Free For Love or Money by Tim Jeal Page B

right, there was no point in letting him know beforehand. Probably he would say no. The letter was easy really. The second was easier still. He decided to type it. He dated it for the following day and put the address of George’s flat at the top.
    D EAR M ATRON ,
    Of course I should be only too pleased to see my nephew on Saturday, and he is most welcome to stay the night. I have not seen him for almost a year and expect he has changed considerably.
    I well remember his having earache when younger; in fact I was constantly asking my sister to take him to a specialist then.
    Please give David my love and tell him I look forward to seeing him.
    Yours sincerely,         
    E SMOND F LOWER        
    That ought to convince them of Esmond Flower’s undoubted existence. He put the letter in an envelope and typed the address. He then enclosed it in a larger envelope, with a note of explanation to a friend in London, who was to post the enclosed letter from there on arrival. The matron was probably a fool, but no risks could be taken even with the postmark.
    The whole process had taken barely half an hour. Steven looked at the envelopes on the table … the end of an era, all for the price of two stamps and a train ticket. He felt specially pleased with the one to the matron. The intimations of previous knowledge of the child’s health and the tone of kindly concern, struck exactly the right note.
    The end of an era … he sat back in his chair and closed his eyes …
    ‘Everything’s up to date in Kansas City,
    ’Cos it’s gone about as far as it can go.’
    He hummed gently. Perhaps it was sad in a way … he had a drink and started to get into the mood. And yet how could any of it be taken seriously? The pre-war clothes and hats, the ancient wirelesses and telephones, the daring of women smoking cigarettes? Of course all that had been new once. But now it was just so funny, it all tied into the drawing-room comedy of his home life where nobody worked and where every action was part of a game to stave off boredom. And when all else fails let’s try the drunkenness game. My God, they’d been so empty that they’d have rows for no reason at all except to change the pitch of the tedium. And then drawing-room comedy, with its animal card-games and backgammon, descended to music-hall farce, with flying cutlery and hiding in the lavatory. Only an existence like his mother’s and George’s could combine unthinking whimsy with meaningless indignity. They weren’t stupid,they’d just lost the art of applying what wisdom they once had. There was nothing really for them to apply it to. Now the only glimmers of practicality came out in the parables of George’s clichés. Perhaps his mother’s growing interest in religion had some point. At least if God loves you, you don’t have to hear his answers to protestations of fidelity.
    Steven got up and went over to the sofa. Where are the fighter pilots now? Fat and sexless … just like George. And the Spitfires and the Hurricanes, those brave little toys, are as useless as air-rifles. Those were the days when red pillar boxes and suet pud meant ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ and the red buses were symbols of democracy. Old films he’d seen showed armoured cars rolling through Parliament Square and uniforms in every street. All the brave and young were fighting … his father Lifton had been unfit … ‘Young wives with elder husbands, there’s time to have some fun … how about voluntary get-togethers with our fighting boys … visit a hospital or two and take your choice. Have a soldier for your love … everybody who isn’t fighting is past it, or getting white feathers with the post.’ To be bitter about the period that raised up George would be stupid … now the bomb-sites have given way to council flats and the only people who strut around in uniforms with medals, disabled servicemen.
    We ought to hold open house for the North-country charabancs. Drawing-room