The Forgotten Village. Lorna Cook

      They had been going to a party. Her dress had been too low-cut and in it, Bertie said, she had looked obscene. She had laughed, not at him, but because she thought he’d been making a joke. She hadn’t taken him seriously and had touched his arm to soothe as she had looked past him towards the wardrobe to choose her shoes. And then suddenly she was on the floor, wide-eyed and holding her cheek. Looking up at him, she saw a flash of satisfaction in his eyes before he issued his monotone apology. She didn’t go to the party. It had taken a fortnight for the bruise to fade enough for her to be able to cover it with powder and eventually be able to leave the house.

      The next time he did it he didn’t apologise.

      Bertie was not the man she thought he was. After the shock of realising this had worn off, she had felt so lost and alone. His violence was unpredictable and linked to his ever-increasing thirst for alcohol. But she knew now that if she was going to summon the courage and the strength to do anything about her situation, she would be doing it entirely alone. She thought of Anna. Thank God for Anna. Veronica was not quite so alone.

      As Veronica made her way to the kitchen, her heart sank. She had almost left. She had almost tasted freedom. It was too late now. In the confusion of Freddie’s arrival, William had gone and with him her lifeline. She felt in her pocket for the little purse of pin money she’d scavenged together from coins Bertie had left scattered in his study over the last few months. It wasn’t much. She’d been summoning up the courage to leave him for the last six months – ever since she fully realised his drinking was now entirely out of control. He’d been drinking for as long as she had known him, but it was as Bertie had grown disheartened with the war and his place in the wider world that he had really upped his daily allowance to unprecedented levels. And with the drink came the madness and the violence he couldn’t keep at bay.

      After she’d had a few words with their reluctant cook, Veronica moved into the sitting room that faced the front drive. The large room now only housed oversized settees, the wireless, a drinks trolley and a few old copies of The Tatler piled up on a coffee table. All the ornaments, portraits and Chinese rugs from the ground floor had been packed up and sent on. As such, the room echoed.

      Veronica went to the fire and prodded it, sending sparks onto the hearth. She hugged herself against the cold of the December day and stared blankly into the flames. Her mind moved back to a simpler time. She and Freddie dancing together on the threadbare carpet of the little flat he’d just bought but hadn’t had time to furnish. How they’d both tried hard in his kitchen to master cooking something from a battered copy of Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management. It had been the only cookery book they’d ever heard of and they had bought it together from a second-hand bookshop on a whim. They’d laughingly discarded the Victorian tome, wondering what on earth had possessed them, before Freddie had bicycled off for fish and chips.

      A log shifted in front of her and sparks flew high in the grate, snapping her back from her memory. She could have cried thinking about how happy she had been then, how happy she thought he had been. But she’d been wrong about Freddie.

      Why the hell was he here? And what in God’s name was she going to do now?

      Freddie lugged his two small cases and his gas mask in its cardboard box up the stairs and deposited them at the top. He had intended to stay until the end, to see all his childhood friends from the village and leave when they all left together on the final day; if any of his friends were left. He knew many would have been called up. Or, like him, would have joined up at the first available opportunity. But he felt like a fraud. He’d not been back to the village in years and to stand with those that were here at the end in an act of solidarity didn’t feel quite right somehow. Unlike them, he wasn’t losing anything. He hadn’t lived in his family home for a long time. He wouldn’t miss it either. He told himself he was only here for his things. Perhaps he shouldn’t have responded to Bertie’s letter. Perhaps he shouldn’t have come at all.

      A noise of something heavy being dropped onto the floor down the hall grabbed his attention and he glanced quickly to the right to see what it was. The maid Anna was in one of the bedrooms, picking up items that had fallen out of a black leather jewellery box. Around her were trunks that looked as if they had sprung open and had spilled their contents around the solid wood floor. She looked as if she was in the midst of chaos.

      On seeing him, Anna moved towards the bedroom door and, with her gaze cast to the floor, closed the door gently but pointedly.

      Strange girl, he thought.

      Freddie turned his attention back to his suitcases and wondered what he’d actually left here all those years ago that Bertie, in his short and clipped mandate, demand he now remove.

      On the train down from London, he’d been rather nervous about seeing Veronica. It had been so long. He’d pictured her face the whole way down. Imagined what he’d say to her. He compared her now to how he remembered her, before his brother had swooped in and set his sights on her. Back then she’d been fun, exciting, a breath of fresh air. He remembered the party where they’d met. He smiled as he recollected the moment he’d spotted her instantly across the room. She had been drinking champagne from a cut-glass saucer, laughing raucously and spilling it everywhere. A gaggle of men surrounded her, offering to mop up her spillage. Of course they had. She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. But she’d locked eyes with Freddie as he walked in to the party and it was as if his world had changed forever.

      The woman in front of him now as he entered the sitting room was not the Veronica from back then. Her hand shook slightly as she chewed her nails and stared wide-eyed but unseeing into the fire. He watched her silently, wondering what had happened to her since he’d last seen her that had changed her quite so much.

      She spotted him out of the corner of her eye and forced a smile. ‘Gin and tonic?’ Her voice almost broke as she spoke and she knew she had to work harder to keep a tight lid on her emotions. She wasn’t used to men other than Bertie being in the house. She told herself it was just Freddie, but that only made it worse.

      ‘How’d you get hold of decent gin?’ he enquired. ‘Black market?’

      Veronica shrugged. ‘I assume so. Bertie always finds a way of getting what he wants.’

      He nodded and made his way over to the drinks trolley, glancing around the room as he did so. ‘I will, thanks. This room’s empty.’ It was an obvious comment.

      Veronica didn’t answer.

      ‘I assume all my old things are in the attic?’

      ‘I think so.’

      ‘It’s probably just an old cricket bat and a trunk of books, but I’ll go up later and take a look,’ he said. ‘I think I’ll get out of your hair tomorrow.’

      She turned quickly from the fire to face him. ‘But you’ve only just arrived.’

      He made an apologetic face and then shrugged. ‘The factory doesn’t run itself, you know.’

      She looked into the fire again, forcing herself to breathe calmly. ‘Are you … very busy?’ She was on the edge of asking him if he was happy.

      He threw himself into one of the few remaining overstuffed settees and stretched his legs out. ‘I shouldn’t complain. But we’re struggling to keep up with the demand for munitions.’ He rubbed his eyes, which looked tired. ‘Bertie shows no interest in the business. So I’ll just keep at it in the office on my own.’ He put his head back against the settee. ‘How are you?’ He stared up at the ornate plasterwork. ‘It’s been a while.’

      She followed him to the settees and sat opposite him. ‘It has.’

      Veronica felt suddenly nervous. The joy of seeing Freddie again after all this time had hit her unexpectedly, guiltily, even if his arrival had ruined her chance to leave. She still didn’t understand what had happened between her and Freddie all those years ago. There had been a fleeting moment when she thought it was they that would marry, not she and Bertie. How stupid she’d been to think that.

      Freddie