Free The Outcast by Sadie Jones

hangers and put them in a heap on the floor in the drawing room. He added to the pile her scent, shoes, books and some things of Lewis’s; jumpers and a board game and some souvenirs of trips to museums that he had kept in a biscuit tin. He went carefully about and made sure there was nothing left.The pile of things on the floor didn’t remind him of her at all. They looked like second-hand things, just a mess, a pile of nothing, but the things that had belonged to Lewis were clut- tering up the place, so he took them out and threw them away separately in the kitchen. He went down to the porter and asked him to please organise the removal of the pile while he was at work the next day. He tipped him five pounds, ashamed of his extravagance, and was irritated that the man would prob- ably make money out of Lizzie’s belongings, which were good- quality. He went upstairs again and made himself a drink and sat down with the bottle next to him, looking at the pile on the floor. At the bottom was a photograph frame with a picture of

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    him and Lewis in it that she had kept by her side of the bed. He could only see the corner of it sticking out, but he knew the picture very well, it had been taken the first Christmas after the war, Gilbert standing in the garden holding Lewis’s hand. They were both smiling, and crooked, because she had been laughing at them and held the camera crooked and Lewis’s coat was buttoned up wrong. Gilbert sat in his chair and looked at the corner of the picture frame. He almost took it out and held it in his hands, but he didn’t, he just stayed in his chair, looking.
    When he returned from work the following evening the porter had taken the things away and the floor was empty.
    He stayed in the flat that night, and every night after that, and didn’t think of going back to Waterford. After a week or two he began to be invited out. He accepted every invitation. There were cocktails and dinners and Gilbert was very much in demand. He was hardly alone at all. He went from one occasion to another and felt that he had entered a new world.

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    C hapter F ive ‌

    One Thursday afternoon, towards the middle of December, Jane telephoned Gilbert in the office to remind him that Lewis would be breaking up for Christmas the next day. He didn’t need reminding; the boys had to write home every Sunday night and Lewis had said he was looking forward to the holidays in his last letter. Gilbert left the office early on Friday and went to Victoria to meet the school train.
    He hadn’t met the train before and he felt ridiculous waiting by the barrier with all the women, so he went into the station café and had a cup of tea. He waited until the mothers and their sons had all gone and Lewis was the last child on the platform, and then he left the café to collect him.
    Lewis was standing by his trunk with a porter and a man Gilbert thought might have been one of his teachers, and when he saw his father coming towards him he ran into his arms and clung on to him with small strong hands. Gilbert felt the tension of his body and the heat of it through his coat, holding him. He took Lewis’s hands firmly, and took them off him and pushed him away.
    ‘None of that,’ he said, not looking at him,‘time to go.’

    It took an hour and a half to make the journey to Waterford in the car and Lewis fell asleep, with his cheek leaning on the

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    passenger door. Gilbert steered the car through the blue-cold evening.
    They stopped in front of the house and Gilbert turned the engine off. He took Lewis’s hand.
    ‘Come on, little chap, wake up,’ he said, and Lewis woke up. He looked at his father, mistily, and then at the house above them and Gilbert saw him gradually come back into himself. He saw the moment between the not knowing and the knowing, as he woke, and he recognised it, because it was how he felt on waking too. He wanted to obliterate it. He wanted to take his son’s head in his hands and crush the