CHAPTER 33
March 1960
Hazel’s flat lights were off and once inside she removed her raincoat and shook out the umbrella before closing the front door. Small puddles formed on the entryway rug, and Hazel shivered in her damp dress. Stalking through the flat, she flicked on every lamp.
But in the kitchen, a low light already burned, a shadow form leaning against the counter with a lit cigarette glowing.
She let out a small yelp, then, “Barnaby, you scared the wits out of me, lurking in the darkness.” She turned on the side lamp, and he squinted. He walked slowly toward her.
“Hazel, honey, where have you been?”
“I told you, an art show in Hampstead with Kelty and Fergus. Midge, too.”
“My mother called me.”
“Yes.” Hazel tried to hold calm, not give away a thing.
“Who were you with, Hazel?”
“This isn’t like you, Barnaby. Quizzing me like I did something wrong.”
He smashed his cigarette into the ashtray although it was only half-smoked. “You were with the boy from Binsey.”
“Yes, Harry Aberdeen was one of the artists.” She would hold on to truth as long as she could. But she would not let a stupid mistake—to fall into her childish desires for Harry—ruin the life she had made with Barnaby.
“Do you love the man you stood on the sidewalk with tonight?” Barnaby asked. “Looking like you were lovers, according to my mother.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
He leaned forward. “They also asked about the stolen book and illustrations.”
“Stolen? You damn well know I didn’t steal them… it was…”
“A mistake. I know.”
“Wait, how the bloody hell do they know about that? You told them?” Her mouth went dry, arid.
“No. I didn’t tell them.” His voice was fading with fatigue. “My father helped you with that job at Sotheby’s, and they called him.”
Hazel heard what Barnaby said. The words were clear and yet she was baffled. She opened her mouth to speak and then shook her head.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“No. I’m… confused?” A crack appeared, sure and jagged, beneath Hazel’s understanding of her life. “Your father helped me with that job? What are you talking about? I earned that job.”
“He made a few calls. That’s all.”
“So many calls that they felt they had to tell him about Hogan’s and the illustrations?”
“Yes, I suppose so. And Mother, overreacting as usual, saying you had betrayed us.” He fished another cigarette from his pocket and stuck it between his lips without lighting it.
“I’m betraying all of you?”
Hazel put her fingers to her temples, massaged. She couldn’t answer his questions, for she had too many of her own. “Barnaby, Harry and I are not lovers.”
“Hazel, my love, we leave for Paris in two days. If there is anything you need to tell me, please tell me now.”
“Barnaby, I went to an art show with Kelty and as I stood outside talking to Harry, I ran into your parents on the street. Your mother misconstrued what she saw. I love you. We leave for Paris in two days. That’s all I know to tell you.”
He stared while weighing her words, her past, and their future. Then he pulled her toward him and kissed her. Hazel felt as if she were watching herself being kissed, as if she stood outside the window peeking in on two lovers she didn’t know.
Barnaby snored on, and Hazel glanced at the clock: six a.m. She couldn’t sleep so she might as well rise. Slipping from bed, she went into the kitchen to boil water for tea. She needed to get her feet under her, to find her way back into the real world.
On her way through the living room, her gaze landed on the new Vanity Fair magazine that Barnaby had taken out of the trash and tossed onto the side table. She picked it up and stared at the text on the cover again. The Lost Children of Pied Piper by Dorothy Bellamy.
Maybe Hazel was wrong. Maybe the journalist could help. It was entirely possible that Dorothy Bellamy had sources Hazel didn’t have. She took the magazine to the kitchen and after making tea, she sat at the table and read. Bellamy’s article told of a young girl from Hillingdon, a member of the Mickey Mouse Club, on her way to Canada during the evacuation to live with her cousins. But poor Beryl Myatt had died at age nine when the ship she was on had been bombed on September 17, 1940. Ninety children evacuees were on board, and seventy-seven perished.
Hazel’s heart rolled. She couldn’t read another word. So much heartache. Children sent from home to be safe, only to then be lost.
She could not allow Flora to be one more of Dorothy Bellamy’s melodramatic stories, something for a “younger, smarter woman” to read about in horror. She again tossed the magazine into the bin and looked to the untouched mail on the table. She sipped her tea and shuffled through the bills until she saw the letterhead of the Thames Valley Oxford Police Department.
She ripped open the envelope and read the names of the four nurses in a typed line; their names dented the paper and every “e” was crooked. A note paperclipped to the list was in Aiden’s block handwriting.
In September of 1940, they were all interviewed and easily cleared of suspicion of foul play related to Flora.
Imogene Wright, now Mulroney, in Henley-on-Thames. She is married with one daughter named Iris Taber, also of Henley-on-Thames.
Frances Arkwright passed away a year after the war.
Maeve Muldoon is married with six children and lives in Glasgow.
Lilly Carnigan is a spinster and lives in Birmingham.
Sincerely,
Aiden
Attached were their addresses and phone numbers. Hazel’s heartbeat raced.
“What’s that?” Barnaby’s voice surprised her, and she dropped the letter. It fluttered to the floor, where he picked it up.
“Good morning,” she said, kissing his rough cheek. “Did you sleep all right?”
“Good morning, love.” He squinted at the note. “What’s this about?”
“The four nurses from Binsey. Remember I told you I visited Aiden, that police inspector I know?”
He looked at her, his eyes shaded. “You will never let this go, will you? For your whole life you will endlessly chase this loss.”
“That’s unfair, Barnaby. How could anyone not pursue this?”
He set the note on the table and readied to leave. “I have morning office hours. Must head out.”
“This early?” So much doubt now between them. And he looked hurt by the question.
“Yes, I have to go, love.” He kissed her. “See you tonight.”
“Barnaby—” she said as he walked out.
He looked over his shoulder, but he was already moving away. “Yes?”
“I love you,” she said. She didn’t know how to make this better. Or anything else, for that matter.
“I love you, too.” But his response rang hollow as the door opened and shut.
Imogene’s daughter.
An only child.
Iris.