“We’ve it unofficially.”
“Our own two-man den of thieves,” Nial said.
“True enough,” Roger said. “Though we two thieves have no need for it.”
She glanced across at him. Her mother said:
“But Captain Grey, I thought you were meeting a girl.”
“I am,” Roger said. “But she has a car.”
“My word,” her mother said. “That’s rather posh.”
“Actually, Mrs. McEwan,” Nial said, “she has several.”
“There, you see?” Roger said. “If Saint Nial himself said it, it must be true. So take it,” Roger insisted, and as he did, behind him in the garden the sun came out briefly; then the shade returned. “Hold on,” he said, coming across the kitchen. As Phillip let go of Susan, Roger said: “I—”
Roger stopped, looking at her.
“What?” she asked.
Roger didn’t say anything.
“What is it, Captain Grey?” her mother said.
“Hmm?”
“Captain?”
“Don’t, Roger,” Nial cautioned, “all right?”
“Oh, shush, little brother. Well?”
Roger hadn’t taken his eyes from hers. They could all hear the front door click open.
“S’that Dad?” Phillip asked, turning to face the hallway.
“You’re cross-eyed,” Roger told her.
“What?” Phillip said.
“Mmn,” Roger nodded.
The front door opened. “Phillip?” her father called.
“Cross-eyed?” Phillip repeated.
She heard the anger in Phillip’s voice. She immediately lowered her eyes and heard her father step inside and close the front door and call again, “Phillip? Phillip?”
“He’s in here, Mac,” her mother said. “Captain Grey’s only saying what he thinks he sees, Phillip.”
“Cross-eyed?” Phillip said once more.
“Yes,” Roger said, “but barely. I’d never’ve caught it but when she looked across at me, the sudden sunlight in the window—”
“Roger,” Nial said in a lowered voice but equally as emphatic, “this is his sister.”
“My thirteen-year-old sister,” Phillip added and said to Roger, “not one of your—”
“Phillip!” her father called, coming down the hall. “Son!”
He wore his brown pinstripe, weskited and with a lighter brown tie under his stark white shirt.
“Hello, Father,” Phillip said.
Her father stood in the kitchen doorway, blinking, his eyes moist. “What’s this ‘Father’ business?” he asked his son.
“Sorry, Dad.”
“It’s Mac to you now, son—Mac.”
“All right. Fine. Mac, then.”
Her father held out his hand, and her brother took it and was at once hauled in to a half embrace, half pat on the back. Her father stepped back. For some moments he looked at his son. He shook his head ever everso slowly. Shut his eyes and opened them again that he might see his son, taste with his eyes the very life of this man, this flier, his pride. Which he did. Sighing, he looked at Roger, at Nial, then back at Phillip.
“This is Captain Grey,” her mother announced—Roger bowed his head—“and Flight Lieutenant McKellan,”—who did likewise.
Her father extended his hand and first Nial took it and shook it and then Roger.
“What,” Roger said with a grin, “no hugs for us?”
Her father frowned in puzzlement.
“It’s just him, Da—Mac,” Phillip said.
“Take no notice, Mr. McEwan,” Nial said.
Her father and Roger were still shaking hands and then her father yanked Roger towards him, as if to indeed give him a hug and Roger in trying to avoid it stumbled on his own feet like a calf and Nial and her brother and father laughed, though warmly. Susan too was smiling, as was her mother.
“We’re having sherries,” her mother said.
“Damn,” her father said, glancing at his watch. “Why can’t it be five?”
“Oh, go on,” her mother said, “it won’t hurt you.”
“Rules are rules,” he said. He looked at Susan. “Hello, love,” he said. “You must be feeling dreadfully ignored.”
“Actually, no,” she answered, blinking several times.
“Rules are made to be broken, Mr. McEwan,” Roger said.
“Hearts are made to be broken, Captain Grey,” her father said.
“Please, it’s Roger.”
“Roger, then. Rules aren’t even meant to be bent.”
“And I’d agree, Mr. McEwan,” Nial said.
“Well, I’m siding with Roger,” her mother said. “This isn’t London Transport. Once isn’t going to hurt, for Lord’s sake.”
“I doubt He’s having one,” her father said.
“How d’you know? Perhaps He might. And Susan will have one too. Love? Yes?”
She looked at her mother then her father.
“Oh, all right,” her father said, “corrupt your child as well then. And your Lord God in His ludicrous Heaven.” He crossed the kitchen and stood beside her mother and then kissed her quickly on the cheek. “What’s next, I don’t know.”
“A glass of the driest,” her mother answered. With her hand she smoothed her skirt across her thighs and crossed the kitchen to the table. The sherry bottle was there on it, standing sleek and tall and darkly opaque and there were three extra long-stemmed glasses and her mother lifted the bottle and uncorked it and began filling one of the glasses with the honey-colored wine. “Then Captain Grey is meeting a girl,” she said. “One with a car.”
Her father nodded in approval and sipped his sherry and glanced at Nial. “And surely you too, Flight Lieutenant?”
“Merely the third wheel, I’m afraid,” Nial said.
“This—this girl,” Susan interrupted, asking Roger. “Is she cross-eyed?”
Roger grinned. “All my girls are,” he said.
Six
“Then why’d he say so?” she asked, gripping the edge of the swimming pool and pushing herself up and out of the water. As she did, the pool water slipped down her body like a negligée.
Sideways she sat on the pool’s edge, her slender legs, from mid-calves downward, immersed. The swimming baths—the pool—were crowded as a holiday camp and as noisy. Here in the deep end there were twin five-meter diving platforms and a low springboard which tongued out above the water. Above them, the high windows all around the walls steamed. Close by on the deck Phillip lay on his side, on a towel, his chest and legs quite white, his maroon bathing trunks quite dry.
“Because that’s his line,” he told her.
“His