‘I’m afraid, Mrs Reynolds,’ Stratton began, ‘that we have some bad news . . .’
Eleven
H
alf-past eight. Stratton checked his wristwatch as he stood in front of the door of the Swan pub in Tottenham. The top part had a panel of multicoloured engraved glass, criss-crossed with tape. Stratton peered between the head of a thistle and the leaves of an improbably solid-looking red flower, hoping not to spot the bulbous form of his brother-in-law Reg Booth. He needed a drink after the sort of day he’d had, but having to endure Reg’s company would be too high a price to pay for it. Relations with Reg, which had gone back, more or less, to normal, since his son Johnny’s near brush with a spell in borstal, had become sticky in recent weeks. This was partly due to the fact that Reg, ten years older than either Stratton or Doris’s husband Donald, persisted in playing the schoolmaster or elder statesman or field-marshal or whichever other authority figure took his fancy, and also due to the reaction of Stratton and Donald to the news that Reg had had his right buttock punctured by a bayonet during a Home Guard exercise. Learning of this, they had choked with the effort of concealing their laughter, and, undeterred by the combined reproving stares of Jenny, Doris, the invalid himself, and his long-suffering wife Lilian, the pair of them had bolted from the room to Stratton’s garden shed where they could roar in peace.
It would just have to be his arse, thought Stratton, as he squinted into the gloom. Stratton didn’t know the individual responsible, but Reg was so irritating that he wouldn’t mind betting it wasn’t, as claimed, an accident.
‘Is he in there?’
Stratton turned to see the tall, skinny form of Donald, who was peering over his shoulder. ‘Christ, you made me jump! I can’t see him, but . . .’
‘Want to risk it? Safety in numbers.’
Stratton shrugged. ‘Why not?’
‘Come on then, before they run out. I’ll get them.’
Stratton went in and found a corner table. A few minutes later Donald joined him, looking apologetic, with the beer. ‘Halves only, I’m afraid. It is Thursday.’ Supplies of beer, which had become increasingly erratic, usually ran out before the end of the week.
‘Oh, well. We’ll just have to make them last. Cheers.’
There was no point in asking Donald if he had any spare razor-blades, thought Stratton. His brother-in-law being fairer skinned than he, the poor chap’s chin had now reached the consistency of raw sausage.
‘I’ll bet it’s watered,’ said Donald, peering suspiciously into his glass.
Stratton, who had heard this many times in the past couple of years, wondered if this was actually true, or just part of a general nostalgia for when life’s necessities and pleasures weren’t rationed, curtailed or simply ‘off’.
‘Bad day?’ asked Donald.
Thinking of Byrne and Lamb and Mrs Reynolds’s face and the fruitless search of the bomb-site, Stratton said, ‘I’ve had better. People keep pissing on my head and telling me it’s raining.’
‘Me, too.’ Donald, exempt from the forces courtesy of a perforated eardrum from a childhood bout of scarlet fever, had closed his camera shop the previous year, and was now working for a light engineering firm. (Reg, too old to be called up, never let his two younger brothers-in-law forget he’d served in the Great War, with every third sentence addressed to them beginning, ‘Of course, in the last lot . . .’)
‘Here.’ Stratton fished out his cigarettes. He only had two left, so - unless Donald had some - it meant doing without the last one before bed, which he always enjoyed, but it was worth it for the company.
Donald looked into the packet. ‘It’s all right,’ he said, taking out his own, ‘I’ve got a few.’ Seeing the look of relief cross Stratton’s face, he said, with a sort of gloomy satisfaction, ‘I know. Bloody awful.’
They smoked in companionable silence, with Donald, who was facing the right way, keeping an eye on the door in case Reg should appear. After a couple of minutes he glanced over at the non-activity at the bar and said, ‘Probably be too late now. He won’t get a drink if he does come in, so he’ll bugger off.’
‘Shouldn’t serve him anyway,’ grumbled Stratton. ‘Not his pub.’ Reg lived two streets away from Stratton and Donald and usually frequented the Marquis of Granby, but patronised the Swan just often enough to make constant vigilance a necessity. ‘I didn’t expect to see you, though.’
‘Bit of a turn-up at home.’ Donald grimaced.
‘What happened?’
‘That woman you dug out last night - Mrs Ingram - Doris brought her back from hospital to stay with us.’
‘Why on earth would she do that?’
‘No known relatives, apparently, and the husband’s in the army. She’s in a bad way; Doris can’t get anything out of her.’
‘Shocked, you mean?’
‘She’s that all right. Doris said she didn’t speak all afternoon, and she didn’t seem to understand a word that was said to her. The doctor had a look at her - said she just needs a rest. Then she started repeating things.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, Doris asked her if she wanted a cup of tea - I was there - and she sort of . . . screwed her face up, as if she was trying to make sense of it, and then she said, “Cup-tea, cup-tea,” like a parrot. Doris asked her if she wanted to lie down, and she came back “lie, lie, lie”. And when they went upstairs she went to the bathroom, picked up the nailbrush, and started trying to clean the basin with it. Daft behaviour.’
‘Sounds like shock,’ said Stratton. ‘Takes people different ways. Terrible, losing your house like that - and she’s all on her own. Still, she’s bound to recover once she’s had a bit of a rest. How’s Madeleine liking her job?’ Donald and Doris’s pretty sixteen-year-old daughter, having returned from evacuation in Essex, had started work in a factory that made seats for Lancaster bombers.
‘Loves it. So far, anyw—Oh, Christ.’
‘He’s not, is he?’ asked Stratton, whose back was to the door.
‘Just come in. He’s on his own.’ Their brother-in-law, bulging in Home Guard khaki, was making his way to the bar. Donald put his hand in his pocket and, taking out his penknife, weighed it in his palm, then rolled his eyes horribly and let his tongue loll out of his mouth.
‘Everything went black, Your Honour, and an impulse came over me,’ murmured Stratton.
‘Wish we knew the bloke who speared him in the arse,’ said Donald. ‘I’d buy him a pint.’
‘If you could get it,’ said Stratton, keeping one eye on the bar. ‘Look, she’s not serving him.’
Donald followed his gaze. ‘She’s not put the sign up, though.’ The sign was a piece of wood that hung, all too frequently nowadays, above the bar, chalked with the words ‘Sorry, No Beer’.
‘Look away.’ Stratton hastily produced a stub of pencil and a scrap of paper, and both men bent over, pretending to study it.
‘Think he’s seen us?’ muttered Donald.
‘Dunno. He might pretend he hasn’t now she’s refused to serve him,’ said Stratton, considering that the loss of face might mean a hasty retreat. ‘Don’t look up, for God’s sake.’
‘He might come over to cadge a fag - he’s got the neck.’
‘He’ll be—’
‘Evenin’ all!’ Reg’s liver-coloured face, with its drooping grey moustache, appeared between them, and he clapped Stratton on the shoulder in his usual just-too-hard-to-be-jovial manner. Stratton palmed the paper and shoved it back in his pocket, hoping that his brother-in-law hadn’t noticed it was blank. ‘How’s tricks?’
‘Fine, thanks. Just talking about the allotment.’
‘Got a problem, have you?’ Unlike Stratton, Reg knew bugger-all about gardening, but that didn’t stop him talking balls by the yard.
Donald, who had been glaring at him, asked abruptly, ‘Couldn’t you get served?’
‘They’ve just run out. Not had a chance to put the sign up.’
‘Hmmph.’ Donald gave an upward jerk of his chin that could have meant either ‘Wouldn’t you bleeding know’ or ‘I don’t believe you.’ Reg naturally chose to interpret it as the former, and said, ‘I daresay if she’d known I was coming in . . .’
‘I daresay,’ murmured Stratton, sardonically.
‘Anyway, I’d best be off. Can’t really spare the time, to be honest, but I thought it would be nice for us chaps to have a bit of a chat.’ Given that Stratton and Donald had decided to come to the pub on a whim and without consultation, this statement was patently untrue, but neither man wanted to prolong the encounter by challenging it. Reg then employed the latest refinement in a battery of mannerisms that were already quite annoying enough, thank you very fucking much. He’d started it in the last year, after, Stratton guessed, seeing something similar in a film; it was a particular intense look, as if he were judging whether or not to let you in on some secret or otherwise important development, but then - regretfully - decided that you weren’t quite ready to hear it just yet. This time, he even went as far as opening his mouth, then closing it sharply again before saying with apparent casualness, ‘Seeing as I’m here, you don’t happen to have a cigarette, do you? I’ve run out.’
‘Sorry,’ said Stratton, ‘I’ve run out as well.’
‘Me too,’ said Donald. ‘Just smoked my last.’
This was followed by an impasse, during which Reg stared first at Stratton and then at Donald as if attempting some sort of mental X-ray technique, while they stared back with conspicuously neutral expressions.
‘Well, gents,’ said Reg, when it became apparent that neither of his brothers-in-law was going to relent, ‘I’ll bid you goodnight, then.’
‘’Night, Reg.’
‘’Night.’
Stratton and Donald held their positions as Reg walked slowly to the door, and, turning round, gave them a hurt and lingering last look before disappearing through it.
After a short pause, Donald said, ‘You know what really gets my goat? That look - I thought better of you than that - when you know the fucker’s got half a dozen fags in his pocket.’
Hearing the cue for the start of one of their favourite pastimes (only indulged in private, by unspoken consent, because, although enjoyable, it was undeniably childish), Stratton said, ‘Yes, but the thing that really annoys me are his feet. Why are they so small? Why doesn’t he just fall over?’
‘Pomposity,’ said Donald. ‘Keeps him upright. Especially since he got that sergeant’s stripe. I’m surprised he hasn’t asked us to salute him.’
‘And the way he raises himself up on his toes,’ said Stratton, ‘as if he’s going to fart and wants everyone to know it.’
They continued in this vein for some time, running through Reg’s belief that he was a comedian (and underlining it frequently by describing himself as being ‘cursed’ with a sense of humour); his general buffoonery; his bullying of his wife Lilian, and his air of appearing to know more about everything than anyone else did.
‘But you know the worst thing,’ said Donald, suddenly serious, ‘is that he makes me feel like a complete shit for saying all this, even though he hasn’t got a clue that I’m saying any of it.’
‘Does he? Make you feel bad, I mean?’
Donald held his gaze for a moment, then grinned and shook his head. ‘Naah . . . Come on, drink up and let’s get home. Doris must have Mrs Ingram safely tucked up in bed by now.’
‘Good idea. I could do with an early night myself - then I might have a chance of being able to think straight tomorrow.’
Twelve
T
odd stopped on his way to work to watch the policemen walking slowly and purposefully across the bomb-site, pausing now and then to inspect the ground. The fact that they were still searching after yesterday obviously meant that they had not, so far, found anything of note, which was good. In any case, they wouldn’t find any trace that he’d ever been near the place - he’d been too careful for that. Just as well, since Dr Byrne had pronounced that the death - caused by blows to the head - was suspicious. And the police, clearly, agreed with him.
Across the way, he noticed a gaggle of nurses chattering and laughing amongst themselves, their red capes and white caps standing out, the only clean, bright things in a landscape of dusty greys and buffs. He observed them as an entity, not as individuals, much as he might a group of cows in a field, until one figure, slightly to the left of the centre, drew his eye. He didn’t know exactly what it was about her, but he knew - after what? Thirty seconds? A minute? - that he was looking at his girl. That it was now and it was her impressed him with such force that it might have been a thunderbolt. Yet, strangely, it wasn’t love that he felt, it was, simply and directly, knowing that this one belonged to him. He just knew it. And now he looked more closely, he could see that she was a knockout. Dark hair, dark, almond-shaped eyes, creamy-white skin, nice legs, and, so far as he could make out beneath the cloak, a shapely figure. And she looked as if she were kind - not in a nurse’s way, the put-on, professional caring, but really, properly, kind.
He didn’t stare. That would be rude, and besides, he did not want to draw attention to himself. Now that she was earmarked, she’d keep. And when he was Dr Dacre, he’d have her. He needed her name, though. That was important: he must know who she was. He moved closer, making as if to walk past the nurses, hoping for a closer look as well as information. As he crossed the road, the group began to break up, leaving his girl standing alone on the pavement. She stared at the bomb-site for a moment, apparently in a dream. Another nurse turned back and called out, ‘Come on, Marchant! We’ll be late!’ and then, in exasperation, ‘Fay!’