As the Crow Flies

by Jeffrey Archer

  Once again I wanted to hug her, but I simply asked if she could stay and share dinner, as I had a hundred other questions that still needed answering.

  “Sorry, not tonight,” she said as I opened my case and began to unpack. “I’m off to a concert with a gentleman friend.” No sooner had she added some remark about Tommy’s picture than she smiled and left. Suddenly I was on my own again.

  I took off my coat, rolled up my sleeves, went downstairs to the shop and for several hours moved things around until everything was exactly where I wanted it. By the time I had packed away the last box I was so exhausted that I only just stopped myself collapsing on the bed and grabbing some kip fully dressed. I didn’t draw the curtains so as to be sure I would wake by four.

  I dressed quickly the following morning, excited by the thought of returning to a market I hadn’t seen for nearly two years. I arrived at the garden a few minutes before Bob Makins, who I quickly discovered knew his way around—without actually knowing his way about. I accepted that it would take me a few days before I could work out which dealers were being supplied by the most reliable farmers, who had the real contacts at the docks and ports, who struck the most sensible price day in, day out, and, most important of all, who would take care of you whenever there was any sort of real shortage. None of these problems seemed to worry Bob, as he strolled around the market in an uninterrupted, undemanding circle, collecting his wares.

  I loved the shop from the moment we opened that first morning, my first morning. It took me a little time to get used to Bob and the girls calling me “sir” but it also took them almost as long to become used to where I’d put the counter and to having to place the boxes out on the pavement before the customers were awake. However, even Becky agreed that it was an inspiration to place our wares right under the noses of potential buyers, although she wasn’t sure how the local authorities would react when they found out.

  “Hasn’t Chelsea ever heard of passing trade?” I asked her.

  Within a month I knew the name of every regular customer who patronized the shop, and within two I was aware of their likes, dislikes, passions and even the occasional fad that each imagined must be unique to them. After the staff had packed up at the end of each day I would often walk across the road and sit on the bench opposite and just watch the comings and goings in Chelsea Terrace SW10. It didn’t take long to realize that an apple was an apple whoever wanted to take a bite out of it, and Chelsea Terrace was no different from Whitechapel when it came to understanding a customer’s needs: I suppose that must have been the moment I thought about owning a second shop. Why not? Trumper’s was the only establishment in Chelsea Terrace that regularly had a queue out onto the street.

  Becky, meanwhile, continued her studies at the university and kept attempting to arrange for me to meet her gentleman friend. If the truth be known, I was trying to avoid Trentham altogether, as I had no desire to come in contact with the man I was convinced had killed Tommy.

  Eventually I ran out of excuses and agreed to have dinner with them.

  When Becky entered the restaurant with Daphne and Trentham, I wished that I had never agreed to spend the evening with them in the first place. The feeling must have been mutual, for Trentham’s face registered the same loathing I felt for him, although Becky’s friend, Daphne, tried to be friendly. She was a pretty girl and it wouldn’t have surprised me to find that a lot of men enjoyed that hearty laugh. But blue-eyed, curly-headed blondes never were my type. I pretended for form’s sake that Trentham and I hadn’t met before.

  I spent one of the most miserable evenings of my life wanting to tell Becky everything I knew about the bastard, but aware as I watched them together that nothing I had to reveal could possibly have any influence on her. It didn’t help when Becky scowled at me for no reason. I just lowered my head and scooped up some more peas.

  Becky’s roommate, Daphne Harcourt-Browne, continued to do her best, but even Charlie Chaplin would have failed to raise a smile with the three of us as an audience.

  Shortly after eleven I called for the bill, and a few minutes later we all left the restaurant. I let Becky and Trentham walk ahead in the hope that it would give me a chance to slip away, but to my surprise double-barreled Daphne hung back, claiming she wanted to find out what changes I’d made to the shop.

  From her opening question as I unlocked the front door I realized she didn’t miss much.

  “You’re in love with Becky, aren’t you?” she asked quite matter-of-factly.

  “Yes,” I replied without guile, and went on to reveal my feelings in a way I would never have done to someone I knew well.

  Her second question took me even more by surprise.

  “And just how long have you known Guy Trentham?”

  As we climbed the steps to my little flat I told her that we had served together on the Western Front, but because of the difference in our rank our paths had rarely crossed.

  “Then why do you dislike him so much?” Daphne asked, after she had taken the seat opposite me.

  I hesitated again but then in a sudden rush of uncontrollable anger I described what had happened to Tommy and me when we were trying to reach the safety of our own lines, and how I was convinced that Guy Trentham had shot my closest friend.

  When I’d finished we both sat in silence for some time before I added, “You must never let Becky know what I’ve just told you as I’ve no real proof.”

  She nodded her agreement and went on to tell me about the only man in her life, as if swapping one secret for another to bond our friendship. Her love for the man was so transparent that I couldn’t fail to be touched. And when Daphne left around midnight she promised that she’d do everything in her power to speed up the demise of Guy Trentham. I remembered her using the word “demise,” because I had to ask her what it meant. She told me, and thus I received my first tutorial—with the warning that Becky had a good start on me as she had not wasted the last ten years.

  My second lesson was to discover why Becky had scowled at me so often during dinner. I would have protested at her cheek, but realized she was right.

  I saw a lot of Daphne during the next few months, without Becky ever becoming aware of our true relationship. She taught me so much about the world of my new customers and even took me on trips to clothes shops, picture houses and to West End theaters to see plays that didn’t have any dancing girls on the stage but I still enjoyed them. I only drew the line when she tried to get me to stop spending my Saturday afternoons watching West Ham in favor of some rugby team called the Quins. However, it was her introduction to the National Gallery and its five thousand canvases that was to start a love affair that was to prove as costly as any woman. It was to be only a few months before I was dragging her off to the latest exhibitions: Renoir, Manet and even a young Spaniard called Picasso who was beginning to attract attention among London’s fashionable society. I began to hope that Becky would appreciate the change in me, but her eyes never once wavered from Captain Trentham.

  On Daphne’s further insistence I started reading two daily newspapers. She selected the Daily Express and the News Chronicle, and occasionally when she invited me round to Lowndes Square I even delved into one of her magazines, Punch or Strand. I began to discover who was who and who did what, and to whom. I even went to Sotheby’s for the first time and watched an early Constable come under the hammer for a record price of nine hundred guineas. It was more money than Trumper’s and all its fixtures and fittings were worth put together. I confess that neither that magnificent country scene nor any other painting I came across in a gallery or auction house compared with my pride in Tommy’s picture of the Virgin Mary and Child, which still hung above my bed.

  When in January 1920 Becky presented the first year’s accounts, I began to realize my ambition to own a second shop no longer had to be a daydream. Then without warning two sites became available in the same month. I immediately instructed Becky that somehow she had to come up with the money
to purchase them.

  Daphne later warned me on the QT that Becky was having considerable trouble raising the necessary cash, and although I said nothing I was quite expecting her to tell me that it simply wasn’t possible, especially as her mind seemed to be almost totally preoccupied with Trentham and the fact that he was about to be posted to India. When Becky announced the day he left that they had become officially engaged, I could have willingly cut his throat—and then mine—but Daphne assured me that there were several young ladies in London who had at one time or another entertained the illusion that they were about to marry Guy Trentham. However, Becky herself remained so confident of Trentham’s intentions that I didn’t know which of the two women to believe.

  The following week my old commanding officer appeared on the premises with a shopping list to complete for his wife. I’ll never forget the moment he took a purse from his jacket pocket and fumbled around for some loose change. Until then it had never occurred to me that a colonel might actually live in the real world. However, he left with a promise to put me down for two ten-bob tickets at the regimental ball; he turned out to be as good as his word.

  My euphoria—another Harcourt-Browne word—at meeting up with the colonel again lasted for about twenty-four hours. Then Daphne told me Becky was expecting. My first reaction was to wish I’d killed Trentham on the Western Front instead of helping to save the bloody man’s life. I assumed that he would return immediately from India in order to marry her before the child was born. I hated the idea of his coming back into our lives, but I had to agree with the colonel that it was the only course of action a gentleman could possibly consider, otherwise the rest of Becky’s life would be spent as a social outcast.

  It was around this time that Daphne explained that if we hoped to raise some real money from the banks then we were definitely in need of a front man. Becky’s sex was now militating—another of Daphne’s words—against her, although she was kind enough not to mention my accent “militating” against me.

  On the way home from the regimental ball Becky breezily informed Daphne that she had decided that the colonel was the obvious man to represent us whenever we had to go cap in hand seeking loans from one of the banks. I wasn’t optimistic, but Becky insisted after her conversation with the colonel’s wife that we at least go round to see him and present our case.

  I fell in line and to my surprise we received a letter ten days later saying that he was our man.

  A few days after that Becky admitted she was going to have a baby. From that moment on my consuming interest became finding out what news Becky had of Trentham’s intentions. I was horrified to discover that she hadn’t even written to tell him her news, although she was almost four months pregnant. I made her swear that she would send a letter that night, even if she did refuse to consider threatening him with a breach of promise suit. The following day Daphne assured me that she had watched from the kitchen window as Becky posted the letter.

  I made an appointment to see the colonel and briefed him on Becky’s state before the whole world knew. He said somewhat mysteriously, “Leave Trentham to me.”

  Six weeks later Becky told me that she had still heard nothing from the man, and I sensed for the first time that her feelings for him were beginning to wane.

  I had even asked her to marry me, but she didn’t take my proposal at all seriously although I had never been more sincere about anything in my life. I lay awake at night wondering what else I could possibly do to make her feel I was worthy of her.

  As the weeks passed Daphne and I began to take more and more care of Becky, as daily she increasingly resembled a beached whale. There was still no word from India but long before the child was due she had stopped referring to Trentham by name.

  When I first saw Daniel I wanted to be his father and was overjoyed when Becky said she hoped I still loved her.

  Hoped I still loved her!

  We were married a week later with the colonel, Bob Makins and Daphne agreeing to be godparents.

  The following summer Daphne and Percy were themselves married, not at Chelsea Register Office but at St. Margaret’s, Westminister. I watched out for Mrs. Trentham just to see what she looked like, but then I remembered that Percy had said she hadn’t been invited.

  Daniel grew like a weed, and I was touched that one of the first words he repeated again and again was “Dad.” Despite this I could only wonder how long it would be before we had to sit down and tell the boy the truth. “Bastard” is such a vicious slur for an innocent child to have to live with.

  “We don’t have to worry about that for some time yet,” Becky kept insisting, but it didn’t stop me being fearful of the eventual outcome if we remained silent on the subject for much longer, after all some people in the Terrace already knew the truth.

  Sal wrote from Toronto to congratulate me, as well as to inform me that she herself had stopped having babies. Twin girls—Maureen and Babs—and two boys—David and Rex—seemed to her quite enough, even for a good Catholic. Her husband, she wrote, had been promoted to area sales rep for E.P. Taylor so altogether they seemed to be doing rather well. She never made mention of England in her letters or of any desire to return to the country of her birth. As her only real memories of home must have been sleeping three to a bed, a drunken father and never having enough food for a second helping I couldn’t really blame her.

  She went on to chastise me for allowing Grace to be a far better letter-writer than I was. I couldn’t claim the excuse of work, she added, as being a ward sister in a London teaching hospital left my sister with even less time than I had. After Becky had read the letter and nodded her agreement I made more of an effort over the next few months.

  Kitty made periodic visits to Chelsea Terrace, but only with the purpose of talking me out of more money, her demands rising on each occasion. However, she always made certain that Becky was not around whenever she turned up. The sums she extracted, although exorbitant, were always just possible.

  I begged Kitty to find a job, even offered her one myself, but she simply explained that she and work didn’t seem to get along together. Our conversations rarely lasted for more than a few minutes because as soon as I’d handed over the cash she immediately sloped off. I realized that with every shop I opened it would become harder and harder to convince Kitty that she should settle down, and once Becky and I had moved into our new home on Gilston Road her visits only became more frequent.

  Despite Syd Wrexall’s efforts to thwart my ambition of trying to buy up every shop that became available in the terrace—I was able to get hold of seven before I came across any real opposition—I now had my eyes on Numbers 25 to 99, a block of flats which I intended to purchase without Wrexall ever finding out what I was up to; not to mention my desire to get my hands on Number 1 Chelsea Terrace, which, given its position on the street, remained crucial as part of my long-term plan to own the entire block.

  During 1922 everything seemed to be falling neatly into place and I began to look forward to Daphne’s return from her honeymoon so I could tell her exactly what I had been up to in her absence.

  The week after Daphne arrived back in England she invited us both to dinner at her new home in Eaton Square. I couldn’t wait to hear all her news, knowing that she would be impressed to learn that we now owned nine shops, a new home in Gilston Road and at any moment would be adding a block of flats to the Trumper portfolio. However, I knew the question she would ask me as soon as I walked in their front door, so I had my reply ready—“It will take me about another ten years before I own the entire block—as long as you can guarantee no floods, pestilence or the outbreak of war.”

  Just before Becky and I set out for our reunion dinner an envelope was dropped through the letter box of 11 Gilston Road.

  Even as it lay on the mat I could recognize the bold hand. I ripped it open and began to read the colonel’s words. When I had finished the letter I suddenly felt sick and could only wonder why he should want to resign.
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  CHAPTER

  20

  Charlie stood alone in the hall and decided not to mention the colonel’s letter to Becky until after they had returned from their dinner with Daphne. Becky had been looking forward to the occasion for such a long time that he feared the colonel’s unexplained resignation could only put a blight on the rest of the evening.

  “You all right, darling?” asked Becky when she reached the bottom of the stairs. “You look a bit pale.”

  “I’m just fine,” said Charlie, nervously tucking the letter into an inside pocket. “Come on or we’ll be late, and that would never do.” Charlie looked at his wife and noticed that she was wearing the pink dress with a massive bow on the front. He remembered helping her choose it. “You look ravishing,” he told her. “That gown will make Daphne green with envy.”

  “You don’t look so bad yourself.”

  “When I put on one of these penguin suits I always feel like the head waiter of the Ritz,” admitted Charlie as Becky straightened his white tie.

  “How could you possibly know when you’ve never been to the Ritz?” she said, laughing.

  “At least the outfit came from my own shop this time,” Charlie replied as he opened the front door for his wife.

  “Ah, but have you paid the bill yet?”

  As they drove over to Eaton Square Charlie found it difficult to concentrate on his wife’s chatty conversation while he tried to fathom why the colonel could possibly want to resign just at the point when everything was going so well.

  “So how do you feel I should go about it?” asked Becky.

  “Whichever way you think best,” began Charlie.

  “You haven’t been listening to a word I’ve said since we left the house, Charlie Trumper. And to think we’ve been married for less than two years.”

  “Sorry,” said Charlie, as he parked his little Austin Seven behind the Silver Ghost that stood directly in front of 14 Eaton Square. “Wouldn’t mind living here,” Charlie added, as he opened the car door for his wife.