Page 38 of The Island Girls

As she’d suspected, Mum was awake and busy, and she asked Rebekah to wait as she seemed to be giving instructions to a yardman about chopping some wood ready to burn in the pot-bellied stove that evening.

‘It’s a chilly one here today love, only eight degrees when I woke up! I had the fire burning last night, but it’s still plenty warm enough in the middle of the day. What’s it like with you there at the moment?’ her mum asked.

‘Lovely summer weather today, actually, top of around twenty-four degrees at lunchtime. The beaches must have been packed out,’ she said and shared a laugh with her mother that the Brisbane winter midday temperatures were roughly the same as the English summer ones. ‘Talking of summer, I’m hatching a plan that I might come over for Christmas this year. It’ll be three years since I left on New Year’s Eve,’ she said.

‘That would be wonderful, love! How long would you be able to come for?’ she asked.

‘I’ve got plenty of leave allowance, and winter is the best time for me to get away, so I’d like to make it a month if I can. That ought to be possible. Might as well make the most of the flight once I’ve paid for it,’ she said. ‘And I have a bit of a project to work on while I’m there too,’ she added, looking for a way to introduce her main reason for the call.

Of course, introducing this Darrell Taylor character to the conversation, and the discovery she’d made at Poole Pottery about Peggy, also meant sharing details about Paul, who he was, and how they’d met. And before long, she realised she was telling Mum that she’d found someone who could turn out to be quite significant in her life.

‘All sounds very romantic, darling. So, how did the two of you meet then?’ asked Mum, making Rebekah think fast on her feet. She couldn’t exactly tell her mum the truth: that Paul had knocked on her door in the middle of the night, and she’d let him sleep on her settee. She’d be horrified at Rebekah’s lack of security-mindedness!

‘He was visiting the island, and we got chatting. One thing led to another and I showed him some of the sights of Poole. We just hit it off from the start. It’s strange,’ she mused. ‘I feel like I’ve always known him though it’s only been a couple of weeks,’ she said, stretching the truth since it was no more than eight days now. ‘And one of the lovely things is that it’s just so comfortable being with him, even if we aren’t doing anything special or even talking.’

‘That is a very good sign, love – the best of friends are content just to be with each other, without any effort at all,’ she said, and Rebekah wondered how her mother had become so knowledgeable about good, lasting relationships all of a sudden.

‘But this news you tell me about Peggy in the war – goodness me, I’ve never heard anything about it at all! And, like you say, it is quite possible that this Darrell is still alive and doesn’t know anything about the letter,’ said Rebekah’s mum.

‘Perhaps if I do come to visit at Christmas, I could spend some time searching for him, Mum. He was in the Australian Air Force, so there is every chance that, if he survived the war, he went back to Australia afterwards. With Paul’s knowledge and access to census data and detailed military records, I might manage to find him that way,’ Rebekah suggested.

‘That’s a good idea, love. And if you bring your Paul with you, we’d love to show him a proper Aussie Christmas!’

As Rebekah hung up the phone, she leant on the windowsill and stared out at the pines swaying in the evening breeze, a little confused at Mum’s use of ‘we’. Of course, Rebekah and Mumwould love to show Paul a Brisbane Christmas, but Mum seemed to be suggesting there was another person around. Strange.

She could hear the sounds from the outdoor play coming up the hill from the Church Field, and somehow Paul’s face formed in the middle distance before her, as if in another dimension, close enough to see but too far away to touch.

The idea of taking Paul with her to Brisbane as early as Christmas had not even crossed her mind when she’d been thinking of it earlier. But now that her mum had posited the idea, it sounded like the most wonderful plan. But she’d only known him a week. She couldn’t possibly ask him to go on a trip around the world in four months’ time, could she?

The following Friday night seemed to take a month to arrive. Rebekah had phoned Paul, or he had phoned her, every evening and she’d repeatedly run down the battery on her portable phone by lying in bed and talking with him until she was virtually asleep. It was almost as good as having him there. Almost.

When she caught the afternoon ferry off the Island on Friday, she carried just a small backpack and an overnight bag, and once she’d landed on Poole Quay, she walked the short distance up the High Street to Poole train station.

Rebekah watched the countryside zoom by in the summer evening sunshine until, over the next two and a half hours, the scene gradually morphed into the built-up areas on the outskirts of London. As the train approached the city, it slowed and she began to peep familiar landmarks, spotting the tower of Big Ben in a short gap between buildings. At Waterloo station, she walked with her neck stretched, in awe of the architecture ofeven the most commonplace building as a train station, and so, not looking where she was going, she bumped into Paul before she’d even seen he was waiting for her at the end of the platform.

He laughed and picked her up for a tight hug and a kiss, before taking her hand and leading her down into the Tube and on to his home in Notting Hill.

‘Wow, I didn’t know you still lived so centrally,’ she marvelled. He opened the front door of the very narrow-looking terraced house and led her through the lengthy hall to the kitchen and dining room at the back.

‘This is the house I grew up in. After Mum died, and we’d got through the initial stupor of grief, Dad took up work that kept him travelling. I think that was his way of dealing with it: while he was away from home, he could imagine she was still here, waiting for him.’

Paul made a pot of tea and heated the soup he’d prepared for them to share for supper. While Paul was busy in the kitchen, Rebekah studied the photos on the mantelpiece, and noticed how old they were: Paul as a baby, with two charming-looking parents; Paul graduating in cap and gown with just his dad by his side.

‘So, he lives here with you now?’ she asked when he carried the tea to the table.

‘No. He never came back to live here permanently again. He was spending a lot of time working in the north, and while he was there – years after Mum died – he met a lovely lady, Suzanne. They’re married now and he lives with her in York. She has three grown children, and I don’t have any brothers or sisters, so Dad, in his ever pragmatic and practical way, decided to simply sign this place over to me, so it would always be mine. Blended families can be a shocker when it comes to wills and inheritance, you know,’ he said, casually taking a big bite from achunk of buttered, crusty bread he’d torn from the fresh loaf on the table.

‘Gosh, that was incredibly generous of him. And kind,’ Rebekah added.

‘It was. And he is. And it’s so good to see him happy now, so contented. You mentioned you’d like to visit the Peak District the other day? Well, that’s only an hour’s drive from where he lives in York. He and Suzanne spend their time walking their dogs on the Yorkshire Dales – beautiful countryside. He took early retirement, and it looks good on him.’

Rebekah glanced around the room again. The furnishings were classy, but busy, and didn’t seem in keeping with a young professional like Paul. There were some gorgeous silver candelabras atop a very shiny, black baby grand piano, and an elaborate crystal vase overflowing with beautiful silk lilies on the mantelpiece in front of an ornate mirror, doubling the effect of the flowers. The living room had a Queen Anne-style bureau and the fireside chairs looked as though they could have come from Windsor Castle. It was beautiful. But it wasn’t Paul.

‘So, the house is all still furnished as it was when you grew up, then?’ she probed.

He sighed and made a face that showed her he wasn’t happy with the arrangement.

‘Don’t remind me! At first, I didn’t want to change anything at all because of Mum – this is all her work, all her style, you see? But she’s been gone a decade now, and Dad’s not lived here for almost as long. The house has been entirely mine for over five years, but somehow I’ve never known quite what to do.’

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