Another Chance for Love

by Ellie Thomas

  “So,” Adam said, doing his best to break the ice. “How are your parents doing?”

  “Fine,” replied Alf tersely. Then he unbent a little for the sake of manners. “Doing better,” He added. They’ll never get over Trevor’s death, but it’s not so raw now.”

  Alf’s older brother, like so many others, had died in combat and both his parents were devastated by this. It was one of the reasons Alf went back home to live with them after his army discharge, as their only surviving son, to support them through their grief. At least that way, Adam thought wryly, he had an address with which to write to Alf, not that he expected a reply.

  Alf’s voice broke into his thoughts. “I suppose you’re married now?” He said, coldly and formally. “Congratulations are in order, I’m sure.”

  “Married?” Adam exclaimed, “Good God, no!”

  Alf looked perplexed, “But, I thought…” he stammered, colour flushing his sharp cheekbones.

  Adam looked at him wryly. “Delia,” he said, “took one look at the state of me in my hospital bed and ran for the hills. Not that it was a bad thing, in the long term. She’s someone else’s fiancée now,” he added cheerfully, taking a sip of his pint.

  Alf went very still as though absorbing the consequences of this information.

  Adam spoke up, explaining as best he could, “I should never have got engaged to her in the first place. But during the war, home and being on the front seemed like completely different worlds. To be honest, I didn’t think I’d survive long enough to get married, daft though that sounds.”

  Alf regained his powers of speech. “None of us thought we’d make it through,” he said thoughtfully.

  “Exactly,” Adam ploughed on. “It was something that was simply expected of me, a social nicety, if you like. Obviously, Delia felt precisely the same about the arrangement. It was nothing to do with deeper feelings on either side.”

  Alf flinched as though that was a little too close to home. But then he nodded and said slowly, “Your cousin Catherine said something like that.”

  “Yes,” Adam agreed. “She knows full well how my family operate. Anyway,” Adam continued, taking the opportunity to finish what he so desperately needed to say. “Despite continued and relentless pressure from my mother, I’m not making the same mistake again. I’ve learned my lesson at last.”

  Alf looked down at the table, still listening intently.

  “Withstanding a barrage from the Bosch is nothing on trying to resist my mama when she has a full head of steam about something,” Adam said cheerfully. “But this time,” he said more seriously, “I won’t be bullied into another engagement of her choice. It is my life, after all,” Adam added lightly. He paused before asking, “Do your parents not expect you to get married?”

  Alf shook his head. “It never comes up,” he said simply. “They see it as my decision and none of their business. I’m sure they’d be pleased if I did, but there’s no pressure on me. It’s not as if we have a grand family name to pass on,” he added with the first glint of wry humour.

  “Well, my brother’s already done that,” Adam said, “so come hell or high water, my mother will have to be satisfied with my single state.”

  “I didn’t realise,” Alf said slowly. “I mean Cat did say that your mother could be overbearing, but I thought…”

  He trailed off, but Adam could finish the sentence in his head, I thought she was just making excuses for you.

  “The lot of being a Merryweather can be a gilded cage,” he said with an ironic smile.

  “Quite,” Alf said succinctly, meeting his eyes at last.

  Without either of them needing to say more, the conversation then shifted to more neutral topics. Alf related some details of his business in Bristol and the information that he was staying in a small private hotel near Templemeads station overnight. In his turn, Adam mentioned the afternoon’s events and his promotion to the accounts department of the family firm.

  Adam tried to draw Alf out as much as he could, not only because he was genuinely interested in his life and doings, but in case there was not the opportunity or inclination for another meeting. He wanted to keep Alf talking so that the measure in his glass would go down as slowly as possible. Each extra minute in Alf’s company was a bonus.

  “Right,” Alf said, downing the last small mouthful of beer. “It’ll be dinnertime in the boarding house soon, so I’d best get moving if I’m to eat tonight.”

  It was on the tip of Adam’s tongue to suggest somewhere nearby for supper, but he held back for fear of pushing his luck. As Alf pushed back his chair and rose, he hesitated momentarily and said quietly, “I’ll be down again next month. Perhaps we could meet again?”

  Adam tried to hide his almost overwhelming elation, “That would be nice,” he said warmly.

  “I’ll write,” Alf said with a nod and Adam had to be content with that.

  “I have a flat of my own, but anything coming to my parents’ address will be passed on.”

  He saw Alf absorb this information and hoped he realised that this was further confirmation of Adam’s refusal to fall in with his mother’s matrimonial machinations.

  He rose also, out of courtesy and they shook hands briefly. He watched the slim figure wend his way to the door and sighed. He was not yet ready to leave the pub and felt too restless and agitated by the surprise encounter to go home. While he was on his feet, he ordered another pint at the bar and sat down again at the table and lost himself in the past.

  Chapter 7

  He’d not really registered Alf much on their first meeting. He and his pals had been on leave in Paris and ended up in some dive in Montmartre and bumped into a group of lads from a Warwickshire regiment. Adam had exchanged a few words with Alf but despite the pleasantries, he had been initially dismissive.

  Adam had just seen the superficial aspects of his new acquaintance. A mere corporal to his rank of lieutenant. The unremarkable appearance, thick spectacles, quiet manner, and West Midlands accent, the fact he was a hands-on engineer by trade. Despite the smiling camaraderie within the group of soldiers, Adam had inwardly dismissed him as a lower-middle-class grammar-school boy with not much going for him.

  Looking back at his callow younger self, this only proved that Mrs. Merryweather’s social snobbery had rubbed off on him, he thought ruefully.

  The next night, they’d all reconvened in the same scruffy bar before the majority of them took off for the seedy delights of the Folies Bergeres. With no interest in rapacious dancers bouncing around the stage and showing their bloomers, Adam remained at the table while most of the others finished their drinks and started to take their leave. To ensure he wouldn’t be swept along with them, Adam had ordered another bottle of rough red wine from the patron.

  The general conversation had touched on poetry, specifically the new style of raw, heartfelt poems which had emanated from the battlefield since the start of the war. Such matters were widely discussed by soldiers, but as the party gradually broke up and moved on elsewhere, Adam and Alf were left to themselves, in the midst of a heated discussion between merits of Siegfried Sassoon versus Wilfred Owen, whom Alf could quote by heart.

  As he argued on the superior meter of Owen’s poetry, comparing it to the inventiveness of Gerard Manley Hopkins, Alf removed his glasses for emphasis as he reiterated a verse from memory.

  While he spoke, Adam wondered how he could have ever thought Alf plain, dull, or unprepossessing. The sharp, passionate intelligence in those expressive eyes, green as a perfectly ripe gooseberry, lit his finely featured face from within. In hindsight, Adam knew that was the moment he started to fall in love with him.

  They had finished the final bottle and their animated discussion and by unspoken accord, left the smoky bar and stumbled out into the cobbled streets of Montmartre, clinging a little to each other for balance, laughing together. Walking along, their physical closeness became more of an embrace, with neither one nor the other pulling away. It w
as an unspoken signal and Adam remembered it filled him with dizzying excitement.

  As they had reached the darkened alleyway leading to the pension where Adam was staying, they wordlessly leaned in for a kiss. It felt risky, daring even, to touch each other openly in the street. However, this was Montmartre. Even if there was anyone around, no one could see them in the darkness or frankly would care in such a louche area where anything and everything went without remark.

  Adam collected his door key from the grumpy concierge and led the way up the winding staircase to the attic room he was billeted in.

  He apologised nervously, saying, “It’s hardly the Ritz, but…” He’d smiled unsteadily, lighting the old-fashioned gas lamp.

  “It’s fine,” Alf said smiling, his eyes gleaming with more than passion for poetry and they had stood close together in the cramped, quiet room. Adam bent his head to kiss the smaller man and the way they fitted together felt effortless.

  Then came the tugging at uniform buttons and layers of clothing, as they helped each other undress increasingly eagerly. The revelation following the removal of each garment only added to the sense of anticipation. Finally, their clothes lay in a heap on the floor and they were naked together on the bed, blissfully skin to skin.

  Adam had never had an experience so unrushed and so completely joyous. He’d had the usual exploratory fumblings with other boys at school that was considered the norm. It was only when his peers graduated from these and turned their attentions to the fairer sex that he realised he was different.

  He could only admit to himself that his sexual interest lay with other men. He, like others of his kind, had to be extremely careful. After all, the infamous trial of Oscar Wilde was not so far in the past. If such a clever, highly connected, and celebrated man could be humiliated, vilified, and imprisoned, then that was a severe warning for anyone of similar tastes.

  Although they never discussed it openly, he knew Cat had guessed, or perhaps always knew about his true predilections. She never judged or commented, and her quiet acceptance of his guilty secret made life a little less lonely.

  As he grew older, Adam learned to take his pleasures furtively and occasionally; rarely, if ever, repeating an experience with the same man for the sake of safety. It had not occurred to him there could be anything more.

  Alf’s kisses, his hands on his skin, his unashamed arousal at Adam’s returned attentions had filled his senses. For the first time, he was truly making love and he was bowled over by it.

  In the morning, there was no awkwardness or embarrassment. He had woken to see Alf propped up on one elbow, surveying him with those remarkable eyes.

  “What?” Adam had asked sleepily, stretching.

  Alf grinned. “I never thought I’d bag myself such an Adonis.”

  Adam had blushed at this. He was accustomed to glancing at his own regular features in the mirror, of course, and took for granted the fact they gained him some popularity with the ladies and a few discreet and unnamed men. But to hear such open admiration from a lover was entirely disarming.

  Alf had lowered his head to kiss Adam and a feeling of utter completeness filled him as he put his arms around Alf’s shoulders, holding him close. He stroked his bare back as Alf’s kisses edged around his unshaven jaw line and down to the softer skin of his neck, questing and exploring sensitive places for resulting moans and gasps of pleasure.

  His hands settled on Alf’s taut bum cheeks, squeezing and flexing as they rubbed together, mutual arousal increasing to outright passion, moving together so perfectly that orgasm lasted forever.

  Afterwards, they got up together, washed and dressed, and took their hangovers to a nearby café for breakfast before exploring Paris together, comparing the sights and amicably arguing on their differing opinions of the works of art on display. Then they went back to Adam’s pension to make love on the freshly changed sheets.

  They were inseparable for those few precious days of leave. They were careful when they met up with their pals in the evening but could be openly affectionate when alone. To be able to love and be loved was new to them both and intoxicating.

  Precious though the experience had been, being wartime, Adam had half expected it to be a one-off. After all, they were in different battalions and different locations on the Western Front. Of course, he wanted it to continue but also did not want to have any expectations that would be painfully shattered. So when he received Alf’s letter a couple of weeks later, he was overjoyed.

  They’d continued to write to each other, the subtext saying far more than the carefully friendly words. Eventually, when their leave had coincided again, Alf had agreed to spend a few days in Bristol before heading north to visit his parents in Warwickshire.

  Adam was delighted at this prospect. However, he had thought the arrangements through carefully and had wisely judged it better for Alf to stay at his aunt’s and uncle’s, which they agreed to unhesitatingly once asked. Not only was it more politic and prudent as regarded the true nature of their true relationship, but Adam did not want any social awkwardness to mar their time together.

  After all, if he had misjudged Alf on initial appearances, what would his mother make of him? He shuddered to think of her grand manner and unwitting insulting condescension, as though Alf were some kind of charity case or social experiment.

  When he had walked through the door as Pembroke Road at an arranged time to show Alf the sights of Bristol, he knew this choice had been a success. Cat, Christopher, and Alf were waiting for him in the porch, ready to go, with Alf and Christopher deeply involved in an in-depth discussion about the works of Lord Byron. Once outside, the two of them walked ahead together, completely engrossed in their chosen subject. Adam stepped in behind them, joining Cat.

  His cousin looked at him, smiling. “I like him,” she said simply, looping her arm through Adam’s in her familiar way.

  “I’m glad,” Adam had said and she had squeezed his arm, with no need for any more words.

  As the war gradually stumbled towards its conclusion, despite the lack of opportunity for meetings and letters that could only be superficially friendly rather than affectionate, their relationship and understanding had grown into something substantial for them both. How the hell Adam had managed to get engaged in the meantime was something he had castigated himself about ever since.

  The only excuse he could give was that there seemed to be such separation in realities. People had suffered at home, of course, with shortages and bombing raids from the air. There was a palpable air of grief over the terrible magnitude of the deaths of sons, brothers, husbands, and fathers. All the same, it seemed a completely different existence from the daily horrors of life at the Front Line.

  He could feel his parents’ anxiety and concern for him and the pressure to offer for Delia was, at the time, a simple way of abating that. It gave comfort to them and it simply did not seem valid. Privately, in his mind, he doubted he would survive the war and so it seemed like such a small concession to make his mother happy.

  It would have been different if Delia was genuinely attached to him. Certainly, that would have made him hesitate or resist entirely. Yet, even as he asked her for her hand in marriage, he was sure that Delia had no deep partiality for him.

  On the occasions he did manage to get home, in the social whirl around them, they had precious little time alone. However, that didn’t seem to be an issue for Delia. Neither of them sought privacy together for any discussion or was inclined to amorous embraces.

  Delia appeared delighted simply to have one of the most handsome and well-turned-out men in Clifton escorting her to the next social occasion. What most mattered to her was the fact they looked so good together and Adam could not grudge her that. He acknowledged, with a droll smile, that he found it quite flattering.

  He realised now that he had detached one part of his life from the other so successfully that it genuinely had not occurred to him to tell Alf about Delia. Firstly, there was nothing
really to tell. And frankly, it didn’t seem real.

  For Alf to find out in such a hurtful way, so that he had thought that Adam had deceived him and had been unfaithful was unbearable. But what could he expect him to think? Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  He knew Cat had valiantly tried to explain the truth of the matter at the time, but who would understand the strange workings of the Merryweather household if they were not closely related to them? It would seem simply bizarre or a pathetically lame excuse.

  Adam knew he had carelessly thrown away the love of his life and he had never ceased to regret that or berate himself. But if, after this freak chance meeting, he could salvage something; a ceasefire, or even some kind of occasional, casual social contact, that was more than he could hope for. And frankly, more than he deserved.

  Looking down with surprise at his now empty glass, he resisted the temptation for a refill. He told himself he had to be bright and alert for his new post tomorrow. After all, Mr. Briggs had expectations of him.

  Rising and letting a party of men occupy the table in the now bustling pub, Adam slung his overcoat on his arm and gathered his thoughts together, clearing his mind as he prepared to walk home.

  Chapter 8

  Adam willingly buried himself in the mound of work that came his way over the next week or two. After a short period of caution about his sudden arrival in their midst (after all, he was the boss’s son) his co-workers gradually relaxed around him as he got on with any tasks he was given without fuss and deferred to the experience of his colleagues. He was determined to prove himself as a worthy member of the team without any privileges attached to his name.

  Even Mr. Briggs rapidly shifted his approach towards Adam from politely deferential to brisk expectation. This sharpening attitude was welcome as it showed he clearly required Adam to come up to scratch. The work he was given was well within his capabilities, repetitive and quite tedious at times, but Adam revelled in it. He was actually smiling on his walk to and from the office these days.