The words had initially been uttered under the shadows of the looming rocks with their creeping vines denoting the passing of time at Quarr. He’d made her a daisy chain ring and as he slid it on her finger, promised that one day he’d buy her a proper one. Those ruins had become their place. They were quiet and secret with the only sounds the shushing Solent tide intermingled with the birds flying overhead, behind them the soft chanting of the Benedictine Monks in the Abbey proper.
It was in the ruins where they’d sit and talk. On those bright and sunny Sunday afternoons, the perilousness of the times was forgotten, and the future stretched ahead of them like a never-ending road, full of twists and turns.
Constance had been whiling away the hours when she wasn’t with Henry imagining what life would be like in Vancouver. Through their conversations, she felt as though she knew his family already. His mum, he had assured her would welcome her as another daughter, and her family could visit whenever they wanted. She would picture her parents with Evelyn bossing them along embarking on an epic journey to what they thought of as a frontier land, her sister determined to meet a handsome young Canadian of her own. As for Ginny and the baby she liked to think they’d visit too. She would take them to all the wondrous places Henry talked about. The baby would love to see all the birdlife, and she’d like to see a bald eagle at Stanley Park and, of course, the great blue herons.
‘My mom bakes the best cookies, and she’s real house proud,’ Henry would say before talking about tomboy Nancy’s prowess and lack of fear on the sled he’d made for her. His sister was the apple of his eye. He missed her and his mother terribly and he couldn’t wait for the trio to meet calling them his three best girls.
Constance would spend her working week lost in her imagination. Instead of sitting at her tedious task in a hot and dirty factory, she was in a land full of beautiful snowy mountains and lakes with Henry at her side. It was the likes of which she’d only ever seen in picture books. And, if it were nearing dinnertime, she’d always find her mouth watering at the thought of a visit to Mr De Rosa’s Deli.
‘I love you too,’ Constance murmured now, and she looked up at his handsome features determined to mesmerize those flecks of gold in his eyes. That strong nose with its slight bend, broken he’d told her during a robust game of ice hockey as a kid. The freckles that mapped a path across the bridge of it. She reached up and traced her finger over the crescent moon scar on his jaw. It was as a result of landing on a stone when he fell out of his tree hut shortly before his tenth birthday. She felt the prickle of red-gold stubble beneath her fingertips, which didn’t quite cover the scar. Constance was filled with such an immense feeling of joy she wished she could bottle it and bring it out to inhale for the times they were apart.
It was then the sky began to reverberate, and her eyes widened. She knew exactly what that sound meant. Henry snatched hold of her arm. ‘Quick!’ They clambered off the bikes and dragged them to the side of the laneway, pushing them under the hedgerow. Constance wriggled under a gap in the shrubbery feeling the brambles rake her skin as she forced her body deeper into the undergrowth. There was no time for Henry to follow suit and he hunched flat against the brush.
Constance felt cold despite the heat of the day. She was aware of a mosquito whining past her ear, and then all hell let loose. The awful ack-ack of bullets raining down from the drone above them hitting lord only knew what in the fields either side of the hedgerow. One stray bullet and she would die, Henry would die. She clasped hold of the hand he thrust down to reassure her and told herself that so long as neither of them let go of one another, they’d survive this. Her thoughts tumbled over and over, as the smell of burning hit her nostrils.
Constance could taste the smoke in the back of her throat now and her body convulsed in terror as she heard a whistling frighteningly close followed by a deafening boom. She squeezed her eyes shut and sent up one final prayer and then just like that, there was silence.
They stayed where they were until it was clear the danger was over, and the plane had flown on, its bloody job done. Henry got up and pulled her out from under the hedge helping her to her feet before checking her over for injuries. Apart from the scratches which had begun stinging, neither of them was harmed. Henry’s pallor was deathly, Constance saw grabbing onto him and holding him tight. Her legs trembled with the knowledge of how close they’d come to being killed; she’d forgotten for a while on that perfect late spring afternoon that it was always there, beckoning, just around the corner under the guise of war.
‘Wait here. I’m going to check the field.’ He disentangled himself and walked a short way up the laneway to where there was a gate and disappeared from her view.
Constance’s breath came in shallow bursts, while she waited feeling as though the green belt on either side was pressing in on her.
Henry reappeared, and her breathing steadied at the sight of him. ‘There’s no sign of anyone in the field, but there’s smoke beyond it where the bomb must have hit, and I could hear the sirens coming. I’ll see you
