Piece of Cake (41 page)

“They did. The spirit of the test was perfectly obvious. You were to survive
on your own resources.”

“I used my resources,” CH3 said.

“And they helped you spend them.” Rex waved dismissively at the others.

“I take it we were meant to cooperate,” Moran said.

“Besides, it wasn't all plain sailing,” Fitzgerald added. “I had to haggle like mad with the bloke who owned the Bentley.”

“Oh, get out.”

“B” flight went away.

“The trouble with the rich,” said Rex, “is they think they can buy their way out of everything.”

“You should know,” Skull said.

Rex was taken aback. He slapped some files together and banged them into a tray. “What's that supposed to mean?” he asked.

“Well, by any normal standard your family is extremely rich, isn't it? All those factories. Corsets and so on,” Skull told Kellaway.

“Foundation garments,” Rex said. “And I'd rather it wasn't generally known, if you don't mind.”

“Don't blame you,” Kellaway said.

“It's not a question of snobbery. I don't give a damn whether the factories make knickers or nutcrackers. I just don't want people thinking I'm a soft touch, that's all.”

“Then why do you pay half of everyone's mess bill?” Skull asked.

“Because I choose to. Hornet squadron means a lot to me. I like to think that we set the standard in Fighter Command. I like to think we're something special, in the air
and
on the ground.”

“We are,” Kellaway said loyally.

On the way downstairs, Rex said: “What's he going to do when
he meets a flock of Messerschmitt 110's? Cable his bankers in New York?”

“You're taking it personally,” Skull said. “You should concede that they exhibited considerable initiative, and accept that fact.”

“They
dodged,”
Rex said. “Well, they won't dodge again, I can assure you of that.”

The windows in the summerhouse were made of stained glass. At night the colors died, but the hurricane lamp hanging from a beam was just strong enough to pick out the reds, the blues and the greens. There was an oil-heater beside the door. Hot air trembled above it and lifted specks of dust in a helpless rush toward the roof. The place smelled of paraffin and old apples and hay. The hay was underneath a sheet of canvas, and the canvas was underneath Nicole and Flash.

He felt hot. He put his arms outside the blankets and stretched. His left hand touched a pile of apples, so he took one and ate it, quietly. He was still hot. He opened the blankets and let the air get at his body. Nicole groaned when she felt the draft, so he re-arranged the blankets. She snuggled into them like an animal making its nest, and gave a little grunt of contentment.

After a moment she opened her eyes.

“Flash …” Her voice was still croaky with sleep. “Why haven't you tell me … told me … that you go away … for a week?”

“I didn't have a chance, Nicole. It all happened very suddenly, you see. Would you like an apple?”

“You could have send me … sent to me … a letter.”

“No time, my love. All very urgent, you see. Action stations, emergency, all hands to the pumps.” He took a last bite. “Besides, I'm not much good at letters.”

“Where did you go?”

“Can't tell you, I'm afraid.” He looked for somewhere to put the core, and finally stood it on top of an empty wine-bottle. “Top secret.”

Nicole pressed her face into the blankets. “You disappear during a week,” she said, muffled. “I think you never, never see me again.”

“Yes, well, that's war for you, isn't it?” The top of her back was exposed and he ran a fingernail down her spine. She shivered. “England expects, and so into the valley of the shadow of death ride
the six hundred …” He rubbed his arms, which were developing goosepimples; and that jogged his memory. “Hey! Just remembered. I bought you something.”

He jumped up and fetched a book from his greatcoat pocket.
“The Miracle of Human Biology,
by a bloke called Braine. It's in English, I got it in Geneva. It says—”

“Genève? En Suisse?”

“Yes. Only you're not supposed to know that, sweety. Better forget it. All fearfully hush-hush, you see.” Flash squatted on the blankets, his feet tucked under him. The hurricane lamp picked out the ripple of his ribcage. It gilded his narrow shoulders and his slim flanks but left his front in darkness. Nicole, watching him, thought he could he any age from fifteen upward: he was so completely unmarked, so light and free.
He seems more natural with his clothes off,
she thought, and then told herself:
Well naturally, of course he does, you idiot
… “There's a very interesting bit about why people blush,” Flash said, flipping the pages. “Do you blush, Nicky? I used to blush all the time. He says—”

She reached out and plucked the book from his hands. “I don't care what he says.
Ce n'est pas important.
”

“Oh.” He linked his hands on the top of his head and rocked on his heels. “Well,
qu'est-ce que c'est
… um …
important?”

“Nous sommes importants.”
She wriggled out of the blankets, and something in the pit of his stomach lurched. He stopped rocking.
Steady on, Gordon,
he told himself.
You'll do yourself a damage if you go on like this …

“Listen, Flash,” she said. “Perhaps you go away again next week, yes?”

“No. Well, it's possible. I mean, the way I see it—”

“I don't like to be left alone. It makes me very unhappy.”

“Oh, me too.” He gripped his left big toe with his right, and made them wrestle. “I agree, it's a shocking bind. But that's war for you, isn't it? Not much anyone can do.”

“There is one thing we can do.”

“What's that?”

“The same as lots of other people do.”

“We've already done that. I can probably manage another helping, if that's what—”

“Flash listen. It's different for you. You have your squadron,
your friends, your flying. But I am alone. When you go away … You could be transferred tomorrow and then … Don't you: understand? I'm no good alone. I'm afraid.”

“Get yourself a dog. Nice labrador.”

She hit him with the book.

“You've gone and broken it,” he said, rubbing his arm.

“Good! Good!
I break all your arms! I break your legs! I break your head, your stupid English head!”

“Not me, you idiot. You've broken the book.”

She hit him with it again. Torn pages fluttered.

“For God's sake! What the hell's the matter with you?”

Now she was crying. Within seconds the tears were running down her cheeks and splashing on her breasts. Flash had never seen anyone cry so much, so fast. He was alarmed but he was also intrigued, and made a mental note: female tear-ducts. “What's wrong with labradors?” he said. “Very chummy dogs.”

“You, you're a stupid! You don't think, you don't feel, you have no heart …” She went off into a stream of tear-stained, hiccuping, incomprehensible French.

“Well, I'm sorry I'm a stupid,” he said. He put his arms around her and to his surprise she came willingly, eagerly. “It's not my fault. I happen to come from a very long line of stupids. You may not believe this, but my family is descended from an original Norman stupid. His name was Sir Gordon de Stupid. If you want pure stupid breeding, you couldn't do better than us.”

“I want. I want very much.”

“Ah.” Suddenly he understood, and the shock of discovery startled him. “You actually want … I mean the idea is that you and I … Are you sure? It's a jolly big step, you know.”

She said something incoherent to his chest, but it sounded happy and affirmative.

“Yes. I see. Well, why didn't you say so, in the first place? You could've saved all this fuss.” They lay down, still in each other's arms. Flash found a part of the book under his ear, and fished it out. “Here it is!” he said. “Braine on blushing. Lie still while I read it to you.”

“I know all that stuff.”

“Ah, but this is about
English
blushing. It's in a class of its own. Listen …”
The important thing,
Fitz told himself as he walked to the front door,
the only thing that matters, the thing that matters more than anything else, is not to worry about it.

He swung the knocker. His stomach was as tight as a washboard.

Relax completely and forget it. Otherwise you make yourself your own worst enemy. Just let nature take its course.

Mary Blandin opened the door and gave him such a happy smile that he swayed slightly. They kissed, briefly, and he went in.

You have nothing to fear but fear itself,
Fitz thought sternly. Where had he read that? In one of the sex manuals he bought in Switzerland? No …

“I missed you a lot,” she said.

“Me too. I kept wishing I had a photograph.”

“So did I. We ought to take some.”

“With or without clothes?”

“I don't mind. Which would you prefer?”

“I think I'll compromise. I'd like you in Wellington boots and white gloves.”

“All right, and I'll have you in spats and a black mask.”

The thought of it made him anxious. “I brought you these,” he said. They were gramophone records, from Geneva.

“How marvelous! Paul Whiteman, Count Basie, Henry Hall … You
are
kind.”

He told her about the survival exercise, while she cooked apple pancakes. CH3 interested her. “I'd like to meet him, one day,” she said.

“Why not? Mind you, he's a funny chap. Very charming and clever and all that, but a bit ruthless. Not much give-and-take.”

“You value a bit of give-and-take, do you?”

For a moment he thought she was teasing him, and the pulse in his head hammered a little. “I don't know,” he said. “We all fly together, so we ought to trust each other. The trouble with CH3 is he's got his own way of doing everything. That's no good, is it? If you join a squadron, you join it.”

“Perhaps it's because he's always had too much money.”

“Maybe. Maybe he thinks he's entitled to everything.”

They ate, and argued cheerfully about the rights and wrongs of inherited wealth. Fitz drank quite a lot of wine, which Mary
noticed, and he noticed that she noticed it.
That's nothing to worry about,
he told himself.

Later, they pushed the table into a corner and danced to the new records. Fitz was a good dancer. They slow-foxtrotted with his strong right arm guiding her, and he began to enjoy himself. She was lithe, and light on her feet, and she responded willingly. He was in command!

While he was re-winding the gramophone she turned off the lights, leaving only the glow of the fire, and went to her bedroom. She came back wearing a sleeveless silk dress that gleamed like ivory in the firelight. They danced again:
Blue Skies, Tea for Two, You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To.
She put both arms around his neck. “Mary,” he murmured. “You're not wearing anything under that dress, are you?”

“It took you an awful long time to find out, Fitz.”

“Well, the light's not very good.”

He took the silk in his fingertips and raised it to her shoulders. Now her skin gleamed like ivory. She curled her head out of the dress. He let it fall, and they walked to the bedroom. He was trembling, his heartbeat seemed to have an irregular wallop in it, he lost two buttons getting his shirt off; but as soon as he slid between the sheets and his hand touched her side, he knew it was no good. They hugged eagerly and kissed greedily, but there was a part of him that wasn't having any.

“Poor Fitz,” she said after a while.

“I'm not poor, I'm penniless.”

“Never mind. One day we'll both be rich.”

“Not a hope. I think my assets have been frozen.”

“Never mind, dear. I expect it's like riding a bicycle. One day, all of a sudden, it'll come naturally.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“That's terrible news. It took me four whole years to learn how to ride a bike.”

“You couldn't have been really trying.”

“I kept falling off.”

“No danger of that here. I'll keep a tight grip on you.”

Eventually he got dressed, and they played the rest of the gramophone records until Flash Gordon bipped his horn outside.
It was only when he was going out that Fitz saw the broken window in the front door. It had been roughly patched with plywood. “What happened here?” he asked.

“Oh … Nothing important. We've got some unpleasant characters in the village. They don't approve of the British.” She pointed to a yellow crayon scribble on the door:
Merde anglaise.

“Good God! That's awful.”

“I agree, dear. The colors don't match.” Flash was revving his engine. “Go on, it's freezing.”

Fitz was dreading the routine inquiry he got from Flash about what sort of evening he'd had, but tonight he was spared it. Flash had big news. “Guess what!” he said, rear wheels spinning on the packed snow.

“What?”

“Nicole wants to have a baby.”

“Really? What on earth for?”

“Dunno. Why not? Perfectly natural thing for a woman to want, I'd have thought.”

“Yes, but … Are you sure? I mean, doesn't she want to get married first?”

Flash was about to say:
No, she didn't say anything about that,
when he got an urgent warning signal from a remote corner of his brain; and he remained silent while he rapidly reviewed recent events. Marriage? Was that what she'd been driving at? Marriage. Ah. Not just babies. Marriage too. “Yes, I expect so,” he said casually, but his mind was still being bombarded with violent images of vicars and organs and confetti and bloody bridesmaids and blurred photographs in the local paper. Christ Almighty! Marriage!