More Than You Can Say by Paul Torday

steep-sided valley at the western edge of the Pennines. Dark fir woods clung to the slopes and grey stone walls divided the hillside into small compartments filled with the white dots of grazing sheep. The grey walls were covered with lichen, and the winter grass was an exhausted brown. Above where the walls ended was a wilderness of fell and rushes, where fell ponies and sometimes red deer could be seen.
    The house itself was a jumble of Elizabethan, Jacobean and Victorian Gothic: an extraordinary confection of turrets and gabled roofs and false crenellations. Leaded and mullioned windows looked out across the valley. My mother had made a water garden, using slates to create little cascades and rills, so that if you were walking near by, the music of the water was always with you.
    It had been a wonderful place to grow up. I had scrambled among those hills as a child, had lain on the floor in the book-filled space that my parents had used as a drawing room, reading every book they would let me get my hands on. It had been a very happy childhood and now, coming back home after all this time, I anticipated the warmth, the feeling of security and comfort that would course through me as soon as I walked through the front door. I felt I could almost smellthe woodsmoke from the fires even though I was still half a mile from the house.
    My parents and Katie were waiting for me in the hall. At first our meeting was wordless. We hugged one another, and then my father stammered out a few phrases in which ‘old chap’ and ‘good to see you’ were the only distinct words I could hear. My mother had tears in her eyes. My sister Katie, my little sister, now in her twenties, smiled her crooked smile at me. For many years that smile had carried a message: ‘They may love you more, but I’m the one who looks after them.’ Now I saw only that she was pleased to have me back home. I wished that Emma had been there as well, the girl I had been engaged to since my mid-twenties and whom I had known since I was fifteen. It had long been understood that Emma was the girl I would one day marry. But that meeting was for another day; tonight was just for family.
    Greetings over, I was allowed some time to myself, and went up to the bedroom that used to be mine. It was warm and welcoming. The curtains had been drawn against the darkening evening, clean towels had been set out for me on the bed, the lamp had been switched on, and at one corner the sheets had been pulled back. The thought of climbing straight into that bed and sleeping for a week was almost overwhelming.
    Instead, I had a bath, and then changed into ‘home’ clothes: jeans, a pullover, loafers. When I went downstairs the three of them were waiting for me, their faces happy and smiling. A bottle of champagne had been opened, too. I didn’t really mind whether I drank the stuff or not, but I knew it would make them happy if I did, so we all raised our glasses and my father said, ‘Here’s to your safe return, dear boy. We’re so glad to see you.’
    Over dinner my mother, fortified by a large gin and tonic on top of the wine, recovered the power of speech.
    ‘Was it very hot in Afghanistan, dear?’ she asked.
    ‘Very hot by day, and very cold by night.’
    ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘What a wonderful climate. So much easier to get a good night’s sleep if it’s cold, don’t you think? Did you get the silk underwear I sent you?’
    ‘I’m sorry, Mummy,’ I told her. ‘I don’t think I did.’
    My father cut in. ‘I know you must have been busy and probably didn’t have time – but did you manage to follow the cricket while you were out there?’
    ‘I’m afraid not,’ I replied. An image came into my mind of myself trying to pick up the cricket scores on Radio Five Live against the background noise of small-arms fire and incoming RPGs as we drove towards Musa Qala.
    ‘I’m surprised,’ said my father. ‘You used to be so fond of the game. As it happens you