THE GRANGE
CHACOMBE-AT-BANBURY, OXFORDSHIRE, ENGLAND
JANUARY 1973
They spent over two hours in the library that night, thumbing through books, quoting the masters, sniggering over Lawrence’s drawings. He had a knack for making the men appear perfect, the women contorted and deformed.
Finally, even Pru had had her fill.
“Might be time to call it a day,” she said. “I’m dizzy from all the books. Or the dust.”
Pru looked down at her hands. Her fingertips were shiny, bearing a slight silver sheen from the pages and the type. She wiped them on her trousers.
“What’s this?” Win said. “Even the highly literary Miss Valentine can tire of books?”
“I think my brain’s not used to all the words. Quick. Get me a spaniel to deworm.”
She nudged a first edition of The Jungle Book back into its shelf.
“What do you plan to do now?” Win asked.
“Uh. Go to bed? Like a normal person?”
“I was not aware normal and boring were synonymous,” Win said. “Come on. You can sleep when you’re dead. Let’s head out for a pop.”
“A pop? Of your dreadful family wine? No, thanks, I don’t want to suffer another three-day headache.”
“I don’t think you can blame the wine quality, it was more a matter of quantity,” he said. “But, no, I was thinking we grab a pint at a proper pub. In town.”
“In town?”
“Sure. The Royal Oak. The George and Dragon. Take your pick.”
Pru weighed the possibility. Other than getting flayed by Mrs. Spencer or ending up in Win’s bed a second time, what did she have to lose? Finishing the Wodehouse suddenly didn’t seem so important.
“You know what?” Pru said. “Let’s do it. Why not?”
“Why not. A jolly good question. Okay. Let’s go. No time to waste.”
Before Pru could regain her judgment, Win hastily ushered her from the library and out onto the road. Win hoped they’d keep a tab for him at the G&D because he didn’t want to bother scrounging up a few quid.
“Are we competing in a race or something?” Pru asked as they clipped along. “If so, I think we’re in the lead.”
“Ha! Funny as always! No, I only want to get there before last call.”
It was nine o’clock.
By the time they bumbled into the George & Dragon, Pru’s nose was running from the cold and also their brisk pace. She looked down and realized she had on slippers, lounging clothes, and no coat.
“Uh, Win,” she said. “We should probably turn around. Look at me! I’m not even properly dressed. This is a bad idea…”
“Of course it’s a bad idea, which is exactly why we’re doing it. Regardless.” He gave her a once-over. “You look rather charming. Quite cute.”
Pru blushed, right on time, and he led her to the back of the pub, ordering up two pints on the way.
“This place is very English,” Pru noted as they sat down.
“How curious. It’s not like we’re actually in England or anything.”
“And you were heckling me for my ‘comedy routine’?”
Without her asking for it, Win yanked off his sweater and tossed it her way.
“The old G and D is a seventeenth-century pub,” he said. “It has most of its original beams and fireplaces.”
“Well, I love it,” Pru said, wiggling into his sweater. “Much better than sitting in your room while you mope about in your underclothes.”
“And yet, last time I did that you stayed the night.”
Pru chuckled as the barkeep dropped off two pints. They each took a sip. Between the sweater and the beer, Pru thawed at once.
“So,” Win said and wiped a line of foam from his top lip. “You’ve told me about your parents, offered a touch of Berkeley to boot, now it’s time to fess up about the rest of it.”
“The rest of what?”
“Your life,” he said. “But mainly I was referring to the fiancé.”
“Charlie?” Pru said, her heart beating fast.
She didn’t want to tell Win about Charlie. It felt like two different worlds, compounds that should never mix.
“Charlie.” Win took another gulp of beer. “Sure. Okay. Lay it on me. Tell me about ol’ Chuck.”
“There’s nothing to tell. He’s gone. We weren’t even engaged for that long. That’s all I have to say on the matter.”
“If you planned to marry the bloke, surely you have more to say.”
“Nope,” she said. “That’s pretty much it.”
“Do you want to know what I think?”
“Not particularly.”
“I think he’s the reason behind your unceremonious university departure. You’ve made some vague references to a lack of funds and not knowing what you wanted to be when you grew up. But I think the leaving was about him. This fiancé is the lynchpin.”
“Former fiancé,” she said. “And ‘unceremonious departure’? My departure was supposed to be literally ceremonious. As in a wedding ceremony.”
“Precisely what I’d gathered,” he said. “Tell me more. I’m positively dying to know.”
“Dying?” Pru said. “Is that really the word you want to go with?”
“Yes. Your withholding of information is causing me a terminal level of pain.”
“You’ll regret that word choice, my friend.”
She took several glugs of beer.
“You were all torn up about my parents’ deaths?” Pru said. “Gutted, I believe, was the word. Well, hold on to your knickers because old Charlie has a pretty wretched tale himself. Long story short, the bastard up and died.”
Win’s eyes popped open.
“He died? This is not … are you trying to be funny? Attempting to take the piss out of me? Teach me a lesson?”
“You think I’d lie about someone dying just to mess with you?”
“No. Never. Aw, shit.” Win covered his face. “I’m sorry. No. Sorry is not adequate. Bloody hell.” He looked up. “Bloody fucking depths of hell. I hate myself with some regularity, but never like this.”
“You didn’t know. But I have to tell you. It gets worse.”
“AW CHRIST!”
“Remember that exchange we had approximately forever ago?” she said. “Soldiers blasting away the VC and whatnot?”
“MOTHERFUCKING CHRIST.” Win dug both hands into his hair and scratched his ragged fingertips into his scalp. “Don’t tell me. He was a soldier? Blimey, I should just off myself right now.”
“Win, you didn’t know,” she said again.
“Jesus H. Where is a goddamn revolver when you need one?”
“It’s okay,” Pru said. “I mean you’re okay. The rest, obviously, is not.”
The peculiar thing was that lately it had been starting to feel if not “okay” at least within firing distance of not-completely-unbearable. And Pru felt as awful about this as Win had for bringing it up in the first place.
“What happened?” Win asked. “He was fighting, yes? In the war?”
“Yep. Charlie was fighting the Charlie in Nam,” she said. “And don’t apologize for that smirk you’re trying to hide. It’s funny in its own twisted way. I’m sure there are plenty more Charlies on both sides to go around. The worst part, other than, you know, the death, is that he didn’t have to go. His parents got him an excuse, or bought him one.”
“How do you mean?” he asked.
“Charlie was diagnosed with a very serious football injury despite only ever playing baseball and tennis. A medical miracle.”
“But he went,” Win said, taking her hand in his. “Because he had honor.”
“He had something. I couldn’t have done it. I would’ve milked my phantom running back career for all it was worth.”
“I doubt that.”
“He was killed during the Easter Offensive,” Pru told him. Saying it felt like a release, an exhale after holding her breath. “They found his body, which I don’t think was much of one, outside Kon Tum. His entire company was killed by an RPG, a grenade launched at a closer-than-necessary distance.”
“Jesus. What a mess.”
“Literally,” she said with a weary nod. “It happened almost a year ago and his remains didn’t arrive stateside until late last fall. It took a while to sort out the parts.”
She slipped her hand from Win’s and reached for the beer, though not before gently skimming her fingers over his forearm. Pru meant it as thanks for his tenderness, an assurance that although he’d raised the issue, she didn’t hold it against him.
Though Win understood the origin of the gesture—he wasn’t a total clod—the feel of something else surged through every last miserable corner of his body. And, for the first time, he saw Pru wholly. She was not the blushing, demure girl he believed he knew.
“There you have it,” she said. “The reason I’m here, in a crumbling house, completely without plans. I have no one and nothing to go back to. I’ll return to America eventually, immigration isn’t going to let me stick around here forever, but even in my own country I don’t have a home.”
“Pru, there has to be someone for you,” he said. “How could there not be?”
“I have a few college friends but … hold on. Wait. What did you just say?”
“There has to be someone.”
“No,” she said. “Before that. Did you call me Prudence?”
“What? Oh. No.” He looked momentarily perplexed. “I called you Pru, probably.”
“Pru?”
“Sure. Everybody has a nickname. You know that. Me. Gads. GD. Have you not heard me say this?”
“No. Never.”
“Ah. Well. Must be only in my mind.”
“Pru makes less sense than Gads.”
“It’s short for Prunus laurocerasus, the Latin name for English laurel. I believe you Yanks call it cherry laurel.”
Win had teased her about the name before. On the one hand it was no different from her Berkeley friends Petal and Daisy. It was a plant, after all. On the other, its fruits were toxic, its cherries made humans ill. And Lord was it invasive. It grew all over the bloody place, just like a weed.
But of course Win loved the name because it was hers. He loved the nickname too, even if it was made of wishful thinking. English laurel? No, this Laurel was all American. Alarmingly, upsettingly so.