JT02 - To The Grave

by Steve Robinson

  Eliza kept hold of his hand. “I’d like to keep this just between ourselves until we know more. You understand?”

  “Of course,” Tayte said, knowing that she had an extensive family around her: three sons and a daughter living in DC with children of their own. The arrival of the suitcase had affected their perceived ancestry and it was entirely his client’s call as to if and when she wanted to tell them.

  She let go of Tayte’s hand and as he turned away he eyed the little red suitcase again and wondered, as he had wondered all week, who had sent it and how they came by it. And he wondered why it had been sent now, some seventy years later. Something had happened to prompt it, but what? Tayte had no idea just now but he intended to find out. As he left the house, heading for his car, he gazed up into the clear sky and snapped his collar higher to keep the late afternoon chill off his neck. He thought about the girl again. Philomena Lasseter. He’d been thinking about her a lot. Who was she? Why was her name recorded on his client’s original birth certificate under her mother’s maiden name of Fitch? And why had she been separated from her suitcase all those years ago?

  Chapter Two

  December 1943.

  It was Christmas morning and Mena Lasseter awoke early, harbouring the sensation that she had been disturbed by something that now, in waking, left no obvious clue as to its source. The blackout curtains at the window held her bedroom in total darkness and it was so quiet that she fancied she could hear the air around her, hissing in her ears. She sat up and pulled at the heavy curtains behind her until they revealed a misty, moonlit landscape of leafless trees and frosted fields and just the hint of a salmon daybreak to the east. When she opened them more fully the moonlight washed in from the Leicestershire countryside, casting diagonal crosses onto the oak-beamed walls from the blast tape that had been in place between the leaded lights since the bombings began. The moon painted everything with its silver brush, stealing all the colours.

  But not quite all.

  As Mena turned away from the window and looked into the room across a cheerless bedspread, past the foot of an ironwork bedstead and the chaise beyond, she saw something beside her washbasin that she hadn’t seen in such a long time that the sight of it brought a lump to her throat. It was an orange - a beautiful plump orange that was as vivid amidst the early morning grey as if it were in full sunlight. She threw aside her bedcovers and ran to it, unable to resist piercing its peel as she clutched it to her nose, drawing in the sweet memory of its scent. She laughed quietly to herself, choking back a tear and just smiling at it because she understood its significance: Eddie was home for Christmas, and what a gift.

  Mena - whose devout Catholic mother had named her Philomena after Saint Philomena the wonder worker - was sixteen years old and several months younger than she wanted to be. She was tall for her age and knew she could easily pass for seventeen, which was the age she needed to be before she could join the Women’s Land Army, but her mother - staunch upholder of the Decalogue that she was - would not permit Mena to lie about her age, even if most of the other girls of her acquaintance were doing it.

  But August wasn’t so far away, she kept telling herself. She could make do with being a fire-watcher until then and she also worked part-time as a volunteer, wheeling books through the wards at the Leicester Royal Infirmary and the general hospital in Evington, often reading to the patients. She was still doing her bit, like her sister, Mary-Grace, who had enlisted with the Auxiliary Territorial Service two years ago and was no doubt having a glorious war, driving around in her motorcar, delivering important documents to important people.

  And there were her three brothers. No one could ask more of them. In the thick of it since 1940, Mena hadn’t seen Michael, James or Peter in far too long. She envied them their freedom, despite the mortal danger and the hardship that was all too evident from their letters. Edward Buckley - dear, sweet Eddie, who had always been like a fourth brother to her - was already a commissioned regular when the war began. His childhood belonged to Oadby and it owed much of its happiness to the Lasseter family, before the Buckleys moved away to Hampshire.

  Mena pulled the orange to her nightdress and sighed. Mary will be so thrilled to see him, she thought, genuinely happy for her. And yet a part of her envied her sister his return. She set the orange down, thinking to steal back to her room with a knife after breakfast, to eat it in secret, knowing that it would taste all the sweeter after whatever powdered egg creation was in store for them again this festive morning. Her hand had barely left the orange when the distinct sound of a creaking floorboard beyond her bedroom door drew her attention. Her smile grew when she realised that this must have been the sound that had stirred her from sleep. Was Eddie still there, delivering his oranges in the night like Santa Claus?

  She opened the door with a flourish, expecting to catch Father Christmas in the act. But as she leapt through the doorway and the cool moonlight followed her, she found her own father instead, glowing in a pool of candlelight. He was dressed, not in a red tunic and trousers, but in slippers and a new striped dressing gown that was not unlike the curtains that used to hang in one of the spare bedrooms. He had one foot on the stairs at the top of the landing and a startled expression creased his already worry-lined face.

  “Pop!” Mena said, still smiling.

  Everyone called him, Pop. Although Eddie, who was more than welcome to, was such a stickler for correctness that out of respect he still called him Mr Lasseter or sir - despite Mr Lasseter’s numerous protestations over the years that he should at least call him George. Pop was a tall man: lean and lanky, with a balding pate and a wiry grey moustache that he kept meticulously trimmed. He clutched a bony hand to his chest and staggered forward like a bad actor in the throes of a poorly written death scene and Mena thought he was about to fall down the stairs. She rushed to him, her smile faltering, but as she arrived he wheeled on her, balancing on the top step with all the nimbleness of a man half his fifty-four years. His free hand grabbed her.

  “Gotcha!” he said, laughing disproportionately to the joke until Mena slapped his arm playfully and reminded him of the hour.

  “Shh!” she said. “You’ll wake everyone.”

  Pop nodded and quickly buttoned his smile, though his steely eyes were still laughing.

  Mena hugged him. “Merry Christmas, Pop.”

  “Merry Christmas, my lovely Mena,” Her father replied. “Now back to bed with you until I’ve lit the fires and this old house has had a chance to warm up.”

  Mena reached her bedroom door and turned back. “Will there be an extra setting for Christmas dinner?” she whispered, sure of the answer.

  Her father’s smile renewed. “Just you wait and see, my girl. Wait and see.”

  The Lasseters lived just outside the village of Oadby, which was a few miles east of Leicester, between Evington to the north and Wigston to the south. The war for them had so far been kind, if kind is a word that can sit alongside war so comfortably. But it had been kind in as much as they were still receiving regular letters from Michael, James and Peter, who were all serving in the European Theatre of Operations and living on the outskirts of Oadby in a crooked old farmhouse that seemed too big without the boys - despite the two refugee children who had been assigned to them - meant that they had not suffered the bombs that had fallen on Leicester. Neither had they fallen victim to those bombs that had been dumped on the villages when the bombers returned from their numerous raids on Coventry. And the war had been kind to them perhaps because they were financially better off than most families in Oadby, which meant that when the war began they had a better stock of things with which to make do and mend.

  When Mena returned to her bed, she found that she was incapable of sleep. She tried a book from the pile of classics on the floor beside her, but neither Dumas nor Stevenson could hold her attention. Instead, she wrapped herself in her bedcovers and sat in her favourite chair by the window where she watched the sunrise. It was a perfect morni
ng: no snow, but the frost was thick enough to give the illusion and if it wasn’t going to snow then a clear and crisp sunny day was just what she liked. The mist had all but gone now and the world outside her window was no longer silver but orange like her gift, which was back in her hands, slowly turning in her lap.

  She was deep in thought, her gaze fixed on the horizon while she wondered how her brothers were today. She said good morning to each of their remembered faces, which she did every morning, silently praying for their safe return. She knew that their Christmas fare would be better than hers again this year. They would have real roast turkey and roast potatoes, with cranberry sauce and pickles, peas and corn, spread with real butter, too, no doubt. At least, she liked to think they would. She thought about the ‘mock turkey’ she’d helped her mother prepare: sausage-meat with chopped apple and onion and two parsnips for the legs. It tasted nothing like turkey, but as with so many things now, it was all about appearance.

  Appearance. Mena hadn’t given much thought to what she would wear today, but with the arrival of her orange, she knew that she had to come up with something special. She felt it her duty to look her best - all part of the war effort and doing one’s bit, which brought her to the makeup issue. That was another matter altogether and one on which her mother avidly disapproved. But it was Christmas Day and she was every bit sixteen and a half years old. The only thing that concerned her was how to improvise with what remained of the few items she’d managed to scrounge off Mary on her last visit a few months ago - she didn’t want to arrive at breakfast looking like a rag doll.

  There was a Boots in Leicester and she was dying to try their No.7 range. She hadn’t been there in a while, but the last time she looked they had foundation cream and complexion milk, which cost three shillings each, rouge cream and nine different shades of face powder. The lipstick came in so many colours, it was like being in a sweet shop, but Pop wouldn’t waste the money even if her mother had approved. ‘We’ve no knowing how long this war will last,’ he’d say, and that would be the end of it. She hoped Mary would come up trumps with a few leftover essentials for her Christmas present this year, so she could make a better job of things for the evening.

  Mena unwrapped herself from the bedspread and sat at her dressing table. She set the orange down in the sunlight from the window and frowned at herself. Her hair was too straight for what she had in mind. She wanted long golden waves for the daytime, straight at the sides to frame her face before gently curling onto her shoulders like that Hollywood actress she’d seen in a movie last summer: Veronica Lake. For the evening it had to be an up-do. Nothing looked classier.

  She opened a drawer and found her makeup kit - such as it was. The only item of real makeup she had was a stub of lipstick that she had to get at with a cotton bud because what little remained was recessed far into the tube. She had rouge for her cheeks but that wasn’t really makeup. She’d crushed a square of watercolour paint into as fine a powder as she could manage using the mortar and pestle from the kitchen once when her mother was out, and she had to use it sparingly on moist cheeks so as not to overdo it or out came the rag doll. She had nothing at all for her eyes, but then her father had always told her how pretty they were - much like her grandmother’s, only paler, more slate-blue, so she considered herself lucky there.

  Some of her friends were washing their legs with black tea or smearing gravy browning on them because no one was manufacturing silk stockings any more; they needed the silk and the production looms to make parachutes. She’d tried gravy browning once, but Xavier - or Manfred, she couldn’t remember which of the Great Danes it was - had spoilt the already poor effect by licking her legs under the table. And besides, she had no eyeliner pencil to draw the seams with anyway. Ankle socks would have to do.

  Chapter Three

  By the time Mena was ready to make her appearance to the rest of the household, she could already hear the hubbub of what promised to be a very special Christmas morning. For at least half an hour she’d been listening to the clatter of pans and the tramping of ten-year-old feet as the twins from London chased one another about the place; their incessant energy bolstered by the occasion and their own expectations of what new things Christmas would bring. She could hear her mother shouting at them to settle down or there would be no presents this year. Then it would go quiet for no more than two minutes before the pandemonium started up again. Occasionally, beneath all this, she heard Pop’s voice. She could only hear the soothing tone of it - words without distinction - but longer periods of calm always followed and it was during one such calm period that she heard another voice, conjoined with the hum of her father’s. It was another man - a much younger man.

  Mena smiled at the Hollywood star in the mirror and thought that the woman who winked back at her would do very well.

  “Philomena!”

  Her mother’s voice was shrill. It rose to such a high pitch that Mena jolted as if being startled from a daydream, knowing that that was the sound of her mother’s final call. She slipped her socked feet into a pair of white-and-black saddle shoes and hurriedly tied the laces. Then she ran to the door and only paused to straighten her dress when she reached the bottom of the stairs. She took a moment to compose herself in the hall mirror and thought the coat-stand to the right of the front door looked a little heavier than usual and those were definitely not her father’s boots beneath the parlour palm at the base of the jardinière. Pop’s voice drew her across the parquet floor to the sitting room door where she waited and listened. She could make out his words perfectly now.

  “Oh, I’m kept busy,” Pop said in response to a question Mena had been too late to hear. “I make most of my house calls in the villages now. There was a nasty bout of flu doing the rounds not so long ago, but the extra petrol coupons keep the old Morris running so I get about well enough. Now what about you? 1st Airborne treating you well, are they?”

  “As well as any man might expect under the circumstances,” the other man said.

  “Yes, well perhaps it will all be over by next Christmas, eh? Did you hear Churchill’s announcement on the wireless last night?”

  “No, sir. I’m sorry to say I missed it. We arrived quite late.”

  “Of course. Still, it’s not like we weren’t expecting it, there’s been enough speculation these past months. I’m sure it will come as no surprise to you to hear that Eisenhower’s been appointed Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force.”

  “I’d sooner see one of our boys in the role.”

  “Quite,” Pop said. “But I believe the decision was largely based on the nationality of the country with the highest commitment of troops.”

  “And the usual politics, no doubt.”

  “Oh, no doubt at all. Although politically the decision carries with it certain guarantees. If the coming operations in the ETO are to be led by the Yanks, then any failure will ultimately be seen by the world as their failure. From a political standpoint their full support and their unwavering attention are secured now for the duration.”

  Mena was distracted by the arrival of the twins. First one then the other came sliding past her like a déja-vu episode in grey socks and identical yellow candlewick dressing gowns. They slid all the way to the foot of the stairs without registering she was there and they raced up them like stampeding elephants, slowly followed by Xavier and Manfred who both nuzzled her hand as they nonchalantly passed.

  Another clatter of pans from the kitchen forced Mena to call out, “I’ll just be a minute, Mother.” Then she tapped on the door, turned the doorknob and stepped through into the sitting room, which was bright with dusty sunlight and suddenly full of smiles.

  Both men were standing beside a fire that by now was spitting vigorously at the brass fireguard. A pair of knitted Christmas-stockings hung from a blackened beam and towards the window to her right, over an arrangement of floral-print furniture, a small Christmas tree looked proud despite the lack of any new ornament again this
year. The twins had been kept busy one afternoon on the lead-up to Christmas, making animals from Pop’s pipe-cleaners, but they ended up looking more like hairy caterpillars to everyone except the twins.

  Mena’s smile met Pop’s first. He was wearing a jacket and tie: the same old comfortable tweed jacket with the sagging pockets that he wore when he made his rounds. His smile was pinched at one corner to keep his pipe from falling out and he had a hand in one of his jacket pockets as usual, which was why they had sagged over the years. Mena’s attention was quickly drawn to the man beside him who was beaming back at her.

  “Eddie!” she said. She saluted him. “Or should I call you Captain Buckley now? Pop told us all about it.”

  Edward Buckley pulled a straight face. He saluted back and stamped his heel. He laughed. “Merry Christmas, Mena. And Eddie will do just fine as always.”

  She threw herself at him. “I knew it was you,” she said, hugging him so tightly she thought she would crease his uniform.

  “What? Even with the tash?”

  “It’s barely there,” Mena said. “But very becoming an officer.” She studied his face like he was on inspection: the tidy brown hair, which she thought a little too shiny, and the hazel eyes that co-ordinated well with the drab colour of his uniform. “Thanks for the orange,” she added as she withdrew.

  “You’re welcome, I’m sure,” Edward said. “Now let me get a good look at you.” A moment later he added, “Wow! Don’t you look pretty in that dress? Blue always was my favourite colour and those polka dots set it off a treat. Are they yellow or cream?”

  Mena frowned. “They used to be white.”

  “Well, whatever colour they are, they’re my favourite, too.”

  She slapped his arm and laughed. “You’re just saying that.”

  “I never say anything I don’t mean,” Edward said. “I told your father I’d make it here in time for Christmas and here I am.”