The One I Was (35 page)

Lisa. So missed, so longed for: here, too.

‘And Harriet’s somewhere on board. And your mother.’

The train must have come out of a tunnel as Vati said this because light flooded the carriage, blinding him.

38

I’m doing all that needs doing for Benny, making calls, comforting Sarah, waiting for the doctor to arrive, ringing the cancer charity to explain that we do not now need relief during the nights. I feel, as I have felt with patients in the past, that Benny chose the timing of his death. He’d said all he needed to say, explained all that needed explaining.

The kind woman police officer rang the house the day after Benny died to tell me they’d arrested Cathal. He’d been hanging around outside the village shop in the afternoon. Drunk. Rambling. I suspect he’ll claim some kind of mental incapacity if they charge him. Perhaps he really is mentally disturbed and will end up in a high-security psychiatric unit. Other people may now come forward, the police officer said, to give evidence against him. I shall ring Dad in France and ask him whether he still has the information about Cathal’s activities he dug up after Mum’s death.

I never found my mother’s letter, written all those years ago and describing what she knew and suspected about Cathal. I can’t show it to my brother as proof she loved us both and wanted to do her best for us. Somehow I think Andrew already knows this.

I don’t need to worry about Cathal anymore.

Benny fills my heart and mind. In a moment I shall go to my bedroom and ring James. I’ll tell him that Benny is dead, that my time at Fairfleet is nearly run, that I will only hang on here to help Sarah tie up Benny’s affairs. I’ll ask James to start looking for houses for the two of us, and for Catherine, too, if she would like to live with us. I’d like a garden so we can have a dog. If Sarah can’t take Max with her to the cottage she’ll buy with Benny’s legacy, I
want to give the dog a home. I want to cling to this living connection with Benny, the man who loved my adored granny so much.

I’d also like to try to have another baby. But if that doesn’t happen I believe I will enjoy just living with James for a while. Perhaps if we bought a house in need of renovation I could spend some time planning building work and painting walls, bringing order to a neglected garden.

I want my life to start again. I am ready to be happy now.

THE END

Eliza Graham

Eliza Graham lives in Oxfordshire with her family. Find out more about her at her website:
www.elizagraham.co.uk
.

Thanks go to Kristina Riggle and Nicole Hayes for their comments and suggestions on various drafts of this book, and to Will Atkins,
Henry de Rougemont, and Maggie Hanbury for their help.

Bibliography

The following books were invaluable to me in writing
The One I Was:

On the women pilots of the Air Transport Auxiliary:

Spreading my Wings
by Diana Barnato Walker and
Spitfire Women of World War II
by Giles Whittell.

On the Kindertransport children who came to Britain:

We Came as Children
, edited by Karen Gershon,
Other People’s Houses
by Lore Segal,
...And the Policeman Smiled
by Barry Turner and
The Ninth of November
by Hannele Zürndorfer.

The
Marie Curie
website was particularly useful for information on palliative care.