A Place of Hiding

by Elizabeth George

  “Oh yes. We can do, of course,” Arabella assured him. “We'll make all the arrangements and transport the body to the States Crematorium. You'll just need to pick out the urn. Let me show you . . .” She leaned forward and he caught the scent of her perfume, a pleasant fragrance that he knew was probably a comfort to those who needed comfort. Even he, who didn't need her condolences, was reminded from it of being held close to his mother's breast. How did scent-makers know what odour would produce that quick trip backwards in memory? he wondered.

  “There are different sorts,” Arabella went on. “Your choice can be governed by what you want to do with the ashes. Some people find it a comfort to keep them, while others—”

  “No urn,” Frank interrupted. “I'll just take the ashes as they come. In a box. In a bag. However they come.”

  “Oh. Well, of course.” Her face was utterly dispassionate. It was not for her to comment upon what the loved ones of the departed did with the departed's remains, and she'd been trained well enough to know that. Frank's decision would not bring Markham & Swift the business they were probably used to, but that was not Frank's problem.

  So the arrangements were made quickly and with a minimum of fuss. In very little time, Frank found himself climbing behind the wheel of the Peugeot, negotiating his way down Brock Road and afterwards up towards St. Sampson's harbour.

  It had been an easier process than he had expected. He'd left the cottage first, going to the other two adjoining cottages to check on their contents and to lock their doors for the night. Returning then, he'd gone to his father, who sprawled unmoving at the base of the stairs. He'd cried out, “Dad! God! I told you never to climb . . .” as he rushed to his side. He found his father's breathing was shallow, nearly nonexistent. He paced the floor and looked at his watch. After ten minutes, he went to the phone and punched in emergency. He made his report. Then he waited.

  Graham Ouseley died before the ambulance got to Moulin des Niaux. As his soul passed from earth to judgement, Frank found himself weeping for both of them and for what they had lost, which was how the paramedics came upon him: crying like a child and cradling his father's head, where a single bruise marked the spot where his forehead had struck the stairs.

  Graham's personal physician was in quick attendance, clamping a heavy paw on Frank's shoulder. He would have gone quickly, Dr. Langlois informed him. He probably had a heart attack trying to get up the stairs. Too much strain, you know. But considering how little bruising there was on the face . . . Chances were very good that he was unconscious when he hit the wooden step and dead shortly thereafter with no knowledge even of what had suddenly happened to him.

  “I'd just gone to lock up the cottages for the night,” Frank explained, feeling the tears on his cheeks drying to burn the cracked skin round his eyes. “When I came back . . . I'd always told him never to try . . .”

  “They're independent, these old blokes,” Langlois said. “I see this all the time. They know they're not spry but they're not about to be a burden to anyone, so they just don't ask for what they need when they need it.” He squeezed Frank's shoulder. “Very little you could have done to change that, Frank.”

  He'd stayed while the 'medics brought in their trolley and he'd lingered even after the body was borne away. Frank had felt compelled to offer him tea, and when the doctor confided, “Wouldn't say no to a whisky,” he brought forth and poured two fingers of Oban single malt and watched the other man down it appreciatively.

  Before he left, Langlois said, “The suddenness of it all when a parent goes is a shock, no matter how much we prepare ourselves. But he was . . . what? Ninety?”

  “Ninety-two.”

  “Ninety-two. He would have been prepared. They are, you know. That lot, that age. They had to be prepared half a century ago. I expect he thought any day he lived after nineteen-forty was a gift from God.”

  Frank desperately wanted the man to be gone, but Langlois prattled on, telling him what he least wanted to hear: that the mould into which such men as Graham Ouseley had been poured at birth had long since been broken; that Frank should rejoice at having had such a father and for so many years, indeed into his own senior age; that Graham had been proud of having such a son with whom he could live in peace and harmony even unto death; that Frank's tender and unceasing devotion had meant much to Graham . . .

  “Treasure that,” Langlois told him solemnly. Then he'd gone, leaving Frank to climb the stairs to his room, to sit on the bed, to lie on it eventually, and to wait dry-eyed for the future to arrive.

  Now, having reached South Quay, he found himself trapped in St. Sampson. Behind him traffic from The Bridge was backing up as shoppers left the commercial precinct of the town and headed for their homes while in front of him, a tailback extended all the way to Bulwer Avenue. There, at the junction, an articulated lorry had apparently made too sharp a turn into South Quay and was jack-knifed in an impossible position with too many vehicles trying to get past it, too little space in which to manoeuvre, and too many people hanging about offering advice. Seeing this, Frank jerked the Peugeot's wheel to the left. He eased out of the traffic and onto the edge of the quay, where he parked facing the water.

  He got out of the car. The dressed granite of the harbour walls enclosed few boats at this time of year, and the December water that lapped against the stones had the advantage of being free from the petrol slicks of high summer left by careless casual boaters who were the constant bane of local fishermen. Across the water at the north end of The Bridge, the shipping yard sent forth its cacophony of pounding, welding, scraping, and cursing as craft brought out of the water for the winter were overhauled for the future season. While Frank knew what each sound was and how each related to the work being done on the boats in the yard, he let it stand in place of something else altogether, transforming the pounding to the steady march of jackboots on cobblestones, the scraping to the rasp of a slide arm as a rifle was cocked, the cursing to the orders given—understandable in any language—when it was time to fire.

  He couldn't rid his head of the stories, even now, when he most needed to: fifty-three years of them, told over and over but never worn out and never unwelcome until this moment. Yet still, they came on, whether he wanted them or not: 28 June 1940, 6:55 P.M. The steady drone of approaching aircraft and the steadier rise of dread and confusion in those gathered at the harbour in St. Peter Port to see the mail steamer off, as was their simple custom, and in those whose lorries were queued up to deposit their loads of tomatoes into the holds of the cargo vessels . . . There were too many people in the area and when the six planes came, they left the dead and the wounded behind them. Incendiary bombs dropped upon the lorries and high explosives blew them into the sky, while machine guns strafed the crowd without regard. Men, women, and children.

  Deportations, interrogations, executions, and enslavements all came after that. As did the immediate winnowing out of drops of Jewish blood and the countless proclamations and mandates. Hard labour for this and death by firing squad for that. Control of the press, control of the cinema, control of information, control of minds.

  Black marketeers rose up to make a profit from the misery of their fellows. Unlikely heroes developed from farmers with radio receivers hidden in their barns. A people, reduced to scavenging for food and scavenging for fuel, marked time in circumstances that seemed forgotten by the rest of the world as the Gestapo moved among them, watching, listening, and waiting to pounce on anyone who made a single wrong move.

  People died, Frankie. Right here on this island, people suffered and died because of the Hun. And some people fought him only way that they could. So don't you ever forget that, lad. You walk proud. You come from stock that knew the worst of times and lived to tell about them. Isn't just any lad on this island can say that about what happened here, Frank.

  The voice and the memories. The voice continually instilling the memories. Frank could shake neither one, even now. He felt he'd be haunted the rest of h
is life. He could drown himself in the Lethe, but that would not suffice to wipe clean his brain.

  Fathers were not supposed to lie to their sons. If they chose to become fathers in the first place, it should be to pass along the life's truths that they'd learned at the knee of experience. Whom else could the son of a man trust if not the man himself?

  That was what it came down to for Frank as he stood alone on the quayside, observing the water but seeing instead a reflection of the history that had ruthlessly moulded a generation of islanders. It came down to trust. He'd given it as the only gift a child can ever give to the distant and awesome figure of his parent. Graham had taken this trust happily and then abused it mightily. What then remained was the frail latticework of a relationship built of straw and glue. The rough wind of revelation had destroyed it. The insubstantial structure itself might never have been.

  To have lived more than half a century pretending he was not responsible for the deaths of good men . . . Frank did not know how he would ever scrape together a fond feeling for his father from the foul detritus which that single fact left in Graham Ouseley's wake. He did know he could not do it now. Perhaps someday . . . If he reached the same age . . . If he looked on life differently at that point in time . . .

  Behind him, he heard the line of traffic begin to move at last. He turned and saw that the lorry at the junction had finally managed to disentangle itself from its situation. He climbed back into his own car then and eased into the stream of vehicles leaving St. Sampson. He headed with them towards St. Peter Port, picking up speed at last when he cleared the industrial area in Bulwer Avenue and burst from it onto the road that followed the elongated crescent of Belle Greve Bay.

  He had another stop to make before returning to the Talbot Valley, so he kept on south with the water on his left and St. Peter Port rising like a grey terraced fortress on his right. He wound up through the trees in Le Val des Terres and pulled into Fort Road not fifteen minutes after the time he'd agreed to appear at the Debieres' house.

  He would have preferred to avoid another conversation with Nobby. But when the architect had phoned him and had been so insistent, habitual guilt produced sufficient motivation for Frank to say, “Very well, I'll call in” and to name the time he'd most likely turn up.

  Nobby answered the door himself and took Frank into the kitchen, where in the apparent absence of his wife, he was getting the boys' tea. The room was unbearably hot, and Nobby was greasy-faced with sweat. The air was heavily laden with the odour of a batch of fish fingers previously burnt. From the sitting room came the noise of a computer game in operation, with suitable explosions rhythmically sounding as the player skilfully obliterated bad guys.

  “Caroline's in town.” Nobby bent to inspect a baking sheet that he eased out of the oven. The current set of fish fingers steamed upon it, producing a further malevolent odour. He grimaced. “How can they stand these things?”

  “Anything their parents hate,” Frank noted.

  Nobby shoved them onto the work top and used a wooden spoon to push them onto a plate. He grabbed a bag of frozen chips from the fridge and dumped these onto the baking sheet, which he returned to the oven. In the meantime, on the hob a pan boiled enthusiastically. It sent a cloud of steam to hover like the ghost of Mrs. Beeton above them.

  Nobby stirred this and lifted out a spoonful of peas. They were unnaturally green, as if dyed. He looked at them doubtfully, then dropped them back into the boiling water. He said, “She should be here for this. She's better at it. I'm hopeless.”

  Frank knew that his former pupil had not phoned him for a cooking lesson, but he also knew he wouldn't be able to stand it much longer in the overheated kitchen. So he took over, seeking out a colander into which he dumped the peas, then covering them and the odious fish fingers with foil while the chips were cooking. This done, he opened the kitchen window and said, “What did you want to see me about, Nobby?” to the other man, who'd gone to set the table for his sons.

  “She's in town,” he said.

  “You mentioned that.”

  “She's applying for a job. Ask me where.”

  “All right. Where?”

  Nobby gave a laugh, utterly devoid of humour. “Citizens Advice Bureau. Ask me doing what.”

  “Nobby . . .” Frank was tired.

  “Writing their bloody pamphlets,” Nobby said with another laugh, this one high and sounding wild. “She's gone from Architectural Review to Citizens Advice. Credit that to me. I told her to resign. Write your novel, I told her. Go after your dream. Just like I did.”

  “I'm sorry it happened,” Frank said. “You can't possibly know how sorry.”

  “I don't expect I can. But here's the real kick in the arse: It was all for nothing. Right from the first. Have you realised that? Or did you know it all along?”

  Frank frowned. “How? What was . . . ?”

  Nobby had been wearing one of his wife's aprons, and he took this off and laid it on the back of a kitchen chair. He looked crazily as if he were enjoying their conversation, and his enjoyment increased with what he next revealed. The plans that Guy had arranged to have delivered from America were false, he said. He'd seen them himself, and they weren't legitimate. From what he could tell, they weren't even plans for a museum. So what did Frank Ouseley think of that?

  “He didn't intend to build a museum,” Nobby informed him. “It was all a game of build-'em-up-knock-'em-down. And we were the nine pins. You, me, Henry Moullin, and anyone else who would've been involved. Puff up our expectations with his big plans and then watch us squirm and beg as we get deflated: That was the story. The game went only as far as me, though. Then Guy got chopped and the rest of you were left hanging and wondering how to get the project up and running without him here to give his ‘blessing.' But I wanted you to know. No sense in my being the only one to have reaped the benefit of Guy's unusual sense of humour.”

  Frank struggled to digest this information. It ran contrary to everything he'd known about Guy and everything he'd experienced as the man's friend. Guy's death and the terms of his will had put paid to the museum. But that there had never been the intention of building it . . . Frank couldn't afford to think that now. Or ever, for that matter. The cost was too great.

  He said, “The plans . . . The plans that the Americans delivered . . . ?”

  “Phony as hell,” Nobby said pleasantly. “I saw them. A bloke from London brought them here. I don't know who drew them or what they're for, but what they aren't for is a museum down the lane from St. Saviour's Church.”

  “But he had to have . . .” What? Frank wondered. He had to have what? Known that someone would look closely at the plans? When? That night? He'd unveiled a skilled drawing of a building which he'd declared was the selected design, but no one had thought to ask him about the plans themselves. “He must have been duped,” Frank said. “Because he did intend to build that museum.”

  “With what money?” Nobby asked. “As you pointed out, his will didn't leave a penny towards building anything, Frank, and he didn't give Ruth the high sign that she was to fund it if something happened to him. No. Guy wasn't anyone's dupe. But we were. The lot of us. We played right along.”

  “There's got to be some sort of mistake. A misunderstanding. Perhaps he'd made a bad investment recently and lost the funds he intended to build with. He wouldn't have wanted to admit to that . . . He wouldn't have wanted to lose face in the community, so he carried on as if nothing had changed so no one would know . . .”

  “You think so?” Nobby made no effort to hide the incredulity in his voice. “You actually think so?”

  “How else can you explain . . . ? Wheels had already been set in motion, Nobby. He would have felt responsible. You'd left your job and set yourself up. Henry had invested in his glassmaking. There were stories in the paper and expectations in people's minds. He would have to confess or pretend to carry on if he'd lost that money, hoping that people would lose interest over time if he dragged h
is feet long enough.”

  At the table, Nobby crossed his arms. “That's what you actually think?” His tone suggested that the former student had become the present master. “Yes. Indeed. I can see how you might need to hold on to that belief.”

  Frank thought he saw the sudden realisation flash on Nobby's face: the fact that he himself—possessor of thousands of items of ostensibly beloved wartime memorabilia—did not want that material ever to see the light of day. And while that was indeed the truth of the matter, there was no way Nobby Debiere could have known it. The matter was too complicated for him to be able to suss out. As far as he knew, Frank Ouseley was just another disappointed member of the group who'd hung their hats on a scheme that had come to nothing.

  Frank said, “I suppose I'm reeling from all this. I just can't believe . . . There has to be an explanation somewhere.”

  “I've just given it to you. I only wish Guy were here so he could enjoy the result of his machinations. Look. Let me show you.” Nobby went to a corner of the work top, where it appeared that the family kept the day's post. Unlike the rest of the house, it was a messy area, with stacks of letters, magazines, catalogues, and telephone directories all piled together. From the bottom of this pile, Nobby brought out a single sheet and handed it over.

  Frank saw that it was the copy and the artwork for an advertisement. In it, a cartoon Nobby Debiere stood at a draughtsman's table on which was spread out some sort of drawing. Around his cartoon feet lay partially unrolled scrolls on which other drawings appeared. The copy introduced his new enterprise as Bertrand Debiere's Repairs, Refurbishments, and Renovations and the address of the establishment was right there on Fort Road.

  “I've had to let my secretary go, of course,” Nobby said with a forced cheer that was chilling to hear. “So she's out of work as well, which I'm sure would have delighted Guy no end had he only lived to see it happen.”

  “Nobby . . .”

  “And I'll be working from home, as you see, which is excellent, of course, since Caroline might be spending most of her time in town. I burned my bridges with the firm when I resigned, but no doubt in time I'll be able to get taken on by another if I haven't been blackballed altogether. Yes. It's wonderful, isn't it, to see how everything's turning out?” He took the advert from Frank's hand and shoved it, crumpled, beneath the telephone directory.