The Captain and the Cricketer

by Catherine Curzon

  “Don’t ever say that I didn’t try and do this the right way, Fitzwanker. I’ll ruin you!” Ed walked back to the Ferrari, the case swinging in his hand. On reaching the supercar he opened the door and hurled the case inside, then he turned to remind Henry, “And don’t forget, company accounts are public record, Fitzprick! I know exactly how much your business is pulling down and it’s not buying you an hour with Judge Judy, I can tell you that much!”

  He climbed into the sports car, gunned the engine and roared off down the drive, his hand slammed hard against the horn as he went.

  Henry pulled his cricket bat out of the umbrella stand. Its heft felt good in his hands. As much as he would’ve enjoyed ramming the bat between Ed’s legs, the only balls Henry was going to hit that evening were cricket balls. Shouldering his bat, he sauntered down his driveway, headed for the practice nets at the cricket club—an hour walloping leather against willow would be a perfect end to the day.

  And tomorrow, they would be dancing.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  It was a pleasant evening for a walk so, back in his best, freshly dry-cleaned tweeds, Henry made his way to the village hall. A flow of people drifted from their cottages along the street toward the dance in their best approximation of 1940s costumes. Some appeared to have hired their outfits from fancy dress shops, while others had cobbled them together from the backs of their wardrobes.

  “Love the costume, vet’n’ry!”

  Henry waved politely. Smokers and vapers were lounging about the car park and a large white van signaled the presence of the television crew. He couldn’t see George’s car. George, who had insisted Henry get ready at the manor, because he had ‘things to do’.

  If only he and George could dance together. Music was already spilling from the opened doors of the hall. Henry wasn’t too bad a dancer, really, having been sent to classes by his mother, thinking it would cure him of his clumsiness. It hadn’t worked, but at least he could dance.

  He nearly tripped over a cable as soon as he came in through the door. Mrs. Dalrymple pressed a drink into his hand, patting her hair as a compact television camera swooped by.

  “Orange squash!”

  “Perfect!” Oh, for something stronger.

  The lights were low and Henry gazed about the room at the decorations. Reproduction posters declared ‘Dig for Victory’, ‘Loose Lips Sink Ships’, ‘We Can Do It!’ and ‘Look Out in the Blackout’. Bunting and paper chains and balloons looped around the room. Someone in a gas mask was chasing small children dressed in home-knitted tank tops and cotton frocks. The camera followed them. It wasn’t George in the gas mask, was it? It seemed like a very George thing to do. But the figure in the half-light pulled off the mask—it was the vicar. Henry laughed and took a swig of his orange juice. There was so much sugar in it, it made his teeth rattle.

  The camera operator moved toward Henry, so Henry raised his hand and waved. Then, remembering that people in documentaries often behaved as if the camera was invisible to them, he assumed an air of gravitas. He lifted his chin, put one hand in his pocket and stared away across the room, toward the 1970s brocade curtains that hung in front of the stage. He held his pose until he was aware of the camera moving away again, and just as he was about to turn, he saw a figure by the piano on the far side of the hall.

  Captain George Standish-Brookes of the Household Cavalry was leaning rakishly, one elbow atop the piano, and gazing at him.

  Oh God.

  Henry remembered now the gleaming buttons George had been polishing, lounging across his chair in cricket whites, a bright-red mess jacket in his lap. Now he wore that mess jacket with its gold buttons and trousers the color of midnight, a row of medals gleaming across his chest and, in pride of place, the DSO. He was at the center of a crowd of admirers and holding court as ably as ever, but his eyes were fixed on Henry, a mischievous light dancing there. He looked as though he had stepped out of the past, from a cinema screen sometime in the 1940s, and for all those admiring young ladies who flocked to surround him, George Standish-Brookes, the hero, was Henry’s.

  And Henry was his.

  Then, lazily, perfectly beautifully, he gave a casual salute.

  What a vision. Henry forced himself not to gape, not to make it obvious. Everyone would see it in his face—not just the Parvans in the village hall, but it would be beamed into front rooms and streamed onto computers across the country. The vet gazing with longing and love at the handsome soldier. Even so, Henry’s feet decided for him and he took a step forward. Nothing wrong with bidding the fellow good evening, after all.

  A sharp elbow in his side stopped him.

  Steph. And she was headed straight for George.

  From what Henry could see of her as she shoved by, she had spruced up well, but everything about her screamed expensive, everything about her outfit was obscene compared to the make-do and mend costumes of the Parvans. She barged aside the girls who were talking to George and with an expression that Henry couldn’t read, George’s eyes shifted to Steph. George smiled and moved forward to kiss her on both cheeks. The camera focus moved to catch them. It was almost imperceptible but Henry saw it—the television would love this glamorous lady of the manor.

  She will dance with George.

  What were they saying to each other? If only Henry could hear. Maybe George was just being polite. They’d all been at school together, after all, and it wasn’t as if he could give her the cold shoulder in this crowded room, with television cameras ready to capture everything and with very un-1940s mobile phones snapping away.

  But why was Ed grinning? Ed, standing under a poster of a cartoon Hitler with airplanes raining bombs down on him. Ed who had come done-up as a slightly slimmer Churchill, complete with unlit cigar. Didn’t Ed mind that his wife was leading George out onto the dance floor? Didn’t that bother him at all?

  Trumpets blared out In the Mood and Henry had to drag his attention away from George and Steph as they whirled across the dance floor, Steph’s eyes wide and unblinking like a shark’s.

  “Henry!” Churchill raised his hat to Henry. “You didn’t have to worry about fancy dress, eh?”

  Henry raised Churchill his own V-salute in reply and swallowed down his orange squash. Too late he realized that the camera, now at the far end of the room, had managed to capture George and Steph dancing as well as Henry in the background, on the edge of the dance floor, sticking two fingers up at his tormentor.

  Mrs. Dalrymple grabbed Henry by the arm. She took the empty paper cup from his hand, and although “A dance, Mr. Fitzwalter?” was phrased like a question, it was, clearly, an order. Henry let her take him onto the floor. He put his hand on her comfortable hip, his other on her shoulder.

  The camera hove into view again, catching Henry’s smooth footwork as he glided Mrs. Dalrymple around the hall. She seemed to be enjoying herself, her rouged cheeks reminding Henry of the last time he’d seen the Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz. Her hand was somewhat mobile across Henry’s broad back, and he noticed her throwing out the occasional beaming smile at her friends, who waved back at her.

  Henry felt someone’s gaze on him and realized it was George’s.

  That bloody jacket.

  Henry thought back once again, as he had many times over the years, to that moment when George had swung open the changing room curtain and appeared there before him in that jacket—the gold buttons, the braid, the bright-red fabric. He had looked so handsome back as a teenager, but now, as a man, it knocked Henry sideways to see him in it.

  But he had to keep dancing. Couldn’t gape. It really wouldn’t do.

  Look away, George, for God’s sake, look away.

  Henry swallowed and smiled down at Mrs. Dalrymple.

  “Did you like Captain George’s makeup?” Lil called the question as she glided past in the arms of her boyfriend. She was a land girl, he a squaddie. Once again it seemed as though time in Longley Parva were standing still.

  “Yes!” Henr
y called to her over the music. He had looked beautiful. “Historically accurate, I thought.”

  “My turn now!” Mrs. Arbuthnott, in green dungarees and wellingtons—not far removed from her usual get-up—tried to peel Mrs. Dalrymple out of Henry’s arms. “You can’t have the vet all to yourself.”

  “Goodness—it’s all right—I don’t mind—” Henry glanced round in time to notice that the camera was on him again. Of course it was, a man in tweed was being fought over by the two leading lights of the WI.

  “Let’s share him, Mrs. A.!”

  “Oooh, a threesome!” Mrs. Arbuthnott giggled and slotted herself in.

  Bloody hell.

  Henry kept going, not quite sure how he managed it, the television camera following. In his mind, he could hear Tabitha. ‘This’ll make brilliant telly.’

  And all the while, red and gold flashed in the corner of his eye. George. His George. And he couldn’t dance with him.

  You Do Something to Me began to play, and Henry felt his heart squeeze. Oh, why couldn’t he dance with George, in the village hall, in front of everyone? Why was he forced to hide how he felt? It was like being in a wartime film about furtive homosexuals in the blackout. Surely the world had moved on from that?

  Apparently not. Because George was so charming, smiling as he danced Steph right through Henry’s path. Steph, her bosom pert, her teeth bared, her eyes wide.

  Henry and his harem had to divert their path and went flying straight into the folding chairs.

  “Oh, Christ, my bloody knee!”

  It had all been captured on camera, of course. Gripping his leg, Henry hobbled about, resurrecting the scattered furniture. He looked over his shoulder at George and Steph, all laughs and smiles, dancing with their arms around each other, and Henry realized that he couldn’t bear to spend another moment in this room.

  He politely shoved his way out of the village hall and strode across the lane. Resting on the stile, he stared out across the empty field.

  “What the devil was that display, soldier?” A figure leaned on the fence beside him, the early evening sunlight shining from buttons and medals, each one a tiny flame. “Running out on a lady or four?”

  “Display?” Henry rounded on him. Why did George have to be so bloody attractive? He would’ve brought him into his arms if it hadn’t been for the smokers in the car park. Or the entire population of Longley Parva being only meters away in the village hall. With a film crew. “I’ve hurt my bloody leg—I need some air.”

  “I’m sorry you’ve hurt your leg, Fitz.” George patted his elbow and smiled. “Because I was hoping you’d do me the honor of a dance.”

  “A-a dance? With you—with all the village here? And the cameras? George—what will people say?”

  “I’ll ask the crew not to film it and the locals will think it’s just Fitz and Standy-Bee having a lark.” He shrugged. “But your leg’s not good, so—”

  Henry grabbed George’s hand, but promptly let it go.

  “It was only a knock—I can still dance.” Henry leaned in and whispered, “I’ll probably have a bruise, but you’ll kiss it better, won’t you?”

  “Every bit of you, darling,” he purred.

  Henry shoved his hands into his pockets, the only reliable way to prevent himself from reaching for his lover.

  He lowered his voice as they walked back to the hall. “Careful, or we’ll be dancing horizontally over the refreshments table…”

  “Or in a four-poster.” Then, for a man who seemed so protective of his heterosexual image, George seemed to throw caution to the wind. His hand shot out with the same speed with which it had almost amputated Ed Belcher’s ear, but this time, his fingers closed around nothing more delicate than Henry’s tie. Then he turned on the heel of one mirror-shined boot and, with Henry’s tie still gripped over his shoulder, marched his private back into the hall.

  Henry was certain that the residents of this most quintessential English village had never seen anything quite like the sight of Captain George Standish-Brookes in full, uniformed flight, a captive vet following very close behind, and it was a sight that few would forget in a hurry. With a quick wave to the camera operator that clearly meant this wasn’t to be filmed, George cut a dash through the near-swooning ladies.

  Henry didn’t care anymore. Sod it, sod it all. He followed Captain George onto the dance floor, where they laid their hands very properly on each other at waist and shoulder. Not a hint of impropriety could be seen. This was two chaps having a lark. But still, they had their arms around each other in public, and instead of scandal and horror, there was no reaction from the Parvans other than laughter and smiles.

  Mrs. Dalrymple and Mrs. Arbuthnott appeared beside them, dancing cheek-to-cheek, with smiles broader than the time that Mrs. Arbuthnott’s champion marrow had won first prize at the summer fête.

  “Ladies.” George gave a very polite nod. “You dance marvelously together.”

  Henry let his lips brush George’s neck, a fleeting movement that could have been an accident—but wasn’t.

  George closed his eyes and whispered, “I am so bloody happy, Fitz.”

  “As am I, Standy-Bee.”

  “You’re the belle of the ball.” George laughed as they moved through the cheering crowd, their dance as elegant as it was joyous.

  “No, no, that’s you—you never look more handsome than when you’re in this get-up.”

  “Well, I thought a night like this called for mess dress. No doubt they’ll want a few pick-up shots of me actually putting it on but—” He tossed his head and assumed a diva attitude. “The things one does for one’s art!”

  “You always were a show-off,” Henry whispered affectionately.

  The good-natured laughter of the Parvans was disturbed by the hooting, mocking laughter of Winston Churchill and his satin-clad floozy.

  “Has Ed spiked the orange squashes? What’s he finding so funny?” Henry danced himself and George out of range of the Belchers’ guffaws. His partner’s response was to shrug as though it was nothing, and perhaps it wasn’t. Henry had a lawyer now and he had George and maybe that would be enough to see off Ed Belcher’s threat to the manor.

  “Jez is having a sleepover party with Lil’s donkeys,” George told him. “He’s visiting friends whilst his parents go dancing!”

  “I’m glad our son is making friends in the village.” Henry could’ve easily kissed George there and then, but he pressed his lips together in a tight line to stave off temptation.

  A flash went off on someone’s camera phone. Henry squinted in the bright light. He heard giggling. Another flash fired.

  “Your fan club are in tonight, George!”

  George shrugged and said, “Television’s straightest man having a lark!”

  Henry grinned. He felt naughty. Reckless. Bad Billy Fitzwalter was twitching their shared DNA. “What would you do, though, George, if they guessed?”

  “Tabs and Howard—my agent—they seem to think it would be an amazing career move.” George frowned and shook his head. “I don’t know, though, my image isn’t really that, is it? I worry I’d end up— Do you think I’d ever work again?”

  “Because you love a man? Why would that stop you from ripping off your shirt and climbing up a mountain?”

  “Fitz!” George’s voice was a warning whisper and he widened his eyes, clearly intending to indicate that walls have ears. “I remember how it was in the Army. You didn’t ask and you definitely didn’t tell.”

  “But if people found out that I’m—I’d get some joshing, I bet, but—” Henry swallowed. “Perhaps you’re right. I don’t know anything about showbiz. Look—perhaps you should dance with one of the ladies again. Keep everyone from guessing.”

  But it hurt. That the sight of them dancing together was a joke, and that George wanted to keep their love secret. What else could he do, though, when George was the only man he had ever wanted? The only person. And surely showbiz was one world where it didn’t
matter? If anything, wouldn’t it just widen George’s fan club? But what did a provincial vet know?

  The song drew to an end and George asked him, “Are you going to take off, Fitz? You look a bit— Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.” Henry’s abrupt, tight-lipped reply was, he hoped, enough to let George know that he wasn’t. But not enough to cause a scene. Not enough for anyone to know, or guess, that television’s straightest man had, that very morning, enjoyed mutual hand jobs with him against the Aga in the kitchen of Longley Parva Manor. Heaven forbid that anyone knew that.

  “I have my own fan club, thank you, George. Small and select though it is, I shan’t be short of dance partners.”

  “And later?” His gaze searched Henry’s, no longer impish, but filled with concern. “Will we see each other tonight? Don’t be angry with me, Fitz.”

  If only all the bloody people would clear the room and allow Henry to say what really needed to be said. Even a reassuring pat on the arm was impossible. Over the noise of music and conversation, Henry had to lean close to George’s ear.

  “Your place or mine?”

  “That depends if you want a ride in the Jaguar first.”

  “Pleasant evening for a spin—why not?”

  “Why not indeed?” George’s green eyes gleamed with happiness. “I’ll even take the top down.”

  “Makes a change from the top off.” Henry gave him two matey slaps to his cheek. “Meet you after the raffle? Let’s squire the ladies about for an hour or two, like the red-blooded heterosexuals we are.”

  “I’m drawing the ticket.” George stepped away from Henry. “I hope you win something!”

  Henry tried not to laugh at the prizes arranged on the stage. “That Thermos flask could come in useful, but I’m not too sure about the basket of lady’s bubble baths.”

  “I’ve got a couple of hundred tickets in the barrel!” Ed slapped his hand down on Henry’s shoulder. “Might be a Belcher landslide!”