She reaches into her apron pocket and takes out the one-page letter, the last one she’d received back in June. She unfolds it again, for the hundredth time, and rereads the scrawling handwriting.
166th (Newfoundland) Field Regiment
c/o APS Algiers, Tunisia
May 6th, 1943
My darling Ellie Mae,
I must keep this short, darling, as we’re on the move. All is well in XXXXXXXX. Thanks so much for the package. Socks were just the ticket. It’s cold enough to skin you at night, and hot enough to poison you in the day. All the fellows enjoyed the chocolate. Where’d you get that from, maid? Did you wheedle it out of George?
I think of you all the time, my darling. Can’t tell you much more than they’re keeping us busy here. May be heading to XXXXXXX next. Don’t know when we’ll be back in England again. Guess that depends on old Hitler.
I’ve learnt a new word. Habibati. It means darling in Arabic.
I’ll see you in my dreams, habibati.
Your loving Thomas
She refolds the letter and tucks it back into her apron pocket. Not a word from him since then, despite the letters she’d written him every week. Where are you, Thomas? Are you safe? Are you even alive? Why don’t you write? It’s so hard, Thomas. The not knowing. Sometimes I— You don’t know what it’s like, the not knowing. It’s so very, very hard.
Over a year now since she’d last seen him, at the Cow Tower by the riverside that September when he’d given her the beautiful Art Deco engagement ring. Where he’d got it from, or how he’d afforded it, she couldn’t begin to imagine. She’d thought it best to keep the engagement secret, with Thomas away. How do you tell your Catholic father that you’re marrying a Protestant foreigner and moving to a place thousands of miles away? How do you tell your ex-fiancé, who mopes around you like a sad dog, that you’re engaged to someone else? It had just seemed best to carry on as normal. As if nothing had changed.
She hadn’t accounted for Dottie poking through her things and stealing the ring. And not only the ring. Thomas’s telegram too! What had got in to Dottie? Why had she done these horrible things?
She unsticks a needle from her sleeve and takes a spool of white thread from her apron pocket. Threading the needle, she picks a fat white piece of popcorn from a bowl on the coffee table and sticks the needle through its spongy skin. At least Dottie’s kept her promise. She hasn’t told Poppy about the engagement. And Ellie hasn’t revealed Dottie’s thievery to Poppy. It is an uneasy truce.
She closes her eyes and tries to paint the picture of Thomas’s face in her mind’s eye, but it’s like water has been spilled over the painting, washing out the colours and lines.
Nothing to do but to keep going. Wake up in the morning, wash, put on her uniform, ride to the fire station on the bicycle Poppy gave her for her birthday, type and file and make sandwiches and tea and deliver them to the firemen in the staff car, ride her bike home, cook supper, sleep. Then do it all again the next day. She was sleepwalking through her life, but was that so bad when so many others had lost everything? She still had the memory of Thomas, and she clung to it like it was a life preserver.
At night she’d tuck herself around her spare pillow and imagine it was Thomas; bury her face into the soft feather pillow and pretend it was the rough wool of his uniform, that its scent was Thomas’s scent of musk and soap. She closes her eyes. Be safe, my darling. Come back to me. Come back to me soon.
The front door swings open and Dottie rushes into the sitting room, like a colt bolting from its stable. Ellie looks up. When did her sister become so tall? Fourteen now. How had she not noticed?
‘Ellie! George found us the biggest tree! Bonds had a stack of them brought down from Scotland.’
‘George helped you?’
‘We bumped into him in the market.’ Dottie smiles slyly at Ellie as she unwinds her scarf. ‘I think he was buying you a present. He hid it when he saw us.’
Henry Burgess stomps into the hallway, dragging an enormous fir tree. ‘Lift it up, George,’ he calls over his shoulder. ‘Careful of the telephone stand.’
He veers through the archway into the sitting room, George shuffling after him as he grapples with the bulk of evergreen fronds. ‘Out of the way, Dottie, pet. Find an old blanket for us to lay this on till we put it up.’
Ellie springs to her feet and pushes her father’s chair out of the way. ‘Good heavens, Poppy. We’re going to have to cut off the base to make it fit.’
‘Dottie insisted George find us the biggest one.’ Henry coughs into his handkerchief. ‘You know she has him wound around her little finger.’
Dottie gallops back into the room, the cat dashing ahead, and tosses an end of the blanket to Ellie. They arrange it over the carpet as Henry and George manoeuvre the tree into place. They lay it down, its branches fanning out and creeping under the sofa and coffee table. The cat jumps on top, kneading the green bulk before it settles down purring.
Ellie sets her hands on her hips. ‘Right. Dottie, show George where the saw is in the cellar. This is going to take some planning.’
***
Henry rises out of his armchair and yawns as he stretches. He sets his sherry glass on the coffee table and stands in front of the tree. ‘You’ve done a grand job, girls.’
Ellie glares at her sister. ‘No thanks to Dottie.’
Dottie grimaces at Ellie from the carpet, where she’s curled up petting the cat. ‘Stringing popcorn is boring. And you always move where I put the baubles anyway.’
‘The colours need to balance. You can’t put all the red decorations together. It doesn’t look right.’
‘Spoken like a true artist.’ Henry taps Dottie’s foot with his slipper. ‘Time for bed, pet. We’ll be up early for Christmas Mass.’
Dottie groans. ‘Oh, Poppy, do we have to? Can’t we just open presents and have a nice breakfast, play charades and listen to the king? Why do we always have to go to boring old mass?’
‘Because we’re good Catholics and we have to set an example for the boys who are boarding at St Bart’s over Christmas.’
‘Best listen to your father, Dottie,’ George says as he collects the last of the sawn-off branches.
Rising to her feet, Dottie picks up the cat and buries her face into its patchwork fur. ‘I guess we better go, Berkeley.’ Dottie smiles at George. ‘Thanks for helping with the tree, George, even if you did have to saw off three feet.’
George makes an exaggerated bow. ‘Always at your service, Dottie.’
Dottie glances at a box wrapped in brown paper under the tree with a tag: To Dottie From George. ‘What did you get me, George?’
‘You’ll find that out in the morning, pet,’ Henry says as he heads towards the hallway. He waves his rolled-up newspaper in the air. ‘Goodnight, all. Happy Christmas. Come along, Dottie. Thank George for the present.’
Dottie waves Berkeley Square’s paw at George. ‘Goodnight. Thank you for the present. I’m sure I’ll love it.’
Ellie collects the empty sherry glass. ‘Can I get you anything else, George? I should be getting to bed too.’
George clears his throat. Reaching into his pocket, he takes out a small box wrapped in the same brown paper. ‘I … I just wanted to give you this, El.’