The Secret Keeper by Renita D’Silva

Author:Renita D’Silva [D’Silva, Renita]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Boldwood Books
Published: 2024-08-12T00:00:00+00:00

44

RANI

That evening, when she gets back from work, Mr Strong is already home and sitting at the kitchen table with his son, Mrs Lewes bustling about getting supper ready.

Andrew, his little face serious, waves earnestly from the window, with the hand clutching the raggedy rabbit, chewed ears bobbing, as she rests the bike against the wall, beside Mr Strong’s.

As she gets in the front door, Mrs Lewes calls hello, a real improvement on the previous evening, when she’d barred Rani’s way in.

The house smells of dough with just a hint of cabbage.

Rani pops her head in the kitchen, ‘Hello everyone.’

Andrew says solemnly, ‘Good evening, Miss Raj. Daddy reached home before you.’

‘Yes, he must be a strong cyclist, unlike me. I’m only just passable, I’m afraid.’

‘He is,’ Andrew agrees. ‘And I will be too when I’m grown up.’

Mr Strong smiles at his son, and Rani feels a stab right at the centre of her heart at the expression on his face, unguarded for the first time since she’s met him: it is that of almost painful love.

He looks up, catches her watching, flushes with colour, his gaze flustering as he glances away, down at his hands.

‘You will be so only if you eat all your supper,’ Mrs Lewes says, waving her oven glove at Andrew, her smile belying the stern nature of her words. And, to Rani, ‘If you’d like to freshen up, Miss Raj, supper will be ready in half an hour.’

Supper is potato pie – not that much different from Cambridge, the travails of rationing – but to her credit, Mrs Lewes has tried, with the addition of cabbage and liberal seasoning of pepper, to add some flavour to the stodgy potato.

It is a quiet affair. Just the gentle song of cutlery on plates.

But, as she has observed when with Mr Strong thus far, it isn’t uncomfortable.

Like Mr Strong, his son too prefers silence, it appears. But it is a soothing silence, not a seething one.

It is Mrs Lewes who queries, ‘So then, how was your first day, Miss Raj?’

Andrew looks up at her with his serious gaze. So does his father.

‘It was good. I like the work.’ She really, really does. It taxes her brain. She loves the challenge of it, enjoys working with the brightest minds in England and the world, towards a common goal, knowing she’s doing something productive that will change the course of the war. And it’s not only the work. It seems very social too, from what she’s seen so far of the manor, the cottage, the grounds. It thrills her to be one of the posse of predominantly young people lounging by the lake, seemingly unmindful of the weather, feeding crumbs to the ducks, joshing each other, eating lunch on the grounds followed by a game of rounders. Apart from the very serious nature of the work, it feels like an extension of university life. She even saw a notice about a tennis party.

‘Very well. I know you can’t say any more than that,’ Mrs Lewes nods, collecting the plates.

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