The Light Over London(77)

“Gin.”

“Drinking it or playing it?” he asked.

Nigella gasped. “Cartruse, how could you even ask such a thing?”

Cartruse grinned. “Easily. I’m just trying to decide which answer I’d like better.”

“Cards,” said Louise. “Otherwise she’d be out of a job.”

He grunted and reached for the scoring sheet. “So Nigella’s winning.”

“By about two thousand points,” said Louise.

“Hot streak, any moment,” said Charlie.

“What was it you said was going to be rationed, Mary?” Nigella asked.

“Rice,” said Mary, “although there’s nothing official yet.”

The women all groaned, knowing they’d be receiving letters from their mothers and sisters moaning about the scarcity of rice in just a couple weeks’ time, even if they hardly ever cooked with it.

“Anyone up for the picture they’re showing tonight?” asked Cartruse.

“I never go to the pictures,” said Charlie. “What’s the point, when we have to leave to go on duty halfway through?”

Cartruse shrugged. “You can see half of everything now and watch the rest when the war’s over.”

“So I watch Cary Grant or Humphrey Bogart try to win the girl, but leave before I get to see the kiss? I don’t think so. That’s the wrong half of the love story for me,” said Charlie.

“What about you, Lou?” Cartruse asked, nudging her with his elbow.

She shook her head and shoved her hand in her pocket to draw out Paul’s compass. All of the girls knew what Cartruse didn’t. That she and Paul had quarreled about the rumors that B Section might be going north.

She’d thought it would be easier when they were married. The fight on the wedding day had been rooted in ignorance, she told herself. He, like so many other men around him, assumed what they always had: that women were weaker, more frightened, less suited to serve. But she would talk to him, reason with him. She would make him understand that what she was doing was important. But to do that, she needed to see him or at least hear from him.

They’d experienced these gaps in communication before. When he’d moved bases or when she’d jumped from Leicester to Oswestry to London, there had been a lapse of a few days when the post had to catch up with them. Yet this was stretching from days to weeks, and she was beginning to worry.

“Maybe I’ll see the picture another day,” she said, tipping Paul’s compass to watch the needle quiver as it pointed north. Since Paul had given it to her, she’d taken to worrying it in her pocket, smoothing her thumb over the dinged corner.

Cartruse frowned, but the door of the NAAFI flew open and Vera walked in holding a clutch of letters before he could reply.

“Post’s come, girls!” Vera called, waving the letters over her head.

The hope that today would be the day Paul’s letter would come nearly felled her, but she forced herself to stay in her seat as Vera handed out letters. She was a married woman now, not a lovesick girl.

“Two for Mary. One for Nigella. Four for Charlie. How many soldiers have you got writing to you now, Charlie?” Vera asked.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Charlie said with a smirk.

“Cheeky,” said Cartruse.

“Don’t you know it,” said Charlie.

“And these two are for Louise, as is this,” said Vera, holding up a large brown envelope.

She took the letters and the envelope, quickly scanning the addresses. Kate’s service number was marked on the top of one envelope, and the other was from her father. They would wait.

The brown envelope had no markings other than her service number. Curious, she flipped it over, ripped open the top flap, and upended it onto the table. Letters fell out, spreading across the veneer, and Louise knew.

Her chest squeezed so tightly she could scarcely breathe. They were her letters. Letters she’d written to Paul. And they were unopened.

“Oh my . . . Louise, I’m so sorry . . .” Vera’s voice trailed off as she and the other girls looked on in horror.

“It can’t be,” she whispered, picking up one of her envelopes and tearing at it. Her letter to him dated two weeks ago slid out, opening up just enough that she could see her usual salutation: My dearest Paul . . .

She ripped another open and another, pulling the sheets of thin paper free. Every single one of them was covered with her handwriting in blue ink from the fountain pen her father had given her on her sixteenth birthday. All of these letters, unopened and unread. For a month she’d been writing to Paul and he’d never seen a one.

“This can’t be happening.” The words came out on a sob that choked her. “He can’t be dead.”

“Maybe he isn’t,” said Mary hopefully. She pointed to the large envelope. “Do you recognize this handwriting?”

Louise shook her head, unable to form words as grief swirled up to pull her down.

Cartruse held a loose sheet of paper and his mouth fell into a thin line as he read. He slid it across the table to Louise. “You need to see this.”

Dear Miss Keene,

I have been aware for some time that you are in frequent correspondence with Flight Lieutenant Paul Bolton, who has so valiantly served his country during this war. It is with my deepest regrets that I must inform you that on 11 November 1941 his plane was shot down over the Channel. I am told by his fellow pilots that he flew bravely to the end, taking two German planes with him.