Bron-36

Continued from Chapter 35: Bron-35 | ABCtales

Mary Hinds grunted as she replaced the receiver on the care home phone. It had taken a good half hour talking to the so-called helpdesk to work out why she couldn’t connect into her emails. The agent had done his best but even his professionally cheerful demeanour had started to fray towards the end of the session. In the end, in turned out to be because she’d used a small ‘h’ instead of a capital in her password, MaryHinds. “Damn machines shouldn’t be so perticuler,’ she muttered. ‘I was near enough.’

She scrolled down the list and began to wonder if it had been worth the time and trouble. A Florida estate agent with a once-in-a-lifetime deal on condominiums in Key West. Someone offering ‘senior living accoutrements’ at unbeatable prices – the darned cheek of it, if she ever needed diapers the care home would provide them. How had THEY twigged that she was in her seventies.

Another flyer from that healthcare company; it had been a mistake to give them her email that time she’d called them to re-order her aspirin delivery. Now they were bombarding her with stuff, every day. Stuff about cars, holidays, yachts. ‘Yachts? What would I do with a goddam boat at my time of life? Onlt time I ever needed a boat was when I got shot down in the Pacific…’

Some of the emails had red exclamation marks – mostly those of least interest to her.

Her sister Elsie in Connecticut had promised to be in touch by email when she’d got her head round this new electronic malarkey. As there was a letter from her lying on the bedside table – as yet unopened – Mary presumed that she was still baffled.

With a sigh, Mary moved the cursor to the top of the screen to log out of the emails - everybody had stressed the importance of doing that – when, out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed a message from an unfamiliar name, S.Barnes. Dated about a week ago. “Strange, sure that wasn’t there before,” she said. “Damn thing’s playin’ tricks.” She started to read:

Dear Mary

My name is Steve Barnes but you won’t know me. I served on the carrier Bravoure in 1942. Our paths didn’t cross – I certainly would have remembered meeting a pioneering female fighter pilot, but I heard quite a lot about you from some of the other guys. I understand that they’re making a film about you, Pyramid Productions. In fact, it was them that gave me your email address. Maybe we should hook up. I’m just down the road from you. Got a few snippets of info you might find interesting.

Mary peered at the screen, looking for the arrow that denoted ‘reply’. Fernandez had shown her how. Then she started to type…

When she’d finished, and clicked ‘Send’ she browsed the internet. The Pyramid Productions website. Bastards hadn’t returned her call; maybe they had an email address. Worth a try – it cost nothing, after all.

To be continued in Chapter 37