The Last Embrace (23 page)

Finally the train began to roll slowly forward. I held my breath, this time too afraid to hope. We rolled into Green Park station and I pushed my way to the door. There was no time to go home and change. I needed to meet Charlie right away. I took the underground steps two at a time to the street where rain no longer fell and ran through the puddled streets toward the chapel near Grosvenor Square. The clock above the embassy read ten forty-five.

A soldier waited anxiously in front of the chapel, clutching a handful of gardenias. But he was shorter, with red hair and freckles. “I'm looking for Sergeant Charles Connally.”

“Don't know him,” the soldier replied distractedly.

I ran inside the chapel and repeated the question to the minister. “There was a young man waiting here for about an hour in his dress uniform.” My heart wrenched as I pictured Charlie, thinking I had stood him up again. I started in the direction of the soldiers' hotel. I would explain everything.

The hotel looked smaller and more run-down in the light of day, rotting apples fallen from trees covering the broken cobblestones. Inside, the lobby was deserted except for a maid sweeping the hardwood floors. The smell of stale beer and cigarette smoke hung heavy in the air. The cleaner eyed me and I sensed that the sight of a woman in the previous night's clothes was not an unfamiliar one here.

“I left something upstairs.” Not waiting for an answer, I ran up the stairs to Charlie's room. The door was unlocked and the bed stripped. None of his belongings remained. It was as if he had never been here at all. I ran my hand over the mattress, remembering the previous night and half wondering if it had been a dream.

I noticed then a scrap of paper on the nightstand.
Shipping out
, the hastily scrawled note read. I could see the bit of his thumb growing inky as he wrote it from that way he always held the pen too close.
Wait for me
. He'd left it here, hoping I'd come back, or perhaps because there hadn't been time to send it. There was a damp spot on the paper. A raindrop, perhaps, or something else?

Clutching the paper, I hurried to the window. If he had not gotten far, I could run after him and explain. But the street was empty. With tears in my eyes, I took one last look around the room where we had shared everything, then slipped out into the cold gray morning.

An hour later, as I stepped freshly washed from my flat on Porchester Terrace, I was still in a daze: Charlie was gone. I thought back to the hotel where we had been so happy just hours earlier. He must have known the previous night that he was being deployed soon. I recognized now the finality in his words, the reason for his urgent push to marry me. But he hadn't wanted to pressure me or use his leaving as an excuse. If I'd known the truth, I would have hurried to the chapel, instead of risking the detour to the orphanage. And we would be married.

I started east along the pockmarked pavement which had begun to dry under the rising sun, headed in the direction of the news bureau. It was late morning now and commuters should have been at their offices but as I reached Oxford Street, I realized that something was different. People clustered at the shop windows, huddling close to listen to the radios. Outside a music shop, someone had set up a speaker. I moved closer. “What is it?”

“Haven't you heard?” a man asked. “The Americans have gone across. The invasion of Europe has begun.” So that's why Charlie had left. Though his reconnaissance work would not like have made him part of the initial invasion, he would be needed to fly more than ever now. Panic seized me as I pictured the dangers that he would face. I pictured him lying beside me just hours earlier, everything we had always wanted finally ours for the taking. And now he was gone—perhaps this time for good. If only I had made it to the chaplain's on time! He still would have left, I knew, but we would have been man and wife. Now he was gone to face terrifying danger, not understanding why I had failed to meet him yet again, perhaps believing I didn't love him.

Tears began to gather in my eyes as I ran, trying to block out the drone of the broadcast that spoke of anti-aircraft fire and tanks and casualties. The Americans entering the war in Europe was something I'd wanted for so long. But now all I could see was the peril Charlie faced.

A few minutes later, I stopped, breathless. I knew I should go to the bureau as planned. Stories of the invasion would be bursting, Teddy trying to cover all of them at once. But I was on the edge of Hyde Park, not far from Claire's flat. I headed in that direction, eager to confide in her about Charlie and have her help me make sense of it all. Then I stopped, remembering Claire's unkind words the previous night, the resentment I'd glimpsed for the first time about the attention I received from Teddy and Charlie. It was just the liquor, I told myself. She was still the closest thing I had to a friend.

Claire answered the door looking fresh in her auxiliary uniform, no sign of weariness from the previous night's revelry. Of course, with the invasion on she would be deploying herself, and have more important things to do than chat with me. “I'm so sorry to show up unannounced.” I searched her face for any sign of the anger she'd shown last night.

But she smiled warmly, then stepped aside and let me in. “Not at all. I've got to report in an hour, but there's time for a quick cup of tea. Is something wrong?”

I followed her upstairs to her flat. “Charlie.”

Claire's face tightened to a storm cloud. “What has he done now?”

“It's nothing like that. It's just that...” I faltered, wanting to confess everything but somehow unable.

Then she smiled devilishly. “You've done it, haven't you?”

I stepped back, mortified. “You can tell?”

“Only me, yes. No one else will see it, not even Teddy, I promise.” Teddy. He would have been so hurt to know about me and Charlie if we had gotten married. “There's a glow about you. Was it wonderful?”

“Better than that,” I confessed with a flutter of excitement as I remembered the feel of Charlie pressed close. “Only now he's gone.” My tears came then in spite of myself. I swiped at my eyes, ashamed to be moping about such things when there were so many bigger problems of war and suffering to worry about.

“There, there.” Claire handed me a tissue. “You can't cry now with all of the soldiers going and whatnot. Very un-British, stiff upper lip and all that. Don't be glum. You had your moment, that's the most any of us can hope for right now. More, even.” I waited for Claire to reassure me that Charlie would be all right, that he would come back. But after everything she had seen, she would not make false promises. “Wait here,” she instructed instead, then disappeared into the kitchen.

As I looked out the window across the treetops, my shoulders slumped with exhaustion. Maybe I should go home. Charlie wanted me to, and Teddy would surely understand.

Claire returned a minute later with some toast and tea. I hadn't eaten since the previous day. “Better?” I swallowed and nodded, not really sure if that was true. “Good. No sense moping about.”

“I suppose.”

“Poor Teddy,” Claire mused. “I suppose he doesn't have a chance now.”

No. “How could he?” Even gone, Charlie had all of my heart. “I'll have to tell him.”

“Why? Charlie is gone and things with Teddy are just for fun. Don't be so stiff about it all. Just take it as it comes.” I wished that I could be as light as Claire. But an image of Charlie pulling farther away into the darkness shrouded my mind.

“Anyway, it wasn't just fun with Charlie. He asked me to marry him.”

“Oh?” Claire's eyebrows rose. “You hadn't mentioned.”

“No.” Was that because I feared she might disapprove? “We'd originally planned to wait until he came back, but then Charlie decided we should do it sooner.”

Claire cut me off. “He decided.”

“Yes.”

“Again.” It was not a question. I could see where Claire was going with this, the way it seemed to reaffirm her perception that Charlie called the shots. I wanted to take issue with how Claire was interpreting the facts. But now seeing it laid before me, she was right—Charlie had made the decision for both of us, had presumed I'd want what he did.

“He rang looking for you, by the way. Teddy, that is.” Her point about Charlie having been made, she seemed content to change the subject.

“Did he?”

“Last night. Said you weren't at your flat.” So Teddy had come looking for me after the fete. “I nearly forgot to mention.” But had she really, or had the omission been planned?

I gazed out the window at a woman sitting on the ground by the park's edge, holding a swaddled baby in one hand. A hat lay upturned in front of her in hopeful anticipation of a few coins. How silly my problems seemed by comparison to the suffering and struggles of others! Leo and the orphans popped suddenly into my head.

“There's something else. Remember the orphanage I told you about? There's a small group of children left stranded in France and they can't get papers to come over.”

“And you want me to ask my uncle.” I nodded, relieved she had guessed what I did not have the nerve to raise. “Oh, Addie, how can I possibly right now? I'll try but the immigration laws are passed by Parliament, and now everyone is completely tied up with the invasion...” She stopped, seeing the pleading in my eyes. “I'll try, but don't get your hopes up.”

“Thank you, Claire, I know it's a lot to ask.”

“I'll have to do it when I get back.”

I started to protest that it wouldn't be soon enough, then stopped, her words sinking in. “Back? Where from?” Until now, Claire's assignments had been day trips or overnight at most. But there was a rucksack, smaller and smarter than Charlie's, leaning on the wall by the door.

“We're going over,” Claire said, with a tilt of her head south, implying the coastline. She said this so casually that she might have been speaking about a day at the seaside. It took me a minute to realize that she meant crossing the Channel into war-torn Europe.

“You can't be serious.”

“A group from the Auxiliary is organizing at Portsmouth. We won't deploy right away, of course, but once the Americans have pushed inland, we'll be headed to France to bring supplies to the medics. I've gotten special clearance to join them.”

“That's so dangerous.” My admiration for her rose.

“We aren't actually going to the front, just to a field hospital.” Still, she would be risking everything to save lives, in a way that I could only imagine. “But I'm leaving today to help with the organizing effort.”

Charlie was gone and now Claire—and I was being left behind once more. At the full realization, my heart sank.

“There, there. You'll be fine here and you'll have Teddy to look after you.”

But that wasn't enough—no matter how much I wanted it to be. I finished my toast and coffee, then gestured to Claire's uniform. “You're busy. I should go.”

“Let me get my things and I'll walk you out.” She started for the bedroom.

As I stood, something by the edge of the area rug caught my eye. A lone cuff link. I picked it up. “Lord Raddingley was here?” I called through the open bedroom door.

“Yes.” She appeared from the bedroom. I cringed inwardly as her face lit up. “He's growing fonder, I think.” I thought back to two nights ago in the bomb shelter, my awful secret about Lord Raddingley and the girl. I could not tell Claire and devastate her just as she was about to undertake a dangerous assignment. I tucked the cuff link in my pocket.

Claire picked up her rucksack and we walked down to the street. She paused at the newsstand, scanning the headlines though it was of course too soon for news of the invasion to have been printed. I pointed to a black-and-white map of the French coast on the front page of the
Times
. “The fighting is mostly here, so as long as Charlie is flying east of it...” My voice trailed off.

The woman behind the kiosk eyed me sympathetically. “You poor dear,” she clucked, assuming the worst from my eyes, which must have still been red. “Your husband?” the woman asked. “Boyfriend?” There was a hierarchy, it seemed, of worry and grief and those who were entitled to them.

Before I could answer, Claire slipped her hand into mine. “Father of her bastard child,” she quipped wickedly. The woman's jaw dropped and before she could respond, Claire had whisked me down the street.

We parted at the corner. “Promise me you'll be careful,” I pleaded. I was suddenly aware of the danger that seemed to lurk at every turn.

“Back in a few weeks.” Claire gave me a firm hug instead of her usual airy kiss. As I watched her walk purposefully toward South Kensington station, my shoulders slumped: I had been strong like that once, too. I remembered the girl who had come to America alone, who had fought her way in and made a place for herself. Then I had thought myself small and helpless. But I realized now what it had taken to make my way. That girl, the strong one, I hardly knew anymore.

From a church tower above, a bell began to chime. I looked up. It was past lunch time and I still hadn't made it to the bureau. Hurriedly I walked back down the stairs to the red phone box at the corner.

“The
Post
, Mr. White's desk,” Joan answered.

“It's Adelia. May I speak with him?”

“Adelia, he's terribly busy.” There was a clattering, the phone being grabbed from her hands.

“You still aren't here. What the hell happened to you?” Teddy's voice burst through. “Are you all right?”

“I'm fine.”

“Are you with Charlie?” He did not bother to hide his jealousy anymore.

“No, Teddy. He shipped out this morning.

“I'm sorry I'm not there yet,” I continued before he could ask anything else. “I was on an underground car that was delayed.” The explanation, a half-truth, seemed the most appropriate. “I'm on my way.”

“Good. I can't manage without you.” Did he mean in the office or was he talking about something bigger? “But I wanted to tell you also, I spoke to my friend over at Immigration. I'm afraid it's a no-go. Helping those children before today would have been hard enough. But now with the invasion... Well, it's impossible.” I knew Claire would not be able to help either. “Parliament has shut down all of the visas by legislation. There's nothing to be done.” His voice was sympathetic.

“Thank you anyway,” I said, knowing that he had really tried. But I was flooded with disappointment. Charlie was gone, Claire too, and now I couldn't help the children. I felt so useless. I reached in my pocket and my hand touched the cuff link I'd inadvertently taken from Claire's flat. An idea began to form in my mind. “If you can spare me a bit longer, I'll be there shortly.”

“But you said you were on your way. Adelia, what are you up to?” I hated keeping secrets from Teddy, but he was a journalist and his job was to expose the very things I was trying to protect.

“I'll be there soon,” I said, replacing the phone in the cradle.

* * *

Big Ben was chiming half past one as I crossed the park in front of Westminster. I paused, steeling myself, then walked up the grand entrance of Parliament and through the gilded foyer to the front desk. “Adelia Montforte.” The guard tilted his head at my accent (mostly American with a bit of Italian, and not at all British) and his face hardened as he prepared to turn me away. “I'm here to see Lord Raddingley.” I raised my badge from the
Post
, hoping that it looked official.