‘Were we?’ Tim frowns. ‘When?’
‘The last time you flew inMabel’s Fury,’ I say, my heart pounding in my throat.
Slowly, Tim shakes his head. ‘I don’t remember anything about that.’
‘But you just said Robbie would never have been able to establish radio contact from the distance of the sea … ’
‘Oh yes.’ He nods. ‘That would have been difficult. Very difficult … ’
‘But do you remember him doing it?’
‘Doing what?’
‘Radioing Iris?’ says Nick, sitting forward, his hands clasped before him.
‘When?’ says Tim.
And I honestly can’t tell if he’s genuinely struggling to keep track with what we’re talking about, or regrets having raised it so is now taking evasive action, but his sudden vagueness makes me think of the way he dodged my question before, when I asked him about that woman who showed him up to Iris’s room.
Was he pretending then, after all?
I suspect he might have been.
I can’t just let this drop too.
‘We’re wondering if you remember anything about Robbie speaking to Iris on your last flight,’ I say to him. ‘You seemed to be saying just now that you might recall it.’
‘No, that can’t be right. I was unconscious. We’d got hit.That never happened to us, but it happened that night.’ He closes his eyes. ‘It took me weeks to come back to my senses. By the time I did, the squadron had moved south for D-Day. I lost touch with them.’ His voice cracks, heavy with grief. ‘I lost them all … ’ He breathes, too quickly.
‘Here we are,’ says Roger, helping him with his mask. ‘Nice and deep now. Best not to get upset. It was all such a long time ago.’
‘No,’ says Tim, through the mask, ‘not long. It’s always happening. Always.’
‘Only in your memory.’
Tim doesn’t reply.
He closes his eyes, retreating into himself, and within seconds his breaths start to deepen, they lengthen, and it becomes clear that he has, quite abruptly, fallen asleep.
Our meeting, I realise, is at an end.
We’re all deflated as we leave, thanking Roger for having us, and repeating how delicious the food was.
As we walk out to the car, puffing clouds of white into the darkening afternoon, Nick and Felix concede that I was right all along, Tim clearly does know more than he’s let on, but their agreement gives me zero satisfaction. Because what does it matter what Tim knows, if he keeps on keeping it to himself?
‘It’s like Emma said,’ I say, shrugging on my coat. ‘Whywouldhe suddenly open up now?’
‘But hedidopen up,’ says Felix. ‘He told us they all made it back to England.’
‘I don’t think he intended to do that,’ says Nick.
‘He definitely didn’t,’ I agree.
‘But he still did,’ says Felix. ‘So maybe he wanted to, subconsciously … ’
‘What, like a Freudian slip?’ I say, and still thinking of Emma – remembering the debrief I promised to message her – reach for my phone.
‘Exactly,’ says Felix.
