‘Did you just get here?’ he asked.
‘About a half hour ago. We’re staying in the Cottage. With Uncle Lars. Justin’s there now.’
The Cottage was the nearest of a row of four small dwellings a few yards further back along the lane, with its own tiny garden. Bill had bought it to provide enough space for his large family when they were all together. The idea was to rent it out as a holiday cottage during the summer whenever it wasn’t being used.
‘Well?’ said Alice. ‘Did the historian tell you about how Dad’s submarine nearly blew up the world?’
‘He did! And about how your dad stopped them. It’s an incredible story! Is it true?’
‘I guess so. Dad will never confirm it, but Mom told us about it before she died. It’s all Classified. I bet Dad didn’t say anything to the historian, did he?’
‘No.’ Toby smiled. ‘But he didn’t deny it either. Why didn’t you tell me about it?’
‘Dad’s very serious about none of us talking. Which is why I was pleased he asked you to join him. It’s his way of telling you.’
‘It makes him quite a hero.’
Alice smiled with pride. ‘It does, doesn’t it?’
‘One thing I don’t understand. Sam Bowen talked about an officer who died on the boat. Lieutenant Naylor. He said his son was going to be at dinner.’
Alice glanced at her sister, who was boiling some water in a pan.
Brooke looked up. Her married name was Opizzi, not Naylor. ‘Yeah. That’s Justin.’
She attacked a sweet potato with her vegetable knife.
‘Craig Naylor was his father,’ she went on. ‘Dad, Uncle Lars and Craig were buddies on the sub. Justin wasn’t born until after the patrol. After Craig died, Dad kept in touch with Justin and his mother – in fact, Justin used to come on vacation with us sometimes when we were kids.’
‘So that’s how you met?’
‘You could say so. Although I didn’t see him after the age of fourteen. Until I went to dental school in Chicago and he got in touch. He was working there.’ Brooke moved the sweet potato slices to one side and reached for another. ‘Best not to mention Craig, though, to Justin. He still gets upset about it.’
‘OK,’ said Toby. ‘You didn’t tell me any of this, Alice?’
‘No,’ said Alice, opening a can of mushroom soup. ‘It never came up.’ She frowned. ‘Did this guy say he had found something out about Craig?’
‘Not really. He had checked the date of his death, wanted to make sure it had nothing to do with the launch. Or near-launch. I got the impression it was something he was going to research. He’s very thorough. He also mentioned a woman named Pat Greenberg? Something like that. Your dad said he didn’t know her.’
Before Alice or Brooke could respond, Toby’s phone chirped. It was Piet.
Toby answered. Piet wanted to schedule interviews with Toby for the following Monday. Beachwallet was hiring as fast as they could.
‘How’s Beachwallet doing?’ asked Brooke when he had hung up.
‘Good,’ said Toby with a grin. ‘It’s been a struggle, but we’re getting there. It looks like we’ve got a venture capitalist on board for a couple of million. We’ll see.’
Piet and Toby had set up Beachwallet a year before, with some advice from Bill. The company was developing an app for young travellers to budget their holidays abroad, and to make payments in the necessary foreign currencies.
‘Is Dad investing?’ Brooke asked.
‘Toby won’t let him,’ said Alice. ‘He’d rather take money from evil venture capitalists instead.’
‘Why’s that, Toby?’ said Brooke, pausing her chopping. She seemed genuinely interested.
‘I suppose I’m just wary of mixing family and business.’
‘Dad would love to do it,’ said Alice.
Toby had been reluctant to take money from his new father-in-law only a few months into his marriage. He owed him enough already: although Toby and Alice split the mortgage payments equally on their one-bedroom flat in King’s Cross, it had been bought with a deposit from Bill. Accepting that had pained Toby, but it had seemed pig-headed to refuse.
From the beginning of their relationship, Toby had vowed that he wouldn’t become dependent on Alice’s wealth, on Alice’s father. It was a vow Alice had understood and respected. Between them, they had created a marriage of equals, something Toby was proud of, and he thought Alice was too. They both had serious jobs, they split the mortgage, they shared domestic chores, Toby intended to do his share when children came along.
It wasn’t that he didn’t trust his father-in-law’s business acumen. After working all over the world for a US multinational, Bill had settled in London and invested in and managed a series of smallish defence communications companies in Britain and the rest of Europe. He had made good money out of it, many millions, exactly how many millions neither Alice nor Toby knew. And he had also learned how to keep small companies afloat.
But Toby was hesitant about binding his wife’s family into his own precarious business affairs. It wasn’t just pride in avoiding hand-outs. It seemed risky for a reason he couldn’t quite pin down, something to do with a screw-up in one relationship leading to a screw-up in the other.
‘I can see why you might want to be careful,’ said Brooke.
Toby gave her a grateful smile.
Bill popped his head around the door. ‘Can you manage another one for dinner, Alice? I know you can. There’s no way you haven’t made enough food.’
Alice grinned sheepishly, surveying the piles of food scattered around the kitchen. ‘What do you think, Brooke?’
‘I think we’ll be OK.’
Five
There was plenty of food.Despite the fact that there was turkey involved, it was slightly different to an English Christmas. No sausages, no bacon, mashed potato not roast. The stuffing seemed to have much more bread in it than its English equivalent, and there were Pennsylvanian vegetables: creamed dried sweetcorn, sweet potato and green beans in a mushroom sauce, which is where the Campbell’s soup had come in. The cranberry sauce had been smuggled into the country by Brooke. It had all sounded a little weird when Alice had first described it, but it was delicious, in Toby’s opinion. And there were unlimited quantities of a classy Puligny-Montrachet to wash it down.
They were crammed around the table in a dining room that wasn’t quite big enough for the nine chairs. Guth family silver glimmered in the cosy yellow glow of dim wall lights, and the same thick beam ran across the ceiling from the living room next door. Outside, the marsh lurked in the darkness, and the wind from the sea rattled the windows intermittently. Everyone was there, apart from Maya. No one was worried about this; Maya was always late. It would have been more concerning if she had shown up on time.
The conversation flowed like a warm stream around the family, washing over the newer members, like Toby and Justin, and non-family like Sam Bowen and Lars da Silva, drawing them in. Alice and Brooke teased Megan about her future career as a waitress in the Belgian cafe, Megan and Bill teased Alice about how she had almost worked over the Thanksgiving weekend, and all three sisters teased their father about everything.
The dog was involved, of course. He planted himself beneath Sam’s chair, his ears pricked as if listening to the conversation.
‘Rickover seems to like you,’ said Brooke.
‘He’s a nice dog,’ said Sam, fondling the animal behind its ears. ‘Named after the admiral?’ He glanced at Bill, who nodded.
‘I didn’t realize Rickover was an admiral?’ Toby said.
‘He set up the nuclear submarine programme,’ said Bill. ‘He insisted on interviewing every midshipman himself. Scariest half hour of my life.’
‘Then why did you name the dog after him?’ Sam asked.
‘Because Dad just likes telling admirals to sit,’ said Alice.
‘He was a fine man,’ said Bill.
‘And Rickover is a fine dog,’ said Brooke. ‘He defini
tely likes you, Sam.’
‘And I like him,’ said Sam.
‘Are you sneaking him turkey?’ Alice asked in her most inquisitorial voice.
Sam’s chubby cheeks coloured red. ‘Maybe.’
‘I hope your admiral was less easily biddable,’ Alice said.
‘I never tried feeding him turkey,’ said Bill with a laugh.
‘Is there a Mrs Bowen?’ Brooke asked Sam.
‘My mum?’ Sam said.
‘You know what I mean!’
Sam grinned. ‘Not yet. But soon.’
‘Soon?’ said Alice. ‘Are you engaged?’
‘Since last weekend. There’s an old Roman fort way up in the Pennines we both really like: she’s a historian too. We went for a walk up there on Sunday. That’s where I asked her.’
‘And she said yes?’ said Brooke, her eyes wide.
‘Of course she said yes, dummy,’ said Megan. ‘Otherwise they wouldn’t be getting married.’
Brooke ignored her. ‘What’s her name?’
‘Jasmine. Jazz.’
‘Nice name. Not as nice as Rickover, of course. Have you fixed a date yet?’
‘Not sure,’ said Sam, grinning. ‘We can’t decide whether to have it before or after the baby is due.’
This prompted a slew of highly personal questions from the three Guth sisters, all of which Sam answered with good humour. Toby could see the tough truth-seeking historian wilting under the Guth charm offensive.
Toby was sitting next to the mysterious Uncle Lars. Although he must have been Bill’s age, he appeared ten years older. Short steel-grey hair bristled over the brown dome of his skull, and two deep lines cut downwards one on either side of a full sandy moustache. He was thin and wiry, and looked like he had had a hard life. Jail did that to you, Toby supposed.
‘Are you here on holiday?’ Toby asked.
‘Yeah,’ said Lars. ‘Primarily to see Bill, but I’m planning on going to London and maybe Bath or York. We served together on submarines, back in the day.’
‘I know. I was there when Sam was talking to Bill this afternoon.’
‘Oh, really?’ Lars looked surprised. ‘Did Bill tell him anything?’ he asked quietly. Sam was at the other end of the table, safely out of earshot.
‘No,’ said Toby. ‘A brick wall.’
‘That’s probably a good thing,’ said Lars. ‘Sam came all the way out to Wisconsin to speak with me a couple of weeks ago, and I didn’t tell him anything either. A wasted trip if ever there was one. I don’t understand why Bill invited him to dinner.’
‘You know Bill better than I do,’ said Toby. ‘He’s very hospitable.’
Lars grunted as he stabbed some turkey with a fork and pushed it into his mouth. ‘He is that.’
‘So you live in Wisconsin?’ Toby asked. ‘Is that where the Lars comes from?’ Toby was dimly aware that Wisconsin had been settled by Scandinavians.
‘That’s right. My mother’s family were Swedes from way back, but my dad came from Brazil. He’s passed, but my mother’s still alive. Barely. She’s in a home now, but I figure she needs someone to come see her. So I decided to move back.’ Lars looked straight at Toby with troubled green eyes. ‘After they let me out of jail.’
Toby thought of saying ‘that’s nice’ but realized that, although the sentiment was true, it sounded trite. He knew he was looking confused; an Englishman trying to be polite and not quite managing it.
‘They did tell you that, didn’t they? I spent eight years in prison in Guadeloupe?’
‘Yes they did. That can’t have been much fun.’
Dumb comment.
‘No, it wasn’t. Then again, prisons in the States are even worse. It wasn’t the best period of my life.’ He changed the subject. ‘So you’re the guy who married Alice?’
‘I am.’
‘She was a beautiful girl,’ said Lars. ‘She’s a beautiful woman now. You’re a lucky man.’
‘I am,’ Toby repeated. And he was. He really was.
He looked over to his wife, who was seated next to Sam, and seemed to be involved in an earnest conversation with him. Her earlier merriment had gone and she was frowning.
They were interrupted by the sound of the front door opening in the hallway, and the youngest Guth sister appeared. Maya was also the tallest, with unfeasibly long legs and long blonde hair that she wore like a club over one shoulder. She was still wearing her airline uniform, having arrived straight from Heathrow. There was a general hubbub of welcome as she greeted everyone and took her place at the table. She was soon plied with turkey and wine.
Bill introduced her to Sam.
‘Are you finally going to tell us what Dad and Lars did on that submarine?’ Maya asked in her English middle-class drawl.
‘That’s my plan,’ said Sam. ‘Once I’ve worked it out myself.’
‘Hey, Sam?’ said Megan, who was at the other end of the table from him. ‘This afternoon, when you were trying to talk to Dad about his submarine, you mentioned that there had been a bunch of near-launches. Is that true?’
Bill frowned at his daughter. But the rest of the table were curious to hear Sam’s answer. Including Lars.
‘There were several that we know of,’ he said. ‘And probably lots that we don’t.’
‘Such as?’
‘Well. In the Cuban missile crisis back in 1962, a Russian submarine was surrounded by US destroyers. The captain and the political officer wanted to launch a nuclear torpedo, but the officer in charge of the flotilla was also on board and he talked the captain out of it.’ He glanced at Bill as he said this. ‘Which is kind of like what might have happened on the Alexander Hamilton.’
If he was hoping for a response from Bill, he wasn’t going to get one. Toby felt Lars shifting in his seat beside him.
‘Also in ’62, a US tactical missile squadron on Okinawa were ordered to fire their nuclear-tipped Mace missiles. The targets didn’t make sense to the captain in charge of the squadron – they included places outside Russia. He asked for confirmation of the order and he got it. But he still didn’t obey the command, and he sent two men armed with pistols to stop the lieutenant at a neighbouring bunker launching his own missiles.’
That might also sound familiar, Toby thought. Both Bill and Lars were listening intently.
‘There was a bear that ran into the perimeter wire at an airfield in Duluth and set off an alarm. Someone got the alarms confused, thought war had started, and scrambled a squadron of nuclear-armed warplanes from a nearby base. There were the false readings at NORAD I told you about. That happened twice, in 1979 and again in 1980.
‘Then, in 1983, the Soviet early-warning centre south-east of Moscow showed that the US had launched a nuclear attack. Fortunately, the officer on the watch had been involved in upgrading the computer system and he didn’t trust it. So he did what we all do when the computer doesn’t work. He turned it off and turned it on again.’
The table laughed nervously.
‘And?’ said Maya.
‘And it still showed the missiles were coming.’
‘So what did he do then?’ Justin asked.
‘Tried it again. Turned the system off and on again. Missiles were still there, but by that stage radar stations in the north of the Russia should have spotted the contacts and hadn’t.’
‘Jesus,’ said Megan. ‘So he could have reported the attack?’
‘Not only could he have, he should have,’ said Sam. ‘No one in the west realized it at the time, but we were really close to nuclear war in 1983. The Soviet leadership were convinced that NATO was about to launch a surprise first strike. They would have launched their own missiles right away.’
There was silence, a rare occurrence with all four Guth sisters present.
Toby looked around the table. The sisters, he, Justin and Sam had all been born after 1983. They wouldn’t have existed. Which would mean they wouldn’t have experienced the firestorms, the global radiation, the death of billions o
f people, of every living thing on the planet. Or almost every living thing.
Megan raised her eyebrows at Toby. ‘Do you have cockroaches in England?’
Six
Toby had learned the year before that Thanksgiving wasn’t just about giving thanks, or even about turkey, it was about football. American football.
Bill’s super-smart TV could pick up any US sporting event. Neither of Bill’s favourite teams were playing that day, neither Navy nor the Philadelphia Eagles, but the Washington Redskins were taking on the Dallas Cowboys, and Bill had spent a lot of time in Washington. Despite her professed hatred of Dallas, Megan was happy to root for the Cowboys, continuing what appeared to be a family tradition of supporting everyone else’s enemy.
Alice had seen Sam out, before returning to the kitchen to supervise washing up. Although she seemed calm and business-like, Toby detected a hint of tension in her shoulders, a slight tightening of her lips.
‘Are you OK?’ he asked.
‘Of course I am,’ she said with a bright smile. ‘Now go and watch the game. We’ve got this.’
The four women were doing the washing up, and the men were doing the TV watching. Toby considered arguing.
‘Don’t argue,’ said his wife, and pushed him out of the room.
Bill, Lars and even Justin vied with each other to explain to Toby what was going on. Toby knew the rules, but not the strategy and tactics, a subject upon which Bill and Lars politely disagreed. Justin was less well informed than the older men, and less sure of his own opinions.
Toby hadn’t spent much time with Justin. Brooke had travelled to England to see her father and elder sister a couple of times without him, and you don’t speak to people much at your own wedding; Toby had attended Justin and Brooke’s in Chicago, and they had both been to his and Alice’s in Holland Park.
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