by Rafe Posey
It has been a warmer summer than usual, even this far north, the long twilight stretching out past ten, which means more time on the loch. Alec had nearly forgotten how well June swims, and he watches her slice through the water, mesmerized. Sometimes he sits with Penny in the golden sand and builds elaborate castles with walls that crumble away as fast as he can make them, the sand hissing against itself. Penny laughs and shores up the walls with stones. He watches them both, replete with all the ways one man can love.
* * *
• • •
At the end of the week, sun-pinkened and happily exhausted, they pack up the Zephyr and head south for the three-hour drive back to Edinburgh. Penny, in the back seat, is quieter than usual, and Alec thinks she’s fallen asleep until she erupts into noise just outside Kincraig.
“Daddy! Look!” She points out the window at the broad sweep of field and hillock alongside the road, where an elderly shepherd and his pair of farm collies are working the sheep. For a moment he’s puzzled—they’ve seen more sheep than he can count during their holiday—but then he realizes she’s focused on the dogs just uphill from the road when she cries out, “I want to see!”
Alec glances at June, who shrugs, her face crinkling into a smile. “Very well,” he says, and pulls over, careful not to park too close to the crumbling stone wall that borders the field. Penny piles out of the car and peers over the wall, and Alec lifts her up and sets her atop it, where she can sit and he can keep a grip on her.
“I love them,” Penny says, regarding the dogs adoringly. The dogs are impressive indeed, responding either to their own instincts or cues from the shepherd that Alec can’t identify, and before long the sheep are gathered in a pen at the far side of the field. His business done, the shepherd turns and lifts his cap to Alec, June, and Penny. Penny claps, and after a moment the shepherd whistles to the dogs and leads them across the green, pointing at a gate not far from where Alec’s parked.
Alec lifts her down from the wall, and they walk over to the gate to meet the shepherd. Up close, Alec is startled by the intensity of the dogs’ eyes, and wonders for an instant if they somehow hypnotize the sheep. Penny bends to pet them, gently tangling her hands into their soft, slightly shaggy black-and-white coats.
“They’re good lads,” the shepherd says in his thick Highland accent.
“Amazing to watch,” Alec says. The tiny whorls of cowlick at the larger dog’s withers remind him of Ursa, and he’s afraid that if he reaches out to pet this dog it will just make him sad. Penny, though, seems almost starved for that contact.
June says, “It hardly seems as if you’re giving them commands at all.”
“Some,” the shepherd says. “Most of it’s sign and whistle, rather than words.”
“Our dog went to heaven,” Penny says morosely.
The old man’s face softens. “Terrible thing.”
“She was old,” June says softly, laying her fingers across Penny’s shoulder. “Such a good dog, though.”
Penny nods and bends to hug one of the sheepdogs around the neck, and he wags his tail.
“That’s Tip,” the shepherd says. “Got another back to the barn with a litter by Tom, there.” He gestures with his walking stick at the second sheepdog.
“I can’t get over how clever they are,” June says, her eyes roaming the dogs. “Thank you so much for letting us say hello to them.”
The shepherd, his eyes twinkling, says, “Aye. Be a treat for the lassie to come see the pups, I reckon.”
Penny lets out a delighted squeal, and Alec exchanges a glance with June. “No harm in looking, I suppose.”
* * *
• • •
Not twenty minutes later Alec finds himself crouching by the flat stone stoop of the farmhouse, puppies clambering over his shoes. Their dam lounges watchfully nearby while Tom and Tip drink thirstily from a trough at the side of the house. Two of the puppies have glossy black-and-white coats like the larger dogs, but the third is a rich blue merle, swirls and gobbets of black mixed through the silver, one sharp eye nearly copper in the sunlight and the other a pale blue.
“Daddy,” Penny says breathlessly, “look at his eyes. And his ears.”
“They’re all akimbo,” June says.
Alec laughs, and the puppy tilts his head, watching the three of them intently, one ear tipped brightly skyward, the other flopping rakishly down toward the patch over his blue eye.
“He’s so little,” Penny says, dropping to sit on the ground. She takes the puppy’s paw and shakes, her face serious. The puppy regards her hand, pawing at her knee when she lets his paw go, and she giggles.
A silver-and-white tomcat creeps out of the barn, pausing when he sees them all, and all three puppies lunge toward him, barking madly.
June smiles at Alec, her eyes bright. “They’re awfully silly, aren’t they?”
Alec nods. The two black-and-white puppies are barking at the cat as if they’re trying to tree him, but the tom, nearly as tall as they are, ignores them as he sits and pointedly washes his forepaws. Alec gestures at the small silvery pup, who has crouched low and is staring at the cat the way the older dogs had stared at the sheep, stalking ever closer. The cat turns to regard him and puts his ears back before retreating back into the barn.
The shepherd points at the merle. “Canny, that’n.”
“I wish I had sheep,” Penny says. The shepherd laughs.
“I think sheep might be more bother than we probably need at home,” Alec says. June chuckles.
Penny eyes them both reproachfully. “But I love him.”
“I know,” June says, “but he’s got a job to do when he’s older. He’s not really a city dog.”
“He’s special,” the shepherd says. “Runt of the litter, and sickly to boot. Weren’t certain he’d come through.”
“But he’s the best one,” Penny says. “He’s the prettiest and the best.”
“I really do love his color,” June says. She kneels and claps her hands, and all three puppies gallop back to her, all paws and noses and tiny pinprick teeth. She glances at Alec. “Penny, perhaps we should say hello to the puppies’ mother, don’t you think? We’ve talked to all the dogs but her.” When Penny scrambles to her feet and darts off to the adult dogs, June turns to Alec. “You had such fun training Ursa,” she says, quietly enough that Penny won’t hear. “Think what you could do with a dog like this, or what Penny could do.”
“God, yes,” Alec says, wondering if the shepherd might be willing to part with the puppy. “But you said it yourself. These are working dogs.”
“Yes, they are. But, Alec? If you want to do this . . . I should think it’s time.”
He looks down at the swirl of puppies, warmed by this sudden swell of possibility. Nothing could be less practical than getting a puppy on impulse, from a farm in the middle of nowhere, three hours from home, but what a thundering great joy it would be, having a dog in the house again. He glances at Penny, now crouched on the ground with all three puppies and their dam, listening to his daughter’s delighted giggles as the merle puppy licks her nose. He is so unlike Ursa, except for those whorls and feathers, but Penny’s right—he is far and away the best of the litter, runt or not.
When he turns back to June, she is smiling broadly at him. Alec turns to the shepherd, trying to organize his thoughts around the pleasure moving through him like breath. “So. Any chance?”
* * *
• • •
By the time they reach Shakespeare Close, Penny has named the pup Lucky, after her favorite of the 101 Dalmatians, and taught him to shake hands with her. He has proven to be remarkably steady in the car, and back at home Alec finds him extraordinarily responsive to training. Lucky is deaf in one ear, and so Alec works him with visual cues, the way he’d seen the shepherd do with the other dogs. Mrs. Nesbit regards Lucky suspiciously at first,
until he learns to stop messing the floors, and when Penny teaches him to greet her by sitting and offering his paw, the housekeeper is as charmed as the rest of them.
Alec hasn’t felt so close to June in years, as if she had hidden behind her crossword puzzles and mathematics and the chores of academia. He feels her presence differently now that she doesn’t seem to be listening for something else. Whatever has distracted her from him—from them—has been let go. They talk more now, like they used to. And even when they’re not talking, they spend more time close together, Alec’s head in June’s lap while they read on the sofa, her hand flat against his chest or curling through his hair. The world outside Shakespeare Close is full of confusion, but for the first time in a very long while, Alec’s world feels whole.
* * *
• • •
A few days into August, Alec and June sit down at the kitchen table for a Sunday night game of cribbage. He takes his time readying the board and the deck of cards while June pours them each a cup of tea. He shuffles twice, and as he’s laying the deck facedown to wait for June to cut for dealer, her hand jerks away from her, and the tea spills across the table.
“Bloody hell,” she says, her face tight, as Alec lunges to his feet and takes the teapot from her, setting it on the counter. He grabs a cloth and turns to sop up the spilled tea, but June is still standing, watching her hand shake. “I can’t make it stop. This happened last week, but only for a moment.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Alec throws the wet cloth into the sink and steps closer, taking her hand in his. The shaking slows, but her fingers are still trembling like a sparrow in his palm.
“It was only a moment,” she repeats.
“Has it happened before that? Anything like this?”
“Not exactly this, no. The shaking . . . Every now and again, I suppose? But last week was the only other . . .” She frowns. “I suppose you’d call it a convulsion of sorts?”
“Perhaps,” Alec says. “We should get you to the doctor, June.”
June sighs. “Yes, you’re right. I’ll ring the surgery tomorrow.”
Alec nods. The small animal of June’s hand seems so separate from her, and he closes his own hand around it as well as he can and leans close to her, touching his forehead gently to hers, as he used to do when they were much younger. Sweet June. He tries to put on a brave smile for her. Whatever this is, they’ll suss it out and make it right.
The next morning Alec, against his better judgment, lets June send him off to work. June’s hand is open again, and the quiver has gone; she promises him she’ll ring the doctor and make an appointment, that she’s fine, that he’ll miss nothing. He makes his fretful way to Leith, the roads and buses half-empty with so many people off on holiday, and at the shipyard he sits with Sanjay, talking about the racing sloop that’s finally starting to come together after a year of planning since Halifax. The day creeps on until, using the summer holidays as an excuse, Alec leaves Livingstone & Gray as early as he can and heads back to the house. He knows he could have picked up the telephone and rung June for an update; he knows as well that if she had had something to tell him she would have called. But he feels sure that there is a fine line between asking her to make an appointment and doing anything that she might consider hounding her about it. Somehow, arriving home early feels less pushy.
But when he gets home, he finds that June has gone out. Lucky and Penny are in the garden, and Mrs. Nesbit takes him aside. “Mrs. Oswin tried to ring you, but you’d started home already.” She pulls a folded note from her apron pocket. “She left this for you.”
Alec thanks her and takes the note—June has gone to see a doctor whose name he doesn’t recognize at the hospital pavilion up the road. Alec frowns down at June’s careful printing, seeing shakes in the lines of letters where perhaps there are none. Why hasn’t she gone to the family’s GP? He folds the note into his pocket, hugs Penny, and tells Mrs. Nesbit he’ll be back as soon as he can, then sets off.
At the hospital, he makes his way through the maze of corridors in the new wing, looking for the right suite of rooms. His steps slow as he realizes that the hallway he’s in connects to the old military pavilion, where he used to come for his appointments with Captain Carnaby. Why is June here? His heart is beating too fast; nothing makes sense, and the sounds and bustle of the hospital are increasingly distracting with their glaze of memory. When he finally finds the right office number, he pushes the door open.
The receptionist, an older woman with steel-colored hair, looks up at him with a brisk smile. “May I help you?”
“I’m here for my wife,” Alec says, trying to keep his voice even. “June Oswin.”
“Oh, yes, of course,” she says, her tone softening just a bit. “If you’ll take a seat. I will let Captain Grayson know you’re here.” The receptionist nods and picks up the phone. After a short pause she tells the doctor that Alec’s waiting, then hangs up. “He’ll be with you as soon as he can.”
“Thank you,” Alec says, resigning himself to what he hopes is a short wait. He stares around the room—the clock is ticking too loudly, and the blinds have settled crookedly against the windowsill. All of it serves to make him more on edge, and as the clock’s hands jerk from second to second, he can’t help turning his focus back to the receptionist.
As if she feels his eyes on her, she looks up, meeting his gaze placidly. “It shouldn’t be much longer,” she says. He can’t tell if it’s meant to be soothing or an admonishment.
Her phone rings, and Alec looks up hopefully.
“Captain Grayson’s office,” she says into the phone, and pauses. “Very well, please hold.” She pushes buttons on the phone, and after another short pause says, “Captain? I have Alistair Corbett on the line for Mrs. Oswin.”
Alec’s head comes up hawk-sharp, his whole attention on the receptionist. Floss? Why is June taking a call here, of all places? Confusion avalanches over Alec as he processes the rest of what the receptionist has said. Why is Corbett calling June, and how can he possibly know to ring her here?
BOOK FIVE
1960, Edinburgh
The examination room smells of iodoform and something cold and metallic that June can’t quite place. It’s an uncomfortable smell, but that seems correct, somehow, under the circumstances. Her telephone call with Floss has left June feeling entirely on edge—bad enough that she’s been ordered to lie down in a hospital room just off the surgery of a doctor Floss has chosen and June doesn’t know at all, with a complaint that frightens and worries her. Just that would set the anxious nerves in her belly to fluttering. But Floss has not helped. She had not felt that she had a choice in whether to bring him into this—any medical examination with possible neurological implications would reveal the scar the Zero attack had left on the back of her head and raise questions she’s unable to answer. Floss had not been encouraging, and even with his reluctant permission there are only so many things she can say, and any number she can’t. Floss was quite clear—if absolutely necessary, she can tell Alec about Ceylon in the vaguest possible terms, as if she’d gone in a clerical capacity of some sort with the Wrens. But not a word about Bletchley Park or the Y stations—those places are still closely guarded secrets, any mention of them or the work she’d done there still absolutely forbidden.
The door opens, and Alec leans in. “June?”
“Alec,” she says. “I’m so glad you’re here.” She puts out her hands, and he comes close, leaning down to wrap his arms around her.
“I’ve been so worried,” he says, pulling back and meeting her eyes. “Are you all right? Have they told you what’s wrong yet?”
Relief that he’s there at her side wars with her dread of what’s about to happen. Of what she must tell him, and what she knows it will do to him. “It’s a bit complicated, Alec. They’ve run a series of tests, and I expect there are more to come.” All she wants i
s to find an answer he’ll be able to accept. And she can’t.
He tries to smile, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Whatever it is, June, we’ll take care of you.”
She just wants to cling to him. Such a dear, sweet man. He’s been looking at her with this same wide gaze for most of his life, and now she is going to tell him things that will change the way he sees her, the way he feels about her.
“It’s likely something neurological,” she says, “although they’re not at all certain what, exactly.”
“Okay,” Alec says slowly. “Have they offered any possibilities?”
June hesitates, trying to prepare herself for the possible trajectory that everything she says now may take—the questions he may have, the answers she may or may not be able to provide, the consequences of all of it. “One scenario he mentioned was Parkinson’s disease,” June says, though everything in her screams away from the idea of her symptoms getting worse until eventually they cripple her.
“Good God,” Alec says, his frown deepening. “So that . . . Is there a cure?”