‘First things first.’ Johnnie took her hand and made her sit on the bunk. He could see she was frantic. ‘Is she down here with us in steerage?’ he asked, his voice calm.
‘No, of course not, she’s in first class!’ she snapped. ‘Billy Bottle saw her tonight. She was causing some sort of scene and—’
‘Hush, darling.’ Firmly he put his arm around her and was shocked to discover how badly she was trembling. ‘I can understand what a fright you’ve had but you must remember there are a thousand passengers on this ship. Added to which this woman’s travelling in another class altogether.’
He was relieved to see her give a tiny nod. ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘I didn’t mean to bite your head off. It’s just I got such a fright.’
Johnnie said nothing in reply. He felt the terrible disquiet he’d managed to control over the last three days instantly flare into life. He blamed himself, allowing Lily to go wandering round the boat. He’d recognised her claustrophobia, fearing the consequences if she remained in the tiny cabin, but he had trusted she’d be too scared and preoccupied to talk to another passenger… What a bloody fool! The very thing they’d feared had happened; she’d discovered an old acquaintance. Albeit many decks above.
Quietly he said, ‘Tell me about this woman.’
‘Her grandmother and mine were friends – old schoolfriends. And because Lavinia was an only child her grandmother was eager for her to meet other children the same age. We really only met if I came to London in the holidays.’
‘How old were you?’
‘I first met her when I was about eight. I never liked her. Even if she lost at Snakes and Ladders she’d give me a Chinese burn.’
Johnnie couldn’t help smiling.
‘Oh, I know it sounds pathetic but she’s a terrible bully.’
‘Go on.’
‘Well, one Easter holidays I was told there was going to be an enormous treat. We were going to the opera at Covent Garden for Lavinia’s birthday. I didn’t really want to go because, even at ten years old, I found Lavinia utterly hateful. But they said her cousin was going to be there – Harriet. And of course she turned out to be adorable.’
‘Which is why,’ said Johnnie, realising, ‘she’s still one of your best friends.’
‘Exactly. Well, the minute Harriet and I met we got on like a house on fire. And Lavinia, of course, was livid.’
Quickly, Lily recounted the story of the birthday opera and the discovery that Lavinia’s pearl bracelet had been ‘stolen’.
‘Of course, a maid found the wretched bracelet two weeks later in a drawer in Lavinia’s bedroom. Naturally, Lavinia could offer no explanation as to how it had got there.’
‘But why?’ asked Johnnie. ‘Why did she pretend it had been stolen?’
‘To get back at Harriet. She was jealous of her, I suppose. Not that Harriet was prettier, she wasn’t. Just happier. Until Lavinia accused her – and then the child got ill and for years wouldn’t go out or meet people. Her nerves, they said. But I always thought it was Lavinia’s doing. Even at ten years of age she could pick her prey – always the most vulnerable, always the ones unable to stand up for themselves. In Harriet’s case she was Lavinia’s poor cousin – oh, yes, Lavinia was always clever at making her accusations plausible. Harriet was poor therefore she needed to steal.’
‘She picked on her because she was poor?’
‘Partly but also because she was happy. I don’t think Lavinia could cope with anyone being happy.’
‘And when the bracelet was found, was Lavinia punished?’
‘Not on that occasion as far as I know. But some years later, after a string of petty thefts, she was actually caught red-handed trying to play the same trick at a weekend house party.’
‘What happened?’
‘Well, let’s say she was apprehended before the crime was actually perpetrated.’ Lily couldn’t help smiling.
‘By you, you mean? You were there?’
She nodded. ‘I found her going through the jewellery case of a fellow guest.’
‘Did you tell anyone?’
‘I told the people whose house party it was and they told her father. I made jolly sure Lavinia was seriously rattled. And to that extent, I suppose I retrieved Harriet’s honour. Certainly from that day on Lavinia has heartily loathed me. What was so extraordinary, I don’t think she even thought she was guilty. That’s what makes her so dangerous – she has absolutely no moral sense.’ The memory of Lavinia’s shocking fury at the moment of squalid discovery came back to her; she sat filled with terrible fear. ‘My God, she was angry. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such hatred in anyone’s face.’
Johnnie reached for her hand and held it. ‘What happened then?’
‘Lavinia’s father decided his daughter’s kleptomaniac tendencies were proving a little inconvenient – by then, you see, she’d been caught elsewhere, reported to the police and managed to get herself a police record – so it was agreed by the family she should be packed off to be “finished” in Germany. As always, the whole thing was swept under the carpet and Lavinia got away with it once again.’
‘Well, not quite,’ said Johnnie. ‘She’d got herself a police record. I wonder how many people in her circle are aware of that?’
He leant forward and, opening a little cupboard between the bunks, got out a bottle of whisky. ‘Come on, we need a stiffener.’
‘Mrs Webb will be here in a minute—’
‘Oh, no, Lily, why?’
‘Because I was just telling her about Nickie and these two boys arrived and told us about Lavinia and I really feel she shouldn’t be wandering round the boat with only half the story. Mrs Webb, I mean.’ She dribbled to a close. ‘Sorry.’
‘Darling, it’s fine. It’s just that you need some sleep – you look completely done in.’
‘For some reason, Lady Slocombe seems to have got it in for Nurse Grossman, Captain, and as far as I can make out there’s no evidence to support her accusation. Added to which the doc seemed quite concerned about the young woman. The poor lass couldn’t stop crying.’
In the captain’s cabin, First Officer Trinder was reporting the theft of Lady Slocombe’s diamond bracelet.
‘And Lord Clairmont?’
‘Pretty het up, sir. Refuses to even countenance the charges. I managed to reassure him you’d take full control of the matter and said I felt all charges would be dropped?’ The first officer flipped the end of the sentence into a question.
Captain Henshaw nodded but said nothing. He didn’t like thieving on his ship; it created a shimmer of anarchy. He made a decision. ‘Inform his lordship I’ll be happy to see him at nine o’clock tomorrow morning as he suggests. I’ll see Lady Slocombe an hour later.’
He dismissed his first officer but his peace of mind had been disturbed; reluctantly, he closed his book. He’d been enjoying his pipe and a few chapters of Ivanhoe when First Officer Trinder had knocked. Now he sat staring into space, the only movement in the cabin a thin wisp of smoke rising from his pipe.
Although Captain Henshaw had neither the international reputation nor the knighthood of some of his colleagues, he knew himself to be respected and, in some quarters, feared. Having started in sail, rising from a humble bellboy, he was more than able to handle stoker and duke alike, no amount of Millionaire’s Gold buying a place at his table if he chose otherwise.
Alone now in his quarters, he mulled over the theft and made a decision.
Tonight he would leave matters be. Tomorrow morning, if there were no further developments, he’d call for Billy Bottle, his most reliable ears and eyes within the ship; a collaboration that both man and boy kept secret. He’d get the lad to watch the various players in the game.
Captain Henshaw relit his pipe. Opening his Walter Scott, he smoothed the page and settled back once more in his chair.
As Mrs Webb and Freddie entered their cabin, Anthea sighed in her sleep and turned to the wall. Lying on an upper bunk, an old knitted
monkey squashed up against her soft pink face, the child was making bubbly little snores.
The other occupant, Barney Webb, looked up and, with a chuck of his head, said to his mother, ‘She’s flat out.’ He returned to his paper; he was catching up on a couple of back copies of The Winning Post.
Mrs Webb filled the cabin, taking up both space and light. She sank down onto the lower bunk opposite her son. ‘You all right, Barn?’ Oh, her legs were giving her gyp.
‘Aye. That Donald O’Dea’s on board,’ he said, never taking his eye from the sporting news.
‘No! You mean the singer?’
‘Aye. On’t way to ’ighest-paid concert tour ever.’
‘What, in America?’
‘Aye.’ Barney turned the page. ‘And we ’ad a theft up top.’
‘I know, I ’eard.’
‘Word is, they’ve got an idea who the culprit is.’ Barney said no more.
Mrs Webb looked at Freddie. The lad stood with his eyes closed, sleep so near. ‘Wash your face now, come on.’ He suffered a quick wipe of a flannel and then bundled up into his sister’s bunk – the children fitted together, two jigsaw pieces – and was out.
‘All that fresh air, eh?’ Mrs Webb yawned. Her bunk beckoned. Lovely. But first she must pop to the Valleys’ cabin, as promised. She was weary but, if she was honest, keen to get the rest of the story.
‘Keep an eye on things, Barney. I won’t be long.’
Her son grunted; the report on the 2.30 at Aintree held him.
She stepped out into the corridor, her eagerness to be with her new friends overcoming her tiredness and motoring her away from the cabin.
Matty lay in Lord Henry’s arms. He was watching over her as she slept. Every so often, she would call out from the depths of her drugged dream until the doctor’s sedative would take hold once again and subdue her. Over and over he thought through the terrible business of the evening. What in heaven’s name had possessed the Slocombe woman to make such a vicious charge?
He looked down at the young nurse. Her face was chalk-white, her lips slightly grey. And he thought of her face usually so full of life, remembering how he had seen her that very first time in Africa at the embassy picnic, three years ago…
‘You’ve gone very pale,’ he’d heard a voice say. ‘Would you mind if I took your pulse?’ Opening his eyes, there, dark against the sun, was a girl, a nurse. She proceeded to kneel over him and check his pulse. ‘My name’s Matilda Grossman by the way. Everyone calls me Matty.’
The last thing he’d wanted was to go on the wretched embassy picnic. All he longed for was to settle down with Mr Evelyn Waugh and his Decline and Fall, the book having newly arrived from England. The fact he felt severely out of sorts he chose to ignore. Once by the lake, shaded from the aggressive African sun, he’d been happy enough to leave the others to swim and play. Splashes, screams, laughter…and he’d fallen asleep. Now here she was, what was her name – Maddy? Mary? – commandeering the only car and driving him straight to the native hospital.
There, all he could recall later was the rain tipping down, drumming on the corrugated roof. Drumming in his head. And the steaming heat. And the joy of a cool, damp cloth. And Nurse Grossman – Matty, that was it – and an African doctor, and a terrible thirst…
After lots of water, he began to feel better. So, of course, he wasn’t going to hang around getting under everyone’s feet. And, yes, he promised Nurse Grossman, he’d see the embassy doctor if he felt ill again… And, yes, he’d go straight home.
And he had. Falling again into the deepest sleep…
Monday morning and I’m better, he thought. He jumped on his bicycle, to be met by early morning traffic tangling all the way to Government House. A camel, an overturned bullock cart, people shouting, shouting… And again, the muggy rains blanketing down. He didn’t feel so good but he was late and His Excellency would blow a gasket. In his office, his secretary greeted him, ‘Good lord, old man, you all right?’ And then no more…
Whispers. And the thirst again…
He opened his eyes. A fan was weakly turning above him, waving fetid air across his face. Mulligan and Livingstone were looking down at him. What on earth were his garden boys doing here?
Then a damp cloth on his forehead and a nurse – Nurse Grossman? No, not today. But still the thirst. Worse and worse…
The diagnosis, a couple of weeks later, was quite a relief; a ‘cause’ for his wretched tiredness and extraordinary thirsts had been found. In fact, he left the consultation quite light-hearted, the Embassy doc skirting round the seriousness of his condition with a fussily jovial approach. ‘Diabetes Mellitus, old man. In the eleventh century it would have been diagnosed by “piss-tasters”! These chaps would have drunk your piss to see if it tasted of honey. Mellitus, you see, Latin word for honey.’ Henry had departed none the wiser except for knowing he had ‘the best of the chronic diseases – clean, seldom unsightly and uncontagious.’
‘I’m Matilda Grossman, do you remember me? We met at the picnic,’ she said when they had met by chance in the hospital corridor.
At a loss for something to say, dazed from his diagnosis, he asked politely, ‘Have you come far?’
‘Actually, Harrow on the Hill,’ and they’d both burst out laughing.
It was this chance meeting that had helped him face his condition and realise it was not going to go away. (‘Not so “chance”, Henry. I’d been waiting for you, hovering about like an idiot outside the doctor’s office.’) She had shown him how to deal with his illness, gently explaining away the terrors, strictly keeping him to his diet.
‘Well, yes, it may be life-threatening but it’s also susceptible to treatment,’ she’d counselled. ‘Insulin’s a new magic potion. And count yourself lucky. Before its discovery you’d only have had five years to live.’
‘That’s cheered me up,’ he’d replied grimly.
‘Well, you could be African and then you wouldn’t get it at all. It’s strictly Whites only.’
But it had done the trick; he’d used his newly acquired knowledge to fend off his fears. And because of her, the seeming imprisonment of diabetes had actually bestowed on him a new-found freedom. She had given him the confidence to break away from the safety of his self-imposed world of books and the stifling social round of Government House, leaving his Embassy colleagues amazed at the new vigour with which he began to lead his life. But with these reactions came also the whispering gossip. ‘I believe there’s some girl. Not quite comme il faut. Harrow-on-the-Hill, if you get my meaning – not really one of us.’
‘And isn’t he spending rather too much time at that native hospital?’
It had been here, one day, he had seen another side of Matty, her face closed, her expression unreadable, tenderly holding the small body of Benjamin Mboweni. ‘Five years old, pleurisy brought on by malnutrition.’ And he’d seen her fury. ‘Even the Bible says there is such a thing as righteous anger, Henry.’
Yes, Matty was right. Righteous anger.
He sat up carefully so as not to wake the young woman from her drugged sleep. Anger, that was what was required. This evil bloody Slocombe woman must be stopped; the whole vicious mess must be cleared up. Tomorrow he would talk to the captain in no uncertain terms, and Matty would be vindicated.
Very carefully, Henry lay down once again alongside his nurse. He wanted to keep the night-watch so as to be fully awake for when she finally stirred.
Chapter Ten
London. November 1921
The small man leant against the gas-lamp, the mournful sounds from his mouth-organ irritating the passers-by. A cap at his feet lay empty; in it, not one coin.
As Johnnie hurried for his train, it wasn’t the sound of the mouth-organ that caught his attention but the pathetic tray of matchboxes slung round the man’s neck – and the empty cap. He felt a nick at his conscience, dropped a penny and walked on.
Roused, the little man called after him, ‘Thanks, mate.’
/> Johnnie stopped, turned and stared. ‘Sam? Sam Valley?’
The two men sat in the dark on a wall behind an all-night coffee stand and watched, unseeing, the traffic sombrely make its way round Hyde Park Corner. The coffee was milky and sweet. There was a queue of taxis parked alongside the stand. On the night air from inside the cabs, wisps of laughter and the murmur of a kiss rose up, the drivers standing apart in the yellow gas-light, ignoring their ‘fares’, grateful for the paid break.
Johnnie and Sam drank their sweet coffee and talked. They’d not met for three years. Since the Armistice.
‘My Flora and a Scottish sapper—’
‘Sam, I’m so sorry—’
‘Couldn’t believe it, all them letters at the Front from Flora, all that time… When I found out about the pair of ’em, I ups and leaves them to it.’
‘But your farm?’
‘They can have it. They give me a bit but I don’t want their charity. For all the good it will do them anyway; farming’s a mug’s game now, I reckon.’
‘That’s right enough.’ Johnnie knocked his pipe against the wall and carefully started to repack it from an old leather pouch. ‘Things not too bright down our way, either. What with Harvey and his team of workers gone.’ Harvey, Edge, Larney – a spin bowler, a wicket-keeper and a batsman, stars of the village cricket team. The green not even mowed these last three years, Johnnie realised.
Both men sat silent, locked together in memories.
Larney, a big man, a ploughman, his sobbing pitiable from No Man’s Land as, trapped in the glutinous mud, one leg torn off and one arm shattered by a shell, he’d called out to them, ‘Haven’t you got a bullet for me?’ All through the night. Larney the last to survive, crying out, the others stranded beside him in No Man’s Land already silenced. When the sky had lightened, Johnnie and Sam, the platoon’s only survivors, could see no sign of anything. Man, horse or gun. All had been sucked into the mud, drowned in a sea of churned earth.
‘Dear God, they won’t be able to make us do it again, will they?’
Sam shook his head. ‘I tell ’em, “We weren’t at the Front, we were in front of it.”’
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