‘That sounds like you’ll be glad when it’s over.’
‘Heavens no!’ Evelyn lied. ‘I’m looking forward to it.’
‘Good,’ said Em, rising from the bed and kissing her mother’s cheek. ‘You deserve this party.’
Did she? thought Evelyn when Em had left her. Did she really?
Unable to look at herself in the dressing table mirror, she turned towards Kit’s side of the bed and took in the precise way he had laid out his clothes ready to put on. He had planned everything like a military exercise, leaving nothing to chance. When he had first suggested they should celebrate their twentieth wedding anniversary, she had imagined a low-key family affair. But he had said two decades of putting up with him warranted more than that. ‘And don’t worry about arranging things,’ he’d assured her, ‘I shall do it all.’
Most husbands would happily come up with the proposition to throw a party and then immediately hand the responsibility over to their wives. Not Kit. Once he had a thing in his head, there was no stopping him. He had spent an age putting together the guest list and on a daily basis the list grew and grew. ‘Is there anybody in the village you haven’t invited?’ she had teased him.
‘We know so many people,’ he’d replied, ‘and there are some we simply can’t not invite. Imagine how offended they would be not to receive an invitation.’
That was Kit all over; he hated to disappoint or upset anybody.
‘Not dressed yet?’
Again Evelyn was startled out of her thoughts. This time by Kit.
‘Just about to make myself presentable,’ she said cheerily. ‘Although I fear it’s going to take more spit and polish than usual. I should have gone to the hairdressers and had my hair set.’
‘Nonsense, you’ll look your usual beautiful self.’
‘Dear God, Kit, you do say the sweetest of things.’
‘Only when it’s true,’ he said, coming over to her. ‘I’ve brought you a cup of tea.’ He placed it on the dressing table. ‘I thought you might like one before the cocktails start to flow.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, thinking that she couldn’t wait for a proper drink. Something to take the edge off her anxiety.
‘Shall I leave you to get ready?’ he asked.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Stay with me for a while and then we’ll get dressed together. For now, let’s have a moment of calm before the storm.’
He sat on the corner of the bed where earlier Em had perched, then turned towards the door as a crescendo of laughter, male and female, could be heard, followed by the sound of somebody giving a rendition of a popular tune. Evelyn didn’t know what it was, but it was rather catchy.
‘It’s fun having the children home with their friends, isn’t it?’ Kit said, facing her again.
‘Yes,’ she answered, ‘they bring the house to life, don’t they? When Edmund and I were growing up here, there was very little laughter. Mother would affect a fainting fit if there was so much as a whisper to shatter the peace and quiet.’ She sipped her tea. Kit had made it just the way she liked, strong and with only a splash of milk.
‘There was very little to laugh over at Island House either when I was a child,’ he said. ‘When I think about it, that’s what stands out the most for me. Not my brother Arthur’s sadistic cruelty, or Allegra arguing with Hope, or Dad always being away, but the lack of joy. That to me now, having experienced the happiness of being married to you and having Pip and Em, seems such a profound shame. Love, and making others happy, is all that counts if you ask me.’
He looked so earnest as he spoke, and Evelyn was struck, as she so often was, by seeing beyond his scars, beyond the moustache and the flecks of grey in his hair, and seeing the handsome young man he’d once been.
‘Do you ever wish you could turn back the clock?’ she asked.
‘To a specific time?’ he replied. ‘Or just back to being young again?’ He paused. ‘Or to a moment before doing something rash that one now regrets?
Noting the careful way he had answered her, she said, ‘A bit of all three, I suppose.’
‘Do you want to turn back the clock?’
She smiled. ‘I asked first.’
‘The obvious answer would be to say I’d go back to when I was in Canada, and I’d make sure I booked my passage home on a different ship.’
‘And the less obvious answer?’
‘I wouldn’t turn back the clock and change what happened to me. Who knows what might have happened if I’d returned later, or sooner? I could have made it home safe and sound, then flown with the RAF and been shot down and killed on my first mission. I count myself as one of the lucky ones.’ He leaned forward and touched her hand. ‘I’ve been the luckiest of men, Evelyn. In so many ways.’
She raised his misshapen hand, the fingers of which had never straightened after being burned, and turning it over, she kissed his palm. ‘I’ve been lucky too.’
A moment passed while she gazed into the blueness of his eyes and she was suddenly taken back to the day, twenty years ago, when she had stood before him in church and uttered the words ‘I do.’
It had been a classic wartime wedding, hastily thrown together. She had worn a day dress bought with clothing coupons, some of which had been donated to her by Romily and Hope, and the service had been attended by just a few close friends and family. From the church they had walked the short distance to Island House where Mrs Partridge had served sandwiches and Kit’s favourite tomato soup in mugs. By pooling rations, enough ingredients had been collected in order for Mrs Partridge to make a small wedding cake complete with dried fruit.
When they cut the cake together, Kit had kissed Evelyn with such a look of adoration on his face, she had promised herself she would never do anything to hurt him.
Chapter Twenty-One
Quince Cottage, Melstead St Mary
October 1962
Florence
Florence was not the murdering kind. She really wasn’t. But when it came to her mother-in-law, she was prepared to make an exception.
Over the years she had thought of many ways to get rid of Ruby Minton, but being the sensible person she was, sneaking up on the old bat with a heavy saucepan, or adding arsenic to her tea, or placing a tripwire at the top of the stairs, was clearly out of the question. And anyway, no matter how vile Ruby was, the woman wasn’t worth going to prison for.
However, right now she would happily swing for the old witch.
‘I said you look like a cheap whore in that dress.’