‘He definitely told me he has.’
‘You believed him?’
‘I saw no reason not to. I mean, when you consider what he went through, just a few hours later … ’
Silently, I nod. She’s right, of course. And, as I replay everything Tim endured that night – his terrifying journey, navigatingMabel’s Furyacross Germany; the crew’s final flight home; how close Tim, so badly burned, came to dying when the plane crashed,with only him inside– it seems suddenly incredible to me that he’s remembered anything. Look at how much I’ve forgotten about my grandparent’s crash, and that was in 1989, not 1943.
‘It was all such a long time ago, too,’ says Imogen, echoingthe line of my thoughts. ‘Although, it never actually seemed to feel that way to Tim. And he was always completely convinced by whatever account he was giving me, even if he’d told me something totally different the week before.’
‘Did he realise he’d told you something different?’
‘Oh yes. It would panic him. He’d call me up, ask to meet, and make me write down his new version, word-for-word. He’d watch me do it. It was extremely important to him that I got it right. And once he was settled on a version of events, he’d relax, you could see it in him. It was like he was just so relieved to have it all ordered in his mind.’
‘Hence you not wanting any of it changed in the movie.’
‘Exactly. Obviously, I’m not going to pick at the minutiae, but I need the big stuff to chime with what he told me. I don’t know whether he’ll still be alive when this is finished, or if he’ll even want to watch it, but if he does, then I can’t have him confused. I can’t have him regret this.’
‘I get it,’ I say, and don’t ask her what Tim’s view is on the ending, because I really don’t want to ruin her Sunday, which I have no doubt I would, bringing up that thorny issue. Plus, Ana’s told me it’s the one element of the book Tim’s always refused to discuss with Imogen. It upsets him too much, apparently.
Again, I get it.
Imogen’s ending upsets everyone who reads it.
‘If I’m honest,’ she goes on, ‘I think it probably means more to me than him, that we keep his scenes locked. I just feel it’s something I owe him. But I’m not sure he’ll even remember now what we agreed on.’
‘But he didagreethat the control room was where Iris and Robbie met?’
‘Absolutely. He was there too. He’d gone up with Robbie, desperate to see Iris himself. He didn’t want me to put that inthe book, though. “It’s their story, not mine,” he used to say. “Let me give them their story.”’ Even above the pulsing pop music, I hear her sad sigh. ‘The rest of it though is just as he told me, the first time we spoke about it. Iris and Robbie played cat and mouse all day looking for each other, then Robbie finally tracked Iris down in the control tower, running there straight from his flight briefing. I like it, I think it works, but as I say, Tim gave me a smorgasbord of options, all over Doverley, out in the woods … ’
‘The woods?’ That piques my interest.
‘Yes, apparently Iris and Robbie had this secret place that they used to go to as children. An old cottage of some sort.’
‘Oh, that’s gorgeous.’ In my mind’s eye, I picture it: an abandoned overgrown hideaway. ‘How come you don’t mention it in the book?’
‘It was another thing Tim made me promise not to write about. He said Iris and Robbie were both very protective of it, which used to make him terribly envious when they were little. I gather he used to take himself on all these expeditions, trying to find it. Now, he just wants to make sure it remains hidden. Sacred.’
‘Have you seen it?’
‘No, I’ve never been able to find it either. Those woods arevast.’
‘And you weren’t ever tempted to have Iris and Robbie’s reunion there?’ Instinctively, it feels much more atmospheric to me than the control tower breakroom.
‘Not really,’ says Imogen. ‘No more or less than anywhere else. Every time I rewrote the scene with a different setting, the essence of what went on between Iris and Robbie was the same, anyway.’ She breaks off, and when she speaks again, her tone is musing. ‘I suppose that’s what shone through for me, writing it all those different ways. It was such a miracle that they got tosee each other again. They were in the midst of a war. Either of them could have been killed, long before they met. They could have been stationed at god knows how many other places. But they were thrown together, in their childhood home, after nearly a decade of separation. It gives me goosebumps even now, thinking about it.’
I get them too, hearing her say it.
‘I think that was why I was never too precious about which of Tim’s settings we used,’ she says. ‘I realised it doesn’t matter where Iris and Robbie met. It just matters that they did.’
I nod, struck by the perfect truth of it.
‘Does any of that help?’ she asks.
‘Yes,’ I say, and it really does.
I might not have my nugget of gold yet, but I’m getting closer, I can feel it.
Thanking Imogen, I leave her and her daughter to their morning, and, cradling my silent phone, once again pick over everything Nick and I shot last night.
