Last Telegram (30 page)

“But if it proved it wasn't the parachute that caused Stefan's death?” she says. “Then it would clear your conscience after all these years.”

A band tightens painfully around my temples. The thought of learning the truth feels suddenly terrifying. “But suppose they confirm it did?”

She pauses and I can see there's a plan formulating in that clever little mind of hers. “Did you ever tell anyone else? Grandpa?”

I shake my head. “You are the first person I've ever told, and you will be the last,” I say firmly. “Telling you has made me feel so much better, but I don't want to find out any more. Whether or not it caused the accident, letting that faulty silk through was a terrible thing and I'll never forgive myself.”

“Okay, I understand.” She looks pensive for a moment, and then she says, “Have you got any photos of Stefan, Gran?”

I picture the old suitcase in its hiding place at the back of the spare room wardrobe, its hidden secrets safely locked away, and my resolve falters. Am I ready to open it again, I wonder. But then I think: if not now, then when? Never? Just leave it to my family to find it when I am gone? No, Stefan's life deserves more respect. It is time to recognize that loving him was an important part of who I am and should be celebrated. My mind is made up. I take a deep breath and tell Emily to go and get the suitcase. She soon returns with it, triumphant.

“It's locked, Gran. Have you got a key?”

“In the little drawer, top right-hand side of my desk,” I say, pointing, and in an instant the old leather case is on the table in front of me, and the key is in my hand. I'm flustered for a moment, recalling with perfect clarity the relief I felt when I closed it the last time, fifty-five years ago. Like closing a terrible chapter of my life, putting behind me that fatal error and my dreadful behavior, so that I could stop thinking about it and move on.

Now Emily is standing impatiently beside me. There is no going back.

The two brass catches unlock easily and flick open with a satisfying, good quality clunk. As I open the lid and cautiously lean it back onto its leather hinges, a mixture of ancient smells wafts out—brown paper, raw silk, envelope gum, writing ink, rubber bands, photographers' chemicals—and with it a wave of memories.

Everything is untouched, and seems unmarked by the passing of half a century. On top of the khaki canvas bag is the letter, with my name in faded ink: Mrs. Lily Holmes. I lift it up cautiously, turn it over. I can hear Emily holding her breath.

“Gran? It's still sealed. Haven't you read it? All these years?” she whispers beside me.

I can only shake my head.

“Shall we open it?”

I nod.

My dearest Lilymouse,

If you are reading this you will know that I didn't make it. I am so, so sorry. I could have refused this mission but I am sure you understand why I have to go. I owe it to us all, but particularly my family and our friends.

You have been my world, these past five years. From the second I first saw you I fell in love. Head over heels. With you I have experienced the most blissful moments of my life, and thinking about you and our future together has kept me going throughout all our times apart. I want to enjoy peace with you, see the world together as we promised, have lots more babies, and grow old with you and our family around me.

My eyes are brimming with tears and my glasses are so misted up I cannot read any more. Emily gently takes the letter from me and reads the rest of it, her voice wobbly and cracked.

But if this is not to be, then all I can say is that I love you, Lily, with every part of my being and every cell of my body. This will never die and I hope you will remember it throughout your life. When he is old enough, please tell our little one that his father loved him, very much.

For ever. S xxx

She puts down the letter, carefully, and pulls me to her. For a long time we hold each other, sobbing quietly. Eventually she sits up, wipes her face with the back of her hand, and takes a deep breath.

“Oh, Gran,” is all she says. “What a beautiful letter.”

I nod and try to shake myself back into this world again, feeling numb. I can't bring myself to talk about it, not immediately.

“How's about another cuppa?” I manage to croak.

While she's gone, I put the letter gently back into its envelope, give it a kiss, and tuck it under my pillow where it will be safe and warm, for reading again later.

I take the khaki canvas bag out of the suitcase and my arthritic fingers manage to open, with only a slight struggle, its stiff canvas buckles. Inside, I find his Pioneer Corps beret, a half-finished packet of Players and a Zippo lighter, a paperback of Sherlock Holmes short stories called
The
Last
Bow
, and that familiar black leather writing case.

I unzip the case with a trembling hand. Tucked into the pockets are a bundle of blue aerogrammes in my handwriting, held together by a withered rubber band, and the buff envelope of photographs, one of me on our wedding day and the three smaller photos of his mother, father, and sisters that Stefan first showed me in the tennis hut. They peer sadly out of the grainy black-and-white prints like faces from a history book.

Long after the war ended, Kurt wrote to tell me that he and Walter had gone back to Germany, only to discover that their parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles had all perished in concentration camps, except for a cousin who had managed to get to America. The farm had been split up, and the house was derelict. They had traveled north to Hamburg to trace the Hoffman family, uncovering further grim news. Isaak had been taken first, and there seemed to be no record of him being seen ever again. Hannah, Anna, and Else were taken to Buchenwald and had managed to survive until an outbreak of typhoid swept through the camp, killing nearly half of its malnourished inmates. They perished within weeks of the end of the war.

I check all the pockets in the writing case and find, at last, the little shred of his tallith shawl—the final symbol of his Jewishness.

Inside the suitcase is the green vellum-covered album, with a label in my girlish hand,
Our
Wedding
Day
, a bundle of his letters to me tied with a blue ribbon, and the Hay Camp note, and underneath this is a single item of his clothing, the old brown leather jacket, the one he arrived in. I press it to my face and the leather still smells of him—the nutty aroma of raw silk mingled with tobacco. As I pull it out of the suitcase, something small and red falls out: it is the felt drawstring pouch containing my wedding and engagement rings.

As Emily comes back with the tea tray, I hastily push the little pouch down the side of my bed. She sets the tray down and looks at me carefully.

“Mum's wondering what we've been doing in here all this time,” she says. “She told me not to tire you out. So shall I leave you in peace now? We can talk about it some more tomorrow, or another time?”

“No, I'm not tired,” I lie. I feel safe with her now, confident that I can explore my memories further without anger and pain. The genie is out of the bottle now, I think, and that is fine. I don't need to put it back.

“If you're sure?” I nod, and she pours the tea. “I've got so many questions, but I'll understand if you don't want to answer them,” she says.

“Ask away,” I say, feeling stronger with every sip.

“I hardly dare ask, but what does he mean by ‘our little one'? Were you pregnant?”

I nod, wondering why her eyebrows arch with alarm.

“You're not going to tell me it's Dad?” she blurts out.

“Oh, no,” I say hurriedly, realizing how insensitive I've been. “Your dad is definitely Grandpa's son. I got pregnant, but I had a miscarriage at three months, after Stefan and I got caught in an air raid. But I never got the chance to tell him. Anyway, I found out that it wasn't a boy after all. It was a little girl.”

“How dreadful. I'm so sorry, Gran,” Emily says. “I never knew.”

“Not many people did,” I say. “I named her Hannah, after his mother. I sometimes imagine that if she'd lived, she'd have been a bit like you.”

“How like me?”

“Smart, sassy, independent. The way I used to be.”

“I'm glad Dad is Grandpa's son, all the same,” she says. “It would've been a bit of a shock for him to find out he was someone else's.”

We laugh together now, it feels so easy. The memories have haunted me for so many years, bottled up and painful, but I am starting to understand that these experiences made me what I am, and I must accept them. Acceptance. Wasn't that the final stage of grieving Emily talked about? At least I've stopped being angry. So perhaps I'm nearly there.

“Have you got a photo of Stefan?” she says.

My fingers fumble to undo the satin string ties of the wedding album and turn the heavy pages of tiny black-and-white prints that I so carefully mounted with small photo-corners. They were taken by Gwen with her Box Brownie—no official photographer for us, in that rushed wartime wedding.

“That's him,” I say, pointing.

“Wow. He's really fit,” she says, peering closer. “So dark and mysterious-looking. I can see why you fell for him. And look at you in that gorgeous dress. You look like a film star. What's it made of? Raw silk?”

“Cream Shantung. The dress was made by your great-grandmother in just a couple of weeks.” I'm smiling now at the memories I've tried to deny all these years.

“When I get married, I'm going to have a dress made out of it too,” she says.

“And so you shall, my darling,” I say. “I'm sure your dad will arrange it for you.”

“‘Wedding of Sgt. Stephen Holmes and Mrs. Lily Holmes, 14th February 1944,'” she reads. “Stephen Holmes?”

“He had to change his name. His whole identity really. You know, because he was Jewish. It was too dangerous to be a Jew in Europe those days.”

“Oh,” she says, understanding. “Have you seen that statue of the Jewish children at Liverpool Street station?”

“I went to see it once, but since then I've tried to avoid it—it's too sad,” I say.

She turns back to the album. “What's the uniform?”

“Pioneer Corps—he'd just left it to join the other lot.”

“Did you ever find out what they were called?

“I read an article about something called SOE—Special Operations Executive—a few years ago in the paper. They did undercover stuff like that. But Peter Newman never told me any details. It was top secret anyway.”

She shakes her head, and turns back to the photo. “So that's Great-Auntie Vera. I recognize her. But who's this?”

It must have been one of the shots Mother took. We are all on a slant. Gwen is frowning at the camera and her hair is flying loose from its careless bun. Even in this small black-and-white print, I can make out the freckles. What would I give to see them again.

“Gwen Collins,” I say, trying to sound more nonchalant than I feel. “Used to work at Verners during the war.”

Emily looks up at me quizzically. “She must have been a close friend, to come to your wedding?”

“She was,” I say. “A very good friend. She was factory manager all through the war and she looked after my mother and me after Great-Grandpa Harold was killed.” I don't have the heart to say how she supported and comforted me, after Stefan died.

“What happened to her? Is she still alive?”

“I don't know,” I say truthfully. “She left Westbury after the war and went off to live with her mother. We lost touch. I did try to find her, but she didn't leave any address.”

“That's a shame,” Emily says mildly. “She sounds like a great person.”

One of the best, I think. But treated shamefully by me.

After a while, I put the album aside and take out the Hay Camp note. “You might like to keep this,” I say, handing it to her. “They printed their own currency in the Australian internment camp and he brought it back for me. Might be worth something these days, you never know.”

“Wow,” she says, examining the roughly printed words on the scruffy scrap of paper. “I will keep it safe, thank you. But you know I'd never sell it, Gran. It's an heirloom.”

This is the moment. I reach down the side of the bed and find the small red pouch. As I pass it to her, I can see Stefan's smile as he handed it to me that night, just as if he were in the room. She loosens the drawstring and gently shakes out the rings into her palm, with a small intake of breath. She holds the engagement ring up to the light and twists it so we can both see how the sapphires still twinkle their deep blueness and how the pearls gleam, after all these years.

“Oh. It's beautiful. Are those pearls? And what are these blue stones? Can I try it on?” I nod and she slips it onto her finger.

“They're sapphires, and it was his mother's ring,” I say. “He gave it to me when he proposed on Christmas Eve, 1943, after he'd got back from Australia. All of his family died, so it's very precious. The wedding ring isn't valuable, but I want you to keep them both. Look after them, and pass them on to your children to keep a little bit of him alive.”

For once, she is out of words and keeps her head bent, looking at the rings. After a moment, she swallows and looks up, blinking back the tears, and leans to kiss my cheek.

“It's so special; I don't know what to say.”

“That's a first,” I say, and we laugh again.

As one of the oldest branches of textile manufacture, the British silk industry has inherited traditional skills and craftsmanship that have been handed down through generations. But despite its many setbacks, the industry today is not only vigorously alive, but is marked by a modern outlook and an alertness to new trends and technologies that will surely stand it in good stead for centuries to come.

Last words of
The
History
of
Silk
, by Harold Verner

It is two weeks since my chat with Emily, and I am more at peace with the world than I can remember.

I have been rereading all of Stefan's letters, and mine to him. The young woman who wrote them is a stranger to me now, with all her desperate passions and wild flights of fantasy, but I feel great affection for her. I have spent hours studying all the photographs, even using my magnifying glass, and find that the anger and guilt have almost gone, and are replaced by tender and sometimes even joyful memories. But the photos of Gwen still make me mournful. How could I have let someone who was so important to me disappear without a trace?

The only post I get these days is invitations to funerals, so when Emily arrives with an envelope, my first response is to wonder who has died now. She has a mischievous look, as if she knows who the letter is from.

“I've got a confession to make,” she says, settling into my armchair, still holding it.

“Is the letter for me?” I ask.

“Yes, but I need to explain.”

“Explain away, I'm not going anywhere.” What madcap scheme is she up to now?

“When you showed me the photo album, you mentioned Gwen Collins.”

I nod, and my heart starts to thump.

“I googled her and found her name on a website about Dorset artists. I emailed them for her address.”

I am too astounded to ask what
googled
means. “Dear God, you've found her. You know where she lives?”

She hands me the envelope. It's been opened and is addressed to Emily.

“Shall I read it?” I ask.

She nods.

2 Ledbury Cottages

Bingham's Houghton

Dorset

Dear Emily,

The secretary of Dorset Artists' Circle has been in touch to say you contacted them on behalf of your grandmother, asking about Gwen Collins.

To answer your questions:

Yes, Gwen is alive but is currently in hospital. It's not good news, I'm afraid.

Yes, I am sure she remembers your grandmother. She told me about her job at Verners and how she lived with Lily and Grace during the war.

Finally, I really don't know whether she would like to get in contact again. Lily was very dear to Gwen at one time, but for some reason she's never fully explained, they lost touch and she didn't seem keen to talk about it.

Sorry for the “snail mail” but we are not wired up (if that's the phrase).

With best wishes,

Catherine Ryan

“Gran?” Emily's voice seems to come from somewhere far away. “Are you cross with me for not asking you first?”

I have waited so long for news of Gwen, anything. Now I know she's still alive, the idea of seeing her again, of asking for her forgiveness, seems suddenly the most important thing in the world. I clear my throat and manage to croak, “Of course not, my lovely. I'm thrilled you've found her.”

“But this Catherine person doesn't seem sure it's a good idea to get in touch.”

The words jiggle on the page:
It's not good news, I'm afraid
. Time might be running out. I don't care what Catherine Ryan thinks.

“How do you do this googling thing?” I ask. “Would it find a telephone number?”

“I'll give it a try,” she says, getting up. “Back in a mo.”

We google, and we ring directory enquiries, but there are no numbers for G. Collins or C. Ryan at that address. Then clever-clogs Emily suggests we ring the nearest hospital, in Dorchester.

“They won't let me talk to her,” I say, losing my nerve.

“Worth a try?”

“Go on then,” I agree reluctantly. It is useless to resist when a Verner jaw juts like that.

She grabs the telephone and dials.

“Good afternoon, I was wondering if I could speak to a Miss Gwen Collins,” Emily says. “I think she's a patient at your hospital.”

There is a voice at the other end and she punches the air with her fist and puts her hand over the mouthpiece, “Bull's-eye! They're putting me through to the ward.”

After a long silence, she says, “Hello. Is that the ward sister? Do you have a Gwen Collins on your ward? Is there any chance I could speak to her? Or Catherine Ryan…I'm a very close friend…Yes, practically related.”

I am transfixed by my granddaughter's chutzpah. I could never be so bold. After another agonizing pause, there's a voice at the other end.

Emily squeaks with surprise but quickly gathers her composure. “Is that Catherine Ryan? This is Emily, Lily's granddaughter. You wrote to me?”

She points silently at the phone and then to me, suggesting I should take it. I shake my head and she says, “Hold on a tick, I'll put you on to Gran.”

She hands the receiver to me. It feels as though I am taking a grenade packed with emotion that could explode at any moment. My hands shake so much I nearly drop it, and my voice comes out awkward and tremulous. “Miss Ryan? This is Lily. So sorry to trouble you,” I manage to say.

“I thought we might hear from you,” she says calmly, apparently unfazed. “Your granddaughter's obviously a very determined young woman. But I'm sorry you can't speak to Gwen right now, she's gone to have a scan.” I detect a sing-song lilt to her voice, Irish perhaps?

“How is she?” I can hardly bear to hear the answer.

“She's rallied a bit today. If the scan's okay, they might let her come home.”

I struggle to find a way of asking the question. Finally I just say it straight. “Miss Ryan, I am so pleased to have found you and I very much want to see Gwen again. Do you think she would agree?”

“Truthfully, I don't know,” she says. “But when she's feeling a bit more with it, I'll ask her, shall I?”

“I don't want to put any pressure on her.”

“Even if she says yes, she'll be too unwell to travel, so you'd have to come to us. Could you manage that?”

“I'm sure I could persuade my son to drive me,” I say, crossing my fingers. Emily is nodding energetically. “I'll give you my number and wait to hear from you, shall I?”

“That'd be grand,” she says.

• • •

It's been only three days but feels like months. The questions chase each other exhaustingly around my head. What's happening? Is Gwen home yet? How is she? Has Catherine mentioned me? Has she asked her? What if she says no?

In the meantime, I have been working on the family.

“Are you crazy, Mum?” Simon says. “You struggle to get to the loo on your own and you're talking about traveling all that way?”

“Don't be so rude to your mother,” Louise chides. “But seriously, Lily, it's a long way. Five hours' drive at least. I'm sure your doctor wouldn't recommend it.”

“She's got to go, Mum. It's so important,” says my faithful granddaughter. I smile at her gratefully.

“I don't care what the doctor says,” I say firmly. “If you won't drive me, I'll take a taxi.”

At last, Catherine telephones. “Gwen's back home,” she says. “She's very weak but they've got the pain medication pretty much sorted. She would like to see you, Lily, very much. Can you come? Soon-ish?”

I feel tearful with relief. “Would later this week do? Say Thursday or Friday?”

Either, she says.

“Thank you so much, Catherine. I do look forward to meeting you.”

“Please, call me Cath,” she says. “See you soon.”

• • •

My son has caved in. He will drive and we will stay in a bed-and-breakfast overnight on the way, to break the journey. Emily's determined to come too, and she's booked somewhere for the three of us, with a bedroom for me on the ground floor.

I feel foolishly nervous, as if it's a job interview. At night, I lie in bed rehearsing what I will say. During the day, I unearth outfits unworn for years and exhaust myself trying them on.

“What do you think, blue or beige?” I ask Emily, holding the cardigans against me.

“Blue every time, Gran. Bin the beige,” she replies, with that wonderful conviction of the young.

My home hairdresser comes to smarten me up—my hair is still thick and straight, but all white now, of course. We take the photo album and Emily helps me wrap (with ribbon, no tricky sticky tape) a copy of the book.

As we draw up in the unpaved lane outside a small stone cottage—the middle in a row of three—a person I take to be Cath is standing in the porch. She's a younger woman, I guess in her late sixties, wearing a gardening apron over jeans and a tee-shirt. She could be Gwen's sister, has the same sturdy build, pale skin with freckles, and streaks of ginger in unkempt graying curls.

The front garden is overgrown but there are a few splashes of late color: lanky yellow roses and the last red blossoms at the top of tall hollyhock stems swaying in the breeze.

“You must be Cath,” I say from the open car window. She nods. “Meet my son Simon and granddaughter Emily—she's the one who tracked you down.”

“So pleased to meet you all,” she says. “Come on in.”

Emily and Simon support me as I shuffle up the gravel path with my sticks, and when we reach the porch, she suggests I rest a moment. The wooden steps settle and my bones creak in unison.

“I'm trying to get on top of it all, without much success,” Cath says, waving at the garden with a rueful smile, a bundle of bindweed still in her hand. “I had this idea of smartening up for your visit, but it's a lost cause I'm afraid.”

“How is she?” I ask.

“Well, she's frail, as you'll see. But the pain medicine's working okay at the moment. She's really looking forward to this.”

The front doorway is so small Simon has to stoop, and inside, the ceilings are almost as low. The room smells of wood smoke. At first I think it's empty; a threadbare three-piece suite is set around a blackened brick fireplace and a low table laden with books and newspapers. On the walls are sketches and watercolor landscapes I assume to be Gwen's. No nudes, though.

“They're here, Gwen.” Cath leads our slow procession toward the other end of the room where a couple of high-backed winged armchairs are placed close to each other, facing away from us. Beyond these are French windows through which I can see another overgrown patch of greenery with fruit trees.

“Lily, is that you?” That voice, deep and smoky, is so familiar the tears prickle behind my eyes. But as I shuffle around and come in sight of her, it's as if someone has played a trick on me. There, in one of the chairs, is not Gwen but a small crumpled person with hardly any hair, whose bones shine through shrivelled skin like a fledgling bird. She gazes at us, slightly bemused, as Emily guides me to another chair and helps me sit.

Cath offers to make tea and the others go with her, tactfully leaving us alone.

“Gwen?” The pale green eyes, huge in her shrunken face, slowly focus into that old intense look. Skeletal hands reach toward me. I am surprised to find them so warm, the grip so strong. I remember the deft way she manipulated tiny picking shears, how her fingers traveled across a warp, detecting broken threads just by the feel. And those hands softly on the back of my neck, stroking away my nightmares.

“Lily? Is it really you?” she says in that surprisingly robust voice.

I nod, unable to speak.

“I've been thinking about you so much lately,” she says. Fat pools of tears brim in the red-rimmed eyes.

“Me too,” I murmur and pass a handkerchief—I've brought two. After a bit, Cath returns with the tea tray and we are now both sobbing openly but laughing at ourselves too. Our hands are entwined like a lovers' knot, neither of us willing to let go.

“Would you look at the pair of you,” Cath says delightedly, setting down the tray. “You seem to be getting on very well. We're going to take our tea into the garden. Leave you two to your memories. Can you serve yourselves? Shout if you need anything.”

By the time I finish pouring the tea, my tears have dried and my voice is stronger. “She's a lovely woman, Gwen.”

“I know,” she says fondly. “We've been together thirty-five years. A long time. I'm very blessed.”

I sit back, take a deep breath. “Gwen, there's something…” I gasp with exasperation, struggling to recall the words I've rehearsed in my head so many times.

“It's all right,” she says. “You don't have to say it.”

I'm determined not to falter, to say it properly.

“The way Cath supports you now, that's how you were for me back then. The warp to my weft. Remember? After VE Day, I tried to find you, ask you to come back and see if we could start again. But you disappeared. No trace.”

“That's how I wanted it,” she mutters.

“I just felt so guilty I couldn't forgive myself. What I need to know now is,” she looks up at me sharply, wondering what I'm going to say, “can you forgive me?”

She doesn't reply at once, and I find myself holding my breath, fearful of how she'll respond.

Then she says, simply, “You hurt me terribly. If I'd stayed any longer the bitterness would have been like this bloody cancer of mine, eating away at me. In the end, the best thing was just to try to cut it out. Brutal, I know, but for the best.”

She reaches forward and takes a sip of tea as I listen to the swish of the pulse in my ears. I know she hasn't finished. She puts the cup down with a shaky hand and takes a moment to summon reserves of scarce strength.