Their Finest Hour and a Half

by Lissa Evans

  ‘Yes,’ he said, straightening up, ‘that’s really quite . . . like.’

  The director nodded briefly, and resumed his conversation with Kipper, and Arthur returned to the stern of the fishing boat, wondering as he did so whether it was the slight motion of the deck that had caused his forehead to film with sweat.

  ‘Was the wardrobe mistress right?’ asked Edith, as he sat down beside her. ‘Are the soldiers just dots on the horizon?’

  ‘Just dots,’ he confirmed, taking out a handkerchief to dab his brow. ‘You’re not cold, are you?’

  ‘No, not a bit.’

  ‘Good, good.’ He folded his handkerchief carefully, suddenly aware that he had entirely run out of things to say. The pit of silence yawned. Could he ask her if she were cold? No, he had only just done that. He cleared his throat, uncomfortably.

  ‘All right,’ said Kipper, with perfect timing. ‘Going for a take.’

  *

  The earlier wind had dropped, and there was silence on the beach apart from the soft slap of waves and the occasional sneeze. A gull flew the length of the dunes and then broke from its course and wheeled in a long curve above the lines of static figures, and Kipper, on the cabin roof, waited until the flake of white had left frame before raising his red flag and flapping it sharply.

  Action, thought Catrin, if one could use such an energetic word about such a gradual progression. The extras inched into the surf or trudged along their set routes, and although she spotted the odd grin, or muttered aside, most seemed to be taking their roles with admirable gravity, looking apprehensively out to sea, or glancing up at the ceiling of smoke. Those in the water, or scrambling awkwardly into the rowing-boats, looked wholly and convincingly miserable.

  The gull returned, tilting like a fighter plane above the beach, and Kipper on the cabin roof raised two flags in a V, and in an instant a chain of explosions erupted along the centre of the beach, following the curved line of the hosepipe, sending plugs of sand six feet into the air but with a noise that sounded strangely innocent – burst paper bags, Guy Fawkes bangers, party balloons – and the figures on the sand threw themselves flat, and the scene in front of Catrin was no longer a moving picture but a tableau, save for a streak of brown at the corner of her vision, a shape that darted away from the reports in a series of scrabbling runs. ‘Hey!’ called one of the spectators. ‘Look where it’s going!’

  It was most peculiar, and it happened quite suddenly. Arthur had been sitting beside Edith, his arms folded tightly because his hands had started to shake again. He had seen Kipper marshalling his flags in readiness for cueing the electrics, and he was trying to prepare himself because, out of all the awfulness of those days on the beach at Dunkirk, it was the strafing that had caught on his memory like a hook – the feeling of utter nakedness, the banshee shriek of the dive-bombers, the hammer of the guns, the sand spitting – and he steeled himself and took a deep breath.

  Kipper raised his arms. There were a few distant pops. Some of the extras dropped on to the ground. ‘Cut,’ said the director.

  Arthur felt an odd internal jolt, as if he had just missed a step in the dark.

  ‘I thought the explosions would be louder,’ said Edith.

  ‘Yes. The sand muffled them, I suppose.’

  I’m alive, he thought, I survived, I’m here and I’m watching play-acting, I could have died on a French beach but I didn’t, I came back, I was lucky.

  He placed his palms on his thighs. He felt quite steady, and immensely real, and solid; he had never been so aware of his own body, of the muscle and bone, the density and heft of each limb. The bullets missed me, he thought, they missed me – and for a queer moment, the world seemed to dangle before him like a Christmas ornament, glistening and bright, hanging just within his reach.

  ‘Hold that take, but we’re going again,’ shouted Kipper, and the words were like a draught that slammed a door shut. The bright world was gone again.

  ‘I wonder why they’re doing another take?’ asked Edith.

  ‘Oh . . .’ For a second or two Arthur could hardly catch his breath. He took off his spectacles to polish the lenses, but they were already quite clean, and he put them back on again and saw Edith, neat and interested and smart in her maroon coat with ivory buttons. ‘. . . I suppose it might be something technical.’

  Kipper was standing on the cabin roof again, holding a single flag above his head, but after a moment he jumped down, picked up a megaphone and leaned out over the bows.

  ‘What is happening?’ he shouted, the words well spaced. ‘Where is everyone going?’

  The occupants of the beach were drifting across to the right, and congregating between the tents and the coils of wire that demarcated the minefield.

  ‘What is happening?’ shouted Kipper again, and one of his assistants came to the edge of the water and shouted something back, through cupped hands.

  Edith looked at Arthur. ‘Did he say something about a dog?’ she asked.

  In his flight from the explosions, Chopper had plunged towards the wire and had almost found a way through, but a strand had caught around his chest and he had panicked and kept going until the loop had pulled taut into a deep ‘V’ and he could run no further. He stood now, some twenty feet into the minefield, panting, bleeding a little, the wire stretched into a series of stiff curves behind him, like a scrawled signature.

  The growing crowd stared at him, with collective impotence. ‘Here boy,’ called one young fool. Ambrose turned to admonish him and saw, in the distance, the short, menacing figure of Chick approaching. The fellow had been stationed right at the other end of the beach and still held the flag he’d used for acknowledging Kipper’s signals; he held it rather in the way that one might hold a rifle. Ambrose felt a flicker of personal anxiety.

  The same youth opened his mouth again. ‘Your dog ran away,’ he called, as Chick came within earshot. ‘He ran away when the charges went off.’

  ‘My dog don’t run away unless I tell ’im ’e can run away,’ said Chick, without breaking stride. ‘So some bastard’s been muckin’ abaht with ’im. Dixie, you got the nips?’ One of the electricians tossed him a pair of pliers and Chick tucked them into the pocket of his overalls, threw the flag to one side, and carried on walking, straight through the gap that Chopper’s run had opened in the hedge of wire.

  There were gasps, and a stifled scream from somewhere in the crowd. ‘Oh God,’ said someone. ‘Wait! We’ve sent a man round to the battery,’ but Chick continued as if deaf, following with calm intent the paw-prints that jigged across the virgin sand, reaching the dog in the same length of time that it took for Ambrose to wonder whether anyone had seen him issuing orders to Chopper, and if so whether he might be called upon to give evidence at the inevitable inquest. ‘Actor “must shoulder some of the blame” says coroner.’

  The watchers had fallen silent, and the dog’s faint whimper became audible as Chick knelt beside it, cut through the wire with a few swift snips, and then lifted the stocky brindled form and unhurriedly re-traced his steps. He reached the gap again, passed through and kept on walking. Kipper was climbing from a rowing-boat into the shallows and he called out to Chick, ‘How’s the dog? Where are you taking him?’

  ‘Bermondsey,’ said Chick. ‘He’s off the picture. And so am I.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You ’eard.’

  There was a long moment during which Kipper seemed too shocked to speak, and then he rallied himself, and ran through the surf after the retreating figure.

  ‘But we’ve already shot half of his scenes,’ he called out. ‘You can’t take him now.’ The answer was a brief, loud obscenity. Kipper appealed again but this time there was no reply. Chick walked steadily, inexorably across the width of the beach, and up the path and over the headland. For a brief moment he was silhouetted against the smoky sky and then he – and Chopper – were gone.

  ‘Actor “must bear substantial portion of cost for cancelled feature film” say
s auditor.’ Ridiculous, thought Ambrose, giving himself a mental shake – nevertheless, he glanced around to check for accusatory stares. Most people were looking back at the minefield again. ‘They’re probably duds,’ said one youngster in uniform, feinting a leap over the wire.

  Kipper blew a long blast on the whistle, and with a certain reluctance, the crowd shuffled round to face him. ‘Never mind what’s just happened,’ he shouted, rather shrilly. ‘Never mind standing around gossiping, let’s have a bit of concentration here. The director’s decided we’re going again very shortly, so we need extras in first positions.’ He waited for several seconds, but no one moved. ‘Now!’ he added, peremptorily.

  A raspberry, wet and derisive, was blown as he turned to wade back to the rowing-boat and then one of the extras, soaked to the armpits, took off his tin hat and lobbed it towards the spot on the minefield from which Chopper had been rescued. It bounced harmlessly.

  ‘I say!’ called the boy. ‘The wind’s taken my hat. My kit’s not on properly, we can’t possibly shoot.’

  Kipper seemed not to hear.

  ‘Oh no! Me too,’ called another young ham, flicking his own over the wire, and suddenly the air was full of flying helmets.

  ‘Stop that!’ shouted Kipper, ineffectually. ‘Stop that this—’

  There was a dull crump, and a fountain of sand, and a triangular piece of hat with the chin strap still attached whined past Ambrose and hit the tea-urn with a tremendous clang.

  ‘Actor “only able to find character work since loss of nose” says barrister.’

  Everyone had ducked, involuntarily, and as the sand ceased to patter down, there was a slow unclenching of shoulders. The silence was broken by Kipper.

  ‘Going for a take very shortly,’ he shouted. ‘First positions, please.’

  The afternoon light was beginning to weaken as the RAF planes began their thunderous runs above the beach. Dark crosses had been painted on the underside of their wings, and the shape of their tails had somehow been altered or added to, Edith thought, so that they looked indefinably foreign, but when she asked Arthur if that were the case, he only nodded vaguely and carried on staring at the sky. He had been very silent for the latter part of the afternoon, all through the excitement of the trapped dog, and the near-mutiny of the extras – very silent but scrupulously polite, and when the camera boat had docked at the harbour, he had escorted her across the gang-plank and up to the headland, and had found a camp-chair for her to sit on beside the new camera position, and had brought her tea, and had altogether behaved in a way that was so different from Verna’s idea of licentious soldiery that Edith, to her shame, had felt rather disappointed. He stood now, his head tilted back as he watched the planes, and she scrutinized his thinning crown; there was, it seemed, no angle from which Arthur appeared memorable. Of course, it was dreadfully shallow of her to think in that way, especially since her own looks were so undistinguished, but she simply couldn’t help it. She wasn’t demanding a Cary Grant, but she wanted to find an aspect, a feature, an expression of Arthur’s that was more than merely inoffensive, in the same way that she always liked the most mundane of garments to possess a cherishable trim, or an unexpectedly gorgeous lining.

  If he asked her out again, she wanted to be able to accept for a reason beyond that of simple flattery, and if he didn’t, then she’d like to be able to recall in future years (or even to mention, occasionally, casually, to Dolly Clifford and the others in the sewing-room once she was back in London), that the military advisor who had invited her to watch the filming in Norfolk had possessed nice eyes, or good hands or a ready wit. And she wanted that recollection to be a truthful one because there was nothing sadder than owning memories so unremittingly spartan that they had to be embroidered before display.

  She blocked her ears as the planes roared over again, a beat apart, much lower this time, the noise so vast that it seemed to shake her whole body. The camera tilted and swivelled, the sky darkened briefly and then they were gone again, chasing each other across the bay, climbing steadily, a final dip of the wings and then away. The drone of their engines dwindled after them.

  ‘Cut,’ said the director, and Phyl pressed the button on her stopwatch; a tiny click, suddenly audible.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Kipper, to the crew. ‘And that’s a wrap for today.’

  Arthur had remained staring at the sky, but at Kipper’s speech he seemed almost to awaken and shake himself. ‘Would you care for a short walk?’ he said to Edith. ‘If you’re not too cold, that is?’

  She realized almost immediately that something had changed. As they strolled through the fishy air of the harbour’s edge, he kept glancing at her, clearing his throat, adjusting his spectacles, running his fingers across his chin as though checking for stubble growth.

  ‘Along here?’ he suggested, when the cobbles gave way to coarse grass, and they took a sandy path that wound inland, parallel with the line of stunted hawthorn that marked the coast road. The day was closing in, the light bluish-white, the colour of watered milk. ‘You’re not cold?’ he asked again; the path was quite narrow and his sleeve was brushing hers.

  ‘No, no,’ she said, though she was actually a little shivery. He was going to kiss her, she realized – he was going to wrap an arm around her thirty-six-year-old waist and place his lips on hers, and she felt herself begin to breathe faster. ‘He’s a good kisser,’ the juniors at Tussaud’s would sometimes say about a boyfriend, and Edith had sometimes wondered precisely what they meant – were they talking about duration, frequency, lip texture? And should she lean against him when he took her in his arms, or place a hand behind his head and kiss him back, as women did in the ‘hotter’ sort of film, or would that appear to be overeager? Because she was feeling suddenly rather keen: it was passion, perhaps, that could transform the mundane into the noteworthy, and a passionate Arthur might be a memorable Arthur. And perhaps – it occurred to her – perhaps it wouldn’t stop at kissing, perhaps she should be prepared for more than that. She was a grown woman, after all, and he was a soldier far from home and wouldn’t it be just a little thrilling if, when Verna said, ‘You know what I mean, don’t you Edith?’ she was able to reply, ‘Yes, Verna, I know exactly what you mean.’ And if all this were happening too quickly – well then, she could blame the era they were living in, the ‘war madness’ that the newspapers loved to talk about, she’d simply be a woman of her time, she’d be acquiring a past and . . .

  ‘Miss Beadmore,’ said Arthur, stopping abruptly, so that she’d walked a yard or two beyond him before she’d realized. ‘Edith,’ he said, as she turned to face him. ‘You don’t mind if I call you Edith?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘Thank you. Edith.’ He hesitated, and then took off his spectacles to polish the lenses and Edith waited, her heart drumming; of course, if it did go further than kissing then she’d have to be careful, as the phrase went, but then she’d heard that all soldiers were issued with . . .

  ‘I realized something this afternoon,’ said Arthur, staring down at the spectacles. ‘You see, I hadn’t thought before of how lucky I’d been. Surviving.’

  His hands were beautifully clean, the nails smooth and trimmed neatly, and she caught herself wondering if his body, pressed close, would smell of soap, and she almost snorted at a thought so un-Edith-like.

  ‘It’s almost as if I’ve been given a gift,’ said Arthur. ‘I don’t want to waste it.’ He replaced the spectacles, and looked at her, his eyes smaller behind glass. ‘Edith,’ he said, and made a sudden movement and Edith moved too and then found herself flailing for balance because instead of enfolding her in his arms, he had bobbed down on the spot and she had very nearly flipped headfirst over his shoulder, a fate averted only after much teetering and the use of his face as a brake.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, embarrassed, stepping back. ‘Are you hurt, or . . . ?’

  He looked up at her, a red mark on one cheek from where she had planted her
thumbnail.

  ‘Edith,’ he said. He was on one knee, she realized. ‘Edith,’ he said again, reaching for her hand, ‘I want to ask you something . . .’

  Edith stared at him.

  He’s not, she thought, he can’t be, he can’t be.

  *

  It seemed to Edith, in the astonishing aftermath of Arthur’s proposal, that she had inadvertently unleashed the elements, like the girl in the fairy tale who summons the sea with a careless phrase. A single syllable, a brief glance, had changed everything, and in the tidal wave that followed she was swept along like a scrap of flotsam.

  Her last entirely clear memory was of saying ‘yes’ – or rather, of hearing the word emerge from her own mouth, like an unexpected hiccough. The amazement on Arthur’s face must have been mirrored on her own.

  ‘Oh really?’ he’d exclaimed, looking startled, and she’d felt flustered and had begun to say, ‘What I mean is . . .’ and then had changed it, mid-sentence, to, ‘I wasn’t expecting . . .’

  ‘No,’ said Arthur. ‘No. Neither was I.’ He seemed rather dazed, keeping hold of Edith’s hand as if it were a hanging strap on the Underground, and she herself had no inclination to move, since any movement would initiate the next stage of the proceedings, and she hadn’t the faintest idea of what that might be. The naked truth was, that although the ‘yes’ had surprised them both, it had been preceded on her part by a series of very rapid and rational thoughts – He has just proposed, he seems sincere, he is not hideous, he has a good job in civilian life, he owns a house, he is very likely the only person who will ever ask for my hand in marriage . . . oh and won’t it just knock Verna for six – and it had been the last and most venial of these that had triggered her answer.

  ‘Well . . .’ said Arthur, eventually, letting go of her hand. He stood up, and dusted the sand from his knee, and then took off his spectacles and gave them a thorough polish.

  ‘Well . . .’ he repeated. ‘My goodness . . .’

  A faint mist was beginning to rise from the marshes. ‘I suppose we had better be getting back,’ said Arthur. They turned, and walked in awkward silence towards the harbour, and disbelief seemed to thicken the air between them – disbelief and a certain embarrassment. Perhaps, thought Edith, perhaps it would be altogether easier to carry on as if the events of the last ten minutes had never happened.