The Light Over London(88)

“Do you know, I gave this notebook to Louise for her eighteenth birthday. It cost me one shilling and six pence,” said Kate.

“She wrote that she started it at her father’s suggestion, but also to spite her mother,” said Liam.

Kate laughed. “That sounds like Louise. She was a quiet one when we were growing up, but there was always a stubborn streak running through her. She and her mother never saw eye to eye. Aunt Rose could be a hard woman for anyone to love, but especially her daughter.”

Cara watched as the old woman smoothed a hand gnarled with arthritis over the cloth cover. “If you open it, you’ll find a photograph of her tucked in the front cover. It says it was taken on the Embankment,” she said.

Kate did just that and held the picture up to the light. “Isn’t she pretty? And so happy too. I’ve never seen this photograph before. One of the girls in her unit must’ve taken it when they were stationed in London.” Kate cleared her throat. “Well, I suppose I should start at the beginning.

“You’ll probably know that Louise ran off to register for the ATS. We were sent to training camp together in Leicester, but she was selected for special assignment.”

“Yes, Ack-Ack Command,” said Cara.

“It was hard to be separated, but we wrote so many letters to one another in those days that it almost felt as though I knew the other girls in her command. And then there was Paul. He’d swept through her life, and in the space of a month, I really do think she was in love with him.”

“It seems so fast,” said Cara.

Kate smiled. “Perhaps it was, but she was young and it wasn’t a time for logic when it came to matters of the heart.

“At first I was as excited for her about Paul as she was. Louise never noticed the way the boys looked at her in school. I had a flair for the dramatic in those days and loved being at the center of everything, but Louise was more reserved. Somewhere along the way she got it into her head that she was quiet and shy, which couldn’t have been further from the truth if you really got to know her.

“The ATS was good for her. It gave her purpose, and I think it was the making of her. She loved those girls in her unit fiercely, and I think it boosted her confidence to know that she was doing something that could actually help save lives in the war. But as all of this was happening, she began to mention gaps between Paul’s letters. At first I didn’t think anything of it. I knew firsthand how exhausting an army day could be, and he was hunting submarines with Coastal Command. All terribly daring stuff. But then Louise mentioned that she was frustrated he wasn’t receiving leave and that made me sit up.

“They worked us hard in the ATS, but everyone knows that a soldier needs to blow off a little steam from time to time. I could believe that Paul’s commanding officer was blocking longer requests for leave, but when he shot down Louise’s suggestion that she come and see him, I became suspicious.”

“She wrote about fighting over it in their letters,” Cara said.

Kate nodded. “Then you know how angry Louise was. Paul must’ve sensed it too, because a few weeks later he showed up at her billet in London and proposed. I think he was terrified she was going to chuck him aside for a soldier or a sailor or another flier.”

“But she loved him,” said Cara.

“Yes she did, but Paul . . . Paul was a complicated man.”

“We know they married, but after the wedding the diary becomes vague,” said Liam.

Kate looked pained. “Then you don’t know?”

For a moment Cara wondered if Kate would continue on, but then Louise’s cousin said, “Paul died. He was shot down while flying a mission over the Channel.”

It felt as though the air had been sucked out of the room.

“That’s horrible,” said Cara.

Kate shook her head, her mouth a grim line. “That’s not all. Louise found out when a bundle of her letters was returned to her with a note from Paul’s commanding officer. She was devastated, of course, but she was also angry. As his widow, she should’ve been informed properly. The branches of service had ways of doing this. It was only when her friend did some digging that she realized she wasn’t Paul’s widow at all.”

“What do you mean?” Cara asked.

“Paul was already married.”

“What?” Already married? Was that even possible?

“But they had a ceremony, didn’t they?” Liam asked.

“They did. I don’t know whether the priest knew, but as far as I could tell, the marriage was never recorded anywhere official. Things were chaotic then, and it was easy to pull off any number of scams. I doubt Paul was the only one. Lenora Robinson, the woman whose home you were in, was his first wife. His real wife, I guess you’d say.”

Cara and Liam looked at one another, both of their mouths hanging open. Reaching for the diary, Cara opened it to the last page and laid it out on the bed as she read the last entry aloud, the sense of love and loss even more poignant now that she knew what had really happened.

“Oh, poor Lou. Paul was her first romance and the first man to make her feel special. If they’d been able to see each other for more than a handful of days, she would’ve realized on her own what he was sooner or later. She would’ve done what most of us have done and cried and raged and healed with time on her own.”