by Mal Peet
He closed his eyes, shook his head. Stop it.
To steady himself, he stepped off the drive into the lee of its hedge and lit a cigarette.
He was edgier than he’d hoped he’d be, and tired. The journey had taken him much longer than he’d estimated. Four changes of train. Nothing was on time and no one cared very much. At Exeter, his train had waited for half an hour behind a delayed troop train bound for Plymouth. Its engine hissed steam and huffed smoke up into the station’s canopy while grinning, nervous conscripts lugged kitbags up and down the platform in response to contradictory orders yelled at them by exasperated NCOs.
When his own train – a mere two carriages, thinly populated – did eventually leave, it trundled almost immediately into absurdly lovely scenery. Greening willows in water meadows. Bronze cattle in pastures. The low swell of wooded hills. England’s green and pleasant land, Martin thought. What I, we, fought for. He would’ve liked to have felt some sort of ownership of it and that it, in turn, should somehow acknowledge its debt to him. Just beyond somewhere called Crediton a deer took fright and fled. Bounced. Flashes of white rump.
He’d felt not better, exactly, but certainly more sure of himself, after the train turned west and the harsh flank of Dartmoor rose to the left of the train. He went out into the corridor and unfastened the leather latch of a window. Cool air coiled in. A distant tor reminded him of, took him back to, a wrecked hilltop village in Italy. He took the hip flask from his coat pocket. After a while he went back to his compartment and somehow fell asleep. He awoke when someone shook his shoulder.
‘Your stop, young sir,’ the conductor said. ‘Best be lookin lively.’
Leaving the train, Martin unfolded Godley’s letter once again. The handwriting was neat, fastidious and difficult to read:
He’d got lost. There were no signposts. They’d been taken down during the war, and Devon had not considered it a priority to re-erect them. How come bloody Godley didn’t know that? He stopped at a cottage where a dog dithered between welcome and attack. The woman was garrulous and almost incomprehensible. Martin had persuaded her to draw a map on the reverse of Godley’s letter. It was obvious that she’d never attempted such a thing before. She’d seethed with questions she didn’t know how to ask.
Martin ground the cigarette under his foot and looked at his watch. Shit. Almost two hours beyond ETA. Poor show. Bad start. Better, perhaps, to call the whole thing off. Go home, write a letter saying something had cropped up. Except that he couldn’t get home, not now.
The door had a brass knocker in the shape of a hound’s head. He thudded it three times and waited. The door was opened by a young woman dressed in black. Only her pale face and white apron distinguished her from the dimness behind her. Her eyes were drawn to the bag he carried. For lack of anything more suitable, he’d packed his overnight things in his father’s medical bag. It seemed to worry her.
‘Yes?’
‘I’m Martin Heath. I think I’m expected.’
‘Oh. Us’d more or less given up on you. Didn think you was comin.’
‘Sorry. The trains …’
‘Yes. You’d best come in, anyhow.’
He stepped into a gloomy hall and waited for his eyes to adjust. The space smelled of aged wealth.
‘I’ll take your coat. And your bag. This’s where they’ll be, see?’
‘Yes. Thank you.’
‘Mr Godley’s in the study. He’s put off tea, waitin. Foller me.’
She opened a door on the left-hand side of the hall.
‘Sir? Mr Heath is here.’
The room seemed both crammed and unoccupied. It was full of ponderous furniture and stale air. A narrow pathway led to a Turkish rug in front of a fireplace in which a fire struggled for life. Two high-backed armchairs faced it, angled slightly towards each other. A bony hand emerged from one of these and, using the arm of the chair for leverage, an old man unfolded himself and turned to greet Martin. He was wearing a tartan dressing gown over a white shirt and a black waistcoat and grey herringbone tweed trousers.
‘Ah. Mr Heath. I had almost abandoned hope. One has to make allowances, of course, things being what they are. We’ve won again, but still nothing works, eh?’
‘Yes. I’m sorry. It took longer than I’d thought. I’m sorry if I’ve inconvenienced you.’
‘Think nothing of it. Annie, please ask Mrs Maunder to prepare tea, then tell her she is free to go. She’ll have made supper, I presume?’
‘Yes, sir. A shepherd’s pie and cabbage from the garden. I’ll pop it in the oven.’
‘Excellent. We’ll have it at six thirty.’
Martin wanted to turn and look at the girl because she was, perhaps, beautiful, but he could not drag his eyes from Harold Godley because the old man frightened and fascinated him. Godley was very elderly and so thin that he hardly occupied his clothes. They were of good quality; nevertheless, he resembled a scarecrow, a mannikin made of sticks and dressed in whatever came to hand. There was room enough between his frail neck and his stiff shirt-collar to insert a pair of hands. His head was a skull dressed in skin and kitted out with a pair of spectacles and a smile stretched over yellow teeth.
‘Come and take a seat, Mr Heath. You must be feeling somewhat worn out.’
‘No, I’m … Yes, thank you.’
Martin made himself walk over to the old man and take his outstretched hand. It closed on his own like the claws of a hermit crab.
‘Sit, sit. Now then.’
Martin sat. Godley regarded him intently for a few moments, as if trying to memorise his features then, from somewhere within his clothes, he produced a letter.
‘Jim Locke’s reference. I have to say I was impressed. Very impressed. He writes that you are, were, ah, “the bravest and most professional soldier he had the honour of serving with”. Hmm? The Distinguished Conduct Medal and no fewer than three Mentions in Dispatches. He goes so far as to say that in his opinion, your actions during the Italian campaign merited the Victoria Cross. It seems I find myself in the company of a hero, Mr Heath. Hmm?’ Godley looked up, aiming his forced and yellow smile. ‘Am I embarrassing you? Yes, I see that I am. I apologise. I have offended against your modesty. You would probably rather not discuss these matters.’
‘I left university and joined the army when I was nineteen,’ Martin said. ‘I’ve never had a proper job. I’d rather like to know what this one involves. What would be expected of me.’
‘Yes, of course. But please indulge an old man’s curiosity. You come from a professional background and, as you say, you were at university when war broke out. One would have thought you were officer material. But you chose to stay in the ranks. Hmm?’
Something slightly sharp, even accusatory, had come into the old man’s voice. Martin shifted uneasily in the armchair. A perfunctory knock at the door rescued him. The girl, Annie, backed in towing a tea trolley. She parked it in front of the fire and pulled two small tables closer to the chairs.
‘Shall I serve, sir?’
Godley leaned back and closed his eyes. ‘Yes, Annie. Thank you.’
Tea in good china and scones spread with what looked like real blackcurrant jam. Martin realised he was hungry. The girl was slim but shapely. Furtively, he watched the shifting of her haunches within the black dress as she bent to the tables.
When she’d gone Godley took a small sip of tea and returned his cup to its saucer.
‘I – we – need a man about the place. Had one, until a while ago, name of Walters. Perfectly good fellow, but he couldn’t stand the solitude. As you have no doubt observed, this is a lonely spot. I am reduced to two staff. Annie’ – he gestured toward the door – ‘lives in. Cook, Mrs Maunder, lives in the village with her sister, who is an invalid. She makes a decent scone, wouldn’t you say, given the austerity of the times? Hmm?’
Martin, his mouth full, nodded.
‘I employ a part-time gardener, Mr Gates, but he’s getting on in years and finds the heavi
er work a challenge.’
‘I see. So you need someone to help him out?’
Godley did not answer. His gaze had drifted off and his face had slackened into an expression of intolerable grief. Martin felt a familiar squirm of fear, of dread.
‘Sir?’
It came out as a whisper. He cleared his throat.
‘Sir?’
Godley twitched and came back. ‘Hmm?’
‘You were saying that Mr Gates could do with some help. In the garden.’
‘Yes. If you are so inclined.’ Godley cleared his throat. A bulge between sinews. ‘The fact is, Mr Heath, that we – that is to say Annie and I and perhaps even the redoubtable Mrs Maunder – feel vulnerable. Isolated. During the war, we felt that we were, as they say, “toughing it out” like everyone else. We felt that we – you’ll find this laughable, no doubt – that we were “doing our bit”. But now …’
Again his gaze wavered. He took another sip of tea. It seemed restorative.
‘Are you a good driver, Mr Heath?’
‘Er, yes, I think so.’
‘Good. Now, if you have finished your tea, be so kind as to press that button beside the mantelpiece.’
Martin did so and heard a bell jangle, distantly. A minute later Annie came into the room.
Godley resurrected himself from his chair. ‘Mr Heath and I are going to inspect the vehicles, Annie. While there’s still light.’
The girl looked directly at Martin for the first time; a glance that was appraising, perhaps even hostile. ‘Yessir. I’ll get your things.’
She went out, only to wait in the hallway with the old man’s scarf, black homburg hat and cane. Then she led the way to the back door and held it open.
Passing through behind Godley, Martin said, ‘Thank you.’
She dipped a little curtsey that seemed to him ironic.
The flagstoned courtyard was by now half-shadowed. Crossing into the light, Godley – in his dressing gown and hat, leaning on his cane, walking as if brittle – might have been an ancient music-hall comedian making his farewell entrance onto the stage.
The yard was entirely enclosed except for a wide entrance at its far end. To the left, a long two-storey building, its dark stonework punctuated by stable doors and small windows under brick arches. At the far end of this structure, a pair of much wider doors; a coach house, Martin supposed. On the right-hand side of the yard, a shorter building of similar design and an ivy-webbed wall with a heavy-looking door set into it.
An easy place to defend, Martin thought, looking around, calculating fields of fire. Also an easy place to get trapped.
A sombre little vehicle was parked beside the entrance to the yard. A bull-nose Morris van painted, or possibly repainted, a dull green.
‘The workhorse,’ Godley said. ‘The runabout. Entirely at your disposal, should you accept the position. Now, what I want to show you is over here.’
The coach-house doors were suspended from small wheels set into an overhead iron runner. At Godley’s instruction Martin hauled on the left-hand one. It squealed resistance.
‘Could use a spot of grease, I’d say, sir.’
‘Yes, yes, I dare say.’
Impatience in the old man’s voice. Martin shouldered the door open to its full extent and turned. Then paused because something large and gleaming had caught the light. Columns topped by a triangular cornice supporting a winged goddess. The silver frontage of a Roman temple with enormous glass eyes.
‘The other door, if you please, Mr Heath.’
Martin groaned the other door aside. Then, without waiting to be invited, stepped into the coach house and fell in love.
‘Jesus.’
Behind him, Godley chuckled; four dry, chickeny sounds.
‘Indeed, Mr Heath.’
‘A Rolls.’
‘Yes. A Rolls-Royce Phantom Three Sedanca de Ville, to be precise.’
‘It’s … huge. Beautiful. My God.’
‘Feel free to inspect her, Mr Heath.’
Martin walked the length of the car. Christ, he thought, must be eighteen feet if it’s an inch. And as tall as himself. Must weigh three tons, at a guess. Its bonnet and bodywork pale, off-white. Ivory, that would be it. Roof, wings, running boards black. The rear of the machine a voluptuous concave curve. He felt a shameful desire to press himself into it. He peered into the passenger compartment, which seemed to be upholstered in the same ivory-coloured leather and contained inscrutable items of inbuilt, wood-veneeered furniture. It was separated from the driver’s narrow accommodation by a glass screen. The dashboard was an array of switches and instrumentation that would have seemed more at home in the cockpit of a bomber. He felt a fearful craving to climb into her, explore her, start her up.
He returned to the front of the machine and put his hand on the mascot perched, leaning forward, above the radiator grille. Not a goddess, and not wings. A thrilled and human young woman in a flimsy nightgown giving herself to the wind. With nice breasts.
‘The Spirit of Ecstasy, Mr Heath. Allegedly modelled on the mistress of Lord Beaulieu. She’s sometimes, rather vulgarly, referred to as Emily. Now then, let us return to the house. I’m feeling a little cold. You’d be welcome to have another look at the car in the morning before you leave.’
‘Yes. Thank you. I’d like to do that.’
Martin took a parting look at the Rolls. In the black billow of her wing he caught a glimpse of himself, comically warped and elongated.
He heaved the doors shut. Godley took his arm in a claw.
4
MARTIN LEANED AGAINST the kitchen dresser smoking a cigarette and watching Annie prepare her employer’s supper tray. Silver knife and fork and a rolled napkin in a silver ring. A glass of water and a smaller glass containing a brownish solution. Two white pills in a tiny white dish. (Take mine, he reminded himself.) A side plate onto which she served a child’s helping of shepherd’s pie and cabbage.
‘He allers eat in the dinin room,’ Annie said, unasked, ‘though tis cold as hell most the year. But he has his standards, see?’
She tidied her hair and lifted the tray.
‘We’ll eat in here.’
While she was gone, Martin took a nip from his hip flask.
They sat at opposite ends of the kitchen table. Annie ate quickly, keeping her eyes on the task. Martin had never eaten a meal alone with a woman other than his mother. It was interesting that Annie’s hair was disobedient and that he could not tell how old she was. Younger than himself, probably. She was, he thought, very attractive, although it was difficult to judge the attractiveness of a woman eating cabbage. She caught him looking at her.
‘D’you drink?’
‘Pardon?’
‘D’you like a drink?’
‘Yes, sometimes.’
She scraped her chair away from the table and opened a cupboard. She came back to the table carrying a bottle of red wine recorked at an angle. She fetched two glasses from the dresser and filled them to the top.
‘Cheers,’ he said, then, ‘Blimey, this is good.’ He peered at the label. Fleurie. ‘It really is good stuff.’
‘Is it? I dunno. There’s tons of it downstairs. I just like a drop with me dinner.’
‘And why not?’ Martin heard a jollier version of himself say.
She finished eating before he did and leaned back in her chair. ‘So,’ she said, ‘you gornter take the job?’
‘I’m not sure. I don’t really know what it entails.’
‘Come again?’
‘What I’d be supposed to do, exactly. Mr Godley was a bit vague, to be honest.’
‘Be here. Be handy about the place. Drive the car. He does love a ride in it now and again.’
‘Well, yes. Who wouldn’t?’
Annie took a gulp of the Fleurie and smiled at him for the first time. A smile with more than a touch of mockery in it. She had good teeth.
‘Took a shine to it, did you? The Roller?’
‘It’s
… amazing. Scared me a bit, to tell the truth.’ He took out his packet of Players. ‘Do you smoke? Would you like one?’
She glanced at the kitchen clock. ‘I don’t, as a rule. But just this once, then. Ta.’
He lit their cigarettes, then said, ‘There was a bloke before, wasn’t there? Walters, was it? What was he like?’
She shrugged. ‘All right. Oldish. He couldn’t stick it, though, out here miles from anywhere. He went a bit doolally towards the end. D’you reckon you could stick it?’
‘I don’t know. I think so. I think it’s a rather beautiful place.’
She grunted. ‘It’s not so bad now spring’s on the way. The winters can be a right bugger. Back in February’ – she pronounced it febbry – ‘we didn’ know whether we’d freeze afore we starved or the other way about.’
She exhaled smoke and fanned it away with her hand.
‘What’s your story, anyhow?’
‘Sorry?’
‘What were you doing afore this?’
‘I was in the Forces. The army.’
‘Ah,’ Annie said. ‘That why your hands shake?’
A bell jangled, shocking him. He turned in his chair and saw, above the door into the hall, a row of bells. The one labelled Dining Room was dancing on its little arm.
Annie swore softly. She stubbed out her cigarette on her plate. She went to the sink and took a tin of tooth-powder from the window ledge. She rubbed the powder over her teeth with a finger, ran the tap, sloshed water around her mouth and spat it out. She dried her hands on her apron and left the room.
After a minute, Martin reached for the wine.
Annie came back with Godley’s tray and closed the door behind her with her foot.
‘He’d like to talk to you. In the study. He wants to know if you’d like a small glass of port. He takes one himself, of an evening.’
She had two ways of speaking, two voices. One her own, one borrowed. He could not tell which was which. They bled into each other.