“It sure does. Or a rotter. I liked that word. Do the English still use it?”
“Not much. It would date someone who did.”
“Well, so far as Britain is concerned, I’m dated. Britain is Essex and Suffolk about 1975 to 1980. I don’t suppose you can imagine what that was like for us, particularly for those of us who’d been in Vietnam.”
“Like a sort of rest cure, I imagine.”
“Yes. A physical rest cure, but mainly a psychological one. We’d been killing people at an age when we should only have been killing wasps or rabbits. ‘Kill or be killed’ was the order of the day, and we sure as hell didn’t want to be killed at twenty, twenty-one. And we’d kill for our buddies who’d gone that way: ‘Here’s one for Garry,’ we’d say as we shot an enemy coming out of the jungle with his hands up. It was a nightmare come true.”
“And then you got posted to Calton Heath?”
“Oh, not immediately. I was back in the States for a bit. Got married, then got divorced. That was the usual thing with ’Nam veterans. The wives couldn’t stand the nightmares and the suppressed violence. Not their fault…not ours either. I was sent to Suffolk in 1975, and that’s where the healing began. It was like another world. There were actually people who liked us there. Oh, there were others who hated us and wanted to get rid of us: antinuclear campaigners and plenty of young men who were jealous. ‘Overpaid, oversexed, and over here’—we heard all the jokes. But there were others. We were invited to people’s homes—genteel little tea parties. They were churchgoing people mostly. For some of the black guys it was their first time in a white person’s house—can you imagine? Even for us it was a different world…. That’s how I met Peggy.”
“At a tea party?”
“Yes. At a place called Lower Melrose. Peggy had a friend there, and her parents were strong church people, just like my folks, only mine were Catholic. Peggy’s friend was helping her with her costumes in some school play, which I heard plenty about in the next few months. This friend had a great act—all starch on the outside, which soothed any fears the parents might have had. But—boy!—did she have a reputation with the men at the base.”
“So Peggy was around at the tea party?”
“Yes—just happened to be there—I don’t think. Demure as they come, asking all sorts of questions about our planes, life in the States, when our leave periods were…When she said good-bye, she said, ‘The church at Upper Melrose is very interesting, and the churchyard too.’ I just whispered, ‘Thursday at eight.’ ”
“Simple.”
“Oh, very simple.” He sighed and suddenly looked very ill. “And sordid, most people would think. Here’s the grizzled old veteran, thirty years old, making a date for sex with a schoolgirl. Not nice, not gentlemanly, not British…And yet, that wasn’t really how things turned out.”
“You fell in love with her?”
“Something like that. Or with the idea of her. Does that make sense? You’re the literary guy.” Graham nodded. “I think now that I hardly began to know the real her. But then: here was this young girl—sweet, passionate, grateful, just happy to be with me, to give me what I wanted, demanding nothing more. Not one of the good-time girls, as the locals called them, who made themselves available to the guys at the base in return for expensive meals, nightclubs, good clothes, luxuries of any kind. She was so happy to see me, and so uncomplaining if I couldn’t get away when I had promised to meet her.”
“She had reason to complain, on one of those occasions at least. She had to make do with me in your place.”
“Is that so?” Ken Poldowski’s eyes narrowed. “Well, I’m not jealous, and I wouldn’t have been jealous then. I knew I wasn’t the only one. Why would I be? She was young, I wasn’t. I could only give her a tiny bit of my time. But she made clear—she said—that I was the main one. And that was fine by me.”
“And now and again you managed to get a night or two away together,” guessed Graham.
“Once. Once we managed to go away together for a weekend. Peggy told her parents she was going with her friend Katy and her parents to London, to attend some sort of concert and a play. They swallowed it, and we went to a little town in Essex…. That was a memorable weekend.”
“Why?”
“All sorts of reasons. But one thing that has stayed with me all my life was Peggy’s talent as an actress. She was a twenty-five-year-old woman for that weekend—looks, behavior, clothes—I’d bought them, but she selected them. Only once she let her guard fall.”
“Why was that?”
“It was a silly little thing. We were having dinner on the second evening in the guesthouse we were staying at, and it was fish, and Peggy didn’t know how to use the fish knife, and she just picked it up, looked at it in a puzzled sort of way, and then giggled like a schoolgirl. Could have been American, Canadian, French—whatever—but it was totally girlish. And the landlady looked at her, and I think she was glad when we left the next morning.”
“Did that sort of thing worry you?”
“A little. Things could have turned out badly for me if she’d gone to the police.”
“Why? She wasn’t underage.”
“Still, if the police had gone to her parents…But anyway, it didn’t happen. And we had the most wonderful months together—together only now and then, but still the whole time was idyllic. Of course she was young for me. Sometimes I’d laugh at her. She’d tell me that her mother was a distant cousin of the Duke of Devonshire, but since I had no idea who the guy was, or whether a duke was a ‘sir’ or something else, she didn’t impress me much. Once the play took over in her mind it was her father who was related to Dame Edith Evans. That had about the same effect. But her youngness and her flights of fancy were part of her charm, and I just smiled at the lies, then.”
“How did it all end?”
“Very suddenly. She missed one of our dates in Upper Melrose. That had happened during the rehearsal period for the play, but never since. Then I got a scrawled note, mailed in Lower Melrose where her friend Katy lived. It read something like, ‘Things very difficult. I think we’re going to move. Parents going through the roof. Will write when I can. I think I am pregnant. All my love, Peggy.’ It was the sort of letter a girl might write when she just wanted the affair ended without all the recriminations. But I never really believed it was that.”
Graham nodded. Ken seemed to him the sort of man who felt things intensely, a man of emotions, even if his air-force training had made him adept at covering them up.
“But at least when Terry Telford appeared, you already had an idea that you had a child in Britain.”
“Oh, I had that all right. I want to keep Terry out of this, Mr. Broadbent. It’s nothing to do with him. But, yeah, we’d had a bit of exchange, via e-mail and so on, but when he walked into the room here, I said to myself—‘That’s my son. He’s mine.’ Just the chin, I think, but the age too…. I’ve got two kids by my second marriage, a boy and a girl. The boy is twenty-one, and at college, and he’s into baseball and computers and rock music. He’s a real all-American guy. I saw this young Englishman and I could see that he was naïve, puppyish, a bit soft, but you know I was proud to have fathered him. Everyone’s idea of a nice young Brit—like your prime minister whatsisname. So we got on really well, and I thought, ‘What a great outcome of that weekend in Brightlingsea, or one of those evenings in the churchyard at Upper Melrose.’ ”
“By the grave of Jonas Braithwaite and his wife, Mary Ann,” said Graham.
“Now you are sounding like a jerk. No, it wasn’t nice of Peggy to choose the same grave for her times with you, but then, it was the most private place. And of course I know all about Peggy by now. I’ve lost all romantic illusions.”
“When did you decide to go back to England?”
Ken shot him a quick, shrewd glance. He knew everything had to come out.
“Oh, I’d wanted to for a long time. Since I knew, first time round, that I’d got cancer. T
hings just got in the way, as you can imagine they do at that time. But since my wife died and my children have been in college and independent, I’ve lived with my sister. Anya was very anxious to make the trip, and we were beginning to get it all mapped out for when she retired.”
“And is that what happened?”
“No. She came with me because she had two weeks’ vacation coming to her.”
“But something else decided you?”
“Yes. I think you’re probably guessing what it was. I’d been in touch with Terry on and off ever since he came here. It’s been a pleasure, talking and e-mailing and so on. He called me and told me he’d met up with his mother. That was what tipped the balance.”
“But you just said you’d grown out of romantic illusions.”
“This was no romantic illusion.”
His voice was grimmer than it had been so far.
“Then why should you want to see her after all this time?”
“Shall we stick to what happened, and leave why it happened to a bit later?”
“It’s you who calls the shots. But are you strong enough for a long talk?”
“Yeah, I’m strong enough. So as soon as I knew that Terry and Peggy had met, I booked a flight out and a hotel in London. Before we left, Terry rang again and told us about Peggy’s dinner that was coming up in the restaurant in Romford, the celebratory meal, and I asked him to book two rooms in a Romford hotel for that night.”
“You were going to be there at Luigi’s, and Terry knew that?”
“No reason why he shouldn’t.”
“I don’t remember him showing any signs of knowing any people in the restaurant.”
“He wasn’t meant to. I told him—and it was true—that I wanted to keep all my options open. Notably whether I was going to approach Peggy while I was over in Britain, and if so, how that approach was going to be made. I had my back to the Webster table for obvious reasons—my sister Anya faced all of you and took some digital photos when things grew explosive. You know, I think by the end Terry may even have forgotten I was there. I may be wrong, but somehow when he cried out that he already knew his natural father and it wasn’t you, Graham, it was as if he’d forgotten I was there and listening, but he felt for me.”
“Stranger things have happened.”
“So there I was the whole damned evening, not seeing anything except some shapes and colors in the glass of a picture on the wall of sunny Naples, though I did get a better view of Peggy briefly, when I went to the men’s room. That made it easier later on. I got Anya to take those photos—when Terry was making his protest. It was a digital camera, so I had them at once. By then I was paying my bill, and a few minutes later Peggy sailed out of the door. I thought she must be going after Terry or after her other son, the young boy. I took Anya back to our hotel in a taxi. She knew I’d decided to look for Peggy and she perfectly understood. She knew we had unfinished business. After I’d dropped her, I went straight to the hotel parking lot and took out the rental car we’d been using during the trip. So I drove around the streets of Romford, pretty aimlessly, just looking to see if I came across Peggy.”
“There were quite a lot of people doing that on the night.”
“Were there? Well, I suppose I got there first. Peggy was out of luck. She was wearing a full green coat, remember?”
“Yes. Rather splendid—and beyond her income I’d have thought.”
“Hmmm. She was in a sort of square, nice and open, but not ideal for my purpose. I waited till she went into a darker street, then drove up beside her, put the window down, and said, ‘Ma’am.’ ”
“Was she frightened?”
A tiny smile, almost of admiration, played on his face.
“Not a bit of it. Peggy always had nerves of steel. But she didn’t recognize the voice or the word: I often used to say it to amuse her—she could never get over being called a ma’am. She just kept walking at the same pace, saying with her stage voice, ‘If you go on pestering me, I shall call the police on my mobile.’ I kept up with her and said, ‘Peggy.’ She looked round sharply. I said, ‘Don’t you remember me, Peggy?’ She said, a bit wavering, ‘I don’t know.’ I said, ‘It was back in the Essex days.’ ”
“That must have narrowed the field.”
“Now you’re being unkind again. What happened to English gentlemanliness?”
“It never came within a mile of me. Romford is still in Essex. And even in the old days you weren’t the only one that Peggy went with.”
“I told you, that didn’t bother me at all. That wasn’t what I had against Peggy. Anyway she looked at me, and after a moment or two she said, ‘Ken?’ like she wasn’t quite sure, but almost hoped it was me. And I said, ‘It’s been a long time.’ ”
“So she was ‘almost hopeful,’ you say. Not afraid?”
“Why do you say afraid?”
“Because of what happened.”
“I don’t think she was afraid in any way. She said, ‘How come you’re in Romford? Were you looking for me?’ and I said, ‘We’ve got a lot of catching up to do. Why don’t you jump in?’ And she got into the car, and I kissed her and said, ‘It’s been a long time.’ ”
“ ‘I kissed thee ere I killed thee’?”
“Is that poetry?…The killing came later, and I wasn’t intending it then. In fact I found her so adorable, there in the flesh, that I almost forgot…what it was that was biting me. It was like being back in my young days—fairly young: Vietnam took my real young days from me. I kissed her again, a real kiss, not a peck. I repeated, ‘We’ve got some filling in to do,’ and she said, ‘I can explain.’ But I said, ‘I don’t want you to explain. The filling-in is the lovemaking that stopped suddenly back in 1979.’ And do you know, I almost think I meant it.”
Graham had to hide his impatience to know the whole story.
“Don’t hold back on me. To make sense of all this I need to know what was biting you.”
Ken shifted uneasily in his bed.
“It will sound so goddamn trivial. It wasn’t the cause of…the killing, only one of the things that…Oh, well. I can’t explain myself. I’m not one of those guys who spend their time going deeper and deeper into themselves. Let’s just stick to facts. Go back to the time two years ago when Terry came here to see me. We talked about him, what he’d done in Britain, how he liked the States, how he was settling in, how his mum and dad were settling in. Then he said, ‘It was easier for Derek, because he’s got his work, but I think Eve’s found time hanging heavy during the day.’ ” Ken shot a look at Graham. “You learn self-control in the military, if you’re wise. You don’t let your face or your body give away every passing emotion. I needed all the self-control I could gather, and I’m proud that Terry didn’t seem to notice a thing.”
“But why?”
“Because I’d assumed when he talked about his mum, he meant Peggy. She’d told me she was bringing him up herself. She told me that her parents wanted her to have the baby adopted, but she insisted she was going to keep him. They forced her to move out, and that was why she needed money. She didn’t want to make a formal application or complaint to the air-force authorities, but she thought it right I should pay maintenance. I thought it right myself. The worst I thought she might have done was marry someone called Telford without telling me.”
Graham let out a laugh in which there was no amusement.
“My God! Peggy surpassed herself! What she peddled to you was the exact opposite of the truth. So you mean you paid her maintenance all the years that Terry was growing up?”
“Eighteen years. The authorities took it out of my paycheck. They were used to that sort of informal agreement, particularly for servicemen abroad who had wives and families back home. They upped the amount depending on inflation. Sometimes Peggy would tell me of a special need—exchange-student visit to France, his own computer—and I’d think about it and usually send her something extra.”
“So you were in contact all thos
e years?”
“That’s right. Every year on his birthday she’d send me a letter thanking me for his present—usually another check—and telling me how Terry was doing, his first step, his first word, potty training—the whole caboodle. I paid up willingly, got warm feelings about the boy and my own generosity. She sent me photos—God knows who they were of. What an idiot! I paid up year after year until he was eighteen. Peggy wrote asking me to pay the tuition for him to go to Oxford, but I knew, or thought I knew, that in Britain you get scholarships to go to the university. Anyway, I think kids should grow up and be independent. So I wrote and said, ‘No way.’ That was the last communication we had until the meeting in the streets of Romford.”
“Recrimination time.”
Ken looked at him as if still bemused and shook his head.
“Funnily enough it wasn’t. You might think it would be, and maybe I intended it to be, but it wasn’t. She knew I’d been reunited—if that’s the word—with Terry, and she must have assumed that I knew, but when she muttered, ‘I’ve made mistakes,’ I didn’t say, ‘Boy—you’re right about that.’ I just said, ‘We all have.’ And before we’d been driving round Romford for five minutes I said, ‘We need to forget the past—all except the really good past. What’s to stop you coming away with me, back to our old haunts in Essex?’ And she looked at me with an ecstatic smile and said, ‘Nothing.’ ”
Graham raised his eyebrows. “Was it really ecstatic, or a theatrical ecstatic smile?”
Ken shrugged. “I think it was real, as real as she could be, but it came from all the romantic nonsense she felt about herself: an old love returns, still desperately in love, the old fire is rekindled—all that sort of claptrap.”
“Was it all claptrap? Wasn’t there a tiny atom of truth in it?”
“There was more than an atom. A widower who’s had a good marriage is a lonely guy, ready to be set up. Half of me wanted—well, you can guess. I don’t need to strip my soul for you—you write novels, I’m told. We all have that romantic self-deception. But her mistake was to think that I could be fooled twice. In the military you feel emotional about your buddies and even the guys who are not that close to you. Their lives depend on you and your life depends on them. They can let you down once, but they can’t let you down twice. Eventually I was going to wake up to her. But at the time I wondered…I want you to believe I had no thought of doing what I did at that point.”
Dying Flames Page 18
