Hearts AND HURTS
THE STORY SO FAR: In 1917 Belgium, Alice is living in the English House with her uncle and young Belgian refugee, Max. Struggling to run the cafe for soldiers, she has reluctantly accepted the help of Lotti Meyer, who she has little time for and doesn’t quite trust. Lotti has been known to flirt with soldiers in the cafe while her sweetheart, Walter, is away fighting. Meanwhile, Max has started spending so much time in the damp old cellar, that Alice can’t help feeling something is wrong. Her suspicions aren’t helped by Lotti and Max’s unlikely friendship, making her feel uneasy and left out. Then, Alice finds Lotti creeping about the kitchen, long after she left for her lodgings and the house has been locked up. When confronted, she runs off, very upset, into the rainy night.
When Lotti came in the next morning, it was as if nothing had happened, though her eyes looked slightly puffy.
She was late, as usual, so everything had to be done by Alice first thing. This would normally have been annoying. But nothing was normal after the previous night and Lotti’s terrible distress.
There was no time to say anything or ask questions. Lotti did what she was best at, which was to stumble over her English in that fetching way of hers, flash her brilliant smile and wait for the young men to fall over themselves to correct her.
Alice left her to it, relieved to be back in the
