The Darkest Hour. Barbara Erskine

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      ‘I see.’ Lucy sighed. ‘Sorry. It’s not my business anyway. It won’t be hard obviously to sort out the paperwork from the other stuff.’ She gave a reluctant smile. ‘Then I’ll try and roughly put it into some kind of chronological order. I hope she won’t mind me using a computer?’

      ‘Now. Now.’ The reprimand was gentle. ‘I’m sure it will be fine. We are going to help you as much as we can.’

      She felt very small suddenly. ‘Sorry. It’s frustration. I can’t wait to start.’

      ‘Then why not start now? I won’t get in your way. Perhaps we can adjourn to the pub at lunchtime to compare notes?’ He paused. ‘I don’t know how to tell you this but I’m afraid there is still much more in the house.’

      She made a face. ‘It is her whole life, Michael. May I call you Michael? Mrs Davis, Dolly, is always so formal. But as long as there is room in the studio we can go on bringing it over here. It is all stacking away quite neatly.’ She hesitated for a moment. ‘I take it you have no reservations about all this. You haven’t changed your mind about me working here?’

      He shook his head. ‘I don’t think we’ve got anything to hide. If I had the slightest inkling that there was I wouldn’t let you within a mile of it all. Please don’t let Dolly put you off. And it’s Mike. Please.’

      She watched as he strode back across the lawn towards the shed in the far corner. Ah, her question about lawn mowing was about to be answered. She saw him bend to pick up a red fuel can from just inside the door. He shook it experimentally, nodded as though satisfied there was enough fuel for his enterprise and then dragged the mower out into the sunshine.

      Leaving the door open to let in the sunlight she turned back to the boxes. Almost at once she struck gold. A small battered attaché case had been pushed into one of the large cardboard cartons, together with several shabby leather handbags. Lucy was about to push the whole lot to one side when she saw the locks on the case. One of them had flipped open. She pulled the case out of the box and set it on the table. The other lock was stiff but after some tugging it reluctantly sprang back as well, releasing a musty smell of old leather. Inside the lid there were several suede pockets, ragged now and full of small holes as though they had been nibbled by some insect, one full of unused envelopes, the others stuffed with sheets of paper closely covered in small scrawled writing, much crossed out and rewritten. Pulling out a handful she stared down at them. Was this Evie’s handwriting? She set the sheets down on the table and selected one, trying to decipher the words. It has come to my notice that … then a bit that was crossed out. Lucy squinted at it … you have been less than honest, then another bit more clear this time. How could you do this to me? Lucy hooked her foot around the leg of the stool behind her, pulling it closer and she sat down, her eyes glued to the sheet of paper. It was the rough draft of a letter. Carefully she read it through. There was much in the same vein – recriminations, anger, frustration – the strongest passages crossed and recrossed out, softened, reworded. She turned over the last sheet. Nothing. She sorted through all the sheets. Of this particular letter there was no beginning and no ending. To her enormous frustration there was no way of telling who it had been addressed to or the date.

      The other fragments of paper she pulled out were varied and torn but some, to her great delight, were actually about Evie’s painting.

      ‘Yes!’ Lucy murmured. This was what she wanted. She glanced over her shoulder towards the door. Mike was moving steadily behind the mower in the distance, partially hidden behind a couple of ancient apple trees. Her first instinct had been to call him and show him what she had found but something made her pause. In spite of what he had said she still wasn’t a hundred per cent convinced that he was wholly on side about the biography. If I had the slightest inkling that there was anything to hide I wouldn’t let you within a mile. The words echoed in her head for a moment. There was a warning there; a threat even. If she uncovered more personal stuff was he likely to confiscate it or worse, burn it? She had heard of families reacting like that before. She hesitated, tempted to stuff the contentious pages into her bag. No, that would be unforgivable, stealing. But perhaps just for now she would quietly put them safely to one side and wait to see what else turned up.

      It was after one o’clock when Mike stuck his head round the door. ‘Would this be a good moment to stroll up to the pub?’ He stepped into the studio and fished in his pocket for a piece of paper. ‘Put this somewhere safe before I forget. The address of the farm where Evie was brought up. I don’t have the phone number, I’m afraid, but it is owned by some people called Chappell.’

      She tucked the scrap of paper into her tote then she grabbed her purse out of the bag and followed him. They made their way up the lane towards the village. A cluster of houses, most built of flint like Rosebank, some old red brick and some timber framed, clustered around a small green, next to which was the village church. The thatched, picture-book country inn, the upper storey covered in hung tiles, was a few minutes’ walk further on up the lane.

      ‘So, have you found anything useful?’ He introduced her to the couple who ran the pub and they had ordered at the bar before finding themselves a table on the terrace at the back.

      ‘I’m still sorting stuff out.’ Lucy sat down in the shade of a pergola covered with yet more roses. ‘It seems to me she kept every single bill and bank statement and receipt she ever had.’

      He laughed. ‘That will make for a singularly dull biography.’

      ‘It will if that’s all I can find.’ She reached up to her dark glasses tucked on top of her head and slid them down onto her nose. ‘I hope you have lots of anecdotes you can tell me to fill out the gaps between her visits to the bank. Gossip, scandal, family rows. That sort of thing.’

      She was watching him from behind the glasses and she saw him look away suddenly. He was quite handsome, she decided, in an unorthodox kind of way. ‘All families have secrets,’ she went on gently, ‘and sometimes there is no reason for them to be secret any more. Times passes. The people involved have died.’ She paused hopefully, taking a sip from her wine glass.

      Mike sat back in his rustic chair with a sigh. Beneath him the wood creaked in sympathy. ‘I think there were family rows. The trouble is they would have been when I was too young to understand them and once I had my own life, you know how kids are, I wasn’t really interested. I loved my grandmother, but I’m afraid I was more interested in me. And so was she. She was fantastically modern in her outlook. She never talked about the past.’ He looked up sharply. ‘If I’m honest, I’d rather you stuck to the subject of her painting. You know she went to the Royal College of Art before she became a war artist? Now that is a topic people would find intriguing. She never completed the course because of the war. Instead she worked on the family farm. That is how she gained access to the airfields. Through her brother, Ralph, sketching between her stints milking cows.’

       August 27th 1940

      It had been a peaceful day compared to the last two; Tony had sat longer than usual over his lunch listening to the general discussion in the Mess about the reason for the lull. Were the Germans licking their wounds or were they planning an even more lethal raid? The consensus seemed to be with the latter view but in the meantime some of the men were planning an evening around supper at The Dolphin in Chichester. Tony found his thoughts wandering. To Evie. Again. He hadn’t been able to get her out of his head. That kiss, three days before, so spontaneous, so electrifying, had burned its way into his very being. This had never happened to him before. He was used to girls falling at his feet, metaphorically at least, and her chippy reaction to him had fascinated him. She was СКАЧАТЬ