The Darkest Hour (47 page)

It was a foggy, windy morning after all the rain and they were instructed to fly out over the Channel to intercept some stray 109s which had been seen approaching under cover of the cloud. It was going to be cold up there. The pilots gathered at flight dispersal and almost at once were sent to their planes.

‘Chilly old morning!’ Ralph’s rigger greeted him. ‘Don’t worry. She’s warmed up and ready to go!’

He climbed into his Spitfire and settled into the seat, closing the cockpit hood and drawing on his gloves as almost at once the flight leader‘s voice crackled over the radio.

They flew in formation out over the coast above a sea which was suddenly unimaginably blue in a patch of winter sunshine and began to climb.

‘Bandits ahead. God! Bloody hundreds of them!’ The voice came again. ‘Go for it, boys, and good luck!’

Tony pushed the last of his belongings into his bag and set it outside the door to be collected with everyone else’s to be loaded onto the transports, destined for Prestwick. After the days of rumour the squadron had been posted at last and they were setting off that morning. They were due some respite after being in the front line for several months and normally he would have been over the moon with relief and joy to be going home, near enough to his parents to visit them as often as he got the chance. As he glanced at his watch he noticed his log book had fallen down behind the locker. He bent to retrieve it and put it to one side. An important document, not something to leave behind.

His thoughts went back to Evie. Ralph would by now have had plenty of time to deliver his letter and the ring to Evie but he had heard nothing from her.

‘Ready old boy?’ A pilot from B flight ran up the stairs two at a time. ‘They ‘ve copped some more action over at Tangmere this morning. One of the squadrons has lost a couple of planes. Damn bad luck that. Come on. The CO is about to call time on this place! We’re well out of it all.’

Tony smiled. ‘One more thing I’ve got to do.’ He ran into the office. It was empty. He grabbed the phone and dialled Box Wood Farm. He couldn’t just leave it. Suppose Ralph hadn’t had the chance to speak to Evie? Supposing she was going to ring him but hadn’t had time? She didn’t know he was flying out. He had to give her one more chance. He listened to the ring tone, picturing the phone echoing in the hall at Box Wood. If Evie didn’t answer please let it be Rachel.

It was Dudley. His message was clear. ‘My daughter never wants to see you again.’ The man sounded as though he was about to explode with fury. ‘How many times does she have to tell you, boy!’

The phone was slammed down and Tony was left staring at the empty desk in an empty room. Only seconds later someone put their head round the door. ‘We’re off!’

Standing up slowly Tony turned away from the desk. He could hardly see for sudden unmanly tears. His log book was forgotten.

Dear Rachel, the letter said. It was dated 14th December 1940.

We were so desperately sorry to hear about Ralph. No words can express the appallingness of your loss at this time. All I can say is that he died for his country and his country will be eternally in his and your debt.

Lucy read the letter twice. Her eyes were brimming with tears. So this was it. Ralph had died on 13th December and someone had written this letter to his mother. She bit her lip and turned to the next in the pile.

They were all there. The letter from Ralph’s commanding officer, two from his fellow pilots, several from neighbours, one from a woman called Sylvie who Lucy guessed might have been a girlfriend. She frowned. Had there been a mention of Sylvie in any of the stuff she had found so far? She scrutinised the anguished letter again. ‘My darling Rafie,’ the woman had called him. Rafie. That was Evie’s name for him. Did Evie know her? There had been no mention of her in Evie’s diaries. If Sylvie was Ralph’s girlfriend, how awful to have lost the man she loved before she was even officially a part of the family. Did that explain Evie and Tony’s desperate need to marry so quickly after they had met? Poor Sylvie, whoever she was, seemed to have mourned and wept alone.

Most of the letters were addressed to Rachel or Rachel and Dudley. There was nothing to convey the desolation of the recipients of the condolences, nothing to echo the faint desperate cry which Lucy had heard echoing through Box Wood Farm on the evening she had spent with Elizabeth. She clipped the letters together and sadly put them back in the envelope, feeling in some strange way that these tragic missives were none of her business, however much in her heart she was inextricably linked to the family in their agony.

Charlotte put down her phone and switched it off. She was frozen with shock. Mike had been telling her about some replanting he was planning to do in the garden in the autumn. They were chatting comfortably, laughing, not making plans exactly, but the implication was there that they would see one another soon, and she could hear him pottering round in the kitchen at Rosebank as he talked, clattering pans, running the tap and she pictured him with his mobile tucked between his shoulder and his ear as he prepared himself some supper; late supper. She had glanced at her watch as they talked. It was after eleven. It was then she had heard a voice in the background, clear, fluting, full of laughter.

‘Mike, you’re not really going to make us some supper at this hour? Honestly, a sandwich will be enough –’ And then the voice had stopped abruptly and Charlotte could picture Mike gesturing frantically that he was on the phone. Lucy was there with him. That was why he had decided to stay down in Sussex; that was why he had so easily and casually told her to stay in London. Lucy was there at eleven o’clock at night.

Charlotte walked over to the fridge and bent to open it, taking out a bottle of wine. She felt numb. Lucy was there, with him, at the cottage. She slopped some wine into a glass and gulped it down. The bitch, the utter bitch. She had set her cap at him from the very first time she had set eyes on him and he was such a fool he hadn’t seen it. He wouldn’t even realise what was happening until it was too late and Lucy had her claws well and truly stuck in. She poured some more wine into the glass, this time filling it to the brim. What to do, that was the question. How to get rid of Lucy bloody Standish? Engage brain. Think.

She walked towards the window, slopping some wine over her bare feet and stared out into the light-spangled darkness of the London night. This could not be allowed to happen. Mike was the man for her. She had chosen him, decided, planned their future in that house, planned how to get rid of Evie’s stuff, visualised new furniture, even looked up the local schools for their children when they came. Evie. It was all Evie’s fault, always had been. Without her, Lucy would never have come, never had the excuse to inveigle herself into Mike’s life.

She drained the glass and put it down, unsteadily balancing it on the edge of the bookcase, brushing the tears out of her eyes. Easily sorted. It would all be easily sorted. As soon as it was light she would drive down to Sussex and sort things out. She would make sure that Mike was gone. A phone call would do that, make sure that he was somewhere else and then she would sort things out. She gave a feral smile as she walked back across the room and picked up her phone. She glanced at it. Three missed calls. All from Mike. So he was scared, trying to make it all right, trying to explain. Too late. It was up to her now to sort things out.

Trailing her fingers along the back of the sofa, she made her way along to her bedroom door and pushed it open. So many of her things were missing now, left at Mike’s London place or left at Rosebank. She had hinted so often that they should move in together properly but always he had resisted, making excuses. And now she knew why. Even before Lucy had barged her way onto the scene he had been keeping his options open. She hadn’t been enough for him. Tears began to trickle down her cheeks again. She threw herself down on her bed and closed her eyes and quietly began to sob.

Half an hour later she had given up on sleep. She got dressed and put on a jacket. She drank two cups of black coffee and then made her way down to the garage under the building. Climbing into her car she backed out of her parking space and turned into the road. She negotiated the narrow streets with the tightly parked cars on either side without incident, and then set off towards the south. Aware that the cool night air had made her feel slightly dizzy she slid down the window and took deep breaths of the breeze in her face, leaning forward towards the dash to find some music and letting the blast of sound echo behind the car as it steered down the echoing sleeping streets.

In Brighton Mike lay staring up at the ceiling of the spare room in his mother’s house. He wasn’t sure why he had decided to bail out of Rosebank for the night. It was one in the morning by the time he reached Brighton but it seemed suddenly important that Lucy did not feel in any way pressured. She had been doubtful about staying at the cottage even when he had shown her to the small spare room. Perhaps sharing a bathroom was too intimate, or even the thought of breakfast together. She had been too tired to drive back to the vicarage, though, that he was sure of. Better to let her find her feet alone. He would be back, he had told her, mid-morning tomorrow. He wasn’t sure if the slightly taken aback expression he had caught on her face after they had finished their coffee at midnight contained an element of disappointment or relief. Whatever her feelings, he couldn’t deal with them now. Not with his guilt and confusion about Charlotte weighing so heavily on his mind. With a sigh he turned over and pulled the sheet up over his head. Within minutes he was asleep and dreaming about one of his mother’s Cordon Bleu breakfasts.

The old place had not changed one bit since he had last seen it in July. Tony stared at the front of his parents’ farmhouse with a feeling of indescribable confusion. He had hitched a lift over from Prestwick and was looking forward to his first few days of leave for a long time with relief and longing and misery. He had to tell them that it was all over with Evie. Heaving his kitbag up onto his shoulder he trudged up the drive, noting the bare branches of the trees in their familiar arabesques over the stone slabs on the roof, the ancient lichen whorls showing yellow against the patches of snow and the outline of the distant hills against a sky as white as the ground beneath. The first thing he would have to do was find a car to drive. The sale of his little Morris Cowley back at Westhampnett had been entrusted to his batman, who was fairly sure he could get six pounds for dear old Esmeralda. The buying and selling of cars as pilots failed to return or as their squadrons came and went was something of a local industry at all the airfields. At Prestwick he was already negotiating to buy an old motorbike. That would save him having to cadge lifts, as he had this morning.

The door opened when he was only halfway up the drive and the two shelties streaked out to greet him, leaping around him with sharp barks of excitement. Dropping his bag he squatted down to hug them, ruffling their ears and dropping kisses on warm russet heads. He glanced up and raised a hand as he saw his parents standing side by side in the doorway. ‘Come on, lads,’ he muttered. ‘Let’s go and say hello.’

‘Brucy and Bob are pleased to see you, darling.’ His mother held out her arms and suddenly she was crying. ‘Oh, Tony. We wondered if we would ever see you again!’

And his father was hugging him too, too overwhelmed to speak, and the dogs were nosing between them all, not wanting to be left out, and all Tony could think was,

Evie.

Lucy’s car was parked where she usually left her own. Charlotte drew up behind it and pulled on the handbrake with a vicious wrench before pushing open the door and climbing out of the car. She took a deep breath of the cool air and glanced at her watch. It was nearly four a.m.

Grabbing her bag she hurled the car door shut and headed towards the cottage. The long drive had not improved her temper but, after a pause for a black coffee at an all-night service station, she felt far more sober now. She pushed the gate open and walked up the path, groping in her bag for her key. The cottage lay in darkness, bathed in the scent of roses and new-mown grass. Above, in the dark velvet of the sky, a waning moon hung low over the silhouette of the apple tree. She slotted the key into the lock and turned it. Nothing happened. The door was bolted from the inside. Furiously she made her way round to the back door, stumbling in the darkness on the mossy path. The door opened. As usual he had forgotten to bolt this one. With a smile she slid into the kitchen.

She groped on the wall for the switches and snapped on the lights, suddenly not caring if they heard her, and for several seconds she stood still, listening. She could still smell the after-echo of tomato and herbs from whatever they had eaten for supper and the stronger pungent odour of Mike’s favourite brand of coffee. She could see, stacked in the sink, two plates, two saucepans, two forks and an empty oily salad bowl. She swallowed a moan of unhappiness and turned towards the living room. The room was tidy, save for the two empty cups on the low table. Slowly she made her way to the staircase.