Her disappointment showed. ‘I understand. I just wondered if you might have something. I don’t know what. My husband was there during the war and I’m trying to piece together his story. He died a few years back and as I was in England I thought it might be a good idea, it would occupy me.’ She looked around the confusion. ‘But it looks as if it’s the needle in a haystack.’
He appeared to have caught her dejection. ‘There was quite a bit at West Drayton, and stuff from Northolt. If it had been Kingston or Bushey Park then we might have had a chance. But Bedmansworth. There was nothing left.’
Pearl rose apologetically. ‘I’ve been taking up your time,’ she said. ‘Not at all,’ he assured her. ‘I wish there might have been something. I’ll look through any stuff from other places that might be connected, but unless I can pinpoint it, cut it down into Air Force units or at least place names, it’s the needle in the haystack all right.’
‘I’ll leave you my telephone number if you should find anything,’ she said. She wrote her name and the number of the Swan and gave it to him. ‘I’m there with my daughter. But we must be going home before too long.’
As he and his wife showed her out of the cottage the full sense of disappointment came over her. She looked at the huge, unwieldy agricultural machine and shook her head. Some things were certainly difficult.
The taxi took her back to the Swan and she went to her room. Rona was out, sketching. How strange that after being so close after their arrival in England, they were now drifting apart, almost as they had been in California. Perhaps it was time they went home. Mrs Durie brought her a tray of tea. ‘You must need this after all you’ve been doing,’ she said enigmatically.
‘I’ve been busy,’ agreed Pearl. The other woman poured her a cup of tea. ‘What’s the royal news today?’
‘Coming up for Mausoleum Day on December fourteenth,’ sniffed Mrs Durie. ‘Death of the Prince Consort, eighteen sixty-one, and Princess Alice, died eighteen seventy-eight same day. And the Abdication’s on December eleventh, nineteen thirty-six. Did Jim tell you there’d been a phone call?’
‘For me?’ She almost spilled her tea. ‘No. When was that?’
‘Just before you got back in the taxi.’ She shook her head. ‘He told that Randy to tell you I expect, because Jim’s had to go to Slough about the darts presentation. He was wondering if you’d like to go. It’s early next month. That Randy. Thinks of nothing but what he wants to think of and that’s not much.’ She turned. ‘I’ll see if there’s a message on the pad downstairs.’
‘It’s all right, I’ll get it,’ said Pearl anxiously. She followed the Englishwoman out of the door. Mrs Durie turned as she went down the curve of the stairs. They reached the closed bar and Mrs Durie handed her a note from the pad below the telephone. ‘There, that’s it. Can you see? It’s a bit dim in here.’ She turned on the bar light. ‘That’s more like it.’
Pearl looked at the message. It was from Bert Trouton. ‘Thank you,’ she said as calmly as she could. Randy appeared. ‘Did your dad tell you to give Mrs Collingwood a message?’ said his grandmother.
The youth tugged his pigtail defensively. ‘Yeah, well I was going to, wasn’t I.’ He looked at each woman in turn and turned out of the room again. ‘Little swine,’ muttered Mrs Durie. ‘I’ll leave the light on so you can ring.’
Pearl dialled the number carefully. Bert Trouton answered at once. ‘When you’d gone I had a good idea,’ he said. ‘I had a think about it and I went to a book I’ve got about US Air Force movements. It turns out that the 44th Tactical Support Group, those at Bedmansworth, got shifted. The whole lot went to Reading in nineteen forty-five. I’ve got a whole pile of stuff here. Photographs as well.’
Within an hour she was back at the cottage. As though in deference to her he had moved the gargantuan harvester a few possible yards, so that at least the front door was exposed. She told the taxi to wait and hurried along the garden path to the opening door. ‘I should have thought about it before,’ said Bert ushering her in. ‘I ought to have looked in the Transfers Book. Obvious. Anyway that’s what 44th Tactical Support Group did. Moved to Reading.’ He led her eagerly into the front room.
‘Like some tea?’ inquired Mrs Trouton almost anxiously appearing at the door. The American thanked her and said she would not. ‘Where are they, Bert?’ Pearl asked.
He nodded at a bulging cardboard box. The string had already been untied and the sides sagged with the contents. ‘It was in the Reading Council offices, masses of it,’ he recalled. ‘They were only too glad to see the back of it.’
Pearl sat at the unlevel table again. Almost as soon as she started to turn the pages, she saw her husband’s name: ‘Captain Michael Collingwood…. Instructions: Captain M. Collingwood USAF will be in charge of … Mike Collingwood to organise basketball….’
‘You … said there were photographs,’ she said not looking up from the document in her hands.
Bert patted her arm. ‘They’re in the other lot,’ he said. ‘Here.’ He lifted a heavier box from the floor and placed it on the table. ‘They’re a bit yellow, as you’d expect, but some of them are all right. It’s amazing. Kept in the dry, I suppose.’
Pearl began, slowly and full of pain, taking out the faded photographs. She could scarcely keep back her tears now. There he was, young and tall, with that smile she had known so well and for so many years. Groups of officers, photographs on the base. The Christmas party…. the Christmas party … dated nineteen forty-four, December eighteenth … There he was with the others below the decorated tree, loaded with lights and presents. Mike with a glass askew in his hand, with his fellow officers, all cheering and smiling, toasting away the last months of the war. And at his right hand with her hand on his shoulder was a girl. That was her! The shock rendered Pearl Collingwood speechless and still. She would have known that face anywhere.
When Rona went into her mother’s room Pearl was sitting up in bed against the pillows, her early tea brought by Mrs Durie untouched on the bedside table, her Daily Mail folded on the bed, and in her hand a letter. Beside her, on the quilt, lay a small rectangular box, its edges worn, its lid put aside.
‘You got some mail?’ said Rona. She touched the side of the teapot. It was only warm.
‘Written a long time ago,’ said her mother still looking at the tight writing. ‘It’s one of your father’s love letters.’
‘Mother!’ Smiling, Rona sat on the bed and put her arm around Pearl. ‘You’ve been hoarding them…. You never told …’
‘It’s not from your father. It’s to him,’ she corrected slowly. ‘And it’s not from me.’
Rona frowned. ‘Oh … well who … ?’
‘Who wrote it? Well, I know now.’ She turned her face and Rona saw with alarm that her eyes were wet. The old lady went on: ‘But it’s so long ago that it doesn’t matter, probably not anyway. Only to me. And now I know.’
Slowly her daughter sat on the side of the bed. ‘Mother, what are you saying … ?’
Pearl sighed. Her eyes returned to the letter. ‘Your father and I were married for just a year when he went overseas in the War, came here to England. To this very part of the country.’ She raised her head as if facing up to a difficult reality. ‘To this place. To Bedmansworth.’
‘So that,’ said Rona slowly, ‘is why we came here. Is that so?’
Pearl smiled seriously. ‘I made sure we would, didn’t I just. All that acting up, kidding you I was sick … but it worked. This is where we got.’
‘Why didn’t you just tell me?’ asked Rona seriously. ‘If you’d wanted to come to Bedmansworth then there was no reason why we …’
‘It was just something, I guess, I had to keep private,’ said the old lady as if she were telling herself. ‘It was something I had to do alone. Nobody could help.’
Rona felt the teapot again. ‘You haven’t had any tea yet,’ she pointed out. ‘Would you like some now?’
‘Sure,’ said her mother smoothi
ng out the letter on the quilt. ‘This memory game is thirsty work.’
As she poured the tea Rona said: ‘Tell me.’
Pearl took a deep, elderly breath. ‘Sure. When your father died five years ago I discovered this.’ She nodded at the worn cardboard box. ‘In a strange way I suppose I was looking for it. I felt guilty, like most widows must do at those moments, just going through his private stuff … almost prying. The box was hidden away among some old, old papers, fifty years old most of them, in a corner of a trunk in the garage. I had the feeling I shouldn’t be looking through it at all. He was dead and maybe I should have just got rid of the whole trunk, thrown it out without looking. But I didn’t. I did look and I found these letters.’
‘So they’re love letters,’ said Rona pursing her lips. She kissed her mother’s hair. ‘But from a long, long way back.’ She had given her a cup of tea and Pearl was about to take a sip. But she replaced the cup into the saucer and handed both to her daughter. ‘A good many years, Rona,’ she agreed. Her voice descended to a whisper. ‘But the passion, the sheer passion, lives on. The amazing, overwhelming, love and passion she had for him. It was an all-sweeping, all-engulfing affair. Me, I was just married to him, that’s all.’
‘It happened to a lot of people,’ Rona pointed out carefully. ‘It was the War that did it.’
‘Not in this case. Not the War,’ said the old lady slowly, firmly. ‘You only have to read them and you’ll see that. It shines from every page.’
‘Oh, Mother.’
‘I felt ashamed. Ashamed of eavesdropping on them, odd as that may seem, even though he was my husband, even though it happened so long ago. I felt ashamed too that our marriage had been just a marriage, a good marriage, I guess, but nothing special. Not a big romance, never passionate, not like this.’ She tapped the letter.
‘Mother, affairs are different from marriages. And letters are different from real life. Who was she? What was her name?’
‘That was my burning desire to know. None of the letters have any address. She was married later. The only name I knew her by is Elizabeth. But I know her now.’ She dabbed her eyes. ‘Call me an old, foolish woman, if you like. Maybe that’s what I am. But I just wanted, I needed to know, before I die, who was this person who was the love of my husband’s life?’
‘And now you do.’
‘I did my detective work too well.’ She dabbed her face. ‘I would have made a swell private eye. I knew that he had been stationed in this area, and he had mentioned Bedmansworth a lot when he was reminiscing about it. It’s not a name you forget easily. One day I went to the Santa Monica library and checked out a large scale map of this part of England and I found Bedmansworth, and it was so near the airport. From that moment it was on my mind to come here. To find out.’ Her eyes had been lowered but now she faced her daughter again. Rona picked up the handkerchief and dabbed the old lady’s face. She thought she might begin to cry herself. Her mother said: ‘It may sound crazy, but old people do crazy things. They’re entitled to that. I got so obsessed with it. I had to know who this woman was who gave my husband such romance and happiness.’
‘But you don’t have any of his letters to her do you? You don’t know if he felt the same.’
‘Oh, but he did. Reading her letters is plenty enough to see how much they had together, how much they felt about each other. She refers to things that he has said. And we had only been wed a little while and I thought I had just lent him to the country to help with the War. It was at the back of my mind that he might have an affair – or more than one – not many of those boys didn’t. But this, this Rona, was real, true, passionate love. That’s what I find so hard to face. All through Mike’s life, whatever he showed, he must have thought of what might have been.’
‘Okay,’ returned Rona firmly. ‘But you don’t know that, do you. If they both felt that way why didn’t they get together?’ She realised abruptly how the advice applied. ‘Two people …’ she slowed. ‘If it was as strong as you believe … why didn’t they … ?’
‘I’ve tried to comfort myself with that thought,’ said Pearl. ‘Don’t ask me why but she stayed and married her husband and Mike came home to me. And we lived happily – or did we? – ever after.’ She peered through her glasses at the letter. Just reading what she has to say, I just doubt it. These letters are over a period of five years, long after he came back to the States. After she wed. And then they ceased, as far as I know. There may have been others.’
‘So you know, you’ve found out, who she was.’
‘She’s dead now,’ said Pearl. ‘I not only know who she was, I know what she looked like.’ She reached to the drawer in the bedside table and opening it took out an envelope. ‘Here she is. With your father. Don’t they just look happy.’
Deliberately she slid out the photograph. Staring at her, Rona caught her breath. Pearl passed the picture across the bed. ‘There she is. Recognise her?’
Rona’s mouth dried. ‘Oh my God, it looks like Edward’s wife … it’s Adele’s mother.’
‘There’s a strong family resemblance,’ agreed Pearl sagely. All at once she appeared calmer, relieved, now that she had shown the picture. ‘You saw that portrait hanging in the Richardsons’ house. Then only yesterday I saw this picture. She was my husband’s lover.’ She paused, idly studying the photograph, and then went on. ‘The young boy, Toby Richardson, his middle names are Matthew Arnold. Remember how he was so embarrassed at telling us, in fact he didn’t tell us in the end. Matthew, but not Arnold. But he was christened Tobias Matthew Arnold in the church right here. I’ve seen the entry in the register.’
‘You’ve really gone right through with it,’ muttered Rona. She shook her head at the photograph.
‘Elizabeth Hickman, Adele’s mother, just loved the poet Matthew Arnold,’ said Pearl. ‘More than a century ago he stayed in their house. They were brought up on him. It was almost obsessive when she knew your father. This last letter describes how they went on Christmas Eve 1944 to Matthew Arnold’s grave at Lalelam, quite near here. I’ve been there too. I went just the other day. Christmas Eve was the poet’s birthday and apparently Elizabeth Hickman always visited there at that time. They – Mike and she – went to the churchyard and then walked along beside the Thames River. It’s all described, remembered, in the letter. They knew they would be parting before too long.’ She paused and gave a small wry smile. ‘It is all so poetic I could almost feel sorry for them. And there was I, back in California, raising money for war bonds. He must have thought my letters were pretty dull.’
Rona’s hand went slowly to the letter on the bed. ‘May I?’ she asked. She suddenly thought she should not. ‘Do you mind?’
‘If you like reading history,’ sighed her mother handing it to her.
Her daughter read two lines of verse at the bottom of the page.
‘And we forget because we must,
And not because we will.’
‘See, it’s dated December twenty-fourth, nineteen fifty-one – Christmas Eve, Matthew Arnold’s birthday – and five years after he came home. That’s the last letter,’ said Pearl. ‘But they’re all like that – none of them has a sender’s address. Not even just “Bedmansworth”.’ The thin smile returned. ‘Maybe to confuse historians and busybodies,’ she said. ‘But they’re fine words. He was a good poet. I’ve read quite a lot of him now. And those sentences from his poem called “Absence” are repeated on Elizabeth Hickman’s grave in the churchyard right outside this window. Yesterday when it was almost dark, I went in there and I read them to myself aloud.’ Pearl was crying freely now: ‘What a beautiful story,’ she sobbed.
Rona put her arms about her. ‘Now you know what you needed to know,’ she comforted. ‘There’s nothing more.’
‘But I’m so jealous of her.’
‘The time for jealousy is gone. A long time ago. She’s dead and so is Dad. Nothing will change.’
Pearl dabbed her eyes again and her daughter, with a sad s
mile, helped her and then wiped her own. Her mother, her head on her side, said: ‘That house. How odd it should all have come from that house. The Richardsons’.’ She touched her daughter’s forearm and looking at her knowingly said: ‘Isn’t it strange, really strange, Rona, how life comes around in a complete circle. Even after almost fifty years.’
It was mid-afternoon in late November and the winter daylight was already drifting obliquely away. Barbara had a single lamp illuminating her cabin-bedroom. She woke from her doze and at once realised there was someone outside the window, the shadow of the head on the curtain. Her arm went backwards and made contact with Bramwell’s face. ‘Bram,’ she whispered over her shoulder. ‘There’s someone trying to look in the window.’
‘Mind the leg,’ mumbled Bramwell blinking awake. His plaster cast was now replaced by a secondary support, but movement was still difficult and apprehension remained. He levered himself upright and turned towards the window.
‘I can’t see anything,’ he said. He nodded at her like a signal. ‘Take a look.’
Again he indicated his leg and reluctantly she left the bed, and pulling on her robe while she was still half concealed by the sheet, crept to the window. There she crouched and paused nervously. ‘Take a look,’ repeated Bramwell. She peeked through the curtains, shrieked and fell backwards. Her hand flew up and she feverishly tugged the curtains across and slid down to hide behind the bulkhead. ‘He’s out there, Bram,’ she trembled. ‘He’s looking in.’
Bramwell manoeuvred his leg in its light cast out of the bed. ‘The light,’ he whispered. ‘Put the light out.’
‘You put it out …’ As she said it she realised she would be quicker. She crawled along the floor and extinguished the light. Bramwell was trying to pull his trousers on, cursing his awkwardness. Finally getting them in place he comically staggered around the wooden wall and sidled to the window. He flung apart the curtains. There was no one there.
‘Are you sure?’ he said.
‘Of course. Absolutely. Bram … he had an … Oriental type face … you know, the eyes … I saw him clearly in the deck light.’
Arrivals & Departures Page 33
