Robbie.
An elbow in her shoulder and she was falling.
A shout. His? The man’s? Hers?
Hannah collapsed into a wall of onlookers.
The band continued; the clapping and stomping too.
From where she fell she glanced upward. Robbie was on the man. Fist pounding. Pounding. Again. Again. Again.
Panic. Heat. Fear.
‘Robbie!’ she called. ‘Robbie, stop!’
She pushed her way through endless people, grabbing at anything she could.
The music had stopped and people had gathered to the fray. Somehow she pressed between them, made her way to the front. Clutched at Robbie’s shirt. ‘Robbie!’
He shook her off. Turned briefly toward her. Eyes blank, not meeting hers. Not seeing hers.
The man’s fist met Robbie’s face. And he was atop.
Blood.
Hannah screamed. ‘No! Let him be. Please, let him be.’ She was crying now. ‘Somebody help.’
She was never sure exactly how it ended. Never learned the fellow’s name who came to her assistance, to Robbie’s assistance. Pulled the whiskered man off; dragged Robbie to the wall. Fetched glasses of water, then of whisky. Told her to take her old man home and put him to bed.
Whoever he was, he’d been unsurprised by the evening’s events. Had laughed and told them it wouldn’t be a Saturday night-or a Friday, or a Thursday, for that matter-if a couple of lads didn’t set one against the other. And then he’d shrugged, told them Red Wycliffe wasn’t a bad sort- he’d seen a bad war, that was all, hadn’t been the same since. Then he’d packed them off, Robbie leaning on Hannah for support.
They attracted hardly a glance as they made their way along the street, leaving the dancing, the merriment, the clapping behind them.
Later, back at Robbie’s flat, she washed his face. He sat on a low timber stool and she knelt before. He’d said little since they’d left the festival and she hadn’t wanted to ask. What had overcome him, why he’d pounced, where he’d been. She’d guessed he was asking himself the same sorts of questions, and she was right.
‘What might have happened?’ he said eventually. ‘What might have happened?’
‘Shhh,’ she said, pressing the damp flannel against his cheekbone. ‘It’s over.’
Robbie shook his head. Closed his eyes. Beneath his thin lids, his thoughts flickered. Hannah barely heard him when he spoke. ‘I’d have killed him,’ he whispered. ‘So help me God, I’d have killed him.’
They didn’t go out again. Not after that. Hannah blamed herself; berated herself for not listening to his protestations, for insisting they go. The lights, the noise, the crowds. She had read about shell shock: she should have known better. She resolved to care better for him in future. To remember all he’d been through. To treat him gently. And never to mention it again. It was over. It wouldn’t happen again. She’d make sure of it.
A week or so later they were lying together, playing their game, imagining they lived in a tiny isolated village at the top of the Himalayas, when Robbie sat up and said, ‘I’m tired of this game.’
Hannah propped herself on one side. ‘What would you like to do?’
‘I want it to be real.’
‘So do I,’ Hannah said. ‘Imagine if-’
‘No,’ Robbie said. ‘Why can’t we make it real?’
‘Darling,’ said Hannah gently, running a finger along his right cheekbone, across his recent scar. ‘I don’t know whether the fact had slipped your mind, but I’m already married.’ She was trying to be light-hearted. To make him laugh, but he didn’t.
‘People get divorced.’
She wondered who these people were. ‘Yes, but-’
‘We could go somewhere else, away from here, away from everyone we know. Don’t you want to?’
‘You know I do,’ said Hannah.
‘With the new law you only have to prove adultery.’
Hannah nodded. ‘But Teddy hasn’t been adulterous.’
‘Surely,’ Robbie said, ‘in all this time that we’ve…’
‘It isn’t his way.’
‘But when you said that you and he weren’t… I presumed…’
‘It isn’t something he thinks about,’ said Hannah. ‘He’s never been particularly interested.’ She ran a finger over his lips. ‘Not even when we were first married. It wasn’t until I met you that I realised…’ She paused, leaned to kiss him. ‘That I realised.’
‘He’s a fool,’ said Robbie. He looked at her intensely and ran his hand lightly down her side, from shoulder to wrist. ‘Leave him.’
‘What?’
‘Don’t go to Riverton,’ he said. He was sitting now, had hold of her wrists. God he was beautiful. ‘Run away with me.’
‘You’re not being serious,’ she said uncertainly. ‘You’re teasing.’
‘I’ve never been more serious.’
‘Just disappear?’
‘Just disappear.’
She was silent for a minute, thinking.
‘I couldn’t,’ she said. ‘You know that.’
‘Why?’ He released her wrists roughly, left the bed and lit a cigarette.
‘Lots of reasons…’ She thought about it. ‘Emmeline-’
‘Fuck Emmeline.’
Hannah flinched. ‘She needs me.’
‘I need you.’
And he did. She knew he did. A need both terrifying and intoxicating.
‘She’ll be all right,’ said Robbie. ‘She’s tougher than you think.’
Hannah sighed. ‘It’s not so simple. She’s my responsibility.’
‘Says who?’
‘David, Pa…’ She shrugged. ‘It’s just something I know.’
He was sitting at the table now, smoking. He looked thinner than she remembered. He was thinner. She wondered why she hadn’t noticed before.
‘Teddy would find me,’ she said. ‘His family would. They have
