SEPPE SHIFTED THE WICKER basket to the crook of his arm and pushed down on the door handle, warmed by this low sun. Joyce had said he should go right on in when he’d knocked next door to enlist her help.
As he placed the basket in a shaft of sunlight on Amos’s table, there was a clatter of footsteps down the stairs and Connie appeared in the kitchen doorway, Joe pinned up against her shoulder.
‘Oh, it’s you! I thought I heard the door go.’
He turned down the corners of his mouth and faked sorrow. ‘Were you expecting someone else?’
Connie bounced forward and reached up to kiss him. His cheek tingled.
‘You know what I mean. Joyce usually stops by at this time of day.’
‘Today, instead of Joyce you have me – and this.’ He brandished the basket. Connie peered at the cloth covering its contents, then back at him.
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s a picnic. Joe is nearly four months old now and it’s time we took him on a Sunday trip. It is time. And this sunshine makes it perfect for a picnic, no more rain for now.’ It was weather to make your heart swell, low November light glistening off the muted rainbow of browns and yellows, bringing hope even as the days grew shorter and the nights darker.
‘Seppe! You’ve made my day!’ She leaned forward and kissed him again, smack on the lips. At times like this Connie was a child again and his heart melted.
She handed him the baby and clapped her hands. ‘I’ll get our things.’
They stood at the back door and the woods beckoned them in.
‘Where shall we go?’
Connie shrugged, arms out wide. ‘I don’t mind at all. It’s just good to be out and doing this. Let’s just find somewhere nearby, shall we?’
Seppe looked down at Connie as they walked along. She was wearing her lumberjill dungarees – he wasn’t sure he’d recognise her out of them – and matching him stride for stride, her ponytail bouncing along. On impulse he reached out and tweaked it and Connie poked him in the side.
‘Oi! What are you up to?’
‘I couldn’t resist.’ It was true in so many ways. He couldn’t resist her, found every chance he could to spend with her. It was unimaginable, really, that life had turned into this. All around them was peace, auburn light casting soft optimism. Something rustled in the leaves – one of Amos’s sheep, maybe, or just a gust of wind – and then was gone. Seppe’s heart was full of all the sights and sounds, the sheer audacity of something as straightforward as a woodland walk. They could be any other family out for a picnic, no need to consider his threadbare uniform proclaiming him the enemy, no need to think that Joe was so fair he barely credibly belonged to either of them. Seppe hoisted Joe up in his arms, the fabric of his little overalls scratchy against Seppe’s cheek. For as long as today lasted, he could live in this fantasy of a real life that felt like this. It couldn’t endure, but this wasn’t a day for dwelling on the reasons why not. Today was for enjoying.
He took Connie’s hand. She looked up at him, but said nothing. He smiled.
It didn’t take long to find a spot, a clearing of springy grass beside a stand of saplings. Seppe laid out the rug and placed Joe in the middle. He rolled to one side, contented, and started to pull at a loose tuft. Seppe opened up the wicker basket and handed Connie parcel after parcel to lay on the rug.
‘Blimey, Joyce doesn’t do things by halves, does she?’
‘She is still feeding you as if Joe is yet to be born.’ Seppe reached the bottom and lifted out a glass bottle with still-warm tea sloshing inside it. ‘And as if it is winter, thank goodness.’
They sat in companionable silence and ate, hardboiled eggs leaving saffron smears around their lips and chins, juice from the meat pie glazing them.
‘Food has never tasted as good, has it?’ Connie stretched and looked regretfully at the empty cloth. ‘Must be something to do with eating outside.’ She laughed. ‘You’d never try that where I grew up – for starters, there was never anything around half the time with all the rationing, and if the grub was half decent it’d be nicked off you before you’d got any of it into your gob.’
‘It’s delicious, especially after camp food.’ Seppe found a patch of yielding moss and set to work pushing it aside, idling into the sand beneath it with a stick. There might be a loose piece of oak here, useful for a trinket. Connie sat up on the rug, angling herself into the sun’s rays and began to make a daisy chain with the last remaining flowers of the autumn.
‘I’ve missed this, you know.’ She concentrated on the daisies. Her smile was as broad as that river you saw from the top of the hill, her crown of daisies a halo in the sluiced light. She was as happy as Seppe had ever seen her and it was contagious. He got up on both knees and bowed to her, kissing her hand. ‘Beautiful, principessa.’
She pulled him back down towards her, one hand under his chin, and brought her lips to his so softly he wondered if he’d imagined it. ‘Thank you.’ She snuggled in beside him and together they watched Joe, still doing valiant battle with the tufts on the rug. He seemed to be convinced that he could pull them off if he just tried hard enough.
Connie giggled. ‘D’you reckon he’s going to win?’
‘Oh, I think so. They are quite stubborn but he is stubborner still. He gets it from his mother.’
Seppe pulled her closer, touched his fingertips very gently to her cheek. It was as soft as the figs that grew in his mother’s garden in Livorno. His thoughts were a jungle, tendrils reaching out. Sometimes he allowed himself to think about this being his life – their life – always, after the war ended – if the war ever ended. Often he couldn’t bear to think about something so tentative and unlikely; it was the height of audacity for him, a foreign prisoner, to be even privately imagining a life as a free citizen with a British family. For now, for today, this was enough. This was more than enough.