by Tim Jeal
Justin handed Leo the prop he had been carrying and pulled himself up onto the tree that bridged the mud. He looked down sadly at Leo. ‘Mike’s still not back from France.’
Leo was too dazed by their discovery to listen any more. He imagined sailors covering up the French colours with grey naval paint, so the trawler would cause no comment in the river. Then, when the boats were due to return to France, the grey would be replaced by brown and blue. French names and fishing numbers would be painted on, too. Though Justin was still tearful, Leo felt elated. Dad would have to admit they’d found out something he didn’t know.
Leo jumped down from the tree into the channel and suddenly stopped dead. Mike really could be shot. ‘Summarily executed’ was how books on spying described it. The Germans would probably torture him to make him give away the names of the French people he was meeting. Then he’d be tied to a post and blindfolded. Leo felt the kind of shivers he had last experienced when waiting to be caned.
*
Peter went out into the lane. There were no bicycles propped against the hedge, so the boys had not yet returned from their sail. Since Andrea was out, too, Peter began to pack to avoid being in a rush later in the evening. He found it very touching that Leo hated to see him go back to Falmouth, but this didn’t ease Peter’s depression as he collected up his socks and handkerchiefs. Andrea had given no sign that she regretted his departure. Her detachment contrasted strangely with her distress before his last return to the dockyard. He was the uncommunicative one, she had always told him, unable or unwilling to express his feelings. Yet now she would herself sit for long periods saying nothing, and offering no explanation even when asked why she seemed sad or preoccupied. ‘I’m thinking,’ she would say; or, ‘Do I keep asking what’s on your mind?’
Her refusal to go out walking with him had spoken to Peter more clearly than words. Physical things – walking, tennis and cycling – had become all-important to their relationship after Andrea had stopped asking him about his work. Until this holiday, Peter had managed to persuade himself that polio hadn’t destroyed the few activities they’d still shared. But now he knew better. He didn’t intend to make airy promises to Andrea before he left, but by the time he saw her again Peter was determined to have acquired whatever medical certificates might be needed to extract from the Admiralty a new deal on health grounds. Unless he saw Andrea more often, their marriage would end. To prevent this happening, he would resign if need be.
Peter was still folding shirts and ruminating as he heard a motorbike in the lane. When he reached the window, he saw that Mike Harrington had dismounted and was striding up the path. Rose was showing the naval officer into the sitting room by the time Peter reached the hall.
Mike turned and said cheerfully to Peter, ‘Thought I’d drop by and see if the boys would like a sailing lesson.’
‘They’re on the water already.’
‘Good for them. I’ll call back another time.’
Mike was wearing a leather sheepskin-lined jacket similar to those favoured by RAF pilots. He delved into an inner pocket and produced a bottle of wine.
‘Since you and your wife are in the know, I thought I’d give you a couple of bottles. The other one’s still on the bike.’
‘Very good of you.’
‘I get given plenty.’
Looking at Mike’s smiling face, Peter was surprised to find himself feeling a little brighter. Here was a man able to be cheerful and think of others though he might be dead in a month. So buck up. Though envying Mike his physical fitness and the excitement of his work, he liked him, too. Not many men would think of doing favours for a couple of boys, just after returning from a mission. Peter might have suspected a homosexual interest but Harrington didn’t fit that picture – though appearances could be misleading.
Peter clapped his hands heartily, as if this was his usual style, and said, ‘I know the sun isn’t anywhere near the yardarm, but what about a spot of wine?’
‘The wine’s yours.’
Peter went out and returned with a corkscrew and two glasses. While drawing the cork, he asked Mike about his motorbike and learned that it was a Velocette similar to the machine that won the Manx TT in ’39. After sipping the wine appreciatively, he questioned Mike about the engines of his trawlers and was impressed to learn that he had bullied the navy into installing twin 500 hp Hall Scott engines like the ones used in the fastest MTBs.
Peter grinned widely. ‘Must be quite a sight, a fishing boat ripping along at twenty-five knots.’
‘Dead right,’ laughed Mike. ‘So we cross at night and slow right down when we’re five miles from home.’
Peter calculated that Mike was about thirty, almost ten years younger than him; yet age was not such a straightforward indicator of experience. Much of adult life involved endless repetition, except for people like Mike who rarely knew two weeks alike. Did this age them more quickly? Maybe not, since childhood was also full of new experiences, and this was what made a child’s life so vivid. A broken toy or cancelled treat was terrible for a child because he thought the loss could never be put right. Like children, Mike and his men lived with losses. Longing to have a serious discussion, Peter felt he didn’t know Mike well enough to demand the honesty required to make such a conversation worthwhile. Being with Mike made Peter wonder what his own life would have been if he had not contracted polio. Such speculation caused him no resentment. Was that because he could live more adventurously through Mike? It embarrassed Peter to suspect that this was true.
The boys arrived without either man hearing them. The instantaneous delight on Justin’s face as he saw Mike touched Peter. Leo also seemed pleased, but in a more reserved way.
‘Vroom! Vroom! Will you take us on your Velocette?’ cried Justin.
‘I haven’t got a helmet for you.’
‘Do you wear one?’
‘Not always. But that’s different,’ insisted Mike with a smile.
‘Why?’
‘Because I’m not a minor.’
‘If you crashed and died your loss to England would be a zillion times worse than a schoolboy’s.’
‘Your mother might disagree.’ Mike turned to Peter. ‘My God! Does he press you like this?’
Peter smiled back. ‘I haven’t got a motorbike.’
‘I’d better get rid of it! You know I came to take you two sailing?’
Justin came and sat next to him. ‘Do you know the creek beyond Grove Point?’ asked the boy, looking closely at Mike, who merely nodded. ‘That’s where we went.’
‘French wine,’ said Leo, peering at the label on the bottle. ‘1940.’
Mike nodded briskly, no longer amused. ‘A friend brought it back from Dunkirk.’
After a silence, Justin said breathlessly to Mike, ‘We found the props you use when you paint on the French colours.’
Mike snapped, ‘You should have done what Captain Borden said, Justin. What my flotilla does is my business.’
‘D’you think I’d ever tell anyone?’ gulped Justin.
‘You made a promise and you broke it.’
Without speaking, Justin jumped up and ran out. Peter said urgently to Mike, ‘That was pretty hard on him. You’re his idol, you know. Finding out couldn’t have been easy.’
‘What do you suggest, professor?’ Mike’s tone was exasperated but remorseful, too.
‘You should talk to him.’
‘I guess you’re right. Oh hell!’
When Mike had gone, Leo burst out angrily, ‘He was horrible.’
Peter drank more wine. ‘Our secret service sends agents to France.’
‘I know that. I’m not stupid, dad.’
‘Do you also know that the Germans send spies over here – wearing English clothes and speaking perfect English? Maybe there’s one in this village.’
Leo said fiercely, ‘No spy’s going to hear me give anyone away.’
‘But you might tell other boys, and they might blab all over the place.
There are hundreds of lives at stake. Mike has every reason to be worried.’
‘How did you and mum find out?’
‘Mum was told by the doctor’s wife, who’d heard from her husband. That’s how secrets spread.’
Leo had gone very white. ‘Would Mike be shot if he’s captured?’
‘It’s pointless to speculate.’
‘It isn’t, dad.’
‘It is,’ said Peter, closing his eyes.
Just then, Justin came in holding Mike’s hand. Almost at once, Justin launched into one of his self-confident, searching questions. How could Mike and his sailors stop the paint looking new and giving the game away?
‘Good question,’ murmured Peter.
‘But easy to answer,’ remarked Mike. ‘We throw iron filings onto the paint while it’s still wet, and then hose it down with salt water. A couple of hours later, the rust marks look as if they’ve been there for months.’
‘That’s really clever,’ remarked Leo.
‘We do our best.’
‘Hey! What’s this?’ Peter was startled to hear his wife’s voice. ‘Drinking in the afternoon?’
Andrea came up behind her husband, kissed him lightly on the temple and gazed at Mike as if at a mythical creature. ‘I thought you were some place else, Commander.’
Mike looked resigned. ‘Everyone in this room knows where, so don’t be coy about naming it.’
‘I’ll be as coy as I like.’
‘Mike kindly gave us this wine,’ said Peter, filling his glass and handing it to Andrea. She looked particularly pretty in a striped sweater and faded blue slacks. He tried to imagine that his own destination was Brittany, and immediately he felt great tenderness for Andrea. Facing the possibility of never seeing her again, he would insist they were left alone together so they could make love. Surely she would feel an answering tenderness. It came to Peter that the significance of adventure lay not in the thing itself but in the value it gave to the time before and after. Odd that he’d never thought of this before.
Justin came in from the garden holding a paint-spotted baulk of timber. He held it up for Mike’s inspection. ‘One look and everything was clear to me.’
Peter tried to think of a day when he too had discovered something that had changed everything. Not any of his scientific inventions; only meeting Andrea.
Mike took the plank from Justin. ‘I think I should have this. I’ll send someone for it.’
Andrea went out into the lane with Mike, just ahead of Peter, who wanted to take a closer look at Mike’s bike. He was surprised to hear her ask Mike something about his wife. He hadn’t realised the man was married. ‘Is she enjoying her vacation?’ Andrea ended lamely.
‘God knows,’ said Mike. ‘She came down here to talk about our divorce.’
Andrea stammered a confused apology: she’d had no idea his marriage was over, blah, blah. Peter felt embarrassed for her. She wasn’t a village gossip but that’s what it had sounded like.
‘Small places are the devil for rumours,’ grumbled Mike, tilting his bike and flicking up the stand.
As Mike slung his leg over the machine, Andrea said, ‘Next time, why not call up before you come for the boys?’
‘Right’o.’ He held out a hand to Peter. ‘See you soon, Prof.’
‘I’m afraid I’m off to Falmouth this evening. We’ll meet on my return.’
Mike took another bottle of wine from a compartment under the pillion and gave it to Andrea before kick-starting his machine and roaring away. Standing beside her husband in the lane, Andrea smiled at him – quite sadly, he thought, but that seemed better than not at all.
CHAPTER 10
After his father had been driven away, Leo thumped upstairs to his room in an ostentatiously unhappy way. From the sitting room, Andrea could hear faint snatches of song – Rose was crooning to herself while ironing sheets. Too tense to read, Andrea turned off the standard lamp and gazed out across the rough lawn to where the candles on the large horse chestnut glowed serenely in the deepening gloom.
How in hell’s name had Mike been so calm? In the half-light, Andrea’s eyes took in the pale buff wallpaper, the dull green Wedgwood china on the mantelpiece, a Bartolozzi print by the door – what a bland and passionless setting for her longings. If Peter hadn’t followed them into the lane, Mike would have told her when to meet him, and she would not be in suspense now. How would she endure it if days were to pass and she heard nothing from him?
‘You’re sitting in the dark.’ Andrea jumped at the sound of Justin’s voice. He had come in so quietly that she had not heard him until he was almost behind her.
‘Don’t you ever like being alone?’
‘Only to ambush someone.’
He switched on the ugly lamp beside her chair. ‘Guess what Mike told me?’
‘I can’t,’ she murmured, suddenly gripped by the absurd notion that Mike might have told Justin about his love for her.
‘He said when he gets leave he’ll come and see me at school.’
‘That’s really nice of him.’
‘It’s not really,’ objected Justin, ‘it’s because he likes me and wants to come.’
‘It’s still nice,’ she insisted.
‘He can’t see his own boy, so I’m the next best thing.’
‘His wife won’t let him see his son? That’s awful, Justin.’
‘He’s getting divorced just so she’ll have to.’
Andrea was shocked. ‘Mike told you he’s getting divorced just so he can see his son some more?’
‘Yup.’
The alarming possibility that Mike was divorcing, while still loving Venetia, slid snake-like into Andrea’s breast. The telephone rang as Justin was leaving, placing him almost beside the instrument at this crucial moment. Andrea snatched the receiver from him, only to hear Sally’s voice.
‘Andrea, dear, I’m telling all my friends not to speak to me at the funeral. I know I’ll howl if they do. Smile at me if you must, but not one word, please.’
Since Andrea had not yet learned from the vicar what music she was to play, she had managed to avoid worrying about the funeral although it was only two days away. Sally’s call forced her to imagine how it might be. John Lowther would probably drag himself to church, so people would think he’d forgiven his wife. Thinking about John made Andrea feel sorry for Peter, but not sorry enough to want to put off Mike.
By eleven that evening, Andrea was telling herself that Mike wasn’t going to call till morning. But just as she was getting into bed, the telephone rang. To reach it first, she ran downstairs in her nightdress.
‘Andrea?’
‘Mike?’ Feigned surprise in her voice.
‘Are you alone?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re whispering.’
She giggled. ‘You’d be whispering, too, if you had two juvenile detectives breathing down your neck, and a maid who catches fish in her hands.’
‘When can we meet?’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘I can’t manage that. What about the day after?’
‘I’m playing at the pilot’s funeral.’
‘That’s fine. I hope to be there. Perhaps we shouldn’t leave together. What about going straight through the graveyard afterwards, and past the Great War cross. Then keep going till you find a lane on the right just after the butcher’s and the baker’s.’
‘And the candlestick maker’s?’
‘Just the first two.’
‘I guess it’ll have to do.’
She heard him laugh a little uneasily. ‘But you’ll be waiting?’
‘Of course I will,’ she replied, amazed with herself for being flippant when she was overwhelmed with happiness. His acknowledgement that they ought not to be seen together was the sign she had longed for. A sense of the inevitable made her head swim. From the lane, he would take her to a place where they could be alone – and after that, what would be would be. On her way upstairs, she met Justin leaving
the bathroom.
‘Was that the telephone?’ he asked.
‘No, it was the fire department.’
‘Was it Mike?’ His tone was magnificently matter of fact.
‘No, it was not,’ she said emphatically, already wishing she hadn’t lied. But, despite his tender age, Justin really rattled her. How many times must he have seen his mother talking with the men who later became her lovers? Enough to have made him expert at reading the signs: their lowered voices and their looks; lustful expectation in the air like an intimate scent. Andrea vowed in future never to run to get the telephone, nor to sit in the dark.
*
So that she would have no doubts about where she would be meeting Mike, Andrea walked to his chosen lane before the service. As she entered the church, the vicar and his verger were putting in place tall trestles for the coffin to rest upon. As Andrea came closer, the vicar smiled approvingly, ‘I’m so glad you’re not wearing a hat with a brim, Mrs Pauling. Miss Edgelow’s headgear once touched the candles lighting her music. She was lucky to escape with only minor burns.’
For the past two years, Andrea had been the organist at her girls’ annual carol service in an Oxford church; but, until now, she had never played a country organ powered by a human ‘blower’. Today, the pumping of air would be done by the verger, who came and sat next to her, placing himself, rather eerily, behind a red curtain. If he were to stop working the lever, a discordant wail would soon dwindle to a squawk. For her own part, Andrea knew all the chosen hymns pretty well, and had practised, on the school piano, the uplifting Buxtehude prelude selected by the vicar for the entrance of the coffin. With her back to the gathering mourners, Andrea could see them reflected in the mirror above her keyboard. When Sally and her husband entered together, the glass distanced Andrea a little from their pain.
Before the arrival of his coffin, she pictured James Hawnby as she had first seen him at Elspeth’s, with his girlish complexion and his nervous manner. Recalling this, she feared Mike’s calmness could only be a brave pretence. Andrea had doubted whether she would be able to recognise him in her small mirror, but, since he swept in at the centre of a tight-knit group of naval officers, she had no trouble. A dozen or so RAF pilots had entered just before him and were filing into pews near the chancel arch. It struck her as typical of Mike to choose to sit near the back, a position which the air force ‘heroes’ would probably consider good enough for members of an unglamorous coastal patrol.