Val picked up the remote control and turned offFour in a Bedwith a click. Then she turned her head, regally, so she could look straight at me.
‘Fair enough,’ she said. ‘Close the door on your way out, will you?’
I sat down on the pretty patchwork quilt. ‘Do you remember the war, Val?’
‘I thought you didn’t want to talk?’
‘Do you remember?’
She nodded. ‘I was still at school when the war started. By the time it ended I was virtually a grown woman.’
‘Did you …’ I swallowed. ‘Did you lose anyone?’
‘I was one of the lucky ones. I had three sisters. We all did our bit, but none of us were ever really in danger. And my poor old dad, he’d been in the trenches of course, first time round, but he was too old to enlist. My mother was pleased that he didn’t have to go.’
‘Did you have a boyfriend who was off fighting?’
Val winked at me. ‘I had several. But they all came back.’
‘You really were lucky,’ I said, more harshly than I’d intended. I ran my finger along the edge of one of the patchwork squares where I sat. ‘Tall Trees was a hospital during the war.’
‘I know.’
‘A nurse who worked here kept a book where the patients she looked after wrote messages for their families. In case they didn’t come back.’
‘That was kind.’
‘It was.’
Val looked far away for a moment. ‘I had a friend,’ she said eventually. ‘Well, he was more than a friend. I loved him very much. But he was married, and he had children. He had a very important job, and I worked odd hours, which didn’t fit with a conventional family life. So we had an arrangement that suited us both, you know?’
I wasn’t completely sure what she meant, but I thought I could get the gist. Was she telling me she had been someone’s mistress? A bit on the side? I nodded.
‘We were together for a long time. Years and years. Until his children were grown and had children of their own. But no one knew. And when he died, of course, no one told me. It took me a while to find out.’ She gave me a little sad smile. ‘That was back in the days before the internet. In the end, I saw his obituary in theDaily Telegraph, over someone’s shoulder on the tube.’
‘I’m sorry – that must have been very hard.’
She nodded. ‘I’d have liked to have had a message from him,’ she said. ‘One last message.’
‘He didn’t leave you anything?’
‘Nothing.’ A shadow crossed her face. ‘Though, I think his son always had an inkling about us, and it wouldn’t have surprised me if he’d kept anything he did leave from me.’ She gave me a little sad smile. ‘That was the decision I made when we met. I knew he wouldn’t choose me over his wife. He was very protective of her.’
Not that protective, I thought to myself, if he’d been carrying on with another woman the whole time. But who knew what went on in people’s marriages? So I simply nodded again, because I thought saying the right thing before someone went away was important.
‘My brother …’ I began slowly. It was always a bit nerve-racking, saying that my brother was behind bars. ‘He’s in prison. And I said some awful stuff to him, before he went.’
Val reached out and patted my hand and the simple, sympathetic gesture made tears spring into my eyes. I blinked them away and she pretended not to notice.
‘Perhaps he deserved it,’ she said.
‘I think he did.’ My voice was a little croaky. ‘But I still feel bad about it.’ I breathed in deeply. ‘I thought he’d died, you see? When the police turned up, I thought he was dead and the last things I’d said were horrible.’
Val gave me a long, steady look. ‘I think we all need one of those books to write in. In case we don’t come back.’
‘We really do,’ I said, picking at a loose thread on the quilt.Then I stopped still as an idea came to me, and I stared at Val. ‘That’s it.’
‘What’s what?’
