The Forgotten Letters of Esther Durrant - Kayte Nunn
Chapter One
London and Little Embers, Autumn 1951
It wasn’t their usual destination for a holiday and the timing was hardly ideal. John and Esther Durrant generally took a week in Eastbourne or Brighton in the final week of August, so the far southwest tip of England was an odd choice, even more so considering it was early November. John, however, had been adamant. “It’ll do you good,” he said to his wife, in a tone of false jollity, when he suggested—no, insisted on—the trip. “Put some color back in your cheeks. Sea air.” Never mind that a bitter cold gripped the nation with the kind of weather that you wouldn’t put the cat out in and Esther couldn’t have felt less like a week away even had she spent the previous year down a coal mine. She also didn’t understand why they were leaving Teddy behind with the nanny, but she couldn’t begin to summon the necessary enthusiasm for an argument.
Before catching the train south, they dined at a restaurant near Paddington station. Esther wasn’t hungry, but she allowed John to decide for her nonetheless. After a brief perusal of the menu and dispatching their order to the black-clad, white-aproned waitress, he unfurled his Telegraph and spent the time before the arrival of their food absorbed in its pages. Winston Churchill and the Conservative Party had been returned to power she saw, noticing the headline on the front page. John was pleased, although privately she believed Mr. Churchill terribly old and probably not up to the job. They didn’t discuss politics anymore, for they saw the world quite differently, she had come to realize.
Esther managed a little of the soup that arrived in due course, and half a bread roll, while John cleared his dish and several glasses of claret. Then Dover sole and tiny turned vegetables, all of which he ate with gusto while she pushed the peas and batons of carrot around on her plate, pretending to eat. Her husband made no comment.
Esther declined dessert but John, it appeared, had appetite enough for both of them and polished off a slice of steamed pudding made with precious rationed sugar and a generous dollop of custard. He glanced at his watch. “Shall we make our way to the train, my dear?” he asked, wiping the bristles of his mustache on a starched napkin. She couldn’t help but be reminded of an otter who’d just had a fish supper: sleek, replete, and satisfied with himself. He was wearing the dark suit—his favorite—and the tie she’d given him several birthdays ago, when she had been expecting Teddy and the future felt as if it were the merest outline, a sketch, waiting for them to paint it in bold and vivid colors. Something to look forward to, not to fear.
She nodded and he rose and reached for her hand, helping her to her feet. It was a short walk from the restaurant to the station, but Esther was glad of her thick coat and gloves. She’d not ventured from the house in weeks—the November weather had been simply ghastly—and she shivered as she felt the wind slice through her outer garments and numb the tip of her nose and lips.
They entered the cavernous terminal and Esther was almost overwhelmed by the bustle and noise, the hissing of the giant steam engines and the raucous cries of porters as they effortlessly maneuvered unwieldy barrows top-heavy with luggage. It was as if they were part of the opening scene of a play, the moments before the main characters take the stage. She might once have enjoyed the spectacle, found the purposeful activity invigorating, but today she gripped John’s arm as he steered her toward Platform One. “We’ll be there in a jiffy,” he said, reassuring her.
Everywhere she looked, lapels were splashed with poppies, blood-red against dark suits. A brief frown creased the pale skin of her forehead as it took her a moment to place them. Then she remembered: it would soon be Armistice Day. The terror, uncertainty, and deprivations of the recent war were a scarlet tattoo on every Englishman and woman’s breast.
Eventually, the train was located, tickets checked, and they were ushered to their carriage by a porter. She took careful steps along a narrow corridor and they found their cabin: two slim berths made up with crisp cotton sheets and wool blankets the color of smoke.
She breathed a quiet sigh of relief that they would not be expected to lie together. In recent