Mosquito Memories (first half)

 

“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.