The Wind Off the Sea

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘You knew it was him because?’ Waldo prompted.

  ‘I knew it was Walter because he was singing a Gilbert and Sullivan song that he had always loved as a little boy. It was a song that Loopy would never allow to be played once she thought of him as being dead. But – there it was. The song. With Walter singing it.’ She wiped the back of one hand across her eyes. ‘I thought I was mad. I thought because I had been living alone that I was imagining it all, but no – there he was. As large as life. Not dead at all. Walter. Standing just there.’ She pointed with her hand towards the French windows. ‘It was quite incredible.’

  ‘It must have been.’

  ‘So much so,’ Judy said slowly, ‘so much so that sometimes I think I mightn’t ever have recovered from it. From the shock.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you have. I don’t suppose anyone would. It’s like they say you never get over the grief of losing someone. You go on – you get through it – but you never get over it.’

  ‘I never thought of it that way,’ Judy stared at him. ‘You get through something – but you never get over it. I see.’

  ‘How does Walter feel? Does he talk about it?’

  ‘No, not really. But isn’t that a general rule with people who’ve been away at war? People come back so very different, not on the outside, but inside. They come back different inside. They’ve had to do things that civilised people shouldn’t have to do, young men, barely out of school, trained to kill in a matter of weeks, then sent off to do their job. It’s a wonder any of them are sane at all.’

  Waldo stared at the ceiling for a moment, then rubbed his chin. ‘During all the time he was lost, Walter never tried to contact you at all? Is that right?’

  ‘He did, but it was impossible. He was in Norway, you see. After he’d been rescued from his submarine—’

  ‘Yes, I know that part of the story – his rescue, him being the only survivor, and how he worked for the Resistance for the rest of the war—’

  ‘Actually he wasn’t in Norway all the time,’ Judy interrupted. ‘He actually went on sorties into Holland, and Denmark, and even into Germany.’

  ‘Yet he could never get word to you.’

  ‘There really wasn’t any way. The one chance he did have, when a colleague who had been wounded was being smuggled first into Sweden and then hopefully back to England, Walter gave him a message to deliver – a letter or note would have been too dangerous if the man had been captured. But he died on the journey to Sweden – unknown to Walter who until the moment he turned up at the very window at which you were standing just now, hoped that his message had somehow got through to me.’

  ‘I think after everything that happened you two are not in too bad a state at all.’

  ‘We weren’t in too good a state at first. At first Walter just couldn’t settle. He couldn’t sit still for longer than five minutes. One of the reasons the garden is so fine is because Walter dug it up and over at least twice, before planting it out at least three times. When he wasn’t trying to find paint or tiles for the cottage or digging the garden, he would disappear for hours walking along the shore somewhere, or across the Downs. He’d just disappear without saying where he was going or when he was coming back. I got used to it, and didn’t question it – finally, although it frightened me.’

  ‘But at first …’

  ‘At first I thought I would go mad.’ Judy smiled. ‘But I didn’t. I suppose I just sat it out.’

  ‘How did you feel about him? After all, once you decide someone is dead, and you’ve done your grieving—’

  ‘I hadn’t really decided he was dead. I thought he must be. I thought there was no real way he couldn’t be. But I hadn’t quite decided he was dead. And since I had always loved him, and been faithful to him, I suppose I sort of stuck it out.’

  ‘We have an expression for that. It’s called hanging on in there.’

  ‘Much better. That’s exactly what I did. I hung on in there. I shouldn’t really tell you this—’ She stopped and stared at him.

  ‘You can always put it in the book,’ Waldo teased.

  ‘I really shouldn’t tell you this,’ Judy continued slowly, not looking at Waldo. ‘But for a long time after his return it wasn’t as if we were even married. Then one day – one night – it was as if Walter had suddenly made a decision. He’d been out for one of his marathon walks, I had gone to bed – and then the next thing I knew he was in bed with me. Because up until then we hadn’t been sharing the same bedroom. After that, we sort of managed to make all the pieces fit again. Finally everything made sense.’

  ‘Everything?’

  ‘Yes. Just about everything.’

  ‘Just about. OK.’ Walter drained his glass and refilled it to the quarter mark. ‘OK.’

  ‘But now it seems we can’t have children.’

  Waldo’s glass was to his lips as she spoke, and he just held it there, without drinking, without moving. Finally he replaced it slowly on the table and looked at Judy.

  ‘Now that’s something perhaps you really shouldn’t be telling me?’

  Judy shook her head. ‘No.’

  ‘Then why are you? Because you have to tell somebody?’

  ‘I shouldn’t have told you.’

  ‘So why did you?’

  ‘I don’t know. I suppose because I find – I find I can tell you things.’

  ‘I’m very flattered.’ Waldo smiled. ‘And in return I can tell you it is no bad thing – because I just may be able to help you here.’

  ‘I trust you’re not thinking along the traditional lines of how to get a girl pregnant.’

  Waldo smiled and shook his head. ‘Will you trust me?’

  ‘My father always says never trust anyone who asks you to trust them. He says that if you are trustworthy you never have to ask the question.’

  ‘Your father is completely right. I don’t know why I said that.’ Waldo thought for a minute. ‘So let’s just return to the whys and the wherefores. My old mammy used to say the surest way to get a woman pregnant was to make her man jealous.’

  ‘I wouldn’t even begin to know how to do that. Walter has absolutely nothing to be jealous about.’

  ‘Yet.’ Waldo smiled at her and finished his drink. ‘You are familiar with Shakespeare, I take it? With Othello in particular?’

  ‘I’m to be Desdemona?’ Judy made a strangled sound.

  ‘And I am to be Iago.’

  ‘You don’t know Walter,’ Judy argued. ‘To be an Iago you would have to be very familiar with your Othello. And besides, I don’t want to end up suffocated by a pillow, thanks.’

  ‘You won’t be,’ Waldo assured her cheerfully, rising from the table. ‘Now please don’t bother to see me out. It’s important that you don’t.’

  ‘In case my curtain-twitcher is watching?’

  ‘Just don’t bother to see me out, that’s all.’

  Wishing his hostess goodnight, Waldo collected his hat and let himself quietly out of the cottage – something which oddly enough he did backwards, leaving the front door ajar as he did so. Judy, clearing up in the kitchen, was out of sight of Waldo as indeed he was of her. With his back to the lane and his large frame excluding any glimpse of what was going on in front of him, Waldo then performed his favourite old party trick, the looking-as-though-he-was-being-kissed routine. Putting his right hand across round the back of his neck and crossing his left arm so that his left hand would be seen at the side of his waist, he then kissed thin air, while gently moving the fingers of his hands on neck and waist. Anyone watching from behind would be sure that Mr Waldo Astley was doing more than shaking hands with the young woman who had just entertained him to tea and then to drinks, and who knew what else?

  Which was exactly the impression Waldo wished to give the person behind the slowly twitching curtains in the cottage opposite, as, having carefully closed the front door without moving from his position in order to make it look as though whoever it was who had been in his arms had ret
urned within, he adjusted his straw hat at an even jauntier angle and wandered off down the twilit lane, whistling happily to himself while the net curtains fell slowly back into place.

  Chapter Ten

  At last Dauncy was home. Summer was nearly gone, but as far as Loopy was concerned it began all over again on the return of her youngest son.

  ‘My,’ she sighed, after she had hugged him welcome and stood back to appraise her boy. ‘My oh my, but I dare swear you have grown.’

  ‘I am nearly nineteen, Mother!’ Dauncy laughed, able now to put down his hand luggage. ‘I stopped growing years ago. Hey – I have missed this place.’

  ‘You sound quite American.’

  ‘That cannot be altogether surprising – seeing I spent most of the summer there.’

  ‘I hope it wasn’t as unbearably hot as the summer here. I thought we should all melt.’

  Dauncy was as delighted to be reunited with his family as they were to have him back home. Being the youngest he had always had a special place in all their hearts as each of them considered he needed their protection. As a consequence, rather than being spoiled, which could so easily have been the case, despite the war and all its sorrows the youngest Tate grew up emotionally secure and confident, the most perfectly adjusted of the three boys. In fact, he was sufficiently self-assured to be immediately attractive to everyone. Whereas Walter was still the homecoming hero, and John the business success, young Dauncy now found his own fame as the most sportif and the most personable of the three Tate boys. So much so that he had barely been home for twenty-four hours when the invitations began arriving for him to go sailing, to play tennis, to grace cocktail parties and dances with his presence.

  Naturally Dauncy allowed himself to be fêted, while privately confiding to his mother that, after his hectic time in America, he would really rather prefer just to relax with family, play a bit of tennis and golf but most of all take Dingy, the family’s ancient but speedy little sailing boat, out whenever possible. The very first day he sailed Dingy out into the estuary he was immediately noticed, and then watched, by a man in a garden on the north shore, a man much taken to watching events unfold in the little fishing port opposite which he now lived. Perhaps if he had realised this Dauncy would have felt uneasy, but as it was he merely set sail with a carefree heart and a determination to enjoy his precious time at home.

  The man watching him was of course Waldo, and he too was happy. He was happy with his new house, with Rusty’s care of it, and in particular with the restoration work that Peter Sykes and two friends were carrying out in their spare time. Far from being irreparable, the roof, as Peter had forecast, had been easily fixed, so that all that now remained to be done was the redecoration and the furnishing. Of course, once Peter had finished the initial repairs, Waldo had further plans for the house, but being all too aware of the rumours that were now circulating around him, about how he was managing to get things done that others could not get done, he delayed doing anything more.

  He was also in the Todds’ bad books for being responsible for the defection of not only Peter and Rusty from their household but also their much doted over grandson Tam. Waldo expressed his concerns to Rusty, but Rusty just shrugged it all off.

  ‘Look, Mr Astley, I been to hell and back on snow shoes, so I couldn’t care any more, so don’t you worry, really. We’re really happy where we are now, honestly, and we can’t thank you enough, so don’t you worry.’

  So Waldo gave up that concern and instead enjoyed the good care that Rusty lavished on him as well as the honest toil that her husband was putting into building up their joint business. But just now his interests were on something quite different as through his field glasses he watched the handsome young man skilfully handling the blue-painted yacht that was dancing across the windswept waters of the Sound running at full tide below his lawns. Much taken with the young sailor’s skill and dexterity, Waldo found himself watching for far longer than he had intended, which was how he followed the little yacht home through his binoculars and saw it being dragged up on shore on the stretch of beach that ran directly below the Tate residence and was usually reserved for their craft.

  ‘This must be the prodigal returned,’ he said to himself, still watching through his glasses. ‘And then there were three brothers Tate.’

  Once Dauncy was out of his sight, having let himself into the family property through the heavy old iron gate in the south garden wall, Waldo dropped his glasses, allowing them to swing round his neck on their leather strap as he contemplated his next move. He could see no possible objection to the request he was planning, although he judged there would be plenty of initial opposition. Indeed, the thought of it amused him as he strolled back up the lawns towards his new marine residence. Rusty, dressed in a pretty blue cotton dress, her hair brushed on top of her head, was busy laying his lunch out on the terrace, while to one side of the house Tam played on a garden swing. It was, Waldo thought, an idyllic sight. The sun shining out of a cloudless blue sky, glinting brightly off the waves and still hot enough to allow him to take off his jacket and hang it on the back of his chair as he sat down to taste a delicious salad of freshly caught crab washed down with a bottle of Chablis he had purchased under the counter from Richards at the Three Tuns. He smiled across at Tam who was now being pushed on the swing by his mother. Some way or another they would all of them remember this moment, the sunshine, the child on the swing and Rusty in her blue dress. It was a painting of a moment.

  It was in the now thriving public house that the opportunity for which Waldo had been waiting arose that very Saturday, the day of the annual Bexham rowing races, a fixture said to date back to the Middle Ages when Grisham, the nearest small fishing port to Bexham, became involved in a rivalry with the latter that had lasted through the centuries to the present day. History had it that the rivalry was nothing to do with fishing skills or the size of catches but had been based rather on prowess and myth, the prowess being the strength of the Sussex longboat men and the myth being how far out to sea they rowed during their fishing excursions. At first boat had followed boat out into the Channel to see exactly how far they did in fact row, but this type of challenge ended when a freak storm blew up during one such match, sinking both longboats and claiming the lives of two dozen fishermen, a blow it was said from which neither of the little fishing villages recovered for half a century.

  Many years therefore passed before the challenge between the ports could be renewed, the rules of the contest being redrawn by the womenfolk, who, although prepared to lose their husbands and sons to the sea in the natural order of things, were determined not to increase the odds of their being prematurely widowed by the staging of an absurdly dangerous rowing competition. For the competition was infinitely more risky than any daily fishing expedition, since both crews, fuelled by alcohol and rivalry, would row out far beyond the normal limits in order to prove their point. So the match became a straightforward boat race held in the relative safety of the estuary at full tide. Before the war it had been a famous local attraction, but this was the first year it had been held since global hostilities had ceased, and not unnaturally was not nearly as well attended as in previous times.

  Even so, as it turned out, it was still a busy and successful day for the village, with at least two hundred or so visitors descending on Bexham and bringing a welcome albeit brief influx of commerce.

  ‘But as I always say,’ Richards had announced authoritatively after lunch as Meggie helped him to wash up dozens of pint glasses in anticipation of even livelier trade in the evening, ‘and as I always have said, if people enjoy themselves they will come back again and spend even more.’

  ‘Of course,’ Meggie had replied, poker-faced. ‘You used always to say that – when? When you were serving dinner, was it? Or polishing the silver.’

  ‘This was in one of my former lives, Miss Megs,’ Richards had told her, without batting an eyelid. ‘This was when I was deeply in trade, selling fish of
f a slab in Billingsgate Market.’

  He eyed her as if in challenge, but Meggie knew better than to take Richards up on anything to do with one of his previous incarnations. All she knew was that some time in his previous life, whenever and whatever it had been, had made him an expert on everything from fish to how to lay a banquet. How this had all happened before he went to work for her grandmother after the first world war it never occurred to Meggie to ask, but happen it must have, surely, or Richards would not have ended up with such a fund of knowledge that ranged from the mind-boggling to the quite utterly trivial.

  To help with local trade, not least that of the Three Tuns, the race itself was staged as late in the afternoon as possible, depending naturally on the tides, and since this particular year high tide was at 5.20 p.m. the trade in the old inn that evening was as brisk as anyone could remember since the dark days of the war. Blessed with a fine sunny evening, the drinkers spilled out on to the quays where they sat drinking and eating in the warm September sunshine, while inside the regulars stayed drinking where they always drank, as if afraid that should they forsake their regular bar stool or seat in the window they would never be able to reclaim it. Meggie, enjoying the day to the full, had stayed on to help Richards behind the bar, much to her old butler’s delight since her glamour helped to pull the punters and keep them drinking.

  Waldo, who for once had wandered in more or less unnoticed, was most impressed by Meggie’s performance behind the polished copper bar. He was taken not only by her apparent skill at pulling pints, which by now he knew to be quite a considerable art, but by her entire manner. Since her now famous cocktail party he had really only caught the occasional glimpse of her, either walking briskly through the village with her small shopping basket on one arm and her blond hair well concealed under a patterned silk headscarf, or whizzing past, far too fast for anyone’s safety, in her ruby red Austin 10. Yet few though those glimpses had been, they had been enough to intrigue him, since Miss Gore-Stewart was undoubtedly one of those women with a very well defined aura.