Afterwards Read online

  Her grandparents’ letters were back in the attic. She saw the box again when she went to sort through the things she’d left at her grandfather’s, ready for moving. Her grandad had cleared the attic over the winter, and said her books and camping stuff were getting dusty in their uncovered crate. He’d left an old suitcase under the eaves for her to put them in, if she wanted. Years since the last time she was up here, only two trunks and four or five small boxes left, grouped together by the trap door, and the letters were second from bottom. Alice had heard some of what must be in them already: the things her mother had told her, the explosions, the crew member lost. But since she’d seen the letters, she thought there must have been more. All those years and pages he’d written, the conversations he’d had with Joseph. Alice tried again to imagine them talking, and couldn’t: thought she was still afraid of what she might end up hearing. She’d preferred Ireland at a safer distance. Perhaps Gran had felt the same way about Kenya. Sitting there, Alice didn’t feel impatient for her grandfather’s letters any longer: more curious now to read her grandmother’s responses.

  She must have wanted to leave it behind: her first marriage, expat Nairobi, the unhappy years there, but she couldn’t. She’d have had to leave Grandad too, and Alice knew Gran would never have done that. Alice had been so critical of their relationship. The way her grandmother allowed him to retreat behind her conversation, tolerated his rudeness as though she were blind to it. She didn’t believe her gran was so thick-skinned: it must have upset her too. Alice had loved them, but never wanted a marriage like theirs: a partner whose behaviour you’d have to cover for. Still didn’t. But she was aware now that something more had been passing between them, in all that time.

  Something gentle, undeclared, about how they were with each other, but you could never intrude. Alice remembered the hush in their house on summer afternoons. No radios or water fights on the back lawn, or loud celebrations at the end of the working week, the way it was when she visited her friends after school. She used to put it down to them being old, easily tired, but now she thought their weekends were for being a couple. Their time, in the garden and kitchen: they would sit together, hands held, eyes closed, hot Saturdays after lunch in the shade on the patio. Alice was never told or reprimanded: there was no need, she just didn’t get in the way. Lifted her bicycle out of the shed as quietly as possible, and carried it round the side of the house.

  She thought about it often, that day they’d driven down from York: her mother’s anger, standing in the hallway, trying to understand what had happened, and her grandfather’s quiet refusal to blame Joseph or venture an explanation. They’d stood together, she and her grandad, even after her mother had given up asking and appealing, and went outside instead to dig in the plants she’d brought for his garden. He seemed so calm. Alice thought maybe he was relieved to have got it all over with: the repairs and the inevitable scene when she and her mother saw them. She’d stopped crying and could remember feeling glad of him, his quiet company and his small, clumsy gestures. And how sad he’d looked later, when she said she didn’t think Joseph wanted to see her any more.

  Sixteen

  It was much easier than Joseph thought it would be.

  Summer again, but no hot days yet. He’d been down in Brighton, finishing Clive’s house, and he came home to a message from Alice, the first in months. She left a number, a new one, said she’d moved. He phoned her back the same evening and she asked if she could come round one day after work. Familiar and unfamiliar, that voice, and no edges to it. She said she’d left some things behind. A jacket and a hairbrush, a bike pump and the spare key to her lock. He knew where they all were: he’d left them where she had. Went round his flat collecting them into a box, chose a small one he reckoned would fit on the back of her bike. Put the map in there too, at the bottom, with the small beach and the wood above it marked.

  They sat on the chairs in the big room the day she came, something they’d never done when they were together. Always sat in the kitchen then, because it was the only room he’d got anywhere near finished. Alice gave him the news about Martha’s baby, due in a few weeks, and then she shifted a bit in her chair before telling him she was going to see her grandparents at the weekend.

  – My Dad’s parents. I asked them up to London last time, and they’ve returned the invitation. My Dad knows about it. He won’t be there, but we’ve started writing again. I think so anyway, a couple of letters.

  Joseph thought: one way got blocked so she found another. Alice was smiling, and it was hard not to smile with her. She lifted her hands to her face. He knew those fingers, that skirt and T-shirt, old trainers and bare legs.

  She never said anything about the colour on his walls, or the furniture, although he saw her looking, and she didn’t bat an eye when he asked after her grandad either, just said he was up north at the moment, visiting her mum and step-dad.

  – A long weekend. They’ve lined up a garden to visit every day. All over Yorkshire. Poor Alan.

  She laughed. And then:

  – My mum’s got this idea of us going to Africa. To Kenya. See the places Gran lived, I think the hospital she worked in might still be there. Mum’s talked about it on and off over the winter. I don’t know how far she’s really got with planning it or anything.

  Alice rubbed at a smear of oil on her shin.

  – She’d love my Grandad to come with us, basically. Show us the places they got to know each other. He says he’s too old now, but she reckons she’ll wait a year, let him come round to the idea. I’m not sure he will, though.

  She smiled at him and Joseph remembered something Jarvis had said. About another Corporal he’d served with, a bit older than him. He’d been in Ireland, early in the seventies, and after he’d finished his twenty-two years, he went back there. Got himself a job selling advertising on beermats, with a company car and a hospitality budget. Drove around the province from pub to pub, and after he’d got through his business with the landlord, he always stayed for a couple and tried getting into conversation with the locals. Sounded like the worst idea to Joseph. But Jarvis said he went to all areas, loyalist and nationalist. Always told them he used to be in the army. Didn’t get into as many fights as you might think.

  Alice was still sitting, but pulling her bag and jacket onto her lap, and the box, and it occurred to Joseph that she’d been gathering her things together for some time. He stood up, to let her go, and then she smiled. Alice went ahead of him down the hall, and she nodded goodbye after he’d opened the door, backing the first few paces down towards the stairwell.

  Joseph stepped out onto the walkway and looked over the side, waiting for her to get to the bottom of the stairs. It was a bright day, and the air was warm on his face, but the concrete still felt cold through his socks. The courtyard below him was full of sun, only the stairwell door was in shadow. Alice came out and he thought she might look up. She crossed the courtyard, into the sun, a brief flare of red, and then she was gone.

  Acknowledgements

  Toby Eady and all at Orme Court. My editors Dan Frank and Ravi Mirchandani. Dr Claire Fyvie and colleagues at the Rivers Centre in Edinburgh, and especially Richard, Michael, Stuart, William, Mark and Pauline for letting me sit in, and being patient with all my questions. Dr Robert Hunter at Gartnaval Hospital in Glasgow, Angela Preston at the Arndale Resource Centre in Drumchapel, and Jayne Herriot for all her time.The Imperial War Museum film archive.The Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. The RAF Museum at Hendon. The 49 Squadron Association, and particularly Stewart Kaye and John Galloway, for photos, articles and long conversations. Willy Maley, Adam Piette, Paddy Lyons, Kate McLoughlin, Paul Welsh and Caroline Knight for all the reading. Gretchen Seiffert. The Arts and Humanities Research Council and the University of Glasgow.

  Special thanks to DW for reinforcing the corners.

  Although some of the events described in the novel are based on fact, this is a work of fiction, and the characters are of my own
invention. I am enormously grateful for the help I have received from those listed above. Any mistakes that remain are my own.