Instantly, she shook his hand off hers and scrambled to her feet; she was like a stork, thin and ungainly. She said abruptly, ‘No. Really no need, thanks. Daddy’s still asleep. He’d be furious.’
‘Where’s your house then? Where are you staying?’ Tony put his hands on his hips and looked down at her.
‘Over there. It’s thirty yards. I’ve measured it. My father’s there. I’m honestly fine. Sorry. Very sorry. See you later.’ And before he could say anything else she’d scarpered, darting down the track in seconds. Tony followed her, his tired limbs aching, and though he searched down the lane and behind the empty beach huts, she had gone.
He stared down the lane where she’d disappeared, towards Beeches, Ian and Julia Fletcher’s house. He hadn’t seen Ian at the place for a couple of years . . . was this little thing his daughter? Julia’s niece? My auntie too . . . He rubbed his eyes, pressing his fingers to his pounding head: he needed something to eat, a wash and a change. Julia – of course, it was her of whom he’d been reminded. He went back to the car and, glancing up at the house to make sure there were no new signs of life, reversed again, extremely carefully.
Driving back forty minutes later with four iced buns and a copy of the Observer on the seat beside him it occurred to Tony that to truly surprise them he’d better leave the car at the top and so he parked and walked down the road. The same clump of grasses in the middle of the lane, the same scent of sea salt and wild flowers, the sound of seagulls and wind . . . He hadn’t been here since May. That weekend with Tilly, the dresser from Trelawny of the ‘Wells’. No inhibitions, father in the navy, little moles all over her skin. Then, spring held the bay in thrall, swallows skidding across the fields and the sky a fresh, vivid blue. But he loved August here best, when he’d seen the place for the first time all those years ago, the bleached grasses, the dark trees, the chill in the evenings, the sense of something ending.
He’d been taught the trick of moving without noise long ago, at Central. As he approached the low wooden house Tony was pleased to see Althea’s curtains drawn. He moved towards the side gate that led up to the porch at the front and the beach, so very glad that he had come, that he was here, that he would see them. Joy at the thought of their dear faces coursed through him.
He stood still for a moment, looking up at the porch. The kitchen window was open but he couldn’t see inside, and then suddenly there was a thud, then a rattle on the door handle of the French windows and a figure in a pale blue felted dressing gown and with wild hair flung itself against him.
‘Daddy! Daddy-daddy-daddy-daddy!’ it cried, wrapping its arms around his torso. ‘You surprised us! Mummy said you’d never come and I said you would, oh, Daddy!’
‘Darling Cord,’ Tony said, squeezing her as tightly as he could without hurting her. ‘Look, but where she comes! Hello, Ben, old boy, how are you, poppet?’
‘Fine, Daddy,’ said Ben, hurrying towards him, hair sticking up, arms crossed in an effort, Tony knew, not to suck his thumb. ‘Jolly nice to see you.’
Tony hugged the boy, as Cord clung on to him, trying to pull him back towards her. ‘Been all right, you on your own with two demanding women, Ben?’
‘Just about. Awfully glad you’re here.’
‘Oh, I love you, Daddy,’ Cord was saying, kissing his ears, his cheek, his hair. ‘I forgive you – I forgive you for everything! Oh—’ She held her father’s face, beaming at him, and then suddenly looked over his shoulder with a scowl. ‘Oh, good grief. Ben, it’s that spying girl. The one I told you about. What’s she doing here?’
The little girl had reappeared, her small face sticking over the wooden rail. She stared at them all, grey-blue eyes impassive.
‘What’s your name, little one?’ Tony said to her.
‘Madeleine,’ she said, folding her arms. ‘Madeleine Fletcher.’
‘So you’re Julia’s niece,’ he said, nodding, and he smiled at her.
She nodded, and didn’t budge, as though she were glued to the rail.
‘She keeps hanging around,’ said Cord, carelessly. ‘Listen, buzz off, will you? He’s our dad. Don’t you have your own home?’
‘Yes, I do, and –’ Madeleine paused, and stuck her tongue out – ‘I do, so there.’
‘She’s always here,’ Ben said, crossly.
‘She spies on us,’ Cord added.
‘Madeleine,’ said Tony, turning to her and leaning over the railing. ‘It’s lovely to meet you properly. Maybe you’ll come and play with Cordelia one day. Would you like that, Cord?’
‘My name’s actually Agnetha now,’ said Cordelia, slithering down her father’s body and landing on the floor with a thud. ‘I played with her before, actually, when we invented Flowers and Stones.’
‘Flowers and—’ Tony stopped, remembering how much of his summer last year had been taken up playing Cord’s latest enthusiasm. ‘Oh. Yep.’
‘We have to play it again, we’ve got really good,’ said Cord, and Tony nodded; then, turning to Madeleine, he saw that she had vanished again. He wondered if she was Ian Fletcher’s child – she must be, of course. Poor little sod. He couldn’t help thinking being Ian’s daughter might not be much fun.
‘You should be friendly to Madeleine,’ he said.
‘She’s crazy, Daddy, honest,’ Cordelia told him firmly. ‘Don’t you remember the day I played with her, that lady found her crying on the beach? And I found that angel, you hung it up above the house.’
‘Yes,’ said Tony. ‘Yes, I remember,’ and he turned to look at the angel for the first time. He nodded greetings at her, but she simply stared impassively back, the furled wings pointing downwards, the eyes glassy and unblinking, a mystery. He’d liked adventure stories as a boy, especially ones about lost treasures and ancient gods. Aunt Dinah always said she’d found the angel in a market in Baghdad, but he never believed her. He imagined her, swooping up the steps of a ruined Mesopotamian ziggurat one night, the moonlight picking out the peacock colours of her old kimono. She’d swipe the angel and those little bird figures she used to bury around the house for good luck, taking them out of an ancient burial chamber, rescuing them before the Nazis came and took them, bringing them home to safety where they could protect him, and his family to come . . .
He blinked, realising Cord was pulling his arm.
‘I’m telling you, Daddy, that girl’s a spy. She remembers all these things about us like what colour my shoes were last summer. We hate her and she never washes.’
‘You mustn’t be so unkind, either of you. You must go and apologise to her,’ Tony said. ‘Ask her to play with you.’
‘Only if you come with us,’ said Cord, meeting her father’s gaze. ‘Come to Beeches with us. We’re scared to go on our own. Her father is mad too.’
‘Well,’ said Tony, weakly. ‘We’ll see.’
‘Yes. We will,’ she said pertly, and he wanted to laugh. ‘Come on, FG. Come on, Daddy.’
Tony followed his children into the house, and inhaled the scent of pine, wood, spiced cleanliness, warmth. The smell of Aunt Dinah, the smell of safety, of home. ‘I’m very tired, my darlings,’ he said, taking off his shoes. ‘I’m going to have a wash and a shave and then I’ll come back up. Here are some buns.’
‘Mummy said you’d make us breakfast,’ said his daughter.
‘I doubt it – she didn’t know I was coming,’ Tony said wearily.
‘She said she’d bet us fifty pee each you’d come up after the show as a surprise and you’d be here for breakfast and we were to act amazed when we saw you,’ said Cord.
‘Cord, I—’
‘It’s Agnetha.’
Tony laughed, he couldn’t help it. He put his head in his hands and gave way to mirth. ‘Ah, darlings, it’s wonderful to see you.’
‘How long will you be here?’ they asked, almost in unison.
‘Today, tomorrow and until lunchtime on Tuesday. I’ve bought iced buns for breakfast. Now, please, let your poor tired father go and
wash and then we’ll think of all sorts of things to do.’
‘Will you finish reading us The Hobbit? Simon tried but he gets the voices all wrong and then he had to go back to London after we’d only just got to Rivendell.’
‘I – I will.’
‘Will you buy more bacon for the crab lines? Mrs Gage says that’s the only thing that’ll work.’
‘Yes, Cord.’
‘It’s Agnetha. Daddy, you’ve got to remember. We’re changing it when we get back to London. By deepole.’
Ben nodded, then tugged his father’s arm, still wrapped around his torso. ‘Can we take the boat out of the beach hut?’
‘Can we do Beach Races? And Follow My Flapjack? Oh, and can we show you our new way to play Flowers and Stones – I’ve written some new rules and they make it even more exciting . . .’
Tony pulled them both close again. ‘Yes,’ he whispered into his son’s hair, gritty with sand. A lump rose in his throat. He was home, he was safe, they were here . . . he heard footsteps, looked up and there was Althea, in the doorway, sunshine forming a halo around her generous frame, encased in her periwinkle-blue silk dressing gown . . . Without her make-up she looked young, the statuesque shy girl just down from Scotland whom he had pursued across London for years, in cafés and smoky clubs, whom he wanted with an intensity that still surprised him. Her face was a mask, but she bit her lip as his eyes met hers and he knew he still had her – just.
‘Hello,’ he said, looking up at her.
She pulled the cord of her dressing gown a little tighter, watching him.
‘Well, hello,’ she said. ‘This is a nice surprise.’
The children were watching them curiously.
I missed you.
You had Simon down here then.
I’m sorry about the last row.
Tony shook his head, closing his eyes briefly.
He knew it was his choice, that if he could just stop listening to the voice in his head that had, this year, started to whisper again, he could wipe out the mistakes – they weren’t catastrophic, not quite yet. He knew it rested with him, the power to make them all happy. If he could just be strong enough. He gave a deep breath, exhaled.
‘Yes to all of it.’ He kissed his daughter. ‘Oh, I’m so glad to be here, Cord.’
‘For the last time, Daddy. I’m not saying it again.’
Althea shrugged. ‘You have to talk to them about this names nonsense, darling. I’ve given up.’
‘I will. So did you miss me?’
‘Yes,’ she said, evenly. ‘You silly man. You know we did.’
‘A little bird told me Simon was here.’
‘He was, and it was terrific. He was great with the children.’ She cleared her throat. ‘But he’s getting married, moving to the States for a few years. He won’t be coming down for a while.’
Her eyes met his. He nodded, in gratitude.
‘Uncle Bertie was here too. He brought a kite,’ Cord said. ‘It broke.’
‘I can fix it.’
‘I know you can.’
Tony stood up, and went to the bottom of the porch steps, so that the sun shone on his bare head, and he spread his arms wide. ‘REJOICE, YOU MEN OF ANGERS,’ he bellowed, and the children wriggled with delight, dancing around him. ‘Ring your bells!’
Going out on stage every night, being someone else, was a very peculiar job. It got harder, not easier. He sometimes thought his brain might fully crack open at any point and these vile, amoral, crazed thoughts would leap out like evil sprites, jumping up, screaming, biting his legs, running everywhere, knocking things over: last night they almost had. People would be horrified, they’d lock him up – but then it’d be over, and so the cracking open, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad . . . Tony shook his head. It was always there, the past, waiting for him, waiting to get him. But not just yet. Not today.
Chapter Four
London, July 1940
In the hospital, you could hear the sound of feet approaching from the other end of the corridor. They echoed on the red tiles, the sort that looked like they should be warm but were always cold. So even if you were pretending to sleep you knew if someone was coming.
When Ant was first taken there he’d turned over every time he heard footsteps, even though he couldn’t sleep on that side, because of the raw-red skin shrinking, contracting into hundreds of scabs. Turning was agony but he still did it. He had to check, you see. Because perhaps they’d got it wrong and she’d come back for him. Perhaps she’d been taken to another place.
But it wasn’t ever her.
The old Victorian hospital smelled of something sickly sweet and it was chilly, even in the height of summer, and very quiet. The other children in Ant’s ward were silent, like him. Some of them couldn’t speak, they were too badly hurt; some of them wouldn’t speak, because of what they’d seen. Ant had talked to one little girl across the way from him. She was called Cherry. She was permanently clutching a bear that one of the Red Cross workers had given Ant, which he’d given to her. He was too old for teddies, he told her. She had bedraggled bunches, one lopsided. No one had taken the ribbons out and brushed her hair since whatever had happened to her. She was a chatterbox, not like the others. When she talked she waggled her head and powder fell in gentle clouds from her grey hair, shining like a halo round her head in the cold sunlight. It was rubble dust, from her bombed-out house. Ruby, the girl in the bed next to Ant, had whispered to him when Cherry was finally asleep that her whole family had been killed, both parents, two brothers, a newborn baby sister, her grandparents. But she didn’t talk about them. She just talked about Mickey Mouse; she’d been to the flicks to see some cartoons the day before it happened. She was mad on Mickey Mouse. Had the gas mask too. Ant liked talking to her – she was sweet, and he preferred talking to girls anyway.
About two weeks after he’d arrived Ant woke up and looked across, and Cherry wasn’t there. He was confused: he wasn’t sleeping well, these dreams that bound him tight like chains and left him screaming and the mattress drenched in sweat and urine. But her bed was neatly remade, new sheets, scratchy blankets, waiting for someone else.
‘Where’s Cherry?’ he’d said to Ruby.
‘Didn’t you see?’ She was reading a comic; she looked over the top of it, pityingly.
‘No. Where’s she gone?’
‘Little blighter bought it in the night. Didn’t you hear her yelling? Till they came for her?’
Ant swallowed, and looked across. ‘I – I must have been asleep.’
‘You were, but even with all the racket you make I’d have thought you’d have heard her—’
‘Was she that ill then?’ He was staring at the window sill, high above Cherry’s bed, where his teddy bear was sitting.
‘Course she was. Skin turned purple. The shrapnel got in her leg.’ Ruby was not a sentimentalist. ‘They cut it off last night, only hope. Nurse said she died in the middle of it.’ She shook her head with relish. ‘Heart stopped.’
Colin, the fat, weeping boy on the other side of Ruby, blinked fast. ‘Shut up, Ruby.’
‘P’raps it’s for the best,’ said Ruby, wise beyond her years. ‘Where would she have gone?’
‘I said shut up, Ruby, otherwise I’ll knock your bleeding block off,’ said Colin, furiously. ‘Just shut up.’
‘Well, it’s true, ain’t it?’ Ruby turned to Ant, as if he was her ally. ‘No one come for her, did they? No one visited her.’ She stopped suddenly. ‘I mean—’
Ant had lain back down in bed, turning himself away from her; he was rarely rude, his mother was a great one for manners, but he couldn’t listen any more.
‘Sorry, Ant,’ she was saying. ‘Just meant it about her, ’cause she was – sorry.’
Sorry.
At the end of the long room the doors suddenly swung open, banging as they did; some of the children looked up, but for the first time Ant didn’t. He heard footsteps, approaching; he felt his injured leg ache with the pain
of twisting away, the scabs smarting as his broken skin stretched over the rough sheets; he felt one of the scabs break open, as the sounds grew louder. He smiled as Sister Eileen went past followed by a lady in a drab coat, clip-clopping towards a bed at the far end of the room. ‘John?’ Sister said in a firm voice. ‘Mrs Havers is here to take you to a nice new home. Sit up, dear. No, no crying, please. Time to get dressed.’
No one was coming for him. He understood that now even if the others didn’t.
Daddy had been killed only two months into the war. Because there was no fighting, no one dying, people began calling it the Phony War which Ant liked, it made him feel better – only Philip Wilde had died, when his plane burst into flames during training in Newquay. His father, the flight engineer and the navigator were all killed instantly. ‘A hero. He wouldn’t have suffered,’ said the man from the RAF who came to tell them. ‘He wouldn’t have known what was happening.’
Mummy and he had actually laughed about that when he’d gone. ‘I’d jolly well know what was happening if a fire-ball engulfed my plane,’ Mummy had said afterwards, lighting a cigarette and pouring out the last of the gin. It sounded awful to be laughing but they did; the RAF chaplain who came the next day said it was shock.
‘I’d bloody know it too!’ Ant had chimed in, hugging his knees. He couldn’t stop laughing, great gulping roars of it. ‘I’d bloody realise if I was being burned to death!’
‘Don’t say bloody, darling.’
So even as he watched his mother die, even as he saw the puddle of vomit left by the squeaky-clean new ARP warden who helped drag him out of the cupboard first, leaving his mother behind, half of her blown away, clean down one side, Ant was still saying it to himself, whispering it rather as they stretchered him out of the pile of bricks and pipes and torn fabrics flapping in the summer breeze that had once been his family’s home. ‘I’d jolly well realise if I was being burned to death!’ He thought he should keep saying it, keep joking. Mummy hated people being serious. It was only when one of the nurses slapped him, the next day, when he couldn’t stop repeating it, that he realised he shouldn’t say it out loud. And it was only when they came and told him he’d missed her funeral that he began to wonder if it was true, that she wasn’t coming back. So Cherry’s death was when it started for real: the idea that what he’d seen that night had happened, that this was his life, not something up on the pictures, or in make-believe, nightmares.
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