Blackbirds - Garry Ryan Page 0,2

weathered by water running off the roof. Vines grew up the south side. She got the feeling that the house had been grand at one time. That feeling was reinforced by the back garden. Colours she had never seen before ran rampant around the closely-trimmed grass where a table and four wrought-iron chairs sat on a flat expanse of stone with grass and moss growing in between the slates.

A woman with short grey hair, blue eyes, a grey wool skirt, and a sweater carried out a tray with a coffee pot and four cups. “You’re here,” she said, in a voice Sharon thought she’d heard before. Her stomach clenched and she shivered. My grandmother! Cornelia!

“Sharon, this is Cornelia.” Linda rubbed her hands together when she saw the fresh eggs, bacon and toast on the table. “Mother, how did you manage this? Haven’t you heard there’s rationing?”

Cornelia held out her hand. It felt strong in Sharon’s when she shook it. She pulled her hand away, while Cornelia seemed reluctant to release it.

The coffee, Sharon decided, was awful, but it had been so long since her last cup that she drank it anyway. She studied the garden while she felt Cornelia’s eyes studying her.

“They’ve taken down all of the road signs. Apparently, it’s to confuse the Germans,” Cornelia said.

Sharon looked at the black-winged birds darting in and out of the trees. One swooped up, then down onto the tail of another.

Honeysuckle rested her cup on the arm of her chair. “Apparently, the invasion is imminent. The only thing stopping Hitler is the fact that he needs more boats to cross the Channel.”

“Things are desperate. Everyone’s got high hopes that Mr. Churchill can pull a rabbit out of his hat.” Linda picked up a piece of bacon, put it in her mouth and closed her eyes. “Mother, where did you find bacon?”

“So desperate that women are going to be allowed to fly aircraft for the Royal Air Force.” Sharon shook her head when she realized she’d added a thick layer of sarcasm to her tone of voice.

“It’s the way of the world, dear.” Cornelia patted Sharon’s hand. “Men are always asking women to get them out of the messes they get themselves into. If Churchill hadn’t sent the RAF into France in that lost cause, we wouldn’t be so desperately short of pilots. Now he turns to you and Linda to get the job done.”

“How do you know that?” Sharon decided that Cornelia was definitely becoming a nuisance. That damned woman seems to want to touch me every chance she gets.

“I told her,” Honeysuckle said.

Linda smiled. “Father works for MI5.”

Sharon frowned.

“He’s in intelligence, dear.” Cornelia patted Sharon’s arm.

Sharon pulled away from the woman. “Keep your mitts off!”

Linda laughed.

“What’s so funny?” Sharon asked.

Honeysuckle looked directly at Sharon. “She has a right.”

“No. No, she doesn’t.” Sharon glared at Cornelia.

“She’s family,” Linda said.

Sharon looked out of the corner of her eye at Cornelia.

“I’m your grandmother.”

“I know that, but I’ve just met you!” Sharon heard the sound of birds calling one another. I’m staring at my hands. She looked over at her grandmother’s hands, searching for some similarity, some clue that they were related. The skin on the woman’s hands was spotted with brown. There was a hint of dirt under the nails, something Sharon hadn’t expected.

Cornelia took hold of Sharon’s ponytail. “Your hair is the same auburn as Leslie’s. It’s the same silky hair, and you’ve got a cleft in your chin just like hers. I can see that you have her strength, too. You will need that, believe me.”

“How long have you known I was in England?” Sharon asked.

“Almost since you got off the ship in Liverpool,” Cornelia said. “Your blue eyes must be from your father.”

“How do you think you got the new Irvin jacket and the sheepskin flying boots?” Honeysuckle nodded in Cornelia’s direction. “She insisted on buying them and having Linda deliver them. She wanted you to be warm.”

“Why did you never come and visit us in Canada?” Sharon asked.

Cornelia looked over the garden to a spot on the edge of the property only she could see. “Every year I asked him to let me go, and every year he refused.”

“Him?”

“Your grandfather,” Cornelia said.

“Why did you need his permission?”

“The bastard liked to keep us all under his thumb,” Honeysuckle said. “In his mind, he was still the lord and we his servants.”

“And how come you always call him ‘the bastard’?” Sharon took in her surroundings, searching out an escape route.

Linda touched her