“It’s my leg,” Charley explained. He drawled rather when he spoke.
“Yes, well there you are,” James said.
“There it is,” Charley agreed. One of those pauses followed in which the fat man’s upper lip trembled.
“Well I’d never have guessed if you hadn’t mentioned it, bless my soul I shouldn’t. Never in the world. But they do marvellous things in that line of country now, or so they tell me. Medical science comes on a lot in a war, you know. I often say it’s the one use there is in such things. Terrible price to pay, of course. But there you are.”
“You’re right there,” Charley said.
“But look, how on earth were you going to have a bite to eat? Bit difficult these days, you know, what with the B.R.N.Q., the V.B.S. and the P.M.V.O. Since the war started, no, I’m wrong, it was after the invasion of Holland and all that. Well now we haven’t even got a village bus. They still send the children in to school, of course the C.E.C. see to that, though the whole job is run very inefficiently in my opinion. But you’ll come down now and take pot luck with me, won’t you? As a matter of fact we’ve begun a pig club in the village. P.B.H.R. it’s known by, everything’s initials these days. Only time the people in these parts have got together within living memory. So there’s a piece of ham left over. Tell you the truth I haven’t started the ham, not yet. Oh and I expect we’ll find a little bit of something to go on with.”
“Thanks very much.”
“Don’t mention it, old man. Least one can do, if you know what I mean. No, but you’ll be really welcome, Charley. You got my letter, didn’t you? Must have been about the time you were taken prisoner. It’s made a big difference. But then there’s a lot of changes these days, and there’ll be many more I shouldn’t wonder. Lord yes. But this’ll be a damn good occasion to start that ham. Why on earth didn’t you let me know you were coming?”
Charley muttered something the other could not catch.
“I know,” James went on, “I realize how it is. I remember after the last war when I got home.” He described a visit he had paid, which meant nothing to Charley.
There was a pause.
“Now they’ve hit it with one of their damned bombs,” James continued. “But, look here, you didn’t happen to run across my nipper on his bike, did you? He’ll get soaked through in this rain.” It was teeming down, with the sound of a man scything long grass. As James went on talking, and almost at random, for this had been a shock to him as well, Charley did not catch a word because of what had been revealed.
He was wondering if his face had gone white while his stomach melted, for there had been more than a question between Rose and himself, at the time the baby was on the way, as to whether it could be his own.
He was appalled that the first sight of the boy had meant nothing. Because one of the things he had always hung on to was that blood spoke, or called, to blood.
So the child he’d had to step aside for was Ridley; poor kid to be called by such a name.
Now he wanted to sit down. Then his guilt made him listen to what James was saying, in case the man had noticed. But James was going on just the same.
Finally Charles was altogether taken up by a need to see the child a second time, to search in the shape of the bones of its face for an echo of Rose, to drag this out from the line of its full cheeks to see if he could find a memory of Rose laughing there, and even to look deep in Ridley’s eyes as though into a mirror, and catch the small image of himself by which to detect, if he could, a likeness, a something, however false, to tell him he was a father, that Rose lived again, by his agency, in their son.
Wrought up into a sort of cunning, he waited for a break in the fat fellow’s conversation. When this came he said so calmly that he was surprised,
“What time d’you lunch, James?”
“Look, old boy, there’s one or two things I must do in the village first. You make your own way down to my place. In the meantime,” he went on, in the same voice, “it’s over here, follow me.” Charley began to drag after, unsuspecting. But he could not go fast, with the result that he was far behind when James halted to doff his hat at an object. “See you later,” James called, as he made off. Charley hobbled along. Then, behind the cypress where James had uncovered himself, there lay before his eyes more sharp letters, cut in marble beyond a bunch of live roses tied in string, and it became plain that this was where they had laid her, for the letters spelled Rose. So Charley bowed his head, and felt, somehow, as if this was the first time that he had denied her by forgetting, denied one whom, he knew for sure, he was to deny again, then once more yet, yes thrice.
Rose’s parents, Mr and Mrs Grant, were still at Redham, one of London’s outer suburbs. They had known, and liked, Charley as a possible husband to their only child some time before she was married to James. Mrs Grant, in particular, had had a soft spot for him because of his great brown eyes. So, when old man Grant heard that Charley was back, he phoned up to ask him over for the evening.
He met Charley in their front garden.
“You’ll find a wee bit of a difference in the wife,” he said, once the first greetings were over. “It’s merciful in a way perhaps, but I wouldn’t know. You see she doesn’t remember so very well as a rule, nowadays. What it may be is that nature protects us by drawing a curtain, blacks certain things out. Rose’s going as she did was a terrible shock to her naturally. So I thought I’d better warn you to carry on as though you didn’t notice. Just in case.”
“Of course,” Charley said. It was a blue and pink late Saturday afternoon. Once more he felt how grand it was to be back.
“Although this does bring you to wonder,” Mr Grant was saying. “Nature’s cruel, there’s no getting away from her laws. She won’t let up on the weak, I mean. When the doctor went into it with me, his idea about Amy was it might be nature’s way to protect her by letting her forget. I didn’t say much. You can’t argue with them, Charley boy.”
“You’re right there,” Charley said.
“Yes, I expect you’ll have found that over your leg. But you can set your mind at rest, no one would tell if they hadn’t been told.” He nodded his white, old head, up and down. “Isn’t it a glorious evening? Where was I now? Yes, well, I took leave to doubt that doctor. Nature’s cruel I said to myself, you can’t expect mercy in that quarter. So d’you know what? I’ll tell you. I thought maybe it wasn’t the best thing for Amy to forget Rose.”
Charley coughed.
“Well, once you begin to lose the picture of this or the other in your mind’s eye, it’s hard to determine where things’ll stop,” Mr Grant continued. “I knew a man once, in the ordinary run of business, who started to misremember in that fashion. Wasn’t long before he’d lost all his connections. Even came to it they had to shut him away. Because when all’s said and done you can’t go on like it, can you? So I tried talking to Amy about Rose.”
Charley wondered how he could get out. He looked around him. But he knew he was back now, all right.
“No,” Mr Grant continued, “nothing I could say was any use. And then I went into things. You see my firm has put me on a pension, now I’m retired, and once the housework is done, which doesn’t amount to a great deal, there’s not such a lot to do but think. Well, we’re not so old as all that, thank you, Amy and me. I mean there’s a few years usefulness in us yet, what with the work I do unpaid on the H.R.O.N., and Amy who’s still fit enough to go down to the A.R.B.S., and put in a few hours each week. So I said, ‘Gerald,’ I said, ‘you’ve got to get a move on. It mayn’t be the best thing, not by a long chalk, for her to forget her own daughter.’ Mind you, Charley, she doesn’t even know her grandson now. And, as a woman begins to age, the toddlers play a great part, Charley boy, or they should do, that’s only human nature after all. So to cut a long story short, I made up my mind I’d call on Charley Summers. Not that we wouldn’t have been glad to see you, any day. After what you’ve been through. You mustn’t misunderstand me, please. But just to find whether she would …” and his voice trailed off as, turning his back, he began to move towards the house. Charley sullenly followed. “So don’t be surprised if you notice a big change,” Mr Grant ended over his shoulder, in so loud a voice that Charley was afraid.