Forever Torn

C21: When Harry met Solly (Cyril) (2/2)

In the summer of 1945 the country was full of hope and joy. The war was over and the rebuilding was underway. Harry and Sylvia had been engaged for quite a while and Harry even thought he could now afford a belated engagement party – the families were getting together to chip in and all seemed well with the world.

One weekend on a visit back to London, the couple were strolling through Springfield park towards the river Lea and as they crested the path and were chatting happily, Harry happened to glance up as another couple approached from the opposite direction.

With a shock he recognized first Rita and then his brother – it was their first face to face encounter in seven years.

Cyril stopped dead at the sight of them but like his brother, appeared outwardly unmoved.

'Hello Harry,' he said in a quite ordinary tone of voice as if they had last met only a few weeks before.

'Cyril, how are you? Rita.' He nodded at her at the same time his hand stretched out.

Cyril automatically shook his hand and replied. 'We're very well thank you.'

'I don't think you've met my fiancée Sylvia Levene, have you?' Harry asked the question in a kind of robotic politeness, 'Sylvia, my ... this is Cyril.'

Sylvia looked him over coolly and said. 'How do you do?' Then she engaged Rita, complimenting her hair and admiring her handbag, drawing the other woman off a half foot or so and allowing Harry to address his brother directly.

'Still down in Brighton are you?' Cyril said after a few moments passed.

'Yes, up for the weekend and you? Still in Northampton?'

Cyril shook his head. 'No, we've had Evering Road rebuilt, thank God. Mum and Dad were never happy elsewhere. I'll have to tell them we bumped into you – I'm sure they'd want me to pass on their best.'

'Thank you and mine to them.'

'Well ...' started Cyril his eyes flicking to the path, 'Nice to have met you.' His eyes glanced at the path again and he seemed to sway minutely forward as if eager to get off.

'We're having an engagement party,' Harry said impulsively. 'My aunt and uncle's, you know the place.'

'Yes ... I know it,' Cyril answered in a monotone.

'You'd be welcome,' Harry told him awkwardly, 'If you can make it of course.'

Cyril nodded and a moment after Harry had mentioned the time and date, he gave his brother another stiff inclination of the head and the two couples moved off in opposite directions.

When the party happened, a month or so later, there was no sign of Cyril. Despite this a few months afterward when the wedding invites were sent out, Harry sent one to his brother and a week afterwards received an RSVP saying that Cyril and Rita would be coming to the wedding.

After the acceptance, there was again no contact between the brothers with the exception of a return invitation to the wedding of Cyril and Rita, which would be taking place three weeks after Harry's own nuptials.

On the morning of Saturday the10th of February 1946, Harry stood in front of the mirror in his room at Rushmore Road – he was contemplating his rising crown and wondering if his receding hairline made him look older than his twenty five years. He decided he still cut a young and elegant figure but wished he had the hair he did two or three years before.

There was a knock at the door and absently he wondered downstairs in his dark trousers and white shirt with the top button undone. Cyril was standing outside, also wearing a dark suit, ready for later.