Page 82 of Last Letter Home
When an hour or so later Briony drew up alongside the mock-Tudor semi, Lavender must have been looking out for her because she came out at once, hugged her and helped her inside with her things.
‘Your father’s not back yet,’ she said, setting down the box in the living room. She stretched and rubbed the small of her back, though the box hadn’t been heavy. ‘You know how he and Graham are when they get together. Why don’t you sit down and I’ll make tea.’ She was wearing old navy-blue trousers and a matching gilet over a thick jumper with burrs stuck in it. Briony pointed out one that had caught in her hair. Lavender glanced out of the window as she rescued it to where a line of plastic sacks stood limply on the back lawn. ‘I was trying to clear up leaves with that new machine, but they’re so soggy I gave up.’ She sounded weary and moved stiffly as she went into the kitchen, and Briony felt a stab of sympathy.
‘Why don’t I make the tea?’ she said, following and taking the kettle from her, and for once Lavender let her, though only to turn her attention to the biscuit tin instead, laying fingers of shortbread out on a plate.
‘Sorry it’s not home-made. I don’t know where the time has gone this week.’ She did sound forlorn, Briony noticed with concern. Lavender pulled out a chair and sat down at the table, massaging her temples with finger and thumb. Briony brought the mugs of tea over and sat opposite.
‘How are you, darling?’ Lavender asked, trying to be bright.
‘Not too bad. It’s you that seems a little tired.’
‘Don’t worry about me, it’s been a long week, that’s all.’ They sipped their tea and nibbled biscuits in companionable silence. Briony felt more relaxed than she expected, glad that she’d come. It was home, after all, somewhere you came back to when things had gone wrong in the big wide world and you felt alone.
‘I think I’m basically all right,’ she told Lavender. ‘Just suffering from lack of sleep. Oh, and a bit upset about something.’ There, she’d done it now, but there was a softness about Lavender today that invited confidences. Her stepmother raised her eyebrows and nursed her mug, waiting for her to go on.
‘A friend of mine . . .’ And before she knew it she was telling Lavender about Aruna and how upsetting the break-up with Luke had been to witness. ‘The trouble is,’ she confided, ‘I’m worried that I might be part of the reason for the break-up and it’s not because of anything I’ve actually done.’ She explained that Luke appeared to be drawn to her.
‘But if it’s his fault, then should you feel guilty?’
‘I don’t know, I just do. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so friendly with him. Perhaps it encouraged him without realizing.’
‘That’s what my parents’ generation would have said, Briony. I’m sure it wasn’t your fault at all. These things happen in my experience. If their relationship is meant to be then it will mend. Maybe it will help if you stay out of their way for a while. Only they can work out if they want to be together.’
‘Yes.’ Briony imagined that Lavender was right, but then Lavender said something very shrewd.
‘But perhaps you don’t want it to mend.’
She stared at her stepmother. ‘What makes you say that?’
‘Briony, love.’ Lavender put out her hand and touched her stepdaughter’s fingers. ‘It’s the way you look, dear, when you talk about this boy.’
‘He’s my age, Lavender, hardly a boy.’
‘Man then. Don’t interrupt. You like him, don’t you? I can see it in your eyes. He’s someone special.’
For a moment Briony stared at her stepmother, her thoughts spinning like wheels on a fruit machine. Which stopped suddenly like an answer falling into place. ‘What if I do?’ she said bluntly. ‘I would never steal my best friend’s boyfriend, don’t you see.’
Lavender sighed. ‘Of course you wouldn’t,’ she said softly. ‘Not on purpose. But maybe you won’t have to. I’m a great believer in things happening as they’re meant to. After all, look at your father and me. We’d both lost people we loved deeply. You know, I thought I’d never learn to trust a man again. Then along came your father, the most trustworthy man I’ve ever met, and I’m lucky enough to have him.’
Lavender really loved her father. Briony knew this, of course, but seeing the soft light in the other woman’s eyes, she felt a sudden rush of warmth towards her that she’d never felt before.
‘And he’s lucky to have you.’ She smiled at Lavender’s pleasure. ‘Perhaps I’ll keep out of their way as much as possible, then,’ she sighed. Though that might not, she privately acknowledged, prove easy to do.
‘Did Grandpa Andrews really never talk about any of this, Dad?’
‘He died so long ago, but I don’t remember him doing so. He certainly didn’t want to be interviewed about it for the paper.’ Martin finished poking sticks into the wood burner and hauled himself back into his chair.
With the leaping firelight making the cut-glass wall lights sparkle, her father and stepmother’s living room was a welcoming place of a winter’s evening, especially with Lavender’s mushroom risotto and an apple crumble lining the stomach. Briony stroked the fluffy tabby cat that lay stretched on the sofa between her and Lavender, flexing its claws in its sleep.
On the coffee table lay the contents of the box of memories, which she had been going through with her father and Lavender, showing them Sarah and Paul’s letters and telling them everything that she’d learned. Of course, Dad had already heard her account of visiting Norfolk and meeting the Andrews and the other Westbury people, but not anything about the letters from Paul. He’d looked through them with amazement.
‘That is quite a love story you’ve uncovered,’ he said.
‘Yes. I want to know what happened to them. It’s so frustrating not to be able to find out.’
‘Paul and Sarah,’ he said softly. ‘Let’s go over what we last know of them again. Paul, we’ve left in the Villa Teresa in Tuana late in 1943. Harry was with him and so was Ivor Richards. Harry obviously returned from Italy alive.’
‘So did Ivor, but we don’t know about Paul. The records are blank.’
