‘You keep touching your stomach,’ said Prim. ‘And it’s getting a little round. Be careful, won’t you? Ambrose is just waiting for an opportunity to dismiss you. I suspect he’d relish the chance to overrule Robbie too.’
‘I know.’
‘Why on earth haven’t you got married? Any fool can see it’s what you both want. I have to say I’m rather disappointed in Robbie.’
‘He doesn’t know. I haven’t told him.’
‘What?’ said Prim, eyes widening. ‘Whyever not?’
‘I didn’t want him to have to worry about anything else.’
‘But he wouldn’t have been worried.’ She sounded incredulous. ‘Have you even met your beau, Iris?’
‘Yes, Eleanor … ’
‘You can call me Ellen, if you like. Or Ellie. Anything, frankly, but Prim.’
‘All right.’ Iris grimaced. ‘Sorry.’
‘No you’re not.’
‘I am, actually,Ellen. And I have met Robbie.’
‘Then you should know you’d only have made him happy, telling him this. You must do it the first chance you have.’She folded her arms, and her woollen stockinged legs. ‘Don’t cheat him of happiness. Iris. Iris! Are you even listening to me?’
‘Shh,’ said Iris, moving to the door, opening it to the dark, uninsulated corridor, letting more cold air in. ‘I thought I heard something.’
‘Heard what?’
‘That,’ said Iris, running now, at another beeping. ‘Someone’s trying to radio in.’
‘We never got to Berlin,’ Tim says. ‘I made a stupid mistake, a rookie mistake, and didn’t allow proper provision for the wind.’ His eyes empty as he leaves me, reliving it. ‘There was a flak field near Frankfurt. We all knew to avoid it. But it was a dark night, and I was in a panic.Blind panic, they call it, don’t they?’ He doesn’t pause for me to respond. ‘Rob asked me to request another rest leave, after we lost Clare. I didn’t want him and the boys to finish their tour without me though.’ His scarred cheeks work. ‘I fooled myself that I could keep going for them, keep switching my fear off up there.’ Wheezing, he once again grapples for his mask, shakily lifting it to his face. I do my best to hold it steady for him, but I’m shaking too. ‘By that night, I’d directed us through one-hundred-and-four sorties,’ he says. ‘All I needed was to bring us home from that last one. It was our third tour. I doubt we’d have been asked us to do another. Even Bomber Command had its limits. But the wind was strong, and I was in too much of a rush to get us home, so I didn’t allow proper provision.’ His face works. ‘I didn’t allowproper provision.’
I lay my hand to his arm, trying to calm him.
‘I led us straight into that flak field,’ he says. ‘They coned us with their lights, and Rob was a good pilot, but he wasn’t good enough to get us out of that. They tore us apart. God –’ he closes his eyes – ‘the hell of it.’ He takes a shallow breath. ‘I got hit.’ Weakly, he touches his ribs. ‘We lost all but one engine, and nearly lost Danny too, out the rear-turret. Ames dragged him in. Knocked his chute out though. A lot of the others were damaged.’ He swallows. ‘There were extras … ’
‘Extras?’
‘Yes.’ His eyes peer into mine. ‘You know about them?’
‘No.’ Slowly, I shake my head. ‘I just … hoped.’
‘Ellie’s always said we had Iris to thank for them.’
Even as he speaks, my mind fills with that voice I heard at Iris’s window last night.
They couldn’t get to their chutes. They were burning. Everything was burning.
It felt familiar.
I couldn’t place why.
I can now.
It was Tim’svoice, of course: younger, clearer, full of panic, but unmistakeably his, sounding in Iris’s memory.
Was he the reason then, that she smuggled those extra chutes aboard?
