Call of the Curlew

by Elizabeth Brooks

‘Well, good afternoon,’ he said, after a very long pause. ‘I hope you’ll forgive the interruption.’

  Virginia imagined their eyes locking on to his, and the three of them struggling for comprehension; searching for some way to break the unthinkable impasse they found themselves in.

  Virginia heard a strangled yelp, which might have been Lorna saying, Max, and then a lot of flapping, fumbling sounds as she and Jozef grappled with blankets and clothes.

  ‘Please don’t move on my account,’ Mr Deering insisted politely, and they stopped at once. The coldness of his tone was like a sharp knife running from the nape of Virginia’s neck all the way down her spine, and she felt as if she was being slit open like a fish and turned inside out. If she didn’t ask herself What have I done? it was only because she didn’t dare touch on such a question. It was bad enough that she’d just remembered – really remembered – who Jozef was: not a Nazi after all, and certainly not Clem’s murderer, but the good man who’d written ‘Call of the Curlew’ just for her, and made a gift of it for her twelfth birthday.

  Virginia took a few steps down the landing, away from the attic door, because she had to get away from the possibility of Jozef’s voice. She couldn’t bear to hear him say her name – Was that Virginia on the stairs? Was that Virginia who told you where we were? She knew exactly how he’d say it, too. He’d sound sad, and a little bit surprised, but not the least bit cross – as if he blamed himself, more than anyone, for the whole fiasco. He’d have the same apologetic expression he’d been wearing that night when they first found him in the shed – she, Lorna and the empty shotgun.

  The shotgun. The idea of it went through her like an electric shock. She walked more quickly down the landing and broke into a run as she reached Clem’s study.

  The corner cupboard wasn’t locked this time – Lorna couldn’t have shut it again properly – but the bundle was there, exactly as it had been a year ago, and Virginia knelt down to peel away the cloths. Bracken must have heard the study door opening, or perhaps the scent of ammunition had tickled his nostrils, because he came padding up the stairs and nosed into the room with his stumpy tail wagging. Virginia tried to push him away but he refused to be discouraged, and when she pulled back the last fold he began panting and trotting round her in circles.

  Even before she’d touched the gun, its dangerous smell and gleam gave Virginia heart. She pictured herself poking the muzzle into Deering’s back (he’d be Deering then, not Mr Deering) and forcing him to walk ahead of her, down the stairs and out into the lane. Lost for words, his shoulders sagging, he’d turn to look at her as she stood on the doorstep with the gun in her hands. He’d know what to expect if he ever darkened the doorway of Salt Winds again.

  Of course, they’d thank her – Jozef and Lorna – and beg her to stay, but she’d refuse. She’d set off into the world with nothing but the gun and a small haversack, and maybe Bracken for company. She’d sleep under hedges and live off her wits, never straying far from the marsh and the possibility of Clem’s return. The power she would have … She stared at the weapon in its hessian wrappings, and the sulphurous smell of it seemed to go to her head like a dizzy spell. How strange that she’d never thought these things before.

  She slid her fingers underneath Clem’s gun and held it up, as if she was presenting a gift at an invisible altar. It was heavy enough to make her arms tremble, but not so heavy that she couldn’t manage. She went back to the Deering section of her fantasy, and watched his face turn white and sweaty, and his mouth drop open. He’d have to loosen the knot in his tie just to catch a proper breath. She thought about the things she could make him do and say. The grovelling apologies. The promises.

  Virginia staggered to her feet, one hand gripping the wooden stock, the other supporting the barrel of the gun. Once she was up, she tried to swing it under her arm, but she was clumsy and the whole thing slid to the floor with a thud, narrowly missing her foot. Bracken barked excitedly, just as Mr Deering appeared in the open doorway. His expression was grave, but he didn’t blanch or tremble or struggle for breath at the sight of her. If anything, his features lightened.

  ‘Good girl,’ he said, swinging the gun into his arms as if it weighed nothing at all, and snapping it open. Virginia had forgotten that it wasn’t loaded, but he seemed to know just by looking at it. ‘Great minds, eh? Now, where did Clem keep … the … ah, here we are.’

  Mr Deering only needed to look in a couple of drawers to find what he wanted. He fitted the fresh cartridges in no time and clicked the mechanism shut with a practised hand.

  ‘Good old Clem.’ He raised the gun to his cheek and aimed it at Virginia’s head, before lowering it with a laugh and giving her shoulder a friendly prod. The feel of the metal through her dress made her catch her breath; it felt as tensed and alive as a tightened fist.

  ‘Well?’ he smiled. ‘Are you coming? Oh, hand me those binoculars, would you?’

  Impossible to hesitate; impossible to ask why. Virginia unhooked the binoculars from the back of Clem’s chair and passed them to Mr Deering, and he hung the strap round his neck. She thought he’d leave the room first, but he bowed and made a little flourish with his hand, inviting her to lead the way.

  The cardboard had been ripped away from the window and daylight seeped across the attic floor like dirty water. Jozef and Lorna sat side by side on the old settee, like two children waiting to see the dentist. At least they were semi-clothed now: Jozef had managed to get his trousers on and Lorna was wearing his jacket. She’d pulled it tight across her chest with one hand and over the tops of her thighs with the other, which kept her just about decent but wasn’t effective at hiding her pregnant stomach. When the others came in, Jozef laid a hand on her bare knee.

  Mr Deering repositioned the rocking chair so that it faced the settee, before relaxing into it with the shotgun under one arm. Virginia loitered at his shoulder with her eyes on the floor, but she felt like his stooge, standing there.

  ‘Where are you off to?’ he enquired as she crept away, and she returned to stand beside him. Every time he spoke, he stroked the trigger of the gun with his forefinger, but other than that he sat completely still.

  Virginia’s gaze wandered towards the settee. There was a brown-paper parcel on the floor beside Jozef’s feet, addressed in big, bold letters to Corbett & Cole Publishing House, Bedford Square, London. Whenever Mr Deering seemed briefly distracted – by dust on the wooden part of the gun, or the dog sniffing round his legs – Jozef would feel about for the parcel with one foot and try to push it backwards, out of view. He didn’t try for long; Mr Deering was too much on his guard.

  Bracken pottered about the room, sniffing briefly at Lorna’s toes. Nothing very interesting seemed to be happening, in spite of his hopes, so he yawned and flopped down on his belly. With his tongue hanging out and his mouth drawn up, he looked as if he was laughing quietly to himself.

  ‘Now then, Herr Friedmann, where had we got to?’ Mr Deering settled back in his seat. ‘You were telling me how you bailed out of your burning plane, only to find yourself lost on the marsh, with the tide drawing in. And suddenly you saw a man coming towards you through the gloom, with a torch?’

  Jozef stared straight at his interrogator, and his fingers tightened on Lorna’s knee. Not just a man of words and kindnesses, thought Virginia, but a pilot. An ace. A dicer with death.

  ‘That’s correct,’ he said, haltingly. ‘It was Clem – he told me he was called Clem, and that he would help me. I was wet through and cold, and hurting all over, especially my arm. He gave me brandy from a little flask, and when I couldn’t stop shivering he made me wear his coat. He kept pointing to the big house on the horizon and saying, “Let’s get you home, old chap.” I remember how he kept calling me “old chap”. He wanted us to hurry because of the tides, but I wasn’t very fast. I tried, but I kept falling down—’

  ‘Enough!’ Mr Deering held up his left hand for silence. ‘It’s a lovely tale, and you tell it awfully we
ll, old chap. But it’s not what really happened, is it? Would you like me to describe what really happened?’

  Jozef looked at the gun and gestured helplessly. ‘As you please, but I think you will be wrong.’

  Mr Deering jerked forwards, his hands tightening on the gun, and Lorna recoiled. Her jacket slipped open as she tried to cover her stomach with her hands, and that made him laugh. He leaned back, pleasant and relaxed, and crossed his ankles.

  ‘This is what really happened, Herr Friedmann. Along comes Clem, as you say, with his brandy and his nice, dry coat, and he says, Let’s make for that house over there, old chap: that’s Salt Winds, where I’ve lived all my life in peace and plenty. I’d be more than happy to let you sit in the kitchen for half an hour, while you’re waiting for the police to come and cart you off to a prisoner-of-war camp, because that’s just the sort of generous fellow I am. My beautiful young wife might even make you a cup of tea, if you play your cards right.’

  Jozef opened his mouth to speak, but Mr Deering shook his head.

  ‘I haven’t finished yet. So off you both plod, and Clem shows you how to dodge the tides, and the sinking sands, and before very long the ground starts feeling solid under your feet, and the sea is no longer so loud in your ears. Well, well, you think to yourself. I believe I can manage on my own from here. I don’t need this soft-headed Englishman to show me the way. What’s the point of him? That comfortable house could be mine, and his pretty wife too, if I only—’

  ‘If I only what?’ Jozef scoffed, standing up and sitting down again. ‘If I only put every instinct aside and murder this man – my rescuer – in cold blood?’

  Mr Deering sighed gently and rocked the chair back and forth with his foot. An excitable opponent was always a pleasure to him; Virginia had noticed that before. He seemed to find it calming.

  ‘And please, how am I supposed to have done this murder, when I was injured and tired?’ Jozef went on, his voice rising. ‘Did I strangle him with one hand? Mmm? Or … or stove his head in with a rock? I tell you, the tide snaked in and separated us. I saw him. I saw—’

  ‘Please.’ Mr Deering closed his eyes, as if he found the conversation wearisome. ‘I’m not interested in your version of events, Herr Friedmann. Really, I’m not.’

  Jozef lifted his hands impatiently and let them drop again.

  ‘Clem said the conditions were not so bad,’ he insisted fiercely. ‘“Someone will come and help us,” he said. “Max Deering will come, my old boyhood pal; he knows the marsh like the back of his hand; he won’t let us down – not when it really matters.” That’s what Clem said.’

  Mr Deering got up and strolled to the window, and the lovers squeezed hands, quickly, while he wasn’t looking. The sky was still stormy, but the marsh itself was starkly clear, as if it had just been washed and rinsed, and Virginia didn’t need binoculars to see all the way to the ruler-straight horizon. Gulls blew about, their wings spread wide, like brilliant-white motes on the black wind.

  There were pink patches on Mr Deering’s cheeks as he lowered the binoculars and turned back to the room, but his tone was as reasonable as ever.

  ‘All I’m asking,’ he said, ‘is that you go back where you came from. That’s all.’

  Jozef frowned uncertainly. ‘You want me to return to Germany?’

  ‘No, no. Not that far. Just …’ Mr Deering gestured towards the window with the gun. ‘Just back to the spot where Clem found you. And if you make it that far, which, knowing the tides as I do’ – he clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and glanced at his watch – ‘is highly unlikely, then I want you to keep walking till you reach the sea.’ He dipped the binoculars, the way you might dip a glass if you were toasting someone at a party. ‘I shall watch your progress with interest, from here.’

  Silence lengthened like a shadow across the room.

  ‘And if I get as far as the sea?’

  ‘Well, then you’ll have to start swimming, won’t you?’ Mr Deering laughed. ‘Who knows? Maybe you will make it back to the Fatherland, after all.’

  Jozef’s fingers stirred on Lorna’s knee.

  ‘And if I fail to do as I’m told? What if I veer off, back to shore? What are you going to do about that, Mr Deering? Take pot-shots at me from the window?’

  Everyone’s eyes followed Max as he stepped over the sleeping dog and settled in the rocking chair again.

  ‘My dear old chap.’ The wicker seat creaked under his weight as he crossed his legs, resting the shotgun on his raised knee so that it pointed – casually, and with no apparent intent – at Lorna’s belly. ‘You can, of course, do as you like. There’s nothing to stop you from calling at the vicarage for tea.’

  Lorna stared at the pointing gun, and then at Mr Deering’s face, pulling the jacket as tight as it would go. Words hovered on the tip of her tongue, as if she was daring herself to speak out loud; her mouth formed the shapes, but no sound came out. She cleared her throat and tried again.

  ‘You wouldn’t, Max,’ she said huskily. It wasn’t a plea so much as a shaky assertion of faith.

  Mr Deering watched her musingly, as if wondering how best to reply, and then it came to him. In one long, fluid movement – as if it was as natural a gesture as shrugging his coat on, or smoothing his hair – he raised the shotgun to his shoulder and fired. The walls of the attic seemed to contract for a second, before bouncing back into place, and Virginia felt – rather than heard – the explosion, like a pain inside her ears.

  She uncovered her eyes and stood up straight, but it took her a while to work out what had happened. Lorna was hunching forwards with her hands over her head, and Jozef was holding her body tight in his arms, and for a moment Virginia thought Mr Deering had managed to kill them both with one shot. But then Lorna shouted, ‘What happened? What has he done?’ and the two of them parted slowly and sat up, their lips and eyes drawn downwards, like old people with a lifetime’s suffering behind them.

  ‘Bracken,’ said Jozef.

  The dog was lying on his side with his legs stretched out, just as he had been before – only now there was an oozing crater in his head where there’d once been an eye, and there were strings of flesh and blood spattered across the floorboards and over Lorna’s naked toes.

  ‘Poor thing,’ said Mr Deering, lazily rocking the chair so that the runners made a rhythmic rumble. ‘It’s not even as if he’d done anything to deserve it.’

  Lorna let go of Jozef’s hand and shuffled forwards, until she was sitting right on the edge of the settee. Perhaps it was just the dull light that made her face look grey, but Virginia couldn’t shake the notion that the colour was actually leaking, like ink, away from her skin and hair.

  ‘Max,’ she began, in a low voice. ‘Please, stop this. Please. Listen to me. I will do anything. I will promise never to see Jozef again. We can turn him in to the police – today, now, if you like – and you and I will get married as soon as ever we can—’

  That was the wrong thing to say; Virginia could have told her she was on the wrong tack. Mr Deering stopped rocking and spat out a laugh.

  ‘Get married?’ he snorted. ‘You think I’d touch you, after this?’

  Mr Deering’s fingers started to dance around the trigger again. It was the first time all afternoon that his voice had risen above a drowsy drawl, and it left him breathing heavily. When Virginia glanced sideways, she could see the whites of his staring eyes.

  ‘It’s me,’ she piped up. ‘It’s me you want to do things to, isn’t it? Not Lorna.’

  Her skin burned, not just because of what she’d said, but because she was speaking at all. A reedy little voice – a child’s voice – had no place here, amidst all this adult murk and gore. It sounded ridiculous. Irrelevant. Puny. No wonder Mr Deering looked straight ahead, as if he’d gone deaf. No wonder Lorna turned and stared at her, as if she was speaking in tongues.

  ‘I’m just saying …’ Virginia bit her lip, remembering the feel of his spidery hand on her skin
. ‘I just mean …’

  ‘Don’t say anything else.’ Jozef shook his head and stood up. ‘Virginia, please. I won’t let you bargain with this man.’

  Lorna seized Jozef round the waist and tried to pull him back down, but there was no holding him. Once he was up, he turned and kissed her on the eyes, nose and lips, lingering for a moment, pressing his forehead against hers.

  ‘Don’t go.’ The words dropped like stones from Lorna’s mouth – dull and emphatic – and Jozef closed his eyes. Then he gathered up her clingy hands and laid them on her lap, as if they were a gift he wanted her to have.

  Jozef started pulling a navy sweater over his head, but Mr Deering ordered him to stop.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just do as you’re told.’

  Jozef took the sweater off again and dropped it on the floor. Mr Deering ran the gun’s snout over his prisoner’s shoulders and down his spine, in the shape of a capital T.

  ‘Your skin is as white as a girl’s,’ he said. ‘I’ll be able to see you better, like this, when I’m watching from the window.’

  On his way to the door, Jozef touched Virginia’s arm, and she thought he was going to say something desperate, or reproachful: Take care of Lorna, perhaps, or May God forgive you.

  Perhaps he thought about these things, because he hesitated for some time, but in the end he kissed her on the cheek and whispered in her ear, so softly and swiftly that the others wouldn’t suspect: ‘Remember “The Curlew”.’

  The three of them remained, still and silent, while his footsteps faded down the stairs: Lorna bunched up at one end of the settee, Deering at the window with his hands tight around the gun, Virginia like a pillar of salt in the middle of the room.

  After the front door had shut, their silence deepened, and it was only when Mr Deering said, ‘There he goes!’ that Virginia managed to stir. She lowered herself on to the creaky settee, as cautious as if she risked waking someone, and slid the parcel out of sight with her foot. Five minutes went by and the roof slates rattled like bones in a gust of wind.