Gently with Love

by Alan Hunter

  ‘Won’t any of Colin’s people be coming?’

  From the short silence that followed I understood that I had put my foot in it. Alex answered me.

  ‘They live rather far off to invite to an informal occasion.’

  ‘In Scotland?’

  Alex smiled politely. ‘Sutherland. It takes two days to get here.’

  ‘Scots don’t mind travelling in a good cause.’

  ‘We thought it was a bit much to expect.’

  ‘So in fact we didn’t invite them,’ Anne said tartly. ‘After all, we did want it to be a quiet wedding.’

  I glanced at Verna: Verna was frowning. ‘All right, you may as well know,’ she said. ‘I’ve never hit it off with Colin’s people, that’s why they haven’t been invited.’ Nervously she twisted one of her rings. ‘I forgot to write to them about Colin. I didn’t mean to, but there was so much to do, it wasn’t as though it happened in England.’

  I ghosted a shrug. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Oh, there’s no reason to make a mystery of it. But the truth is that we’ve had no contact with them since I came back to England. Not that I saw much of them before. I went on a visit once with Colin. They didn’t approve of me. The children have been up there, but not since the row after Colin’s death.’

  ‘They may like to know about the wedding.’

  Verna gave the ring a wrench. ‘Then it’s up to someone else to tell them. After our last exchange of letters they won’t be expecting it from me.’

  ‘I’ll tell them,’ Anne said quickly. ‘I know how to handle Grandad Mackenzie.’

  ‘But please, no invitations,’ her mother said. ‘It’s probably too late, but you never know.’

  So that was that: and a little saddening, in view of Colin’s attachment to his family. They had all come down for his own wedding and they had made a strong impression on me. James Mackenzie, his father, was skipper and owner of a trawler; a tall, romantic-featured man, with – it was unusual at that time – long, flowing hair. Since the wedding was an important family occasion he had donned Highland jacket and kilt, and altogether cut a striking figure in the sleepy Devonshire town. I recalled his ringing Gaelic greeting and the warm embrace he gave his son, and the pride in Colin’s voice as he presented me to his father. They loved each other. Verna’s neglect must have given James Mackenzie mortal offence. On the whole I could sympathize with her wish to avoid a confrontation with her formidable father-in-law. He would be in his seventies now but still, I imagined, hale and strong, and perhaps not the less awe-inspiring for his grey locks and matured authority. His wife, who was younger than himself, had been a handsome woman in 1938, and had shown herself in no way behind him in her affection for Colin. With them had come Colin’s elder brother, Iain, who was mate on the trawler, and his sister, Marie, whom I must confess I greatly fancied. I wondered what had happened to them all in the intervening years but it was plain that the present occasion was not to gratify my curiosity.

  We returned to the lounge for our coffee. Alex and Earle talked of their work; Anne, who was sitting a little apart, seemed as engrossed as they with the subject. I sat by Verna. On a stand by the window I had noticed a piece of native carving, and I decided to use it as a lever to bring Colin back into the conversation: I pointed to it.

  ‘Your husband always had a weakness for picking up junk.’

  ‘Oh, that.’ Verna glanced at it indifferently. ‘You can buy them for nothing in the bazaars in Salisbury.’

  ‘I expect you had lots of them.’

  She frowned. ‘It was Colin’s taste, not mine. His den in the bungalow was choc-a-bloc with them, each one labelled with the tribe it came from. But of course, I couldn’t bring them all back. Anne brought that one for a souvenir. The rest were sold at the auction. It was a rush at the end.’

  ‘Did Colin like Rhodesia?’

  ‘He loved the country. He was a bit stuffy about the administration. You knew Colin. He wasn’t above offending people if they didn’t think quite as he did.’

  ‘What exactly was he doing when he was killed?’

  ‘He was sent on a pacification mission.’

  ‘A dangerous job?’

  ‘Yes.’ She made a mouth. ‘They probably sent him on it to get rid of him.’

  I hesitated. ‘Who?’

  ‘I told you he wasn’t above offending people.’

  She rose abruptly to take my cup, when I became aware of Anne’s blue eyes regarding me. Again I felt a sensation of shock: it was so like looking up and catching Colin’s eye. But there was no smile in the eyes that met mine, just that intent, impenetrable gaze. It was I who had to smile. Then she responded and looked away.

  ‘Of course,’ Verna said firmly, ‘there is a certain advantage in having a son in the BBC. He gets to know such interesting people. He brings them down with him at the weekend.’

  I received my cup without enthusiasm: there was a lot more that I would have liked to ask about Colin. But Verna was determined to have done with him and to put the conversation on a general footing.

  ‘Last week, for example – what was his name? An attaché from the Brazilian Embassy. Then there was the couple who sailed here from Australia, and a very charming American professor. We get all sorts. You mustn’t think we’re out of the swim here at Blockford.’

  Alex smiled indulgently. ‘They come here mostly to meet Verna. My glamorous mother. The word goes round. Everyone wants to come down to meet her.’

  ‘Oh nonsense, Alex! Don’t tease.’

  ‘But it’s the truth,’ Alex laughed. ‘Ask Earle. Señor Alfonso came here after seeing your photograph on my desk.’

  ‘You’re making it up.’

  ‘Not a bit. He saw your photograph and fell.’

  ‘When he was here he was simply polite.’

  ‘Ah, but that’s how Latin lovers begin.’

  Verna’s eyes were bright. ‘I don’t believe a word of it! He simply came for a quiet weekend. And don’t annoy me with your foolishness in front of George – he doesn’t know you, he might believe it.’ But she didn’t look offended. ‘In any case, I prefer your people. That’s how we first got to know Earle. There are delightful people at the BBC.’

  ‘Thank you, Verna,’ Earle said.

  ‘We do our best for the image,’ Alex said archly.

  ‘We surely do,’ Earle chorused. ‘Even us colonials out of the hills.’

  Verna turned to me. ‘They have one thing in common, the people whom Alex invites down. They have talent. They are all people whom it is stimulating to be with. You feel they have an urge for life. It’s the same whatever they may be doing – acting, writing scripts, or organizing programmes, like Alex. I can’t remember him inviting anyone whom I wasn’t delighted to entertain.’

  ‘Except perhaps just one,’ Anne said softly.

  Verna gave her a sharp look. ‘Not one. I don’t know who you are thinking of, but they have all been charming when they were here.’

  ‘She’s thinking of me,’ Earle said smilingly. ‘I don’t have talent. I’m just the voice of Canada.’

  ‘She’s thinking of Nigel Fortuny,’ Alex said quickly. ‘And if you don’t mind we’ll change the subject.’

  Verna bit her lip. There was nothing playful in Alex’s expression now. The young man’s mouth was small and his dark eyes were averted. Anne, too, was looking vexed, and Earle’s ready smile had faded. Someone else had put their foot in it, and this time nobody ventured an explanation.

  Verna hastened to smooth it over. ‘I know,’ she exclaimed. ‘Let’s have some music! Earle does have talent – he plays the piano. And Alex sings very well, in a camp-fire way.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  EARLE PLAYED AT the Eavestaff miniature and Alex sang ‘Spanish Ladies’ and The ‘Foggy, Foggy Dew’. They had clearly performed together before and they gave an energetic rendition. Then Earle played ‘Beer-Barrel Polka’ in the clowning style of Chico Marx, and Verna requested ‘Green Grow the Rushes’
and other songs in which we could join. Finally, to my surprise, Earle shed his casual style and gave us Grieg’s Piano Concerto – performed a little flashily, perhaps, but as far as I could tell without a wrong note. We sat listening in complete stillness as that rhapsodic music trilled from his fingers. Alex sat by the piano, watching Earle’s hands, Verna was gazing out of the window. Anne’s eyes were intent on Earle’s face, which was set in a frown of concentration: there was a yearning fondness in her expression that had almost the intensity of suffering. I had no doubt of her feeling for him. Though she treated him coolly she was very much in love. And about Earle’s sincerity I had no doubt either: they seemed a couple destined for each other. And yet there was something disturbing about Anne’s gaze that I was at a loss to account for, a certain nervous tenseness: it might have been interpreted as apprehension. I reproved myself. I didn’t know Anne; clearly she was a difficult person to read. When I knew her better I would doubtless understand the subtle nuances that puzzled me now. When the music ended and we congratulated Earle, Anne kissed him briefly on the temple, and Earle hugged her waist for a moment and brushed her hair with his lips.

  I left early to avoid trespassing too far on Commander Stapleton’s patience. Earle chatted to me blithely as we skimmed back through the June twilight. His was a happy disposition and he seemed to have no care in the world. His only concern was because his father would be unable to make the trip from Toronto for the wedding. But that too had its compensation. He would be taking Anne to Canada in September; and surely the fall was the time, of all others, to introduce her to his native land. Meanwhile they were spending the honeymoon in France, driving southwards as the mood took them.

  ‘I guess I’m a lucky guy,’ Earle concluded, as he halted the Pontiac at Copdock Place. ‘Not the cleverest, but the luckiest. Why else would Anne have fallen for me?’

  I smiled. ‘You’re certainly a happy man. And not many people can say that.’

  He laughed delightedly. ‘I really am happy. I feel I want to share it with all the world.’

  I felt an impulse to ask him about Nigel Fortuny whose name had cast that sudden shadow, but I decided that it would be unfair to interrupt such a mood of bliss.

  He wrung my hand. ‘Till Saturday, fella. Get round to Verna’s at the earliest.’

  ‘Till Saturday, Earle.’

  He waved gaily and drove flamboyantly away.

  I watched his tail-lights wink and vanish and then I went up to my room. Lying on my bed was a sheaf of notes with ‘For your earliest attention’ inscribed upon it. I turned the leaves. It was matter calculated to inspire me with higher-executive principles. I put it in a drawer out of harm’s way, smoked a pipe, and went to bed.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  IT IS THE practice of policemen to write down the details of incidents as soon as possible after they occur (and if ever you are the subject of any such incident you may be advised to do the same). But of course I did not do this after the evening I spent at Verna’s, and it is possible that the account I have given above is a little inflected by hindsight. If I had indeed made notes that night I would probably have given more space to Verna. I spent much of the evening trying to read through her the sort of life that Colin had led. Apparently they had not been too compatible and her sense of loss was not overwhelming. At the same time I did not think that Colin had been gravely unhappy with her. Verna was a realist. If she hadn’t loved Colin, at least she would have arranged to live with him amicably, and because I felt certain of that I felt also a degree of gratitude towards her. She’d done her best. If her best wasn’t love, it was as much as many men would settle for. Verna would have run a happy home and have presented a cheerful face. And love there had been: it had come from Anne: that was another thing I had read. About Alex I wasn’t so certain, though I could imagine him having an affectionate respect for his father. But Anne had been close to him. She was a Mackenzie. I had the picture of Colin and James Mackenzie before me. Just so she would have run to be hugged by her father, with just such pride have introduced a friend. The grief at his death had been Anne’s grief, of which that of the others had been a pale shadow. And now, happily, that love had been transferred to a mate who I felt persuaded would not betray it; and who, though perhaps he would never realize it, was the lucky beneficiary of a man he had not known. If Colin’s marriage had not been ideal, he had yet paved the way for his daughter’s happiness. Verna, for her part, wanted to forget Colin, and I could not find it in my heart to blame her. She was young enough to begin again and it would be unreasonable to expect her to condemn herself to widowhood. One day an Alfonso or a professor would come along to supply the companionship she ardently needed, and Verna would commence a fresh chapter of felicity with no pangs or regrets for what went before. Alex, I judged, was happy in his career, and no doubt would prosper to his mother’s satisfaction; he too would find a mate, among his colleagues or their families, and give an opportunity for such a wedding as Verna was being denied by Anne.

  So it was an agreeable picture that I was left contemplating in my somewhat bleak bedroom, and which I preferred to take with me to bed rather than that sheaf of edifying information. But then, I had my own ideas about the executive rank to which I was being summoned.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING was spent in lectures on administrative procedure, a necessary branch of knowledge but one that it is tedious to acquire. The second session of the afternoon, however, was devoted to the role of the Central Office, and since I might be regarded as qualified in the subject I applied for, and obtained, leave of absence. It had occurred to me that Colin’s daughter rated a wedding present from his old friend; I caught a bus at the lodge gate and was set down in Blockford High Street.

  It was the busy time of the afternoon and the pavements were crowded. I was jostled as I peered into windows, trying to surprise inspiration. Wedding presents are a puzzle. They must be either useful or delightful. The one involves a knowledge of the recipients’ needs and the other a knowledge of their tastes. I thought I had better opt for the second, with which I was slightly more conversant, and found my way to an antique shop, in which I could see some pictures. One I liked. It was an anonymous watercolour to which I put a provisional date of 1820, very much English School of the period, though depicting a French landscape with a village and peasants: Prout, perhaps. I enquired the price. It was well within my means; but I had time to look further so I told the dealer that I would think about it.

  Then, pushing out into the crowds again, I caught sight of Anne across the street. Here was luck! I could show her the picture and ask her whether she liked it. She had just left an official-seeming red-brick building with a brass plate on the portal, and was standing looking rather dazed by the sunlight and by the people who were thronging past her. But, as I waited impatiently for a gap in the traffic, I was concerned to see her sway slightly, and I noticed for the first time that her face was unusually pale. I made a suicidal dash across the street and caught her by the arm.

  ‘Anne! Are you all right?’

  She stared at me as though I were a stranger. The pupils of her eyes were small and there was a mist of perspiration on her forehead. With an effort she gathered herself.

  ‘Oh . . . yes! But I felt faint for a moment.’

  ‘I’ll find you somewhere to sit down.’

  ‘No, please. I’m better now.’

  ‘You’re in a tremble. You look like a ghost.’

  ‘It was just coming out into this rush. It made me go dizzy. But I’m quite all right now.’

  I didn’t believe her. There was a Kardomah Coffee Shop a couple of doors down the street. I assisted her into it, and we were fortunate in finding a vacant table in a window-corner. I grabbed a waitress and ordered some tea. Anne sat trembling on her chair. I took out my handkerchief and patted her brow, but she feebly put my hand away.

  ‘Don’t. People are staring at us.’

  ‘I think I’ll get a ta
xi and take you home.’

  ‘No.’ She struggled to sit straighter. ‘I shall be all right if I can just sit here.’

  ‘You nearly fainted, you know.’

  ‘It was silly. I’ll soon get over it.’

  ‘Has this ever happened to you before?’

  ‘No. And I swear it won’t happen again.’

  I gave her a keen look. A hint of colour was certainly creeping back into her cheeks. She caught my eye with an attempt at her roguish, confiding smile. The waitress came. I poured a cup with a little milk and a lot of sugar. Anne sipped it. In a little while the cup ceased to tremble. She found my eye again, nervously.

  ‘You know, you’re behaving very properly.’

  I grinned. ‘You gave me quite a fright back there.’

  ‘When I was a kid I had malaria. I was fibbing when I said it hadn’t happened before. But not very often. Earle knows about it. It’s just a last kick from the bug.’

  ‘All the same I would sit quiet for a bit.’

  ‘But I’m better now, really.’ She giggled. ‘I wonder if these people think you’re my uncle, or that I’m carrying on with a married man.’

  ‘Neither.’

  ‘You don’t know women. Half of them are betting that I’m the girlfriend.’

  ‘Then stop acting like it.’

  ‘Don’t be stuffy. They would change places with me if they could.’

  I refilled her cup. I sensed something false in this little spurt of gaiety. She was looking more herself, yet I couldn’t help wondering if she was being entirely frank with me. I thought that perhaps I ought to get that taxi and see her home and have a word with Verna. But then I found her gazing straight at me, almost as though I had spoken my thoughts aloud.