‘So what are you going to do?’
‘I have no choice. Go up to Coltishall, stuff myself with canteen stodge, eat as much chocolate as I can get my hands on, do lots of square bashing and get plenty of sleep. I’ll show the mealy-mouthed, beaky nosed, pathetic little weasel--’
‘Cripes, Dudley, don’t hold back on your opinion of the chap.’ Claire began to add to the description of the psychiatrist, but Eddie put her hands up. ‘Enough already!’ she laughed. ‘So, if you’re going up to Coltishall, you’ll need your uniform. Put it on, let’s have you on parade. Chop-chop! And worry not. If it needs a nip and a tuck, I’m your gal.’
Claire’s mouth fell open. ‘You can’t sew a button on, Mountjoy.’
‘Who said anything about buttons?’
‘I’ll get the uniform,’ Claire said, leaving the room laughing.
When she returned wearing her WAAF uniform, Eddie gulped. ‘Good God, Dudley. Forget a nip and a tuck, that jacket needs major surgery before you go anywhere in it. It isn’t damn fair. I put weight on just looking at a bar of Cadbury’s. You eat it as if it isn’t rationed and you’re skinnier now than you were when you came back from France.’ Eddie lifted the shoulders of Claire’s jacket into place. ‘Good Lord, Dudley, when did you last try this on?’
‘When Noah was a lad.’
‘That recently?’
Claire took the jacket off. ‘I’ll take it in to Vera Halliday tomorrow. She’ll have it altered for me.’ She pulled on the waistband of the skirt. ‘It needs taking in, or the belt. I don’t suppose you’ve borrowed it?’
Batting her eyes in surprised innocence, Eddie pretended she didn’t know what Claire was talking about, but she couldn’t keep it up. As a rosy blush began to bloom on her cheeks, Eddie started to giggle. ‘I might have borrowed it. I do have one or two of your belts upstairs in my drawer,’ she said, leaping up and running out of the room. ‘Back in a jiff.’
‘I’m going to give my sister Bess a quick call,’ Claire shouted after her, ‘so leave the door open.’
Claire picked up the telephone. She longed to see her mum and dad, sisters Ena and Bess, but she couldn’t until she’d been to Coltishall. On her way back to London she would stop off as she had done before. In the meantime she would write. The operator came on the line. ‘Number please, caller.’
‘Lowarth 154, please.’
‘Trying to connect you, caller,’ the operator said after a few seconds.
Claire hoped it would be all right to telephone Bess at Foxden Hall. Her parents didn’t have a telephone. No one in the village did except Mr Clark, the local taxi driver, Mrs Moore at Woodcote’s shop and post office, and of course the vicar. The vicarage was at Mysterton, which was close to Foxden, but when the vicar delivered a message it was usually one you didn’t want to receive.
‘You’re connected, caller,’ the operator said, and immediately Claire heard Bess’s voice.
‘Lowarth 154.’
‘Hello Bess, it’s Claire.’
‘Claire? Oh my-- How lovely to hear from you. How are you? It’s been so long.’
‘Didn’t you get my letters? My friend said she’d posted them.’
‘Yes, I meant since we had spoken. It’s wonderful to hear your voice – and to know you’re alive,’ Bess whispered. ‘Are you going to get up to see us?’
‘I’m going to RAF Coltishall. I’ll try to call in on the way back.’
‘Mam and Dad would love to see you, Ena too. She has been very quiet lately, almost withdrawn. I think she’s really missing you.’
‘I’m missing her, mum and dad too. I’d love to see them, but I can’t promise anything. I don’t know when I’ll have to go back... to the south coast,’ she added, in case anyone was listening in to the call. ‘Do you think you could get Mam to go to the post office tomorrow for eleven, and I’ll telephone her?’
‘I’m sure I can. I’ll have to tell her you’re going to phone though, or she won’t go. You know what she’s like. Give me your telephone number in case we get cut off. The lines are terrible at the moment.’
‘I can’t do that, Bess.’ There was a knock on the door. ‘My friend Eddie’s at the door. I’ll speak to you tomorrow morning. Give Mam and Dad my love – and Ena.’
‘I will – and Claire? I’ve missed you.’
‘I’ve missed you too, Bess. Night!’
‘Goodnight!’ she heard her older sister say, and she placed the telephone on its cradle.
Grumbling, Claire ran to the door. She had told Eddie to leave it open. ‘Miss Halliday!’ A searing wave of panic shot through her body and her legs began to shake. Had Colonel Smith’s secretary brought bad news?
‘Captain Mitchell is alive,’ Vera Halliday said immediately.
Claire gasped. Frozen to the spot, hardly daring to believe that the man she loved was alive, she whispered, ‘Alive?’ Miss Halliday was smiling. ‘Mitch is alive,’ she heard a small voice that sounded like her own say.
‘Yes. Colonel Smith received word as I was leaving the office. He asked me to telephone you tomorrow, but I thought you’d like to know tonight.’
Claire couldn’t take it in. For months, years, she had believed that the man she loved was alive. Then, for the sake of her sanity, when she was told he had been shot and left for dead in the mountains, she made herself face the fact that he could be dead, and had given up hope of ever seeing him again. Claire stared at Vera Halliday. Suddenly aware that her visitor was standing
