A Kinship Hard to Name

"What do you mean?"

"Don't play games with me. Who is she—that young lady?"

"……I told you. A relative."

The voice that turned the word relative over sounded somehow hollow.

"On the Olivier side?"

"If one had to say, my mother's."

"If one had to say? So you mean the Campbells?"

"It's a little odd to put it that way, though……"

At the puzzling explanation, Thomas's brow creased faintly.

"Stop talking in circles and say it properly."

"My grandfather's cousin's son's daughter."

Elliot answered at once. A great crack ran across Thomas's face, which had already been faintly frowning.

"And what kind of relation is that supposed to be?"

"Quite."

With nothing he could say in his own defense, Elliot only smiled faintly. Grandfather's cousin's son's daughter. Thomas, tracing the links one by one, tilted his head.

"Your mother's father would be Mr. Morris. Did Mr. Morris even have a cousin?"

"So it seems."

"I can excuse myself for not remembering—it was too long ago—but old Martha might know. You don't know that cousin's name?"

"Do you know who Grandfather's cousin was, Uncle?"

Caught by the immediate counter, Thomas shut his mouth tight. The hand flicking ash from his cigarette looked particularly glum, and before long a muttering voice came.

"At least you were cute when you were little. You've come back a thoroughly disagreeable brat."

"I'm sorry."

"Sorry only in words. And your grandfather's cousin's what? The daughter's daughter?"

"My grandfather's cousin's son's daughter."

"Right. That thing, anyway. What on earth is it? If anyone asks from now on, don't you ever answer like that. I'm letting it pass because it's me. With anyone else, not a chance."

Thomas drew deeply on his cigarette, as if to fill some uneasy hollow in him. Elliot, exhaling smoke, let out a soft breath of laughter.

"You're letting it pass."

"If I don't, am I meant to keep prying? You seem to be in enough of a fix to haul in a girl who looks nothing like you and insist she's family, so I'll pretend I never heard it and move on."

"Do we really look so unalike?"

"Unless a man's eyes were crossed, how could he say you look alike?"

Grumbling, Thomas stole a glance at Elliot.

"How long are you staying? You'd do better to keep that mask on for the time being, if you can manage it."

Elliot nodded without a word.

It was a small village. Show the slightest oddity, and word would spread in no time.

"And Luke."

Thomas, who had been glancing at him as he quietly smoked, opened his mouth with care.

"I don't know the details of what you went through at the front, but I can guess the shape of it. I heard it was a brutal war. You probably walked much the same road Judith did."

"……"

"But listen. Don't be so stingy with him."

Thomas drew on his cigarette, his face sunk in shadow. The smoke in his breath spread like fog.

"He's a good boy. Lost his parents young, raised under his grandfather, and he's never once caused trouble. Hardly ever left the village, either. His only hobby is imagining the outside world from the radio and the papers. From what he told me, it isn't that he means you any harm. He truly respects you. Even today, the moment he heard you were coming, he called off everything he'd planned with his friends and came here."

"……I know."

Elliot's face turned bitter as he thought of the freckled boy. He had never imagined, not by a hair, that the guileless youth who had shone-eyed and pried into his merits harbored any malice. It was only that the respect the boy showed with his whole body made him uncomfortable.

Because he was not a man worthy of such respect. He ought, rather, to be condemned, and to pay for what he had done.

"Was it very hard?"

With the cigarette between his lips, Elliot only smiled bitterly. At that expression Thomas shuddered outright.

"What's a face like that doing on a boy who's still a child?"

"I'm not so young anymore."

"Grow as old as you please. To my eyes you're still the nine-year-old crying for his mother."

Thomas looked with distant eyes at Elliot, who had by now grown past his own height. In that old, dust-covered memory, the blonde girl came alive again—the one who had climbed into a rattling machine and flown up into the sky.

"……I don't know what Judith would say if she could see you now."

"She'd scold me, I expect."

"And knowing that, you enlisted? What in the world was Mr. Olivier thinking?"

Even at Thomas's complaining, Elliot only lowered his eyes, meek. Clicking his tongue, Thomas ground his cigarette butt out on the step and stood.

"Let's go in."

Go in too late, and that young lady would eat every bit of the dessert he'd set aside. Muttering, Thomas went into the house, and Elliot rose slowly to follow.

He rubbed his cigarette out against the wall, took hold of the back door, and quietly looked behind him. His gaze, which had been staring into the gray dark wrapped around the house, soon turned inward.

The back door closed.

"Anna. If there's anything you want to eat, you tell this auntie anytime. Don't you get sick. And if that brother of yours gives you a hard time, you come and tell me. Understand?"

At Maggie's repeated urging, Anna nodded hard. That woman and her fussing…… Thomas clicked his tongue, half under his breath, and patted Elliot's shoulder.

"Off you go, then."

"Thank you. Dinner was wonderful."

Elliot bowed his head, neat and proper. Beside him Luke, who had been waiting for the smallest gap to speak, hurried in.

"C-Captain. I had a wonderful time today, too. Next time, um, I mean……"

Luke's voice dwindled. Elliot, who had been watching him hesitate and steal glances, slowly opened his mouth.

"You don't have to call me Captain. I'm not a soldier anymore."

"What? Not a soldier……"

"I don't mean to go back to the army."

Luke's mouth fell open in shock. Few people, after all, would know that the military had clung to the trouser leg of a man trying to leave and, for the time being, processed the matter as indefinite leave.

"Th-then, Mr. Olivier……?"

"That sounds too much like what people call my father. Just call me brother."

"B-b-brother?! Captain—no, Mr. Olivier—ah, no, anyhow, how could I ever call you brother!"

Thomas laughed low and ruffled Luke's hair.

"Call him that when he tells you to. Don't go regretting it later."

"B-but……"

On the verge of tears, Luke looked back and forth between Elliot and Thomas. Elliot turned away, holding in a laugh that threatened to escape. When he looked back from a little distance, he saw the three of them standing clustered together, waving.

"Was it fun?"

Anna, looking up at him with her ears pricked, had both cheeks stuffed full like a squirrel. Maggie, who had sat beside her at dinner and kept feeding her this and that, seemed to have pressed a heap of snacks into her hands right up until they parted.

He smiled faintly and stroked her hair.

"You did well today. I'll bring you again next time, as I promised."

Anna, who had been busily chewing, swallowed and asked.

"When is next time?"

"Well…… If you go on behaving as nicely as you did at dinner tonight, I could bring you again next week."

"……Behave nicely the whole time?"

Under the straw hat, a reluctant light rose in Anna's eyes. Elliot bent at the waist and quietly met her gaze.

"Couldn't you be a little like that the rest of the time, too?"

"No."

Anna answered flatly and set off ahead with long strides. Trust her good behavior not to last half a day. Elliot let out an indifferent sigh.

The midnight streets were quiet. With not even a streetlamp, what lit the country road was only the light spilling from the houses on either side. Over the low hill rising toward the coast, a bright full moon was slowly passing.

Before long the two of them had left the village, already settling early to sleep. What spread before them now was a dirt path winding through a thick field of reeds.

He savored the night road freely, filling his lungs deep with air steeped in the smell of earth, warming his hands in the soft moonlight. The gunfire of the battlefield, the dreadful siren of bombers overhead, the blaring horns of Kesley—all of it had left his ears at once, and they were endlessly still. How long had it been since he had felt a peace like this?

Elliot, walking the dirt path in pure pleasure, turned his head. He was only curious how Anna was faring, she who had said she wanted to walk the night road—but Anna was not there.

His steps stopped.

Elliot, who had been staring blankly at the empty place beside him, slowly looked back. Anna, fallen behind at some point, was coming along sluggishly from far off.

"……"

He watched, blank-faced, as she approached. At first he thought only that her steps were slow because she was lost in the beauty of the night. They had been a little late for their appointment with Thomas today, after all, because Anna's eyes had been stolen by everything around her.

But her gaze was fixed straight ahead. She drew nearer with a strangely limping step.

At last, arrived before his eyes, Anna slowly took off her mask. On the face revealed beneath the moonlight there was no pleasure in the view—only plain irritation.

"My foot hurts."

Elliot, who had been peering into her face, slowly bowed his head. When no answer came, Anna stamped her foot in a temper.

"I said my foot hurts."

"……It looks perfectly fine, for all that."

"Not there—here! This foot hurts."

Fuming, Anna pointed to her right foot. Looking thoroughly unwilling, Elliot went down on one knee and, with a careful hand, slipped off the white shoe.

"Your heel's a little raw."

He cupped her small foot in one hand, turned it this way and that, then brushed himself off and stood.

"The new shoes haven't been broken in, I suppose."

"……"

"Anna?"