Arrivals & Departures

by Leslie Thomas

  ‘Mutual, I’m sure,’ said Bernie’s wife. ‘It’s time we got ours. Where are they?’

  Bramwell and Barbara watched as the two parties settled, like rival camps settling for the night having posted sentries.

  The main course had been eaten by the first family and they were settling into their fourth bottle of wine. Abruptly and chummily, Bernie, his napkin at his neck splashed with sauce, called over the heads: ‘What’s the vino like then?’

  The other father choked. Eyes glowered. ‘Not all that nice then?’ chortled Josie.

  Tertius responded: ‘It’s something they reserve especially for us.’

  ‘Ooooo, just listen to that,’ demanded Mandy. ‘Reserved special. In’t that nice?’

  Bramwell leaned towards Barbara. ‘Now we should see some fun.’

  ‘It is actually,’ Dodo confirmed. It was as though it was her duty to take on the other girl. ‘Extremely palatable.’ She turned deliberately away and towards her father. ‘Wasn’t there some controversy over Paganini’s death in Nice?’ she intoned.

  ‘So I believe,’ replied the man ponderously. ‘The body …,’ he could not resist a backward glance to the other group, ‘… was not properly interred for many years.’

  ‘Poor bloke wa’n’t even dead,’ put in Josie loudly over her shoulder. ‘Saw it on the box. Buried alive, they reckoned,’ she looked doubtful. ‘According to the telly anyway.’

  ‘I reckon what I’m eating is what’s-’is-name’s leg,’ said the grandmother. ‘Paganini’s leg.’

  To Bramwell and Barbara it was unclear at which point the physical hostilities broke out or what critically ignited them. By the time the two families had reached the dessert stage they were both drinking copiously as if in defiance or competition. Josie said that she, anyway, was getting out of the rotten place, but her father ordered her back to her seat.

  Then Bernie’s wife bawled: ‘What you ’aving for pudding over there?’

  Shocked looks flew around the table before Tertius responded heavily: ‘Petites fraises et chocolat …’

  ‘Fucking hell,’ said Dean, looking into his spoonful of fruit salad.

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ said Tertius rising.

  ‘You ’eard,’ said Dean rising also.

  They had been waiting for the moment and had weighed each other up. Both families sat transfixed. Bernie had his second brandy halfway to his mouth. He swallowed it at a gulp and choked violently, his wife banging him on the back. Josie picked up a salad bowl set beside the cheeses and threw it with abandon into the blades of the revolving fan above their heads. It was a wooden bowl and it struck with a splintering impact, flying around with the fan and then rocketing across the room sending pieces of tomato, lettuce, cucumber and peppers, plummeting onto the heads of both families.

  It was the signal. At one moment everyone but the oldest lady, who bawled and waved her fists, was on their feet, shouting and threatening and at the next they closed for combat. Josie joyfully continued throwing dishes of food at the fan. Bramwell, like a Red Cross volunteer under fire, attempting to guide Barbara to safety, left the alcove table and then went at a crouch around the fringe of the mêlée, but a heavy metal bowl spinning from the fan struck him on the forehead and he fell spectacularly under the stumbling heavy forms of Bernie and the other father who were grappling like puffing leviathans. Bramwell lay at the base of a mound. The battle increased. The French staff tried to intervene but were thrust aside by both sets of protagonists as if this were no matter for them. Barbara frantically tried to extricate Bramwell from beneath both cursing fathers but he was the last to be released, and that was only after the police had arrived with dogs and tear gas. Bramwell was groaning bitterly: ‘My leg, my leg.’ The officer who examined him rose and made a puffing motion with his cheeks followed by an expressive fracturing mime with both hands.

  Barbara surveyed Bramwell unhappily, from his foot which projected from the swollen trouserleg up to his pain-drawn face. ‘What are we going to tell your wife?’ she asked.

  ‘That,’ he responded heavily, ‘has been worrying me.’

  They had returned from the hospital and it was now almost daylight. The lanterns of the Port Olympe fishing boats were homing across the leaden bay towards their harbour. The lights of Nice had grown pale and the dark shoulder of Château Hill leaned heavily against the eastern sky.

  ‘It could have been romantic,’ she sighed. ‘But it wasn’t meant.’ They were outside the hotel when the taxi had gone. Bramwell awkwardly stumped his crutches and said: ‘I’m sorry about the romance.’

  She kissed him on the cheek and began clumsily to assist him up the steps into the lobby. The night porter looked as if he might have been sleeping in a cupboard. He rose wan eyed and black chinned from behind his desk and wished them a puzzled good morning. He regarded Bramwell’s disability with only semi-sympathy, not knowing whether it was an old condition or a recent injury. He came from behind his desk, one hand holding up his trousers, and opened the lift gates for them.

  ‘I’ m going to have to lie in my teeth even more than usual,’ said Bramwell when Barbara had him propped against the wall of the lift. He sighed. ‘Be sure your sin will find you out.’

  Her face puckered. She needed to steady him with both hands as the lift jolted to a stop. ‘Don’t let me go,’ he pleaded. ‘Don’t let me slide down this wall.’

  She began to laugh and he jerkily joined her. ‘Christ, what a mess,’ he said emerging strut legged from the lift. ‘And it’s so bloody sore.’ She supported him as they staggered and rolled towards the room and propped him against the door as she opened it with her key. ‘Come on,’ she said encouragingly. ‘Let’s get you on the bed.’

  ‘If I remember rightly, that was the original idea,’ he moaned as she guided him over the room. He looked through the curtains at the mountains tinted by the morning. ‘We’ve been up all night.’ He dropped one crutch.

  ‘Perhaps you should have stayed in the hospital,’ she suggested taking the second crutch and easing him onto the bed. ‘Mind the leg,’ he kept muttering. ‘Mind the leg.’

  Closing his eyes he said: ‘Stayed there? At their prices? It’s going to cost enough as it is.’ He groaned ‘An arm and a leg’ then opened his lids in alarm. ‘Barbara, it’s not the money – it’s explaining it. I didn’t think to take insurance.’ He added wistfully: ‘Somehow it didn’t seem right, insurance on a dirty weekend.’

  She shook off her shoes and stretched out next to him on the bed. ‘It’s explaining things,’ he repeated. ‘That’s the trouble when you’re married. How in God’s name do you explain a hospital bill in Nice? Lettie’s very hot on money.’

  ‘You were supposed to be on duty,’ she pointed out wearily. ‘She’ll think it’s down to the company.’

  ‘And the company won’t pay. Knowing Lettie the first thing she’ll ask about is compensation.’ A further truth struck him. ‘And, God, I’m going to be stuck indoors with our bloody Pauline.’

  ‘Stop it,’ Barbara said. ‘You’re making me laugh.’

  She rolled towards him and kissed him. ‘Watch the leg,’ he muttered. He squinted at it down the length of his body. ‘I couldn’t help wondering if that doctor knew what he was doing,’ he pouted. ‘Probably a moonlighting taxi driver. I was afraid he’d set it the wrong way around, back to front or something.’

  Her body rolled against him, and she laughed against his shirt. ‘Oh what a tangled web we weave,’ he said. She put her face to his and they kissed. ‘Let’s try and get some sleep,’ she suggested. ‘You must be exhausted. I am.’

  She moved a cautious distance from the stiffened limb and slept almost as soon as her eyes had closed. Bramwell moaned as he moved but weariness engulfed him and he slept too, waking in pain, swallowing aspirin and drifting to unhappy sleep again. They awoke just before noon.

  ‘Time to get to the airport, Bram,’ she said. ‘Can you manage?’

  Screwing up his face as he shif
ted, Bramwell said: ‘I’m going to have to manage. Now we’ll see how good our famous flight service for the afflicted is.’

  They got a taxi to the airport. It took the efforts of the driver and two others to get Bramwell from the back seat into a wheelchair. Barbara self-consciously propelled him to a corner at the terminal. While she was checking-in a child approached Bramwell, a boy with a stick with a windmill at its end, and staring from a sweet-stained face with a kird of unblinking challenge, began to tap him tentatively on his projected leg. Bramwell picked up a crutch like a weapon. ‘Sod off,’ he muttered darkly. ‘Go on, sod off.’

  The tormentor went away backwards, still eyeing him and his leg. Bramwell followed the child with his eyes and saw it pointing him out to his mother. He grimaced towards them. Barbara returned and the flight was called. She wheeled him towards the gate, down the ramp and to the steps of the plane.

  ‘Watch the leg,’ he whispered. ‘Please be careful with the leg.’

  ‘You could sue those English idiots,’ she said when they were at last in their seats. The aircraft began sauntering towards the runway. ‘It was their fault, stupid lot. Both lots.’

  He looked pained. ‘I think the less said about the history of this the better,’ he said to her.

  ‘What are you going to tell Lettie?’

  ‘I fell down the steps on the aircraft. After that I’ll just have to keep on telling lies regardless.’

  ‘I’m coming with you.’

  His head jerked back with fright and astonishment. ‘Where?’

  ‘Home. To Lettie. You’ll have to have somebody with you. She’s not going to believe that the company sent you home in this state in a taxi unaccompanied. I’ll go home, change into uniform and come with you. At least it will look genuine.’

  He nodded dubiously. ‘I see the point, but it’s risking it a bit,’ he said. The plane ran down the runway, eased itself from the ground and took a curling path over the Bay of Angels. ‘But Lettie might just swallow it. God, what a mess.’

  As they ventured up to Bedwell Park Mansions, Barbara eyed the toast rack of houses, each scarcely distinguishable from its neighbour. It was Monday morning. Unable to face the ordeal the previous night, Bramwell had stayed propped in an armchair on her canal boat.

  Barbara drove sedately. The houses stood dumb and bright. They gained the summit of a mild hill and came upon two red-clad infants, propelling tin tricycles along the pavement, the only apparent inhabitants. Bramwell directed her around a bend, its fringes planted with gaunt saplings, and then up a further and steeper slope. The two red children were now below them moving like earnest ladybirds.

  Barbara’s eyes went along the ranks of detached houses. She was aware of the risk but she wanted to stay with him; the compulsion of a woman wanting to see her lover’s wife was strong. She remained calm. ‘Which one is it?’ she asked.

  ‘Could be any of them,’ he sighed. ‘It’s not far now.’ He thought again of the coming moment. ‘Perhaps you’d better drop me. I could walk from here,’ he said.

  ‘Like a wounded soldier coming home,’ she said. ‘Lettie won’t swallow that.’ She realised she now referred to his wife as someone she knew well, as if they were partners. He stiffened and groaned. ‘We’re here,’ he said in a low voice.

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘The red door.’

  Barbara followed his unsteady finger and drove brazenly up the sloping drive to the block-shaped house. A dark head appeared briefly at a picture window and a moment later the door was opened by Lettie. Her amazed expression at Bramwell on crutches was quickly followed by another, a swift mix, interest and suspicion, directed at Barbara. The women sized each other up. Bramwell was miserably trying to get out of the car. ‘Help me somebody,’ he said pathetically.

  ‘I’m afraid your husband has broken his leg,’ Barbara announced.

  ‘My darling!’ howled Lettie almost leaping from the front door.

  ‘Steady! Steady!’ Bramwell’s face lit with alarm. Tentatively he prodded the front step with his right-hand crutch. Barbara realised how she had moved forward protectively and discreetly withdrew. Lettie hovered like a panicked butterfly. ‘My darling!’ she repeated and, looking at Barbara, reiterated: ‘My poor darling.’

  ‘Lettie,’ said Bramwell eventually mounting the step and just balancing on his crutches, ‘this is Barbara Poppins.’ He waved towards Barbara. The women smiled the sort of smile that they smile at such times, but this action caused him to overbalance and he was only saved from falling by the hands of both. Together they restored him to the upright and, clamping his crutches to his arms, he stumbled towards the door.

  ‘How? How you do this?’ questioned Lettie as the trio sidestepped through the small entrance hall.

  ‘Fell down the steps of the bloody plane,’ said Bramwell.

  ‘This way,’ guided Barbara edging him towards their sitting-room in a manner which suggested that she had lived there for years. ‘Let’s get you sat down.’ She regarded Lettie earnestly. ‘He must sit down as much as possible,’ she advised.

  ‘We have chairs,’ said Lettie a touch huffily. ‘Plenty of chairs.’

  Reasserting her right, she led the way into the sitting-room. Quickly Barbara took it in. ‘This nice modern one should do,’ she said guiding Bramwell that way. ‘It looks the right shape.’

  ‘His favourite,’ said Lettie abruptly subdued. She stepped back blinking unsurely as Barbara confidently helped Bramwell to sit. The crutches fell to the floor and each woman bent to pick up one. ‘Put the kettle on, darling,’ Bramwell said to his wife. ‘Lettie makes a nice cup of tea,’ he said haplessly.

  Lettie, still trying to fix the situation in her mind, went towards the kitchen but Barbara said: ‘No tea for me, thank you, Lettie.’ Lettie turned looking relieved. She went into the kitchen anyway.

  ‘I must fly,’ insisted Barbara when she had returned. ‘I mean, not fly. We’ve just come back. But I must be off.’

  ‘You must fly,’ agreed Lettie. She held out her hand, the nails long and sharp and bright red. ‘Thank you for bringing back my husband.’

  ‘It was nothing,’ said Barbara, her eyes still on the nails. She knew her composure was dissolving. ‘Anyone would have done it.’

  ‘But it was you,’ insisted Lettie. Limply they shook hands. ‘Goodbye, Mrs Bobbins.’

  Bramwell said ‘Poppins’ and Barbara said ‘Miss’.

  ‘Goodbye Bramwell,’ Barbara said with a quick, tight wave. ‘Hope it gets better soon.’ It was a good touch, the insinuation that they were unlikely to meet until some indeterminate future.

  ‘I will take care of him,’ said Lettie like someone with the gift of healing. ‘Soon he will be better.’

  Barbara left. Bramwell winced as he heard their further insincere goodbyes. Lettie, returning from the door said: ‘She is a pretty lady.’

  ‘Yes, quite nice,’ he observed as if he had scarcely noticed. ‘Very decent of her to bring me back.’

  ‘There is no ambulance?’ she asked succinctly.

  ‘The kettle’s boiling,’ said Bramwell. A continuing whine sounded from the kitchen.

  ‘The company must have ambulance,’ she said as she made towards the noise.

  ‘I didn’t want to come home in an ambulance,’ he called to her. ‘I didn’t want to upset you, darling. It’s only a compound fracture. Barbara was good enough to give me a lift.’

  The cups were clattering in the kitchen. ‘There will be some money?’ she called back. ‘From the company?’ Almost as an afterthought, and when she was appearing carrying the tea tray, she said: ‘How do you fall down the steps?’

  ‘Top to bottom,’ he said sorrowfully.

  ‘That is big money,’ she insisted. ‘A long way, top to bottom.’

  ‘Is that all you care about?’ he grumbled, giving her a disappointed stare. ‘The compensation. What about my leg?’

  ‘That poor broke thing,’ she said leaning and peering at it. Her fu
ll Pacific island eyes turned on him. ‘Must be careful making love.’ She continued the remaining inches to his face and kissed him luxuriously. ‘How long will it be?’ she asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘When the leg will be mended.’

  He looked around her neck to his outstretched limb. ‘Weeks I imagine,’ he said.

  ‘I will see that you get number one compensation,’ she assured him. ‘I will talk to Mr Edward Richardson. He is some boss in your company. I tell him how broke it is.’

  ‘Don’t go bothering Mr Richardson,’ he said desperately. ‘It’s not his department. Everything will be settled, Lettie. We’ll get the compensation.’

  Lettie became excited. ‘Will I have my own car?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ he sighed. ‘Where are your relatives?’ He glanced around as though he thought they might be hiding.

  ‘Our family,’ she corrected. ‘Gone to the movies.’

  He moved his leg and groaned. ‘Tell me everything,’ she said kneeling down and stroking the cast.

  ‘Everything?’

  ‘About your leg. Falling down the steps. Everything until Mrs Bobbins brought you home.’

  ‘Poppins,’ he said.

  She returned to the kitchen. ‘I was going to fix the vegetables,’ she said. ‘I was going to make you special dinner, darling. Now it must be even more special.’

  She came back with a bowl and a chopping board. The chopping board had a crevice into which a knife fitted. She sat beside him on a stool, balancing the wooden board on her lap. She took out the knife.

  ‘It was very friendly to bring you home,’ she said. She selected an already peeled carrot from the bowl and laid it on the board. His eyes were drawn to the carrot. She did not look up. ‘She is very kind lady.’

  With one fierce chop of the knife she sliced the end off the carrot. Bramwell felt himself pale. ‘I think I need to rest,’ he said.

  Nine

  The two ladies walked down the stone slope from Windsor Castle, picking careful progress over the humps of the cobbles and between other straggling tourists. Mrs Durie surveyed the ramparts with a searching eye. ‘I wonder where her kitchen is,’ she said. Before crossing the main road she helpfully held Mrs Collingwood’s elbow but, by performing an adroit twist of arms and responsibility, the American ended by guiding the Englishwoman across the street.