The Greatcoat by Helen Dunmore Page A

She must be out. Isabel wiped her hands on her apron, unlocked the door and opened it, thinking of the milkman come with his bill, or the grocer’s boy with a forgotten item—
    But it was him. Of course. She looked at him: his uniform, the shape of him. He was neither smiling nor serious. He looked at ease, as if expected. Yes, she thought, and her hands dropped to her sides. She was open, defenceless. It was him. Who else could it have been?

Chapter Five
    HE WAS A tall, fair man, strongly built. He had the Viking look of men from the far north-east. He was not quite smiling at her.
    ‘Aren’t you going to let me in?’ he asked, and looked beyond her, into the hall. ‘There’s no one here, is there?’ He said ‘no one’ as if it were a code word for a name they both knew but would not speak. Isabel shook her head. It was true: the house behind her was empty. She was sure the landlady had gone out. Why does he speak to me like that, as if he knows me, she asked herself, not sure if she should feel offence, or fear. But she knew she was neither offended nor afraid.
    ‘I’m all over flour,’ she said, in place of the other things that crowded in her head.
    She looked down at herself deprecatingly, although she could tell from his intentness that it was her he saw, not the flour.
    ‘Baking day?’ he asked, with a comical lift of his eyebrows, as if she couldn’t possibly have any such thing.
    ‘I’m making a steak-and-kidney pudding, but it’s the first time, and the pastry’s gone wrong.’
    ‘Better not stand around on the doorstep,’ he said, glancing behind him.
    Of course he shouldn’t, she realised. Anyone might see him. She stepped back into the hall, and moved to one side so that he could pass her. Easily, familiarly, he crossed to the door of the flat. She had left it open. It was too late to stop him now, even if she wanted to. He entered, turned to his right, went straight through the living room to the bedroom and sat down on the bed, heavily, hands on knees, head forward, like a man who had run a race. She said nothing. After a moment, he got up again, took off his cap and unbuttoned his greatcoat.
    ‘Fog’s worse than this out at the airfield,’ he said.
    ‘Oh!’ she said. Her thoughts moved strangely, down paths that were foreign and yet entirely familiar. They were paths that had revealed themselves quite suddenly, as if a light had been shone inside her. She was Isabel Carey, and yet these were thoughts that Isabel Carey had never had. She knew what he meant, and she ought not to know it.
    ‘Fog,’ she repeated. ‘That’s good, isn’t it? You can get some sleep tonight.’
    He shrugged. ‘The men want to get on with it. We did an air test first thing to check the starboard inner. Nearly pancaked poor old bloody Katie in a cabbage field, and then ops were scrubbed and we were stood down.’ A muscle in his cheek twitched, but he turned it into a smile.
    ‘I’m sure it was a perfect landing,’ she said, ‘but you do look a bit ropey. Would you like a cup of tea?’
    Another smile. ‘Haven’t you got anything stronger?’
    ‘Wait a minute.’ She ran to the sideboard. There was half a bottle of gin left. She poured him a glass and looked at it doubtfully. It was huge.
    ‘Aren’t you having a drink?’ he asked her, taking his.
    ‘Oh – I don’t know. I don’t really like gin.’
    Again, that comical quirk of his brows. ‘Don’t you? You could have fooled me.’
    She poured a second, smaller measure for herself. He raised his glass to her and threw back the gin. Instantly, he looked better. Isabel took a swallow from her own glass. It was slightly warm: the sideboard was too close to the fire. And oily – greasy, almost. Phil’s father had given it to them. His mother had tutted; she didn’t believe in spirits, she said. Although how you could fail to believe in something that was real, Isabel didn’t know.
    ‘Have another,’ she said, proffering the bottle. She