‘That’s the trouble these days,’ Alexander Gower said over the phone, ‘it’s a double-edged sword, the internet—there’s no burying the past, no place to hide.’ There was a hint of amusement in his voice.
Following a brief explanation of why she needed his help, he invited her to come to his home in London that afternoon and said that he would certainly try to help.
He also told her that he had Jack Valante’s 1943 war diary.
Looking at Gower’s website on the bus journey over, Kathryn felt like she had hit the jackpot. Not only had he been an attendee at the anniversary celebrations, but Professor Gower was also probably the most qualified person she could talk to about the whole business. She was buoyed by her good fortune. As the traffic lights changed and she crossed Praed Street, she hoped that the professor would be true to his word.
Gloucester Mews was nestled between Gloucester Terrace and Westbourne Terrace, accessible through an archway off Chilworth Street that she would never have noticed if she hadn’t been looking for it. The tall, glazed offices of the Paddington Basin now overshadowed the miniature homes, making them souvenir trinkets nearly two centuries old. The small mews houses had intrigued her and Chris when they’d lived here, and Chris had explained how they were originally built as stables from the spare bricks of the larger Georgian terraces they served. And how there was no structural integrity—it was a miracle that they hadn’t already come tumbling down.
As Kathryn walked past she saw how varied they still were: an assortment of two- or three-storey homes, a mix of discreet traditional houses with small sash windows and pastel walls next to renovations with bold colours and contemporary designs. Seeing these homes and remembering her conversation with Chris made her think of their marriage. It had solid foundations, they had weathered storms and made changes; surely they could adapt and change again.
Finding the number she was looking for, Kathryn raised the brass knocker and stood back to admire the zinc window boxes overflowing with bright fuchsia geraniums and trailing ivy. As soon as Professor Gower opened the door, she could tell that he wasn’t the same sort of academic as Stephen Aldridge: from the Prince of Wales check of his tweed suit and contrasting red-spotted tie and pocket-chief, to his enthusiastic welcome and incongruous hiking boots.
‘I have bought a great many books at auction, but that diary is probably the most valuable purchase I’ve made,’ he told Kathryn after their introductions. He had settled her on the sofa and was pouring Lady Grey tea from a lime-coloured Limoges pot while Kathryn eyed off the custard creams in the luxury-selection biscuit tin. Alexander handed her a cup and sat back, balancing his own cup and saucer on crossed knees. ‘I’m so glad I was still here. I’m leaving for the Cotswolds in a few hours and I’m not likely to be back until next week, so you were very fortunate to catch me.’
‘A stroke of luck,’ she said, amazed at the serendipity. Her gaze fell on the diary, which was sitting on the coffee table between them. It was encased in a handcrafted wooden box, the glass panel revealing the red velvet of the bed it rested in.
‘I had the case made specially,’ Alexander said. ‘You have to look after these things, you know. They’re irreplaceable.’
‘Exactly, I couldn’t agree more,’ she said. ‘And I am so very pleased that you have.’
‘So tell me,’ he said, fixing her with a mildly curious stare, ‘you were saying how you’re researching the artist for your grandmother. What’s her name?’
‘Eleanor McLean, but she used to be Roy. Eleanor Roy.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Ah yes. She produced one or two pictures herself. Do you know if she has them still?’
‘I’ve seen a few sketches. Most of her pictures are from much later on, though—long after the war.’
‘Pity.’
Kathryn nodded, thinking about The Bermondsey Rescue and Children in the Attic. She would ask Eleanor about them tonight. ‘And, of course, you’ve read Jack’s diary…’
‘A number of times,’ he said.
She took his smile as a measure of pride at owning such an important artefact and at having had the good sense to acquire it. She smiled back at him.
As she sipped her tea, she noticed that the War Pictures by British Artists booklets that she’d seen on his website were displayed in a glass cabinet, with their distinctive logo of a cannon and aircraft, alongside a range of military books with highly decorative spines. Earlier she had noticed the large collection of military prints on the hallway walls, and there were larger oils depicting battle scenes in the living room. But Alexander seemed too cheerful a character to be interested in war, and she wondered why it appealed to him. Was it a fascination with the machinery or the intellect of warfare? Maybe he came from a long line of military men and it was a family tradition. Or perhaps, like so many collectors, he was interested in the chase as much as the catch. ‘I’m afraid I haven’t had time to read much of your thesis,’ she told him, ‘but it looks fascinating. It must have taken a very long time to write?’
‘Yes, it did. I can’t imagine finding that sort of time now, but back then it was my sole purpose—a luxury, really.’
‘And you said on the phone that you met Jack. Is there anything you can remember about him, anything that might indicate where he could be now?’
Alexander reached for a biscuit. ‘Goodness, not off the top of my head, I’m afraid. A number of artists attended the celebrations, but unfortunately I wasn’t able to talk to everyone.’
‘Do you know of anyone who might still be in touch with him?’
‘I’m sorry.’ Alexander shook his head. ‘You could call anyone whose name was on the guest list.’
She let out a sigh. ‘I’ve already tried.’ After finishing her tea, she asked, ‘What about the WAAC? My grandmother worked for them, and so did Jack—do you think something could have happened there? It’s just very strange that Jack doesn’t seem to have been given the same status as the other important Second World War artists.’
For the first time, Alexander looked grave. ‘I suspect the committee could have done anything that they chose to, Kathryn. They were a very powerful entity. There had never been anything like the WAAC before, and it’s very likely there never will be again.’
‘I see.’ She thought again of Children in the Attic and the trouble it might have caused.
Alexander straightened, gave a hesitant smile and poured more tea. ‘But in this case, I think you’re barking up the wrong tree. You have to remember they were there to support the artists. Their raison d’être was to keep a whole generation of artists safe, as well as the stated aim to record the war, of course.’
She nodded. ‘It was so different then, wasn’t it? No brutal images online in those days.’
‘Everything has changed, from the way war is conducted to the way it’s reported. No one could have imagined back then that soldiers would be able to fire a rocket from a drone on the other side of the world at the flick of a switch.’ He sipped his tea and cleared his throat. ‘Tell me, do you have a theory about what happened to Jack?’
She decided that telling him would do more good than harm; surely he’d have some interesting insights. ‘What if an artist submitted the work of another,’ she began, ‘and they were found out. What do you think the WAAC would have done?’
He gave a small shrug. ‘I don’t really see that it would have been considered that serious, unless the chap was draft-dodging.’
‘What if the artist was a woman?’ Kathryn asked. She knew that he would probably guess she was talking about Eleanor, but she didn’t see that it would matter.
Alexander looked thoughtful. ‘Well, there were women artists—not contracted by the committee, though. They submitted their work and the committee purchased it if they wished to.’
‘But what if a woman artist wanted to work as a real war artist?’
He looked surprised. ‘What…overseas, in the field of battle?’
‘Yes, I suppose so,’ she said, knowing her grandmother as she did.
‘As far as I know that wasn’t allowed until the end of the war. Mary Kessell and Laura Knight were given overseas commissions after the war—Kessell went to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and Knight went to Nuremberg.’
At the Imperial War Museum, Kathryn had seen Laura Knight’s remarkable Ruby Loftus Screwing a Breech Ring and learned how iconic it was. Knight’s painting of the Nuremberg trials was also extraordinary—the realism of the Nazi war criminals contrasted with the missing courtroom walls and the backdrop of a ruined city in flames; it conjured the image of hell itself.
‘So,’ Kathryn said, ‘how difficult do you think the committee would have made it for anyone who tried to send a woman artist overseas?’
‘I’m not sure there would have been any real backlash in that situation,’ Alexander said, with a thoughtful frown. ‘You are assuming there would have been animosity rather than commendation for the effort. Don’t forget, my dear, thousands of artists were unemployed at the start of the war—people weren’t buying books, the country wasn’t even producing any. Books were subject to paper rationing from April 1940, and if you had read my thesis, then you would know there was no advertising industry to speak of, no commercial work for the artists. Don’t forget, Kathryn, the committee was there to help.’
He seemed quite worked up, so she chose her next words carefully, aware that she still needed to look at Jack’s diary. ‘That’s why I think there must be more to it than that.’
Alexander nodded and seemed to relax. ‘It does all sound rather intriguing, and I do hope the diary helps. If not, then perhaps you should read my thesis—I can email it to you, if you’d like?’
‘Yes, I’d appreciate that,’ she said, trying to sound politely enthusiastic; she would never have the time to read the whole thing. She drained her second cup of tea and motioned towards the wooden box. ‘May I?’
‘Please go ahead. Take it over to the table—it will be easier for you. I’m sorry, but I can’t allow you to take photographs. And I hope you don’t mind wearing these?’ He handed her a pair of white cloth gloves.
‘Not at all.’ She pulled them on, waited for the professor to leave the room with the tea tray, and then lifted the lid.
A familiar linen notebook was nestled inside the scarlet folds, and the inside cover read: Sicily, Italy—1943. Her grandmother hadn’t seen Jack again after this trip.
Kathryn tried to imagine never seeing Chris again, never knowing what had happened to him after an abrupt goodbye, but she couldn’t. Her chest heaved and tears pricked her eyes; she blinked them away. She’d grown convinced that Jack must have really loved Eleanor and wouldn’t have left without word unless he had a very good reason. Everything her grandmother had said and done was testament to that. Something must have kept them apart.
Although there were ink smudges and yellow-and-brown blooms from foxing, it was clear from the first page that the script was the same as in the other diaries and that the neat black-ink depictions were Jack’s.
Sunday, 14th November
Down to my last set of Winsor & Newton watercolours, a single block of paper and only a few pens. There’s little hope of getting any more supplies until the ship arrives in a week so I’m going to make thumbnail sketches for the time being and work them up when the supplies get through.
Monday, 15th November
Despite what I wrote yesterday, I’ve just finished another 81/2 x 111/4 watercolour on paper and it’s packaged up ready to come home by return. All in all there are fifteen pictures in the batch. Many are only rough sketches but there are eight that tell the story of the confrontations. It is the most detailed one yet and I stuck to black and white on some but the paintings don’t spare the bloodshed.
Tuesday, 16th November
Some of the other men still aren’t sure of me—I know they resent us and don’t see what we’ve done to earn the stars. I’ve heard them say it, ‘Three pips on each shoulder and as free as the air.’ I had a drinking session in the officers’ mess a couple of nights ago and even Colonel Watkins told me that painting is a sissy’s job. He asked why I hadn’t just signed up, that I should be getting my hands dirty like the other men. If only he knew.
Thursday, 18th November
Hoskins stole my journal last night; he thought I was writing a personal diary until he saw for himself it’s my aide memoire. Bugger off you, nosey bastard—that’s for you, Hoskins, in case you steal it again!
Friday, 19th November
Quiet day at camp waiting for supplies to arrive. It’s rare to get the chance to set up the drawing board; I’ve mostly had to find a surface to set my material down and a safe place to sit and sketch. I’ve wanted to put everything down on paper that I’ve seen but that’s not possible with such limited space and time. Saw incredible ruins today, sky was blush pink and the earth ghostly pale in contrast. Watkins invited me to the mess for dinner tomorrow, if supplies arrive.
Saturday, 20th November
Still no supplies and unit was at a real low today. I had to walk to the new camp because of their bloody-mindedness. I walked for seven miles before Hoskins turned up in the jeep and they gave me a lift the rest of the way. So much for the pips!
Kathryn looked up; the professor was back, reading quietly in his chair.
‘What does it mean, “Three pips on the shoulder and as free as the air?”’ she asked.
‘The military made the artists honorary captains during the war—it gave them access to the officers’ mess, privileges that the other soldiers didn’t have. As you can imagine, it didn’t go down too well with some of them.’
Enough for someone to cause problems for Jack? she wondered. Enough to cause him harm?
Thursday, 25th November
First night on deck was peaceful, even the water was tranquil, but last night we watched the beaches as they got a terrific plastering. Flares and fire all through the night so nobody slept. I sketched the view from our vessel; the silhouettes of the other boats looked very dramatic with the flashes of gunfire and the Verey lights that shone from the shore. The noise died down just before dawn and we watched as the sun rose; it was like a fire burning across the horizon, reminding me of our London from the rooftop.
Friday, 26th November
Some of the unit helped load the injured onto the craft and I went with the other troops up into the village. Traipsed through the walled olive and orange groves, passed abandoned encampments, and dead and wounded on the side of the road. One of them was groaning even though he didn’t have a face. We rested in an orchard and the men ate lunch but I couldn’t bring myself to eat.
Sunday, 28th November
We returned to the village today and it was a job to protect our belongings. We were hassled constantly by the women and some of the men went off with them, just for a packet of cigarettes or food. I sat in the jeep and sketched them and will threaten to send it to Hoskins’ wife if he steals from me again!
Tuesday, 30th November
The men are talking about Christmas, and Colonel Watkins has asked me to paint him a picture that he can send home; that it would mean so much to his family to see where he is. I tried to explain that it isn’t why I am here and how much time it would take but he didn’t listen. I did one such painting before for another colonel because Mum needed the money and I suspect he has heard about it.
Wednesday, 1st December
An appalling day transporting civilian bodies to mortuaries and seeing the families weep. Everything here is covered in flies—those grieving and the limbless bodies. The smell is worse than anything and thankfully I am unable to capture it.
Thursday, 2nd December
After yesterday I am trying to get my mind focused on the job I am here to do—there is no time for careful selection of materials. I need to be clear-minded and impersonal, approaching my subjects without sentimentality. I paint what I see, whether it’s a shattered world, an act of courage and comradeship, or the incredible endurance of these men. That they keep going day after day, week after week, after seeing what they’ve seen, what I see—the waste and loss—I can only admire their courage.
Friday, 3rd December
Watkins cornered me again today to ask about the painting; he said that life could get pretty hard in a unit without people looking out for you. I know it was a threat but I don’t have the materials to do what he wants me to. The supply ship was sunk and Belgian linen is a luxury we no longer have. Painting on anything else would just be a waste of time.
Each page of Jack’s diary was a private arsenal of drawings: roughly sketched civilians, picturesque towns, solitary figures, a pictorial army, an abandoned battlefield or intricate renders of war machines. A scribbled tank with the note ‘Tank transporter’ scrawled in pencil beside it—and, overleaf, the detailed picture of a ‘Nijmegen-A Sqn. 7 Recce Regt. Daimler 9 x 11’.
Kathryn looked at the next entry, brow creasing at the images that accompanied it.
Sunday, 5th December
Weather on Sicily is cooling down. At night it drops to ten degrees but luckily I still have the jacket I was issued with and a jumper that I was advised to take. The men are all wearing cravats to protect them from the dust. I am teaching one of the corporals how to draw. Benedict, he’s only a boy, two years out of school, and I think it does him good to take his mind off things especially at night when he says he can’t sleep. He’s very quiet around the other men but he talks to me in the evenings so I give him a lesson whenever possible. The vistas during the day give ample opportunities to paint with all the undergrowth but at night we wonder whether it hides the enemy.
Monday, 6th December
I am hoping that they will not move our camp for a few days since we have not been in the same place for more than one or two nights the entire time. Our position here at the foothills just outside the village is ideal; we are protected, there is a natural spring that we can bathe in and the first fresh water in days. Benedict has set up the equipment inside the tent that I have been lumbering around for the past few weeks, and there’s a small table and a chair to paint at and an empty water drum to hold my equipment. His lessons will really come along if we are able to stay here for a few days. Today I’m going to teach him how to do a face and while he does that I will get on with a letter for my darling girl.
There it was, a mention of his darling girl. So it seemed he’d still loved Eleanor, more than a year after saying goodbye. It spurred her on.
Tuesday, 7th December
Tonight Benedict painted a sleeping soldier but then finished off by putting a knife through him so I am going to suggest a still life tomorrow. He says it’s not that he can’t sleep, it’s that he doesn’t want to because he doesn’t know if he will wake up again. I got him working on structure and composition, and I told him that his first consideration in painting the finished picture is design; that everything counts on this planning of the basic rhythms.
At the bottom of the page, a tiny figure stooped over a wall drawing; Kathryn guessed it was Benedict by the thickness of his hair and the slender oval face.
Wednesday, 8th December
Letters arrived today but nothing for me, and I wonder if my letters have been getting through. Perhaps that’s what Watkins meant by making my life difficult although I relented and painted his picture for him. It should leave today and I am sending letters home for Christmas including a card I sketched that should amuse Mum and Beth. It has rained for five days; I am sure that must be more than at home.
Friday, 10th December
I know that it’s not possible to feel any worse, now that I’ve seen so many dead and mortally injured; I know it’s not possible to feel two or three hundred times worse if I were to see two or three hundred more dead people but I should like to know for sure. The chaplain spoke of our men tonight, the ones we lost this week, and I can’t bear to think about it anymore. I’ve been invited to the officers’ mess and I’m going to take them up on it.
Saturday, 11th December
There were a few sore heads this morning, mine included. We had to buy the gin and lime but I won at cards and was able to bargain for the round. Benedict was not allowed in but I managed to sneak him out a drink, which he was grateful for.
Sunday, 12th December
I told Benedict that I had no predisposition or special skills. I used to make models like any child, sometimes I would use scale drawings out of magazines but at school we learned to draw anything and everything. I drew my family and other people, and their pets too. I went to work with my father sometimes and drew the men working on their vehicles. I was never very interested in the machinery of war growing up like the other boys, but out here where it wields power, it feels very different. These inanimate objects of metal and man-made materials are used to reduce flesh—there were hours that I spent thinking about the awful irony of it all and how we could not see what we were doing. I studied these machines from a distance but reproduced the images with detail and precision.
Tuesday, 14th December
Benedict has stopped painting; he said that he was glad he had done it because he understood what I did, how I was writing letters home for these people, showing their lives to their loved ones. He said he understood and didn’t need my help anymore. I would have liked to share that moment more than any other with my darling girl who has showed me the joy in helping others to paint.
My darling girl: it was as good as seeing Eleanor’s name. Kathryn flicked through the rest of the pages but couldn’t see another mention.
Wednesday, 15th December
Maybe it was good that Benedict stopped coming when he did. I would have soon had to show him my work. The pictures that he hasn’t yet seen are pits full of corpses, naked and starved skeletal remains. I would have told him to do as I do, not look on them as bodies but as a series of forms within a picture, nothing more than charred lumpy joints, emaciated limbs. I could show him and tell him that I was giving them a legacy, or I could just keep them hidden for now.
This was the first time that she had seen Jack write in this way. Most of his other entries were optimistic, certain of his task, and none had been so grim. It seemed the bloodshed had started getting to him—surely it would to anyone, after a time.
She glanced up at Alexander, who had gone back to his book, the falling dusk painting him in half-light. She needed to hurry; she didn’t want to outstay her welcome, and there was still a third of the diary yet to read.
‘I’m just going to listen to the news quietly,’ the professor told her, looking over. ‘I’ll try not to disturb you.’
‘Don’t mind me,’ she said with a smile. ‘I appreciate you letting me be here.’
He turned the television on and the six o’clock news was playing, the suited newsreader standing up from behind the desk and walking towards the camera. The headlines were about clashes in Somalia, and the number of civilians killed. The footage showed distraught relatives grieving over small covered bodies. Kathryn pulled her attention back to the diary, one ear on the unfolding events.
Thursday, 16th December
The air is thick with lemon and frangipani, and I’m finding it hard to reconcile the beauty of this place with what lies beyond the walls—knowing that tomorrow morning any one of these young lives could be taken. Is it enough to merely record this war, is it enough to honour their bravery with a flick of the wrist and a few lines here and there? I have dozens of them, small thumbnails on buff paper; interrupted lives, men re-visioned in shades of light and dark. It’s hard not to be melancholy, especially when there is a constant haze of dust and smoke on the horizon.
Friday, 17th December
I am striving for the right combination of design and colour to communicate the sombreness of this place. I have just finished a picture of the horses that we passed yesterday, villages that had been abandoned with animals that had been killed and horses slaughtered rather than have them fall into enemy hands.
Sunday, 19th December
We’ve been on standby for three days and it’s hard to get drawing done on the boat with all the movement. The men are getting a bit jittery, it’s hot and cramped and the training exercises have taken up the last two nights whilst the Canadian nurses have kept the officers busy in the wardroom. I’m too tired to write anymore.
Tuesday, 21st December
We are to move camp so the men are having a quick breakfast of grapefruit juice, fried egg and bacon. I know I should eat too but I can’t keep anything down when we are on the move. It’s more time to pack my gear and make sure I’ve got everything I need. Watkins has told me that I’m going in the last vehicle along with the other war correspondents.
Thursday, 23rd December
Thankfully the water is calm now and the storm has settled as I haven’t been able to draw for two days with rough seas and the flying spray. We watched the sunset and I sketched our first sunset here; the sun was a golden orb over the indigo sea and some of the biggest cumulus clouds I have ever seen; all number of shades of orange, lilac, grey and mauve.
Friday, 24th December
We pulled anchor at midday and left Sicily. Locals in small boats sang as we left and we were given a special send-off that lifted the men’s spirits briefly. It’s a shame to be leaving, the landscape is beautiful and I’ve several thumbnails that I want to work up when we reach our next port of call.
Saturday, 25th December
Christmas Day and I was invited into the wardroom, I thought it would be a chance to cool down but the fans weren’t working and I was forced to buy a round of drinks. Some of them went ashore today so are trading fruit and peanuts instead of money. Bowls of grapes, oranges and melons have been put around but the men are more interested in the rum. The gramophone plays Glenn Miller and Peggy Lee non-stop and outside the searchlights don’t look eerie but beautiful instead; it is one of those times when war becomes surreal. I’m not sure I can ever capture that but I must do my best for the men. Their lives are not just shades of light and dark, but lives lived in the full spectrum of colour.
How vivid and beautiful his descriptions were, and how interesting that he was representing them in pictorial form when she would just as happily have read the words and used her imagination—they drew her into the events of war, unlike the coverage now. On TV, the newsreader was talking about ethnic clashes in Kyrgyzstan, and she wondered when she had become so desensitised.
Sunday, 26th December
Boxing Day and Watkins gave me a book to read. I was able to talk to him afterwards, philosophical discussion on the benefits of having a war photographer rather than a war artist after he confessed that he wasn’t aware of any real difference. He said he believes that having a photographer who records events is more advantageous than a war artist who is charged with interpreting events, so I think we will need a few more nights of discussion, and perhaps some more rum or gin.
That was the last page. She closed the diary and stared down at its linen cover tasting bitter disappointment—or was it defeat?
What next? There was little to keep her in England now, but also nothing that she could offer her grandmother in the way of answers. Although, with her discovery of the Children in the Attic painting and the engagement, hopefully Eleanor would supply some answers of her own.
Kathryn realised that Alexander had turned off the TV and was looking at her expectantly.
‘It just ends,’ she told him, trying not to sound too disappointed as she placed the diary back in its velvet-lined case. ‘I still don’t know what happened to Jack. But thank you very much for showing it to me.’
‘My pleasure, it was lovely to meet you. Would you like a drink—perhaps a glass of wine before you head home?’
‘Thank you, but I should really get going.’ She smiled and picked up her handbag.
‘Wait a moment,’ Alexander said suddenly. ‘There’s something I forgot to mention.’
‘Yes?’
‘I didn’t buy the diary at auction—it was a private sale. Strange story, really. The seller wanted to remain anonymous. I’m not sure why. It’s hard in our small circle. And anyway, as I said, you can’t be anonymous with the internet.’
Well, this was intriguing. Kathryn felt a surge of hope. ‘So you know who it is?’
‘Oh yes, his name is Aldridge. Part of the family, by all accounts—needed the money.’
Her heart started pounding. ‘Was it Stephen…Stephen Aldridge?’
‘No, Timothy. His brother. He lives overseas. The strange thing is, I’m not supposed to disclose the fact that I have it to anyone. You just sounded so desperate that I had to show it to you, but you really mustn’t tell anyone that it’s here—except your grandmother, of course. It’s our little secret.’
‘Yes, of course,’ Kathryn said as she gave him a reassuring smile. But her mind was racing, wondering why Stephen’s brother would want a secret sale: so as not to upset the rest of the family, perhaps, who wanted to keep the diaries safe and private. Or was there something specific about Jack that the Aldridges were trying to hide?
She followed Alexander to his front door and shook his hand.
‘I’m glad we were able to help each other,’ he said warmly. ‘Please get in touch when you’ve spoken to your grandmother—I would love to come over and see her paintings.’
‘Yes, of course. And thank you again.’
Kathryn felt the sudden need to walk, get some air and think. After so much time indoors she was missing the space and light that she took for granted in Melbourne.
The rain had stopped and the pavements glistened in the warm, dusky night. The city felt cleansed, the promise of a clear night ahead, and Kathryn relished the sharpness of her breath as she began to walk. Houses along the mews were lit from inside, throwing crosses from their sash windows onto the road, while classical music from an open doorway created a strangely mystical atmosphere.
It would be an hour’s walk to Charing Cross and the train home, but her route would take her down to the Bayswater Road, through Hyde Park and Green Park and along the Mall, where Eleanor and Jack had spent much of their time. Following in their footsteps, Kathryn could imagine herself back there with them while she sifted through the different elements and made sure she hadn’t missed anything.
But instead of turning south onto Craven Road, she found she was walking north, turning left into Chilworth Street towards Cleveland Square. The Regency streetlamps flickered, illuminating the road and pavements. She wasn’t thinking about dawn on the other side of the world, and Chris and Oliver starting their day; her thoughts were on Jack aboard the ship, watching the Verey lights brightening the skies, and of Eleanor back home, standing at her window as the searchlights crisscrossed the night, and of the thousands of miles between them.
Kathryn reached number eight and stood gazing up at the first-floor balcony, her thoughts fixed on Jack and Eleanor and the time they’d spent here all those decades ago.
She had got to know Jack, listened to his thoughts and seen his work, and in the process drawn her own portrait of a man who cared deeply, who showed a profound humanity—and who wouldn’t abandon the woman he loved without cause.