Chapter Eight #2
Whilst this story is, of course, inspired by true life events, Imogen writes, it is nonetheless a story.
My story. I’ve been extremely fortunate to spend the time I have with Tim Hobbs, listening to his memories, but there was plenty he didn’t bear witness to, well beyond the final disappearance of Iris, Robbie, and the rest of Mabel’s Fury’s crew.
He was a friend to Iris and Robbie, but by no stretch their constant companion, and, as with all great love affairs, theirs largely played out in private.
Tim wasn’t with them. Nobody was. So, whilst I’ve done my utmost to stay true to the facts, where I have them, this novel should not be taken as a history.
I never forgot, when I was writing it, that Section Officer Iris Winterton and Squadron Leader Robert Grayson were two very real people, whose lives were cut tragically short.
Although I feel like I do now know them, the reality is that I didn’t know them at all, and it would be a huge presumption to suggest that they – and especially Iris – should be judged on the basis of these fictional pages.
This novel is an imagining of what led them to their deaths, nothing more.
The truth about that, and so much else, belongs to them, and them alone.
I set the book down again, less stroppily this time, and lean back in my chair, focusing on Tim’s face on the cover.
Like Robbie, he’s looking into the camera, but none of the other boys are.
They’re either looking at each other, or, in the case of Jacob the bomb aimer, down at the Border collie, Piper, who’s sitting at his feet.
It’s occurred to me before now that they probably weren’t ready for the shot to be taken.
What I’ve never really thought about though is that Tim’s attention is on the photographer anyway.
Just like Robbie’s is. And if that photographer really was Iris, then wouldn’t that add weight to Imogen’s theory that Tim was in love with her, too?
I lean forward, peering into the focus in Tim’s black-and-white gaze, mulling over his claim to Imogen that he can’t recall who was behind the camera. For the first time, I wonder if it’s the truth.
He was the one who told Imogen that Iris and Robbie first met again in the control tower, and that it was Jacob who gave Robbie the message that Iris had been looking for him at their billet.
I know that, because all of us on this production have been told which elements of the novel are rooted in Tim’s recollections.
The screenplay doesn’t mess with any of them, and, contractually, we’re not allowed to, either.
Any changes to those scenes, however minor, have to be run by Imogen first.
‘It’s one thing altering what’s come from me,’ Imogen said, when we spoke on the phone, ‘but I can’t have anyone rewriting Tim’s memories.’
No one bothered to call her about the new lines we tried last night, because none of them worked, but if they had, then Naomi would absolutely have had to request Imogen’s approval.
Impulsively, I reach for my phone, deciding to call her myself.
She picks up almost instantly, and the sound of pumping Little Mix and what might well be five thousand rampant children comes down the line.
‘Are you at a concert?’ I ask her.
‘A soft play,’ she replies, laughing. ‘I wish I was at a concert.’
‘Should I call back?’
‘No, no, I’m fine to talk. As long as you don’t mind the cacophony.’
‘Not at all,’ I say, which I don’t. It makes me smile, actually, that it’s all going on at barely 9 a.m. I have no issue with being reminded that other people have children. I just wish I could have known mine. ‘As long as I’m genuinely not interrupting anything.’
‘You’re genuinely not.’
‘And you don’t mind this banging here.’ The rigging crew have started up again, hammering away in the sets above me. ‘I can move … ’
‘Stay where you are,’ Imogen says, with another laugh. ‘I can’t hear a thing. How’s it all going there?’
I hear the eagerness in her voice. The excitement.
I can’t bring myself to puncture it.
‘Brilliantly,’ I lie. ‘I’m just doing some prep, actually, and was hoping to run something by you.’
‘Run away,’ she says.
So, I do, not mentioning last night’s disaster, just saying that Nick and I have been running our lines for Iris and Robbie’s reunion, and could use some more context, if she has any.
‘I feel like we might be missing something,’ I say, honest about that much. ‘I don’t know if it’s the script, or the way we’re portraying it, but I thought I’d pan for gold with you.’
She doesn’t immediately answer.
The pause is long enough that I start to panic I’ve offended her.
But then, ‘Oh my God,’ she says, with an agonised groan, ‘that scene. That bloody scene. I can’t tell you how it’s tortured me.’
‘Really?’ I say, laughing, simply at the relief that it’s not just me.
‘Really,’ she says, ruefully. ‘I wrote it so many different ways. In the control tower, down by the plane, up at the house, by the attic stairs … Honestly, I had Iris and Robbie bumping into one another everywhere.’
‘You did?’ My laughter fades as I’m reminded of my dreams last night: myself and Nick re-enacting the scene, everywhere.
Quickly, I dismiss the coincidence as just that – a coincidence – much more intrigued in any case by Imogen’s admission.
‘How come you did that?’ I ask. ‘I thought Tim told you they met in the control tower.’
‘He did,’ said Imogen. ‘At first.’
‘At first?’
‘He got confused sometimes.’
‘I keep looking at the cover photo,’ I say, returning my attention to Tim’s stare. ‘Are you sure he’s definitely forgotten who took it?’
‘He definitely told me he has.’
‘You believed him?’
‘I saw no reason not to. I mean, when you consider what he went through, just a few hours later … ’
Silently, I nod. She’s right, of course.
And, as I replay everything Tim endured that night – his terrifying journey, navigating Mabel’s Fury across Germany; the crew’s final flight home; how close Tim, so badly burned, came to dying when the plane crashed, with only him inside – it seems suddenly incredible to me that he’s remembered anything.
Look at how much I’ve forgotten about my grandparent’s crash, and that was in 1989, not 1943.
‘It was all such a long time ago, too,’ says Imogen, echoing the line of my thoughts. ‘Although, it never actually seemed to feel that way to Tim. And he was always completely convinced by whatever account he was giving me, even if he’d told me something totally different the week before.’
‘Did he realise he’d told you something different?’
‘Oh yes. It would panic him. He’d call me up, ask to meet, and make me write down his new version, word-for-word.
He’d watch me do it. It was extremely important to him that I got it right.
And once he was settled on a version of events, he’d relax, you could see it in him.
It was like he was just so relieved to have it all ordered in his mind. ’
‘Hence you not wanting any of it changed in the movie.’
‘Exactly. Obviously, I’m not going to pick at the minutiae, but I need the big stuff to chime with what he told me. I don’t know whether he’ll still be alive when this is finished, or if he’ll even want to watch it, but if he does, then I can’t have him confused. I can’t have him regret this.’
‘I get it,’ I say, and don’t ask her what Tim’s view is on the ending, because I really don’t want to ruin her Sunday, which I have no doubt I would, bringing up that thorny issue.
Plus, Ana’s told me it’s the one element of the book Tim’s always refused to discuss with Imogen. It upsets him too much, apparently.
Again, I get it.
Imogen’s ending upsets everyone who reads it.
‘If I’m honest,’ she goes on, ‘I think it probably means more to me than him, that we keep his scenes locked. I just feel it’s something I owe him. But I’m not sure he’ll even remember now what we agreed on.’
‘But he did agree that the control room was where Iris and Robbie met?’
‘Absolutely. He was there too. He’d gone up with Robbie, desperate to see Iris himself.
He didn’t want me to put that in the book, though.
“It’s their story, not mine,” he used to say.
“Let me give them their story.”’ Even above the pulsing pop music, I hear her sad sigh.
‘The rest of it though is just as he told me, the first time we spoke about it. Iris and Robbie played cat and mouse all day looking for each other, then Robbie finally tracked Iris down in the control tower, running there straight from his flight briefing. I like it, I think it works, but as I say, Tim gave me a smorgasbord of options, all over Doverley, out in the woods … ’
‘The woods?’ That piques my interest.
‘Yes, apparently Iris and Robbie had this secret place that they used to go to as children. An old cottage of some sort.’
‘Oh, that’s gorgeous.’ In my mind’s eye, I picture it: an abandoned overgrown hideaway. ‘How come you don’t mention it in the book?’
‘It was another thing Tim made me promise not to write about. He said Iris and Robbie were both very protective of it, which used to make him terribly envious when they were little. I gather he used to take himself on all these expeditions, trying to find it. Now, he just wants to make sure it remains hidden. Sacred.’
‘Have you seen it?’
‘No, I’ve never been able to find it either. Those woods are vast.’
‘And you weren’t ever tempted to have Iris and Robbie’s reunion there?’ Instinctively, it feels much more atmospheric to me than the control tower breakroom.