Crooked Heart (11 page)

Vee found herself walking backwards whilst gabbling apologies.

‘Shall we see one another at Hamish's gathering?' asked Mrs Gifford. ‘I understand it'll be splendid. That's if we don't have another thunderstorm, there was a terrific one just last night.'

‘Yes, that'll be lovely,' said Vee, ‘pleasure to meet you.' She pulled at Noel's arm and he followed reluctantly.

‘Bye!' called Vee, clattering down the stairs. On the first landing, she waited for Noel to catch up. He came slowly, smoothing out the creases in the piece of paper he'd been given by Mrs Gifford, and when he reached Vee, he held it up, level with her eyes.

It was a twenty-pound note.

She might have gone on gawping at it for several minutes, her eyes waltzing across the inked curlicues, if, from the hall below, she hadn't heard a key turn in the lock.

‘Handbag,
handbag
,' she hissed, urgently, opening it, and Noel refolded the note across a set of old creases, and tucked it next to her compact.

The front door closed, and then there was silence. Someone was standing in the hall.

Vee put her finger to her lips and Noel nodded.

They waited. After what felt like half a year, there was the sudden stamp of boots up the stairs, and round the corner came the warden.

Vee smiled guiltily. ‘Hello again.'

‘Still here?' he asked. ‘I thought I heard something.'

‘We're just going.'

‘Mrs Gifford cough up, did she?'

‘Sixpence,' said Vee, her mouth dry. He wasn't a policeman, but he had a uniform. And a watchfulness that belied the grin. ‘We have to get going,' she said. ‘My son wants his tea.'

‘Who are you collecting for, anyhow?'

‘Dunkirk Widows and—' She felt, rather than saw, Noel flinch. ‘I mean . . .'

The warden tilted his head to read the inscription on the box. ‘Pilots' Benevolent, it says on there.'

‘We collect for all sorts.'

‘Kind of you.' He held Vee's gaze. Beautiful eyes, she caught herself thinking; pity about his skin – he must have been one giant pimple as a youth.

‘We like to do our bit,' she said, trying to look modest and go backwards down the stairs at the same time. ‘I expect you're busy yourself.'

‘Not as busy as Jerry. You from round here?'

‘Chalk Farm.'

‘Which road?'

‘Donald Street. Come on laddie, pilchards on toast for you when we get home.'

She grasped Noel's shoulder and steered him down to the hall, and when she risked a look back, the warden was still at the bend of the stairs, but he was looking upwards towards Mrs Gifford's room.

Once outside, every bit of her seemed to tremble, panic and excitement combined.

‘You heard that rustling noise when she was getting the banknote,' she said to Noel. ‘There's more where that came from; she's stuffed with money,
stuffed
. And she's taken to you. If we go back there we—' She heard a footstep and whipped round, expecting to see the warden hurtling after them, or a copper with a whistle, but it was only a postman, crossing the road.

She lowered her voice, but she couldn't stop talking, the words were flying out. ‘We'd only have to go once a fortnight, I expect she'd be glad to see you. It's a kindness, really, it's not as if she's spending it on anything, we'd not be depriving her, though we'd have to stay clear of that fellow, he knows something's up. Wonder if he works shifts? We could find out, the warden's post must be round here somewhere, shouldn't be hard to track it down. Chop chop,' she said to Noel, giving him a
little push; he was moving like someone wading through water. They turned the corner to the bus stop, and there, twenty yards beyond it, was a concrete pill box with a red ‘D' painted by the door, and outside it a lady warden in overalls, smoking a cigarette and gazing skywards. Ask and thou shalt be given, thought Vee. She parked Noel by a garden gate – didn't want to be recalled, later, as the woman with the kid who was asking questions – and walked over to the smoker.

‘Ever so sorry to bother you,' she said. ‘I just wanted to check who the warden is for Chetwynd Road.'

‘It's Mac.'

‘Mac?'

‘Ray McIver. He does four till midnight – wait around for ten minutes and he'll be here. Or can I help?' She was blonde with sausage curls and a good figure, but one of her eyes was lower than the other so the curls and the figure wouldn't ever be more than icing on a rock-cake.

‘I was only wondering.' Vee was already moving away, avoiding questions. ‘Thanks for your help.'

The bus nosed round the corner.

‘Stay away from him,' said the warden, indistinctly.

‘What?'

‘Bit of advice for you. Stay away from Ray McIver.' The woman pinched out her fag, and ducked into the pillbox, leaving Vee with her mouth open. Was this – surely not – was this
jealousy
? Was Sausage Curls viewing her as a rival? She stuck out her hand for the bus and watched her reflection slide into view. You couldn't see much between the strips of tape on the window, but at least her eyes were on the level and her wave was natural. She tried a smile.

‘You getting on?' asked the conductor. ‘This isn't a boodwah.'

It wasn't until she and Noel were standing on the train, squashed against a compartment door, surrounded by soldiers,
that a key difficulty occurred to her. She'd never had a twenty-pound note in her life. What on earth could she do with such a thing? Who might change it for her without asking questions?

‘Fag for the lady?' enquired a corporal.

‘Don't mind if I do.' She smiled at him as he lit it, and then realized that his other hand was sliding across her rear end. She jerked backwards and crushed his knuckles between her right buttock and the door frame. ‘Oops,' she said, ‘ever so sorry,' and he wrenched his hand away and muttered ‘Stringy old bitch', which sliced her to the marrow.

She turned her head away and glanced down at Noel. He had his face pressed to the glass and his shoulders were twitching. For a horrid moment she thought he was laughing at her, and then she heard a watery breath.

‘What's wrong?' she asked. ‘Have you got a pain?'

He didn't answer, just went on crying quietly.

‘Cheer up,' she said. ‘We'll be home soon.'

Their new flat was much nearer the station than the old – just over the footbridge and down a lane that ran past the Masons' Hall. Noel cried the whole way home, and their downstairs neighbour Mr Clare, who was arranging paperbacks on a shelf outside his bookshop, asked ‘Whatever'th the matter with Thunny Jim?'

‘Tonsils,' said Vee, opening the next door and pushing Noel in ahead of her. She closed it, shutting them both in the little turnaround at the base of the stairs.

‘Now what's this?' she asked. ‘You can't go around bawling. Whatever got you started?'

His face had lost its usual blankness; he looked like a toddler, features flailing.

‘Go on,' she ordered.

His words, when they came, were so breathy and broken that she had to bend to catch them.

‘I miss Mattie,' he said.

‘Who's Mattie?'

‘My godmother that I lived with.'

‘Is that the one in Hampstead, you said her name that first night? The lady doctor?'

‘She wasn't a doctor, she had a PhD. Her thesis was on Thomas Fuller and the origins of wit.' Speaking seemed to decrease the flow of tears. He lowered himself on to the bottom stair and rested his head on his knees.

‘So who were the people I sent the postcard to?'

‘Just some people. Mattie's cousins. I had to go and live with them when she died.'

‘And they never replied,' she said, wonderingly; it was the first time she'd even thought of it. ‘And what made you think of your godmother all of a sudden?'

Noel squashed his face against his legs. ‘Before Mattie died she got ill,' he said, his voice muffled. ‘She got senile dementia.'

‘What's that?'

There was a pause. He licked the salt off his knees. ‘It's when old people go mad.'

Madness. Needles and straitjackets. The booby-hatch. Screaming in corridors. She knew what that was like.

‘And you were living with her when she started to go . . . you know . . . ?'

‘Yes.'

She thought of Noel sitting amidst the chaos of Mrs Gifford's room. She remembered his eagerness to enter the house, his composure in the face of the squalor within, and something inside her seemed to twist, and then loosen.

‘Well,' she said, ‘you poor lad.'

For a while, neither of them spoke. From upstairs came a man's voice, warmly patronizing, talking about indigestion.

‘It's the radio doctor,' said Vee. ‘Must be nearly half past five. I'll have to set out supper. You hungry?'

‘No.'

‘Go on. You can have my egg.'

After a moment, he nodded.

‘Good boy,' she said, ‘up you go, then.'

T
he Bull was packed, even though there was a sign at the bar that read ‘No Beer, No Spirits'.

‘Not seen you in here for a while,' said Win Jackson, as Donald sat down with a ginger ale. ‘Someone says to me you'd been done over but I didn't believe them. I says, “I don't believe you,” and this chap says, “Honest as I speak, someone's done Donald Sedge over,” and I says, “I don't believe you.” Was you, though?'

‘Dispute,' said Donald. ‘Over a lady. You should have seen the other bloke.' He took a sip. The snug was a riot of Venetian mirror-glass and he could see his own face six times over, from every angle. The bruising had gone, but his nose had only recently re-emerged from its cushion of swelling and it was not the nose that he had known before; it wasn't deformed or grotesque, but there was an angle to the bridge that was unfamiliar. Donald turned his head from side to side, trying to gauge the effect upon his profile, and then he lit a cigarette and watched himself inhale. He tried to blow the smoke out through his nostrils, but they were still partially blocked, and only a thin jet came squirting out of the left one, like steam from a kettle.

‘I never met a tart who was worth a fight,' said Win, reflectively. ‘She from round here?'

Donald shook his head.

‘Thought as much. When you said that, I thought, “She can't be from round here, because the tarts round here, they're not worth a fight.” Got a fag? Ta.'

‘Where's everyone else?' asked Donald, looking around for the other regulars. He didn't want to get stuck on his own with the biggest bore in Hertfordshire. ‘Win' was a nickname, short for ‘Winchester Repeater'; the man would send you crackers in fifteen minutes.

‘There are tarts you'd fight for, and tarts you wouldn't,' said Win, ‘and the ones round here, you
wouldn't
.'

‘I said, where's everyone else? Where's Cyril Brixley?'

‘Cyril's joined the navy. I said to him, “You can't swim,” and he said, “They'll give me a lifebelt.” Can't hardly believe that, can you? Joined the navy and he can't even swim. Not a stroke.'

‘Frank Collingbourne? Arthur Gee? Harry Stanley?'

‘Frank's gone to Egypt with the Welch Fusiliers. He said, “Don't tell anyone, it's a secret, but they're sending us to Egypt.” I said, “If it's a secret, why are you telling me?” which had him stumped. Arthur's navy as well, though he
can
swim, and Harry's joined the RAF because he says tarts go for the uniform. I said to him, “What have you joined the RAF for?” and he said—'

‘What about you?'

‘—he said, “Because I've heard tarts go for the uniform,”' finished Win, determinedly. ‘I'm reserved, aren't I?'

‘I thought you worked at the barber's.'

‘Joined the specials in March, and they're taking me on permanent. The station sergeant called me into his office and said, “How would you like to join the force permanent?” and I said, “I only joined the specials in March,” but he said it's all the fifth columnists, the country's chocka with spies, they need more police on the lookout and I'm just the sort they want. I arrested two enemy aliens last month.'

‘What happened?' asked Donald, curious in spite of himself.

‘I was proceeding westward from the Market Cross when I heard two women talking in a foreign tongue behind Waterend Barn about ten forty-five at night – you know, the place where they have the weekend dances?' Donald nodded, and Win carried on reading from his imaginary police notebook. ‘I stopped them and inspected their identity cards. On discovering they were registered enemy aliens, I pointed out to them that it was an offence for them to be absent from their registered addresses after ten thirty p.m. A week later, they appeared before the Bench charged with an offence under the Aliens' Movement (Restriction) Order 1940. Each was fined five pounds. Matter of fact,' added Win, leaning forward and speaking conspira torially, though it was hard to hear him through the din, ‘they were here in the Bull this evening, on the other side of the lounge bar. One of them's a bit of all right. Blonde.'

‘So they're not spies?'

‘
They're
not.'

‘Who is, then?'

‘Oh no, you won't get me like that,' said Win, as if evading an elaborate and cunning ambush. ‘The girls said the same thing to me that night, they said, “We're not spies,” and I said, “I'm not saying you're spies, I'm saying you're absent from your registered address after ten thirty p.m. at night, which is an offence under the—”'

Having reloaded, he rattled on. Over by the bar, somebody dropped a glass and there was a cheer and a surge of khaki.

‘All over my fooking boots, you fooking fooker!' bellowed a northern voice.

Donald glanced around, clocking the faces. It was ridiculous, he knew, but he kept expecting to bump into that bastard Fielding, now in uniform and thirsting for further vengeance. The worry of it had kept him at home, long after he could have
resumed his career; he'd had a few offers, sent on from the old address. There was one that had come only today in a cream envelope, lined with maroon tissue, the paper watermarked, the handwriting beautiful, dark violet ink, a flowing purple filigree across the page.
I am writing to enquire about your availability on the morning of Thursday, 29th October in Kensington, London, for a task for which I believe you are heartily qualified
.

There'd been no mention of money in the letter, but the writer had used the phrase ‘mutually agreeable arrangement', which Donald sensed might be an opportunity to raise his rate again. The 1904s were being called up now, which meant that the letter-writer would probably be well into his thirties, someone with a substantial career and cash to spare. ‘JD' he'd signed it. It would be a gentlemanly sort of name. Jasper. Jolyon. Bespoke suits. Gold cufflinks. A house with a basement and a bell-pull and a hall floor like a marble draughts board.
Mr Sedge Esquire? Do come in
. Tea in cups that matched, served on a table whose legs were all the same length.

He had almost written to accept, but couldn't dispel a nudging nervousness at the prospect of travelling into London. Aside from the bombs, he didn't know his way around. He'd never even been on the underground and Londoners were sharp, on the lookout for country types; he wanted to appear worldly and smooth and was afraid he'd arrive on the doorstep of JD's house two hours late and robbed blind.

He'd never been taught anything
useful
, he thought, bitterly. School had wasted him, had never considered that a man might want a wider life. Sums on slates and rows of pot-hooks, a fortnight off for the harvest every year, and here he was at nineteen, afraid to visit his own capital city. One day he'd take taxis everywhere, or have a Bentley with a chauffeur in a pearl-grey uniform and white gloves . . .

‘Pardon,' said Win, over a noise like a burst tyre, and Donald
found himself back in the world of farts and cider, the taste of gingerless ginger ale sickly on his tongue.

‘Here, I haven't told you about the burglar what keeps stealing fruit off people,' said Win. ‘The sarge called me in to his office and he said, “You won't guess what this chap keeps nicking,” and I said, “I'm no good at guessing, Sarge, you'll have to tell me,” and he said, “Fruit,” and I said, “You're having me on,” and he said, “I'm dead serious, he steals fruit.”' He drained his glass. ‘Another one?'

Donald shook his head. ‘No, I'm off.' He left half the drink and pushed his way to the door.

It was moonless, as dark as if someone had thrown a black cloth over the town. Donald waited for a few seconds, and saw a white line emerge gradually from beneath his feet and slide into the night: the painted stripe that marked the edge of the pavement. He switched on his torch, aimed the faint splash of light a yard or two ahead and started to walk slowly, one arm extended to fend off lamp-posts. The town lost all familiarity in the blackout; distances stretched, a hundred yards seemed half a mile, turnings disappeared or multiplied.

He crossed the road by the Co-op, and nearly got his nose sliced off by an invisible bicycle flying along in the centre of the road, and then he stumbled over a sandbag on the opposite pavement, flung out an arm and hit something that screamed.

‘Sorry.'

‘You haff a torch?' A hand clutched his arm, and the light jerked up to reveal red lips and a long white face, blonde hair curling to the shoulders, a humming-bird brooch on the coat lapel. ‘Can we borrow you? We haff flad badderies.'

‘Where are you heading to?'

‘Not far. What is your name?'

‘Donald.'

‘
Duck!
' she shrieked, her voice splintering off into giggles.
‘My name is Birgit and I must warn you I haff to hurry home because I am an
alien
.'

She leaned in to whisper the last word, and her brooch speared him in the neck with its beak.

‘I was just talking to someone about you,' he said, swaying back.

She looked delighted. ‘Is it true?'

‘A local policeman.'

‘Oh yes, he was very, very cruel.' Despite this, she sounded buoyant. ‘So many people are suspicious and yet every day I'm in the factory, working and working for the war effort. I haff a great big machine and I swivel, punch, lift, swivel, punch. I am getting very
strong
– like you,' she added, and gave Donald's bicep a squeeze. ‘Where do you live?'

‘The end of this road.'

‘And we are at the hostel by Brickett Wood Common. It's very kind of you to walk with us, Mr Duck, with your great big torch!'

‘Brickett Wood? That's back the other way.'

‘Is it?'

‘You've gone a quarter-mile in the wrong direction.'

‘I
tolt
you,' muttered a voice from behind. Donald looked round but could see nothing but a shape in the darkness, a pale blob beneath a knitted tam.

‘I am such a silly
goose
!' said Birgit, brightly. ‘Right and left and left and right are not my friends and they neffer will be my friends! In fact, they are my enemies! War on left and right and right and left!' Her voice was very loud. ‘And now we will haff to hurry. Come on, Mr Duck!'

‘
Warum musst du immer so schreien?
' asked the voice from behind.

‘No,' said Birgit, ‘I am not always shouting, Hilde, I am speaking clearly because I am a foreigner and I want the English to be able to understand my accent, and not to hear me
muddering in German like you do all the time, like a
troll
. You can understand me, can't you?' she asked, tightening her grip on Donald's arm.

‘Yes. You're German then?'

‘No!' The peal of laughter nearly took his ear off. ‘I
hate
Germans.'

‘Austrian,' said the small voice from behind.

‘But I love the English, and I love the English country and all the lovely birds and flowers, and the beer and cake and the lovely tea.' Every noun was accompanied by a bounce on the toes and a tug on Donald's arm; it was like taking a terrier for a walk. ‘If I was English I would fight and fight to keep all the beer and cake and lovely tea.'

‘
Österreichischer Kuchen ist viel besser
,' said the small, dark voice.

‘No they are not, Hilde.'

‘Yes they are. Austrian cakes are far bedder than English cakes, they are famous over the world.'

‘You must try to ignore her, Mr Duck, because she is not a very happy or grateful person, and it is my bad luck to be stuck together with her, just because we are aliens. And I try hard to be happy and be a good pal and join in with all the fun!'

‘Sachertorte is not like a jam sponge that anyone can make. People would come all the way from another country to eat Sachertorte.'

‘So are you not in the army, Mr Duck?'

‘My name's Donald Sedge.'

‘Yes, but Duck is my little joke!' He flinched away before Birgit could laugh again.

‘I'm in a reserved occupation,' he said, and the phrase felt perfect in his mouth.

‘What is that?'

‘I can't talk about it. It's hush-hush.'

‘Oh, but of course I understand. Loose lips sink ships! Be like Dad keep Mum!'

‘Shud
up
, Birgit,' said the voice from behind.

‘Don't tell me to shud up, please.'

The other girl replied in German, and a hissed argument ensued, Donald's arm jerking back and forth with every exchange.

‘Left down here and then on the right,' said Birgit, midharangue. ‘The big house with the tree.'

‘
Small
house,' said Hilde, disparagingly.

‘Don't listen please, Donald. It is very comfortable and pleasant.'

‘The curtains are made of
sacking
.'

‘We are very grateful to the people of England.'

‘By my house in Wiener Neustadt the kitchen maid had bedder curtains.'

‘I shall sing a song so you can't hear her voice. Do you know “Can I Forget You”?'

‘This one?' asked Donald, raising the torch and catching the bottom half of a gatepost, with an old sign reading
The Beeches
and a newer one advertising it as a hostel for women workers. It occurred to him that he'd heard of it; the place was known locally as ‘The Bitches'.

Birgit disengaged her arm. ‘Thank you so much,' she said, warmly. ‘It was very, very kind of you to take us all the way home. Wasn't it, Hilde?'

There was a mutter in reply, drowned by a series of girlish screams from the other side of the road, and the noise of a man pretending to be a lion. Birgit did another of her gay laughs.

‘And now that will be Avis and Pam back from their dance. Avis! Pam! Are you back from your dance? Have you brought a wild beast with you?'