The Chocolate Tin

by Fiona McIntosh

  He was aware he’d already glided through almost ten laps; it was surprising how time was passing as he allowed his mind to wander. Even if they were never to see one another again, kissing Alex would be his idea of perfection, the benchmark by which all other women before and after her would be considered. Alex had tasted delicious, of warm berry from the raisin-like sherry she’d sipped moments earlier, and Harry could conjure the fragrance of violet that danced sweetly off her from the warmth of the fire. Her skin was velvet-like beneath her ear and satiny at her neck where he felt her pulse against his lips, and he knew if life were different for them, they would have toppled into bed together and admitted to being in love before they’d barely made a crease in the sheets. He knew he wasn’t imagining it. He hadn’t kissed her, she hadn’t kissed him – they’d kissed each other with a passion he hadn’t felt since those heady, carefree teenage days with his young French lover. It felt right with Alex, even though he knew it was so very wrong in reality. If life were different, he would propose to her this very day, marry her tomorrow, if she’d let him. How weak and lovesick he sounded; he could barely recognise himself. But Alex already wore someone’s ring and someone else already wanted to wear a ring from . . . he banished that thought, couldn’t face it yet.

  If Alex were prickly, difficult, domineering, demanding, he could understand how any man would want to find excuses not to be home. But he’d seen nothing in her to make a husband want to be away, to avoid sleeping next to her as often as Matthew did. He mentally shook his head as he cut through the water and wondered what he might be prepared to give for one night of sleeping with and next to Alex . . . To make her cry out passionately, to hear her rhythmic breath as she slept in his arms, to watch her open those chocolate-coloured eyes to the first sounds of morning, snuggled in the cradle of his body . . . skin on skin.

  Matthew! What the hell is wrong with you, man?

  Harry burst out of the water at the shallow end, breathing hard and not entirely from his exertions but more his frustration. He realised he’d done more than eighty laps, perhaps not one hundred but then he’d begun to quicken up for the last twenty, coursing along at the racing speed he preferred. No wonder he felt weary. He leaned back against the tiles, flicking water from his burning eyes, and dragging hands through his hair to slick it back from where it flopped haphazardly.

  And it was only when he’d opened his eyes properly that his attention fell upon a group of three people who were staring at him. One of the intruders was Alex. He felt her gaze rove across the semi-nakedness of his body. Not a single amusing quip came to mind that could save them this unexpected and awkward meeting.

  ‘Captain Blake!’ Her surprise was obvious, even dropping the small envelope she carried. Two men beside her bent at the same time to retrieve the envelope.

  ‘Er, good morning, Mrs Britten-Jones,’ he replied, desperately trying to cover his shock at being near barebodied, glad that his hips at least were below the waterline. ‘This is a surprise,’ he added, hating to state the obvious.

  ‘Er . . . indeed. I’m sorry, gentlemen. This is Captain Harry Blake. He took the tour with me yesterday.’

  Her guests murmured their salutations and he said nothing, still breathing deeply from his exertions, which fortunately went some way to cover his shock.

  ‘How nice that you remembered the pool from the tour,’ she added lamely, wiping dampness from the dropped envelope.

  ‘Yes, I . . . well, I didn’t quite know what to do with myself today . . . what with the snow.’ What an idiot he sounded. ‘Forgive me, I thought all your touring had been finalised?’

  ‘Perhaps you’d like to go through, Mr Jackson, Mr Bowyers?’ Alex gestured through the door. ‘This chlorine is rather powerful. I’ll join you in one minute.’ Her visitors dutifully departed towards the main entrance. She returned her still hungry gaze to him. ‘The person who was supposed to tour today has been taken ill. I couldn’t let the guests down as they’d travelled up from Birmingham in this shocking weather.’

  ‘Of course. You don’t need to explain. How are you?’

  She shook her head. ‘Rattled. How about you?’

  He cast a look around to check no one was watching them. The old fellow was just climbing out of the water halfway to the deep end; the attendant was showing the visitors out. They had only moments, surely.

  ‘I have to see you.’

  ‘We can’t. Harry . . . Matthew is —’

  ‘I’m seeing your father tonight at his club. Find a way. I have to talk to you. Actually, I have the perfect excuse. You offered to help me find the woman I’m hunting down connected with my dead sergeant.’

  She smiled. ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘May I telephone you this evening?’

  He liked the way she bit her bottom lip as she frowned. He wanted to kiss that spot. ‘Yes, that will work. My father can give you the number. But please make the telephone call from the club. Then it all looks correct.’

  He nodded. They stared at each other, both apparently lost for what to say. It was left to Alex to cut through the tension with a smile.

  ‘I must say, you look incredibly dashing in that swim suit, Harry. Roll on the shared swimming days!’ she added, with a wickedly wider grin. ‘Enjoy your afternoon.’

  And then she was gone, leaving him still leaning against the slippery tiles of the swimming pool wall.

  17

  Harry sat across from Charles Frobisher. They were lounging in two of the three armchairs in a convenient cubby at the corner of the smoking room. A fire, large and effective, radiated warmth from within its black marble surrounds, despite the draughts created by the comings and goings of waiters. The quiet murmur of men’s muted conversations was comforting, punctuated by the clink of a glass, the flap of an evening newspaper, a soft cough.

  Harry sipped on his single malt while Charles let out billowy puffs of bluish smoke from the side of his mouth as he spoke. ‘Mmm, smells like it’s a roast beef on tonight. They do the very best Yorkshire puddings here, as you can imagine.’

  ‘I recognise that tobacco smell,’ Harry remarked, inhaling, enjoying it. ‘Our brigadier I’m sure smoked a similar brand. Somehow he managed to look contented, even in a dugout.’

  Charles chuckled, removing a tiny fleck of the tobacco from his tongue using thumb and third finger. ‘It’s an English Cavendish, a fire-cured tobacco that turns it very dark. It’s steamed and allowed to ferment for sometimes weeks at a time.’

  Harry nodded, finding simple pleasure in listening to Charles’s voice, with its pleasingly gritty quality. He wouldn’t mind if Charles were speaking about cricket, the price of coffee, the state of British politics, or indeed his delicious tobacco. Right now subject matter was all the same to him because it was about being still and listening. He was enjoying being lulled by the club’s warm atmosphere that seemed to echo every other club he’d visited, including his own in London’s Mayfair.

  ‘. . . it gives off a mild, sweetish taste, although I admit I like a more rum-flavoured pipe of tobacco after dinner.’ Charles closed his eyes and puffed contentedly as Harry realised Alex’s father had finished sharing his insights into tobacco. ‘Staying for dinner, are you?’

  ‘Er, no, sir. I probably shan’t, but thank you. I wonder, might I be permitted to use the club phone to ring your daughter?’

  Frobisher’s bushy brows, like two caterpillars, seemed to stand up, facing off against one another.

  ‘She offered to help me find someone from Rowntree’s, you see.’

  The caterpillars crinkled and settled down. ‘Ah, that’s right.’

  Harry smiled with relief.

  ‘Well, her memory is exact. If anyone can help, Alex can, especially as she was on the staff for most of the war. Gave away her pay, you know.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  Frobisher nodded. ‘Yes, wouldn’t hear of taking a wage, while Arnold Rowntree wouldn’t hear of not paying her one. They agreed to donate it to
the new sanitarium that the Quakers have built.’

  Harry waited, content not to speak.

  ‘We have the County Asylum, of course, but the Rowntree family was apparently filled with despair when a woman of their community died in care there. They vowed to build a “friendlier” place, you could say, to take care of troubled folk, especially Quakers, although all are welcome.’

  ‘These Quakers are rather amazing, really, aren’t they?’ Harry remarked, reaching for his whisky.

  ‘Yes. I do admire their relentless empathy and desire to give back to the community. And hard as it was to watch them object to sending their men to war, I did respect their resolve and the way all of the wealthy Quaker families of our region gave as much as they could to the war effort.’

  ‘Alex’s husband didn’t fight either, did he?’ Harry couldn’t help himself.

  Frobisher shook his head. Harry sensed he’d hit a slight nerve. ‘Ah, but he was refused. I think he volunteered long before most.’

  ‘Alex said it was his eyesight?’

  ‘Very poor, and no good to anyone on a battlefield.’

  Harry smiled again as Charles signalled to a waiter with a slightly raised finger. ‘Ah, James . . .’

  Harry watched a man with movie-star looks bend down by Frobisher. ‘Good evening, Sir Charles. How can I help?’

  ‘I’ve asked my companion here, Captain Blake, to use the club telephone to call my daughter, Mrs Britten-Jones, as he needs to make an appointment with her. Could you organise a private cubicle please?’

  ‘Certainly. I gather Mr Britten-Jones is arriving back into York this evening, sir.’

  ‘Really? First I’ve heard. How the devil would you know, James, if his family doesn’t?’

  There was something oddly smarmy in the man’s smiling response. ‘I took a message an hour or so ago, sir, that he was travelling up from London but that he would be so late he’d likely overnight at the club.’

  ‘I see. Oh, well, that’s his business.’

  ‘Curious that he wouldn’t return directly to his wife, though,’ Harry uttered, then was vexed at himself for airing the thought aloud.

  ‘It’s not my business, sir,’ James replied and again something in his slow-blinking response captured Harry’s attention. He stared back at him. There was challenge leaping somewhere between them; he couldn’t pinpoint why. ‘Mr Britten-Jones is a very busy man, sir,’ he added, using words that were polite but Harry heard the well-buried defiance. And there it was; he had an answer to his question but it set up a new one. James, the waiter, was defending Matthew Britten-Jones. Why?

  ‘You know him quite well, then?’ Harry asked, helplessly intrigued.

  Charles came back into the conversation, looking up at James, back at Harry, and gesturing with his pipe. ‘Oh, this young fellow is originally from Bristol. I thought Matthew might know him but they assure me they’ve not met.’

  ‘Wrong sides of town,’ James offered, and his smile looked like a mask to Harry. Years in the trenches had taught him plenty about how men cover their true feelings. James wasn’t lying, he decided, but he was also not being forthcoming with the truth. ‘Captain Blake, would you like to place your call now?’ The smile was as forced as the polite tone; Harry presumed the man didn’t enjoy his work and it was clear James wasn’t enjoying serving him.

  ‘Yes, that would be fine. Er, Sir Charles, can I trouble you for the number?’ he asked deliberately, to give Alex the cover she pleaded for.

  ‘Oh, yes of course. James, have the switchboard put through the call directly to the Britten-Jones household please.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Follow me please, Captain Blake.’

  Harry swallowed the last small sip of his single malt. ‘That is the most delicious Scotch, sir.’

  Frobisher tapped his nose. ‘I warned you.’ He looked pleased by the compliment, returning to enjoying his Cavendish.

  Harry fell in step with the waiter. ‘How long have you been here, James?’ he asked as casually as he could.

  ‘Er, let me see. I arrived in the summer of 1915, sir.’

  ‘You weren’t conscripted?’ Harry frowned.

  The man shook his head briefly. ‘I have a heart murmur. They didn’t want me.’

  ‘One of the lucky ones.’

  James cut him a sly smile. ‘I did my part, working on the railways to make sure goods got through from north to south and across the Channel.’

  ‘I’m sure. And it sounds as though you’ve got to know Mr Britten-Jones quite well?’

  ‘Is that a question, sir?’

  ‘I suppose it is.’

  ‘A curious one, sir.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Sounds personal.’ James appeared instantly suspicious but hid it well behind a controlled expression of puzzlement.

  ‘It’s not meant to be,’ Harry said. ‘I don’t know him at all, you see, but I’m a guest of his family’s, and dining at his house. I just wondered what his tastes might be.’

  ‘You mean as in his favourite liquor or tobacco?’

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘Well, Mr Britten-Jones does not smoke. He suffers from asthma. Winter can be cruel. Er, let’s see. He has a fondness for extremely fine Armagnac, pisco from Peru as opposed to Chile, and he enjoys the Spanish pomace on occasion known as orujo.’

  ‘Particular, then,’ Harry remarked.

  ‘Very,’ James replied and Harry felt instantly unsettled, as though a small spider that he couldn’t see but knew was there was creeping across his flesh.

  What was he missing here?

  ‘Thank you,’ was all he could say as James gave him a seemingly reluctant bow and gestured to the tiny cubicle behind glass. Harry checked the door was closed and lifted the receiver.

  ‘Connecting you now, Captain Blake,’ came a tinny voice into the stillness.

  ‘Thank you.’ He waited and felt the pull of Alex, anticipating her slightly smoky tone winging down from The Mount through the clever technology of the telephone. How had the world survived without it, he wondered absently? He heard the connection go through.

  ‘Alex Britten-Jones?’

  He was thrilled Alex had answered the call instead of the disapproving Norma, although he knew he couldn’t be sure the housekeeper wasn’t eavesdropping.

  ‘Mrs Britten-Jones, thank you, I have Captain Blake for you?’ the operator said.

  ‘Oh, thank you,’ she replied.

  They both waited for the operator to click off. He listened for any third-party breathing or odd sounds from the hallway or kitchen that might give away an eavesdropper. When he was satisfied they were alone, he smiled.

  ‘Good evening, Mrs Britten-Jones.’

  ‘Hello. I’m sorry if you had to wait, Captain Blake, but my housekeeper is running an errand. It’s just me, I’m afraid, and I had to make a dash from the parlour.’

  He knew she was telling him not to fear being overheard. His tone changed instantly. ‘Can I see you?’ Harry heard her catch her breath. ‘I need to see you. Even if it’s just once more, I have to . . . well, I need to hold you once more even if it’s for a goodbye.’

  ‘Don’t say that.’

  ‘Your husband is returning tonight.’

  ‘How could you possibly know that?’

  ‘One of the waiters here at the club has just informed your father and me.’

  ‘A waiter?’ she repeated with disgust.

  ‘I’ve just been speaking with him.’

  ‘Typical. I’m the last to hear. So he’s going to the club, not home?’

  ‘According to this waiter, yes.’

  ‘How infuriating.’ He listened to her sigh.

  ‘It was good to see you today, despite how alarmed I must have looked and sounded.’ He was glad it won a chuckle from her.

  ‘I thought you looked very fine. Too fine.’

  ‘Let me see you . . . please.’

  ‘It’s dangerous, Harry . . . for both of us.’

  ‘The risk
is greater for you and even though I shouldn’t ask it, here I am asking it of you.’

  ‘I can’t see you for the reason we both know is too laden with guilt.’

  The disappointment was so acute he felt it like a pang of fear. She was going to deny him even looking upon her again . . .

  ‘But I see no reason why we can’t meet to discuss this woman you’re looking for. I’d like to help you lay Tom Fletcher fully to rest.’

  Harry’s spirits lifted like the doves he witnessed being released in a small village in France at the end of the war – one for each of the men who had been lost from the village. He could recall now the clap of their wings as two dozen or more rock doves were released into an unblemished, brilliantly sapphire sky. That’s how he felt now, soaring into a clear dome of blue weightlessness.

  ‘Thank you. I would appreciate that help. Should I meet you at the factory?’

  ‘You could, or you could take a train to Harrogate tomorrow morning and I could pick you up in my motor car with a packed picnic.’