The Safest Place in London by Maggie Joel Read Free Book Online Page A

a marvellous time—played brilliantly. As Ed and Diana moved swiftly towards an inevitable defeat, Diana’s sound backhand finally deserted her and Ed’s patience deserted him. He snatched at a volley that by rights was hers and sent the ball straight at the girl, Cecily, who was crouched on the far side of the net ready to pounce. The ball caught her squarely in the face and she keeled over backwards.
    ‘Good God —Cee, are you alright?’ cried her partner, running over, and there followed a lengthy delay while icepacks were produced and sympathetic words spoken. Eventually, Cecily’s wellbeing assured and nothing more life-threatening than a black eye and colourful bruise being the upshot, the match was declared over and, as the other couple had forfeited, Diana and Ed were declared winners. Diana felt this a little unjust and said so but Ed didn’t hear her.
    Standing in the conservatory dabbing sun-reddened and perspiring faces with towels and quaffing great quantities of chilled lemonade, the acerbic wife, Phyllis, walked up to her husband, Ed, and said, in a voice that hushed the room: ‘You hit that ball at poor Cee on purpose.’
    ‘What a ridiculous thing to say!’ he countered, barely looking at her, but a hush fell over the room.
    ‘It’s not ridiculous. We all saw it. You did it deliberately.’ Phyllis somehow managed to sound both bored and spiteful, and if her objective had been to provoke her husband she succeeded, for he rounded on her now, taking her by her arm.
    ‘ How dare you accuse me? ’ he demanded, his fingers closing tightly around her upper arm so that she gasped in sudden pain. He let her go at once, throwing his towel to the floor and walked off.
    A horrible silence ensued. The wife rubbed her arm and gave a high-pitched, frightened little laugh that only made things worse, then she too left, making some excuse to their host.
    Afterwards, everyone was a little stiff and formal and the fun had gone out of the day, and Diana began to wonder if she too might offer some excuse and depart.
    ‘That was rather beastly, wasn’t it?’
    ‘Oh!’ she said, because the tall, nice-looking man with the ears and the eyebrows and the ready smile had sought her out to offer her a fresh lemonade and to make a comment on what had happened and he had the most marvellous voice, sort of solid and comforting, just like the man on the BBC. ‘Yes. Yes, it was, rather.’
    ‘Look here, I’m thinking of pushing off. Party seems to have ended somewhat abruptly. Can I give you a lift? I’m Gerald, by the way.’

    It must be nearing midnight. A hurricane lamp hung from the ceiling swinging crazily and Diana attempted once more to read the time on her watch by its light but gave up.
    An elderly woman with swollen ankles sporting a volunteers’ armband appeared on the platform’s edge bearing a tray of sausage rolls and hot cocoa in mugs, and the way she loudly and coarsely spruiked her wares suggested she spent her daylight hours out on a market stall. When the woman saw Abigail she fell silent. She gently stroked Abigail’s pinched face, then she reached over and patted Diana’s hand before moving on. As though she could sense their fear. Their isolation.
    They ate ravenously, wolfing down the rolls and licking their fingers for every last crumb. With food in her stomach, Abigail dozed, but Diana could not sleep.
    She thought about her old school friend Marian whom she not seen again since that afternoon in 1928, and Marian’s friend, the girl called Bunny, whose decision to drop out of the tennisparty at the last minute had changed the course of Diana’s life. It was a little humbling and a little frightening to realise how one’s destiny might be shaped by something so small, by someone else’s decision.
    She thought of her vegetable garden, which had failed.
    After the first year of the war the wonderful Mr Baines had gone to live with his elderly sister in Cirencester, they’d had a series