Seacliff

Chapter sixty-one: Radio silence

1939

Her son's radio silence didn't bother Saoirse at first.

She knew she'd upset him and begrudgingly paid the price. James claimed they did not run into each other too often, but assured her Aidan was doing well. Sorley's instinct confirmed that sentiment. Weeks passed, however, in which she neither saw nor spoke to her son.

The majority of her time was split between fundraisers, to equip the ambulances before turning them over to the FANY, and designing quick curricula to train up as many volunteer nurses as possible. The elderly Lady Mortimer still commanded a great deal of respect in Edinburgh and she supported Saoirse's war-effort scheme with all her strength.

It was ahead of one such humanitarian gathering at Sir Alexander's residence when a distraught Maggie McLellan stumbled into the drawing room, overrun by tears. Saoirse barely caught the weeping woman in her arms before she crumbled in a heap on the floor. Lady Mortimer watched on from the sofa, concern etched into her countenance.

"Mags, my darling, what's the matter?" Saoirse asked as she helped her friend to an armchair.

A maid brought a glass of water. Maggie pushed it away and requested Scotch.

"We'll have none of that," Saoirse scolded her. "Did you forget you're driving?"

"Jemmy's in France!" Maggie cried out.

Saoirse froze. They knew he'd been called up, but he was only supposed to do basic training and get posted to a non-combatant unit in Britain.

"What do you mean?" She noticed for the first time the piece of paper her friend clutched.

Maggie waved it around, wailing. "My boy is in France, I just had a letter from him!"

Saoirse gripped the back of the chair for support. "I thought they said he's too young to be sent overseas."

"He's in France now, where he's supposedly continuing his training, but we all know what being in France means!"

Saoirse glanced at her mother-in-law, whose tight-lipped expression and knuckles whitened atop her cane asked a very clear question: where is Aidan?

A cold shiver coursed through Saoirse's spine. She dropped everything for the day, left Maggie in Lady Mortimer's care, and hopped behind the wheel of her motorcar with frightened urgency.

It couldn't be, could it? James wouldn't lie to her... Her son wouldn't keep her in the dark about something like this... would he? She sped through the city streets, parked outside her husband's townhouse, fumbled with the keys, barged in like a burglar...

"Aidan! James!" Nothing. No one. "Aidan!"

She ran upstairs into her son's room. The bed was perfectly made, untouched. A fine layer of dust coated the side table and the empty picture frame on it. Frowning, Saoirse picked it up. If memory served, it used to hold a photograph of Aidan and Jemmy as little boys. Now gone.

"Oh, please... please, no..."

She drove to James's practice next and barrelled through the waiting room into his office. His secretary nurse protested in her wake.

"Where is my son?" Saoirse demanded in a white-hot fury. "Where is he?!"

Dr Mortimer nodded at his nurse to go away and she softly closed the door after her. His wife, he couldn't look at.

"James..." Saoirse slammed her hands on his desk. "Where is my son? Tell me now, tell me the truth, or so help me God – "

James reached into one of his drawers and handed her a pair of envelopes. "This is the last letter I have from him. And... a letter he asked me to give you, when..."

With trembling fingers, Saoirse opened the unsealed missive and read it, collapsing onto a visitor's chair. Her heart threatened to claw its way out of her ribcage.

"You have to understand," James spoke, hesitant, "when Jemmy was called up... he came to me... asked me to help him. I told him no, but he begged – "

"France?" she rasped, her voice a forgotten vestige. "You sent my son to France...?"

"I tried to stop him. I did." James fidgeted with a pen, not looking up. "The boy wanted to – "

"The boy wanted to?"

Her rage returned with a vengeance, blinding her. All she could think of in that moment was that James had missed his chance to join the war. To fight for glamour and glory. Her son had presented him with a second one.

"The boy wanted to, or you wanted to?"

"Saoirse – "

"I won't hear it!" She shot up to her feet. "You lied to me! All this time, you've been lying to me! How could you? How could you, when you knew how much I suffered, how much I lost? He's my son, not yours!"

"Saoirse, please – "

The look of utter sorrow on his face registered briefly, before his betrayal tore at her insides and erased it from her mind.

"Don't. I don't want to see you. I don't want to see you until my son comes home. And if he never does..."

Her chest heaved with laboured breaths.

"You are dead to me." Menace laced her whisper. "Farewell, Dr Mortimer. I hope you're proud of what you've done."

"Saoirse!"

She stormed out of the building and sought refuge behind the wheel of her motorcar, where she unleashed the wildest tears she had ever shed. The one thing she had dreaded most had come to happen, enabled by the man she had trusted with her life, and the lives of her children.

Her whole body ached. From the crying, from the heartbreak... from the hopeless despair. What could she do now, to ensure her son's safety? She would have given anything... everything.

And maybe she could give one last thing.