by Rafe Posey
He nods pensively. “What are you meant to do, though?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “At any rate, I need to have one last check-in with the nurse, and then I can go.” She hesitates. “It will be awfully good to be home again, Alec.”
“Yes,” he says, but he’s looking just past her, not meeting her eyes, and June isn’t sure at all that he means it the same way she does. But she can’t think of all the permutations and possibilities, not now. She’s overtired, and the air between her and Alec feels as brittle as the ice on a newly frozen pond; she doesn’t want to push too hard, or go out too far, and fall through.
* * *
• • •
But it is apparent from her first moments back on Shakespeare Close that things are at least as fraught as she’d feared. There’s the querying look Mrs. Nesbit gives her, concern mixed with something else June can’t quite identify. Not pity, exactly, but something closer to that than she would like. And there’s Penny, who oscillates between an unfamiliar clinginess and keeping June at arm’s length. June knows Alec hasn’t said anything to Penny that would alarm her, but here they are in the drawing room, Penny trying to make Lucky do tricks for June, Alec seated in the armchair on the other side of the fireplace with studied nonchalance.
Even when Penny is done putting Lucky through his dubious welcome-home paces, and June goes upstairs to bathe and change her clothes, everything still feels just a degree or two off. It’s less the barometric drop of a coming storm and more the first ripple of silence in a forest when the birds sense an intruder. As she stands in her dressing gown, running the hot water into the tub, June finds herself thinking about the way Alec’s eyes had looked at the hospital, the way he had pulled away.
June settles into the tub, but she can’t wash away the dark stain his odd, confusing blend of civility and distance has left. And it doesn’t help that she knows his behavior is a result of her choices. For a moment she wishes she could go back in time to solve all this, but where would she go? Or when? She can’t imagine going to that meeting in the drawing room with Sir Reginald all those years ago and deliberately walking away from his offer, even knowing what it would entail. And going further, as distant in her past as university, that first meeting with Floss at the special maths lecture . . . Indeed, the best thing, for Alec at least, would be to go back all the way to India, before the cholera that destroyed Alec’s family. Save his parents, save his home. Let him have the life he had been intended for, all polo and cricket and summers in the Himalayan hill stations. Let him follow his father into the army and never fly a plane, never crush his hands. Never know her. He could have had his glory, and she hers, without this great sundering.
But the image will not hold—it’s not merely that it’s impossible, a foolish daydream. It’s the idea of choosing a life in which she would never have been loved by the sharp, fierce arrow of his heart. She cannot change what she’s done to him, and she cannot fix it. But she can see far enough into the future to know that the damage her choices have done is the lasting sort, calamitous and bewildering. There is no right answer, has never been. That small quake of doubt she felt talking with Sir Reginald in his office in the City, realizing that she would never be able to share with Alec . . . that’s borne fruit now, hasn’t it? The inevitable has come to pass.
She scrubs with a flannel at the patches where Grayson and his people stuck their instruments and electrodes to her chest and temples, trying to clean herself of hospital as well as guilt. Through the window the scent of larkspur wafts up from the back garden, reminding her of the vicarage and her childhood and Alec, back when they were happy. Or at least when the ways they were unhappy were so much more manageable. She scrubs harder, but nothing changes. It’s all too much, and not enough, and she hasn’t the faintest idea how to set anything right again.
* * *
• • •
It’s late when Mrs. Nesbit, who has stayed through supper to make sure they’re all right, finally bustles off to her home and June and Alec settle Penny into bed, Lucky curled up in his basket in the corner of her room. June sits on the edge of her daughter’s bed, stroking the flat bony wing of shoulder blade through Penny’s thin cotton pajamas.
“Daddy,” Penny says, yawning and hugging her bear to her chest, “you should tell me and Mummy a bear story.”
Alec glances at June and away again, but in the lightning-quick blaze of his eyes June sees the calamity continuing to unfold. He pauses, then shakes his head. “Not tonight, love.”
“But, Daddy,” Penny argues.
“Mummy needs her rest,” Alec says, his voice quiet but firm.
June’s stomach flutters with alarm. “Perhaps tomorrow.”
Alec leans down and kisses Penny’s forehead. “Good night, Princess Penny. It’s late. You sleep.”
“Good night,” Penny says, too sleepy to put up a fight. “Good night, Mummy.”
“Good night,” June says. She too kisses Penny’s forehead, then follows Alec out, leaving the door open a sliver.
As they step into their room, Alec says gruffly, “You must be exhausted. You should sleep soon, too.” June nods, grateful that he understands. He reaches for his dressing gown where it hangs on the back of the door, pauses. “I think it would be best if I slept in my workroom for now. Better that you should be undisturbed.”
June stares at him, shocked into silence. The third bedroom has always functioned as a sort of office for him. Alec gathers up the dressing gown and his pillow, and June watches as he takes them to the other room. He steps back out to the landing and retrieves a light coverlet from the linen closet.
“Alec, no.” She steps closer to him, meaning to take his hand or somehow stop the momentum he seems to have built away from her. But that wall she can’t see, like a moat he’s projected around himself, keeps her from completing the motion.
Alec finally looks at her, his gaze steady but wounded. “I’m sorry. I feel as if I don’t know quite who you are,” he says, so gently she has trouble aligning his voice to his words.
June’s heart goes leaden. There is no one on earth who knows her better than he does. But this wound is her fault, isn’t it?
“Anyway,” he continues with that same dreadful soft tone, “good night.” He picks up his book from his bedside table, and goes back downstairs.
* * *
• • •
The next day Alec stays home from work again, offering to drive June back to the hospital for a follow-up appointment. She could drive herself, or walk, but she can’t help but wonder if perhaps more time at her side will help him as they find their way through this awful new landscape. Or perhaps it will just help her. But she’s happy to accept his offer and have the time with him, although his excessive politeness does not warm her in the least.
At the hospital, he takes his place in the waiting room without being asked. And when she emerges after her appointment, shaken by Grayson’s certainty about the absolute necessity of resting her mind, Alec stands and regards her with a quiet, puzzled sorrow.
“I don’t know how to do nothing,” June says, wishing she didn’t sound so plaintive.
“No,” Alec agrees. “But if this is what he’s ordered . . . Do you remember when we found Carnaby, and everything he asked me to do just hurt more?”
“I do,” June says softly, wanting again to reach for him. But she doesn’t.
“Grayson is your Carnaby,” Alec says. “Bloody army surgeons.” He cracks a wan smile. She returns it, his humor giving her a moment of hope.
As they walk out to the car, she says, “He wants me to take the fall term off.”
Alec glances sharply over at her. “Is he quite serious? What will you do if you’re not teaching?”
“I don’t know,” she says.
For the rest of the day, every interaction feels buffered and at a remove. Around Penny and
Mrs. Nesbit, Alec seems almost normal, but if it’s just the two of them . . . Well. It rarely is, and isn’t that part of the problem? And Penny . . . How is June meant to explain any of this to her daughter? The larger question of Ceylon and the injury aside, the diagnosis itself is fresh, confusing, and hardly assured. She wants to communicate clearly with Penny, but it seems at the same time as though there’s no point until she knows more.
* * *
• • •
Only Wednesday, but already the week has that feeling of being torn between too many masters. There have been letters to write and telephone calls to make, the department chair to contact, and so much else.
That evening, Penny droops over her jacket potato, nudging a piece of carrot around her plate. When she emits a tremulous sigh, Alec lowers his fork and turns to regard her. “What is it, love?”
Penny shrugs. “I was just wondering if Mummy’s going to be all right,” she says quietly, her eyes on the potato.
June sets down her water glass. “Of course,” she says. “You and your father are taking such good care of me, Penny.”
“But . . .” Penny pauses. “Daddy, why do you have to sleep in your workroom? Is Mummy contagious?”
June’s heart plummets as she and Alec exchange a glance. She had hoped, perhaps unrealistically, that Penny wouldn’t notice, or that Alec might be back where he belongs before this question arose.
“I’m not contagious even a little,” June says, with what she hopes is a reassuring smile.
Penny looks at her and back at Alec, who leans closer to Penny. “She needs a particular sort of rest,” he says, “and if I’m there, lolling about and tossing and turning and whatnot, well, she can’t possibly sleep through all of that, can she?”
Penny giggles. “And snoring, Daddy.”
“I never,” he says with an exaggerated umbrage. “Perhaps tonight I should sleep in your room with you and Lucky.”
She rolls her eyes. “Oh, Daddy.”
He grins at her. “Eat your dinner, princess.”
Penny wolfs down the rest of her potato, excuses herself, and slides off her chair to vanish into the back garden with Lucky. Alec stands and clears the table, stacking the dishes into the sink.
“Thank you,” June says. He nods, looking at her with that same ghastly, cordial blankness, and her heart sinks again. For a moment, it’s all June can do not to lay her head on the table and weep. Instead she goes to the drawing room to have the lie-down her doctor has insisted on. The specter of a brain injury is worrisome, of course, but the practice of trying to heal it is rather dull, not to mention frustrating. Her main amusements are unavailable to her except in small parcels of time throughout the day, and it can’t possibly be good for her to be locked into this loop of fretting about Alec, can it?
The sound of dishwashing trails off in the kitchen, and Alec appears in the drawing room doorway, his book clutched in one hand. “India,” he says tersely. “Bombay? The Gateway and the docks?”
She hesitates. What she sees in his face is far too damning. “Yes.”
“What was it like?”
“Hot,” she says, hoping a stab at humor will help. It doesn’t; he regards her with his lips tight. She takes a breath and tries again. “It was awfully crowded. And I’d never seen such colors.”
His face closes off again. “Did you think of me? When you were standing there?”
“Oh, Alec . . .” Her voice breaks a bit on his name. “Of course.”
“India,” he says again. He pushes his hand through his hair, starts to say something, stops. “All these years.” And then he’s gone, his footsteps quick and measured up the stairs, and June is alone again in the drawing room, sick with regret. He has loved her his whole life, and she has chosen a path that has, in the end, broken his heart.
1960, Edinburgh
The smooth scratch of slide rules and thick wax pencils against the watermarked Livingstone & Gray drafting paper feels to Alec like an anchor, as does the impenetrable scent of oil and scum coming off the water by the docks. He breathes the heavy air, mostly relieved to be back at the office. June has insisted she’s well enough for him to go, pointing out that it’s not as though anything is different, exactly; the diagnosis, such as it is, has not created new symptoms or worries. Besides, the office is a respite, a moment of normal life in which he can set himself straight again. Or it was meant to be; Alec hadn’t counted on what it would be like when Sanjay and the other fellows asked after June. Half-strangled with confusion and a bright spark of anger, Alec had muttered something gruff about doctors and tests, and let the other men think what they would. Easy enough to avoid the bewildering truth, especially when one of the design team starts in about the bloody Tories and the NHS. Easy with almost everyone, that is—but with Sanjay, the secrets taste bitter and dark in the back of Alec’s throat. How many times have he and June had dinner with Sanjay and Parvati? Every time they tore a roti or spooned up a bit of chutney, thinking June had never known such things, how did she just sit there, pretending?
When Friday afternoon comes, he’s more or less back in the swing of things at the office, and he almost wishes he could stay longer—but the ups and downs of worry for June are relentless, and Penny is already confused. The last thing he wants to do is make things harder for his daughter. So he goes home when he’s meant to, traversing the familiar bus lines and streets to the house he knows so well. It feels like a dreadful game of sorts, picking out the things that are still true. The things he knows are real.
How many times has he come up the walk on an afternoon like this, caught in an end-of-day rain shower, the fat black handle of his umbrella awkward in the curl of his hand? It never keeps him dry enough. Already damp, he pauses with the weather soaking into his hair, basking in the rich scent of the rain striking at Edinburgh’s peculiar summer dust, that harsh bite of lime and granite. Still, though, he’s not quite ready to go inside. Outside is so uncomplicated. Alec straightens his umbrella and goes around the back, taking his time. The trees provide a bit of shelter, and he skirts the puddles, but he can’t help pausing to admire the raindrops beaded against the lush purple velvet of the larkspur. The garden plucks at his trouser legs like a greedy child, unencumbered, laden only with pollen and rain, and for now he is content to wallow in the quiet.
When he does finally make his way damply inside, Penny looks up from her book and grins at him. “Daddy!”
“Hallo, princess,” he says. He tips the umbrella into the old blue-and-white porcelain stand and hovers on the mat.
“Mummy is resting,” Penny says gravely.
“All right,” Alec says. “Thank you for letting me know. I’m going to go up and change, but I’ll be back in half a tick.”
“Okay,” Penny says.
“Shall I put on the kettle?” Mrs. Nesbit asks, eyeing the way he’s dripping.
“That would be lovely,” Alec says. “Thank you.” She nods briskly and sets to the task, and Alec leaves the room and goes upstairs, where he hangs his wet clothes in the bathroom and puts on his dressing gown. He pauses as he moves back into the hallway—if June is sleeping, he doesn’t want to disturb her, but most of his clothes are still in their bedroom, and that door is closed. As he’s wrestling with this, the door swings open, and June steps out.
“I thought I heard you.” She sounds tired, and she’s rubbing the heel of her hand against her forehead as if another headache has come to roost.
“Yes,” he says. He looks down at himself, then plucks at the dressing gown and tries to smile for June. Perhaps if he acts as if things are normal, they someday will be. “Got a bit wet out there. Thought I should change.”
“Oh, of course,” June says. She moves back into the bedroom and sits on the edge of the bed. The blinds are pulled closed, and what little of the rain-wet sunlight there was has gone gray in the half-dark.
He gathers dry clothes and changes quickly. As he heads back to the bathroom to hang up the robe, he pauses and turns back. “Mrs. Nesbit is making tea, if that would help.” He gestures at his temple, and June gives him a faint, sad smile.
“Thank you,” she says. “I’ll be right down.”
He makes his way downstairs, and just as he’s about to go into the kitchen, the phone rings. He reverses himself and goes to the front hall to answer.
“Ah, Oswin,” Floss Corbett says, his voice silky and unwelcome. “Corbett here.”
Something bounces wrong in Alec’s chest, and he glares at his reflection in the small square mirror on the wall above the telephone table. “Good evening.”
“I wondered if I might speak with June,” Corbett says.
It’s impossible for a moment to craft a civil response, and he’s gripping the handset so hard his fingers have already begun to ache. He glances at the stairs.
“I’m not sure she’s finished her rest,” he says.
“She’s been resting? Good, good.” There’s a small silence, then the click and hiss of a cigarette being lit on the other end of the line. For the first time in years, Alec thinks about the last cigarette he had, in Algeria. But that stops him in his tracks. When he was in Algeria, June was already in Ceylon. And Corbett had known it. Corbett had told him she was out of town for the Foreign Office, and Alec had never been the wiser. That had been, what, the autumn of 1942? All he can think of is that moment when the truth could have come out and didn’t. What a bloody imbecile he feels, remembering the happy optimism with which he had returned from Ottawa and gone to find his June. God.
“Hold just a moment and I’ll let her know you’re on the line,” Alec says coldly.
“Look, Oswin, I know this must be bloody difficult,” Corbett says at last, his voice languid and not, Alec suspects, entirely sincere. “It can’t be helped, of course.”
