Chapter One
London and Little Embers, Autumn 1951
It wasn’t their usual destination for a holiday and the timing was hardly ideal. John and Esther Durrant generally took a week in Eastbourne or Brighton in the final week of August, so the far southwest tip of England was an odd choice, even more so considering it was early November. John, however, had been adamant. “It’ll do you good,” he said to his wife, in a tone of false jollity, when he suggested—no, insisted on—the trip. “Put some color back in your cheeks. Sea air.” Never mind that a bitter cold gripped the nation with the kind of weather that you wouldn’t put the cat out in and Esther couldn’t have felt less like a week away even had she spent the previous year down a coal mine. She also didn’t understand why they were leaving Teddy behind with the nanny, but she couldn’t begin to summon the necessary enthusiasm for an argument.
Before catching the train south, they dined at a restaurant near Paddington station. Esther wasn’t hungry, but she allowed John to decide for her nonetheless. After a brief perusal of the menu and dispatching their order to the black-clad, white-aproned waitress, he unfurled his Telegraph and spent the time before the arrival of their food absorbed in its pages. Winston Churchill and the Conservative Party had been returned to power she saw, noticing the headline on the front page. John was pleased, although privately she believed Mr. Churchill terribly old and probably not up to the job. They didn’t discuss politics anymore, for they saw the world quite differently, she had come to realize.
Esther managed a little of the soup that arrived in due course, and half a bread roll, while John cleared his dish and several glasses of claret. Then Dover sole and tiny turned vegetables, all of which he ate with gusto while she pushed the peas and batons of carrot around on her plate, pretending to eat. Her husband made no comment.
Esther declined dessert but John, it appeared, had appetite enough for both of them and polished off a slice of steamed pudding made with precious rationed sugar and a generous dollop of custard. He glanced at his watch. “Shall we make our way to the train, my dear?” he asked, wiping the bristles of his mustache on a starched napkin. She couldn’t help but be reminded of an otter who’d just had a fish supper: sleek, replete, and satisfied with himself. He was wearing the dark suit—his favorite—and the tie she’d given him several birthdays ago, when she had been expecting Teddy and the future felt as if it were the merest outline, a sketch, waiting for them to paint it in bold and vivid colors. Something to look forward to, not to fear.
She nodded and he rose and reached for her hand, helping her to her feet. It was a short walk from the restaurant to the station, but Esther was glad of her thick coat and gloves. She’d not ventured from the house in weeks—the November weather had been simply ghastly—and she shivered as she felt the wind slice through her outer garments and numb the tip of her nose and lips.
They entered the cavernous terminal and Esther was almost overwhelmed by the bustle and noise, the hissing of the giant steam engines and the raucous cries of porters as they effortlessly maneuvered unwieldy barrows top-heavy with luggage. It was as if they were part of the opening scene of a play, the moments before the main characters take the stage. She might once have enjoyed the spectacle, found the purposeful activity invigorating, but today she gripped John’s arm as he steered her toward Platform One. “We’ll be there in a jiffy,” he said, reassuring her.
Everywhere she looked, lapels were splashed with poppies, blood-red against dark suits. A brief frown creased the pale skin of her forehead as it took her a moment to place them. Then she remembered: it would soon be Armistice Day. The terror, uncertainty, and deprivations of the recent war were a scarlet tattoo on every Englishman and woman’s breast.
Eventually, the train was located, tickets checked, and they were ushered to their carriage by a porter. She took careful steps along a narrow corridor and they found their cabin: two slim berths made up with crisp cotton sheets and wool blankets the color of smoke.
She breathed a quiet sigh of relief that they would not be expected to lie together. In recent months John had taken to sleeping in his dressing room and she was still not ready for him to return to the marital bed. “I confess I am rather tired,” she said, pulling off her gloves. “I might settle in.” She opened a small cupboard, put her hat on the shelf inside, and hung her coat on a hook that was conveniently placed underneath.
“I shall take a nightcap in the Lounge Car. That is if you don’t mind, darling,” John replied.
He had taken the hint. So much between them went unsaid these days. Esther turned around and inclined her head. “Not at all, you go. I shall be perfectly fine here.”
“Very well.” He left in a hurry, likely in pursuit of a dram or two of single malt.
She sat heavily on the bed, suddenly too exhausted to do more than kick off her shoes and lie back upon the blankets. She stared up at the roof of the cabin as it curved above her, feeling like a sardine in a tin. It wasn’t unpleasant: if anything, she was cocooned from the activity going on outside and wouldn’t be bothered by it.
Before long, a whistle sounded and, with a series of sudden jerks, the train began to move away from the station, shuddering as it gathered speed. After a few minutes it settled into a swaying rhythm and Esther’s eyelids grew heavy. She fought to stay awake. Summoning the little determination she still possessed, she rallied and found her night things. It would not do to fall asleep still fully clothed, only to be roused by her husband on his return from the lounge.
John had asked their daily woman, Mary, to pack for them both, telling Esther that she needn’t lift a finger. Normally she wouldn’t have countenanced anyone else going through her things, but it had been easier not to object, to let them take over, as she had with so much recently. She had, however, added her own essentials to the cardigans, skirts, and stockings, and tucked away among her underwear was a small enameled box that resembled a miniature jewelry case. She found it, flipped the catch, and the little red pills inside gleamed at her like gemstones, beckoning. As she fished one out, she noticed her ragged nails and reddened cuticles. A different version of herself would have minded, but she barely gave them a second thought, intent as she was on the contents of the box. Without hesitating, she placed the pill on her tongue, swallowing it dry.
She put the box in her handbag, drew the window shades, and changed quickly, removing her tweed skirt and blouse and placing them in the cupboard with her hat and coat before pulling a fine lawn nightgown over her head. After a brief wash at the tiny corner basin, she dried her face on the towel provided and ran a brush through her hair before tucking herself between the starched sheets like a piece of paper in an envelope. She was lost to sleep hours before John returned.
* * *
On their arrival in Penzance the next morning he escorted her from the train, handling her once more as if she were his mother’s best bone china. She didn’t object, for she knew he meant well. His concern for her would have been touching had she been able to focus her mind on it—or anything else for that matter—for more than a few minutes, but it was as if there were a thick pane of glass, rather like the ones in the train windows, separating her from him, the world and everything in it.