Chapter 3 Charing Cross Pubs
The Charing Cross pub Ned had picked was bog standard in every respect—worn leather benches, an average selection of beer, and an indifferent barmaid.
Ned had chosen the location because of its main and only redeeming feature: it was close to a train station, and therefore was always relatively busy with anonymous customers.
The type of place that two old acquaintances from the war might meet for a pint.
Ned had arrived obscenely early and tried to calm his nerves by sipping a glass of red wine. If his heart hadn’t been beating a thousand beats per minute, he might have noticed the taste. He assumed it was foul.
The short letter Charlie had sent to his West London flat the day after the Hat Shop Incident—as Ned mentally referred to it—had read:
Lt. Pinsent,
Drink?
– C. Villiers
Ned’s response had been to suggest meeting here in two days’ time.
Time had never seemed to pass more slowly than it had over the past forty-eight hours, and now it had reduced to a snail’s pace as he waited.
His heart was beating embarrassingly quick, and he had to grip the wine glass tightly to fight the tremble in his hands.
Ned had no idea what Charlie thought of him now, or what he thought of Ned’s actions the last time they were together.
Acts that Ned regretted and considered necessary in equal measure.
Charlie entered the pub right as the clock struck four.
Ned didn’t have any photos of Charlie, and over the years he had convinced himself that he didn’t really remember what his war-time lover had looked like.
Seeing him again in the flesh was disorienting, the fantasy and the reality intermixing.
Had he always had that small scar on the side of his jaw?
How had he forgotten the size of Charlie's hands?
Ned moved to stand as Charlie approached his booth. “Can I get you a drink?” Not Ned’s most inspired opening.
“Pint of ale, please.” Ned didn’t detect any of the anger he had feared in Charlie’s response, but neither did he detect any warmth.
When Ned returned to the booth with their drinks, Charlie reached for his beer. “It’s very kind of you to agree to meet, Lieutenant.”
“Enough with that lieutenant nonsense,” Ned interrupted. “Neither of us are in uniform now. It’s Ned, please.”
“You always have been very modern, Ned.” Charlie took a long sip of his beer.
Ned swirled the wine in his glass, looking down at where Charlie’s shirtsleeves were rolled up to his elbows, his forearms covered in fine freckles. “So,” he finally said, “you’re a milliner.”
“What of it?” Charlie asked. Ned had forgotten just how prickly the man could be.
“I never imagined you…” Ned wasn’t sure what he wanted to say.
“The trench raider making ladies’ hats?” Charlie gave a rueful smile. “The shop is my father’s, been working there in one way or another since I could see over the counter. Drives me a bit mad to constantly be surrounded by family, though. Three sisters hovering over me.”
Ned was struck dumb for a moment. The hat shop had been enough of a surprise, but Charlie had three sisters?
How had Ned known none of this? How had he never thought to ask?
That Charlie was a stranger now, Ned had expected.
That he might have always been one was almost too difficult to contemplate.
“And you? Man about town? I see your picture in the papers sometimes. My sisters think you’re awfully handsome, son of a viscount and all.”
“The papers are all nonsense.” Ned suddenly found that he was prickly himself. “Decided to enjoy life after the armistice. I’m involved in the arts now, theatre, galleries, that sort of thing. It hasn’t been easy on artists the past few years.”
He didn’t know why he was justifying how he spent his time. Ned didn’t need to pretend to be useful, and he knew countless other wealthy young men and women of his class who did less. The press called his crowd the Bright Young Things, none of which were terms Ned felt could be applied to himself.
“It hasn’t been easy on anyone,” Charlie retorted. “Although your Mr Ruperston seems to be doing well for himself.”
“He’s not my Mr Ruperston.”
“You go about settling debts for all of your artistic charity cases?” A quirked eyebrow again. It was annoying how Charlie could communicate more with an eyebrow than Ned could with three minutes of monologue.
“He’s an excellent actor. And a good friend.” Ned fought down the urge to clarify that they weren’t lovers, not in the emotional sense, but it wasn’t as if he could say anything more in public.
“I’m sure he has many skills.” Ned had almost forgotten Charlie’s sly sarcasm, so unexpected that it hit like a gut punch.
“I admit that prompt payment for services rendered is not one of them.” That concession elicited a snort of laughter from Charlie. “And you, any particular friends?”
What could have possessed Ned to ask such a question? It was bad enough stressing that Hugh had no claim to him.
If Charlie was uncomfortable answering, it didn’t show. “Been taking a girl dancing for the past few months.”
Ned should have expected the answer. Whatever Charlie had done with men in the trenches, he wouldn’t risk the dangers of being queer in London. Except Ned found that he very much didn’t want to hear about Charlie’s future surrounded by brown-haired children and a wife to warm his bed.
Ned must have hesitated too long because Charlie changed the subject. “Do you see any others from the division?”
“Andrew Matthews worked in my father’s parliamentary office for a while,” Ned responded. “Ran into a few others around town.”
It went without saying that Ned was not in touch with any of the officers.
“I remember Andrew mentioning something about that,” was Charlie’s equally neutral response.
Then there didn’t seem to be much to say at all.
Ned spent his days with cocktails and Charlestons, while Charlie tended to customers and toiled over his hats.
They had no common social circles or professions, the basics of their daily lives had already been covered, and talking about what history they shared felt too dangerous.
It was silently heartbreaking.
Ned wondered what on earth to say next when he felt Charlie brace himself against the table. “The job they gave me after I was injured, driving the brass around Flanders, that was you, wasn’t it?”
Trust Charlie to run out of patience with polite conversation before finishing his first pint. Although it probably didn’t matter how long they exchanged inane details of their lives, this was always where the conversation was going to end up.
“You’d already served your country at the front for three years. All I did was put your name down for the driving post,” Ned replied calmly.
In fact, arranging that job had been a devil to make happen, and required Ned calling in every favour he could think of and then some, but it had bought Charlie some safety, or as much as could be found in Flanders.
“And so you decided to take me away from my section, from my friends. You forced me into a job spending my days ferrying around posh tossers who didn’t know the difference between No Man’s Land and a football match, all because you’d determined that was best.” The politeness was gone from Charlie’s voice, his speech becoming more clipped and harsh.
He wasn’t wrong. There was no denying Ned’s actions had been an abuse of power, but if this was to be the epilogue of their relationship, Ned was going to say his piece too.
“You were injured, dammit!” Ned met Charlie’s heated gaze full-on, “Christ, Charlie, if you’d gone back up to the front again…
” Ned’s courage broke at the last sentence.
Unable to bring himself to say the words, he moved to stand up.
This whole conversation had been the disaster he always knew it would be.
He should have never given Charlie his card in the first place.
Charlie’s hand grabbed hold of his wrist and Ned froze.
“It would’ve killed me.” Charlie’s voice was low and soft. “Don’t think I don’t know that. I can still be angry at you for being a high-handed bastard who thinks he always knows best, though.”
Ned collapsed back into his seat like a marionette whose strings had been cut, and Charlie’s warm hand slid away.
The response was so unexpected that it took Ned a moment to speak.
“I’m just glad you didn’t lead a mutiny against your passengers.
I had nightmares of you driving off a cliff with the entire general staff. ”
“I was sorely tempted at times. And the roads in France are a fucking nightmare. No maintenance at all.” Charlie took a long sip of his beer and then looked away from Ned.
“There is one thing I want to know. I don’t really remember much of my last day at the front.
But I have this memory, or rather, I have this impression—” Charlie cleared his throat, shifting in his seat. “—that you were there?”
Ned lost a piece of his soul that night in Flanders, unable to show anything more than a casual interest that one of the best parts of his life might be dying.
Creeping into the hospital tent at night, begging Charlie to stay alive.
Then making a decision, a decision that Ned considered to be the one and only heroic thing he had ever accomplished in his life, no matter how many medals he wore to the Armistice Day services.
“I helped get you to the dressing station,” Ned answered. Now it was his turn to shift uncomfortably in the booth. “Needed to make sure the doctors didn’t chop an arm off.”
Ned held his breath. Would Charlie ask more? About what Ned had seen?
“Hard enough living through the war the first time,” Charlie muttered.
Silence descended on them again as they sipped the remnants of their drinks. Ned had imagined a thousand and one different ways this conversation would go, and not one had ended with this fragile truce.
The sun shone through the dirty windows in the pub, fragmenting light across the dust. Ned let himself breathe and enjoy the moment. A pub, a drink, Charlie.
“I guess we never really did talk that much,” Charlie said, and then slyly glanced over at Ned over the rim of his pint. “But, then again, you often had your mouth full.”
Ned nearly choked on his wine, shocked that Charlie would acknowledge their past so casually. Ned found himself blushing. “If memory serves me right, you seemed all too happy to monologue away, and I didn’t think it would be polite to interrupt your train of thought.”
A genuine smile spread across Charlie’s face, and he raised his glass. Together they clinked drinks.
The familiar banter, like an echo from the past, made Ned feel warmer and more relaxed than any wine. “Tell me more about these hats.”
“Oh shut up, you bastard.”
“No, really, I’m fascinated.”
“Why don’t you tell me more about your fancy life? Heiresses and scandal, I hear?”
Ned was struck with inspiration. “Would you like tickets to anything? It’s not all bohemian nonsense.
I don’t know if you want to take your lady friend to see the jazz bands.
” If Charlie could rise above his anger at Ned, then Ned could put his own romantic yearnings aside.
“It would really be my pleasure, if only to see what you look like doing the Charleston.”
“I’m an excellent dancer!” Charlie looked almost indignant.
“There is an American band at Claridge’s next week. I can have two tickets sent.”
“That’d be grand.” Charlie looked genuinely pleased.
Ned felt a bit lightheaded. He had come to the pub not daring to hope for more than an awkward conversation. Now they were planning to go dancing.
Of course meeting Charlie Villiers would be nothing like he thought it would be. Nothing would be more typical of the man.