There really ought to be a standpipe up here, as well as down at the lych gate, she grumbled to herself. The one tap was okay when the churchyard was smaller, but now with the extra half acre that had been added it was a real trek.

It had been needed, of course. The old ground had been filled to capacity years ago. But people continued to die. Perhaps not as quickly as a few centuries ago, but quick enough to overcrowd the little bit of hallowed ground in which the village laid its departed.

The flowers on the grave were looking a bit sad. Hardly surprising, considering the weather. It had been a damp, cool June. Nothing unusual for Norfolk, it had to be said. But Billy Hancock was already moaning about his crops. It was either too hot, or too cold. Too dry, or too wet. God never seemed to be able to satisfy a farmer. Still - it gave ‘em something to grumble about.

She pulled a few soggy sweet peas out of the vase, replaced them with the ones she'd brought, and topped up the water.

Flipping open the stool,she sat down and got her breath back.

It was so quiet in this part of the churchyard,sheltered by the old Norman building on one side and the solid flint wall on the other. Only a wistful woodpigeon murmuring his repetitive 'coo'

She breathed deeply and stared at the headstone with its neat, concise inscription:

Emily Mavis Featherstone…..April 24th 1913, February 4th 1997. Ever-loving wife of George William Featherstone ….July 17th 1912, October 10th 1989. Re-United in the Lord.

The ‘ever-loving wife’ bit suddenly jarred. It never had before; it had no cause to. She’d chosen the inscription. She thought it summed up her parents relationship. Simple. Honest. No frills or silly sentiment. Now, after the events of the past two days she was looking at it through totally different eyes.

‘Well, Mum here I am again. Bit sooner than I expected. Sooner than you expected as well, I guess. But I had to come. I couldn’t think what else to do. I can’t talk to Eric about it….If he’s not pottering about in the garden he’s got the telly on full blast. Can‘t even talk to Sally- Ann, not these days. She’s too tied up with her new job and everything. And as for Peter - well, ‘nuff said.

So, as it concerns you, it’s you I’ve come to talk to.

I’ll start at the beginning. It could take some time, but you’re not going anywhere.

I had a visitor. The day before yesterday. What a day to pick, a Thursday! Well of course, when the bell went I thought it was our Peter come early.

He was ever so early last week; poor little Jake was still half asleep when he took him out of the car. I don’t know why he doesn’t ask to start work a bit later; after all they have this flexi-time at Patterson’s. And they know his circumstances. I mean - I don’t mind, but it makes such a long day for the poor little chap - I told you he has his tea with us on a Friday now, didn’t I ? Peter’s started going to badminton on a Friday evening straight after work. Being going for about a month now - I reckon there’s a girl in the background. Still, he deserves a bit of happiness. It’s not easy for him, on his own with Jake.

But that’s not what I came to talk about. Where was I? Oh, this visitor. I opened the door, expecting to be ambushed by Jakey - and there’s this young woman standing on the step. Very smartly dressed ,slim. About Sally- Ann's age I'd say. Lovely olive skin, two of coffee and one of cream they used to call it. And she's clutching one of them things...what do they call’em? Like a briefcase but without a handle - document case, that’s what it was.

So of course I think to myself – ha! - I know what she’s up to! Pushing a mail order catalogue, or wanting us to change our electricity supplier. We get them all the time these days. They drive you mad. If they’re not at the door they’re on the phone.

So I’m immediately on the defensive - you know me. Speak first, think later.

“Sorry, don’t buy catalogue clothes, and I’m happy with Powergen.”

“Oh, I’m not selling anything’, she says, all posh-like. ‘I wonder if we could have a word - inside?”

‘Hmm’, I think, ‘you can wonder away all you like. You aren’t getting a foot over my doorstep.’

I think she’s twigged I’m not exactly desperate for a chat because she starts to look a bit edgy, sort uncomfortable which is surprising when you saw how confidently she started off.

“You see I’m - err - trying to contact a Mrs. Sheila Bunton….”

“That’s me”, I say, beginning to get really suspicious now. I hate it when folk don’t get to the point. It usually means they’ve got some ulterior motive. So I’m ready for whatever it is she’s got up her sleeve.

“Er – well, I’m looking for some information about - an Emily Featherstone?”

“What sort of …information?” I’m getting really roiled now. I’m thinking, ‘Bet it’s some flippin’ bureaucratic cock-up at the council office, and madam here has come to see why you haven’t been paying your council tax, even though you’ve been dead for ten years.’

“Look, could I come in for a few moments?” she says.

Well she’d certainly get full marks for persistence and no mistake. .

Just as she says that I see the vicar pedaling up the lane. If he sees me at the front door neither of us will get away for hours, so even though I’m desperate to get rid of her I hustle her into the porch - not the hall, mind - and shut the door.

“Why might you be enquiring about Mrs. Featherstone”, I say in my best ‘Women’s Institute’ voice.

“This is very awkward”, the woman says. “But I have reason to believe that Emily Featherstone is ...was ... my grandmother.”

Well, now it’s my turn to act all superior.

“I’m sorry, but that’s quite impossible. I’m her only child. I have a daughter and a son, and I can assure you they are my mother’s only grandchildren.” She may be very clever but she’s obviously got her lines crossed somehow. “I think someone has given you some wrong information. Look, I don’t wish to be rude but I’m expecting my grandson any minute. He always comes to me on a Thursday. His daddy’s a single parent you see.”

“I’m so sorry” she says.

I don’t know if she’s sorry for taking my time up or sorry for Peter being on his own. But I’m not going to enter into a discussion about it. I start to open the front door.

But she’s not going that easily. She unzips this document case that she’s been clutching all the time and takes out a piece of paper.

“This is my mother’s birth certificate” she says. “Mum passed away last year. She never attempted to research her family history - just didn’t want to know, but I always wanted to find out where I really came from. I found this in amongst her things when I was turning her house out. And there’s some more things as well”. She starts to haul some envelopes out of her case, then thinks better of it and puts ‘em back

But she’s still thrusting this stupid piece of paper at me. I take it, not knowing what to do or say. I glance at the form. And there it is… a birth certificate, dated May 1943. And there’s your name! Emily Featherstone - mother. Father - Lieutenant Jerome Dorkowski - occupation – navigator – United States Air force. And then it says - a girl, born September 22nd.1943 - Elizabeth Mary. Place of birth - Newport, Shropshire. And there’s me thinking you’d left me in Norfolk with Auntie Mabel to go all that way over to the other side of the country to help out some relatives I’d never even heard of! Needed help on their farm. All part of the war effort, you said. War effort my……..!

And there was that name - Dorkowski.

Well, I felt sick. I’ve never fainted in my life but I came pretty close to it then I don’t mind telling you.

I could hear a car drawing up outside - Peter and Jake were here. I’d got to get her out of my porch and give myself time to think.

I can’t for the life of me remember what I said to her now, but I managed to get rid of her on the promise I’d meet her the next day ... said I’d see her in the Copper Kettle tea-rooms at half past ten.

Oh you’ve got a lot to answer for, Mum. I don’t know how I got through the rest of the day. I daren’t say anything to Eric, you know what he's like. And that night - well I’ve never slept so badly in my life.

It all came flooding back. All those years when Dad was in the Far East. A guest of that old bugger, Emperor Hirohito. But we were okay, weren’t we? Living with Auntie Mabel. We were in the country with all the bacon, eggs, butter, and fresh veg we could eat.. Yes, we were livin’ off the fat of the land, and that’s the truth. And sweets……I never went without sweets did I? Not after 'Unky Dory arrived. Oh yes, we were laughing then.

Odd how that all came about wasn’t it? Simply because Auntie Mabel had such a big house. All those rooms going spare just when the US Army Air Force was looking for billets for some of their aircrew.

And, blow me, a few days later ‘Unky Dory moved in, with his posh uniform, and his ‘candy’ and his tins of meatballs, and baked beans.

And it was great, having a man around again. Even crabby old Mabel fell for his Bronx accent and his Yankee manners.And I loved him, didn’t I? He’d read me a bedtime story; take us out for a drive and a picnic on a weekend. Where did he get a car from…and petrol? 'Unky Dory could get everything and anything…..it would appear like magic, whatever I wanted. I used to think he was a conjurer. Yes, he had all of us woman eating out of his hand.

I couldn’t pronounce his name properly - remember? An’ one night when he came in, loaded down with Hershey bars and packets of gum Auntie Mabel asked if he was alright. He looked a bit peaky ...grey and tired-like.Been on a long run of bombing raids over Germany I expect.

And he said, “Well, I’m just hunky dory now I’m back with you folks.”

I’d never heard that expression until he used it, so it stuck. He’d said to call him Uncle Dorkowski….but I couldn’t manage such great ‘ole mouthful so I started calling him ‘Unky Dory.

Then after a little while he asked Auntie Mabel if she’d consider letting her other spare room. To a mate of his. Well.. old Mabel was never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, was she? Especially when the horse paid as generously as the US Government did.

And that was when Marvin Delahay Whitney arrived in our lives. He was the first black man we’d ever seen. I think Auntie Mabel must have been warned by 'Unky Dory, or you, or somebody ‘cos she never turned a hair at having a ‘darkie’, as she called ‘em, under her roof. ‘African Americans' they call them now….. But in those days nobody thought that kind of talk was racist. . It’s all changed now, thank God.

Marvin was a waist gunner on Unky Dory’s wonderful, indestructible B17. The Flying Fortress.

Cor…..they used to come over the house at dawn in droves, didn’t they? The Lancaster’s on their way home…… the B17’s on their way out. I’ll never forget that. The noise they made as they circled overhead to gain height, groaning with bombs and the Lancs. - limping back, barely skimming the hedgerows sometimes. So full of enthusiasm, those lads in the B17’s weren’t they. They really thought they could take on Hitler single handed and have the whole thing wrapped up in a couple of months.

But I’ve gone quite far enough down Memory Lane for comfort. It’s what’s happened because of those days in 1943 that’s important now.

So, the next morning I tell Eric I’ll be a bit longer taking Jake to playschool ‘cos after I’ve dropped him off I’m going to call in on Daisy Winterton and see how her legs are getting on after her veins were done. I’ve never lied to him in my life, Mum, and I feel really bad about it. See what you’ve got me doing? What is it? ...‘Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we - something - to deceive’?

Anyway she’s in the Copper Kettle by the time I get there Got the document case with her again…and a big brown envelope on the table, and a cup of one of them fancy coffees. Chokka - mocha- skinny- to go- to stay- what - ever’s. Oh the place has gone very upmarket since Nancy gave up the lease last year. Not really my kind of establishment anymore, but I needed some sort of neutral ground, as you might say.

So I sit down, order a nice pot of tea and start to try and sort this mess out. And a mess it certainly is. Just one look at her tells you that.

I begin by telling her how Jerome P Dorkowski II (to give him his proper title!) arrived in Great Wendley.

She listens while I waffle on - not making much sense I’m sure. Then she starts to get all these papers out of the envelope. There’s the birth certificate, not that I want to see that again, thank you very much, and a load of correspondence she says she’s had with the records department of the Pentagon, and some more stuff from the US Veterans Association. I wonder she’s had time to do anything else since her mother died. Then she brings out this tatty old envelope and I can see it’s got your name and address on it, and underneath it says… ‘To be delivered to the above named person in the event of my death’

She insists I read it. My hands are shaking, but I’m trying not to let her see this.

‘My Dearest Emm,’ it says. ‘I’m hoping like hell you never get to read this. But if you are reading it you’ll know by now I haven’t made it. War’s a funny old thing, isn’t it? Without it I would probably still be alive and well, and thinking of a way to get out of the Bronx before I get sucked into being a cab driver like my old man. Instead of which I get to come to England, do my bit towards liberating Europe and meet the sweetest woman in the world. (And drink warm beer but we’ll forget about that.) I was so upset when I came back after one of our missions and Mabel told me you’d gone away. Then she gave me the note you’d left for me. It was a hell of a shock. Guess I hadn’t planned on fatherhood quite so early, but hey, so what? You’ve got start sometime. After that I was on cloud nine. I felt pretty hurt you hadn’t left me an address but dear old Mabel came up with the goods. It cost me three tins of corned beef, but it was well worth it. So then I was able to write and tell you just how I felt about the baby. Our baby.

It’s going to be hard for you, and we know now I won’t be there to help you. To see, and share all those precious moments we would have had together. And of course, we don’t know if George will ever come home. You’ve had no news for such a long time. And no-one knows what his reaction will be if he does make it back. I hope he does, and I pray he can find it in his heart to forgive you, so that you and little Sheila, and our own little one can all be together in one family, living in a free world. I really wouldn’t have missed all this for anything, but I’d sure liked to have taken you back to the States as my wife. Remember to tell baby all about me, I loved you all…….Jerome.’

As I’m reading this, Mum, I can hear his voice - after all these years - saying the words and the tears start to pour down my face. I feel such a fool. Crying in public. At my age!

“Where did you get this from”, I say when I’ve finally got myself under control.

She says she found it in a drawer along with the birth certificate. So you must have given it to the people who adopted Elizabeth. But, for God’s sake why? You made the whole sorry mess a hundred times worse.

So I’ve got to put her straight. I mean she’s obviously dead set on tracing her granddad’s family in New York. And if she found me, well it won’t be long before she’s tracked them down as well. It’s so easy with all this internet - instant - information lark. It’s a growing obsession these days. Finding your ancestors on the World Wide Web. I blame all these tv programmes.

I dry my eyes, and ask her if she’d like to visit her father’s grave. She says she’d really like that, and can we go this afternoon as she’s got to get back to London that night? Funny, with all this hoo -hah I’ve never asked anything about her. Don’t know if she’s married, divorced ... nothing. And strangely enough I don’t ask about her mother, yet I suppose she was my half sister. I feel sort of detached.

Well, it means spinning Eric another yarn again and dumping Jake on him for the afternoon. I tell him old Daisy has to go to the cottage hospital to get her dressing changed and she wants me to go with her. He offers to take us in the car.

“No, its okay”, I say. “The hospital are sending a taxi” Another fib!

I arrange to meet Zara (that’s her name by the way) at the bus stop. She’s waiting in her car when I get there. I didn’t realise she’d got one of them fancy sports cars. The bloomin’ thing’s so low to the ground I don’t know how I’m going to get in. Or get out, without showing next week’s laundry to all and sundry.

Anyway off we go, with me hoping no-one sees me, to the American cemetery near Cambridge. I haven’t been for years, not since I was about fifteen and you persuaded Dad to take us when Jimmy Stewart came over for a big remembrance do. Said you wanted to see a film star, but it wasn’t really that was it?

There’s a big map in the visitors centre there now so if you know whose headstone you’re looking for you can more or less go straight to it. So I find it easily enough.

Second Lieutenant. Jerome P Dorkowski II

Eighth US Army Air Force.

Born February 12th 1920

Died April 8th 1943

One small white headstone in a great sea of other white headstones. We stand and look at it, not saying anything for a few minutes .

Then at last Zara says, all dramatic-like, “I feel so close to him. I just wish Mum had been here as well.”

Well, I don’t say anything, do I? What can I say?

‘It’s a strange name isn’t it? For …you know, an African American'

I realise this is getting ridiculous now.

I take her arm. You see, you may have chosen pull the wool over a few eyes, Mum, but I can’t. So I lead her away from 'Unky Dory’s neat little grave, hoping I can remember where I went with you after all these years. Three rows down, I think, and over to the left a bit. I was right too, just about spot on.

You know what I’m going to say, don’t you Mum? There it is, on the headstone.

Sgt.Marvin Delahay Whitney

Eighth US Army Air Force

Born August 7th 1918

Died April 8th 1943

‘Zara’, I say, trying to think of the right words….. ‘This is your father. He came from New Orleans, and was a gunner in the Daisy Mae…..the same plane that Lieutenant Dorkowski was navigator on. They lived - and died together’.

She looks distraught. She’s gasping for breath. I thought for a minute she was hyperventilating – it’s very fashionable these days. But, drama queen or not, I feel quite sorry for her. First she looses her Mum, then she finds out the man she thought was her father isn’t her father after all.

Jerome Dorkowski was a white New Yorker as you very well knew, and this girl who turned up on my doorstop just yesterday has the dusky skin and brown eyes of a descendant of an African- American.

So I had a lot more explaining to do. On your behalf, of course.

I don’t know how much the poor girl actually took in.

Did you really think you’d get away with it, Mum? What if 'Unky Dory hadn’t died in that awful inferno that destroyed the Daisy Mae?

Remember that song of Vera Lynn's ……their plane was ‘Coming Home on a Wing and a Prayer’, wasn’t it? And then it overshot the runway. . In sight of the house too. But you weren’t there. You were over in Shropshire hiding your ‘condition’ away.

And dear old 'Unky Dory never got to see the baby daughter he thought was his. And neither did Marvin. Damn good job, all things considered.

And what about you? What about when the baby was born? Up until then did you really think it was Jerry’s ? Had you conveniently forgotten about any other ‘relationship’ you might have had? Auntie Mabel was providing the board, while you were providing the bed by the sound of it. What in God’s name would you have done when Jerry came to see his baby?

Oh, Mum, I never thought you had it in you to be so devious. And poor old Dad, coming home after all those years looking like a skeleton; and you pretending you'd been the loyal wife in his absence. He was never the same again, was he? But he never knew how you’d carried on while he was away, thank God.

Well, you’re both lying there together now. You took your secret to the grave, didn’t you? But unfortunately for you Mum, technology has arrived. It’s shrunk the world and made it that much more difficult to hide skeletons in cupboards.

In a way, it’s a good job all you lot are gone. Dad…. 'Unky Dory ….. Marvin. All gone now. And each of them died thinking what a lovely person you were. There’s only me - and Zara - who know what you got up all those years ago. And I guess that’s the way it’s going to stay.’

The woman slowly hauled herself to her feet, and gazed at the mound of earth that separated her from her parents.

A footstep on the path behind her made her start.

“Afternoon, Sheila. Come to change the flowers have you? They don’t last five minutes at this time of year do they? Dead flowers on the graves make the whole place look so depressing.”

It was the vicar. She hoped her hadn’t overheard her talking to herself.

“Not that your parents’ graves look anything other than beautiful all year round. They’re a credit to you. You’re a very dutiful daughter”.

“I do my best, vicar. I don’t like to think of ‘em lying there all neglected.”

“No indeed. Your mother was a wonderful person, wasn’t she? I’ve never heard a bad word about her, in all my twenty odd years in the parish. Salt of the earth, and a good Christian soul into the bargain.”

Sheila Bunton smiled weakly, and crossed her fingers superstitiously behind her back.

“Oh you’re right there, vicar. Very generous ... and, err...loving.”

She gathered up the watering can and the dead flowers and wishing the vicar a hasty ‘Good Afternoon’ she walked quickly away from the churchyard.

‘Generous and loving, eh? Well, maybe I shouldn’t be so harsh in my judgement’, she thought. Two young men had their short lives in a foreign country made more tolerable. A childless couple got the chance to adopt a perfect baby girl, and a returning prisoner of war was cared for until his dying day. And now a young woman was on the way to finding her proper roots.

Sheila turned and looked back across the churchyard.

‘I forgive you, Mum. As you always used to say… ‘Times were different then.’