a woman outside in the street, just standing,’ announced a girl, popping round the kitchen door – and, seeing the man at the table: ‘Oh my word, what’s this?’
Riley looked up. Looked down again. Looked up, and laughed. Wispy, pert, blonde, mouthy.
‘Elen?’ he said.
Her face went very wobbly.
‘You look exactly the same,’ he said.
‘Well you don’t,’ she said. ‘What the hell happened to you?’
‘Kaiser Bill stole my jawbone,’ he said, and stood, and smiled, but she pushed past him saying: ‘Excuse me. Four-and-a-half years, Riley. Four-and-a-half years and … three postcards … and a promise of a teddy bear. The war ended last November, or didn’t you notice?’
‘Elen,’ said John. ‘Mind your lip.’
‘I’m right though, ain’t I?’ she said. ‘It’s not fair on Mum. Well I suppose I’m glad you’re back. You are back? Merry! Merry?’
Merry was in the doorway, staring. The little room was already crowded now. How am I going to fit Nadine in here? Merry was darker, heavier built, more guarded. She stared at him.
‘Here’s Riley!’ said Bethan, encouragingly. They were all in a sudden parabola of cross-currents. So many emotions. Riley felt unsteady. He should have written. It wasn’t fair on them. Sunday afternoon.
‘How do you do,’ said Merry, and Riley flinched. She’d been eight when he left. Both girls were looking at his scars.
‘Yeah, Mum said your jaw was blown off,’ said Elen brutally. ‘That a new one, then?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘Fancy,’ said Elen.
‘Make the tea, Elen,’ said John. ‘You all right with tea, son?’
Riley took his brass straw from his pocket, and twirled it sadly at his father. Merry stared at it.
Elen poured the boiling water, and plonked the pot on the table. ‘Well, thanks for turning up, Riley. I’m back off now, Mum. See you next Sunday, same as usual.’
‘Elen,’ said Riley and Bethan.
Elen’s mouth was white as she swept past. Merry hopped out of her way.
‘Elen,’ Riley said again, and turned to follow her. Bethan put her hand on his arm. They both heard Elen say, at the front door, ‘You might as well go in. I don’t know why he’s bothering to be tactful.’
Merry was still staring when Nadine appeared in the kitchen doorway, and said, ‘Hello,’ quietly.
‘Miss Nadine!’ cried Bethan, and John shot Riley a look, and Riley took a big breath before stepping to her side, past the chair and the coal scuttle and Merry. Quick to the kill, quick to the kill.
‘Mum,’ he said. ‘Dad. Nadine and I are married.’
It was Merry’s face his eyes landed on. Big tears were on her young cheeks.
‘Oh, Merry,’ he said. ‘Oh, Merry.’
Silence drifted, pulled and swung between them all. Then Bethan said: ‘We would have liked to have been informed.’
John held his hand out to Nadine. ‘Married,’ he said. ‘You married our boy? Well. Well. Good for you, Miss.’
‘I know it’s all odd,’ Nadine said. ‘Please call me Nadine. I think that will make it less odd. Please.’
Bethan gave a kind of roll back on her heels, a surveying look with a chin lift, which said, ‘so that’s how it’s going to be’.
‘It’s all right, Ma,’ Riley said. ‘We were afraid of a fuss. That’s all. We didn’t even want a wedding. We just wanted to be married.’
‘All your worldly goods, eh, Miss?’ said Bethan. ‘There’s nice.’
‘I don’t have much,’ said Nadine, and got a withering look.
‘Who’s going to wear the trousers, if you’re to be a kept man, Riley?’
‘Mum!’
‘Wounded hero only lasts so long. What about when you’re just a sick, ugly man with no money? Where are you going to find a job to keep her? No offence, Miss Nadine, and I’ve always liked you well enough.’
‘None taken, Mrs Purefoy,’ said Nadine, mortified. ‘I like you well enough too. Riley, should we give them a little time to get used to it, perhaps?’
Bethan was grinning. Riley saw her waiting for him to agree to Nadine’s suggestion. She has cast it now that any time I agree with my wife, I am less than a man. And any time I disagree with my wife, she can say, ‘I told you so.’
‘Mum,’ he said. ‘Don’t be foolish over this. Had to happen one day, eh? Dad?’
‘Come round for Sunday lunch next week,’ John said. ‘They’ll calm down. Congratulations, son.’
Riley thanked him. It was all so quick.
Merry was still crying. Riley said to her: ‘I’m sorry for being such a bad brother. I’ll be a better one.’
Merry said: ‘Are you my brother?’
They crossed into Kensington Gardens, holding hands, walking into the green. Up the Broad Walk, beyond the Orangery, the pleated new leaves of the arcaded hornbeams gleamed in the sunlight like Venetian glass. Through the observation windows in the hedge they caught sight of the Sunken Garden, terracing down geometrically, with its long pond and lead planters.
‘Our mothers are afraid for us,’ he said. ‘That’s all.’ He could understand the fear without feeling any obligation either to adopt it himself, or to try to make the situation more acceptable to them.
Nadine said: ‘If they haven’t the sense and courage to look at us and give us every bit of loving support in the world, then they can go to the devil.’ She glanced up, as if to check. ‘I shall feel nothing but relief,’ she said, ‘that I don’t have to deal with them.’ She was wearing that green wool dress of Julia’s, too hot for the day, but she had been living in uniform for so long she had no clothes of her own, and during the long, quiet hibernation at Locke Hill, she had made none nor bought any. With Julia still hardly leaving her bedroom it made sense for Nadine to borrow her clothes. She was still wearing the high lace-up boots, and the cap. Riley had a surging feeling of freedom at the idea that she might now acquire some clothes. He wanted to kiss her. Will my desire for her fade? he wondered. How long am I to live with this?
They stayed in the gardens late, wandering, sitting on benches, talking mildly.
The irony was that what Jacqueline and Bethan were
