The Last Letter from Juliet - Melanie Hudson Page 0,89

this bridge in Bristol and I said “that sounds like fun” and they bet me a crate of champagne I wouldn’t have the nerve to do it.’

I could see where this was going.

‘So, the next day, I was taking a Spit to St Athan …’

‘Why is St Athan always involved when you mess up?’ Anna asked, confused.

Marie stepped over Anna’s question. ‘… and phoned them up and they went to the bridge to watch and I flew under it. That’s it. No big deal.’

‘No big deal?!’ The exclamation was out before Anna remembered she needed to button it in.

‘What?’ Marie asked, incredulous. ‘It was easy. It’s a big bridge!’

I couldn’t help but laugh. Anna was still open-mouthed. I put my hand under her chin and shut it.

‘Anyhow, somehow the boss found out, so he hauls me into the office and chews my ass over it for half an hour – I mean, seriously, what is it with this damn country that no one can mind their own damn business any of the time!?’

Marie surprised us then by bursting into tears.

‘But I don’t care about any of that crap.’ She looked up, her wretched face a complete mess. ‘It’s Jimmy. I’ve lost him.’ Her bottom lip started to tremble.

‘Won’t you see him again?’ I asked, resting my backside on the arm of the sofa next to her.

She shook her head and blew her nose.

‘He’s being posted – abroad. He can’t even tell me where he’s going – or won’t.’

Anna took her hand.

‘It’ll blow over,’ Anna said. ‘You’ll see. I don’t know about the Jimmy, thing, but as for the ATA, hanker down here with us and wait it out. Give it a couple of weeks and they’ll be begging you to come back. They need you more than you need them!’ Anna looked up at me for support. ‘Don’t they, Juliet?’

But I sensed that Marie had begun to make other plans. She was a rich American socialite and could do what the hell she liked and Marie simply didn’t respond well to the discipline of the ATA. For Marie, the ATA had been a fantastic, dangerous, distraction. A place where she felt she was doing her bit for the war and having the time of her life while she was about it. But in losing Jimmy (a man Anna knew nothing of and I had believed to be nothing more than a fling rather than ‘the one’) the light had gone out from her deep blue eyes, her sparkle had diminished and it was clearly time to look for a new distraction, because Marie was like a shark – oh, a wonderful, loving shark – but a shark nonetheless. She had to keep on swimming, keep on being entertained, or she would die.

‘What are you going to do?’ I asked.

She took a moment to pull herself together.

‘I’ve been asked to go back to the States for a while – just for a month or so – to do a recruitment drive for the ATA, see if I can’t persuade a few more guys and gals from the old flying clubs to come over, lend a hand.’

‘But I thought you’d been fired? Why would you help them?’ Anna asked.

Marie shrugged.

‘Oh, they’re not so bad and I don’t suppose I’ve been fired so much as … redistributed. To be honest, I’m ready for a bit of a change.’ – I knew it – ‘And the god-awful food and clothes over here are killing me! This war is all just so … depressing.’

Anna slumped back into the sofa. Her eyes filled with tears. ‘But it won’t be the same without you, Marie. Who’ll take us up to London now?’

Marie took both of our hands.

‘Hey! I’ll be back here before you know it,’ she said, throwing her fabulous smile in Anna’s direction. ‘Those sonofabitches won’t keep me out of the game for long. I’ll get my ass back in a damn Spitfire before you know it, you just see if I don’t.’ She squeezed our hands. ‘We’re the Spitfire Sisters, aren’t we?’

Marie left two days later. She never did buy that motorbike. We had a last, fun-filled night of impromptu singing and dancing at the Bugle Pub, ending with We’ll Meet Again and Anna’s favourite, Somewhere Over the Rainbow. which made us all cry.

We cried a great deal that night and we cried because we knew it was the end of an era, that despite her promise to fly the Spitfire again, Marie would move