The Last Letter from Juliet
Edward listened while I told an abridged version of my story. At no time during the course of the whole conversation did I admit to my engagement or to my mother’s warning about fast men. Was this a deliberate omission on my behalf – absolutely.
‘On my fourteenth birthday – which is also Christmas Day, by the way – Pa took me into the little club house we had at our landing strip in Oxford and he gave me a good luck charm, to keep with me, always.’
Still sitting on the harbour wall, I took my lucky charm out of my pocket and handed it to Edward. It was a compass, cased in gold.
‘It’s the most special thing I own – will ever own,’ I said, smiling at the thought of Pa.
‘It’s lovely,’ he said. ‘It’s a compass you say?’
‘Yes.’
‘But it looks like a pocket watch.’
He pressed a catch on the side to open the lid, revealing the compass.
‘Yes, it does, rather. But look … if you flick this tiny little lever, like this, and then turn the catch, the back of the compass casing opens rather than the front … see? And then you find that it’s not just a compass at all, but something else entirely.’
Edward looked at it, confused. A needle was centred on the face, but rather than pointing to North or South, the only words written on this side were, Oui and Non.
‘It’s an heirloom from my mother’s side of the family,’ I explained. ‘They were travellers. This side of the compass acts as a kind of fortune teller’s trinket.’
‘How does it work?’
‘Well, let’s say you have a pressing question you desperately need an answer for, you open the compass, ask the question, then press the catch to spin the needle and see where it lands – yes, or no. When Pa gave it to me, he said, “Here is your real inheritance, Juliet. But remember, if you ever need an answer to an important question, know that in your heart, you already know all the answers, and most often, if you are in doubt about something and are looking for an answer, then whatever it is that you are considering doing – don’t. Pause, wait, consider. There is much more time around than anyone supposes.”’
‘Have you ever asked it a question?’
I shook my head. ‘Never.’
Edward closed the compass and handed it back.
‘It’s wonderful,’ he said. ‘He must have loved you very much.’
I felt tears sting my eyes. Dear, darling Pa.
‘He did.’
‘You never thought of giving it up, after the accident – flying, I mean?’
I thought about my answer.
‘Have you ever thought of giving up breathing?’
He shook his head with a smile.
‘There you go then. It’s who I am. When I’m in the sky,’ I looked up with a sigh, ‘up there, I’m in heaven. I don’t blame aeroplanes for my parent’s death and have no intention of stopping flying because of it. It was a moment’s misjudgement on Pa’s behalf, and as devastating as it has been, I know he would want me to keep going, whatever the consequences.’
We sat in silence for a while, our shoulders touching, before turning our thoughts to Germany and the heart-breaking possibility of war. I talked of my grand plan – a plan I had not revealed to anyone, least of all to Charles – that being my determination to fly for the RAF, perhaps even join as a fighter pilot, the first woman ever. I just needed to work out a way to persuade them to have me. Edward did not mock. He accepted my dream as an equal, saying that if I dreamt hard enough, anything could happen. And I liked that. I liked that very much indeed.
‘Anyway, your turn,’ I said, returning the compass to a pocket. ‘You’re obviously not local, so why rent a cottage here? Why has E. Nancarrow come to Angels Cove?’ I took a quick slurp of whiskey. It was Edward’s turn to pause before answering. I filled the gap by answering my own question. ‘No, wait! I bet you’re an artist. It’ll be the light. Are you in with the Newlyn set?’
Edward shook his head.
‘I’m not in with any set. I just thought I’d come and stay for a while, take in the sea air. Enjoy the view.’
‘How very leisurely of you. But what do you do for a living – other than walking your dog on the cliffs and getting in the way of women trying to land their planes – what are you?’
A wry smile drifted across his face.
He rubbed his chin in thought. ‘I told you. I’m a coddiwompler.’
I laughed. ‘That again.’
‘Yes, that again.’ He took a sip of my whiskey. ‘Does that answer your question?’
I kicked my legs against the harbour wall.
‘Bearing in mind I have no idea what a coddiwompler is, I would say that you have in no way answered my question. So …?’
‘So?’
‘So, go on then, what is one?’
Edward sniffed and shook his head.
‘Oh, well, this is quite awkward, because I’m not really allowed to say.’
He looked away, pretending to be interested in a couple of men who were sitting on a boat, supposedly mending their nets but really just chatting at the far end or the harbour wall.
‘Not allowed to say? But you were going to tell me earlier …’
‘We coddiwomplers are members of a top secret club – I was going to tell you before because I thought you must be one, too’ – he turned to me – ‘because it hit me last night that you seem to be exactly the sort of person who would love to live her life as we do … but now, I’m not so sure. You might be a bit …’
‘A bit?’
‘Sensible.’
‘Nonsense. You’ve seen my aircraft – Daredevil is quite literally my middle name. Tell me!’
He shook his head. ‘No. We’ll just have to play I spy, instead. I’ll start.’ He glanced around the harbour. ‘I spy something beginning with B.’
‘Boat?’
His eyes lit up.
‘Yes! Say, you’re real good at this! I’ll give it another shot … I spy something beginning with S …’
‘The sea.’
‘No, that would be T S. Try again …’
The time passed far too quickly and without even noticing it, the sun began to set beyond the islands. I jumped off the harbour wall in a wild panic. Edward had a definite look of satisfaction on his face when I chided him for keeping me talking for so long.
‘Before you go, let me just …’ Edward surprised me by taking a folded handkerchief from his coat pocket. He wrapped a corner of the cloth around his finger and lifted his hand towards my face. ‘You have a smear of oil across your face, that will never do at a house like Lanyon. Far too proper.’ I didn’t move away, but allowed him to wipe my cheek.
‘How long has that been there?’
‘All day. I let you run with it.’ He stepped back to admire his handy-work. ‘There, all gone. Although, I actually preferred you as you were, with the warrior stripe – it really suited you,’ he added, softly.
A cloud passed over our fragmented bits of conversation. We had had our moment, both of us knowing I should have dashed back to Lanyon much earlier, but we had already taken on the selfish attitude of lovers and from the ambivalent view of the naïve observer – the men working on the fishing boats, for example – we would have appeared to have had nothing more than a pleasant afternoon enjoying the polite interaction of two friends. But Edward and I knew differently, and we knew it from the first, ‘Hello’. Because that was the thing with love at first sight, it was like the birth of time – the big bang of the universe itself. It was the ignition of a silent understanding exchanged in body language – in the blink of an eye, the angle of the head and the positioning of the body. It was that first spark of a silent understanding that set in motion an unstoppable series of events. A motion that creates a kind of energy that forever links two people in an impenetrable and invisible connectedness. A connectedness that almost always brings a heady emotional mix of absolute joy and unbearable pain.
Mother would not be happy.
As I waved goodbye and dashed up the hill, I felt like Cinderella running away from her Prince Charming. And just like Cinderella, I knew that the road would not lead us apart for very long, but would curve all the way around our respective destinations in the shape of an interconnected heart, and that we would stand in front of each other again, smiling, not wanting to walk away. And yet, at that very moment, I still didn’t know what he did, where he was from, why he was here – and most importantly, I realised dashing up the road, smiling – I still had absolutely no idea what a coddiwompler was!
No one at Lanyon knew what a coddiwompler was either. Pa Lanyon thought it sounded like ‘old English’ and after a rebuke from Lottie for being gone all day and a strange side-eyed glance from Charles, Pa pointed me in the direction of his library where I would find a miscellany on old-English quirky words. Sure enough, between cockamamie (ridiculous; incredible) and codswallop (something utterly senseless) I found coddiwompler: someone who travels in a purposeful manner towards a vague destination.
How very vague, and elusive, and exciting, and mysterious … and, he was an American, too … just dreadful!
Chapter 7
Katherine
A moment’s pause
I lay the manuscript down on the sofa and stoked the fire before selecting the search engine on my phone.
Several sites popped up on the search feed associating themselves with coddiwompling, including a webpage dedicated to the written ramblings of free-spirited bloggers who shared their adventurers on the internet.
One particular blogger – The Last Coddiwompler – caught my eye. He was a man who occasionally travelled with no real agenda other than to seek out one thing and one thing only – fun. He aimed always, he said, to simply ‘stumble’ across adventure, rather than to seek it out, genuinely believing that if he kept his eye out, even in the most mundane on places, adventure was only ever a heartbeat away. It seemed that in the process of hitting the road aimlessly, this blogger regularly found himself spending time in the most amazing places and meeting the most fascinating people – and not necessarily in exotic locations from glossy magazines, he stressed, but absolutely anywhere – Spain, Mexico, Hull … As I read this tale of modern-day adventure and stared in admiration at his photographs, I couldn’t help but be drawn in, and all the while a clearer picture of Juliet’s mystery man began to take shape, because if Edward Nancarrow was anything like the man staring out of the screen in front of me, he would have been a fun, free, sexy, enticing kind of a man. And yet wasn’t this exactly the sort of person Juliet was, too? An adventurer, a dare devil, a coddiwompler? Edward clearly thought so, and he knew it from the moment she landed her Tiger Moth on the field in front of him.
But it was only when I scrolled to the bottom of the webpage that I noticed and recognised the name of the blogger–Sam Lanyon.
My head tipped to the angle of a questioning puppy.
Sam Lanyon? The Sam Lanyon, Juliet’s grandson? It couldn’t be, could it?
With my interest in this family suddenly piqued to even greater heights, despite the early hour of the morning and itchy eyes, I huddled closer to the fire, wrapped the shawl tightly around my shoulders and read on.
Chapter 8
Juliet
19 December 1938
Flying with Edward
The morning after the pre-wedding party I woke with a desperate desire to jump into my Tiger Moth, fire up the engine and fly right away.
I had behaved foolishly. I’d begun to flirt, to toy, and what good ever came of that kind of shenanigans?
What happened?
I was unmasked, shown to have behaved like a fool, and I deserved it.
Having been standing in the hallway with Charles, welcoming guests to the Lanyon Christmas party, I was utterly gobsmacked when, of all people, Edward walked in. I had no idea that he was at all acquainted with the Lanyons. He hadn’t said he was attending the party that afternoon. Perhaps, thinking me single, he had wanted it to be a surprise.
He arrived at eight. I saw him before he saw me, walking through the door, smiling, naturally at ease, a happy and contented man. I wondered momentarily, as I stood there, my heart in my shoes, waiting to greet him, if Edward had known I was Charles’ fiancée all along and if the attraction between us had been on my part only. That I had misunderstood his interest in me.
But when Charles introduced me to Edward as the future Mrs Lanyon, my heart broke to see that he had not known. Edward tried to hide his confusion, before quickly walking away and disappearing into the gathered crowd. He spent some of the evening with Lottie before retiring back to the village early, with the excuse of a headache and an early start the next day. We did not speak that evening, which was both a relief and an overpowering disappointment.
The following morning, having arranged with cook to breakfast before the house had risen and having previously arranged with Jessops for fuel to be delivered to the barn, I dashed to my aircraft, desperate to fly.
I was not surprised to find Edward there, waiting. He was sitting on his adopted hay bale, a blue and white striped scarf wrapped tightly around his face, no dog with him, no Beano and he’d clearly been on no more than nodding terms with sleep.
‘Why didn’t you tell me about Charles?’
Because I’ve fallen in love with you …
‘I’m not sure. Does it matter?’
Edward didn’t answer.
I busied myself around the aircraft, avoiding eye contact. We fell silent, unsure how to behave, how to speak. A few jerrycans of fuel were hidden at the back of the barn, exactly where Jessops, now amiable thanks to the cider, had left them.
‘You’re going flying?’ Edward jumped down from his lofty position on the bale.
‘Yes … I needed to clear my head and I knew …’ I stopped pouring fuel into the tank for a moment.
‘You knew I’d be here.’
‘I thought you might be.’ I put down the can and smiled up at him. ‘I promised you a trip and I’d like to honour that promise, if I may.’ I glanced out of the barn. ‘And it may be cold, but it is a beautiful day, after all.’
He smiled too. ‘It is indeed a beautiful day and I’d love to go flying with you.’
We spent another ten minutes preparing the aircraft before pushing my beautiful yellow Tiger Moth out of the barn.
‘Put these on,’ I said, handing him goggles and helmet before showing him where to place his feet on the wing. ‘It will be very cold up there and the clouds are bubbling out to the west, so it might be a bit bumpy.’
I leant across him to tighten his straps and secure him in the seat. He took me by surprise by taking my bare hand in his gloved one.
‘Listen, I think you’re amazing and beautiful and fascinating. But I know you’re spoken for. We can be friends, can’t we. Just for a little while? I’m not a reckless fool, Juliet. Not really.’
I finally looked him in the eye which was, as I suspected, lethal. A naughty Cornish pixie must have jumped my shoulder just then, because I suddenly realised that there really was only one way to go …
‘Not a reckless fool?’ I said (with a very definite flick of the hair and twinkle in the eye) ‘how very disappointing. I have a sudden fancy to run through my stunt routine today, which is why I’m making sure your straps are nice and tight, and only a reckless fool – or maybe a true coddiwompler – would even begin to consider jumping on board for that kind of a ride …’
His face came alive. His whole body sparked with energy, with life.
‘I lied,’ he said, putting on his helmet. ‘Show me what you’ve got, Miss Caron! If we’re going to go down, let’s do it in style!’ He snapped on his goggles with a flourish. ‘I’m ready!’
For the next twenty minutes Edward was taken on the ride of his life. The chill from the wind was fierce, but as we flew low and slow over Angels Cove, children ran out to wave at us, racing the little aircraft as we flew parallel with the road. I flew half a mile out to sea and performed only part of my stunt routine – a tick-tock stall and a few loops – but not too much, it wouldn’t do to turn Edward’s stomach and embarrass him.
On landing back at the field, I taxied the aircraft to just outside the barn and cut the engine. I jumped out once the propeller had stopped and leant across Edward to unstrap him. The cheeks on his face burned red but his eyes were as bright as shiny new pins.
Edward jumped out, ripped off his goggles and helmet and just stood there, looking at me and smiling – half madman – before picking me up, spinning me around and finally placing me, very gently, on the ground again.
‘That was incredible, Juliet. Thank you. Thank you so very much.’ He handed me the goggles and hat. Still on a high from the flight, he babbled on about the joy of flying while we pushed the Tiger Moth back in the barn.
‘I wonder, do you have time to come to the village again for tea? They’re having a Christmas lantern parade on the twenty-third and I seem to have been roped in again to make lanterns and decorate the church, and you seemed to enjoy our afternoon in the hall. I have a feeling you’d love it. What do you say?’
I wanted to go. I wanted to go so very, very badly, but I shook my head, leant against the wing and sighed.
‘I’m sorry, Edward, but I can’t.’
He stepped in, too close for mere friends.
‘Why can’t you?’
I shook my head and smiled resignedly.
‘I think we both know why.’
He stepped closer still and leant in to brush my cheek with his lips. ‘In that case, thank you for the flight,’ he whispered. ‘It was wonderful.’ He stepped back. ‘Consider the debt paid, Miss Caron.’ And then, without looking back, to my absolute surprise, he walked away.
Chapter 9
Katherine
18 December
Poor George
The candles were half their original size and surrounded by pools of wax when I place the manuscript on the sofa beside me, disappointed at Edward for walking away, and cursing Juliet for letting him go.
But it was time to stop reading. Not just because I needed to sleep (although, what did I know of sleep any more? Sleep had become a fitful irrelevance since James had died) or because my phone battery was down to ten percent and I wanted to save a little just in case the roof really did blow off, but because now that I was engrossed in Juliet’s story, I wasn’t sure about the – what to call it – moral correctness? – of reading someone else’s private memoirs, even if that person was no longer around to care. The only answer was to email Sam, the grandson – the coddiwompler? – and ask his permission to read on. I had ventured to Cornwall looking for a historical story to tell and it looked like I had found one, but that suddenly didn’t seem important, because looking into the lives of these strangers tonight had led me to throw side-glances towards my own story which, as Gerald knew, had not just stagnated, but stopped. Juliet was leading me somewhere – I just didn’t know where that somewhere was.
***
I poked my head out of the candlewick bedspread at about ten a.m. the following morning and promptly ducked under again once my nose had direct contact with the cold. I had two options, stay warm under the bedcovers but starve to death, or face the cold and risk hyperthermia. The second option won by a narrow margin leading me to jump out and dance on the spot while throwing open the curtains – a bright, wintery, sunshiny glow flooded the room. I stopped dancing and stared. What a difference a few hours could make, and what a view.
James would have loved this.
Wall-to-wall ocean broken by three little granite islands that sat in the bay.
So here were the famous Angels, splattered with tiny flecks of white, as if God had gone on a paint flicking frenzy. I put my glasses on and realised the white flecks were actually seagulls, presumably taking a well-earned rest after the stress of the storm. The sea was a little swollen still, but it seemed Katherine had moved on to terrorise pastures new, leaving a bright winter morning in her wake.
I turned on a wind-up radio that sat on the windowsill at the top of the stairs and tried the bedroom light. Still no power. Allowing as short a time as possible for my bare skin to feel the sharpness of the cold, I dressed in the previous day’s clothes and headed down the stairs, pausing to sit on the bottom step to check my phone for messages and contact Gerald regarding the day’s agenda.
Uncle Gerald had beaten me to it.
Terrible news. George has had a heart attack. Have rushed to Brighton in Land Rover – used the spare key as didn’t want to disturb. Have spoken to Fenella and she’s going to look after you – you are not to sit home alone moping! Will text when I know more about George as there is talk of a stent being put in. So very sorry to love and leave. Have a fabulous time. Don’t forget about the apostrophe, will you? Oh, and best keep a beady eye out for Percy and Noel who will no doubt try to cajole – they are leaders of opposing camps! X
My first thought was obviously, ‘Poor George …’ but my second thought was very definitely … ‘Bollocks!’
‘Bollocks, bollocks, bollocks.’
And, ‘Bollocks to the bloody apostrophe, too!’
Sitting on the bottom step of the stairs I stared at the door, just as Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas came on the radio. Alone again for Christmas after all.
There was only one thing for it – I’d go back to bed for an hour and bury myself in both the snuggly covers and the embrace of my new friends – Juliet and Edward. Hoping that their paths would surely cross again.
Chapter 10
Juliet
22 December 1938
The promise
Dear Juliet
On second thoughts, I’m not entirely sure the debt is paid completely. The children are making lanterns in the hall from eleven and as the future lady of the manor, I thought it probably your wish – your duty – to help out. Lunch on the beach afterwards as a thank you?
Yours, the incorrigible coddiwompler,
E. Nancarrow
P.S. If you come, I’ll tell you what a coddiwompler is.
P.P.S. Wrap up warm!
The Christmas Card was hand-delivered by a young boy shortly after breakfast. I was having coffee with Lottie in the lounge when Katie handed it to me. I recognised the card. Edward had made it in the village hall during our afternoon together, when we sat with the children, in a moment of perfect happiness. I dare not open it and yet to leave it unopened would draw suspicion from Lottie.
Lottie glanced up from her book. I opened the card and feigned a smile.
‘It’s from Jessops,’ I said. ‘To thank us for the cider.’
I returned the card into the envelope, both gleefully happy and torn apart, made my excuses by explaining to Lottie that I really must return to servicing the aircraft– that sticky rudder came to my rescue again – and I explained that I would be out for the day. No one batted an eye at this. All they had ever known me do was walk for miles along the Cornish coast and tinker with my aircraft. As the Lanyons were neither walkers nor flyers, I had often spent much of my time during the day in Cornwall alone gathering my thoughts and healing my broken heart.
I dashed to my room to read the card again – slowly this time, drinking in every word. There was such a cocky confidence about his invitation and a secret intimacy, too. If Charles were to read it, he would think nothing untoward, but what Edward was really asking was to be alone with me one final time before I married.