The boys would be here soon. Jean stood at the window, looking down and onto Berkeley Square below her. The mess of Number 30 was no longer as shocking as it had been when she first saw it; the whole house, save for the lift’s shaft, reduced to a pile of rubble. There hadn’t been serious bombing in the city for a while now. London had taken a pummelling in January, a reaction to the Allied assault on Berlin, but since then the ack-ack boys had been doing their job and there was almost a nonchalance to life. Couples would dawdle as they left the theatre or groups of friends spill out onto the streets from the cinemas – The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, with Deborah Kerr in all her technicolour glory, was the film of the moment – and they would stop for a moment before walking home or making their way to the Underground, looking up at a sky that was clear but for the silhouette of barrage balloons, great silvered moons that gave such comfort to those beneath, savouring the simple pleasure of the light of a summer’s evening and the heavens at peace above.
A taxi door opened outside, there was the sound of low voices, and she was at the window and Alfie was there in his khaki uniform, maroon beret already off his head and in his hand, craning his neck to see if he could make her out at the window. She waved, her heart lifting as it always did at the sight of him. Though several buildings nearby had been turned over for offices for American war departments, her building was often empty, much to the annoyance of those who knew what a housing crisis the bombing of London had caused. Her neighbours above and below preferred to keep heads down in the country, unless a shopping trip to London called, but there was still a doorman, too old to be called up, who would greet Alfie cheerfully and send him upstairs.
‘Darling.’
She kissed him, held his hand briefly in hers. He looked thinner, slight shadows under his eyes. It was nearly six, so she let him open a bottle of gin and fix them a drink. She watched him as he stood over the tray in the corner of the room, always the man now, adding the bitters for his mother, knowing how she liked it. He brought hers over first, and as she looked across at him she could sense his distraction. He sat in the armchair opposite, tapping his foot, turning the tumbler in his hand.
‘I’ve missed you so much. The weather’s been so lovely in London this last week, and I’ve wondered what you’ve been up to as I’ve sat here in the evenings.’
He barely acknowledged her comment. ‘I don’t want to be serious. Tonight’s our last evening, I know. But I need to get this out of the way before George gets here.’
She knew she had seen something. The shadows were not just from the training and troubled sleep before heading off to fight. She listened, leaning against the window, the pane still warm from the afternoon’s sun.
‘I just feel, without Papa, that my going away, whatever might happen – I don’t want to leave you in the lurch. There’s a lot to do and Harehope has become something of a burden. I can see that, even though you do your best to pretend it’s not.’
She was distracted by the poignancy of his appearance; his uniform, so crisp and clean, the buttons gleaming, his shoes polished – had he done that this morning? – even his hair, combed neatly to the left and trimmed short at the back, a strip of pale skin newly exposed.
‘Darling, you’re so kind and sweet to fret, but I’ll be all right. You’ll see when you come back. It’s not going to be easy, and we’ll have to take a pull, but it’s what the whole country’s having to do, don’t forget.’
‘I know, I know. I just hate the idea that it’s all on you when it’s my responsibility now. It all happened so much more quickly—’ He stopped himself, looking down at his nails, bitten right down, the skin red at the edges.
She took a sip of her drink and turned her head to look out again onto the square. There was a couple walking across it, the man in the dark blue of the RAF, the girl in tidy blouse and skirt, their heads almost touching as they shared a sandwich, he passing the neat square to her, waiting for her to take a bite and pass it back. Jean turned back to Alfie.
‘You’re not rid of George and me yet. I’ll keep it all straight while you’re away.’ She didn’t want them to get into all of this tonight, not their last night together for who knew how long.
‘I know. I don’t want to be a bore, but I want to go away with things in order. And I had a letter last week that came to me at camp. It had gone to Harehope and then been sent on, so it was dated nearly a month ago.’
Alfie stood up and pulled an envelope from his top pocket. He handed it to Jean, watching her closely as she pulled out two pieces of paper, one typed and the other looking like some sort of statement of account. The letterhead was the Buckmans’ trust lawyers in New York, the author a man she had never heard of. She scanned the letter, her heart in her mouth, not knowing what information it might contain. The text was curt and to the point, essentially a settling of accounts and the termination of a trust to which Alfie was a minor beneficiary. The amount it alluded to was one hundred and fifty pounds, and it was being wired to their bank in London.
‘I don’t understand what this is – Grandma Buckman died nearly four months ago, and this is all that’s come? I hate to sound mercenary, but Papa used to talk about your trust, this vast amount that was all that came between Harehope and the debtors back in the day. He once showed me some gossip piece in the Express from when you got engaged, all about Grandma’s money, that her father was the richest man in California. And the trustees mentioned in that first meeting, do you remember… And it might help, mightn’t it? With all of this headache? So I wasn’t sure what this cheque was.’
She handed the paper back to him, looking at that solemn face, at her boy trying to be a man; no example to follow, no pattern to take up. ‘I’m afraid Grandma had a change of tack a while before she died and altered her will. Felt, for right or wrong, that we had our own life in England that your father ought to look after, and that things in America should be kept separate to that. My brother had the newspaper to consider, and I think things haven’t been so easy there – and Mother’s money will have been a huge help to him. We’ll get some money through from the London house sale soon—’
‘But one hundred and fifty pounds – Mama, I saw the last set of household accounts for Harehope. It runs at almost ten times that a year. And with the death duties, how will there be enough?’ He looked down at his drink again. ‘You see, there’s a hill farm and a big parcel of land up at Holyburn that was always earmarked for George. That would have been Papa’s if Charles hadn’t been killed. I thought that with some of the American money we could take back the house, set him up there when he’s a bit older. I think he’s going to find it all so hard, and I want to look out for him, without making him feel like he’s some sort of broken thing that needs fixing. I just want to get things straight.’
‘You’re so responsible—’
‘It’s not responsibility, it’s the reality of it. That it’s all mine and I don’t always feel, maybe like you’ – he looked up warily – ‘that it’s mine at all, or that…or that I even want it sometimes. I saw a painting George did at Christmas, a little oil of a ruined fell cottage, on some part of the estate that I don’t know and that Papa probably never even went to. Don’t you see the way he finds some corner of the house, and he’ll sit, with one of the dogs at his feet, now Papa’s gone, and he can just be.’
‘But this is how it is in England, how it is in a family like ours. How it’s always been.’
‘But it feels odd sometimes. I understand it in the general sense, of course I do. It’s the only way for this whole thing to carry on. How it came to Papa. But when the world is upside down with war, when Harehope’s filled with soldiers and when it’s my brother who will need more help than others, it just feels…’ He floundered for the words. ‘Feels at odds sometimes. Doesn’t sit that well with me. I know that probably makes me strange.’ His shoulders were low, and Jean went and sat on the chair’s arm, put her hand on his shoulder.
‘You can’t make it all fair, Alfie. You can’t. It’s out of your hands. And I’ll look after George. That’s my job. I’m his mother. You’ve got your own life to think about.’
She felt the truth then, tapping at the window, wanting to come in. Could she tell him? Would she? The glimpse of another room like this, where another conversation took place, when the truth was broken out, where he knew. But she couldn’t. What would it do to the three of them? So she pushed it down, gave him a kiss, promised to herself that somehow she would make it right; she would look after George, however she could, till the day she died.
There was a gentle knock and George was standing in the open door, a small holdall in his hand. He was smiling, his face a little flushed. He gave his mother a quick kiss on the cheek, looked to his brother, sensed the tension in the room.
‘You both look so serious. All right? Nerves?’ He went and stood next to his brother. ‘It must be hard to prepare. I don’t know how you do it.’
‘No, no, I just wanted to make sure everything was straight before I went away. I got a letter from Grandma’s lawyers in America that I was confused by. I don’t want to leave Mama in the lurch.’
‘I’ll still be here, you know. I know I’m still at school, but I shan’t think the army will be knocking down the doors to have me with this come the summer.’ He gestured to his arm with a weak smile. ‘I’ve already spoken to the recruitment officer that came to school and it was all he could do not to laugh when I mentioned wanting to do my bit.’
Jean went over to him and linked her arm through his. ‘I need you, George, and Harehope does too. The house is a mess, and it seems each day that the soldiers are doing their level best to tear the whole place down. They don’t take too kindly to my requests for them to treat it a little more gently. And it would be so helpful to have someone to discuss everything with. Keeping it all straight is tough, as Alfie says, and I feel it really is a job for two. Would you do that for me, Georgie, darling? I know it doesn’t sound terribly glamorous, but Alfie is right.’
His face was serious as he nodded. ‘I’ll do it. Of course.’
They both turned to Alfie, who had put the letter back in his pocket, and he gave a quick smile when he saw their eyes on him.
She needed tonight to be about the three of them and so they sat while she cooked, inexpertly, a whole chicken she had paid a fortune for on the black market – a challenge Stokes had taken up with relish, knowing whose stomachs the haggled-over bird would ultimately end up in – and some almost-on-the turn potatoes from Harehope, whose floury insides they chose to ignore, but the prize, too, which she’d held as carefully in her lap as if they were Venetian glass for the five hours on the train, of tiny tomatoes, pulled from the vine that morning, skins soft but the pulpy sweetness within sublime. The three talked in the fading light at a small table, an old dressing table from a spare room at Park Lane, now laid with more thought and care than the finest spot at the Savoy, and they drank a little more, and George made them laugh and laugh about his journey down to London opposite a group of elderly matrons, red-faced and stout-kneed, sweating in their tweed suits, clutching the clothing coupons they were desperate to spend. She watched them both, so sweet and easy in each other’s company, so pleased to be together after the last months apart. In some ways they were better when they were alone. With other people around, who they were seemed to impinge and things that were expected of them were duly performed. George would recede, allowing Alfie, whether he wanted to or not, to come to the fore. Alone, though, they were just the pair of brothers they had always been, scrapping, laughing, teasing.
When it got dark – it must have been nearly ten, as they were on double summertime now – they had helped her hoist up the blackout blinds and draw the curtains closed, and she kissed them both and left them to carry on talking, urging them not to stay up too late. She went into her room and changed into her nightdress, pulling back the covers as the night was warm but making sure to leave the door ajar before she got into bed, so she could fall asleep hearing their voices, the sweetest sound she knew.