Letters to the Lost by Iona Grey Read Free Book Online Page B

anything. I was just . . . passing.’
    ‘That’s OK. People come in for all sorts of reasons, and they’re all welcome. Except the ones that come in to nick the candlesticks – those ones I could do without – but everyone else is, whether they’re after a chat or a sit down in the quiet, or a cup of not very nice coffee. Churches need people. When they’re empty they’re just buildings.’ Tony Palmer took a sip of coffee and said ruefully, ‘Mostly people don’t feel like they need churches these days, which is why we have to work at keeping them going. Here we run toddler groups and a book club and an art class and a lunch club for the old people, all without mentioning the G word.’ He looked heavenwards and mouthed, ‘ God .’
    Jess thawed a little. The old people’s lunch club reminded her of why she’d come in. ‘You don’t know anyone round here called Miss Price, do you? An old lady. She might come to your lunch club?’
    ‘Miss Price . . .’ He considered it. ‘The name sounds familiar, though I can’t put a face to it. I don’t think she comes to the lunch club, but I’ve only been here for eighteen months so she may have been previously. Is she a relative of yours?’
    Jess put her cup down and shook her head. ‘A friend of a friend, that’s all. It doesn’t matter.’ She picked up her bag of shopping from the chair. ‘Thanks for the coffee. And the biscuits.’
    ‘Anytime.’
    Aware of his eyes following her, she tried to walk as normally as the too-big shoes and her painful ankle would allow. She’d almost reached the door when he called out to her.
    ‘Jess? Just a thought—’
    She turned round. He came towards her, tapping a finger against his bottom lip. ‘Look, I don’t know how you’re fixed with work or other commitments, but you’d be very welcome to come along to our lunch club – then you could ask some of the other members about your Miss Price. It’s on Mondays and Thursdays, in the church hall.’ He grinned sheepishly. ‘Of course, when I say you’d be very welcome, what I really mean is it would be great to have some younger blood. It gives the older folk a real lift to see a fresh face. You’d get a free lunch, of course. Hot food, and plenty of it.’ He patted the slight paunch beneath the jumper.
    ‘OK . . . Thanks.’
    She had been going to make some excuse, but she was so hungry that the prospect of a free hot lunch was simply too tempting to turn down. It was only as she walked away that it occurred to her that he’d known that. It was that, rather than anything to do with old folk or young blood, that had prompted him to ask her.
    The thought was strangely unsettling.

4
    1942
    The autumn days were getting shorter. At five o’clock Stella gave up struggling to peer through the gloom and did the blackout. It seemed such a shame; the sky was still streaked with ribbons of pink, against which the church’s terracotta roof tiles looked like a frill of black lace, but it was just another thing to add to the list of wartime privations she supposed. Oranges. Chocolate. Soap. Autumn sunsets.
    She went into the hallway to knock on the study door and ask Charles if he’d like her to do his blackout too, but the thread of light beneath the door told her there was no need. The meeting had gone on for most of the afternoon. An hour ago she’d taken in a tray of tea and eggless sponge, made especially in honour of the bishop who enjoyed the status of a Hollywood matinee idol in Charles’s eyes. They had stopped their conversation while she set it down on the table, and the bishop had said – in a particularly loud, hearty voice so that Reverend Stokes, who was elderly and deaf, would hear – ‘So this is the lovely Mrs Thorne. With cake! Something of a water and wine miracle, given the circumstances. Well done, my dear!’ She’d retreated, glowing at praise from such an elevated source, pleased as much on Charles’s behalf as her own.
    The kitchen was