Pish was clearly surprised, as we were, at how Auntie Snowdrop had suddenly taken the initiative, and she didn’t like it one bit. She waved her stick at me impatiently. “Very well,” she snapped. “If you’re going to do it, then get on with it. But look out for the waves. Don’t go getting your feet wet, Michael.”
I took the flowers from Auntie Snowdrop and walked down to the water’s edge. I did it just as she had done it every year I could remember. I reached out and dropped the snowdrops into the sea one by one. Some the waves took away, others were washed at once back up onto the beach, and left stranded round my feet.
I felt Maman beside me, her arm around my shoulder. “Your Papa adored snowdrops, you know,” she whispered.
“Is he really out there, Maman?” I asked her then. “Is that where his Spitfire went down?”
“Somewhere in the Channel, chéri,” she replied. “No one quite knows where. But it doesn’t matter, does it? He’s with us always.”
We turned back then and walked up the beach towards the Aunties.
Auntie Snowdrop had her handkerchief to her mouth. I could see she was crying quietly.
“Time for tea,” Auntie Pish said. “Martha, would you please stop that dog yapping? He’s driving me mad. Come along. And do keep up, Martha, don’t drag along behind so much. Pish!” And she strode off up the beach, stabbing her stick into the pebbles as she went. “Come along, come along.”
Auntie Snowdrop caught my eye, smiled and raised her eyebrows, enduring the moment. She was telling me in her own silent way, don’t worry. I’m used to it. I smiled back in solidarity.
The walk home took a while, a bit longer than usual. That was when I noticed Auntie Snowdrop was wheezing a bit, that she had to stop from time to time to catch her breath, so much so that in the end I left Jasper to run on ahead, and went back to keep her company. She smiled her thanks at me and took my hand in hers. She held on to me to steady herself, I remember that. And her hand was so cold.
Maman must have guessed my thoughts, or read them perhaps. Suddenly she put her hand on mine, and interrupted Auntie Pish, who was not used to being interrupted.
“Sorry, Auntie Mary, but I’ve just remembered…” she began. Auntie Pish did not look at all pleased. “Auntie Martha. Roy’s medals – the ones I let you have, remember? He’s got one of his own at home, haven’t you, chéri? But I know he’d love to see the others sometime. Do you mind?”
“Of course I don’t. They’re upstairs,” Auntie Snowdrop replied. “I’ll fetch them at once, shall I?”
“Yes, Martha,” Auntie Pish said, “you go and fetch them. And while you’re about it, bring us the last of the rock cakes from the kitchen, will you? I see we have empty plates. Don’t be long.”
Auntie Snowdrop folded her napkin neatly, got up and went out. Auntie Pish shook her head. “She’s always polishing those medals,” she grumbled. “I don’t know why she bothers – it only makes her sad. She still gets so upset and depressed: won’t get up in the morning, won’t eat her food, hardly speaks to me for days on end. If it wasn’t for choir practice I sometimes think she’d give up the ghost altogether. I mean, Roy died over nine years ago now. The war was a long time ago. We have to put it all behind us, that’s what I keep trying to tell her. It’s water under the bridge, I tell her. Well I mean, there’s no need for any more sadness, is there? No point. What’s done is done. You can’t bring him back, can you?”
Maman looked long at Auntie Pish before she spoke. Then she said very quietly: “Happiness, I think, is like Humpty Dumpty in that poem I used to read to Michael. ‘All the King’s horses, and all the King’s men, couldn’t put Humpty together again…’ Once it is broken, you can’t just put happiness together again. It is not possible.”
Auntie Pish didn’t know what to say, and for a change she said nothing. She cleared her throat and drank some more tea. Auntie Pish silenced. It was a rare and wonderful moment. It cheered me up no end. I almost felt like clapping, but then we heard Auntie Snowdrop coming slowly back downstairs. She came into the sitting room, carrying a wooden pencil box, holding it out in front of her, with the greatest of care, in both hands. Her eyes never left it as she put it down on the coffee table.
“Well, open it then, Martha,” Auntie Pish told her impatiently. “It won’t bite.” Auntie Snowdrop slid back the lid and took it off. There were three medals lying there on cotton wool, the King’s face looking up at me from each one.
“You see how shiny I keep them?” Auntie Snowdrop was touching them with her fingertips. “Your Papa, I always thought he looked a bit like the King – except for the moustache, of course. I never liked his moustache. He said it made him look older, more like a proper fighter pilot. I never wanted him to go to war, you know. I told him. But he wouldn’t listen to his old Auntie. This was his pencil case when he was a boy. He had it all through his school days.” Then she looked up at me and fixed me with a gaze of such intensity that I’ve never forgotten it. “You’ll never go to war, will you, Michael?” she said.
“No, Auntie,” I told her, because that’s what I knew she wanted me to say.
“Good. You don’t need to, you know,” she said, “because you’ll have all these medals when I’ve gone, so you won’t ever need to go to war to get them, like your Papa did.”
“Oh Martha,” Auntie Pish said. “Don’t go on so. You’ll upset the boy.”
“And you will keep them polished for me,” Auntie Snowdrop said, quite ignoring her sister.
“Course I will,” I said.
“He’s a good kind boy,” Auntie Snowdrop said, reaching out and touching my hair. “Just like his Papa was. He has the same face, same lovely hair, just the same.” She glanced up at the photo, and then back at me again. She took my hand, gripping it tight as she spoke to me. ”But always remember, Michael, it’s not the face that matters, not the skin, not the hair, it’s what lies beneath. You have to look deeper, Michael, behind. Look through the glass, through the photo, and you’ll find out who your Papa really was. Remember what I said now, won’t you?”
We were driving back to London an hour or so later when Maman told me. “Auntie Snowdrop’s not very well. She’s going to have to go into hospital in a week or so for an operation – I think Auntie Pish is very worried about her.”
“She didn’t sound like it to me,” I said. “She was horrible to
