Page 31 of The Unknown Birds

One of the boys had brought a football, and soon sides were chosen and lines were drawn.

It was strange how a tiny moment—a strain of music, a familiar scent, a child’s plaything—could transport a body right through place and time. Maybe it was Rook’s resurrection from the dead that made her maudlin, but there was Ashley, with the winter sun warming her face, trying desperately to be present in the moment, when the simple act of watching a young boy kick a ball as hard and fast as he could sent her reeling twenty years into the past.

She was only called back by the sound of little Mary wailing, and when Ash checked her forehead where the errant ball had left its bright red mark, she half expected to see, imprinted in ghost-inked letters, the words no referee.

“Not even a bump. Just the badge of a warrior,” she said, kissing the hurt away and sending the child back into the fray.

It wasn’t a conscious decision, taking the train to Temple Station after school. More like an instinct, like a bird flying south for winter or a pigeon with a message heading home. Her heart was drawn where it was vital for her to go.

When she turned the corner onto the Strand, they near collided, Alex Rook and she.

“I was coming to see you,” he said as she reached out to steady him.

“I… thought I’d meet you halfway,” she teased, as though she’d planned their encounter right there in the street.

“Shall we pop round to The George?” he asked. “Let me buy you a bite or a drink?”

“I can always eat,” she quipped, though it pinched at her heart to remember TomTom’s bottomless pit.

They chose a plush and cozy corner in the far back of the pub, requesting ale and Scotch eggs for a treat, but as the proprietor hurried away to fill their orders, he may as well have whisked their words off too. When there’s so much to say, it can become harder than hard to begin.

“Does—” she tried.

And, “So—” he started.

Both froze, waiting for the other to continue.

“Please,” Rook said, relinquishing the conversation but not her gaze, and it felt as though he were asking for more than her thoughts.

Ash cleared her throat. “Does your leg cause you an awful lot of pain?” she asked, wondering when it happened, and where, and how.

“Most people would say a thing which isn’t there can’t possibly hurt you.” The gravity of his words sunk low in her gut, and she turned her face towards the window so he couldn’t see the sadness in her eyes.

“We both know that’s not true,” she ventured.

He tapped the table absently, and when she looked back, he was staring deep into his ale. “The prosthetic can be a challenge,” he finally admitted. “But we’ve had a good long time to get used to each other, and I’ve borne worse.” Then he did look at her, and she didn’t need to ask him what he meant. They both knew he was looking at the worse which he had borne.

They’d been brutally severed from each other’s lives without anesthesia, and if his experience had been anything like hers, it nearly killed him, injuries aside.

He cleared his throat. “So you’re a woman,” he said echoing his observation from the night of the lecture. “I suppose that’s why I couldn’t find you after the war.”

Ash flinched, and he tore his gaze from her, as though he’d meant to smooth over the rough edges of his words and hearing them out loud he knew he’d failed.

Trying not to choke on the lump within her throat, she nodded, wanting desperately to reach out and take his hand. Not only had she lied to him, her deception had led him on a wild goose chase, searching for the boy he thought he knew. Perhaps he couldn’t forgive her—how could he? She wasn’t sure she could forgive herself.

He studied the table, flattening his napkin as though ironing out her lies.

Would this be how it ended, the tale of Ash and Rook? Had she finally got him back after decades only to have him use Scotch eggs and ale to ease their final parting?

This, right here, the betrayal in his voice and in his eyes, was the one thing she’d feared most upon returning to London at the end. The question of how one who called you their closest friend could look you in the eye and mislead you about something so intrinsic. How something so intrinsic could be the least consequential thing at the very same time.

Ashley made a choice at the age of barely eighteen, with one singular thought foremost in her mind: saving her brother. There’d been no room for sorrow about the falsehoods she would tell, the friends she’d have to hide from, deceit by omission, lies on lies on lies. She’d taken out a loan with interest, and the balance was coming due.

“Was any of it true?” he rasped, his voice tight like a coiled spring, his brow crumpled with regret.

“True as Troilus,” she promised him. “Every word except the part where I’m not a man. For a little while, I thought you’d guessed.”

Rook nodded, but his face still looked like he could cry. “All the world’s a stage…? Suppose I should have. You really go by Charley?” he asked, using his fork to mush his already mushy peas.