneaking a peek out of the corner of her eye.

  “This is incredible,” he said after chewing for a long, thoughtful moment.

  “Thank you,” she said with a sigh of relief. “It’s probably a bit too rustic for a dinner party, but I enjoy it. How are you finding Barlow?”

  “It’s a beautiful town. Reminds me of Oxford a little bit.”

  He’d read history at Oxford. She knew because Nicole had done some light stalking and sent her a dossier via text. It had saved Cara fighting with herself about whether she should Google him or not.

  “We don’t have a river to punt on, which is a shame,” she said.

  “At least that way you get fewer drunk students falling in the water.”

  “Don’t be so sure of that,” she said, remembering Nicole’s end-of-exams stunt in the pond.

  “How did you end up in Barlow?” he asked.

  She laughed. “There’s a long and short story.”

  He tore off a chunk of bread to soak up the creamy, thyme-flavored broth. “Tell me the long one. We have a whole dinner ahead of us.”

  “Well, I was a student here from 2004 to 2007.”

  “What did you read?”

  “Art history,” she said.

  “Too bad. I was hoping you could give me all the gossip about my colleagues in the history department.”

  “Sorry,” she said. “I briefly flirted with the idea of academia after graduation, but my ex talked me out of it.”

  “That’s a shame.”

  “Yes, well, there are a lot of things that were a shame in that marriage.”

  “What happened, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  She paused, her fork halfway to her mouth. That was a personal question—deeply personal. One she might’ve expected on a date.

  “Simon turned out not to be the person I thought he was,” she said.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. Simple. Unembellished.

  “Thank you.”

  She waited as he tore off another chunk of bread, swirling it in the broth. Finally he said, “I had a fiancée before I moved to the U.S.”

  “You did?”

  He chuckled. “You sound shocked.”

  “I just—”

  “I’m teasing,” he said. “Vivian was also a lecturer at Exeter.”

  “What happened? If you don’t mind me asking, of course.”

  A sadness settled into the crease between his brows. “All of the worst clichés.”

  “Cheating?” she asked, a little ashamed at how much she wanted to know. There was comfort sitting in front of a person who knew what it was like to have their hopes raised up, up, up and then dashed indiscriminately by a partner they thought they knew.

  “With my best friend. I even walked in on them. It was the whole Hollywood movie trifecta.”

  “Oh, Liam,” she said.

  “It was the first time I’d been in a fight since I was in school. I nearly broke my hand when I punched Tom. Nearly broke his jaw too.”

  “He deserved it,” she said, more fiercely than she would’ve expected.

  He grinned. “He bloody well did. And thank you.”

  She tilted her head. “What did you do?”

  “I’d been offered the position at Reed in Oregon for the following academic year but was in negotiations, trying to figure out whether Vivian would be able to come with me. I emailed the head of the department immediately and told her I would gladly accept. Without a partner.”

  “How did you cope?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “I didn’t at first. But the distance was helpful. It meant I couldn’t see Viv whenever I was feeling sorry for myself, and having to dial a country code to call stopped me more times than I want to admit.”

  “I only moved an hour and a half’s drive away. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like enough,” she said, thinking back to Simon’s call the previous week.

  “It will make a difference,” he said. “I promise.”

  They hardly knew one another, and yet something about his words settled her.

  “Well, now that we’ve eaten, I suppose this is as good a time as any to talk about the diary. Shall we clear the table?”

  He helped her carry the dishes to the sink, not commenting when she turned on the tap rather than loading up a dishwasher. Instead, he picked up a towel and began drying, stacking things away in the cabinets she pointed out as he went. He kept up a steady stream of conversation, wanting to know more about Jock and the shop and her work at the Old Vicarage. He laughed at her story of finding a mouse snoozing in a shoebox filled with magazine clippings tucked away in a broom cupboard, and listened carefully when she described how to estimate the age of a piece by looking at the tiny cracks, called “crazing,” in the finish.

  When the dishes were all done, she poured him another glass of wine and went to the second bedroom she was using as a study to retrieve the biscuit tin, the diary, and her notes.

  “Here we are,” she said, setting them down on the table. “
A good thick diary. It’s about half-full, and I thought it would be a breeze, but her writing is tiny. She filled up pages and pages, and there’s only so much I can read at a time while I’m supposed to be studying for work. Here’s the photograph I think is her.”

  He held it up to the kitchen light. “She looks happy.”

  “She does, doesn’t she? I recognized the uniform because Gran was in the ATS, but that’s the closest I’ve come to identifying her.”

  “Let’s see this diary,” he said.

  “In the part I’m reading right now, she writes about the drills, physical training, and classes to prepare her for the exams that were supposed to help place her in a unit. Her biggest fear seems to be that she’ll be assigned to work in the kitchens. Here.”

  She opened up the diary, flipped back a few pages from where she had stopped last night, and began to read out loud:

  31 March 1941

  The start of my second week in Leicester, and again I woke up to rain. Still, nothing stops the ATS. We drilled in the yard as usual, stumbling when our boots stuck in the mud, and when we finally were released to the canteen, we were all soaked through.

  I sent a letter to Paul today, and I hope for one back in a couple days. These waits between letters seem longer and longer, and sometimes I think I can hardly stand it.

  If I have one regret from that last evening with him, it is that I didn’t tell him I loved him. Now it feels impossible to say—it’s too big to write with just ink and paper. I worry every day that something might happen to him, flying his missions over the Channel and hunting for German submarines. I know it’s selfish of me to wish that he’d never been sent away when he’s protecting us, but I do.

  I saw Kate in the NAAFI today with a soldier at each elbow. When she spotted me, she shooed them away as though she couldn’t have cared less whether they ever came back. I should like, I think, to be a little bit more like her. It would be easier if it didn’t matter to me whether Paul came back.

  Kate told me I was looking tired and worn. I told her it was all of the studying for the exams we’re to be given to test our aptitude and that I’d hardly had a chance to come to the NAAFI for a cup of tea or a sing-along around the rickety piano in the corner. She told me she thought it was Paul causing the bags under my eyes.