‘London,’ she said, tears brimming, because she loved that she could still hear that boy she’d known. Loved that he’d held on to him. ‘I told you that. I wrote … ’
‘Iwrote.’
‘No … ’
‘Yes … ’
‘What?’ she said, in bewilderment, and so much relief. He hadn’t meant to disappear. ‘Where?’
‘The wrong place, I think. Please don’t cry.’
‘I can’t help it. I’ve missed you a bit.’
‘I’ve missed you a bit, too,’ he said, no longer still, butclosing the distance between them, scooping her up in a hug, just as he had countless times before. Only now, he didn’t swing her playfully around and release her. He held on to her, as she held on to him, her heart no longer singing, but swelling, until she felt it might burst. ‘I’ve missed you,’ he repeated, his lips to her ear. ‘I’ve missed you every single day.’
‘I tried so hard to find you.’
‘I tried to find you.’
She said no more. There was too much to say, and explain, and try to make sense of, and she didn’t know where to start with any of it.
She didn’t want to start.
Not yet.
She just wanted to go on holding him.
So, she did, losing herself in his embrace, his warmth.
Him.
He said nothing either, just tightened his arms around her.
It was enough.
For that minute of time standing still, it was more than enough.
But eventually, that minute did end.
He set her back on her feet, and together they turned for the kitchen, where they set to unpicking the past nearly six years that they’d lived as strangers.
Then time started moving again.
Then, it raced.
It didn’t take them long to establish what had gone so wrong for them, back in the summer of 1937, when Robbie had failed to meet Iris at Waterloo, and their letters had failed to reach each other. By the time they’d finished laying a fire in the oldgrate, their hands skimming over each other’s as they stacked dry leaves and sticks, they’d got to the bottom of it.
It wasn’t a complex tale.
Just a sorry one.
Robbie hadn’t been able to come to Waterloo that day because of his mother. The revelation saddened, but didn’t surprise Iris. She’d suspected as much ever since Father Bannister had written to her about Annabelle Grayson becoming unwell.
Only, Annabelle Grayson hadn’t been unwell.
She’d fallen, with the help of Robbie’s father, down the Dower House stairs, breaking her spine. She’d never walk again, and to this day lived in a York nursing home, paid for from the proceeds of the Dower House sale, which Robbie had forced his father into.
‘He knows not to set foot near her again,’ he said. ‘I’ve told him that I’ll go to the police if he does. It’s only because of my mother that I haven’t done it already.’
