Afterwards

by Rachel Seiffert

  The old man had a pile of small, white-framed snapshots in his hand. Passed them over to Joseph one by one, explaining the views of forest and cloud taken from his cockpit, mountains rising at the end of a wingtip.

  – Those are the Aberdares. I have one of Mount Kenya too.

  Snow-capped, with another plane flying ahead: sun glare on the metal, propellers blurred. And the last one was of the forest canopy, far below, taken through the bomb bay doors, Joseph could just see the edges of them, hanging open. He handed the small pile back to David, who looked through them again, quickly, nodding as he slipped them one behind the other.

  – I was a cadet, while the war was still going on. It was what I looked forward to, all through the school day. Morse code and aircraft recognition in the church hall weekday evenings. I could recite names and wing spans, used to cycle over to the airfield at Northolt, halfway across London, to name them as they came in. Hurricanes and Spitfires. I’d check the wind direction, try to guess which way the pilot would land. They had a Polish squadron there, as I remember, with the highest Allied scores in the Battle of Britain. Wished it hadn’t ended, the war. What a terrible thing to wish for.

  He laughed and then glanced at Joseph, as if to make sure he was still there, still listening. The old man put the photos back in the box on his knees, told Joseph he’d been looking through his service papers when he heard the radio downstairs. David held a couple of letters out, which Joseph took from him, but he didn’t read the typed pages because the old man was still talking. Telling him that he’d been called up, everyone was then, but he’d never have got an interesting job as a national serviceman, so he enlisted immediately.

  – I’d have been out in under two years otherwise, and I already knew that wasn’t long enough to learn anything. I was suggested for air crew, which pleased my father no end, I remember. Plus the fact that my training took me out to Rhodesia. It was something to be proud of then, a son in the Empire Training Scheme.

  The old man took the letters back, didn’t seem to mind or notice that Joseph hadn’t read them, and he flicked through the remaining papers in the box while he was talking, but didn’t take anything else out to show him.

  – I remember looking it up before I left. I knew where Rhodesia was, of course, we were taught things like that at school back then. It was a habit I’d picked up as a boy, I listened to the radio in the evenings with my parents, followed the fighting on my father’s atlas. The war made everything seem closer. I thought I had a picture in here, a postcard I bought in Salisbury.

  David frowned and shut the box, glanced around the floor at his feet.

  – I learned to fly Tiger Moths and Harvards out there. I’d only just finished my training. And then came Kenya and Isobel.

  He looked at Joseph, blinking, and Joseph wasn’t sure if he was meant to say something. The old man was jumping around in time, getting hard to follow. They sat quiet a minute or so and Joseph could feel the air moving in from under the eaves. There was a slit of sunlight and garden away to his left, and he could hear a passing car, birds in the garden. His ankles and knees were stiff from squatting.

  – I’ve been going on, haven’t I?

  – No.

  – I have.

  – I don’t mind.

  David smiled, like he didn’t believe him. Started searching in another box resting on the beam between them.

  – I found a picture of Alice to show you.

  Somewhere. It hadn’t felt like a lie when Joseph said he didn’t mind, but it was strange, squatting up here, between a bin liner of tablecloths and some empty suitcases, listening to another man’s life. The old man sat up again:

  – Here. Six, I think. Or seven. With her first glasses.

  Joseph was glad to see Alice’s face, and smiled at the small eyes, looking tired through the lenses, her uneven parting. He knew she wore contacts now, but he’d never thought she’d been a speccy girl.

  – Her school reports are here too, old exercise books. Funny. Tent and things she put here last time she moved.

  David pointed over towards the trapdoor, at two fruit crates, packed with books and papers. Joseph was tempted, but knew he couldn’t really ask to look through them. Underneath the picture in his hand was another girl, but the photo was older.

  – That’s her mother, Sarah Margaret. Around the same age, perhaps a little younger.

  David nodded at his daughter’s picture.

  – Peggy, little Peg, they called her. Her grandparents, up in Scotland. Not Isobel. I remember she told me: I don’t call her that. Meaning, please don’t call her that either.

  Joseph went down first and then held the ladder steady. David came down slowly, switching the light off once he had his feet firmly planted on one of the upper rungs. When he was back on the landing, Joseph asked if he shouldn’t close over the trapdoor for him.

  – No, no. Leave it, leave it. Plenty up there to keep an old man occupied.

  Pork pie, salad, boiled potatoes. David had made lunch when Joseph arrived the next day: jar of pickle and a pot of tea waiting at one end of the table with its cosy on.

  – I tend to make the things that she did. This is a Tuesday meal.

  The old man smiled, and Joseph sat down where the plate had been laid for him. He’d been at Stan’s in the morning, sorting out an order for their next job, and bought a sandwich from the garage on his way over, still in his bag.

  – Much better than what I’d have got myself. Thanks.

  They ate together, talking about Joseph and Alice’s trip to Scotland, and where they planned to go. They’d be spending most of their time on the Fife coast, around the East Neuk villages, where Alice’s gran grew up, and David knew the area well, from visits to his in-laws, taking Sarah up to see her grandparents in the summer holidays. He said there was plenty of good walking and driving they could do, and he rummaged some maps out of a drawer in the sideboard to show Joseph.

  – Take them with you. I should have given them to

  Alice last week, don’t know why I didn’t think of it.

  They were OS, but very old, and worn at the folds. Joseph had already bought a new one, at the station after he saw Alice off, but he didn’t refuse. Followed the coastal paths that David pointed out with his little finger, the roads might have changed a bit, but he could remember the routes to tell Alice about later.

  The dining table was at the far end of the room that Joseph had been working on, pushed closer to the French windows than usual, and a bit crowded by the armchairs and the piano, which Joseph had moved down there, out of his way. The other half was covered in sheets, walls exposed up to the dado rail, strips of paper scraped off above it too. Joseph had thought he’d get it all done yesterday, but the time spent talking in the attic had taken a chunk out of the morning. Hadn’t planned to come today originally. He was meant to see Arthur, have a game of snooker, only Ben was sick and Eve was working all day, so they said they’d have a drink later in the week instead. Joseph thought he could make use of the afternoon, catch up on the work here, and when he’d called David to say he was on his way over, the old man had told him he was going out after lunch so he’d have the place to himself. David didn’t look in any hurry to get moving, though: folding up the maps for Joseph, saying he envied him a week up there, and that he had wonderful memories of that stretch of coast.

  – Going through all those old photos yesterday. Made me remember how much I enjoyed being in Africa. Rhodesia especially, but Kenya too. Isobel didn’t. It was all soured by her first marriage, I think. Or had been by the time I met her.

  His lunch finished, knife and fork tidy, the old man was looking out through the windows at his back garden, both hands resting in front of him on the table.

  – Funny. I didn’t think she was attractive at first, not really. I was getting better by that time, less tired, but there wasn’t much I could do until I was fully recovered. This young woman became a diversion, I suppose.

  Jo
seph put down his fork because it was hard to eat when the old man wasn’t. David wasn’t looking at him, but it still felt rude, chewing while he was meant to be listening. The old man said he used to watch Isobel leaving for work from his seat on the veranda, remembered her wide hat and gloves, her round shoulders. The Sumners’ granddaughter stayed at the house for a weekend and Isobel taught her easy pieces on the baby grand in the drawing room. She spoke to the girl as they played and, from where David sat, he could hear Isobel’s accent, but not what she said. When she wasn’t working, she’d take the Sumners’ car into town, and would come back around lunchtime with a pile of library books tucked under her arm.

  – Once at breakfast, I asked whether I might take the car to the library with her. I told her it was deadly boring, being a convalescent. And I thought, rightly as it turned out, if I asked her in public, she wouldn’t be able to refuse. I presumed I would need to make conversation, but once we were in the car she was rather candid.

  David was smiling. About himself, it looked like: taken aback by the woman he went on to marry.

  – While we were driving, she told me her husband had fallen in love with someone else. I suppose you’ve heard. She said it was an occupational hazard out there. Or maybe just a hobby. That’s how she put it. Told me other people didn’t seem to mind so much.

  Joseph watched the old man talking and thought: he should be telling Alice all this, not me. Her grandad’s eyes were still on the garden, and he was laughing at himself.

  – I couldn’t look at her after she’d finished speaking. I remember all the houses passing outside the car window and I could name the mimosa and bougainvillea growing in the gardens, but I didn’t know how to continue the conversation. It was the cynicism, I think. And Isobel knew she’d shocked me. We didn’t speak much in the library, or on the way back to the house. She wasn’t at breakfast in the morning, but she came and found me later when I was downstairs, reading. Said she’d told me things I didn’t need to know and she was sorry. That surprised me too: I didn’t think she had to apologise.

  Joseph could see the unfinished walls from where he was sitting. He couldn’t quite make out the clock, the light from the window was reflecting on the dial, and he didn’t want to crane his head round, be that obvious, but the afternoon was getting on. He was half-interested in what David had to say, but only half. The pictures and papers up in the attic had been more like it: Joseph didn’t know what had gone on in Kenya, thought he wouldn’t mind hearing about it. He liked the old guy, but most of this was just too personal. Remembering his dead wife. Saying how their library trips became regular and longer, and they would go and drink Italian coffee in one of the city centre tearooms afterwards, or walk through the park to stretch out their time away from the house.

  – We met in public mostly, so our conversations had to stay reasonably formal. Isobel told me she’d had fun there, in Kenya, the first few months, while she was still working. Most of the girls she’d applied with in Scotland had gone to Salisbury, but she’d made new friends quickly in Nairobi. There were always nights out being organised, and clubs to get involved in, but that all stopped after she got married, gave up nursing. Life was very different, not at all what she’d expected. Sounded very dull, actually, the way she described it, for the wives at least. Endless coffee mornings and nothing to talk about except each other. It might have been different if they’d had children. Isobel used to give music lessons, private classes, for something to do as much as anything. She told me she was supposed to decide to stay with her husband. It’s what both families wanted, and I believe he was willing. But I’m afraid that’s not likely. I remember the tone of voice exactly. Resolved. I admired her for it, she had to face a great deal of disapproval, but Isobel didn’t think the place was any good, Nairobi. The expat existence. She told me people would be watching us, of course. Speculating over their sheet music in our absence. Pink gins and loose tongues, that’s what she said. They would have started long ago, and there was nothing we could do to stop them now.

  The old man broke off for a moment, and it looked to Joseph as though he’d lost his place.

  – It did bother me, if I’m honest. I’m sure our romance was tame by Happy Valley standards, but I was very aware of being a guest, for one thing. Not causing a scandal for the Sumners. I’d started to feel the curiosity, at those cocktail evenings. All eyes on us if we were there at the same time, hoping for a sensation. But she was beautiful to me by then, Isobel. I remember her in the park especially, under the flame trees, and the very British bandstand. In her white hat, with the wide brim. When we passed out of the shade, the holes in the weave let through bright spots of light. Like so many pin pricks of sun scattered across her cheeks.

  The old man’s fingers shifted across the tabletop, a small movement, involuntary, caught up in the memory, Joseph didn’t think he was aware of it. David looked down at his teacup: undrunk, cold, he stirred it. He didn’t speak again, his eyes unclouding, back in the room. Joseph thought it was probably over now, but he’d wait until the old man moved. They’d clear the table soon and then he could get on. Another couple of minutes sitting with him now wouldn’t make much difference.

  – Is he being alright to you, my Grandad?

  – Made me lunch today.

  – Did he?

  Joseph could hear Alice smiling on the phone. She was having a fine time up at her mum’s: they’d been away, the two of them, walking on Swaledale, staying up at the old farm. She told Joseph about it when he called. Just in from her grandad’s and he was a bit tired, didn’t listen to it all properly, just liked hearing her talk for a while. About a ridgeway she drove past on the way back to York, and how they should go there when it got warmer again, camping in the spring, maybe, if he had some time off then. Joseph sat on the edge of the bed and rolled a cigarette, receiver jammed in against his shoulder. He wanted to tease Alice about the school photo her grandad had shown him, specs and messy hair, see if he could make her laugh. But he thought about it a bit too long and then couldn’t. She might want to know how he’d got to see it, the picture. Sitting up in the attic with David felt a bit difficult to explain down the phone, so he left it. Told her about the maps instead.

  – Oh, I’d like to see those. My Gran would have used them too. Will you bring them with you?

  – Yeah, course.

  After she hung up, Joseph didn’t know why he couldn’t tell her. Your Grandad was looking at old photos, showed me a couple. But it was hard to feel that casual about it. He could see David sitting on the trunk in his neatly tied shoes. Polished leather, patterned with holes, narrow laces, well-kept soles. His trouser legs pulled up by his knees, the section of pale skin above the dark sock showing underneath, hairless and thin. Joseph knew he wouldn’t be able to tell Alice about today either. Lunch and maps, yes, but not what David told him after. The old man never asked him to keep it to himself, but Joseph thought he didn’t have to: it was all private, about his wife, that was obvious enough, and he’d tell Alice himself if he wanted her to know. It even annoyed Joseph a bit then. Being let in on someone’s secrets. When you haven’t been asked.

  He thought about the old man and his tropical trees. All the schoolboy stuff David had told him yesterday too: deserts and mountains, bird’s-eye, pilot’s-eye views of snows and oceans, evenings by the radio with his dad’s atlas open on his knees. His small head must have been full of it, Joseph thought. But maybe the old man was aware of that too. Hard to say with him and the way he spoke about things, sometimes. When he said his dad was proud of him going to Rhodesia, or how he enjoyed being in Africa, it felt to Joseph like he was careful, choosing his words. Passing comment, or at least waiting to see if Joseph was going to. His son-in-law would, maybe. Alice too, in her way. Joseph remembered her out on the patio that evening, blinking about the barefoot servants. He thought her grandad must have noticed: Alan would smile about that. The old man acknowledged it himself, so she could keep quiet.

&
nbsp; So maybe David was testing things out on him, but Joseph didn’t know why. When they were in the attic, Joseph had thought David was waiting for him to ask. Questions about the air force, maybe. Or tell him something about when he was in the army, even. Join in the conversation, swapping tales of Osnabrück and South Armagh for Norfolk and Nairobi. But it didn’t feel that way, not really. The old man talked, but always a bit like he was keeping his distance. Not expecting something in return in any case. And then this afternoon, it was all about Alice’s gran anyway, being in Nairobi with her, nothing to do with why he was out in Kenya in the first place. Joseph wasn’t even sure if David knew he’d been in the army, although it had occurred to him, up in the loft, that Alice might have told him.

  But even if the old man didn’t know, or wasn’t waiting to be told, it was hard not to think about what it was like back then. Joseph couldn’t stop himself making the comparison. The whole evening alone at home, after he’d said goodbye to Alice and hung up the phone. Didn’t have photos to look at, but enough in his head, and the same thing kept coming back to him.

  Contractor got killed. New RUC station being built and he was the plumber, meant to be going in to fit the toilets. Had a van load of cisterns, and they blew him up on his way there. IRA, INLA, one of them, some set of initials anyway, Joseph couldn’t remember. It was Republicans, and their bomb probably wasn’t meant to go off until the van was parked by the building.

  Joseph’s patrol got there about ten minutes after it happened, had to wait for bomb disposal, seal off the area. Tyre shreds all over, van doors, coat sleeves and what was left inside them. Took a while to work out there had been two in the van. Turned out it was his son who was with the plumber. Didn’t usually work together, but he’d been on the dole a while and his dad was probably paying him a bit, or a favour for a favour. Joseph could remember laughing. About the body parts: too many of them. And about someone having to make a phone call to ask if the plumber had a mate. That and the toilets all over the road, had them all creased up, even the Corporal. The plastic balls that float, to make the water stop running. They were everywhere you looked: bright blue and yellow at the side of the road, in the hedgerows. Ballcocks. Someone said that’s what they’re called and then they were off again, pissing themselves over ballcocks and body parts. Townsend was puking. One of the other soldiers. Kneeling on the verge, bulking his breakfast up into the grass and laughing.