Page 60 of These Old Lies
Two old, tired, bedraggled men.
“I can’t do it, Ned.” Charlie’s voice was hoarse. “We protected the stock, the tools, but half of it is smashed to pieces now, and what use is it anyways if I’ve no shop to open? Never mind that I don't know where we’re sleeping tomorrow.”
If Charlie hadn’t been so exhausted, Ned thought he would have been crying.
“How many times does a man need to rebuild a life? After the war, after you, I don’t know if I can do it again,” Charlie said.
In agreeing to come to dinner, in volunteering to stay with Charlie against the looters, Ned had acted with the instinct of a younger man, and he did so again.
Ned pulled Charlie into his arms. “You, Betty, the children, you are all coming home with me.”
Charlie shook his head, though he didn’t pull away. “I can’t ask that, Ned. I’m sure that Kitty or Mary will take us in until we get back on our feet.” He took a shaky breath.
“No.” Ned dug in his heels. “You aren’t going to cram yourself into one of your sister’s homes. I have a whole flat to myself, which is nonsense. You are staying with me.”
Ned expected more resistance from Charlie, but instead it was like all the air went out of the other man’s body.
“I don’t know how you will rebuild again. I only know that you will do it. And that I’ll be there to help. We do better when we fight side by side.”
Ned really should have pulled back from the embrace at this point. Instead, he held Charlie even tighter. His head fitted perfectly beneath Ned’s chin. They stood there, in the early morning’s light, and felt each other’s hearts beat.
“I’m so tired of missing you.” Charlie’s voice almost didn’t make it up to Ned’s ear.
Ned kept holding on. He would hold Charlie as long as he needed, and then he would help Charlie collect more fragments of his life, find a taxi, and bring this family out of the wreckage of what was once a hat shop.
21 Bernard Pemberton
Arras, Evening, 29 July 1932 / Charlie
Charlie had never understood the romantic views that other veterans held of France. When he overheard them reminiscing about wine and women, he would shake his head, wondering if they had fought in the same war. Other than mud, spectacularly rude people, and inedible cheese, Charlie couldn’t remember France offering much else.
Which really did beg the question why Charlie found himself once again drinking bitter beer in an overly crowded French pub.
His Royal Legion group had arrived in Arras in the afternoon and immediately decamped to the nearest drinking establishment. Despite being a supposedly sombre group of middle-aged veterans, they were acting as raucous as their twenty-one-year-old selves when on leave for the first time.
Charlie had always felt uncomfortable at these types of gatherings. He hadn’t pawned his medals, but he had never taken them out of their box either. Celebrations like today were for other men—men who didn’t feel as conflicted as Charlie did about their service. Who hadn’t given up trying to be heroes.
He really should have just left. Wandered around the old town. Found something decent to eat. Checked into the hotel and slept. He had resolved to do exactly that—had paid for his drink and was straightening his jacket—when a voice cut through the loud din of chatter that filled the rooms of the bar.
“You can’t tell me Mosley is all wrong!”
Charlie knew that accent, that posh arrogance.
His gaze found the man who had once been Lieutenant Pemberton, smushed into a corner table, surrounded by empty wine glasses and a half dozen other veterans. Middle age had settled on Pemberton like a stone; he was meaty, with skin that looked too tight. His suit pulled awkwardly, the tweed all distorted and the buttons barely containing the man within its seams.
Pemberton’s overly loud voice continued in the way of a man who was not on his first, or even his tenth, drink of the day. “Take that Hitler fellow in Germany. Our own politicians could learn a thing or two from him.”
Give. Him. Strength.
Charlie looked around at the others who were listening to Pemberton’s spewing about the red scourge and need for military might with varying degrees of interest. Was no one correcting this nonsense?
“Never knew you to be so concerned for the woes of the working man.” Charlie spoke loud enough to cut Pemberton off mid-sentence.
Pemberton’s eyes locked with his, and his mouth sneered with recognition. “I’ve been to a few speeches. Mosley wants to bring glory back to the country for everyone. None of these undignified inheritance taxes.”
Ah, Pemberton’s aristocratic family had been forced to pay their fair share? That would explain the poor quality suit.
“Still probably better to be paying taxes to cover the war debt than to be on the losing side?”