Winter of Discontent Read Online Free

right.” I sat back down and took a good sip of coffee before I could work up the nerve to go on. “I think it’s possible that he has—oh, the expression sounds so melodramatic—that he has met with foul play.”
    Alan didn’t smile. He probably knew I’d throw something at him if he did.
    “He was in the war, Alan. He was taken prisoner. Is it completely impossible that something that happened way back then has caught up with him now?”
    “For example?”
    That, of course, was the weak point. “I don’t know. I don’t know enough about the war. I was too young to have more than the vaguest idea of what was happening, and of course we in America didn’t have a clue, anyway. I realized, the first time I came to England, in the I960s, and saw all the bomb sites, that you over here experienced the war. Except for our soldiers, and of course the civilians living in Pearl Harbor, we only read about it. But I have a good imagination”—Alan did smile a little at that—“and I imagine that there are still some secrets floating around, and some strong feelings.”
    “Certainly there’s still a good deal of classified material. As for strong feelings—well, we do have long memories, it’s true.”
    I thought of a story that had been told me long ago. It concerned two ancient churches in the fen country of East Anglia. By the 1980s the congregations had become so small that it was necessary to combine the two parishes into one. Now the fen country, centuries before, had been an important battleground of the English Civil War. Oliver Cromwell and his men with their short, round haircuts had cut a wide swath, lopping the heads off countless statues in the churches and wreaking other destruction. However, there was strong Royalist support in certain areas.
    It happened that one of the parishes under discussion in the story was historically Cromwellian in sympathies, and the other Royalist. At a parish meeting in the latter, one of the old men of the congregation had stood during the discussion of the merger and shouted indignantly, “What? Go to church with them Roundheads?”
    The Civil War ended—officially—in 1649. Yes, the English have long memories.
    I finished my coffee. “I’m still going over to talk to Jane. She doesn’t think much of my idea either, but I can’t just sit here and wait for someone to find Bill. There must be something Jane and I can do. He’s been gone too long now, and it’s cold out there, Alan.”
    He nodded. “Wrap up well if you’re going out in it.”
    My husband doesn’t always agree with me, but he’s long since stopped trying to tell me what to do. I often think I don’t appreciate him enough.
    Even to dash next door, I put on a full set of waterproofs, including wellies. This rain meant business. I didn’t bother even to knock until I was inside the back door. Civility is one thing. Sense enough to come in out of the rain is another.
    “Jane, it’s me,” I shouted over a tumult of bulldogs. “May I come in? I mean, I already am in, but do you have time to talk?”
    Over the frenzied barking I thought I heard a voice in the kitchen.
    Jane was sitting at the kitchen table, an untouched cup of coffee in front of her. She looked awful. Her usually ruddy face was gray. There were purple smudges under her eyes. She was wearing the clothes she’d had on yesterday, and looked as though she had slept in them. If she’d slept. She looked up, muttered something, and let her head droop again.
    This would never do. I’d seen Jane angry, combative even. I’d never seen her defeated.
    I shooed the dogs out of the room, plugged in the kettle, removed her coffee cup, and found the teapot.
    “Don’t want any tea.”
    “Well, you’re going to have some, so you might as well resign yourself. What did you have for breakfast?”
    She shook her head.
    “This won’t do, you know. It won’t help Bill to worry yourself into a state. You can’t think on no sleep and no food,