Arrivals & Departures

by Leslie Thomas

  ‘I don’t think they were aiming for it. It was a landmine actually,’ he told her. ‘Drifted down quite gently. It was daylight and apparently the villagers saw it dangling from its parachute. It exploded against the churchyard wall and only just missed the tower.’ He pointed. ‘Right over there it fell. You can’t tell now. After all it was half a century ago. Some Americans and Poles who were based here came over and helped to rebuild the wall. It’s all in the parish records. It makes interesting reading. They couldn’t do much about the wrecked headstones. Then others fell to pieces, even stone is not immutable, and we have some vandalism, like everyone else.’

  ‘Difficult to think of vandalism here,’ said Pearl Collingwood. She looked about her at the speckles of sunshine flickering through the quiet churchyard trees. The blackbird was still tuning his notes. The factory roar of the airport was in the background but she was already accustomed to that.

  ‘We had an offertory box recently stolen from the church,’ the vicar said seriously. ‘That’s why normally the church is, regrettably, kept locked. There was a lectern, a full golden eagle lectern taken from another church not far away.’

  Pearl suddenly asked: ‘Where were the Americans in camp? The fellows who rebuilt the wall.’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ he said. ‘The Poles were at Ruislip. There’s a memorial there. There were a good many bases in this area.’ He made a diversion. ‘Here, let me show you another headstone that has come in useful. It’s actually outside the wall.’

  They walked through a wooden side gate. ‘There,’ said the vicar. ‘Hubert Belling died eighteen twenty-eight.’

  ‘Why was he put out here in the cold?’

  ‘Suicide. Took his own life because he was too old to play cricket any longer, so it is said. It’s in the parish records.’

  The headstone was brown, almost bronzed, and pitted, but the incised name was discernible. Henry Prentice said: ‘In those days, in some places, suicides were buried outside the churchyard wall. Still, he’s as warm as those inside. And the cricket pitch was, still is in fact, just over there.’ He nodded to the sloping meadow that fell away from the churchyard to a line of oaks. ‘Local lads come up in the evenings and use his headstone as a wicket.’

  ‘To throw the ball at?’

  ‘Indeed. They bowl for hours on end here. See the lumps it has taken out of the stone. But I think he would have liked that.’

  ‘Homelea’,

  Anglia Road,

  Hounslow,

  Middlesex,

  England,

  Great Britain

  23rd June

  My Dear Father and My Dear Mother,

  Well here I am in Good Old Blighty. The Brits all say that it is summer but I am cold. Everybody smiles and they are always telling me what hot weather it is and it must make me feel at home!!!

  I am homesick. I am missing our home and Benji. There are many dogs here but people train them to bark at Indians and Pakistanis (so at least we are getting the same treatment as them). Uncle Sammi and Marika and the children are in good shape but their shop which is part of our house, address as above, is on a road where the motor vehicles are passing very fast at day and night. I have my room but I have not yet learned to sleep in it.

  I am now working at London Airport. It is not a major appointment, you will understand, but it will lead me higher, I am sure. I am a facilities operative, which is important because I am part of the working of the airport. I have made friends with the airport porters who are teaching me English slang etc. They are always taking the peas, as they say. I start work very early in the morning because they always put Indians and beginners on the first shifts. Yesterday I had a bad moment because I slid on the floor and I had to go to the doctor. The medical set-up here is very good and there was nothing to pay (I was afraid it would take all my money) and the doctor and nurse were first class. The nurse said they had nothing better to do at that time which shows the fine state of health in this country. I remember how long we had to line up for the doctor in the village every two weeks or more.

  My injuries were small and today I am back on my duty as a facilities operative. I will work hard and one day I may be in command of the whole sodding show, as the porters say.

  Goodbye for now.

  Your loving and obedient son,

  Nazar

  Four

  Wearing a cream slip Rona sat on the edge of her bed and regarded the trees lying like tracery against the window. It overlooked the back garden of the Swan and she could smell lilac and hear a couple laughing quietly as they sat on the bench below. She stood and walked to the window, carefully peering out. They were sitting below the lilac. They were not as young as she had imagined. Why had she thought that from the fact that they laughed? As she watched two children, a boy and a girl, appeared and sat one side of the couple. The woman produced a bag of potato crisps and gave it to the children to share. She continued talking to the man and they laughed again.

  Suddenly even more lonely, she went back and sat on the bed once more. She eased herself back onto the pillows and raised her leg so that the silk slip rolled down her thigh.

  By far the worst thing about it all was that she had imagined they were happy. How was it possible not to tell? It was. There had been a case which was handled by the law firm in San Francisco for which she worked, an attempted insurance murder by a husband on his wife of twenty years. And she had thought he deeply loved her. She and Jeff had even discussed and wondered at that case the same week as he left. Even now she could see them sitting in the evening on the terrace with its far-off view of the Oakland Bridge and talking about it. An unremarkable cameo in an ordinary week – except in the context of what had happened afterwards.

  She had found that she could recall all the things they had done those last seven days. Two nights they had been at home together, once they had been to dinner with friends in Chinatown, once to see a play at Sausalito, and the other night he had played squash and she had gone to her sketching class. It was not often that they spent so much of the week together, and that was another strange aspect of it. She had often thought since that perhaps he was spending time with her in order to tell her but that they had been having such a quiet, comfortable and enjoyable time, that he had never been able to do it. While they were at home those evenings she had cooked dinner and they had watched television. Nothing different about that – except it was the last week of their lives together.

  On Friday he had suggested that they go upstate for the weekend and early the following morning they had driven up to Mount St Helena at the head of the Napa Valley. Here, at Silverado, an abandoned silver mine, the writer Robert Louis Stevenson and his American bride Fanny had spent their honeymoon, more than a century before. There was a stone marking the place, put there by enthusiasts. Rona and Jeff had looked out over the same awesome view of tree-topped valleys. She had spent the time painting. She still had the small picture she had painted that weekend. There remained signs of the old mine workings up there and the mountain wind sighed powerfully across the slopes. They had walked hand-in-hand down to the road and driven back to the timber cabin in the grounds of the hotel to spend their last night lying against each other.

  It was she, Rona, who had suggested the trip to Silverado. It was only a year after he had gone that she learned that Robert Louis Stevenson had married a woman eleven years his senior. Jeff left on the Monday morning to spend the rest of his life with someone that number of years older. A man at a crossroads might seek signs, pointers to a decision, and Rona had often wondered if this had been a sign for him.

  It was the ninetieth anniversary of the postponement of the Coronation of King Edward the Seventh and Queen Alexandra. Mrs Durie had checked it in her Royal Family Almanac before she took up the early morning teas. Pearl Collingwood inquired further that evening as she and Rona were having dinner in their special corner of the bar.

  ‘Not the best king we’ve ever had,’ conceded Mrs Durie, cle
aring the dessert dishes. ‘Nothing ever went right with him. They had to put off the Coronation until August because he wasn’t well.’ She leaned towards them suggestively. ‘His trouble was other women … ladies. Gave them babies. Kept doing it. But the Queen was beautiful. She suffered, and everybody knew, but she was real royal material no mistake. Never a complaint.’

  ‘Remarkable,’ acknowledged Mrs Collingwood.

  ‘Remarkable,’ agreed her daughter.

  As usual the bar began filling at this time. The joking man with the wistfully smiling Filipino wife was making customers laugh.

  ‘Rona,’ whispered Mrs Collingwood. She adopted a confiding angle, copied from Mrs Durie. ‘I feel sorry for that girl.’

  ‘Mother,’ warned Rona glancing towards the bar. ‘Please don’t start becoming involved in other people’s lives.’

  ‘I’m just getting settled in,’ her mother reproved. ‘Getting the feel of the place.’

  The younger woman regarded her with puzzled amusement. ‘You’ve got to know more people here in a week than I know in my own home town.’

  ‘Because I’m interested,’ insisted the old lady. ‘Interested in people.’ A couple came through the door, the young man taking off his bowler hat with a flourish. His hair was curled and fair. His wife was broad and homely, with a brown, pleasant face.

  Anthony and Annabelle Burridge exchanged greetings at the bar. ‘How’s London?’ inquired Jim Turner from behind his bar. He placed their drinks.

  ‘Glad to get out of it, as usual. Glad to get home.’

  ‘They live in a tent,’ Mrs Collingwood confided a little smugly to Rona.

  ‘Oh, now you’re kidding.’

  ‘I am not kidding. They live in a tent, on that bitty hill, back of Bedmansworth, because their whole world fell down. You know how it happens, jobs go, house goes.’

  ‘You’ve met them?’

  ‘Well not exactly, not yet. But I know all about them.’

  Rona put out her hand and touched her mother’s wrist. The old lady’s hand, brown and frail as a tealeaf, turned and held hers. ‘Mother,’ said the younger woman smiling seriously into the lined face. ‘What are we doing here?’

  ‘Being here,’ shrugged Mrs Collingwood. ‘I like it.’

  ‘You’ve started smoking again,’ frowned Rona. ‘I know.’

  ‘I’m just helping the Reverend come to terms with his addiction,’ replied her mother. Her voice dropped. ‘But don’t tell a soul.’

  ‘I just can’t believe how you’ve got into this place. You just drop in here. You were sick, I know, but you seem fine now. In no time it’s like you’ve been living here all your life. You know all these people. This couple live in a tent … the parson smokes … What next?’

  ‘That young man, Bramwell, is a woman chaser,’ provided Mrs Collingwood grimly. ‘Another King Edward the Seventh.’

  Rona laughed. ‘I give up,’ she said. They were still holding hands and she gave the old fingers a squeeze. ‘Don’t you seriously want to move on now? We came to visit, remember. To see things.’

  ‘We are visiting,’ pointed out the old lady. ‘The best kind of visiting. Getting to know people.’

  ‘You are certain you don’t want to go to London?’

  ‘We can go tomorrow,’ Pearl informed her decisively.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘There’s a trip, an outing they call it, to London. The darts team are going. Jim is the captain and Dilys is going too. There’s tea somewhere-or-other, where they make special cakes. Then we’re all going to a show. We’ve got afternoon tickets for a flop. Then we all ride back. The coach leaves here – right outside – at one o’clock. There’s time for sightseeing.’ She regarded her daughter with direct challenge. ‘I’ve put our names on the list.’

  Rona released her hand and put her own fingers over her face to muffle her laughter. ‘You’re wonderful,’ she said truthfully.

  ‘I know,’ asserted her mother. ‘And I am going to be even more wonderful.’ She rose elegantly. ‘Let’s go and meet the folks who live on the hill – in a tent.’

  They left their corner. Half a dozen more customers had arrived in the bar and were sitting at the dark wooden tables. Jim was busy with his beer handles and bottles. Dilys came through the curtain at the back to help. The door was open letting in the evening light and air. Conversation and casual laughter drifted out into the quiet street. Pearl Collingwood greeted the Burridges like old friends, leaving Rona to add a secondary smile. Anthony Burridge bought them each a drink.

  ‘You haven’t met,’ said Bramwell. ‘This is Mrs Collingwood from America and her daughter …’

  ‘Rona,’ said Rona. ‘Rona Train.’

  ‘This is Tony and Annabelle,’ said Bramwell. ‘Burridge.’

  ‘My grandfather lived in a tent,’ offered Mrs Collingwood at once. ‘Before he struck gold that’s where he lived. In a tent. Then the gold ran out so he went into insurance.’

  Rona discovered herself looking around the salient of friendly and inquisitive English faces. It was almost as though she were looking for someone in that place where she knew no one. Her mother had made everyone smile. She began to feel a touch of gladness that it was happening like this. Her own unhappiness might, after all, have only increased had they been touring as they had intended. Sitting in buses and trains was a solitary thing even with a companion; too much time to think, to wonder, to regret and live over. Her mother was lifting half a pint of bitter, scrutinising the beer through the bevels of the tankard. Rona sipped her gin and tonic and watched her with concern and amusement.

  The eight o’clock summer light issuing through the open door was suddenly shadowed. Outlined in the aperture was a Martian form which stumbled solidly into the room. Bernard Threadle habitually missed the step. He was festooned with motor cycle clothing: boots ballooning from his trousers, a shining helmet embellished with wings, one set pointing backwards, goggles pushed up from sweating eyes. His upper body was encased in a crackling leather parcel held together by a thick belt.

  ‘’Evening everyone,’ he gasped as he removed his helmet to reveal a red and rotund face. ‘Anything to report?’ He loosened the wide belt and his form sagged.

  ‘Anything to report?’ echoed Bramwell looking around. Heads shook seriously.

  ‘Nothing, Bernard,’ Jim reported.

  ‘Just checking,’ muttered Bernard his eyes flicking about. He glanced at Bramwell. ‘Somebody’s got to.’

  Jim Turner leaned from his side of the bar. ‘Drinking, Bernard?’ he inquired soberly. ‘Or are you on duty?’

  ‘On duty,’ reported Bernard stiffly. ‘But that doesn’t stop me having a drink. I’m not official, after all.’ He looked at the faces for confirmation. Several nodded agreement and Pearl nodded with them. Rona was watching entranced.

  ‘Double scotch, then?’ suggested the landlord.

  ‘Sweet sherry,’ corrected Bernard primly. He was holding his helmet below his arm in the stance of an armoured knight prepared to joust, and he awkwardly transferred it below the other elbow and began to rummage in his copious leather pocket. He produced a small mallet, a screwdriver, a nylon stocking, and several pencils. Anthony forestalled him and paid for the sherry.

  ‘You watch out the police don’t stop you, Bernard,’ Bramwell warned. He nodded at the contents of the pocket spread across the polished surface of the bar. ‘Housebreaking implements by night. Serious offence. And a nylon stocking. Where did you get that?’

  Bernard collected his dainty glass and lifted it in the direction of Anthony. ‘Found it in the hedge up the road,’ he informed Bramwell continuing darkly: ‘You never know with these things. Where is the other one, I ask myself. Anyway it would take more than the local fuzz to question me.’ He winked enormously at Pearl Collingwood who returned the wink. ‘I’ve got too much on that little lot, I’ll tell you.’

  ‘These American ladies are staying with us,’ introduced Jim leaning over the bar. ‘Mrs Collingwood an
d Mrs Train.’

  ‘We certainly are,’ confirmed Rona’s mother still surveying Bernard’s apparel.

  The vigilante wiped his meaty hand on his leather trouserleg before offering it to them in turn. ‘The US of A,’ sighed Bernard. His eyes rolled. ‘I’d like to get my hands on that. Now, that’s a place for crime. Just let me loose in Chicago.’

  ‘You ride a motor cycle?’ inquired Mrs Collingwood unnecessarily, still engrossed in his appendages.

  ‘Sharp little Honda,’ he told her, privately. ‘Not powerful, I admit, not as bikes go, but sneaky. I can get places on that where no big brute would even try. That’s where I have the advantage over the police.’

  Annabelle Burridge suddenly, as if it were time to do so, explained: ‘Bernard keeps an eye on things, don’t you, Bernard.’

  Bernard did not appear grateful. ‘I was about to tell these visiting US of A ladies of my patrols,’ he said. ‘And I hope you’ve locked your tent up, Mr Burridge.’ His glance went to Anthony as if the matter were better discussed with a man.

  ‘Locked and barred, mate,’ Anthony assured him lifting his glass.

  ‘There’s travellers around,’ said Bernard. ‘I’m monitoring their movements.’ He said like a translator to the Americans: ‘Gypsies.’

  Rona and her mother glanced at each other, both sets of eyebrows minutely raised, a sign they had enjoyed using since Rona’s girlhood. The lemon light through the door was dimmed again. Stooping into the bar Edward Richardson wished everyone a good evening. He smiled at the Americans. There are moments, Rona thought many occasions later, when you face someone for the first time and you unerringly know that they are going to be important to you, that they are going to play a part in your life. And this was one of those times.

  At the end of his long but narrow lawn, between the flowerbeds behind the house, Edward had implanted a single golf hole. The grass was short and consistent there and kept level as a coat, and the lawn opened out into an onion shape so that there was room to use a putter from varying distances. The amusement was a remnant of the game he had given up through lack of time years before. Now he embellished the routine by imagining that the central hole was the sun and attempting to strike a succession of golf balls into the positions of the planets in the solar system.