The Crew

by Margaret Mayhew

  She turned and walked out of the room. He was calling her back, shouting after her, but she took no notice of him at all.

  There were some boys playing with a toboggan in Sycamore Avenue, dragging it over the slushy snow by a long rope. As he passed them, Harry saw that the toboggan was made from old planks nailed crudely together. He’d made one himself once, he remembered, years ago, but he’d done a better job than that with proper shaped runners, waxed so they ran smooth. Maybe he’d make one for Paulette – if Rita would ever let her play with it.

  He opened the gate to number sixteen and walked up to the front door. There was no sign of life at the windows, no twitch of the net curtains to tell him he’d been observed. When he knocked at the door it was opened by Len in his flash civvy suit, giving his oily smile.

  ‘Oh, it’s you, old boy.’

  ‘Rita’s expectin’ me – to see Paulette.’

  ‘Sorry, she’s not here. Neither of them are. You’re out of luck.’

  ‘I wrote Rita I’d got leave and would be comin’.’

  ‘Had to go and see her mother. The old girl’s not well. Rita went this morning and took Paulette with her. They’ll be back later. You can come in and wait, if you like.’

  Harry hesitated. Rita’s mother had the constitution of a ship’s boiler, so it was very likely just another excuse of Rita’s for not letting him see Paulette. On the other hand, he’d come all this way and he wasn’t going to give up that easily. It’d be better waiting inside than out in the cold – even with Len. He followed Len inside.

  ‘Drink, old boy?’ Len was opening up the cocktail cabinet. The lights went on and the mirrors glittered, reflecting the rows of bottles.

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘I’ll have one myself. I could do with it.’ Len tipped up the Haig dimple bottle. ‘Bit of bad luck, lately, I don’t mind telling you. Nice little deal I’d been counting on went sour on me . . . Still, there’s always the next one.’

  ‘What’s your line, then?’ He’d never asked and Rita had never told him.

  ‘Buying and selling. You’d be surprised what you can make – if you’ve got the right contacts. Know what I mean?’

  ‘You mean you’re a black marketeer?’

  ‘Steady on, old boy. My business is strictly legit and you won’t find anybody to say otherwise. Can I help it if people are willing to pay good prices for what they want? Besides, Rita costs a bit – as you’d know. Got to keep her happy, haven’t I?’ Len was lighting up a cigar. ‘Go on, sit down and make yourself comfy.’

  ‘I’d sooner stand, thank you.’ He couldn’t bring himself to sit down in company with a man who was making dishonest money out of the war. Thousands were giving their lives so that people like Len could line their grubby pockets.

  ‘Suit yourself.’ Len sat down on the sofa and crossed one leg over the other. He was wearing brown and white shoes with a lot of fancy punching and stitching. ‘My feet are killing me. Fallen arches, see. That’s why I failed the medical, or I’d be knocking Jerry for six, like you lot.’

  He reminded Harry of a lizard: the slickness of him, the smooth hair, the small hands, the natty clothes. ‘Doin’ what?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘What exactly do you think you’d do – in the Air Force?’

  ‘Hard to say. Pilot, I suppose. Fighter, not bomber, though. No offence, but your kites are on the slow side, aren’t they? What do they do? One-fifty? Just stooging along, aren’t you? Sitting ducks. I’d sooner have a bit of speed myself. A Spit, say. Faster than a Hurry. Three-twenty – now that’s what I call moving.’

  He’s been listening in on shop talk, Harry thought. One of those know-alls who butt in on conversations in pubs. ‘I doubt they’d ’ave you.’

  ‘Not with my feet, they wouldn’t.’ Len tapped his cigar. ‘Frankly, old boy, I can’t see what good you bomber blokes are doing. You don’t seem to be hitting the real targets, do you? The ones that matter. Factories, docks – that sort of thing. What’s the use of smashing up a whole lot of houses? Doesn’t get you anywhere. Now, take the Yanks. They’ve got it all sorted out. Go in daylight so you can see what you’re doing. Hit the proper targets. Precision bombing, they call it. No skulking around in the dark –’

  Harry stepped forward. ‘Skulkin’?’

  ‘OK, OK.’ Len held up a hand as if he were a policeman stopping traffic. ‘No offence intended. Bit touchy, aren’t you? Rita always said you were. Doesn’t do in this tough old world we live in. Sure you won’t have that drink? Do you the world of good. No? Well, please yourself. You could have a long wait, I’m here to warn you . . .’

  They’d played him for a sap, as usual. Rita and Paulette were most likely staying the night with her mother – anything to avoid him. Leave him to me, Len would have said. I’ll soon get rid of him. Spin him a story, give him a drink and a bit of a chat and send him on his way. He’d no choice but to leave. No sense in waiting hours for nothing. And if he tried it, he’d probably end up knocking Len’s block off. He couldn’t stay in the same room as him much longer.

  ‘I’ll be goin’.’

  ‘Right you are, Harry. Just as you want. I’ll see you out.’

  In the hall he caught sight of Paulette’s doll’s pram by the foot of the stairs. He hadn’t noticed it when he came in and he stopped to look now. There was a doll sitting inside it, a big doll, propped upright against the frilly pillow. Her blue glass eyes stared back at him: eyes with thick, black lashes, eyes that opened and shut. Real hair, curled and tied with a pink ribbon.

  ‘Got it for Paulette for Christmas,’ Len was saying. ‘Cost me a pretty penny, I can tell you. Happened to run across a bloke who’d a few boxes of them put by. Pre-war manufacture. Nice quality. She plays with it all the time.’

  He didn’t need to ask where his doll was, or whether she liked it.

  Len opened the front door. He clapped a hand on Harry’s shoulder. ‘Sorry you missed them, old boy.’

  ‘Take your bloody ’and off me.’

  ‘Easy now, Harry. Easy. No call to be like that.’ Len took his hand away and smiled. ‘Better luck next time.’

  ‘The walls are nearly three miles long. We could walk along them almost all the way round the city, if you like.’

  ‘Sure. It’s a great way to see it.’

  The Minster was beautiful in the winter sunlight, seen through bare branches from the narrow walkway on top of the medieval wall. They looked down onto walled gardens and the backs of Georgian houses. The snow sparkled prettily.

  ‘Guy Fawkes was born in York, did you know? In a house just by the Minster.’

  ‘Guy?’

  ‘Not your sort of guy, Van. Guy Fawkes. Haven’t you heard of him?’

  ‘Guess not. What did he do?’

  ‘He tried to blow up the king and the Houses of Parliament with gunpowder in sixteen hundred and five.’

  ‘You don’t say. Couldn’t have thought much of them. What was his problem?’

  He was a fanatical Catholic and the king, James I, was Protestant. They found out about the plot just in time and hanged him. We burn effigies of him on the top of bonfires every year on the fifth of November, and call them guys.’

  ‘Well, at least nobody’s forgotten him. I figure that’s worth a hell of a lot.’

  She thought of Peter. Your last letter took so long to reach here, I thought you’d forgotten all about me . . .

  ‘Dick Turpin’s buried here too.’

  ‘Another Englishman I’ve never heard of.’

  ‘He was a famous highwayman in the eighteenth century. He used to ride round on a horse called Black Bess, robbing stage coaches. He was imprisoned here and hanged.’

  ‘We had guys like that. Ever heard of Jesse James? Butch Cassidy?’

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  ‘They came to a bad end too.’

  They walked on along the wall, past the Minster towards Monk Bar. She showed him the old portcullis still in place above the gate
. ‘They could lower it fast if necessary, and it’s got spikes on the bottom.’

  ‘You sure wouldn’t want to get in the way.’

  Further on he stopped and looked out over the wall away from the city. ‘I guess they could see people coming a long way off.’

  ‘Well, most of it was forest in those days, so it couldn’t have been that easy.’

  ‘PA’s like that still. Forest for miles and miles. Cigarette?’

  She shook her head and he lit one for himself, cupping his hand round it against the wind. He still looked tired, she thought. Spent. Like they always did towards the end of a tour. Her mother had told her he’d slept almost solidly for the first two days of his leave. Four more ops to go. Only four.

  ‘You’ve never told me why you volunteered, Van.’

  ‘To get away. To forget.’ He stowed the Zippo away in his pocket and leaned on the wall again, head turned from her, smoking the cigarette. ‘That makes me sound like some guy joining the French Foreign Legion. Real dramatic.’

  ‘A girl?’

  ‘Yeah. A girl. Only it wasn’t to forget her, but what I’d done to her. I killed her.’

  She stared at him, shocked.

  ‘Not on purpose. Nothing like that, but just the same, I killed her.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘We were college kids, both nineteen. We’d been dating since high school. Known each other since we were small. I’d had pretty good grades that semester and my father gave me a brand new Packard for a birthday present. I thought I was the smoothest guy around . . . a real swell. I took her to the movies in it and on the way home a truck came straight out of a side road and hit us. Carrie died in the wreck.’

  ‘You didn’t kill her, though. It was the truck driver’s fault.’

  He shook his head. ‘I was driving much too fast. Showing off. One arm round her, finger on the wheel. Not paying attention or I’d’ve seen the truck in time.’

  ‘It was still an accident.’

  ‘That’s what everyone kept telling me. Only as far as I was concerned it was my fault and I killed her. And that’s the way I’ll always see it. Putting myself in the line of fire seemed some kind of rough justice – self-administered, since nobody else would do it. So . . . that’s why I joined. No heroics, not like the other guys. Just the only way I could deal with it.’

  ‘Tragedies happen in life, Van.’

  ‘Sure. I see them happening all the time now. You see them, Catherine. Kids of Carrie’s age dying like flies. Only I’m not responsible for them, not the way I was for her. I can blame the war for it.’ He smoked his cigarette for a moment. ‘I guess it’s kind of ironic that I’ve been flying bombers that have killed God knows how many people, but that doesn’t seem to get to me either. I can blame the war for that, too. Blame the Jerries for dropping bombs on us first. Blame Hitler. Blame Butch Harris.’

  ‘Have you ever thought of the lives you’re helping to save when you’re risking your own? The Germans have murdered thousands of innocent victims. A million Jews, it said in the papers. And if they’re not defeated, they’ll kill thousands more. And they’ll murder people here, and people in your own country, if they ever get the chance. You’re stopping that happening. It might help a bit if you thought of that.’

  ‘I guess so . . .’ He turned round and smiled at her. ‘Let’s walk on, if we’re going to get all the way round.’

  When they returned to the house, her mother had gone out, leaving a note. Gone to do a stint at the canteen. Pie in bottom oven, so help yourselves. Don’t wait for me as I may be late.

  She wasn’t deceived for a moment. Her matchmaking mama would leave them alone for as long as possible, but it wouldn’t do any good. Don’t let me down, Cat. You’re the only thing that keeps me sane and surviving this hell on earth.

  ‘We ought to eat that pie before it gets too dried up.’

  ‘OK by me.’ He followed her into the kitchen. ‘Anything I can do?’

  ‘Well, you could get some plates out of the cupboard over there.’

  ‘Sure thing.’

  When she turned round from the oven he was hunting in the wrong cupboard. ‘Sorry, I meant the other one.’ She put down the pie and went to show him. He came to stand behind her as she opened the door.

  ‘These blue and white ones in here. Look—’

  But when she turned round he wasn’t looking at the plates at all. He was looking at her. She should have moved away at once, not gone on standing there like an idiot. Letting it happen.

  ‘This is Sergeant Brenner, Auntie Barbara.’

  He stepped forward and shook the aunt’s hand. Not bad, and a damn sight better than her sister. A widow, Honor had said. She didn’t look like most widows he knew. He smiled at her – his best-behaved smile, the one he used to charm older ladies. ‘Stew’s the name.’

  ‘How do you do, Stew? Welcome to Newquay.’

  Yep, she was a definite improvement on the mother, he decided, and so was her home. Nice little house with everything bright and cheery. No antimacassars or gloomy old furniture. And not a stag’s head in sight. The sitting-room had a large window, and he went over and took a squint out. No snow down here, thank Christ. He’d had enough of that. To think he’d ever got excited at first seeing the flaming stuff. The house was part way up a hill with a good view of a beach. He looked approvingly at the wide stretch of sand – not as good as Bondi or Manly or Whalebeach, of course, but not bad. He frowned.

  ‘Strewth, what’s happened to the sea?’ He could see the line of it bloody miles off in the distance.

  The aunt laughed. ‘The tide goes out a long way here, Stew. Don’t worry, it will come right in at high tide.’

  ‘That so? Never seen that much of a drop before.’

  ‘I’m afraid it will be much too cold to swim at this time of year. In fact, I expect you’d find the Atlantic a bit chilly, even in summer.’

  He could have told her the North Sea wasn’t so hot either.

  ‘Come upstairs and I’ll show you your room.’ The aunt led the way. ‘Honor always sleeps in here.’ She opened a door and he took a mental note of which one. ‘And this is yours. I thought you’d like to have the view.’

  It was the same view as from the sitting-room, only higher up, and he could see the sea better now. Grey, not blue: he’d never seen the sea over here properly blue. He stood, staring out of the window, when suddenly the homesickness got to him. It was like being socked hard in the guts. Jesus, it was midsummer back home. Probably up in the nineties. They’d be out on the beaches, soaking up the sun, fooling about . . . Indigo sea, golden sand, white surf, cold beers, big steaks . . . my word, it didn’t do to think about it and that he might never see it again. He’d get all choked up like some kid. Must be because he was so bloody tired. He turned away from the window.

  ‘It’s bonza. Thanks a lot, Mrs – sorry, Honor never told me your other name.’

  ‘It’s Rowan, but just call me Barbara.’ She smiled at him. ‘I want you to enjoy your leave, Stew. Rest and recuperation, isn’t that what leave’s supposed to be about? I promise I’ll do my best to see you get plenty of both. We owe you brave young Aussies an awful lot, coming from the other side of the world to help us. I think you’re pretty special.’

  That got him choked all right. He couldn’t answer her for the life of him. Had to turn away quickly and take another dekko out of the window in case she noticed.

  It was dark before the tide came in, so he didn’t see it until the next day. The aunt brought him a cup of tea in bed.

  ‘We left you to sleep as much as you could.’

  He propped himself up on one elbow. ‘Thanks, Barbara. Must have needed it. Where’s Honor?’

  ‘Downstairs. She thought you might like to go for a walk later. Take a closer look at the sea.’

  ‘Too right.’

  As soon as he’d finished the tea he got up and padded over to the window. Just like she’d said, the sea had come right in and there
was a good surf breaking a couple of hundred yards out. He watched the rollers sweeping in, curling over and crashing onto the shore. Not bad. Not bad at all.

  He got dressed and went downstairs and found that the aunt had gone out shopping and Honor was in the kitchen, stirring something on the stove. He liked the jumper and skirt she had on – a lot better than the old maid clothes she wore at the hotel. Her hair wasn’t rolled up all tight either, just tied with a ribbon.

  She gave him a bit of a smile over her shoulder. Things were really looking up. ‘Did you sleep well?’

  ‘Like a log.’

  ‘I’ve made some porridge, and there’s a sausage and an egg. Would that do?’

  ‘An egg? I wouldn’t want to take that.’

  ‘Don’t worry, my aunt keeps hens.’

  While he started on the porridge, she fried the egg and sausage for him in a pan, together with some bread. She did a nice job, he reckoned. Funny to eat an egg without having to fly to Germany and back for it.

  ‘Barbara said you’re planning a walk.’

  ‘Well, I thought you’d like to go along by the beach. That’s what you came for, isn’t it? To see the surf.’

  ‘Yeah . . .’ As he ate, he watched her washing up at the sink. No doubt about it, he fancied her. Hell, it was more than fancying her. He fancied women all the time. But this one was different. Everything was different. For a start, you didn’t mess around with a sheila like Honor, same as you could with the Doreens. There were different rules, but he wasn’t too sure how to play the game.

  They took a road leading down to the beach and, as usual, he matched his pace to her much slower one. He breathed in the salty air. It made him feel good. Like a new man. And having her walking along beside him made him feel good, too. And a different sort of man. He wasn’t sure what sort – yet.

  The lameness didn’t worry him but he reckoned it worried her a lot. She acted like she thought it was something ugly, something to be ashamed of. Some time he’d tell her she was all wrong about that.

  They stood and watched the rollers coming in with a booming noise like ack-ack guns; the seagulls were screaming and wheeling about overhead same as a pack of Jerry fighters. He glanced at Honor. She’d got a scarf tied round her head, but the wind was blowing a lock of hair across her face. He liked that.