The Light Over London(34)

“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.

“He’s ruining your complexion, darling. He’d better come out in one of his letters and make you some promises, or you’ll wake up at the end of this war and realize you’ve missed out on all the fun for nothing.”

“Are there any letters tucked in there from Paul?” Liam asked. “Their service numbers would be on the envelopes.”

She shook her head. “It looks like the best she did was transcribe the important ones into her diary. Look.”

He took the diary from her and began to read out.

My darling, you can’t imagine my shock at receiving your letter. I never would’ve thought that you would want to do something as rash as join the services. Of course I’m proud you want to do your bit, but now I’ll be worrying about you while I’m flying missions. At least when you were tucked away in Cornwall, you were safe. I know you hate it, but it’s a luxury for nothing to happen to a place during a war. I wish you’d written to me before deciding to do something quite so impulsive. I’d never have let you waste your time and your pretty face on army work.

Liam snorted. “He’s proud but he thinks her decision to join up is foolish? He’s not the most supportive boyfriend, is he?”

“Later in that entry, she says she told him that if she’d stayed in the house with her mother any longer she would’ve exploded. It sounds like the situation had become toxic.”

Cara fished the locket out of the tin and opened it. “I think this is Paul.”