Still, whatever I wanted, she gave half a laugh back. “I suppose you’re right. I’mnota good person.”
I looked down, partly from habit because even in my thirties abit of me still thought of her as the mistress, partly because looking at her was just getting hard. “Was it even about me?” I asked. “I mean really? Or did you just not like the idea of somebody else touching your things?”
Sometimes, no answer is all the answer you need.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have come back,” I agreed, a little late.
When I looked up again, she was staring at me. “You had a right,” she conceded. “And—I won’t say it’s been good to see you, nymph, because it profoundly has not. But it might have been bad in a positive way.”
Of course I didn’t know what to say to that. She always could talk me in circles. “I should go back to my family,” I told her.
She didn’t say anything. She just nodded and let me go.
Up at the big house I met up with Bobby and the kids. Honestly the little ’uns was pretty bored by then on account of not knowing anybody and Maggie being shy around strangers. I felt a little bit bad about sticking Bobby with them while I went off alone, but he was a good dad and he didn’t mind overmuch. Least he didn’t mind taking care of ’em—he minded that they wasn’t happy.
“We should be thinking about going,” he said to me when I got back. “I’ve signed the book, and I don’t think it’s right to bother the family. There’s a lot of people here and we should—”
“You must be Doris’s husband,” said Emily’s voice behind me. It had that so-fake-it’s-real tone that the fancy folks use when they’re talking to us commoners, without a trace of warm or cold or happy or sad or of knowing me from Adam. “It’s so good to see the evacuees again.”
“She’s been back before,” Bobby told her, just like you would if you didn’t know that she already knew, that she was the causeof so much of it. “She worked here for a while in the fifties, didn’t you, love?”
“Yes,” I said, weak as anything.
Emily grinned. “You don’t say? You must have some stories.”
“Some.” There weren’t no other reply. Sayingnonewould seem like an insult, but I couldn’t exactly come back withYes, we used to be lovers. Though part of me wanted to, if only because I knew she wouldn’t expect it. “I remember Sir Arthur used to hold a lovely fair at Christmas.”
That caught her, at least, because though Bobby and the kids didn’t know what that meant, Emily did but also couldn’t let on that she did. “Oh yes,” she replied, “that was such a highlight of the year. I do miss it.” Then she looked me hard in the eyes. “All of it.”
I had no answer, but Maggie chose that moment to come in with a, “Mummy I’m tired.”
“I’m not,” replied young Robert. “I could stay upall night.”
And before I knew it Emily was crouching down and talking to the children. Tomychildren. A rush of hot ice ran through my heart and my brain all at once because seeingherandthemtogether was more than I could take because they was different worlds, different lives, different possibilities. And I’d chosen. But I’d chosen without knowing how or what or if there was ever really another option.
“And what are your names?” she asked, and in my head I was wondering if there’d ever been a way I could have had both—Emily and Robert and Maggie and Little Susan all together. But there wasn’t.
“I’m Maggie,” said Maggie to the woman who I so badly wished could have been her mother.
“And I’m Robert,” added Robert. And then, “After my father. And that’s Susan.”
Susan—Susan who would never have been if I’d taken a different path—was still asleep in Bobby’s arms.
“How delightful to meet you,” Emily was saying. “Tell me, is Doris a good mother?”
And to that Robert saidyesand Maggie saidnoand Bobby said, “If you don’t mind, Miss, I’m not sure that’s the sort of thing I want you asking my kids.”
So Emily stood back up and turned to me. “Quite right,” she said, “my sincerest apologies. You have a lovely family, Doris.” Her lip curled into a private smile. “I’m almost jealous.”
“Not got a man in your life then?” asked Bobby.
“No.” Emily was still smiling. “Sadly not. Would that I were as fortunate as Doris here.”
She was saying my name a lot, and I didn’t like it.
“We should probably be going,” I said, louder than I should have. “I think it’s a bit much for the children.”
And Maggie saidyesand Robert saidno.
