The Last Letter from Juliet - Melanie Hudson Page 0,79

my life had become a black hole of nothingness until now, when Juliet had persuaded me onto the first rung of the ladder. I told him all about my lovely new friends Percy, Noel and Fenella (the feeder-upper) who had forced me to canoe to the islands (which was a nightmare on account of the fact that my thighs were far too chunky to look good in a wetsuit). But my crowning moment was when I told him Juliet had shown me his photograph and that I wasn’t at all sure about the beard.

For three sorry pages I rambled on, my fingers tip-tapping on the keyboard as I poured out the random threads of my pinball mind, before concluding that if he managed to get home for Christmas then he must stay at home, at Angel View – there was more than enough room (and food) for the both of us. After pressing ‘send’ (an action I regretted three and half seconds later), far too engaged with Juliet’s story to contemplate sleep, I decided it was time to make myself a sobering coffee and return to Juliet’s memoirs, but this time I began by sending out a little prayer that Edward and Juliet would be given the happy ending they deserved.

Chapter 27

Juliet

Christmas 1942

News spread around the ferry pool that a select number of women were to be chosen to be trained to fly the four-engine bombers, such as the Wellington and the Lancaster. This was fabulous news. Other than the battle for equal pay with our male counterparts in the ATA, who earned, in the modern-day equivalent, £300 per month more than the women, we had achieved parity in our work, and being allowed to fly the big bombers would mean that the last male stronghold had fallen. I was determined to be one of the women chosen to fly them.

Before too long, my wish came true, and I returned to Hamble after a successful multi-engine conversion course to discover that I had been awarded for my passion and commitment by being granted a little leave for the holiday season.

But to return to Lanyon at Christmas?

I wasn’t sure I wanted to, wasn’t sure at all. Charles’ letters were short and perfunctory and when I telephoned the house, the majority of the phone call was spent talking to Lottie or Ma Lanyon, rather than to Charles. While at Hamble I was able to put my disastrous marriage out of my mind, keep going and carry on! And besides, how could I think about Charles, when Edward was always in my thoughts and prayers, scorched into my brain like cattle branding.

I asked Lottie once, on the telephone, if she ever bumped into that chap, Edward Nancarrow. She said she didn’t, come to think of it. The chaps from the other side of the house kept very neatly to themselves. A lock had been put on the adjoining door with the message to the Lanyons (except Pa) being a very clear, keep out!

This was both a relief and a huge disappointment to me. If Edward was seen at Lanyon, at least I knew that he was safe and, if I should ever want to get in touch with him, I would know where to find him. But if Edward had left Lanyon, then goodness knows if I would ever see him again – if he was alive or dead, even – and the thought of either not seeing him again was beyond anything my poor broken heart could deal with.

In the end, I decided to go. I flew to Lanyon and took Anna with me. Two Spitfires were to be delivered to RAF Predannack on the twentieth of December and knowing the location of my family home, the duty programmer for that day gave the flights to us. A taxi Anson would collect us at eleven a.m. on Boxing Day – Anna was to be awarded leave too. Marie didn’t mind missing out too much. She would stay in Hamble and hold the fort (while also cavorting with a new squeeze she had met in Southampton the month before).

The flight to Cornwall was heavenly. Anna, still under-confident about flying in formation, insisted I stay on her wing. With a cloud base of about three thousand feet, we were able to skim underneath the cloud layer and follow, for the most part, the Great Western railway line the whole way down.

Lottie was waiting for us at Predannack, wearing her smart WAAF uniform and –