He laid the bundle down beside me.
“Thank you, Mr. Trewella.”
“Please—call me Jack.” He pulled a metal skillet from a bag slung across his shoulders. While he busied himself at the stove, I examined the clothes he’d brought me. On top of the pile was a shamrock-green scarf of the softest wool. I thought it might be cashmere. I wasn’t certain, as I’d never owned anything like that. There was a cream silk blouse, still wrapped in tissue paper as if it had never been worn. Underwear of the same fabric slid out from another swathe of tissue paper. I felt blood surge into my cheeks as I held up a lace-trimmed camisole. Whose clothes were these? What woman would lend garments like this to a total stranger?
“I hope they’ll fit you.” He was breaking an egg into the pan.
“I think they will.” I had the camisole on now. It felt wrong, wearing something so luxurious next to my skin. I slipped my arms into the sleeves of the blouse and began fastening the tiny pearl buttons. “They’re lovely—whose are they?”
Fat sizzled in the pan, drowning out the first words of his reply. “Left them behind before the war. They’re not too old fashioned, are they?”
“Not at all.” I wondered what he would say if I told him what kind of clothes I usually wore. I spotted a label inside the heather-colored woolen skirt he’d brought for me. Lanvin of Paris. That sounded as expensive as the silk underwear. It wasn’t easy wriggling into it while lying down, but I managed somehow. There was a cardigan—mauve, like the skirt. I felt much warmer when I put it on. Finally, I knotted the scarf around my neck. My legs would have to remain bare until the wounds had healed. I undid the handkerchief and shirt Jack had bound round them. The white cotton was covered in bloodstains.
“I’m sorry I’ve made such a mess of your things,” I said.
“Don’t be,” he called over his shoulder. “Your need was greater than mine.”
“Well, it was very good of you.” I started dabbing iodine onto the torn flesh. The sting of it made me wince.
He brought the eggs to me as I was fastening a bandage around my right foot. He made a table from an upturned wooden crate and set the plate on it. “Sorry it’s rather primitive. I would have taken you to the house, but it’s a steep climb through the woods. It would have been tricky, carrying you.”
“Thank you.” I was suddenly famished. But I hesitated. Eating alone, without the ritual that had accompanied every meal, was something I never did.
“Go on—don’t let it go cold.”
I tore the bread in half and jabbed it into one of the eggs.
He dropped into a squatting position so that his head was level with mine. “What happened to your hair?”
My free hand went to my head. The short tufts had dried into salt-encrusted spikes. I wondered if that was why he’d brought me a scarf—so I could cover it up. I stared at a trickle of egg yolk oozing over what was left of the bread.
“I’m sorry,” he said again. “You don’t have to tell me—not if it’s painful for you. But can I know your name?”
I heard the piercing cry of a seagull and the scratch of its claws as it landed on the roof. Jack was waiting for an answer. I knew without looking at his face that he thought I was working out some lie. But it wasn’t that. I had surrendered my name, along with everything else I possessed, twelve years ago. I had been given another one—not of my choosing. A man’s name. A saint’s name. From the very start, it mocked me. I felt I would never be able to live up to it.
“My name is . . . Alice.” The word felt strange, like a pebble in my mouth.
“Alice.” He said it with a smile in his voice, as if he were coaxing a child. “Alice what?”
I was afraid to tell him. It would give him power over me. The power to send me back.
“If I don’t know your surname, I won’t be able to contact your family,” he said. “You’ll want them to know you’re all right.”
“I have no family. My parents are dead. There’s no one else.”
I took another mouthful. It tasted like the breakfasts I remembered from Ireland. There had been eggs on the ship, but they had been pale and insipid compared to these. And I had heard passengers say that in England people were having to eat powdered eggs brought in from America.
“But there must be someone who’s expecting you?” He was looking at my hands. At the silver band on my ring finger.
“These eggs are very good,” I said. “Do you keep chickens?”