An enormous bang erupted as a white-coated waiter dropped his tray of empty dishes. I couldn’t help but jump. At the table next to us, a man dining with his wife covered his head with his arms in a reflex. Not so long ago loud crashes in London meant something far more ominous than shattered dishware and, of course, so many of our men had seen the worst of it.
Agatha took a sip of tea and said, ‘How I miss the calm before the war. Do you think we’ll ever recover, Miss O’Dea?’
‘I don’t see how we can.’
‘I suppose you were too young to do any nursing,’ she said.
I nodded. During the war it was mostly matronly types who tended the soldiers, by design, to avert the bloom of unsuitable romances. Agatha had been assigned to a hospital dispensary in Torquay. It was where she learned so much about poison.
‘My sister Megs became a nurse,’ I said. ‘After the war, as her profession. In fact, she works now at a hospital in Torquay.’
Agatha did not ask more about this. She wouldn’t know someone like my sister. Instead she asked, ‘Did you lose anyone close to you?’
‘A boy I used to know. In Ireland.’
‘Was he killed?’
‘Let’s just say he never came home. Not really.’
‘Archie was in the Flying Corps. Of course, you know that. I suppose it was different for those in the air.’
Didn’t that sum up the whole world? Always the poor ones carrying the world’s scars. Agatha liked to quote William Blake: ‘Some are born to sweet delight, some are born to endless night.’ In my mind, even at that moment – lunching at Simpson’s while her husband shopped for my engagement ring – I considered Agatha the former and myself the latter.
An expression kept rising to Agatha’s face that I could see her actively pushing away. As if she wanted to say something, but couldn’t bring herself to. She had brought me to luncheon, I’m sure of it, to confront me. Perhaps to ask for mercy. But it’s easy to postpone the most unpleasant conversations, especially if confrontation is not in your nature.
To do so, and because she meant it, Agatha said, ‘What rubbish, war. Any war. It’s a terrible thing for a man to endure. If I had a son, I’d do whatever I could to keep him away from it – whatever the cause, even if England was at stake.’
‘I think I’ll do the same. If I ever have a son.’
Our meat was carved tableside and I chose a piece that was rarer than I liked. I suppose I was trying to impress Agatha. The richer the people, the bloodier they liked their steak. As I sawed into the meat the red oozing made my stomach turn.
‘Do you still think of the Irish boy?’ Agatha asked me.
‘Only every day of my life.’
‘Is that why you never married?’
Never married. As if I never would. ‘I suppose it is.’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘you’re still young. And who knows? Perhaps he’ll turn up one day, recovered.’
‘I doubt that very much.’
‘There was a time during the war that I thought Archie and I would never be able to marry. But we did and we’ve been so happy. We have, you know. Been happy.’
‘I’m sure that’s true.’ Clipped and stern. Talk of the war had steeled me. A person who has nothing might be excused for taking one thing – a husband – from a person who has everything.
The waiter returned and asked if we wanted a cheese course. We both declined. Agatha put down her fork with her meat half eaten. If her manners had been less perfect, she would have pushed her plate away. ‘I must start eating less. I’m too fat, Archie says.’