Last Letter Home Read online

  ‘I think he wasn’t . . . like other babies.’

  ‘He didn’t sit up or crawl, did he?’

  ‘No. Poor little chap.’ She recalled touching his silky brown hair, the way he stared up at her from his pram as if in silent wonder, and grief twisted deep inside her.

  ‘So I expect it was a good thing that he died really.’

  ‘Oh, Diane! You are . . . surprising.’ Perhaps Diane was right. That might have been why their parents had appeared to accept his death. She tried to imagine her mother with an older Peter. Adult even. And couldn’t. Of course, there were institutions that would have had him. In England, anyway. She didn’t know what would have happened in India, didn’t like to think about it. There were so many appalling things the people there had to endure.

  Diane let the petal fall. ‘I’ll go and lay out the cards,’ she said. ‘Don’t be long, Saire, will you?’ and Sarah watched her walk lightly away through the evening light, puzzled as ever by the changing surfaces of her sister’s moods.

  ‘It’s only a matter of time.’ Early August and once again Ivor was visiting. It was a Saturday afternoon, and he and Sarah were lounging on chairs in the shade, drinking Mrs Allman’s excellent lemonade. Diane was over at the Bulldocks’ and Mrs Bailey was upstairs helping Ruby deal with a moth infestation in a clothes chest. Ivor had found Sarah picking blackcurrants and assisted until she scolded him for eating too many and it had grown too hot anyway so she decided they had enough for supper and packed it in.

  Ivor had been away for nearly a month and as he wasn’t much of a letter writer this was the first time they’d really exchanged news for a while.

  ‘Anyone who thinks war can be avoided is deluding themselves. Look at the overtures Hitler’s making to Russia. It’s obvious that they’ll make their move on Poland and then we’ll be obliged to honour our promises. Believe me, these rehearsals with blackout curtains and whatnot are only the start of it. It’ll be the real thing soon.’

  ‘Jennifer’s father is still adamant it won’t happen. He thinks Hitler doesn’t want to go to war with us at all, that he doesn’t view us as an enemy.’

  ‘In which case the Führer’s putting up the wrong signals. What was his Graf Zeppelin doing off the coast at Lowestoft? Visiting the beach for the day?’

  Sarah laughed, then was sober again. If there were to be war . . . she knew she shouldn’t think selfishly of her own life, but she wouldn’t go away to college. She’d be a land girl, she thought suddenly. That would suit her best. Somewhere near home it would have to be.

  When she surfaced from her thoughts it was to see Ivor studying her, a round-eyed expression on his face as though he was working himself up to something.

  ‘What is it, Ivor?’ She wondered whether she’d offended him. It was difficult to be natural with him sometimes. She couldn’t simply say what came into her head as she had been able to do with her father. Was that the kind of girl she was, the type who would never marry because she was in love with her father? She smiled privately at her own nonsense.

  Ivor started to speak, checked himself, then as she watched, fascinated, he blew out his cheeks and resolution came into his face. ‘I was thinking, Sarah, simply this. That if there is a war and I have to go away then, well, I’d like to think that I had a girl at home who was waiting for me. And if that girl were you then, well, I don’t know, but I’d be the happiest man alive.’ The resolution had quite gone and Sarah was struck instead by the naked vulnerability of his expression. His eyes were bright with emotion and his brow crumpled with tension. She didn’t want to hurt him, but nor, she realized, did she want what he offered.

  ‘Ivor,’ she said, trying to be gentle, ‘we’re not at war yet and there’s no need for any rush. We haven’t known each other very long and . . . I don’t know that it feels right yet.’

  ‘You haven’t been long here in Westbury, no, but we’ve known of each other all our lives. Our families being so close . . . And my parents approve. In fact they would like it very much.’

  ‘My mother would too,’ Sarah conceded with a sigh, ‘but we can’t always do what our parents want.’ Impatience was constricting her chest and shortening her breath.

  ‘Sarah, please, just listen . . .’

  ‘No, Ivor, don’t.’ She rose with a flounce of her skirt and began to pace the terrace, trying to control the feelings of frustration. Just as she’d been planning to govern her own destiny, duty to family always closed in again, smothering her attempts at independence.

  She tired of pacing and returned to her seat, where she drew up her knees and clasped her arms around them. ‘I need time,’ she said to put him off, but she could hardly bear to look at him, knowing there would be disappointment in his eyes.

  War came despite what anyone said. Each day in August the people of Westbury felt it grow inexorably closer. One morning stacks of sandbags appeared outside the village hall. The Bailey household’s gas masks hung in the hall like harbingers of doom. Strangers with brisk voices came knocking at all hours of the day, asking impertinent questions about their circumstances, ticking off items on lists. In shops and in bus queues the air was thick with rumour of air raids and spies.

  Then came a Sunday in early September when the church was full of grave country faces. Mr Tomms prayed for peace, but when they went home in the beautiful sunshine it was to hear on their wirelesses that Britain was at war with Germany.

  Twenty

  In the Sandbrooks’ garden, the gentle undulating lines of the sleeping goddess drew Briony’s touch. The calm face of the reclining sculpture spoke to something deep inside her, loosening her habitual knot of anxiety.

  ‘She makes me feel happy,’ she said, turning to its creator. Tina Sandbrook was completely different from Briony’s idea of what Luke’s mother would be like. She thought she’d be, well, motherly-looking and conventionally dressed and Tina was neither of those things.

  ‘Good, she’s supposed to.’ Tina Sandbrook’s wise blue eyes were like her son’s, but otherwise she had the fine-boned appearance of her daughter, Luke’s younger sister Cherry, whose laughing face adorned the Sandbrooks’ fridge in a series of snapshots with her partner Tristan and their toddler twin sons. Tina was of medium height, light-framed, with shoulder-length hair coloured ash blonde with a streak of pink down one side. Despite her age, her loose cotton vest-top, dirndl skirt and the strappy sandals on her narrow, tanned feet put Briony in mind of a sixties flower child. When she moved, her beads and bangles tinkled pleasantly like wind chimes. There were one or two of those hanging from the eaves of the tiny cottage, Briony noticed as she wandered the maze of paths in the back garden, admiring Tina’s small bronze statues, half a dozen different versions of calm, happy womanhood. They were deep in the countryside here. Swifts darted through the early evening air, and in the garden hedgerow where blackberries were ripening a robin was singing his heart out.

  Tina stooped to pinch dead blooms from a potted pelargonium. ‘It’s been so liberating moving here, Briony,’ she said. ‘I thought I’d miss London and my teaching, but I haven’t, not really. I’ve achieved so much in a short time. It’s been good for Roger, too, though he finds it a bit quiet. He was wearing himself out at that school, trying to be someone he wasn’t and not getting on at all with the whizzy new headmistress.’

  Briony could glimpse Roger Sandbrook with Luke and Aruna through the open French doors of the sitting room, and heard his deep, carefree laugh, so like his son’s. Then Luke stepped outside with a bottle of sparkling wine, his face screwed up with concentration as he eased the cork up until it shot out with a pop.

  ‘’Tis done well, boy,’ his father cried as Luke went back inside. It was interesting how people were shaped by their jobs. No one hearing Roger Sandbrook speak could have any doubt that he had taught English and Drama. A moment later he emerged ceremoniously bearing a tray of crystal flutes filled with winking bubbles of pale gold. Springy hair like Luke’s stood up from a similar high foreh
ead, but Roger’s was greying and his eyebrows were bushy as one day Luke’s would no doubt become. Their personalities were different. Roger was an ebullient man, though a kind one. Luke was more gentle, but just as kind.

  Aruna stepped out after them with her own glass. She was quieter than usual, Briony thought, and wondered whether she found Luke’s parents overwhelming. They gave every impression of being fond of their son’s girlfriend, so this puzzled Briony.

  ‘What are we drinking to?’ Luke asked, when everyone had a glass.

  ‘How about wine and women, may we always have a taste for both?’

  ‘The girls won’t say that, Dad!’

  ‘Good health and happiness then. It’s lovely to have you with us, Briony.’

  Briony thanked him, laughing, and drank. The champagne made her feel light as one of the puffs of cloud passing overhead. The evening was so warm and lovely and the garden with Tina’s exotic sculptures such an unexpected pleasure that she felt she was filling up with contentment.

  ‘Are you comfortable in your holiday let?’ Roger asked. ‘I gather it’s in the grounds of the old house.’

  ‘That’s right. Some people might find it shabby, but it’s just right for me. I like a bit of atmosphere.’

  ‘A nice one, I hope?’ Tina asked.

  ‘There aren’t actual ghosts, I don’t think. I occasionally wake up thinking I’ve heard something, but it’s probably the woodworm gnawing away.’

  There was laughter at this. ‘I think it’s like a witch’s house,’ Aruna said. ‘You know, the gingerbread one where Hansel and Gretel picked sweets off it and the witch caught them.’

  ‘Are you a witch, Briony?’ Luke said, smiling.

  Aruna made a little moue. ‘She’s as clever as one.’

  ‘Thanks, Aruna!’ Briony said, trying to laugh it off, while feeling a bit hurt. ‘Don’t forget what it meant to call a woman a witch. Next thing you’ll be blaming me for the ills of the community, calling for me to be thrown into a pond and, if I float, hanged.’

  ‘Didn’t they usually burn witches?’ Luke asked gravely.

  ‘Hanging was more usual.’

  ‘Hanging or burning, which would you prefer, Briony?’ Roger said, amused.

  ‘This is a horrible conversation and I can’t bear to listen.’ Tina set her empty glass on the tray and briefly covered her ears. ‘I’m going to put supper on the table.’

  ‘Would you like any help?’ Briony asked, seeing an opportunity to escape. She rather wanted to get to know Tina a little.

  ‘We’ll all come, won’t we, Aruna?’ Luke said, sliding his arm round Aruna’s waist. Aruna relaxed into him and smiled.

  ‘Thank you, everybody, but I’m fine,’ Tina said. ‘It’s mostly carrying things through, so I’ll borrow Briony.’

  Briony was given oven gloves and charge of a salmon and broccoli tart, all toasted and fragrantly steaming. There were pottery bowls of salad and warm herb bread freshly made by Roger. She loved the inside of the cottage where the walls were stacked floor to ceiling with shelves of odd-sized books or studded with bright abstract paintings, though the men had to duck under the low doorways when they came in for supper. The wide table nearly filled the cosy dining room. The diamond-hatched window looked out onto a sunken lane where the evening sun poured through the restless beech trees, casting ever-changing patterns of flickering shadow.

  ‘Which part of the country do you come from, Briony?’ Tina asked after they’d started to eat. ‘I mean I know you live in London now, but were you born there?’

  ‘Mmm, this salmon is delicious. No, I was born in Surrey. A place called Birchmere. No one’s ever heard of it and nothing ever happens there. My dad’s parents grew up there, and my mum’s moved there after the war. Apparently Grandpa Andrews was from round here, which is really why I’ve come. I think Luke may have told you.’

  ‘He did mention the bare bones, didn’t you, Luke?’

  ‘I thought you’d like to tell it, Briony,’ Luke said.

  She explained more fully about the film they’d seen in Italy and the letters that she’d been given.

  ‘I’ve started making my way through them and typing them up, but it’s slow work. They’re interesting because they give a sense of life here at the start of the war. Sarah lived in Westbury village with her mother and sister.’

  ‘And who was this man she was writing to?’

  ‘His name was Paul Hartmann. He was employed on the Westbury estate as under-gardener, but the very elderly lady we met yesterday at Westbury Hall said his mother was a distant relative of the family. The really amazing thing is that Paul’s mother lived in the cottage where I’m staying, and Paul, too. They were German. Well, Paul’s mother was English but she had lived in Germany most of her life.’

  ‘I don’t understand about him being German,’ Luke said. ‘Would he really have been fighting in the British Army in Italy?’

  ‘It wasn’t unknown,’ Briony told him, ‘but it must have been an incredibly difficult decision for people like him. I mean, even if you believed that Nazism had to be destroyed, you’d still be shooting your fellow countrymen.’

  Tina was nodding, her face troubled. She was revealing herself as a very empathetic sort of person who took things to heart and Briony warmed to her even more.

  ‘And what did Sarah write to Paul about? Were they lovers, do you think?’

  ‘From Sarah’s side, which is all we have, I’d say no, just friends, but I haven’t read all the letters yet.’

  ‘What you need are the letters Paul wrote back to her,’ Roger said.

  Briony nodded, her mouth full. ‘If only,’ she said eventually, ‘but I’m not sure where to start looking. There’s nothing in the Record Office in Norwich. I suppose I could trawl the catalogues of the war museum, for instance, but finding surviving family might be my best bet.’

  ‘Well, good luck,’ Roger said. ‘And with finding your grandfather.’

  ‘Thanks. His name was Harry Andrews.’

  ‘We know an Andrews, don’t we?’ Tina said to her husband.

  ‘Do we?’

  ‘It’s a very common name,’ Briony said, apologetic.

  ‘That man we spoke to at the wine-tasting,’ Tina continued. ‘There’s a rather nice farm shop near Westbury, Briony. It has a café and runs events.’

  ‘I remember now. The wine wasn’t bad, we bought a mixed case. Was it Jim or Tim Andrews?’

  ‘David,’ Tina said promptly. She and Roger stared triumphantly at Briony.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, smiling at their eagerness. ‘I suppose there’s always the possibility that he’s a relation. I wonder how I can find him?’

  Twenty-one

  When Briony let herself into Westbury Lodge late that evening a thick envelope lay on the mat. It had her name written on it, Miss Briony Wood, in proper fountain pen and had been delivered by hand. She turned it over and slid her finger under the flap. From inside she drew out a printed booklet entitled Gas Masks and Greengages: Westbury at War with a postcard clipped to it of the stained glass window in the church. She flipped it over to see it was from the old man who’d shown her Barbara Hartmann’s grave.

  Dear Miss Wood,

  It was a great pleasure to meet you yesterday. After we said goodbye I conducted a little snoop about to see if I could find anything potentially useful to you, and the vicar drew my attention to this publication, written by one of our parishioners some years ago now. I hope that you at least find it an interesting account of the wartime era.

  With kind regards,

  George R. Symmonds

  Briony flicked through the booklet quickly. It offered a short account of the village and its people in 1939 from the Kellings up at the Hall to the family who ran the post office. She scanned the index for mentions of any Andrews or Hartmanns, but there were none except for a reference to a Lawrence Andrews who, she read, from summer 1940, when Britain was most fearful of invasion, had headed up the local Dads’ Army
, the Home Guard whose job it was to be alert for possible enemy attack and to patrol and protect vulnerable spots in the area such as the railway station and the bridge. On the opposite page was a grainy photograph and she gazed at it hard. Captain Andrews had been a broad-shouldered man in his sixties with a bulbous nose, his stern expression showing how seriously he took his responsibilities. There was no family likeness to her grandfather that she could see, except possibly in the line of the mouth. With a sigh, she turned the page and her eye fell on a reference to the Bailey family that she hadn’t noticed before. It was in a section about evacuees. A young boy named Derek Jenkins had been taken in by the Bailey women at Flint Cottage in September 1939. There was a photograph of half a dozen children who had arrived at the village school at that time. They looked miserable and confused, as well they might if they’d been separated from their parents and schoolmates to be sent among strangers. The name Derek Jenkins sparked something, but for a while she couldn’t remember what.

  That evening as she was typing up one of Sarah Bailey’s letters an idea came to her and she brought up the Record Office website. Yes, there it was, a reference in the catalogue. Derek Jenkins, evacuee. It was a tape of an interview. She would make her appointment and go and listen to it.

  ‘You are Derek Jenkins and you were once an evacuee in Westbury, Norfolk?’ a light, well-bred female voice asked. Briony listened intently in the spacious modern building that housed the Record Office.

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’ Derek’s was an old man’s voice, high-pitched, tremulous, and he sounded nervous at first. ‘Two days before war broke out we were told to be at school early with our luggage, and when we got there they’d laid on buses to take us down to the docks. Well, I hadn’t hardly been out of London before, so you can imagine what it was like saying goodbye to my mum. I never hardly seen her cry before, she was always the strong one. As for going on a boat, now that was exciting at first, though some of us was sick, it was a bit choppy out there, which wasn’t so nice. No, I didn’t feel too good, but my stomach was churning anyway, what with nerves. It was four or five hours round to Great Yarmouth and when we docked there it wasn’t a moment too soon so far as I was concerned. They took us off the boat and sent us to a school where we stayed for the night, then it was on to buses again. I remember passing out of the town and seeing all that lovely countryside and thinking what a great adventure it would be if only my mum was there . . .’