Kissed a Sad Goodbye

Lewis yanked open the door of the Mercedes. “This time I’m not going to let him get away with it.”

“What are you talking about? Let who get away with it?” As Gordon reached for his father, the slamming car door brushed the tips of his fingers. “Dad!”

But Lewis was already reversing out of the parking space, and the spinning tires threw grit into Gordon’s eyes as the car accelerated away.

CHAPTER 15Trade-union and community campaigns to prevent this decline were transmuted in the 1980s into campaigns to redevelop the area in the best interests of local people, to encourage investment which would bring more jobs, to improve transport, schooling and health care. Alongside these concerns was a concern that the community should not lose touch with its roots.

      Eve Hostettler, from Memories of

      Childhood on the Isle of Dogs, 1870–1970

“We could use a bit of rain, old girl,” said George Brent. He was on his knees in the vegetable patch in his back garden, with Sheba sitting beside him, watching him as if he might turn up something tasty. “Marrows are getting to be as scrawny as I am, in this blasted heat.”

Sheba lifted her sleek black muzzle, sniffing the air, and George straightened his back a bit as he sniffed, too. His nose wasn’t what it used to be, but he could smell rain, and the sky to the west looked thunderous. “Rheumatism’s playing up—that’s a good sign,” he added as he stood and worked the stiffness from his joints. “Maybe we’d best pick them ripe tomatoes, just in case.” He was proud of his tomatoes—he started them early in the spring, on the kitchen windowsill, and bragged on them to the neighbors whenever the opportunity arose. Reaching for the basket he’d left on the grass, he bent to the task and had it half filled when he heard a whistle and a shout from the house.

“Dad. What are you doing out here in the garden with a storm coming on, you stubborn old goat?”

“Eh, lad, come and give me a hand,” called George, beaming at the sight of his only son, who had been out on his merchant ship these past two weeks.

A large, good-natured man with dark, curling hair just beginning to recede, George Brent, Jr. was never called anything other than “Georgie.” He strode across the small square of lawn and thumped his dad on the shoulder, then took the basket. “These will make a proper feast with the sausages I’ve brought for tea, and I’ve put the kettle on.”

“Good lad.”

When they had settled at the small, oilclothed table with their sausages, fried bread, tomatoes, and steaming cups of tea, George proceeded to tell his son about the events that had taken place in his absence. He could talk now about finding the body without getting a lump in his throat, and in every telling the red-haired young woman grew more and more beautiful. “Like an angel, she was,” he said now, wiping up the last of his tomato with a bit of bread, and thinking of Lewis Finch with a twinge of guilt. He couldn’t quite bring himself to tell Georgie what he had confessed to Janice Coppin.

A crack of thunder rattled the crockery on the shelves and Sheba yipped. “This one’s going to be a corker,” George said, but as he poured them another cuppa, he wished he could bring the image that had been nagging at him into focus. A face seen at the wrong time and in the wrong place, it hovered at the very edge of his consciousness. He gave up, shaking his head in disgust, and proceeded to inform his son that perhaps that Janice wasn’t so bad after all.

AS DROPS OF RAIN SPATTERED AGAINST the windscreen, Lewis put the wipers on delay and switched on the headlamps. He drove blindly, instinctively south, besieged by the memories he had kept buried for so long. He had thought he owned them, that he could use the knowledge of the past to fuel his hatred and yet remain unscathed. But he’d been wrong; he saw that now. And he saw, too late, that Annabelle had reminded him of Irene—

IRENE HAD COME TO HIM THAT night, in his room over the stable.

“Lewis,” she’d whispered, sitting on the edge of his bed and shaking his shoulder. “I want to talk to you.”

He’d awakened instantly. “What are you doing here? You shouldn’t—”

“It’ll be all right—they’re all asleep.” She settled herself more comfortably against his hip as he struggled to prop himself up on his elbows. “Listen, you mustn’t mind about William. You know he doesn’t mean any harm—”

“That’s no excuse,” said Lewis, his anger rushing back. “Where does he think that sort of rubbish comes from? Straight from the Germans, that’s where. And when our men are dying—it could be John next, or Mr. Cuddy—”

“He’s only thinking about innocent people being killed, and he doesn’t understand how you feel about your parents, not really. He thinks you can be logical about something like that—”

“Logical? What does he bloody know about anything?” And to his shame, Lewis began to cry—the hiccuping, wrenching sobs he’d never let out, even at his parents’ funeral. Irene sat quite still, her hand on his shoulder, silent and concerned, and when he could manage, he said, “I know it’s stupid, but I keep thinking if I’d only been with them, I might have saved them somehow—”

“Lewis, you’d have been killed, too, you know that. That’s the last thing your mum and dad would have wanted.” She pulled back his blanket and slid into bed beside him, wrapping her arms round him.

“Irene—”

“I want to be with you, Lewis. We could be bombed, too—the rockets fall short of their targets all the time—and I don’t want to die not knowing what it’s like.”

She kissed him, pressing her body against his, and for a long moment he let go—then he pulled away, panting. “We can’t; what would Edwina—”

“It doesn’t matter,” she whispered, her mouth against his ear. “Nothing matters but us. Now. I want to be everything to you—mother, sister, lover—and I want you to need me more than you’ve ever needed anyone.”

He felt her trembling against him, and when he kissed her she tasted of tears. She was right—no one had ever loved him like this. Nothing mattered but this. And then sensation washed his mind clean of any thought at all.

LEWIS WOKE, AS HE USUALLY DID, when the first hint of dawn lightened the oblong of his window. Irene still