by Rafe Posey
Nothing feels quite right this morning, least of all the weather. She’s been back from Ceylon for months now, and she has still not gotten used to the cold. No wonder Alec used to complain so, when he first came to Fenbourne. The cold feels deeper today, damper. Although she tends to wake fast and clear, she feels a little foggy and on edge. The chill doesn’t help, despite the fire she built in the drawing room when she first got up.
She’s relieved when Alec and Ursa clatter down the stairs. For the most part he seems more comfortable than he had upon his return from Odessa, and she knows Ursa has a lot to do with that.
“I’d come with you, if I weren’t so cold,” she says, watching him drape himself in coat and muffler.
He pauses, one boot on and one off. “Later, then,” he says, smiling. He leans down and rumples Ursa’s ears, then turns back to June. “Back in a tick.”
She nods and goes to the stove so there will be coffee ready for him when he returns. She measures carefully, feeling as always mildly guilty for having it at all. So many things are still scarce in the Fenlands, even with the war behind them. She would have thought life would be getting back to normal, but Labour seem to think they all need to be kept in hand somehow. Maddening, really. Can they keep people living out of ration books indefinitely? She and Alec have a better situation than most, with two ration books and her connections in the Foreign Office. It’s not black market, at least, although she will grant it’s not quite cricket, either.
It helps also that now and again Mrs. Hubbox and George bring over jars of preserves or a pie or a bit of potted hare. Having some meat in a pie is more than welcome, something that’s not eel, a bit of gravy that tastes like something other than turnips. June is confident about the cottage’s garden and what she can grow there when spring comes—greens, potatoes, beets, whatever George can help her plant.
While Alec and Ursa are out, June turns her attention to solving some of the cold. She goes upstairs and puts on a warmer jumper, then adds more wood to the fire, the crackle of kindling soothing while she waits for their return.
When the kitchen door creaks open, June goes to greet them. “Did you go far?”
“Far enough that this happened.” He gestures at wet, mud-layered Ursa, smiling, and puts his palms against the puppy’s face, murmuring to her. “Dreadful muddy creature.”
Ursa wags her tail so hard she nearly falls. Alec has trained her to wait in the kitchen until he can get a cloth for her paws, so she stands quivering on the mat just inside the door while Alec steps out of his Wellies and into the pair of hard-soled slippers he’s left by the stove.
“Ursa,” Alec says, his voice going higher as he turns back to the dog, “you’re doing a good job waiting. Such a good job. Now let’s have those feet, please.”
He stations Ursa on her towel, clumsily wiping off her paws and brushing the mud out of her feathery tail. He’s become more adept at wrangling her, but today the task is made much more difficult by the fact that she won’t stop wagging. June smiles as Alec tries to corral the puppy’s tail again.
“If you don’t hold it still, I can’t possibly make it clean,” he says, his voice playful. Ursa licks his nose. “I can’t. Not possibly.” To June he says, “God help us if it gets much wetter out there.”
She laughs. “I should think we’ll have another freeze. That should help. Or snow. I imagine she’d like that.”
Ursa drums her forepaws excitedly on his leg, and he laughs and takes one of her ears in his left hand, tugging it gently. “Oh, don’t look at me like that, you silly baby.” She follows him, barking, as he scoops a cup of her food into her bowl. June’s heart swells, watching him wait patiently for Ursa to sit quietly before he sets down the bowl before her.
June shakes her head. “She’s so good. You’ve done wonders with her already.”
Alec grins. “She’s a dream to teach.” To Ursa he says, “Much smarter than I am, aren’t you?” Ursa wriggles.
June laughs. She loves this new tone in his voice when he talks to the puppy. It’s always unexpected, though it reminds her of the animated way he used to tell her stories when they were younger. Again she has that pang of wanting to be closer, and not knowing how to make it happen.
“It’s warmer in the drawing room,” June says. “Would you rather have your coffee there, by the fire?”
“Warmer sounds ideal,” Alec says, and leaves the kitchen, Ursa at his heel.
She pours a mug of coffee for him, picks up her Biro and the unfinished puzzle, and follows them into the drawing room. There, Alec has settled himself on the sofa, close to the fire with the newspaper, Ursa sprawled on her cushion nearby. June sets Alec’s mug on the coffee table and pauses, eyeing the wing chair on the other side of the fireplace, her usual spot these days. This routine they’ve settled into, while companionable enough, is not what she wanted—is not, as far as she knows, what either of them wanted. Alec has been home nearly a fortnight, and dithering will not solve a thing. She turns her back on the wing chair and takes a seat on the sofa instead. Alec looks up and smiles at her before going back to his paper, and June lets the smile settle over her as she resumes the crossword.
“Christ.” Alec fumbles with the newspaper. “The parliamentary delegation is leaving India.”
“Yes,” June says. “But it was only meant to be a short visit. Matter of weeks, really, to see how best to move forward.”
He frowns at the article. “Yes . . . But end the Raj?”
“Well,” June says, “I would imagine that the cost of the war has something to do with it. We haven’t the coffers to finance an empire any longer, nor the manpower.”
“This Richardson fellow says, ‘India has attained political manhood,’ among other things. What a phrase.”
“It’s inevitable,” June says. “Even Ireland has self-rule now. And India won’t have dominion as Australia and Canada have. They want true independence.”
“But India is not Ireland or Australia,” Alec says. “It’s quite different. You don’t understand. Half the civil service is Indian. We’ve trained them and shown them how to rule.”
June shrugs. “Yes, and now they have that. There’s nothing more we can do there. Even if Britain had the resources.”
“Look here,” he says, “my family have been there for generations. My mother loved India more than you can imagine. Father used to hunt with princes in Kashmir.”
“I understand all that,” June says, picking her words carefully. “But every time they vote they elect people who want us to leave. It would have happened after the Great War, but for a few holdouts in their Congress. Independence will have its cost, but I can’t help but think staying would be far worse.”
“Most of them love us,” he says impatiently. “You don’t know what it’s like over there.”
June bites her tongue, wanting to avoid both an argument and anything that strays too close to her secrets. In Ceylon there had been a mutiny, native troops wanting to turn over the Cocos Islands to the Japanese when it looked as though they might win the war. The mutiny had ended with executions and protests, and the next year there had been a general strike. She wants to tell Alec that not all the King’s subjects love him, but that path seems perilous in every way. Instead she says, “Be that as it may, at this point, we can leave gracefully or we can be thrown out, yes?”
Alec frowns. “It’s just . . . Everything changes too bloody fast. There was a Hindu chap in my squadron, one of the best pilots I ever met, and he kept telling us the end of the Raj was bound to happen sooner or later, but hearing that is quite different from seeing it unfold right before us.”
June pauses, caught up in the echo of his assumptions. She had quite forgotten how maddening he could be when he’d made up his mind about something. Perhaps she should ask about the squadron, divert him somehow. But it had gone badly when she’d asked him about the ch
aplain in the camps, and she still feels the same sick regret about the look on his face as he struggled with how to answer.
Agitated, Alec reaches for his coffee, letting the newspaper fall to the sofa between them.
“No, you’re right, those are rather different,” June says at last, hoping to make peace, but as she’s working through the rest of her response, a log pops loudly in the fireplace.
Alec spins away from the sound, and his mug flies out of his hand, shattering against the edge of the table with a crash. He curls into himself, pushing back into the corner of the sofa as he claps his hands over his ears with a low whimper. Ursa rushes to him, nuzzling his knees and whining.
“Alec?” June moves closer and puts a hand to his forearm. There are often gunshots in the fens as people chase off vermin or shoot birds to fill the pot in their winter-sparse kitchens, and while she’s seen him startle and flinch a few times when he’s heard them, this is quite different.
“I’m here,” June says softly. “We’re all right.”
Alec turns and looks at her, his eyes pained. “I’ve splashed you,” he says, his voice low and shaky.
June puts a hand to her face. Now that she’s noticed it, there’s the sting of the hot coffee on her skin. She wipes it off impatiently and moves her hand to his shoulder. “How can I help you, Alec?”
He gets clumsily to his feet, his face changing. June can’t tell if it’s embarrassment or resentment or something in between.
“Excuse me,” he says, barely audible, and then he walks away, moving as though his legs have gone weak beneath him. Ursa follows so close he nearly steps on her, and together they go upstairs.
June goes to the bottom of the stairs, then stops. When she was very young there were men in Fenbourne who had come home from the Great War with shell shock, and sometimes Alec reminds her a bit of them. Her parents had sat with those men and tried to help them, and she wishes there were a way to ask them what to do for Alec.
When he goes out later with Ursa, she offers to join him. He stands for a moment in the kitchen, pulling his coat close around him. “It’s awfully cold,” he says at last. “You stay warm. We’ll be back in a while.” And then he and Ursa are gone.
It stings, a bit, but she shrugs it off. If he needs some time, so be it. She sinks into the sofa. The fire leaps up, poplar bark peeling with a hiss from the kindling while an oak log settles in the grate. June arranges herself so that the heat brushes over her shoulders, and settles in to read Brideshead Revisited, which Wendy, in her letters from America, has insisted she will love. So far it reflects an Oxford quite different from the place she remembers, but perhaps that is part of its charm.
But it’s difficult to focus on the book when she’s worried about Alec, especially as the afternoon keeps passing without their return. By the time they’ve been gone nearly two hours, it’s falling dark outside. June stands and goes to turn on lights, her emotions flickering from concern to anger and back again. They’ve gone for long walks before, but this time, after the episode with the fireplace, it feels more concerning.
As she’s putting up the kettle for a cup of tea, the kitchen door thumps open and Alec comes in, not quite steady on his feet. With him is George, carrying a heavy ceramic casserole. Ursa and a lean gray dog of uncertain provenance follow them.
“Look who I’ve found outside,” Alec says too loudly. June steps back.
“Evening, Miss,” George says.
“Good evening, George,” June replies.
Ursa pauses on her mat and waits, but the other dog comes straight in, tracking wet paw prints across the floor.
“Your new friend is not very mannerly,” Alec says to Ursa in an exaggerated whisper. She thumps her tail against the door.
George laughs and whistles his dog back to his side. “Sorry about Skip. He’s more an outdoors type.”
“Happens,” Alec says, grinning.
“Herself sent me along with this,” George says to June, holding out the casserole.
“Oh, lovely,” June says. She sets the dish on the table and lifts the lid—a dark, heavy stew, redolent even cold of thyme and the gamey scent of hare. Perfect for the weather. And, she thinks, eyeing Alec, perfect for after a drink.
“He waylaid me on my path home,” Alec says, shrugging dramatically.
George gives her a cheeky grin. “I’d best get back, Miss.”
“Thank you,” June says. “And please tell Mrs. Hubbox how grateful I am.”
“Righto,” George says. He whistles again, and Skip follows him out the door and into the evening.
When he’s gone, June takes a moment to gather herself, setting some of the stew to warm on the stove. Alec drops into a chair at the kitchen table. June glances at him over her shoulder. Perhaps an argument would break them from their routine, but when she thinks of his face that morning, the fearful quiver of his hands against the sides of his head, pushing him is beyond her. Instead she asks him if he’s hungry and lets herself replace the frustration with gratitude when he quietly nods. Further upset won’t do Alec any good, but a cup of tea and a bowl of stew might.
* * *
• • •
That night June hears him pacing his room until the pacing is interrupted by the now-familiar sound of the tub being filled. Does he feel as alone as she does? Perhaps if she slept close against him it would heal him somehow. But what if it made everything worse? Instead she waits—for what, she’s not sure—and listens to the wind screaming outside as if it’s following the dikes out toward the Wash and the North Sea.
At least his nights seem somewhat better since Ursa’s arrival, although “better” is a relative term. Even with the dog sleeping in a basket, soon to be outgrown, by the side of his bed, it seems as though he still struggles to fall asleep at all. But it had been worse, those first few nights after he’d come home . . . more frightening. God. His bed is just on the other side of the wall from her own, and often she had woken in the night to hear him crying out unintelligibly. God knows there are memories lodged in her that come back in the middle of the night, playing out again and again without respite—lepers begging on the streets in Colombo and Madras, the sailor bleeding out after the Zero attack, a POW who’d come through Anderson with a gangrenous foot that one of their medics had had to remove, and once the fearful screaming through her headset of a German radio operator trying to call for help as his ship burned.
But whatever Alec finds in his dreams is undoubtedly worse; she hesitates even to speculate on what it might be, after years of active duty and so much time in the camps. What he must have seen and gone through. Perhaps if he would talk about it, if she could find the means to draw him out. Although if she’s honest with herself, she must admit that the guilt she feels over the secrets she carries is easier if Alec holds his own so close.
* * *
• • •
Fenhall, the Keswick country estate, is elegant and dignified, but every time June goes to one of Melody’s meetings she finds herself longing for the chaotic visage of Bletchley Park. Sometimes she wonders whether what she’s really missing is the war, but that concern is not sustainable. She can’t afford to miss that life. Better to pretend it never happened, to admire the Regency-era bricks and planters and formal gardens of Fenhall, and let the past go. It helps that she can see the immediate benefit of the work she does with Melody—they are reuniting families, or trying to, and looking for homes for the Continent’s innumerable displaced persons and refugees. It’s disquietingly necessary work. And June is pleased to be of service again, even on the days when her efforts feel pointless, as if they will never succeed in helping enough people.
But today’s meeting has been more good news than bad: one of the Polish families Melody is sponsoring has found permanent housing and decent prospects in Norwich’s small Jewish community. When June drives back to the cottage late that afte
rnoon, she smiles to herself, pleased by their small success. Anything she can do to lessen the Reich’s unfathomable stain feels like a triumph.
Alec is in the drawing room when she gets back, Ursa at his feet while he brushes her, a Debussy suite playing low on the wireless. The fire is just embers in the grate despite the chill. He’s been edgy around the fire since the episode that Sunday, and June is not sure how exactly to work through that. At least it’s not as cold as it has been, and the lack of a fire seems more manageable than it might have on another day.
He looks up when she comes in. “You look cheerful—must have been a good meeting.” He smiles. “I daresay Melody couldn’t do a thing without you.”
“I’m sure she’d do fine,” June says. They’ve talked about her work with Melody before, but he hasn’t made such a point of complimenting her. Perhaps he’s trying to make up for Sunday, although by the end of the evening she had felt as though they were all right again, albeit still stuck in their mutual limbo.
He gives Ursa a final sweep with the brush and releases her. The puppy pads genially over to her cushion, where she settles with a contented grunt.
On the wireless, the announcer introduces the next piece, a selection from Wagner’s Rienzi.
“Christ,” he says through clenched teeth.
She turns in confusion. “Alec?”
“Could you turn that off?” He gestures at the wireless, and as quickly as she can June moves from the sofa to turn it off before returning close by Alec’s side.
“I’m sorry,” he says at last, his voice low and raspy. “The Germans . . . Now and again they’d play something for the whole camp to listen to—supposed to inspire us, or something.” He gestures with his chin at the wireless. “A lot of Wagner.”
June puts her arms around him and girds herself for the inevitable distancing, but it doesn’t come; instead he stays where he is, his breath gradually evening out. If only he would put his arms around her, and they could hold each other . . . But his hands stay tucked in his lap. As softly as she can, she breathes in the clean smell of him at the back of his neck, and then, before she quite knows that she means to do it, she kisses his nape. Alec’s breath hitches, but he doesn’t move away.
