He yelped and pinched back, his mum intervened, scolding them both, and it was as if he’d never been away. As the day faded they gossiped over cups of tea at the kitchen table until his dad arrived home from the shipyard, and shortly after that his brothers came in together, large and noisy, looking like men—and strangers—in their new uniforms.
That evening after tea, his dad took him for a stroll down to the river, their way lit only by moonlight on the melting snow. Although accustomed now to blackout inthe country, Lewis had never seen the Island without light streaming from street lamps and headlamps and lace-curtained windows. It seemed a different city, an enchanted city, and he breathed deeply of the fresh air untainted by petrol fumes. In the still silence the occasional voice echoed oddly through the streets, and somewhere in the distance a bell chimed faintly for Christmas Eve services.
Lewis’s dad walked without speaking, his hands clasped behind his back, puffing on the pipe he held clenched in his teeth. He had never been a man much for words, but Lewis didn’t need them. He could sense his father’s contentment in his company and he felt a stirring of pride.
When they reached Island Gardens, they had to feel their way carefully through the darkness under the trees, but as they emerged onto the moonlit promenade the river stretched silver and gleaming before them. The smoke from his father’s pipe drifted out over the water like a fragrant cloud.
A barge passed by, lit only stern and prow by small, shaded lanterns. In the darkness and silence it seemed ghostly, primitive, a Viking longboat returned from the dead. Lewis shivered. Suddenly he felt a stab of homesickness as intense as those of his first few days at the Hall—and yet it was more than that. He wanted to freeze time, to hold everyone and everything unchanged, and the weight of his desire made it difficult to breathe.
“Da,” he said, forcing the words out. “Let me stay here. The war’s all bollocks anyway, everyone knows that. Nothing’s going to happen—there’s no reason I can’t come home.”
His father removed his pipe and sighed. “I wish it were so, Lewis. But the war’s waiting. Like a beast, it is, before it pounces on you. I can feel its breath. Your mother can, as well.”
