Free Reckless by William Nicholson Page B

kissed. Then Larry drove him to the station. Hugo turned up in his big white van and started unloading boxes of wine into the garage. He and her father had been partners in the wine business. Now, after the accident, Larry was going to be his partner instead.
    Pamela liked Hugo, and knew he liked her.
    ‘How’s my little sweetheart today?’ he said.
    They had an agreement that when she was old enough he would marry her, but of course it was only a game. It was her mother he really loved. Once he had kissed her, and she had seen.
    ‘Darling Hugo,’ said her mother, ‘he’s only a boy.’
    But he wasn’t a boy, he was a grown-up.
    ‘Do you want to play with the families?’ said Elizabeth.
    ‘Not with you, Monkey,’ she replied.
    Elizabeth burst into tears.
    ‘Why do you have to be so mean?’ said Kitty.
    Why did she? It was a mystery. But now she had a way of silencing all criticism.
    ‘I miss Daddy,’ she said.
    ‘Oh, darling.’
    Tears sprang into her mother’s eyes, but didn’t fall.
    ‘So do I,’ said Elizabeth, which was a lie.
    ‘He’s watching over you both,’ said Kitty. ‘He’s in heaven, watching over all of us.’
    But he wasn’t. He was where he always went, which was away.
    Then quite suddenly Pamela had a memory of him that was so clear and strong it made her gasp. They were on the side of Mount Caburn playing Aeroplanes. Her father was below her down the slanting hillside, standing with his arms reached out on either side, squinting into the sun. She was further up, waiting to run. The grass was long on either side of the track, and the air was warm. Monkey was there, and their mother, but all she saw in this memory was the tall lean figure of her beautiful father, waiting to catch her.
    ‘Off you go!’ he cried.
    She set off running down the close-grazed track. She ran and ran, until she was running so fast she couldn’t stop. It was like falling, tumbling down that track, windmilling her arms and laughing as she went. All the way, her skirts flying, her chest tight, all the way watched by his beautiful face and bang into his strong arms. He caught her and swept her up and swung her round and all the world was dancing.
    ‘Don’t go, Daddy! Don’t go!’
    Now, remembering, she cried real tears, and she was crying for him and it hurt, and she didn’t like it at all. She ran to hermother and cried in her arms, which made Kitty cry too. Then Monkey joined them and of course she cried to be like them, but it was false crying. Then Hugo came in and found them and said, ‘My goodness, it’s a weeping family.’
    Hugo was nice like that. He said ordinary things in an ordinary way.
    A few days later she and Hugo were alone in the yard and she said to him, for no reason at all, ‘I suppose you’ll marry Mummy now.’
    ‘Oh, no,’ he said, blushing red. ‘I’m not the one who’ll be marrying Kitty.’
    That was when she knew it would be Larry. She was glad about that because she liked Larry, and because it meant Hugo could marry her. But selfish though she was, she knew enough to understand that this must be hard for Hugo.
    ‘Does that make you very sad, Hugo?’
    ‘Oh, Lord, no,’ he said. But she could see it did. ‘And anyway, I’m going to marry you.’
    ‘Not until I’m sixteen. That’s nine more years.’
    ‘I shall wait,’ said Hugo gallantly.
    *
    The next year Kitty married Larry and became Mrs Cornford. Then one year after that Hugo married someone quite unspeakable called Harriet. Rupert didn’t marry anybody.

PART TWO

Deterrence

January 1961 – June 1962

8
    The yard outside was deep in snow. A light patter of flakes was still falling. It had been snowing since the night before the inauguration.
    McGeorge Bundy stepped out of the house onto the porch to retrieve the newspaper. His breath made clouds in the sharp cold. Back inside, he stamped the snow off his shoes and shook the snow off the paper.
    Mary was in the kitchen, fixing breakfast for the boys.