Hero by Paul Butler Page A

Simon has remained true to his nature. And he will return to us, even gentler than before. I told myself over and over up to the very moment of hearing the car upon the road. Yet when he did not turn to our house I was not surprised. It is almost a relief now the suspense is over. I have been holding onto a hope that each day has slipped an inch, each day has seemed just a little more far-fetched. He was upon the cliff edge three months ago when he wrote that postscript, and there was a world of horrors between then and now.
    I could cry and write love poems. I could lay myself at his feet and weep for all that is and all that has been. But regardless, one fact must remain: the soldier in the car is a stranger to me now.
    The doorbell is so unexpected I let the book fall from my lap. I’m still dressed, but the lateness of the hour gives the proceeding hush an ominous feel.
    Isabelle scurries through the hallway towards the sound. She hesitates for a moment at the open doorway, giving me a questioning look. I manage something between a nod and a shrug, as if to say we must know who it is before we can decide whether to grant or bar their entrance. She continues to the front door, and I hear her open it gingerly as though reluctant to wake a visitor who sleeps upon our threshold.
    â€œOh, Mr. Simon!” she exclaims. Like a jack-in-the-box, I shoot up and cross to the dying fire, where I stand irresolute, a moth expiring too close to a flame. I don’t hear him say a word, but I hear his step—uneven, unfamiliar—as he approaches. He appears in the doorway, his face lean like a dark-furred greyhound, his grey suit too baggy for his shrunken figure. A pale pink groove—more like a washed out ribbon than a scar—begins at his temple and takes a jagged course through his hair until it disappears somewhere near his crown. He seems altogether smaller than I remember, and much smaller than my imagination has since painted him. His eyes are dark, questioning, almost feral in nervousness, and he is too close to the door frame. The Simon of old would have strode into the middle of the room and taken possession.
    My breath has deserted me, but I will myself to recover. He has changed as I knew he would. A strange aura hangs about him, a pungent scent I have detected from other men but never from him. But he has come. Waves of feelings ancient and glorious are crashing in my heart. I suspect that very soon they will loosen my tongue and spill tears of joy onto my cheek. For the moment they are held at bay by the tension in Simon’s face, by the knowledge that we cannot instantly return to where we once were, that we are entering a delicately balanced phase of re-acquaintanceship.
    â€œSimon,” I manage at last, my voice a whisper. I take half a step from the fire towards him.
    He shrinks away and his eyes grow pained.
    â€œDidn’t you know I was home?” he asks. His look darkens in a manner I can’t interpret.
    â€œI saw you from the window,” I say, a smile taking over my face despite the tension, moisture touching the rims of my eyelids.
    â€œI’ve been here for five hours,” he says dully, as though the fact itself was hurtful to him.
    â€œI know.”
    I take a full step towards him then gesture him to an arm–chair, mouthing the word please.
    He turns from me as though I have dealt him a blow, but then walks slowly towards the armchair, showing me his back until he turns to sit. Some impulse tugs at me, telling me to sink onto my knees in front of him, to take his shoes, or perhaps rest my cheek upon his knee. But something stops me. I move only a few paces nearer.
    â€œSo there is someone else.”
    This is what I hear, but I can’t take it in. They seem the words of a sleepwalker, or a quote from a melodrama. I search through our time together before the war for some clue to unlock the reference—endless games of charades, the plays and pantomimes