people gathered in the front pew. People she imagined were Jack’s mother and father were huddled close to the coffin. His father with the same angular build and the hint of dark hair that was peppered with grey. His brother shorter and squarer than Jack but when he turned his head Lizzie caught her breath to see him hold his head at the same angle as Jack. Lizzie felt the loss. She also felt sad that she didn’t know them. Her relationship with Jack had been so quick and so intense. Lizzie hadn’t even had the opportunity to meet his family and right now she couldn’t bring herself to say anything to them.
Behind his grieving parents, pews were filled with more family and friends. Behind them, row upon row of smart-looking pilots, including Alan, hair cut to regulation length, shoes shining, all standing solemnly together, a wash of air-force blue, the same air-force blue that Jack used to wear.
All at once, Lizzie realized people were singing around her, a song that was familiar to her; she fought the fog in her brain to remember the title. Then it came to her through the murky depths of her mind: ‘I Vow to Thee My Country’. It was a song she’d heard at school, but now the words seemed to evade her, and no matter how she tried, Lizzie couldn’t seem to be able to focus on the hymn sheet in front of her that Diana held between the three of them.
So, she just listened to the words as people sang quietly around her – and they struck her in a whole new way. The words were talking about Jack: ‘The love that asks no questions, the love that stands the test, that lays upon the altar the dearest and the best.’
Lizzie’s eyes were drawn to Jack’s coffin. That’s where her dearest lay, not on an altar but in a wooden box. And though the words of the hymn sounded noble, she didn’t feel the same devotion to her country right now. It was one thing to sing about it, to talk about it, be inspired by it; it was truly another to be a victim of it.
The congregation continued to sing around her, and the pointed words stabbed at her as they continued to roll around in her thoughts. ‘A love that asks no questions, a love that asks no questions…’ What exactly did that mean? The one thing more than anything Lizzie wanted to do right now was to ask questions, questions such as, Why?
Her beloved Jack was lying in his coffin, which was draped with a British flag, like a badge of honour. Right in front of her was a man who had paid that price. And she wasn’t allowed to shout out to the world: ‘Why?’ Because it suddenly became really crystal clear to her that there were no winners in this charade of valour they called war. She just knew that on the other side of the water a German girl was standing in front of a swastika-draped coffin asking exactly the same question she was.
Lizzie closed her eyes as her thoughts drifted back to the day she’d flown with Jack. That crisp perfect day, the sun resting above the grey clouds in a china blue sky. Then his words of love when they’d been dancing in the park and the feeling of holding him in her arms when he’d told her he’d loved her and accepted her, and how the experience of all that still felt so tangible, so real to her. If she closed her eyes, she could conjure up the feeling of him close to her, the weight of his hand on her waist, the smell of his skin, the feeling of his breath grazing her cheek, his words of love in her ear. How could all that feel so real, but this funeral didn’t? Lizzie swallowed down the tears that rattled inside her chest, swallowed down the pain past the dryness in her throat and her aching stomach. Her cheekbones hurt from crying, and all the time now she felt as if she had grit in her eyes.
Julia touched her arm, and Lizzie was grateful for her friends. Strangers to her mere months ago, they were now the rock she relied on. With great sensitivity, neither one of her friends spoke to her; it was as if they knew she wasn’t in any fit state to actually hear or process what they were