“I know!” said Alistair. “At least twenty years younger. It’s the fresh air.”
They shook hands, and Alistair snatched another look at the women while he hung his jacket on the back of his seat. He had been right about Mary: she was a little slimmer than he had guessed, but there were the glasses—round, just as he had pictured them—and here was the button nose in the pretty round face that smiled at him now, under nice black hair in a modish pompadour that was fun if a bit over the top. She seemed a charming girl, and he was delighted for Tom.
The other woman was a knockout, a redhead with peppy green eyes and a reckless, puckish stamp. Her hands fussed with her napkin. This must be Hilda. She smiled at him gaily, and he realized with a kick of nerves that he didn’t entirely mind it. He saw now how it would all happen: after lunch someone would casually suggest the theater, and naturally he and she would be seated together, and then afterward they would all go to the dances.
She held his eye, nicely and without flirtation, and yet he felt that an acknowledgment was passing between them.
But now his stomach fell. He could not explain to himself the awful ache of melancholy that her simple, chummy smile provoked in him. A man ought to be glad. But her freckled face burned to bones before his eyes. Even when he blinked and her beauty was restored, his morale was left in ashes. In twenty-one hours he would be gone, and he guessed now—by the leaden sadness that her beauty provoked—that he would never return. He broke off the glance, steadied himself, and looked to Tom.
“I’d like you to meet Mary,” Tom said, putting his arm around the woman Alistair had just been felled by.
Alistair smiled gamely while the universe splintered and re-formed itself into this different configuration with a concussion that none of the other diners seemed to feel.
“How do you do?” said Mary.
“How do you do?” said Alistair, since that was what one said.
“And this is Hilda,” said Tom, nodding to the girl with the pompadour.
“Delighted,” said Alistair.
“I hope you don’t mind a gate-crasher,” said Hilda, managing to smile effervescently and look perfectly worried both at once. It was a feat that in another time Alistair knew he would have found endearing.
“Tell me if a gate-crasher turns up, and I’ll tell you if I mind.”
Hilda laughed, and they shook hands. “Tom said you were funny.”
“Did he also mention that I’m rich and a world-renowned dancer?”
“Behave!” said Tom, and Alistair clicked heels and gave him a deferential salute that set both women giggling.
White wine came, and Tom filled their glasses. “This stuff is actually Champagne,” he said, “only the bubbles have been requisitioned to give buoyancy to our submarine fleet. You will see that there have been a lot of changes while you’ve been away playing soldiers.”
“Apparently the girls have become lovelier,” said Alistair, flashing a grin at the women and intending to grace them both equally. His eyes snagged on Mary’s, though, and in his embarrassment he almost blushed.
She handled it calmly.
“Hilda is my loveliest friend,” she said. “We were at school together.”
“I was the frumpy one,” said Hilda.
“Not at all,” said Alistair, coming gratefully back to her eyes.
A waiter put down four dishes of the day, in such a manner that nearly all the gravy stayed on the plates. “Lamb,” he claimed, and took himself off.
Mary prodded at hers with a fork. “Whatever it may have been, its suffering is over now.”
Tom raised his glass. “Well, here’s to us all. May we be as tough as the lamb, and luckier.”
“And here’s to you two,” said Alistair, sweeping his glass in an arc that encompassed Tom and Mary. It gave both toast and fealty, and he marveled that his arm had come up with the perfect movement all on its own.
“Yes,” said Hilda, “aren’t they sweet together?”
She smiled at him, he smiled back, and although he did not want it at all he saw now how the long day would be—how it must be—with the intimacies between himself and this perfectly nice girl serving as proof that he was not fascinated by Mary. There was no use making a fuss about it.
“So, Hilda,” he said, “tell me about yourself.”
She did.
After dessert the women went together to the women’s room, and Alistair lit his pipe. Tom’s cheeks were flushed with wine—they had taken a second bottle—and he drew fiercely on one of Mary’s Craven “A”s.
“Isn’t Mary something?” he said.
“Tom, she is one in a million. One in a thousand million.”
“Isn’t she? Actually”—he leaned in and dropped his voice—“it hasn’t been plain sailing.”
“No?”
“Plus, I have to fight with this voice that insists she’s too good for me.”
“That voice speaks the truth. If it gives you any racing tips, be sure to let me know immediately.”