bailed out and no one had found him yet. In her mind’s eyes she saw him strolling through a field, his parachute tucked under his arm, thinking about regaling them all with his story over a pint.
She looked into Diana’s concerned eyes. ‘I know he’s fine,’ said Lizzie, blowing her nose. ‘This is all going to be a great joke that we talk about in the pub later. He and Alan will be reliving it, just like we did before. He has to be okay. There’s nothing wrong.’
When Julia arrived home hours later, there was still no news. As Diana and Julia spoke in hushed voices in the kitchen, Lizzie wandered aimlessly around the house, her arms folded across her chest, tears periodically gliding down her cheeks. Whenever Lizzie would tire of pacing, Abigail, now home from school, would find her and curl up next to her or put her arms around her waist and bury her head into Lizzie’s neck. It was as though she sensed the sadness that Lizzie was feeling. Lizzie sat slumped in the front room, watching the hands on the clock move. Sometimes the minutes took an eternity to tick away, sometimes it felt like a whole hour passed in a minute. Nothing felt real, her whole world was just somehow out of sync. Every time there was a noise, Lizzie would think it was a knock at the door, and would jump to her feet to check out of the window. But nobody was ever there. As she watched the day move into the evening she became more and more angry. Where was Jack? Why hadn’t he come to tell her he was all right yet? Had he forgotten she would be waiting to hear? How cruel. They would be having their first argument when he finally made it over to her.
Trying to fill the void in the house, Abigail walked over to the radio and turned it on. It was the Home Service, giving a cold roll call of the dead from the day before. Just vast numbers that they had all become numb to. Lizzie suddenly felt a shiver run down her spine. Tomorrow, would Jack be one of those? No, she wouldn’t let it happen to them, they were Lizzie and Jack, they were perfect for each other, surely fate could not be that cruel. She started practising in her mind what she would say to him when he did turn up. About how glad she was he was alive and how scared she’d been. Then she would thump him on the arm for not coming sooner and leaving her so long without word. All at once, the crystal voice of Vera Lynn drifted across the airways, singing ‘We’ll Meet Again’.
Julia rushed in to turn it off, but it was too late; already the words had hit home. Lizzie collapsed into a chair, her head in her hands as she sobbed.
It wasn’t until very late into the evening that they finally got word. The whole night the three of them had hardly spoken. They’d just sat, waiting, knowing that the news was coming. As soon as she heard the knock on the door, Lizzie rushed to it. But when she looked into Alan’s face, she knew it was the worst. Lizzie crumpled onto the floor in the hallway before he could even get the words out, and the two girls rushed to support her.
‘I’m so sorry, Lizzie. Really. I’m so sorry.’
Someone screamed the word ‘No!’ Was it her?
He carried on speaking, even though it wasn’t making any sense to her.
‘His plane came down, and for reasons we’ll never know, he didn’t bail out. We don’t know why he couldn’t. But I’m afraid he’s gone, Lizzie. We have retrieved the plane.’
She could no longer see Alan. Tears filled her vision, streaming down her face, and a darkness was growing in her eyes. Her pain inside was suffocating her, strangling her, a huge weight pressed on her chest and she gulped for breath; something was growing around her, threatening to engulf her behind a dense black cloud. But there was also part of her that couldn’t believe it. Alan’s words just wouldn’t sink in. Jack couldn’t be dead. There was a mistake. They were getting married. No one had seen him bail out. He could still be alive, she started to bargain with herself.
Alan knelt down in front of her. ‘I want you to know something, Lizzie. He talked about you all the