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.’‘And then into Spain?’It was another long, arduous journey, he said, through mountain passes, and long, hot, dusty roads, but eminently safer.Olive groves became his bedrooms, and wine cellars, too, he smiled.The organisation was stupendously efficient.Finally, he said, Gibraltar, and the dubious delights of a debrief and a bunk on the ship of His Majesty’s Navy.Alex stopped, exhausted.The all-clear had sounded, and yet Sylvie did not feel like moving out from under the table.Here, she felt safer than she had in a long long time, now that Alex was back.He glanced at her hand.‘I see we’re still engaged.’‘We are,’ she said, brightly.‘I told myself I’d wait for you.’Alex shuffled out from under the table and stretched hard.‘Let’s sit down in the armchairs,’ he said.‘God, it must be the middle of the night.’‘I was hoping,’ said Sylvie, following him into the living room, ‘you were going to say “let’s go to bed”.’She saw that his face was tired and pale, but that his eyes were bright and guarded.‘I think we’d better talk,’ he said.‘Oh no, not that.’ Sylvie almost laughed.‘Not that old chestnut.’She gazed at him in the dim light of the lamp and waited.‘It’s very delicate,’ he said, courteously.‘You’re telling me!’ she snapped.‘We got engaged because we thought you were expecting a baby.’‘And now?’‘Now,’ he sighed.‘Now, everything is different.Except one thing.’Sylvie waited again, her heart hammering.He said one word that broke her world apart: ‘Nell.’She wanted to laugh it off, to try to pretend how much she didn’t care, but her cousin sat like a ghost in the room.Over there, in the corner.‘All this time, through your great escape across France and Spain, you thought I had had our baby, and yet, you still thought of her.’‘I thought of you both, constantly,’ he replied.He coughed to hide a sob in his voice.‘But Nell—’‘Oh, don’t give me that pathetic noise,’ Sylvie snapped.‘So you came here, to check me out first.I bet you’re over the moon, aren’t you? No more need to look after Sylvie.Aren’t you the lucky one? Well, I have no idea where she is, if that’s what you’re wondering.She’s disappeared on us.Went a bit funny about a year ago.Around the time you left, actually.But then, I suppose that wasn’t surprising in the circumstances, when she heard my news.Stayed at her father’s for a good while, went home briefly to Lednor, so Auntie Moll tells me, then went into nursing.And don’t ask me where, because I have absolutely no idea.’Sylvie stood up, ferociously rummaging in her handbag for her pack of cigarettes.‘You know, Alex, when I saw you on the doorstep,’ her voice quivered too hard for her liking, ‘I thought it was a miracle.You were safe and my happiness had returned.And now, you just ruin it all again.You better work this one out for yourself.’ She turned from him, not wanting him to see her tears.‘Shut the door on your way out.’She stood with her back to him, breathing hard as she inhaled on the cigarette.She heard the rustle of his overcoat, his step on the stair.The front door below closed quietly.She stubbed out the cigarette and slumped back into the chair, her hand over her face, squeezing her eyes tight in an attempt to stop misery bubbling out of her.Her head snapped up when she heard the front door knocker rap gently.As she leapt up, she felt her agony fall away, as if shedding a skin.She hurried down the stairs, her happiness rising, simmering in her throat.Her love for him still blooming in her chest.Alex stood on the doorstep, the street lightening with the dawn behind him, his hat low over his eyes.‘Your suitcase,’ he said, handing it to her.He turned and walked away.Part Five1944Two years laterNellRain drummed on the pitched roof of the nursing home, sending silvery rivulets snaking down the grime and dust on the roof light windows.She lay wakeful in bed and watched as streams of rainwater met one another on the glass, collided and divided.Outside the drainpipes were rushing, gutters spluttering under the deluge.The unseasonal storm – it was only the middle of May – was passing overhead, washing away the dirt, cleaning the air.Her bedroom was in the converted attic, with a little dormer window facing north.She could look straight over the rooftops to the city, and what was left of it.Getting out of bed, she washed quickly in the bathroom along the corridor and, back in her room, dressed in her uniform.There was a rumble of thunder and a flash of lightning over the West End.Not the Luftwaffe this time, she thought.Just plain old weather.And, at any rate, these days they were all terrified of buzz bombs.She made her bed, then opened her dormer wide to let in the cooling early dawn air just as the bell clanged along the corridor.Six in the morning.Time to get up.Someone tapped on her door and Violet, in her dressing gown, poked her head round.‘Might have known you’d already be up and dressed, Diana,’ she said.‘Can I please borrow some stockings? Mine could be used as a fishing net and I got the most frightful rocket from Sister yesterday for walking over to the hospital without my cloak on.Can’t risk it two days running.I’ll pay you back soon as I can.’Nell handed her her last pair.‘Thanks ever so, Di.See you at breakfast.’Nell knew she had exactly twenty minutes before she had to be downstairs in the nurses’ dining room.This was the only period of the day when she truly had time for herself.As the nurses’ waking, chattering voices grew steadily louder along the corridor and in the rooms next to hers, she pulled out Alex’s letter.She curled up on her crisply made bed to read it, even though, two years after she’d first opened it, she knew each line by heart.Nell wondered how any of the patients got any rest or proper sleep.The morning bedpan round, with its scrubbing and sluicing, produced deafening and offensive clatter, assaulting both senses of hearing and smell.And all had to be in order and shipshape for the consultant’s daily visit on the ward when he swooped through, white coat-tails flying, followed by Matron and Sister in terrified flutter.The work was exhausting but good, always good, Nell decided, for it helped her forget, gave her no time to think [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]