Old Sins by Penny Vincenzi

back, will you see any of them again?’
    ‘I don’t know. I might. It’s hard to know. Nothing would be the same. After being so close, knowing such trust, such – well, love I suppose. Could you go back just on an idle visit? I don’t think so.’
    ‘Maybe not.’ She was silent. ‘Where did you live? How did you live?’
    ‘Oh, all kinds of places. All over Northern France. With Amelie Dessange, I told you about her, for a long time. I stayed on a farm for a while, labouring, towards the end. I lived rough for a while, as you know. Most recently I was further up the coast, quite near Deauville, lodging with a funny old chap. You’d have liked him. He was a chemist. Still is, of course. He escaped. God knows how. Only one in his family who did.’ He was quiet suddenly, his jaw tightening; he took a gulp of whisky and then looked at her and tried to smile.
    ‘Knowing him was very good for me. It’s given me lots of ideas. In fact I know what I want to do now. With my life, I mean.’
    ‘What, my darling?’ said Letitia, turning the evening determinedly back into a positive occasion. ‘Tell me. I’ve thought about it so much, I do hope it’s not a career in the Foreign Office. Or the army.’
    ‘God forbid,’ said Julian, ‘they both require a degree of self-abnegation, and I’ve had quite enough of that. No, I want to go into the pharmaceutical business. And possibly cosmetics.’
    ‘Julian, darling,’ said Letitia, half amused, half astonished, ‘whatever gave you that idea?’
    ‘Oh,’ said Julian, his eyes dancing, enjoying her slight unease with the situation and this rather unmasculine notion. ‘This old boy. I worked in his lab with him quite a lot. You know I loved chemistry at school. I’d have read it at Oxford if the war hadn’t happened.’
    ‘Do you think you’ll ever want to go now?’ said Letitia. ‘They said they’d keep your place.’
    ‘No. Fooling around with a lot of kids. Couldn’t possibly.’
    ‘It’s a pity in a way.’
    ‘So are lots of things.’
    ‘I suppose so.’
    ‘Well, anyway, you’d be surprised what I learnt. I can make all kinds of things. A jolly good cough mixture. A sleeping draught. Anti-inflammatory medicine. All sorts. And then I started fiddling around with creams and lotions and that sort of thing.’
    ‘Do you mean skin creams?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Darling,’ said Letitia, patting his hand, ‘I’d sell my soul for something like that. All you can buy now is Pond’s Cold Cream. Too awful. You didn’t bring any of your creams back with you, did you?’
    ‘Fraid not. But I have got the formulas. And when I’ve settled down a bit I thought I’d fix up some sort of lab in one of the outhouses and play about a bit. It’s fascinating stuff, Mother. I know it’s an odd thing to bring back with you from the war, but there it is. I think I could make a business of it. It must be better than an addiction to pornography, or the burning desire to write a manual on fifty-five new ways to kill a man. So many of the chaps got bitter and defeated.’
    ‘Weren’t you afraid of that?’ said Letitia.
    ‘No, not at all. I knew I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t allow it.’
    It was an extraordinarily revealing remark. Letitia took it in, put it temporarily aside, and then turned back to the future.
    ‘I love the idea, Julian, but how are you going to get started? It’s not a world that either of us knows a lot about.’
    ‘No,’ said Julian, accepting her involvement without question, ‘but we can learn. Would you like to help?’
    ‘Of course I would. I’d love to. But I haven’t got any money. Not on the scale you’d need, anyway. And James certainly hasn’t. It’s no use looking here for backing. And I can’t imagine there will be any about for quite a long while.’
    ‘I didn’t mean money. You can always find money if you’ve got ideas. And I’ve got lots. And anyway there’s going to be a big boom in a year or two, you see. People will