Chapter 14 #2
I risk a glance at Elliot over the top of his head as she opens the bag and rummages inside it, but he’s too focused on Maisie for me to be able to decode the look on his face, or figure out what he might have been planning to say to me before we were interrupted.
I watch impatiently, willing Maisie to hurry up as she continues to search through the contents of her bag.
I’m half expecting her to produce a couple of lamps and a hatstand, like Mary Poppins, but instead she pulls out a brown manila envelope, from which she produces an old, black-and-white photograph.
“Ta-da,” she says, smiling triumphantly as Elliot and I lean forward to take a look at it. “The ladies of the Auxiliary Territorial Service, photographed in front of Bramblebury Village Hall, in 1943. Recognize anyone?”
I squint down at the faded photo, which shows around a dozen women standing on the steps of the hall, all of them wearing the same uniform as the mystery woman in Elliot’s photo. It takes me a moment to spot her, and then Elliot and I see her at the same time.
“Look! There she is!”
The mystery woman is standing towards the back of the photo, on the very top step. Her smile isn’t quite as wide as it is in the photo with Elliot’s great-grandfather, but she’s still recognizable from her heart-shaped face and distinctive widow’s peak.
“Evie Snow,” Maisie says, as proudly as if she’s just conjured her out of thin air. “It says so on the back. Look.”
She flips the photo over and shows us the list of names, written in faded ink, by someone who’s presumably long gone by now.
“Evie Snow,” breathes Elliot, taking the photo carefully from Maisie. “The mystery woman has a name.”
And what a name it is, too.
“Surely that can’t have been her real name?” I comment. “She sounds like a character in a book rather than an actual person.”
Elliot’s eyes meet mine over the top of the photograph, both of us thinking the same thing.
“I’m afraid a name is all she has,” Maisie interrupts, clearly relishing her role as messenger.
“I had a quick look on one of the library computers — I’m very clued up about the Internet, you know — and there were no Evie Snows in Bramblebury, either on the National Registration that happened in 1939, or the next census, which was in 1951.
They didn’t bother during the war, you know; too busy trying to stay alive, I expect. ”
“Right. So how would we go about finding her, then?” Elliot asks, undaunted.
“Oh, you can’t,” replies Maisie cheerfully.
“Well, you could try the usual routes, I suppose: births, marriages, deaths; that kind of thing. But I’d be surprised if you manage to find anything.
I know it’s a bit of an unusual name, but she wouldn’t have been the only Evie, or the only Snow in the country.
And that’s assuming she never changed it by marriage. ”
“What about the Ministry of Defense?” suggests Elliot. “They’ll have records of members, surely?”
Maisie nods.
“They do,” she agrees. “But they’ll only supply them to next of kin. Is she next of kin, do you think?”
She looks at him eagerly, hoping for some fresh gossip.
“No,” Elliot says, sounding as disappointed as Maisie looks at this. “No, she isn’t. I don’t know who she was. And it doesn’t look like I’m going to find out, either.”
His shoulders sag in defeat. I really want to hug him, but I have to wait while Maisie flutters around, putting the photo of Evie Snow back into its envelope, and then launching into a long, pointless story about her sister Elsie’s next-door neighbor, who she suspects might be ‘up to something’.
Finally, though, she says goodbye, and heads off back down the hill, leaving Elliot and I to digest the fact that the search is over, and we’re still no further forward.
“Well, I guess that’s that,” he says, as the top of Maisie’s red bobble hat disappears behind the crest of the hill. “It looks like this book is going to have to be fiction, after all.”
“Is that such a bad thing?” I ask, puzzled by how seriously he’s taking this. “I know you wanted to figure out what really happened — I did, too. But it was always a long shot, Elliot. There was always a chance we’d have to make that part of the story up.”
“I know,” he says, taking my hand. “I just hate not knowing, is all. I hate loose ends. I hate that someone’s entire life can just … disappear. Like it didn’t matter.”
“That’s not necessarily true,” I point out. “Someone must know what happened to her; what her story was. And even if they don’t, she was still real. She still mattered. Things don’t only become real once someone’s written about them.”
“Don’t they? Do you really think that, Holly?”
Elliot’s words are soft, but his eyes, when I finally meet them, hold a challenge which makes me wonder which one of us I’m trying to convince here.
I’m the one who’s always felt like things haven’t really happened to me until I’ve written them down, after all.
That’s why I’ve never written anything about Mum dying; not even in my diary.
I always felt like once it was down on paper, it would make it real; and, as long as it isn’t, I can continue to pretend on some level that it didn’t happen.
So I’m a fine one to lecture Elliot about writing and reality, when I don’t even believe my own words.
“What I think is that you can still write an amazing story about them both,” I reply, shrugging off the question. “And I guess the best thing about it is that this way you at least get to decide how it ends.”
“And what about us? How does our story end?”
The question is the one that’s been circling my mind endlessly, almost since we met, but it still comes as a shock to hear it spoken out loud.
“I’m not sure,” I admit, my palms suddenly clammy with nerves despite the chill of the afternoon. “I’ve been trying not to think about it. I just know it has to.”
This time, my words are even less convincing.
“And is that what you want?”
His hand tightens almost imperceptibly around mine, as if he’s steeling himself for an answer he knows he’s not going to like.
“No. Of course not,” I tell him. “It’s the very last thing I want. If it was up to me, it would last forever.”
My voice catches on that last word. Until now, my feelings about Elliot have been a secret I’ve been trying to keep even from myself.
But now they’re out there in the open, and it’s a feeling that reminds me of the time I fell off a swing when I was eight years old — or, more specifically, of the moment before I hit the ground, when it felt almost like flying.
This, too, could go either way; although, if my past record is anything to go by, I suspect the only way for me is down.
My entire body tenses up, waiting for the moment of impact.
But it doesn’t come.
Instead, Elliot takes my face gently in his hands and tilts it up towards his, until I’m forced to look him in the eye.
“That’s settled, then,” he says simply. “I’m glad we’re on the same page.”
“Are … are you making a book pun?” I ask croakily.
Elliot grins.
“Bad time to get cheesy on you, huh?” he says wryly. “Sorry. What I meant to say was that I feel like that too. I don’t want to have to say goodbye to you, Holly. Not on Christmas Eve, and not any time after that, either.”
We look at each other, both of us intensely aware that everything has just changed between us.
“So, what do we do? There’s that whole ‘different continents’ thing to deal with, remember?”
This time, my voice comes out as a whisper rather than a croak. It’s only a marginal improvement, but Elliot doesn’t seem to notice.
“So we’ll deal with it,” he says lightly. “Somehow. I don’t know exactly how yet, but we’ll find a way. It can be one of those plot points we have to figure out.”
“You’re doing it again with the book puns,” I say, laughing. I don’t care, though, because, instead of answering, he just leans forward and kisses me, and it’s the kind of kiss that makes me feel like he might be right; that we can figure this out.
And maybe our story won’t have to end after all.