“Speaking of complexes, or complicated situations, it’s your turn. No ducking now. What are your living arrangements? Are you living with someone?”
I told him. I told him about Sam, about Will, about Lottie and Faye, about Whisky. I said that Sam had lost touch with Will’s father, who was at the Front. I didn’t say who Will’s father was, what his nationality was, and I didn’t say anything about Faye’s bereavement and outburst.
He heard me out in silence. When I had finished, he moved his jaw to one side and said, “So it’s as we thought. You are living in sin.” He shook his head. “You are pretending to be married with someone whose man could come back at any time and reclaim what’s his. Forget for the moment whether what you are doing is right, is moral. Is it wise? Do you love this woman? If you do, you could get very hurt.” He shook his head again. “It’s messy emotionally, Hal. And it’s—well, it’s hardly tidy, or clean, morally, is it?”
He looked at me for quite some time without either of us speaking. “Did your mother and I do something wrong, make some terrible mistake, bringing you up? I’m shocked and I’m disappointed. To be quite frank, Hal, I’m appalled—I can’t deny it. I won’t deny it. It’s not at all what your mother and I had in mind for you.”
His features were set in an icy glare.
“But I’m content, Dad. Happy. Very happy.” In for a penny, in for a pound—I banged on, defending myself, making my own case. “It makes a kind of biological sense, too—you can see that, can’t you? I don’t think you should tell Ma, though. She sounds as though she’s got enough to worry about, without a little bastard in the family.”
He winced at my use of that word and nodded glumly. “At least you’re not lonely. We were worried, both of us, that you would be … well, solitary in London.”
I grinned. “No chance of that. The job is hard—long hours, anyway—and Sam has three sisters. There are always people coming and going at the flat—it’s known as Gare Montgomery.”
He almost smiled.
I think he was in part relieved that I hadn’t become some sort of freak because of my sexual predicament, and in part disappointed, too, that I hadn’t met a girl from a “good” family. Had Sam been a university lecturer, say, rather than a schoolteacher, he would have been far happier.
“I won’t tell your mother just yet,” he said. “You’re right about that. Let’s see what this other doctor has to say and we’ll go on from there.”
I nodded. Though they had been distant, I had always got on with my parents, and I wanted their good opinion.
But I wanted Sam more.
With Faye gone, the flat was a good bit quieter, emptier, less unpredictable than it had been. I thought I’d be pleased—and I was pleased that the odious Cyril was out of our lives—but I found that, if I didn’t so much miss Faye herself, and her tempers, I did miss the extra level of busyness, of noise, bustle, and, yes, chaos that she had brought with her. Since she had been gone, Penrith Mansions was a little less of a railway station.
Sam felt differently. The arguments and shouting matches about Will’s paternity had upset and wearied her, mainly because, I think, she realized that it would always be an issue among those who knew. Lottie never said anything, at least not to me, but she offered herself more often than usual for babysitting duty. On those evenings she still avidly buried herself in her books and magazines on the weddings and parties and affairs of the aristocracy. In my presence she never behaved as if Will were anything other than 100 percent British.
A few days after Faye had left, however, Sam tackled me. It was a Saturday, early evening, and the three of us—Sam, Will, and me— were visiting a fair in Battersea Park. There were about three of these fairs a year and we all loved going. They were, truth to tell, a bit tacky but they were a change from our normal routine, and Will—especially, naturally—was entranced by the bright lights, the music, the smells of candy floss, fried food, and the sheer exoticism of the occasion.
I had to keep my eyes open for him. He was as curious—as brave—as ever. If he could, he would walk—stumble—right up to machinery and peer in, oblivious to