The Darkest Hour (24 page)

‘In the rain?’

‘Of course in the rain. I adore thunder!’ She climbed to her feet and pulled him up. Taking him by the hand she ran sure-footed up the lane and unlatched the gate into the field. The thunder was coming closer, slow heavy rumbles grumbling up from the coast. They ran out into the middle of the field.

‘As a town boy, I can’t help wondering if we’ll be struck by lightning,’ Tony shouted as the noise grew louder round them.

She laughed. ‘It wouldn’t dare!’ She let go of his hand and raised her arms above her head, spinning slowly, her hair flying out, wet and irrepressible. ‘I love the storm, I love the rain. I love you, Tony Anderson!’

A fork of lightning streaked across the sky behind the Downs and he made a grab for her. ‘That’s it. Get down. The storm gods will see you. They will claim you with a lightning shaft.’

They fell to their knees, soaked to the skin, laughing and kissed again. By the time they had returned to the yard they were shivering and drenched. She walked down the lane with him to his car and blew a kiss as he drove away into the night. Already the storm had moved on up the coast. The stars were coming out and the only sound now was the patter of raindrops falling from the hedgerows and trees onto the soft earth beneath.

Evie closed her diary and tucked it under the mattress, after which she lay back, a towel still round her wet hair, staring up at the ceiling in the dark. She couldn’t stop smiling. This was the second time they had managed an illicit meeting. It had been so easy. No one noticed her absence. All was peaceful at home in contrast to the escalation of the number of attacks by the Luftwaffe over southern England. Her parents were too tired to notice when she came and went as long as she completed her chores. There had been no new land girl to help, but the harvest was over now and safely in, and life on the farm was calming down a bit. She just prayed that the Germans didn’t start night raids in this part of the country.

Tomorrow would see her first visit to the Woolston factory in Southampton to sketch the girls working on Spitfire parts. She had been given a special permit to go there. Inside she was fluttering with nerves. If she carried off this commission and pleased the Committee she would with luck be offered another assignment, but her dream was to be allowed to go officially to Westhampnett and paint the pilots and their planes. Until then she was going to have to make do with a few hasty visits now and then, never knowing if she was going to see Tony. To make up for the frequent disappointments of not being allowed officially to paint the men waiting with their planes for the call to take off for yet another sortie she made do with the excitement of painting the battles high above in the air. She drew them as a network of vapour trails and smoke and fire, high above the Sussex Downs. But now, with her own private assignations in the dark of the summer nights, that was enough. With a gleeful wriggle she snuggled down into her bed and closed her eyes. Her whole body was alive with the thrill of making love to Tony. At the moment her life was good.

Lucy was sitting at the table in the studio at Rosebank when Dolly came in. The latter stood for several seconds watching as Lucy tapped away at her laptop entering a sequence of dates. She stopped at last, saved her entries and looked up. ‘I am beginning to work out a definite framework here.’

‘That is good.’ Dolly stood looking mesmerised. ‘Do you think you will have enough to write a proper book about her?’

On Tuesday Dolly had waited in an agony of anticipation, for Lucy to appear, her shopping basket on the chair in the kitchen. In it the diaries and the old log book were almost burning a hole through the paper bag in which she had wrapped them. Her heart was thudding uncertainly. She had almost changed her mind about giving them to Lucy when there had been no sign of her earlier in the week and Dolly had lugged them all the way home on the bus rather than leave them in the cottage. And now Lucy was here but she had arrived late and in the interim there had been a phone call from Mr Michael announcing that he and Charlotte Thingy were on their way down and would be here by lunchtime.

Scrutinising Lucy’s face, Dolly noted the exhaustion there and the sadness in Lucy’s eyes and forgave her for not coming in on Tuesday, but her impatience and anguish were still very real.

Lucy looked up, suddenly aware of Dolly’s distress. ‘What is it? Is there something wrong?’ Dolly was clutching a paper bag which looked as though it contained books.

Dolly put the bundle down in front of her. ‘Evie’s diaries. As I promised.’

Lucy stared down at the packet in sudden excitement. ‘Oh, Dolly. You don’t know what this means to me.’ She reached for them and began to open the paper bag. ‘You haven’t read them I think you said?’

Dolly shook her head. ‘It wasn’t my place.’

In the bag were three hardback notebooks, one with a blue cover, one green and one red, all shabby and well thumbed, perhaps old-fashioned quarto in size. Lucy extricated them carefully from the wrapping and, pushing aside her laptop, laid them side by side on the table in front of her.

She reached for the red one and opened it carefully. The book was ruled with narrow lines but it was not printed up as a diary. Evie had entered her own dates at the head of each new entry. Her writing was free flowing, hasty, almost excited, cramped in places, in others spilling over the constraint of the lines on which it was written as if impatient of the limitations put on it by the format of the page. In places there were little sketches. Lucy caught her breath hardly able to breathe for excitement. She turned towards the end of the book where the last few pages were blank. The last heading was 8th November 2000. The writing here was weaker. For the first time it seemed aimless and tired. ‘Just a few days before she died,’ she said gently as she looked up at Dolly.

Dolly nodded bleakly. ‘I put it away for her in the chest of drawers in her bedroom with the other one. That is how I knew where they were. I tucked them under some of her clothes.’

Lucy turned back to the book and read. ‘The weather is bad again. The light is still too bad to paint even if I had the energy. Johnny is coming tomorrow with Juliette and Michael. It will be good to see them. I hope I am strong enough to get up. This wretched cough is no better.’

That was it. Her last entry. Lucy looked up trying to hide the sudden rush of emotion which threatened to overwhelm her. ‘Johnny was Michael’s father, that’s right isn’t it?’

Dolly nodded. ‘What does she say?’ In spite of her resolution not to read the thing she was clearly dying of curiosity.

‘She was waiting for a visit from Johnny and Juliette and Michael.’

Dolly nodded. ‘Juliette is Mr Michael’s mother. A wonderful lady. She and Evie were very fond of each other.’ She sighed and sat down abruptly on the only other chair at the table. She took a deep breath. ‘Evie died three days later, after I put the diary away for her. ‘

Lucy was silent for a few moments. She closed the diary, sitting for a while, lost in thought, with her hand on the cover. ‘I don’t think I realised Michael’s mother was still alive?’ she said cautiously at last.

‘Oh, yes. His father died two years ago and she went to live in Brighton.’

Lucy frowned. There was so much of Evie’s life still to catch up with. Neither Michael nor Dolly had thought to mention that Michael’s mother was still around, a woman who must have known Evie well.

‘Would I be able to go and see her?’ she asked at last. Aware of their reaction to her suggestion that she meet Christopher she was careful to keep the urgency out of her voice.

‘You would have to ask Mr Michael. I don’t see why not. She married again, you know.’

No, I don’t know! Lucy almost said it out loud. She hid her exasperation with an effort. ‘I’ll ask him when I see him next.’

Dolly’s face darkened as she suddenly remembered the phone call. ‘I forgot to say, he rang just now to say he is on his way back. He’s taking the day off. With Charlotte Thingy. He’ll be here by lunchtime.’

They looked at each other. Lucy made a sudden decision. ‘I think if she is going to be here I might just take myself home. It won’t be a good time to talk to him about Evie and I can just as easily enter this stuff there. Besides, I would love to read the diaries undisturbed.’

Dolly nodded. ‘You don’t want her to see them. If she realises how valuable they are she might just want to get her hands on them.’

Lucy looked up and held her gaze. The same thought had occurred to her, although she had been too tactful to say so. ‘Would you like me to give you a lift home, Dolly?’ she asked suddenly. ‘We could leave the cottage to them.’

She could see the longing in Dolly’s eyes but at last the old lady shook her head. ‘He is expecting to see me. I had better wait and give them some lunch. It is kind of you to offer, but I wouldn’t like them to think I had left early.’

Lucy nodded. She stood up and began to pack away the laptop and the diaries in her bag together with a couple of files of letters. She tidied the table and reached for her jacket.

‘I’ll see you on Tuesday then,’ she smiled. ‘And thank you, Dolly. This means a lot to me.’

They left the studio together. Dolly went back into the cottage and Lucy cut across the grass towards the front gate. As she ran down the steps Mike and Charlotte appeared in the distance at the top of the lane. She cursed under her breath. There was no way of avoiding them. Mike usually left his car, she had discovered, in an improvised parking place further up the lane. She walked towards them, her bag on her shoulder.

‘Hello. I was afraid I was going to miss you,’ she managed to greet them cheerfully.

Mike made the introductions. It turned out that Charlotte Thingy was called Ponsonby. Too posh for Dolly, obviously. Lucy suppressed a small smile. The two women eyed each other and Lucy felt a small lurch of envy as she took in Charlotte’s elegant summer dress and designer sandals. Her hair was immaculate and her overnight bag expensive.

Charlotte inclined her head. ‘So, you are the lady researcher I have heard so much about. We saw each other I think the first time you came to see Michael but since then you’ve become quite mysterious, flitting to and fro to the studio unseen.’

Lucy gave a cold smile. ‘I’ve been here most days. It is a fascinating project. I am so grateful to Michael for helping me.’

‘And I to you for encouraging him to clear this old place out.’ Charlotte gave Mike an arch look, which, as far as Lucy could see, he did not altogether appreciate. She saw Charlotte eye her own bag curiously. She was probably making a fashion judgement. Shabby, cheap and serviceable, Lucy thought with a secret smile.

‘Well, I must be on my way,’ she said. ‘I am sorry not to be able to stay and talk but this was just a lightning visit to pick up a couple of files.’

‘We’ll speak on the phone,’ Mike said suddenly. It was as if he hadn’t been there up to now and he wanted to remind her of his presence.

Lucy nodded. ‘Of course. Dolly is inside waiting for you.’ She raised her hand in farewell and set off up the lane, aware that they were both standing watching her. She hoped her anxiety to leave had not been too obvious. Hitching the bag with its precious cargo higher onto her shoulder she headed for her car.

On the way home she picked up some food for lunch from a deli near the Cross and she and Robin shared it at the table in the back garden. Twice the bell on the gallery door rang and Robin disappeared, wiping his fingers on a piece of torn off kitchen roll, to attend to a customer, one who merely wanted to ask directions to the cathedral, the other to buy a birthday card from their small rack of old master reproductions by the door. He looked heavenward after the second interruption, rolling his eyes theatrically. ‘I wish they would go away. I am tempted to put the “Closed” sign up on the door.’

Lucy grinned. ‘Don’t you dare. Even two pounds fifty is worth having these days. And the lost tourist might have a rich aunt who is dying to buy a local watercolour.’

He laughed. ‘Fair enough. I’ll hold the fort while you get on with your research.’

She had forced herself to wait before unpacking the diaries when she got home, she wasn’t sure why. It was like waiting to open her Christmas presents when she was a child. She had looked forward to the moment for so long, then at the last second she would sit staring at all the exciting packages putting off the actual act of opening as long as possible to prolong the anticipation.

She paused as she walked into the sitting room and listened. Silence. It was always there now, the slight frisson in the air, the feeling that she was not alone, that any minute someone would appear. She refused to let it get to her. She was not going to be chased out of her own home. Besides, Robin was downstairs, sitting on the old leather chair at the back of the gallery, reading.

Carefully she pulled the paper bag out of her tote and laid it on the table in front of the window. Her heart was thudding with excitement. All the notebooks were worn and faded, the red one she had already glanced at less so than the others. She pulled them gently out of the bag and lined them up in front of her. The green book was not a diary at all, she now realised. She had been looking at the back, which was a plain shabby green. She stared at the cover.

ROYAL AIR FORCE

VOL 1

PILOT’S FLYING

LOG BOOK

-----------

P/O

Name
SERGEANT
A. ANDERSON

Lucy frowned. She opened the book. Inside the cover someone had pasted a typewritten sheet of instructions, the first of which read: ALL ENTRIES ARE TO BE MADE IN BLOCK CAPITALS. On the opposite page the heading read CERTIFICATES OF QUALIFICATION AS FIRST PILOT. Underneath P/O A. Anderson had filled in his name, beneath which was a large question mark. She smiled and turned the page. Starting in March 1940, the book was a list of A. Anderson’s training flights, his practices and, stamped and signed, his qualifications as he made his way through his training as a fighter pilot. Lucy frowned. So who was he? Why did Evie have his log book? Was he a friend of Ralph’s? She flipped through the pages as day by day he progressed from an aircraft called a Cadet, which seemed apt, to a Hart, to a Hind. He was learning low flying, spinning, he recorded his first solo flight. She moved on. There it was. His first solo flight in a Spitfire. So he was a friend of Ralph’s. She studied the details more closely. He was based in Drem. She frowned. Where was that? Turning over another page she saw the entry:
To Westhampnett
and suddenly the righthand pages of the log book, which up to now had been more or less blank, were full of comments, scrawled in a large loopy hand, and definitely not in block capitals as instructed, detailing each day’s activities. She squinted at the first entry.