My Name is Eva An absolutely gripping and emotional historical novel - Suzanne Goldring Page 0,104

one was just right, like the temperature of the bathwater.’

‘You always make me laugh, you do,’ Mary shakes her head and hands Evelyn a clean flannel. ‘There now, it’s full enough. I’ll do your back and you do your bits.’ She puffs out her cheeks. ‘Tell you what though, this room’s too hot for me. It might be just right for you, but I’m sweating like a pig.’

‘I’m sorry, dear. That’s the trouble with having to wait for the bath to fill up. But I’m lovely and warm now, so why don’t you open the bathroom door for a little bit? Let a bit of fresh air in?’

Mary opens the door and fans herself with a spare dry flannel. ‘Phew, that’s better! Now let’s get you all cleaned up.’ The two of them rub away in silence. Mary reaches down into the water to scrub Evelyn’s feet and soap her legs.

‘You’d never think I was quite a good cricketer in my day to look at me now, would you?’

Mary laughs. ‘Go on with you, Mrs T-C. You’ll be telling me you played football as well next.’

‘I played cricket with my brother Charles. He was a terrifically fast bowler.’

‘We did rounders at school,’ Mary says.

‘Gosh, I haven’t played rounders since… oh, since the war. We didn’t have any cricket kit with us at the time, so we made up games of rounders. We had to make do with an old tennis ball and a broom handle. Such fun it was.’

‘Where was this then?’

‘In Camberley, during our training. We were all young girls, some straight from school – I think I was the eldest. I was widowed by then, so I was a bit of a mother figure to the younger ones, I suppose.’ Evelyn laughs as she wrings out her flannel. ‘Such high spirits all the girls had.’

‘I bet you were a one, eh? Probably the worst of the lot.’

‘I don’t know what you mean, Mary. I was perfectly well behaved. I had to set an example to the other young girls. So young, no more than teenagers.’

‘Get away with you! I bet there were some lovely young men around in those days, all smart in their uniforms. We’ve all heard the stories.’

‘Well, we did meet up with some rather nice pilots later on. Especially the Polish chaps, they were quite charming and awfully handsome. They told us such extraordinary stories about how they’d escaped from Poland to reach this country. Some of them had walked all the way to France. Imagine that. Astonishing, isn’t it?’

‘Blimey, Mrs T-C! Walking halfway across Europe? I get puffed just walking round Guildford on my day off.’

‘They were very determined men. And many of them skied across the Alps on their journey.’ Evelyn is quiet for a second. ‘I did a bit of skiing in Germany after the war – Skilaufen, we called it.’

‘I bet that was something. All those snowy mountains and lovely scenery, eh?’

‘It was most interesting,’ says Evelyn. And after a moment’s pause she adds, ‘It’s a time I can never forget.’

75

Mrs T-C, 30 November 2016

The Truth

‘I’m having visitors this afternoon, Mary. I’d like to see them in the library on my own, so could you see that we are not disturbed?’

Evelyn shuffles along the dark patterned carpet in the corridor and stops by the gilt-framed mirror on the wall. She pats her curled hair and studies her grinning reflection so she can check no spinach from her lunch has caught in her teeth and that her lipstick hasn’t smudged. It hardly matters, does it, applying cosmetics, having one’s hair set? She knows she has not made a great impression on the male sex for many years, yet she still wants to look well groomed. She shuffles a little further, then sits waiting in the muffled book-lined room for her guests, waiting for the sound of voices, hearing only the steady ticking of the mantel clock echoing her heartbeat.

‘Here we are, Mrs T-C,’ announces Mary in a loud voice, ushering in Pat and Inspector Williams. ‘Now, shall I fetch all of yous some tea and cakes?’

Her visitors both look as if they’d rather rush away unfed and unwatered, but Evelyn says, ‘That would be lovely, Mary. And would you have any mince pies for us today, perhaps?’

‘We won’t be staying long, Aunt. This isn’t a social call, you know.’ Pat is shrugging off her grubby raincoat.

‘No, dear. But I do like to be hospitable to my guests.’ Evelyn smiles at both of