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This isn’t what I intended to write to you, but it is all the truth.
Goodbye my darling and may God bless you.
Yours,
Vernon
‘What do you think he means by ‘I hope our moon can rise again’?’
‘Sounds pretty sexual to me,’ shrugged Henry.
‘He’s probably just being romantic,’ said Helen carefully folding the letter up again. ‘Just think what it’s like to have kept these letters all this time, and they never met again …’
‘Well at least Nanny G met Grandad, and we were born,’ offered Henry.
Helen rolled her eyes. ‘But she can’t have loved him, not like this! In fact, I’m not sure if they even liked each other.’
Helen wanted to be loved just a fraction of what Vernon had felt for Nanny G. Finding love was so hard, how could they have allowed time and the war to pull them apart?
‘Perhaps he’s still out there?’ Helen was leafing feverishly through the letters now.
‘I doubt it Hels, Nanny G outlived pretty much everyone.’
‘But it’s not impossible right?’ Helen was circling around the kitchen counter gaining momentum. ‘Maybe if she could just have one last meeting with him …’
‘It would be a FaceTime at best, but carry on …’
‘Don’t you think that would be so special for her? That they’d be reunited at last?’ Helen wanted to see Nanny G smile again, to be that young woman with the dark red lips, and the wind running through her hair, as she marched across a moonlit beach. That would be a reason to live, to know not everyone she knew and loved was gone.
A secret part of Helen, untouched by the cynicism that modern dating had ruined everything, also wanted to prove that love could still conquer all. That when someone truly loved you, that they could always find a way of coming back.
Chapter 18
Helen was sitting on her parent’s sofa scrolling Instagram to try and numb the queasy feeling in her gut every time she glanced in the direction of Nanny G’s annexe.
Sophie and Frank were on holiday in Tulum, faces squeezed next to one another. Sophie was wearing a wide brimmed hat, clutching a coconut water in one hand, and a bottle of factor fifty in the other. It had been applied in white splotches to Frank’s face which had turned that particular shade of red unique to British tourists. She was always so sensible, even when it came to love. Frank wasn’t charismatic or exciting, and deep down Helen wasn’t sure she could settle like that. That’s probably why Sophie had a boyfriend, and she didn’t.
She gave it a like and kept scrolling. There were a few pictures of baking influencers in microscopic pinstripe aprons extolling the virtues of their ‘guilty pleasure’ vegan brownies which Helen was convinced they never ate. She liked the posts anyway because she wasn’t bitter.
Jonathan and Katy were stood outside a stately home #weddingplanning. Would Helen seem more or less over it if she liked the photo?
Then there was a video of Elle twirling in the mirror in skin tight leggings she’d been #gifted (link in bio). Regrettably, Helen knew the truth that Elle’s incredible figure was the result of a solid diet of calamari, rosé wine and iced lattes. Some things in life just weren’t fair. She continued flicking through her feed, her eyes falling on a familiar face.
In 1940 we had the Blitz
Evacuating London’s kidz
The Germans dropped bombs by the ton
But the Brits kept calm and carried on
This time Ish was in some kind of tunnel with an old-fashioned lantern, casting shadows on his face like someone telling horror stories around a campfire. His followers seemed to love it though, and were already eagerly anticipating the next in his ‘London Ish-tory’ series.
London. History. Helen looked down at the address on the letters:
292 Lionel Rd
London
