What Was Promised by Tobias Hill Page B

foot of the Vesuvius. Then they were assigned as guards, escorting German prisoners down to Port Said. And then?
    And then they trained for war some more. They marched into the desert – where the hulks of Italian tanks still stood like ancient ruins – while a thousand miles north Hitler made his final stand. And then?
    And then the war was done. None of them had ever seen it. They had not been wanted. Or had they not been trusted? Had someone played a joke on them? Or a trick? Yes: a confidence trick. They had been sent in confidence, but no confidence had been placed in them. They had promised their lives and found them unwanted. They were sent home safe and sound, but shamed. They were left still waiting.
    ‘You should be glad,’ Neville says at his shoulder, and Clarence looks down at his hands and sees the cutting is still there, intact, not crumpled and torn. He had thought it was.
    He folds it and puts it back where it belongs.
    ‘Don’t tell me what to be,’ he says. ‘You don’t know. You had it different.’
    ‘I did,’ Neville says, with a sick man’s calm. ‘I died,’ he says, and sets the tea down on the table.
    *
    Solly and Pond are flying kites.
    The Tower is behind them. The bridge is east of them. There are Saturday crowds, and tugs and lighters on the Thames, and a black police launcher, nosing down into the docklands.
    If the kites come down the river will foul them, but Solly won’t let them fall. When Solly makes a kite, it does what you want it to do, it doesn’t bilk you, Solly tunes it like a watch: a kite that Solly makes you, that’s a kite you can trust. And he’s brought the boy where the wind is best. There’s always a breeze along this stretch, smooth as glass over the deep water. It thrums along the strings.
    Solly grins around his pipe. ‘Alright?’ he asks, and the boy nods, his solemn face upturned, watching the diamonds lift above them.
    He doesn’t talk much, the boy. Oh, he talks to himself, sometimes, but doesn’t Solly do that too, when Dora leaves him to work alone? Let the boy keep to himself – Solly doesn’t mind. Let him talk to the world when he’s ready. Where’s the sense in hurrying him? Let him speak when he’s something to say. Dora says he’s catching up at school, the teachers tell her he’s quick, and he has friends in the Buildings. The boy is coming along. Besides, chitchat is overrated. Solly’s too chatty himself. People listen to quiet men. Perhaps the boy will grow up to be a man people listen to.
    Solly doesn’t like his name.
    Pond : what does it mean? It’s uneasy, a name like that. He should have a proper name – a boy’s name – an English boy’s name, John or Henry. And after that name, Lazarus. If they’re going to take him in, they should do it properly. He’s told Dora, several times, and the Food Office are pestering them – the school and hospital too – but she isn’t listening. Solly has told her how it’ll be. The other kids will needle him, and that’ll be just the start. A name like that, it causes problems.
    So far he’s been wrong, it’s true. People ask the boy his name, and he tells them. Pond , he says. Pond , they say, pleased to meet you, Pond ; and they shake his hand, all smiles. They make allowances, as if he’s a well-bred foreigner.
    Solly knows what’s going on. You don’t have to tell him: he knows what Dora’s afraid of. If they make him Something Lazarus, they’ll have to do it legit. They’ll need a new birth certificate. There are official channels, here, but official channels have no faces: you can’t reason with channels; and channels have little love for foreigners called Lazarus. What if the channels decide to take the boy away from them?
    As if they would. As if they’re crying out for war orphans, or runaways, or throwaways – whatever the boy is. Those channels, besides, they’ve got enough on their hands. They’re hardly going to quibble over one less boy on the street,