Secrets of a Charmed Life, page 29
So instead of answering awkward questions about where was home for me and did I have any brothers and sisters, I answered questions about what it’s like to be the granddaughter of an Oxford don.
Granny and Gramps had wanted me to go to college just like they wanted Neville to. I did try, Emmy. I tried to be the person they wanted me to be. But I found myself hungering for London. It was as if London were calling me to come back and become reacquainted with it again. There was unfinished business between London and me, and I needed to attend to it.
My grandparents, especially Gramps, weren’t happy about my wanting to leave college before I graduated but they handled my decision better than they had handled my father’s. They didn’t cut me off, financially or personally, which is what they did to Neville. Sometimes you get a second chance in life. The thing was, as soon as I decided I needed to come back, I felt ready to come back. It was the strangest thing. It was 1953 and I had just turned twenty, the same age you were when the war ended.
I think that’s why I had to come back then.
I looked for you in the faces of the people I saw on the streets.
I steeled my resolve, made a list of all the bridal shops, and I went to each one, looking for your name on the dresses or your face behind the counter.
The first job I had was with the telephone company, which made it easy for me to look for your name in all the telephone exchanges in England, but I did not find you.
Gramps helped me get the job at Masters & Sons Cartographers. He went to school with Reginald Masters, the owner. I’ve been there for three years, and Simon for two. We became friends and then he asked me to dinner. He’s never had a steady girlfriend before. He’s the studious type. I have dated, but I can’t say I’ve had a boyfriend. I’ve had boys date me and boys dance with me, but I’ve never had a boy care for me like Simon does.
As I got to know him better, I learned that he’d spent the war far from his parents, in a Suffolk farmhouse, cared for by foster parents who hadn’t a tenth of the affection for him and his brother that they had for their own children. If that were not hard enough, he was teased by the local children for the way he spoke, his city ways, and his bookish looks and behavior. When he returned to London after five years as an evacuee, he felt as displaced as I did when I came back to England. He isn’t afraid to show his sensitive side, because it’s really the only side he has. It took him forever to work up the courage to kiss me.
I like that about him, Emmy. I like that the very thought of kissing me makes him tremble.
He would marry me tomorrow if I said yes.
He has told me a hundred times he loves me.
But I struggle to say this back to him, even though I think what I feel in my heart for him is love. And that’s what scares me. I know what it is to have loved. To have a life that is uniquely yours and to have people in it who are your sun and moon and stars. I know that feeling.
And I dread how weak it makes us.
Simon says love doesn’t weaken us; it opens us. To love is not to be fragile; it is to be unlocked and open. And when something is open, other things can come in.
And things can be taken out, I said to him. When you’re standing there doing nothing remarkable, all you love can be yanked out of your open arms.
What can be given in one moment can be taken in the next.
Which is why I agreed to start seeing Dr. Diamant. After five years without professional counsel, this is why I must lay it all bare before another psychologist.
I don’t feel entitled to happiness, Emmy. I robbed you of yours.
Dr. Diamant says the war is to blame for what came between you and me.
I look around London and I see all the new buildings. It’s obvious that what the war did has been fixed.
What I did is what I must fix.
I want to fix what I broke.
Julia
Thirty-eight
June 27, 1958
Dear Emmy,
I am sitting here with a glass of sherry watching the rain sputter against the living room window. It’s late and I should be in bed, but I know that if I crawled under the covers, I would not be able to sleep. I have too much on my mind.
I told Dr. Diamant today that I had written everything I could think of to tell you and that I’m no closer to being able to say yes to a happy life than I was before I started.
She asked what I thought was holding me back. I told her I had not been able to fix anything. Writing to you hasn’t mended anything. I wanted to repair what I broke.
If I could fix it, what I would I do? she asked.
You mean aside from going back in time?
Yes.
Well, if I knew where Aunt Charlotte’s house was, maybe I would rap on the door and ask if could have a peek in the crawl space of the bedroom to the right of the stairs.
I said it kind of snippy. Like I wasn’t serious.
And if you knew where Aunt Charlotte’s house was, would you do that?
A prickling sensation traveled up my spine as the hazy image I have of Aunt Charlotte materialized in my mind. Her gray braid, her smile with the little gold tooth at the back, and her blue car. She had chickens. She let me play with her dolls. Two of them. And a tea set. Beyond those images was nothing but fog.
But I don’t remember where that house is, I said. Only that it’s in Gloucestershire.
Thea told Granny that Aunt Charlotte’s house was in Gloucestershire, Emmy. Mum had told her that much.
But then the prickling intensified. I suddenly remembered something else, something that had been hidden in mist for nearly twenty years.
Charlotte had a sister named Rose, I said.
Dr. Diamant seemed cautiously surprised that I remembered this. She furrowed her brow. I could tell she was ruminating on something, wondering if what she was about to suggest was a good idea or not.
Have you ever considered looking for the house where you hid your sister’s sketches? she asked.
I shook my head. I hadn’t believed it was possible to find Aunt Charlotte’s house.
Then Dr. Diamant said that maybe if I retrieved the brides box—if I unhid it—I would put to right a physical wrong. I could fix, to some extent, what I had broken. And if I could do that, then maybe I would find enough peace to believe that I do deserve to be happy.
She told me to go home and think about what it might mean to me to have the brides box again. Was the thought of finding it comforting to me? Or frightening? Was I okay with the notion that I could very well find the house but the box wouldn’t be there? Could I handle earnestly looking for the house and not finding it?
She told me not to rush to a decision either way. There was no wrong answer, she said. Just an A choice and B choice. Like two doors painted the same color.
What do you think I should do? I asked her.
She thought for a moment. Then she said that I had written to you that more than anything I wanted to undo what I did with the brides box. Retrieving it wouldn’t bring you back, but symbolically I will have righted a wrong.
A righted wrong only matters if you can unhurt the person you hurt, I told her.
Yes, but what about your hurt, Julia? she said. This thing you did hurt you, too. You believe you are undeserving of happiness because you robbed Emmy of hers.
What I am supposed to do if I find it? I asked. I can’t give the brides box back to Emmy.
She answered with this: What would you like to do with it?
This is what is keeping me up tonight, Emmy.
What would I do with your sketches if I could have them again?
Simon told me at dinner tonight that he will help me if I decide to go looking for Aunt Charlotte’s house. He has a car. We can use our Saturdays to drive out to Gloucestershire and poke about, which is surely the least effective way to look for it. But the evacuation records from my school were all lost to a demonic V-1. Simon said if I want to do this, we could get a map of Gloucestershire from work and circle all the smaller cities that have train stations. We could check with the local officials of those towns to see if anyone knows of two sisters named Charlotte and Rose who took in evacuees from London at the start of the war.
Simon asked me if I would know the house if I saw it.
I told him I wasn’t sure.
Then he asked me if I truly wanted to try to find it. Because you don’t have to do this, you know, he said.
I could not answer him.
And now as I sit here trying hard not to count raindrops on the window, I am not sure if I want to try.
I think I’m sure that I want to find the brides box.
I’m just not sure that I want to try.
It’s the trying that scares me. I’m afraid this quest will be like the search to find the flat and the bridal shop.
And you.
I failed in all of those.
But this I do know, Emmy. If I could find the brides box, I would do for you what you wanted all along.
If I can find your sketches, I will make the dream you had come true.
Julia
July 2, 1958
Dear Emmy,
I have decided to look for Aunt Charlotte’s house. The more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve come to believe it might actually be possible to find, so I can’t imagine not trying. I asked Dr. Diamant what was the worst thing that could happen to me if I try to find the house and can’t.
She returned the question to me. What did I think the worst thing would be?
I guess I would be no better or worse than I am now.
She said if that was an accurate gauge of how I’d feel, she thought I should give it a go.
So Simon and I got a map of Gloucestershire and spread it out on the lunch table at work. I remember that when you and I got off the train the day we left London, we walked outside and I saw that we weren’t in a major city. It was more like a country town. The streets were not full of taxis and buses or tall buildings. I remember there being mums on the sidewalks with prams and a dead bird that you poked with your toe so that we could walk past it. Simon crossed off the larger cities like Gloucester, Cirencester, Cheltenham, and Swindon. We drew circles around all the towns that would have had a train station in 1940. So many of the railway stations have closed since the war; dozens in Gloucestershire alone, Emmy. People drive their own cars now.
Anyway, as we were studying the map, I saw the word “Cotswolds” written in block letters, which is the name of one of Gloucestershire’s districts, and I had another prickling feeling. I pulled the map closer to me and whispered that word out loud. The second I did, I saw us back in Aunt Charlotte’s car when she told us the golden-colored stone we were seeing everywhere was Cotswold stone.
The Cotswolds, Emmy. I am right, aren’t I?
I turned to Simon and told him you and I were somewhere in the Cotswolds.
Simon started naming towns. Adelstrop, Bourton-on-the-Water, Chipping Camden, Moreton-in-Marsh, Stow-on-the-Wold. Fairford. Blockley. Naunton. The Slaughters. Oddington. Tewkesbury.
But nothing sounded familiar to me. I must have started to look a little overwhelmed. Simon said to never mind, that I was brilliant because I had just narrowed the search considerably. He mapped out a day trip for us for this Saturday, using Fairford as our starting point since it’s one of the first places we will pass coming up from London.
I know Fairford isn’t right. Somehow I know it’s not. But we have to begin somewhere. I am both eager and hesitant to look for the brides box, Emmy.
It seems like the honorable thing to do. I hope God in heaven will look down on me and favor me with success. It seems such a little thing to request of him.
Simon asked me if I am going to tell Granny what I am doing. I don’t think I will. All of this happened between you and me before I knew her. She can’t help. And if I told her and then failed, she would know I tried and I would see my failure in her eyes every time we visited and she asked me how I was.
This is between you and me.
Julia
July 5, 1958
Dear Emmy,
Simon and I are back from our first trip out to look for Aunt Charlotte’s house. He is heating up soup for us to eat as I write to you. We are cold and soaked to the skin. The day dawned with sprinkles and then switched to rain just as we arrived in Fairford and began our first inquiries.
It didn’t occur to us until we were under way that we could expect no help from city officials in these towns because it was Saturday. No city offices would be open. But Simon said not to worry. City officials might have been hesitant anyway to speak to two strangers asking about sisters whose last name they didn’t even know.
The Fairford train station didn’t look anything like what I remembered. We didn’t even get out of the car.
We drove on to Kempsford where we got thoroughly drenched finding out there was no railway station there. We tried Lechlade, and then Burford because it was nearby, even though it’s in Oxfordshire, not Gloucestershire. And then back in the car to Bourton-on-the-Water, a beautiful little place. I was so taken with it that Simon suggested we should ask about the sisters in the druggist’s and the beauty shop and at the park. I’d decided that when I asked about Charlotte, I would say only that I wished to find my foster mother and thank her for taking my sister and me in, all those many years ago. Don’t you think other evacuees have done this, Emmy? Gone back to the homes and mothers and fathers and siblings who sheltered them during the war years? I think they do. And this seemed to me a very polite and respectable reason for snooping about and asking strangers to tell me whether a Charlotte and a Rose live—or lived—nearby.
So that is what I did. I asked people, mostly older folks, if they knew of two sisters named Charlotte and Rose, because I had spent nearly three months with them at the start of the war, before my mother died.
There are a great many souls in Bourton-on-the-Water and the surrounding little towns that took in evacuees, Emmy. But no one remembers a pair of gray-haired sisters named Charlotte and Rose. We also tried at Upper and Little Rissington—tiny little villages brimming with houses made of Cotswold stone—because they are within a manageable walking distance of Bourton.
I remember that you and I walked from Charlotte’s house to a train station the morning we returned to London. It was a long walk and you carried me part of the way. It was dark. And I was tired. Simon thinks it can’t have been more than six or so miles that we walked because I was too young to walk farther than that in the middle of the night. And I was too heavy for you to carry the entire way.
But we found no one in these towns who knew the sisters.
Still, we drove down some of the lanes, looking at the houses, mostly all made of the same stone, and reminding me very much of Charlotte’s house.
We didn’t find it.
But I am strangely encouraged.
The sense of the familiar was too strong, Emmy.
Julia
July 12, 1958
Dear Emmy,
We went out again today. This time we made our way to Chipping Camden, which didn’t look familiar at all when we first drove into town, and I had to remind myself that nearly twenty years have passed since the day you and I arrived in Gloucestershire. But as we neared the city center, I began to think perhaps we were to be lucky today. The railway station and the lay of the streets and the city hall—it addled my brain how familiar and yet not familiar they were. Again we asked about in the shops and the library and the bank if anyone knew of the sisters. We received mostly kind and compassionate responses. A few people looked askance at us or simply shook their heads with a wordless no when we asked. We had tea at a lovely café to refresh us and Simon noted on the map how many villages were within walking distance. And we went to them all, Emmy. Aston Subedge, Broad Marston, several others.
Every place looked like it could have been where you and I were. And yet no one knew of the sisters. We even strolled the cemeteries, looking for their names.
On the way home I was feeling tremendously discouraged. I wondered aloud if perhaps Thea had been wrong about where Mum told her we were. Maybe she assumed it was Gloucestershire. Or maybe Thea said we had been in Oxfordshire and Granny heard Gloucestershire, because there are Cotswold villages in Oxfordshire as well.
Simon just said, rather confidently, Well, then we’ll look in every village in Oxfordshire, too.
The way he said this gave me pause. I couldn’t see his face clearly because night had fallen and the only light on his features was from the headlamps of a few passing cars. But in the shadows I saw a determined look that surprised me. It did not matter to him that the search may have now widened to include another county. It only mattered that we pressed on, like a wise accountant would do to find the error in the ledger and adjust it. It was as if he was determined to find the house to fix me, which is different than the reason I want to find it. He wanted to find the house so that I could at last climb out of my regrets and marry him. I am not interested in fixing me. I want to fix what I broke.
It’s completely different.
When I said nothing, he took my silence for anxiety that now we have even more towns to search and that he might lose interest in me because of it. He said not to worry, because I was the only thing that mattered to him. He reached for my hand.
I love him, Emmy, I do. And I know he loves me. But sitting there in the dark with the shimmer of London way off in the distance, I knew that I must continue on alone. If I don’t, I fear I am the one who may lose interest.
