After a sleepless night which was plagued with visions of Pam and the twins and his cosy home, Harry applied for a pass to spend some time with his wife. He was given twenty-four hours, which did not give him time to do anything to sort out the muddle he was in. How could he turn his back on Pam and his children for an old love? He had loved Julie, still did in a way, but it wasn’t the same, or he didn’t think it was. Whichever way he went, he was going to break someone’s heart. And he dreaded to think what Pam’s parents would have to say about it, or his own parents, come to that. Divorce was unheard of in their circles; it carried a stigma not easily overcome. But if he didn’t go down that road, he would make bastards of his lovely babies, not to mention ruin Pam’s life. And he loved her.
He had to make Julie see that, so he called for her at the hotel and suggested a day out in the countryside. ‘Shropshire is a particularly lovely county,’ he told her. She was dressed in the floral cotton again, topped with a rose-coloured cardigan. Her fair hair was held back by a blue Alice band. Anyone less like a servicewoman and more like the girl he had married was hard to imagine.
She laughed. ‘I know. I was stationed at Bridgnorth.’
There was so much he didn’t know about her life since they parted, it was like getting to know a stranger. They took a bus into the hills and set off to walk and talk, catching up on the last four years as old school pals might do at a reunion. It was difficult for him to refrain from mentioning Pam because she was in his thoughts, and difficult for her not to speak of Alec because he had been such a large part of those years, but neither wanted to introduce a jarring note, though both knew they would have to face up to the implications.
They returned in the late afternoon with nothing decided, only to find a furious Pam waiting in the lobby for them. She had evidently been there some time. An ashtray overflowing with lipstick-tinted dog ends and a half-empty wine glass bore witness to that. Seeing the two of them come in, laughing together, inflamed her even further. She stood up. ‘So it is true! Harry Walker, you two-timing low-down skunk. You bastard! Not content with one wife, you have to be greedy and have two …’ She looked Julie up and down, a flushed but decidedly attractive Julie. ‘As for you …’ Words failed her and, picking up the wine glass, she dashed the remaining contents in Julie’s face. ‘Or perhaps you didn’t know. Perhaps he kept you in the dark just as he did me.’
‘Pam’ he said, taking the glass from her hand and setting it back on the table before it followed the wine. ‘Calm down, for goodness’ sake, everyone is looking at you. I can explain.’
‘Are you going to tell me she isn’t your wife?’ She jerked her head towards Julie who had wiped the wine from her face and was dabbing at the stain on the front of her dress with a handkerchief. ‘Because I won’t believe you.’
‘No, I’m not saying that.’ He took her arm. ‘Let’s go somewhere where we can talk in private.’
‘There’s nothing to talk about. I’ve finished with you. I’m going back home to my children. They need me more than you do.’ She picked up her handbag and rushed from the room.
He gave Julie a despairing glance and followed Pam out to the street. She walked a few yards, then stopped and turned towards him. She was calmer now, the high colour of anger drained from her face, leaving it pale and drawn. ‘That is Julie, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘How long?’
‘How long have I known she wasn’t dead?’
‘Yes.’
‘Only since yesterday.’
‘You saw her in Canterbury.’
‘I thought I was seeing a ghost, I told you that at the time. I can’t tell you how shocked I was when she turned up here.’
‘I went to the airfield. They said you’d been given leave. Leave! I don’t suppose it occurred to you to come home to me. Instead of that you booked in here.’
‘I did not.’
‘According to the manager you were. He told me your wife had come to spend her leave with you.’
‘I don’t know where he got that from. I only went to her room to talk to her.’
‘I’m supposed to believe that?’
‘Yes. It’s the truth.’
‘Where have you been today, if not spending your leave with your wife?’ The venom she put into the last word made him shudder.
‘Out walking. Talking mostly.’ He forced himself to stay calm. Becoming angry would not help. ‘She had an extraordinary tale to tell.’
‘I bet she did.’
‘How did you know she was here?’
‘I didn’t know. I booked into the hotel and saw her name in the register. Mrs Julie Walker. It confirmed it.’
‘Confirmed what?’
‘This.’ She opened her bag and delved in it for the anonymous letter and thrust it at him.
‘Oh, Pam,’ he said forlornly, studying the crumpled missive. ‘I’d have done anything for you not to have found out this way.’
‘Any way would have been bad. You’ve made a whore of me and bastards of our children.’
He winced. ‘Not intentionally, and it can be put right. I’ll get a divorce and marry you again.’
‘I’m not sure I want to be married to you, Harry Walker.’
‘You can’t mean that.’
‘You never made any secret of how much you loved your first wife. And now she’s here and you can go on loving her …’
‘But I love you and you love me and we both love our children. Surely you don’t want to throw all that away?’
‘I don’t know what I want. I don’t know anything anymore. I’m going home. Just leave me alone.’ She turned on her heel and left him standing. He took a couple of steps to follow her, but changed his mind and went back to the hotel. A confrontation with Julie about the future could not be put off any longer.
* * *
Julie had gone to her room, where she sat at the dressing table and contemplated the wine stain on the front of her dress. It wouldn’t come out and the garment was ruined, though that was the least of her worries. She felt desperately sorry for Pam, who hadn’t given either of them time to explain what had really happened. She hoped Harry would be able to calm her down; the last thing she wanted was to come between them. She wanted to get out of their lives, but simply disappearing again was not an option because there would have to be a divorce, and something had to be decided about Rosie and that grave. And that meant involving Mr and Mrs Summers and her parents-in-law. She was dreading that.
She stripped off the dress and put her uniform on again. In that she could be Sergeant Eve Seaton which, she realised, was what she wanted to be, and it helped her to be more sensible. She was a mature woman, not the child bride she had once been. Both she and Harry had moved on; the past could not be recaptured.
She turned when she heard a knock at her door and Harry’s voice saying, ‘May I come in?’
‘Yes, of course.’
He came in, almost shamefaced. ‘I’m sorry about that outburst, Julie.’
‘It was understandable. How did she find out?’
‘An anonymous letter.’
‘How awful for her. Someone really wanted to cause trouble – and I can guess who.’
‘Who?’
‘Ted Austen. He’s wicked, that man. I can’t understand how good people are being killed every day in raids and he seems to survive without a scratch. I hope you managed to persuade Pam I’m no threat to her or your life together.’
‘Aren’t you?’
‘No, of course not. I shouldn’t have come up here; I should have left it to a lawyer to sort out the legal side and been content with that. It was silly of me, but I just wanted to see your face when you saw me again and realised I was alive.’
He sat on the bed, his hands dangling between his knees. ‘Did you expect us to carry on where we left off?’
‘No, Harry. Silly I might be, but I’m also a realist. I couldn’t expect you to mourn me for ever, much as it would have boosted my ego.’ She sat on the dressing table stool and faced him squarely, putting on a smile to cheer him because he looked so miserable. ‘Even before I knew you had married again, I knew it could never happen. We aren’t the same people we were. We’ve grown up a bit, don’t you think? You have a life with Pam. She is the mother of your children and you love her. Besides, you are not the only one to find someone else.’
‘You mean you married again?’
‘No. I didn’t dare commit myself that far while I couldn’t remember who I was or whether I was already married.’
‘But you want to?’
‘Yes,’ she said firmly. ‘I want to. I loved you, Harry. The naive girl I was will always love you for what you once meant to me, for the good times we had together, but I am no longer that naive girl, no longer Julie Monday. We have both changed.’
‘Bless you,’ he said, reaching out to take her hands in his. ‘I’ll have to try and make Pam understand that. At the moment she says she doesn’t want to be married to me and has told me to leave her alone.’
‘She doesn’t mean it. Go to her, Harry.’
He raised her hands to his lips in a gentle kiss, then stood up, took a long look at her and left.
Everyone was crammed into the sitting room behind the bakery in Swanton Morley – everyone except the main protagonists. Pam’s father was sitting in his rocking chair gripping his pipe, though there was no tobacco in it and he wasn’t attempting to smoke it. Jane was dispensing tea to Mr and Mrs Walker and Mr and Mrs Summers. The men were sitting on upright chairs brought in from the dining room, the women sat together on the sofa. It was, so they had decided, a council of war.
‘Pam is in a right pickle, poor dear,’ Jane said. ‘She came back late last night. I gave her one of my sleeping pills and put her to bed.’
‘So it’s true, then. Julie is alive,’ Hilda said.
‘Yes. Pam saw them together.’
‘So, it must be our Rosie in that grave,’ Angela said. She was not concerned with how Pam was feeling or what Harry and Julie would do about their marriage; her only concern was that her daughter should be exhumed and reburied in Scotland.
‘It looks like it,’ Donald said. ‘I can’t tell you how sorry I am. It’s my fault. I didn’t look closely enough before confirming the body was that of my daughter-in-law, but it never occurred to me it wasn’t Julie.’
‘I want the grave opened,’ Angela said. ‘Who would be responsible for authorising that?’
‘The coroner, I reckon,’ Bert said. ‘But I don’t see what you’d gain by that. Beggin’ your pardon, Mrs Summers, but you wouldn’t be able to tell it were your daughter, not after all this time. All we can be sure of is that it i’n’t Julie.’
‘Where’s she been all these years, I should like to know?’ Jane said. ‘Has Harry known all along she wasn’t dead?’
‘Of course he hasn’t,’ Hilda said in defence of her son. ‘When he came back from Canada, we told him we had buried his wife and he believed us. He had no reason not to.’
‘Well, he’ll have to divorce her and marry Pam properly,’ Jane said. ‘Goodness knows I don’t hold with divorce; marriage is for life in my book, but I can’t see any other way out. We have to think of the children.’
‘I agree,’ Hilda said. ‘I was all for sending Julie packing and saying nothing, but too many people know she’s alive now.’
‘Not least that creep Austen,’ Stuart said with feeling. ‘He’ll not let it drop if he thinks there’s money to be made out of the situation.’
‘Seems Julie herself scuppered that by going to see Harry,’ Donald said. ‘Do you think Austen knows that?’
Stuart shrugged. ‘Couldn’t say, but it makes no difference, does it? We’ve got to get everyone out of this mess before the papers get hold of it.’
‘You think it will get in the papers?’ Jane asked, horrified at the thought.
‘I wouldn’t put it past Austen to sell them the story.’
‘Who’s going to be the guilty party in a divorce?’ Jane asked, having no interest in Ted Austen’s antics.
‘Not Harry,’ Hilda said. ‘He’s done nothing wrong.’
‘Neither has Pam.’
‘I think we’re jumpin’ the gun,’ Bert put in, fiddling with his pipe. ‘It’s up to Harry and Pam and Julie how this is resolved, not us.’
‘That doesn’t alter the fact that our daughter needs to be buried properly.’ Angela was determined to have her say.
‘She was buried properly,’ Donald protested. ‘It was a very moving service. The only thing that’s wrong is the name on the stone. I suggest we simply have that changed.’
‘And the baby?’ Hilda asked.
‘George is at peace. He is with someone who tried to protect him. Let’s leave it like that, shall we?’ He turned to Stuart. ‘I’ll undertake to have the headstone changed if you tell me what you want put on a new one.’
‘That seems to be a sensible solution all round,’ Stuart said slowly. ‘We could have another short service when it’s put in place. You’ll agree to that, Angie, won’t you?’
She sighed. ‘I suppose I must.’
‘If Harry agrees,’ Hilda said.
There was no one there who cared whether Julie agreed or not.
Not a quarter of a mile away, in Honeysuckle Cottage, Harry had arrived and persuaded Pam to talk to him. He had been summoned to the Station Commander’s office when he went back to the station after leaving Julie. Two wives turning up to see him in the space of two days was not to be tolerated, he had been told. He was to take a week’s compassionate leave and sort himself out and then get back on duty, which was no more than he wanted to do anyway.
‘Say what you’ve got to say, I’m listening,’ she said tonelessly. She had arrived home very late the night before after an uncomfortable journey on two crowded trains. Physically tired and emotionally drained, she had few words to say to her mother before she had been packed off to bed with a mug of cocoa and a sleeping tablet. Unused to it, it had felled her like a log and she was still not properly awake.
‘There is only one thing I need to say,’ he said quietly. ‘I love you. There is no one else …’
‘That’s two things,’ she said, managing a smile.
‘So it is, but they can’t be separated.’ He reached across the table and took both her hands in his. ‘I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Nothing and no one can alter that.’
‘Not even your wife?’
‘Not even Julie. Please say you believe me.’
‘I want to, but—’
‘There are no “buts”. Do you love me?’
‘Harry, you know I do. Would I be so upset if I didn’t?’
‘Thank heaven for that.’
‘That doesn’t mean I’m not angry. I thought I was married, but I’m not, am I? I am what is called an “unmarried mother”.’ She shuddered. ‘Horrible phrase.’
‘You are married to me. In the sight of God and in my heart we are man and wife. Nothing can alter that. All we have to do is make it legal.’
‘How?’
‘Divorce, and after that a quiet marriage ceremony, and we’ll be back to how we were.’
‘But Julie was dead and now she’s alive. I can’t help thinking that you loved her once and if it hadn’t been for that air raid you’d be with her still.’
‘Perhaps. Perhaps not. Who knows? I wouldn’t have met you. But it happened and I did meet you and I did fall in love with you. We have a future together. You must believe that.’
‘Oh, Harry.’
He stood up, went round the table to her and drew her to her feet. He put his finger under her chin and tipped her face to his. ‘OK?’
He bent to kiss her, a gentle kiss of reconciliation, but that led to another and another and to each she responded with growing passion. ‘Let’s go to bed,’ he said, making for the stairs.
‘But the twins … I left them with Mum. I’ll have to go and fetch them soon.’
‘The twins are in good hands. We need this time together.’
It was not until some time later that she was willing to listen to Julie’s extraordinary story. The twins had been fetched and put to bed and their parents were in their favourite position, cuddled up on the sofa. ‘Fancy Mum and Dad having to play pig in the middle to that lot,’ she said, referring to his parents and Rosie’s. ‘Do you agree with what they decided?’
‘Yes, if Julie does. I can’t see her objecting.’
The little twinge of jealousy she felt at the mention of her rival’s name was dismissed. After all, Harry had assured her Julie herself had a new love. If that was the case, she wished her well. As far as Pam was concerned she had the best of the bargain.
Julie seemed to have spent an awful lot of time on trains in the last few weeks, most of them crowded. There were mothers, babies and young children coming away from London and the flying bombs, service personnel, British and American, spending their leave looking for a good time in the capital, and others moving from one posting to another. The trains were often shunted into sidings while troop trains or ammunition trains hurtled past them. Sometimes they were diverted because the track had been damaged by bombs. And at night they went at the pace of a snail with a tiny blue light in each carriage, certainly not enough to read by. Taking a journey by train required patience. Julie had plenty of time to think while she journeyed southwards.
The emotion of the last two days had drained her. Finding an identity and then deliberately discarding it had taken all her inner strength, but she was convinced it had been the right thing to do. Harry had a family he loved and she had seen how confused he had been when she turned up, torn by conflicting loyalties. Telling him about Alec had been her way to convince him he was not breaking her heart by choosing to stay with Pam. But what about Alec?
Squashed between a mother nursing a baby and a thin-faced man in a shabby jacket, she went over all the good times she had spent with him, recalled his sense of fun, his infectious laugh, and found herself smiling. He could always make her smile. Hearing he was missing believed killed had been a harrowing time and made her realise just how much she loved him. That had somehow been overlooked in the confusion of regaining her memory and her determination to find Harry. Would Alec still want her when he knew the truth? Would he be prepared to wait while she and Harry divorced or would he reject her? If only she could see him face to face, then she might find out, but that would have to wait until he came back to England.
She left the train at Liverpool Street Station and debated whether to take the Underground or go by bus to Waterloo. She decided she was strong enough now to take the Underground. Being shut in cupboards was a thing of the past and she was a new woman. She arrived back at Manston very late and tumbled straight into her bed. She didn’t hear the string of buzz bombs that droned overhead towards the capital.
She was woken early the next morning by Florrie who had heard she was back. ‘Wake up, Eve. I want to know what happened and I’m on duty at eight. Did you see him?’
Julie rubbed sleep from her eyes and sat up. ‘Harry? Yes, I saw him.’
‘And?’
‘We’re getting a divorce. He’s got a new wife and a couple of babies.’
‘Oh. Do you mind?’
‘Not at all. What’s past is past.’
‘You sure?’
‘I’m sure.’
‘Thank heaven for that. I was afraid you’d want to go back to him. I’ve got some news for you. Alec’s back in England. He’s been wounded.’
‘Wounded? When? How? How bad is he?’
‘He’s in hospital at St Hugh’s. He caught some shrapnel in the shoulder but it’s on the mend.’
Julie scrambled from her bed and began stuffing her things back into her rucksack. ‘I’ve still got three days of my leave left. I’m going to see him.’
‘Good idea.’ Florrie paused. ‘He knows you’ve remembered. I wasn’t going to tell him, but Mum blurted it out, so be prepared for a lot of questions.’
‘Do you think he’ll still want me?’
‘He’ll be a fool if he doesn’t.’ She paused. ‘I’ve got to pick up some bigwig from Adastral House today. I’ll take you as far as London, if you like.’
‘Thanks, that’ll be a help.’
‘Hurry and dress, then – I’ve got to leave in half an hour. You’ll have to get some breakfast in London.’
‘OK.’
Julie spent the journey telling Florrie about her reunion with Harry in minute detail. ‘He’s still incredibly good-looking,’ she said. ‘When I first saw him, my heart turned over. It was almost as if we’d never been parted, but that didn’t last beyond that first meeting. I soon realised we were strangers, and the more we talked the more I knew it had gone, that love we once had. It’s a memory, Florrie, a pleasant memory, that’s all.’
‘And Alec?’
‘I love him, Florrie, more than ever.’
‘Good.’ Florrie negotiated the traffic in Kingsway and drew up at the kerb outside Adastral House. The wall which had been built to protect the windows had been destroyed by a doodlebug and there was nothing left of it. ‘You’ll be all right from here?’
‘Yes, of course. See you later.’ She got out, fetched her rucksack from the boot and set off up the road, looking for a bus stop. Everywhere was evidence of new bomb damage. The flying bombs didn’t make craters like conventional bombs but the blast from the explosion as they reached the ground was far-reaching and terrifying. If one of those dreadful things could do that much damage, how much more could a whole lot of them do? It didn’t bear thinking about.
Before she caught the train to take her away from her youthful past for good, she had one more thing to do. She went to Highgate Cemetery. She wanted to kneel at the grave and say a little prayer for her son, and for Rosie who had died looking after him, and to say goodbye to Julie Walker who was no more. It was Eve Seaton who would finish her service as a WAAF, Eve Seaton who would marry Alec Kilby, if he would have her. Julie Walker would be among those who had disappeared during this dreadful war, never to be seen again.
She had left the cemetery and was strolling down Highgate Hill to the Underground station, at peace within herself, when she found herself walking towards the hated figure of Ted Austen. He had his hands in his pockets and was whistling tunelessly. He was some distance away when he saw her, but then he stopped whistling and hurried forward, grinning in delight. She hesitated, but realising he had lost the power to harm her, strode on, prepared to walk right past him.
She wasn’t given the chance. Above her the drone that Londoners had come to know and dread grew louder. People in the street looked up and, as the engine cut out, screamed and ran for cover, including Julie, who dived into the front garden of a villa she was passing and threw herself under a bush, curling herself up into a ball with her arms over her head.
The blast from the explosion sucked the breath from her body and left her gasping for air, her mouth full of dust. Her eyes burnt and felt as if they were being pulled out of their sockets, her ears hummed painfully, filled with the sound of falling walls, breaking glass, shrieks and moans. The bush which had afforded her shelter had been completely stripped of its leaves. She lay there, covered in leaves and broken glass from the windows of the house, too winded to move, convinced that every bone in her body had been crushed. It was worse than the experience in the train because that had taken the force of the blast. It took several huge breaths to fill her lungs with air again and then she tentatively moved her head and then her arms and legs and realised she was unhurt.
It was several minutes before she was able to get to her feet and by then three ambulances, an ARP Warden and two policemen had arrived on the scene. They set to work with commendable efficiency, helping the injured and laying out the dead for removal. Julie walked down to see what she could do to help.
‘You all right, miss?’ one of the policemen asked her.
She caught sight of the body the man was dragging to the side of the road and shuddered. It belonged to Ted Austen. ‘Yes,’ she said, suppressing a shudder. ‘I’m fine. Can I help?’
It was some time later, when all the injured had been taken to hospital and those who had died had been removed to the mortuary, that she recovered her rucksack from the garden of the villa and was directed to a casualty centre and offered tea and sandwiches and, more to the point, a towel and soap and somewhere to clean herself up and change. After that, assuring everyone she was fine, she was ready to continue her journey to Oxford. She had had another lucky escape, but Ted Austen’s luck had run out. Was that God’s justice, she wondered? She didn’t wish anyone dead, but it seemed to be the final closing of the door on her past life.
Alec saw her walking down the ward towards him and his heart did a quick flip. She was in a civilian skirt, a pale green-and-white-striped cotton. It was topped with a white blouse, the outfit cinched in at the waist with a wide leather belt. Her hair curled in her neck, a little longer than he remembered it. She walked quickly towards him, a tentative smile on her lips as if unsure of her welcome.
He reached his good arm out towards her. ‘Eve. You’re back.’
She took his hand and bent to kiss his cheek. ‘I’m back.’ She meant more than just her physical presence, she meant all of her, heart and soul as well. ‘All present and correct.’ She paused to study his face. ‘How are you?’
‘All present and correct.’ He echoed her words. ‘Or I will be when they let me out of here. Never mind me. What about you? Mum said your memory had returned and you’d disappeared.’
‘I didn’t disappear exactly. I went to sort things out.’
‘And did you?’
‘Yes. I can tell you the whole story now from beginning to end. No gaps – or only a few. That’s if you want to hear it.’
‘Of course I do.’
She pulled up a chair and sat close to his bed, her hand in his while she told him everything, from her first meeting with Harry right up to their last goodbye. ‘I was in such a muddle when I first remembered,’ she finished. ‘But I knew I had to find Harry. I couldn’t come to terms with it until I had.’
His grip on her hand tightened. ‘And?’
‘And we decided the past has gone, dead and buried, along with our son. There is no Julie Walker, only Eve Seaton. There are practicalities, of course. Getting a divorce for one thing …’ She paused. ‘I don’t know how you feel about that.’
‘If it means you are free to marry me, then I’d welcome it.’
‘You still want me? After all that?’
‘Of course I do, you goose. Come here.’ He pulled on her hand so that she fell across him, and gathering her in his good arm kissed her good and long to the accompaniment of wolf whistles from some of the other patients and their visitors.
‘Alec!’ She extricated herself at last and sat up.
He grinned at her. ‘You wait until I get out of here, there’ll be more of the same. How long do you think the divorce will take?’
‘I don’t know. Not long, I hope. No one is going to contest it.’
‘Then you had better be making plans for a wedding. We’ll get married in Harston Church, if that’s all right with you.’
‘Of course it is. I look upon Hillside Farm as home and your parents as the mum and dad I never had.’
‘Oh, Eve,’ he said. It was inadequate for what he felt, but he couldn’t put it into words. The uncertainty of the last few days had been unbearable: not hearing from her, wondering if her old love would claim her, and being intensely jealous of the unknown man. He needn’t have worried; she had come back to him and all was well. He felt a lump in his throat and an unaccustomed wetness in his eyes. This would never do. ‘I’ve got to have some intensive physiotherapy but I’ll get leave at the end of it. With luck we should be able to get married before I return to duty.’
‘You’re going back, then?’
‘Got to, haven’t I? There’s a war to be won.’
A bell clanged loudly and the visitors stood up to leave, including Julie, who knew how strict the staff were about visiting times. ‘I’m not due back at Manston until the day after tomorrow, so I’ve booked in at a bed and breakfast. I’ll come and see you again tomorrow. We’ll talk some more, make plans.’ She bent to kiss him and trooped out with all the other visitors, treading on air. She wouldn’t forget Harry again, nor George, but the memories would be happy, not regretful. Alec was right; there was a war to be won, but they would win it and there would be peace – peace to love Alec, have his children and grow old with him.