he said. ‘My dad was around a bit when I was little, and apparently I did meet my grandparents a couple of times, though I don’t remember. But they’ve passed away now, and then Dad died last year – though I’d not seen him since I was ten.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ I said. His story sounded painfully familiar to me, making me think of Greg and how he’d not seen Dora more than a handful of times.
Jack shrugged. ‘He was like a stranger to me,’ he said. ‘It was just me and Mum when I was growing up.’
‘No brothers or sisters?’ I asked. Again I was struck by how similar his story sounded to Dora’s – and how different it was from my own chaotic, busy childhood home.
He shook his head. ‘Just me.’
I looked at his impish face, and felt so sad for the little boy he’d once been that I almost threw my arms round him and hugged him. My sister Imogen would have done. But thankfully, I remembered I was Helena Miles who did not do things spontaneously, unless you counted walking out on my boyfriend when I was pregnant.
Instead I opened the folder and showed Jack his rough family tree.
‘So, this is your dad’s family,’ I said, tracing the line with my forefinger. ‘Your grandfather was a pilot in World War Two, and your great-grandfather fought at the Somme.’
Jack was looking at me in wonder. ‘Really?’ he said. ‘Tell me more.’
Putting all thoughts of Sarah Sanderson’s maternal line out of my head, I sat with Jack all afternoon and explained what I’d found out so far. I always did the initial research, then passed my findings on to specialists – in Jack’s case we’d send him off to speak to an expert on World War One about his great-grandfather. And I was in the process of tracking down someone to speak to about his grandad too, who’d been too short-sighted to join the regular air force but who’d flown for the Air Transport Auxiliary, transporting planes from factories to airfields all over Britain. It was a great family story all round.
Jack was thrilled. He asked all the right questions and wrote endless notes in his scrawling handwriting, on a notepad he pulled from his tatty bag. At one point, he got so excited talking about the trenches that he threw out his arm and knocked over his cup of coffee. I leapt for the folder he had been reading and got it out of harm’s way just in time.
He was very sweet and enthusiastic and every time he smiled he made my hands tremble. But oh my goodness, he was the clumsiest, scruffiest, bulldozer of a man I’d ever met. My carefully ordered notes were pulled out of the folders and spread across the table as the edges of the papers folded over and curled. There was the coffee incident, as well as biscuit crumbs scattered everywhere, and a similar hairy moment when Jack’s biro leaked all over his hand and he left sticky blue fingerprints on a photocopy of his great-grandfather’s service record.
Eventually, to my absolute relief, Jack looked at his watch – which appeared to have Mickey Mouse on it – and stood up.
‘I’m late,’ he said. ‘I have to dash.’
‘Okay,’ I said, possibly a bit too eagerly. ‘I’ll show you out.’
Jack pulled on his leather jacket and surveyed the table, which was covered in notes and screwed-up tissues where he’d wiped the biro off his fingers, and biscuit crumbs.
‘God what a mess,’ he said. ‘I’ll help you clear up.’
‘No need,’ I said, desperately wanting him gone. ‘I’ll do it.’
But I was too late. He was already scooping up all my notes – no longer in any sort of order – and stuffing them back into a folder.
‘Really,’ I said, gritting my teeth. ‘I can do it.’
I went to take the folder from him and there was a small tug-of-war as we tussled over it for a second, then it fell to the floor scattering papers everywhere.
I closed my eyes briefly and when I opened them, Jack was on his hands and knees picking up bits of paper.
‘Ooh look,’ he said, flinging one sheet at me from his position down on the floor. ‘This says Lilian Miles on it. Have you been doing your own family tree and got them mixed up?’
I looked at the paper he’d given me. It was a document about the Air Transport Auxiliary.
‘No, it’s yours,’ I said, bristling at the suggestion that I’d get papers muddled. ‘Frank Jones is mentioned – look.’
I pointed at the bottom of the page, where I’d highlighted Jack’s grandfather’s name.
‘It’s saying he’d been cleared to fly the class of planes that included four-engine bombers,’ I said.
‘And so had Lilian,’ Jack said, showing me the name at the top of the page. ‘No relation of yours?’
I chewed my lip, thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps,’ I said. Then I shook my head. ‘It must just be a coincidence.’
Which was exactly what I said to my parents about what I’d seen at our regular Friday evening family dinner.
‘And there, right at the top, was the name Lilian Miles,’ I said, helping myself to more pilau rice – we always got takeaway on Fridays because neither of my parents could cook and Miranda, my sister who’d done all the cooking when we were growing up, was usually knackered from work.
‘I thought it had to be a coincidence,’ I carried on. ‘But isn’t it strange?’
Dad shrugged. ‘No idea,’ he said. ‘Like you say, probably just a coincidence.’
‘But what about Great-Aunt Lil?’ Miranda fixed Dad with a look that told me she wasn’t impressed with his response.
Mum smiled at the mention of Lil. She was very fond of her.
‘Yes, what about Lil?’ she said.
‘What about her?’ Dad asked, snapping a poppadom in half with a crack and scattering crumbs across the table. I fought the urge to sweep them up with my hand.
‘Could the Lilian Miles on the list be our Lil?’ Miranda asked.
‘It won’t be her,’ I said. ‘There were lots of women named Lilian back then; trust me, I’ve seen a million birth certificates in my time.’
‘But not lots of women named Lilian Miles,’ Miranda pointed out.
‘Is it just a coincidence?’ Mum said. She looked thoughtful. ‘Robert, what do we know about what Lil did in the war?’
Dad had just shovelled some more rice into his mouth but he sat up a bit straighter when Mum spoke.
‘Planes,’ he said eventually, once he’d swallowed. ‘Definitely something to do with planes. I remember her buying me a toy when I was a kid.’
‘Do you think it could be her, Nell?’ Miranda said, using my childhood nickname. ‘Maybe you could investigate?’
Mum and Dad exchanged a glance.
