The Bridge

by Robert Radcliffe

  ‘I thought you dead,’ she sniffed. ‘So long and no letter, no nothing.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ But he’d written letters, surely. Passed messages, sent radio signals, left word. People received them, handed them on. People knew. Lewis. The intelligence officer in Albanella. He’d contacted Massingham to confirm his bona fides with London. And Yale in Cairo. He’d told him to put his affairs in order and write last-minute mail. And he had, hadn’t he?

  ‘I believed it. You dead. We all believe. Mostly.’

  ‘I really am sorry, Eleni.’ He looked at her. ‘Believed what?’

  ‘The telegram.’

  ‘What telegram? And what do you mean, all?’

  ‘All! Me. You mama; new husband Abercrumble.’ She shrugged. ‘Vic too. And little girl, wha’s a name, Nancy, and her mama.’

  ‘You know about Vic?’

  ‘Course. Long time. At leas’ I have suspicious long time, but no proof. Then he got sick an’ make contact. Trying to find you. He in the hospital, you know. Bad way.’

  ‘Yes, I heard. What about Mama?’

  Eleni sipped ouzo. ‘She know too. But say nothing.’

  ‘And Nancy? How long have you known about her?’

  ‘A year abouts. I write you long letter, did you not get?’

  Egypt again, Yale and the cancelled OCTU. A bundle of mail, including one from Eleni, and some mention of a little urchin. Hesitantly, accompanied by sniffs and trumpet blasts on her handkerchief, the details came out, trickling on to the table like pieces of a puzzle, culminating in a telegram, delivered to Carla, apparently, by the lodger, Brown.

  ‘Brown! Paper salesman chappie, remember? Though I know he not selling no paper, it bloody obvious, all that coming and goings. Anyway, you mama come home one day, this before she marry Abercrumble, and Brown, he standing here in hallway saying postman just brought telegram from War Office.’

  ‘What did it say?’

  Her eyes narrowed in recollection. ‘Regret Acting Lieutenant T. V. Trickey missing presumed dead in action Italy.’

  ‘Nothing more?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘I don’ know. Before Christmas.’

  Theo shook his head. November, or was it December. Salo. An attic bedroom. A chair by a window. Pinpricks of light dancing on the black waters of Lake Garda like fireflies in a forest. We arranged a few things, Rommel had said. Like transfer to a prison he would never arrive at. Or another man’s identity papers in an overcoat pocket. Your future is in your hands.

  ‘And… my mother?’

  ‘Pah! She say she never believe no bloody telegrams, stuff in pocket and never mention no more. But I think part of her believe.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘You mus’ telephone her, Teo, right away. I have number.’

  ‘I will.’ He hesitated. ‘Yes I will, of course, but is she… Are they, you know, happy, she and Nicholas Abercrombie? Before the telegram, that is. Obviously. What I mean is, is she happily married?’

  Eleni shrugged. ‘S’pose. I never hardly see her no more. Got money, that’s for sure. They live damn nice place near Regent Park in West End. I been once, dead posh, bloody nice carpet.’

  ‘That’s, well… it’s good that she’s provided for.’

  ‘She provided all right. She important lady now, Teo, the Partito Sudtirolese thing is grown damn big, with many important support. She have tea with lord this and lady muck, she has meeting with government ministers and chinwag royal personages.’

  He nodded, staring at the table.

  ‘Why? What’s a matter?’

  ‘Did she ever… talk about me? When she was still living here, I mean?’

  Eleni sighed. ‘She’s changed, Teo, from scrawny slip who turn up at my door. Yes, she always proud, always determined girl. And yes I know she love you very much.’ She slid her hand over his. ‘But she changed, lovely boy. She different. She forget important things, like who she is. And important people. Like us.’

  ‘I have been away a long time.’

  ‘Yes but I not forget!’ She squeezed his hand. ‘Never once! All this time, I never forget, an’ never stop thinking about you.’

  He looked up; her eyes were filling again, her hand tightly clasping his. Then she was stifling a sob, and this time, when he rose from the chair and put his arms round her, and held her, and felt the shudder of her shoulders and the wetness of her tears on his neck, this time she made no attempt to push him away.

  ‘No more, Teo,’ she sobbed. ‘Please no more this bloody war. I can’t bear lose you again.’

  ‘No more war, Eleni. That I can promise.’

  ‘Thank God.’ She clung on a while longer, sniffing and sighing; then came a muffled cough. ‘These clothes stink something terrible, you know.’

  ‘Yes. Sorry.’

  ‘I clean them for you. Like I used to.’

  ‘No. We’ll burn them.’

  The telephone rang.

  ‘I leave it.’

  They left it but it rang on and on. ‘I better go damn thing.’ She rose from the table. ‘Might be lodger and I need the business. Or maybe is you mama even.’

  But a minute later she was back. ‘It for you!’

  ‘But how…’

  ‘God know, you only been here five minute. Some woman, sound posh, say her name Mrs Simpson at international research something. She say it urgent.’

  *

  The next day, a Friday, he met his parents. Both of them, together, for the first time in his life. It was his idea and at his insistence. Having spoken to Carla the previous evening – who sounded suitably delighted by his call – he told her she was to meet him at Vic’s hospital at eleven the next day. At which she sounded less overjoyed.

  ‘But why, Theo dearest? What possible good can this do?’

  His reply was in Ladin. ‘Because you owe me this, Mother. And I will not take no for an answer.’

  Victor was at Hammersmith Hospital, which confusingly was not in Hammersmith but East Acton, next door ironically to the famous London prison, Wormwood Scrubs. Theo, breathless and flustered, arrived late, while Carla, to her credit, was already outside the hospital’s imposing entrance, nervously clutching a handbag and dressed in linen suit, hat and gloves. He barely recognized her in the smart attire, her face made-up and her raven-black hair fashionably coiffed. Their embrace was warm if wary.

  ‘But what on earth are you wearing?’ she said, standing him back.

  He looked down at himself. Too-large flannels and jacket courtesy of Mr Brown’s wardrobe, a grey shirt discarded by another lodger, and Salvation Army plimsolls.

  ‘I have no clothes at the moment…’

  ‘No, but I mean why not in uniform? You look so smart.’

  ‘No more uniforms, Mother. Shall we go up?’

  Vic was in a men’s ward on the second floor. Passing down between the beds, he almost walked past a shrunken figure lying on one, then heard a discreet cough behind and saw Carla had stopped.

  ‘Father?’

  ‘Bugger me,’ Vic croaked. ‘Here’s a turn-up for the books!’ He forced a toothy grin, but a moment later, his gaze switching between them, his face crumpled and he collapsed into a fit of noisy weeping. Exchanging awkward glances, the two pulled up chairs and waited for the spasm to pass.

  ‘Is enough now, Victor,’ Carla said sternly. ‘You make yourself ill.’

  ‘I am bloody ill!’ he choked. More phlegm-filled sobbing followed, while neighbouring patients looked on in embarrassment. Finally he subsided to sniffing. ‘Sorry. Don’t know what came over me.’

  ‘Have some water.’ Theo poured a glass.

  ‘Thanks, son. It’s the emotion and that. Seeing you both like this, all of a sudden.’

  ‘We understand.’

  ‘You look very nice, Carla. Dead fetching.’

  ‘Thank you. But I am married now, Victor, remember.’

  ‘Course. Only saying.’ He sniffed. ‘So th
e, um, annulment thing went through?’

  ‘Yes. It appears the marriage may not have been legal in the first place. In any case it is now annulled.’

  ‘Good. I mean, I’m glad, for you. And what’s-his-name.’

  ‘Nicholas, Victor. You know his name.’

  ‘Nicholas, yes.’ He sipped water. ‘Anders. You look good too. If a bit scruffy.’

  Carla rolled her eyes. ‘You can’t even say his name correct.’

  ‘I bloody can! Anders Joseph Thadeus something something Victor Trickey!’

  ‘Wrong! It’s Andreas, Victor. My God, can’t you get—’

  ‘Stop!’

  They stopped.

  ‘I did not bring you here to argue.’

  ‘No,’ Vic agreed sheepishly. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘I sorry too, dearest. But why are we here?’

  ‘Because I wanted—’

  ‘Bloody hell, it’s the last rites! You’ve come to pay your respects!’

  ‘No! I brought Mother here because I wanted to hear what happened.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Between the two of you. In Bolzano. And Innsbruck. I want to know the truth about my birth, and childhood. About how you met, fell in love, got married, and then became separated. I want to hear an account that you both agree on. Like an official record, or like a… a report.’

  ‘A report?’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Because it is my right. My birthright.’

  So they told him. Reluctantly at first, and grudgingly, then with growing straightforwardness and then interest, humour, and even mild affection as the memories returned.

  ‘Your mother, Anders’ – Vic wagged a bony finger – ‘best skier I ever met.’

  ‘I beat you, Victor, didn’t I?’

  ‘That you did, fair and square.’

  And though the events were over twenty years old, he heard surprisingly little disagreement over details, and as they described them he found he could clearly picture his young parents, and he saw how Carla’s tone softened when she spoke of her family, and how Vic’s eyes twinkled as he recalled his younger self, so full of pluck and wit.

  ‘That bloody baptism party with your family! I was scared out of my life!’

  ‘Yes, but it didn’t show. Everyone thought you were most dashing.’

  ‘Your grandad. What an amazing bloke. Mind you, I couldn’t understand a word he said.’

  Then, as the dénouement neared, with its tale of deceit and abandonment, he sensed Carla’s resentment looming, and Vic’s discomfiture, and so concluded the ‘report’ before it could turn rancorous.

  ‘And when did you meet again?’ he asked. ‘Here in London, I mean.’

  ‘Six months ago.’

  ‘When the cancer come,’ Vic added.

  ‘Yes. You see I had learned, earlier, that Victor might not be dead.’

  ‘When?’

  She stifled a cough. ‘I can’t remember. Anyway, much later I met Nicholas and we wanted to get married and by then I had learned that Victor was definitely alive, but ill and in hospital.’

  ‘How?’

  Carla blinked. ‘Eleni told me. So I came to see him. Once.’

  ‘For the divorce,’ Vic said.

  ‘It was not a divorce, Victor, it was an annulment. On the grounds that there was never any consumazione of the marriage. Afterwards, that is.’

  ‘More’s the pity!’

  ‘Victor! In any case it seem the marriage was not all legal, because the British legation in Bolzano didn’t have correct authority, and anyway the papers are long gone.’

  As they prepared to leave, Vic grabbed Theo’s hand and asked for a few minutes alone. Carla waited downstairs.

  ‘What was that?’ she asked when he appeared.

  ‘Financial matters.’

  ‘Ha! Even on his deathbed he thinks only of money.’

  ‘No, Mama, it is not like that.’ They walked out on to Du Cane Road, smoky and grime-laden from passing traffic. Waiting at the kerb, he recalled a letter from Vic amid the bundle Yale had given him in Cairo. It had made no mention that he was ill or dying, but did ask for money. Theo had thrown it away in disgust. Wrongly, he now realized. ‘He wants to make provision for his daughter. He wants me to be her guardian.’

  *

  He caught buses from Wood Lane to Baker Street, arriving shortly after one. Grant’s office had moved again, this time to larger premises across the road, and it took him another ten confusing minutes to find it. SOE had clearly expanded since his last visit, now occupying several buildings in the street, with more offices in outlying locations. Nor was it as inconspicuous as it should be: ‘This stop for spy central!’ the bus conductor announced cheerfully as Theo jumped off.

  ‘Yes, it’s getting beyond a joke.’ Grant cleared files and papers from a chair. His new office was bigger, and even had a carpeted sitting area with gas fire, but was as cluttered as ever. ‘Can you believe, somebody turned up last week asking for the saboteurs’ shop! Tourists too, they really think Sherlock Holmes lives here.’

  Theo sat while Grant fussed. Nervous and dishevelled as usual, with bloodshot eyes and cigarettes burning in two ashtrays, he seemed more stressed than ever. More volatile and fragile too, as though years of grinding subterfuge had worn him brittle. For Theo’s own part, sitting there in his borrowed civilian persona, and waiting impassively to impart his news, he found that he felt ready and prepared.

  He wasn’t.

  ‘I’m really very glad to see you.’ Grant finally slumped into a chair. ‘Safe and well that is, Theo. Really glad.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You turning up has caused quite a stir, you know.’

  ‘So I gather.’

  ‘Tons of folk wanting to get hold of you.’ He flicked through notes. ‘Your battalion commander for one, then there’s the divisional commander of 6th Airborne, then some infantry major called Howard, then the debriefers from Italian section, and various intelligence minions at SHAEF…’

  ‘SHAEF?’

  ‘Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force. That’s top-drawer stuff, Theo.’ He thumbed the notes. ‘And there are others…’

  ‘They may have to wait.’

  ‘Let them!’ He drew on his cigarette, eyeing Theo through the smoke. ‘How are you? Really.’

  ‘Well enough, sir.’

  ‘I thought I’d lost you.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No, really, when that sigint came through in December, I thought you were dead.’ He ground out the cigarette. ‘And a very bad day that was.’

  ‘Sigint?’

  ‘Signals intelligence. A German radio intercept.’

  ‘What did it say?’

  Grant shrugged. ‘That you were dead.’

  ‘Who sent it?’

  ‘Hard to say. All it said, in code of course, was that the British spy Theodor Trickey died under questioning at HQ Army Group B Salo Italy. We assumed it was a message from one Gestapo office to another.’

  ‘So you notified my next of kin.’

  ‘We had no reason to disbelieve it. Unfortunately.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You had surrendered yourself in Naples, that much we knew. We worked out you’d been shipped north for questioning. After that nothing. For weeks. We could only fear the worst. Then came the intercept.’

  ‘What’s Brown to do with this?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Brown. Who is he?’

  Grant lit another cigarette. ‘He’s a recruiting sergeant. And…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, he’s what we call a parish priest. He looks after our people, pastoral care, their families and so on. Keeps them informed, makes sure they’re all right. Especially when things go wrong.’

  ‘Does that happen often?’

  Grant blew smoke. ‘More and more, it seems.’

  ‘I’m leaving, sir. You realize that.’

  ‘Leaving?’

&nbs
p; ‘The army. The war.’ He glanced around. ‘All this.’

  ‘Really.’ Grant pushed his chair back and walked to the window. ‘That would be a great pity, Theo, so close to the end.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Especially as we have a job for you. An important one. It’s from Churchill himself. In France.’

  ‘France?’

  ‘Yes. When the invasion happens he wants all the Resistance cells in France to rise up together, to cause maximum disruption to the enemy all at the same time. We’re dropping our best operatives in to lead them. It’s called Jedburgh, and you’re on the list. It’s the main reason we got you home.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘This war, everything you’ve lived through these years. Don’t you want to see it through? Now we’re at the end?’

  ‘No. I can’t.’

  ‘I see.’ Grant stared through the window. ‘There are practical implications, you know. You are a serving officer. It would be a form of desertion.’

  ‘I don’t care. They can put me in prison.’

  ‘Something of a family tradition.’

  Theo said nothing.

  ‘I understand how you feel,’ Grant murmured.

  ‘No you don’t.’

  ‘I FUCKING DO!’ He swung round, eyes glaring, a fleck of spittle on his chin. ‘How bloody dare you! You think this is easy? You think I just sit here sending people off without a care? Without feeling? Without fearing for them every minute of the day?’

  ‘Have you ever killed a man in cold blood?’

  ‘That was your enemy! You’re supposed to kill them. I’ve done worse.’

  ‘Worse?’

  ‘I’ve killed friends, Trickey! Allies. People on our side. People I like and respect and admire. People like you. I’ve sent them on ops knowing for certain that some of them were going to their deaths. You think killing a Jerry’s bad, you try living with that!’

  A door slammed somewhere, and car horns blared down in the street. Grant slumped back into his chair and turned his face to the ceiling, eyes closed as though sleeping. His left hand was trembling, Theo noted, while his cigarette stub burned unnoticed in the other.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Theo repeated quietly. ‘But it doesn’t change anything.’