“Well,” said the coastie. “Come to find out, a freighter blew up a few miles out from Bailey Island two days ago. They’re saying it was a faulty boiler that exploded but I have my doubts. They never want to admit foul play. They don’t want to scare folks.”
Derek and I were sitting in the dark, listening. My hand and his were so near each other on the seat, so close, almost touching. Perhaps his hand was tingling and longing to be held like mine was. Perhaps. I wasn’t sure. Derek’s face looked serious and pale, the way it always did when he was thinking.
We were both wondering why Mr. Fitzwilliam had been at that hotel. Perhaps it had been a coincidence. The memory of him seemed now, in the wet, lonely night, to be floating in front of us in a shadowy, gloomy way. It was curious too that the letter we picked up had been blank. Why had the man sealed up a blank letter? The car sputtered and stalled and finally stopped at the edge of the road and we let the coastie out. He disappeared into the rainy night with a flashlight in his hand. Like our headlights, it had a piece of red cellophane over it to keep the light low.
When we finally got home it was rather late and The Gram was cross with us. Where had we been? Why did we go? Derek slipped away, leaving me to make up some story about writing a report for school on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I said I thought Henry Wadsworth Longfellow had a jolly nice name. “I especially like the Wadsworth part, don’t you? And do you think he would still have been a famous poet if his last name had been Shortfellow instead of Longfellow?” I said. I tried to recite the poem Mr. Henley had told us, but I got the black wharves and Spanish sailors and the ships all mixed up and The Gram frowned.
Then I tried offering to play Parcheesi with The Gram and Uncle Gideon. That seemed to work, but the whole time they played, Uncle Gideon and The Gram were speaking German.
All the Bathburns were dreadfully good at languages. Even The Gram. Like Uncle Gideon, she spoke French and German. “Without a trace of an accent,” Aunt Miami told me once. It was another Bathburn trait, like winning at Parcheesi every single time. They had been speaking German quite a bit in the last few days and The Gram had been testing Uncle Gideon and hovering over his every German word.
The sun was shining quite brightly on the morning Derek’s dad was to visit. Derek had been awfully clever in picking the time and day for all this. The Gram and Auntie had gone to the greengrocer’s for shopping. Uncle Gideon had been fetched by the music teacher, Miss Elkin, in a car. She was terribly pleased to have Mr. Bathtub in her car. There was a large cello in its dark case sitting up in the backseat. As they drove off the cello looked a bit like a somber, unwilling passenger to me.
Derek had everything arranged and insisted before I was allowed to remain at the house that I keep his father’s visit a secret. “Fliss, like I said, this is my business. I want the visit to be nice. Will you bring the sandwiches and coffee on a tray? Will you also answer the door and escort my father in? I’ll be sitting in the living room, reading.”
“Very well,” I said. I went into the kitchen to check what we had for food. Just then I heard a knock at the back door. When I looked outside, someone was holding up a sign that said, BOTTLEBAY SALVAGE SCRAP DRIVE. Then a face peeked round the sign. As soon as I saw that pointed nose, I knew it was Stu Barker, Derek’s friend. I had to go and fetch all the flattened tins and bottles and a jar of bacon fat we had collected above the cooker. Everybody also saved their worn tires and even their old rubber galoshes and handed them in. It was all to help the war. Stu Barker waved and carried everything off in a red wagon.
Afterwards, I peeked in at Derek in the parlor. He was lounging in a chair, swinging his legs back and forth in a nervous sort of way. I looked at the clock. It was a quarter to twelve. I put on a white apron and I wished I had one of those very keen white maid’s hats. I tried to frown and look terribly serious like a maid or a cook or a housekeeper. Then I went back and looked through the cupboards for something to serve. I finally came up with peanut butter, lettuce, and mayonnaise sandwiches, a great Bathburn favorite. I had never had such a thing in England. (We used to have tomato sandwiches in London before the war, bread and butter and a slice of tomato. It was scrumptious with tea.) I decided to be awfully posh and I tried to cut the crusts off the bread. But the knife wasn’t sharp enough, so I ruined one of the sandwiches. I whistled a lovely tune to cheer myself up about that and I decided to eat the sandwich since it looked so pitiful all cut up and crooked.
Then the doorbell rang in the front. Derek ran into the hall. “Fliss,” he called, “he’s here! Open it. No, don’t. What if he doesn’t like me?”
“Oh, Derek, he will,” I said.
“What if I don’t like him?” he said.
“You will. He’s your father; of course you’ll like him. You’ll just naturally have things in common. You’ll see.” But then I felt a tug of something. Something I couldn’t quite identify. It was like looking at a blurry photograph and trying to guess what was in the blur.
“Go on, then,” he said, turning back into the parlor. “Answer the door.”
As it happened a great gust of wind came up from the north and a window upstairs slammed shut on its own. I stopped cold in the hallway. It sounded like a gunshot, shattering everything. Then the house was silent. I went towards the front door and turned the handle.
“Good afternoon,” said Derek’s father. He had a likable, relaxed, and easy air about him and he looked quite comfortable in his hat and necktie. “I am to meet a Derek Blakely for lunch?” He smiled at me with a mixture of happiness and regret.
“Oh yes, of course,” I said. “Please follow me.” Then I opened the door of the parlor and said, “Derek, there’s a gentleman here to see you.”
“My son!” said Mr. Blakely, going towards Derek with open arms. “This is indeed a great moment.”
“I shall bring the sandwiches shortly,” I said and though I didn’t want to, I backed up and left the room and closed the double doors as Derek and his dad embraced.
When you live among a family of secret agents, you know much more than you should. You try to not hear or see things, but the truth is, everything is laid out before you and in that way you too are a kind of agent. The next day a very large package for Uncle Gideon arrived from Mr. Donovan’s office in Washington. I had to carry it upstairs, though it was quite heavy. I went down the hall with it and knocked on the door of Uncle Gideon’s private, off-limits study.
“Well done, Fliss,” said Uncle Gideon, opening the door. “That package is almost bigger than you and you managed it just like a pro!” I handed him the box and then he said, “I shall miss you, Fliss, when I’m away.” He sort of stumbled over his feet and almost fell. Then he backed up and said, “You won’t forget your old what-cha-ma-call-it, will you?” He took my hand and squeezed it.
I looked up at him for a moment but then it felt like my eyes might be getting tearful, so I decided to study my shoes. That’s a clever British trick I learned. If you look down at your shoes, it completely fools everyone. No one will ever suspect that you are about to cry. Then my what-cha-ma-call-it carried the package into the study and closed the door behind him.
I went on down the hall to Auntie’s room. She was sitting on her bed, putting nail varnish on her toenails. “Flissy, sweetest,” she said, smiling, “want me to paint your toenails with nail polish?”
“Oh yes, I would,” I said, looking out her long windows at the ocean. The water was all foamy and white and full of worry and wonderment, the waves slapping back and forth in the autumn air. The big, dark rocks along the shore looked almost like large animals crouching, ready to leap into the water. In the daytime they looked like dogs. At night they looked like dark whales.
“Do you like the color of this nail polish? It’s called Pink Passion. Would you like some Pink Passion on your toenails?” said Aunt Miami. I thought of my mum Winnie. Perhaps she would not approve. How far away Winnie seemed now, as if she were only made of filmy, threadbare memor
y. My longing for her was so constant that I had grown accustomed to it, the way you become accustomed to the constant hum and rhythm of the sea.
I sat down on the edge of the bed and Aunt Miami painted my toenails.
“Derek says Brie is hotsy totsy. Do you think there’s a chance I could be hotsy totsy, I mean, now that my toenails are Passion Pink?” I said.
“Oh dear,” said Auntie, looking into my face, reading it like it was one of those painted portraits of Captain Bathburn’s daughters. “Oh dear. I see, you’re quite gone on Derek, aren’t you?”
“Yes, rather,” I said.
“I can understand why. He’s a darling, handsome boy. We love him so much, Flissy. We couldn’t bear to lose him. I am so glad he decided to tell that father of his to shove off.”
“Yes,” I said and I looked away. I am quite sorry to say that I was a bit clever about changing the subject then. I added, “You’re rather gone on Mr. Henley, aren’t you?”
“Yes, oh yes, Bobby is wonderful,” said Aunt Miami and then she got up and spun round the room. I hadn’t heard Mr. Henley called Bobby before.
“Do you love Bobby desperately?” I said. “Has he popped the question yet?”
“Oh, you’ve picked that up from Gideon. He’s an awful tease. Don’t you go and become a tease like him,” said Auntie.
“What will you wear when you go out dancing with Bobby?” I said. “Do you like taffeta or silk? Do you think if I had a lovely new frock that Derek would forget about Brie? Derek has told me he thinks I should buy some new ‘duds.’ Do you think new duds would make me a bit more hotsy totsy?”
“Flissy McBee, I think you and I should go shopping for a new dress for you before they ration clothes. Before you know it we will have to have tickets to take a breath of air! It’s time you had a brand-new store-bought dress anyway.”
I smiled and then I skipped round the room a bit and went out into the hall. I skipped up and down along the stair rails, looking at my Pink Passion toes. I paused for a moment. The study door was slightly ajar. I could hear Uncle Gideon in the kitchen below, with The Gram. I pushed the door a little wider open. There I could see the large empty box sitting on the desk, and hanging beside it on a hook on the wall was a wool soldier’s uniform. That must have been what was in the package. It was quite clearly a German officer’s uniform because it had fancy gold trim on the shoulders and a red armband with a Nazi swastika on the sleeve.
The next morning the air had a soft, forgiving feel. It was a warm autumn day and for some reason that made me remember spring in England. In London we usually had crocuses in our little walled-in garden. I can remember their brilliant purple color against the brown, newly melted earth. I don’t suppose a bomber flying over England ever thought about a bed of crocuses finally coming to life and blooming after a whole winter of darkness and waiting.
Uncle Gideon was out on the porch with his morning coffee, looking at the sea. I went out and stood with him. He was very quiet, which for him was unusual. After a while he pulled on my braid and said, “What do you call this in Britain? Isn’t it a plait? Have I got that right, Fliss?”
Then he made a whistling sound and within minutes Sir William Percy was flying towards the porch, squawking all the way. He was a bit of a baby, that seagull, I thought. Uncle Gideon had made a proper pet of him, feeding him all the time and he had named him after a teacher he had at Oxford, in England. The Gram had been cross about it at first, saying we would soon be inviting huge packs of seagulls, but in the end she too fed Sir William Percy. He had sweet, red-rimmed eyes and he talked and cried, and usually every morning he was waiting for his breakfast on the porch railing.
“When you’re overseas,” I said, “who will feed Sir William?”
“Oh, Fliss, I should love so much not to go, to stay here, and be your father.” He looked over at me and then he looked down in a shy way. “About Sir William Percy, I’ll be counting on you,” Uncle Gideon said and then he was silent again.
I couldn’t think of an answer, so I grabbed on to the weather, the way people do when there are no other words in sight. “Is it going to rain or will the wind blow or will it be sunny today? I don’t know.” And I rhymed the words by mistake. I wanted to say that I would miss him terribly, but somehow those words hadn’t appeared as I had hoped they would.
We just stood there until finally Gideon said, “By the way, Fliss, Miami says you received a telephone call yesterday from a Mr. Fitzwilliam. You should call him back. I’ve left his number on the table on the landing. And if you don’t mind, may I ask what this is about?”
“Oh, it was nothing. It was about those posters we put up all over town,” I said, and I gave Sir William the last of my toast.
Later, during the afternoon, in the dining room, I put a 78 record on the Victrola. I was waiting for Derek, who was late for dance practice. The record was playing the song “When I’m Not with You.”
When I’m not with you
the sky’s no longer blue.
I was sitting at the table alone, listening to the music. All the somber daughters of Captain A. E. Bathburn watched me from their painted gold frames. They thought I was a dreadful sneak for not telling Uncle Gideon about Derek’s father and his visit. Most British children are proper and honest. Perhaps I wasn’t British anymore. Perhaps I’d turned into a dreadful “dual citizen,” who had no country and no manners. Still, I loved Derek and I wanted to be loyal to him. If he wished to keep his father’s visit a secret, then I should stand by him, even if it did make me into a dreadful beast of a child.
As I sat there, I was wondering about a lot of things, but most especially why Mr. Fitzwilliam had rung me up. I did not want to speak to him. I would never tell him anything about my mum Winnie. I would certainly never tell him that her code name was Butterfly, but he seemed to know that already, didn’t he?
When I’m not with you
the sky’s no longer blue.
When you’re not with me
the stars fall in the sea.
When I see you not
the clouds pile up and plot.
The wind kicks up a knot
when I’m not with you.
When Derek finally walked into the dining room that evening, he seemed quite happy, really. He looked like he had just removed a dark, heavy blackout curtain that had been hanging over him, shutting out all the light. Ever since April, the government had announced that we were to cover our windows and all light from our houses at dusk with blackout curtains so enemy submarines could not see our coastline or our ships leaving the harbor at night. Some people were lazy down the road and painted their windows black so they didn’t have to bother to close blackout curtains every evening. But I shouldn’t like to live in a black room.
Aunt Miami was in the dining room now, folding napkins. As Derek walked in, Uncle Gideon did too and he grabbed Auntie and they started swinging and dancing round the room.
“Mr. Henley,” I called out, pretending he had walked into the house, “someone’s nabbed off with your dance partner!”
“‘Nabbed off,’ Fliss? I see you are still English all the way down to your wellies. Well, Bob’d better step up and pop that question. Miami’s dance card is filling up fast.”
“Oh, stop it,” said Auntie, pushing Uncle Gideon away. Then she went off to the parlor and threw herself on the sofa and soon he followed and they both sat there talking. I heard Uncle Gideon say, “Miami, what have you decided to do? Are you going to do volunteer work? We must all pull together.”
“Mrs. Boxman is urging me about the USO. Gideon, you do so much. You put me to shame.” Then they went on murmuring and laughing.
Derek was sitting on the dining room table in a very casual, daring kind of way. I don’t think The Gram would have approved, but she was upstairs, cutting out tiny quilt pieces for her new quilt. “I’m so happy to finally have a dad,” Derek whispered, swinging his legs back and forth. “They can’t know, but it felt fine, really
fine. I’ve never had a dad before.”
“It’s quite nice, isn’t it?” I said, pulling at Derek’s good arm, as if to remind him we were to start dance practice.
“Knowing you, I’m surprised you didn’t listen in at the door when he was here last week.”
“Oh, I did, a bit, though I didn’t intend to. I hope you’ll forgive me. He’s quite charming, your father, isn’t he.”
“Would you expect less?” Derek said, smiling down at me.
Still, that dark photograph of doubt blurred before my eyes.
On the gramophone, or phonograph, as they say here, the song “When I’m Not with You” was playing again, over and over. Oh, when I was with Derek, the moon seemed to sail so lightly in the sky. Dancing to the music and looking out the window at the evening sea, my head felt like it was fainting. Can your head faint while your arms and legs and feet stay normal? If so, my head fainted away. I did care for Derek, swimmingly so, and the music made it stronger and the dance coming up with Brie made it all the more maddening.
“In fact, Fliss,” said Derek, “my true father coming here has really changed everything. You are right. He was nice. Very nice. I feel like I understand now who I am. It’s good to have at least part of a father in my life. Not everybody can be lucky and have two fathers, like some people I know.” He looked at me again as we danced and I felt a chill wash over me because somehow something didn’t seem quite right.
“Hey, what’s buzzin’, cousin?” Derek was saying on the telephone, the next day after school. I was sitting on the steps below. I am sorry to report I was listening, trying to hear his conversation with Cousin Brie. He was using all sorts of posh slang and he was laughing constantly.
Romeo Blue (9780545520706) Page 4