Content warning: homophobia, strong language

Proposals

May 1926

Una paused on the bottom stair, balancing the washbasin against the turned-oak newel. Rosemary had fallen asleep at last and Una meant to replace the towels and washwater while she had the chance. She hoped Rosemary would finally sleep through the night tonight. The fever had broken that evening and Dr. Blythe had said that all she needed now was rest and tender nursing. Of course, Una would be happy to stay at the manse another day or two. She had already phoned Mrs. Palmer to say that she wouldn't be in on Sunday to tend the altar, and that no, Rosemary was in no danger and no need to send Father Kirkland around, thanks be.

Una thought that Dr. Blythe had gone home an hour ago and was thus surprised to hear his voice coming from the study, followed closely by Father's urgent half-whisper.

" . . . afraid so."

"But he didn't tell you himself?" That was Father, his voice sounding thin and strained.

"No. Nothing like that," Dr. Blythe said. "Only . . . Anne has suspected for a while now, and I've been watching them. I'm quite certain she's right."

Una might have moved along then, not wanting to breach whatever confidential discussion might involve a doctor and a minister, if not for Father's anguished question.

"Are you sure? Carl?"

Una nearly upset the washbasin.

Not trusting her hands to remain steady, Una set the basin on the stair and took a single step toward the study door as noiselessly as a little gray mouse.*

"Yes, I'm sure," Dr. Blythe replied. "I haven't seen anything . . . incriminating. Not exactly. But . . ."

"They're friends . . ." Father protested, but trailed off.

Dr. Blythe's voice was solemn, but gentle, as if he spoke of a death. "I'm sorry, John. I knew I had to tell you."

Father took a long, shuddering breath and Una had to stop herself from going to him.

"They'll grow out of it, surely. Only a passing phase."

Dr. Blythe cleared his throat. "Anne thinks it goes back to Redmond. Maybe even before."

"Can we stop them?" Father asked in broken, anguished tones.

"I don't see how."

"Isn't there any sort of treatment? A cure?"

Dr. Blythe's voice turned graver still. "I've done some research these past few months. And there are . . . certain experimental procedures. But that's grim stuff, John. I'd never recommended . . . not to anyone . . ."

"I'm sure I've heard of gentle options," Father said. "Hypnosis? Psychoanalysis?"

"Perhaps," Dr. Blythe said vaguely. "I'm following a few leads in the literature. But my understanding is that the available treatments are unreliable. That some of them, well . . ."

Dr. Blythe hesitated and Una strained to hear.

"Just tell me, Gil. We can dispense with euphemism at this point."

A pause, and then Dr. Blythe cleared his throat. "Any sort of manipulation, whether it be psychological, medical, or . . . well . . . surgical . . . is risky. I have a few leads on promising cures, but there are also plenty of reports of . . . damage."

"Damage?"

"Insanity. Suicide." Dr. Blythe had gone so quiet Una could barely discern his words, but he went on speaking. "The boys have already been through so much, John. They may be fragile, especially Carl. Anne doesn't want me to try anything at all. But I know there must be some way to help."

"They could go to prison," Father said softly. "For life."

"We won't let that happen."

"Do you think we might convince them to try to live normal lives? Get married? Start families?"

Dr. Blythe coughed. "Would you really do that to an unsuspecting woman, John?"

"They're good boys. I remember thinking when Carl enlisted what a bonny, clean, handsome lad he was.** They'd make better husbands than most."

There was another long pause. "You know it would be Una, don't you?" Dr. Blythe said evenly. "Not some nameless, faceless girl. Shirley would marry Una."

When John Meredith managed to answer, he sounded faint. "You're right. Forgive me for even suggesting it."

"You're just trying to help, John. And it's nothing I haven't thought myself. But things are bad enough. We can't drag anyone else into this mess. Especially not someone innocent."

"Of course not. You're right. I'm sorry."

Una had heard enough. She padded silently back toward the stairs and carried the soiled basin into the kitchen. She watched the wastewater swirl away down the drain, thinking hard.

Father couldn't do anything, nor could Dr. Blythe.

But Una could.

"No. Absolutely not!"

"But Carl," Una pleaded, "it would solve so many problems!"

"I said no!"

They sat at the enamel-top table in the sunny sanctum of the kitchen on the Lowbridge road, facing one another over cups of rapidly-cooling tea.

Una straightened her back and resolved not to give in without making her point clear. "Just think, Carl," she said. "Shirley could live here always. He wouldn't have to go back out to the airfield alone and no one would be able to say a word about it."

Carl shook his head emphatically. "No. It wouldn't solve anything. And it would create new problems."

How could she make him see? If Father and Dr. Blythe were preparing to get involved, there was no telling what sort of plan they might devise. Couldn't Carl see that things would be better this way?

"We wouldn't . . ." Una faltered, color rising in her cheeks. But she had thought through her plan in every particular, and she meant to show that the offer was no ill-considered whim. "We wouldn't have to . . . really . . . be married."

Carl caught her drift and blanched. "Christ, Una."

She pressed her lips together, but did not scold him for irreverence. "We wouldn't," she said with finality. "But you could be safer. You could be together."

Carl dropped his head into his hands, elbows propped either side of his teacup. "Look, Una, I appreciate what you're trying to do. Really, I do. But even if it would work — and it wouldn't — you can't swear false vows. Stand up before God and lie? No."

"I rather think that's between me and God," Una said quietly.

"Well, this is between me and you. And I say no."

"And Shirley? Shouldn't he get a say?"

Carl fixed his sister with his clear blue eye, no trace of amusement there, not even deep, deep down. "No, Una. Don't even mention this to him."

"But it could work."

"No!" Carl cried, losing patience now. "It wouldn't be fair to any of us! Not to Shirley. Not to me. Definitely not to you." He pushed back from the table and crossed his arms over his chest, though whether he was creating a barrier between them or holding himself together, Una could not have said.

"You needn't worry about being fair to me," she replied.

"No? What happens when you fall in love?" Carl demanded. "When you want to get married for real and not as a sham? I couldn't steal that chance from you, not even if I thought this was a good idea. Which it isn't."

Una looked down into her teacup, swirling dregs floating formless and unreadable. "I'm never going to marry," she whispered.

"Don't say that." Carl softened, arms unclenching, anger running off to puddle in the downcast corners of his mouth. "There's someone out there for you, Una."

"There isn't."

Carl shook his head, as if a performance of conviction were the same as persuasion. "I don't believe that. Not a bit. Maybe it seems impossible, but your happiness is still ahead of you."

"I am happy," Una said, though the declaration went no deeper than her words. "I have St. Elizabeth's. And I have you. That's enough."

"It isn't."

Una stood up from the table more precipitously than was her wont. It was not like her to rattle teacups in their saucers, nor to permit a sob to escape, even when she had turned her face toward the wall.

Carl rose as well and closed the distance between them in a single silent step. He pulled Una into an embrace and hung on for a few moments of wordless misery, not much lessened by the sharing.

"I want joy for you, Una," he said into her dark hair.

"And I want it for you," came the reply, muffled by Carl's shoulder.

"You've done so much already," he said. "I can't let you give anything more."

Una pulled away enough to wipe her eyes with the heel of her hand. "I think Shirley deserves the chance to hear me out," she said. "He's practical."

Carl's grasp on her tightened momentarily, a desperate spasm, not a caress. Una could not see his tears, turned blind side toward her as he was, but she could feel them as he spoke.

"No, Una, please. Please don't. It makes sense; I know it does. But . . . please. Don't ask Shirley to marry you. I . . . I couldn't bear it. Please."

Shirley was elbow-deep in engine grease when the midnight-black Rolls-Royce Phantom slithered into the drive. He knew most of the autos on the eastern tip of the Island — the delivery trucks and Ford Model Ts and even a few Cadillacs like his father's V-63. Nothing like this, though. Shirley cast an appreciative eye over the sleek chassis, the gleaming chrome appointments, the audacious Spirit of Ecstasy poised in perpetual flight on the bonnet. Not an Islander, that was for sure. Maybe the summer renters were starting to bring their autos over with them.

Susan will love that.

Shirley wiped his hands on the rag in his cover-all pocket as the Rolls slowed to a stop. The driver was obscured by the dazzling reflection of midday sun on its windshield, but Shirley assumed it would be someone worth cleaning up for. The Yankees with cottages down the shore were some of his best customers, willing to pay top dollar for tours and simple flying lessons. Besides, anyone who drove that stunning machine might have a thing or two to say about engines.

The driver emerged in his own sweet time. Tall, expensively dressed, with the lithe stride of a tropical cat. Not an Islander either. Shirley squinted as the man removed his sunglasses, then felt the bottom fall out of his stomach.

Wilkie.

"Hello there, philos," Wilkie said, the old, sly grin stretching his gaunt features.

Shirley stared. Wilkie was thinner. Older than he should have been, with flecks of gray in the dark, pomaded curls. It had only been four years since the day he'd come to say goodbye, au revoir, auf wiedershehen, at the start of his truncated grand tour. Could that possibly be right?

Shirley wanted to say, You're alive. You came back. It's a miracle.

Instead he asked, "What are you doing here?"

The question was too sharp and Shirley winced at his own tone. Wilkie, however, was undeterred.

"Came for you, didn't I?"

"How did you find me?" Shirley asked more neutrally, still unable to settle on a register that could corral his scattered impulses.

Wilkie reached into his pocket and fanned out three or four tattered envelopes. "You wrote."

"You didn't."

Wilkie closed the gap between them and leaned against the plane, too close, making Shirley recall their first meeting: the tree on the quad, the invitation, the touch of Wilkie's knee, uninvited, against his own.

"Ah, well, not much to write home about, I'm afraid."

At this distance, Shirley registered the subtler changes in his face. Eyes outlined in a rim of shadow, skin weathered by sun and tobacco, cheeks sunken like shell craters under superficially regrown grass. But still Wilkie, still that magnetic smile, the spark of challenge in the amber eyes.

Wilkie slapped the creased, finger-stained envelopes against Shirley's forearm with every pretense of joviality. "Not like you! Big news! Back to Glen St. Mary! Could have knocked me over with a feather when I read that. You'll forgive me if I ask why."

"You know why."

Wilkie rolled his eyes melodramatically.

Shirley nodded toward the Rolls Royce. "It seems that your family took you back."

"Oh, that." Wilkie waved dismissively. "Nah. They disowned me. There were lawyers and everything. The deal is that I renounce my claim to any inheritance in return for a fat deposit in my name in a Swiss bank account. And, of course, the stipulation that I disappear forever. That way, they can just forget that I exist."

"I'm sorry."

"For me? Don't bother. Be sorry for my brother. He has to stick around and marry whatever pug-faced heiress my mother has sunk her talons into. I'm pleased to be shut of them and on my way to new adventures."

"And you're just dropping by for a visit, are you?" Shirley asked, carefully casual.

"I'm here because I have a proposition for you, fly boy."

I'll bet.

Shirley crossed his arms over his chest and waited, striving for indifference.

"My father always did hope the Huns would spare him the trouble of having to deal with me," Wilkie smirked, "and I mean to see that they do. I'm still headed to Berlin. Come with me."

Shirley scoffed. "To Berlin?"

"I'm not kidding."

"You certainly are."

Shirley began to turn away, but Wilkie reached out and caught him by the wrist. "I'm not. Come with me. Leave the boondocks behind and come live a little."

Shirley shifted away from Wilkie's hand, not recoiling, but moving away nonetheless. "I think you're forgetting something."

"What?"

"Carl?"

"You mean Carl the cop?"

"He's not a cop," Shirley flared up hot, then checked himself. Where had that come from? "He manages wildlife," he said, approximating calm.

Wilkie lolled against the fuselage. "Blaaaaggghhhh. Well, bring him along if you must. Berlin's a nonstop party — dancing til dawn, drag shows, masquerades — Meredith will love it."

"Doubtful."

"Well then leave him here and come with me." Wilkie reached out and stroked Shirley's cheek with the back of his hand. "You're wasted here."

With a tremendous effort, Shirley took a step backward. Three steps would have been better. But he managed one.

Wilkie threw up his hands in frustration. "God! You're maddening, you know that? The two of you. You're the most domesticated queers on the planet. Out here in the sticks, squandering your lives playing hide-and-seek with the church ladies! And what does it get you? Are you happy? Living out here on the edge of nowhere like a fuckin' leper? Alone, I presume? Look me in the face, Shirley, and tell me you're completely, unreservedly happy here."

An impossible command. He couldn't and Wilkie knew it.

"Well, I'm not in prison," Shirley said curtly.

"Fuck you."

"Getting less likely every minute."

Wilkie let out a bark of laughter that ended in a derisive growl. "You think you're smarter than I am? That I deserved what I got? Fuck you, Shirley. You think you can protect yourself by acting all respectable. That maybe if you just stay quiet enough and duck your head enough you can keep yourself safe. That you can keep Carl safe. Well you can't. All it takes is one misstep — one indiscreet moment or one person you piss off enough that he goes blabbing all around town."

"Like you?"

Shirley saw the shoulders shift, knew that Wilkie might throw a punch at any minute. It did not worry him overmuch; he was fairly confident that he could take Wilkie in a fight. Especially Wilkie in this mood: wild, erratic, emotional. Shirley only hoped that he was not too far gone that way himself.

"Why did you come here, Wilkie?"

"Like I said. I came here for you. To offer you a hand out of this halcyon hellhole. Meredith too, if he wants it; I don't care. Let's go. All of us. Away from here. Somewhere where you wouldn't have to sneak around. Somewhere where you could actually live out in the sunshine instead of scraping by in the shadows."

"Sounds nice. If you ever find it, do be sure to send me a postcard."

Wilkie squinted. "You know, if I didn't know better, I'd say you were scared."

"Pfffft."

"You are." Wilkie took a step forward and Shirley shied. "You're scared. The unflappable Flight Commander Shirley Blythe, RAF, DFC with bells and whistles. Scared."

An unfamiliar pressure built in Shirley's chest, a ratcheting tightness that scorched upward into his throat, threatening to escape as tears or fists or volume or any of those other things that burst out of people when they were not entirely in command of themselves. It was distinctly uncomfortable.

Shirley rounded on Wilkie with a blistering look that would have cowed anyone who had anything to lose. "Of course I'm scared, idiot!" he growled. "Anyone would be. Scared people come back alive. It's brave sons of bitches like you that go down in flames."

Wilkie stood his ground and spat. "Keep telling yourself that. I never thought you were stupid. But if you could come through the War believing that you could keep yourself safe by doing the right thing or acting the right way, you're jingle-brained."

"And alive."

"Are you seriously telling me that you — you — are going to spend the rest of your life here? With Carl Meredith? For God's sake, why?"

Vibrating with the effort of it, Shirley pushed his anger down, swallowed it, dampened the live coals. "Someday, Wilkie, you'll actually love someone. And then you won't need an explanation."

Wilkie sneered. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

"Fine. Great. Thanks for the visit, asshole."

Instead of stepping back, Wilkie stepped forward. There could be no hiding the fury, the desperation, and the desire in his eyes, not in total darkness, and certainly not here, in the blazing midday sun, in the open expanse of the unshielded drive.

"Shirley. Come with me."

When it came, the kiss was softer than Shirley had expected. He thought that anything from Wilkie must be as he was: volatile, acerbic, dangerous. As it transpired, only the last was true.

Shirley had imagined Wilkie's lips often enough. Too often, in truth, but that had seemed safe when he was behind bars in another country. Now, with his hands pulling Shirley in by the hips and his tongue searching as Shirley opened to him, it wasn't safe at all.

Wilkie tasted of coffee and cigarette smoke and places far, far away. At first sip, he was astonishing; at second, intoxicating. Over the years, Shirley had pushed him away and away again, but now he pulled him closer, one hand at his throat and another in the dark waves of his hair. Pressed together like this, thigh to thigh and chest to chest, they fit like gloved hands, moving in unison to the same commands of muscle and sinew. They had clashed so many times; now, aligned at last, they meshed.

For the briefest of moments, Shirley glimpsed a brazen flash of supernova, scorching spectacularly against the void before collapsing into itself, darker than dark, emptier than empty.

. . . to court destruction with taunts, with invitations . . .

Panting, Shirley pulled back, but Wilkie had him by the coveralls, warm breath and sandalwood inescapable as they stood eye-to-eye.

"Shirley," Wilkie said, like another kiss. "You and me. Together. We could be great."

Looking back into the amber eyes, Shirley allowed himself one honest appraisal of the man who had seen everyone at Redmond and had made a place for them all in the half-light, who had survived God only knew what in prison, who, whatever else he might be, was a brother-officer and a friend. More than a friend. Philos.

"You don't need me to be great," Shirley said.

Wilkie's throat bobbed wretchedly. "Please."

"No."

It was barely a whisper, but it was final.

Wilkie backed away, stumbling so that the red dirt of the drive mussed his crisp black trousers. He blinked hard. "Fine," he croaked. "Well, don't come crying to me when you change your mind."

"Wilkie . . ."

"I'll do fine in Berlin without you."

"Wilkie . . ."

Wilkie had reached the auto, gripping the door with pale and bulging knuckles. He risked one last look back.

Shirley swallowed. " . . . take care of yourself."

Wilkie snorted. "Say hi to Meredith for me," he sneered, disappearing behind the sun-dazzled windshield.

Shirley stood perfectly still as the Rolls-Royce revved up and pulled out. Much too fast. Careening toward the road, it left parallel skidding divots and raised a cloud of red Island dust, intangible, temporary, like that fleeting feeling of choking pressure, not yet settled back to earth.

Notes:

*Rainbow Valley, Chapter 33: "Carl is — Not — Whipped" It's not the first time Una has eavesdropped in that study.

**Rilla of Ingleside, Chapter 17: "The Weeks Wear By"