“How long had you lived there?”
“About fourteen years.”
“God. Oh, Spud, about the dog. If you want to bring him away, I think I can fix him up at the Station for a bit.”
“Thanks. I expect he’d have liked it. He’s been liquidated, only they forgot to tell me.”
“What? What happened?”
“He was getting on a bit. I had him all the time I was at school He was eleven.”
“Spuddy. I’m very sorry.”
“I’d rather have seen to it myself, that’s all. You can give them sleeping pills first, then they don’t know.”
“What time is this wedding?”
“Two.”
“Village church, I suppose?”
“Yes. It’s his church. Great-Uncle Edward’s had an attack, so he won’t be coming.”
“Oh? Your mother very upset?”
“Well, he was giving her away. It’s a good job I’m here, isn’t it?”
“What? Oh, no, Spud, nonsense. No, they can’t make you do that.”
“No one’s actually making me. But it’s hardly a job you can hand over to the churchwarden, when it comes to the point.”
“Spud, why the hell didn’t you let me come with you?”
“I can’t think, now.”
Almost as he spoke, he heard the sound of the front door shutting, and voices in the hall.
“Spud, can you hear me?”
“Sorry, here comes the family.”
“All right, Spud. Don’t worry, good night. I’ll be seeing you.”
Laurie started to say “I’ll be back by—” But the line had died.
A few minutes later, he remembered the unfinished job upstairs. But it was almost suppertime. In the end he bundled everything back in the cupboard again. It would have to be tomorrow, after all. He hadn’t meant to take the second night’s leave if he could catch the four-forty; but if he missed it, it couldn’t be helped.
At ten o’clock, Aunt Olive remarked on the busy day they had had; told Mrs. Odell that she must have an early night; then blushed a congested dark red and changed the conversation. After this Laurie and his mother sat up for another twenty minutes, painfully discussing family friends and the war news. Aunt Olive seemed anxious to leave them together; but they both clung to her company, which must have pleased her, Laurie thought.
Later, when he was ready for bed, he raked out the fire, and opened the blackout. The stars looked frosty; it was too early for the moon. It would have been cheerful to keep in the fire, pull up the mattress to it and read; but his mother would have been shocked to find no windows open, when she came down to say good night.
When he heard her, he got up from the bed where he had been sitting and moved out into the room. She walked straight on toward the bed and did not see him until he spoke.
“Not in bed yet, dear?” On any other night she would have said “I came to tuck you up,” but tonight she didn’t say it. She felt his dressing-gown and said, “This is so thin, darling, don’t catch cold.”
He put his arm around her waist and kissed her, trying to think of absolutely nothing. “God bless you, Mother dear. Be very happy.”
“Laurie darling; you must … you will try to get on with him, won’t you?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“All these years, all the time you were little, I’ve thought of no one but you.”
“I know, dearest. Of course, I know.”
“You must never repeat this to anyone, but Colonel Ramsay asked me to marry him, when you were at school. But I didn’t like the idea of giving you a stepfather when you were just at the difficult age. Now I’m not young any more; and next year, or the year after, when you want to get married, I should be all alone.”
“Mother. I don’t want to get married. If that’s all, I … I don’t think I’ll ever want to. It’s just something I feel. If you don’t want to go through with it, I …”
“Darling, but of course I do! Whatever put such an idea into your head? At this stage, too.”
“Sorry, dear. It’s only that …”
“You must never say such a thing to me again, it’s not kind, it’s very silly indeed.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t really mean it.”
“I don’t suppose you remember your father, now?”
“A bit here and there. Not very well.”
“I wasn’t unhappy with him, you know, till I found out how he was deceiving me. You know, dear, a woman gets, well, used to being married. I haven’t told you, but sometimes I’ve been rather lonely.”
Once she had come to see him in hospital, before the bone infection had gone down. He had been in great pain but hadn’t wanted to tell her; he had lain watching the clock when she wasn’t looking, and praying silently, “Go away. Please go away.” He withdrew his arm, now, gently and as if by accident, and said, “Well, you be happy, dear, God knows you deserve it.”
“I’ll have your room all ready for you; all your things, and the books put out.”
“I’ll have to stay somewhere near a library, for a bit. You can’t read much in hospital. Don’t unpack the books yet, I might have to send for them.”
“Don’t stay away too long, darling.” He felt that she had dreaded his early arrival in her heart, and was relieved.
He said, “There’s going to be a frost tonight,” hoping that she would go. He had used his leg a good deal, doing odd jobs and climbing the hill; even with the altered boot it had been too much.
“Laurie, darling. Don’t go quite away from me.”
There was space behind him, he could turn his back to the little light there was; he had been right not to stay in bed, trapped against the wall. “If ever you need me,” he said, “ever, wherever I am.”
“But, darling, I shall always need you, just the same as ever.” He had made her doubts too articulate; she would escape from him now. “What am I doing,” she cried, “keeping you up in the cold, just out of hospital? Good night, darling, we shall all be so busy tomorrow, try to sleep well. Good night.”
The light from the door grew narrow behind her, turning to a strip, to a line, to a memory drawn on a slab of darkness. Now he could see that the faint glimmer they had been standing in came partly also from the stars.
In the old days, if one slept downstairs, after the house was quiet Gyp would get cautiously out of his basket, and one would hear his claws on the flags in the hall. He would put his nose to the crack under the door, and make a faint whistly snuffle till it was opened. For a big dog, he took up very little room.
Laurie fell asleep between two and three in the morning. The moon had risen by then, and frost was growing up the window-glass, opening pointed leaves and flowers to the light.
For the last hour he had tried to think of nothing, and in the end had almost succeeded. But nature abhors a vacuum, and it was impossible to empty the mind entirely. So at last he thought of what was next to nothing, the recollection of a dream, which tomorrow need not be remembered. A cold pool of moonlight trickled over to where he lay; but by then he was out of reach, his eyes pressed down on the pillow, and one arm thrown over it in a gesture which, even in the relaxation of sleep, looked abrupt and possessive.
In the morning, as soon as he was awake, it became increasingly like getting ready for a general inspection, except that he himself had been promoted to C.S.M. Almost before he had time to brush himself down, his mother was being dressed by Aunt Olive and people were arriving. Relations whom he felt he had seen quite recently, and who seemed to him very little changed, exclaimed with wonder at not finding him still a schoolboy. Others asked him if he was on leave. Suddenly they all began disappearing; in what seemed no time at all the house was empty even of Aunt Olive; there was only a stray caterer’s man arguing with Mrs. Timmings, and then the car was at the door. Hurrying upstairs he nearly fell, recovered with his heart in his mouth, precipitated himself into his mother’s room after a perfunctory knock, and came face to face with her in her wedding dress.