WELCOME STRANGER

by MARY HOCKING

  ‘It’s gone now.’

  ‘It’s probably stuck somewhere just beneath us. We shall smell it.’

  Seeing that she was really disturbed by this, he leant out of the window. ‘All gone,’ he assured her. ‘Come and satisfy yourself.’

  She looked out warily, ashamed of being the first person to show signs of panic.

  Daphne was saying, ‘The poor dog is probably bursting. He’s so well-trained.’

  ‘He is perfectly all right,’ Kelleher assured her. ‘And has left evidence to prove it, haven’t you, old chap?’

  ‘He must be so bewildered, though,’ Irene said. ‘All his values turned upside down in this way and he can’t ask any questions about it.’ She comforted him and he licked her face. Later on, she said, ‘How long will we be here. It’s Mummy and Daddy I’m thinking of. They will be so dreadfully worried.’

  ‘The police launches will be around soon – and anything else that can float,’ Ivor said. ‘The spirit of Dunkirk again!’

  ‘People do know you live here?’ Alice asked Daphne. The house could hardly be said to be a landmark, and she did not imagine the Kellehers would have made much effort to make themselves known to their nearest neighbours – wherever they might be.

  Kelleher said, ‘They will be bound to take note of any building which is sticking up above the water – this house is probably more noticeable now than ever before.’

  ‘And, in any case,’ Ivor said, ‘as soon as we see a boat we shall make our presence known.’

  ‘How?’Alice asked.

  After some discussion, they agreed they should fly something from the chimney. A sheet would be no good, it would be lost in the greyness. A red flannel blanket was unearthed and this time it was Daphne who made the ascent. ‘If things get worse the idea is that we all use this ladder, isn’t it?’ she challenged the men. ‘So the sooner we make sure we can do it, the better.’ She negotiated the ladder with commendable athleticism. Irene and Alice exchanged wry glances.

  ‘I think the level of the water must be going down a little,’ Daphne said when she returned, i could see the top of Angus’s car.’

  ‘I wonder if it is possible to salvage anything from it,’ Angus said.

  ‘Hardly worth the effort, surely?’ Ivor looked surprised. ‘Unless you have left anything of particular value in it?’

  ‘A few papers – in my briefcase.’

  ‘But not of national importance, presumably.’ Kelleher was not asking a question so much as making a statement.

  Ivor, however, was interested. ‘One hopes not. Since they will be irretrievably damaged.’

  Angus said, ‘I should have kept it with me. What a bore!’

  No more was said of salvaging the briefcase.

  As the morning dragged on and it became apparent that they were not in any immediate danger, the main problem was how to occupy themselves. The Kellehers announced their intention of taking a couple of hours’ rest and departed for the small room which had initially been allocated to Irene.

  ‘A couple of hours!’ Ivor commented. ‘Rather excessive, one would have thought.’ He strolled to the window. ‘If anyone else feels the need of rest, I should be quite happy to sit on the landing.’

  Alice’s stomach lurched. How mortifying that dismay should so soon replace desire! Irene and Angus were vociferous in their assurances that they were not in the habit of resting in the daytime, and Irene went so far as to condemn such practices as valetudinarian. Neither she nor Angus offered to sit on the landing.

  When eventually Peter and Daphne returned, Ivor said without preamble, ‘Alice and I would like a rest now.’

  Alice said, ‘No, Alice would not!’ but she followed him out of the room to Irene’s dismay.

  Ivor, as soon as they came into the bedroom, knew his mistake. She had that maddening air of innocence which some women can assume in the most doubtful situations, and which often confounds a man’s worst intentions. He played for time.

  ‘What is wrong with your friend Irene? Is she afraid of what would happen, or that nothing would happen?’

  ‘Both, I expect, like me.’

  ‘You are certainly very tense. You weren’t like this last night.’

  ‘Last night we had a lot to drink, and the fire was warm, and now I’m cold and frightened and I haven’t had enough to eat. . . .’

  He drew her down beside him on the bed, where she sat bolt upright. ‘I can’t promise you hot soup, but I can very soon stoke those fires again . . .’ She gasped convulsively as his hands touched her stomach and moved between her thighs; but her body was hard and knotted as wire.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked angrily.

  ‘I really don’t know you very well. And I can’t come to this cold.’

  He sighed, ‘All right, all right! We’ll talk, shall we? Tell me about yourself. Unless you prefer to talk about Mozart, too.’

  ‘There’s not much to tell.’

  ‘Relax!’ He eased her down on the pillow, gentle and persuasive now. ‘You must live somewhere. In a wood, perhaps, with your grandmother close by . . .’

  She tried to answer in the manner of the fairy story, ‘I live with my sister, Louise, and her husband, Guy, in a house in Holland Park, and . . .’

  He sat up, propped on one elbow. ‘You are Alice!’ He had changed completely.

  ‘Well, yes . . .’ she faltered, bewildered.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ In the watery light his face was green with rage. ‘They are so full of themselves, those two, they don’t bother to introduce people properly.’

  ‘Does it matter?’ She felt suddenly full of tenderness, now that he was no longer bringing any pressure to bear on her, and she stroked his face. ‘Stop looking like an outraged merman! They did introduce us, after a fashion – they said that you were Ivor and . . .’

  ‘But not that I was with them when that bomb came down.’ She could not think what he was talking about, until he said, ‘Louise never mentioned me?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so . . .’ All the breath had gone out of her and she felt flat as an empty sack.

  ‘She wouldn’t, of course.’ She would not forget the bitterness in his voice, or the way he went on, speaking as of an unimportant person mentioned in passing, ‘But she told me she had a sister, Alice, who was out in Alex.’

  She watched him sitting hunched on the edge of the bed, winded as a fighter who has taken a kidney punch. After a time, when he made no movement, she got up and began to tidy her clothes. He said, ‘I’m sorry. I wasn’t prepared for this.’

  She stood staring at the door, then suddenly drummed her feet on the floor. ‘I can’t go back in that room! I can’t! And I can’t stay here! Oh, this dreadful flood! Why can’t we all just die?’

  ‘There’s no need for that.’

  She turned on him. ‘You . . . you and my sister!’

  ‘It wasn’t . . .’ He paused. Kelleher’s voice rang out, ‘Come on, you two! Ship ahoy!’

  As they came into the room Angus, Daphne and Kelleher were leaning out of the window, waving and shouting. There were answering shouts in the distance. Irene was standing to one side as though she had little interest in what was happening. She looked at Alice, eyes enormous with grief.

  Below a man was shouting, ‘If you can readjust that ladder, you can climb down to us quite easily.’

  This time it was Kelleher who climbed up. Angus and Ivor took the ladder from him and secured it to the bedpost. Daphne made the first descent carrying the cat. ‘Towser won’t be able to make it,’ she called up. They made a cradle of sheets and lowered the dog. Their haven was a good-sized motor cruiser. ‘Quite a commodious ark!’ Daphne exulted. As they settled themselves, talking to their rescuers, a police launch came by. The water level was lower and Irene said to Angus, ‘They might be able to get your briefcase.’

  ‘The police have more important things to do.’

  ‘It’s worth a try.’ She did not note the sharpness of his tone; now that the ne
ed for control had passed, she felt as if something in her mind had snapped. ‘He’s got diplomatic papers in his bag,’ she explained to the policemen. It did not seem important. She simply had to put words together and these were the first which came to mind. As the engine started up, she found more words, the one tumbling over the other. Angus was unexpectedly stirred by this ill-considered intervention; it moved him as her tact and reticence had never done, and gave her a new value. He put his arm round her shoulders and drew her close. Alice, painfully alone, thought, ‘How stupid! He is sheltering her now, when there is no need!’ Over her shoulder as the boat moved away, she could see the police launch circling Angus’s car.

  Their rescuers took them to a hostel where they spent the night. It was not until the next morning that they were asked to go to the police station.

  ‘We managed to salvage a few of your things,’ the policeman explained. He looked at them with interest, which was surprising as he must have spent weary hours dealing with people in the same plight, and some far worse off. He was a plainclothes officer. The harassed sergeant who had greeted them on their arrival had called out to colleagues, ‘Where’s Cotter? This is the party he wanted to see.’ Cotter, thus summoned, had ushered them into this small room at the back of the building. The yard beneath the window was occupied by a large number of unclaimed and incompatible animals, each complaining in its own fashion. Raising his voice above the clamour, the policeman said, ‘Just a matter of identification.’ He walked to a table pushed against the wall, talking all the time. ‘You’d be surprised how awkward some folk can be, especially at a time like this. You save a few of their possessions and they accuse you of pinching the rest.’ He paused by the table. ‘Just the two cars, were there?’ As though another car might be one of the items the police could be accused of pinching. They told him there were two cars. He read out registration numbers and Kelleher and Angus produced the necessary proofs of ownership.

  ‘Well, that settles that.’ He looked at Kelleher. ‘Not much in your car, sir, I’m afraid.’

  Kelleher said rather crossly, ‘I don’t keep much in my car.’

  ‘Very wise, sir. But you might like to take a look at these few items.’

  Kelleher looked without favour at a mound of tools and directories for which he would have little further use. It seemed scarcely credible that this was the way the police were spending their time during this emergency.

  The policeman indicated a rather larger pile. Daphne said, ‘My brother was staying with us. As he was away from home, he would naturally have more in his car.’ Why at this stage she should choose to be so defensive was not clear, even to her, unless it was the bottle of whisky which troubled her.

  The policeman said, ‘Quite so’ which, as Daphne said afterwards, was probably the Force’s equivalent of ‘rhubarb, rhubarb’. ‘Nothing of much value, I would think, except this.’ He pushed the bottle of whisky to one side and opened the briefcase. His interest seemed to centre on a small object which Alice saw only briefly before Angus, moving closer, blocked her view. It might have been a small book, or a tin of talcum powder. She was never sure afterwards what her first impression had been – as in a dream, the sequence once lost was never re-established. The policeman laid the object on the table. ‘Yours?’

  Angus said, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Neat little contraption.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You usually carry it about with you, do you, sir?’

  ‘No. It needed repair. I was going to take it in on Monday.’ Angus turned it over with one finger. ‘It doesn’t look as if there will be much point.’

  The policeman nodded. ‘Beyond repair, I should think. A pity.’ He, too, turned it over. ‘Didn’t know we made this sort of job.’

  ‘We don’t.’

  There was a pause while the policeman frowned down at the object. ‘You work at the Foreign Office?’

  ‘Yes.’

  While all this was happening, Kelleher had moved away and was now leaning against the window, looking down at the animals as though he found their plight of more concern than anything which was happening here. Ivor was rummaging through the items on the table which had been taken from Kelleher’s car. ‘I hope we’re not expected to take this lot away with us,’ he said to no one in particular. ‘The police must have dustbins of their own, surely?’ Alice and Irene unconsciously took their cue from the two men and dissociated themselves from what was taking place. Daphne was sitting on a chair, seemingly about to go to sleep.

  Angus appeared quite undisturbed. He answered questions laconically, never volunteering more information than was required; yet not giving the impression that there was anything which he wished to conceal. One might have supposed from his manner that, whatever equipment was in question, it was common practice for every Foreign Office official to carry it in his briefcase. The policeman never managed to take charge of the interview. He was very tired and had no real wish to become involved with the affairs of the Foreign Office and bring the wrath of the Special Branch down on his head. Eventually, he said, ‘If you’ll wait here, I’ll just get one of my men to bring a form for you to sign.’ He looked malevolently at Ivor. ‘And we shall expect you to remove all this stuff.’ Having established some measure of ascendancy he withdrew and was soon replaced by a big, fresh-faced sergeant, a man of endless patience and experience against whom Kelleher’s irritated protests washed as harmlessly as rain on a turnip.

  ‘And now this neat little job, zurr.’ For the first time he looked at Angus. One was aware of a stillness in the man as the small, light eyes focused on this new subject then, like the flash of a camera, the eyes brightened. ‘Why, it’s Major Drummond!’

  Angus said, ‘Mr Drummond.’ Then to demonstrate that he, too, commanded a good memory, ‘Sergeant Fletcher?’

  ‘Yes, indeed, zurr. As you see, I’ve come back to the country. It suits me better. I was never one for town life.’ The platitudes came out amiably enough, but he was not an amiable man and had no wish to be thought one. Angus, looking at him, had an odd feeling of cherishing this man, not for himself, but for the role he was undoubtedly to play. He was sad, however, when the small eyes fixed on Irene. ‘Why, it’s Miss Kimberley. It is still Miss Kimberley, I take it?’ As Irene made no reply, he went on, quite unabashed, ‘And how would Mrs Immingham be?’

  Irene said, ‘Very well.’

  ‘The children would be growing up, I expect.’

  Irene agreed that this was so.

  ‘Well, now, I hope you’ll give them my very good wishes and tell them I often thinks of my time with them.’ He pushed the object towards Angus who put it in the briefcase. Surely, Alice thought, catching a glimpse of it out of the corner of an eye, it was a book? ‘Perhaps we shall meet again, zurr.’

  ‘At Philippi, no doubt.’

  On the way out, Kelleher stopped at the desk to ask the constable on duty what was to become of the animals. The constable said, ‘We’ve got lost children.’ He seemed to think this a sufficient answer. Kelleher appeared to regard it as prevarication. The others left them arguing.

  As soon as they were in the street, Alice said to Irene, ‘Who is Sergeant Fletcher?’

  ‘He was Louise’s lodger during the war. You would have been abroad at the time, I think.’

  ‘You mean the man who had the rooms I’m in now? Why didn’t you introduce us?’

  ‘It was hardly a social occasion. Besides, I can’t stand the man.’ She was more upset than Alice had ever seen her.

  Angus took her arm. ‘Don’t worry.’ He was quite unconcerned, one might even have thought him elated. Irene looked up at him, her eyes full of apprehension which Alice could not understand. But as her main worry at this time was whether she would continue to see Ivor, she soon put the matter to the back of her mind.

  Chapter Ten

  Ivor Ritchie worked at the War Office, not far from the building where Alice worked. It was not surprising, therefore – particularly as Alice’s
plans seemed suddenly to necessitate a daily walk down Whitehall – that they should meet a few days after their return to London. They talked for some minutes and then, after a moment’s hesitation, during which he seemed to toss a mental coin, Ivor suggested that they should have a drink. Had she been less interested in him, Alice might have interpreted that hesitation as a sign of reluctance, if not actual disinclination. As matters stood, she preferred to believe that he had paused because he recognised that this was no casual encounter. His subsequent behaviour fitted this reading well enough. A few days later he asked her out to lunch. Soon, scarcely a day passed when they did not see each other, either for lunch, or for a drink at the end of the day. Sometimes, but not often, they would walk in St James’s Park together. It was all very chaste. Alice sensed that this amused Ivor.

  She was sure that this was not the way in which he usually conducted his encounters with women. She had met men like him during the war, adventurers all; and had admired the women who knew how to handle them, while realising that such men were not for her. Had it not been for that revelation about Louise, she would probably have had the sense to dismiss Ivor from her mind once she returned to London. But his involvement with her sister had transformed him from a marauding stranger into a particular, yet more mysterious person. How far had his affair with Louise gone? She remembered that, in speaking of Louise, he had begun a sentence . . . it wasn’t . . .’ which Kelleher had interrupted. At that time, Alice had been too upset to follow this up. Now that unfinished sentence haunted her. What had he meant to say? ‘It wasn’t serious,’ perhaps? That made matters worse. It meant that either he had played with Louise, or that Louise had betrayed Guy casually. But Ivor did not behave as though his affair with Louise had been casual. The strength of feeling he had betrayed gave a new and interesting dimension to his character. She could see him as a tormentor, but was it possible that he in his turn could be tormented? She persuaded herself that these doubts necessitated her seeing him again in order to give herself peace of mind. When she was with him, the physical attraction was so strong that peace of mind was the last thing she worried about. Then, when they had parted, it became the reason why she must see him again. The solution, of course, would have been to ask him outright. But that was impossible. If she spoke to anyone, it should be Louise. And in any case, a direct answer might well not be forthcoming – or it might bring to an end this tantalising relationship before a more substantial bond had been formed.