considered pretty? Did you see your father talking to her?' Or, whispered on a bus, 'Did you see the way your father looked at that young lady he gave his seat up to? Did you get the feeling he knew her already?' His sister would rol her eyes.
Who would be interested in that old man? Laurence had thought to himself then.
He wondered who young Wilfred, his eldest nephew, took after. At the end of the year he would find out. When he had eventualy read his sister's latest news, he was alarmed to find that his oldest nephew was being sent to school in England after Christmas. He could tel that his sister wanted him to be Wilfred's guardian. He rather hoped the boy had not inherited too many characteristics of his sister's stout, red-faced husband but he was nonetheless glad his dead parents had living grandchildren.
Now he scanned an account of a vast industrial explosion in Germany and briefly felt compassion for the families of the dead, whatever their nationality. Pity was like blood returning, painfuly, to a leg with cramp. The other lead story concerned the hunt for the kiler of a senior police officer who had been shot dead as he left his office. The policeman had been involved in two high-profile cases with violent foreign gangs. A police spokesman said there were stil no clues but there was an increasing problem with the number of side arms in circulation after the war. Laurence thought, briefly, of John. Would he have kiled himself anyway, even if he hadn't had a gun?
In an opinion piece he discovered that Brinsmead Pianos had opened under new ownership. He read this article in more detail. Louise's piano—his piano—had been a Brinsmead. He thought the firm had been broken by the piano workers' strike of the previous year. Guns. Strikers. Discontent. He found himself wondering how Eleanor Bolitho would see it al. An editorial in his paper viewed Brinsmead's reemergence as a triumph of capitalism over the Bolshevist threat. From what Eleanor had said of her political beliefs, he thought she might rejoice in the workers asserting themselves, even if it did lead to a dearth of music in middle-class parlours.
Next to the pianos was a poor picture of a politician and an ilustrious army commander, speaking together at a public meeting in Birmingham. They were arguing that war, any war but especialy the Great War, was not a matter of heroism but endurance. They had been heckled at first, the article said, but the hecklers had themselves been shouted down. Laurence recognised the men; it was the pair Charles had been so excited to meet at his club: Morrel, the former MP, and the retired general, Somers. He had been wrong in his assumption that the retired officer would be a stickler for the harshest discipline. Perhaps speaking out now was another form of courage.
It was interesting, Laurence mused, reading on, how some people were beginning to feel they could say these things now without their patriotism being caled into question. Charles had told him that another MP—Lambert Ward—whose own recent service with the Royal Naval Reserve had provided him with a shield of valour, had demanded executed deserters be buried in military graves with al the other falen soldiers. Charles himself was surprisingly indifferent.
'Who cares?' he said. 'One way or another, they're al gone.'
Until John Emmett rose from the dead into his life, Laurence had almost convinced himself the war was history but now he saw that its aftershocks rumbled on and on, and that peace had nothing to do with signatures and seals on a paper.
He started to read about the paper poppies they were making for Armistice Day this year. It was a new idea— started in America. He couldn't imagine wearing one; he even disliked fresh poppies—but perhaps some families wanted a visible sign of al they had lost.
The wind had got up and the windows rattled. He tore a strip off the page and wedged the frame fast. He returned to the mutilated newspaper and started on an obituary of a centenarian who had fought under Elphinstone in the First Afghan War and survived the massacre at the Gandamak Pass. His last thought as the paper slipped to the floor was how smal wars used to be.
Over the next week his own eagerness to get going was matched by a lack of any action elsewhere and yet he couldn't settle to writing. Charles had bought a car and had been trying it out by motoring from one friend's house to another across the southern counties. He wouldn't be back for a day or so. There was no further word from Mary. What was she doing, he wondered. How did she pass the weeks in Cambridge?
After a couple of days' reluctant progress on his book, a letter finaly brought good and bad news. Dr Bertram Chilvers, Holmwood Nursing Home, Fairford, Gloucestershire (proprietors Dr B.G.S. Chilvers MD, and G.H. Chilvers) would be delighted to show him round his establishment and discuss possible treatment for Captain Robert Bartram. Trains ran from Paddington to Fairford, changing at Oxford. The station was on the outskirts of town but it was only a ten-to fifteen-minute walk. If Mr Bartram let them know what train he would be catching, a car could be sent to fetch him. If he required accommodation overnight, it could be arranged at the local hotel. It would be helpful, it concluded, if he could obtain a letter from Captain Robert Bartram's doctor to assist in an assessment of his condition.
'Damn,' said Laurence aloud. 'Damn, damn, damn.'
He considered forging a letter of referral but realised almost as soon as he'd hit on the idea that it was hopeless. Doctors al knew each one another and anyway he was sure to get the vocabulary wrong and they'd smel a rat. At the very least he would have to account for the absence of such a letter.
Suddenly he thought of Eleanor Bolitho. Could she help him construct a plausible document? While she had as good as asked him not to disturb Wiliam again, he could, under the guise of answering her letter to him, ask for help. He dashed off a note to her before dining at Charles's club.
When he arrived in Pal Mal, he could tel Charles was eager to talk, but they got dragged into a smal group digging in on their positions on the gold standard.
Finaly, as brandy was brought into the smoking room, Charles, who had been fidgeting with impatience throughout the latter part of their dinner, could describe his attempted pursuit of Mrs Lovel's son.
'Truth is, old chap, he doesn't exist. Bought this new book, fresh off the press—bound to come in handy:
Number two: Captain M. St J. Lovel RFC—a possibility, but then we have number three: his brother Lieutenant H.B.E. Lovel. He died in 1917, but I think you said our boy's an only son. Four, Captain Bruce Lovel, went down with Kitchener on the
'Missing?' Laurence said.
'Yes, missing, but it's pretty certain what happened to him. I checked. Was seen badly wounded but pressing on. Seen to be shot again and faling, and by his adjutant. Know that man myself, as it happens. Married to a cousin.
