Neither of us had finished the brandy. “No, thanks, but you may be able to help us. Some people called Shoesmith had this pub in the war.”
The barmaid nodded. “Right up to the fifties, I believe. What year was the Coronation?”
“Did you know them?”
“Everyone knew the Shoesmiths. They were a village family. Been here for generations.”
“Gone now?”
She crossed herself and said, “Gathered, my love. The parents, I mean. Sally the daughter is still going, after a fashion.”
“What does that mean?”
The barmaid looked away. “Gossip, my love, just gossip. She got married and lives in Bath.”
“So we heard. To an American.”
She was obviously glad to move on to someone else. “A real live wire, he is. And saucy with it. Comes in here regular and takes all sorts of liberties. Wandering hands, you know? He’s in the antique business and does very nicely out of it, thank you, a white Mercedes and a house in the Royal Crescent, so he can afford to buy me a martini when I take offense, which I do, naturally.”
I smiled back. “Any idea which year he married Sally?”
“The same year the family gave up the pub. That was a summer for parties. We had the Coronation and the wedding reception and the farewell do.”
“1953,” the old man unexpectedly contributed.
I looked at Alice.
She’d replaced her glasses. She studied me through them as if making up her mind. “Theo?”
“Yes?”
“I don’t believe I can face Harry alone.”
“Do you need to?”
A sigh. “It’s essential. He must know all the answers.”
“You want me to take you to Bath?”
On the way out I thanked the barmaid and bought her a martini. The old man perked up and said his was a pint of Usher’s, probably the easiest he’d earned since Coronation year.
THIRTEEN
As a medievalist, I don’t mind telling you that Bath’s much-vaunted Georgian architecture leaves me cold. I find it crushingly dull. In my two years as a Ph.D. student at Bristol I visited Bath (a twenty-minute train ride) not more than three times, and then only for the secondhand bookshops.
Yet this October evening, driving towards the city at dusk with Alice beside me, I saw it from the height of the downs on the south side and was captivated. I stopped the car, and we got out for a better view. A shaft of orange sunlight had penetrated the purple cloud and picked out the intricate levels of buildings with dazzling clarity. From the shadows of the surrounding hills, beady rows of street lamps converged on the floodlit Abbey.
I was standing close to Alice. She hadn’t bothered to fix her plait since we left the pub, and a few stray hairs stirred and brushed my cheek. I slid my hand around hers and locked fingers with her. As she turned to speak, I lowered my face to kiss her.
She backed away as if I had the plague.
This was the girl who the previous night had stripped and waited in my bed for me.
“What’s up?” I asked her.
“I don’t want to.” She took another step back.
I smiled and made light of it. “I don’t mind playing kiss and run, but not to these rules.”
She reddened. “What do you mean?”
“Just take it easy.”
She tugged severely at her hair and explained, “I hate to be a drag, but I can’t relax while there’s so much on my mind.”
So we got back in the car and drove down the hill into Bath. I don’t force myself on women, and I don’t beg, either. Dismiss it, I thought. Yet it bothered me.
There wasn’t time to speculate. We were in the Circus, approaching the Royal Crescent, and we hadn’t yet made any ground rules for the meeting with the Ashenfelters. I didn’t expect them to come at us with a shotgun, but I could foresee mayhem if Alice started laying into Harry for abandoning her mom. I took an extra turn around the Circus before we moved into Brock Street.
“About these people,” I said. “Let’s remember that they haven’t seen either of us since we were kids. Why don’t you keep in the background to start with?”
“You mean, not say who I am?”
“You don’t need to volunteer the information. It might get us off on the wrong tack.”
She said dubiously, “It seems kind of devious. I like to be straight with people.”
“Like you were when you brought your tray to my table in Ernestine’s Restaurant?”
She protested with a harsh intake of breath. “I told you my name.”
“And how much else?”
“I needed to get to know you first.”
“Get my confidence.”
“Well, yes, but…” Her voice trailed away.
I laid it out for her. “What it comes down to, Alice, is what you want to get out of this meeting-assuming they agree to talk to us at all. If you want a family reunion, that’s up to you, but if you’re hoping for some insights into Duke’s behavior in 1943, I suggest you play it my way.”
After a pause for thought she murmured, “Okay.”
I’ve already pulled the plug on Bath, so to speak, so I won’t knock the Crescent. For anyone who hasn’t been there, it’s built on high ground with a view of the city across open parkland. A single block of thirty three-story houses in an elliptical curve, with a facade of 114 Ionic columns and a roof-level balustrade. Enough said?
We bumped over the cobbled roadway and parked under a street lamp on the far side. Alice confirmed that there was a light behind Harry’s blinds.
Harry himself came down to answer the bell.
I apologized for disturbing him, explained that we’d driven over from Christian Gifford and that I was the boy evacuee he and Duke had befriended in 1943.
It wasn’t the admission ticket I’d hoped it might be.
“Is that a fact?” said Harry without a glimmer of interest. The years had creased the Cagney profile into something closer to Edward G. Robinson. Some sagging about the eyes, more weight on the jowls, less hair, and thick-rimmed bifocals. He’d never been much to look at, but the saving sense of fun had vanished. He was in leather carpet slippers, fawn trousers, and a thick brown cardigan.
“A bloody awful time for all of us,” I said, plowing on. “I can tell you, I was more than grateful for the kindness you fellows showed me.”
“So?”
“So when I heard that you lived in Bath, I thought I couldn’t go by without calling on the off-chance that you were in.” I was beginning to feel, and sound, like a door-to-door salesman.
“Who told you I was here?” asked Harry, as if he meant to throttle them.
“The people in the pub. They said you came back to England after the war to marry Sally. How is she, by the way?”
His stubby hand cupped his chin in a defensive gesture.
“You know Sally?”
“We all picked apples together, didn’t we?”
My first question had given him a let-out. “She’s not so good, so you won’t mind if I don’t invite you in.”
I was on the point of cutting my losses and pushing Alice forward with her guess-who-I-am speech when a
