The final milk churns were delivered to Damley Close just after one o’clock in the afternoon, and now that the float was empty, Georgie Summerfield began to make the journey back to the dairy, lighting up a cigarette with a half-frown on his face. “Do you know,” he said, “I’m thinking of giving these things up. They can’t be much good for you, can they?”
Alfie shrugged. He did a lot of shrugging these days. Margie said it was his age. Georgie didn’t mind. He knew that his son was growing older. If that was the worst of it, then they wouldn’t have got off too badly.
“Do you remember when you used to beg me to let you ride the float with me, son?” he asked, and Alfie smiled, for this was a good memory.
“And you never used to let me,” he said.
“Well, you were too young,” said Georgie. “The trouble I would have got into! The folks at the dairy would have gone mad if they’d found out, and that’s nothing to what your mother would have done. I didn’t dare, Alfie! Didn’t have the nerve!”
Alfie shook his head and looked across at his father. “You had nerve,” he said quietly. “I know that much, anyway.”
Georgie nodded and slowed down as Joe Patience emerged from the library on the right-hand side of the street. He tooted the horn, and Joe looked up in surprise but gave a wave when he saw Georgie and Alfie seated side by side on the milk float.
“He’s doing well for himself these days all the same, isn’t he?” said Georgie, waving back. “Every bookshop I pass, there’s that book of his in the window. I keep meaning to buy a copy and read it, but I don’t think I could concentrate that long.”
“You can borrow my copy if you want,” said Alfie.
“You’ve read it, then?”
“Yes.”
“And what’s it like?”
Alfie smiled. “Dirty,” he said, which made Georgie burst out laughing.
“Maybe I will have a read of it after all,” he said, shaking his head. “Only not a word to your mother, do you hear? What time is it now, anyway?”
Alfie glanced at his watch. “Almost half past one,” he said.
“Perfect,” said Georgie. “We’ll get the float back, give Mr. Asquith a wash down, then be home in time to change before the guests arrive.” He whistled through his teeth for a moment. “Thirteen years old,” he mused. “Makes me feel old, that does. I can’t believe how grown-up you’ve become. Are you looking forward to your party?”
Alfie said nothing, and Georgie turned to look at him in surprise.
“You’re not, are you? I can see it in your face.”
“It’s not that,” said Alfie. “I don’t think I really like birthdays, to be honest.”
“What? But everyone likes birthdays!”
“I don’t,” said Alfie. “It makes me think of what it was like to be five again. And then what it was like to be six, seven, eight, and nine.”
Georgie nodded and steered Mr. Asquith to the left. “Those days are all in the past now, son,” he said. “We have happy times ahead of us. These last few years have been good, haven’t they? I know it took me a while to … well, to get better. But I’m fine these days, aren’t I? I’m sleeping, I’m eating, I’m working.”
“You still have nightmares,” said Alfie quietly.
“But not as many as before. Honestly, Alfie, I’m fine. There’s nothing for you to worry about. And look, here we are on a fine summer’s day, father and son riding the milk float together like you always wanted. It’s not a bad life really, is it?”
Alfie smiled and shook his head. “No,” he said. “No, it’s a pretty good life, all told.”
They drove along in silence for a few minutes, and only when the dairy came into sight did Georgie speak again.
“I don’t think … I don’t think I’ve ever really thanked you, have I, Alfie?”
“For what?”
“For succeeding in your secret mission,” said Georgie with a smile. “For coming to find me in the hospital. For breaking me out.”
“It wasn’t very sensible when I look back on it,” said Alfie.
“No, but it all came good in the end. And it meant everything to me to see you. To know the lengths you’d go to in order to get me back home again. That’s what kept all of us alive in the trenches, you know. The idea that one day we’d get to go home again. And see our wives and our children. You’re what kept me alive, even at the lowest points.”
Alfie turned away and watched as the houses passed by on the left-hand side. He didn’t really like to talk about the old days; he was just happy they were behind them all and life had gotten back to normal. Or a new type of normal, anyway.
“I never knew what you had in mind,” said Georgie. “All the trouble you could have got into, all the chances you took, all that hard work with Mr. Janáček’s shoeshine box. All the sacrifices you made. Taking trains on your own when you’d never been on a train in your life. Coming to find me, bringing me home, saving me. I never knew why you thought you should do it all.”
He turned in to the dairy and pulled Mr. Asquith to a halt. It was dark in here and he turned to look at his son, his Alfie, who was wondering whether he’d get to ride on the float with his dad again the following day.
“Tell me, son,” said Georgie. “Why did you go to so much trouble?”
Alfie turned and stared at his father. He opened his mouth to speak, but the words wouldn’t come. There were so many memories in his head—things that sometimes kept him awake at night, things that sometimes gave him nightmares just like Georgie’s. The worry when his dad went missing. The stench of the hospital. The shaking and trembling of the patients. The way they spoke, the nonsense of it. These were things he would never forget, things that would influence the man he would one day become.
“Why, son?” repeated Georgie.
Alfie shook his head and turned away, shrugging his shoulders for the hundredth time that day. He couldn’t tell his father the reason. Not just yet. Maybe when he was older he’d be able to say the words. He already knew them, after all. Mr. Janáček had said them to him a long time ago.
He’d done it for the best reason in the world. For love.