My Name is Eva An absolutely gripping and emotional historical novel - Suzanne Goldring Page 0,9

heart’s content and do whatever I like. I can also carry on pouring my heart out to you on paper as it has become a habit I can’t break, even though you are no longer here to read my letters.

Your loving wife, Evie xxx

Ps I love you

9

Mrs T-C, 3 November 2016

Smile for the Camera

Pat is here again. Really, she was here only a couple of days ago. Can’t she just get on with it, without coming back every five minutes, fussing and asking questions?

‘I’ve found a great stack of old photos,’ she says, rummaging in her grubby hessian shopping bag and holding out a biscuit tin decorated with a picture of a thatched country cottage, its garden full of lupins and hollyhocks. ‘I thought it would be fun for us to look through them together today. I haven’t the faintest idea who all these people are and they won’t mean anything to the rest of the family unless you help me write some names and dates on the back.’

‘Huntley and Palmers’ biscuits,’ Evelyn says, staring at the tin. ‘I always liked their ginger nuts best. And Mama did so love those pink wafers.’

‘Well, the tin’s full of old photos now,’ says Pat, settling into an armchair and shrugging off her jacket. ‘The biscuits were all eaten up long ago. So, let’s see if you can remember who’s here in these pictures.’

‘Oh, I’m really not sure I’ll be able to help,’ Evelyn says, ‘but I’ll have a go.’ She does remember, of course. She remembers very well, but she’s not sure whose picture Pat might come across among the higgledy-piggledy pile of tiny black and white snaps heaped in the tin. This is how it is to be, from now on: Pat unfettered, rummaging through the life of Kingsley and asking questions, rifling through the past, which has never been properly buried and laid to rest. Evelyn can but hope that her secrets will not make themselves known while she is still alive to hear the questions.

‘Let me borrow your pencil,’ Pat says, picking it up from the side table, next to the newspaper with its completed crossword. ‘Ooh, it’s lovely and sharp!’ She opens the tin and thrusts a clutch of pictures into Evelyn’s lap.

The first batch is of a long-ago summer: 1935 was it or ’36? No, it was definitely the heatwave of ’35, and Evelyn gazes at the group of men in cricket whites, the women in pale dresses, sitting on picnic rugs in the shade, with plates of triangular sandwiches and bowls of strawberries spread before them. ‘Straw helmets,’ she says. ‘That was the year the London policemen were given straw helmets to keep them cool. Everyone said it was like being back in India, when Papa was still out there. I was sixteen that year.’ She points to a young woman with bobbed hair at the back of the group.

‘See what a good idea this was! You’re managing to remember so much by seeing these pictures.’ Pat smiles. ‘Now, what about these? Is this one of Uncle Hugh?’

She holds out a portrait of a handsome young man, posing for the camera. Evelyn takes the little picture and smiles at her dear, long-departed husband. ‘He was so good-looking then. All the girls thought so. I was very lucky to get him. They all set their caps at Hugh.’

‘Would you like to keep that one?’

‘No, dear, I’ve got a better one in my room. You keep it and show it to your boys.’

‘And what about this one? Who is this little girl? I don’t think I’ve ever seen her before. Is she one of the family?’ She is holding an image of a child of about four years old, with braided blonde hair, laughing as she plays with a ball in a garden.

Yes, thinks Evelyn, she is a relative, but not one you’re ever going to meet. You will never see her, not even once, and I will never see her again.

Pat turns the photo over and reads the faint pencilled words scribbled on the back. ‘It doesn’t say much. Just Liese, 1951. That’s a couple of years after I was born.’

‘Liese,’ murmurs Evelyn. ‘I’ve no idea who that is.’ She gazes at the little snap as if she is trying hard to remember. How can I ever forget you, my darling? That day you were happy.

She doesn’t take the picture, one of several taken surreptitiously many years ago, in her hand; she doesn’t need to. She has