Free Jubilee by Eliza Graham

perhaps that was why she and Evie had become close friends over the last
months.
    Even Freya could never be told Evie’s nightmares; how she sometimes dreamt of a ghostly blacksmith descending the down the afternoon of the Silver Jubilee party and stealing Jessamy in
reprisal for a night Evie and Charlie had once spent in his magical smithy. Or of a band of shadowy drovers sweeping her daughter off as they herded monstrously formed animals along the Ridgeway to
some hell that no human could penetrate.
    Mr Fernham trod in the earth round the planted sapling. The little tree looked like a thin young girl, liable to be blown away in the first autumn gale. Evie felt a pang for its tender roots and
slight waving boughs.
    Jessamy lived, she surely lived. Evie closed her eyes briefly and spoke silently to her daughter, begging her to come back.
     
Eight
    Robert
    Camp at Nong Pladuk, Thailand, February 1943
    Dear Evie,
    I look at the city boys with their thin arms and hollow chests and know each sleeper we lay will cost a life. I thank God for those years of good food and physical work at home. The times
Matthew and I carried food pails to animals or drove in wooden posts. We have muscle and stamina.
    When we worked at home there’d be a cool breeze blowing off the Downs. We’d bring a flask of tea or a stone bottle of ginger beer. Sometimes at harvest Mum would walk up with a
jug of cool lemonade for us. I wonder how my mother is now. She wrote to me before Singapore fell. You must have helped her write that letter, Evie, because I recognized your writing in places. I
lost what she sent me. But I still have that wonderful letter of yours, Evie. It’s about the only thing I didn’t lose on the journey from Singapore. Sometimes we see Thai kids playing
and I wonder what you’re doing at home. It’s strange to think of you sleeping in our old bedroom, playing with our old toys. But it’s a good thought.
    A week later. We’ve been moved from the railway itself to a camp further up-river.
    And there are new guards. They seem to speak a different language: perhaps they’re Koreans. On a brighter note (perhaps the only bright note) we have a pet! It’s a baby macaque, a
boy. Macgregor found him in the jungle and even his stern Scottish heart melted at the sight. He’s something we can look after and we seem to need this, even though it means we give him
rations (we’re allowed to trade what we are paid for our labour for food). Perhaps it reminds Matthew and me of the animals we’ve cared for at home. We’ve called him
Stanley.
    Two nights later
    Little Stanley has already earned his rations, Evie. When we came into the hut to sleep he started to shriek and would not stop shrieking. The men around us were cursing and
shouting at us to stop the bl..dy racket. He seemed to be staring at my mat so I pulled it up. Curled underneath it was a scorpion, couldn’t make out what kind as it was dark. Extra rations
for Stanley tomorrow!
    Following night
    I try, I try so hard, Evie, to keep the dark away, to concentrate on what’s good: the comradeship, the jokes, the conversations, but days like this make me wonder if
it’s worth the effort. Clinging on to the light seems too much.
     
Part Three
     
Nine
    Evie
    Golden Jubilee, June 2002.
    If Evie closed her eyes it could be twenty-five years ago. Or fifty. The Union Jacks. The marquee. The breeze picking up, making the bunting whirr above them and the children
shouting. Time passed. Years went by but they’d all come back to this part of the green to mark the Queen’s reign.
    What did the Queen make of all the Union Jacks and balloons, the commemorative china and the cakes? Was she flattered, overcome? God knows Elizabeth II had had her share of family woes:
break-ups, flighty in-laws and cousins, fires. But she’d never lost a child; never that, so she could still be considered fortunate.
    Lost. Once again Evie paused to consider the implications of that word.