‘That’s ridiculous, it can’t be so.’ She gasped. He was saying the same as Howard.

‘So you see why we need every last man.’ The same and yet the opposite.

Every last man.

32

HOWARD WAS SITTING at the small wooden side table he’d dragged underneath the window and was using as a writing desk, so he saw her walk up the path. The house was so compact that it took just a stride for him to get to the door; he flung it open before she even knocked.

She looked startled by his efficiency, or maybe his appearance: open shirt, unshaven, no socks, definitely no tie. He thought of the time he’d been bathing and she’d walked right past him, pretended he was invisible. He knew he was not. His bare chest wasn’t new to her. Nothing was. Hurriedly he offered, ‘Come in, come in and wait. Mam’s out but will be back before long.’ It was a lie – she’d be out most of the day – but he wanted her to stay a while. Right now his mother was on the autobus to the market in Stafford, as she did on the first Wednesday of every month; he was surprised Vivian didn’t know as much.

‘Actually, it’s you I’ve come to see.’ Ah, so perhaps she had known it and she’d timed her visit particularly. Immediately he felt apprehensive about what it was that she wanted to say that couldn’t be said in front of his mother.

‘Oh, well.’ He held the door open wide, stepped back so she could enter.

She hesitated, no doubt having second thoughts about sitting alone in a cottage with a man and no one to chaperone. She glanced left and right, indicating that it wasn’t the propriety of the situation that worried her so much as the discovery. The street was empty, dusty; she stepped over the threshold. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust from the bright sunlight to the cool, dark interior. Momentarily plunged into blackness, she blinked, once, twice. Slowly. He supposed he felt the air move between them. When she opened her eyes he was staring right at her. Impossible not to. She didn’t look as she usually did. She looked unwell, if he was frank. She was pale, bleached. She looked exhausted, hollow. He thought of those eggs they blew at Easter and decorated. She was fragile.

‘What happened to your eye?’ she asked, and he remembered he didn’t look a picture either; he’d forgotten about the shiner. He brought his hand up and touched it as if he needed to confirm it was still tender. Courtesy of a couple of privates home on leave. Pissed off that they had to go back when he didn’t. They’d got him in his own back yard when he went out for a scuttle of coal, night before last. One of them was vicious, seemed like he wanted to kill Howard. The other was jumpy, kept looking over his shoulder; his heart wasn’t in it, he only allowed his mate three or four decent punches before he dragged him off and yelled that they had to be on their way. The yard was too tight on space for anything other than a scuffle anyway. It could have been worse.