Page 27 of Fire Must Burn

‘What’s it like being home after all this time?’

‘Ah, home,’ he said. ‘The place I left thinking I’d never return. They weren’t exactly forgiving about it.’

‘What, besides leaving, needed forgiving?’

‘Coming back and expecting to be welcomed as the prodigal. My family tends to skip those portions of the Good Book involving acceptance and forbearance.’

‘Fatted calves are also rationed nowadays,’ she said. ‘Are you living there now?’

‘Staying in a hotel at the moment, but I just signed a lease for a flat not too far from work.’

‘Right, you mentioned a new position.’

‘I’m with the Foreign Office now, working the Far East desk.’

‘How wonderful! Obviously, you know the territory, and I imagine … well, you haven’t said anything about what you’ve been doing since the war.’

He leaned back and looked at her appraisingly.

‘Before I answer that, you should know that Cyrus Norton was stationed in China with me,’ he said. ‘You remember Cyrus, don’t you?’

‘Of course,’ said Sparks. ‘He was at Pembroke with you, too.’

‘He was,’ said Tony, watching her closely. ‘He told me that the two of you trained together before he was sent over.’

‘I have no recollection of that,’ said Sparks. ‘Trained for what, exactly? I did mostly secretarial work during the war. Did they send him out there to take shorthand? Can one even take shorthand with pictographs?’

‘That’s what I expected you to say,’ he said, grinning. ‘As for what I’ve been doing since the war – you know, this and that.’

‘Illuminating.’

‘When I got back here, I asked around the, err, firm,’ he continued. ‘I heard you left there under a cloud after having a screaming argument with your boss.’

‘People say the most unlikely things,’ said Sparks. ‘I don’t know what you’ve heard about me, Tony. All I can say is whatever you think I was doing, I’m not doing it any more. Haven’t for a few years now.’

‘Why?’

‘I had some serious disagreements over where things were going,’ said Sparks. ‘Let’s leave it at that, shall we? We’ve both said more than we should.’

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘So what have you been doing since peace broke out?’

‘You’re going to laugh,’ she said.

‘I could use a good laugh,’ he replied. ‘Tell me.’

‘I started up a licensed marriage bureau with a friend last year.’

He stared at her in disbelief, then tilted his head back and roared with laughter.

‘Stop,’ she commanded him.

‘This is— no, I don’t even have a word for it,’ he gasped, still shaking. ‘You monstrous hypocrite! You told me that marriage was devised for the economic and political subjugation of women!’

‘My thinking has evolved since then,’ she said. ‘Now I believe it’s for mutual subjugation.’

‘And I see you’ve put that theory into practice,’ he said,reaching across the table and tapping the ring on her finger. ‘Who’s the lucky gent?’

The ring that Archie had given her.