“And why do you have that one? What is it?” The
young man asks, pointing at my model.
“A Mosquito. They were used extensively in World
War Two, for reconnaissance especially.”
He looks at me askance. “You were in World War
Two?”
“Ha! No. Number Two had a 1941 date. The First
World War, as you may know, was during 1914. I was born in the early 1950’s.
But the plane in question signifies much to me, particularly since it was flown
by the husband of one of my very dearest friends, M’Lady Nancy Sinclair.”
“A real Lady?” There is no artifice, nor
disbelief in him. “Was her husband a Lord Sinclair?”
“No. But her father was Sir Arthur Street,
minister for Air Defense in Great Britain. So, Nancy, quite appropriately
methinks, got called M’Lady, by me.”
“Hm.” The fellow leans forward. He inspects the
camouflage and bomb-riggings of the model plane, set on its plinth. He is about
to turn away, but I persist. “So that particular plane means a lot to me, since
her husband, Denys, flew it, even though I never met him.”
“And why is that? Did he die during the war?”
“No. Thank goodness. He was shot down, over
Germany. He escaped his plane by parachute, but then was captured, and taken by
train to Stalagluft Three. It was a prison encampment for flying officers. Several
years later, and only after the famous Great Escape, in which he was not one of
the men selected to escape, thank goodness, he was at last set free. He found
Nancy, proposed some seven times over to her, and at last they were married.
They had five children, three girls, and two boys. Had I been one of their
children, I’d be their very youngest.”
“Hm. So, how’d you meet her then, this Lady
Syn…, this Nancy?”
“Denman Island.”
His hand lifts, and he points up the channel of
Canada’s Georgia Strait, about eight miles from where we now stand in my sea-view
den. “Denman? What were you two doing there?”
“She came up from Down Under. Visited her
dearest cousin, a war bride from those olden days, whose husband had settled on
Denman. I was busy building my own house there, back then. It’s now nearly
thirty years ago. We met by chance, through a mutual friend. Took to each
other, right off. She came to Canada every three or four years, back in those
days, and we saw each other as much as possible. Then too, our correspondence
never let up. With the advent of emails becoming possible, she undertook to get
and to learn how to use a computer, back in 2012, despite her being ninety
years of age at the time. She still writes to me, to this day.”
“Still writes? Started emails at 90? Why, that
makes her over 100 years old? Really? Wow. So, what do you put her longevity
down to?”
“Asking questions. Curiosity. Being interested
in everything and everybody. Like yourself. You might not have asked me about
that plane, and we’d both be poorer for bypassing that little Mosquito. Pesky
they may be, questions that is, but at least they produce answers.”
“Ha! Mosquitoes. Pesky. Still, if you don't ask, you'll not know.” Yet still, he asks no further. Still.