Page 124 of The Last Night in London
Colin carefully slid the note out of its envelope and moved to stand next to me. I held the back of the photo next to it, looked at one and then at the other, letting the implications sink in, allowing them to reverberate in the place in my brain that made clowns out of clouds, and boogeymen out of shadows. The place where the improbable became possible.
“It might not mean anything,” I said out loud, “but this might.”
I pulled out one of the letters written by Precious in Paris and sent to Sophia in the decades after the war, and placed it next to the note and the back of the photograph.
Colin’s eyebrows knitted together. “I’m not a handwriting expert, but it looks to me as if all of these were written by the same person.” He pointed to the signature at the bottom of the note about the purse. “By Eva Harlow.” He slid one of the Paris letters closer. “Or by Precious Dubose?”
“Except Eva Harlow doesn’t appear to have existed, according to the archives,” Hyacinth said. “We have exhausted all our resources. The name does appear in various records, but none in Devon and certainly none who would be the right age.”
James cleared his throat. “Although you did find something new to show us, Hyacinth?”
She tittered again. “About your Graham! I’d completely forgotten in all this excitement. I feel as if I’m the one with mummy brain and not my daughter. Although comparatively, Jessica is much more clearheaded than I am right now.” She grinned at Penelope and James, then slid her gaze over to Colin. “You’ll understand just as soon as you hold your first grandchild, I can assure you,” she said, pulling her purse straps off her shoulder.
“Let me get that for you,” James said, placing her large yet efficient purse on the table, exposing the organized sections inside, filled with all sorts of papers and office supplies, as well as a stuffed blue giraffe and a pacifier neatly tucked inside a pocket next to an iPad.
I opened my mouth to say something, my words forgotten as I saw James’s profile turned away from me, a smile creasing the side of his face. I stopped breathing for a moment, forgetting all politeness and simply staring at him. “Well, burn my biscuits!”
Everyone turned to look at me. Hands trembling with excitement, I dug into my backpack and pulled out a cluster of the cut photographs. I pointed to the one of a woman sitting on a park bench, her hat in her lap, her face turned so that we saw her profile and the entire expanse of perfect skin on the left side of her neck. “Look,” I said, indicating her nose. “Do you see this slight curve at the bridge? It saves her nose from being perfect, but it makes her more interesting. She’s still a beautiful woman, so people don’t really notice it.”
“True,” said Colin.
“Hang on,” I said. “I’m not done.” I reached inside the backpack again and pulled out the framed photograph of the woman stepping from the car, her face also in profile, and then one of the more current photos I’d taken of Precious in her flat. “These two women are the same, see?
“But this—” I slid the cut photograph of the woman on the bench closer so they could compare. “It’s a different nose from the one of the woman on the bench. Completely straight and smooth. And look.” I tapped the photo, showing the nearly hidden mark on Precious’s neck. “There’s this, too. It’s concealed but not completely. But in all of the cut photos of the woman withthisnose, it’s not visible at all.”
“So it’s not the same woman?” Hyacinth asked—a little gleefully, I thought. As if she enjoyed puzzles, even personal ones.
“No. It’s not.” I turned to Colin’s father. “James, would you mind turning your head a little, so we can see your profile?”
With a questioning look, he did as I asked. I felt rather than heard the intake of breath of the three people standing behind me. I turned to meet Colin’s eyes. “What do you think?”
“I’m not sure what to think. But one thing I do know is that whoever that woman sitting on the bench is, she is somehow related to my father. And to me, too, I suppose.”
“But who is she?” James asked. “Is that the elusive Eva?”
I stared at the photo for so long that I began to lose focus. Precious’s words echoed in my head.Just because a person is lost doesn’t mean they want to be found.She’d said that about Eva. And she’d liked to imagine that she and Graham had run away together to their house by the sea.
I recalled the thought that had bounced around my brain when I’d first emptied the purse back in Precious’s flat. A thought so outrageous and unbelievable that I had pushed it aside, unwilling to recognize it as the truth that had been dancing around me longer than I cared to admit. It startled me to realize how long I’d known, but had been too immersed in my own drama to look up and acknowledge it. And because I knew it hadn’t been my secret to tell.
But the time had come for Precious to explain why someone who is lost might not want to be found. It was time to help a dying woman find atonement.
I looked up and met Colin’s eyes. “No,” I said. “That is definitely not Eva Harlow.”
CHAPTER 37
LONDON
FEBRUARY 1941
In the months following Precious’s revelation, Eva waited. Waited for Precious to make some kind of plan for her baby. Waited for the bombs to stop, for the fires and the destruction and the death to end. For Alex to release her, and for the weather to warm.
And she waited for Graham.
She hadn’t seen him since November, when he’d kissed her in the Savoy’s basement. When he’d told her they had left so much unsaid. That they’d both made mistakes and would need to forgive the unforgivable. She wanted to ask him what he’d meant, to explain. But he remained elusive, a ghost around each corner as she walked to work or headed out at night with Alex. She felt watched, and she found it oddly comforting. She continued to deliver envelopes to Chester Terrace, unsure who would tell her when to stop. And she waited.
She also worried—mostly about Precious and her unborn child, the child Precious thought might be due in April. Despite Eva’s furnishing her with pen and paper, Precious wouldn’t write to Paul to tell him about the baby. With some shame, Precious had admitted that the last time she’d seen Paul, he’d told her he was married. Shedidn’t want to have any further communication with him. Eva’s plan of soliciting help from his parents had evaporated, leaving her with no other option than the hope that Paul might try to contact Precious.
Christmas came and went with little remark. The weather remained dull, wet, and cold; although people were quick to say that it wasn’t quite as cold as the previous winter, snow and frost did nothing to raise a Christmas spirit or disguise the rubbled ruins that huddled like frightened children on nearly every street.
