for the both of them.
“Is the kettle on?” Toby asked. “I need something to warm me up. I’m soaked to the skin.”
“I’ll take something that works quicker than tea,” Colm said, moving toward the sideboard where Uncle Mick kept a few bottles of liquor. “Want a drink, Felix?”
“No, I think I’ll take tea.”
“I don’t suppose Nacy’s got anything we can eat,” Toby said.
I laughed, for I knew he meant it in jest. I couldn’t remember a day in my life when the cupboards hadn’t contained some treat Nacy had baked for us.
“As though you’ve ever had to go an hour of your life without food, Toby Liam,” Nacy said, making her fortuitous entrance into the room with a tray holding the teapot and a plate of fresh scones with cream.
“Nacy, you’re like a vision from Heaven,” Toby said, reaching for one of the scones.
“Mind your manners,” she said. “Sit down like a civilized person.”
“I’m a soldier now,” he protested. But he pulled his hand back. “I have to learn to eat quick.”
“You’re not on the battlefield yet, young man.” Her voice was gruffer than usual as she tried to hide her emotion. It was hard for her, knowing Colm and Toby were going off to fight. She was as much a mother to them as she was to me. I knew she felt the same sick feeling in the pit of her stomach that I did when I thought about them leaving.
We ate Nacy’s treats with great relish and drank our strong tea. Even Colm had a cup after he’d thrown back his glass of whiskey. Then the boys smoked as we sat listening to the radio.
We tried to be merry, but there was a certain heaviness that had fallen over things at the mention of war. The boys were shipping out soon—Felix, too—and it would be a long time before we were all together again. If we were all together again …
I pushed that memory from my mind and focused on the here and now.
“Would you like some tea?” I asked, taking my hand from Felix’s and rising from the sofa. I wanted a few moments to gather my thoughts, to pull myself together. It wasn’t at all like me to get weepy and maudlin, but so much had been happening these past few days that this sudden taste of what things had been had caught me off guard.
“I would love some tea. I haven’t had a proper cup in days.”
I went to the kitchen and put the kettle on the hob, glad for the few moments of comfortable routine to regain my composure. I didn’t make conversation with him as I did so, and none was needed. Felix and I had always been comfortable together.
Felix Lacey and I had an unusual relationship. He’d been a neighborhood boy, a friend of my cousins, and we had known each other practically since we were children. We had got on well from the start, enjoyed each other’s company, and our relationship had grown into something of its own, outside of his friendship with Colm and Toby.
Felix had always been a rogue, but I knew better than to take him seriously and he knew better than to push things too far with my uncle Mick and my cousins looking out for me. So we’d teased and flirted with each other and he would sometimes jokingly refer to the children we would one day have together, but it was all in good fun. For the past few years, however, it felt as though we had begun to walk a somewhat rocky road between friendship and something more.
There had never been anything formal between us. There had been one night a year or so before when, as he walked me home, we’d shared a few reckless kisses under an irresistibly romantic starlit sky. The next day we pretended it had never happened.
When he left for the war, I kissed him again, standing on a railroad platform surrounded by all the other men in uniform being kissed by other women holding back tears.
Now that he was back, I didn’t know quite where things stood. I only knew that I was terribly glad he was home.
A few minutes later I came back into the room with the tea-things on a tray. I even pulled out a tray of chocolate biscuits I had been saving for a special occasion.
His gaze followed me as I moved toward him. “You’re a sight for sore eyes, Ellie.”
“Thank you, Felix. I