She smiles. ‘That’s very sweet of you. He’s an airman, though.’
‘What do you mean?’
Ellie taps the picture of the soldier. ‘He’s wearing a blue uniform. RAF.’
Thomas frowns at the postcard. ‘Oh, no. Am I stunned, or what?’
Ellie slips the card back into the envelope and tucks it into her coat pocket. She’ll have to hide that from Dottie or she’ll never hear the end of it.
‘I thought you’d forgotten about me. I wouldn’t have blamed you if you had, after … after the last time.’
Thomas peers up at a raven cawing and flapping at a red squirrel in the spreading branches of a beech tree. ‘I’ve tried to forget about you, Ellie Mae. I threw myself into buildin’ those pillboxes along the coast. They’ve probably gots twice as many as they wanted. Good luck to any German who lands on the Norfolk coast is all I says. I figured if I tired myself out, I wouldn’t be able to think about you. But as soon as I closed my eyes, you were there, smilin’ at me with your lovely eyes the colour of a stormy sea, and that yellow hair of yours.’
Ellie looks down at her booted feet and knocks her toes together, flexing them in her boots to jolt the sluggish blood back to life. ‘I haven’t seen you for months.’
‘I’ve seen you, though.’
She jerks her head up. ‘What do you mean, you’ve seen me?’
‘At Samson’s a few times. The Lido once.’
‘You did? Why didn’t you ask me to dance?’
‘Because I couldn’t trust myself with you. With George either.’
Ellie runs her tongue over her dry lips. ‘George is a good man.’
‘So you’ve told me a hundred times.’
‘Not a hundred times.’
‘More times than I wished to hear.’
Ellie sits on the ledge beside Thomas. She’s never been to the Plantation Garden in the winter. Not a soul here but the two of them. ‘How did you know about this place? It’s off the beaten track.’
The corner of Thomas’s mouth twitches. ‘I likes to find the hidden corners of places. If you ever come to St John’s, I’ll show you all the secret places there.’
‘Secret places? To entertain the ladies?’
He chuckles. ‘Well, now, that would be sayin’.’
‘So, what am I? Just another girl to chat up?’
Thomas frowns at her, his grey eyes as stormy as the winter sky. ‘Do you wants to know the truth of it, Ellie Mae? You were just that, at the beginning.’
Ellie bolts to her feet. ‘Well, thank you very much! That’s the most insulting thing I’ve ever heard.’
Thomas grabs hold of Ellie’s arm. ‘Please. Sit down. Let me have my say. Then if you wants to send me packin’, I’ll go and I’ll not bother you again.’
Ellie sits down. ‘Fine.’
‘The first time I saw you at Samson’s with your friend Ruthie I thought, now there’s the best-lookin’ girl in Norfolk by a long shot. Just like Betty Grable.’
‘Then you spilt your Coke all over me.’
Thomas scratches his cheek. ‘I was a right idiot. I thought that was the end before I’d even started.’
‘Well, you made up for it at the Christmas dance. I think George was jealous of your jitterbugging. He’s not much of a dancer.’
Thomas taps at the thin film of ice on the surface of the fountain. ‘What is it about George?’ He looks back at her, and his gaze, naked with love, pierces her heart. ‘Because if you loves him, Ellie … well, if you loves him, I’ll just have to work a lot harder to make you love me more.’
Ellie’s heart batters against her chest. ‘George is … George is …’
‘Do you love him, Ellie Mae? Tell me you love him.’
Ellie stares at Thomas, knowing that this is the end. The end of the life she’s known. The end of the life she thought she was heading for.
‘I—I …’
Then they are kissing, and Thomas’s warm mouth tells her everything she needs to know, everything she wants to know.
‘Does George kiss you like this?’ Thomas says as he covers her face with kisses. ‘Does he see the woman you are? Tell me you love him, Ellie Mae. Tell me.’
Ellie gasps for breath. ‘I love you, Thomas. I love you. Not George. I love you.’
Chapter 25
Tippy’s Tickle – 15 September 2001
‘Sam! Oh, thank God you’re here,’ Ellie calls out to them from the porch at the top of the steps to Kittiwake. ‘Becca’s missing.’
Sam flies up the steps two at a time, Sophie following behind. ‘What do you mean, she’s missing?’
Ellie stands on the porch, rubbing her arms. ‘We were over in the shop with the other Brownies this morning painting that banner. Then Emmy came in looking for lunch.’ Ellie steadies herself against the railing. ‘He suggested he take Becca out to look for partridgeberries since it’s such a lovely day. He took Rupert with them. He came back an hour ago. He was in a terrible state. He said the fairies must have taken her.’
‘What! Good God. Why didn’t you call me?’
‘We’ve been trying. Your phone was off.’
He runs his hand through his hair as he paces the porch. ‘Where’s Emmett?’
‘He’s gone back out past the marshes near the woods looking for her.’ Ellie clears her throat. ‘They were near the brook where we had the picnic on Canada Day. Oh, Sam, he’s beside himself.’
***
‘Becca! Becca, girl! Where you at, maid?’
Emmett stamps through the brush, heedless of the jabbing needles of the twisted larches that scratch at his hands and face. The great black dog gallops ahead, like a bear on the hunt for honey. Emmett flops onto a large moss-covered rock and, taking a handkerchief out of his back pocket, wipes the sweat dripping down his face.
Where you at, Becca? Didn’t I tell you to watch out for those little people? They goes after children like you. They wants you as their own, you see. You wouldn’t’ve heard them singin’, so they must’a showed themselves to you. I told you not to follows them, didn’t I, Becca? Why’d you follow them? You didn’t even takes the bun with you to keep them away. You has to keep some bread on you, maid, or they’ll come after you.
Dropping to his knees, Emmett clasps his hands and looks up through the branches to the patch of blue sky above. Holy God, I knows the fairies are your angels fell from Heaven. Can you have a word in their ear, God? Tells the little people not to hurt Becca? Keep her safe, will you, God? Help us find her. Please, Holy God. Please.
***
When Sophie and Sam reach the clearing in the woods, they find Emmett sitting on a fallen log by the brook, his head in his hands, Rupert curled on the moss by his feet. Sam stomps through the long, dry grass towards him. Emmett looks up as they approach, his cheeks wet under his dishevelled grey hair. His faded blue gaberdine jacket is turned inside out and he holds one of Florie’s currant buns, the crumbs dusting the grass at his feet. The dog lumbers to its feet and saunters though the meadow grass towards Sam.