But I imagine it.
That low, fun voice.
The hint of Yorkshire in his accent.
All the boundless life and love.
Hope too, of a different future, for all of them, all ofus, ahead.
Hello, Clarence.
24 November 2018
A LAST-MINUTE PLOT TWIST AT DOVERLEY HOUSE
It’s official: Iris Winterton and her bomber boys are getting a sparkling new ending.
We’re offering no clues as to what that ending’s going to be. We don’t have any. ButBomber Boysauthor, Imogen Hale, arrived at Doverley House late yesterday, and has been working with a team on-site since, rewriting the movie’s closing scenes.
‘It’s all very sudden,’ said our anonymous source. ‘One minute, we’re planning to go ahead as per the novel, the next, that’s off and everything’s changing.’
We have of course tried to uncover what’s triggered this sudden about-turn, but our source either couldn’t, or wouldn’t, say.
But they’ve assured us that everyone believes the new ending is going to be a very good thing.
‘It’s given the whole team a lift,’ they’ve said. ‘We’re all buzzing.’
And when will we mere mortals find out what this new fate for Iris and the boys looks like?
‘When you buy a ticket and see the movie,’ our source said.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Claudia
When you buy a ticket and see the movie.
That was pure Blake.
All of it was him.
He gave Felix those words he took toThe Screen.
Felix was waiting for me yesterday when I arrived back at Doverley from Tim’s. It was midday already. Not wanting to leave Tim alone, I’d called Ellen from his room, telling her everything – quietly, since Tim really had fallen asleep by then – and hadn’t set off myself until she’d arrived in a taxi, ready to be with him when he woke.
‘So now we know,’ she said, as I greeted her at Tim’s door. ‘I do see it.’ She looked into my eyes, her head to one side. ‘You have nothing of Robbie, though. Nothing at all.’ Her cheeks moved in a smile. ‘He really must be somewhere else.’
‘I hope so,’ I said.
With a sigh, she looked across at Tim. ‘How peaceful he seems. I fear he won’t stay with us much longer now. He’s done what he’s been waiting to.’
I hated leaving them.
But I’d had things to do too.
I telephoned Imogen on my way back to Doverley, filling herin on Tim’s revelations, getting her on board with the rewrites (‘Oh my god, of course,’ she said, ‘of coursewe’ll change it for him’); then, I called Ana, briefing her as well (‘Yes, Claude,yes,’ she said. ‘I love this. I love you’); and, that done, I disintegrated, sobbing so uncontrollably that I had to pull over, my head on Nick’s steering wheel, overwhelmed with pain at all of it, and for myself too; the complete disarray of my stage that I need to somehow wrestle into order if I’m ever going to have a hope of functioning, let alone living on it again.
‘I see Tim got his own back,’ said Felix, opening the door of Nick’s car, pulling me into a hug.
