Page 88 of These Old Lies

So he hadn’t gone, but now, as he looked out over the fields, he now regretted it. He’d like to have talked to John a bit, tell him about how beautifulBetty looked in her wedding dress and what the children were like. Maybe ask John advice about the right mess he had made of the past days.

Down below, another car pulled away from the memorial, a reminder that he really did need to come down the steps. Except that once he descended the stairs of the monument, this trip to France was over. He was headed back to London, and London meant seeing Betty, which meant keeping secret that he had almost kissed an ex-lover.

An ex-lover with stubble.

Charlie almost wanted to laugh. Wasn’t this the irony of his life? Only minutes ago one of the great secrets of his life lifted off his shoulders, for him to immediately take on a new load.

Fuck his miserable excuse for a life.

Fuck France.

Fuck the world that made him kill people but declared that he was a deviant for having a broken heart over a man.

The wind whipped around him, blowing his hair in his eyes and the sides of his jacket up around him. With it, Charlie could practically hear a sensible Yorkshire accent asking, “If it’s giving you this much trouble, why not tell her?”

Charlie snorted out towards the former battlefields-turned-farmers’-fields. John always did like to give advice.

Why not tell Betty? Perhaps because she might divorce him, take his children, and scream his secret from pillar to post, leaving him a shamed man in the community he had grown up in.

Charlie slumped down on the steps and lit a cigarette.

The wind and John didn’t have any answers now. Dead men had it easy.

Where’d fear got Charlie, though? If he’d been less afraid fifteen years ago, he might have told Ned about the dark hopelessness of battle, might have asked for help to move to a stretcher unit. Might have not ended things with Ned the way they did, with years of pain and heartache…

Ned had accused Charlie of not trusting him. Wasn’t Charlie just repeatingthe same error? Betty was his business partner, the mother of his children, his wife.

Did he really believe she would ruin him?

Charlie pondered that thought as he smoked, the tobacco burning down with each breath. Charlie was careful to have the ashes gather on paper he could fold up. He’d smoke here, but he wouldn't leave a mess.

When he finally stood, he knew what his answer was.

Shoulders back, face to the sun, Charlie gave a final farewell to the names on the pillars and walked down the steps of the memorial.

It was time to go home. Time to return to life as the owner of Villiers Automotive. Father of Frank and Ellie. Husband of Betty. Luckiest bastard in all of London.

30 Conchie Corps

London, February 1942 / Ned

Ned bounded up the stairs of Islington Town Hall, cursing the London traffic.

“Good afternoon, Colonel!” The guard saluted as Ned approached the entry. Ned quickly raised his hand to respond in kind, grimacing at the sloppy gesture. He really needed to practise more if he was going to be wearing a uniform in public.

Slowing down as he entered the large marble lobby, Ned glanced around for any indication of where he should be heading. He had agreed that he would meet Betty here, but he couldn’t find her face in the milling crowd.

“The tribunal is running late.” Hugh leaned against one of the green columns withThe Timesin hand.

“What are you doing here?”

Hugh folded the paper, careful not to get any ink on his hands. “Same as you, I suppose, to give Charles a bit of moral support.”

Ned was genuinely touched. He glanced around the lobby, and then nodded towards an empty hallway.

Once they were away from the crowds, Hugh said, “I presume I should be thanking you for the apology by the Home Secretary in Parliament last week?”

Hugh’s gross indecency trial had been in the headlines for most of January, especially when the defence lawyers brought out eyewitness accounts of local police out of uniform and loitering around the public toilets. That, plus a stunning testimony by Hugh himself, had secured a complete dismissal of charges.