Afterwards by Rachel Seiffert

liked it out in Kenya because there were plenty of opportunities for ex-servicemen there: more interesting work, and better paid than at home. When they married, Gran had presumed that, like her, he’d want to go back to Scotland in a year or two. Only the first of many mistakes . Gran kept in touch with one or two Kenyan friends after she left, and gleaned a few things from their letters over the years. He remarried twice, but never had children, and he went on to work for the new administration, after independence. He always was pragmatic : that was her grandmother’s verdict, and Alice thought it wasn’t entirely disapproving. She wondered if her grandfather might have met him, while they were in Nairobi, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to ask. She didn’t want to get into difficult territory, not so soon in any case. Her grandad had been gazing down at his hands for a minute or so, and then he smiled:
    – I was still yellow all over. I remember it on my palms especially, my fingernails, even my eyes. A bilious sight in the shaving mirror every morning.
    He laughed a little. Alice knew he was on leave when he met her grandmother, convalescing, and that it was not unusual for better-off Nairobi families to open their houses to officers that way.
    – I’d been in hospital for two weeks and needed another six to recover. The facilities up at Eastleigh, at the airfield, they weren’t up to it, and many expats were keen to help. To show their gratitude, I suppose. The family was very welcoming, I can’t remember their name. It’ll come to me.
    Her grandfather said their hosts were a little older, their children grown up with families of their own. Their house was large but somehow always full of people. They all played instruments, used to hold informal recitals, out on their veranda. Mostly it was jazz standards, but they’d sometimes put together a string quartet. Guests would come for cocktails at sundown, violin cases tucked under their arms, and after the playing was over, they were usually persuaded to stay on for dinner. Mostly it was friends and colleagues or neighbours, and he and Gran were often the youngest at the table.
    – They’d sit us together. I don’t know that they were match-making exactly, but I remember being very aware of it. I wasn’t used to eating in female company. Or to good food, for that matter. I had my first curries there. It was corned beef in everything up at the airfield, condensed milk puddings in the mess hall. Isobel had been staying at the house a while, of course. But wewere both fish out of water. I think we recognised that in one another.
    It was strange to hear him say her grandmother’s name. There was something intimate about it, a small shock to see her as the woman before she became her gran. Her grandfather was quiet for a while after that, but it wasn’t an expectant silence, as though he wanted Alice to respond. His eyes had turned inward. She waited for him to continue.
    – I’m sorry. We were halfway through the crossword, weren’t we?
    He put the picture down on the table next to him, smiled across at Alice. She still had the newspaper ready on her lap, but it took her a moment to catch up, find the clue they’d been working on: hadn’t thought he’d stop talking when he did. He didn’t offer any more that afternoon, but Alice was more pleased than disappointed. Such a brief conversation, but it felt like a start. She called Joseph to tell him about it when she got home. Said it had been the best visit since her gran died, and she almost felt like celebrating.
    – That sounds daft, doesn’t it? But it was so nice to hear him talking about her.
    – I’ll get a bottle of wine in for tomorrow, then. We can drink to David together when you come round.
    – Don’t make fun.
    – I’m not. I like your Grandad.
    – Do you?
    – Yeah.
    Alice called her mother after that, and she agreed thatGrandad had seemed very well over the past week or two.
    – I