Free The One I Was by Eliza Graham

Fairfleet, enjoying the cool quietness and reliving the encounter with Mona, when Lord Dorner came inside. They’d hardly seen him in the last eighteen months. Usually he stayed in a hotel in London, returning for occasional weekends if his wife was at home. Now there were so many planes piling out of the factories that Harriet Dorner was busier than ever; no more rubbish about women not flying
serious
planes. They’d even seen her photograph in the
Express
, standing beside a Spitfire. ‘Society Hostess Does Bit for RAF’, the caption read. Probably just a staged photo for propaganda, as it seemed unlikely they’d let women fly fighters, David said.
    Benny stood up.
    ‘Ah.’ Lord Dorner looked worried. Probably trying to remember which one Benny was. The one who’d made a fuss about keeping kosher when he’d first arrived? One of the boys the police had wanted to inter on the Isle of Man? Or one of the more nondescripts? ‘How are those poor ill boys doing?’ Lord Dorner asked.
    ‘David’s a bit better, but they’re worried about Rainer.’
    ‘Poor chap.’ A pause. ‘And what about you … Benny? Finding things a bit dull, eh?’
    ‘Not really.’ He remembered his manners. ‘Thank you, sir.’
    ‘Fancy a drive?’
    ‘In the Daimler? He hoped he didn’t sound like an overexcited kid. He’d never so much as sat in the shiny black car before. Since the early months of the war it had lived in one of the stables.
    ‘It appears I am being encouraged to use it for … a particular bit of business. They’ve even given me petrol.’ Lord Dorner looked excited himself. ‘I’ve got a meeting in a factory in Slough. Meanwhile Harriet’s touching down at an airfield between here and there.’
    Probably White Waltham, near Maidenhead. The boys knew where most of the air fields in the south were located. David stuck red pins onto a little map on the bedroom wall.
    ‘I was going to say hello. She’s delivering a Spitfire.’
    ‘A Spit!’
    ‘If the weather holds. So far as I know, conditions have been good across the whole country, so she should be landing in a couple of hours.’ He checked his watch. ‘I’m leaving in ten minutes. Ask Dawes if you can come with me. You’ll have to stay in the car while I’m in the factory later on, security, I’m afraid. So bring a coat and something to read. And ask Alice Smith to make you some sandwiches.’
    Benny decided to let the last suggestion slip from his mind. It wasn’t worth risking more of Alice’s frosty tone.
    Half an hour later he sat beside him in the leather-scented Daimler, trying to look as though this kind of thing happened to him all the time. Benny had never spent more than an occasional hour with Lord Dorner and had certainly never been alone with him for more than five minutes at a time. He’d half expected Lord Dorner to have a driver.
    ‘Bit of a treat for me to drive myself for a change,’ he said, seemingly reading Benny’s thoughts. ‘My regular driver’s off sick and they haven’t replaced her yet. We don’t often take out this beauty because of the petrol ration. But the ministry think it’s worth it for this particular occasion.’
    Sometimes Lord Dorner accompanied foreign visitors to factories, Benny’d heard, trying to persuade them to lend Britain money to build more weapons. Perhaps they’d be meeting Americans after they’d visited White Waltham, if that was where they were going.
    The road wound slightly. The sun hit Benny’s eyes.
    ‘Pull down the visor,’ Lord Dorner said, noticing.
    There was a little leather tab you could pull up inside the visor, revealing a mirror. Presumably so that women could check their make-up. Benny regarded his reflection. He thought he could see his father in his features. He’d never noticed the resemblance before. The shock made him close the mirror and push up the visor. Had his father been handsome? Could he, Benny, really be so, too?
    This had been a day of new experiences,