Skyfire

by Sam Galliford

  Aunt Gwendoline waited while Sue blew her nose and dabbed her eye make-up and wipe her face one last time with a clean corner of her handkerchief.

  “I suppose the only question is,” she commented after a pause, “did you feel better for having smashed it to smithereens?”

  Sue raised her head from her hands in another smile.

  “Yes, I suppose I did,” she replied.

  “Well then, that’s really all that matters, isn’t it? I would hate to think you went to so much effort not to feel some benefit from it.”

  Sue paused and looked at the wonderful old lady sitting across the table from her.

  “Aunt Gwendoline, you really don’t think of me as a butterfly for planning to leave Gerard as I did, do you?” she asked sheepishly.

  “If I do, I don’t see that it is something to be at all concerned about. I was a young woman during the Second World War and there were an awful lot of fine looking young men in uniform about the place, our own boys, of course, but also a good number of Canadians and Americans as well, not to mention a few continentals, mostly French and Polish if I remember correctly. Indeed, it is not every young girl who can boast that she was taken home after a dance in a tank transporter.”

  “A tank transporter?” echoed Sue incredulously.

  “Yes. The young gentleman was in the Tank Corps and it was the only vehicle he had available. It made a terrible noise grinding all the way from Catterick Army Camp and along the main street of Low Felderby at one o’clock in the morning. It woke everybody up and my mother gave me a terrible tongue lashing about it next morning.”

  “It sounds absolutely wild,” laughed Sue.

  “Mind you, they were dangerous times,” Aunt Gwendoline continued, waving for the bill. “My mother never stopped drumming it into me that if a soldier so much as put his hand on my knee, I would end up pregnant, and my elder sister Alice was forever reminding me that I was in grave danger of getting myself talked about. And she was mostly right. I was, after all, the first girl in our village to wear nylon stockings, and very daring they were too. They were more than enough for me to get myself talked about.”

  Sue pushed her handkerchief back into her eye sockets, this time to soak up the tears of laughter. Rani stirred, stood up and yawned. Lunch was over.

  “Aunt Gwendoline,” smiled Sue as they stood briefly outside the café before going their separate ways. “Thank you so much. I’ve not told anybody about how I ended up after Janet’s murder so it’s been wonderful talking to you. I can’t thank you enough. I’m so glad we ran into each other, and if you see Ger…”

  “I shan’t say a word,” interrupted Aunt Gwendoline. “What you young people get up to is your own affair and you certainly don’t want us older folk poking our noses into it. Now off you go. It was a pleasure meeting you again Miss Susan and have a safe journey back to your office.”

  Sue could not stop herself. She leaned forward and held the old lady in a close and deeply affectionate hug and kissed her warmly on each cheek.

  “Thanks again, Aunt Gwendoline. Thank you so much for everything.”

  She skipped off, leaving the old lady smiling after her.

  “I don’t know, Rani, but the young people of today have no idea of self-restraint, do they? I think it is time we went home before we get ourselves talked about all over again.”

  There was determination in Aunt Gwendoline’s step as she and Rani found their way back to their bus stop.

  Chapter 40

  “So, Rani, I was right,” Aunt Gwendoline declared as she sank gratefully into her favourite Victorian rosewood grandmother chair with a freshly brewed cup of Prince of Wales tea in hand. “It is not just me. Miss Susan saw it as well. As our dad would have said, ‘There’s trouble at Pit,’ and there certainly is. About that there can no longer be any doubt.”

  She stirred her tea and helped herself to another biscuit while Rani wagged her tail stump in anticipation.

  “Something which frightened her, that’s how Miss Susan described it. It was something which made her fearful, not of Gerard but for him. That confirms our conclusion that there is some mischief yet to come and that our Gerard’s friend Mark Brinsley is at the centre of it, whatever it is.”

  She gave a shudder. All she could think of was the three stars from her dream, three young men being extinguished before their time. Gerard, Mark Brinsley and the young pilot with his emotionless eyes coming up behind them in his biplane. She recreated the image of the pilot in her mind and shuddered again.

  “‘I’ve got it. I’ve got it all worked out’,” she repeated. “That is what he signalled to me and it is certainly something a policeman might say before moving in to arrest his quarry. And he might very well wave his notebook as he did so. I’ll have to ask Gerard if Sergeant Chak has a scar on his forehead.”

  She sighed. “But I am still no further forward in determining what thuggery is around the corner, am I? Whatever it is, Mark Brinsley annoying the Craters and Gerard getting caught in the crossfire because he is Mark’s friend, and it all being triggered innocently by Sergeant Chak doing his duty, we can’t let it happen, can we?”

  Rani sat looking up at her mistress and quivering with unquestionable intelligence. Aunt Gwendoline stood up, too agitated to rest in spite of her tiredness, and took a couple of paces across the floor.

  “Susan tried to tell our Gerard about it. She even talked to our Alice’s vase about it.”

  She stopped short in her pacing and turned towards the aspidistra.

  “All of which points to you having a hand in it,” she admonished it firmly.

  Not a leaf twisted, not a stem turned.

  “You had no right to do it. You realise that, don’t you, our mam? You had no right at all. Using our Alice’s vase like that, you frightened the living daylights out of that poor young woman. She thought she was going mad. I suppose you would say that you had no other option, that you had to get the message through to our Gerard somehow. He, bless his little cotton socks, would never have noticed the precariousness of his situation on his own. And neither he did, did he? And he still doesn’t, does he? You were very lucky that Miss Susan was able to notice, even if in the end our Gerard didn’t listen to her. She was going to leave him, you know, even before the whole business of Janet Brinsley’s murder came up. You were very lucky she stayed. She is a young woman of considerable courage but you terrified her to the point where she thought she was losing her mind. Really, Mother, that was unconscionable.”

  The plant remained unmoved under the barrage of remonstrance piled against it.

  “So where does that leave us?” she continued. “Susan smashed our Alice’s vase, which makes you responsible for that too, and that then became the starting point for our Gerard telling me his story. So you did get that bit right, although I would seriously have to question your methods. You don’t make things easy for me, do you? But then there is nothing new about that, is there? You never made things easy for any of us, except Lizzie. I am an old woman now, not a child with boundless energy. You asked me to look after the family and I have always done that, but this present set of circumstances is too exhausting for an old body. You have to give me a little more help and show me some consideration.”

  She returned to her chair and eased herself tiredly into it once more.

  “It’s all right, Rani,” she soothed. “I’m just an old woman ranting on, and a little tired after our trip into town, that is all. There is so much to do and so little to work with. I have no idea what it is I am supposed to do.”

  The precise ticking of her station clock beside her bookcase insisted there was no hurry, that the timetable was set and all trains were running on time.

  “Miss Susan thought she was going mad talking to a vase,” she sighed. “And here am I arguing with an aspidistra.”

  The tut-tutting of her ecclesiastical clock added its admonition that she should calm herself and that becoming het up over things she could do little
about would achieve nothing.

  “I wonder what Susan would think of a silly old woman talking to an aspidistra?” she mumbled.

  And over them all the solid and constant, familiar and never-failing tread of her oak-cased grandfather clock cast its beat to steady her and bring her rest and comfort.

  “Bless you, our dad,” she whispered to it. “You always were our strength.”

  Her eyes closed and her body relaxed. There was still the mystery of what trouble there was in the mist or whatever it was that surrounded Mark Brinsley. She must tell Gerard that Susan was right about being frightened, that she had been a better friend to him than perhaps he realises, even though she broke Alice’s vase and is not the girl for him. She must tell Gerard that he must distance himself from Mark and his new police sergeant friend, although being Gerard he would find that difficult to do. He had always been a very trusting boy, extremely loyal, right to the end.

  Her clocks pressed their message. There was time. The schedule was set and the stars would fall as they had to. She could not stop them. All she had to do was be there to catch the one that was Gerard’s. She would look after the family as she had promised Mother. There was the matter of how she was going to catch Gerard’s star and stop it burning out before its time but at least she would not be alone. Our dad would come home from the War and he would spread wide his big, strong arms and hold them all and make their world solid again. And Mother would be happy once more and give the aspidistra its weekly polish and complain about our dad leaving his tobacco plugs on the soil to keep them moist. And sister Lizzie would get her and Alice into trouble as she always did because she was the youngest and she had a bad heart and they all let her get away with her mischief because none of them knew what a short time it would be before she would no longer be with them. But at least she would give them the line that would lead to our Gerard. And Gerard would go to Southeast Asia and dig his archaeological holes in the ground and come back with some more honey. And young men in biplanes would fly over them and protect them from raids by Zeppelins.

  Rani settled down beside her mistress to rest watchfully over her nodding sleep.

  Chapter 41

  On Wednesday, Gerard called to say he had visitors in his department and that he was unable to come over for afternoon tea, so over the next three days Aunt Gwendoline caught up on a lot of sleep. She took Rani for extra walks in the late year sunshine and also managed a little shopping in town. On Sunday, she enjoyed a relaxed day with one of her friends at an antiques auction where she successfully bid for a small snuff box.

  “You’re not taking snuff on the quiet, are you?” asked the friend.

  “No,” smiled Aunt Gwendoline. “But nobody seemed interested in it so I thought I would give it a home.”

  Engine-turned, about 1840 and the work of Nathaniel Mills of Birmingham. It was a bargain.

  So, Aunt Gwendoline waited for the clockwork of the universe to turn, for the days to pass and the hours to strike according to their schedule. She rested and recouped and it was late on Tuesday morning that her telephone rang.

  “Gerard, my dear boy. What a nice surprise. Yes, of course, you can come over. Right away? No, I’m not busy. Is there something the matter? You sound a little agitated, if you don’t mind my saying so. Very well, I’ll put the kettle on and you can tell me over some tea and lunch. I’ll see you in a short while.”

  As she cradled the receiver she thought she heard the faint sound of an engine revving in the distance. It was far away but coming closer. She cocked her head to try and locate it.

  “Do you hear it, Rani?” she asked. “Do you hear it with your dog’s sharp hearing as opposed to my dull old human ears?”

  Rani sat in front of her looking up expectantly, only tentatively wagging her tail stump.

  Gerard arrived a few minutes later, so clearly agitated that he barely said ‘hello’ to his great-aunt and almost ignored the tea she offered him.

  “I’m not sure how to begin,” he started as soon as he settled into his customary chair. “It’s this whole business of Janet Brinsley’s murder. It just keeps coming back. I thought it was all over when Billy and George Crater were arrested, but it wasn’t. Then I thought it was all finished with when Mark finally came to his senses and sobered up, but it’s not. It’s back again, except that I’m not sure that I have anything more than a lot of empty suspicions that have grown up out of nothing. I think I am becoming paranoid.”

  “I hardly think so,” responded Aunt Gwendoline firmly. “You are far too relaxed. I have seen paranoia in some of the men from Low Felderby who, like your great-grandfather, managed to make it home from the First World War. I can assure you, you are not paranoid.”

  Gerard felt himself respond immediately to the ageless certainty in his great-aunt’s voice. He sucked in a deep breath and held it while he calmed himself.

  “Dear Aunt Gwendoline,” he thought. “Don’t ever die. I don’t know what I would do if you did.”

  “I had hoped that Janet’s murder was now in the past and that we could all forget about it and get back to being as normal as it is possible to be after such an horrendous event,” he resumed more calmly. “If you look at it rationally, Janet was killed a year ago, Billy and George Crater were brought to trial for her murder six months ago, Mark went through his binge drinking period three months ago, and since then everything has been very, very quiet. I haven’t seen anything of Sue since she left, and from what little contact I have had with Mark he is getting on with his work, lecturing to his students and doing his research. In short, everything has settled back into its proper place and life is going on more or less as it should.”

  “And it is not?” prompted Aunt Gwendoline.

  “I’m not sure,” he replied. “Mark told me something on Sunday night that I can’t get out of my mind. He could have been joking and it was very late. In fact, it was dawn by the time we had finished talking and we had knocked off a fair bit of wine with dinner and brandy afterwards. But what he said was so plausible that I cannot be sure. If it was a joke, then it was a very sick one, but then Mark has changed from who he was during the Janet days. He is quieter now, less driven, more cynical, and I can’t read him like I used to. On the other hand, if it was not a joke then I don’t know what to think. It is all so monstrous.”

  Aunt Gwendoline watched her grand-nephew closely. He was more upset than she had ever seen him. He had left his chair and stood up with his tea cup in his hand and was pacing backwards and forwards as he spoke. He looked out of the window, wandered all about the room, then he stopped in front of the aspidistra and studied it for a few seconds before sitting down again.

  “I had a dinner on Sunday evening,” he resumed. “It was just two couples and me. It was something Sue and I had done in the past, part of the round of casual evenings one gets into in an environment like the university. My friends had been good to me, still inviting me around even though they knew Sue and I had broken up, and I felt it was about time I reciprocated. Just because Sue wasn’t there didn’t mean I couldn’t manage a dinner, so I did and it all went very well.”

  He paused and Aunt Gwendoline watched while he organised his mind for whatever he was going to say next.

  "Mark had been quiet in the two months since he had decided to sober up, so I thought I would invite him as well. I was a bit wary of doing so, particularly as I would be throwing him in with a group of people who knew his recent past and who would not necessarily be diplomatic in discussing it over the dinner table. But I felt it was time he came back into circulation again and he seemed pleased with the invitation, and he accepted it straight away. My fears turned out to be unfounded. The marital problems of some other senior academic are now the gossip of the hour and Mark’s past misbehaviour was barely mentioned. When it was, a light, jocular context prevailed and Mark responded with equally comic repartee, and it was clear that the subject had evolved down to the amusing anecdote stage.

  “Througho
ut the evening Mark was as charming and as witty as he had been in the old days with Janet and it was a joy to see him like that again. I kept half an eye on his wine consumption throughout the meal just in case it was still a problem but there was no sign of him losing control, at least no more than the rest of us. We did knock off a good number of bottles of red as I discovered next morning when I put out the empties. But Mark enjoyed himself and his descriptions and impersonations of the late-night life in the city’s night clubs had us all rolling with laughter. By the end of the evening, he was being regarded as an obligatory guest at all forthcoming parties. He was back, repatriated and welcome. Up to that point, it was a good evening.”

  He paused and Aunt Gwendoline watched him as he hauled on his next few thoughts, disciplining them and stopping them racing ahead and churning his story out of sequence.

  “Just before midnight one couple left because they had to get home and release the babysitter before the late fees kicked in, and the other couple left soon after,” he continued. "That left Mark and me sitting amongst the usual ruins of a successful dinner.

  "‘That was absolutely superb, Gerry,’ he said, smiling broadly to me across the table. ‘Thanks for dragging me along. I have been out of circulation for a while and this evening has been a most magnificent return. Thank you so much. You and Sue are the best friends a fellow could ever have. Not that I’m a Fellow yet, that’s the next level of promotion in our academic hierarchy. But I hope I make it.’

  "We both laughed at the weak joke. We were relaxed, I was not in any great hurry to leave the table and it was clear that Mark wanted to talk on a bit. It didn’t bother me. There was the spare room where he could crash out if he wanted to and we had shared a bathroom before in the past.