Chapter 2

Anyway, the salary the family firm paid him for turning up promptly each weekday and looking smart was more than ample for the lease of a bachelor flat. As he reached the Georgian spa of Clifton with its gracious buildings of a previous century, he felt a sense of release.

Now, for this portion of the day and evening, his time was his own. He would make his way to the gracious, tree-lined Victoria Square, let himself in with his latch key, and climb the stairs to his top-floor flat. There he would be undisturbed as the daily woman who cooked and cleaned for him would be long gone.

There would be something left for supper for him to reheat if he chose. He could change out of his formal office clothes, sit in the comfortable armchair by the window, and look out over the tops of the trees and roofs of buildings, a book in his hands.

Or if he tired of being alone, he could slip a slim volume in the pocket of his tweed jacket and make the short walk to one of the local pubs. There he could find a spare table and read over a quiet pint or two with the companionable chatter of the other patrons around him.

He felt the usual mixture of relief and guilt, knowing it was his parents’ generosity that afforded him such freedom. Much as he wanted to be a dutiful son, their expectations of him could be overwhelming and he sometimes thought that this slim piece of independence was the only thing that kept him sane. 3

The day of rest arrived all too quickly. Adam rose in good time, shaved carefully, and donned his Sunday best and enjoyed the brisk walk to his family home since it was expected for the family to arrive at church en masse. As he stood in the hall, he heard his mother’s commanding voice from an upper storey.

As she descended the stairs, she greeted him with, “There you are, dear,” as if it was she who had been kept waiting when he bent to give her the customary peck her on the cheek. She swept past him, corralling the rest of the family trailing in her wake. Adam felt a mixture of admiration and exasperation.

His mother never changed in her style or her attitude. She suited the dignified fashions of the Edwardian era, with her hair piled high under the wide brim of her hat. However, to look at her or listen to her talk you would never guess the country had recently been through such devastation.

Be it war, influenza, or the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Mrs. Merryweather would always keep her comfortably narrow world view and slightly snobbish upper-middle-class preconceptions. With that thought, Adam stifled a smile as he accompanied the rest of the family to Christ Church.

Like many men who had been through the horrors of combat, Adam had lost his faith in God rapidly while witnessing man’s inhumanity to man. Going to church was now a matter of rote rather than conviction. He merely went through the motions of the service with polite indifference in the family pew, standing to sing hymns and utter prayers with the rest of the congregation as required.

After all, rather than a strictly religious undertaking, it was simply part of the family tradition; to see and be seen by others of their ilk before a sumptuous Sunday midday meal. Despite the consistent excellence of the food, this was the part of the day Adam dreaded the most. As he filed out of the church with the rest of the Merryweather clan, shaking hands with the vicar at the church door, he wondered what plans for him his mother had up her leg-of-mutton sleeve.

Fortunately, she waited until the crumble had been served before she made her pronouncement. The roast beef with all the trimmings had been excellent and he had enjoyed the company. Despite being here on slight sufferance, he felt true affection for his family, he thought as he looked around the table.

James, his elder brother, had been deferred from military service due to a weakness of the lungs as a result of a childhood illness. Adam was only glad that he had been kept safe from danger. James sat next to his wife Pamela, a daughter of a business associate of their father’s and from a nearly identical background.

James had his own private office at the firm and was being groomed to take over the mantle when his father finally retired, and quite rightly so. Their two young children sat solemnly at the table with them, the baby being fussed over upstairs in the old nursery.

Cecily, his sweet younger sister sat opposite him, while her fiancé conversed with their father. A clever man and a civil servant who had a hush-hush desk job during the war, Adam knew he was a sound choice of husband and would protect and cherish his gentle sibling.