Instinctively, I warm to this woman.
She’s another bit of goodness, I can tell.
‘What is it?’ I ask her.
‘I,’ she begins, then pauses, biting her lip, before forcing herself on. ‘I wasn’t sure whether I should do this,’ she continues. ‘I’ve been worrying about it. But I’m off work today, so I thought I might as well come along. And I called my sister, and my husband. They both said I should. That you might appreciate it.’
‘Appreciate what?’ I ask, but even as I do, I feel my heart go out to this woman, and I realise I already know.
‘It happened to me too,’ she tells me, confirming it. ‘Two months ago. I was twenty-one weeks.’ This time when she smiles, I can tell she’s trying not to cry. ‘I just wanted to tell you that I understand, and you’re not alone.’ She blinks, taking a quick breath. ‘You’re really not alone. And I’m so sorry for everything extra that you’ve had to go through.’ She turns to Nick. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘I’m sorry for you, too. I really am.’
‘I can’t imagine how you’re both coping.’ Her eyes arebrimming. ‘I couldn’t bear having it all so public. I can’t bear it anyway,’ her voice catches, ‘but I couldn’t bear that.’
I don’t plan to hug her.
But, before I know it, that’s what I’m doing.
And she clings to me, like it means as much to her as it does to me, to share this, if only for a moment.
I don’t question whether we’re being observed.
I don’t care if we’re being photographed.
I don’t think about Blake.
I think about this woman, and her bravery in coming forward to say this to me.
I think of how grateful I am to her for doing it.
And how right mum is.
The hateful voices are loud.
But the kind ones are strong.
Chapter Fourteen
Ifeel like going into lunch even less after that, but I don’t do it alone, because Nick once again takes my hand – or I take his; I’m too distracted to register which, and I don’t suppose it really matters anyway.
The meal is at least short. By the time we’ve all sat at the corner table the landlord leads us to, we have less than forty minutes to get through before Blake’s car arrives to collect us, and, in the packed, buzzy dining room, it goes quickly.
I try, as we place our orders with the landlord (dry toast for Emma; ‘Screw Blake,’ she says), to picture the pub as Robbie’s home, but it’s been modernised so much that it’s impossible to imagine it as anything but what it is: a Chef & Brewer that looks exactly the same as every other I’ve eaten at, down to its open fire, wine bottle candles, wooden spoons bearing table numbers, and chalkboard menu. It’s perfectly pleasant, but – like the road outside, and Doverley’s pamphleted porch, and luxe bedrooms – devoid of any sense of a past. Frankly, I’m more than ok with that. Given how tired and emotional I feel, I’m not sure I could handle coming up against any new trigger that might set me off into another trip down memory lane – real, or imagined.
Everyone else leaves us to it now that we’re inside, getting on with their own meals. Most of the diners are retirement age – it is Friday, after all, lots of people working – and the oldest by far sits alone by the fire in a silk blouse and tailored slacks, taking her time over a pot of tea and Ploughman’s. I don’t remember her being outside, but nonetheless keep finding myself glancing her way as I pick at my own plate of pasta; I have this sense that she’s observing me, but every time I turn to check, she doesn’t seem to be looking my way at all.
‘Do you think she remembers my grandparents?’ I ask the others.
‘Possibly,’ says Emma. ‘But I wouldn’t worry, she doesn’t look the sort to shout about it on her story.’
‘Why don’t you go and ask her?’ suggests Felix.
‘I don’t know,’ I say, drily, ‘maybe because I don’t want to tell her about them if she doesn’t.’
And he flicks me with the froth of his pint, just as he would have done before Sicily, which, like his wink out in the road, relaxes me a bit, but not nearly so much that I don’t register that he’s done it.
We talk on, a bit about everything that’s just happened outside and what a surprising tonic it all was, but mostly about the movie, and the coming week. Unsurprisingly, it’s going to be another hectic one, especially for Emma who, until she heads back to the states, will be in pretty much everything we do. Over the next six days, we’ll shoot an evening out for all of us on the set of this very pub, then another in our recreated Bettys Bar (‘God, jitterbugging,’ shudders Emma); then, three more scenes in the control tower, another in the canteen, and, at the end of the week, we’ll finally start our night shooting, down on the base, when the remodelled Lancasters will be in motion, re-enacting one of 96 Squadron’s departures for the Ruhr duringthe spring battles of 1943, which far too many of them didn’t survive. Frankly, all our concerns about budgets and schedules feel … obscene … compared to what they experienced. It’s pathetic that I should be allowing myself a moment’s anxiety about taking part in our sanitised recreation of it, I know it is. Yet, I can’t help myself.
