Page 199 of Feathers in the Wind
My hand closed over Nat’s.
Alan sighed. ‘I’m sorry if you find it offensive, Nat.’
Nat shook his head. ‘No. I just find it strange. In fact, it is one of the stranger aspects of your world. Do you find us quaint or are we something to be studied like a barbarian tribe?’ He looked at me. ‘Or is it just all so long ago that the reality of what the war really means is lost?’
Alan shrugged. ‘No, it’s about remembering, and not forgetting, that this was the last time war was waged on British soil, and what it meant for the future of the country.’
Nat regarded him for a moment and then gave a self deprecating laugh. ‘I will come if only because it will be amusing to see how you ‘re-enact’ my time.’
‘I could introduce you as a sort of expert in the period?’
Alan looked so hopeful, I could not help laughing. ‘You are incorrigible.’
‘But he’s a firsthand resource, Jess.’
An ironic smile quirked the corner of Nat’s mouth. He looked at me. ‘Where are my clothes?’
‘I sent them to the laundry. I’ve no idea how to get that much blood out of them and I had to do some fast talking.’ I rose to fetch another beer. When I opened the fridge I said, ‘I’ve taken leave for the next two weeks.’
‘Leave?’ Alan asked. ‘I thought that hospital couldn’t run without you.’
‘Well they weren’t happy, particularly at such short notice, but they’ll manage. Where do you want to go, Nat?’ I asked as I returned to the living room.
‘Go?’
‘We can go to London, Paris...’ I paused. ‘Even Rome?’
‘But I have such a short time.’
‘If you want, we can fly. We can be in Rome in two hours from London.’ Nat’s jaw dropped. ‘Two hours, but it took me months...’
‘One small problem, Jess,’ Alan said. ‘Our friend here has no passport. In fact, he has no birth certificate. He doesn’t actually exist. Even in the EU, he still needs some sort of ID.’
My grand plans fell to dust. In a time when identity was everything, Nat’s lack of any sort of identification could prove to be a real problem...if he were to stay. My heart leaped at the thought. What if he did stay?
My mind whirled ahead to clandestine meetings with shady forgers capable of whipping up such vital documents in the dark alleys of... Where was I to find shady forgers in the back streets of Northamptonshire?
‘It’s of no matter,’ Nat said with a shrug. ‘Can we still go to London? I haven’t been there since before the war.’
‘We don’t need a passport for London,’ I said. ‘We’ll take the train tomorrow and be back for the weekend.’
‘Excellent plan. Although you may find it’s changed since your time,’ Alan said. ‘The London you would have known burned down in 1666.’
‘I served at the court of King Charles for nearly a year. Is Whitehall Palace still there?’ Nat asked.
‘No,’ Alan said, ‘apart from Westminster Hall and the Dining Hall, but Hampton Court and the Tower of London are still recognizable. Sorry, did you say you served at Charles’s court?’ I could see the possibilities whirling through his academic mind. ‘Tell me about it?’
I glanced at my watch. ‘Are you staying for dinner, Alan?’
Alan is a good brother and quite capable of taking a hint. He excused himself and I was alone with Nat. We barely made it to the bedroom, and dinner was eaten late.
* * *
We stayedin a little hotel off Piccadilly. We spent the nights making love, ate in small restaurants, drank far too much wine and reveled in each other’s company.
I generally avoided London as much as I could but with an eager tourist in tow, I saw it through fresh eyes. He absorbed everything about the city. As Alan had said, the city he had known had long since disappeared but we found places he recognized remaining, such as the Tower of London and Westminster Hall and the Abbey of course. Despite the centuries, these buildings still dominated the city.
As we walked down Whitehall, past what had once been the Whitehall palace, we stopped to admire the great equestrian statue of Charles I and the somber statue of Oliver Cromwell.
