‘No, don’t be stupid. I can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I promised. Don’t you ever make promises?’
‘Yes, but sometimes they’re mistakes.’
‘Mine weren’t.’
She pulled her knickers up and smoothed her skirt down as if they were the most natural actions in the world. A stocking was starting to ladder down from the button of a suspender. She said, ‘Damn!’ Then, she said, ‘Take me inside, and buy me that drink now.’
Maybe I’d already been filed away in that glorious head, in a box labelled mistakes, but I couldn’t very well refuse to return the favour, could I? Come on, you work it out: you used to be quicker than that.
It would have been surprising if we hadn’t sipped cider: me, and the prettiest girl I ever saw – just like in the song. No straws, though.
I asked her, ‘Why did they suspend you from duty so quickly?’
‘Didn’t you ask the Commander?’
‘Yes, I did, but because he only knows half of what goes on around here his explanation was less than complete.’
‘First of all they weren’t pleased that I told Ari Joopeman that you’d fallen into France. I should have waited, apparently.’
‘Why didn’t you?’
Miller laughed bitterly. ‘If I’d waited for HQ to do anything about it the civil servants would have got involved, and you would still be there – you know what they’re like. Someone needed to do something, and Joopeman was the only one I could think of who might have been close enough.’
‘He was. They moved bloody fast. I was behind bars for less than twenty-four hours. Thank you. Thank you from all of us. You saved us from a fate worse than death.’
‘What was that?’
‘French cooking: they eat their horses over there.’
Being funny wasn’t going to work with Miller tonight. She actually looked uncomfortable. ‘That’s all right. I cried myself to sleep that night; I couldn’t stop thinking about you. But it wasn’t the only problem. There was another one; with some of my stores requisitions. Items which went missing.’
‘I can fix that. Stores go missing all the time; ask Tommo, he ends up with most of them. How much, incidentally?’
‘About twenty-five tons, more or less: mostly in bits and pieces.’
‘Jesus Christ! What happened to it?’
‘Somebody sold it on; but it’s not what you think. The money was used to finance operations that the department couldn’t afford to do otherwise. I think they called it unofficial funding. Someone else must have found out.’
I could have had a fair stab of identifying who: the Paymaster General’s office had a number of investigating auditors. They used them on Lloyd George when he started selling off nobility, didn’t they? And they won’t do that again.
‘Do you know who did this?’
‘Yes.’ Miller looked down at the table. ‘Of course I do.’ The bar was suddenly chilly.
‘Who?’ After a long pause I asked her again.
Her mouth set into that narrow straight line like a horse refusing a fence, and that was that. ‘I’m not going to tell you.’
‘I signed those requisitions.’
‘They know you never read them,’ she told me. ‘You probably got the job because someone thought that you never would. All you wanted to do was put your feet up, fly as little as you could get away with, and wait for demob.’
‘Until I met you, that is. Then all I wanted to do was have you.’
‘Well, you did that too, didn’t you?’
Waspish and bitter. It sounded like regret in there. Why? I didn’t know what to say; neither did she. Eventually she said, ‘I’m sorry, Charlie.’
‘That’s all right. What for?’
‘For disappointing you. You weren’t supposed to love me. I thought that you wouldn’t.’
‘My mistake.’
‘Yes. But I’m glad that you made it, in a funny way.’
‘What will happen now?’
‘Mr Watson has already told me that they’ll let me resign with a clean sheet, as long as I sign all the right forms. Civvy Street, the same as you.’
‘Sworn to silence?’
‘Yes. I suppose so.’
‘What then?’
‘Babies, I suppose.’
‘You didn’t tell me you wanted any.’
‘I’m not sure yet that I do. Charles does, though.’
‘I’ve wanted no one but you since the first moment I saw you.’ OK, so that was stretching it a bit. ‘Can’t I change your mind?’
Miller shook her head. Her hair bobbed.
‘That would be another mistake, Charlie. No: I don’t think you can change my mind.’
‘OK.’
It was as if she’d turned off the love tap; like someone turning off the water at the mains. Can normal people do that?
What was the point of trying? I had nothing to offer, and no argument that would cut any ice. Then I had another thought, and fell back to my reserve trenches for a last stand. I asked her, ‘At least tell me before the last time we’ll ever make love; so I’ll know how to make the most of it. I’ll want to remember that all my life.’
Another one of those bloody great broody gaps. Then, ‘Just start remembering now, Charlie, because that was it.’
‘Just like that?’
She spoke very softly, and didn’t look at me. ‘Yes. Just like that.’ Then she added, ‘I can’t bear it any longer.’
Bear what? I shrugged, and walked out. At least she let me do that. It was a clear night with stars beginning to show; maybe there would be one last touch of frost. An old man walked briskly by on the other side of the street. His studded boots rang on the stone paving, and he whistled ‘Tipperary’. I listened to him until he was out of sight, and the song had died.
I spoke to Bella as I threw my bag into the back of my car the next morning. It was a glorious day; perhaps I could make it all the way to London with the hood down. I was in a decent uniform, with my flying jacket over the top. Bella said that I needed a haircut.
‘Do you want me to trim it before you go?’
‘No, but thanks. I’m going to let it grow until my demob, just in case they begin to change their minds and want to keep me. They usually let the scruffy ones out first.’ I filled and lit my pipe. ‘It’s all winding down. I have to appear in front of a board in London tomorrow morning. They’re inquiring into the accident in France. After that, all I have to do is wait. Jane is doing my job now, and Elizabeth’s doing Miller’s. It wouldn’t surprise me if they leave it that way to save money.’ I’m sure that you picked it up: I was using the word accident. That was a new European definition of being shot down by the French. ‘I probably shouldn’t have told you.’
‘I knew anyway: Ming told me. Mrs Boulder is going out with your CO. Did you know that?’
‘Dirty old bugger!’
‘No, he’s not: he’s just learned our lesson. Grab it while you can.’
‘I’ll quote you on that every time a girl tells me I’m being too pushy.’
‘Good. Will you come back here?’
‘Of course I shall. It will all take another few weeks, I expect.’
We left it at that. Ming came out in his shirtsleeves. He needed a shave, and nodded to me. I grinned back. Things were looking good for them. Bella gave me a kiss.
London always looks good in the sunlight. I parked up behind the Major’s old safe house in Highgate, and walked around the front. There was a key under the mat of the basement front door. The house smelled musty and unlived-in: Stan and his family had moved out. But everything was still there upstairs. It was like a newly abandoned hotel. I opened some windows to let the air in, and helped myself to a bottle of Worthington from the small bar. I picked up one of the telephones; it was still connected. I dialled the flat, and Dolly yawned when she answered, ‘Hello?’
‘Why aren’t you at work?’
‘Oh, it’s you, C
harlie. I was at work all night chaperoning Den with some dusky Air Minister from the Middle East. They have very curious ideas about women.’
‘Don’t they want you to put some kind of sack over your head when you climb into bed with them?’
‘Don’t be silly, Charlie. You don’t have to put the sack on until you get up in the morning. Are you up in Town?’
‘Yes, for the Air Accident Board. You heard I ran into a little trouble?’
‘Yes, we did. Denys cried a bit – that’s the first time I’ve seen her do that. I told her you’d turn up; just like a bad penny.’
‘And I have. Someone else said that about me a long time ago.’
‘Me, probably. Do you want to come round?’
‘No, I want to take you dancing tonight.’
She must have counted to six or seven, then with what sounded like a smile in her voice she said, ‘That will cost you, Charlie. You pay to dance, remember?’
‘I think I can afford it. I want to go to a Palais somewhere, just like I did when we were at war. Do you know any?’
‘Hammersmith,’ she laughed. ‘I haven’t been there for years. Are you really sure about this?’
‘Never surer,’ I told her seriously. If anyone could help me forget Miller, it would be Dolly.
I turned up for the board the following morning with sore feet, a clear conscience and twenty minutes to spare. I took my flying logbook. The board read it: two senior officers, and a benign civilian with white hair. He looked old enough to have had his telegram from the king. They told me that I was a brave officer with a distinguished record. Actually, they wouldn’t have recognized a brave man if they’d woken up in bed alongside one. The strange thing was that they weren’t in the slightest bit interested in what had happened on Turnaway Tim’s last flight. I drank coffee with them, and made polite conversation. If this was how officers spent their time maybe I should stay in the service. The whole interview boiled down to two or three questions, and they weren’t about the flight that left me hobbling around in France.
They were about the flight from which Percy came home dead. A Squadron Leader Kinsman squirmed about a bit on his seat, like someone with a bad case of worms, and then said, ‘No gentleman likes to speak critically of a fellow officer, I realize that, but I have to ask you a couple of things about that aborted sortie to the Kola Peninsula. OK?’
‘No problem, sir; shoot.’
‘I’m not going to put you on the spot, Pilot Officer, so I’ll tell you that some of the crew, including the navigator, have been interviewed already, and there are indications that during that flight you took over the decision-making for a time. True?’
I didn’t want to answer. I’m not a grass. I shook my head, but they just let me hang there. ‘It wasn’t quite like that, sir.’
‘What was it quite like?’
I took a deep breath. If Tim had been there I would have kissed him, because I’ve already told you that friendships or betrayals should be ended with a kiss. ‘The aircraft captain hadn’t had the experience of losing a crew member in action before, sir. I had: that was all. I recovered from the shock quicker, and advised him what needed to be done.’
‘Advised? Not ordered?’
‘Advised, sir. It would not have been proper for me to order him.’
‘Quite.’ Kinsman shuffled the papers in front of him, then looked up and asked, ‘Did he lose his nerve?’
‘No, sir,’ I assured him. ‘I was closer to losing my nerve than he was. He just shut down a couple of times; it was only because that sort of thing hadn’t happened to him before.’ I was aware that I was repeating myself.
He looked down at his papers again, shook his head almost imperceptibly, and smiled.
‘Thank you, Pilot Officer.’ That was it really. A puff of smoke in an otherwise cloudless sky. ‘Have you any questions for us?’
‘How is he, sir – and the rest of them?’
‘He’s ill; but you knew that, of course. He’ll be in hospital for a long time, and will probably never fly again.’
‘Can I visit him?’
‘There’s no reason why you shouldn’t, but, at the same time, no point. He won’t know who you are. He doesn’t even know who he is.’
‘And the others, sir?’
‘Returned to active service, as far as I know. Morgan, the navigating officer, has taken the option of a ground job – he’ll never fly again, either. One of the gunners died of injuries before he was found, and the flight engineer is still missing. Anything else?’
‘No, sir.’
‘You’re due to be demobbed soon. Joining a civvy outfit, I understand?’
‘Yes, sir. Halton Airways. Based at Lympne in Kent, with long-haul freighters.’
The old man with the white hair coughed into a gleaming white handkerchief. The cough seemed to echo around his lungs for ever. It sounded terminal.
‘I’m Geoffrey Halton,’ he told me when he’d stopped wheezing, ‘your new employer; so welcome aboard. I know a friend of yours: Peter Baker – Lord Peter, that is.’ The bastards got everywhere, didn’t they?
The third board member hadn’t spoken directly to me yet. He seemed to be taking the notes – he must have been the junior hand. Now he gave me a friendly glance and said, ‘I think that’s all we need from you, Pilot Officer; why don’t you cut along now, and make the most of your time off in London? It’s been an honour to meet you.’
Now you don’t say ‘Don’t talk wet’ to a senior officer, so I said, ‘And you, gentlemen,’ as I stood up. In fact I don’t know why I said that either. I turned at the door, cap on, and gave them the best and last salute of my service career. A1 stuff. The bastards didn’t even look up.
I got an even smarter salute from the corporal who met me just outside the door. He handed me a note that said Dolly was waiting for me with a car, and that Piers begged the pleasure of my company in the evening. Actually, it was a bit terser than that.
Dolly drove me to a pub in Greenwich – the Trafalgar Tavern – where we lunched on plates of whitebait and pints of Watneys, and watched ships passing up and down the river. Suddenly I longed to be on one of them: outbound for anywhere.
‘It was called the George once, after some king or other, I suspect,’ Dolly told me. ‘I always bring visiting Americans here: they love it.’
‘I’m always surprised that anything near the river survived the bombing.’
‘I think it was cracked by a near miss, but they never stopped serving.’
‘I think that’s what beat the Germans eventually: that attitude. It was nothing to do with what we did to them.’
‘You could be right.’ Dolly lit a Passing Cloud, and blew a stream of smoke towards the ceiling. Cigarettes are very sexy; that’s what people forget about them. ‘You could call it the Windmill attitude; after the theatre. You know: we never closed.’
‘Wasn’t that only the Windmill Girls’ legs?’ I said, grinning.
‘You can be very crude at times, Charlie. Do you know that?’
‘Sorry, Dolly.’
‘Apology not accepted; I’m going to take you home and give you a bit of a doing-over.’
‘You can be very crude at times, Dolly. Do you know that?’
As it happened she didn’t give me the doing-over, because I didn’t fancy it. Dolly didn’t mind. She sprawled on the carpet, lit a cigarette and asked me, ‘What’s the matter now?’
‘I don’t know. For the last few weeks I’ve been absolutely nuts over a woman, which hasn’t stopped me jumping the bones of every other girl I met. It’s been super.’
‘I’ve always wanted to know my place in the world, Charlie, and now you’ve told me. Just a collection of bones. Nice one. Thanks.’
‘You’ve got a very decent bunch of bones; I’ll never forget them. Anyway, she gave me my marching orders a couple of days ago. It’s not the first time I’ve been given the bum’s rush, but this time my brain’s stopped. That’s stupid, isn’t it? May
be it’s a cumulative thing!’
‘What did she say?’
‘At the end? She said, “I just can’t bear it any longer”, or something like that. Then I buggered off.’
‘That was very flattering . . .’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘A man wouldn’t.’
There was nothing much left to say after that.
Dolly drove me. I think that Piers wanted to make sure that I’d be there. I was still in my number ones with my flying sheepskin on top. There was a nip in the air, which meant that we were on the edge of a clear night. I asked her, ‘Where are we going?’
‘That LCC place he sometimes uses. Kenwood.’
‘Why not his office?’
‘Piers moves in mysterious ways his wonders to perform. We’re a bit early – we can drive around if you like, or stop for a drink.’
‘You can take me somewhere first,’ I said, and gave her directions.
Dolly parked up under a street light, behind a cop car. She told me to wait and went out to talk to the policeman. When she came back she said, ‘It’s OK. They’re just making sure that no one moves in to fill the vacuum. The owner takes repossession at the start of next week. You can go in if you like. Do you want me to come with you?’
‘No.’
I walked up the driveway of number twenty-eight. The gravel still needed weeding. No doubt its next occupier would be able to afford to have it done. The front door opened to my touch, and the lights went on at the switches. The electrical supply was still jury-rigged to the street lights outside . . . and the table and chairs were still in that big kitchen. Someone had swept up and left it clean and tidy. Some ex-serviceman, I thought. My feet echoed past the big room where we had danced, up the big staircase and along the corridor. I thought about the boy, Gary, and his mother: in Palestine the sun shone every morning, didn’t it?
My bed had been made and the blankets left folded on the end of the mattress, as if to await my return. The bunch of flowers in the jar on my cabinet had been changed. There was still some water in the jar, but the flowers drooped. They were old, and I had been away too long. I topped the water up before I left to give them a last chance. The two drawings were pinned to the wall where I had left them. I took them down, folded them, and buttoned them into my breast pocket. Alongside them on the wall someone had painted the words goodbye Mr Charlie and good luck in white paint. Some of it had run before it dried. Alongside it was the painting of a star, in heavy blue lines. The letters were in a childish hand and at about eye level for an eight-year-old boy. Going back down the stairs I thought about the way people said goodbye.
The Forgotten War Page 38
