‘Come on,’ he says softly. ‘Let’s get you a cup of tea.’
‘I know what it is. I know why you’re enlisting.’
Puzzled, he says, ‘I’ve told you why.’
‘No, I know the real reason.’
‘Oh,’ he says, still puzzled. ‘And what’s that?’
‘You just wanted to get back to France, didn’t you?’ she says with the biggest smile she can manage.
It is after midnight in Horn Lane. Henry and the children are asleep and Clara stands in the back garden, barefoot and in her nightdress. A half moon hangs in the sky.
Clara has always loved the moon. She feels it is so like herself. Alone, unremarked on, taken for granted, ignored. She feels a closeness to it. It is her friend. She imagines it shining on the statue of the naked woman, bathing it in a blue-grey light.
Really – to be honest – Clara is not sure she believes in God. Oh yes, she goes through the motions – with the children especially. She talks to them about God and goes to church at Christmas and on some Sundays, but all of that really has no meaning for her. But the moon – the moon she can believe in.
And so now she speaks to it, softly but aloud, and says, ‘Please, sacred moon, bring him home safely to me.’
And she knows – the moon knows – of whom she speaks.
To be continued in Part 4 of
The Four Lights Quartet, Candlelight.
Moonlight Page 24
