Kissed a Sad Goodbye

the man would refuse, but then his new friend sighed and said, “I’ll have to answer to my Mary for keeping her supper waiting. But I suppose I can get you settled in the kitchen, then I’ll come back and take you to your room after you’ve had a bite to eat. It must be hard, away from home on your own. Where’s your family, lad?”
    “The East End,” answered Lewis, thinking of the comfortable muddle of his neighborhood. “The Isle of Dogs.” Looking up at the dark walls looming in front of him, his question popped out before he’d thought whether or not he should ask it. “It’s so big—the house—why wouldn’t Miss Edwina take the others?”
    John Pebbles shook his head. “Because she’s a stubborn woman, and she’s made up her mind there’s not going to be a war. She always wants to think the best, does Miss Edwina, but I’ve no doubt she’ll be sensible enough when the time comes.” He sighed in the darkness. “And come it will, sooner rather than later, I fear.” With that, he opened the door and nudged Lewis into the warmth and light of the kitchen.
     
    HOW LIKE HER EX-HUSBAND, TO WEAR a button-down shirt and trousers on a day when everyone else had exposed their skin to the legal limit, thought Jo as she watched Martin Lowell cross the street and enter the park. She’d phoned and asked him to meet her here, near the outdoor tea garden.
    When Harry had been small they’d come here every fine Sunday afternoon. They’d had tea and read the Sunday papers with Harry in his pushchair; then as he grew they’d helped him toddle up the hill towards the Observatory; and later still they’d crossed the road and explored the Maritime Museum.
    Her choice of rendezvous had been instinctive, comforting, but obviously it hadn’t inspired any fond memories in Martin. As he reached her, he pushed his tortoiseshell spectacles up on his nose and glowered at her.
    “I don’t know what you’re trying on, Jo, but I’m not having it. This is my afternoon with the children and I don’t want to hear some silly excuse—”
    All the civil and reasonable words she’d rehearsed as she walked down the hill were washed away on a flood of anger so intense it left her trembling. “Martin, shut up, will you?”
    He stared at her, too surprised for a moment to respond, then said, “Don’t take that tone with me, Jo. There’s no—”
    “Martin, listen to me. Annabelle’s dead. She’s been murdered.”
    “What?”
    “You heard me. They found her body in Mudchute Park yesterday morning.” Jo watched him, wondering how long it had been since she’d seen his face wiped clean of his perpetual disapproval.
    Then his lips twisted and he said, “Serves the bitch right.”
    “Martin, don’t—”
    “What was she doing, shopping her wares in the park? That’s what happens to whores like her. You should have known—”
    “You bastard!” Jo’s hand seemed to lift of its own accord. Through a haze of fury she felt the impact of her palm connecting with his cheek; her eyes filled with tears as her skin began to smart. Cradling her injured hand with the other, she stepped back, afraid of retaliation, then realized that Martin was far too aware of the stares of passersby to risk incurring any more attention. She’d made a public spectacle of him, and there was nothing he hated more.
    “That was bloody uncalled-for,” he hissed at her. Her handprint stood out white against his flushed cheek. “Have you completely lost your mind?”
    “I don’t care what sort of villain you’ve chosen to make of her, she was my sister. My sister! How could you—” Swallowing, she looked away, not trusting herself to go on. She gazed at the tea garden, where the interested spectators had gone back to their drinks and conversations, with only an occasional glance towards Martin and her.
    “Don’t you ever get tired of playing the martyr, Jo? I should think that even you would have to put some limits on forgiveness—”
    “It doesn’t matter what I feel now. I’ve got to tell the children. And I thought you might...”
    “Might what? Tell them a little morality tale? Explain to them that this is what happens to tarts and home-wreckers?”
    Jo felt her anger drain away as quickly as it had come, and she swayed with exhaustion. It had been a hopeless quest, and now she wanted only to go home, but she couldn’t, not yet. “Promise me you won’t talk to the children about Annabelle. Promise me you won’t say