The Snowfly

by Joseph Heywood

Key died in 1939? Then who wrote the book in 1943? Or the manuscript? The farther I got into this, the more muddled it got. Could her Key be the same man who had taught in East Lansing?

  “Ever hear of the snowfly?” Charlie asked his aunt, whose back stiffened. She sat rigidly in her wheelcair.

  “In what context?” she asked tentatively.

  “How many contexts does a trout dressing have, Auntie?” Charlie asked with a dismissive chuckle.

  “Ah, yes, the dressing. I’ve heard of it. The hatch is supposed to be something that occurs rarely but, when it does, brings monstrous fish to feed. Timing and location are not predictable. Pure rot, I always thought.”

  It did not escape my attention that she had asked in what context Charlie wanted to know about the snowfly. What did she mean?

  “May I ask a question?” I asked.

  “This is not an interrogation,” Anjali said, her voice conveying concern for the old woman.

  “You may,” Auntie said. “Anjali dear, I am more than able to take care of myself.”

  “You asked Charlie in what context he wanted to know about the fly.”

  “I did, didn’t I?”

  “What did you mean by ‘context’?” I asked.

  Her eyes avoided me. “I’m an old woman and can’t account for every word I utter. I dare say no human being can.”

  She was being evasive and somehow I wasn’t surprised. Every time the subject of the snowfly surfaced, conversations took odd and unexpected twists. Still, she had at least recited the outline of the myth as I’d first heard it so long ago in Idaho. Having opened this line of inquiry, I decided to keep pushing her.

  “Some in America maintain that Key was a spy, a Nazi sympathizer.”

  “Nonsense,” Auntie said. “Worse, it’s scandalous! Key was an English patriot.”

  “He spoke German.”

  She harrumphed loudly. “He was a mathematician. If an American historian spoke Italian in those days, did that make him a Mussolini supporter?”

  “It has been suggested that Key was involved in espionage during the war.”

  The old woman crooked her head and stared at me. “Intelligence is not espionage,” she said, “though espionage is indeed one facet of intelligence. And Key was deceased, you must remember. Before the war.”

  Interesting distinction, which I interpreted as confirmation that Key had been in intelligence. “Are you telling me he was not involved in intelligence?”

  “I’m not telling you anything, Mister Rhodes.” Her voice was rock hard. She turned to Charlie. “I’m tired and I’m old, Charles, and need my siesta. Do you and your guest mind?”

  “ ’Course not, Auntie.” He leaned over and kissed the top of her head and nodded for Anjali and me to leave.

  We got reserved bows and quizzical looks from servants as the three of us departed to drive back down to the cottage in the valley below.

  Until now Anjali had done all the cooking, but today it was Charlie in the kitchen.

  “He can cook?” I asked her.

  “Charles can do anything except go in one direction.” It was not a compliment.

  “His aunt said something about a peer.”

  Toddywalla looked over at me. “Lady Hoe is his aunt,” she said. “Hereditary. When she passes, Charlie will become Lord Hoe. Auntie is a direct descendent of Sir Francis Drake. Hoe was the name of the ground where he was bowling when the Spanish Armada was sighted. He finished his game before taking to his ship. Showed no fear. He was rewarded for his bravery and service.”

  Charlie Jowett a peer of the realm? It was almost comical. “Will Charlie take it?”

  Anjali smiled gently. “He has no choice.”

  “Why do you call Lady Hoe ‘Auntie’?”

  The tall woman sat silent for a moment. “Because it would be awkward to call her Mum.”

  My mouth must have hung open as I tried to process this revelation. She was the daughter and he was the nephew, which made Anjali his first cousin. I was surprised at how relieved I was by this knowledge.

  “She was on in years when she had me. It was scandalous, of course. My father was a soldier in the Indian army, a colonel. He was married to another woman. Lady Hoe returned to England and I was born here.”

  Something puzzled me. “But if you’re her daughter, shouldn’t you assume the peerage when she is gone?”

  “This is England and Charlie is the family’s eldest male heir. If he wasn’t around, it would go to me.”

  “That doesn’t seem fair,” I said.

  Anjali smiled. “Charlie gets the title and hereditary lands, but I get the rest.” Her tone made it clear that the rest amounted to a lot. “Auntie’s cause is women’s rights, after all.”

  Dinner was traditional, very English, and delicious. Roast beef (cooked longer than I liked), potatoes roasted in garlic and rosemary, peas with onions, a thin but savory gravy, a thick and powerful horseradish sauce, and Yorkshire pudding. We polished off three bottles of a very dry claret.

  Afterward we stoked the fire and sipped brandy. Cornwall’s adjacency to the sea gave it a mild climate, neither hot nor cold, and allowed for the cultivation of a wide array of certain fruits and flowers. I had noticed palm trees in the back garden of Drake Hall, the huge house on the hill. But the nights were damp and cool, even in summer, and a fire was much welcomed.

  “Up to tacklin’ the Drake again tomorrow?” Charlie asked as we listened to the fire crackle.

  “That’s what we came for.”

  “Is it?” Charlie asked, his tone shifting to serious.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “All this business about Oxley and Key and the snowfly. Not on one of your journalistic forays, are you?”

  I laughed. “The snowfly is strictly personal.”

  “Well, old chum, it being personal, I shall ring up Ozzie Oxley when we get back to London and see if a visit can be arranged.”

  “Thank you very much. Do you mind me asking what your aunt did during the war? She was rather tight lipped about this subject.”

  Charlie sighed. “Bletchley Park, Enigma, all that.”

  Now I guessed why she was evasive about Key. “She was a codebreaker?”

  “No idea, old boy. I know only that she was at Bletchley, but precisely what she did will go to her grave with her. That whole generation is like that, you see? Swore to queen and country to never reveal the work.”

  I had a hunch she had known Key at Bletchley, but if she had it was unlikely she would ever confirm it. But if Key was dead, how could she have known him there? There was some connection she was holding back. Could there have been more than one M. J. Key? Joe Daly had told me he knew somebody who knew all there was to know about codebreaking during the war. I would have to follow that lead when I got back.

  Charlie retired first, leaving Anjali and me seated by the fire.

  “You’re cousins,” I said.

  “Did you think we were lovers?”

  I ignored the remark. “You followed me around with a camera.”

  “Fish,” she said. “Trout. My strain of the family disease.”

  “You didn’t fish with us.”

  “My symptoms are a bit different,” she said. “Care to see?”

  We each took another glass of brandy and I followed her to one end of the house where she had a large room. All around it hung color photographs of fish. Not exactly fish, but the colors and patterns of fish. I had never seen anything like them and they were beautiful.

  “Charlie’s a photographer, but you’re an artist,” I said.

  “Good God, don’t tell him that! He thinks he’s Ansel Adams!”

  We both laughed.

  “Tomorrow I will do my best to get you a beautiful trout to work with,” I said, raising my glass in salute.r />
  “Try for the little ones,” she said. “They’re the gaudiest.”

  When we said good night, she hugged me and presented her cheek for me to kiss, the way polite and civilized Brits did, but when my lips neared her cheek I kissed her on the mouth.

  She did not immediately pull away and when she did she declared, “Very, very nice.”

  •••

  Charlie was gone when I got into the kitchen in the morning. Anjali was brewing tea. “Bugger ran down to the best holes to get the edge on you. He’s very competitive,” she said, with the sort of tone reserved for incorrigible children. “Always has been. Simply cannot help himself.”

  “Must’ve been a hell of a soccer player.”

  “Had he not been injured, Charlie would have been the best to ever play for England,” she said proudly.

  But his head start that morning didn’t help him. I caught many more fish than he did, largely because I focused on small ones for Anjali. I held each one so that she could work her camera magic, releasing them carefully when she was done.

  “You are,” she said, “not at all what I would expect in an American journo.”

  I also caught two browns that both were longer than twenty inches. When Charlie heard this he threw his rod on the ground and cursed for five minutes.

  Tantrum done, he extended his hand. “I hate to lose, but when it’s to a better man, it’s an honor.”

  I doubted that I was a better man in any sense.

  Charlie cooked mussels that night, serving them in a huge vat of seawater, and we ate them with hard rolls and drank white wine until we were all stuffed.

  We retired after dinner to brandies in front of the fireplace and again Charlie went to bed first, not to get a head start in the morning but because we had to return to London. After he had been gone several minutes, Anjali set her glass down, stood up, stretched, and reached her hand out to me.

  “The fish today were up to your standards?” I said, standing up.

  “Yes, perfect, and you were so helpful.”

  I wanted very much to kiss her again but was hesitant. There was an aloofness to her that was daunting.

  I lay alone in my room and thought of her in hers and took a long time falling asleep.

  Anjali drove us to the station in Penzance early the next morning and kissed me on both cheeks in a very proper way before we boarded our train. Charlie grinned, but said nothing and I slept most of the trip.

  As the train swayed and clattered east through outskirts of London, Charlie said, “I’ll hunt up Ozzie, but be forewarned, it may take a while.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  Charlie looked nervous and flashed his toothiest smile. “Anji has had a rough go on the roads of love, old boy. Wouldn’t do to get your hopes up.”

  I couldn’t think of a clever or sensible rejoinder and as soon as we alit in the station, he was on his frenetic way.

  •••

  I went to see Daly the next morning. Dolly smiled when I walked in. “Good angling?”

  “Not bad,” I said.

  Daly seemed distracted. “Problem?” I asked.

  “My daughter,” he said. “She’s disappeared into the north. Nobody knows where she went or when.”

  “Probably just following a story,” I said.

  “The shit is starting to fly between Catholics and Protestants,” he explained, before looking up at me. “What do you want?”

  “You told me you knew somebody who knows about codebreaking during the war.”

  “I did?”

  “When I first got here.”

  “Right. General Centre. Gotta be mideighties now, and crusty as week-old bread, but he was still sharp last time we talked.”

  “Can you call him for me?”

  “Sure, no problem. What’s this about?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said.

  “Working a story?”

  “Not exactly. Don’t worry, Joe, your daughter will show up. You know how reporters are.”

  “Shit,” he grumbled. “Don’t remind me.”

  It was a couple of weeks before I met the general. We met at the Inner Temple of the Middle Temple Inn. The property once belonged to the Knights Templar and the Inn now was akin to a bar association. The complex was a maze of courtyards with old offices and people wandering about in black robes and misshapen white wigs perched on their heads.

  Lieutenant General Sir Edington Centre arranged for us to have a private dining room. He was dressed in a pinstripe suit. One of his supernumeraries met me on the street and escorted me to the dining room.

  The general pulled out a black pipe and asked, “Mind?” I said no and took out my cigarettes. He scowled at them, but I lit up anyway.

  “How’s Joe?” the general asked, popping smoke puffs from his pipe like a steam locomotive trying to get started.

  “He’s well,” I said. There was still no word on his daughter and he was beside himself, but I didn’t share this with General Centre.

  “Interested in the war?” he asked.

  He had a soft voice and deliberate way of speaking.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Something to do with that business in Vietnam?”

  I said, “Not exactly.” He waited for me to explain. “There’s a man called M. J. Key,” I said. “Or was. Author and expert on trout.” I told him about Michigan Agricultural College, Key’s leaving, the rumors, his article on codes with Vijver, all of it except that my only real interest was the snowfly and what Key’s work might tell me about it. The general listened attentively and silently, asking no questions, betraying no emotion. “I visited with Lady Hoe a few weeks back,” I said.

  “Did you?” he asked, his eyes subtly wary. He set his pipe on the table.

  “She told me Key was a mathematician and though she did not say this, I have been told that Key was part of Bletchley Park during the war.” I had no evidence of this but wanted to see how it played with the general, knowing he’d correct me if I was wrong. “Your Key may or may not be my Key. They may be different people.”

  “How’d-she-look?” the general asked, speaking all the words so quickly they nearly blended into one. He leaned slightly forward over the table.

  “She’s in a wheelcair, but her mind is keen.”

  “Always was,” he said. “Always was. Hard as diamond.” I saw in his eyes that he wasn’t with me anymore.

  “I’m not trying to pry into state secrets,” I said. Then, taking a chance, I told him about Key’s manuscript and the Trout House and the North Vietnamese attack. Having finished my tale, I again asked if he knew M. J. Key; I wanted to confirm that there were two men with the same name. Was the Key who wrote the snowfly manuscript the Bletchley Key?

  As before, the general listened without comment and, once again, took his time answering. “It would seem to me, young man, that if the alleged manuscript is gone, there is no point wasting your time chasing it, eh? It would be like seeking Camelot.”

  Why had he immediately focused on the manuscript? “I have a reliable source that indicates that Key was writing a manuscript for publication in the early to mid-nineteen-forties. Not the book that was published in 1943, but something different, probably the manuscript I saw in Vietnam. It occurs to me that with manuscripts, there’s often more than one copy.”

  “Curiosity and cats,” he said.

  Was he threatening me?

  “I’m an angler,” I said, trying to explain.

  “All Fleet Street types may fairly be said to be anglers,” he told me.

  It was not intended as a joke.

  “As are intelligence types,” I countered.

  “Shall we dine?” the general asked, snipping off the exchange.

  We ate in heavy silence. Dover sole fillets and creamed potatoes. The gen
eral picked at his food like a bird, chewing thoroughly before swallowing.

  After lunch we went into a sitting room and had tea. The room’s walls were covered with photographs of people in robes and wigs.

  “The German code was broken at Bletchley Park,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said, after considering his response.

  “M. J. Key was involved.”

  The general leaned over to me. “Do you know Shakespeare?”

  After a momentary pause, he said, “‘For Jesu’s sake forebear to dig the dust enclosed here. Blest be the man that spares these stones, and curst be he that moves my bones.’”

  “His epitaph?” I said, guessing.

  “And Bletchley Park’s,” the general said somberly. “Good day, Mister Rhodes. My regards to Joe, if you please. I must go.”

  I sat there alone, watching him stride from the room, his jaw stuck out.

  After the fishing trip, I had written to Anji to thank her for her hospitality. She’d responded briefly and with a perfect decorum that left me no clue to her feelings. For my part, she was often on my mind, but I could not bring myself to call her.

  Northern Ireland was suddenly in the news. Protestants were brutalizing Catholics in Londonderry and other parts of the north and Parliament was discussing sending paratroops to lend a hand to Royal Ulster Constabulary. Joe Daly’s daughter was still unaccounted for. People were being killed.

  It was August and Charlie and I had finished an assignment in Liverpool, where I had interviewed young musicians trying to follow in the footsteps of the Beatles. They were hard-edged and desperate. Living conditions in Liverpool were appalling and pent-up anger among young people was palpable. I smelled bad times ahead and saw racist graffiti worse than anything I had ever seen in the States.

  We took the train back to London. It was a Sunday night and I was tired when the train pulled into Victoria Station. As we waded into the herds of humanity returning to the city, we saw Anjali Toddywalla standing beside a black limousine, her arms crossed tightly and a shocked look on her face, the same look I had seen on soldiers emerging from a bloody fight. She looked like she had been crying.

  “It’s Auntie,” she announced with a quivering voice.