‘You’re the one we owe our reunion to,’ Alexi says.
‘I think it would have happened anyway,’ she says. ‘You’d have got in touch somehow.’
‘Not without a push,’ Izz says. ‘So, shall we get this over with, then?’
It doesn’t take Fern long to set up the shot, her phone mounted on a tripod with a selfie ring which, it turns out, is just a circular light that makes everyone look ten times better-looking than they are. I must get myself one for FaceTiming with Mum and Dad, see if they notice.
‘Do you know what it is that you want to say?’ asks Fern, and they both say they do, they’ve worked it out between them. They’re ready.
‘OK,’ she says. ‘So you’re live when I press this button. Just wait a few minutes for viewers to join.’
I come to stand behind Fern’s phone so I’m not in shot, and Lucy comes to my side, putting an arm around me. She’ll be leaving soon and I don’t know how I’m supposed to go on breathing. How can I have lost her and Patrick in the space of a few hours? I hold in the sob that wants to burst out of my body, and pat Lucy’s hand where it rests on my arm.
Fern’s giving them the nod and we all wait in silence.
Izz looks at Alexi who I imagine must be a calm, dependable, solid sort of man in his normal life. Here, though, there’s been a fair bit of damp eyes and whispered conversations I wasn’t privy to, and I can see the toll it’s taken on him too. He looks as tired and journeyed as Izz.
‘Hello,’ Alexi says and looks to Izz with a nod of encouragement.
They’re holding hands just out of shot.
‘Hello,’ my friend repeats, looking into the tiny dot lens. ‘I’m Izz Armstrong. And this is Alexi Thorne.’
He smiles into Izz’s eyes, and I might be wrong but they seem to get lost in each other for a second, just beaming like best friends and a little bit abashed with one another.
‘We, um, we were reunited because of you,’ Alexi goes on, turning to the camera once more. ‘You all tried to find me because of some images you saw of us from over fifty years ago.’
‘Long time, fifty-eight years,’ Izz says to Alexi.
‘A lifetime.’
‘I was surprised that anyone was interested in our story,’ Izz says, again like she’s addressing Alexi.
‘The first I knew about it was my granddaughter showing me the film made by a very talented young woman called Fern Brash.’
We all look at our new young friend as she watches her subjects on the camera screen and blushes.
‘She recognised something in us that a lot of you recognised too,’ Izz tells the viewers.
At this, Izz and Alexi fall wordless, and I can tell Alexi is finding it hard to go on. Izz lifts his hand from where she’d held it out of shot and brings it up onto her lap, cradling it now in both hands, sending quiet encouragement to him.
Alexi clears his throat. ‘You could all see how much we cared for each other.’
Izz nods gently and takes over. ‘And you felt for us when you found out that we had to separate.’
Alexi speaks, his voice shaky. ‘I thought if anything was going to clear my head of Isobel Armstrong, it was serving my country at an army posting miles away in Malta. I hoped the sun would bake her out of my brain.’ He laughs a whispery laugh. ‘But I thought of you every day of my life from that point on.’
Izz and Alexi let the next part go unspoken, but I can see they’re leaving a silent space for it as they look into each other’s faces. The years when Alexi met a local girl, a nurse, and they had a son and lived a settled life where he’d been the provider because that’s what men were supposed to do and because part of him wanted to as well. He’d said all this last night over dinner. And he shared with us how he’d told his wife about Izz and she’d been clever enough to know Malta was a world away from the Cotswolds and was contented enough to be the second love of his life, and they’d rubbed along together until she passed away leaving him a widower who filled his retirement with grandkids and gardening and trying not to reminisce.
‘I lived,’ Izz says, ‘always wondering where the other half of me was, thinking I’d never find out.’
Alexi sweeps a tear from his own face then one from Izz’s and the pair sniff and smile, and they huff a soft laugh of astonishment that this is actually happening.
‘There’s a lot to be said for a quiet life,’ Alexi adds, and Izz nods in agreement before speaking through a big rush of smiling tears.
‘But I think there’s a lot more to be said for a great big unapologetically happy life where you don’t care if people disapprove of you.’
Alexi pulls Izz closer and they hug, but my friend breaks away to speak directly into the camera again like she can’t contain her words a moment longer.
