They loved this place.
It was theirs.
Theirs.
And it’s in ruins.
I wasn’t expecting it.
I wasn’t expecting to find my way here at all.
But if I did, I’d pictured something whole: a place with lopsided eaves, and a crooked chimney; a hallway with faded floral paper decorating its walls.
I move forward, picking my way around fallen beams and stone, until I come to a gatepost, hidden beneath a shroud of thick ivy. Crouching, I reach out, shakily pushing the ivy apart, revealing the post’s surface beneath.
My eyes find the engraving immediately.
It’s the first thing they go to.
And, as they do, my cheeks work, the mass in my throat builds, and I reach out, running my frozen thumb over the two names I see.
Robbie, reads one.
Clarence, says the other.
I don’t question who Clarence is.
I know.
Imogen has Robbie use the nickname all the time in the novel.
‘Tim said it always made Iris smile,’ she told me.
It makes me smile now, through the tears rolling down my cold face.
I’m really crying.
It stuns me, this overwhelming emotion I feel.
I have no idea how long I sit with it, my trembling hand pressed to these names, letting my sobs free.
But when I do finally rise again, my legs are stiff, my heart feels emptied, and I know what we need to do.
We reshoot that same night.
It didn’t take me long to convince Ana and Nick that we should go yet again when – once I’d returned to my room, washed my face, and wrestled myself under some degree of control – I carried on down to theMabel’s Furyset, catching them on a break from filming. We all want to get the scene right, and, when I put the change I want to them, they both agreed with it immediately.
I was still very shaken, reeling from my onslaught of feeling in the woods.
Your barriers come up and you close yourself off, Felix said to me yesterday.
But I hadn’t closed myself off.
I hadn’t been able to.
Felix was in the hangar too, over with all the other bomber boys at the refreshment stand. He hadn’t yet replied to my message – he still hasn’t – but when I caught his eye, he gave me the first smile I’ve had from him in months, which was far from easy, but nonetheless made me feel a bit better.
It helped, actually, to be back in the thick of everyone. It was a relief not to be alone any more, and to have the distraction, however short-lived, of a purpose.
