My Name is Eva(8)

The first batch is of a long-ago summer: 1935 was it or ’36? No, it was definitely the heatwave of ’35, and Evelyn gazes at the group of men in cricket whites, the women in pale dresses, sitting on picnic rugs in the shade, with plates of triangular sandwiches and bowls of strawberries spread before them. ‘Straw helmets,’ she says. ‘That was the year the London policemen were given straw helmets to keep them cool. Everyone said it was like being back in India, when Papa was still out there. I was sixteen that year.’ She points to a young woman with bobbed hair at the back of the group.

‘See what a good idea this was! You’re managing to remember so much by seeing these pictures.’ Pat smiles. ‘Now, what about these? Is this one of Uncle Hugh?’

She holds out a portrait of a handsome young man, posing for the camera. Evelyn takes the little picture and smiles at her dear, long-departed husband. ‘He was so good-looking then. All the girls thought so. I was very lucky to get him. They all set their caps at Hugh.’

‘Would you like to keep that one?’

‘No, dear, I’ve got a better one in my room. You keep it and show it to your boys.’

‘And what about this one? Who is this little girl? I don’t think I’ve ever seen her before. Is she one of the family?’ She is holding an image of a child of about four years old, with braided blonde hair, laughing as she plays with a ball in a garden.

Yes, thinks Evelyn, she is a relative, but not one you’re ever going to meet. You will never see her, not even once, and I will never see her again.

Pat turns the photo over and reads the faint pencilled words scribbled on the back. ‘It doesn’t say much. Just Liese, 1951. That’s a couple of years after I was born.’

‘Liese,’ murmurs Evelyn. ‘I’ve no idea who that is.’ She gazes at the little snap as if she is trying hard to remember. How can I ever forget you, my darling? That day you were happy.

She doesn’t take the picture, one of several taken surreptitiously many years ago, in her hand; she doesn’t need to. She has one hidden in a drawer in her room and she kisses it every night before she goes to sleep, whispering ‘Gute Nacht, liebchen,’ after she’s kissed the framed photograph of her young husband, Hugh.

‘And look at this one,’ says Pat. ‘This is you as well, isn’t it? In uniform? I say, don’t you look smart?’

Evelyn accepts the photo from her niece. Her young self smiles back at her, confident with red lipstick and curled hair. ‘That wasn’t my regulation uniform. I had a suit tailored for me in Savile Row. Not to wear when I was on duty, mind you, but just for when I was going out to dinner. The uniform they issued was simply ghastly, especially the horrible thick brown stockings.’

‘Well, you’ve always liked to look smart, Aunt. Oh, and look, here’s another one. It’s a group of you and you’re all in uniform. That’s you again, isn’t it?’ She points to the young woman in the picture. Her hair is tucked under her cap and she stares uncertainly at the camera. ‘And who are the other people with you?’ She turns it over. ‘There’s nothing written on the back.’

Evelyn studies the photograph. She hasn’t seen it for many years. She must have enclosed a copy when she wrote home to Mama. Her letters were frequent at first, before everything happened. Two men and two women in formal poses, barely smiling, all in uniform, shoulders back, stiff arms by their sides, standing in front of the doors to a large building. Eva, Colonel Robinson and two others. Would anyone recognise him from this picture? He barely changed over the years. It’s very like the image issued when he went missing, thirty years later. But who would remember now that she had known him once?

‘Where was that photograph taken?’ Pat is still rifling through the remaining snaps in the tin.

‘Out in Germany, I think. Just after the end of the war.’

‘You’ve never told me anything about what you were doing out there. It must have been pretty awful, so soon after the war was all over.’

‘I don’t think I did anything very important, dear. I was the lowest of the low.’ Don’t say too much, Evelyn. Don’t let her think you remember.

‘It must have been terrible, though. You must have seen and heard some dreadful stories.’

Oh, I did dear, but I can’t tell you. Evelyn shakes her head as if lost in thought and mutters, ‘I don’t really remember much. I know it was a sad time.’

‘Mum never talked about it very much. I know she lost her first husband when she was young. Only twenty-two, she said, and then she married Dad, your brother Charles. Poor Mum. She didn’t have him very long either, just long enough to have me.’ Pat stares at the picture of the uniformed group again, as if trying to imagine the post-war chaos of that time. ‘Can you remember who these other people are?’

‘Oh dear, it’s all such a long time ago.’ Evelyn closes her eyes as if she is tired of trying to search her memory, but really she doesn’t want Pat to detect her unease at the surfacing of this old image that ties her to Robinson.

‘Well, why don’t you keep that one, anyway? And can I show my boys the one of you on your own in your smart uniform?’

‘That’s a good idea. You keep that one. I’d like them to know I wasn’t always such a doddery old thing.’ Evelyn laughs and slips the photo of the group of four into her cardigan pocket. It won’t stay there long. When she is back in her room, she will decide what to do.