On reflection so did I; I found it touching too. I said to him, ‘There are too many widows around at the moment, aren’t there?’
‘Aye. Do you think the bastards will ever notice, and realize what they’ve done?’
There it was again. The they. They. The people in charge, I guessed. The people responsible. The bastards.
‘No.’ The way I said it sounded sharp and ugly, even to me. ‘No. They’ll do it again and again if we let them.’ Harry James would have been proud of me. I was.
The door to my room was unlocked. I was sure that I had locked it behind me before I had left. The only things that I had left there were the two concert tickets that the strange Scotsman had given me – on top of an empty chest of drawers. Now there was only one. There was also a small upright mirror that wasn’t mine. Alongside the mirror someone had pinned a drawing on the wall. The drawing was childish, but skilful: it depicted an airman standing in front of a recognizable Lancaster bomber. The airman looked like me. I rubbed my chin; it felt smooth. The mirror would come in handy if ever I needed to shave again. Alongside my single concert ticket was a nearly finished lipstick. It had been expensive once. There was a tap on the door, and when I turned Wendy was standing there with some material draped over one arm. ‘Can I come in?’ she asked.
‘Of course you can.’ I was smiling.
‘I found you some curtains.’
I asked her, ‘It doesn’t matter, but I thought I left my room locked . . .?’
‘Harry will have unlocked it. It’s part of the fire drill. Any empty room is left unlocked so we can check it quickly if we have to run for it. A girl stayed here for a night. I hope you don’t mind?’
‘No. ’Course not. She folded my sheets up for me.’
‘Clean ones, by the look of it,’ Wendy sniffed. ‘You should learn to tell the difference.’
Then it was Harry James. Wendy left after helping me hang the curtains. Each was a different colour, material and length. I liked that bizarre effect, and promised to try it myself if ever I had a place of my own. Harry sniffed and laughed: ‘That Wendy – she must be colour-blind.’
‘I kind of like them.’
‘Don’t take offence. I just came up to apologize for not asking you to leave your room open whenever you’re away. You needn’t worry about losing anything; nobody steals from you here, just borrows. It’s part of my fire drill – I’m scared of losing one of the kids.’
I thought, but didn’t say, In that case somebody borrowed a concert ticket from me. The concert was the next day; if anyone intended to return it they were running short of time. I told him, ‘Someone drew my picture.’
‘That would be Gary. He draws all of us. Did he ask you how many Germans you’d killed?’
‘Something like that.’
‘He always asks that. If we’re not careful we’ll end up with another generation of kids without dads who can’t wait to go to war with Germany, just like the last time. I wonder if anyone knows what to do about that?’
I shook my head. James asked me if I’d got my business done. I’d left the brown velvet cloth opened on the mattress. He walked over and studied the valuables.
‘It could be difficult for me if the police raided here and found all this stuff,’ he told me seriously. ‘They’d have a reason to turn everyone out.’
‘Would it be better if I stowed it elsewhere?’
‘If you wouldn’t mind, Charlie. That all right?’
‘No problem.’ Then I added, ‘It’s legal, you know; I buy this stuff, and sell it on. Buy low, sell high – that’s me.’ He didn’t believe a word of it, and that suited me.
‘That’s the curse of capitalism,’ he told me. ‘We should have a chat about that one day.’
‘How about me giving you an assurance that no one is going to starve because I have these things?’
‘I’d be very pleased about that, Charlie.’ James picked up the ring with the green stone, and said, ‘Hey: this is very pretty.’ But he was good at resisting temptation, and put it back into the hoard.
‘Yes: I thought so too. I might keep it.’
‘We’re having a bit of a party tonight. You’d be more than welcome to join us downstairs. Young Gary’s been telling everyone that you’re some kind of Robin Hood. Robbing the rich to feed the poor.’
‘What gave him that idea?’
‘Word gets around. People need to believe that someone’s fighting back.’
‘Is that what you think?’
‘I believe in the cliché that whispers to us that desperate times breed desperate people. But, in answer to your question, I shouldn’t mind if you were – providing you didn’t jeopardize the folk here: they have problems enough of their own.’ Then James asked me, ‘Why are you laughing?’
‘I was just thinking that when I sit down after you’ve gone, and run through this conversation in my head, I’ll realize that I’ve actually been given a severe talking-to . . .’
He grinned back. ‘Party tonight, then?’
‘Do you need any money?’
‘Just a couple of quid for whatever you drink; later will do.’
Welcome home, Charlie. The silly thing is that it really felt like that.
Party. One at which staying relatively sober was more of a priority than any I had previously attended. It was in a room big enough to hold a dance in, so that’s what we did. The booze standing on an old dresser was beer and wine. The ladies drank the wine. The children drank home-made ginger beer and lemonade from the kitchen; they might have had the best of it. The beer was Worthington IPA again, and a bottled dark stout that poured out like liquid licorice. I can’t remember what it was now; it might have been Mackeson. It was the wine that interested me – about a dozen bottles with familiar labels: Cava again. I started to calculate the odds of there being no connection between the bottle I had reduced with Piers and the ones in front of me, but gave up. I asked the woman I was dancing with, ‘Where does the wine come from?’
‘Harry’s got a contact in the docks, I think; we’ve a lot of party members there. Harry’s got contacts everywhere.’ Then she determinedly changed the subject with, ‘You’re quite a good dancer, for Robin Hood.’ She was trying too hard: the truth is that I’m an abysmal dancer.
She was Gary’s mother, and Matesy had been right. She was dark, very pretty and uncomplicated. Probably vivacious on good days. But there was a residual sadness that you found in a lot of the women in those days, and I was not prepared to shoulder that lot yet. I got very hot with the dancing, but couldn’t take my jacket off because I had my pistol in a pocket. Robin Hood would have understood. Sometime after midnight I gave Harry his couple of quid, and left with Wendy. He winked. It wasn’t a conspiratorial wink; it was a friendly one. At least another couple of faces from Piers’s photographs had been there, and this time I introduced myself and got their names. One lived just up the road. He wasn’t terribly comfortable with me. Another was a port tally clerk at the Royals, who had a place of his own in Stepney and hinted that he was good at moving hot property. Somebody must have pointed me out to him. Instead of lying to people I was merely evasive, and by the end of the evening I think they were accepting that as part of my character. I was worried because it made me sound just like Piers.
This time I left the door open. Wendy knocked gently, just like before. This time she had a pillow for me. She didn’t offer to stay, and I didn’t ask her. I slept eventually, but must have dreamed, because when I opened my eyes the door was still open and a ragged little girl stood there. She had a dirty tear-streaked face, and a wonderful smile. She had something I couldn’t make out in her hand. I had one of those dreadful moments when you know that you should move, but can’t. Then I drifted off to sleep again. The little girl was still smiling. In the morning she had gone.
In the morning I helped wash up the party dishes and earned myself a few points. Wendy dried up the plates that I washed, and after a few minutes Gary’s mum walked
in and joined us. I had one woman on either side of me, lunging for anything I rinsed. I couldn’t keep this up for ever, so I walked down to the telephone box and made a couple of calls. I called Piers, told him the two names I’d obtained, and gave him the guys’ descriptions. He didn’t like us speaking the names aloud, but he had no choice because I turned down an invitation to meet him. Miller, when I called, was similarly disturbed. She said, ‘Charlie, this line isn’t secure.’
‘None of them are, love. Just tell me. Have you run the profiles again?’
After a long pause she whispered, ‘Yes.’
‘Speak up. Even if you are being overheard no bugger can know what we’re talking about.’
She cleared her throat before saying, ‘Yes. We did.’
‘And?’
‘Nothing from one, and a very annoyed respondent on the other. Boulder says that it was the same sender. Same signatures, she says.’
‘She’s almost certainly right. Good old Boulder. Good-oh.’
‘What’s that mean?’
‘Good-oh. We said it on the squadron all the time if we were pleased.’
‘What do you want us to do now?’
‘More of the same, please. That’s also how I feel about you.’
‘Oh, good-oh.’ Sarcasm.
‘Tell me what you’re wearing.’
She didn’t. She broke the connection. Miller knew I was up to something. I was sure of it.
Kenwood. The choir of singing vampires in their bell-tent skirts was simply awful. The Scot I had first seen them with pointed out their patron and introducer to me. Their patron might have been the BBC poet, Dylan Thomas, because he looked drunk. He stubbed his foot against the low stage, and stumbled. I think that he was trying to tell me something. Something like run. I should have listened, but I had difficulty in making out what he said. That might have been because he was drunk, or because he was Welsh. Both conditions sound similar to an untutored ear. The voice which came to the audience was like a turkey gargling with tar. He recited a couple of lines from his most recent poem. It was the usual gibberish: God probably understood him, and everyone applauded anyway. A woman in a knitted dress exclaimed in ecstasy, and slapped her hands together like a performing seal long after everyone else had finished. The Bulgarians looked bemused.
The screeching of their vampires set my teeth on edge again. Their men played large odd-shaped guitars which sounded like unharmonized machine guns. That set my teeth on edge too.
Grace slipped into the empty seat alongside me and whispered, ‘We could have found a better place than this, couldn’t we?’
Time stopped.
17. Goose Pimples
The husky sound of Grace’s voice gave me goose pimples. She was dressed in the same olive KDs and a khaki vest – and a scruffy duffel coat and laced American boots, even though it wasn’t cold.
‘There’s a room like this in your house,’ I said to her. I meant the orangery in the mansion at Crifton. ‘I saw your mother riding a horse around it once.’
‘Just like mummy; I’ll bet that she was squiffy. For a few months before the war we held dances there every week. They were really gay affairs: I suppose that we all knew that there was a war coming.’
‘Hello, Grace.’
‘Hello, Charlie.’
‘Aren’t you mad at me any more?’
‘No. Not particularly. Not any more. How about you?’
‘I’m still mad at you. Every time you pop up, my life seems to stop. I want to get on with things; get moving.’
‘Without me?’
‘Yes. Without you.’
‘Don’t you still love me?’
‘Of course I do; I’m not a traitor.’
There was a six-beat pause, and then Grace said, ‘What odd things men say!’ She said it too loud, and the Scotsman lurking in the shadows said, ‘Sshh . . .’
Grace whispered, ‘Fancy a walk?’
I nodded. We sidled out in the middle of a Bulgarian primal howl. The Scot frowned. The Bulgars never missed a beat, but their mournful stares followed us to the door. What can they have expected, making a noise like that? I was only surprised that the rest of the audience didn’t follow us. The poet was already sitting asleep on a chair in the passageway outside.
I took Grace along the paths to the duelling patch that Piers had shown me. It was better disguised than I remembered, and reaching it was like finding my way to the centre of a maze. She loved the spot immediately; I didn’t tell her what it was. We sat on the stone bench. Grace produced apples for us, one from each coat pocket. She said, ‘I was a bit surprised to find out that we were neighbours again; I thought that you’d have given up on me by now.’
‘I had: then I had to start again. How did you know that it was me, anyway?’
‘A couple of the women were discussing a man who’d recently turned up – you. When they described you my stomach turned over.’
‘How can you recognize me from a verbal description?’
‘Charlie, when are you going to realize that you’re attractive to women?’
‘Don’t try to flatter me, Grace: that isn’t kind.’
She shrugged. ‘As you like. This place is glorious, Charlie. How did you find it?’
‘Somebody showed me. You didn’t answer my question. How did you know it was me?’
‘I didn’t, not for sure: not until I went into your room. Then I was sure. Even though it was empty it was like you’d left something on the air. Like a fox.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Don’t worry. I didn’t mean anything bad. I took one of your tickets, and wondered if you’d take the bait. Why are you using the name Miller, by the way? Are you on the run?’
‘I’ve been on the run ever since I met you, Grace.’
‘Sometimes, Charlie, you say the nicest things.’
‘I didn’t mean it to be.’
‘I know; that’s what makes it nice. You followed me all the way to Italy after you’d promised to leave me alone: they’ll arrest people for that sort of thing one day.’
‘I know. I’m sorry. I was asked to catch up with you. First of all it was because your parents wanted you back, and then it was to make sure that you didn’t come back. They’re probably disappointed that you’ve turned up again. I didn’t want to chase you; it was just the best of two bad options.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘The war was ending, and it was either find you or be posted to a death-and-glory squadron to get the chop in the last few weeks. Guaranteed.’
‘Is that what they told you?’
‘Yes. Hobson’s Choice.’
‘Poor Charlie. I always loved that film. The girls came out on top, didn’t they? Was that Charles Laughton?’
Then nothing. Just the sound of two people munching apples, sitting on a bench in a glade in the sunshine. Tension flowing out of them into the ground. Eventually she asked, ‘Good apple?’
‘Yes. Very. Thank you.’
‘I think so, too. They come from South Africa – they weren’t that easy to get in the war, were they? You don’t want me to tell everyone that you’re Charlie Bassett the war hero, I suppose?’
‘No, of course not. You’ve read Pete’s tosh too? I was never a hero.’
‘It’s in the papers, darling: it must be true. Couldn’t miss it. Do you know that almost the last thing you said to me in England was that Pete was dead? Why did you lie about that?’
‘I didn’t: I just thought he was. Then I met him again in Holland and Germany. Anyway, he is now. Somebody told me last week.’
‘I wouldn’t depend on it.’
‘Oddly enough, I agree with you this time.’
She leaned her head against my shoulder; intimacy always came easy to Grace.
‘Why are you here, Charlie?’
‘To see you again – sorry. Someone showed me a picture of you taken at a party, and I couldn’t resist it. I pretended to be homeless like the rest of them, and
waited for you to show up.’
‘Are you telling me all of the story?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because you wouldn’t like it.’
Another pause. The pieces of the jigsaw began to click into place for her. Click, click. I was aware of a fragment of apple wedged between my molars. It annoyed me.
‘So someone asked you to find me again? Daddy?’
‘No. That’s not how it works.’
‘The same people that asked you to find me in France?’
‘More or less . . . I think. I’m not sure.’
‘Why?’
‘They don’t want you to be caught with this lot and get your face in the papers. That would embarrass far too many people. They want you to come away with me: I’ll take you home.’
‘Never more to wander?’
‘Something like that.’
Another pause. Then Grace said, ‘You know, when I saw you I really hoped that it was daddy who had sent you.’
I thought that she was shivering, but as soon as I turned to look at her I realized that she was crying. I had only ever seen Grace cry once before, and it had moved me then as well. I did what I had resisted doing minutes earlier: I put my arms around her, and hugged her to me. Poor Grace. Poor Charlie. I don’t know how long she cried. It seemed like hours. Not a huge earthquake of noisy weeping: just a quiet dumping of all the tears she had.
Afterwards she moved away from me, and mopped her face with my clean handkerchief. If I wasn’t careful I would be running out of them before too long. I realized that I shouldn’t produce too many clean handkerchiefs in the presence of the Party: it would have been out of role. Grace looked very young all of a sudden, gave me a sheepish grin and said, ‘Sorry. I haven’t cried like that for years; I wonder what brought it on?’
I couldn’t tell her. I stood up, took half a dozen paces, then turned so that I could look at her. Before I could say anything I focused on where her coat fell open, and the thin shirt that clung to her breasts. Grace’s not-so-secret weapons. She noticed me noticing, and lifted it. Her breasts were exactly as I remembered: small and perfect. She said, ‘You can look, Charlie; you know them as well as anyone. Thirty years old, and I still don’t need a bra. What do you think?’
The Forgotten War Page 24