He sighed. ‘I did wonder back there at that wedding if you were going to go off with that other chap; that’s why I didn’t come forward sooner. I wanted to give you space to explore that.’

‘No, he was not the one for me. So what made you change your mind, send the invite to come here?’

He laughed. ‘No way would I have ever given up. I wanted to send you something to show how things could be.’

‘I’m so glad.’

‘And your Billy? Are you still looking for him? Looking for an experience of déjà vu? Does that still matter?’

‘Not now that I’m here with you.’

‘Good,’ he said, and held me close, ‘because surely that’s what counts. Here and now. Us together. Whether time after time or just this time.’ He let me go and held me at arm’s length. ‘I don’t want to think about the past. It’s gone, over. I want to focus on the present and our future together. What is a feeling of déjà vu anyway? It’s a recognition and, for me, it’s not about a place, it’s about a person and that person is you. I felt it every time I saw you, since that moment we first met.’

I nodded. ‘A feeling of coming back to someone I know. Déjà you.’

‘Déjà you.’

Epilogue

Eileen Jeffrey had decided it was time to update some of the upstairs rooms at the old family house. The builders had been in working for over a month, stripping out old carpets, replacing floors. One morning, the young, skinny one with ginger hair called Adam came downstairs with an old tin box. ‘Found this under the floorboards in the back bedroom,’ he said.

Eileen took the box and opened it. Inside were a few trinkets, a lock of blonde hair, a medal, a sprig of dried lavender, a photo which she recognized was of Minty smiling out from her pram, a vintage postcard depicting a dusty pink rose amidst grey and sepia foliage. She turned it over and read:

Grace, my darling girl,

In these dark and uncertain times who knows if I’ll make it home but the thought of you keeps me going. Presently we are lost to each other, distance and this war separate us, but be assured, what is lost can be found, and I will find you wherever you are. Don’t be downhearted. I will carry you in my heart always. It may be goodbye for now, but I will return to you, somehow, sometime and we will be together again. God be with you and keep you safe, forever yours Billy. X

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

With thanks: