26

We are about to leave. At any second the stationmaster’s going to lower his flag, blow on his whistle. He makes me think of that little guy in the church: Jack o’ the Clock, preparing to strike the bell at the start of the new hour. But possibly I’d have thought of this, anyway: Rosalind’s just given me her snapshot, the one taken outside St Edmund’s only minutes before we met.

I’ve reminded her, too (no, not reminded; she didn’t even know) about the photo Trixie took of me last Wednesday afternoon, also in Southwold, when we’d all stepped out of the Sugar Loaf Tearooms and taken hardly a couple of paces before my future wife decided to nip back in, to use their comfort station.

Oh, Lord. The shape of things to come!

“And believe this, darling. Believe this if you never believe anything again. This time I’ll send for you.”

“This time?”

Yes, why did I say that? Unaccountably, I shudder. Someone must have walked across my grave.

“I guess I was woolgathering—thinking how crazy I’d go if anything bad ever happened to you. Oh, sweetie, please don’t cry! I absolutely promise: nothing bad ever will happen to you. I just won’t let it. I think I’d die for you first.”

“Well, if that’s supposed to stop me crying, it isn’t wonderful psychology.”

“All right, I know I’d die for you first.”

“Idiot. Say something heartening, like…‘See you in three months.’”

“No, that’s too long. See you in one-and-a-half. Two at the most. I’ll either send for you, come for you, or arrange with Harry S. Truman…” But then we kiss; we cling. The train is beginning to pull out.

“Please look after yourself,” she calls. “I love you so much! Without you in this world, I couldn’t survive!”

“Same for me,” I say. “I love you, too. Enormously.”

“What?”

“Always,” I shout back. I tap my ring finger. “Always! Always!” And I can see she understands.

Again she calls out after me.

“Always!”