Afterwards by Rachel Seiffert Page A

thought he was very chipper on the phone. He must like having your Joseph around.
    – Did he say that?
    – Not in so many words.
    – I hope he didn’t think I was being nosy this afternoon.
    – Doesn’t sound like it to me.
    – I’ve never thought to ask him before, don’t know why. We never gave him the chance, did we? The three of us. Too busy talking to each other.
    – Alan says Grandad listens to us. He’s watched him, out on our Christmas walks.
    – I was wondering about that today. Made me want to ask him. Seemed alright at first but then he just stopped.
    – Don’t worry about him. He loves you.
    – Do you think he’d ever really talk to me about Kenya? I mean how he felt about what he was doing there.
    – I don’t know, love. Hard to say.
    – You think I shouldn’t try?
    – No. Just be careful about it, won’t you?
    After Alice left home, her family started spending Sundays together, once a month or thereabouts, and usually at her grandparents’ house. Alice couldn’t say now who had initiated this, but supposed it must have been her gran: recalled her saying she’d miss them when Alice started college and her mum moved in with Alan. No longer three streets away, but scattered across the city. Those Sundays weren’t as frequent as her current visits, but somehow they seemed more of an effort. There were just so many other, better things she would ratherhave been doing at the time, and Alice sometimes wormed her way out of going, pleading too much study or a bar shift that clashed, but mostly she went: dutiful, reluctant to give her mum cause for a row. She could remember Alan felt the same way, especially after they’d moved up north, and the journey ate up most of his weekend. They often ended up doing the dishes together, in irritated sympathy, sneaking nips of sherry out of the bottle her grandmother kept in the kitchen. Alice said those Sundays were boring, he said they weren’t so bad, just a bit stilted, but they both agreed it was the having to be there they resented.
    It was usually all over within a couple of hours, a meal and then coffee, and coats and goodbyes. There was only one visit that ended more quickly, abruptly, the day gone badly wrong. It was before her mum and Alan got married, but just after they’d bought the house in York together, which Alice’s grandparents took to be the next best thing. Alan was due to take over from his retiring headmaster when the new term started, and Alice remembered her grandad greeting him at the door, saying how pleased he’d been to hear about his promotion. Everything was friendly until Alan asked David about his time in Kenya.
    – I just wanted a real conversation for a change.
    – Excellent choice of topic.
    That was in the car, on the way home, their visit cut short by the row. Her mother was furious and so was Alan, but he was shocked too: sitting quiet in the front seat while his partner drove and tried, unsuccessfully, to stop herself shouting. Alice sat in the back and kept out of it. She thought her mum was being unfair: the rowhad been just as much her grandad’s fault. He’d seemed amiable enough, answering questions about the RAF and his training, pleased maybe that Alan was interested. But then he reacted badly, rudely to Alan’s mention of Kenya.
    – Where is all of this leading?
    Alice had left the dining room by that stage, clearing the plates ready for the next course, but she could remember listening to them from the kitchen, hearing Alan faltering and then persisting:
    – I’m just interested. Because the way I’ve always understood it. The insurgency was about Kenyan independence, wasn’t it?
    Her mum sighed down the phone when Alice reminded her.
    – Oh dear.
    – It didn’t seem such an unreasonable question to me.
    – No, I know. I don’t think Dad was disputing that, actually. The point he was trying to make was more about hindsight. Independence was still over a decade away when the Emergency