Kerry Barrett - The Hidden Women

I reached out and took his hand. ‘He might not have talked, even if you’d asked,’ I said. ‘Did Grandma ever say anything?’

‘Not about Dad in the air force,’ Dad said. ‘But, of course, I remember bits about the war. Not much, because I was very small. But I remember living with Mum, and not really knowing Dad when he came home.’

He paused.

‘And I remember Lil,’ he said.

‘What do you remember?’ I asked, intrigued by this little insight into my own family history.

‘I remember her wearing a uniform,’ Dad said slowly. He tilted his head to the left and looked far away over my shoulder. ‘I remember sitting on her lap and playing with a toy plane and her arm round me felt scratchy, the material I mean. It was a uniform.’

‘How old were you?’

He shrugged.

‘About four, perhaps? I loved that plane.’

‘Was that the one Lil brought you?’

‘I always thought my father gave it to me,’ he said. ‘But now I really think about it, I seem to remember Lil bringing it. It’s such a long time ago.’

‘Uniforms and toy planes sound to me like that was our Lil on my list,’ I said.

Dad nodded. ‘That’s what I thought.’

‘Give me a minute,’ I said.

Leaving him in the meeting room, I dashed back to my desk and found the Jack Jones file – now with all the papers back in the correct order.

‘Everything okay?’ Elly said, super-casually.

‘Dad worked with Jack Jones,’ I said, sort of truthfully. Dad had indeed done some music for the TV show Jack had starred in – though he never met the actors as a rule. ‘On that detective thing. He wanted to check something.’

Elly looked dubious but she didn’t say anything.

I took the folder back to the meeting room and showed Dad the list with Lilian Miles on it.

‘So, she flew planes?’ Dad said in awe. ‘Bloody hell.’

I nodded. ‘Amazing, right?’

‘Could you check her records?’

‘Dad,’ I said, in a warning tone.

‘There must be service records,’ he said, not put off by my frown. ‘Surely they’d help us find out if it’s her? We know her date and place of birth; it shouldn’t be hard to cross-reference.’

‘I can’t, Dad,’ I said. ‘It’s completely verboten to do our own research. I could lose my job.’

I grinned at him.

‘You could do it, or Mum. She knows about research. Though it’s expensive to subscribe to some of the databases.’

Dad shook his head. ‘Oh, Nell, you know what we’re like with computers. We just don’t have the skills,’ he said. ‘I’m not bad on the email business but anything more complicated just flummoxes me. I’m no spring chicken.’

I patted his hand reassuringly. ‘You do brilliantly,’ I lied, knowing he was right. He and Mum struggled to work their television.

‘What about if you did it outside work?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘It just feels so wrong because I found the information at work. It’s not right to use company resources for personal searches. I could get into trouble.’

‘Your boss wouldn’t know, Miranda said,’ Dad pointed out.

I shrugged. ‘I can’t,’ I said again. ‘Why are you so interested?’

‘I told you, I just want to know about my family,’ Dad said. But he didn’t meet my eyes when he said it. What was he hiding?

‘There is something we can do, though,’ I said, watching him carefully.

Dad looked hopeful. ‘What?’

‘We could ask her.’

‘Ask her,’ Dad repeated, just as I’d done when Miranda suggested it.

Before I could continue, there was a knock on the door of the meeting room and Fliss stuck her head round, her long blonde hair swinging.

‘Sorry, Helena,’ she said. ‘I thought I’d booked this room?’

Guiltily, I gathered up the Jack Jones papers I’d been showing Dad and smiled. ‘Just an unplanned meeting,’ I said. ‘We’ll get out of your way.’

I went to hustle Dad out of the room, before Fliss realised I’d been mixing up work and personal stuff, but it was too late. She was looking at Dad curiously.

‘Fliss Hopkins,’ she said, holding out her hand for him to shake.

‘Robert Miles.’

She beamed at him. ‘Helena’s father?’

‘Indeed,’ said Dad giving her a dazzling smile. He was such a charmer.

‘I was just going over some Jack Jones research when Dad popped in to see if I was free for lunch,’ I said.

‘But Helena tells me she is far too busy to join me, so I will bid you farewell,’ Dad said smoothly making me wonder if he’d always been such a good liar.

‘Nice to meet you,’ said Fliss.

She stood back to let us leave the room then entered herself, leaving the door open.

‘Let me think about it,’ I said as I showed Dad to the lift, hoping Fliss hadn’t realised I had been showing Dad my Jack Jones research and that she didn’t decide to have a look at it herself. ‘I can’t search Lil’s records, not without putting my job at risk, but I’ll have a think about what else we can do.’

Dad kissed me goodbye. ‘Thanks, Helena,’ he said. ‘It means a lot to me.’

I cycled as slowly as I could through the village, wobbling on my bike because I wasn’t going fast enough to keep my balance.

‘Morning, Lil,’ Marcus the postman called. ‘Mind how you go.’

I ignored him, concentrating on keeping my legs going round. I had an ache in my stomach and my limbs felt heavy and hard to control.

‘By lunchtime it’ll be over,’ I whispered to myself over and over as I cycled. ‘By lunchtime it’ll be over.’

I could see the house up ahead, squatting at the end of the village like a slug, and growing bigger as I approached. I slid off my bicycle and chained it to the fence, and then, dragging my heels, walked up the path to the front door. Before I could knock, it opened. My piano teacher’s wife stood there. She was dressed to go out, wearing her hat and holding her gloves in one hand and her handbag in the other. I wanted to cry.

‘Lilian,’ she said, beaming at me ‘How nice to see you. He’s in the music room – go on through.’

I forced a smile. ‘Thank you, Mrs Mayhew,’ I muttered, slinking past her. She was so pretty and fresh-looking in her summer dress. I felt her eyes on me as I went and wondered if she knew. If she could tell. I felt dirty. No, not dirty. Filthy.

At the music room door, I paused. Then I lifted my hand and knocked.

‘Come,’ said Mr Mayhew. Taking a breath, I went.

Mr Mayhew was sitting at the piano, making pencil notes on some sheet music that was on the stand.

‘Ah, Lilian,’ he said. ‘You’re late.’

He turned round on the stool and gave me a dazzling smile. My breath caught in my throat. Always when I wasn’t with him, he became a monster in my head. Then, when I saw him again – saw his dark, swarthy good looks and his broad shoulders – I wondered what I had been worrying about.

‘Come and sit,’ he said, shifting over on the padded stool. ‘Let’s play something fun to get warmed up.’

I put down my music case and settled myself next to him. I felt the warmth of his body as his thigh brushed mine when I sat, but I couldn’t move away because the stool was too small.

Mr Mayhew – I couldn’t call him Ian, even though he’d told me to – moved a sheet of music to the front of the bundle on the stand. It was a Bach piece that had been one of my favourites, long ago when I was still a child.

He turned to me, his face just inches from mine. I smelled coffee on his breath and tried not to recoil as nausea overwhelmed me.

‘Ready?’ he said.

I nodded, putting my hands on to the keys.