A Dangerous Act of Kindness

by A Dangerous Act of Kindness (retail) (epub)

  She held her hand out in a perfunctory way and when he took it, she gave it one, abrupt shake and said in a brittle tone that was almost hearty, ‘Let yourself out then and the very best of luck.’

  She released his hand, picked up a Tilly lamp and, without a backward glance, walked into the sitting room and through to the foot of the stairs, taking each step with the cold determination that had been her ally ever since Jack died. She knew she’d be just fine, despite a vague nausea building in her stomach.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Millie went directly into the large, echoing bathroom, dominated by a freestanding tub, big enough to drown in. The hot tap squeaked as she turned it, the pipes gave a mighty shudder and scalding water thundered onto the enamel. As she crossed the corridor back into her bedroom, she heard the slam of a door downstairs but she didn’t pause.

  She was determined not to think about it, not to think about anything.

  She stood the lamp on the dressing table in front of the mirror, listening to the gush of water in the distance and the rattle of the pipes throughout the house. She pulled off her scarf, now stiff with dried mud. Her hair flopped down and she stared into the eyes of her own reflection. They looked quite dead, like the eyes of a corpse, and she gazed at herself with a kind of awe that she could feel so unmoved.

  When she left her bedroom, she didn’t even pause on the landing to listen. She knew he’d gone. She fetched a pile of towels from the airing cupboard, heard the comforting sound of the hot-water cylinder refilling and headed back to the bathroom.

  As she crossed the room to the tub, the steam swirled around the lamp like a fog, misting everything with warm, dripping moisture.

  She put the towels and lamp on the floor and took off her shoes. She undid the buttons on her thick cords and peeled them away, taking her socks with them like a snake sloughing its skin.

  The lino underneath her feet felt smooth as ice. She kicked the trousers into the corner of the room before sitting on the edge of the tub and turning on the cold tap. After a few moments she plunged her hand in, stirring the cold into the hot, staring down into the swirling water, brown as a river from the rust in the pipes.

  Deeper and deeper the water rose and she thought, What the hell, who’s going to know how much I’ve used and she started to unbutton her shirt, rubbing her hand across her neck, feeling a sandpaper rasp from the dirt.

  The thunder of the taps filled her ears, the steam rose straight up into her face, surrounding her with a damp heat. When the water lapped an inch below the overflow she reached forward, turned off the taps.

  By the light of the lamp she noticed the steam around her feet jerk and swirl, felt a chill where the damp cotton of her blouse touched her shoulder and knew that someone had opened the door into the bathroom.

  She didn’t turn. She stood, facing the bath and let her shirt fall to the ground. He could look at her. She didn’t mind. As she slipped the straps of her camisole off her shoulders and let it drop, she wondered if she was testing him, seeing if, like Jack, he would slink away with an embarrassed apology.

  She reached behind for the clasp of her bra and as she lowered her hand to drop it to the floor, she caught the top of her camis and slid them off before stepping into the bath, her skin pimpling as the water rose up one leg, then the other, almost unbearably hot. Slowly she lowered her body down, sitting forward and clasping her knees against her chest.

  Still she didn’t turn.

  Above the steady drip of the tap she heard the click of a watch strap releasing, the sigh of fabric and the soft crump of clothes landing on the floor. Her heart was thundering in her chest, so strong she could see tremors on the surface of the water.

  She heard a soft swirl behind her, like the lazy turn of a fish on the surface of a lake. A hand creaked on the enamel and the hot water rose, up, up her body, gentle waves lapping around her, the roughness of his legs gliding either side of hers beneath the water. She could hardly breathe.

  She unclasped her hands and let her arms drift away from her knees as she began to uncurl. She straightened her legs, felt herself lighten until she was almost floating and back she went, knowing she could not sink, knowing he would catch her.

  Oh, the sensation of his flesh against her back, her skin against his. It was nearly too much. He cupped a handful of water and let it dribble across her neck, down her front and between her breasts and she held her breath. He lowered her further back, supporting her head as she drifted down, coming to rest on his chest.

  She could feel his hands teasing through her hair underneath the water and when she opened her eyes, there he was above her, every line and contour of his face softened by the steam, his head dropped to one side in concentration as he washed the grit from her hair. The rhythm of his hand was hypnotic, the trickle and plash of the water intoxicating.

  She could smell the mild spice of the Pear’s soap on the side of the bath and then, as he turned her head and trickled water through her hair, his own heady scent. It pulled something deep inside her. She felt a jolt, an electric shock of desire crackle through her. She’d never felt anything like it before. They seemed to float together, already joined, as if their blood flowed in one another’s veins, as if her nerves thrummed against his.

  Slowly she turned until she was lying on his stomach, looking up at him. His face was so beautiful. His blonde hair lay damp and soft across his forehead and in the glow of the lamplight, she could see the short golden hairs in the stubble along his jaw. The pupils of his eyes were wide and dilated, black as onyx set in rings of silver. The muscles of his arms filled his smooth skin, the soft hairs across his chest lifted in the margin of the water.

  He stroked the hair off her face with his strong, square hand, caught her gently underneath her arms and glided her up towards him until their lips met, wet and hot from the water.

  Chapter Twenty Three

  The blizzard had passed. Lukas watched the moon begin its ascent as the blue hulls of snow clouds passed softly overhead like galleons in the night. Millie lay against him, the bedding kicked away. He could feel the cool air flowing across his skin from the uncurtained window but he had no desire to cover himself. His body still sweltered from the heat of the bath and the fever of their lovemaking.

  The room was bathed in moonlight, bright from the reflected snow and their bodies glowed white in the monochrome room. White hot, he thought, like molten aluminium, flowing into one another. Stretched here, in her bed, everything was stripped away.

  Their nakedness levelled them, equalled them, here in this cool bedroom, their limbs soft as wax cradled in a warm hand. Neither body was hotter nor cooler than the other. In this moment, in this room, they were both utterly the same.

  He could feel the pressure of her ear against his chest and wondered if she could hear the beating of his heart in her dreams, wondered if, before she drifted off to sleep, she’d followed the rhythm of the drum slowing as his limbs and body drifted into a state of perfect peace.

  Her arm was heavy across his belly and, as he ran his eyes along her side, over her waist and up the lift of her hip, he felt his desire rising again, like a flame coaxed from the embers by a puff of breath.

  He wouldn’t wake her, not yet. He wanted to lie beside her as she slept and commit every feeling, every sight, every smell to memory because this was where his redemption lay.

  He wanted to make this memory greater, more vivid than the images that haunted him – flying above the bombers as he crossed the channel again and again, the silver trails of the Spitfires high above him, hunting. He sees the black lines of German planes falling, the parachutes of his friends floating in the thin cold air. One of the canopies starts to burn and the pilot is dropping, faster and faster.

  He snapped his eyes open.

  He must have drifted off, let those terrible images creep back in, the cruel beauty of that strange place, thousands of feet above the earth, the sky so blue, the bad smoke from the burning planes drifting
higher and higher into the atmosphere, the vapour trails crossing and recrossing the sky. In amongst all this, the barrage balloons on their wires floating above the city, some burning like huge torches, and the parachutes, so white, floating down through the living and the dying.

  In the summer there were thirty-six of them in his Gruppe, all pilots with three years’ flying experience under their belts, all happy and proud, itching to fly. They were so sure it would be a swift victory. Ha! He even told a British airman who crashed near their airfield in France that when they conquered England, he would go and see his family in London and tell them he was all right – captured, not dead.

  As the days passed, fewer pilots returned to base. How the British must have laughed at them – so regular, so German. Like trains coming into a station, every twenty minutes another Gruppe flying over the cliffs of England while the British pilots sat in their deck chairs in the sun, watching the clock. When the train was due, they took off and picked them out of the sky.

  And then the channel sickness started.

  It wasn’t like seasickness. The pilots came down with agonising stomach pains. He felt it, before he flew, the knotting in the guts when he woke at dawn, the grinding nausea. If it got really bad, the doctors diagnosed appendicitis, sent the boys back home for a couple of weeks. Everyone knew the diagnosis was wrong, even the doctors, but how else could they give them a couple of weeks rest?

  For him, it was never bad enough. When he walked out to the dispersal point to wait and the feelings crept in and the sickness came, all he had to do was wait until he was in the cockpit and the mechanic pushed him down into his harness and straps. Then he’d reach for the starter lever, feel the aircraft rock as the mechanic wound up the starter. The engine turned over and she came to life. He taxied her round, opened the throttle and felt her lighten, lifting free of the earth and there was no more fear, no more knots in his stomach. He was back in control.

  When he set out for that final flight, only four of the original pilots were left. Before he was shot down he saw Fischer’s plane go – so now there were only two. The spirit of the Luftwaffe was broken. He couldn’t see how it would ever find balance again.

  He listened to her steady breathing, watched the rise and fall of her rib cage above her tiny waist. Why couldn’t he sleep and share her dreams? He’d flown nearly two hundred missions, sometimes seven a day. He was exhausted and yet still he didn’t sleep.

  He was afraid to sleep, afraid to dream of battles, near misses, afraid of seeing a friend falling from his aircraft; Spitfires firing at another Messerschmitt, his gun button stuck and him unable to help; an Oberleutnant in a blood-soaked cockpit, landing his plane seconds before he dies.

  He screwed up his eyes, put his hand to his forehead and tried to concentrate on the beams above his head, wondered whether she lay like this with her own demons, staring up at the knots in the wood.

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Millie stirred, lifted her head, drew herself higher and kissed him before laying her head on the pillow next to him, looking into his eyes. He gazed back at her, that face familiar and adored, and yet still infinitely mysterious. She was his cure, his easy hour, a breathless beat of time.

  He felt the horror of war melting away but then he saw a frown flicker across her forehead and held his breath, not wanting the spell to break.

  ‘Do you have someone special waiting for you in Germany?’ she said.

  The world pushed back in and the air felt icy where her body had lain against him. He drew the covers across them both, reached out and moved her hair away from her face.

  ‘No,’ he said, turning towards her and settling his head into the pillow. ‘It is not right for a pilot to have a girl.’

  She gave a great sigh and smiled. ‘Why?’ she said, that intoxicating huskiness in her voice.

  ‘It is not good. A pilot, he has no future.’

  She reached across, placed her finger on his mouth to silence him. Slowly she traced the line of his lips with her finger.

  ‘You have lost many friends?’ she said.

  ‘Yes – very many.’

  She began to stroke his head, so gently. He caught her hand, kissed her palm and, holding it against his chest, he turned away from her and stared out at the night sky, at the stars glittering in the frosty air. Soon he must leave, go to France and it would all start again.

  She reared up from the pillow and he felt the mattress rock like a boat.

  ‘What is it?’ he said, his stomach plunging, his ears straining to catch the sound that had alarmed her.

  ‘Gyp,’ she said. ‘Where’s Gyp?’

  ‘He is there but I give him food and close the door.’

  She looked down on him then laughed and gave him a playful pat.

  ‘Poor Gyp,’ she said. ‘Did you think he’d tell?’

  He drew her down beside him. ‘No. But I think he looks.’

  ‘He’s not that sort of dog.’

  She slipped her leg over his under the covers and he caught it behind her knee and drew it up, stroking his hand along her thigh.

  ‘I have a dog,’ he said.

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Of course – Pilötchen. He finds me near Rheims.’

  ‘Tell me how Pilötchen found you,’ she said.

  ‘Let me see – one night I hear someone who snores very loud but it is none of my friends. And I then look under my bed and there is Pilötchen, fast asleep.’

  ‘Where did he come from?’

  ‘I never know. I give him to my – how do you say Ordonnanz?’

  ‘I don’t know – explain.’

  ‘Like my servant.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Like an orderly.’

  ‘Yes. I tell him to find who owns the dog but that night he is again under my bed so I let him stay.’

  ‘Why is he called Pilötchen? It sounds Russian.’

  ‘Russian.’ He squinted across at her, made a shocked face. ‘No. It is not Russian. It is German – it means little pilot.’

  ‘Does he go in the plane with you?’

  ‘No.’ He laughed and shook his head. ‘No, he is mad if he is ever in a plane, I am sure. Bark, bark – whenever he hears a shot. He knows my plane though, always. I come in to land and I look down and he is there, he runs along by the plane until I am down. Even at the beginning when we are more than thirty planes he knows that it is me.’ He felt his smile fall away, saw the scruffy dog sitting on the tarmac in the dark, his beady eyes staring at the sky. ‘He is on guard now where my plane sits when I am back at base.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He sighed and his hand came to rest.

  ‘There is one time when we have a bad afternoon. We must stop and refuel, some planes have not stopped and arrive with only the fuel left to …’ and he made the sound of an explosion.

  ‘Crash?’

  ‘Yes. To land badly. It is late, it gets dark but Pilötchen still sits where my plane sits and my friends have great hope. I can telephone where we refuel and say we are on our way. Everyone is happy but Pilötchen is not to move. He waits and he waits and he hears my engine when I am still many miles away from base.’

  ‘What will happen to him?’

  ‘Oh, he find someone else one day. He is a clever Pilötchen.’

  Her eyes began to glisten and a tear slipped across the bridge of her nose. He caught it on the tip of his finger and knew they wouldn’t make love again tonight. His foolish story of loyalty and loss had pitched them over the edge, into the abyss. Knowing they could fall no deeper, he said, ‘Tell me of your husband.’

  A film of anger passed over her eyes but his courage didn’t desert him. He’d carried the same anger with him most of his life, wrapped in a caul of guilt. ‘You find him, yes?’ She drew her lips between her teeth, made a slight nod. ‘And you think, how is he so cruel, how is he so angry with me to do this?’ She pushed herself up onto her elbow, frowning.

  ‘How do you know these things?’ sh
e said.

  ‘My father shoots himself when I am young.’

  ‘What?’ she said, her voice barely a whisper. ‘How old were you?’

  ‘I am six.’

  ‘And you found him?’ Lukas nodded. ‘Why you? Why not your mother?’

  ‘My mother dies the year I am born and my aunt, she cares for us. My father knows always the first thing I do when I come home from kindergarten is to run to his study and show him my pictures, so…’

  Millie felt a great wave wash through her, as intoxicating as a shot of poteen. It was more relief than sympathy, more wonder than surprise. She sat up in front of him to study him more closely and he pushed himself higher against the bed head.

  ‘Now,’ he said, ‘You tell me.’

  ‘He left a note,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t for me. It was for the government but he knew I’d find it; knew I’d go down to the barn.’

  ‘The barn where…’

  She nodded and he made a noise, a gasp of disbelief.

  ‘How he must have hated me,’ she said.

  Lukas shook his head. ‘I think the same for many years but then I know my father does not think of me.’

  Millie screwed her face up. ‘That’s worse.’

  ‘No. It is not. My father, he loses so much, sees so much, suffers so much. He fights a terrible war, he is defeated; the Grippe comes to Heidelberg and takes my mother. He is angry with everything – angry with me, angry with Tante Marta. Years go by and nothing is better. He imagines we are happier if he is dead.’

  Did Jack imagine that? That she would breathe a sigh of relief to be free of his moods, his debts, his drinking?

  ‘A desperate man,’ Lukas said, ‘his head is not right. He thinks not of where he dies or who finds him.’