Francis Meyrick

Ch.38 THE SECOND HOME COMING

His father had been almost embarrassed to meet him.
They had shaken hands.
His mother had cried. And cried.
His sister had been indifferent.
It had not been a cheerful home coming.

Emmy…
Emmy had been bewildered by this stranger. Who spent hours in his room alone. Who said very little. Who could not be coaxed out of his shell.

He had promised himself to stay for four weeks, before returning to France.
He lasted three.

When he left, saying he had some unfinished business to attend to, his mother had gone almost hysterical.
He had endured the weeping figure draped around him, beseeching him not to go. He had said very little.

At length, his mother, powerless, hurt, confused, had stepped back. Her hand had come up to her mouth like a little girl found out doing something naughty.
After he had gone, shabbily dressed in his old pre-war civilian clothes, she had rounded on her husband.

Throwing things at him, she had roundly cursed him,
his boots, the war, and everything Mr Armstrong had held sacred.
He had been shocked to the core.

Jeremy’s sister had lapped it up, hugely impressed at her mother’s knowledge of the vernacular.

Francis Meyrick
(c)