Out of the Blackout by Robert Barnard

beer glass. ‘Already you’re mixing with the nobs.’
    â€˜Mostly with giraffes and seals, actually.’
    â€˜Oh no—like you said, there’s all those big boys on the Board. What did you call them? Establishment men. Not to mention the fat boys with the long purses and the crooked noses.’
    Simon flinched inwardly at the crudity of his companion. At the same time he was conscious of being watched. Not looked at, but watched.
    â€˜Oh, they’re people quite apart, really,’ he said, studiedly neutral. ‘They come in once a month, have a day-long meeting and a slap-up lunch, and then we hear what’s been decided. We hardly ever get to meet them.’
    â€˜Ah,’ said Len, his eyes still on Simon. ‘It’s a funny old world, isn’t it? Lots of funny people in control, eh?’
    Simon shifted uneasily in his chair. The conversation was taking a direction he had hardly envisaged, and one he hardly knew how to cope with politely. Far from being cosy or intimate, the atmosphere seemed to have become fraught with an inexplicable tension. He felt, oddly, as if he were being sounded out by Len —quite the reverse of what he had intended.
    â€˜At the moment I’m not too much worried about who’s in control, just in getting on top of my job,’ he said. And then, trying to take over the rudder of the conversation, he added: ‘If I have got anywhere, I put it down to my family. Encouragement in the home counts for an awful lot, as you say. And then having a united family—as your own is . . .”
    â€˜Yes. Quite.’ Len’s body seemed to lose its tension, as if he were backing away from a perilous leap. ‘You could say Mother kept us together. Teddy fled the nest, in a manner of speaking, first with the war, then getting married not long after. But otherwise we’ve all mostly muddled along together.’
    â€˜Even when you got married, in your case, I believe?’
    â€˜That’s right. Oh—you saw the pictures, did you? The Ma sets great store by them pictures. Very fond memories she has—we both have, of course. Yes, when I got hitched I brought her back to live with Mother. Well—it was the only sensible thing to do, granted the size of the house, and that.’
    â€˜The house you live in now?’
    â€˜No—over Paddington way. I used to work in the ticket office of the station—that was before nationalization, of course. The GWR Station it was then. The house in Paddington was a bit of a barn, and back in the ’thirties no one was buying places like that, so Mother would have been stuck. So naturally we moved in with her.’
    â€˜People say you should never have two women sharing a kitchen.’
    Len, for some reason, leaned back in his seat and laughed uproariously, as if Simon had made a witticism.
    â€˜Depends on the ladies—eh, young feller? Well, we had three in our house, at any rate three as soon as war broke out. I won’t say there wasn’t a spot of argy-bargy now and then, because there was. Connie’s got a bit of a temper—not that she was often in the kitchen, oh no!—and Mother knows her own mind, or did then. But it was Mary who kept the peace. My Mary. She was a quiet soul, religious you might almost say, but she was a little wonder when it came to smoothing over unpleasantness. It was Mary who kept things on an even keel. I was proud of her, by golly I was!’
    There was something deeply unconvincing about Len when he spoke forcefully, like a politician with a prepared brief.
    â€˜You must have been very happy,’ said Simon.
    â€˜Oh, we were. Idyllically. I hope when you find yourself a nice young lady that you’re half as happy as we were.’
    â€˜I hope so. I didn’t do too well first time around.’
    Len put his glass down on the table, pushed himself back on his seat, and looked at Simon with