The Wind Off the Sea

by Charlotte Bingham

  As far as Waldo was concerned, from a purely academic point of view, Miss Meggie Gore-Stewart had what Hollywood called It – that indefinable appeal of the star, that palpable sense of mystery and glamour. Tonight as he watched her at work behind the bar, he got a heightened sense of her allure, because he supposed to himself that she surely must be slumming it? She had on something in silk that obviously had seen better days, which he imagined Miss Gore-Stewart had now decided would suffice for much less elegant occasions than the ones for which it had originally been purchased. The dress was a dark red, with short puffed sleeves and a quite considerable décolletage in which the stream of male customers who formed an almost constant queue to be served by her were taking an inordinate and unashamed delight. With her customary applomb Meggie was ignoring the innuendoes and the open flirtations, deciding only to deliver choice put-downs to those who over-stepped the limit, several of which Waldo was privileged to overhear, and all of which did nothing to deter the male population from returning to the bar for more.

  Waldo stood at one corner of the bar sipping his whisky and soda watching the unusual barmaid. He half hoped to catch her eye so that she and not Richards would come over and take his next order, and another part of him hoped that she would do nothing of the sort, so that he could simply go on observing her and appreciating her performance. After some time, Meggie, turning to get something from behind her, seemed to catch sight of him, or at any rate glance in his direction, but then the moment passed and she turned back to the next customer, and Waldo, it would seem, became as interesting to her as the pints she was pulling, or the whisky she happened to be pouring the attentive customer.

  Once again the barman who stood in front of him was Richards, wearing his best and most expectant landlord’s face.

  ‘OK,’ Waldo said, finishing his whisky. ‘Hit me again, Mr Richards. Large Scotch, thank you.’

  ‘I feel sure you would rather be drinking Bourbon, Mr Astley,’ Richards replied, carefully measuring the whisky into the glass.

  ‘I would if you kept some. Maybe I should bring you back a few bottles after my next trip?’

  ‘You are returning to America, sir?’

  ‘Not necessarily. Not necessarily at all. On the other hand, I could be – I even might be.’

  With a smile, and knowing that everyone around him was not only listening but interested, Waldo paid his money over, splashed some soda into the Scotch and leaned back against the wall behind him.

  Meggie was still down the other end of the bar, her back turned to him, serving some of the victorious Bexham crew. Observing this, Waldo lit his cigar and surveyed the rest of the inhabitants of the pub. At that moment the person he had been hoping to see strolled in through the pub door, dressed in his tennis whites, with sweat still on his brow. By an extension of such good chance, the newcomer happened to come and stand up at the bar, next to Waldo.

  ‘Good evening, young sir.’ Waldo smiled, his lit cigar now firmly in his mouth. ‘Good game?’

  Dauncy Tate smiled, but at the same time looked rueful.

  ‘Thought it might be a bit of a walk over, but there’s life in the old man yet. As a matter of fact I was playing my father.’

  ‘Did you beat him?’

  Dauncy paused, looking Waldo in the eye. ‘What do you think, sir?’

  ‘I’d say it went to a third set, which you won 7-5 after a series of deuces.’

  ‘That’s really quite incredible,’ Dauncy laughed. ‘Where were you hiding?’

  ‘I used to play tennis with my uncle, who was damn good too, as it happens, but he didn’t much like getting beat by a whippersnapper like me, so the better I got the closer I kept the score line.’ Waldo inhaled some cigar smoke. ‘Drink, young man?’

  ‘Sure, yup, thank you. I’d like some beer, please. One thing I missed in your country – a decent glass of British beer. I’m Dauncy Tate, by the way, and I’ve just come back from the States. I can speak American, a little, not much, but a little.’

  ‘That’s great, you can teach me, I’m forgetting – fast. Waldo Astley.’

  They shook hands, before Waldo nodded at him, and waited for Meggie who was just about to serve another young man to move up the bar towards them.

  ‘Another pint, please, Miss Gore-Stewart.’

  Mickey Todd, the young man whom Meggie was about to serve, put his glass down on the bar and smiled at Meggie, before somewhat incongruously lighting up a self-rolled cigarette with a gold lighter.

  Meggie watched him as she filled his glass with what was currently passing as beer. ‘Smart lighter, Mickey.’

  Mickey glanced at it briefly before quickly slipping it back into his pocket again.

  ‘Yes.’ He took his glass from Meggie. ‘I got it in France – on D Day. The spoils of war, you know. Gold, too. Real blooming gold it is.’ He grinned. ‘Cheers!’

  ‘Could I see it for a moment?’ Meggie leaned over the bar to Mickey and Mickey put his hand in his pocket to fetch the lighter back out.

  ‘Course you can, Miss Gore-Stewart.’ He grinned. ‘Your word is my command. Hey!’

  It was then he noticed his lighter had gone missing, picked from his pocket by one of his drinking mates to light his own smoke.

  ‘Hey, Paul! Give that lighter back here!’ he shouted, pushing a couple of his friends out of the way. But the game was on, as one by one the gang threw the lighter from one to another, keeping it out of Mickey’s reach.

  ‘Some other time, Mickey!’ Meggie called. ‘I’ve got a busy bar here!’

  Happily that was as near as Meggie got to discovering the identity of the man who killed her German lover. A man who had risked his life to protect her while she posed as his mistress, sending messages out of Germany to SOE in London.

  Down the other end of the bar, after yet another round, tongues were now well and truly loosened, and Dauncy and Waldo had become fast new friends. However, Dauncy was regretfully indicating that he was going to have to leave shortly, since it was high time he got home and changed for his parents’ dinner party.

  ‘Can’t be late, you know how it is, since it’s for me, in honour of my return. Wouldn’t be taken too well. Will you excuse me, Mr Astley, sir?’

  ‘But of course,’ Waldo replied gracefully. ‘I’ve not only kept you, I’ve been hogging your company. But before you sprint off, I wonder would you do me a favour? I wondered whether it might be possible for you to teach me how to sail as brilliantly as you?’

  Dauncy stared at him over the top of the pint he was just finishing.

  ‘How do you know how well I sail?’

  ‘How did I know the result of your tennis match? Because I have second sight!’ Waldo laughed. ‘Hell, I spied you in the estuary this morning, and you looked pretty good to me. And what I need most of all is someone with local knowledge to help me brush up my sailing techniques.’

  ‘I should be happy to oblige, sir.’ Dauncy handed his empty glass to Meggie with hardly a look, as he was still staring intently at Waldo. As it happened Meggie was too. ‘How long are you going to be here? There’s not a lot of easy sailing weather ahead, I’m afraid.’

  ‘I live here, young man. I am now a resident of Bexham – at least this is one of my residencies. And because of that I intend to be able to sail as well as I can be taught to sail.’

  ‘Very well,’ Dauncy nodded. ‘When I’ve got a bit more organised we’ll give it a go. You may not make the grade, you do realise that.’

  ‘Of course. And if I don’t you have my permission to throw me overboard. You going to the dance here later on?’

  ‘Thought I might, once the grown-ups at home get fed up with me.’

  ‘Very well, I’ll probably see you there, or rather here, later.’

  Dauncy laughed, picked up his second tennis sweater, bade Waldo farewell and wandered out of the bar in the unhurried manner of a young man who knows he is both home and at home. Waldo watched him go, puffed on his cigar and pretended not to know th
at someone else had been listening in on their conversation.

  ‘Why ask poor old Dauncy to teach you?’ a voice said from behind him. Waldo knew at once to whom it belonged. He also knew that Meggie must have been listening in, that was after all a barmaid’s perks. ‘Why ask him?’ she persisted ‘There are plenty of qualified instructors at the Yacht Club, you know.’

  ‘Yes, I did know. Thank you.’

  ‘I suppose you asked him because you thought you might get poor old Dauncy’s services for free.’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’ Waldo turned and looked at the young woman who was challening him so overtly. ‘No, Miss Gore-Stewart, that really wasn’t the case at all.’

  With a polite smile Waldo placed his empty whisky glass on the bar and left the pub. Meggie stared at it before deciding to leave the glass.

  Naturally Dauncy told his family over dinner of his meeting with Waldo Astley in the Three Tuns, as he was bound to do. Besides his immediate family of father, mother, two brothers and sister-in-law, there were six other guests sitting down to dinner at Shelborne that night. The Wilkinsons who sailed with Hugh, the Smith-Hughesons, who owned one of the large estates that backed from Bexham up on to the edge of Goodstock Lane, and Caroline Percy and Georgina Fairfax, whom Loopy had invited to keep John and Dauncy entertained. Both of them were the daughters of rich men and both were busy being all but ignored by the Tate brothers, who dreaded Loopy’s attempts at matchmaking, until Dauncy dropped his bombshell about his meeting in the pub and the party ground to a sudden silence.

  ‘What on earth have I said?’ Dauncy laughed. ‘What’s the matter? Have I shaken hands with the devil?’

  ‘No, no – no of course you haven’t, darling,’ Loopy quickly assured him with a smile. ‘It must be twenty past and an angel’s passing overhead.’

  ‘It’s ten to,’ Hugh corrected her, ‘and I cannot imagine for a moment why we have all lost our tongues. Mr Astley is a most interesting fellow, most interesting.’

  ‘I thought I remember you said you found him rather attractive?’ one of the guests asked Loopy.

  ‘I don’t recall saying any such thing!’ Loopy gave a little laugh, hoping to turn the conversation on its head and make light of it. ‘In fact I’m almost sure that was your first impression, Georgina. Gracious no.’

  ‘I actually find him very charming,’ Judy put in quickly, not wanting to see her mother-in-law embarrassed any further.

  ‘And when have you had the chance to discover the beauty of his character, might I ask?’ Walter teased, tapping the table lightly with a knife. ‘Is this some handsome acquaintance you’ve been cultivating in my absence?’

  It was Judy’s turn to look embarrassed. She went to say something, but before she could Loopy came to her rescue.

  ‘Bexham is a small place and people bump into each other. People also talk – and from what I’ve heard—’

  ‘From what I have heard,’ John interrupted, ‘Waldo Astley’s a bit of a show-off who can’t keep his nose out of other people’s business.’

  ‘That’s not like you, John.’ Loopy frowned. ‘And quite wrong. Why on earth should you say such a thing?’

  ‘Because that is the impression I have gathered, Mother. He uses people apparently, just to suit himself—’

  ‘Such as? Like who, please?’

  ‘Well – the poor old garagiste on the hill, for instance. Sykes, isn’t that his name? Astley moved in on his business and then not content with that he has set about getting the poor fellow to restore his house,’ Jakie Smith-Hugheson chimed in.

  ‘Yes, I gather old Mr Todd is furious with his son-in-law.’

  ‘Mmm. How about that? And not content with buying the only garage he must buy himself a house in Bexham too. The Wiltons’ house no less. He’ll end up buying up everything, mark my words.’

  ‘No, Walter,’ Loopy put in. ‘I think that’s quite wrong. Really, I do.’

  ‘Not only does he get Sykes to do all his labour on the cheap,’ John went on, taking up the general chorus. ‘But he moves Sykes’s wife, Rusty, in as his housekeeper. Old Mrs Todd is stunned beyond words, they told me down at the Three Tuns. She’s forever moaning about how she’s not allowed to see her grandson now.’

  ‘Hark at you. You surprise me. You sound like a bunch of schoolgirls envying someone else having a better time than them. Why, if I didn’t know you better, I would almost think you were all jealous of Mr Waldo Astley.’ Loopy stared round at her guests and family, feeling vaguely ashamed of them.

  ‘Jealous?’ they all chorused, looking at each other, and Walter laughed out loud.

  ‘Why should we be jealous of Waldo Astley, Mother?’

  ‘That is something at which I can only guess, Walter,’ Loopy told him lightly. ‘Doubtless you can tell yourself the real reason.’

  Judy kept her napkin to her face, this time to hide not her blushes but a private smile.

  ‘We hear all sorts of things about him,’ Sheila Wilkinson continued. ‘Down at the Yacht Club a lot of people are saying that he might be – well, that he might be some sort of – what do they call them over there, George?’ she asked, turning to her purple-nosed husband.

  ‘How should I know? Hoodlums, mobsters, search me. They say all sorts of things at the club. The truth is that he could be anything, anything at all.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Loopy insisted quietly. ‘I really don’t think so.’

  ‘Could be part of organised crime, that sort of thing,’ George continued blithely.

  ‘How rather exciting,’ Caroline Percy put in. ‘I’ve always had a bit of a secret penchant for the underworld, all dead bodies and guns and things.’

  ‘We heard he was buying up Bexham lock, stock and barrel in order to move his family in, that soon there will hardly be a decent house that isn’t in his ownership,’ Helena Smith-Hugheson put in, an expression of such boredom on her face that it seemed she might fall asleep before she even reached the end of her comments. ‘And really, it would hardly be surprising. It’s because we’re so frightfully poor, don’t-cher-know? Rich outsiders know they can buy up everything, and there’s nothing we can do about it.’

  ‘Well, there is something,’ Loopy put in with some asperity. ‘We could start building houses again, we could start rewarding the returning forces, and most of all we could start being less bureaucratic. The end of the Roman Empire was caused by letting an indifferent class of person take over the bureaucratic running of everything, which brought about total inertia in the populace, and consequently the ruination of Rome. And that is a fact.’

  There was a short silence as everyone stared at their hostess, and Loopy feigned sweet innocence, although hoping all the time that no-one would challenge her. Only she knew that she was actually quoting something Waldo Astley had said to her.

  ‘Can’t imagine why on earth this Astley fellow picked on Bexham, that’s the real mystery,’ George Wilkinson announced. ‘It’s not as if he’s a sailor.’

  ‘It appears he’s going to be,’ his wife said, nodding towards Dauncy. ‘Seeing he’s intent on young Dauncy here teaching him the ropes.’

  ‘Tell you what, Dauncy.’ George laughed. ‘Why don’t you take him out and show him a thing or two? Make sure he gets a good few clouts to the bonce with the old jib and a couple of good duckin’s, and he might choose to stay at home in future and twiddle his thumbs, or preferably hightail it out of Bexham and leave us all to get on with our lives.’

  ‘Might go off the whole idea of Bexham altogether,’ Helena Smith-Hugheson agreed with a complacent smile.

  ‘I thought he seemed a more than half-decent sort of chap actually,’ Dauncy said staunchly. ‘Besides, I’d like to give him a few sailing lessons, it might make living here a bit more interesting for him— if he’s taken to sailing.’

  Everyone except his mother stared at Dauncy as if he’d taken leave of his senses.

  ‘If you want a first mate, just give a shout,’ Caroline Percy said to him
with her sweetest smile, hoping to beguile the handsome young man with not only her good humour but also her really quite exceptional bustline.

  ‘Very kind, Caro.’ Dauncy thanked her with his bright smile. ‘But you can’t be too careful. After all, he might be packing a gat.’

  ‘I trust he isn’t hoping to be invited by anyone who matters,’ Helena Smith-Hugheson sighed to Loopy later when the ladies had retired.

  ‘I should imagine that’s the very last thing Mr Astley wishes, Helena,’ Loopy replied. ‘Truly, the very last.’

  There was hope for an invitation that night, but Waldo wasn’t nursing it. Oddly enough the person living in hope was Meggie, who had stayed on at the Three Tuns to help Richards and other volunteers with the refreshment side of the hop that was being held in the large hall used for functions that was attached to the back of the pub. A four-piece dance band hired from Radnor especially for the occasion was playing its way through the usual repertoire of tunes for this sort of affair, the band comprising tenor saxophone, piano, bass and drums, their sound and rhythm good enough to have most people on the floor and dancing within half an hour of striking up.

  By now the dance was a good two hours old, and Meggie, relieved of her duties by Richards for a well-earned break, had sat her weary self down on a hardback chair to one corner of the makeshift band from where she could observe the activities on the dance floor. There weren’t a lot of people she knew except by sight a group lads from the fishing families and some of the girls she would see hanging round the shops in the High Street, or sitting swinging their long suntanned legs on the capstans outside on the quays. A number of the younger visitors to Bexham had stayed on for the dance, in the hope of picking up some of the local talent, but from the amount of giggling and grouping of the girls around the room the poor things weren’t achieving much success.

  Two people she did know, however, were two people whom she was surprised to see were there at all, namely young Dauncy Tate and his new friend Waldo Astley. Much to her relief she saw Waldo encouraging Dauncy to go and dance with a very pretty red-haired girl who was unknown to Meggie, but was possibly the most striking young woman present, so outstandingly pretty in fact that only one young man before Dauncy had even dared ask her to dance. She took no time at all in accepting the dashing young Tate’s invitation, Meggie noted with interest, lighting a fresh cigarette.