The Last Summer at Chelsea Beach (32 page)

“Drink,” Claire said, producing a glass of whiskey, from where I had no idea. I did not take it, but let her raise the glass to my lips, scarcely tasting the fiery liquid.

Then I pushed it aside. “Tell me,” I croaked. “Tell me everything.”

“We were in transit when I overheard a radio dispatch that a plane had gone down deep in Germany, close to the Czech border. The Addie Rose, it was called.”

I looked up at her in disbelief. “He named his plane after me.” He had not told me. But Claire said he had been over Germany. Charlie should not have been that far south. Had he kept that from me so I would not worry more? Or perhaps he had not known.

I looked up at Teddy, who was watching me, and I braced for his questions about Charlie’s mission and how much I had known. But he simply cleared his throat. “Let me make some calls and see what I can find out.” Teddy left the office to find another line, not wanting, I suspected, to speak in front of me.

“Charlie...”

“There, there,” Claire soothed as she cradled me, feeding me sips of whiskey. “Look at you—you’ve even got men rescuing your other men.” I did not respond to her feeble attempt at a joke, but lay back limply, staring out the window at the deceptively blue sky. Charlie was missing. It could not possibly be true. The Addie Rose, he’d called his plane. Because some part of him, despite it all, still believed I was good luck. Couldn’t he see that I destroyed almost everyone I touched?

Once upon a time I would have prayed. “Please,” I would say each night as I lay in the darkness, willing God to bring my parents safely to America. At some point I’d wondered if it would it do any good to say it more than once. So I had added more
please
s beneath the flannel sheets that smelled of rose water, a hundred and as many as a thousand, repeating the word late into the night. Then news had come about my mother and father and I had not prayed again. Could I now? It wasn’t just that I had forgotten the words—I had simply stopped believing.

The door to Teddy’s office opened and he reappeared, jaw set grimly. “What did you find out?” I said, trying to sit up even though the room was wobbly.

“Let’s get you home,” he said.

“I want to know,” I insisted. I would not go until I had answers.

But he shook his head. “Not here.” As he looked down the hall furtively I understood his hesitation was about something more than protecting me: German spies were thought to be everywhere and he would not speak in a public place, even the bureau, for fear of jeopardizing operations—and perhaps Charlie himself. He and Claire helped me past the curious secretaries downstairs into a cab.

“I should get back to my duties,” Claire fretted, standing at the open door of the taxi.

“I’ve got her,” Teddy said, sliding in beside me. I leaned my head against his shoulder for comfort. Neither of us spoke. My mind reeled back to the cab ride I’d taken with Charlie to the hotel and everything that had happened afterward in his room. But the heat that usually came when I thought about such things was extinguished by sorrow.

The cab stopped on Porchester Terrace and Teddy helped me out. But I was able to manage the steps on my own. “He was flying over Munich,” Teddy said in a low voice when we were inside my flat. Without asking, he put on the kettle, then turned back to me. His brow furrowed. “I thought Charlie was part of the unit flying sorties out of Duxford. He should have been over northern France or Belgium.”

“That was a cover,” I confessed. There was no point in hiding the truth anymore. “He was flying reconnaissance missions on his own.” I waited for Teddy’s anger that I had not told him the truth about Charlie or the real reason I had asked him to kill the story. But his expression remained calm. “Has there been any word of him?”

“None.”

“The embassy.” My voice cracked with desperation. “Surely they can help.”

“I put in a call but so far nothing. Claire said she would check with her uncle as well. We’re working with all of our contacts.” Gratitude rose in me. Teddy had not liked the fact of Charlie, but he was doing everything he could to help. “But crashing over Germany...”

Changed everything, I finished silently. He continued, “They’re going to fly over the site to try and check, when they can do it without jeopardizing operations. Of course, we must consider the Germans could have captured him.”

Which would be worse. My stomach turned as the full weight of the situation crashed down on me. “Oh, no.”

“We don’t know that, Addie,” he said earnestly, taking my hand. He used the Connally boys’ nickname for me now, the one he had always eschewed. Teddy might have been conflicted: Charlie had been his biggest rival for my attention. But his voice was filled with genuine sadness, which scared me more than perhaps anything else. “He could be hiding in the woods. But that’s very dangerous territory. I’m afraid you must prepare yourself for the worst.” I buried my head in his chest and wept.

I set down the book I’d been reading carefully so as not to get it wet, then sank deeper into the bath, closing my eyes. It was Sunday night, the murmur of a BBC program and the faint smell of coriander coming through the floorboards from the Dashani kitchen below. For a moment I could almost imagine I had just arrived in London and life was like it was back before I’d met Claire, when I used to spend all of my nights like this, alone. Back before everything had happened.

But it wasn’t. It had been more than six weeks since Charlie’s plane went down. My stomach churned as it did every morning when I woke up and remembered. There had been no further word of him. “At this point,” Claire had said on one of her brief visits back from duty, “we have to assume that he is gone.” She spoke kindly but firmly, not wanting to hurt me needlessly but unwilling to give me false promise.

“But we don’t know. He could be arrested, or injured somewhere, or in hiding.” It was the last of these, the most hopeful thought, that I kept anchored firmly in my mind. Charlie had crashed in a wooded area and was simply staying out of sight until he could make his way back safely. I could not bear to think of anything worse.

Claire had not pressed further to wipe away the last of my hope. She came back as often as she could between her own missions, keeping me busy with dinner and films, quieter fun more suitable than the clubs and parties she otherwise might have frequented. Teddy helped when Claire was away, offering his company in an unassuming way when I was amenable, and retreating graciously when I was not.

Of course, I hadn’t given up on Charlie. I’d done my own digging, visiting the War Office and other government agencies that might have information, using my press credentials and Teddy’s connections to gain access. But when the bureaucrats in their dusty offices would finally see me, they would offer me weak tea, then tell me that they had no information about Charlie’s mission or whereabouts. Really, their raised eyebrows and barely veiled exasperated tones implied, the British government had better things to do than find a lone American.

Finally, I’d gotten an appointment with the military attaché at the US embassy, Colonel Miller, a man with salt-and-pepper hair and a deeply lined face. “I understand that you’re trying to find out about Sergeant Charles Connally.” He pulled out a file. “We don’t even have his mission listed officially. He was supposed to be flying out of Duxford.”

“He was working on some confidential matters,” I said.

Colonel Miller’s eyebrows rose. Clearly he knew about Charlie’s work, though I was not supposed to. “Miss Montforte, we have hundreds of thousands of men in combat, and official channels for sending news of their well-being. I cannot simply hand a file to anyone who walks through the door.”

“Please.” I cut him off before he could refuse me. “I’ve known him my whole life.” That wasn’t exactly a lie; in reality I’d only met the Connallys a few years earlier, but some part of me felt as though I had known them forever. “We were supposed to be married. I just need to find out what happened.”

“Very well.” He thumbed through a file, then pulled out a sheet and handed it to me. “I’m terribly sorry.” The paper gave Charlie’s date of birth and aircraft identification, as well as the date and location from which it had taken off. My blood turned to ice.
Missing
, it read.
Presumed deceased.

That had been four days ago. I dropped the paper and staggered numbly from the embassy, not bothering to thank Colonel Miller. The report had told me nothing conclusive, I reminded myself as I hurried down the cool granite steps of the embassy, which occupied one side of Grosvenor Square. I averted my eyes from the soldiers’ hotel opposite it. Of course Charlie was missing; the rest was just a guess. But I wondered why they presumed him dead, the facts and information not contained on the paper that had led to that conclusion.

I had not yet told Claire or Teddy what I had learned. Saying it would only make it more real. With no further inquiries to be made, Charlie missing was the painful status quo. I stepped from the tub now and dried, then put on my gown. Charlie’s image had grown clouded in my mind. I still thought of him constantly. But I had stopped dreaming about him, just like my parents and Robbie. That—even more so than the information I had seen at the embassy—was the surest sign that he was gone.

And yet still I could not accept it. It was easy enough to pretend he was simply off fighting. Hope of his recovery had faded like a dying ember but some part of me wasn’t ready to acknowledge that he was gone in the same way that Robbie was, to begin grieving for him. I thought about what might have been between us. We had come so close. Our night at the hotel played over and over in my mind. We had not known it was the last time.

I put on my nightgown, then walked to my desk, eyeing the stationery box. What did the Connallys know? Though I knew how news of those killed in the fighting was conveyed from my time in Washington and the Dennison boy, I was unsure if the War Department sent letters when one was only presumed missing. I should have been the one to write and tell them. But anything I’d said would have been guessing, and that would only make things worse.

Beside the stationery box sat the package containing the visas Lord Raddingley had gotten for me. I’d waited for weeks, hopeful that Teddy would be able to make a connection to get the visas to the children. He’d tried as tirelessly to do that as he had to help me get word of Charlie. But though the Allies had pushed inland, the children were in an area that was surrounded by fighting and the Allies weren’t authorizing anyone to go in there now. My optimism grew fainter as time passed and promising leads did not pan out. Even Sister Jayne had stopped asking when I visited.

Looking at the passes now, my frustration grew. Every day that passed meant heightened danger for the children. They might already be gone. This wasn’t like Charlie, missing and beyond reach. We knew where the children were, or had anyway. If they were still there, we could help them. Impulsively, I changed into my dress and shoes, then started from the flat. I walked downstairs and phoned the bureau but Teddy’s line rang and rang.

Forty-five minutes later, I stepped from a taxi at Hampstead and started up the fashionable High Street, its darkened shops shuttered and sandbagged, pavement deserted. Mindful of the curfew I was breaking, I hurried in the direction of Teddy’s flat. It was three blocks north, the ground floor of a single Georgian house, set back from a quiet street by well-tended gardens.

I rang the bell. As he opened the door, his eyes widened. “Addie, what is it? Is something wrong?”

Everything
, I wanted to say. But I forced a smile. “Not at all. May I come in?”

He stepped back, the correspondent too caught off guard to ask further questions. I had been here once before, dropping off papers. His two rooms were elegant, with dark oak trim and high windows, and overstuffed red leather couches that suited his bachelor lifestyle. His walls were as bare as those at the bureau, no photos or personal mementoes. Unlike his office, his flat was neat, tabletops clear of papers and cups. It wasn’t just that he had a housekeeper come in and clean—between long hours at the office and chasing stories, he simply spent no time here. It was as if he could not bear to be alone.

Except now. He was wearing a smoking jacket and a bottle of brandy sat on the table before him. Duke Ellington played from the record player on the bookshelf.

“I’m sorry I didn’t ring first,” I said, suddenly a tinge nervous. “I just wanted some company.”

“Would you like a drink? I’ve got a chardonnay that’s almost passable. Or there’s some Ribena, if you’d prefer.”

“That would be lovely.” He poured a bit of the black-currant syrup into a glass and added water before passing it to me.

I followed him into the sitting room. “I tried the bureau. I thought I might find you.”

“Yes, well, now you have.” His normally bright eyes were dark.

“It’s about the children.” A disappointed look crossed his face, as he realized I’d come for more than just company. Then his expression turned guarded. “I know we’ve had no luck with the correspondents. But someone else, the church maybe, or the medics, surely someone can help.” My voice rose pleadingly.