Epilogue
(For the sparrow flies unthinking
And quarrels in his flight;
The heron trails his legs behind,
The lark goes out of sight;
But the great and flashing magpie
He flies as poets might.)
—T. P. Cameron Wilson
Magpies in Picardy
It was a beautiful late summer day—the kind where the sun shines warm with hope for bright tomorrows, and you can taste the crisp promise of autumn on the breeze.
Ash watched Rook wrestle seven-year-old Mabel into a knitted red jumper she would definitely tear off and lose the moment no one was looking. He must have felt her gaze on him for he turned, grinning brightly over his shoulder and winking when he caught her eye.
His unruly curls were almost fully grey these days, racing to catch up with his stubble, which had long since gone all white. At fifty years old, Ash still thought he was the handsomest devil she’d ever laid eyes on in her life.
“Ash, do I have to go?” George, the ten-year-old, begged.
“Sure do,” Rook called.
“But Alex, I’m a Chelsea man,” he moaned.
“Well, today we’re all Gunners,” Ash told him, tossing him an Arsenal scarf to wave. “Don’t worry, it’s not disloyal if your parents make you go.”
“Well said, my love.” Rook leaned over Mabel’s head to kiss her, while in his bedroom, George was making gagging sounds.
“Who knew loyalty could be so staunch for a team that hasn’t played a league game since you were a year old?” Rook asked.
“They played in the FA cup last winter,” George corrected him.
“Did they?”
Ash nodded.
“Oh.”
“My dad was a Chelsea man,” George reminded them.
They shared a look, and then Ash kissed Rook’s cheek and patted his shoulder before entering the boy’s room and kneeling down before him, so she could be eye level with her adopted son while he sat on his bed. “You can be a Chelsea man, too. This is just a bit of fun with old friends.”
The boy nodded solemnly and shrugged. “Once more unto the breach?” he quoted.
“That’s the spirit,” Ash laughed, ruffling his hair while he tried to dodge away.
It had been a difficult transition for both the children, orphaned by the second war. Mabel didn’t remember their father, a pilot who’d been shot down when she was still an infant, but she’d spent every day with their mother up until the poor woman was killed in the Blitz.
George claimed to remember their father, though he’d have been very small and his memory was tinged with the golden-sheened worship of a toddler’s eyes.
Rook stood in the doorway watching them, and Ash squeezed his elbow as she went out.
“Do you need help with your braces?” he asked.
“No,” George replied, because he was nothing if not fiercely independent.
Rook turned back to where Ash was watching and rolled his eyes a little.
“Alex?” George said hesitantly. “Did any boy with polio ever grow up to play football?”
Rook’s eyes went soft. Five minutes, he mouthed to Ash and went back in. “I honestly don’t know,” he told George as the boy buckled the braces around his legs. “We’ll ask Cooper. He’ll be able to tell us.”
“The truth,” George said solemnly.
“The truth is, lad, no one ever has done a thing until someone does it.”
Ash smiled, for those words were written on her bones.
“Now come on, you animals. If we’re any later, they’ll make you try out for the team,” Rook called, returning to the kitchen, where Ash threw her arms around his neck and kissed him fiercely.
“What was that for?” he asked with a smug little grin.
She shook her head. “Have I told you this morning how very much I love you?”
His smile broadened. “Have I told you how much I like those denim trousers?” he asked, raking his gaze down her body in a way they most certainly did not have time for, especially with the children running about.
“Thought we were going to be late,” George said, popping into the kitchen and rolling his eyes at the pair of them.
“Right you are,” Rook agreed, smashing their son’s cap down over his eyes and snatching up his own before they rushed out the door and down the block to catch the Tube.
Once on board, the children took their seats with practiced ease, finding four together in the middle, where Rook could stretch his leg not too near the door. Mabel immediately went up on her knees and George turned sideways in his seat so they could both look out the window.
“First game?” an old man in the seats facing them asked, nodding to the children.
“It is indeed,” Rook told him.
“Beautiful day for it.”
“Are you an Arsenal fan?” George asked, almost bitterly.
“Me? No, lad. I support Tottenham.”
George grimaced as though Tottenham were somehow worse and turned back to his window.
Rook shook his head, amused, and reached for Ashley’s hand. She never got tired of feeling their interlaced fingers, holding tight for all they were worth.
The Underground took them all the way to Highbury Park, and Ash rounded up the children—snatching Mabel’s discarded jumper from the floor beneath her seat.
Even George seemed impressed by the size of the imposing stadium, though she did hear him mutter, “Bet Stamford Bridge is bigger.”
“Suppose we’ll have to take him to a Chelsea match next time,” she whispered.
Rook wrangled the boy around the neck and shoved his cap down over his eyes again.
As the two continued to wrestle, Ash recognized the familiar form of Cooper up ahead. “Coop!” she called, waving when the old runner’s face broke into a wide, bright smile.
“Well if it ain’t Ash the Flash. Heard you were a lady.”
Ash made a small curtsy and laughed when her old friend picked her up and swung her around.
“Mina,” he called, waving over a middle-aged Black woman with three half-grown children. “Come meet Rook and Ash.”
“Not the Ash the Flash,” Mina laughed, hugging Ashley like a long-lost sister. “The roar that came out of this man’s mouth when he found out you were a woman. I swear they could hear it all the way in Australia. I almost slapped him silly for being so surprised a girl could run and shoot.”
Ash chuckled and Rook put his arm around her shoulders, squeezing her tight.
“Did you really pretend to be a boy so you could go to war?” Cooper’s youngest, a girl about thirteen, asked with wide, incredulous eyes.
“I did, and do you know why?”
“You didn’t want to eat your Brussels sprouts?”
“No. Because girls can do anything boys can do.”
“Can’t play football,” she said.
“Sure they can. I played a Christmas match against the Germans myself.”
“It’s true,” Rook backed her up. “Scored the winning goal.”
“Not you, Dad?” Cooper’s middle son asked.
“Didn’t want to show off,” Coop demurred.
“Can’t play Association football,” his daughter grumbled.
“S’pose you ought to take that one up with your dad.”
“All right, all right. You lot ready to go in?” Cooper asked.
“The boy has a question for you, Coop,” Rook said, as the old striker herded them towards the entrance.
George looked up at Rook for reassurance, and he squeezed the boy’s shoulder and offered him a wink.
“Do you know of any football players who had to wear leg braces when they were little?”
Cooper frowned thoughtfully, and Ashley held her breath.
“Proper football?” He shook his head. “Not yet, mate, but I have been hearing about a bloke who plays that travesty the Americans call football.”
“Americans play football?” George asked, amazed.
“With their hands!” Coop exclaimed in disdain.
When George’s face fell, he added, “I mean they run as well. And there’s kicking.
” He shot an apologetic grimace to Rook and Ashley for the slip.
“As for proper football, maybe you get to be the first. You’ve got the right family for it,” he added with a laugh before shepherding them through the turnstiles and leading them to their places right down front along the fence separating supporters from the pitch.
Stewart was there already, his little boy perched on his shoulders. Another familiar face stood at his side.
“Dusty,” Ash greeted, giving him a squeeze. His blonde-white hair no longer held a hint of blonde, but his face looked as young as when he was twenty.
“Hello, old thing,” he said, kissing her cheek. “Stew, it’s the Rooks and Coopers.”
“I heard you all coming the minute you stepped out of the station. Say hello to Auntie Ash, Tommy,” he told his tiny three-year-old, who immediately wanted down to play with Mabel and George.
On his other side, Blake reached out for a round of handshakes, but he pulled Ash in for a sideways hug. “Been a long time, Ash the Flash,” he said.
“Heard you were a big shot in the war.”
Blake shrugged, and Cooper threw his arms around both their shoulders. “First rule of football is we don’t talk about the war.”
“Aye, Captain,” Ash teased.
“Who’re you calling captain, Private?” Davies demanded, walking up to join their little group.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve showing your face after last week’s shellacking, Wolverhampton…” Cooper teased, even as he patted the Old Man’s back.
Davies grinned at him and raised his hands defensively. “Today I’m a Gunner.”
“Today we’re all Gunners,” George piped up.
“What do you reckon?” Coop asked as they stood in a line along the fence to watch the players warm up, first Dusty, then Davies, Stewart and Blake, then Cooper, Ashley, and Rook. “Think we could still outrun this lot?”
Tommy tugged on Cooper’s jumper. “Did you all play football in the war?” he asked, and they grew quiet, each deciding how to answer the little boy.
Then Ash reached down and picked him up, settling him happily on her hip. “We ran,” she told him.
“Why?”
“Because we liked it,” she said. And that seemed like answer enough.