‘Ah well,’ she told herself as she walked to work. ‘I mustn’t get silly about it. It’s early days yet.’

Thirty-Seven

When Norm came home off shift that Friday afternoon, Em was waiting to surprise him. As so often now, he came in with a tired, morose expression, longing to get out of his uniform and in need of something to eat.

‘I’ll get the kettle on,’ she said. ‘Then I’ve got something to tell you.’

‘Oh yeah?’ Barely listening, he glanced over the paper that was lying on the table. What’s that then?’ He glanced round the room. ‘Where’s the lad?’

His words cut through Em. ‘The lad’ – almost as if Robbie was someone else’s, not his.

‘That’s what I was going to tell you. You know you’ve got the day off tomorrow? Well, Mom said Robbie could stay over tonight, partly to give us a break. But Dad’s nearly finished making his moke: he’s going to let him take it out tomorrow, so Robbie’s gone off happy as a sand boy, and we can have a lie-in – or maybe go out somewhere.’

She saw Norm’s face relax, which both encouraged and saddened her. She wanted to make him happy, but it tore her up to see how hard he was finding it coming home and adjusting, not just to life in Civvy Street, but also to the fact that he had a son and that life was not free as it once was.

‘That’s nice.’ He came towards her and took her in his arms, was about to kiss her when his mom came in from out the back with a bucket of coal. Em suppressed a sigh. There wasn’t much privacy to be had. But she could at least see that Norm was pleased. She knew he felt squeezed out, that she spent so much time with Robbie that even the few opportunities for lovemaking they had were often prevented or interrupted by him. Em was used to her life revolving around Robbie – Norm wasn’t, not yet.

She asked him if he wanted to go to the pictures, but Norm said he’d prefer just to go out for a bit of a walk with her, that they never seemed to get time alone.

‘Tell you what,’ he said. ‘Let’s go up to Aston Park – get a bit of fresh air.’

Em was flattered by this, that he’d rather spend time with her than lost in a story on a screen. They caught the train at Duddesdon and went for a lovely stroll, arm in arm round the park, with the old mansion in the middle, relaxing together and talking over old times. She tried not to think about Robbie, how her mom would be putting him to bed about now and was he all right? And about the questions and doubts regarding Norm that nagged at her: Do you love Robbie? Do you, really? she wanted to ask, because she really wasn’t sure if he did. But she knew this was not the moment.