He smiled at the receiver. ‘Perfect.’
‘Ten-thirty sharp.’
‘I’ll be there.’
‘Good evening, Harry.’ The phone clicked off and he heard a few beeps and whirrs before he was plunged back into the thick silence and it was filled with anticipation.
‘Did you get onto her?’ Charles asked when Harry returned.
‘Yes, sir, thank you. We’re meeting tomorrow and she’s giving up her day, by the sounds of it, to help me track down the person I’m hunting.’
‘Good show.’ Charles beamed. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t care to join us for dinner, Harry?’
‘No, but thank you. I think I’ll head back for an early night. Big day tomorrow. And I can find my way out, sir. Thank you for your time tonight. It was a pleasure.’
A dinner gong sounded.
‘Don’t mention it. You’re most welcome to visit here during your stay. I can sign you in any time, old chap.’
A waiter stepped up. ‘Your table’s ready, Sir Charles.’
‘Ah, very good. Where’s James? I wanted to say something to him about tonight’s whisky.’
‘I do believe he’s gone for the evening, sir.’
‘Never mind.’ He returned his gaze to Harry. ‘Well, goodnight then, old chap. Perhaps we’ll see you again?’
Harry shook the older man’s hand. ‘I’m not sure, sir, but please pass on my best to Lady Frobisher.’
Alex’s father touched a hand to his head and Harry headed out through the main hall heavy with the aromas of rich beef gravy and the more delicate scent of fish. Rationing clearly hadn’t profoundly affected the menu at the Yorkshire Gentlemen’s Club. With a distant sound of silver clinking against china, he waited at the cloakroom briefly for his hat and coat. He left the club, nodding at the doorman.
The main doors were swung closed behind him and Harry paused in the small arcade that formed the porch at the front of the building known as River House. He peered into the dense night to assess the weather, sensing that the skies would open shortly as it was cold yet too mild to snow and that meant rain. He carried no brolly but was undeterred; rain had been a near constant during the war and he’d carried no umbrella then either. As Harry stepped down the shallow flight of three broad stairs, he paused again on the last beneath the main stone arch that was daintily inscribed with a pattern either side of its keystone. Those decorations, pretty in their swirls, were a foil for the eight marble columns, four either side, that solidly flanked him to hold up the classical structure. He gazed absently at the club’s somewhat grand entrance. He took this time to flick a scarf around his mouth and tuck its ends into his collar. With shoulders hunched, he stepped out onto the pavement and turned right, to head over the Lendal Bridge. Night had crept over York and the few people out on the streets were moving with purpose to get out of the cold as soon as possible.
By contrast he was in no hurry to be in his room at the guesthouse; he might even look for a pub where he could chew on a sandwich over ale for half an hour before he headed back. As he thought this he felt the effect of the chill and the mellowing tingle of the single malt doing battle. He wasn’t light-headed from the liquor but he did suddenly decide it may well be a better idea to eat in the guesthouse tonight, even if they sent up a tray. Plus a drizzle was now underway as the skies kept their promise and opened up. He looked to them now, seeing the shower illuminated in a gaslight as he passed. He noticed a man cut out of a side street behind the club and hurry diagonally across the road ahead of him. He was a tall man, hunched in coat and hat. Harry pulled up the collar of his own coat, increased his pace and also skipped across the road to see if he could take a shortcut through the gardens, but they were closing the gates just as he arrived. With a shrug he nodded at the fellow in charge and pressed on undeterred; in fact, he was feeling a slight bounce in his step at the thought of seeing Alex tomorrow . . . alone . . . in a car with the ability to head away from York and prying eyes.
As he lost himself in these pressing thoughts, his gaze lingered on the back of the man up ahead, whom he now realised he was following since the gardens had been closed to him.
It was only as he cast a hopeful look around for a tram or cab and came up wanting, blinking into the heavier rain now, that he realised he recognised the fellow. He knew he was right simply from the man’s distinctive lope. It was the obsequious James. Harry frowned into the night, wondering why he had taken such an instant dislike to the waiter. It was as though James was enjoying some fine jest at Harry’s expense; no, at the expense of Charles Frobisher. Sir Charles perhaps didn’t notice but to Harry the aloof air of disdain emanating from the waiter had felt obvious and made all the more snide because of the man’s sycophantic manner. And then there was that almost proprietorial air he didn’t manage to disguise when it came to Matthew Britten-Jones. If anything, James’s attitude had made Harry far more intrigued than he might have been.
He looked ahead for James and noted he’d turned a corner. Without hesitating and led by fresh curiosity, his stride turned into a slight jog until he too had turned the corner and sighted James again. It seemed they were headed into the same district anyway. He continued in James’s footsteps, compelled to glimpse the Bristol man’s home in York, for no other reason than he was vaguely captivated by the waiter’s mysteriously protective manner towards Britten-Jones. Alex’s husband intrigued him.
Harry told himself to cut away soon and head to his guesthouse. He bent his head against the rain and followed the shadowy figure in front, which now appeared like someone sketched out in paint from one of the indistinct watercolours of the masters. The shape was a person but it no longer had firm lines or indeed any colour as the night and drenching of the streets had fused it into little more than a dark smudge.
Harry noted the blurred figure angle down a side street that was not far from the city’s walls. His guesthouse was barely a five-minute walk away. He paused at the same corner and watched James, glad to feel his momentary blood rush leaking away like the water trickling along the street gutter. He began to shift his thoughts to a hot meal, an ale and perhaps even a bath to warm up: all luxuries that this time last year would have been painful to daydream over. He let James move far from his reach and realised the man was now clearly in a hurry; Harry watched him break into a jaunt before leaping up a small flight of stairs that led into one of the elegant terraced houses. There was an overhead lamp on the porch and Harry glimpsed another figure – clearly a man – emerge from the doorway. He couldn’t hear what was said but the way the man held his body, the manner in which he opened up his arms, told him it was obviously a bleat at being kept waiting. Harry was barely aware of taking a few steps deeper into the shadows and he could hear them now, although the words were indistinct. It sounded like James was explaining why he was late.
Harry decided it was time for that meal and turned to walk back the dozen steps that would connect him with the main street and lead him to his guesthouse, but both men chose to look around at that moment. Harry didn’t want to risk being seen and ducked into a doorway to wait while James fumbled in his coat pocket, probably for keys, Harry decided, but he blinked in astonishment to see the two men chuckle, then embrace. It was fleeting but the hug looked less like friends or brothers and more like . . . well, more romantic, given the way the gloved hands of the stranger tugged at James’s ear in a playful manner when they stepped apart.
And then they were gone, swallowed into the dark of the home’s threshold, talking animatedly. He heard the door close and the light on the porch was switched off from inside. The street felt as though it had been tipped into an inkpot it became so black. Once again Harry turned to walk away but was startled still as a light snapped on upstairs in the house. The shape of a man – it was James’s lanky frame – moved to the window, reaching for one side of the curtains. Harry, now desperate to be gone, nevertheless remained a dark, embarrassed statue, preferring to wait until the waiter left the window an
d he could walk away without being seen. But before James could tug the curtain across, Harry watched arms snake around his waist and James turned into that embrace to enjoy a passionate kiss with his friend and lover.
There was no denying the shock but Harry wasn’t repulsed; he liked to think it was his maturing age that had given him a solid perspective on life’s oddities but at the rim of his mind he knew the truth was more that it was years of relentless war that had taught him life’s great lessons. He’d long ago accepted that if someone’s actions weren’t directly affecting him, then their decisions were their own. War had taught him to let go of laying judgement on others; he had accepted that the man in the trench opposite had no private beef with him and that their need to kill one another was not personal. That James was homosexual was James’s business alone and Harry wasn’t about to make it his business; the penalty was harsh if James were discovered. Men had been hanged for their homosexuality, prison was certain, and then there were the cruel treatments he’d heard about that some underwent in the name of a cure. Harry could imagine that the waiter had spent enough of his life already denying his tendencies, hiding his true self for fear of discovery, living with relentless worry that he might be found out by the not-so-forgiving members of the public who would react with disgust rather than tolerance.
Harry suspected he wasn’t even close to being as shocked as he might have been had he not spent years living far too closely to men in desperately tight conditions in trenches. In the trench there was nowhere to hide . . . not from death if it wanted to find you and definitely not from your fellow soldiers who stood shoulder to shoulder against you. Harry hadn’t seen a lot of homosexuality but he’d come across clandestine relationships on a few occasions, and understood that the love between men could run as deep as any love between a man and a woman.
Harry was reminded of a couple, both of them loyal, brave men, who would clamber over the top of a trench’s parapet without hesitation upon his order. He remembered the older man, Bernard, had such a dry humour, Harry often wanted to clear his throat while laughing at his sarcastic remarks. He recalled now with sorrow how Bernard, wounded and bleeding badly, had carried his fatally injured lover over a distance that must have felt interminable, determined not to leave him behind in no-man’s-land. Poor, funny, loyal Bernard had finally collapsed and with tears making tracks in the mud spatter on his cheeks, refused to be parted from Ernest, a freckled, generous young man whom Bernard loved more than life, it seemed, because he chose to die alongside his bleeding lover rather than crawl on to help. It took Bernard two days to die in the wilderness of no-man’s-land but his groans were only for his dead Ernest, not for his own suffering. That had taught Harry plenty about the loyalty that existed between two people – irrespective of gender – and the depth of feeling that couldn’t be batted away with the righteous sweep of a disgusted hand.
He looked back as James stepped away from the embrace to close the curtain and Harry caught a square-on view of the lover, illuminated by the room’s lamplight, as he gazed out of the window. The man was sandy-haired, with handsome enough features that were neat, symmetrical, with a disarming smile. He was significantly shorter than James. In those few seconds, standing in the damp darkness, Harry observed the lover, in what looked to be an expensive three-piece suit, pull out a pipe and tap the unused tobacco into a cupped palm. And then the drapes drew across and James’s secret life was closed to Harry.
Harry blinked into the night and decided to forget about James and focus on his own love affair that he needed to make sense of . . . and yet somehow, as he walked away from the house of secrets, he had the oddest sensation that, like a wraith, it was creeping behind him and reaching to touch his shoulder.
18
Alex knew she shouldn’t be this happy to be meeting another man but with Harry it constantly seemed as though there was an arc of electricity, like a lightning strike flashing between them. She’d never experienced that with Matthew; she’d not felt its dangerous joy since a teenage crush on one of her father’s colleagues.
She was watching the passengers arrive and emerge through the red-brick station building and felt the tension building in her belly. Who was she kidding with the suggestion of a picnic? It was freezing, and while taking a drive and remaining huddled in the car to eat sandwiches was a fun thought, she imagined food was the last need on their minds right now.
‘Where are you, Harry?’ she murmured into the thick silence of the car and, as if he’d heard her plea, she watched his familiar figure duck out of the shadows of the railway station. Alex had read in books how women’s hearts had ‘leapt’ in response at seeing their loves. That feeling had eluded her and she’d found it amusing to listen to other women use the phrase but here it was, now happening to her. If not for ribs, she was sure her heart might explode out of her chest from pleasure and excitement to see him again. The clandestine nature of their meeting only made it more thrilling.
She leaned across and wound down the window to wave, call to him if necessary, but he’d spotted her, lifted a hand, and she noted her body responding in that cliché of being helplessly attracted to someone and feeling her heart beating faster. Until now, she’d thought it a fanciful notion, dreamed up by poets, but it was true . . . as was the painful realisation that Matthew could not do this to her. She regarded Harry’s soulful looks, the wide forehead that was balanced by a V-shaped face and a perfectly centred nose that was neither too wide nor narrow. Lips were defined; his mouth when not smiling was neat, and thick eyebrows that gave her the impression they wanted to pull together lent him a serious disposition in direct contrast to her husband. But where Matthew seemed always in a state of amusement, Harry was looking to laugh and when he did he was open and generous with his pleasure, whereas Matthew was ever-guarded. But it was Harry’s direct, clear-eyed gaze from beneath his brow that captured her attention. He rarely looked away, even when embarrassed, and his stare felt impenetrable – a colour that was neither grey nor green but somewhere in between, cool and appraising. He took off his hat as he arrived and the wind blew his dark nut-brown hair slightly across his forehead. He’d let it grow out from his army style; it needed a cut but all she wanted was to slip her fingers through it. She cleared her throat as he slid into the seat next to her, leaned over and kissed her cheek. ‘Good morning,’ he murmured, and she felt an invisible wave of desire surge through her.
‘It’s a bit cold for a picnic,’ she said, pressing close so she could kiss him right back but she didn’t linger.
‘Tea rooms?’ he offered, but at her dismissive look, he frowned and raised a single eyebrow. ‘Hotel?’ He sounded entirely unsure.
Alex grinned: yes, they were both definitely thinking the same way and while she knew she should be ashamed, excitement shoved guilt aside. ‘Listen, I have a great friend who lives near here.’
His frown deepened and she watched those dark brows she admired leap towards each other with concern. ‘And?’
‘I rang her last night after speaking with you. She’s happy for me to spend some time at her place. Charlotte’s a brick, no questions asked. It’s a cottage; she . . . er, well, she lives alone.’
Harry blinked, clearly digesting what she was offering.
‘Charlotte was desperately in love with a splendid fellow. He didn’t make it back from Flanders. Now she can’t bear to be with anyone so her parents gave her use of the stone cottage – it’s part of their holdings. She’s using the time away from the big house to come to terms with her loss. She and William were meant to live not far from Nidderdale . . . exquisitely beautiful.’ She was blathering and aware of it. It didn’t help that he simply nodded and refrained from any comment. ‘Anyway,’ she continued brightly, ‘she’s visiting his parents today at Middlesmoor.’ Alex knew she was giving him far too much detail. ‘She left the fire on,’ she added, as a final, slightly forlorn-sounding push.
‘Does she think you’re going to be there with Matthew?’
‘Well . . . we can’t leave that fire burning untended,’ he admitted.
She cut him a glance and he grinned back as she eased the car away from the town.
Harry’s face sent spangles through her and she adjusted her notion that the excitement that existed between them was nothing like lightning. No, it was more like the northern lights that she’d shared with her father on the annual summer holiday to Scotland when she was seven years old. They’d left the family house in Argyll and taken the ferry to one of the islands and rented a tiny cottage on a hill. There they’d sat up most of one night, rugged together beneath a thick blanket, sharing a flask of hot, sweetened cocoa – Rowntree’s Elect, of course – because the locals had assured them they’d likely see the aurora borealis that week. And, as if the angels had listened in and obliged, the skies had suddenly lit dramatically in the distance.
They’d leapt to their feet, exclaiming their delight, instantly impervious to the rush of cold that hurried to maul them as overhead became a restless sea of impossibly luminous green light. It swirled above them, rushing over their heads in a pulsing throb that seemed to be alive.
‘The merry dancers, Daddy,’ Alex recalled uttering in an awed whisper.
Her father’s voice was heavy with identical awe. ‘They say, Kitten, that this is the Valkyrie, riding across the heavens.’
‘Valkyrie?’ she’d repeated, stumbling over the word.
‘Women riders, supernatural beings who cross the skies to choose which men die and which survive on the battlefields.’
The Chocolate Tin Page 24