‘But what about Geoffrey?’ Robert asked. ‘He’s always been so keen to take over from his father.’
His mother’s face fell, and she looked as if she were about to cry again.
‘You didn’t get my letter?’ his father asked.
As Robert looked at their forlorn faces, he cottoned on. ‘Ah, I see. When?’
‘Carew got word a few days ago. A sniper bullet to the head.’
‘Oh Charles, for pity’s sake,’ said his mother in a fractured voice. Her husband put a hand over hers.
‘Near Ypres,’ he continued. ‘The sector was pretty quiet, too, I understand. It was desperately unlucky.’
Robert nodded. ‘Very unlucky.’ A sniper – that was what they always told the family. He’d written the same lie many times now – a shot clean through the head, died immediately, wouldn’t have known a thing. The reality was that Geoffrey had most likely died in agony after shrapnel tore his body asunder.
Poor Geoffrey. It seemed strange, somehow, that he should be dead – although Robert didn’t know quite why; it wasn’t as if they’d been close. But Geoffrey had always been there, in the background. They’d been good friends as boys – not an awful lot in common, but their fathers’ friendship meant they saw each other regularly. But then they’d gone to different schools, pursued different interests, as young men did, and grown apart. He felt desperately sorry now that he hadn’t kept in touch.
‘I shall go and visit Mr and Mrs Carew,’ Robert said, ‘if you think it wouldn’t upset them too much.’
‘I’m sure they’d like that,’ his father said.
‘Oh Mother, please don’t,’ Robert said. Tears were sliding down her cheeks, leaving trails in the dusting of powder she always wore, even though she denied it. He took her hand in his. ‘I’m here, aren’t I? I’m safe and well, and I intend to stay that way. Don’t you keep on telling everybody how the doctor said it’s a miracle I survived scarlet fever? That I must be indestructible?’ Yet he understood, too, that it must be hell for them. He was their only child. She produced a watery smile. ‘There,’ he said, ‘that’s better.’
The waiter brought an ornate silver cake stand piled high with tiny sandwiches and iced fancies. It was so utterly preposterous that he had to stifle the urge to laugh.
‘So,’ he said, once he’d managed to compose himself, ‘you’re thinking to expand the tearoom, I suppose, now you’ll have Carew’s premises?’
‘Yes,’ his father said. ‘I was hoping to leave it to the new chap to oversee it all, but he’s been called up.’
It had always been taken as read that Robert would one day take over his father’s business. But Robert had known from early on that his heart lay not in selling hats and gloves and fabric by the yard, but in painting – and adventure, and ideally some combination of the two. He’d promised his father he would try running the store for two years, which he’d done, giving it his all. But all it had proved was that he knew his own mind. After that he’d spent a few terms at the Slade School of Fine Art; then, not feeling as if he quite belonged there either, he’d travelled around Europe – Paris, then Germany and Austria – studying painting. He’d been all set to move to Canada to help start up a lead-mining company when the war intervened.
Robert’s mother took a shuddering breath and her eyes filled with tears again. ‘Oh Robert, I do hope that once this wretched war is over, you’ll come home. I couldn’t bear it if you were to go away to the other side of the world after all this.’
‘Come, my dear,’ said his father. ‘We can’t expect Robert to live his life to suit us. Every young fellow must be free to find his own place in the world and make his fortune as he sees fit. Now, let’s not talk of war any longer.’
But everything came back to the war, Robert saw. It was going to be a trying week. All at once he wished he were staying in London for the whole of his leave, and not going back to Woking – then he felt guilty for such a thought. His parents would be beside themselves with happiness to have him back home for a few days. Doubtless he would be plied with Mrs Benson the cook’s cabinet pudding and damson jam, have all his favourite meals made and have all sorts of fuss and attention paid to him, just as if he were a schoolboy again back home for the long summer holidays, and not a fully grown adult back from slaughtering his fellow man.
They spent the rest of the meal carefully avoiding the war. Then his mother went up to their suite to rest. They were to go to the Gaiety later that evening to see To-Night’s the Night. In the meantime, Robert paid a visit to his father’s tailor near Bond Street to be measured for a new uniform, then called in at his bank, Cox and King’s in Charing Cross.
Much later, as the streets were softening with nightfall, he found his way to a down-at-heel street in Soho. He climbed the narrow wooden stairs of a shabby building up to a large, light attic room, where a slim man in a soft collar and mustard-brown, homespun suit sat hunched over a desk. Robert stood for a moment. The office was a jumble of canvases and sketches. It smelled of oil paint and coffee. It was just as he remembered it.
Sensing someone behind him, the man turned. ‘Robert!’
Edgar Brocklebank tore off his wire spectacles and got up. He was in his early forties, but his prematurely grey hair was even greyer and thinner than Robert remembered, and he gave the impression of a much older man.
‘What a wonderful surprise. How very, very good to see you.’ Edgar grasped Robert’s shoulder and shook his hand, beaming, clearly swallowing back his emotions.
‘It’s good to see you too, Edgar,’ Robert grinned. ‘How I’ve missed all this.’
‘What, the mess?’
Robert laughed. ‘The mess in particular.’
Edgar laughed too. ‘I haven’t changed, as you see. Did you get leave? Let me take you to dinner! Oh, how I wish you’d let me know you were coming – I could have met you at Brown’s.’
‘No, I’ve been dreaming about a plate of Luigi’s spaghetti Bolognese for weeks. Come, let’s go there now. I’m famished.’
A few minutes later, they pushed open the door to Luigi’s. The interior was dimly lit, perfumed with exotic tobacco and a pungent aroma of foreign cooking. Through the miasma of smoke, steam and heaving humanity Robert made out the familiar long room, painted the colour of earthenware pots with a rather amateurishly executed mural of ancient Rome running around the perimeter. It was populated by the usual patrons of all shapes and sizes sitting around small, marble-topped tables. There was no other military uniform apart from his.
A bored-looking woman with black hair and a dirty apron approached. Her face lit up the moment she recognised them.