Chapter 19 An Invitation
The ball arched over the pitch, sending the Arsenal players scrambling as they tried to reach it. “Keep at it, chaps!” Charlie hollered.
“They’re going to need to do better than that if they expect to win the cup again,” Andrew Matthews replied. The two men stood at the pit in the bottom of the stands, right at the edge of the pitch.
“They’re finding their feet. Give them time.” Charlie clapped his old friend on the back.
As the crowd died down, Andrew turned to look at Charlie. “So, will you be joining us or not?”
Christ, not this again.
Andrew’s enthusiasm made him fun to watch football with but annoying when it came to activities Charlie was less keen on.
“A trip to France doesn’t come cheaply…” Charlie let the thought trail off, hoping it was enough to get Andrew to abandon this idea. The last thing Charlie wanted to do was go to France to attend the unveiling of a memorial to the worst days of his life.
“That’s the thing, though,” Andrew insisted. “The Legion is arranging the whole thing. Like those Thomas Cook trips.”
Helpfully, the Queens Park Rangers took that moment to make a dangerous attempt at a goal, and cheering the Arsenal defence became more important than conversation.
However, after the ball had been sent off to another corner of the pitch, Andrew picked up again.
“They want to honour what we did. You should be proud to attend.”
Charlie focused his eyes on the game, absent-mindedly rubbing his thumbs over the matching scars on the insides of his wrists.
The right scar was neat and precise, while the left was more jagged.
He frowned as he traced the scar. Why had he started with the easier side?
Idiot. To be fair, though, he hadn’t really had a detailed plan that day.
The scars served as a reminder of why he had no place in Andrew’s group of veterans. He didn’t deserve to go, to be part of the honouring.
The scuffle for the ball came close to their part of the pitch, and the crowd grew more boisterous. “Remember the officer I was the orderly for?” Andrew shouted over the din.
“Lieutenant Pinsent?” The name was more awkward to say than it should have been.
“Just the man. Anyway, apparently he is attending the memorial unveiling as well. Representing the Cabinet Office.” Andrew’s expression was uncharacteristically blank as he watched the players on the field. “Thought you might be interested. I remember you two always got along.”
Well, that was one way of putting it.
???
Despite the darkness and the many celebratory pints he had enjoyed with Andrew after the match, Charlie was able to easily slip the key into his door’s lock.
He didn’t bother with the lights as he crossed through the shop, knowing the location of the shelves of mufflers and engine cranks well enough to avoid bumping into anything. He probably knew every floorboard and nail in the whole building.
Charlie’s intention had never been to convert the hat shop into an automotive parts store.
The loose idea had been to learn the automotive business from his uncle, and then start his own shop, leaving his father to continue with the hats.
To everyone’s surprise, when Charlie announced he was leaving Villiers and Son Fine Hats, his father put the shop up for sale.
The suddenness had made Charlie wonder whether his father had kept the shop running for Charlie as much as Charlie had kept it running for his father.
It had actually sold for a tidy profit, leaving his parents with a decent sum to live off of.
The only wrinkle was the buyer had an existing storefront and no desire to buy out the lease.
It was Charlie’s sister Mary who put the puzzle pieces together.
The whole family had been celebrating Charlie’s engagement to Betty when she asked why Charlie didn’t just take over the lease for the hat shop.
He could convert the upstairs and back rooms into a proper home, an elegant solution for all involved, with Charlie carrying on the family tradition.
When they married, Charlie hadn’t expected Betty’s passion for the business.
She had an instinctual understanding of how vehicles and machines worked, and her time on the munitions lines during the war didn’t hurt either.
Some of Charlie’s happiest memories of their first years of marriage were of teaching Betty to drive.
He pushed open the door to what had once been the workroom he had shared with his father, now a kitchen and sitting room. Betty sometimes tutted about it being too small for a family of four, but Charlie liked the big windows and that they weren’t moving between boxy rooms.
Tonight the room was silent and dark. Betty must have already put the children to bed, saint that she was.
Charlie carefully climbed the winding back stairs.
Before he could think better of it, he peeked in through the door at the top of the stairs.
There was just enough moonlight through the drapes to see Frank sleeping on his stomach, limbs spread out like a starfish, cover already thrown aside.
Ellie was curled up on her side clutching Mr Timmons, her stuffed bear.
“Monsters, the two of them,” Betty whispered from behind him, wrapping her arms around his back and kissing the nape of his neck.
Charlie smiled and turned around in her arms, giving his wife a deep kiss. She had already changed into a nightgown, and he could feel the curve of her breasts pressed against his thin shirt. “Have I mentioned how I’m the luckiest man in London?”
“Not today.” Betty rested her head against his shoulders and they stood in the dark hall, listening to their children breathe, feeling their own chests rise and fall against each other.
After a minute that could have easily been an hour, Betty shifted out of Charlie’s arms and moved towards their bedroom, still holding his hand. “How was Arsenal?”
Once inside the room, Charlie closed the door, stripping off his jacket as he crossed the floor. “The boys squeaked out a win.”
Betty crawled into her side of the bed and began to unpin her hair. “And Andrew?”
“Very excited to tell me about a new point of parliamentary procedure he had come across.” Charlie grunted as he sat down on the bed to pry off his shoes.
“We should have him over for dinner soon,” Betty answered absent-mindedly. “Speaking of which, Kitty wants us over on Saturday. I said I’d make a pie.”
Charlie made a face. He loved that his sister lived close by, but he loved less that it meant equally close proximity to his brother-in-law. Betty whacked him with a pillow. “Tom isn’t that bad!”
“Says a woman who never had to spend a whole dinner listening to how best to gut a duck.”
“I’ll make a rum cake then?”
“Only if you promise to put enough in for me to get properly drunk,” Charlie replied to Betty’s muffled laughter.
Charlie began to undo the buttons of his shirt, which he then tossed in the wash.
Annoying brothers-in-law aside, dinner on Saturday had him thinking about the week ahead, the customers’ orders they needed to fill, the accounts to be done, the note from Frank’s teacher last week. The endless list of daily life.
“Andrew wants me to come with him to France for the Somme memorial.” Charlie hadn’t meant to say that.
“You should go.”
Charlie turned around to face Betty, fighting to not let his nerves show. “All a bit ridiculous, if you ask me. I’ve spent enough time in northern France to last a lifetime.”
“We’ve been talking for months about taking a holiday. Kitty wants to take her boys down to Brighton, and Frank and Ellie have been begging to go. You could go with Andrew without a worry.” Betty’s practicality was a double-edged sword.
“We’ve the shop to run. I can’t be leaving you with the children alone for a week. It's a nice idea, but I can go another time. I don’t think the Somme is going anywhere.”
Which didn’t answer the point Betty was making. There were parts of Charlie’s life that he didn’t share with his wife, including how the idea of seeing men from the regiment, of stepping foot back in France, of potentially seeing Ned, made his heart thunder and his stomach roll.
Betty didn’t push further, simply tucking the covers around her as if they had been discussing out-of-stock mufflers. Maybe it was that simple for her.
Forcing his fingers to unclench, Charlie continued the motions of getting ready for bed, turning off the lamp, lying down on his side of the bed.
He pushed France out of his mind, with its terrors and temptations, and thought instead about the easy partnership he had with the woman beside him, the laughter and joy of his children down the hall, of the endless list of tasks to keep the business going.
There really was no doubt about it, Charlie Villiers was the luckiest bastard in all of London.
???
Charlie was gasping, eyes wide, fingers itching to grab for his rifle. His hands gripped the sheets, still trembling from the sensation of shoving a bayonet into a screaming body.
The steady in and out of breathing beside him, the worn covers under his hands, the outlines of the wardrobe all became anchors for his flaying mind.
He was in London. He was safe.
His lips formed the same phrase over and over, a prayer in the silence. All is well. All is well.
The panic retreated, but sleep was lost for the rest of the night. Carefully, he shifted out of bed. Betty had long since learned to sleep through his nightmares, but she wouldn’t take kindly to him waking her with a creaking floorboard.
Downstairs, a full moon shone through the big glass windows.
The only time he missed making hats was on nights like these, alone in the dark, his hands unsteady from a nightmare.
Years ago he used the early hours of the morning to craft his fantasies, imagining a world where ideals of prettiness applied equally to men and women.
If he closed his eyes, Charlie could imagine the feel of needle and thread pinched between his fingers, the texture of felt under his hands.
The ache between his shoulder blades from being bunched over the hat.
Stretching his arms, and looking up to see Ned half-asleep in one of the work stools, his long limbs illuminated in the gaslight, taking up too much space as usual.
Ned was the only person who’d ever watched him work, and it had felt wildly intimate.
Presenting a finished product was very different from sharing the process of creation, where it was all chaos, bad ideas, and near failure.
Yet Ned had managed to watch everything Charlie did without passing judgement.
He was content to just be close to Charlie.
Charlie slumped down on the chesterfield, staring up at the full moon and clear sky through the old workroom windows.
His time with Ned—wild, boundless, passionate—all felt like a chapter out of another man’s life.
Charlie couldn’t help but feel a bit of pride that he had been once so cheeky, reckless, and so much in love.
Did Ned feel the same way? Charlie hoped he did.
They hadn’t been much in contact since ’24.
Charlie hadn’t wanted to reach out and put Ned’s career at risk.
Hadn’t wanted to see Ned’s face when Charlie explained he was getting married.
So without really intending to, they’d once again become strangers.
Except, what had Andrew said? Apparently he is attending the memorial opening, too. Representing the Cabinet Office.
Charlie could imagine Ned at the memorial opening easily enough. Standing ramrod straight, looking up at whatever they’d built to commemorate the slaughter, his ‘officer’ mask on so tight it would be a miracle if his face muscles moved at all.
The perfect English gentlemen.
Except it wouldn’t be that easy, would it?
Behind those respectful handshakes and polite conversations, Ned would have to be breaking inside.
Missing his brother, slaughtered in the mud far from loved ones.
Would Ned share that with anyone at the unveiling?
Have someone to make him laugh at a story of Frank’s misadventures?
Charlie snorted to himself. No, the posh bastard would probably keep that all to himself, stew in pain and regret and burn from the inside out and not let any other soul see it. Handle it all alone.
As he stared up at the bright moon, Charlie’s mouth twisted at his own foolishness.
Why was he even denying it? Of course he was going to that damned unveiling.
Charlie pulled himself up and went to the sideboard, where Betty kept a pencil and some paper. Sitting at their dining table, he started to write. “Dear Andrew…”
He was going to fucking regret this.
Charlie put down the pencil and returned to the same sideboard. He yanked out the cork on his gin, poured himself a small glass, and took a long sip. Once the burn had hit his stomach, he returned to the paper.
“I’m going to take you up on this offer to go to France, after all…”