I spend most of Sunday flopped out on my bed nursing a mild hangover and a bruised ego.  I berate myself hourly with the fact that I didn’t see the nature of Tommy’s true intent earlier; after all it wasn’t the first time someone thought they could take from me, something  that wasn’t being offered.  The last time however, I was much younger, more naïve and I didn’t have an elderly gentleman to come to my rescue.  To aid my recovery, I indulge in a diet of crisps, several bars of chocolate and wash it all down with a two-litre bottle of Coke.  Trying to keep my mind from mulling over recent events, I transport myself away with a good book and by early afternoon I feel much better. 

With the book finished and my legs in need of a stretch, I head downstairs to find distraction.  I put the kettle on and head back into the living room to the stack of boxes of Dorothy’s remaining effects.   Her diary is sat on the top, but it’s the box of old photos that immediately catches my attention.  I go to pick them up, when there is a knock at the door, swiftly followed by a second knock and then Tommy calls out my name.  My stomach heaves a little as he is the last person I want to see right now.  I stand up straight, run a hand through my hair and approach the door.  On the hook to the left of the door hangs his coat and I grab it ready to shove it at him and get this over and done with as quickly as possible.  I turn the key and give the handle a good tug and I open it to find Tommy standing well back, his hands in his pockets.

“Hi,” I say.

“Hi,” he replies.  His shoulders are stooped and he doesn’t give me eye contact.

“Here’s your jacket,” I offer and hold it out to him.

“Thanks,” he says taking hold of it.

“Bye,” I reply and step back into the house.

“Err… Alice, I’m err … sorry for last night.”

“Okay,” I reply and go to close the door.

“I was out of order and I shouldn’t have done what I did.”

“No you shouldn’t have... I’ll see you around Tommy.” I close the door and wait behind it holding my breath.  I can hear he is still stood there and for a second a little of the fear I once knew flows through me again. 

“Shit,” he mutters and then I hear the sound of his footsteps walking away.

I turn the key in the lock; rub at my arms, trying to erase the goose bumps and head back to make a mug of tea before I start going through the box of photos. 

Tea in hand, with two biscuits balancing on the rim, I pull an old blanket off the back of the armchair, sit down and tuck myself in. I grab the box and start to sift through.  Over her life, well the early years at least, Dorothy seems to have taken masses of photos, each one carefully annotated on the back with the year it was taken and who is in the photo.  Ironically, given that photography is nowadays such an easy and accessible thing to do, I have virtually no photographs of myself or my life so far.  I have one faded picture of my mum and dad, one of my grandmother and a couple of me growing up.  I have no official school photographs because my foster parents weren’t willing to part with that amount of cash on my behalf.   My mobile phone held a few pictures of James and me, but they met with the delete button the other night after our final phone call.  I suppose people take pictures of things they want to remember; so seemingly either I haven’t wanted to remember anyone or maybe no one has ever really wanted to remember me.  

The earliest photos I find are dated back to 1936, the most recent dated 1978.  But it’s a photo from 1938, showing a group of happy young men and women that captivates me; in fact it makes me laugh out loud.  I imagine all of the people in the picture are in their mid-teens, but you can’t really tell that from the clothes they are wearing, which appear to make anyone and everyone look middle- aged.  They are standing in a busy street, lined with people and as in many of the photos, Dorothy is in the centre wearing a small hat, worn at an angle, her hair tied up and gentle kiss curls frame her face.  She’s wearing a dress, just below knee length and made from a dark fabric with a small floral pattern.  The waist is synched by a thin belt, with horizontal pleats over the bust area and buttoned up to her neck. To her right is a handsome young man, dressed in a dark single-breasted suit.  Whilst Dorothy gazes at him, her hand resting on his arm, the young man is looking directly at the camera and pulling a funny, pompous face.  It is at odds with many of the other photographs in the box, which all seem posed and formal. Around them his friends are laughing and the expression on his face is so silly that it makes me laugh as well.  I turn the picture over and read.  October 1938, Opening of City Hall- Gil, I and the gang (and King George). 

Intrigued by that photo, the people in it and the brief mention of royalty, I decide to see if Dorothy made a diary entry for that day.  I flick through the pages of the journal I’ve already seen and find that is a couple of years later than the photo, so I delve further into the box and find several others.  1937, 1941, 1940… finally I come across 1938.  This diary is both the thickest and most worn; the spine creaks as I gently open it.  Carefully I peel each page apart until I reach 29th October.

Today was a most exciting day.  Mr Manvers arranged to take us all into Norwich.  I had wondered why we needed to leave so early, but when we arrived I‘d never seen so many people in one place before.  Mr Manvers shepherded us to a good vantage point and after waiting for a few hours, we saw the procession arrive.  First the Mayor with other dignitaries, in full ceremonial clothing appeared.  They led the procession from the City Hall, followed by the King and Queen, who looked every bit as regal as I imagined they would.  They walked through the War Memorial Gardens, only stopping briefly for the King to place a poppy wreath in the centre.  Then they walked past a line of veterans and the Queen actually spoke to some of them and even held one man’s hand.  The poor man could barely stand, leaning on a wooden support resting under his right arm.  Finally they returned to the steps of City Hall and the King made a lovely speech.  The police officers really did have their hands full keeping the crowd from surging forward.  Mr Manvers in fact became as eager as a puppy himself at the sight of royalty, almost dropping his precious Leica.  That man takes more pictures than is good for him.  Gil acted the fool today, entertaining everybody. In fact Mr Manvers was quite distraught that his nephew wouldn’t pose properly for the camera.  Gil said I looked pretty today.

I continue to read Dorothy’s journal for a couple more hours.  I find her words fascinating, even though most of the entries are just the mundane musings of a fourteen year old girl. She talks a little about school and how well she is doing in Domestic Science and briefly mentions that her father had started to talk about a man in Germany called Hitler who is going to cause a lot of trouble.  By end of 1938 it is clear to me that Dorothy had two main loves in her life: Bing Crosby and the young man in the photo, Gil. 

At half past four, I force myself up out of the chair and quickly bathe and change.  With a few minutes to spare I make my way to Muriel’s house, two doors down.  The front door is already open and she calls to me to close the door behind me and join her in the garden.  I walk through a home, almost identical to Dorothy’s, and find her sat in the garden under a large parasol, holding a drink, heavily decorated with fruit, cucumber slices and a pink umbrella. 

“Pimms and Lemonade?” She asks.

“Ooh, yes please.”

As Muriel pours from the jug, the assorted garnishes fall into the tall glass with a splash.  She places an umbrella in the top and passes it to me.  I take a sip of the cool, sweet liquid and wonder whether she forgot to add any Lemonade.

“I like it good and strong” she says and laughs at my puckered lips.  She then pulls back a small table cloth covering the table to reveal a feast beneath it; freshly made sandwiches, cheese straws and scones with jam and cream.  “Help yourself.”

“Thank you for inviting me, Muriel, this looks lovely.”

“You’re welcome; it’s lovely to have some company on such a fine afternoon.”

I take a small plate and a few sandwiches and sit down in a comfortable chair opposite her.

“So how are you settling in?  Has the quiet of the countryside had you wanting to run back the London yet?”

“No not yet, it feels like I am on holiday still.    In fact I find it difficult to even imagine living in London now.  Everything there is so loud; the sounds of building work, traffic and emergency vehicles all seem to merge in one constant noise.  I really don’t miss it at all.”  I surprise myself by my admission.

Quickly, I find myself becoming very fond of Muriel.  She is a funny, kind lady who seems to have an anecdote for every occasion.  We spend the next hour or so talking about people in the village, events in the local area and the correct pronunciation of the word ‘scone’.  She takes the finished plates inside, ignoring my offers of help and returns swiftly with a pot of tea, cups and a milk jug.

“So, Alice, do you have any questions you would like to ask me about Dorothy?”  She asks as she stirs the dark liquid.

“Why didn’t Dorothy ever marry, was she ever in love?”

Muriel looks at me with a sad look on her face.  “Dorothy loved a great deal and because of that her heart was broken twice.”

“I’ve been looking through old photos and reading her journal.”  Muriel nods and thankfully she doesn’t look at me like the snoop, I thought she might.  “Was she ever in love with a Gil?”

Muriel places her tea cup back on the table and for a minute I think she looks a little uncomfortable, almost pained. 

“Yes, Gil was Dorothy’s first love.  From the age of fourteen she followed him around like a lost lamb.  But he was just a little older than her and he only ever really saw her like a little sister.  Typically Gil was born a gentleman and tried to let her down gently when she was seventeen, but it hit Dorothy very hard.  However, a little time went on and she fell in love again.  You have to understand what was going on at the time. Most of our men folk were away fighting and the constant worry that you would never see them again did wonders for focusing the mind and making you appreciate any good that came along.  In the autumn of 1941, Dorothy fell in love with Gil’s best friend, Peter who was back on leave.  They became engaged and spent every spare moment together and there weren’t many of them I can tell ya.”

“So, why did they never marry,” I ask.

Muriel sighs and speaks quietly. “Peter was killed in a plane crash not too far from here.  On that day I think Dorothy’s heart broke for the final time and from then on she refused to love again.  Unfortunately not only did she not love again, it also made her bitter and wildly jealous of anyone else lucky enough to find love; me included.  Have you found many of her diaries?  She was always off somewhere writing in them. “

“Yes I seem to have one for each year from 1937 to 1943.”

“Do you intend to read each one?” She asks with a smile, but there I almost an edge to her voice.

“I err… haven’t thought about it really.  I only started reading to get an idea of who Dorothy was.”

“If I were you lovey, I would put those old diaries in the bin and move on with your life. No good can come of revisiting the past.”  She stands up, brushes some crumbs off her lap and tells me she is getting cold, that it was nice of me to visit, that I should come again one day and then she walks off into the house.  I am left a little stunned by the speed of her goodbye, since she had up until now moved slowly and methodically.  It’s suddenly like she can’t bear to be near me and I wonder if I have somehow offended her.   The back door closes prompting me to move, so I decide to exit the garden by the back gate and head down the passage until I get to my own back gate. 

I lay in bed for the second night in a row feeling out of sorts, as if I am missing something, a sub-text or whatever.  I try to tell myself that it is just my reignited interest in my roots coming to the fore and that I am trying to answer more questions about my life than I realise I needed to ask.  After a while, sleep still refuses to come, so I pick up one of the boxes of photos and start to sift through and its only when I find a particular picture, I realise it is what I was really looking for.  The photo is dated September ’42 and it has the name Peter written on the back with a love heart drawn around it.  In the picture stands a young man in a RAF uniform, his chin held high, his facial expression serious and proud.  So this was the man who nearly married my Great Aunt. He was so handsome and I feel a wave of sadness that this brave young man never got to enjoy old age like Dorothy did.  The temperature of the room seems to drop sharply and I pull the blanket up over my duvet to get warm.

After looking at the photo a while longer, I go to place the picture back in the box, when the one behind it catches my eye.  The likeness is uncanny and it feels as if icy water has just been poured down my back.  In the photo I see Gil again, the young man from Dorothy’s earlier pictures, but standing next to him, is my Grandmother, Elizabeth.  The family resemblance between me and her is huge.  Up until now, the only picture I had of my grandmother is from the 1970s, where she is much older and grey.  But here in in this photo, she looks just like me, except for the clothes, the way she wears her hair and of course the look of sheer adoration on her face as she gazes up at Gil.  I turn the picture over and read the inscription-

1942, Gil and Lissy

So i sit pondering the thought that both my grandmother and my great aunt loved the same man.  But then it hits me, could this be my grandfather, could Gil be the man whose name I have never known?  All thoughts of leaving the diaries alone like Muriel suggested are long gone.  I have to find out who this man is.  I have never been more determined about anything in my life; in fact the need to find out almost feels like my life depends upon it.