The Last Embrace

  I turned to the boy and held out my hand. He hung back uncertainly. What would I do if he refused to come with me? I couldn’t force him. Then he slipped his hand in mine and the soft, warm fingers felt so much like Robbie’s, I might have cried. But there was no time. I looked around for a taxi and found none. “Come,” I said softly and began to walk quickly through the streets, relieved that the boy kept up without complaint.

  A few minutes later, we reached the river, not far from where I had stood with Charlie just hours earlier. I stared at the Hungerford Bridge spanning the Thames, long and bare and exposed. Searchlights licked the sky, looking for the next wave of bomber planes.

  I started forward toward the footpath, but the child pulled back. “Don’t be afraid,” I urged, not sure why he should believe me. But then I noticed he was missing a shoe and the cracked sole of his foot was seeping blood into the pavement, just as Mamma’s had the night she put me on the boat. It must have hurt him terribly for blocks, and yet the strong little boy had said nothing.

  I peered desperately across the bridge once more. Then I knelt, gesturing for the child to climb on my back. He was denser than his slight frame suggested and I struggled under the weight. I started across the bridge, trying to stay low.

  We reached the other side and I straightened, breathing easier. Theed Street was, as the policeman had said, not far beyond the base of the bridge. As we turned onto the unlit street, the door to one of the houses flew open and a woman dressed in black-and-white nun’s garb rushed out. “Leo!” I set him down and he ran toward her. Kneeling, she grabbed the child and began speaking close to his face scolding him in German, though whether to the boy or herself I was not quite sure. I was caught off guard by the language, which no one spoke openly in London these days.

  “I’m Jayne Highsmith,” she offered in English. “Sister Jayne, they call me here.”

  “Adelia.” The woman wrapped her arms around the child, then looked up expectantly at me. I must look so odd in the party dress I’d borrowed from Claire, now wrinkled and filthy. “I found him on the street over by St. Paul’s.”

  “Leo’s always running off,” the woman explained apologetically. “He’s one of about two dozen children that we were able to bring over from a refugee camp near Lille. We managed to get sponsors to bring them here before the German occupation. It’s a bit cramped and they’d be better off outside the city, but we’ve had no choice since a bomb damaged the abbey in Surrey last month. They’re the lucky ones—we still have another thirty little ones awaiting their papers in the north of France.” Lucky. Someone had called me that once, and in retrospect they had been right. Appreciation welled in me for my aunt and uncle, who had been willing to take me in.

  “Are they orphans?”

  “Some have parents back in Europe who sent them ahead for safety. Leo’s had it worse than most. His parents were killed on Kristallnacht.” I’d heard of the rampage in Germany and Austria, Jews beaten, their homes and shops destroyed. “And no one here can communicate with him.” She stopped, seeing my puzzled look. “Leo’s deaf.”

  So that explained why he had not responded to my questions. I looked down at the boy, who must feel so isolated and confused. “He’s all alone.”

  “He has a sister among the children still waiting for paperwork in France.”

  “Couldn’t all of the children be brought out at once?” I asked, curiosity making me more direct.

  “We only had papers for so many—and we got the most urgent cases out first. Leo, without his hearing, was most vulnerable.” I nodded. There was no telling what would happen to someone like him if he had stayed. “His sister will be here soon enough.” There came a faint rumbling and the woman looked upward uneasily. “We should be inside. You’re welcome to stay until it’s light out.”

  “No, thank you, I should be getting back.” I patted Leo’s shoulder and he looked up with an almost-smile. Watching as he followed the woman back into the house, a part of me wished I was going with him.

  I started back toward the bridge. The sky was beginning to pinken now, illuminating the street before me. The devastation of South London was beyond anything I had seen since my arrival, entire blocks decimated, not just from this night but the past months of bombing. At the entrance to the underground at Waterloo, which had been hooded with aluminum to keep its lights from planes overhead, people climbed the stairs to the street with rolled blankets in hand. The tube stations had become places to sleep during the Blitz and many still went there, either for safety or because their homes had been destroyed and there was simply nowhere else for them to go. Their faces were haggard from lack of sleep but they moved forward, jaws set grimly. A mother leaned against a light post, holding two infants and looking as though she might collapse at any second. I reached in my pocket and fished out whatever coins I had, then handed them to the woman, wishing that I had more to give.

  I recrossed the footbridge into the city. The streets were calm now as Londoners began their morning, stepping around the broken boards and rubble as they made their way to work. At the corner, the fire brigade hosed down the charred rubble of a building and a policeman guided traffic around the wreckage, which protruded into the roadway. At the base of St. Paul’s, I found a cab and gave the driver my address. As I slumped in the backseat watching the shops of Piccadilly Circus scroll past, I tried to make sense of what had happened with Charlie. The very deepest part of me had wanted to see him and to run into his arms. But something had stopped me from getting too close again.

  I asked the driver to stop short of my address on Porchester Terrace, and paid him. Then I hurried up the steps, past Mrs. Dashani’s door before the landlady could see me in the previous evening’s clothes. In my room, I took my dressing gown from the hook, then walked to the toilet down the hall to run a bath. Ten minutes later, I sank into the steaming tub, guiltily avoiding the line where the hot water was supposed to stop for rationing. Baths were one of the things I loved best here—the steep porcelain tub on brass-footed legs. I poured in some of the bath salts I’d splurged on at Boots.

  As the water enveloped me, my thoughts returned to Charlie. Even as I had wanted to be with him, part of me wanted to flee again as I had in Washington. Resentment seeped in that he had come and complicated things just as I found a new start. My life here was nothing grand—a tiny flat, a job which, for all of the extras, was still just a typing job. But I was my own person here—not just an extension of the Connallys. I would not leave again. More to the point, I didn’t have anywhere to go.

  I sank deeper in the water. I shouldn’t linger, I knew; I needed to get dressed for work. But my muscles relaxed in the warm water and my eyes grew heavy.

  I was standing on the beach at Ohio Avenue, watching Liam surf in the distance. The waves grew larger and I tried to shout to him over the breaking surf to come in. But he could not hear me. A wave loomed large, swallowing the beach and crashing down upon me. The current was fiercer than it had ever been before, threatening not just to sweep me away but to tear me apart, pull my limbs from one another. Through the water a hand felt for me and even though I could not see, I knew that it was Charlie. I reached for him but then he was gone.

  Loud knocking jarred me awake. I sat up in the tub. How long had I been asleep? The water had grown lukewarm, and I was chilled. The sound came again from down the hall. Hurriedly I dried and put on my dressing gown. “One moment.” Had Charlie come to find me?

  But it was Teddy who stood in front of my door, his face tight with concern. “Addie, are you all right?” He averted his eyes from the neck of my gown. “When you didn’t turn up for work, I was so worried that something had happened.” Ten past ten, read the clock on the nightstand. More than an hour after I should have been there—and it wasn’t like me to be late. “The landlady buzzed me in. I should have called first.” But, panicked, he had not. “Are you ill?”
r />   I brushed a piece of damp hair from my eyes. “No, I’m perfectly fine. I’m so sorry to have worried you. Just give me a minute.” I slipped into my room and closed the door, then dressed quickly in a fresh blouse and skirt before opening it again. “Come in.”

  But his forehead remained creased. “I rang to check on you last night after you left, to make sure you were feeling all right and had made it home safely. Mrs. Dashani said you had not come home yet.” So his dark look was not only due to my failing to turn up to work. I held my breath, waiting for him to ask where I had been or demand some sort of an explanation. But Teddy was too much of a gentleman for that. And perhaps, since he had seen Charlie at the party, he already knew.

  “I decided to walk back,” I offered lamely. My explanation sounded implausible in light of the curfew and the headache that had caused me to leave the club in the first place. “I found a child lost on the street and I had to get him back to the orphanage.”

  “By yourself? That was terribly risky. Did you hear about that awful raid by the river?” he asked.

  “Yes.” I had not mentioned getting stuck on the street during the bombing raid, since that would make clear I was still out hours after I’d left him. “The little boy—Leo—he’s deaf and his sister is still stuck in France.” Tears sprang to my eyes.

  “Now, now.” Teddy patted my shoulder.

  “I’m sorry I alarmed you,” I said, wiping my eyes. My apology sounded as though it was about something much larger.

  “It’s no worries. I’m just glad you’re safe.” Teddy dipped his hat in front of him. It was filled with flowers, still damp from where he had picked them. “For you.”

  “They’re beautiful,” I said, touched by the sweet gesture. If only they were from Charlie. I turned away, swallowed by guilt.

  He waved his hand at the hat. “Keep it. You can give it back at the office.”

  “All right, then.” I lifted the sweetness to my nose. “The morning briefing,” I remembered suddenly the press conference at the War Office. “I’ll finish getting ready and meet you there. Don’t wait for me or you’ll be late.”

  But Teddy remained in place, feet planted. “That Charlie... It’s quite a coincidence, your old friend from home turning up.” He tried to sound offhand but his voice was pinched.

  “It certainly is.”

  “What’s he doing here?”

  I faltered. “He’s based out of Duxford.”

  “And he just popped down to London to see you?”

  “I suppose.”

  We stared at each other uneasily for several seconds. “I should go.”

  I watched him walk down the stairs, remembering with more than a bit of sadness our dance the previous night. That one moment with Teddy had been simple and joyous, a glimpse of what a normal life might have been like. I had almost been able to forget about the Connallys. But then Charlie appeared, calling me back—as if he had known I was going and somehow had to stop me.

  I put the flowers in water and finished dressing. I opened the door to leave, then yelped with surprise. Charlie stood on the other side, hand aloft, just about to knock.

  “You!” I exclaimed.

  “You were expecting someone else?” He wore a thick brown bomber jacket that gapped just a bit at the neck and I fought the urge to bury my nose there. Charlie’s eyes flickered as they drifted to the flowers on the nightstand.

  I studied his face, any remaining anger from the previous night disappearing in the soft pools of his eyes. “I know I said I wouldn’t bother you again. It’s just that bombing raid started so soon after I walked away. I shouldn’t have left you alone.” He was haggard around the eyes and faint stubble covered his chin. I could still smell the liquor from the pub the previous night. He had not showered or slept.

  “You can see I’m fine.”

  “May I come in?”

  I stepped back, mindful of Charlie in the too-close space. His body seemed everywhere at once. He glimpsed around the room uncertainly. “Top floor, narrow stairs...something of a firetrap.” He scowled. His tone proprietary, the concerned big brother once more. I bristled. He did not have the right to worry about me now. But the old habits died hard, and at the same time, I was secretly a bit pleased.

  He went on, “And even more dangerous with the bombing raids. What was White thinking?”

  My anger rose at his criticizing the flat of which I was so proud. “Teddy had nothing to do with it. I found this place on my own. I love it here,” I persisted. But I suddenly saw the space through his eyes, small and not enough.

  “So you were okay last night during the bombing?”

  “Yes. You?”

  “I had just made it to the underground station, thankfully. It was the worst one since I’ve been here. I’m glad you’re all right,” he added.

  “I was—and then the most unusual thing happened.” I told him about Leo and the other children. “The war is bad enough, but surviving it as an orphan would be horrible.”

  “They aren’t all orphans,” he pointed out.

  “Leo is,” I retorted. My mother and father had still been alive when I’d come to America but I remember feeling completely alone, parentless.

  Outside, a clock chimed half past ten. “I have to get to work.”

  “I’ll walk with you.” I opened my mouth to argue, then decided against it.

  It was a brisk spring morning as we made our way along the northern edge of Hyde Park, the grass and bushes damp as though it had rained the previous evening. The fences had been torn down, melted for the war effort and patches had been cleared and tilled for victory gardens.

  We passed a line of couples outside a church, women dressed a bit too smartly for the weekday morning, men mostly in uniforms. “A lot of people getting married,” Charlie mused. We might have had a wedding, nothing fancy, just a justice of the peace and perhaps a small party in the Connally living room. I watched, feeling the lost promise of what might have been ours if things had turned out differently.

  Then he stopped and turned to me. “I’m sorry.” It was the first time I had ever heard Charlie apologize. “I got it all so very wrong last night. I couldn’t bear to leave things that way between us.”

  “It’s all right. We’ve been through worse.” I tried without success to make this last bit sound light.

  His face remained troubled, suggesting something more. “What is it?” He bit his lip.

  He looked over his shoulder, then lowered his voice, unable to hold back any longer. “Like I started to say last night, I’ve been doing some reconnaissance missions and that sort of thing, over northern France.” A chill ran through me. He had already been over to the fighting and I hadn’t even known. “Being with the boys up at Duxford is cover. This is top secret stuff. None of the Brits—and only a few Americans—even know. We can’t risk leaks, especially now. I’m not supposed to talk about it—I already said too much.” But the words spilled out and he was trusting me now, as he once had. “I’ll be leaving soon and I probably won’t be coming back to London. I had to see you again before I go.” He faltered, unable to say more. But his face betrayed the danger of the mission that lay before him. It all clicked into place: his meetings in Washington, and turning up in London just now.

  “Oh, Charlie!” The magnitude of what he was doing finally hit me. Why couldn’t he just enlist like everyone else? Because once Charlie had a plan, a way that his whole life was going to be. But that was gone now, blown to shreds.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you the whole of it earlier,” he said, as we neared Whitehall.

  I understood then that the darkness I’d sensed in him last night had not just been about Robbie but the mission that stood before him. I wanted to tell him that he could save a thousand boys and that still wouldn’t bring back his brother. But
he needed to do this. I embraced him and drew his head to my shoulder, feeling his breath warm through the fabric against my skin.

  In the distance a clock chimed eleven. “I’ve got to go.” It would not be fair to leave Teddy waiting and worrying again. But I looked desperately over my shoulder, not wanting to abandon Charlie. “There’s a charity fete tonight at the Savoy,” I offered. “I know you hate those sorts of things.”

  “I do, but I’m willing to suffer through it just this once. For you.” He smiled, causing my stomach to flip just as it had when I was sixteen.

  I stopped short of the entrance to the War Office. Though Teddy was surely inside, it felt as though he was peering out one of the many windows, watching me with Charlie. “Until tonight, then.”

  The briefing was breaking up as I entered. “I didn’t think you were going to make it,” Teddy said, the mildness in his voice forced.

  “I couldn’t get a taxicab.” I followed him out onto the street, waiting for him to press my explanation.

  “You didn’t miss much, but there’s a story I want to get filed before the fete tonight.”

  “Yes, I wanted to speak with you about that.”

  He stopped and turned to me expectantly. “Don’t tell me you’re going to try and get out of going again.”

  “No, I’m still going...but I’ve invited Charlie.”

  “Well, there will be plenty of American soldiers there, I should expect. Good to make him feel welcome.” He sounded as though he was trying to convince himself.

  We reached the office, and I followed Teddy through reception and up the stairs. When we reached his office, he closed the door behind me. “There’s something else. I did some checking with one of the girls over at the American embassy.” Teddy had an endless network of contacts across London among the women who worked in the government agencies and elsewhere, whom he’d either charmed or dated and somehow left on stunningly good terms. “She said there’s been loads of activity around the old airstrip at Wellford, lots of supplies headed that way. I wonder if Charlie’s being here has anything to do with that.”