Freefall

by Robert Radcliffe

  ‘Fancy this,’ Victor said, pulling out a chair, ‘hail the conquering hero. Didn’t expect to be seeing you.’

  ‘No, well, after last time...’

  ‘Had to come back and tidy up some loose ends?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Thought so. Better be quick, mind you, can’t stay long.’

  Theo watched as Victor seated himself, took out a tin and began rolling a cigarette. His air was proprietorial, his relaxed gaze wandering the room, noting the guards, nodding at other prisoners, lingering on their wives and girlfriends. In his late forties, slight of stature with pallid complexion and nicotine-stained fingers, he did not embody the imagined hero of Theo’s childhood. If that person ever existed.

  He’d first heard of Victor’s existence from Captain Grant, his special ops handler at Baker Street. Returning from his Italian adventures the previous autumn he’d been summoned for a debrief on Operation Colossus and his contact with the Action Party partisans in Italy. During the interview, which was long and exhaustive, he learned firstly that his mother Carla had been freed from internment, and secondly that his father was not dead, but alive and well and living barely five miles from Kingston. Albeit in prison. This revelation left him shocked and bewildered and for some weeks he did nothing with it, not even telling Carla. Eventually though, unable to suppress his curiosity, he visited Victor, only to find he felt no connection with the louche stranger sitting before him, no bond, no kindred spirit, not the slightest sense of shared lineage. They didn’t even look alike. Victor too seemed unmoved by the reunion, smirking and smoking in bemusement, so after a few minutes and with a chasm of silence yawning between them, Theo fled, leaving his many questions unasked.

  Victor blew smoke, glancing at a large wall clock. ‘Snout?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘To-bac-co.’

  ‘No, um, no, thank you, I don’t.’

  ‘I meant, did you bring me any!’

  ‘Oh, no I didn’t, sorry.’

  ‘Typical.’

  ‘Ah. I wonder, could I ask—’

  ‘No. Me first,’ Victor interrupted, and then gestured at Theo’s uniform. ‘So you were in on that raid then? The one to France we all read about.’

  ‘I’m not allowed to say.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a yes.’ He blew another plume. ‘I told the lads you were. Properly impressed they were. That’s my son, I told them, chip off the old block.’

  ‘No I’m not. Because you were never in the army.’

  ‘That’s a lie.’

  ‘Not in the East Surreys, not as an officer. They checked.’

  ‘That’s as maybe. I was in the Territorials. Till they chucked me out.’

  ‘For what?’

  Victor shrugged. ‘Insubordination. Some trumped-up thieving charge. Going absent, what they called desertion.’

  ‘Did you desert?’

  ‘Course not! It was the skiing, you know, the winter sports and that. I got the chance to go to Austria with an army team, fetching and carrying, orderly work and so on. They let me have a go with the skis. After that I was hooked. I got a bit delayed coming back, that’s all.’

  ‘Why are you in prison?’

  The eyes flickered. ‘The beak said it was fraud. Not true. An investment went bad, corners got cut, maybe a couple of dodgy cheques. These things happen in business.’

  ‘Is this your first time?’ Theo ploughed on, needing to know.

  ‘Hardly.’

  ‘Then...’

  ‘Blimey, what is this? All right, it’s the fourth, since you ask.’

  ‘Did you actually serve in the First War?’

  ‘Christ, you ask a lot of questions!’

  ‘That’s because I thought you were dead. Did you?’

  ‘Restricted to home duties. On account of flat feet. Then I got discharged.’

  ‘But after the war you went back to Austria, dressed up as an officer, and seduced my mother.’

  ‘No, damn you!’ A flash of anger. Heads turned; a guard glanced over. Across the hall a gaggle of late visitors began wandering in. ‘That is not what happened!’

  ‘It’s what I grew up believing.’

  ‘Well, it’s wrong, and you can shut up about it!’ He crossed his arms, turning sideways on his chair, a scowl on his face. Silence fell between them; instinctively Theo waited. Eventually Victor glanced up.

  ‘Look, Theodora, or Andrew, or whatever your bloody name is, your mother was very, you know, strong-willed. Very persuasive. Liked to get her way. She’s as much to blame for all this as me.’

  ‘Is that what you think?’

  ‘Yes. And now, frankly, I’m not caring for your tone, so I think you should leave.’

  ‘You haven’t asked about her.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘Not one question. Not even if she’s alive.’

  A sigh, a shake of the head, a glance at the door. ‘It’s too late for that.’

  ‘Don’t you care?’

  ‘Course. Only...’

  Theo swallowed. ‘Not enough to come back for us.’

  ‘I was going to! It was all planned. But business got in the way, then I got delayed, then had some trouble with the law, then everything got complicated...’

  ‘So you faked your death and abandoned us instead.’

  ‘Fuck you!’ Victor glared. But no more words came. And in that moment, holding his gaze, Theo saw his own reflection, and recognized a young man in a photograph, standing with a youthful Carla at a family baptism in Bolzano twenty years ago, and he glimpsed something across the years, like regret.

  Seconds passed, the clock clicked, the buzz of chatting families filled the air. Then Victor slumped back. ‘What do you want from me?’

  ‘I...’ But he didn’t know, and couldn’t think. His head reeled, his throat felt tight, his hands were trembling in his lap. He’d never imagined anything like this: the father he’d worshipped through childhood, the war hero, Olympic sportsman, officer and gentleman, not killed on a mountain but alive, living in a grimy London prison, exposed as a liar, cheat and a fraud. He struggled to absorb it, to digest and comprehend it, bitterness welling in him like bile. Anger too, and worse – grief, for the loss of his idol, and of his own heritage. He looked away, struggling for sense, sightlessly watching as an anxious-looking woman led a little girl gingerly through the throng, like a mare leading her foal.

  Victor’s gaze was still down. ‘You should go.’

  ‘Is that what you want?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  A pause. ‘Because of them.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Them.’ His chair scraped back. ‘Hello, Vi.’

  ‘Hello, Vic. Who’s this bloke then?’

  ‘This is Anders, um, Thea... an army acquaintance, from the old regiment.’

  The woman’s eyes were wary. ‘How d’you do.’

  ‘Andrew. This is Violet. Trickey, that is. My wife. And my daughter Nancy.’

  *

  Theo staggered out, mind numb, on to rain-splashed streets, then on a whim kept going, route-marching another six miles, kitbag on shoulder, until he finally arrived back at the Kingston boarding house. Where his welcome was predictably more fulsome.

  ‘Here ’e is at last, the clever clog!’

  ‘Hello, Eleni, how are you?’

  ‘All the better. Come ’ere. Give us kiss. Blimey, bad boy, you soaking or what?’

  Relieved of bag and greatcoat he followed her to the front room where, to his astonishment, a dozen or more people stood up and erupted into applause. In their midst, clutching a file of papers and with a pencil tucked behind one ear, was Carla.

  ‘Welcome home.’ She smiled, embracing him. ‘Everyone is so proud.’

  He found himself hugging her back, fervently, like a child. ‘Mama.’

  She laughed. ‘Goodness, what is this?’

  I’ve found him, he yearned to say. He’s alive and a few
miles away. You are so close, barely a valley apart, yet the gulf between you is fathomless; he disowns us and he blames you, he even has another family. I’m so sorry.

  ‘Theo? Are you unwell?’

  He broke away, conscious of watching eyes. ‘I am fine. Just tired. Um, who are all these people?’

  Partito Popolare Sudtirolese, it transpired, the South Tyrol People’s Party, a fledgling political pressure group campaigning for South Tyrol’s independence. And nothing whatever to do with his homecoming. He stayed for a while, out of politeness; she introduced him to its members, who enquired uncomprehendingly about his mission, then swiftly changed the subject: ‘And where does the British army stand on the South Tyrol question, Theodor?’ Then she showed him their leaflets and posters, their agendas and manifestos, their files, letters and programmes of protests, and suddenly he was transported back fifteen years to a Bolzano print shop, the clacking of mimeograph machines and the smell of turpentine, Carla and her father Josef, their faces smudged with ink as they toiled, secretly churning out their handbills and pamphlets like Russian revolutionaries.

  ‘Look, Theo, these go to everyone. Politicians, clergymen, diplomats, newspaper owners, the Pope, you name it, even fascist dictators like Hitler, look.’

  ‘You’ve written to Hitler?’

  ‘Yes, well, his Foreign Minister, von Ribbentrop. Why not? He has influence. Mussolini also – see, Theo – we have written directly to Il Duce demanding recognition!’

  ‘Yes, but, Mama, I mean, isn’t this the kind of thing that got you interned?’

  ‘Pah! The British know we are on their side. We both want only to overthrow the fat pig. And look at this too, Theo.’ She handed him a clipping. ‘It’s beginning to work – see, the undertaker Tolomei has resigned! We have undercover friends in Italy now, and partisans fighting our cause!’

  Theo scanned the clipping. Taken from Italy’s Fascist newspaper and several months old, it reported the hated governor’s retirement following death threats and an arson attack on his property. Much embellished, it even printed one of the resignation letters Theo had made him sign, then went on to talk of seditious foreign infiltrators, and the need to stamp out traitorous insurrectionists like Partito d’Azione.

  ‘Have you heard from Grandpa?’ he asked, anxious suddenly for his grandfather. Carla knew he had visited Josef in prison in Rome, but nothing more – at Captain Grant’s insistence.

  ‘A letter came from Regina Coeli’ – she waved vaguely – ‘some weeks ago. He seems much the same.’

  After a while he retreated from front-room politics to the aromatic sanctuary of the kitchen, where he found Eleni preparing tea and ravani cake for everyone.

  ‘’S no good, Teo,’ she fretted, ‘this damn war no good!’

  ‘It does seem to be getting worse.’

  ‘You telling me! Semolina I can find, maybe half a lemon, but flour and eggs? Damn ration nonsense, how a hell I make proper ravani?’

  ‘Ah.’ He looked round the kitchen, and its familiar air of organized disorder. This was her battleground, he realized, the place she fought her war. Dignity, self-respect, national pride, the ability to feed family and guests. To proud, hard-working people like Eleni, these things mattered more than guns and tanks.

  ‘You go out tonight?’ she asked. ‘You look worry when you come in earlier.’

  ‘Worried? No. Just... It’s nothing.’

  ‘Hmm, I don’ think so.’

  ‘I was hoping to spend time talking with Mama tonight, but she has a meeting.’

  ‘Ha! You mean she has pub with Foreign Office chappy with no chin.’

  ‘Really? Is this a new, um, person?’

  ‘You know your mama, if he can do favour then he get favour! Listen, Teo, you go out, that nice Price girl, wha’s her name, Susanna, she been round asking ’bout you.’

  *

  So he went. After an hour on his bed, fruitlessly pondering the reunion with Victor, he rose suddenly, washed and shaved, donned civilian clothes he hadn’t worn in months, and stepped into the cold March night.

  ‘Theodorable!’ Susanna greeted him at her door, flinging arms round him like a lost brother. ‘My God, it is you. I heard you were back. Come in out of the blackout!’ Then she was ushering him in, taking his coat and standing him back for inspection. Her family was out, she said, gone to the pictures, a Western film she didn’t fancy, so she was waiting at home with the wireless. Waiting? Theo wondered, sensing a Greek hand. He followed her into a snug parlour with dark curtains and a hissing gas fire. Music played on the Home Service; a cat stirred on a chair; a magazine lay open on the sofa.

  ‘I have beer,’ she said, ‘a bottle of stout. Don’t tell my dad!’

  ‘I won’t.’ He watched as carefully she opened and poured the beer, then sat, patting the sofa beside her.

  ‘You’re the talk of the town.’ She sipped. ‘That raid to France.’

  ‘It’s supposed to be secret. Who actually went on it, I mean.’

  ‘Your landlady told me. She seems to know everything.’

  ‘Yes she does.’ The sofa was small. Their bodies touched, hers smelled of scent and he saw her lips were rouged. He recalled the youthful red-haired Juliet kissing his tongue-tied Mercutio backstage at school. Four years ago, and another lifetime. Her hair was darker now.

  ‘All sounded very exciting in the papers. Were you scared?’

  ‘A little. Everything seemed to happen rather fast.’

  Her arm slipped through his. ‘What was it like?’

  Thrilling, terrifying, a muddle, a panic. Storming the radar bunker amid roaring Scotsmen. Dragging a heavy trolley through snow. Stumbling down a cliff path, bullets whining overhead. Cowering before an empty ocean, dread in his heart from the pistol in his pocket. The menacing blast of mortar shells creeping nearer. The blessed relief of salvation.

  ‘Things went wrong, you know. They often seem to on these operations. But Major Frost, our commanding officer, he was terrific. He just kept dealing with the problems, kept attacking the enemy, kept everyone’s minds on the mission, kept us together and moving.’

  ‘He sounds a good man.’

  ‘Yes he is. It gives you great confidence, a leader like that, makes you believe anything’s possible, that you’re, you know, better than you think. He’d have fought it out to the end, I’m sure, if we’d had to.’

  ‘I don’t like the sound of that!’

  ‘No. Well, it was a near thing.’

  He’d asked for a report, he remembered. Major Frost had. A few days after the raid. ‘You’re an intelligence chap, Theo,’ he said, ‘write me one of your reports, from the perspective of the bunker team. Just the facts, best as you remember them.’ Theo had been alarmed, then honoured, then perplexed. Should he include hauling Denkmann up from the cliff? Or being told to use an axe on the radar? Or the order to shoot Charlie?

  ‘There was this RAF scientist, you see. A bit of a boffin.’

  ‘On the raid?’ Susanna’s cheek was on his shoulder.

  ‘Yes. My job was to look after him...’

  She raised her head. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Well... Nothing. I probably shouldn’t talk about it.’

  ‘Would you like to kiss me instead?’

  ‘Can I?’

  ‘I jolly well hope so.’

  Her eyes closed as she leaned towards him, and when they kissed her lips parted, and felt soft and moist. They lingered, withdrew, then joined again, more firmly this time, and with the tip of her tongue touching his. He tasted hops and barley, and when he looked, her eyes were open and gleaming.

  Then came a sharp rapping on the window.

  ‘You in there! Thadeus or whatever your name is!’

  She broke away. ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘I have no idea. Sounds like a woman.’

  More rapping. ‘Open up! I want a word with you!’

  ‘I’d better go. The neighbours...’

  He heard the front door ope
n, then muffled raised voices, and a moment later Susanna returned, face confused, followed by Violet Trickey and her daughter.

  ‘That’s him!’ Violet pointed. ‘Thadeus whatever it is.’

  ‘Um, Theodor.’ He rose to his feet. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘I’ll say! You can stay away from Vic. He’s ours, see, and don’t want nothing to do with you!’

  ‘Oh, I see. Well, yes, he told me. And I’m sorry, only...’

  ‘Theo, who is this lady?’

  ‘She’s, well, this is Mrs Trickey. My father’s wife. Second wife, that is, although—‘

  ‘His only bloomin’ wife, if you don’t mind!’

  ‘But I thought your father was dead? Killed when you were little.’

  ‘So did I. Only... Excuse me, Mrs Trickey, how did you know where—’

  ‘They had your address at the guardroom. Then that Turkish woman at your lodgings said you was here. We been walking for hours.’

  ‘Eleni, Greek, yes. But—’

  ‘Then you must be very tired,’ Susanna said firmly. ‘And cold. Won’t you sit by the fire a moment?’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘And your shoes, look, they’re soaking wet. So are your little girl’s. You could dry them a bit.’

  ‘Eh? Oh, yes, well, s’pose there’s no harm. Just for a minute.’

  ‘And I expect she could do with a drink.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Your little girl. We’ve got squash.’

  ‘Nancy? Want a drink?’

  But Nancy was studying Theo. She was eight or nine, he guessed, long-limbed and scrawny, with thin legs and straggly fair hair. Her clothing was poor and grimy. She had the small mouth and nose of her mother, but her eyes were larger, steady, bright and blue, and as she stared at him, for the second time that day he glimpsed himself in their reflection. And felt an unexpected surge of longing.