He paused. ‘If you don’t mind me saying so, Mrs Groves, I think it’s a little foolish to come up here on your own – even if this is a short cut to the High Street.’
‘With this man about?’
The policeman said nothing, making her feel stupid.
‘Do you think he’s hiding somewhere?’ Now she sounded too gossipy. Lucy just couldn’t get the tone of the conversation right. Maybe it was the shock.
‘We’ve searched the vicinity and found no trace of anyone so far. But you can’t be too careful.’
‘Of course not.’
‘I’ll let you get on, Mrs Groves.’
‘Were you trying to see Mrs Davis?’ she asked him. ‘Because that’s where I’m going now.’ She gave a strained half-laugh. ‘I mean, I’m going to meet her for coffee. At Caves Café in the High Street.’
‘No. I don’t need to see her again at the moment. I’m just taking a stroll. Having a think.’
Lucy paused. ‘Oh, by the way – did you ever get anywhere about the shed fire on Mr Davis’s property?’
‘We’re looking into it, madam.’
‘I’ll be getting on then.’
Frasier raised his hat to her and passed on, his shoes shuffling the leaves, his back comfortingly matter-of-fact.
Lucy walked on for a few yards and then turned round to see how far he had got. She saw Frasier was watching her, a benign presence, raising a hand in reassuring farewell.
As Lucy trudged up Clive Road, she felt exhausted. The broken night with Tim, the decision she had forced on him, the game they were playing, the discomforting walk and the meeting with Frasier had taxed her almost beyond endurance. All she wanted to do was to go home to bed. Having locked the doors first, of course.
Tim would protect her when he got home. Despite all his troubles, Lucy had no doubt about that. That’s what she had once thought men were for. Her father had always protected her. Then she and Tim had bought Gables and she swapped one protector for another.
Suppose the men had not returned from the war? How would she have coped on her own? But Lucy already knew the answer. She would have gone on living with her father. Another thought surfaced, this time more deeply buried. Living with her father had been such a certain experience. When Tim had come home as an artful shadow, life had become so dreadfully uncertain.
Protection. The image of last Guy Fawkes night returned. The men outside, gumbooted and overcoated. Setting up the display. Locked into their own pomposity. The women inside, chattering over sherry, their conversation eventually cut short by a muttered command. Then, with Alice Davis as the statutory child, the firework display was begun by the three men, the women herded into an enclosure between the wall and the flower-beds. The little ladies had been made safe.
Why couldn’t she and May and Sally have lit the fireworks? Why couldn’t the men have watched? Why couldn’t the men have been ‘made safe’?
Later they had all repaired to the chintzy lounge in Conifers to watch the ‘goggle box’. The Davises had been the first to have a television and the thing stood in their lounge behind a pair of double doors veneered in walnut, looking like a rather ugly cocktail cabinet. The little screen inside was only about ten inches across, but Lucy and Tim had often been invited to watch a variety of bland transmissions which had forcibly reminded her of an evening class. Gardening hints from Fred Streeter, cookery lessons from Philip Harben, even Eric Robinson’s Music For You had a light, ephemeral flavour to it. Lucy had also suffered extreme boredom at the hands of clog dancers, cabaret artistes and Czech jugglers. Only What’s My Line with Lady Barnet, Lady Boyle, Barbara Kelly and in particular the irascible Gilbert Harding cheered her. She had liked his acerbic pronouncements. May had not. Sally had been flustered. The Men had roared hearty, masculine appreciation. Tim had slept.
Caves Café buzzed with home county accents, and the closely packed tables were crammed with women sipping the weak coffee and munching a dry biscuit or a plain piece of Madeira cake.
Rain had set in outside, lashing the High Street; the interior fug had steamed the windows and there was an underlying smell of wet mackintosh. Lucy felt a twinge of irony. Smells again. She was developing a complex.
May, Sally and Lucy sat at a table in the corner of the café. They met here once a week, confirming their friendship with news of what had happened to them since they had last met -usually only a few hours ago.
Lucy found the company and the café oppressive, particularly of late, and she had made several excuses to stay at home, excuses that had been greeted with some disquiet, as if she had temporarily resigned the membership of a compulsory club.
Now she was back, explaining what had happened with the policeman in the Cut whilst her mind was dominated by Tim and what she had forced him to agree to.
When Lucy had finished, Sally began to protest. Tm sure they haven’t thoroughly searched the neighbourhood. There were a few officers in the garden yesterday, until they wandered off somewhere else. Of course that man Frasier was with us both for a very long time. He seemed surprised we knew so little about poor Baverstock. But why should we know the personal history of a gardener from Hersham? And they’ve got nowhere over the fire.’
William Tell, split apple and all, ran across Lucy’s mental horizon. Was the wretched Hersham brat becoming an obsession like the smells?
‘I’ve told Nancy Dexter to keep Alice away from the Cut,’ continued Sally firmly.
May was more conciliatory. ‘I’ve seen a lot of police on the common. I’m sure they’re being thorough.’
She relies on authority, thought Lucy, but then why shouldn’t she? She’s married to Martin.
Sally continued to talk about the incompetence of the police and how much Lucy had been at risk for some time, until May looked impatient. Abruptly Lucy changed the subject.
‘There’s something else,’ she said anxiously, needing their approbation but knowing instinctively that she wasn’t going to get it. ‘Tim and I are going to France.’
The statement was followed by a long, startled pause, during which Lucy noticed May and Sally giving each other a brief covert glance. Are they the enemy within, she wondered. The men’s lackeys? Co-conspirators?
‘When?’ asked Sally abruptly.
‘I’m not sure. Soon. Tim’s owed some holiday,’ she replied limply. ‘And I’ve got the language.’
‘Where are you going?’ May was brightly curious.
‘To the Havre peninsula.’ Lucy suddenly felt like giggling, watching the astonished expressions spread across their faces.
‘There?’ Sally’s jaw was set. ‘Why there?’
She glanced across at May, but she was looking down at her plate, at the biscuit crumbs on the table, anywhere but at Lucy. ‘Tim was ill again last night. He’s adamant he won’t accept any more psychiatric help.’ She paused. ‘He seems to think he might give something away.’
‘What on earth makes him think that?’ demanded Sally. ‘I mean – what could he give away?’ The reasonableness in her voice sounded ludicrously phoney.
‘It’s just a feeling I’ve got. I could be wrong,’ Lucy added, wondering if she was now seeing deception everywhere. ‘Perhaps it’s just his bad nerves.’
‘You – you’re traipsing off?’ demanded May.
‘I don’t know about traipsing. We’re going to take a couple of weeks touring in the car. I’m hoping we can talk.’
Sally lit a cigarette with savage concentration, looking absurd in her sudden pent-up fury. ‘Do you think that’s wise?’
‘Yes,’ said Lucy calmly. ‘I do.’
May looked up from her plate. ‘Isn’t the idea a little dangerous?’
‘Do you know what they went through?’ asked Lucy quietly. ‘I mean – really went through? Because I don’t. I mean – do Peter and Martin talk about it to either of you?’
‘We’ve had this conversation before,’ said May. ‘You know they don’t.’
‘I wish they wou
ld,’ volunteered Sally unexpectedly. ‘But Peter told me they weren’t allowed to discuss what happened.’ She paused and then rushed on quickly. ‘As you know, the army have offered more psychiatric help, but if Tim won’t take it they can’t force it on him. To go back might make him much worse. I wouldn’t go if I were you. I have to say I think May’s right.’
‘So what else do you suggest?’ asked Lucy flatly, angrily. Sally seemed to pronounce the word ‘psychiatric’ with considerable, almost distasteful, awkwardness.
‘There is another alternative,’ said May, with her usual thumping good common sense. ‘And I’m sure it lies with his specialist.’
‘You mean pills? He won’t take those either.’
‘He doesn’t exactly help himself, does he?’ Immediately penitent, Sally hurriedly took Lucy’s wrist in a firm, cool, cologne-scented hand. ‘I’m sorry. This awful murder’s made me so anxious and what with Alice and Nancy –’
‘Of course it has.’ Lucy was anxious to appease, to avoid any more confrontation. ‘It was the wrong time to bring all this up.’
‘No, it’s not,’ said May, pouring more coffee into Lucy’s cup in a brisk motherly way. ‘I know Tim’s in a bad state but I’m not sure France is the answer. I mean – have a holiday. I think that’s a very good idea.’
‘But not, perhaps, in the Havre peninsula.’ Sally smiled with sweet admonishment.
Lucy was seething with anger, but none of them had ever quarrelled and it seemed a particularly bad time to start now.
‘I wonder what would have happened if the men hadn’t come back?’ she asked spontaneously and immediately wished she hadn’t.
May, however, surprised them all, perhaps even herself. ‘They didn’t come back in the old way. They’ve all changed.’ She paused, stirring at the grouts of her coffee. ‘But that’s what happens, isn’t it?’ She hesitated again and then continued rather lamely. ‘I expect we’ve changed too.’
Lucy fumbled in her bag to find change for her share of the bill.
‘There’s a minuscule currant in this piece of cake,’ said Sally, holding it up for inspection. ‘I call that a good omen.’
Lucy walked back down the hill that eventually led to Hersham, still shocked by how near she had come to an argument with May and Sally. Even now they must be finishing their shopping, talking about her reprovingly, bonded by their mutual antipathy to what she had proposed. Was she about to embark on a journey that she might regret, that could irreparably harm Tim in some way? But how? Surely the damage had already been done? Surely she couldn’t make matters worse? Of course she could, Lucy told herself. She might make them much worse.
As she unlocked the front door, however, the anger returned and swept away her indecision. They were all so negative. No one had offered a solution. She was alone.
‘The balloon’s gone up,’ said Tim, hurrying into the kitchen that evening. He was the naughty schoolboy again, on the one hand a bit of a dare-devil, on the other looking shaken. The effect was unsettling, disturbing. How far had she pushed him, Lucy wondered. Too far?
Then she saw them walking purposefully up the path. She automatically half-waved at Peter and Martin but they didn’t appear to see her.
‘Where are you going?’ Lucy demanded as Tim hurried out of the back door into the night.
‘The lawn mower seized up on me yesterday. Better take a look.’ He disappeared with near farcical speed.
The knocker pounded with a familiar jaunty tattoo, and when she opened the door they were both standing on the steps. They would have been shoulder to shoulder if Martin hadn’t been taller. Tweedledum and Tweedledee, Lucy thought venomously, trying to imagine them as ridiculous but only managing to make them more menacing.
‘Sorry, old girl,’ said Peter. ‘Wanted a word.’ She could see the nicotine stains on his moustache. Peter and Martin smoked Craven A voraciously whilst Tim now abstained. ‘Given up the weed,’ he had told Lucy, ‘or the weed’s given up on me. Can’t get any pleasure from it any more. Don’t know why.’
‘Come in,’ Lucy said brightly. ‘Tim’s out in the potting shed.’
‘Leave him there.’ Martin’s tone was brusque. Was she under orders again?
They sat heavily, legs crossed, and Lucy stared at them, noticing that they had both changed from their city suits into sports jackets and flannels. Neither of them spoke, but Peter hauled up his navy-blue socks while Martin cleared his throat.
‘Do smoke,’ Lucy said, pushing the ashtray across the coffee table. ‘Can I get you something?’
‘No thanks.’ Martin seemed to be the spokesman. ‘I’ll come straight to the point. The girls have told us about this French stunt.’
‘Stunt?’ Lucy had a sudden vision of Tim and herself walking a tightrope across the English Channel. Then she realized the image was not entirely inaccurate.
‘Trip.’ Peter replaced the word. ‘Look here, you know things happened out there that we can’t discuss.’
‘We both think you’re making a terrible mistake going back,’ added Martin gently.
‘Why?’
Peter sighed as if he knew she was going to be difficult. ‘It’ll just make him worse.’ His voice was as gentle as ever but he didn’t fool her. Not one bit. They were both out to stop her. Well, she wouldn’t be stopped.
‘How do you know?’ Lucy’s voice was querulous now and the men averted their eyes, hoping she wasn’t going to make a scene.
‘I’ve been in touch with a couple of other chaps with chewed-up nerves. One of them took a trip back to a battleground and he landed up in an asylum.’
There was a long, melodramatic pause.
‘Who were the dying angels?’ Lucy asked quietly.
‘Dying angels?’ Peter repeated incredulously. They both gazed blankly back at her, as if she, too, was a case of ‘chewed-up nerves’.
‘Tim was talking in his sleep. He said the angels were dying and then he added, “Don’t make me.”’
The blank looks deepened. In God’s name why couldn’t they come clean and share what they knew about Tim and try to help her? Or was the Official Secrets Act really such a barrier? What secret could they share? For a moment she tried to be reasonable, to see it from their point of view, but objectivity was quickly replaced by pent-up anger.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Martin. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea what he was talking about.’
‘Nor me,’ added Peter sympathetically. ‘But surely this is further evidence – if we needed it – of Tim’s illness.’ He grinned ruefully, every inch the embarrassed man of action, the clumsy, sporting male who saw mental breakdown as something that wasn’t quite playing the great game of life.
‘The Official Secrets Act?’ Lucy sneered.
‘You’ve got to see sense, old girl,’ said Peter jovially. ‘Why not take him down to Cornwall? It would be lovely at this time of–’
‘We’re going to France,’ she insisted. ‘Tim’s agreed. He wants to go.’
‘That’s not the point.’ Martin’s patience had so much condescension built into it that Lucy snapped at last, getting to her feet, smoothing down her skirt, talking as softly as Peter but with such venom that both men were taken aback.
‘You’re not his keepers. What the hell do you think you’re doing? Telling us how to run our lives?’
‘Look here,’ began Peter, and she could see he was already dismissing her as a hysterical little woman. Perhaps she was, Lucy thought, and for a moment her resolution wavered, but she knew she had to fight them.
‘Get out,’ she shouted, not caring whether Tim heard or not.
To her surprise the men rose abruptly to their feet and did exactly as they were told, walking slowly into the hall, shrugging away the public embarrassment that, in their view, could only be caused by a woman.
Peter opened the front door and Martin followed him as they strode awkwardly down the path. It was hard to tell what they felt because she didn’t know them. Who are they, she wondere
d, under all that bluster.
Suddenly, Lucy’s victory seemed hollow and she felt a wave of hopelessness creep over her.
She found Tim in the potting shed, staring blankly at the wall.
‘They’ve gone?’ he asked and gave her a grin which cheered her. ‘They don’t want us to go to France?’
‘And how!’
Tim laughed with just a trace of his old self. ‘They mean well,’ he said quietly.
‘They’re not used to mutiny.’ Lucy smiled awkwardly. ‘Do you still want to make the trip?’
‘If you do.’ His old indecisiveness had swiftly returned.
She knew, however, that she had given him no choice.
‘I thought you were repairing the lawn mower,’ she said, looking at the empty workbench.
‘It went out of my head.’
‘What have you been doing?’ Lucy demanded but she spoke gently.
‘Having a think.’
‘What about?’ Her voice was sharper now.
Tim shook his head impatiently. ‘Let’s go back inside,’ he said. ‘It’s getting chilly.’
3
28 July 1951
Soft summer rain fell on to the deck of the ferry bound for Dieppe, and Tim, wrapped in blankets, sat in a chair at the stern, watching the wake and the following gulls. The sky was grey and overcast. He had been largely silent ever since Lucy had driven the Riley down to Newhaven and she could sense an increasing anxiety that he was trying to conceal. Yet he had seemed to sleep deeply the previous night.
Lucy felt both triumphant and guilty. She was not used to taking the initiative and could hardly believe that she had actually got this extraordinary journey under way. Yet here they were, making their ‘jaunt’, soon to reach France and her quest to ‘put Tim right again’. The phrase rang in her ears, alternately trite and optimistic.
But the tentacles on the English side of the Channel had been slow to release them, for last night May had phoned, undermining Lucy’s already tenuous confidence still further.
‘I just wanted a word,’ she had said tentatively and had then breezily attacked her with no holds barred. ‘I know how worried you’ve been about Tim, but I do think you should cancel this trip. Martin and I have been talking it over. He’s concerned that going back could trigger a complete breakdown.’
The Men Page 5