The Fog of War by A.L. Lester

Author:A.L. Lester [Lester, A.L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: JMS Books LLC
Published: 2021-07-27T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

Coming back to Bradfield after Christmas was like coming home. Lucy had a very pleasant time at Magenford for the week she was there. She was incredibly lucky to get on with her parents as well as she did—so many of her friends had trouble with theirs these days. The older generation had no idea how bad it had been in France. Lucy’s though…they hadn’t tried to make her talk about it; but they’d listened when she did. And heard her.

They were pleased to see her and pleased she was happy and whole. That had made for a very nice few days holiday.

Sylvia had met her train at the station two days ago and Lucy’s heart had leaped like a frog in her chest when she’d seen her. She couldn’t help the enormous smile that plastered itself onto her face the moment she had stepped down onto the platform.

Sylvia had stood there as if she owned the railway, tall and poised and solemn, her face breaking into a returning smile when she made out Lucy through the smoke wisping down the platform from the engine. She still refused to bob her hair, keeping it coiled in great thick loops up under a slightly worse-for-wear hat. She was gradually becoming everything to Lucy.

Lucy had realised it with a stab of shock, right there on Platform Two.

She’d always thought the other woman impressive. But at ten years her senior, a fearsomely efficient doctor who had been known to verbally eviscerate orderlies who had forgotten tasks or done them improperly, Lucy’s admiration had initially been from rather far away, despite their growing friendship. Of course, no-one really talked about Dr Marks’ closeness with ambulance driver Miss Masters. Such things weren’t anyone’s business but the women’s own. Lucy had watched them sometimes, though, and envied their easy, close relationship. Her parents would have been shocked; but Lucy could see exactly what they saw in each other.

She had been devastated both on her own behalf when Anna Masters had been killed—they had been on the way to becoming friends by then—and on Sylvia’s. The woman had clearly been dealt an almost mortal blow. She’d stopped smiling for a while and didn’t talk about anything except hospital matters. That was when their friendship had really begun to deepen. Lucy’s heart had ached for her and she’d done her best to be there for her as she quietly grieved.

Seeing her there, wreathed in the smoke from the engine, smiling back at Lucy as the cloud cleared, had made her heart ache in a completely different way.

Which was why she had persuaded Sylvia to come to the cinema with her.

“Sylvia! Are you coming?” she called up the stairs.

“Nearly ready, just a moment,” Sylvia’s voice was muffled. “My hair isn’t behaving.”

Lucy trotted up the stairs to her rooms. They were going to be late for the beginning of the film at this rate.

“Let me help,” she said.

Sylvia sat in front of her mirror, mouth full of hairpins and arms cocked up behind her head, shoving them into her coiled hair.

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