Page 42 of Strangers in Time

T HE C OMPLICATED B USINESS OF THE E ND

T HEY STOPPED AT A secondhand shop and found two sets of clothes, underwear, and socks for Charlie and a pair of boots that were in decent shape, along with a felt cap. Charlie protested at first when Molly explained her plan, but he finally relented and carefully packed his new clothes in a box provided by the shop’s assistant. Back in Chelsea, Charlie performed a rigorous bathing in Molly’s parents’ claw-foot tub. He came out of it scrubbed pink and feeling cleaner than he had ever thought possible. He put on a set of his new clothes, and they and the boots fit him well.

Later, he and Molly sat in her father’s study.

Charlie looked around in wonder at the shelves of books. “Have you read ’em all?”

“When I left here, I was really too young to read them, though when I was in the country I read every day. I went through the vicar’s library and then visited the library in town every week. It’s a true pleasure losing yourself in another’s imagined world. And you can spend time with so many different people from so very many places, places I may never actually go.”

Charlie looked at her knowingly. “My mum and I would sometimes go to the café and I’d have a little book and she hers. It was nice.”

“Your mother. You mentioned a bomb?”

Charlie glanced upward. “I guess nobody expected the Jerries to bomb a school.”

“And were you at the school, too?”

“Yeah, but I was just a bit jumbled.” He looked around. “So you got no parents, either?”

She said quickly, “I do have parents. My… my father is away on business presently. And as you know, my mother is in a sanatorium in Cornwall.”

Charlie rubbed his now very clean nose and nodded. “So, when’s your dad comin’ back from his… business ?”

Molly couldn’t meet his eye as she prepared her lie. “I don’t expect it will be much longer, now that I’m home.”

“Were you and your mum close?”

“My mother was the closest friend I had. But she loved me perhaps too much.”

“How can you love somebody too much?” he asked.

“It’s not really important.” She added wistfully, “I so looked forward to seeing both her and my father when I got home. And I’ve seen neither.”

“Wait, not even your dad. I thought you said—”

“I was not being entirely truthful, Charlie,” she said, looking guilty and pained by this admission. “I have not seen him. And I’ve no idea when I will. That… is not the sort of homecoming I envisioned.” She glanced at him. “But you have it far harder. At least I’m reasonably certain my parents are still alive. I wish your parents could come back to you, Charlie. I know that they would want to more than anything.”

“Well, wishin’ for somethin’ never works. Least not for blokes like me.” He rose and said, “I guess I’ll be takin’ my leave now. Thanks for the food and the clothes.”

She looked surprised. “I thought you would stay here, at least for now.”

“Why? I’m not family or anythin’.”

“But you’re my friend.”

“Still, don’t think it’s a good idea. We’re, well, we’re different.”

“We do have to take care of your gran. I can help with that.”

Charlie gave her a searching look. “Why? I mean, I ain’t done nothin’ for you.”

“You led me to the Ministry of Food.”

“And you paid me a half crown for that,” he replied.

“Which you wouldn’t accept at first. Why was that?”

Charlie shrugged. “I was goin’ that way, so why get paid for goin’ somewheres I was already goin’?”

“I think you should stay here, at least for a bit. We’ll make the arrangements for your gran. Do you know where she—I mean, for the burial?”

“Same place we buried my mum and granddad, I guess.”

“Where is that?”

“At a church near where we used to live over in Stepney. We’d go there regular when my mum was alive. Got a little graveyard behind it.”

“It would be nice for her to be with family.”

“Do you reckon them undertakers can help with that?”

“People do die all the time, and they are taken care of with proper dignity and respect. This is England, after all.”

In her mind’s eye, Molly glimpsed rows of coffins containing the remains of soldiers lined up outside the hospital near Leiston.

Charlie said, “You woulda liked my gran. Now, she said her mind when she wanted to, but she took good care ’a me.”

Molly shook her head clear of coffins. “I’m sure she did, and I’m certain I would have very much enjoyed knowing her.”

The next morning, they took a taxi to Wilkinson & Dunn, Undertakers, which wasn’t that far from Charlie’s old flat. It was a dour, sooty brick building with two front doors painted black and a tall, round chimney with thick smoke belching from it. Since a sign posted outside said the building also housed a crematorium, Molly kept her eyes averted from the stream of smoke escaping into the sky.

They met with the gentleman who had given Charlie his card. He was Wilkinson the Second, son of the now-dead principal founder of the firm, he explained. When Charlie mentioned the church graveyard where his mother and grandfather were buried, Wilkinson stroked his whiskers, nodded, and said that could be arranged. He asked no questions about Charlie’s parents, or even Charlie’s age. With tens of thousands perishing in London from the bombings, many more having been left homeless, and untold numbers having succumbed to sickness, it apparently wasn’t unduly critical whether one was left alone or not, because so many had been.

They gave Wilkinson the bag with Gran’s burial clothes. When the man started to discuss his fees, Molly frantically looked through her pockets and then said that she believed she had dropped one of her gloves outside. She asked Charlie to go and fetch it for her.

When he returned with the glove that Molly had indeed dropped near the front door of the building, Wilkinson told him that the sum total for the burial would be four and six, which was the exact amount that Charlie had collectively earned from Molly and the gent with the boat. And he would make the arrangements with the church Charlie had mentioned for Gran’s plot near her husband and daughter.

Charlie duly paid over the money, and the matter was left at that. The burial would take place two days hence, they were told.

Wilkinson rose, thumbed the fat silver watch that fronted his vest, and said, “Would you like to see your grandmother now, young man? We have not yet prepared her for burial. It’s right down this hall.”

Charlie stared up at him, his eyes frozen in their hollows. “S-see Gran?”

“Yes. Or you can wait until the day of burial.”

“I’ll wait,” said Charlie quickly.

On the journey back, Charlie glanced at Molly and said, “Surprised you ain’t notice you dropped your glove.”

“I’m terribly fuzzy about things like that.” She shot him a look. “You needn’t have a look at your gran if you don’t want to.”

He gave her an appraising glance. “You seen someone in the box, too?”

Molly’s mind once more flashed to the rows of simple pine coffins containing the bodies of soldiers who would never again see their loved ones.

“One of the sons of the family I stayed with. It was very sad. He was only nine when he died. He looked… very peaceful. Just like he was sleeping. And he was no longer sick. I tried to focus on that, but I still cried. It’s perfectly acceptable to cry.”

“I guess,” said Charlie. “Though I tries not to, if I can help it.”

“Why is that?”

“’Cause once you start, you might never stop.” Charlie thought of his mom and his gran and his cheeks trembled. “Leastways I won’t.”