Harold Elderkin revealed himself a man of the most nervous disposition. Three times he declined tea before, finally, asking plaintively if he might partake of a small cup. Biscuits were proffered twice before he lined them up on a saucer and Cathy could see, in the way his fingers twitched, how eagerly he wanted to cram them into his gullet. Biscuits, he explained, had been in short supply when he was a lad.
‘I remember Sir Josiah’s,’ Cathy began, once Harold was settled, with Sirius up on his lap. ‘We would go there every summer, with stock from the winter before. Always my husband and me, and then my daughter. A summer day at Sir Josiah’s could rival first frost almost every year for its spectacle. All of those children waiting up against the windows, or spilling out into the yard …’
‘Well, that was me,’ Harold replied, with a modicum of pride – for to be remembered by an Emporium Lady was to fulfil the wish of his childhood. ‘Yes, Sir Josiah’s is a place that’s lodged up in this noggin of mine more than most. You know how that feels, I shouldn’t wonder. If I might be so bold … what happened to the Emporium, Mrs Godman? How could a place like that just shut up its doors and …’ He faltered, started wringing his hands. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve spoken out of turn.’
‘You haven’t. It’s only … I wouldn’t know where to begin. A story like that has a thousand beginnings. I should need all night, and my grandchildren …’
‘I’ve had an inconsequential kind of life, Mrs Godman. I did my bit, I made a few friends, I had a good number of splendid luncheons, and now I spend my time pottering up and down the Finchley Road. I’ve been to the pictures twice this week already, and neither time for a matinee I cared to see. This Friday, I’m going to a department store. But when I think of the Emporium the way it used to be, why …’ Something must have caught in his throat, because suddenly he fell silent. ‘Oh, Mrs Godman, I didn’t mean to suggest … Well, it was so long ago, and fortunes can change. What happened to the place, well, who would have predicted? Hard times have fallen on so many in our lives.’ He stopped again, certain he had pursued the conversation into some dreadful quagmire from which he might never extricate himself. ‘What I meant to say was … You’ve lived a remarkable life, Mrs Godman. I should hope I might hear about it some time. And, if you don’t mind me saying, I feel … honoured to be sitting here with you. My Maud didn’t want me coming, she said I was to make a great fool of myself, but I could hardly stay away, not after I saw this old mutt here. And then, well, there’s the real reason I came …’ Harold shifted, depositing Sirius back on to the carpet, and brought up the bag he had brought with him.
He was lifting out its contents and placing them on the cushions at his side when the children clattered back into the room, Martha following behind. On seeing Harold they stopped dead – but it was not the sight of the old man that stilled them; for on the cushions beside him were sitting three editions of the Long War, two as pristine as the unopened boxes that had once sat upon the shopfloor, one weathered and worn around the edges. Curiosity had been piqued in Bethany, even in Lucas (who was struggling to project his obligatory indifference), but the colour had drained from Martha’s face, even as her eyes dared to believe. In the end, it was Cathy herself who said, ‘Mr Elderkin, wherever did you—’
‘This dog-eared old thing is my own,’ he began. ‘You won’t remember this but, one summer, you brought boxes down to Sir Josiah’s, and I became the proud owner of my very own Long War. When I finally moved on from there, well, I took it with me wherever I hung my hat. The other two, I’m afraid to say, I bought at auction. Maud would say I squandered my savings on them, but I’ll have none of that. These pieces are priceless …’ He paused. ‘And I want you to have them.’
‘Me?’
‘If not you, Mrs Godman, then the children. I’m afraid I never had children of my own. My Maud and I have been blessed, but not by the patter of tiny feet. I’m an old man now. I’ll have need for toys again, I shouldn’t wonder, but not for some time … and perhaps you’ll save them for me. Consider it a lifetime’s loan. But, for now, they should be played with. They’ve been wrapped up too long …’ Harold’s face broke into the simplest, wildest smile. ‘Well, go on then! Get stuck in! Perhaps you wouldn’t mind an old man playing a Long War with you, after all …’
The children needed no further tempting. Lucas and Bethany set about tearing open the sealed copies of the Long War, while Harold lined up the troops of his open box and read to them aloud from the Rules of Engagement.
Cathy and Martha watched as battle commenced. The clacking of wind-up soldiers was a familiar sound and if, at first, there was something sinister about the whirring motors, soon the anxiety was gone – and only the thrill of half-forgotten battles remained. Watching them now, Cathy could picture Kaspar and Emil battling across their bedroom floor, or Emil and Nina in the glade that first summer they met. She reached out and clasped her daughter’s hand. Sometimes, you had to choose the memories you held dear.
‘Wait!’ said Lucas, as they set the fronts up for the second time. ‘I’ve an idea …’
Then he was gone up the stairs, as if toy soldiers were far too old-fashioned a thing with which to waste his time.
While he was gone, Harold and Bethany continued to battle, the old man narrating at length how the older boys of Sir Josiah’s had returned, Christmas after Christmas, to wage campaigns with the brothers they had left behind. By the time Lucas returned, grasping something in his fist, Mr Elderkin had noticed the clock on the wall and, to his horror, announced that his poor wife Maud would, even now, have been sitting in front of a Sunday roast, watching the gravy congeal on her plate rather than begin the meal without him.
‘I’ll be back, if I may,’ he began, labouring out into the hall.
Lucas watched as his mother and grandmother saw the old man out. ‘Now we can see …’
‘What have you got there, in your fist?’
At first Lucas did not reveal it. ‘I knew she had something, up there in her bag. She’s full of secrets, isn’t she? I thought I saw it that very first day.’
‘You sneak thief! You went into her room. Mama will—’
‘Not if you don’t tell.’
Lucas brought out his fist and set down a soldier quite unlike the ones Bethany was lining up out of the box. The first thing she noticed was how much older he was than the rest. He had once had jackboots of sparkling green, a sash of crimson red and rows of tiny brass medals up and down his glistening coat. But his body was a lattice of wounds as well. There was a notch in the wood above his left eye that gave the impression of a scar, but that did not compare to the black char marks that covered his back, as if some brute of a boy had held him too close to the fire. In spite of all that, he had a kind of quiet dignity about him and (or so Bethany thought) there almost seemed an expressiveness in his dark, painted eyes. Wherever she shifted, the soldier’s eyes seemed to follow. Later she would think herself so foolish, but fleetingly she wondered what the soldier was thinking, to be staring at her with such intensity.
In the corner of the room, Sirius lifted his snout, turned one black button eye on the adults passing out into the hallway and the other on the children settling down across the carpet. It had been so long since he had seen toy soldiers that, at first, he considered it a dream. Then he yapped. When the soldiers did not scatter in fear, he judged them harmless and sank again to his slumber, curled up in a cushiony ball.
‘Wind him up then,’ said Bethany. ‘Let’s see how it goes …’
‘He’ll knock yours down in a second …’