Her question, natural as it is, catches Henry off-guard. ‘I haven’t decided yet,’ he replies. He raises his hand to his neck and fiddles needlessly with his tie. ‘My father died not long after I volunteered, and my brother, Devlin, saw active duty in the end, though it was only for a few months. Thank God he made it back in one piece, his ego fully intact…’ He smiles, a rush of anticipation seizing hold of him. ‘So much has changed since I’ve been away. It’s the oldest cliché in the book, but whatever I end up doing, I’d like to make a difference if I can.’
The second the words are out of his mouth he fears he’s said too much, when in reality, he knows perfectly well he hasn’t said enough. He lowers his eyes and stares with studied intensity at the tips of his boots. Tell her. Tell her, you idiot. You know she’ll understand.
‘What is it, Henry?’
He lifts his head and smiles. ‘Before I volunteered I was doing pretty well with my studies. Devlin never showed much interest in school, but he’s always been charisma on a stick, so somehow it didn’t seem to matter.’
‘Charisma on a stick?’ Francine cuts in. ‘Are you sure you two are related?’
Henry bursts out laughing. ‘Yes – although Devlin was first in line when they were handing that out, too.’ A flicker of insecurity flares inside him all over again. ‘Trust me, I speak from experience when I say you’d understand if you met him.’
‘But I haven’t met him,’ she says. Her gaze zeroes in on him with laser-sharp focus. ‘I’m right here – with you. Anyway, I think charisma is for film stars, and highly overrated for everyone else.’
Henry realises he’s beaming like a prize fool.
‘Stop trying to distract me,’ she says, smiling back at him. ‘Go on, tell me what you were going to say about your studies.’
‘You really want to know?’
‘Yes!’
‘Okay, well, discovering I had a gift for languages was a revelation, almost like acting in a way – a chance to reinvent myself and shine. So I’ve been thinking I might go in for a career in teaching. Maybe then I can inspire others the way my teachers inspired me.’ He pauses. ‘I didn’t actually say that out loud, did I? God, the clichés are just pouring out of me today.’
‘No they’re not!’ Francine replies. ‘I think it’s wonderful.’ She steps towards him and presses her hands against his chest. ‘You have to promise me you won’t let anyone tell you otherwise. You’ve got that look about you, Henry! You might even be one of the greatest teachers London’s ever seen!’
She slips away and runs along the promenade. Henry chases after her, catches her by the waist and lifts her into the air. As he swings her round, her face, the pier, the sky, the Tower, blur and merge before him. Francine screams, and with a lightning swipe, she grabs hold of his cap and brandishes it like a trophy above her head.
‘Come on,’ he says, lowering her to the ground, ‘let’s go inside somewhere and have a cup of tea to warm up. What about over there?’
Henry motions towards an imposing building with an elegant red-brick façade on the opposite side of the road. The Shore Hotel looks decidedly grand, a watering hole for the privileged no doubt, a whiff of the silver spoon about them, but Henry doesn’t care – right now he’d be happy to go just about anywhere as long as he’s with Francine.
She follows his gaze and quickly shakes her head. ‘No, Henry, we can’t go there. That’s where I work. I don’t want my colleagues waiting on us. It wouldn’t feel right on my day off.’
‘Of course, how stupid of me. A film, then? Some place warm and cheery?’
‘Yes. The Winter Gardens! If we’re quick, we’ll be just in time for the matinee.’
She waits for a Fleetwood-bound tram to rattle past them, then she takes Henry’s hand and leads him in the opposite direction from the hotel. When they reach the other side of the road she comes to an abrupt stop and looks at him with an expression of such startling gravity, he wonders what can possibly have transpired to unsettle her in that briefest of journeys from one side of the promenade to the other.
‘What’s wrong, Francine? Have you changed your mind? We could always do something else if you prefer?’
Her arms fall like a rag doll’s to her sides. ‘Nothing’s wrong,’ she replies.
‘Then what is it?’
Henry scans her face. Her eyes are laced with such intricacy of emotion that every attempt he makes to interpret them proves utterly beyond him.
Francine glances at the pier, at the Shore Hotel rising large and grandiose behind them. Turning slowly to face him, she floors him with the most ingenuous of smiles.
‘Okay, Henry, here it is: I’ve never met a boy like you before. I’m just a regular Yorkshire lass, not like the London girls you’re used to. I don’t have fancy tastes. I’m smart, and I’m passionate about the things I like, but I’m not cultured or clever like you.’
She holds her palms out from her sides and shrugs. ‘I’m a waitress who scrubs up well and only owns one good coat, and this is it. But I wear my heart on my sleeve, and I swear it’s every bit as hopeful and fragile as the next girl’s.
‘You won’t break it, will you?’
The Return
KING’S CROSS STATION, LONDON, DECEMBER 6: DEPARTURE, 8:47 A.M.
Henry
The hairy trek between concourse and train with an unknown, if kindly, teenager was rapidly turning into the longest walk of Henry’s life. But then so far, nothing at all was going the way he had expected.
He moved steadily forwards, his vision trained in missile lock-on with the carriage door ahead. An invalid! He’d been made to feel like an invalid! And all he’d done was tell a little white lie about the fact he wasn’t travelling alone, and even that wasn’t an entire fabrication.
In Henry’s inside coat pocket a Basildon Bond envelope grazed lightly against his chest. Two tickets had been purchased at his niece, Amy’s, insistence, and yet barely ninety minutes had passed since she’d telephoned to say that she wouldn’t be able to accompany him after all:
‘I’m so sorry, Uncle Henry, but the twins woke up with chickenpox and Dan’s renovation job in Berkshire has overrun. I feel terrible about letting you down, but I’m going to have to stay home and take care of the girls. Will you be all right on your own?’
This, in a way, had been Spanner Number One, though Henry wasted no time at all in assuring her that he was more than capable of making the journey by himself. The point was, her intention to go with him had been there, so what difference did it ultimately make if instead of being here by his side, she was trapped at home in Ladbroke Grove?
As he manoeuvred himself one footstep at a time towards the waiting train, Henry briefly entertained the possibility that somehow, via a perverse twist of fate, he’d inadvertently willed the morning’s events into being. In truth, not once during the course of the last few tumultuous days had he considered it necessary for Amy to escort him – like some glorified minder! – on his trip. And yet, he acknowledged with a faint