Despite Connie’s spirited words to her mother, she missed her grandmother dreadfully, every day she missed her. Though it was true that Mary had slept a lot in the days before her death, Connie had been used to the sound of her easy breathing and the crackling of the fire as the backdrop to her labouring over her homework. And sometimes she would wake and Connie would make them both a cup of tea and help her grandmother sit up so she could drink it. On the days when her mind was clear they would talk, not much for Mary had found conversations difficult, but she seemed to like Connie telling her about her school day. Other times, once the tea was drunk, Connie would help her lie down again and hold her hand until her eyelids fluttered shut again.
She had liked those special times she’d had with her grandmother. She felt it was her way of showing how much she cared to the woman who had showered her with love as far back as she could remember and it was hard to come to terms with the fact those times would never come again. Connie was glad though that she had never shared her thoughts with her mother because she knew she needed to work, for her own self-worth as well as for the money.
Connie was right: the job stopped Angela going under, giving her a reason to get up in the morning and keep going through the day. She loved pulling the pints and chattering to the Swan’s regulars because she was achingly lonely without the woman she had always considered to be her mother. Sometimes the conversation was not that edifying but it was better than nothing. Paddy considered he had a star in Angela who managed to be on such friendly terms with the men without flirting and causing trouble with jealous wives. In the wake of Mary’s death the customers were even more considerate towards Angela and many said how sorry they were, for they knew of the close and unique bond she always had with Mary and admired the fortitude she was showing.
She was also a great help to her daughter at this time. Connie had not really tasted grief before, but Angela could remember how she’d mourned her foster brothers Sean and Gerry when they’d drowned at sea on the Titanic.
It had been a terrible time for them all and Angela had been filled with grief and sadness, but deep down she’d known life had to go on. She coped with her own grief now by taking one day at a time and advised Connie to do the same.
‘Don’t think of her death,’ she said. ‘Think of the lovely things we did with her when she was alive. She is at peace now and I think she was ready to go, she was tired and looking forward to seeing Matt and her three sons again. Eventually, when you think of her, the pain will lessen. You will never forget her, but she will settle into a place in your heart.’
Connie found her mother’s words very encouraging and a fortnight after Mary’s death she said to Angela, ‘I had my granny for years. I wish it had been longer but no one can take away those years or my memories.’
‘That’s the spirit, Connie,’ Angela said approvingly. ‘My goodness me, your granny would have been so proud of you.’
Almost three weeks later Daniel called and was delighted and relieved to see that both Angela and Connie were recovering from the death of Mary so well. As it was a Thursday evening and Angela hadn’t to rush out to work, she pressed Daniel to stay for a meal, not that he needed much pressing. And after the meal, with the dishes washed, Connie cleared the table and laid out her books to do her homework as she did every night.
‘What have you got to do?’ Daniel asked.
‘English,’ Connie said. ‘I don’t mind that, but then I’ve got Chemistry and Mathematics.’ She made a face and said, ‘The exercises are in the books but sometimes they might as well be written in double Dutch.’
Daniel laughed. ‘I take it those are not your favourite subjects.’
‘In a word, no,’ said Connie with an answering grin. ‘I don’t really understand them. I know it all fine when the teacher discusses it with me before I leave. But by the time I come home and help Mammy with the dinner and do any errands and then eat tea and wash up, when I sit to do my homework everything the teacher said has gone out of my head.’
‘Can I help? I’m good at Maths.’
‘Are you?’ Connie said disbelievingly. ‘I didn’t think anyone was good at Maths.’
‘I’m a banker. I have to be good at Maths.’
‘Well, that’s one job I’ll give a miss.’
‘Sometimes it’s not a matter of choice and beggars can’t be choosers,’ Daniel said. ‘I mean, I’m not that happy being a banker. But a job’s a job at the end of the day and, with the state the country is in, you stick with what you have. So in case you end up in a job when you have to add two and two, maybe you should try harder with the Maths.’ He held out his hand and said, ‘Let’s have a look at the exercise.’
He scrutinised it for a moment or two and then said, ‘I know what you must do here.’
He had drawn up a chair beside Connie as he spoke and the next minute their heads were together poring over the book as he explained to her what she must do. He explained it so well that it was suddenly crystal clear to her and she completed the exercise in double quick time, then tackled the Chemistry too, far more confident with Daniel by her side.
Angela thought him so kind to help Connie so freely. Truly he was Stan’s son and she made tea before Connie did her English, which she excelled at and always got good marks for. But when Angela expressed her gratitude, he brushed it aside.
‘You have done so much for me. It’s the least I can do, giving Connie a hand, especially when it involves subjects I enjoy anyway.’
Connie gave a groan. ‘Enjoy Maths and Chemistry!’ she exclaimed. ‘Seriously, Daniel, you want to get your head examined. Liking subjects like that isn’t normal.’
They were all laughing but Angela chided her daughter. ‘That’s really not the right response when someone has been so helpful. “Thank you” would be much better.’
‘I have said thank you and I will say it again as often as you like,’ Connie protested. ‘And I think Daniel knows how grateful I am. Don’t you?’ she said.
Daniel still had a grin on his face as he said, ‘Yes, don’t worry about it, Angela. I have the measure of Connie. And I enjoy coming because I somehow feel closer to my dad here. I can’t mention his name at home.’
‘Listen, Daniel,’ Angela said. ‘No one can make up those lost years for you. All I can do is encourage you to go out with your head held high for you are the son of a great man who loved you very much and would be so proud if he saw you today. And I hear what you say about employment, and we do have a massive slump at the moment, but you have a degree and so are better placed than many, I’d say. And if you really dislike banking, have you thought of teaching?’
‘No, not really.’
‘You’re really good at explaining things,’ Connie said. ‘You even get thickos like me to understand in the end.’
‘Are you fishing for compliments?’ Daniel asked with a smile. ‘Because you know you’re no thicko.’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘This is neither here nor there,’ Angela said. ‘I have heard you helping my Connie and I would say you’ll make a fine teacher if you were interested in that kind of work.’
‘I don’t know,’ Daniel said. ‘In all honesty I never gave a thought to doing anything other than working in a bank. I always did what the people I thought of as my parents wanted and never really thought of having any sort of choice. If I do decide to go down another path it will not please my aunt and uncle.’
‘Will that worry you?’
‘No,’ Daniel said after a moment’s thought. ‘Not any more, I shan’t let it. I think teaching would be far more interesting than what I do now. Anyway, it won’t hurt to make some enquiries.’
‘Why would your aunt and uncle object to you doing something like that?’ Connie asked. ‘Sounds a very good job to me.’
‘It is, and I should imagine rewarding,’ Daniel said. ‘But despite being at university, which gave me a glimpse into other people’s lives and made me realise the way I’d been brought up was odd, I was still pretty much under their thumb. And so when my uncle arranged my interview with the bank that culminated in a job, I went along with what they wanted. Till the day I came here first I felt very alone. Meeting you and being so accepted and hearing the truth about my father has given me the courage to stand against them, certainly in this business of employment.’
And Daniel did just that and came the following week to tell them that, despite his degree, he had to do a further year at college.
‘It’s only fair, the way they explained it to us,’ he told Angela and Connie. ‘I mean, I know I have a degree but it’s not much use if I cannot pass that knowledge on.’
‘You have to me,’ Connie said. ‘I understand so much better now.’
‘Yeah, but that’s one-to-one, with someone I know quite well now,’ Daniel said. ‘I should say that it’s a whole different experience standing in front of a classroom trying to teach children that same understanding. Particularly when many do not like Maths, have never liked Maths and would wish to be anywhere other than in that classroom listening to me droning on. I could really do with experience in learning to deal with all that.’
‘I can quite see that,’ Angela said. ‘When do you start?’
‘September,’ Daniel said. ‘And though I can go to a college fairly locally, I think I will have to leave my aunt and uncle’s and find lodgings some other place weeks before then. They will hardly approve of my plans and I can’t expect them to finance me further either.’
‘Will you manage to go a year without money?’
‘I might not be totally without money,’ Daniel said. ‘There are bursaries, but even without them I will be all right, thanks to my father. The money he left me I haven’t touched except to add to it as soon as I began earning and I have until September to save more. I can’t thank you two enough, because I don’t know that I’d have ever thought of being a teacher if you hadn’t put it in my head and now … well, I can’t wait to start. I am really excited about it.’
‘Surely you can tell your aunt and uncle how you feel,’ Angela said. ‘They do love you and if you love someone you want the best for them. I would hate to think your desire to be a teacher now, rather than a banker, should cause such a rift between you.’
‘Angela, the rift began when I read the letter from my father and forced them to confess what they had done in keeping us apart,’ Daniel said. ‘It has widened since then and, if I’m honest, that’s mainly my fault because I can’t feel the same about them. I realised their love was conditional in that if I did what they wanted, toed the line and never deviated, then they would love me.’
Angela felt a lump form in her throat and felt it such a tragedy that Stan would never know the fine person her son had turned out. She admitted that had to be due to Betty and Roger in part, though in a way their conditional love and iron control had damaged him a little. Please God, he would now be able to rise above that.
Daniel came each week after that and he was such good company that Angela looked forward to him coming as much as Connie and he always helped her daughter with homework she was struggling with. Connie thought he’d make a fine teacher because he did explain things so very well and didn’t make her feel stupid for not knowing or forgetting things he had already told her. He was like the big brother she never had.
He had been coming three weeks when, as they sat down to dinner, Angela said, ‘Now Daniel, you’re an intelligent man, you have helped Connie immensely and I’m very grateful. So maybe you can help me with a problem I have.’
Connie’s eyes widened. ‘You never said anything to me about any sort of problem.’
‘I’m telling you now,’ Angela said. ‘It has only happened twice and the first time I thought it might be just a one-off.’
‘What’s only happened twice?’
‘Someone’s putting flowers on Mary’s grave.’
‘Well, didn’t you tell me she was well thought of?’ Daniel said. ‘And it’s obvious she was by the numbers who attended her funeral.’
Angela nodded. ‘She was, that’s true, but many here struggle to feed their families. I know no one who would have the spare money to buy flowers to decorate a grave. Even those not exactly poor have just about enough to manage. I don’t know many with much slack. I mean, whoever it is has bought a vase and everything. They don’t disturb anything I have there, they just add to it. It’s very strange.
‘All l can think is that it was someone from her past that I knew nothing about,’ Angela continued. ‘And that’s odd too because I didn’t think there was anyone she knew that I didn’t. This is a really small community.’
‘Does it matter who it is?’ Daniel said. ‘I mean, they obviously mean her no harm. Putting flowers on a grave is a nice thing to do.’
‘I suppose it doesn’t matter,’ Angela said. ‘It’s just a bit intriguing and I would like to know who it is even if just to thank them. It’s lovely to see fresh flowers there and the grave tidied up as if someone loved Mary as much as Connie and I did.’
‘It will likely stop eventually and you’ll probably never be any the wiser,’ Daniel said and Angela sighed and said he was probably right.
Connie caught a bad cold just after this and Angela succumbed too. Both were laid very low and so it was almost three weeks before Angela felt well enough to take the walk to the cemetery. It was a Saturday morning, not a time when she had ever come before. She had a spring in her step for the bright yellow daffodils she had brought with her always cheered her. They were like the promise of spring not that far away, and even the day had a hint of warmth though it was still early in March. She was smiling as she pushed open the cemetery gates.
The smile died on her lips as she spotted the man kneeling by the grave arranging his posy of Christmas roses in the vase. She had no idea who he was, and yet there was something familiar about him.
‘Excuse me,’ she said and the man turned. The shock at seeing him was so great she dropped her flowers to the ground and she felt a sudden blackness envelop her. The man caught her as she sank to the ground and cradled her in his arms.
‘Angela,’ he called frantically. ‘Angela, are you all right?’
Angela’s eyes fluttered open and a frown developed between them as she tried to make sense of what her eyes were seeing that her mind refused to believe.
‘Stan,’ she said, her hesitant voice just above a whisper. ‘Stan, is it really you?’
There was a deep sigh and the man said, ‘Yes, it’s me, Stan.’
Angela shook her head in bewilderment and Stan said, ‘Will you be all right now? You gave me a right turn when you fainted like that.’
Angela struggled to her feet, saying as she did so, ‘I’m fine but I don’t know about giving you a turn! What about the one you gave me? You are supposed to be dead, for God’s sake. Oh, Stan, I really don’t understand any of this. Are you sure you aren’t a ghost?’
Despite her confusion, Angela reached out for Stan and he wrapped his arms around her and she sighed in almost contentment. There was much for him to explain, but he was alive when many were dead and she guessed Daniel would be delighted at this turn of events.
Stan released Angela, gave another heartfelt sigh and said, ‘I’m surprised you can even look at me.’
‘What are you talking about? I’m so glad that you survived that blessed war,’ Angela said. ‘But I would like some explanation of where you have been all this time when I thought you were dead – everyone thought you were dead. But as for not being able to look at you … Stan, this is me, Angela. We were so close before that dreadful war.’
‘That’s what I mean.’
Angela shook her head slowly. ‘Stan, you’re not making sense. Shall we go home and you can tell me what this is all about?’
‘No,’ Stan said, ‘not there. I’m not ready to meet people I once knew yet. It’s you I need to speak with first. After I have told all to you, you might not want to see me again.’
‘I doubt that,’ Angela said and added, ‘Oh Stan, you don’t know how wonderful I feel that you are alive and Daniel … he will be just delighted.’
‘Huh, my son in name only,’ Stan said bitterly. ‘He’d hardly want to know me. He never wanted to know me before.’
‘A lot has changed since then, Stan,’ Angela said. ‘Your son is a fine young man and I would say he has need of you just now … We have so much we need to talk about.’
‘You are right,’ Stan said. ‘Let’s finish tidying up the grave and then can we walk together? I will probably find it easier to tell you everything that way.’
Angela nodded. ‘Then we’ll walk,’ she said. ‘I’m keen to get to the bottom of all this.’
She picked up the bunch of daffodils as she spoke, noting their bedraggled appearance after falling to the ground, but said nothing about it and helped Stan tend the grave in silence.
They were walking down the street before Angela said, ‘I want to know, everyone will want to know, and most especially Daniel, why you didn’t come back after the war, why you let everyone think you were dead? It was a cruel thing to do.’
‘I would have to go back a little further than that,’ Stan said. ‘I know Barry didn’t survive but do you know any details of how he died?’
‘Only a little bit,’ Angela said. ‘Michael Malone was a school friend of his for years and he was with him the day it happened, along with a couple of other men. He told me that when they were on the field of battle, in all the confusion, Barry gave a shout and started to walk towards someone. Michael didn’t see who it was because he had his back to Barry and when he turned around to see who he had hailed, the swirling smoke made it difficult to see anything. Anyway, his attention was taken then by the shell arcing above them and he could see Barry had seen it too. He gave a sort of scream and began running like mad towards the person he had called out to.
‘Michael knew he wouldn’t make it before the shell hit and began running the other way. He knew no more because he was caught in the blast himself and was out of it. Poor lad lost his leg, blown clean off it was, but both his other two mates were killed outright.’
‘So you have no details of the man Barry tried to save?’
Angela shook her head and then added, ‘I got a lovely letter from his commanding officer though and he said he was recommending him for a medal. Barry got the Military Medal for gallantry by giving his life to save another, but the letter didn’t mention the man’s name or even whether he had survived. Michael said there was a good chance he had died too and Barry had given his life in vain, but that happens in wartime. Anyway, there was no way of finding out because the shell that killed Barry and his two other mates wasn’t just one stray shell but the start of a barrage that went on for some time. He was unconscious throughout, but he was told about it by others. There were many dead and injured brought in when the barrage was over, yet more casualties of war.’
Angela gave a slight shrug to try and hide the sense of loss she still felt at odd times when she allowed herself to think of what had happened to Barry. She willed her voice not to shake as she said to Stan, ‘That’s all I know of Barry’s death.’
Stan didn’t answer and Angela looked up at his face and saw the tears trickling down his cheeks. She linked her arm through his and felt the raw emotion running through his veins as she urged, ‘Tell me, Stan. Something is tearing you apart. Nothing you can tell me can be this bad.’
Stan gave a groan and brushed the tears away almost impatiently. The words appeared to be forced out of him as he came to a stop, turned to look Angela full in the face and said in a voice husky with emotion, ‘Barry didn’t die in vain, Angela. I was the man he saved.’
Angela was so shocked she staggered. Stan steadied her.
‘You?’ she said.
Stan nodded and said, ‘And I will fully understand if you never want to see me again.’
‘Why ever would I feel that way?’ Angela cried.
‘Look, Angela,’ Stan said. ‘I didn’t get through unscathed and was unconscious a long time – months. I had many operations to put my insides back together again and dig shrapnel out of my body. I was rambling and gibbering senselessly a lot of the time, but once I came round a bit and realised who had died to try and save me, I went right back to the beginning. I couldn’t get over the fact that, because of me, your husband – who I know you loved beyond measure – was dead. It was the very opposite of what I wanted. I’d told him this once upon a time, I told him he had everything to live for, while I had nothing, no wife, no child, no home, no one to mourn me if I didn’t return.’
‘What of us?’ Angela said. ‘I thought you cared about us?’
‘It was because I cared I stayed away,’ Stan said as they began to walk on again. ‘I wasn’t physically ready to leave hospital till the late autumn of 1919 and even then they were concerned by my mental state. I seemed unable to cope with people. Shell shock, they called it.’
‘So you hid yourself away?’
‘That’s about the strength of it,’ Stan said. ‘Like an animal, crawling away to die or lick their wounds after a fight.’
What he didn’t say, but what hit him clearly in the face now that he had seen Angela again, was how much he had been in love with her then and how much he still loved her now. It was another reason why he had stayed away, knowing it was wrong of him to love his best friend’s wife in the way he did. The awful truth that Barry had died saving his own life made his shame a thousand times worse.
‘But there was no need for it,’ Angela said. ‘I could never have resented you and neither could Mary. We both knew who was responsible for Barry’s death and that was the German army, and them alone.’
‘Didn’t you ever wonder who it was he had tried to save?’
‘Initially, but then I thought it wouldn’t make a ha’p’orth of difference if I did know,’ Angela said. ‘I mean, it wouldn’t bring him back, would it? I never dreamt it could be you because you had never met each other in all the years you were both at the Western Front. Barry saw you maybe a couple of times in the distance, like at the Somme. He often asked me if I had heard from you – I suppose to work out if you were alive or dead.’
‘I suppose so,’ Stan said. ‘And you’re right, our units were never near each other, but we had been transferred to give support for the Spring Offensive the Germans were planning. I heard Barry’s name being mentioned because they were considering him for sergeant stripes so I asked where he was. I said he was a young cousin of mine, so they wouldn’t think it odd me asking about him. When I heard they were in the neighbouring trenches to our section and he was due to lead the assault from the front trench the following morning, I decided to go and wish him luck. You know the rest.’
‘Why was no one informed of the extent of your injuries?’
‘As I said, I was unconscious for ages,’ Stan said. ‘No one knew who I was. My dog tag, which would have told them my name, serial number, brigade number and regiment, was God alone knows where, blown to kingdom come no doubt, and many who could have identified me had been killed. When I was alert enough to answer questions I also heard about the bravery of Barry and that he had sacrificed his life in an effort to save mine. That news caused me to sink into a deep depression. I knew then I couldn’t load any more on you and Mary when you were already coping with the loss of Barry. I said there was no one to inform because my sister would hardly be interested, let alone concerned. I said I was alone in the world.’
‘Only because you chose to be.’
‘No, it wasn’t really just through choice,’ Stan said. ‘You see, though my body healed slowly, my mind did not. I did think of my son but I knew he probably didn’t know I existed. My grip on sanity at the time was very tenuous and I was barely recovered from being a crazed lunatic.’
Angela smiled and Stan said, ‘I’m not joking when I say I was out of control a lot of the time in the early days. I wasn’t certain I had fully recovered and neither were the hospital. I couldn’t risk trying to see Daniel because I certainly didn’t want him to see me like that.’
Angela didn’t say anything, but she knew Betty would have made mincemeat of him had he tried to see Daniel.
‘And if I had risked it and he’d rejected me,’ Stan went on, ‘my mind might not have been strong enough to take that. I could have easily slipped back into the half world I’d once inhabited where injections followed by tablets kept me in a sort of stupor so I ceased to care about anything.’
Angela’s heart contracted in sympathy for the way Stan had suffered, and not just physically. How hard it must have been to deal with it all alone. How friendless he must have felt, and yet she remembered Barry saying no one should make friends in wartime. He had lost a lot of comrades at the time and she could definitely see his point. But, she decided, she could at least put Stan right about Daniel.
‘You’re right about Daniel. It is just possible as a child he may have rejected you, because he had no idea of your existence until the solicitor contacted him when he passed twenty-one and hadn’t claimed his inheritance. The letter you wrote pulled the wool from his eyes and, though he confronted his aunt and uncle, they refused to discuss it. Betty said some pretty hurtful things about you being weak and spineless, said her sister was too good for you and claimed you didn’t want the bother of a son and had made no move to see him all the years of him growing up.’
Angela felt Stan start beside her and said, ‘I know that was the very opposite of what happened, but she was hardly likely to tell the truth, was she?’
‘I suppose not,’ Stan agreed. ‘So, has she been telling Daniel things like this all the time they were rearing him?’
Angela shook her head. ‘No need to tell him anything at all. To all intents and purposes they were his parents. He knew nothing of you and didn’t feel the lack of a father for he thought that was Roger. I didn’t see the letter but when Daniel read it he was as disturbed as Mammy was. I prophesied he would be unless Betty had prepared him in some way, or at least told him of the existence of a father years before she was forced to. When Daniel confronted her, she threw those untrue allegations at him, but refused to discuss anything else. She told him if he needed to know more he should come and ask me, so one day he turned up at my door.’
‘What’s he like?’ Stan asked. ‘Over the years I’ve often wondered how he turned out.’
‘He’s very handsome and looks very much like a younger version of you. And he has your kindly nature because he is helping Connie with her Maths homework.’
‘Good at Maths then, is he?’
‘I’ll say,’ Angela said. ‘He got a first at university. See, I want Connie to sit the School Certificate and go on to secondary education. The teacher is giving her extra homework to prepare for it and one night Daniel offered to help her and now he comes every week, has a meal and so on, and gives Connie a hand. And the upshot of all this is that he’s going to train as a teacher in September. It will just take him a year, he says.’
‘So you know my son well then?’
‘Fairly, I’d say,’ Angela said. ‘He is a fine son, one any man would be proud to own.’
‘Well, I can claim no credit for the way he has turned out,’ Stan growled out.
‘I don’t know,’ Angela said. ‘Daniel is a likeable young man and yet he has no friends. He is totally reliant on his parents for company. I sensed a loneliness in him when he first visited. He said we help bring him out of himself.’
‘That doesn’t surprise me in the slightest,’ Stan said. ‘I was more than lonely, I was sort of lost. Everyone had gone, I could scarcely remember my mother, and then my father died and poor Katherine lost her life giving birth to a son who was then spirited away from me. You saved me from turning bitter or depressed. You and Mary had a gift of making people feel part of the family. You both cared about me and that meant a lot.’
‘Thank you, Stan,’ Angela said. ‘That’s a lovely thing to say and that’s why you put flowers on Mary’s grave.’
Stan nodded. ‘I didn’t know straight away, not living close any more.’
‘Who told you?’
‘This old fellow in the pub, though he didn’t tell me as such – he was just talking to his son. Apparently he lives by you normally, but he had been a bit ill. The son took him in to live with them till he was well enough to go home again and one evening when he was a bit better he took him for a pint in his local. I was there having a bite to eat and the man was saying what a shame it was that Mary McClusky had died, who he said was a lovely woman who would do a good turn for anyone and would be sorely missed. I interrupted and asked where she was buried. I wish things had been different and I had seen her before the end. Tending her grave was my way of saying I was sorry and also thanks for the welcome she always had for me.’
‘The welcome’s still there,’ Angela said softly. They drew to a halt as they neared the town and she asked, ‘Where are you living now?’
‘I have lodgings in Aston.’
‘We’ll have to part here then, for I must make for Bristol Street,’ Angela said. ‘So what happens now, Stan?’
‘I don’t know,’ Stan said.
‘Well you can’t just disappear again as if this morning never happened.’
He shrugged. ‘Well I don’t care what you say, it’s hardly likely Daniel will want to see me.’
‘Why not?’ she demanded. ‘Will you stop assuming you know how people feel about things! You were wrong about me and if I’m any judge of character at all, Daniel would love to meet you, especially if you were totally honest with him. He felt cheated as a child not knowing you at all. Handled right, you could have a great relationship with him as an adult. But you can’t just walk into his life without him being prepared in any way.’
‘So what do you suggest?’
Angela thought for a moment and then said, ‘Daniel comes round for a meal every Thursday straight from work and after we’ve eaten, as I said, he helps Connie with her homework. Instead, this week I’ll tell him how I met you here this morning and if you come about half seven he’ll have had time to let the news sink in.’
‘Can’t I see him before Thursday?’
Angela shook her head. ‘I think this is the best idea. Anyway,’ she added, ‘what’s the rush? You have waited years to see your son, so what’s another three or four days?’
‘I don’t know,’ Stan said. ‘It’s different somehow. This time it’s really going to happen. I am going to see the son I gave away as a baby.’
‘Yes,’ Angela said. ‘So it’s got to be done properly.’
‘All right,’ Stan said. ‘You obviously know my son better than I do and so we’ll do this your way.’
He drew Angela into his arms again as he spoke and gave her a brief hug.
‘Till Thursday then,’ he said and Angela gave a wave in acknowledgement before they both went their separate ways.