Kissed a Sad Goodbye

He turned away, as if that settled everything between them, but when he reached the end of the wall he looked over his shoulder and said, “But I’ll be back—and there’s always tomorrow, isn’t there, Lewis?”

IT CAME TO HIM AS HE lay beneath Freddie’s car. It was so simple—a nick in a hydraulic line and the whole system would lose pressure—that he wondered why he hadn’t seen it before. Everyone knew Freddie Haliburton drove like a maniac—even Cook was always clucking and predicting he’d come to a bad end. No one would think anything of it. He would be safe, and Irene would be safe, and William … he didn’t care about William.

He felt as if he were divided into two people—one who concentrated on the task, and one who observed. That Lewis heard his mother’s voice, but the Lewis who acted ignored them both, and his hands were steady and precise with the knowledge John Pebbles had given him. It was not until he had finished and slid from beneath the car that he realized he was being watched.

William stood just inside the stable door, and Lewis had no idea how long he had been there or what he’d seen. “You have to understand,” William said, stepping forward, and Lewis saw that his face was white and strained. “My grandfather was killed in the Somme. My father was decorated, even though he was only nineteen, and he’s suffered from the gas ever since. If they found out—”

“I don’t care about your bloody pamphlets! You could have stopped him—”

“There was nothing I could do! And now he says maybe he’ll tell my parents anyway, just because he hates cowards. They’ll disown me—”

“Then it serves you bloody right, William Hammond!” Lewis shoved William hard in the chest and bolted out the door.

He ran through the yard and down the hill to the meadow, then along the stream, legs and heart pumping, until at last he collapsed facedown in the soft moss along the bank, sobbing as if his heart would break.

It was an hour before he returned to the house, calm from his weeping, determined to undo what he had done. Then he would tell Irene goodbye and leave.… It was the only way. He’d lie about his age and join up, or get work somewhere, it didn’t matter.

But when he reached the stable yard he heard a wail of anguish from the kitchen, and he knew he had come too late.

IT WAS IRENE WHO TOLD HIM that Edwina had been killed with Freddie. There had been a farm cart in the lane, just over the crest of the hill, and the car had been unable to stop in time. It was Irene who had grown up from one minute to the next and taken charge, helping Cook to her bed and going to ring her father with the news; Irene who had left Lewis alone in the kitchen with William.…