The Last Card by Ruth Saberton

The Last Card by Ruth Saberton

Author:Ruth Saberton [Saberton, Ruth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Millington
Published: 2019-12-05T06:00:00+00:00


Chapter Five

The present

Ellen

“Go on! Then what?”

Ellen leaned forwards, eager for Grilly to continue because no way could her story possibly end here! She had to know what happened next to Lily and the handsome young officer. Did her father forbid her from seeing Casey again? Was he posted away? Or did they fall in love against a background of sepia-tinted Spitfires and bombs? As her grandmother’s words came to an abrupt halt, Ellen felt as though she was left halfway through watching a film, and the jolt back to the present was a shock.

Grilly’s eyes were closed and she leaned back against the chair. Ellen realised that she was far away, young once again, encircled by the arms of her first love. Ellen had time-travelled as Grilly retold the story of her first kiss, a tale from a long ago time when she wasn’t a wife or a mother or a granny but simply a young girl falling in love with a handsome young American, and she was still there in her heart, kissing her officer under the Christmas Eve stars and falling head over heels in love.

The images were so vivid that Ellen barely saw her grandmother’s sitting room because the past had overlaid the present as a heavy snowfall transforms a familiar landscape into something new and unknown. Some elements remained steadfastly recognisable across the decades, such as the ticking of the longcase clock in the hall, which Grilly would have heard counting down the minutes until Casey Macabe had called to escort her for the Christmas Eve dance, or the big bay window with its sweeping views out to sea, while others were overlaid with haunting images of another time and another Grilly. Ellen saw warships anchored in the shelter of the bay, heard the thud of small feet as children chased one another up the stairs, and could almost taste the fear when the deadly arrowheads of bombers droned above the village.

The big house no longer felt empty but peopled by the residents of long ago. Ellen saw them all so vividly. It was as though they had only just walked from the room and were still about the place and busy with the day-to-day business of their lives. There was dear Auntie May, no longer a shrunken old lady with a handbag filled with peppermints, but a little girl waiting wide-eyed for Father Christmas to arrive. Gallant Uncle Harry, no more the saintly war hero from faded photographs now, but a naughty little boy sliding down the banisters, and trespassing, making gamekeepers angry. Across the hallway Ellen’s great-grandfather was ensconced in his study, scratching away with his fountain pen as he composed sermons and frowning when the evacuees thumped across the ceiling; and her great-grandmother filled the place with sighs as she drifted from room to room to catch up with the shadow of a little boy who would remain for ever out of reach. Mrs Pendriscott was in the kitchen, floury hands plunged deep



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