Sunshine Spirit
Page 21
Someone somewhere in the war office had known of Will's subterfuge on Hugh's behalf and there'd been a mysterious deferral of Will's drafting; longer than was needed for him to recover physically from the injuries he'd sustained on the night that Jane died in his arms. When called by officials to discuss his role as Hugh, Will agreed to act once more in the late man's stead. He no longer had anything to lose. The job was done and Hugh at last was laid properly to rest.
During Will's subsequent active service in Italy and France he'd sporadically received letters from Maggie, often with an extra letter inside from one of the children. In the top drawer of a writing desk these letters were still carefully piled, the uppermost of which was the letter Maggie had sent to Will close to the end of the fighting and which retitled Harry as a prisoner of war. Harry had finally returned home to the farm in early 1946 to start a physical recovery that took months and a mental one that took a lifetime. The farm remained a place of refuge and retreat for Will between his theatre roles and later teaching career.
Life was lived and times changed; homes and lives were rebuilt and years grew into decades. Harry's children, and now grandchildren, were like Will's own.
Will heaved himself up from his armchair and huffed with chagrin when his knees clicked like his grandmother's used to. He walked to the mantelpiece and took the empty frame from its resting place there. Withdrawing the folded and frayed postcard from his breast pocket he carefully flattened it back into the frame it had left sixty Christmases ago. He put the frame back in its place on the mantelpiece.
'Well, Sunshine, now we know,' Will smiled, touching the frame tenderly. 'Until we meet again.'
The End
Family of Strangers
What would you do if someone you loved disappeared?
What would you do if you were told they’d never existed?
This nightmare comes true for Eva when her closest friend, Annie, vanishes.
Even Annie’s parents deny her existence.
The uncertainty of the early months of 1939 has been eclipsed. Eva’s comfortable life becomes despairing and desperate, until a friendly hand reaches out to her. The elderly and eccentric Lola shows no surprise at Eva’s tale. Neither does Gabe; young, handsome and distant. They have answers that lead to more questions, and information that leads to confusion. The pair guide Eva through a new and frightening world towards her beloved Annie. Eva is sure that her search has absorbed every part of her, until she realises how close she’s becoming to the mysterious but tender Gabe.
As Eva learns more about the hidden world now exposed to her, the depth of which seems infinite, she finds that people can be lost and all memory of them forsaken. Gabe and Lola are lost, just like Annie; but unlike Annie, no-one is looking for them to guide them home. Eva, now attached to Lola and deeply tied to Gabe, struggles to believe that nothing can be done to help them.
Eva’s search is littered with many things - doubt, discovery, love, belonging and a myriad of scary jigsaw pieces; lost friends, the giving of gifts, a library of books, a troubled conscience and a brilliant pianist. Can Eva piece it all together to see the picture or has she missed something? Does Eva find Annie? Will Gabe reveal his story and are his and Lola’s other lost friends a help or a hindrance?
And is there something crucially important that not one of them is telling Eva?
Excerpt from Family Of Strangers
When I reached the house I already knew.
But that didn't stop me wrenching the front door open as soon as my shaking hands had fumbled the key into the lock and rushing breathlessly into the empty hallway like a woman possessed, tearing through the barren sitting room into the kitchen where there wasn't a sound or a soul. No odd cups on the table, no whistling kettle, no shopping basket, no cups of tea, no patchwork bag, no apron on the back of the door. There were none of the glorious chaotic things I loved and that welcomed me and made me feel I'd come home. All were gone except a few pieces of furniture left swathed in white, dust sheets covering them like a snowy mountain range.