‘They all think they’re in the movies,’ he said. ‘They can’t wait to be famous.’
Billy knew about their kind of fame. About the endless cycle of ops. About the twice-weekly allotment of targets. About waking up to fog and praying for a scrub. About putting your life in the hands of the weather gods and the small army of radar technicians, flak gunners and night-fighter pilots all lying in wait to kill you. And finally about what happened to a pal of his over Hamburg who’d volunteered to be a Rear Gunner. His description spared Don none of the details.
‘This is recently?’
‘Last week. Did we win the war? No. Did he die? Yes. Did it hurt? Yes. Was he frightened? Very. And were there tens of thousands of people underneath us in exactly the same boat? Again, yes. It makes no sense, Don. So why do we do it?’
‘Because we have to. Because we must.’
‘Otherwise?’
‘Otherwise we’ll all be speaking German.’
‘And is that such a bad thing? Compared to this?’
Don didn’t answer. He was looking at the cake.
‘Was it that bad?’
Billy shrugged. Then asked the time.
There was an old station clock on the wall behind the counter. Nearly half past six. The café would be closing very soon. Don retrieved the cake and the empty mug and headed back to the counter. Did Billy fancy a proper drink?
Billy did. They left the café and headed along the seafront towards Paignton. A side street took them inland. Don walked with a heavy limp and progress was slow. At last they got to the hotel. It was called the Palmview. It was small, wedged between a garage and a firm of undertakers, and it was badly in need of a coat of paint. Not a trace of a palm, no sign of a view. This, said Don, was where he spent most of his working hours. His boss was a man called Stan. He’d been with him at the hotel for a while and tonight was special because Stan’s mum had just died, leaving Don in sole charge while Stan and his wife took the bus to Plymouth to sort everything out.
‘How many guests?’
‘Three. Two families and a bloke on his own. That’s all the rooms we’ve got, apart from mine.’
‘You live here?’
‘Yes.’
‘And Stan?’
‘He and his missus live next door.’
They were still standing outside the hotel. Billy was staring at the coffins behind the big plate glass window.
‘It’s a funeral place.’
‘That’s right. That’s where Stan says the money is. Death and taxes. What else can you rely on these days?’
The hotel smelled rank. Billy had identified drains, stewed cabbage, chip fat and the remains of the morning’s toast by the time they made it down the narrow stairs to the basement bar. Here, at last, Stan had made an effort. The bar itself was dominated by a huge wooden propeller and squadron pictures, all in black and white, lined the walls. A blow-up photo of a Stuka served as a dartboard and a long list of names and scores were scrawled on the adjacent chalkboard. No wonder the recruits flocked here.
‘I’ve come here to get away from all this,’ Billy pointed out.
‘No, you haven’t. You came back for a look. You came back to try and understand how it all started. And then you met me.’
‘That’s true.’
‘I’m asking for help, Billy. And I’m guessing that’s something you need, too. The fun starts any time now. With luck it might get ugly.’
Ugly turned out to be an understatement. Losses in Bomber Command were stratospheric and here was the living proof. These recruits were kids, younger than ever, piling in from the street, clattering down the stairs, and they had no idea how to drink. The cider came off a farm in the hills behind the town. It was home-brewed, intensely cloudy and very strong. It was also very cheap. By mid-evening, glassy-eyed, drinkers were peppering the wooden panels around the Stuka with darts. They were also singing.
Poor old pilot’s dead
Poor old pilot’s dead
He’s killed himself
He’s killed himself
Poor old pilot’s dead
Billy tried to shut his ears to the lyrics, comforted by Don’s presence behind the bar. Don was a natural with the kids, letting their brashness wash over him, and when a series of parp-parps from the road outside announced the arrival of the bus that was to return the recruits to Babbacombe, he had no difficulty getting them out of the door. One was sick on the stairs. Another threw up in the apron of parched grass that served as a front garden.
Billy watched the bus growling away towards the seafront.
‘This happens every night?’
‘Twice a week. Lucky me, eh?’
They cleared up in the bar. Then Billy watched Don at work with a mop and a bucket on the stairs. He wanted to know about the limp.
‘I fell off a fairground ride as a kid. I think the bone man at the hospital must have been drunk that night. The thing never set properly.’
‘Thing?’
‘This.’ Wedged sideways on the staircase, Don tapped his left thigh. ‘They broke it again and had another go but that only made it worse. You want a piece of advice? From someone who knows? Never trust a Waltzer.’
Billy nodded. He wanted to know whether the limp had got him out of National Service.
‘Of course it has. That’s why I’m here. Mopping up after the nation’s heroes.’
‘And you don’t mind?’
‘Mind what?’
‘Missing it all?’
Don didn’t answer. Instead he handed the bucket to Billy and nodded at the nearby toilet. By the time Billy got back down to the bar he was looking at two huge balloon glasses on the bar. Something amber and fizzy.
‘What’s that?’
‘Brandy and ginger. I’m sparing us the cider. Thank Stan for the brandy.’
They touched glasses. The last time Billy had drunk brandy was the end-of-run party on Broadway before the long voyage home. He took a sip, and then another. Lovely, he thought.
He found himself talking about those days. Don had the happy knack of listening. He also seemed to have an intuitive grasp of what was going on in Billy’s head. How life had slipped out of focus after his return from New York. How he seemed to have parted company with everything he’d once taken for granted. How the war had blundered into his life and stolen everything that had once mattered. The theatre was closed, Irene was dead, and now even his mum, thanks to her new life, was equally beyond reach.
‘So what’s left?’
‘Nothing. Just this…’ Billy gestured round at the bar. He felt unaccountably tearful again. The laughter gone. Nothing left but the terror awaiting these young drunks.
He watched Don adding a hefty glug of brandy to his glass. They’d run out of ginger ale but already he knew he was drunk.
‘You know the way it is in the theatre?’ he said. ‘They pay you to be someone else. I never realised it at the time but that’s a real privilege. Why? Because you don’t have to be you anymore.’
‘And that’s the way you feel now?’
‘Exactly. Except that now’s worse. Because there’s no script, no role, no play, no curtain call, no nothing. Now’s real. And you want to know what I dread? That now is forever.’
‘You want to be someone else?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘Somewhere else?’
‘That’s impossible. We are where we are. I can’t stop the war. No one can. The war’s like gravity, like the bloody weather. It just happens. It’s who I am that bothers me. These last few days I feel nothing. Just nothing. Ask me to get up. Ask me to make a decision, open the door, turn the tap on, I can’t do it. Nothing happens. Choice is meaningless. Choice is a tease. Choice will change nothing. Because I am nothing. Life’s a game. I know that. I used to be a player. I knew the rules. I threw the dice. Sometimes I even won. That’s all gone. And it’s gone because I can’t even find the bloody dice, let alone give it a roll.’ He gazed across the bar at Don,
tried to get that big warm face into focus. ‘Am I making sense? Do you understand? Just a little bit?’
Don nodded. He’d barely touched his own glass.
‘Do you ever read poetry?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Did you ever come across a Persian poet? A man called Rumi? Thirteenth century?’
‘No.’
‘He was a wise man. I have a book upstairs. Here’s a line to think about, Billy. Are you ready for this?’
Billy nodded. Reached for his glass. Nursed it in both hands. Waited.
‘A wound is the place where the light comes in.’
Billy stared at him. Beautiful, he thought.
‘Say it again.’
Don obliged. This was just a taste of Rumi, he said. He’d be happy to lend Billy the book.
‘You’d do that?’
‘Of course.’
‘And you think that applies to me?’
‘I know it does.’
‘Because I’m wounded?’
‘Because you’re damaged. And because one day you’ll get better. Live in the moment, Billy. Live in the breath. Let time have her way. It’s OK to be frightened, to be upset, to cry. Just let it happen. And afterwards you’ll be glad.’
Slumped on the bar stool, Billy nodded. Speech seemed to have deserted him. He emptied the glass, shut his eyes, felt the brandy scorching down his gullet.
‘That’s a promise?’ he managed.
‘It is.’
Billy felt a hand settling on his. Don, he thought. Thank God for Don. He opened his eyes again. Gazed round.
‘Where am I sleeping?’
‘With me. Upstairs. Is that OK?’
Billy’s gaze returned to the blur behind the bar.
‘That’s fine,’ he said. ‘That’s perfect.’
12
After the soirée in the rue de Lille, Klimt took Hélène to a nightclub. She said she needed a drink. For the time being she hadn’t shared her conversation with Johann Huber but she was in no doubt that he meant what he said. Either assist the Reich lay hands on the best of French-held artwork or be prepared to face the consequences. Find the Mona Lisa? Crazy.
The club was called Le Poisson d’Or. She’d never been there before but Klimt seemed to know it well. She watched him moving from table to table, exchanging handshakes and gossip and fond little kisses for a succession of women. At first glance he seemed to be on home territory – relaxed, enjoying himself – but she sensed that Klimt, too, was under threat. How many of these people does he trust anymore, she wondered.
A saxophonist was playing on the tiny stage. Hélène watched him through the haze of blue smoke. He was black. He wore a greasy leather hat and he dipped and swayed as he played. Many of the men around the tables were in uniform and most of them had their backs turned to the music. They were talking to each other, lots of hand gestures, lots of emphatic nodding, and Hélène watched them for a moment or two as the waiter arrived at the biggest table with yet another carafe. Officers at play after a busy day’s Occupation, she thought. They’ve been here years and they control everything and that’s the way they assume it’s always going to be. Welcome to the New Order. No wonder Paris was so surly, so withdrawn.
Klimt ordered champagne. She wanted to talk to him. She wanted to be somewhere quiet, somewhere private, where they could be themselves again, but when she leaned closer and suggested they forgot the champagne and went back to her apartment for the night he shook his head. Believe it or not, he was still on duty. And duty compelled a return to the Hôtel Meurice.
‘Do I come too?’
‘Regrettably not.’
‘Vorschriften?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
Vorschriften meant ‘regulations’. The whole of France had made this first step into the German language.
Klimt put his hand over hers. Then came a counter-suggestion. Might he ask her for a dance?
The dance floor was even smaller than the stage but they had it to themselves. At a discreet nod from Klimt, the saxophonist slowed the tempo, allowing Klimt to draw Hélène closer. He was dancing with real intimacy, the kind of closeness you can never confect. Hélène recognised the tune. It was the theme from Casablanca and as the saxophone dipped and soared Klimt began to sing the lyrics to her. In English.
Hélène was aware of turning heads, of abandoned conversations, of a stillness settling on the smoky club. And the quieter it became, the more justice Klimt was able to do to the lyrics.
His English was faultless, lightly accented with an American lilt. He might have been Humphrey Bogart. The music came to an end and Klimt took a tiny step backwards and kissed Hélène’s outstretched hand. By now Hélène had realised that this was a show for the benefit of his countrymen, that Klimt was saying he didn’t care about the rough protocols of Occupation, about Vorschriften, that in a Paris disfigured by a terrible defeat it was still possible to behave like a gentleman and a romantic. Love mattered. The music mattered. And maybe all will come good. As time goes by.
Was this a figment of Hélène’s imagination? She stood with Klimt on the dance floor, gazing round. One of the younger officers at the back was the first to start applauding. He smacked the table with the flat of his hand. Then came another hand. And another. Until the room was swamped with applause and the saxophonist had taken up the tune again and everyone who knew any English was doing their best with the lyrics.
Back at their table, the champagne arrived. Klimt sorted out a two-hundred Reichsmark note to give to the waiter. The man was French. He wouldn’t take the money.
‘C’est gratuit, m’sieur.’ His eyes drifted to Hélène. ‘Avec nos compliments.’
Klimt offered a nod of gratitude, then folded the note into the waiter’s top pocket.
‘C’est pour vous, m’sieur. Travail, famille, patrie, n’est-ce pas?’
Work, family and motherland were the three legs of the Vichy stool on which the whole of France now squatted. This was Marshal Pétain’s prescription for the coming years, and Klimt’s toast to the waiter had pushed a romantic gesture to its limits. If senior officers were present in the club, then Klimt could be in real trouble. These were martinets without a sense of humour or a moment to waste on mere sentiment. But that didn’t matter. Because Hélène had understood the message Klimt was sending.
They left the club with the bottle of champagne and walked down through a maze of streets to the Seine. Now they were sitting on a bench on a quai beside the river. Klimt was staring at the blackness of the water. Hélène reached for his hand.
‘That was for me, wasn’t it? Back in the club?’
‘Of course. And for my countrymen.’
‘Why?’
‘Because we have a terrible gift for taking ourselves too seriously. Not just us Germans. Everyone.’
‘Including me?’
‘Possibly not. You have different kinds of gifts, talents I barely understand, except for one thing. Without them, without the knowledge that they exist, I would be nothing.’
Hélène put the champagne bottle aside and kissed him. From Klimt, this had the makings of a speech. He was good at little quips. His occasional jokes made her laugh. He knew how to choose a present. He made her feel wanted, protected. They pleased each other in all kinds of ways. But never this.
‘Tell me more.’
‘There is no more.’
‘That sounds very final.’
‘It needn’t be.’
‘Then tell me why you’ve changed.’
The fact that he didn’t deny it told her a great deal. She wanted to know who he’d upset, and how serious the consequences might be.
‘You think I’m in trouble?’ he asked.
‘I think we’re in trouble.’
‘Because I might not be around to look after things?’
‘Things’ made her wince. Not once had their relationship sounded so mundane, so utilitarian.
‘Is that what it is for you? A ques
tion of management?’
‘Sadly not. I love you.’
He wouldn’t look at her. He was watching a pair of uniformed Wehrmacht on patrol. They’d been past once already and he’d dismissed their demand for papers with a terse word or two she hadn’t understood.
Now she tried to coax his face around. She wanted him to look at her. She wanted to know that it was true.
‘You think I’m lying?’ he said. ‘You think this is some kind of game?’
‘No.’
‘Then believe me.’
‘But I need to know.’
‘Know what?’ At last he looked at her. He was angry. She could see it in his eyes. ‘That I love you? That I really love you? That I don’t make these things up? Is that it? Is that what you want to know?’
‘No. I want to know what’s happened in that world of yours. I want to know what’s going on, what’s made you so…’ she shrugged, ‘… different. And I want to know when it might stop.’
‘Ah…’ he forced a smile, ‘… stop. Now there’s a question.’
There was a long silence. The soldiers were on their way back, their boots echoing on the cobblestones. In her heart, Hélène knew that the conversation was over. Back to the Hôtel Meurice. A car for Madame Lafosse to the 16th.
‘Might we meet tomorrow?’ It was a question she had to ask.
Klimt was on his feet. He looked down at her. The soldiers were very close.
‘Sturmbannführer Huber will be at your door by midday,’ he said. ‘My compliments to your husband.’
13
Billy spent four days in Torquay. He kept company with Don, first at the hotel, then at the café, then back to the Palmview for more decorous evenings in the bar without the company of the Babbacombe recruits. He’d never been with a man before, not like this, and it felt completely natural. No shame, no guilt, not an ounce of embarrassment.
In ways he couldn’t quite explain, Don seemed to have known him for years. Nothing Billy could say about himself appeared to come as a surprise. Neither did Don seem the least bit bored by his fund of stories. With aircrew, Billy had always been careful to rein himself in from his wilder fantasies. Flying was a very grown-up occupation, as was survival. It was also, in the exact sense of the word, overwhelmingly male. Feelings like these, feelings he had for Don, had no place in either a heavy bomber or the succession of freezing billets where they lived. For a quiet life, you pretended to be as normal as you could. For an actor, that wasn’t difficult. For the real Billy Angell, as he was coming to recognise, it had taken him close to madness. Thank God, once again, for Don.
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