Perfect Gallows

by Peter Dickinson

  At Ferdinand’s first entrance Jean had frozen into a mumble and glanced in despair at Andrew. He had replied with an Uncle-Vole glare, and she had pulled herself together enough to make Cousin Brown clap her hands at the finish of the log-carrying scene.

  “Capital, really capital! Jean, you have come on, Now, Peter, there are just two or three little things …”

  Jean sidled over to Andrew.

  “You said he was nice!” she whispered.

  “I said he was all right.”

  “I think he’s perfectly horrible!”

  “Good.”

  “What do you mean good? It isn’t good at all!”

  “I mean that when you’re saying you think he’s the tops I’ll know you’re acting, which is what you’re supposed to be doing.”

  “Why can’t you be Ferdinand and him Prospero?”

  “Because then you wouldn’t have to act.”

  “Big-head.”

  “Now, listen. I thought he was going home this afternoon, but when he saw how posh the place was he decided to stay on. Cousin Elspeth’s going to ask you if you can do another rehearsal tomorrow, after luncheon.”

  “But that means we’re stuck with him all week-end!”

  “’Fraid so. You’ll have to go to the flicks alone.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Make him help me clean out the dovecote.”

  “I’ll come too.”

  “Not if you want a change from mucking-out.”

  “I want to be with you.”

  Peter, as Andrew had foreseen, was not much interested in the dovecote. For a while he sat on the ladder watching the other two shovel and sweep the encrusted bird-droppings down the central chute, but then decided that the smell was bringing on his asthma and left. When they’d finished clearing the floor Andrew made Jean climb the ladder, unbolted it and swung it round its circle. The effect was disappointing. Only a couple of doves came and went, instead of the storm of blurred white flutterings he’d imagined. The light was wrong, too—you needed horizontal bars through the flight-holes—and Jean should have been wearing a long cotton skirt, not breeches. He bolted the ladder firm.

  “Go on up,” he said. “There’s a trap-door at the top. It isn’t fastened.”

  As soon as she was off the ladder he followed her up into the empty whiteness of the eyrie. She was standing at a window, looking towards the camp. Over her shoulder he saw Peter chatting with a GI by the fence. Peter was enthralled by anything American—he’d probably end up in Hollywood playing smooth British cads in B movies. Something was happening in the camp. A line of lorries waited, right across the park, crammed with soldiers. The head of the line crawled into the trees and the rest moved up.

  “Hello,” he said. “The camp’s filling up. That’s a sentry Pete’s talking to. Look, there’s another one. You know what that means?”

  She wasn’t interested, but turned and put her arms round his waist.

  “Can’t you get rid of him?” she said.

  He kissed her for a little and broke off.

  “I’ve had an idea,” he said. “What time does Mrs O go to bed?”

  “I listen to the nine o’clock news and yell at her what’s happening and then she goes off.”

  “Right. Tomorrow evening I’ll start off back with Pete but I’ll fix my gears to pack in, something I can’t mend, I’ll say—he won’t bother to check—and I’ll tell him to go on alone. I’ll ask him to take a message to my digs. I’ll come back. Soon as Mrs O’s gone off you sneak down and climb out of her parlour window. I’ll wait for you under the copper beech just down the drive. We’ll go and count the stars coming out.”

  “All right. Lovely. But what about you—after, I mean?”

  “I can bike in to school early next morning.”

  “You’ll have to sleep somewhere.”

  “Here. This is my magic tower. I can make it pretty cosy.”

  “Cosy!”

  “It’ll be fine.”

  As you will find out, the Sunday after, he thought.

  FOUR

  On Friday morning Andrew found Mr Trinder leaning against the static-water tank ten yards beyond the school gate, seeming even more out of place in the blustery morning than he had done in the spring sunlight at the roadside six weeks ago. There he’d had a role—broken-down motorist—to account for his presence. Here he was a character strayed in from the wrong play, a beast of the adult night beside the morning tide of boys. He must have been watching them though his hat was tipped forward over his eyes and he seemed absorbed in yesterday’s racing results, because as soon as Andrew freewheeled round the corner he raised his hand and flicked a forefinger. Andrew scooted the bike across.

  “Morning, Mr Trinder.”

  “Not much of one, if you ask me. Going to have to put off this invasion of theirs.”

  “When’s it supposed to be?”

  “Monday, they’re saying, only not if the sea’s bad. Stupid little landing-­craft won’t take the waves. Catch me in one of them contraptions.”

  “Can’t they put it off?”

  “Not beyond Tuesday—after then it’s bleeding weeks. Something about the tides. How’ve you been keeping? Nice bike—present from someone?”

  “It’s so I can bike out and help one of my cousins put on a play.”

  “Nine to four it’ll be the old bard.”

  “The Tempest.”

  “Juvenile lead? Course you’d need platforms for that.”

  No, thought Andrew. I would make them see me those inches taller. He didn’t mind Mr Trinder’s remark, the way he resented it when Peter Boiler patronized him about his missing inches. Mr Trinder was objective, but interested. Interested in anything, knowing a bit about everything—the invasion, the theatre. It must have been how he worked. He was a sort of sea anemone, floating out soft tentacles of inquiry all round him, dragging back the scraps with money in them.

  “Character,” said Andrew. “The heroine’s dad, but it’s the lead role.”

  “Good for you. How’s everything else out there? Didn’t I hear as some chappie turned up saying as he was the old bugger’s son, one went missing?”

  “That’s right. Charles.”

  “And is he?”

  “Nobody knows. He’s lost his memory, but from the start he got a few things right which it looks as if only one of the family could’ve known. One of my cousins is sure he’s Charles and the other can’t make up her mind.”

  “It’s all down to the old bugger, innit?”

  “He’s been pretty feeble. I haven’t seen him for a while. He stays in his room and they’ve got a nurse in.”

  “Sounds like he better make up his mind bloody soon. And what about you, young feller? What’s your line?”

  Andrew shrugged.

  “Come off it,” said Mr Trinder. “Money’s money. Don’t tell me you ain’t changed your tune, now you’ve had a smell of it. Nice bike, that. Nice shoes—pair of Sir Arnold’s? You don’t see leather like that, not wartime, and they’d’ve set you back eighteen guineas before.”

  The bell had started to clank as he spoke.

  “I’ve got to go,” said Andrew.

  “Hang on—something you can do for me. Going out to visit your cousins soon?”

  “This evening.”

  Mr Trinder had moved slightly away from the tank and half turned towards it. In the angle between his body and the grey metal he slid a brown octavo envelope out of his newspaper, folded it and slipped it into the side pocket of Andrew’s blazer. “That’s for Abe Stephens,” he said. “Urgent. I’d run it out myself, but this bleeding invasion’s made that a bit dicey. I’m not in a position where I want to answer a lot of silly-bugger questions every half-mile. Shove it in among your books, eh? Lad on a bike won’t notice.”


  “OK. I’ve got a pass to let me into The Mimms. It seems to work at the road-blocks too.”

  “Just the job. Tell you what—I wouldn’t mind the loan of that one day for a couple of hours.”

  “Well …”

  “Make it worth your while.”

  “I’ve got to go. If we’re late they keep us at school, and then I don’t get out to The Mimms by supper.”

  “Feeding you OK?”

  “Mrs Mkele’s a terrific cook.”

  “Lashings of butter, that sort’s used to. Be good.”

  Now there were road-blocks in the smallest lanes, manned by stodgy bobbies or eager-beaver Home Guards. It was a dour evening for June, grey, with gusty showers and the odd glimmer of sun. You could tell the Channel would be rough. By now Andrew was used to biking out through a landscape crammed with armies, but this Friday he felt that the nature of the pressure had changed. The vessel was pumped full. It was ready, waiting. It couldn’t hold like that it must either subside or burst. There wasn’t a cranny that didn’t conceal troops or weapons. A few last bluebells still glimmered in the hedgerows but under the woods and copses they had all been mashed fiat. The gusts reeked not of green summer, but of frying from field kitchens, urine from latrines, exhaust fumes, hot metal, the oil of weapons, the acid of charging batteries, war.

  At the second road-block a corporal flipped briefly through Andrew’s satchel, but the envelope was clipped to his handlebar with his route sketched on the back. As an exercise in not thinking about Jean (he was determined not to stale the performance by over-rehearsal—Sunday had to be a real first night, the risks essential to the triumph) he considered while he biked on what it might hold.

  It was too thin to contain money. Mr Trinder wouldn’t put anything on paper—not if he could help it—so it wasn’t anything like a cheque or a receipt or an order for more whisky. He’d order by phone and pay in old notes. So it was something which had to be on paper. Something forged? The ration-books in the tea-pot might have been forged, not stolen—Andrew should have checked whether their numbers were different. And that’s why Mr Trinder had wanted the pass—to copy. He must have a tame printer somewhere. Anyway, he’d kept in touch with Sergeant Stephens. He knew what was happening in the house. You could tell, from the way he’d asked his questions—just that shade too off-hand. Same as last time, in the café on the docks. He knew the answers already. Couldn’t help hinting. That last pointless remark about the butter. Yes, it had to be Sergeant Stephens who’d told him. No one else knew that. But about Uncle Vole being worse? Well, Samuel might have said something to the sergeant—had Phil found anything out? It was getting urgent anyway, what was in the envelope wouldn’t have anything to do with that. A forged US Army form the sergeant wasn’t supposed to use, but needed to order more black-market supplies? In that case, was it a risk even to carry it out? Was that why Mr Trinder hadn’t wanted to take it himself? Wouldn’t it be best to stop and stuff it down a rabbit-hole? Or at least open it and see—he could tell the sergeant someone had done that at a road-block? No. Either of those would get him deeper involved. Ignorant messenger was least worst, though it was bad enough. It certainly cleared all debts to Mr Trinder. No question of lending the pass.

  There was a brass band on the tannoy, a Sousa march or something. At the camp gate, instead of the usual gum-chewing sentry, there was now a smart MP. Andrew explained his business.

  “Hey! Corp!” called the MP.

  A group of MPs stood just beyond the gate. An officer was looking at his wrist-watch. A line of lorries, their engines running, stretched all the way to the far wood. A corporal came striding over at the MP’s call. Andrew explained again. Sergeant Stephens’s name worked no magic.

  “Forget it, son,” said the corporal. “This is a military establishment. We have four thousand troops in here. We can’t allow citizens come assing around among then. You give it me, and I’ll despatch it up to Supply. OK, out of the gate, now.”

  A whistle blew and the first lorry crashed its gears and came churning on. The MP had waved Andrew to the wrong side of the entrance, so he was trapped and had to wait. The lorries had the sides of their canvas covers rolled up, so that the troops in them could look out, thirty or so GIs in full battle gear, steel helmets, rifles, huge back-packs. It could have been another exercise, but it wasn’t. You could tell from the men’s behaviour—some whooped, some chattered, some sat silent, but they all had a tension about them. The major at the gate saluted each truck as it passed. They were heroes, so he saluted them as he sent them off to die. How many? Which ones? You and you and you there, tugging at your chin-strap. The individual faces became blanks, pale oval targets propped there jiggling to the lurch of the lorry as they waited to be splattered into blood and bone and brain. Wasn’t that Phil? Andrew stared. The man stared back, the lorry swung out of sight and the dreadful anonymous parade continued, hypnotic, seeming to carry a magic beyond anything Andrew could command or control. It was as though his own soul sat invisible in every truck and was roared away, naked and helpless to the battle, leaving behind only a dissolving wrack of might-have-beens.

  A whistle blew again. The next truck halted at the gate, leaving a gap. Andrew shook himself out of his horror, rushed through, and escaped. As he went jolting down the pocked gravel of the unmended drive he realized that the man couldn’t have been Phil. The GIs in the lorries were assault troops who’d only come in the week before. Phil was one of the permanent camp staff, a cook, not an infantryman. Anyway, he was in Hull.

  “Wretched weather for their invasion, poor things,” said Cousin Blue, smearing a thick layer of butter into her open roll.

  “It is no more than a rumour,” said Cousin Brown. She always cut her roll into precise halves, whereas Cousin Blue grappled hers apart, but it was noticeable that she too had a full round of butter in front of her place and though less lavish than her sister was not expecting it to have to last a full week.

  “Nonsense,” said Cousin Blue. “They stopped all leave in the camp since Monday. General Odway has sent that frightful dog to kennels. The Library is full of packing cases. They are playing nice war-music up in the wood. I heard a lot of motor-lorries start up while I was dressing—oh, it’s all too exciting! Don’t you wish, Andrew, you were old enough to be going?”

  Like the men in the lorries? A crammed ship churning the dark sea? Dawn, and a landing-craft wallowing towards the shingle. Lines of shell-bursts whipping into the waves, nearer, nearer? A scream beside you?

  He forced Adrian into existence to speak and smile for him. “I’d be too sea-sick to enjoy it properly.”

  “Of course, dear Charles has been through … Samuel, is that the telephone?”

  “Going, miss.”

  Silence fell. Andrew was aware of something new, different from other week-ends, a tension, a sense of nervy waiting. The invasion? No. Anywhere else in England it might have been, but for all Cousin Blue’s excited prattle it wasn’t here. Here they lived on their dream island, with the war just something to talk about, a storm beyond their shores. It must be something else.

  Thanks to the road-blocks and the convoy at the camp gate Andrew had been only just in time to clean himself up for supper after his ride, so had had no chance to talk to Cousin Brown alone. He had to guess. Charles had perhaps changed a little, was surer of himself in certain ways, not so ready to play lovey-dovey with Cousin Blue the whole time. But he was very jumpy still. He looked a bit pinker in his cheeks, and that made the mottling of his nose less obvious. Uncle Vole had stayed in his room, so there was only one decanter of wine, not even full, just one glass each and after that water. Heavy drinkers get the jumps if they’re taken off, of course. It was hard to tell.

  Cousin Blue had talked more than usual, sighed less, tried to drag Charles in to every little bit of talk. Cousin Brown was very silent, almost morose, emitting little clicks of exaspera
tion sometimes at her sister’s remarks. But now nobody spoke while Samuel was out of the room, and as he came back all four heads turned towards him.

  For an instant as he stood in the doorway he seemed to share the tension, to embody it, but then he spread his hands and smiled.

  “Just a wrong number,” he said.

  Silence again, and the ebb of let-down.

  “Charles is going to help in your play,” said Cousin Blue. “Isn’t that fun? He’s going to be the King of … of somewhere in Italy.”

  “Naples,” said Andrew. Cousin Brown had made no effort to help.

  “Yes, of course. It will be quite like old times—it was the dressing up I liked best. Do you have a good leg, Charles? Hose can be so revealing. I almost wish there were a part still for me, only I fear I should forget my lines.”

  “Which would make it even more like old times,” said Cousin Brown.

  “Try not to be catty, dear.”

  Silence again. The tension beginning to return. Andrew almost missed Uncle Vole’s slurpings and suckings.

  “How is Sir Arnold?” he asked.

  Instantly he knew that this was it.

  “Not very well,” said Cousin Brown.

  “It is too dreadful,” said Cousin Blue. “And he has been so good to us over the years. Samuel, is there any more of that sauce?”

  “Coming, Miss May.”