Dry Bones

by Sally Spencer

  Makepeace laughed again. ‘Her husband’s regiment is in lockdown,’ he said. ‘Jenkins won’t be back in Oxford (if he ever does come back) until after the invasion of Europe.’

  ‘How can you be so sure of that?’ Charlie wondered.

  ‘I happen to be on very good terms – if you understand what that means – with a captain in the same regiment,’ Makepeace replied.

  They could feel the camber of the road rising slightly, and then they heard the gentle swish of water far below them, so they knew they were crossing Magdalen Bridge.

  ‘Still, even if he’s not coming back, it was stupid of you both to be so obvious,’ Charlie Swift said, but the wind had been somewhat blown out of his sails, and there was little conviction behind the words.

  ‘Are you jealous of me and little Lucy?’ Makepeace asked teasingly – almost, in fact, tauntingly.

  ‘Of course I’m not jealous,’ Charlie said.

  ‘Do I need to remind you that we’d agreed that we could both sleep with whoever we wanted to?’

  They had agreed that, Charlie thought, and it was the same sort of agreement he’d reached with most of his partners – yet somehow, the fact that Makepeace preferred a woman to him (if only occasionally) seemed like the blackest kind of betrayal.

  ‘Well, do I need to remind you of our agreement, Charlie?’ Makepeace prodded.

  ‘No, of course not.’

  Makepeace gave a throaty chuckle. ‘You needn’t worry your little self,’ he said, and there was the tiniest hint of tenderness in his voice, which was about as close as he ever got to real affection. ‘There’s nothing going on between Lucy and me. What we have is a purely business relationship.’

  ‘Do you mean she’s paying you for sex?’ Charlie Swift said, before he could stop himself.

  Makepeace’s chuckle became a full-throated roar.

  ‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘That’s it, precisely. I couldn’t possibly live as well as I do if it wasn’t for the vast amounts of cash that that little serving maid can afford to pay me for screwing her.’

  ‘So what other reason …’

  ‘I’ll give you a clue,’ Makepeace interrupted. ‘And the clue is … are you ready for this?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The clue is – New York-London. Not New York and London, you note, or even London-New York, but New York-London.’

  ‘I’m not in the mood for any stupid games, James,’ Charlie Swift said – though Makepeace’s clear assertion that he himself wasn’t playing second fiddle to Lucy Jenkins was making him feel much better.

  The pub that was their destination was located just the other side of Magdalen Bridge. It was run by an ex-wrestler called Billy Bones, and was one of those institutions that you went to if you cared more about good beer than you did about elegant surroundings.

  The main bar had a brewery-installed piano at one end of it, though Billy did not usually encourage singing, since, as he pointed out, his business was to sell beer, and you couldn’t sing and drink at the same time.

  At the other end of the bar, sitting on a perch, was a blue-and-yellow macaw. Most people, seeing it for the first time, took its immobility as an indication that it was stuffed. Thus, they were naturally shocked when, once the landlord had rung the bell for closing time, the macaw suddenly came to life and proceeded to do its best – by way of haranguing the customers with novel suggestions on the uses they might make of their sexual organs – to encourage the more reluctant of them to leave.

  There was the usual sort of crowd in there that night, Charlie Swift noted, once the heavy blackout door had swung closed behind them and they’d sat down at an empty table. There were students – though, as more and more were called up, their number had markedly decreased. There were men too old for war – pensioners who had fought in the last war, and now found that no one was interested in hearing about the sheer hell they had gone through. There were labourers – big strapping men, many of them imported from neutral Ireland – whose job it was to prevent the country’s infrastructure, on which the military so heavily depended, from crumbling away.

  And there were the Yanks!

  There were always the Yanks now.

  These particular Americans – three of them – sat at the far table, with at least half a dozen local girls in attendance.

  It was obvious why the girls were there, Charlie thought. And it wasn’t sex they were after – it was something far more beautiful, more poetic, and (if handled right) more long lasting than sex.

  It had been very early in the war that silk stockings had become unavailable, and girls were faced with the choice of wearing woollen stockings when they were out on the town (God no, never!) or of exposing their pale white English limbs to the world (God no, never!).

  The solutions they had come up were ingenious. Some girls, for example, had dyed their legs with gravy browning and then drawn a seam down the middle of them with their eyebrow pencils.

  And then, in 1940, the miracle had happened. Du Pont Chemicals, in the USA, had made it possible to produce nylon stockings, which were even better than silk ones.

  Hallelujah! Legs could once more be displayed in public.

  It should have been a perfect combination. The girls, working in war production industries, had more money in their pockets than ever before, and were almost desperate to spend it on beautifying themselves. The chemical company, on the other side of the pond, was eager to sell as much of its exciting new project as it possibly could.

  The problem was that the British government was only allowing the importation of goods considered vital to the war effort and – look at it any way you wanted to – there was no argument that would allow nylon stockings to fit into that category.

  One of the American soldiers, a big man with sergeant’s stripes – his pockets no doubt stuffed with the aforementioned nylon stockings – was laughing at something one of the girls had said. Then he noticed that Makepeace and Swift were sitting there, and the smile drained away, to be replaced by something which was close to black anger.

  He’d recognised them as homosexuals, Charlie thought. It happened once in a while, because however carefully you dressed or behaved, some people were like truffle hounds, and had a knack for sniffing you out.

  In his mind, he quickly examined the ways in which this situation might possibly play itself out.

  One: the sergeant might be angry that two nancy boys had dared to breathe the same smoke-filled air that he was breathing, yet decide it was best to keep the anger to himself.

  Two: he might tell his friends, and they might give the pair of queers hostile stares, and leave it at that.

  Three: the sergeant might come over to their table and get abusive, and Billy Bones – who measured a man by how much he drank and not by what he did with his penis – would quickly throw the American out.

  Four: the sergeant might turn violent before Billy Bones could get there, but this was no problem, because although the Yank was a big man, Charlie had boxed for the university, and had no doubts he could handle him.

  What the sergeant actually did do was to walk across to their table and lay his hands flat on top of it.

  ‘Well, hi there, James, you little faggot,’ he said, in a low, growling voice. ‘How are things with you?’

  ‘Look, Hiram, this isn’t the time or the place for us to be having a discussion,’ Makepeace said uneasily.

  ‘Really?’ the sergeant asked. ‘Then when is the time and place?’

  ‘I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it. I’ll call you and we’ll arrange a time that is mutually convenient.’

  ‘And would this mutually convenient time be before or after you’ve gone?’ the sergeant wondered.

  ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’

  ‘You’re shipping out of here in two days, ain’t you?’

  Makepeace licked his lips, nervously.

  ‘Yes, that’s right, I am,’ he admitted. He turned to Swift. ‘I was going
to tell you, Charlie. Honestly, I was.’

  ‘When were you going to tell me?’ Swift asked.

  ‘Hey, don’t talk to him, talk to me,’ the sergeant said, and as his voice rose in volume, so the level of conversation at the other tables quickly decreased. ‘We have some unfinished business to deal with, and I suggest we step outside and deal with it now.’

  ‘I’d have to be completely mad to go out there with you, Comstock,’ Makepeace said.

  Everyone was looking at them now, including Sergeant Comstock’s two friends.

  ‘Last chance,’ Comstock said.

  ‘No,’ James Makepeace replied, and the fear in his voice sounded genuine enough. ‘No, I won’t.’

  Seemingly from nowhere, the knife appeared in the American sergeant’s hand.

  ‘Get up now, you little faggot,’ he snarled. ‘Do it before I stick you like a pig.’

  It was then that Makepeace made his big mistake – a mistake that would have easily won him the first prize in any contest that aimed at finding the stupidest man around and crowning him King Idiot.

  It was then, in other words, that he reached across the table and tried to take the knife away from the big sergeant.

  The move was so unexpected – and so obviously insane – that it took Comstock by surprise. He jerked the knife away, and, in the process, unintentionally drew the blade across Makepeace’s wrist. The blade left a thin, bloody track behind it, and as Makepeace gazed down at it in horror, the cut began to ooze blood.

  Makepeace fell back in his seat. Comstock just stood there, perfectly still, in shock.

  Charlie Swift stood up, and delivered what was probably one of the finest blows to the jaw in his pugilistic career. Certainly Comstock seemed to appreciate it, as his legs buckled and he crumpled to the ground.

  Comstock’s two mates were on their feet now, only to find their path blocked by the massive frame of Billy Bones.

  ‘I want you two lads to take your pal out through the front door and never come back,’ Bones said, in a voice which boomed as though it were coming from the bottom of a deep well. ‘Do you have any problems with that?’

  ‘No, sir,’ one of the Americans said, earnestly.

  ‘Good boy,’ Bones said, and actually patted him on the head.

  The two GIs dragged their sergeant clear. James Makepeace was huddled in his chair, moaning to himself.

  ‘Let me take a look at that arm,’ Bones said, grabbing it before Makepeace could object. He ran his eyes over the wound. ‘It’s no more than a scratch. I’ll bind it for you, and within an hour you’ll have forgotten all about it.’

  He produced some bandages and a large glass of whisky, and whilst Makepeace sipped at the whisky, he bound the wound in a most professional-looking manner.

  ‘Where did you get that?’ he asked, when he’d finished.

  ‘Where did I get what?’ Makepeace asked.

  ‘That cut.’

  ‘You know damn well where I got it.’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ Bones said, in a voice which was cold enough to chill the blood. ‘I have no idea where you got it. The only thing I do know for certain is that it didn’t happen here.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Makepeace agreed, finally getting the picture. ‘I … mm … I think I must have done it on a sharp piece of metal in the college boathouse.’

  Bones nodded. ‘Good,’ he said, satisfied. ‘Dangerous places, boathouses, if you’re not careful.’ He glanced at the front door, and then turned to Charlie Swift. ‘And just in case the Yanks are still outside,’ he continued, ‘you’d better take your little pal out through the back door.’

  That seemed like a very sensible idea, Charlie thought, picturing what the scene might be like if they left by the front door – three Americans trying to hurt two Englishmen, and none of them having any real idea who they were hitting out at in the darkness.

  Once they were out on the street, Makepeace made a great show of needing assistance, but it was as uncomfortable for him as it was unconvincingly theatrical to his audience of one, and he soon gave it up.

  ‘Do you want to tell me about it?’ Charlie Swift asked.

  ‘I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘A man threatens you with a knife, which means – to all intents and purposes – that he threatens me with a knife, too. I’d rather like to know what you did to upset him.’

  ‘Oh, that,’ Makepeace said carelessly. ‘I stood him up on a date. He doesn’t seem to have liked it much.’

  ‘I heard him call you “faggot”,’ Charlie Swift said. ‘Isn’t that what Yanks call queers?’

  ‘Yes, but …’

  ‘So if he’s actually one of us, why would he be using the word as an insult?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Makepeace said exasperatedly. ‘Maybe he said it so his mates would think he wasn’t.’

  ‘Wouldn’t he be running a risk that you might scream back that he was a faggot himself?’ Charlie Swift wondered. ‘Mightn’t his best course of action have been to simply say nothing?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Makepeace moaned. ‘I’ve had a difficult night. I’ve been attacked, and I’m in pain, so I don’t know the right answer to anything. Can’t you leave it at that?’

  ‘Were you really planning to tell me you were leaving Oxford?’ Charlie asked.

  ‘Of course I was,’ Makepeace lied.

  ‘I’m going to miss you,’ Charlie said.

  ‘Me, too,’ Makepeace said – and for this last remark, at least, he was making an effort to sound sincere.

  23 October 1943

  Harold Jenkins was naked, and was bound to a metal chair by thin rope. At first, the rope had been no more than a minor irritation, but every time he made even the slightest movement, it would rub. He suspected that the skin on his wrists and ankles had been worn raw by now, but he could not check on that, because the room in which he was being held was in complete darkness, and had been for most of the time he’d spent in it.

  He knew that he had been brought to the room on the 21st of October, and for the first few hours, he had been counting off the seconds – one elephant, two elephants, three elephants – but then either his concentration had slipped or he had fallen asleep, and when he became aware of things again, he had no idea whether he had only lost a few seconds or if it had been several hours. After that, there seemed little point in counting any longer.

  The biggest danger he had to face was thinking too much, he warned himself. Think too much – about what Lucy was doing at that moment, about what Lucy would do if he never went home again – and he would undermine his sense of self, and hence destroy his will to resist.

  Too much thinking was doing their work for them.

  The light came on with no warning. It was aimed directly at his face, and it was very bright – brighter than any light should ever be.

  He closed his eyes as tightly as he could, but it made no difference to the dazzle that was filling his brain.

  He heard the door open, and footsteps cross the room.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ asked a solicitous voice.

  ‘Go to hell,’ Jenkins growled.

  ‘You are cold and you are hungry and you are thirsty,’ said the voice. ‘That’s right, isn’t it?’

  Jenkins said nothing.

  ‘You have soiled yourself, you know,’ the voice continued. ‘You have probably got used to it by now, but let me tell you, for someone entering the room for the first time, the stink is almost overwhelming.’

  ‘If you don’t like the atmosphere in here, then why don’t you just piss off?’ Jenkins asked.

  ‘And I am a little worried about your wrists and ankles. There is a very real danger, I’m afraid, of them becoming septic, and of gangrene setting in. I saw several victims of gangrene on the Russian campaign, and believe me, it was not a pretty sight.’

  ‘You’re not a pretty sight,’ Jenkins said. ‘I can tell that from the sound of your voice.’

 
; ‘You are being very brave, and I commend you for it,’ the invisible man said. ‘But the simple truth is that all you are doing is causing yourself unnecessary suffering. We do not wish you to betray your country. Far from it! All we require from you is a few harmless facts. No, we require even less than that. We just need you to confirm some facts we already know. Once you have done that, you will be bathed and fed and your wounds will be taken care of. So what do you say?’

  ‘My name is Harold Jenkins, I am a lance corporal, and my number is 5782305,’ Jenkins said.

  ‘And what is your regiment?’ the voice said coaxingly. ‘It will surely do you no harm to tell us that.’

  ‘My name is Harold Jenkins, I am a lance corporal, and my number is 5782305,’ Jenkins said.

  Despite the fact that he was anticipating the blow to the face, it still came as a shock, catching him, as it did, just under his left cheekbone and throwing his neck into whiplash.

  ‘I did not like doing that, but you left me very little choice,’ the voice said. ‘Please be sensible, Harold.’

  ‘My name is Harold Jenkins, I am a lance corporal, and my number is 5782305,’ Jenkins said.

  He braced himself for a second blow, but it never came. Instead, there was the sound of retreating footsteps and the door closing.

  The light went out again, but he knew from recent experience that its golden glow, which had imprinted itself on his retina, would take some time to fade.

  What would Lucy be doing at the moment? he wondered.

  Stop it! he told himself.

  Stop it!

  He had done all he could to protect and save her, and now he must banish her from his mind and concentrate all his efforts on his own survival.

  ELEVEN

  8 October 1974

  The village of Upper Penfold lies just inside the Cambridgeshire border. Though it differs in some ways from Kneebury Thrubwell – the church is English Renaissance rather than Norman, the manor house is not Tudor but Jacobean, and thatched roofs seem much less popular here than they were there – my overall impression is that I’ve driven from one sleepy English backwater to another.