Homecomings (45 page)

Just then there sounded Rose’s punctilious tap at the door. As soon as he saw Margaret, whom as it happened he had not met, he broke into apologies so complex and profuse that even I began to feel embarrassed. He was so extremely sorry: he had looked forward all these years to the pleasure of meeting Mrs Eliot: and now he had just butted in, he was making a nuisance of himself, he only wanted to distract her husband for a moment, but even that was an infliction. They had neither of them got better at casual introductions: Rose, inflexibly, wearing his black coat and striped trousers in the steaming heat, went on talking according to his idea of gallantry, his eyes strained; Margaret faced him as she might as a girl at one of her father’s exhibitions, hating the social forms, doing her best to be easy with an awkward and aspiring clerk.

I saw that they mildly liked each other, but only as partners in distress. When Rose had finished his piece of business with me, which with his usual economy took five minutes, he made his protracted and obsequious goodbyes. After he had at last departed, I told her that he was one of the most formidable men I had known, in some ways the most formidable: she had heard it before, but now in the flesh she could not credit it. But she was too tired, too happy to argue; she did not want to disagree, even on the surface: she said, let us go home.

As soon as we had left the well-like corridors of the old building and went into the street, we pushed against the greenhouse air: sweat pricked at the temples: it was in such weather, I remembered, holding Margaret’s arm, that I first walked from Lufkin’s office to the Chelsea house, getting on for twenty years before.

Now, in the same weather, we turned the other way, sauntered up Whitehall towards Trafalgar Square, and there got a bus. I told her how I had once sat on a bus close by with old Bevill, and he had mentioned her father’s name, which gave me a card of re-entry into her life. As the bus spurted and braked up Regent Street, we talked about the child as we might have done in bed between waking and sleeping, the diary of his days, the conspiracy of hope which, during his illness, we had put away as though we had never played with it.

We talked of the children and then put them aside: along Oxford Street we were talking of ourselves. We talked at random, of the first nights we spent together, of what we had feared for each other in the last month, of thoughts of each other during the years we were separated.

As we got off at Marble Arch and walked along the pavement rustling with litter, under the trees, Margaret gave a smile of pretended sarcasm, and said: ‘Yes, I suppose there are some who’d say we had come through.’

I put my arm round her and held her to me as we walked slowly, as slowly as though we planned to spin the evening’s happiness out. The vestigial headache, seeping in with the saturated air, seemed like a sensual ache. There was a smell of hot grass and fumes, and, although the lime was almost over, just once I fancied that I caught the last of it.

Her smile sharp, she said: ‘I suppose some would really say that we’d come through.’

She had more courage than I had. She was not anything like so given to insuring herself: her spirit was so strong that when she rejoiced, she rejoiced without qualification. To her, victories were absolute; at that moment, as we walked together, she had all of them she wanted: she wanted no more than this. And yet, by a perversity which she would not lose, she, whose fibres spoke of complete happiness, could not use the words.

That evening she had to dissimulate her faith, put on a smile that tried to be ironic, and deny the moment in which we stood. Just as I had done so often: but now it was I, out of comparison more suspicious of fate than she was, who spoke without troubling to placate it.

We were in sight of home. A light was shining in one room: the others stood black, eyeless, in the leaden light. It was a homecoming such as, for years, I thought I was not to know. Often in my childhood, I had felt dread as I came near home. It had been worse when I went, as a young man, towards the Chelsea house. Now, walking with Margaret, that dread had gone. In sight of home my steps began to quicken, I should soon be there with her.

It was a homecoming such as I had imagined when I was lonely, but as one happening to others, not to me.

Series in broad chronological ‘story’ order (see Synopses below for ‘Series order’)

Dates given refer to first publication dates

These titles can be read as a series, or randomly as stand-alone novels

Published by House of Stratus

George Passant In the first of the Strangers and Brothers series Lewis Eliot tells the story of George Passant, a Midland solicitor’s managing clerk and idealist who tries to bring freedom to a group of people in the years 1925 to 1933.

The Light & The Dark The Light and the Dark is the second in the Strangers and Brothers series. The story is set in Cambridge, but the plot also moves to Monte Carlo, Berlin and Switzerland. Lewis Eliot narrates the career of a childhood friend. Roy Calvert is a brilliant but controversial linguist who is about to be elected to a fellowship.

Time of Hope The third in the Strangers and Brothers series (although the first in chronological order) and tells the story of Lewis Eliot’s early life. As a child he is faced with his father’s bankruptcy. As a young man, he finds his career at the Bar hindered by a neurotic wife. Separation from her is impossible however.

The Masters The fourth in the Strangers and Brothers series begins with the dying Master of a Cambridge college. His imminent demise causes intense rivalry and jealousy amongst the other fellows. Former friends become enemies as the election looms.

The New Men It is the onset of World War II in the fifth in the Strangers and Brothers series. A group of Cambridge scientists are working on atomic fission. But there are consequences for the men who are affected by it. Hiroshima also causes mixed personal reactions.

Homecomings Homecomings is the sixth in the Strangers and Brothers series and sequel to Time of Hope. This complete story in its own right follows Lewis Eliot’s life through World War II. After his first wife’s death his work at the Ministry assumes a larger role. It is not until his second marriage that Eliot is able to commit himself emotionally.