“And that’s why I refuse to give up hope,” Maggie said simply. “Because until we know, it’s both.”
“I’ll tell you this, wherever John is, he’s not overly thrilled to be compared to a cat.”
“Oh, David!” Maggie exclaimed, tossing a sofa cushion at him.
“Whatever helps, darling. But you are,” he said, patting her head, “a very strange girl.”
When David had gone to bed, Maggie stayed up with her untouched snifter of cognac. She riffled through the newspaper. “Suicide at Claridge’s?” screamed one of the headlines.
Why can’t David get a respectable paper and not these tawdry tabloids, she thought with a twinge of irritation. Maggie scanned the article: Apparently some poor girl had killed herself in the bathtub.
But without the tasks of the day to distract her, her thoughts, as they always seemed to do, went to that fateful phone call she’d received earlier that autumn. It had started with a note left on the cot in the room at Camp Spook that she’d shared with two other women. With excellent penmanship, Mrs. Forrester had written, “Flight Lieutenant Nigel Ludlow rang at 11:30 a.m. He asked you to return call.”
The world had stopped for a moment as Maggie considered the meaning of this. Nigel was in the RAF too—he had joined even earlier, while John was still working with Mr. Churchill. He’d never called Maggie before, but it could be about anything, really. Something to do with Chuck? The wedding?
As Maggie ran downstairs to use the black telephone in the parlor, she tried to ignore the fact that her hands were cold and trembling. She picked up the receiver and dialed the numbers.
She reached the pilots’ mess. “Flight Lieutenant Ludlow?” On the line there was a crackle of static and the sound of men’s voices in conversation and the clatter of dishes and cutlery. “Of course. Just a moment.”
There was a loud bang as he must have thumped the receiver down. Interminable minutes as Maggie waited, waited for Nigel to tell her everything was all right. They’d laugh about what a nervous Nellie she’d been and she’d make him promise not to tell John.…
“Maggie?” She heard Nigel’s voice boom over the wires. Was he somber? Distracted? Jolly? She couldn’t tell.
“Hello, Nigel.” She fought to keep her voice steady. “You rang?”
“Yes, yes, I did. Are you sitting down?” He spoke to her as if she were a small child. Maggie slumped into the chair next to the telephone table, feeling suddenly faint.
“Tell me,” she said.
“John asked me to call you, you know—in case of anything—”
Maggie’s nerves were stretched to the breaking point. Just tell me! “Yes?”
“Well, a bit of bad news. His Spit went down somewhere near Berlin. The plane’s gone. It’s possible, of course, he managed to jump, but I’m afraid we haven’t heard anything in over a week.…”
The plane’s gone? She pictured John hitting the ground in his Spitfire, a ball of flames.
“You, you think he could have jumped?” she managed.
“Well, it is possible.” A long pause, which made Maggie think Nigel didn’t pin much hope on it. “Anything’s possible.” Then, “Maggie? Are you still there?”
“Did you, did you—” Her voice broke. “Call his parents?”
“His commanding officer did.” Then, “Maggie, I’m so sorry—if there’s anything I can do—” But the receiver had slipped from her fingers and hit the floor with a dull thud. Maggie drew up her feet and laid her head on her knees as the tears finally came.
She didn’t know how long she’d sat there, crying, when Mrs. Forester found her. “Are you all right, dear?” she inquired from the doorway.
Maggie looked up, her face tearstained, hot, and red, and made an attempt to wipe at her nose with her hand. She tried to speak and nothing came out but more silent sobs.
“There, now,” Mrs. Forester said, sitting beside her and replacing the phone’s receiver. She procured a starched linen handkerchief from the depths of her bosom. “Here you go,” she said, handing it to Maggie.
“Thank you,” Maggie managed, wiping at her eyes and nose.
Mrs. Forester sat next to her, a plump and comforting presence, not saying a word.
Maggie took a rattling breath. “I think—I think he might be dead,” she said finally.
“Who, dear?”
“John, John Sterling.”
“Air force?”
“Yes.”
“His plane crashed. In Germany.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know. He might have jumped before the crash. No one knows.…”