Last Things

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AS the car passed the first houses away from London Airport (the September night had closed down, lights shone from windows, in the back seat one heard the grinding of the windscreen wiper) Margaret said: ‘Is there anything waiting for us?’

‘I hope not.’

She meant, bad news. It was the end of a journey, the end of a holiday, coming home. We had each of us felt that edge of anxiety all our lives: not only when there was something to fear in a homecoming, but when, as now, there was no cause at all. As a child of eight, I had rushed from the day’s outing full of dread, back to my mother’s house, expecting what fatality I couldn’t name. I had known that happen often enough since, and so had Margaret. It used to get hold of me, coming home across the Channel, just about the time that I could see the cliffs. But that was a long time ago, before the war: travel had changed by now: and, if it was going to happen – often it didn’t, but that night Margaret and I were trapped by the old habit – it was along the motorway, the Airport left behind.

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