‘Damn good of you, Chalk.’
‘If I find them along the way—’
‘I’ll be sitting beside this telephone.’
‘But perhaps I’ll bring them. Anyway bring her.'
Leaving Dymock to look after his wretched car…
Counting bloody chickens, he thought, hanging up. Picturing Suzie on that Strathyre Forest road, miles from anywhere, probably no traffic on it at all at this time of night. And his own warning to Dymock about deer on the road, colliding with one and getting an antler through the windscreen…
* * *
‘I said something about cutting this short.’ Chalk leant to tap his pipe out on the wall edging the terrace. ‘Doesn’t seem to work, does it? Getting long-winded in my dotage… But –skipping the next few fairly hellish hours – I got to Glendarragh at about ten that Sunday morning, and there was Dymock’s Riley, large as life. If I hadn’t been tired and hungry I might have just reversed course and headed for home: except I needed to be sure Suzie was all right. I’d come a fair distance and I’d had her image in my mind every mile of it, these awful nightmares of what could have happened. And drawing blank after blank. At Lochearnhead for instance – I’d woken them up in the hotel there, and it wasn’t the first place I’d stopped at… All I remember is a succession of disgruntled, barely comprehensible Scots startled out of their slumbers by this wretched Sassenach asking about a young couple in a green saloon. It was raining, by the way, quite heavily… So – from Lochearnhead I took the road – if it could be called that – along the loch’s north shore to St Fillans. Ten miles of narrow lane, not metalled but with those twin strips of tarmac one used to find in the Highlands. They have ’em in some parts of Africa too, as a matter of fact. If you meet another vehicle you put your offside wheels on the nearside strip and the other fellow does the same, and if you’re lucky there’s room to scrape past. I didn’t meet any other vehicles. One thing I do remember – having thought of it a great deal, over the years – is that in my mind I was reassuring Guy, telling him not to worry, I’d find her and I’d break Dymock’s damn neck for him. That would have been incidental, mind you – to find her and get her home was the imperative.’
‘Since you mention it – I meant to say this before – I’m surprised Guy hadn’t broken Dymock’s neck at some earlier stage. Or at least punched him on the nose.’
‘Not in Guy’s nature. Wouldn’t have helped, either, visa-vis the C-G family. What’s more, Dymock would have made mincemeat of him. Guy was fairly skinny, and Dymock was – well, quite a bruiser, really… Where were we?’
‘On the way along Loch Earn to St Fillans.’
‘Yes. Drew blank there too. The people were if anything less pleased to see me than they’d been at Lochearnhead. They’d had Sir Innes on the blower, then as soon as they’d got back to sleep they’d had the Comrie police, and now with dawn in the sky here was I asking exactly the same questions. Plenty of rain still coming down too, and my car’s wipers had packed up, which didn’t help – especially negotiating that track along the south bank, heading westward back to Lochearnhead. Dymock might have been fool enough to have come that way – might have decided it was the side he and his father had fished, for instance, on that holiday he’d told me about. I’d remembered that and guessed it might be his reason for coming here. You’d have needed some compelling reason – my God, what a road! And roughly in the middle, between two hamlets whose names I couldn’t have told you even later that same day, I spotted a set of car tracks – tyre tracks anyway – which seemed to have gone over the mud-and-grass bank into the loch. Well – you can imagine – I thought I’d found them. I was sickened. Pulled a branch off some stunted tree, waded in and poked around and thank God found nothing. A car wouldn’t have gone far in from the edge. In retrospect I can only guess that someone with a tipper-truck backed up there to get rid of some load or other. Waste-products from an illicit still, for instance. They used to do a lot of that: same as they make poteen here. But I must have spent an hour groping around – soaked to the skin, and coated in mud, I wasn’t exactly a sight for sore eyes when I tugged on the door-bell at Glendarragh. Set all the dogs barking, and I couldn’t blame them. But Sir Innes was kindness itself. They all were, I suppose. I had a bath and breakfast, he leant me some clothes, and – well, Suzie was as grateful for my pointless efforts as her parents seemed to be, and thoroughly apologetic for the mix-up that had made them necessary. While Dymock, who should have been fairly grovelling, wasn’t at all: as I recall it he was – on guard, slightly hostile.’
‘Where had they been?’
‘That was the question of the hour. And most of the day. Dymock had his story, and although Suzie was vehemently backing him up her father was far from convinced. I don’t recall quite all the ins and outs, but I can give you the gist of it – of the yarn as Dymock told it. First of all, he’d changed his mind about going to St Fillans. He’d been talking to one of the Barlows’ bowler-hats, mentioned that he was contemplating going there for a meal, and this fellow – foreman engineer, name of Fairley—’
‘You’ve mentioned him before, in connection with the torpedo-tube rear doors.’
‘Well done.’ He nodded. ‘Fairley had told Dymock the food at that pub was the worst in Scotland. No doubt in this modern age it’s of Cordon Bleu standard, but according to Fairley it wasn’t a place you’d even take your wife. Why not, he suggested, go a different way entirely, and eat at this pub or hotel in the Trossachs – which he named. He’d been there recently, and in his opinion there was nowhere to touch it. Well, Dymock didn’t want to give her a rotten meal the first time he took her out, so he drove up through Aberfoyle and that forest – forget what it’s called, huge area of forest just south of the mountains – or hills, rather – stopping to admire the scenery here and there – he said – since this place was comparatively close and they didn’t want to eat too early. I’ll tell you in a minute where the doubt comes into that bit about admiring the scenery. Anyway, they finally got there, and the food was every bit as good as Fairley had said it would be. I’ve an idea it was off the main road, somewhere on its own. Not that that matters two hoots… But – they wined and dined, and incidentally Suzie admitted to her father and mother that she’d had quite a bit more to drink than she was used to. I remember this because I seemed to be the only one who found it significant in terms of her support of Dymock’s story; if she’d thought of it as a detrimental factor she’d have kept her mouth shut. Follow?’
‘You mean she had nothing to hide, so—’
‘Exactly. And she recounted it as rather amusing – smiling at Dymock as if it was a private joke between them. I made a guess or two on that score, too. But it didn’t make Sir Innes any happier. The rest of the story is that when they went out to the car, it wouldn’t start. Dead as mutton. Water in something probably: at a later stage the magneto was mentioned. I can’t even remember what a magneto was – or is – can you? Anyway – back into the hotel they went, to find out where there was a mechanic Dymock could get hold of, only to be told that (a) there was no such creature this side of Callander; (b) if there had been he’d never have come out at that time on a Saturday night, especially in such foul weather; and (c) the telephones weren’t working anyway. Water in something there too – junction-boxes, was the guess. Obviously it was raining cats and dogs all over Scotland, not just where I was a few hours later. And of course Dymock couldn’t contact the Cameron-Greens. He was in a hole, and knew it, and all he could think of finally was to set off on foot to a village a few miles away where the hotelier or publican told him there resided a man by name of MacDougall – or somesuch – who ran a taxi. I don’t remember how far it was Dymock had to hike. But Suzie stayed in the pub – downstairs, in an armchair beside a good fire, was what I think she said. Yes – she said they’d offered her a bed, on or in which she could have rested while awaiting Dymock’s return with or without the taxi, but she’d declined this. Possibly because she
was aware that people’s minds jumped to certain conclusions when beds were mentioned, and she wouldn’t have wanted to make things worse than they were already. This was 1937, remember, and Dymock had his reputation, which she knew about – from me, if not from him. She hadn’t seemed at all surprised when I’d mentioned it that morning in the paddock, and I’d wondered then whether he might have warned her that he had this unearned reputation. Undeserved, of course.’
‘Getting in ahead of any gossip that might come her way. And making himself more interesting to a young girl?’
‘There may have been a little more to it than met the eye, however. I will try to cut it short now. Dymock found Mr MacDougall, who was willing to come out with his taxi, and it transpired that he was an amateur mechanic as well as taxi-driver. He shoved his head under the bonnet of the Riley and after about five minutes, hey presto, he had it running perfectly. This was at about 0500 – daylight, anyway.’
‘Sir Innes didn’t believe the story?’
‘I think his line was that he wouldn’t accept it without corroboration. It rang almost true to me and I’d guess to him too, but he would have been extremely anxious not to leave room for any innuendo against his daughter. People being prone to gossip as they are, you couldn’t blame him. Not in that year of grace, you couldn’t… One thing in Dymock’s account of events that bothered me was his statement that they’d stopped to admire the scenery more than once: in heavy, continuous rain and the depths of rather a gloomy forest. It seemed to me unlikely. In which case there might be a conclusion to be drawn: but it was none of my business, and I promised to cut this short, so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. I’d certainly give Suzie that benefit, but – well, Dymock was the organizer, she wasn’t, and if he’d planned all this so as to get her there early enough to – to make a long evening of it, shall we say – that doesn’t mean she’d have – co-operated. In fact I’m damn sure she didn’t.
‘Two reasons, by the way, for suspecting something of the sort. One, from what one knew of him he’d hardly have gone to all this trouble if he hadn’t had some ulterior motive. Second, there’d been mention of the offer of a bedroom – which she’d declined – and this I thought might more typically have been Dymock’s idea than the publican’s. The suggestion of it might also have been mooted earlier in the evening than we were now expected to believe. And her little joke, rather at his expense I thought, about the amount of wine he’d given her: as if he’d tried it on and she’d outmanoeuvred him. Those were my private thoughts – out of a naturally suspicious mind, so far as Dymock was concerned. I was only suspecting his intentions, mark you, I didn’t for a moment believe he might have had his way with her. In fact it was obvious from Suzie’s general attitude that he hadn’t. Obvious to me, anyway.
‘Whether Sir Innes’ view of it ran on similar lines I can’t say, but he must have given Dymock to understand either that he didn’t believe him or at least that he couldn’t accept his story without corroboration. Dymock consequently got on his high horse – a basically defensive reaction, is my guess – and told Sir Innes that any such doubts were insulting both to himself and to Suzie. Whom, he added at some slightly later stage, he loved deeply and sincerely, wouldn’t dream of compromising or harming in any way. He told me some of this, incidentally, a day or two later – that he was in love with her and she was with him, he’d never felt like this about any girl before, effectively this was the first time ever… I’m ad-libbing slightly, don’t recall his exact words. But that was the drift of it, and the climax came before there was any telephone connection restored: Dymock, I was told later, had asked for Suzie’s hand in marriage, and while Sir Innes was pondering the question Suzie told her mother that if they didn’t let her marry him she’d leave home at the first opportunity and never speak to them again. Or she’d die of a broken heart – that sort of thing. Then later in the day the telephone fault was cleared, Sir Innes spoke to the people concerned and had the story partially confirmed. I’d left by this time, was on my way south – so this is second hand now, plus putting two and two together from as much as Patricia told me – but as far as corroboration was concerned it seems there were a few gaps, the publican either uncertain or unwilling to swear to this or that.
‘So, less than a hundred percent satisfied – faute de mieux, you might say – Sir Innes summoned Dymock to the study and asked him, ‘Do you genuinely love my daughter and wish to marry her?’ – and probably, ‘Can you provide for her in the manner to which she’s accustomed?’ – and that was that. Engagement to be announced at the anniversary celebration on the 28th. I had nearly all of this from Patricia, incidentally, a bit later; she also told me that her mother was delighted, Sir Innes clearly much less so. But confirmation of the engagement also came to me from Suzie, in a note in which she asked me whether as a special favour I’d write and break the news to Guy.’
Chalk glanced at me and shrugged. ‘Damn cheek, eh?’
* * *
He told Suzie – over the telephone, on the evening of the day he had this note from her – that it was very much up to her to write to Guy. She argued the point, but he made it plain that he wasn’t going to haul her coals out of the fire for her: and he gave her the only address he had, the Spanish Republican recruiting office in Paris.
He told her, ‘They’d forward a letter, I imagine. It may go from pillar to post a few times before he gets it – don’t be surprised if there’s no quick answer. He may not get it, even. I doubt if the mail can be in a very organized state out there. Anyway – I’ll see you on the 27th or 28th, Suzie.’
‘Not before?’
‘I won’t be up next weekend, if that’s what you mean.’
‘You sound – unfriendly, Rufus.’
‘I’m sorry. I’ll go through the motions – congratulations and so forth – but I’m not going to pretend to you personally that I think your engagement’s a good thing. In fact I’d implore you – for your own sake, Suzie, if you have any doubts—’
‘I haven’t. None at all.’
‘Well – so be it… The other thing of course – speaking frankly, Suzie – well, asking me to write to Guy on your behalf is really adding insult to injury. A couple of weeks ago you were telling me with delight that Guy had decided against going to fight in Spain, and since then you’ve treated him in a way that made it inevitable he would go. You didn’t intend it, obviously, but it was – predictable. Perhaps you think it was worthwhile – on the basis that you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs. My own view is that the omelette’s a bad mistake. Suzie, I don’t mean to seem unfriendly, and I do wish you happiness. You, as an individual. But look, this has been a rather longer call than I’d expected…’
Then on the Wednesday – seven days before Trumpeter was due to go to sea for her acceptance trials – he ran into Dymock in the central passage of the shed they called the Submarine Office.
‘Morning, Toby.’
He’d been about to pass him, on his way into Threat’s general office. Dymock put a hand on his arm: ‘Got a minute?’
‘I suppose so…’
‘Let’s get some fresh air.’
The hut did get stuffy in this warm weather. On the heels of that drenching weekend high summer had returned, producing almost tropical conditions.
Chalk offered – they’d turned along the edge of the basin, towards Trumpeter – ‘Cigarette?’
‘Just put one out. Anyway, what price fresh air?’
‘You tell me. Your idea, this, not mine.’
‘So it was… Rufus, you know of course that I’m going to marry Suzie?’
‘I know your engagement’s to be announced on the 28th.’
‘You’ll be there, will you?’
‘No reason not to be. I was invited and accepted before you’d even heard of Glendarragh.’ He’d lit his cigarette. ‘And Diana’s coming.’
‘Yes. Of course… You – er – disapprove, I gather.’
‘Since yo
u ask me – yes.’
‘Because of Guy?’
‘Partly. But also because I can’t see any future in it.’
‘Meaning what?’
‘I don’t believe you’re the right man for Suzie. I think it’ll come to grief and she’ll be hurt. As it happens, I’m very fond of her.’
‘D’you think I’m not?’
Glancing at him, thinking, You’re too fond of yourself to be worth a damn to any woman, for more than a week or two…
He said, looking at Threat across the basin, ‘I’m sure you think you are, Toby.’
‘I love her. That’s what I want you to know. I know what people say about me – half of it’s untrue, incidentally, and the other half’s exaggerated – Rufus, I’ve never felt like this about anyone in my life. I’m in love – never was before, I know it now – and she is with me. Can’t you accept that – accept ns?’
‘My brother’s in Spain, Toby.’
‘Well, of course, I’m sorry about that, but—’
‘You’re only as close as you are to Suzie because you chased her from the moment I introduced you to her. I wish to God I hadn’t. You could have spent that weekend as you’d intended, couldn’t you – in London. Much more your mark… Toby, you can say it’s true love, etcetera, but at that stage you were only amusing yourself – as you’ve done a dozen or more times before – and that is why my brother is in Spain.’
‘I’m told he planned to go months ago.’
‘To the great relief of those of us who are fond of him, he’d decided against it. Your activities changed his mind back again.’ He shook his head. ‘I’d rather not discuss my brother with you.’
‘We’ve been friends a long time, Rufus.’
‘We were friends, for a long time.’
‘All right. All right…’
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