Nightfall Berlin

by Jack Grimwood

  He lined them up in front of Charlie.

  Before he could say anything else, Charlie put the strangely angled end of the tweezers into the key shot, turned it to put pressure on the lock’s cylinder, and began raking at the pins with the pick that had four bumps.

  ‘Slowly,’ Felix said. ‘And put the rake in first, then the torsion bar. Look at how those pins are arranged. You can’t work the first pin if you put the rake in second.’

  Swapping them round, Charlie raked the pick slowly back and smiled as the pins aligned inside, the cylinder turned and the lock sprung open with a satisfying click. ‘That’s all I need,’ Tom said.

  ‘Keep them,’ Felix said.

  Charlie looked shocked. ‘Really?’

  ‘Empty your head when you do it. Preferably think about something else entirely. Even better, think about nothing.’

  As Tom watched, his son shut the padlock, reached for the odd-looking tweezers and upturned pick, turned the cylinder until the pins pushed against the shafts that held them, and very carefully began to move one up and down. He looked happier than Tom had seen him in a long while.

  4

  ‘Ready?’ Felix shouted.

  Charlie tried to keep his skis together and the rope in place and nodded, although he wasn’t ready, not really.

  ‘You have to say ready.’

  The boy stared at Felix’s speedboat just off the rocky beach.

  ‘You have to say ready,’ Felix said. ‘And when you’re really ready, you have to say hit it. That tells me it’s time to open the throttle. The acceleration will pull you upright. The secret is to –’

  ‘Keep your legs straight,’ Charlie called.

  Felix laughed. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Let’s try it again.’

  The boy angled his skis, until just the tips jutted above the waves rolling in from the Caribbean, and felt Felix nudge the boat forward to take up the slack. Charlie knew his mother and father were watching, even though they had promised they wouldn’t.

  ‘Ready?’ Felix shouted.

  ‘Ready,’ Charlie shouted back, meaning it this time.

  He looked at the shiny black outboard engine, and decided it was one of the coolest things he’d seen. One of the most powerful too, if Felix could be believed, and he probably could. Felix was a bit like Charlie.

  Charlie didn’t know how to lie either.

  ‘Okay,’ he shouted, which wasn’t in the script. ‘Hit it.’

  And hit it Felix did.

  The huge outboard chewed water fast enough to push Felix back in his seat and jerk Charlie upright as the boat rocketed out into the bay, substantially faster than the signs on shore allowed. ‘Relax,’ Felix shouted.

  Charlie tried really hard.

  He hit a wave, almost lost his skis and found himself still standing, his arms stretched in front of him, fingers gripping the handle and the rope taut right the way to the speedboat beyond. He tried to remember the diagrams Felix had drawn on the back of an old envelope.

  Leaning back countered a boat’s forward thrust.

  Gravity wanted you to sink. The speed of the boat prevented that.

  Downward thrust could be countered by upward thrust. If those were in balance you were fine for going in a straight line. If you crossed the wake then centripetal force came into play. Charlie liked the sound of that and decided it was probably time he had a go. Keep the rope taut, Felix had said.

  That was the key to everything.

  ‘Tom …’

  Tom looked up from his Washington Post to where his son jumped the wake like a professional, running out as wide as the rope would allow, cutting a wave of spray before racing back through the middle to do it all over again on the far side.

  ‘We’re not meant to be watching,’ he said.

  His wife smiled. ‘He doesn’t care if we’re watching.’

  ‘We promised we wouldn’t.’

  ‘That was when he wasn’t sure he could do it.’

  ‘If you’re sure?’ Tom said.

  Caro looked at her husband more fondly than she had for a while, and raised her rum and coke in a salute. The little paper umbrella it arrived with was resting on the side. ‘Believe me,’ she said. ‘He wants us to watch.’

  So Tom did. He watched his son jump the wake time and again, until the boy looked rock solid in the turns, and his perfectly executed fountains of spray had others on the beach looking up.

  ‘What now?’ Caro asked.

  Instead of sweeping out to the far side, Charlie had stopped in the middle, arms out and rope taut. He stayed like this until Felix looked back to see what was happening. Dropping one hand, Charlie tapped his leg.

  Felix pumped one fist in the air.

  As the boat ran in a circle back to the beach, Charlie suddenly shot out to the far side, swept back across his own wake and, as if aiming for Caro and Tom, kicked off one ski that surfed in towards them.

  And that was when he lost his balance.

  ‘Christ,’ Tom said. He was up and headed for the water, then waist-deep and already striding out, heart tight, when Charlie surfaced. It took Tom a moment to realize his son was laughing.

  He’d lost his other ski and his trunks were dangerously low; something he realized with a start, dragging them up and glaring in case anybody had noticed. ‘I’ll get it right next time,’ he shouted.

  ‘Who taught you?’ Tom shouted back.

  ‘Felix. It’s physics. Easy really.’

  Then he trekked off towards his missing ski, which had beached in front of an American service family having a picnic on the largest blanket Tom had seen. A dark-skinned girl Charlie’s age looked up. She wore an Alice band and a swimsuit fluorescent enough to be seen from space. Whatever she said, Charlie dropped to a crouch, joining her on the blanket when she shuffled up to make space for him.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Caro said. ‘They’ll send him back when they get bored. Do you want the other half?’

  Tom’s rum and coke was blood-warm and attracting wasps. Its slice of lemon had wilted along the edge. He shook his head.

  ‘I’ll get you a beer.’

  ‘A coke is fine.’

  ‘I’ll get you both.’ Her hand rested briefly on his shoulder, and Tom leant his head into it, realizing that Charlie was watching from the blanket.

  The boy’s eyes were huge and his face serious.

  ‘He’s scared,’ Caro said.

  ‘Of me?’ Tom tried not to sound shocked.

  ‘For you. For me. That it will all go wrong again. They hear things at that age. You know. They see things …’

  Tom wanted to ask what things.

  What things did Charlie see in the months before their teenage daughter put her Mini into a tree? … What did he hear in the months his parents twisted their marriage to the edge of destruction? The accident. That was how Tom was teaching himself to think of it.

  Becca’s accident.

  She’d put her little Mini into a tree.

  At 80 mph, on a clear night, on a straight, dry road. She’d been pregnant. Her boyfriend hadn’t been the father. Those were the things Tom wasn’t meant to think. Those were facts he was teaching himself to wall away.

  What exactly did Charlie overhear?

  He’d ask Caro, but she was already at a shack run by a Cuban who’d had the job before Castro took over. That’s how it worked. None of the Cubans working on the base could be replaced. All those who’d had jobs got to keep them.

  ‘I know,’ Caro said, on her return, ‘that we should let the past go. But I’m going to say something. Not for your sake. For mine. I want it off my chest.’

  She scowled as he glanced at her.

  ‘Behave for a second.’

  Her swimsuit was Italian and flattered her figure, which was good enough not to need flattering. She’d always been well dressed.

  Being independently wealthy helped.

  ‘What are you thinking?’

  ‘About your money.’

  ‘I
thought that didn’t worry you.’

  ‘It doesn’t,’ Tom said. ‘I was just thinking you’ve always looked …’ He hesitated. ‘Like you. Yourself.’

  ‘While you, it turns out, have been half a dozen different people in the last ten years. And I haven’t known about any of them. Was it hard? Being undercover?’

  Of course it was hard, he wanted to say.

  If he never went back to Northern Ireland that would be fine.

  Military Intelligence, via the priesthood. It wasn’t an obvious career path. He was good at it, though, being undercover, inhabiting other people’s lives. It was coming back to his own that had given him problems.

  Reaching for his beer, Tom smiled as Charlie looked round and waved to see him watching. He was digging a trench with the girl with the Alice band and laughing as waves swept over his toes.

  ‘Look. He’s made a friend.’

  ‘Tom …’ Caro said.

  He knew it wasn’t going to be good.

  ‘In Moscow you told me you’d been sleeping with other women. I knew. A woman always does. We’re better at that than men. How many?’

  ‘A handful,’ said Tom, watching the horizon.

  ‘A handful five or six? Or a handful fifteen, twenty?’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘How many?’ Caro demanded.

  And before he could answer, she added. ‘I loved you, you know. Right from the beginning. It wasn’t a game for me. I didn’t set out to ruin your life. I was young, very young. But I still wouldn’t have –’

  ‘You didn’t ruin my life.’

  ‘Yes, I did. You’d probably be teaching History at Ampleforth, collecting T. S. Eliot first editions and going for walks over hills. You’d wear tatty coats, and the boys would be slightly afraid of you and secretly fond. You’d have been ordained –’

  ‘And ended up drunk or defrocked, losing my faith and intoning empty words to a congregation of passing tramps who smelt of piss and only came for the heating. Anyway,’ said Tom, ‘I was ordained.’

  ‘In the Church of England. Your being a major’s my fault too.’

  ‘Caro … What’s going on?’

  Her face was paler than he remembered, her cheeks hollow. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m just having a bad time of it.’

  ‘Seven,’ Tom said. ‘I think seven.’

  ‘Think seven lovers. Might have been eight or nine?’

  ‘Think seven. Might have been six.’

  ‘Did any of them matter?’

  ‘One, maybe. She was kind.’

  ‘Oh God,’ Caro said. ‘I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.’

  ‘Caro. This is –’

  ‘Unlike me? Heavy tears expected. Gusts of emotion. Possible outbreaks of guilt later. That was a Caro weather warning.’

  Knocking back her drink, she held up her glass and the Cuban in the shack raised his hand to say he understood.

  ‘I’ll take Charlie for a walk. If you want a rest later.’

  ‘You don’t want to have a rest with me?’

  Their son was laughing with his new friend, both of them sticky with dried salt from their doomed efforts to build a wall big enough to hold back the Caribbean. He’d made a friend and Charlie never made friends.

  ‘Does he look like he’s going to rest?’ Tom asked.

  Caro took the question seriously. ‘He’ll either keep going all afternoon or fall over suddenly, get tearful and want quiet time to himself.’

  ‘Maybe I should take them both for a hamburger.’

  ‘Are you going for sainthood?’

  ‘No,’ Tom said. ‘Just trying to make amends.’

  ‘No need. But if you’re serious about taking Charlie off my hands …’

  She stood up, let her hand brush Tom’s shoulder and hesitated.

  ‘I haven’t said what I was going to say. I’m having an affair. Long term and nobody you know. The stupid thing is that under other circumstances you’d really like him. I’ll finish it the moment we get home …’

  5

  Hotel Splendide, Grand Bahamas

  ‘You okay?’ Caro asked.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Tom replied.

  Her face tightened and Charlie put down his lock and picks and stared miserably at his flying fish. Without thinking, he pushed his plate away.

  ‘Too much sun,’ Tom said. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Really?’ Caro said. ‘You have a headache?’

  Dipping for her bag, she extracted a packet of Anadin, popped two through the foil and pushed them across, sliding Tom’s water glass towards him.

  He swallowed them dutifully.

  ‘Sorry,’ Tom said. He was looking at Charlie.

  His son shrugged, remembered his manners and said he hated headaches too. He hoped Daddy would get better soon. The boy had been miserable since they landed in the Grand Bahamas that morning. He was missing the girl he’d met at the American base in Guantánamo. Tom’s joke about almost eight being too early to have his heart broken hadn’t helped.

  ‘You could always write to Anna,’ he suggested.

  Charlie looked up from his plate. ‘I don’t have her address.’

  ‘I’ll get it for you.’

  ‘Really? You promise?’

  ‘You find a postcard in the hotel shop, Mummy will buy it and a stamp, and I’ll have Anna’s address for you by tomorrow.’

  Charlie attacked his flying fish.

  ‘I’m going for a walk in a while,’ Tom said. ‘Anyone want to come?’

  ‘Not me,’ said Caro. ‘I need to wash my hair.’

  As outrageous a lie as Tom had heard. He doubted she’d ever washed her own hair, except perhaps at university or boarding school.

  ‘You go,’ Caro told Charlie.

  The night was hot and the beach deserted. Palm trees overhung the sand on one side, and the sea lapped the shoreline a few paces to the other. Tom and Charlie walked along a strip of fading light while stars came out overhead and yachts glittered out on the water.

  ‘What do you want to talk about?’ Charlie asked.

  ‘Charlie …’

  The boy shrugged, but lightly, and stepped in closer so their footsteps left a tight trail. ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I already know what.’

  ‘Mummy and me?’

  ‘The minefield.’

  Tom stopped, putting his hand to Charlie’s shoulder, as if checking the boy was really there. He was so small and his shoulders slight. His seriousness was too serious. Too serious for his age.

  ‘It wasn’t that clever,’ Tom said.

  Charlie stepped away, instantly hurt.

  ‘I knew what I was doing,’ he said tightly. ‘Felix said it was very clever. He said you had to be like me and him to work it out.’

  ‘Work what out?’

  ‘Where to put your feet. Weeds dislike growing on mines and grass looks weaker. The sun makes bigger cracks where earth covers metal. He said working that out was clever.’

  ‘You really knew?’ Tom said.

  ‘I told you.’

  ‘What if you were wrong?’

  ‘Then I wouldn’t be here. I used to think I wouldn’t mind that. After Becca died. When you and Mummy … Now.’ Charlie wiped his eyes and Tom pretended not to notice.

  They walked, because that was why they were there. In silence mostly, because their conversation was done and neither of them were the kind of people who chatted. The yachts still twinkled on the horizon and stars glittered high and bright. The lilt of a steel drum began behind the palm trees, its notes liquid and unearthly.

  Charlie sat, when Tom suggested they sit.

  ‘Look,’ the boy said suddenly. He bent to retrieve the skull of a bird from the foot of some twisting mangrove roots. Tom stopped him.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ Tom said.

  For a second the bleached bone felt hot.

  ‘Can I?’ Charlie asked. He stroked the skull as gently as if the bird was still alive. ‘How do you think it got there?’


  ‘Probably fell from here.’ Very carefully, Tom put the skull back into a triangle formed by three roots that crossed in front of a sandstone boulder. The skull looked right there. It belonged.

  ‘Ribbons,’ Charlie said.

  Tom looked at the rags tied to the roots, and at the blackish smears on the rock face behind, some faded, some fresh.

  ‘Paint,’ Charlie said. ‘Why would people do that?’

  ‘I think it’s an altar.’

  ‘There isn’t a cross.’

  ‘A different kind of altar.’

  The boy’s eyes widened. ‘Black magic?’

  ‘Charlie. Who’s been telling you about that?’

  ‘We do spooky stories at school. Ghosts, demons, werewolves.’

  ‘This isn’t that,’ Tom said firmly.

  Where he diverged from other padres was in his willingness to believe there might be lesser gods; hundreds, perhaps thousands. He’d met a few. At least, he believed he had. Some good; some substantially less so.

  ‘Look,’ Tom said. ‘I’ve been away too much and it made Mummy unhappy. I got cross because she was unhappy.’

  ‘And she got cross with you?’

  ‘We’re trying to make it better.’

  The boy leant in, Tom’s arm went round his shoulder and they sat together in as much silence as the crickets, the lapping waves and the steel drum allowed. Out on the horizon a liner moved like a drifting star. Tom was on the point of suggesting they go back when Charlie said, ‘Do you think Mummy would let me go to another school?’

  ‘You don’t like St George’s?’

  ‘It’s a very good school,’ Charlie said carefully. ‘It’s just not a very nice one. And I’m not very happy there. I’d like to go somewhere else, if I’m allowed.’

  ‘I’ll talk to her,’ Tom said.

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Life’s a minefield, Felix said. People like us pick their way through.’

  Tom hugged his son tight. ‘It’s my job to worry,’ he said. ‘It’s practically compulsory.’

  Caro was in the foyer, her hair exactly as it had been before they left, and whatever she’d been preparing to say about how late they were went unsaid when she realized Tom and Charlie were holding hands.