Deep Water

by Tim Jeal

  Though Borden had departed, Harrington lingered, leaning elegantly against the door frame. Tall, slim, clean-shaven, with brown eyes and dark hair, his whole body conveyed arrogant English sangfroid. She hated his indifference to Justin’s tears. The great value of Justin’s father’s former duties compared with the insignificant work Harrington and his colleagues were doing made her ache with resentment.

  Andrea said dryly, ‘I suppose I should thank you for not bullying Justin, too.’

  He looked past her towards the window. ‘I don’t disagree with what Captain Borden said.’

  ‘Do you ever?’

  ‘Almost daily.’ His eyes met hers with a candour that confused her. ‘Blast, I shouldn’t have said that.’

  ‘Do I look the type to tell him?’

  ‘Of course not.’ He laughed loudly, once more confounding her earlier assumptions. ‘But that’s not the point really,’ he added, becoming solemn again.

  ‘I get it,’ she said sharply, ‘loyalty, no matter why. Well, since I won’t be telling any tales, may I ask a favour?’ He nodded eager agreement, making her feel guilty, but only for a moment. ‘Tell Captain Borden that Justin’s father was a pilot who risked his life every day till he died, unlike some officers.’

  Harrington neither avoided her eyes nor attempted to contradict her. He simply retreated a step as she pushed Justin past him. They were well ahead by the time he came after them. ‘I’m so damned sorry, Justin,’ she heard him call out.

  Expecting Harrington to follow, Andrea wondered what she would say. But when she and Justin reached the main hallway, the corridor behind them was empty.

  Justin cried some more in the car and begged her not to tell Leo he had been upset. Andrea reluctantly agreed.

  ‘It’s because you mentioned my dad. I was all right until you did.’

  She wished she could believe him but she couldn’t. Her thoughtless remark about not being his mother had left him vulnerable to self-pity, that deadly foe of all stoics. When he admitted how surprised he had been that she had stuck up for him, Andrea was mortified. She knew she deserved to feel bad. She had wanted to be rid of him almost since the start of the holiday.

  *

  Outside the dining room, Leo caught hold of his mother’s arm.

  ‘Stay here,’ he hissed. ‘Were they beastly to him?’

  ‘They were.’

  ‘Did he blub?’

  ‘Not once.’

  ‘What did I tell you,’ said Leo gloomily. ‘He’s just not human.’

  ‘But sweetheart, he feels a lot without ever showing it. I know he’s sensitive.’

  ‘Oh, mum, you don’t at all.’ She tried to keep hold of him, but he pulled away and went into the sitting room. She followed him and he surprised her by smiling happily. ‘Dad ’phoned soon after you left. He’s coming home at the end of the week. Isn’t that ripping, mum? He had a huge row with the dockyard people because he wanted to take everything to bits just before the bigwigs came.’

  Andrea could well imagine the arguments. ‘What happened in the end?’

  ‘The admiral-superintendent locked him out of the yard.’

  ‘My God! You’re sure?’

  ‘Of course. Dad told me. The funny thing is the admiral was right and dad was wrong. His road worked perfectly at the trials.’ He flung himself down on the sofa next to her. ‘Isn’t that wizard, mum. Aren’t you proud?’

  ‘Proud of what?’ asked Justin, coming in.

  ‘Of you,’ sang out Andrea, frowning at Leo.

  ‘She thought you’d crack but you didn’t,’ improvised Leo, without any trace of a smirk. ‘And this is my good news: dad’s coming back and he’ll be making things with us.’

  To Andrea’s relief, Justin said, ‘That’s good,’ and looked as if he meant it. Then he shrieked, ‘I can’t wear these things another minute.’ He was struggling out of his school suit as he left the room.

  *

  Two days before Peter was due to return, Sally telephoned and suggested another visit to Elspeth’s. Since Andrea wanted to tell her about her naval interview she agreed to meet her there. In fact, she would not get a chance to speak to Sally for more than an hour after arriving. On Wednesdays and Saturdays Elspeth engaged a pianist, but today the usual man had failed to turn up, so Sally had told everyone that her friend Andrea was a piano teacher, and a good sport, and would be sure to stand in.

  ‘How can I?’ demanded Andrea while listening to some young men in the next door room singing in tuneless falsetto voices about the wife of a pork butcher.

  ‘All day my husband stuffs sausages, sausages,

  And at night he comes home and stuffs me.’

  ‘You think there’s sheet music for this?’ laughed Andrea.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Sally, ‘they’ll get fed up soon. Everyone prefers singing proper songs with a pianist.’ And, after two more obscene ditties, they did indeed fall silent.

  Elspeth handed Andrea a Cole Porter songbook, the music for Rodgers’ and Hart’s ‘Dancing On The Ceiling’, and some homegrown favourites such as ‘The White Cliffs Of Dover’. Not knowing what to expect Andrea felt apprehensive, but she had often been obliged to sight-read when accompanying singing classes at school, so she launched into the first Cole Porter with a show of confidence. It happened to be ‘Let’s Do It’, which, she now realised, provided a sort of link with earlier subject-matter.

  After a hesitant start, about half a dozen passable singers of both sexes joined in and were soon craning over her shoulder, doing their best to read and sing the words. So by the time they reached ‘Even highly educated fleas do it’, there was plenty of noise and hilarity reverberating around the piano. ‘I’ve Got You Under My Skin’ went better for Andrea, with fewer fluffs and wrong notes, and she was pleased to see several couples dancing, including Sally and James.

  While she was playing, Mike Harrington and Tony Cassilis arrived, but neither came across to sing, though Andrea was sure both had seen her at the piano. Although by then she had drunk two highballs, she felt hurt. She had obviously been ruder to Harrington than she had intended. She couldn’t go over to him to make amends because people around the piano were clamouring for her to play ‘There’ll Always Be An England’.

  After an emotional rendition had come to an end, Sally pushed her way through the knot of singers to plant a smacking kiss on her friend’s cheek.

  ‘It was so damned good of you to step in.’

  Andrea said, ‘I’d like to talk to you, without James, if possible.’

  Seated together on a small sofa in a corner of the main sitting room, Andrea told Sally about Captain Borden’s treatment of Justin, and Mike Harrington’s support for his boss. ‘It was really horrible the way they treated the poor boy. All he’d done was swim out to one of their boats. When Borden left, Commander Harrington was a lot nicer. In fact, I may have been a bit hard on him.’

  Sally looked at her with a sad but sympathetic smile. ‘Darling, can’t you guess why they were so stern?’

  A presentiment made Andrea hesitate to answer. What had Leo said about Justin’s suspicions? ‘You’d better fill me in,’ she murmured.

  Sally moved closer. ‘All this is fearfully hush-hush, so not a word to your boys. Borden’s just a figurehead. It’s Mike and Tony who go off on missions with different crews. Until a while back, they used to land commandos on the French coast, and bring them back after blowing up power stations, lock gates, or whatever. Recently, Mike’s been taking agents across to Brittany.’

  Though horribly embarrassed, Andrea found herself laughing at the sheer scale of her misconception. ‘Is that all he does?’

  ‘He brings back airmen shot down over France.’ Sally smiled, consolingly.

  Andrea gazed at her grey silk-stockinged knees and hardly saw them. How grotesque her scornful attitude must have seemed to Harrington. What the hell should she say to him now? Could she even admit that she knew the truth? Possibly not.

  She lean
ed towards Sally. ‘How did you find out what they were really doing?’

  ‘My husband knows a couple of surgeons in Falmouth. About six weeks ago, one of them couldn’t resist telling him that Mike’s ships had been strafed by Messerschmitts on the way back from Brittany. There were French civilians among the dead and wounded, and a few of our airmen.’

  ‘Terrible,’ murmured Andrea.

  ‘One ship caught fire and sank.’

  Andrea’s throat tightened, recalling Sally’s sadness as she had watched Mike and Tony roar away into the night. At last Andrea knew why Elspeth had been weeping on the same evening. Andrea covered her face with her hands until she was sure she wasn’t going to cry.

  ‘My husband would kill me if he thought I’d told anyone. I’m a bloody fool really. Imagine what would happen if the Krauts were ever ready and waiting when Mike’s boys turned up on the other side.’

  ‘I’ll keep quiet.’

  After Andrea had returned to the piano to play some more songs, Mike Harrington still showed no inclination to come and talk to her between songs. Several times she saw him glance in her direction and this made her feel worse. When he and Tony left together, Andrea consoled herself with the thought that there would be better, less crowded occasions on which she could apologise to him.

  It only occurred to her while driving home that he might be dead before she had another chance.

  *

  With songs churning in her head for hours, Andrea found sleep impossible and she was obliged to read until one in the morning. Not long after switching off her bedside light, she heard a motorbike growl by on the road at the end of the lane, and, shortly afterwards, two cars speeding after it. Of course there would have to be a number of motorbike owners in the area, and the one she had just heard might belong to any of them. But once the image of Mike Harrington, crouched forward on his bike, had formed in her mind, she could not dispel it.

  The following morning she went down to Porthbeer, telling herself that her only concern was to buy fish on the quay when the fishing boats came in. Yet driving into the little port she knew she was really going there so that she could walk along the beach and see whether the naval ships were on their moorings.

  She bought a monkfish, two mackerel and a pollock while the gulls swooped and dived into the harbour behind her. It was surprising how little she was asked to pay, but, even as she was chatting to the fisherman, she was eager to be on the move.

  The bay curved along a shingle beach to a promontory of black rocks. Andrea had not thought to wear boots and very soon her shoes were sinking into the wet sand between the stones. The day was overcast, and, while there had been little wind up at Trevean Barton, there was plenty down here. As she reached the rocky point, a fierce gust made her pull her cardigan protectively around herself. The usual blue of the estuary had changed to slate grey.

  When she had stood beside Justin on the lawn, before he’d been questioned, Andrea had seen six or seven vessels in a group. Raising a hand to stop her hair blowing into her eyes, she now saw only three boats anchored out there. At once she felt uneasy. The missing ships might be patrolling along the coast, so it was stupid to jump to conclusions. But she jumped anyway: the ships would have reached France under cover of darkness and would be lying up in a Breton cove until it was time for them to carry out their mission.

  On returning to the house, Andrea was mildly surprised to find the boys at home. They were playing a board game called L’Attaque, and facing one another from behind opposing cardboard armies. Occasionally a major, brigadier, or sapper would be pushed forward, great vigilance being exercised in case either player attempted to peer around the cards on their flimsy metal stands. The game looked incredibly old-fashioned. Eager to find out whether the missing ships were moored higher up the river, Andrea came up behind Leo and asked him sweetly when he intended to take her sailing.

  ‘How about tomorrow?’ she cajoled.

  ‘Isn’t dad back then?’

  ‘Not till late evening.’

  ‘The rudder may not be fixed yet, mum.’

  ‘If it is, you’ll take me?’

  Without lifting his eyes from the board, Justin muttered, ‘Don’t be mean, Leo.’

  ‘All right then,’ said Leo graciously. ‘You can come.’

  Andrea telephoned Sally during the afternoon, hoping to find out from her whether anyone was likely to know when Mike Harrington would be back. After a knowing pause, Sally said, ‘Darling, I suppose you might learn something at Elspeth’s this evening.’

  ‘Should I ask Elspeth herself?’

  ‘If she’s alone. But what’s the rush? I’d calm down if I were you.’

  Andrea was outraged. ‘You’d calm down, would you, if you’d told Mike Harrington he was a coward?’

  ‘We all make mistakes,’ said Sally sanctimoniously.

  When she had hung up, Andrea suddenly remembered that Peter would be back by eight or nine, so going to Elspeth’s was out of the question.

  *

  A windy overcast morning, and Andrea was standing up to her knees in freezing water, on the sailing club’s broad concrete slipway. Under Leo’s instruction, she was holding the boat so that its sails could not fill with wind. The admiring looks she had attracted while playing at Elspeth’s seemed like a dream. Today, life was certainly back to normal. But despite her freezing feet and legs, she was glad to have this chance to find out more.

  Over a thick blue sweater Andrea wore a life jacket – a cumbersome orange creation made of stitched sausage-like panels, stuffed with something called kapok.

  ‘It only keeps you afloat for six hours,’ Leo warned her. ‘Then glug, glug.’

  ‘You reckon anyone would live that long in water this cold?’ snapped Justin, who had just dipped in a toe.

  Moments after scrambling into the boat, Andrea was ordered to hold the rusty lever that let down the centre-plate.

  ‘We’re not going yet, mother!’ yelled Leo, as she used all her weight to budge it.

  Out in the main channel, with everything apparently under control, Leo asked Andrea if she knew what ‘beating’ meant.

  ‘It’s what we’re doing now.’

  ‘It’s also what happens on Wednesdays at school,’ remarked Justin, as if the memory pleased him. Did Leo also like to recall pain and hardship? Looking at him, smiling as he balanced precariously on the gunwale, she rather feared he might.

  Ahead, the river narrowed to a fork, where a wooded creek entered on the right. As they came level with this inlet, the wind hit them with unexpected force. Without waiting to be asked, Justin clambered up beside Leo on the gunwale and Andrea joined him. Even while the boat was heeling right over, she looked around, hoping to spot naval vessels at anchor. But there were no boats of any description on this stretch of the river.

  In lulls when it was not gusting, the background wind seemed to have become stronger. Worryingly, Leo seemed unsure whether to keep his sail pulled in or released as angry squalls raced towards them. Left to his own devices, Justin was allowing his smaller sail to flap noisily most of the time, which Andrea knew could not be right. When renewed gusts forced the boat onto its side, Leo’s only response was to try to lean out further. Since water was already slopping over the lower gunwale, plainly no amount of weight was going to keep them upright on its own.

  ‘Darling, it could be a good idea to steer into the wind,’ advised Andrea, as a surge of water poured in.

  ‘If I do that, I might go about without meaning to,’ quavered Leo, plainly demoralised by her anxiety. Andrea reckoned that if the wind didn’t funnel out of another creek, they might yet stay upright. Since all the locker doors were closed, they’d float if they tipped over. Too conscious of Leo’s agitation to respond to the mysterious beauty of the river, Andrea knew she would not be sorry when this sailing trip was over.

  They had just passed a well-made stone quay with a grassy top when Justin pointed. Andrea clutched his arm. A grey ship was coming dow
nstream, just where the river divided in two.

  She smiled ecstatically at Justin. ‘Is that the one you got on board?’

  ‘It could be.’

  ‘Where did it come from?’ asked Leo.

  Justin was staring up river. ‘Out of a creek. We’d have seen it earlier otherwise.’

  ‘I think there’s a creek right there,’ said Andrea, shielding her eyes.

  Recently, Leo had been paying more attention to keeping upright than to sailing close to the wind, but when he saw the trawler he pulled in his sail as tightly as he could and told Justin to do the same.

  ‘Steam gives way to sail,’ he told his mother, steering straight for the warship. ‘I’ll show them we can’t be shoved around like last time. They did actual damage to our boat, mum.’

  ‘Maybe they did, Leo, but Justin promised not to go near any navy ship.’

  ‘We’ll go about before we get too close. I bet they won’t dare hold their course.’

  With the sails filling well, and everyone sitting on the gunwale, the dinghy was gathering speed, slapping into the waves with brisk thuds.

  ‘This is spiffing,’ shrilled Leo, with a tremor in his voice.

  ‘Sweetheart,’ urged Andrea, ‘You must turn around now.’ Leo’s knees were shaking and not just, she guessed, with physical strain. He was clearly desperate to impress Justin.

  ‘We’ll just make it,’ boasted Leo.

  Fifteen yards from the foaming bows of the trawler, with collision moments away, Andrea tried to wrench the tiller from Leo’s hand. But he clung on so tightly that she could not take it from him.

  Summoning up all her classroom authority, she roared, ‘Do it now!’

  Leo seemed incapable of action, gazing ahead as if mesmerised. Andrea reached again for the tiller just as the air was shaken by three peremptory blasts from the ship’s hooter. Within yards of the trawler’s overhanging bow, Leo lost his nerve and put the helm over without a word of warning. Justin was late clambering across and failed to free the jib sheets, which tripped Andrea, sending her sprawling across the centre-plate casing.