The tea was poured. Ray noticed that June Flynn placed her husband’s cup on its saucer, but poured neither milk nor tea into it.
‘Would you like sugar, Ray?’
‘No, thank you, June.’
She passed him his tea and he thanked her again.
‘You have a lovely house,’ he said, ‘in a very nice setting.’
‘Thank you. Yes, Briar Dene is lovely.’ She indicated the common land next to the house. ‘Russell used to play there when he was little.’
Immediately her eyes glittered and she turned away.
‘Excuse me,’ she said, getting to her feet and going to the wooden cabinet for a box of tissues. ‘I’m so sorry, Mr Cross.’
‘Please, June,’ Ray said, moving forward to the edge of his seat. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t want to upset you by coming.’
‘I’m very glad you’ve come. Very glad.’ June Flynn dabbed at her eyes, trying not to smudge her make-up. ‘The RAF sent someone, of course, but that was because they had to. It was official.’
‘Yes.’
There was silence for a few moments and then they both started speaking at the same time.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Ray. ‘After you.’
‘I was just going to ask how well you knew Russell.’
‘Well, as you know,’ Ray began, clearing his throat, ‘Russell had not been in Zanzibar very long before he…’ Ray paused, spotting the trap he had unwittingly set for himself.
‘Before the accident.’
‘Yes, before the accident. Mrs Flynn. June. I wanted to come and see you and your husband to express my condolences in person and to say that Russell was a fine young man, an excellent addition to the squadron and a real credit to you.’
June Flynn suddenly spasmed and coughed explosively as she leant forward. The cough turned into a brief but horrifying moan and a flurry of tears fell on to the coffee table. Ray leant across and gently pushed the box of tissues in her direction. After a moment, she recovered her composure.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t want to do this,’ she said.
‘Please,’ said Ray. ‘There’s absolutely no need to apologise.’
‘Will you excuse me for a moment?’
Ray got to his feet as June Flynn left the room for a second time. He crossed to the mantelpiece over the gas fire, where there were two framed photographs. One showed Russell and his parents when the boy could only have been about thirteen or fourteen. June Flynn looked happy and relaxed, not as gaunt and serious as the woman who now lived in the same house. Her husband stood slightly behind her wearing a pink button-down shirt, a thin black tie and a narrow-lapelled tweed jacket. He wore glasses that reflected the sunlight so that Ray could not see his eyes.
The other photograph showed Russell Flynn wearing his uniform with obvious pride, his blond hair combed back from a wide, clear forehead. Ray returned the photograph to its original position as he heard June Flynn coming back into the lounge. He stepped away from the fireplace and turned to face the room, assuming that she had perhaps gone to get her husband, but she had returned alone.
‘My husband and I would like you to have this,’ she said, holding an unidentified object out towards him.
Ray took a step closer and saw that she was holding a shell in the palm of her hand. It was a conch or a whelk — Ray was no expert — in perfect condition about three or four inches long.
‘May I?’ Ray said.
‘Please do.’
He took the shell and brought it up to his nose. It smelt only faintly of the sea. He held it up to his ear and gave his head a little shake, trying out a small, friendly smile.
June Flynn smiled too.
‘It was among his things,’ she said. ‘His personal effects. There wasn’t much, but there was this, and there was a diary, which I’m ashamed to say I read from cover to cover. I don’t think it contains anything he would not have wanted his mother to read.’
‘I’m sure,’ Ray said.
‘He wrote in his diary that you gave him the shell and that he liked you. It seems you looked out for him.’
Now Ray remembered picking the shell up off the beach and handing it to Flynn. He felt a sudden tightness at the back of his throat.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Do you mind if we sit down again?’
‘Of course. Sorry.’
‘But I can’t accept this,’ Ray said, offering the shell back.
‘I would like you to. I have his diary. When I reread it, as I will many times, I’m sure, it will remind me of the shell and it will make me happy to think that you have it.’
‘If you’re sure?’
‘I’m sure.’
There was another silence, more comfortable this time.
‘I should go, June. You’ve been very kind letting me come to see you. And thank you for the shell.’
‘I’m very grateful to you for coming,’ she said.
They both stood up.
‘I’m sorry about my husband,’ she said. ‘He finds it very hard.’
‘I understand.’
She showed him into the hall and opened the front door.
‘Thanks again, Ray.’
‘Thank you, June.’
They shook hands and he stepped on to the drive, hearing the door shut behind him. As he drew level with the front bumper of the Morris Minor, he turned and looked at the house. A movement caught his eye. The bedroom window. The corner of a lace curtain.
At the end of Granada Place he turned right instead of left and found his way, via a small sheltered car parking area clearly intended for local residents, on to the field at the side of the Flynns’ house. He walked across it towards the stream — Briar Dene, June Flynn had called it — at the far side. A path led down through a copse. He imagined the younger Russell Flynn playing here. An only child, he would have relied on his imagination, playing one-sided games involving battles with various different enemies, making bivouacs and secret hiding places for sacred artefacts.
Ray thought about Russell Flynn’s father sitting in his bedroom throughout Ray’s visit. Either his own bedroom, or possibly his son’s. Maybe he had been too upset by the official visit from the RAF to be able to stomach another one, albeit unofficial? Maybe he blamed Ray for his son’s death, since it was known that Ray had been a passenger on board the Hercules at the time of the accident?
Ray climbed out of the shallow gully and looked back across the field towards the house at the end of Granada Place. He hoped that, whatever the reason had been for the boy’s father’s reluctance to come downstairs, he and his wife were now sharing each other’s company rather than remaining isolated in their own private grief.
He proceeded down to the road and crossed it to get to the links. Then he walked the short distance over the links to the beach. He took off his shoes and socks and rolled up his trousers and walked on to the sand. A cold wind blew in off the sea. To the left was a lighthouse that could be reached by means of a causeway, which looked as if it would be inaccessible at high tide. To the right, a few miles to the south, lay the mouth of the Tyne. He kept on walking until he felt damp sand beneath his feet. Zanzibar had been somewhat warmer and arguably more beautiful than this, but he knew he had done the right thing by coming back. The sea, when he eventually felt wavelets washing over his bare feet, was icy cold. He put his hands in his pockets and found the shell that June Flynn had given him. He closed his fingers around it.
Life was short and unpredictable and Ray decided he would not spend a single second of it living in regret.
The house possesses a particular stillness. It is the stillness of a house you are not supposed to have entered. I think back to the time when Lewis mentioned that he habitually leaves certain doors unlocked and wonder if his mentioning it was deliberate. Did he want me to pick up on the line; did he want me to remember it? Or was he simply boasting that life here is like that? You can leave your door open without worry — who is going to come in? Or was he suggesting that he has nothing worth stealing? Since he has already lost what was dearest to him, what would it matter if burglars nicked his TV, his DVD player, his collection of Smiths albums? Actually, with regard to the latter, I might suggest they would be doing him a favour, although, as I’m always having to remind my students, since my opinion of the Smiths is irrelevant here, I have no business including it. It doesn’t buy its way into the piece.