by Rafe Posey
Alec tries to speak, but words won’t come. This man is part of his betrayal, and, even worse, the reason June was there at all. Corbett is to blame for all of this; he should never have put her in harm’s way and risked her life.
“You have no idea what you’ve done to us,” Alec says at last, too loudly, his throat clotted with resentment. “‘Can’t be helped’? Are you quite mad? You could have helped all of it if you hadn’t sent her off to your bloody war!”
June appears on the stairs, and he shoves the handset at her. “It’s Corbett.”
“Thank you,” June says. She looks at him warily—she must have heard everything. Alec drops his gaze, embarrassed and angry.
June takes the phone from him. “Floss?” She listens, then tells him to hold on for a moment, then cups her palm over the mouthpiece and turns to Alec. “I’m sorry,” she says, not quite meeting his eyes, “but . . .”
“No, of course,” he says stiffly. Feeling like an ass and a fool, Alec goes to see if tea with his daughter and her dog will help.
* * *
• • •
The next day is his birthday, and Alec awakens to more rain, the fat drops shattering against the gleaming leaves of the pear tree and the patch of daisies where he’d buried Ursa. It’s been another nearly sleepless night in the wrong bed; the Saturday morning light falls awry on this side of the house even on a brighter morning, and he doesn’t like it. The rain magnifies his disorientation as the windows run inky with water. It’s been a cool, wet August, and Edinburgh has gone riverine and florid with poppies and phlox interrupting the relentless green and gray. There’s something about the ruffle of it against the roof that reminds him of India. Has June heard that monsoon rain as well?
He closes his eyes. He’s in no hurry to get up. It’s another birthday, and he’s old enough now that they seem less noteworthy than they used to. Forty-one is not half so interesting as nine, or six, or fourteen. When he was very young, his mother would greet him on his birthday morning with the same hug she always had for him and one of the small spiced biscuits layered with almonds and coconut their Kashmiri summer cook would make just once during the season. In the afternoons Alec and his parents would go riding through the hills around the camp. He remembers still the way his father had seated him snug against the sleek black gelding’s shoulders at the front of the cavalry saddle and nudged the horse to a canter. He can’t have been more than five or six years old, but the rush of Himalayan wind in his face, the thick heathering of rust-colored hair on his father’s forearm, the smell of the horse’s sweat . . . so many other memories have come and gone, but those have stuck. Not for the first time he wonders if he’s held so close to those because they were so happy that summer, the three of them, or if the series of images fits the idea of the life he might have had if they had lived. But memory is a peculiar beast; he cannot remember the horse’s name to save his life. He can’t remember if his mother had laughed or told her husband to be careful. It doesn’t matter, exactly; he remembers that he was safe, then, or thought he was.
He frowns. Perhaps he’d been seven that summer, not five. Perhaps it had been that last summer before the cholera came and burned his home and his family and every security to ashes. It had been a long time until he’d felt that safe again, and then the war had taken that away, and it had been quite a job finding it again. But he had, and even when he and June had struggled with one thing or another—distance, his recovery, whatever it had been—he had felt as if he knew where the ground beneath him lay, where it tipped and angled and where it ran true and level. As much as she’s told him, the galling reality is that there are a thousand times as many things she has not. It’s worse since Corbett’s call last evening; Alec had barely been able to speak to June at dinner, pushing through gamely as well as he could for Penny’s sake.
On Monday it will have been a week since that awful day at the hospital. Confusion inhabits him, always infected with some other feeling, whether the general weight of it made spiky with anger or more a sorrowful echo. He is her husband, yes, but he is not the man who knows her secrets. That honor belongs to Corbett. And who knows, maybe others.
If he can put aside the hurt this has done him, Alec can focus on what is really important, which is that this brain injury or whatever it is—he skitters away from that, trying not to fall into the maelstrom of bewilderment—is to blame for the spasms and headaches. He gets the sense June hoped the diagnosis, however rudimentary and tentative, might have led to some form of progress by now. Alec knows June well enough to know that she is afraid of worse. And well enough to know that she is pretending—for herself, for him, for Penny—to be better with this than is actually the case.
Alec sighs and swings his legs over the edge of the sofa. He can’t stay there forever, for any number of reasons. His heart gladdens as he hears Penny laughing downstairs, accompanied by the ridiculous shrill bark of the puppy. Alec sits and rubs his hands together, the left bolstering the right, and as one thumb creases across the opposite palm he pauses, frowning down at the frayed edges of the rug. Buried somewhere in the betrayal is something else—a story he doesn’t understand. Can’t understand. When he tries to imagine what June means when she speaks of a Zero attacking wherever she was in Ceylon . . . How could he not have known she’d been hurt so badly? It’s impossible to say which moments in all this are the worst, but he’s struck now with a new epiphany. He looks at his hands again, appalled.
All this time, she’s been helping him recover from his wounds, and he’d never known she had war wounds of her own. She had worked so hard to bring him back to England from Odessa, and then back to himself from what the camps had done to him. And all this time, through his endless complaints and confusions, through the years of nursing him back to something resembling the man he’d been before the war . . . Christ. She’s never said a word, never complained except occasionally when her headaches have been too punishing to ignore. God knows what she’s seen, what she’s heard and smelled and felt.
For the first time he considers the scenario June has alluded to, rather than his resultant fears and worries, and his mouth goes dry. The whole Pacific war had been full of Japanese pilots and their immensely maneuverable Zeros. Kamikaze or otherwise, the sleek little fighters had done enormous damage. What can that have been like for June, to have lived a life in which something like that could happen? To have been left wounded in an attack like that . . . She’d said “unconscious,” but for how long? Was she in hospital, out there in Ceylon? A brain injury . . . nothing bleeds quite like a head wound, and he can’t for the life of him imagine June like that, felled by a piece of metal, covered in blood. How does she stand the memories? He can’t quite comprehend any of this.
June has had her own war, her own horrors. It casts a new light on her efforts to be strong and brave for Penny—and for him, for that matter. Just a year ago—God, a week ago—her pretending would have made sense to him, although it would have made him sad for her, that she felt like she needed to be so stoic. But now . . . The stoicism feels different through this new and alarming lens. Now he notes the fear and notes how brave June is being, how calmly she steers Penny away from the prognoses she is not yet ready to discuss. It’s like Jekyll and Hyde in Alec’s head all the time now: he looks at his wife, sees the courage and the trepidation and the dogged determination to heal; at the same moment he sees her carefully and quietly building a layer of untruth. And through it all he wonders whether she shares the fear with Floss Corbett. Whether Corbett has been allowed to see her vulnerable.
The night before, Alec had come out of the bathroom after cleaning his teeth and found her standing in their bedroom doorway as if she were waiting for him. He’d paused, the Jekyll in him throbbing with concern for his wife, wanting her to be okay more than he’s ever wanted anything. Come to bed, she’d said, almost a whisper. He’d seen what it had cost her to ask, and then the Hyde in him had la
ced his mind with the fears again, and he’d shaken his head, murmured a hasty apology, and gone into his workroom. He hates sleeping there, hates being away from the warm stillness of June, of this woman he’s loved for as long as he can remember. But she has hurt him as deeply as she’s loved him, and the undulating animal of sorrow in his chest makes it impossible yet for him to go back to something that will never be normal again.
He washes and gets dressed, then goes downstairs to see about a coffee.
“Happy birthday, Daddy,” Penny says when Alec joins her at the dining table. She puts her hands across a sheaf of paper on the table in front of her to shield it.
“Thank you, love,” Alec says, squeezing her shoulder. “What’s that you’re working on?” Mrs. Nesbit brings him a cup of coffee from the kitchen, and he accepts it, and her birthday wishes, with a grateful nod.
Penny goes rather pink and beams at him. “I’m making you a story for your birthday.”
Alec’s chest flutters with love and memory. “Are you indeed? That’s splendid.”
June comes in. “Happy birthday, Alec.” She kisses him quickly on the cheek and takes her seat across from him.
“Thank you,” Alec says. He looks up, girding himself for the punch of meeting her gaze. Her ocean-glass eyes look right through him, knowing everything, just as they always have.
Penny looks from one parent to the other and pointedly stacks her papers more neatly, lining up the edges. “It’s about a bear,” she says proudly. “And also Lucky.”
“That sounds wonderful,” June says. Alec nods, grinning at his daughter.
“But you have to wait,” Penny says to Alec. “It’s not finished just yet.”
“I shall do my best,” Alec says solemnly.
Mrs. Nesbit appears with a coffee for June and a bowl of oatmeal for Penny. “May I move it off the table for a bit, Penny?”
“Thank you,” Penny says, watching intently as Mrs. Nesbit carefully shifts the papers to the top of the sideboard. She turns to Alec. “Don’t look, though.”
“Upon my honor,” he says, and she grins at him before turning her attention to her oatmeal. Alec smiles to himself, a little overcome by the idea that she’s written him a story. She’s made up her own stories before, but this feels different. More organized. And, he realizes, glancing across at the stack of paper, longer.
Penny finishes her breakfast and bounces out of her chair. She collects her papers and Lucky, then turns to Alec. “Stay in here while I finish, Daddy.”
“I’ll keep him here,” June says with a smile. Penny nods agreeably and goes off to the drawing room.
Mrs. Nesbit brings Alec his newspaper. “Would you like eggs this morning?”
“Yes, thank you,” he says, “but I’d been hoping for one of yesterday’s scones as well. Those currants went down a treat.”
She smiles at him, pleased. “We have a few left, certainly.” She turns to June. “Eggs for you as well, then?”
“That would be lovely,” June says.
Alec’s jaw clenches—every time June speaks, he feels raw, and she’s not even saying anything that hurts. He just wants to read the paper but opening it now and blocking her out with it would be unkind. With an effort, he lays the paper aside. “You look as though you’re feeling better,” he says, trying to make his voice less stiff.
“Yes, thank you.” She looks up and smiles at him tentatively. “I was thinking perhaps Penny and I would try our hand at making you a cake today. A Victoria sandwich, like Cook used to do for you.”
Alec blinks. She couldn’t have startled him more if she’d tried. “I’m sorry, what?”
June’s smile wavers. “Well, it seemed to me that if the doctor means me to be around the house more often, perhaps I ought to find ways to occupy myself. And then I thought about your birthday and the sponges.”
“I see,” Alec says, his mind roiling with too many feelings to count. It’s not even rational, yet he has a flash of wondering if she had also learned to bake in Ceylon. Or wherever else she was. He has no idea if there are more places, more injuries, more secrets waiting in the wings. He bites back a question and tries to focus, but what comes to mind instead is Maeve and Cullen, all those mornings with fresh bread or perfect little cakes in that grand old kitchen, that gorgeous Victoria sandwich at the end of his time in Halifax. “That seems a bit outside your purview. Don’t trouble yourself. But thank you.”
Her smile drops away entirely, and Alec looks away, ashamed that he’s chosen to say something he knew would wound her. But it’s as if the past week has built up behind a dam in his chest, or in his throat, and before he can stop himself, he adds, “When I was in Halifax, Maeve used to make cakes rather often. She made a marvelous Victoria sandwich for my going-away party.”
Hurt flashes over June’s face, and she lowers her eyes. It’s a long moment before she responds. “You never said.”
“When I got back you were in the midst of planning for Oxford, weren’t you,” Alec says. The ice is seeping back into his voice, and for a moment he doesn’t want to make the effort to sound better. “Didn’t really seem like the time to mention a cake.”
The rain has picked up, and Alec can hear it on the window behind him, the raindrops clicking and clacking like the hooves of a thousand tiny horses against the glass. Hardly a monsoon, but the rain this month has started to feel like it may never end.
Mrs. Nesbit comes back then with their breakfast plates. She’s included a little ceramic pot of the homemade strawberry jam she brings only on special occasions, and Alec smiles at her gratefully. He and June eat in silence. Alec glances at the newspaper, although his mind is racing so fast that the printed words are meaningless. Perhaps the rain is getting to him. June has seen the rainy seasons too, hasn’t she? He can’t shake the idea of it, and wants to ask, but doesn’t dare—there isn’t an answer that won’t hurt and confuse him. The worst of it, this time, is that he wants to share stories, compare experiences. But his India is a lifetime ago, and hers . . . Well. It’s been nearly twenty years, hasn’t it? They can’t really compare the Bombay of the eight-year-old boy he’d been when his India ended in conflagration with the Bombay through which June had entered the East as . . . Well, what had she been? A spy? He’s asked so many questions, and the answers have left him cold and confused: I’m sorry, I can’t tell you. I can’t explain. I’m sorry. He can’t ask if she was a spy, because he knows she won’t provide a remotely satisfactory answer, if there even is such a thing at this point.
Lost in the burden of wanting to ask June questions he can’t yet even devise and already knows she won’t answer, Alec is unspeakably relieved when Penny and Lucky march into the room.
“Daddy,” Penny says, the serious expression on her face belied by her shining eyes, “are you ready?”
“I am indeed,” he says, folding his newspaper away.
“Shall we come into the drawing room?” June asks.
Penny nods and guides them to the sofa with a munificent bow. “All right,” she says. She claps her hands and tells Lucky to sit, and he drops to his haunches beside her. She pats his head with a smile, then turns to her audience, ruffling her pages grandly. “Once upon a time,” she intones as seriously as can be expected through a cascade of giggles, “there was a bear.”
Alec grins at her, delighted. Penny beams and keeps reading. “One day a group of soldiers found him and took him on their ship. The bear loved being on the ship and looking at the porpoises and birds, and he liked eating the snacks and biscuits the soldiers gave him. They named him Wojtek, and he was a very good bear. But what he really wanted . . .” She pauses, her eyes shining. “What he really wanted was a hat!”
June laughs, and Alec can’t help but exchange a smile with her. Penny refers to her sheaf of papers. “The ship sailed and sailed, until one day it got to Scotland. By then the soldiers had run o
ut of biscuits, but they wanted the bear to get more, so they dressed him up like a soldier. But he still didn’t have a hat, and so the people on the dock knew he was a bear. ‘No,’ the chief soldier said, ‘he is a soldier, like us. See? He knows how to act like a soldier.’” She pauses and clears her throat, nudging Lucky. He leaps to his feet, ears pricking attentively in different directions. “But the man on the dock wasn’t sure, so he grabbed a rifle and pointed it at the bear. The soldiers yelled! But the man didn’t shoot. He pointed the rifle and said ‘BANG!’” She glances down at Lucky, whose eyes are fixed on her, and sighs. “BANG!”
To Alec’s astonishment, Lucky collapses to his side, largely still except for the lolling tongue and the delighted tail.
“Good boy,” Penny whispers, bending for a moment to pet him. “The bear did not care one bit about the rifle or the man on the docks, but he liked the man’s hat, so he took it!”
“I daresay he did,” June murmurs. “Good job, Wojtek.”
Penny regards them sorrowfully. “‘You can’t just take someone’s hat,’ the chief soldier said to the bear. So Wojtek was sad. Then the soldiers took him to the zoo so he could have all the snacks he liked and not be able to take any more hats.” She turns to the puppy, who is still watching her, and whispers, “Go to the zoo, Lucky.” His ears twitch as he ponders this, and then after a small pause Lucky crawls under Alec’s armchair. Penny, grinning ear to ear, pulls the corner of a scone out of her pocket and tosses it to him.
“Oh, well done,” Alec says, clapping, his heart pushing too hard. This is unlike every other bear story, and yet. What a brilliant girl Penny is, and how hard she must have worked with Lucky. “That’s grand, Penny.”
“So, Daddy,” she says, “today we must go to the zoo to see if we can rescue the bear!”
Alec smiles. “You think they’ll let us rescue Wojtek?”
Penny shrugs. “Perhaps not,” she says, “but we ought to give it our best, oughtn’t we?”