It took me a while to focus, as the sun was dazzling. “Oh. It’s Alec. From next door.”
She gave a small laugh. “Of course from next door. How many Alecs do we know?” She put down the basket she was holding and turned her smile on Alec.
His face was a little guarded, it seemed to me—not the shuttered look he’d used when his father had come up to the attic but perhaps a little nervous, his eyes flickering from one of us to the other. His hair was all brushed to one side and looked dreadful. It was either damp or covered in Brylcreem. I could imagine his mother had done it, and it didn’t suit him the way the casual curls I’d seen the day before had.
It’s hard for me to remember that day objectively, to look back and see Alec through the eyes of that particular Ed Johnson. Because that Ed Johnson hadn’t long to live. He was about to vanish forever.
“Hello,” said Valerie. “How nice to see you.”
He shook the hand she offered him and I could swear he blushed a little. He didn’t seem the same person that had come for dinner; he was certainly happier, if not completely relaxed.
I took his hand. It was warm. “I asked Alec over,” I said, feeling a little defensive and not wanting to say he was a week late. “He’s going to look at my Sir Nigel Gresley.”
“Your what?”
“The Hornby—the train I had in the loft.”
“Oh, of course. It must be filthy. If you are going to get it down from there…”
“Already anticipated, darling,” I said. “Dust sheets are already down, and we won’t take it out of the conservatory.”
Alec shot me a look as Valerie picked up her basket and walked towards the chairs. His eyes were clear and a little anxious and the side of his mouth quirked in a half-grin. I can’t remember now whether I smiled back or not, but I remember that smirk of his.
Valerie led us across the lawn and she sat him down at the garden table, sending me in for cool drinks. When I emerged, they seemed to be getting on well. Valerie was a great hostess and always had been. Now she had him alone, she was putting him at his ease with her usual grace.
“I had no idea there was so much to it,” she was saying as I put the tray on the table. “Neither of the twins showed any interest in trains, although we did try them with a set when they were younger. Ed had a brief encounter, as you know. I think that’s why he loves Rachmaninov.” She laughed at her own joke, but Alec didn’t get it and gave her a brittle smile; as if he knew he was missing something.
She continued to chat to the boy—young man, I corrected myself—and I sat there, warm and comfortable in the sun, looking at both of them in turn. He complimented the garden, and she stood up and offered to show him around. The back of the garden was separated into little sections that you couldn’t see from the centre of the attic, and, as she led him off across the lawn, she was explaining the four different “rooms” that she had designed. I smiled. It surprised me that he was so considerate as to notice that the garden was her pride and joy.
I watched as she led him toward the herb garden, and I was suddenly struck with the similarity between them. They were much of a height, and, although Valerie’s Nordic hair was pale and platinum beside Alec’s darker head, they could have been brother and sister. Alec’s young body was like hers: his legs longer than most, his torso lean, her chest nearly as flat as his. Lazily, my eyes drifted downwards, noting that their legs were the same length. He was wearing the tight pair of jeans he’d worn before, and I found myself staring at the way his legs seemed to go on forever joining his backside with the minimum of fuss. The only difference between Alec’s legs and Val’s was that Valerie’s bottom was a little more padded than his.
I remember being amused at how similar my wife and Alec were. It’s hard to look back and believe that I was that blinkered.
They disappeared for a while into the garden rooms at the far end and emerged about five minutes later. I wondered what Alec thought; I couldn’t imagine that he’d really be interested in Japanese shrubs and rockeries. I saw him say something to her and she laughed. As they re-joined me, she bent down to kiss me.
“I’ll leave you to your trains,” she said. “I’m off to pick up the twins, and then I’m going into town. It was your first day at St. Peter’s last week, wasn’t it, Alec?”
He nodded.
“You’ll have to tell the twins what you think of the Upper School. They long to know—it’s so secretive with all those high brick walls.”
Alec actually stood up as she left us. Surprised at the old-fashioned gesture, I found myself rising to my feet with him. This won me a rather smug look from my wife.
We sat for a while in silence after she’d left. I wondered why I found it harder to strike up a conversation with him after his apparent ease with my wife. His face had darkened slightly, and he looked a little bored. I wondered if I had looked the same when forced into company with my parents’ friends. He made no overtures of conversation but simply sat in silence playing with his drink. I felt a rush of irritation—or at least I took it for irritation—that he had nothing to say to me.
Annoyed by the silence and by my own inability to strike up a conversation with a teenager, I stood up.
