Bareheaded, holding his uniform cap in the hand resting on his knee. And if the photograph was in colour, his hair would be the colour of copper in the sunlight.
“Hal…I think you’re a Holmwood. This isn’t just his story. It’s yours.”
The first of the autumn leaves are starting to fall as I straighten the sign on the library door for what feels like the fifteenth time.
Closed for private function.
“What time did he say they’d be arriving?” Barney sticks his head out from behind the door, checking his watch.
“About two o’clock.” I straighten the sign yet again. Why won’t it hang properly? Barney nods and disappears back into the library to put the finishing touches to the set-up in there. Ever since I walked into his office and told him he wasn’t going to believe what that research project had turned up, he’s been counting down the hours until Hal comes back almost as impatiently as I have.
Almost.
With Charlie’s help – and Mira’s and Felix’s – I’ve sorted through the little suitcase and pulled some of the other letters and papers back down from the Hopwood attic. Predictably, Hal left them all in such perfect order that even I could figure it out. I wonder whether he’s ever thought about a career in housekeeping?
There is the first letter – the warning from Jane that she won’t help Iris ruin her life or her reputation. There are their secret notes, passed between them with the help of GH, George Harbutt, the gardener who lived in my house and gave them a safe place to meet. There is Albie’s letter of goodbye, the photo of him with the other soldiers awkwardly arranged in the garden of a French farmhouse. There is Dougie’s letter, the nurse’s letter, the telegram. There are all the solicitor’s papers, the newspaper clippings…the solution to the riddle. The final piece. And there, at the very end of the table, tucked into a silver frame borrowed from the suite upstairs and propped up so he can survey it all, is Albie’s portrait.
There is a whole life – two whole lives – laid out before us. Both the person that Albie was and the person he became.
The sound of shoes squeaking on the wooden floor of the lobby makes me look up to see Mira moving at the special walking-very-quickly-but-definitely-not-running speed every hotel staff member develops here. There’s a huge grin on her face as she hurries over to the library door.
“They’re here!” She grabs my arm and tows me away from the library towards the wide lobby windows overlooking the drive.
A sleek silver car – an old convertible – sweeps into the drive and crunches across the gravel, and even at this distance the sunlight flashes on red hair and my heart skips.
Hal is driving, and next to him in the passenger seat is his grandfather.
The car swings around, and pulls up to the exact spot where the squashed-frog car parked that very first day.
It takes a lot not to throw myself through the open door and out onto the drive – but instead I wait and I watch.
I watch Hal jumping out of the car, his sunglasses catching the light, then darting around to open the other door. I watch him holding his arm out to his grandfather to help him – and his grandfather teasingly pushing it away, then taking it after all. He gets out of the car slowly, and then the two of them stand there, side by side, looking up at the front of the house, hands raised to shield their eyes from the low autumn sun.
The Holmwoods – because that’s who they are underneath – have finally come home.
What does that feel like, knowing that in another life, this could have been theirs? That it would have been theirs? They’re not just looking at a building – at the stone and the shining windows and the slate roof – they’re looking at a chapter in their history. One neither of them knew they would ever read.
Hal lowers his hand and, even without being able to see his eyes, I know he’s looking at me. I can feel his gaze on me. And to me that feels like coming home, after a long time away.
Together, they walk slowly across the gravel – Pa in a dark blue suit and pale pink shirt, Hal in black, his hair swept back from his face and his eyes still on me behind the glass pane of the window. He leans his head closer to his grandfather, says something to him, and they both smile, and now that I know what I’m looking for I can see Albie in both of them. They’re bringing him home with them.
By the time they reach the entrance, everyone has run to the lobby – confusing nearby guests, who all crane to look out of the window, expecting somebody famous. Why else would the manager of the hotel be holding the door open for these two men? Why else would so many of the staff be waiting?
Every second of it feels like a homecoming. One that’s a hundred years overdue.
When his grandfather stops to speak to Barney, Hal doesn’t. He turns his head to say something to them both and then walks right on, only stopping when he reaches me.
“Hello,” he says, and his voice fills my head and my heart and drives away all the shadows.
“Hello.”
The world melts away as we stand there, a breath apart from each other.
“Are you ready?” Hal slips his hand into mine, pulling me closer to him.
“Are you?”
His grandfather is waiting at the library door, laughing with Barney as they chat about hotels, about the weather – about small-talk things that are nowhere near as big as this. He watches us as we walk across the lobby, and I can see more than Albie in him. I can see him in Hal and Hal in him.
“You must be Flora,” he says, holding out a hand when we reach him; taking mine in his and folding both his hands around it. “My grandson has told me a lot about you.”
“I am. And you should know, Hal talks about you a lot,” I tell him, glancing back at Hal. He’s fidgeting nervously with the edge of his sleeve. His eyes are careful, his whole face cautious – does he think I won’t know what to say or what to do? I lean closer, dropping my voice to a whisper. “We met before – you won’t remember, it was only for a minute…”
“Ah, yes. We did. Hal told me. I’m afraid I don’t – you’ll have to forgive me. My memory…” He shakes his head, but his eyes glitter. “It isn’t quite what it was.” His hands are still clasped around mine, warm and dry, surprisingly soft. “But he also tells me that you’ve solved our family puzzle.”
“Me? No, I just helped. It was mostly Hal.”
“Bollocks it was,” snorts Hal – and then clamps his hand over his mouth, turning red. “Sorry, Pa.”
But his grandfather just laughs. “Perhaps you’d like to show us what you’ve found…”
Barney opens the library door.
We talk him through all of it. The house, the war, the names…everything. He stops when he sees the portrait, and his fingers grab for the edge of the table as though he needs to steady himself. Behind him, Hal looks at me, then at him.
“That’s him all right,” he says after a long pause, studying the photo. “That’s my grandfather – your great-great-grandfather, Hal.” He presses a hand to his chest. “I never knew. All my childhood he told me that story, and he never once let me know it was him.”