Free Wake: A Novel by Anna Hope Page A

morning.” She turns to see Robin standing in the doorway, his broad frame encased in a tweed jacket and trousers, smiling, as though he knows something pleasant about what today might have in store.
    Irritating. Immediately irritating.
    “Good morning.” She makes her voice as neutral as she can. There’s little point making much of an effort. He is still quite new—has only been here a week or so. There have been many Robins. They come for a month, for two; sometimes, the sturdy ones, for as many as six, armed with their smiles and their good intentions, and then, after a month or two, they leave, defeated by the monotony, the misery, and the men. One of them lasted only a day, a small, red-faced man who’d been a teacher before the war. Someone had made him cry. As he was leaving, he turned at the door and told her she was a fool, that this was worse than being in France.
    Robin picks up the battered kettle and leans over the sink to fill it. “Nice day,” he says, nodding appreciatively at the open window. “Good and crisp.”
    “I’m not sure that you have enough time for that.”
    He looks surprised. “I suppose not.” He puts the kettle down on the other side of the sink. “How are you this morning?”
    He looks so fresh and rested. So
friendly.
He actually seems as though he’d like to know.
    “Fine,” she says. “I’m absolutely fine.” She leaves him standing by the window, picks up her satchel, and makes her way into the small office, where the hunched shapes of the waiting men are visible outside. The first few in the queue are slumped on the ground, asleep most probably; they will have been there for hours. When she switches on the light those who are sitting on the ground haul themselves to their feet amid a general pushing and jostling about. She can hear their muffled expletives through the glass.
    As Robin enters the room behind her, she checks she has everything she needs for the morning’s work: pens and enough of each of the differently colored forms that she must fill in for each case, each comment, each complaint. Pink for officers, green for the other ranks. Then she looks at her watch. Three minutes to nine. She takes her bundle of keys from the top drawer of her desk and goes over to the door.
    “Early,” says Robin.
    “Yes, well.” She turns back to him. “Are you ready, or not?”
    He maneuvers his tall frame around his desk, and when he’s settled in his seat, salutes her. “Ready or not.”
    She rolls her eyes and opens the door.
    There’s a surge from the back, and some of the sleep-dazed men at the front topple, before regaining their balance. Evelyn steps out into the chill morning air. “Any men caught making a nuisance will be asked to leave or go to the back of the queue. Is that understood?”
    A bit of heckling rumbles from farther down the line.
    “Is that understood?”
    The heckling quiets. A few sheepish
Yes, miss
es float toward her. Evelyn goes back to her desk, feeling the familiar tug of concern for this shabby bunch of men. But compassion is a swamp. It’s better not to get stuck in it. Especially not at nine on a Monday morning. She’d never get through the week.
    As her first man makes his way over toward her desk she gives him a swift look.
Amputee
. From the way his right trouser leg is pinned it looks as if it has been taken off all the way to the hip. There’s no false leg; the stump was probably too small to fit against. He takes his place on the seat before her. It’s a game with her, to guess a man’s rank before he speaks. In this post-khaki world, the extremes at either end of the scale are easy to spot, and have remained, so far as she can see, as rigid as they ever were, but the middle ground is different; it has not yet settled. The temporary gentlemen are the trickiest: those who were promoted from the ranks for their service in the field and are now stuck between society’s strata.
Temporary gentlemen:
such a mean-spirited little