In an instant of appalling clarity, Gemma saw that his fair eyelashes were darker at the roots, that he had a small indented scar at the inner edge of his brow from chicken pox, and that he had a crease in his lower lip. She smelled toothpaste and coffee and cigarettes on his breath, and the strong odor of his skin that came from sleeping. Her eyes strayed to the rumpled bed and she saw Annabelle, her perfect body naked, her red hair spread out beneath him … and then she saw herself there, with him—
A phone rang, shrill and nearby. Gemma jumped, heart pounding. She jerked herself free from his hands. It took her a moment to realize that the phone was hers, tucked into the pocket of her handbag.
“Answer it then, why don’t you?” Gordon was breathing hard.
“I—” Gemma took another step back, groping for her bag. “No … I—I’ve got to go.” Her fingers closed on the strap of the handbag. She turned and ran down the stairs as if the devil himself were after her.
“TURKEY,” SAID COOK. “WE’RE GOING TO have the biggest turkey you’ve ever seen—just let that Mr. Hitler think he can spoil our Christmas,” she added indignantly, wiping the tip of her red nose on her apron.
“And mince pie?” prompted Lewis. He sat at the kitchen table, feet tucked round the chair legs, laboring over an essay for Mr. Cuddy on the historical basis of Italy’s war against Greece.
Although he was no longer awed by the Hall—he ran carelessly up and down the stairs to the first-floor schoolroom where he and William had their lessons with Mr. Cuddy, and he now knocked on the door of Edwina’s drawing room without hesitation—he’d taken to doing his lessons in the kitchen. It was always warm and filled with good smells, and he’d learned he could make the occasional response to Cook’s chatter without really paying attention.
“Don’t you tell a soul about my mince pies,” cautioned Cook. “Why, just the other day I heard that Mavis Cole trying to bribe the grocer for a few sultanas. If word got out, we’d have half the village here begging for a taste.”
Fruit of any kind—fresh, dried, or candied—had become extremely rare, but Cook had a few jars of last Christmas’s mince tucked away in the pantry and meant to make the most of it. Lewis suspected that in spite of her admonition, she’d already dropped a careful hint or two in the village, and was very much looking forward to being besieged with requests. And if he suspected as well that Cook had a soft spot for him, he had no qualms about taking advantage. “That’s because your pies are the best,” he said, looking up from his paper.
“You’re a flatterer, Lewis Finch; you mind yourself,” said Cook, fanning herself, but her face turned just a shade ruddier and Lewis knew she was pleased. “Now what about them onions for your mum? Shall we pack them up nice with some of my marrow and ginger jam?”
“Yes, please. And some of the greengages?” Lewis gave her his best smile.
There had been no question of Lewis’s going home for Christmas this year. Although the attack on Coventry on the 14th of November had marked the beginning of a decrease in raids on London, the bombs were still falling. And even had it been safe, there was not really anyplace for him to go. The damage to the Stebondale Street house had been irreparable; his parents had been finally resettled in a tiny, one-room flat in Millwall, a few blocks from the Mudchute.
The food shortages were even more evident in London than in the country, and he and Cook had conspired to send a few much-prized things, including onions from the Hall’s kitchen garden. His mum had written that she’d seen a lone onion on a cushion in a greengrocer’s window, priced at 6d, and that the sight of it had made her weep with longing.
His mother wrote often, full of news of fires tamed and rescues carried out in the course of her new duties as a volunteer ARP warden. After the chaos of the first few nights of bombing, she’d been determined to make herself useful and had gone about it with her usual practicality. And besides, she’d confessed to Lewis in a letter written on a late night watch, it helped take her mind off worrying about his brothers, who had been posted together to a cruiser in the North Atlantic—and about Cath, who had taken to going to the cinema and staying the night in a public shelter if the warning sounded while she was out.
“Greengages it is,” Cook agreed, twinkling. “Your mum and dad will think Father Christmas came in the post.”
John came in then, his arms full of faggots for the stove, and as he and Cook talked about the business of the day, Lewis went back to his essay. In the past year he had discovered, to his surprise, that he rather liked schoolwork. Mr. Cuddy even made history interesting, and he had determined that the children should understand the war in what he called an “historical context.” They had put an enormous map up on the wall in the schoolroom, and kept track of the campaigns in Europe and the Mediterranean with pushpins and colored pencils. This made the names of places mean something to Lewis, but every once in a while a glance would remind him how close their little part of England was to Occupied France, and he would shiver. He tried not to think about what would happen if Hitler decided to send his armies across the Channel. At least for now he seemed to be busy elsewhere, though in a dream Lewis had seen Hitler’s mind as a great red eye, turning this way and that, and the image had haunted him ever since.
William banged through the door from the corridor, bringing Lewis back to his unfinished essay with a start. “I’ve finished mine,” William taunted him with a grin. “Race you to the shops. Edwina wants a newspaper before they close, and she said I could get some glue for my model.”
“Right,” said Lewis, letting his chewed pencil bounce onto his paper, and they jostled one another out the door and into the courtyard.
A sun the color of blood was setting against a translucent sky etched by the black skeletal silhouettes of trees, the air smelled of frost and wood smoke, and the last of the leaves swirled suddenly on the courtyard cobbles as if stirred by an invisible hand. Lewis stopped, seized by a sensation he couldn’t quite put a name to, but it reminded him of the way he’d felt when he’d watched one of the great ships steam into the docks at home.
Then the moment passed as William shouted for him to hurry, and he pounded off down the drive.
A WEEK LATER, LEWIS WAS CROSSING the courtyard after finishing up his midday chores in the barn when he looked up and saw his mother standing in the kitchen doorway. He stopped and blinked, believing for a moment that his eyes were playing tricks, but it was his mum in her old bottle-green coat and the plum-colored felt hat she kept for “best,” and she smiled and held out her arms to him.
