A Blind Man's War

by David Fiddimore

  I had booked two rooms – a double and a single – on the assumption that George and Doris would occupy one, and I the other. Her outburst at the station had put a doubt in my mind, so I asked her if I should get another single for her brother.

  ‘What brother, Charlie?’

  ‘Brother George. Or cousin George, or whoever he is.’

  Pause.

  ‘He isn’t my brother.’

  ‘I’d never have guessed.’

  ‘Isn’t that what you said last time?’ Then she pouted and said, ‘No. Don’t change things. George will expect to be with me. He makes all the rules and carries a big stick.’

  We were sitting in a nice little bar. There had been a few people outside waiting for it to open – God knows where they came from, the only nearby dwelling was a run-down farm a mile away. Doris had ordered a treble whisky, heavily watered it, and sipped it as a long drink.

  She asked, ‘I shouldn’t ha’ said anything about Cyprus, huh? You could have warned me.’

  I looked away. I’d like to say my mind was working furiously the way it does for heroes in kids’ stories, but my mind never works furiously. It sort of limps along way behind everyone else.

  Doris gazed innocently at me and offered, ‘Your Mr Borland let it slip. He said he thought you’d have time to help us out before you went to Cyprus. I didn’t realize it was a secret.’

  ‘It bloody isn’t any more, is it?’

  I ran Jelly Roll Morton’s ‘Blue Blood Blues’ in my head. If I could work out who told Bozey I was off to Cyprus, maybe she was telling the truth. I’d told Elaine, hadn’t I? She and Bozey burned up the telephone two or three times a day. My own fault then. Eventually I asked her, ‘Does George know?’

  ‘He didn’t mention it, but he must have heard.’

  ‘Don’t mention it to him again.’

  ‘All right, Charlie.’

  I’d given a bloody hostage to fortune, and I didn’t bloody like it. Life’s like that. Most of the people you trust are people you have to trust, rather than people you want to trust. It’s like throwing dice.

  I leaned across the table and said, ‘Did I ever tell you that you have amazingly perfect breasts?’

  ‘Yesterday. But you can say it again if you want.’

  ‘You have amazingly perfect breasts. Shall I tell George?’

  ‘You can, but he wouldn’t like it.’

  ‘What would he like?’

  ‘He would like to go up that hill behind us, come safely down again, pay you off and fly back Stateside as fast as he can.’

  I decided to ask the question that had been interesting me since I’d met them.

  ‘Why, exactly, do you need me?’

  ‘George’s afraid of heights.’

  Ah.

  The owner came to look for me. His name was Ean, yeah, spelled that way, and he favoured heavy Arran-knit sweaters with leather elbow patches, and suede shoes. His brush of hair stood up like one of the cartoon characters from the Beano comic.

  ‘There’s a telephone call for you – you can take it in the lobby. It’s from the other gentleman. He’s going to be late.’

  George sounded bored. I asked him when he would get there.

  ‘Tuesday lunchtime I guess, pardner. Monday-night flier. The cops and your customs wanted to know where you’d got to.’

  ‘They’re mad at us then?’

  ‘Hard to tell. They might even be amused – they never expected you to take off like that.’ The pips sounded, and George pushed some money into the telephone.

  ‘How do the cops know your name, Charlie?’

  ‘My fault. I gave it when I went to your hotel. Where are you phoning from?’

  ‘Trafalgar Square. It looks pretty in the sunshine. You wouldn’t lay a hand on Mrs Handel, would you, Charlie?’

  ‘You wouldn’t like that?’

  ‘I’d cut your cock off.’

  ‘How about me reassuring you that my relationship with your wife will be solely professional?’

  ‘See you Tuesday, Charlie.’ He hung up.

  I went back to Doris. When I sat down at the table she asked me, ‘Well?’

  ‘If you have to have me again you’re going to have to pay for it – I just promised George our relationship would remain entirely professional.’ She smiled at me over her whisky, and gave a little shrug. The earth moved again. My legs trembled. Some girls can do that to me.

  I called the Major’s bar to check up on the boys. Maggs answered, and I asked her, ‘Are you and the Major speaking?’

  ‘Course we are, Charlie. I was surprised at meself.’

  ‘Why don’t you marry him?’

  ‘Because we come from diff’rent sides of the beach. It would never work.’

  ‘You’ve already lived together for ten years – some marriages don’t even last that long these days.’

  ‘If I say I’ll think about it can we change the subject, Charlie? Dieter passed all his exams and wants to speak to you . . .’

  He had, and bubbled about it for five minutes. I felt a very odd emotion coming over me, and took a while to work out that it was pride.

  ‘You know I’m very proud of you, don’t you?’

  He paused before he said, ‘Yes,’ and then, ‘You’re a pretty good dad, you know.’

  I hate it when things get mushy.

  ‘How do you make that out? A few weeks ago you were telling me I didn’t get home often enough, and couldn’t keep hold of a girlfriend.’

  ‘You don’t make me do the things you would have liked to do. Most of the boys in my class are doing what their dads wanted to do.’

  ‘OK, Dieter. I’ll believe you. How’s Carly?’

  ‘Cubs tonight – he’ll be in the Scouts soon.’ Then he asked me, ‘Do you have a new girlfriend, Dad?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘You sound different when you have a new girlfriend. I can always tell.’

  I swallowed. ‘It isn’t going to work out with June, son. I know that will disappoint you and Carly, but she has a complicated arrangement with two other men. There’s not much room left for me.’

  ‘I knew a girl like that, Dad, so I understand. It’s a bit of a pisser, isn’t it?’ When had my son begun to speak like that? I let it pass, but we’d need a chat about that some time. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Scotland. But don’t tell anyone. I’ll be back at the end of the week.’

  ‘Are you in trouble again?’

  ‘No, nothing like that – I’m just being careful.’

  He could always tell when I was lying as well – but he never complained about it.

  When I went back to the bar Doris was flirting with the Arran-knit, so I walked outside to look down on the loch, and smoke a pipe. Dozens of those little black insects that live on Scotsmen followed me, but they didn’t tuck into me. Probably the pipe smoke. Doris followed me immediately.

  ‘You the jealous type, Charlie?’

  ‘Truthfully, I don’t know. I didn’t mind you flirting with our host, if that’s what you mean.’

  She looked doubtful.

  ‘I don’t know what’s come over me these last few days – I’ve been like a bitch in heat.’

  ‘I do . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Freedom. It does odd things to all of us. George isn’t here to rattle your chain.’

  Then something occurred to me. I don’t know why I remembered our conversation on the station platform, waiting for George not to get down from the train. She’d said, ‘He’s not my husband, Charlie.’ I said, ‘Hang on a mo’. I’ve just realized. You are married, aren’t you? Only not to George.’

  She looked levelly at me, and just before she turned away she said, ‘Yes, Charlie, I’m married. How about you?’

  I tried to make light of it.

  ‘No one will have me.’ It didn’t work.

  A few seconds later the stones crunched under her feet, and all I had was her back. I hadn’t thought I could m
ove that fast – faster than a speeding bullet. Isn’t that what they used to say in Superman films at Saturday Morning Pictures? I was behind her, and wrapped my arms around her waist, pinning her arms to her sides. She gasped.

  My voice was muffled by her hair. ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t wait to get into your bed, and stay there all night.’

  I hadn’t realized that she had been holding her breath. She let it out in a long sigh, and we rocked gently from side to side. Then we began to laugh. I should have known better.

  In the morning she broke the spell: gave me a ten-bob note to keep the relationship professional. They don’t value sex as highly in the US as we do over here. To be honest most of them aren’t as good at it either.

  I’m remembering back fifty years here – but I think I could have had her to a band playing.

  The next day was a corker, and immediately after breakfast I took my old briar pipe out to that seat looking down the loch. I’d eaten kippers, and sunk a couple of cups of coffee. Doris ate about eighteen bleeding courses, and then went back upstairs. Ean joined me outside, and produced a pipe and tobacco of his own.

  He indicated the bench, and asked, ‘May I join you?’ It was his bloody hotel, and his bloody seat, wasn’t it? Probably his bloody loch as well. But it was nice of him to ask.

  His accent was soft. If I’d come across him whilst I was still in the service I would have taken him for an officer immediately.

  ‘Help yourself. Have you kept this hotel for long?’

  ‘I was born here. My mother and father turned it into a hotel – before that it was a shooting lodge.’

  ‘Do you like being an innkeeper?’

  He laughed and said, ‘No, I loathe it. What do you do?’

  ‘I manage a small airline, but it’s on ice at the moment. There’s not much work about.’

  He’d got his pipe going. The tobacco was aromatic. I could smell the Latakia in it.

  ‘So, you’re taking a holiday?’

  ‘No. I’m taking a job. A couple of rich Americans hired me to hold their hands while they climbed one of your hills.’

  ‘You’re a mountaineer then?’

  ‘No, but I’ve done it once or twice before . . . and was in the mountains in Turkey a few years ago. I thought I’d try to recruit a local guide – it’s best to have someone who knows the terrain. I was going to ask you about that today.’

  He concentrated on his pipe until a new Pope was elected, then removed it from his mouth and said, ‘I might do that for you myself. An extra few quid is always handy, and to tell the truth a change of company always does me good.’ So, I’d hired a Sherpa. I held out my hand to shake his. He asked, ‘Don’t you want to know my price?’

  ‘I’m not paying, am I? I’m Charlie, by the way.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Charlie. Ean Galbraith. I was just going to take a dram before I went fishing. Would you care to join me?’ Whisky at ten in the morning, I reflected, wasn’t necessarily a good sign. I’d met officers like him before.

  Upstairs, Doris was lying face down on her bed reading a Louis L’Amour Western story. I flipped up her skirt to expose the best bum in the West. She must have felt the sun from the window on her legs. She moved them a little apart, but didn’t turn away from her book as she spoke.

  ‘Help yourself if you like, hon – but you won’t mind if I carry on reading, will ya?’

  Probably a good book. She must have reached an exciting part of the narrative.

  ‘I think I’ll go out for a walk instead.’

  She didn’t even nod.

  I recovered my temper on a walk around the loch. A nosy seal paced me for a mile, poking his whiskered head out of the water to track my progress. A crazy splashing as I approached a small burn slowed, and then stilled me. I didn’t see my first otter: I saw my first two. They were playing about like kids. I sat on a rock and lit a pipe. They didn’t seem to mind me.

  Doris had finished her Western by the time I got back, and let me watch her demolish another eighteen-course lunch. Where did these bloody Yanks get their appetites from? As she pushed the empty fish plate away she asked me, ‘Good walk?’

  I replied something like ‘Mmm.’ I was trying to dig a trout bone from between my teeth.

  ‘What are you thinking?’

  ‘I was thinking that it would be nice to come and live up here one day.’

  ‘Far too quiet for you.’

  ‘You’d be surprised.’

  She shrugged. I watched her shrugging. Her breasts made a Mexican wave. It would be nice to spend your time watching Doris shrug. We sat in a comfortable sitting room, and played backgammon and cards until it was time to start drinking and eating again.

  She put away another huge meal in the evening. And then it was night.

  I woke early. The light was cutting through the gap between the curtains. I stood naked at the window, and looked out at the sun dancing on the loch in a million tiny pieces. There was the ghost of a soldier from the Great War doing the same. He was down on the small pebble bay, smoking a big curved briar as if he enjoyed it. He had a big moustache, and still wore his soft peaked trench cap, but his jacket was off and draped over one shoulder – I could see his broad trouser braces over his washed-out khaki shirt. Even though I don’t believe in ghosts I’ve seen something a lot like them ever since I started flying . . . so he didn’t worry me too much. I slipped back into bed, and half-asleep Doris rolled over to face me.

  When George turned up later it occurred to me that he no longer looked like George. He was dressed in a crisp olive-coloured fatigue suit secured with a wide webbing belt, wore US combat boots and had had a haircut. He looked like a soldier. And he was in a soldier’s wagon – dark green Land Rover with civvy plates. The man who got out of the passenger seat was dressed identically. He did the handshake thing and said, ‘Christopher. Chris.’

  ‘Charlie. And this is—’

  ‘Doris. I know . . . George has told me about you both.’

  I turned to George and said, ‘You suddenly look a mite military, George. Have you been holding out on me?’ The amazing thing was that he seemed to have drawn on another personality with the clothes: he was relaxed – good-humoured even.

  ‘No, Charlie. I was in the military once, but now I’m an owner driver. I have my own little company, and I freelance.’

  ‘So if I’m working for you, who’re you working for?’

  ‘That’s a commercial secret. It’s legal, if that’s what’s worrying you.’

  ‘What about Doris?’

  ‘Doris is with me. Her brother was flying the aircraft. We told you . . .’

  I was going to ask several telling questions one after the other; then I thought better of it.

  ‘But there are interests here other than just the family’s?’

  ‘Bravo, Charlie.’ People have been saying Bravo, Charlie to me all of my life: I think the words must sort of go together. ‘Can you rustle us up some coffee? I’d kill for some.’

  Yes, master. You never know, maybe he would – he certainly had that look about him now.

  That night George and Doris retired early. I guess he must have missed her. I know I did. Chris drank with me down in the small bar until about ten, then he, too, made for the Land of Nod. He said he’d had a long day. He was a nice laid-back Somerset type who drank his whisky straight; like an Englishman. He was my age, although he’d worn better, and had been in the Engineers in the war.

  I asked him, ‘Building bridges and roads? That sort of thing?’

  ‘Yeah, I did some of that.’

  ‘What else did you do?’

  ‘I played a lot of golf, I remember that.’ It was the sort of thing I’d say to avoid the issue. ‘But most of the time I just carried a frying pan.’

  What the fuck George was taking a cook up a mountain with us for I had no idea. Maybe we were going to have a gourmet meal up among the clouds. Chris left me alone in the bar soon after that: perhaps I’d asked too many
questions.

  I smoked a pipe and chatted with Ean across the bar. He smoked his pipe too. I wasn’t keen to get my head down: I told you, I was missing Doris already and her interesting demands even more. I could still feel her tongue in my mouth; urgent like a wren. After sampling several drams Ean pointed out to me that I seemed to favour what he called the Highland malts, whereas he preferred those from Speyside. I held up my empty glass to him. He poured me an Islay Ardbeg, and I fell in love with it.

  Later I told him, ‘These people I’m with?’

  ‘Aye?’

  ‘I’m not so sure of them.’

  After a longish pause, during which Ean took a large sip of his whisky and rolled it around in his mouth, he asked, ‘And why are you telling me?’

  ‘Because you’re coming up the hill with us tomorrow. I thought it fair that you should know I had my doubts.’

  He nodded.

  ‘OK. Fine. Thank you.’

  Appearances can be deceptive, can’t they? I asked him, ‘What did you do in the war?’

  ‘Lovat Scouts.’

  ‘Pegasus Bridge?’

  ‘Margaret doesn’t like me to talk about it.’

  So that was that, then. Another hard bastard. We were probably in good hands. We went back to teaching me the finer points of whisky appreciation.

  Before I left him he asked, ‘Can your people be ready to go by ten-thirty tomorrow morning?’

  ‘Yeah. I warned them it could be even earlier.’

  ‘Good. One last point . . .’

  ‘OK. What?’

  ‘If I say the weather’s no good, we don’t go . . . and no one argues.’

  ‘I’ll tell them, but George may not like it.’

  ‘Yon Doris says that often, doesn’t she?’

  That was interesting. I wonder what Ean had been up to when she told him that?

  It rained. It was bloody Scotland, after all; why should I have expected anything different?

  Ean said we weren’t going.

  George’s mouth turned down, but he spent the day in the small bar playing cards with me, Chris and a couple of shepherds. George didn’t win at every game, and didn’t seem to mind losing. You have to watch people like that. Ean watched a hand or two later on, and told us, ‘The forecast is fine for tomorrow. You can reckon we’ll be out on the hill.’