‘Plenty of time for that,’ he replied, with another smile.
She didn’t return it. It was a front, she realised.
A put-off.
Evasive action.
He was scared. Really scared.
Her old friend, who she’d played with, joyously, for years, was beside himself.
‘Can I do anything?’ she asked him, finally seeing thosesweets he took on his missions for what they really were: his lifeline home. ‘Help, in any way?’
‘You already do,’ he said, and for a fleeting moment, his smile did falter. His dark eyes became serious. ‘You help all the time.’
A deep fog set in that afternoon, and hung around for the following two days, meaning everyone at Doverley remained on the ground. They all whiled away long hours at The Heaton Arms, where Clare won a tournament of pool, Beth plucked up the courage to ask Jacob to the pictures herself (‘Are you sure about this?’ he asked her, with a pained look. ‘Pretty sure,’ she said), Mabel and Ames disappeared upstairs to Mabel’s room, and Iris spent much more time with Tim, trying to keep his mind from everything.
‘How is he when you go up?’ she asked Robbie, the two of them watching Tim lose to Clare at pool.
‘Fine. It’s the anticipation he struggles with.’
‘He’s not sleeping. I’m worried he might start making mistakes.’
‘Not a chance. He’s too good.’
‘I think he’s probably due a rest.’
‘Everyone’s due a rest.’
She couldn’t argue with that.
But nor did she, nor Robbie, have any interest in resting when they all returned to Doverley. Not doing that,not wasting time, they escaped to their cottage, wrapping themselves up by the kitchen fire, on the bed of blankets that Iris had long since stolen from Ambrose’s stores.
‘Do you remember when we used to talk about my mum?’ she said, on the second afternoon of the fog, lying with herhead in the warm nook of Robbie’s neck. ‘I asked you why you thought it was so bad to lift your skirts, and you said it was because you might catch a cold.’
He laughed, and she smiled, feeling the vibrations of it. She loved lying with him like this, whilst everyone else was far away, and the woods around them were so silent. It felt like they might be the only people in the world.
‘I no longer consider you lifting your skirts to be remotely bad,’ he said.
‘No,’ she said, feeling his hand move around the curve of her waist, leaning up to kiss him. ‘Nor do I.’
He hadn’t been her first. He knew that. Just as she knew she hadn’t been his. Their pasts weren’t something they’d dwelt on – why would they do that? – but nor had it surprised them that the other had one. They had, after all, spent the past three years living through a war. Iris didn’t regret anything that was behind her, or behind him. It had brought them here, tothis. And she never worried about what might materialise from their time together. Unlike her mum, she and Robbie both knew enough not to chance catching anything, least of all a baby.
She had started to wonder more about her father lately though, now that she was back: who he’d been, where he’d come from, how he’d died. She’d even summoned the nerve to ask Father Bannister if he knew anything about him, but Father Bannister had told her he unfortunately didn’t know a thing.It was before my time, I’m afraid.
‘The fog’s clearing,’ said Robbie, looking up at the open window above them: the same one Lord Heaton had once yelled at them through. ‘I think we’ll probably go up tomorrow.’
‘Maybe not,’ Iris said, without any real hope.
And the squadron did fly the next night.
They went on another operation to Essen.
It was a night like so many others that had gone before: long, and dark, and cold.
Yet, it was also different.
For Iris, it was different.
