The Last Letter from Juliet - Melanie Hudson Page 0,46

bound together for eternity in the way that only those lucky people who have experienced an incredible moment together can be. On completion of the course, Anna and I returned to Hamble and Marie to White Waltham with a promise to meet as often as we could in London. No longer restricted to flying the Tiger Moth but qualified to fly all aircraft of a similar type, including the Hawker Hurricane, we felt that we had finally earned our ATA golden wings.

Chapter 16

Katherine

Seaweed

She flew a Spitfire! A bloody Spitfire. I lay the manuscript down with the realisation that Juliet Caron was nothing short of a wonder woman – a true heroine, a goddess!

But Juliet’s story would have to wait, because a little adventure of my own awaited me. It was time to head down to Fenella’s, have a quick lesson in how to tell my bladder wrack from my three cornered leek, jump into a wetsuit and go foraging for seaweed, and all because the residents at the local home for the elderly wanted to get smashed off their tits on bootleg gin this Christmas (even as the sentence formed in my head, it seemed ludicrous). Also, I was pretty certain there were laws against collecting seaweed, which made me a potential criminal in anyone’s book. But if Juliet could fly a Spitfire for the first time solo, surely, I could paddle a few yards out to sea to grab a bit of seaweed …

The door clicked shut behind me and I headed down the lane. The cloudless sky allowed the moon to act as my flashlight for the evening, albeit a flashlight equipped with a low-watt, energy saving bulb. But there was something very special about the sea tonight, lapping in moonlight, and I was just about to take a few seconds to imagine canoodling with James on the harbour wall (I knew it was self-harm but the thoughts would come) when my moment was smashed by Fenella, who was standing at her front door and beckoning me to hurry up while furtively glancing up and down the harbour, looking for all the world like a silent movie villain.

It took ten minutes to yank the wetsuit over my thighs. Fenella tried to help but gave up and disappeared off with a chunter, muttering something about too many biscuits. She wandered into that dark place she often retreated to – not the deepest recesses of her mind, but a place shrouded in awe and mystery nonetheless, a place also known as ‘the back room’. I was standing in front of the Aga (a bad idea) jumping up and down trying to get the crotch of the wetsuit to marry-up with my own crotch when Fenella re-appeared from ‘the back room’ holding, not just a life jacket, but fisherman’s socks, wellies, a head torch, Gortex gloves and an elf. The elf, who was the size of a human toddler, was tucked under her right arm. She put all her accoutrements down on the table, sat the elf on a chair, opened a drawer and took out some scissors.

She moved towards the elf and positioned the blades against his throat. I swear his little eyes widened in terror, but I could do nothing to help. My arms were trapped inside the wetsuit which was only half-up.

‘Stop, Fenella! In the name of all that is Christmas, stop!’

She looked up, nonplussed, the scissors remained only a fraction away from the elf’s terrorised face.

‘What?’

‘You can’t dismember an elf … it’s … it’s … well, I’m not sure what it is, but it’s not right, especially this close to Christmas.’

‘But I need his hat.’

Don’t ask why. It will be nonsense.

‘Why?’

‘Gerald always canoes to the island wearing a hat with a bell on it. But it’s his own hat. I haven’t got it.’ She nodded towards the elf. ‘So, I thought we’d use this one.’

I was definitely going to need Botox. My whole face was crunched into the shape of a question mark.

‘Again … why?’

It seemed perfectly obvious to Fenella. She sighed and spoke in the tone a teenager uses when explaining how to use the iPad to his mum. ‘When I do this with Gerald, I stand in my front bedroom with the window open and listen for the bell … when I hear it, I know he’s on his way back, which is when I dash down to the harbour to grab the bag of seaweed. Gerald calls it a … what’s the word …