by Lissa Evans
‘What is wrong with your neck?’
He straightened. She was thorough; the light traced a semi circle and lingered on his profile.
‘Roman,’ she said, and he thought he could detect a hint of approval in her voice. She placed the torch back in his palm.
‘What else do you want to know?’ asked Donald.
‘Such things as your family. Your studies, your chob, why you would choose to live in this small place.’
He didn’t hesitate; never had a fork in the road been more clearly marked. To one side lay the dingy truth.
‘Donald Sedge de Hannay,’ said Donald, moving effortlessly in the other direction. ‘And I was born in London. I won a scholarship to study mathematics at Cambridge but before I could take any of my exams I got a letter. It asked me to come to an interview at an address in Whitehall . . .’ He could see himself, knocking three times on an unmarked door, murmuring a password through the letter box. Come in, Mr Sedge de Hannay, we’ve been expecting you. The dry handshake, the shrewd assessment, the tricky questions. ‘After being interviewed for sixteen hours I was taken straight to a training camp in the Highlands and taught how to shoot, ride and navigate blindfold without a map.’
He risked a glance at Hilde. She was looking faintly puzzled. ‘So why are you choosing to live in this small place?’ she asked, again.
‘Secret government work. I might be moved at any time, but I can’t tell you anything more under pain of death. By firing squad.’
‘What is that?’
‘They’d shoot me.’
‘I see.’ She seemed curiously unimpressed by this last piece of information. ‘And what chob is your father?’
‘A banker.’
And his mother wore large hats and satin gloves, buttoned up to the elbow; he had three older sisters, all married, and when he went up to London in the Austin Tourer, he stayed at his club and dined late. He could describe the carpet in his room, the bed linen, the bloodstone tie-pin he wore with the green silk tie – it was the life he should have been leading . . .
Hilde was speaking. ‘I beg your pardon,’ he said, hastily.
She gave a short sigh and repeated the question.
‘I was asking, what is showing at the pictures?’
8
The lines around her eyes were like peg-marks on a dried sheet. Vee patted some more powder over them, and applied a second coat of lipstick before smiling at herself in the compact mirror. ‘Hello, Harry,’ she mouthed. ‘Long time no see. Can I have a word?’
And then, before her nerve could fail her, she left the arcade, where she had just spent nearly an hour queuing for some hake (and if the fat woman directly in front of her hadn’t turned out to be running a civil servants’ billet – nine portions, she’d taken – Vee might have actually got some) and crossed the road to Fleckney’s Garage.
It was busy, as usual. It had always been a going concern, a smart purpose-built premises, brick and tile, even a panel of stained-glass in the side window, showing a green sports car racing along a purple road. Harry had been lucky. Though of course he’d had to marry the boss’s daughter to get it, so you had to weigh the benefits of money in the bank against the daily sight of Jenny Fleckney, who’d always looked like a municipal lamp-post and who hadn’t grown any lovelier with age.
Vee edged past a spill of oil. ‘Have you seen Mr Pedder?’ she asked a boy in stained overalls.
‘Pit,’ he said, nodding towards the back of the garage. Hammering was coming from beneath a police van, and a familiar liquid whistle, like an evening blackbird. Vee bent her knees and tried to peer under it.
‘Mr Pedder?’ she called.
‘Who’s asking?’
‘Vera Sedge.’ There was a clatter, and a pause, and then Harry’s face appeared between the front wheels, his expression horrified.
‘Hello, Harry,’ said Vee, ‘long time no see. Can I have a word?’
He didn’t move, but his eyes darted past her to see who might be watching.
‘Won’t take long,’ said Vee.
‘You can’t come in here.’
‘Why not? People do.’
‘People with motors.’
‘Well . . . I could be thinking of buying one.’
‘Don’t be soft, they’re all up on bricks for the duration. It’s only official and business now.’
‘That’s what I’m here on. Business.’
She drew herself up, and gripped her handbag.
‘Oh Christ,’ he said. ‘All right. Come to the office.’
He didn’t offer her a seat, but she sat down anyway. Harry wiped his hands on a rag, and stood by the office door, gnawing on a thumbnail. She hadn’t expected him to be pleased to see her, but it wasn’t nice to see the panic in his eyes. They were fine eyes, all the same: navy blue, with Donald’s long lashes. His hairline had slipped a bit, but he was still handsome.
‘You look all right,’ she said to him, shyly.
‘I thought you was in Harpenden.’
‘We moved to St Albans last year. You must’ve seen me passing the garage enough times, I’m always about.’
He shook his head. ‘Too busy to notice. What do you want, Vee?’
There wasn’t a speck of sentiment in his voice, not a particle of pleasure. She tried to keep her tone light.
‘Just a bit of a favour.’
‘I can’t give you no money,’ he said, quickly.
‘I wasn’t going to ask for any.’
‘Jenny does the books, see. She’s in charge of all that, now her dad’s dead. She’s got a head for figures. I’m the mechanical side, and she’s accounts, she’s red-hot on all that, checks the ledgers four times a week, you can’t get nothing past her.’
‘I said I wasn’t going to ask for any.’
‘Well, what do you want then?’
‘You could be a bit polite,’ she said, stung. ‘I’ve never made trouble for you. I could’ve, but I didn’t.’
‘How could you have?’
‘You know how, you know exactly. When I caught for Donald your mother gave me money to get rid of him.’
‘To look after him.’
‘Don’t make me laugh. She gave me the address of that doctor in Glebe Street.’
‘You chose to go, she didn’t take you there.’
‘But I changed my mind, didn’t I?’
‘And kept the money.’
‘The doctor had already taken it, I told you.’ She’d run down the stairs, leaving her knickers and cash behind, and when she’d gone back five minutes later, he’d refused to answer the door. God knows her life had been crammed with humiliation, but the memory of begging through a letter box for twenty pounds and a pair of peach crêpe camis came pretty near the top of the list.
‘I could have made trouble and I didn’t,’ she repeated, wearily.
‘None of it would have stuck,’ said Harry. ‘He doesn’t even look like me.’
‘He does now.’ And it was true, though it wasn’t until this second that she’d thought of it. The change to the shape of Donald’s nose was slight, but it had altered his face, pulled the flesh tighter across his cheekbones so you could see the structure beneath. ‘He looks a damn sight more like you than your daughters do. Same height, for a start.’
He opened the office door and jerked his thumb. ‘Out.’
She shook her head, beginning to enjoy the encounter. It was like the rare occasions on which she’d downed a whisky: a few seconds of wincing and then fireworks all the way. ‘I want a favour, Harry. I need to change a banknote.’
‘What sized banknote?’
‘Twenty.’
‘Twenty? Where did you get that?’
‘Someone gave it to me.’
‘Did they heck.’
‘As the Lord God is my witness,’ she said, solemnly. ‘An old lady of my acquaintance.’
‘If it’s all above board, then why are you coming to me? Ask a bank.’
There was a pause.
‘I’ll take nineteen pound ten for it,’ she said.
Harry smiled and pushed the door fully open. ‘Out you go.’
‘Nineteen and six?’
‘No.’
She continued sitting, though without a plan in mind. All she knew was that Harry was nervous, and she wasn’t; not any longer. His gaze flicked towards the office clock. ‘You’ve got to go now, Vee,’ he said.
‘Why? You expecting Jenny?’
She knew from his face that she’d guessed correctly. He moved his shoulders as if shifting a harness.
‘Please, Vee,’ he said.
‘Oh, so now you’re being pleasant?’
‘Have a heart, I’m a family man.’
‘I’ve got a family too,’ said Vee, shrilly, ‘in case you’ve for gotten. Four mouths to feed.’
‘Four?’
‘One’s an evacuee. A half-wit cripple,’ she added, virtuously. ‘And Donald has to be careful with his health, and my mother’s been an invalid since the day I told her I was expecting.’
‘All right, all right.’ He shut the door hastily. ‘I’ll change the bloody thing.’ There was a strongbox in the corner and he took a bunch of keys out of his pocket and began to sort through them. ‘Give me the banknote, then,’ he said, over his shoulder, crouching down.
Vee took the creased rectangle out of her handbag. ‘I want it all in change,’ she said, hearing the rustle of notes.
‘Twenty quid in change? You’d need a bloody wheelbarrow.’
‘Nothing larger than a pound note, then.’
He inspected the twenty carefully, while she folded the notes and counted the coins into her handbag.
‘Thank you, Harry,’ she said, politely.
He wasn’t looking at her. He locked the box, and peered round the door again. ‘I’ll take you through the back,’ he said, ‘just in case. And don’t let me see you here again.’
He scuttled ahead, but she took her time, arms wrapped around the leaden handbag. Behind the garage was a walled yard, with a long, open-sided shed on the left and a padlocked gate at the far end. Harry had almost reached the latter when he turned on his heel and raced back past her. ‘Left the bloody keys in the bloody office. Stay here,’ he ordered.
Vee waited. A pair of swallows twisted past her and up into the eaves of the shed. ‘Handsome is as handsome does,’ she said, out loud. For a few moments in the garage, waiting for Harry to catch sight of her, she’d felt extraordinarily young, a sixteen-year-old wearing a bottle-green cloche and riding a borrowed bicycle over the ruts to Colney Heath. The act of actually speaking to him seemed to have had the opposite effect: she’d been flung forward, right over the handlebars and into middle age. Her back hurt.
She heard a tiny splash, and then another. It took her a second or two to spot the islands of bird droppings that had fallen from the swallows’ perch into the puddle beneath. And then she moved forward and peered more closely, not quite able to understand what she was seeing. The bird droppings were drinking up colour, changing from black-and-white to a brilliant crimson, and the puddle itself was dark red, fed by a red rivulet that ran from beneath the chassis of a wheelless van, parked within the shed.
She checked that no one was in sight, and then she stepped into the shadows and walked around the van. Behind it was a row of dustbins, one of them on its side, and it was from the latter that the dark liquid was still trickling. Beside it lay a large funnel. The air was heavy with fumes. She lifted the lid of the next dustbin along and it was heaped with something spongy and red – and she almost shrieked before she realized that she was looking at loaves of bread, steeped in red dye. The third bin was filled to the brim with petrol, and she knew, then, what Fleckney’s garage was up to – filtering dyed government petrol to sell to civilians. She put back the lids and hurried out to the yard again.
Harry wasn’t in sight, but half a second later an apprentice came out, holding the keys self-importantly, and Vee thanked him as he opened the gate. ‘What’s Mr Pedder like as a boss?’ she asked, innocently.
‘All right,’ said the boy.
‘And her? Mrs Pedder?’
He didn’t reply but his expression was eloquent. Vee cradled her handbag and found herself almost smiling. She had hoped for a pinch of old passion and instead she’d come away with a hefty slice of knowledge; it wasn’t such a bad bargain. She’d certainly have no trouble changing another note from Mrs Gifford.
9
Dear Uncle Geoffrey and Auntie Margery,
I’m sorry that I haven’t written a proper letter to you since I’ve been in St Albans. I hope that you are well. I am living at a different address now, above a bookshop (see top of page) but still staying with the same, very kind, family, who have been very generous in buying me delicious things to eat and new clothes, etc. How I would love to be able to repay their generosity.
Noel paused, pen in hand, and looked up at Vee.
‘Carry on,’ she said. She was at the mangle, water cascading out of a pair of Donald’s trousers and into a zinc tub.
‘I can’t think of anything to write.’
‘Of course you can.’
‘They don’t care how I am anyway.’
Vee stopped hauling at the handle, and pushed a knuckle into the small of her back.
‘Use your noggin,’ she said, irritably. ‘If they send a letter to Croxton’s and it’s returned with “Not known at this address” on it, the next thing we know they’ll be sending a policeman down from London to find out where you’ve got to.’
‘Up from London.’
‘Don’t give me cheek, just write the letter. Say what the weather’s like.’
Noel cast his mind back to the handwriting exercise Mr Waring had set them the previous day.
The weather at present is mellow, fruitful and misty, and a great many of the mossed cottage trees are bent with apples. We’re hoping that the hazel shells will soon be plumping with a sweet kernel. Yours sincerely Noel
‘Done,’ he said, folding the sheet of paper carelessly and crushing it into the envelope.
‘You can post it on your way to school, and make sure you do. No more lies.’ After he’d told her about Mattie, she’d prised him open like an oyster, scooped out all the grey slime and most of the grit. ‘And take Mum’s with you as well,’ she added.
Noel thumbed through the pile of envelopes on the sideboard.
‘Who’s died?’ he asked, pausing at a black-edged envelope.
‘Cousin Harold’s wife, back in August. No loss.’
‘And why is your mother writing to Mr Herbert Morrison?’
‘She says he’s stolen an idea she had.’
‘What idea? And why is she writing to Mr Arthur Askey?’
‘Don’t you need to get to school?’
‘I was only wondering. Curiosity’s not a criminal offence.’
‘Killed the cat, didn’t it?’
‘Without curiosity we would still be troglodytes.’
‘Latin again.’
‘Cave dwellers.’
‘We might have been better off. No rates. Oh damnation.’ There was a sharp crack as a shirt-button went through the rollers. ‘Get off to school. I’ll see you at the station at one.’
He clattered down the stairs and slammed the front door. Smiling faintly, Vee scanned the floor for shards of button. It wasn’t until she’d collected all the pieces that she realized that Donald had come into the kitchen, and was standing silently, blotting his chin with a scrap of newspaper.
‘Cut yourself, love? I’ll look for razor blades again – Woolworth’s said they might have a batch in this month.’
He didn’t reply, just stood staring out of the window. He’d not been himself for a fortnight now – up before ten every morning, and hardly dabbing at his food. Vee edged closer.
‘How about a piece of toast? I’ve some dripping left from yesterday. Or there’s a slice of mince pie from last night.’
‘Jus
t tea.’
‘Or I could open a tin of pilchards. You’re fond of pilchards. I’ve been saving them for you.’
Donald shook his head. ‘Like I said, just tea.’
She poured him a cup and watched anxiously as he drank it, scanning him for pallor, shakes, a rash, but he didn’t look ill, exactly. More as if he were wrestling in his thoughts with something huge; Jacob and the angel, she thought, beside the ford Jabbok. She touched the hollow of his shoulder. ‘Is there anything I ought to know about? Anything I can help you with?’
It seemed to take a moment before he heard her, and then he looked round, nodding. ‘Clean shirt for this afternoon,’ he said. ‘And my brogues need a rub.’
At the pictures, Donald had once seen a trailer about a man from Venus with an invisible death ray; when it was turned on, people half a mile away would start fainting and clutching at their throats. He was reminded of it by the steady accumulation of bodily symptoms as he walked towards Brickett Wood: a tightening of his chest by the time he reached the common, contraction of the stomach before he could even see the red gables of The Beeches and a strange bleaching of his entire vision occasioned by the sight of the front gate. He had to stand for a minute, taking deep breaths, before he felt able to continue up the path.
‘Is Miss Neumann in?’ he asked, and the maid disappeared without answering, leaving the door ajar.
Donald waited. The smell of luncheon meat with a syrupy undertone of tinned peaches seeped from the hall. Hilde had said the food was terrible and she was half-starved but that she would rather actually die than eat meat you could cut with a teaspoon. There was a tin of ham in Donald’s right-hand jacket pocket.
‘She says she won’t be down for a quarter hour,’ said the maid, returning. ‘Shall you wait in the parlour?’
It was a comfortless room, furnished with two hard chairs, a locked glass-fronted bookcase and The Light of the World hanging on the wall. Donald stepped over to look at the picture; there’d been a copy in his schoolroom, and he’d never felt any particular emotion when viewing it, but now it was all too easy to see himself in the sombre greenish figure, knocking hopelessly at an ivy-clad door.