They fall silent, each lost within their own thoughts, looking across the river. A pair of mallards rescues them from their thoughts, rising up close to the shore, their wings beating against the water. They watch them wheel away across the river. Martin reaches forward, takes her head in his hands and slowly brings his face to hers. This time he doesn’t try to kiss her. He just touches the tip of his nose to hers, moves it in a circle, brushes her nose again, draws back, then touches his nose to hers again, beaming with happiness.
‘You didn’t tell me you were an Eskimo.’ She circles his nose with her own, then slowly brings her lips to his, as lightly as a bird unfurling its wings.
‘I love you,’ he whispers.
‘I love you, too.’
England is draped in all its summer glory. Fields of gold. Hedgerows choked with flowers. Learie Constantine leading the West Indies out at Lord’s. But Nancy’s not here to enjoy it with him. She’s on holiday in Devon until tomorrow. Martin mooches about at Whichert House or takes Scamp for long walks, counting the days until she will return.
Letters fly back and forth, his with snippets of news from Whichert House – tennis games with Hugh Saunders; the quality of Aunt D.’s rhubarb; local gossip.
Now you must be able to gaze over broad headlands and endless sea. While I can only look disconsolately about a deserted village. You have taken with you the chief charm of the place. There is no trim, chic black-dressed figure to return to here in the evenings to whom I can smile or speak a few words, knowing that later there would be a loving conversation down the telephone or a close goodbye at your garden gate. I’ve even had to plunge into the sombre pages of my Roman law books and the harmless pleasures of the country, like taking the dog for a walk, playing tennis, cycling to the post office or playing at soldiers. I’ve hardly seen a car and I wear sandals all day. One morning, Scamp and I ran right round the garden after breakfast – I had just found a postcard from you waiting for me.
Hers, effusive with descriptions of sunset walks and the enchantments of rock pools; or eating lemon sole with LJ and Peg at a much talked about hotel in Budleigh Salterton (‘overrated’ is Nancy’s verdict). Tucked between the sheets of one letter, she pressed some wild flowers: thrift, sea lavender, kidney vetch. When he held them to his nose, he smelled salt and sun. And Chanel No 5.
Though everything seems surprisingly normal, lurking under the surface of this English summer, with all its rituals and pleasures, there is a growing sense of unease. No one any longer doubts that there will be a war with Germany. It’s now a question of when, not if. Martin has already received his commission as a Second Lieutenant in the Ox and Bucks, as the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry is known. A Territorial regiment, with a proud fighting history. He will be the youngest officer in the regiment, a distinction that makes him both proud and anxious. Training is set to begin in three days’ time at a camp in Sussex.
Which is why he is standing on tiptoe with a hooked pole in his hand, trying to open the trapdoor of the attic at Whichert House. Ever since Aunt Dorothy’s son, Michael, broke his leg trying to get up into the attic it has been strictly out of bounds. But Martin has to retrieve some kit.
The metal hook slides across the face of the trapdoor, but doesn’t find its mark. Martin lets his weight back onto the soles of his bare feet, wipes his brow, then gets up on tiptoe once more, and starts to guide the stick towards the bracket. He looks around him for something to stand on. Then tries again. This time he manages to get the hook into the bracket. He grips the pole with both hands, pulls until the accordion ladder is fully unfurled, tests it for stability, then places his right foot on the first rung.
At the top of the ladder, he hauls himself upright, careful not to bang his head on the beams, lights a lantern. Old toys. Worn-out carpets. Leather suitcases and trunks. Tea tins filled with rusty nails. Cardboard boxes full of back numbers of The Cornhill Magazine.
He moves further into the attic, stepping carefully from beam to beam, as only the middle portion is covered with boards. Uncle Charles’ stuff should be at the end of the attic, on the right, under a groundsheet. He holds up the lantern. A sideboard draped in a white sheet drifts like an iceberg in the dark. Two discarded tennis racquets, with frayed and broken strings, lean against a copper fireguard. A jumble of old picture frames lies on the floor. A groundsheet.
Everything has been left exactly as it was when Uncle Charles came home from Flanders thirty years ago. A battered shaving bowl. A camp bed. A collapsible lantern. The last time the lantern was lit was in the trenches on the Western Front. Martin’s generation vowed that the horrors of the trenches would never happen again. But, in a few weeks, or months, he will be lighting this same lantern. Same battalion. New war.
He dismantles the lantern and puts it back in its case, picks up the camp bed and puts it and the other things in the groundsheet, carries them across to the trapdoor and goes back down the ladder.
‘You found it!’ Uncle Charles is sitting in the kitchen polishing his shoes: a row of black and brown brogues laid out in a neat row next to a shoebox.
Martin takes out the canvas pouch with the collapsible lantern.
‘Goodness! I didn’t know I still had it!’ The older man takes the pouch, opens it and puts the lantern together. ‘These hinges are the tricky part.’
Like Aunt D., Martin thinks of Charles as a surrogate parent. Ever since he was a boy, Martin has spent his holidays here and in that time he has come to feel far closer to his uncle than he ever felt to his own father. The idea that Martin may carry the same lantern into battle only makes this connection stronger.
‘There!’ Uncle Charles clicks the glass sides into place, places a candle inside and lights it. He looks over at Martin with an expression both of love and sorrow. ‘Good company on a cold night. I hope it serves you well, too, dear boy.’
The sun is high over the Chilterns as Martin speeds through the lanes in the Bomb. It’s his last day before training camp. There’s a fluttering feeling in his stomach, the same he used to get when he was driven back to start the new term at Marlborough when he was a boy. But he is determined to enjoy these last few hours of freedom. Nancy has arrived back from Devon and Hugh Saunders has asked them both over for a game of tennis. On the back seat lie his trusty Dunlop racquet and a bottle of chilled white wine.
Nancy is already waiting outside Blythe Cottage, dressed in a pleated white skirt, white top, white socks and white plimsolls on her feet. In her arms is a Ladies Slazenger racquet.
‘Ready for battle?’ He kisses her and they speed off.
‘Not so sure my tennis will live up to the outfit,’ Nancy shouts, holding her hair in the wind.
The light dances off the bonnet of the Bomb. A field of golden corn stretches away to the right. The hedgerows are choked with wild flowers: cow parsley, vetch, water avens. In Bulstrode Park, a herd of cattle stand chewing the cud, flicking their tails. The branches form a canopy of green above their heads.
‘England, in August!’ he cries. ‘Is there anywhere so beautiful in the world?’
Hugh Saunders is waiting for them in the driveway of a large, Queen Anne, brick house in Gerrards Cross. Since meeting