The Dower House Read Online Free PDF Page B

permits and waiting lists.
    Tony asked Willard if his civilian clothes meant he was out of the army, or was it some special dispensation the Americans allowed to honeymooning officers?
    Willard told him, no, he was out for good.
    Tony grinned. ‘You old dog! How did you swing that one?’
    â€˜Don’t ask,’ Willard told him. ‘I’m ashamed of it already. You’re still working on this Greater London Plan?’
    â€˜Harder than ever, why? Want a desk?’
    Willard laughed. ‘It won’t work, you know.’
    â€˜It’s already working. Cheers! They’ve started with the Churchill Gardens Estate – go and have a look.’
    â€˜Cheers! Oh, sure, bits of it will get done. But you’ll lose in the end. Impatience, inertia, greed, lack of vision – the same forces that scuppered Wren’s plan after the Great Fire. But what the heck – I’ve said all this before. Abercrombie got you out good and early – and that’s the most important thing.’
    The talk drifted on to architecture in general – new styles, new materials, and the little matter of rebuilding the post-war world.
    Finally, with a nod toward the MTB , Willard said, ‘Somehow I don’t connect that sort of thing with you.’
    Nicole overheard him and broke off her conversation with Marianne at once. She stared at her husband, on tenterhooks for his reply.
    Tony looked shrewdly at Willard, then at Marianne. ‘Got anything on tomorrow?’ he asked.
    â€˜Saturday?’ Willard shrugged. ‘Sightseeing, I guess. Why?’
    â€˜I’ll show you a sight – a sight and a half! Care for a picnic?’
    Willard looked at Marianne, then at the dead, turbid waters of the Thames.
    â€˜No, not here!’ Tony laughed.
    â€˜Where, then?’
    â€˜Oh . . .’ He was vague again. ‘Near Hertford. Out in the country.’ His eyes ranged from one to the other and for the first time since their reunion he was truly animated. ‘What d’you say, eh? Adam Wilson will be there, too.’

Saturday, 26 April 1947
    Felix left the train, as instructed, at Welwyn North. He watched as the tunnel swallowed it, watched the smoke obscure the daylight at the farther end. He lingered there on the down platform until it cleared again, from black through sepia to bright spring sunshine. Holes through solids held an increasing fascination for him. Not the moth-eaten mummies of Henry Moore’s drawings but the pregnant-bellied granite and limestone of his own carvings.
    â€˜Barwick Green . . . the Dower House?’ The words, spoken in an American accent, floated across the lines to him from the up platform. The man and the woman who had left the train with him and raced over the footbridge, were speaking to the porter. Felix drew breath to call out, to tell them he was headed that way, too, and that Mr Wilson was supposed to be coming to meet him; but a sudden violent shiver prevented him. Half of him warned that if he did not overcome this desire to shrink into cracks in the world, they would have won after all; the other half admitted the truth of it but pleaded that the time was not yet. He could not even make for the footbridge until the opposite platform was deserted.
    While he dithered, Adam Wilson emerged from the ticket hall, saw him, and called out, ‘Mister Breit!’ Then his eyes fell on the man and the woman, too. ‘And Willard and Marianne! Same train! Stroke of luck! Mister Breit! Sorry about this. Come over the bridge – or aren’t you up to it?’
    An express, bound for Kings Cross, came roaring out of the tunnel and severed their contact.
    Steps . These of cast iron, pierced.
    The guard’s van rattled below Felix’s feet as he crossed the bridge, whipping a tang of sulphur onto his tongue. The note changed as it clanged on over the viaduct but he did not linger now.
    â€˜Mister Breit! This,