Jenny: Slip back into past lives

TOGETHER FOREVER

Dear Jenny

H ave my partner Chris and I been lovers in a past life? People think we’ve been together for years, yet it is very recent. We adore each other and cry when we have to part as he lives 106 miles away. Cheryl, 51, Whittle le Woods, Lancashire

Thewaitinggame

It’s 9 November 1944 in Deopham Green, Norfolk. My name is Jane and I’m sitting in my boyfriend Donny’s Land Rover on the edge of the airfield, waiting for his B-17 to return from a bombing raid. I’m only 19, and Donny is only 21, but we’re soul mates. He came over from America about a year ago to fight with the Allies, and we’ve been together ever since. After the war, we’ll be married in Oklahoma.

Missingplane

The other pilots’ wives and girlfriends are waiting too. Suddenly the cry goes up. ‘Here they come!’ Then I can see them. Dots in the sky. They get bigger and closer, a straggling line some two miles long. They start to land. I can’t see Donny’s plane. But it has to be there. It just has to.

Stillwaiting

The sky has fallen silent. The bombers have landed and taxied away. But still I sit here, my hands clutching the steering wheel, the knuckles turning white. He’s not coming. Maybe his plane was shot down, but he’s an amazing pilot, he could have survived. If he’s been taken prisoner that will be awful, but I can cope with that if I have to. I’ll wait for him.

Badnews

News has come but I don’t want to believe it. Donny refused to bail out of his damaged plane and leave his badly wounded comrade behind. He tried to keep the plane airborne, but it exploded. There was no chance. My Donny is gone.

Soalone

Donny’s clothes and belongings were sent back to the US but his Land Rover was left. I spend all my spare time sitting in it. It’s all I have left. I will never marry. My soul mate is gone.