They had to wait for a while, but eventually a Number 33 tram came into view, heading towards them across the bridge from the other side of the Thames. It turned into the Victoria Embankment and stopped with a piercing squeal of its brakes. They got on and Jago paid the conductor tuppence for two tickets, then led Dorothy up the steep half-spiral staircase.
“This one’s come across from Kennington, where Charlie Chaplin comes from, and it goes up into North London,” said Jago as they got to the top. “Go down the front there.”
He followed her along the narrow gangway in the centre of the upper deck, and they sat on the curved seat at the front, above the driver.
“Do you have these in America?” he said.
“Sure – we call them streetcars. Boston’s full of them, except ours are single-deckers and run on overhead wires. We have the El too – that’s the Boston Elevated Railway, and it runs through the city twenty feet up in the air.”
“Trains in the air? That sounds dangerous.”
“No, it’s not a railroad, it’s streetcars. We don’t have as many as we used to, though. They’re being replaced by buses and trackless trolleys now – what you call trolleybuses, I think.”
“Same here – there’s hardly any trams left in London, and most of those are south of the river. The last ones in West Ham stopped running in June.”
The tram began to move, the whirring hum of its electric motor rising as it picked up speed, and the wheels below them squealed on the rails, steel grating sharply on steel. The river was dark and sluggish on their right as they bumped and swayed along the Victoria Embankment.
“You were talking about evil, and bringing people to justice,” said Jago. “I think the biggest thing for me is that I just can’t bear the thought of them getting away with it. I mean, why should a man who murders a girl live to a comfortable old age with his grandchildren on his knees? It’s not fair. I don’t want that to happen – I want him to face justice. I feel the same way about this war. The Nazis have got away with it in Czechoslovakia, in Poland, in Belgium, France, Norway and more besides, and I don’t want them to get away with it here. I want us to fight them with everything we’ve got. Even if we lose, at least we’ll have tried. I can’t bear the thought of criminals escaping justice.”
“I was brought up to believe that we’ll all be judged when we die.”
“Do you believe that? I’d like to, but I don’t. What if we all just live and die, and then there’s nothing? There has to be justice before death, otherwise they’ve got away with it.”
“I don’t believe there’s just nothing after death. I can’t prove it, but I do believe there will be justice. You believe in truth, don’t you?”
“Well, we can’t always tell what’s true, but if I didn’t believe that truth exists regardless of whether we can discover it I wouldn’t be able to do this job. So yes, I do.”
“I do too, but I believe justice is a consequence of truth, so if there is truth after we die, there will also be justice. I can’t believe Hitler’s going to be sitting there in heaven, patting his favourite dog. So I guess I’m like you – I don’t want anyone who does evil to get away with it. But that means I mustn’t expect to get away with it myself.”
Jago twisted round on the seat and looked ahead.
“I can see Waterloo Bridge,” he said. “We’re almost at your hotel.”
The conductor called out the stop. They descended the narrow staircase and stood on the platform until the tram came to a standstill, then climbed down onto the road.
“Mind the traffic,” said Jago.
They waited until a car passed, its single headlamp shedding a dim light on the roadway, and then crossed to the pavement.
“I’ll walk you to the Savoy,” he said.
Only a few days before, he had avoided this area because he’d been wary of bumping into Dorothy. Now, he realized, he had no desire to avoid her, but he knew there was still something he had to say.
They turned into Savoy Place. They were only yards from the hotel.
“Let’s stop for a moment,” he said.
She stopped, and he turned towards her. Behind her the windows of the hotel were already darkened, but he could half see her face as the first of the moonlight broke through the clouds.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” he said. “If we both believe in truth, I don’t want you to think I’m more than I am.”
“Why would I think that?”
“That night when you introduced me to Sam – it wasn’t the first time I’d seen him. I was at RAF Hornchurch last week, at that dance, and I saw you with him, saw him kiss you. I didn’t know he was your brother. It was stupid and childish of me, but I assumed he was someone that you were – well, to put it simply, you could say I put two and two together and made five.”
“Or maybe even six or seven?”
“Yes, that was very foolish of me. I’ve thought about that a lot since Wednesday, and I can only apologize. I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.”
“I think it must be something to do with what happened all those years ago in France, when I knew Eleanor.”
“You don’t mean it’s my sister’s fault?”
“No, not at all. It’s my fault, but I’m trying to understand. I think it’s because when I developed that affection for her and it came to nothing, I felt I’d failed – with women, I mean. I thought if I played that game I was bound to lose. So I concluded that that part of life was not for me, and I suppose from then on I avoided women – in the sense of relationships, that is. I didn’t want to go down that path again. By the time the war ended, I don’t think there was enough left in me emotionally to take it on. I was exhausted.”
“Did you wish she hadn’t gone away?”
“At the time I did, yes. I felt that she’d let me down.”
“Like I did?”
“If I’m brutally honest, then yes, that’s how I felt in that moment when I saw you. When I saw him kiss you, I felt as though you’d betrayed me in some way. I know that’s stupid – I have no claims on you – but I was surprised by how painful it felt.”
Dorothy put her hands on his upper arms and looked him in the eye.
“I guess what you saw that night at the dance touched a nerve that you weren’t expecting to be touched – that you maybe thought wasn’t even there any more,” she said. “That’s natural. It’s just one of those things. You can put it behind you now.”
“Thank you,” said Jago. “It was only when we were sitting on that tram just now that I realized what was happening. It’s as though I’ve been running on tramlines. But a tram can only take you to one place. If you want to get to somewhere interesting down a side road you have to get off and make your own way. And when I saw you with a handsome young man in an RAF pilot’s uniform I could think only one thing. I’m ashamed to say that’s one of the oldest tramlines in the world.”
“I understand,” said Dorothy. “Thank you for being honest with me.”
He felt her grip on his arms release, and then she took both of his hands in hers. He flinched at the unfamiliar touch, but then relaxed. He held her gaze.
“The answer’s simple, then, isn’t it?” he said. “I think it’s time I changed – it’s time I got out of the tramlines.”
“I like the sound of that,” said Dorothy. “It could be a much more interesting journey, don’t you think?”
Jago nodded. A cloud drifted in front of the moon, but in the momentary fading of its light he thought he saw her smile.