The Last Letter from Juliet - Melanie Hudson Page 0,84

pushed Lottie’s bicycle up the track for the last hundred yards from the harbour to Edward’s cottage, my face burned bright red with a mixture of wind-burn and exhilaration. I didn’t care.

Despite the blackout, a low candle burned in Edward’s lounge window. I propped Lottie’s bicycle against the cottage wall and glanced through the window. Edward was sitting on the sofa, a whiskey glass in his hand and a slow, melancholic tune echoed through the glass. Without hesitation, indifferent to the time of day, I knocked on the door.

There were so many questions to be answered, but as we looked into each other’s eyes across the doorway, the need for explanation faded away. Edward glanced at his watch and whispered just three words.

‘Happy birthday, Juliet.’

I smiled, took his outstretched hand in mine, stepped through the door and – the devil be hanged – stayed the night.

Chapter 28

Katherine

A return email

‘You go, girl!’ I thought (not being able to think of anything similar, a little more English, just at that moment).

I lay the manuscript down on Juliet’s bedside table, smiling, and thought of her – a beautiful, frail, enigma of a woman, who sat alone in the care home every night, living through her memories, living a life of perpetual last goodbyes.

I turned off the light and tried to sleep, but my head was full of contradicting, bizarre images and in my dreams my own story was mixed with Juliet’s, making for an unpleasant cocktail of drama and death. At three a.m. I grabbed my phone and typed a text:

Are you out there, James? Can you hear me?

I was about to press send, but then, letter by letter, pressed delete. I had just deleted the last letter when the phoned pinged.

An email, from Sam.

Hi, Katherine.

I just read your email. I’m so sorry about your husband. I do, kind of, understand, but it certainly looks like you’re beginning to have a lovely (and lively) time, which is great. I just wanted to say, I wouldn’t worry too much about the size of your thighs. Men are never as bothered about these things as women think they are.

Yours,

Sam

P.S. Call it a wild guess, but have you been drinking Percy’s cider this evening?

P.P.S. I’m on my way home! Thanks for the offer to stay, but as I’ll be back late I’ll crash down in the wardroom and probably get to Angels Cove on Christmas morning, for Juliet’s birthday. I don’t suppose you would like to come flying with us, would you? To be honest, I could do with the support. See it as a bit of an introduction to coddiwompling, perhaps?

Dear God, why had I mentioned my thighs?

But flying? On Christmas Day? The old Katherine would have shied away, but the new one ..? The one who was on the first rung of the ladder?

I hit reply.

Dear Sam

As a converted coddiwompler I can confirm that I’d love to come flying with you!

See you soon!

Katherine

I closed the lid of the laptop and it hit me that, in her own story, Juliet had stridden out beyond a kind of crossroads tonight, and if I, too, was going to start dying to live rather than living to die, I would need to get my skates on if I was ever to catch up, because the world had not been waiting to move on without me.

Chapter 29

Juliet

A day to last a lifetime

I spent the whole of Christmas day with Edward. It was the most selfish, inconsiderate, downright rude thing I had ever done and yet I didn’t care a jot, because that crisp, sunny December day at Angels Cove was the most perfectly put together passing of time of my entire life.

Within the ten minutes it had taken me to grab my things the night before, Anna had devised a cover story to explain my absence on Christmas Day. At breakfast she would say that a message had been delivered to the house just as we had gone to bed instructing me to report to RAF Predannack the following morning to do a test flight on an aircraft that was possibly required back at the factory for deep maintenance. It was all nonsense, of course. Any number of RAF pilots could have carried out such a task and we weren’t even qualified to carry out test flights. The only person at Lanyon other than Charles who may have smelled a rat was Lottie, and she wasn’t working that day and wouldn’t surface till gone midday. But as it happened,