The Last Link

Chapter 2

2

Cissie flew back through the streets after seeing George off at the railway station. She brushed several bystanders out of the way, ignoring their indignant glares. Fumbling with the key in the back-door lock, she skipped down the hall and paused for a second on the threshold of George’s office to catch her breath. Ordinarily, Cissie wouldn’t venture in, but George wasn’t there and she had to find that letter. Taking in the confusing mess, she worried the task might take some time. Then again, she had plenty of that. Two whole weeks, in fact, while her husband gallivanted around the Canterbury Plains in shoddy old rust buckets he was deluded enough to call planes. Cissie couldn’t help being sarcastic. George’s fascination with flying could be infuriating when she wasn’t in the right frame of mind.

She started at the desk, lifting pages of documents that were lying all over the surface; bills, statements, scrappy pieces of paper with notes he had written to himself to remember all manner of things. Nothing there. She opened the top drawer. Just a letter opener and half a stale biscuit. Really, did her husband have to be so careless? She turned her attention to the second and then bottom drawer.

Finally, what she’d been looking for. Olive had been so smug and conspiratorial as she’d placed that letter on the table before George, with never so much as a backwards glance toward Cissie.

‘Remember this?’ Olive had thrown her head back and shrieked. ‘Ha, those were the days. Never thought you would grow up, Georgie. Now look at you in your tie and jacket, with a respectable job. No more adventures for you. The same old routine, just like the rest of us,’ she said, and had cast a look at Cissie then. Cissie didn’t know whether to feel insulted or included in the conspiracy.

George had read the letter and chuckled before tucking it in his shirt pocket.

Well, she wasn’t going to give Olive the satisfaction of having to ask to see what the joke was about. Neither would she lower herself to begging George for it, either. She could wait a week or so, until he was safely away in the South Island. The time had come.

She settled into the chair behind the desk and smoothed out the letter in front of her. Reading through it, she began to wonder what all the fuss was about. It’s only George rambling on about his jolly planes again. Was she missing the joke entirely?

… ever see old Doris these days? My word, I would like to see her again. What a time we will have when we do meet.

‘Oh…’ Cissie stiffened. Doris. Why did Olive want to wave that old flame under her nose? Ada never dared and she had every reason to. Doris was her best friend after all. Cissie pondered how two sisters could be so different. Olive, all showy and full of pretentions, and Ada, so soft and kind. Cissie didn’t mind the latter. Still, Ada was divorced and all. Not like that girl had any right to be mean to anyone, in her position. Cissie suddenly wanted to cry. Why did she have to curse Ada, possibly the only one to ever take an interest in her out of the whole Hood bunch? If George had been an abusive drunkard, Cissie hoped she would act as courageously as Ada had. As if he would dare. She would try to be kinder in the future towards her younger sister-in-law. Olive, on the other hand… well, she could go to… no, that was too harsh. She could mind her own business. Now that would make a nice change. Cissie paused.

Now, that would explain why Olive had been subdued when she’d left their house. The bait hadn’t been taken, at least not in front of her. She’d walked home disappointed.

Cissie smugly tucked the letter back into the drawer where she’d found it.