Page 53 of The Last Kiss

Harry’s delighted smile was all for him. It was a wonder that everyone in the waiting room didn’t see the affection in Harry’s eyes. And in Ash’s heart.

They took the walk back to the bus stop slowly. Partly, Ash needed to become accustomed to the new weight of his leg, but mostly he wanted to prolong their time together — and dwell a little on the warming memories of last night.

“What’s got you smiling?” Harry asked as they made their way along the pavement together, stopping to let a group of young ladies pass by.

Ash touched the brim of his hat and watched the ladies cast admiring looks at Harry, amused that his friend didn’t notice. “Just thinking how lucky I am to have met you,” he said when they walked on.

Harry smiled. “I think about that too. Of all the men at the front, that I should be assigned to you? Seems impossible.”

“Fate, then. Perhaps we were always destined to meet. Even if there’d been no war.”

“Not sure I believe in fate,” Harry said thoughtfully. “But talk about a silver bloody lining.”

More than a silver lining. It had to be. Meeting Harry had to be more than blind bloody luck. Christ, he had to believe there’d beensomemethod in the madness.

They took the tube back to Waterloo, sitting side by side, shoulders jostling together as they clattered along. And then they made their way into the station proper: a crowded, chaotic place, bustling with irritable people struggling to find the right platform — no wonder they were rebuilding the dreadful old place — full of noise and infused with the acrid, greasy stench of locomotive engines.

Ash could already hear the whistles screeching on the platforms.

Harry braced a hand on his elbow. “Alright then,” he said, shepherding him along. “Let’s get it over with.”

Once more, they sat in the first-class carriage, only this time they were joined in their compartment by a gentleman with his nose buried in a newspaper. It meant Ash couldn’t grip Harry’s hand. Panic started to rise, his fingers clenching into fists by his side as the memories swept in with each blast of the whistle. But then Harry reached into his coat pocket and, to Ash’s astonishment, pulled out his old copy ofThe Hound of the Baskervilles. “Remember this?” he said with a tight smile.

Ash didn’t trust his voice enough to answer, he just ran his fingers over the battered cover in wonder. Like them, this book had survived that bloody day at Passchendaele. It felt like a talisman.

“I’ll read for a while,” Harry said, settling back on the seat so that their shoulders pressed companionably together. And, as he’d done so many nights at the front, Harry read aloud to transport them into a different place and time. Ash did his best to concentrate on the familiar comfort of the story, and Harry’s beloved voice, although he still flinched when the platform guard blew his whistle right outside their carriage window.

Harry barely muffled his curse at that bad luck, which earned him a disapproving rattle of the newspaper from the gent on the other side of the compartment. Ash didn’t give a hoot. The man looked like a banker, the clubbable sort who’d probably pronounced his opinions on the war from the safety of a chair by the fire — the sort who would condemn Ash’s love for Harry out of hand. Ignoring him, Ash fixed his attention on the book as they finally jolted into motion, listening to Harry read until the tension and the rocking of the train conspired to send him into the kind of somnolent trance he’d known so well at the front.

Harry’s hand on his knee roused him. “Nearly there.”

Blinking awake, he realised they were now alone and that his head had come to rest on Harry’s shoulder. “I fell asleep,” he said, rather stupidly.

“Yes.” Harry squeezed his leg and stood to retrieve their bags from the overhead rack. “Best thing for you.”

When he sat back down, tugging the sleeves of his jacket into place, Ash glanced out at the corridor beyond their compartment and, seeing it empty, leaned over and placed a reckless kiss on the corner of Harry’s mouth. “Thank you,” he said, delighted by the way Harry flushed. “I don’t think I could have done this without you.”

Harry lifted a hand to the place where Ash had kissed him, watching him with a careful expression. “I reckon you could. But I was glad to be with you.”

Their shared look confessed everything else about the time they’d spent together, and about how it would be over with the journey’s end. Ash was suddenly furious he’d dozed for so long. The train was already slowing, brakes squealing and great clouds of smoke and smuts puffing past the window, obscuring the trees and embankment. Ash reached over and clutched Harry’s hand, squeezing tight as the train drew to a halt on the platform.

As they emerged from the station building, Olive waved from where she sat on the bonnet of her motor. “Well,” she said, jumping down as they approached. “How is it, Ash?”

“Very good, thank you.” But it felt strange to be talking to Olive about his leg while Harry busied himself putting their bags into the back seat of her motor car. Hedidwant to talk to Olive, of course, but half his attention remained with Harry, aware of the painful jarring of realities.

Here, Harry was a servant.Hisservant. That’s how Olive saw him, how everyone saw him. The most important person in his life — even more so, after their precious night together — and now he must treat him like a piece of furniture. It felt wrong. Profoundly, painfully wrong.

“Hop in then,” Olive said briskly, striding around to the driver’s seat while Harry opened the passenger door for Ash. And for the first time, Ash saw his own angry frustration mirrored in Harry’s pinched expression.

He felt it too, then, this hurtful wrongness.

Flushing with shame and vexation, Ash climbed into the motor — it was noticeably easier to lift his duff leg this time — and Harry squashed into the back seat with the luggage. With the bloody luggage. And then they were off, back home to Father and Mother and, really, although he felt profoundly altered, nothing at all had changed. The world was just as it had been, and Ash felt even less suited to it than before.

Especially when he saw his father waiting for him on the steps of Highcliffe House. “My study,” was all Sir Arthur said by way of greeting, and Ash understood that Pollock must have written.

“Uh-oh,” Olive said quietly, giving him a searching look as she opened the door and helped him out. “What’s that about?”

“My bid for freedom, I expect.”

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