‘Isn’t that a good thing?’
‘I’m not sure. We’ve been flying together for fifteen months. This is our third squadron. The odds can’t be on our side.’
‘I don’t think that’s how odds work,’ said Iris, as much for her own benefit as his. ‘I’m sure they reset, every night … ’
‘Do they?’ He sounded less than convinced. ‘My fear,’ he said, still eyeballing the planes, ‘is that when our luck runs out, it’s going to do so in spectacular fashion.’
‘Don’t say that,’ said Iris, appalled. ‘Please.’
‘You’re right, I shouldn’t.’ With a ragged laugh, he pulled his focus from the planes, back to her. ‘I’m being morose.’ His eyes were as red as Lewis’s in the library, swollen with exhaustion. ‘Don’t tell on me, will you?’
‘Who to?’
‘Rob, when you find him.’
‘That doesn’t feel very likely at the moment,’ she said. ‘Can you really not think where he might be?’
‘Afraid not. But I’ll tell him you came by.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, and didn’t ask whether Robbie had ever mentioned her to him.
She wanted to do that.
She wanted to do it very much.
But she was too afraid of hearing Jacob say no.
She’d already trawled the base looking for Robbie’s billet, but did so again anyway, just in case she’d missed him. Retracing the steps of her dreams all over again, she covered its every fog-shrouded corner before eventually setting back for the house. A light drizzle had started, a biting breeze with it, lifting the mist. She wished it would stop. She’d been hoping for the visibility to worsen and ground everyone that night.
My fear is that when our luck runs out, it’s going to do so in spectacular fashion.
If only she could shake Jacob’s laconic voice from her mind.
The lunch bell rang, carrying through the spongy air. She didn’t pick up her pace, hearing it. She wasn’t remotely hungry. And, as she saw the men that began to spill through Doverley’s porch, headed for the base’s canteen, she realised how little appetite she had for meeting any more strangers. She and Clare had been alone in the WAAF’s dining room for breakfast – they’d got there so early that no one working a day shift had yet arrived, and those on nights had already left – but lunch would inevitably be busier.
Prim would undoubtedly be in attendance.
Iris couldn’t face her.
She grimaced at the rapidly advancing men, and decided she couldn’t face anyone.
She stopped walking, considering where she should go.
Then: another sound, piercing through the blanketing cold.
A sound so instantly familiar that it dizzied her, whisking her backwards, across the years, stealing her breath with memories.
It went on: the high, penetrating call of a goshawk.
She turned towards it, peering into the sky above Doverley’s woods.
She couldn’t see the bird circling, but it kept calling, its short-sharp song filling her ears.
And, as her feet moved, taking her into the meadow’s long grass, she didn’t question any more where she wanted to be.
She knew.
She’d never had to find her way to the cottage from the house before. When she’d run to it as a child, it had always been through that old gateway on Doverley’s boundary, which Robbie had used to heave open. But even now, after all these years, this woodland felt like home to her. Instinctively, she sensed where she was going.
