Page 64 of These Old Lies

They never spoke directly about what kept one another up at night. Ned suspected that Charlie was as scared to know the cause of Ned’s nightmares as Ned was to know Charlie’s. Over the past few weeks they had built a pattern of soft words in the dark, being a reassuring presence to the other that here and now was not there and then.

Ned leaned against his dresser. “Do you want some warm milk?”

“We used up the last of the rations this morning at breakfast. Or yesterday morning. No idea what time it is.”

“Port then?” They both kept their voices soft even though there was no chance that Frank or Ellie could hear them from their room at the other end of the flat.

“My shift’s in a few hours.”

Outside a gust of wind blew a branch against Ned’s window. The moon was particularly bright tonight. In the trenches they would have said it was a good night for a raid. He wondered what normal people saw when they looked up at the moon. Was little Ellie comforted about the calm of thenight? Or had the air-raid alarms permanently marred it for her?

“You should go back to bed.” Charlie turned around from the window to face Ned.

“You should, too.”

Charlie’s answer was to slip off his robe and go back under the covers.

Ned was probably already half asleep when he murmured, “You must miss Betty on nights like this.”

He hadn’t expected any response, never mind Charlie’s gravelly, “We don’t have that type of marriage.”

“What type of marriage do you have?” he whispered, unable to leave Charlie’s comment alone.

“The type where she keeps asking if we’ve kissed yet.”

JesusChrist.

“She knows about…?” Ned managed to stutter out.

“She knows we had an affair. That I loved you.” Charlie’s voice wasn’t quite so sleepy anymore either. “I didn’t mean to expose you, it’s just that there was a time… well, after our trip to France… Actually, none of that matters. Just to say that I felt I had to tell her about myself, and there was no way of doing that without mentioning you.”

“I trust you both.” Ned found he was surprisingly unbothered that Betty knew his greatest secret.

Charlie shifted in the bed. “I thought she’d sue for divorce, take the children away.”

“She didn’t.” Ned knew he was stating the obvious, his mind still trying to resemble itself after being blown apart by Charlie’s revelation.

“Divorce wasn’t what either of us wanted. I think we both realised we didn’t love each other as we should, though. So we decided to build something else instead.”

“A something where she thinks you and I should kiss.” Did Ned mean that as a statement?

“I believe her exact words earlier this week were, ‘I don’t have the patience for months of longing glances across the dinner table’.” There was a hint of humour in Charlie’s voice. “If I’d have to really say what she thinks, it's that life’s too short to not take every opportunity you have at happiness. No matter what that happiness looks like.”

“You married a wise woman.”

“Don’t think I don’t know it.”

The next question was on the tip of Ned’s tongue. Did Charlie want to kiss? Want… everything else?

For Ned, that he wanted to kiss Charlie was a given. Whether he thought that was a good idea was another matter altogether. He was nearly fifty, for Christ’s sake, he was supposed to be past his cock making decisions for him.

Ned must have been lost in his thoughts for too long, as the mattress dipped as Charlie shifted on his side. Ned listened as Charlie’s breathing settled into a steady sleep.

Ned’s fingers clenched in his duvet as he fought the urge to pace the room. Why couldn’t Charlie have just taken the lead? Why had he left Ned in limbo?

Then again, it had been Charlie who propositioned him in an alley in France when they were young, Charlie who’d taken the leap of faith to try again in ’22, each time for their affair to end in heartbreak.

Perhaps Ned wasn’t the only one who was nervous.