Never Go Back (2 page)

Operation Tabula Rasa - or Clean Sheet, as its participants more commonly referred to it - was the brainchild of Professor Alexander Mclntyre of Aberdeen University. He wanted to test his theory that anyone could be taught any academic subject to a reasonable level of proficiency, given the right environment and the right methods. Kilveen Castle, thirty miles inland from Aberdeen and available at a bargain rent, was deemed by him to be an ideally secluded location for such an experiment. And a group of National Servicemen who had kicked over the traces of Forces discipline constituted appropriately unpromising material. Through the good offices of a cousin of his, an Assistant Under-Secretary of State at the Air Ministry, the RAF agreed to provide fifteen such bad boys, hoiked from punishment units, detention centres and guardroom cells at short notice in March 1955, for a three-month trial. If Professor Mac wanted them, it was implied, he was welcome to them.

Professor Mac was afterwards heard to complain that three months was not enough. Six was the minimum necessary. But the University, who were paying the rent and supplying the teaching staff, would not go beyond three. Nor would the RAF, who reluctantly seconded a flight lieutenant and a warrant officer from 612 Squadron at Dyce to ensure the fifteen recalcitrants did not run amok.

Thus, in a sense, the experiment was doomed to failure from the outset. From the point of view of the participants, however — the students, as Professor Mac called them — it was a resounding success. Three months lounging around a classroom in a Scottish castle studying art, literature, history, algebra, geometry, psychology, philosophy and suchlike with less than determined zeal involved a modicum of mental effort and occasional bouts of cataleptic boredom, but was so vastly preferable to the alternatives that not a single voice was raised in protest. Nor did anyone abscond, disrupt the proceedings or steal so much as a teaspoon. In disciplinary terms if in no other, they were model students. The three months passed uneventfully and ended with few signs of startling intellectual progress, at least as far as Aircraftman Harry Barnett was concerned, although one or two of his fellow students succeeded in developing scholarly habits if not attainments. It was, nonetheless, not what Professor Mac had been hoping for. He went back to the drawing board. While Harry and the other Clean Sheeters went their separate ways. Harry found himself posted to RAF Records, Gloucester, for the remainder of his service. Chipchase was despatched to a battery-charging station on the south coast. They did not meet again for several years. And they did not even dream of meeting the thirteen men with whom they had shared a Nissen hut in the grounds of Kilveen Castle, Aberdeenshire, for the three months in the spring of 1955.

—«»—«»—«»—

The Nissen hut was happily long gone. Accommodation for the Clean Sheet reunion was going to be in the Kilveen Castle Hotel’s luxury guestrooms. This was just one of the nuggets of information contained in Johnny Dangerfield’s latest round robin, which Harry perused over a pint in the Glue Pot on his way back from the station. Dangerfield had clearly done extremely well in the oil business to judge by the lavishness of the entertainment he was laying on. But he had always been a generous soul, quick to offer the loan of a quid or a drag on his cigarette. It was, to that extent, in character. The e-mailed photographs of Kilveen Castle suggested it had hardly altered outwardly. The original sixteenth-century building was a stocky, mean-windowed tower sporting turrets at the corners and battlements between, to which had been added, a couple of hundred years later, like a smart new growth from a gnarled tree stump, a plain but well-proportioned Georgian gentleman’s residence. The interior in Harry’s day had been more than a little dilapidated, especially in the tower. The rooms had had a bang-up-to-date designer makeover since then, however, with rich-toned fabrics and fine-lined furniture much in evidence. The dining room where they had eaten frugal meals in draughty gloom had been transformed into an elegant restaurant, while the classroom where they had blunted their wits on cubism and calculus was now a stylish conference centre equipped with every technological aid known to corporate man.

If Kilveen Castle was wearing its years lightly, the same could not be said of all the veterans of Operation Clean Sheet. Dangerfield had supplied notes on their careers and accomplishments since, though in some cases these were distinctly sparse. He described himself as ‘pensioned off by an oil giant and divorced by a man-eater’, but his address — Sweet Gale Lodge, Pitfodels, Aberdeen — did not sound like a hovel and Harry saw no reason to doubt Lloyd’s assertion that ‘Danger’s rolling in it’.

Lloyd himself had spent forty years shuffling paper for the Cardiff Port Authority and boasted a wife and three grown children. It was not a life story to set the pulse racing. Nor was Askew’s. Crooked had apparently worked with animals in assorted zoos and vets’ practices. His relations with humans were a blank.

A blank was nonetheless preferable to a full stop. Mike ‘Three Foot’ Yardley had written himself off in a motorbike accident in 1964. Les ‘Smudger’ Smith, double-glazing salesman, had succumbed to a heart attack while explaining his employer’s unique beading system to a client in Chatham in 1993. Leroy ‘Coker’ Nixon had drowned (circumstances unknown) in 1983. And Lester ‘Piggott’ Maynard, after making something of a name for himself as a radio comedy scriptwriter, had died of AIDS in 1987, which some — not including Harry — had already realized on account of a couple of newspaper obituaries at the time. In addition, Ernie ‘Babber’ Babcock, long emigrated to Australia, was reported to be gaga following a stroke. Thus the original fifteen had been shorn to ten for the reunion Dangerfield had taken it into his head to arrange.

Some of them had clearly done better than others. Gilbert ‘Tapper’ Tancred never had been a dullard. Harry could remember him surprising the tutors at Kilveen on several occasions with the breadth of his knowledge. And he had been responsible for the more ingenious of the nicknames conferred on every one of the Clean Sheeters. It was no surprise to learn that he had finessed his way into the City, prospered in the pinstripe-suited world of merchant banking and retired to suburban leisure in Carshalton Beeches. His intellectual equal, Neville ‘Magister’ Wiseman, had likewise done well and was now a semi-retired art dealer living in London SW1. Bill ‘Judder’ Judd had risen from hod-carrier to house-builder courtesy of several property booms and still had a hand in what had become a family business in Essex — Judd & Sons. Those three plus Dangerfield counted as definite success stories.

The story was less happy where Owen ‘Gregger’ Gregson was concerned. He had taken early retirement from Colman’s Mustard of Norwich to care for a disabled wife and keep pigeons. It did not sound as if his fifty years since Clean Sheet had been fun-packed. Nor did those of Milton ‘Paradise’ Fripp, bookkeeper for a laundry in Derby prior to uneventful, unmarried retirement.

It was perhaps as well that Harry remained for the purposes of the round robin a question mark. He could only assume his mother had thrown away Dangerfield’s initial letter, mistaking it for junk mail, which she had often complained about. What if she had sent it on to him: would he have volunteered about himself anyway? Ten years filing memos for Swindon Borough Council; seven running a garage business that ended in Chipchase-induced bankruptcy; six holding down a desk job with Mallender Marine in Weymouth; nine lotus-eating in Rhodes; six going to seed in London; and ten married to a beautiful, brainy American academic: it was hardly an arrow-straight progression and an explanation of every turn it had taken was best not attempted for a number of very good reasons.

Chipchase could have supplied some of this information, of course, but he seemed to have been as reticent concerning Harry as he had been concerning himself. Dangerfield said that he had ‘contacted Fission just as he was about to relocate to South Africa, a move he’s magnanimously put on hold so that he can join us at Kilveen, pending which he’s shacking up at my humble abode’. There was no mention of anything Chipchase had done in the intervening years, but he was surely going to have to come up with some sort of account of himself when he met his old comrades face to face.

Among those comrades he presumably did not expect Harry to figure. Dangerfield would get a phone call from Lloyd tonight reporting that they had struck lucky in Swindon. Only then would Chipchase realize that Harry was going to reappear in his life. They had last met, entirely by chance, in Washington DC more than ten years ago. At that time, Chipchase had been romancing the wealthy widow of a Yorkshire undertaker. Somehow, Harry suspected little had come of that in view of the old reprobate’s imminent relocation to South Africa — assuming such relocation was not a cover story in itself. All in all, he was looking forward to subjecting Chipchase to some gentle grilling.

And if he did not do it, others might. Professor Mac was dead and gone, so was in no position to be curious about whether his experiment had had any long-term effects. But his gloomy young research assistant, Donald Starkie, now Dr Starkie and far from young but probably still gloomy, was going to join them and might be expected to pursue the question. The fact that he would be accompanied by an old student of his from the University, Erica Rawson, certainly suggested that something more than a simple knees-up was planned. Dangerfield had not quibbled over her attendance, apparently. ‘I’m sure I speak for all of us in welcoming some young, intelligent — and, more to the point, pretty — female company. Just don’t mention her to your wives/partners/ girlfriends/live-in lovers!’

—«»—«»—«»—

Harry did indeed fail to mention Erica Rawson when he telephoned Donna late that night. But that was because there were so many other things to say rather than because he had taken Dangerfield’s sexist sentiments on board. Donna, as he had expected, was all in favour of him making the trip to Aberdeenshire.

‘You’ve got to go, hon. I remember you telling me about the place. You absolutely have to find out what these guys have been up to since.’

‘Not a lot’s my bet. It could be a dire weekend.’

‘But Barry will be there, right?’

‘Apparently.’

‘Well, you’ll enjoy seeing him again, won’t you?’

‘I’m not sure enjoy’s the word, but—’

‘Go for it. What have you got to lose?’

‘A couple of days out of my house-clearing schedule.’

‘You’ll just have to work harder when you get back.’

‘OK, but—’

‘Daisy and I’ll expect a postcard. And take a camera. I’ll want to see how these reprobates have aged compared with my craggily handsome husband.’

‘You think it’s a good idea, then?’

‘A good idea?’ Donna laughed. ‘Why not?’

Slumped bleary-eyed and woolly-headed aboard the 8.30 train to Paddington the following morning, his thoughts as blurred as the passing landscape, Harry winced at a scalding sip of plastic-cupped coffee and wondered if a cigarette would sharpen his mental processes. The answer was almost certainly, but he had forsworn smoking when Daisy was born and his lungs worked the better for it even if his brain did not. Besides, First Great Western in their corporate wisdom did not permit smoking.

That was just one of the ways in which life had changed since he had last travelled to Kilveen Castle, with Chipchase, in a succession of fug-filled third-class carriages, back in the early spring of 1955. They had probably puffed their way through fifty or sixty cigarettes in the course of their tortuous journey, which had begun at Stafford before dawn and had ended, well after dark, at Lumphanan, the closest station to the castle, thirty miles west of Aberdeen on the Deeside branch line. Harry shivered at the memory of stumbling off the train into the bone-numbing chill of an Aberdeenshire night. ‘Bloody hell,’ he remembered Chipchase gasping. ‘There’ve sent us to Siberia.’

But Siberian their exile had not turned out to be. Far from it. Their three months at Kilveen had been cushier than even they would have claimed to deserve. ‘Never mind Clean Sheet,’ Chipchase had remarked after only a few days of Professor Mac’s gentle regime. ‘We’ve got ourselves a bloody feather bed here, Harry.’

There had in truth been much to be thankful for. ‘You’ve all been given a second chance,’ the CO from Dyce had told them during his one and only visit to the castle. ‘Be sure you make the most of it.’ And so they had, though not necessarily in the way the CO had envisaged. As to whether their second chance had had any lasting effect… time was about to tell.

—«»—«»—«»—

Harry headed straight into the ticket office when he reached King’s Cross and felt grateful for the twenty minutes he still had in hand before the Aberdeen train was due to leave. The queue was long enough to remind him of the days of rationing. He was not destined to make much progress towards the front of it, however.

‘Ossie.’ A gravelly voice sounded in Harry’s ear. He turned to confront a tall, broad-shouldered, big-bellied man wearing a loose and expensive-looking overcoat over jeans and a sweatshirt. His large, smiling face was familiar, though only faintly so in its current condition of broken-veined puffiness. His hair was even shorter than the day after an RAF short-back-and-sides and Persil white into the bargain. The stud gleaming in his left earlobe was likewise no aid to recognition. But there had been a cockney twang to the one word he had so far spoken, which was as much of a clue as Harry needed.

‘Judder.’

‘Good to see you, mate.’ Bill Judd bestowed on Harry a crushing handshake and a pat to the shoulder that felt more like a clout. ‘Come and meet the others. They’re out on the concourse.’

‘I haven’t got my ticket yet.’

‘We’ve got it for you, in case you left it till the last moment to turn up. You always were a tardy bugger. Come on.’

—«»—«»—«»—

Lloyd had said seven were travelling up on the train. Harry therefore expected to see a sizeable huddle of half-remembered figures ahead of them as Judd piloted him out of the ticket office. What he actually saw, however, was Lloyd and Askew standing together in front of the information screens — and no sign of anyone else.

‘Expect you’re wondering where they’ve all got to,’ was Lloyd’s prescient greeting.

‘Well…’

‘Tapper’s already on board. Seems he preferred resting his arse on some first-class upholstery to waiting for you on these hard-as-nails benches out here.’

‘They’ve just called the train, Harry,’ said Askew, nodding up at the screens.

‘Yeah. We’d better get a wiggle on, boys,’ said Judd. ‘Some of us don’t move as fast as we used to.’

‘Did you say first-class, Jabber?’ Harry asked as they hefted their bags and joined the general rush towards platform six, where the 10.30 to Aberdeen awaited. ‘Isn’t Tapper travelling with us, then?’

‘We’re all in first, mate,’ Judd shouted over his shoulder. ‘I bumped us up when Tapper showed his hand. I think he was hoping for a quiet journey. We’ll knock that idea on the head, hey?’

‘But—’

‘Don’t worry about it. My treat.’

‘I can’t—’

‘Don’t argue, Ossie,’ said Lloyd in an undertone. ‘You’ll queer the pitch for the rest of us.’ He nodded ahead at the lurching figure of Judd. ‘I reckon bricks and mortar have served him well. Just look at the cut of that overcoat.’

‘All right. I won’t argue. But where are the others? You mentioned seven.’

‘Didn’t you read Danger’s notes?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Gregger and Paradise live up the line. Gregger’s joining us at Peterborough, Paradise at York.’

‘That still only makes six.’

‘Not if we count you.’

‘But you weren’t counting me. Were you?’

‘No. Bit of a change of plan where Magister’s concerned, actually. I’ll fill you in when we’re on board. You’ll have to get over the shock of meeting Tapper first.’

‘Shock? Why should it be—’

‘Just you wait and see.’

—«»—«»—«»—

Harry followed the others onto the train mentally preparing himself for his first sight of Gilbert ‘Tapper’ Tancred’s time-ravaged features. Perhaps, it occurred to him, there was worse to be faced than the imprint of the years. Disability; disfigurement: who knew what?

Then he saw Judd move ahead of him down the aisle between the seats and touch the shoulder of one of the passengers already aboard. The passenger looked up at Judd, then rose and turned towards Harry.

The shock, it turned out, lay in the ease of recognition. Tancred was as slim and erect as he had been at twenty. His black hair had been lightened by no more than a few strands of grey. There were more lines about his pale, high-cheeked face, but fewer than might have been expected. All in all, he was quite astonishingly unaltered. If he had swapped his smartly tailored jacket and rumple-free trousers for his old RAF uniform, the effect would have been positively uncanny.

‘Ah. You found him, then.’ Tancred’s voice had altered. A career in merchant banking had given him a syrupy drawl that Harry did not recall. ‘Well met, Ossie.’

Harry advanced to shake his hand. ‘Life treating you well, Tapper?’

‘Can’t complain, old boy. Yourself?’

‘Oh, fair to middling.’

‘Are you, er, staying here?’ Tancred frowned at Lloyd’s hoisting of his bag onto the rack.

‘Thought we’d join you in first, Tapper,’ said Judd, grinning broadly. ‘Keep you company, like.’

‘Really?’ Tancred smiled. ‘Excellent. I’d have joined you, of course, once we were under way. But this… is better all round.’

‘Supercilious sod,’ Lloyd whispered to Harry as Judd’s manhandling of his bag briefly shielded them from Tancred.

‘What were you going to tell me about Magister, Jabber?’ Harry asked, loudly enough to be heard by everyone.

‘Oh, he’s flying up. That’s all. Meeting us there.’

‘That’s not quite all, Ossie,’ said Tancred as they sat down. Harry joined Lloyd, Askew and Judd in occupation of the quartet of seats on the other side of the aisle from Tancred. ‘Magister, we’re told, has to attend an auction this afternoon in Geneva, so he’s flying from there to Aberdeen tonight. Such is the life of the international art dealer.’

‘He’s not… retired, then?’ asked Askew.

‘Doesn’t wish to be thought retired, at all events,’ said Tancred. ‘There’s a spot of one-upmanship in this breathless announcement of his hectic schedule, I suspect.’

‘One-upmanship’s not something you’d know anything about, though, is it, Tapper?’ Lloyd enquired sarcastically.

‘Sniping before the train’s even pulled out of the station,’ said Judd, pressing several podgy fingers to his brow. ‘Blimey, we’ve gone straight back to how it was in that Nissen hut.’

‘Pax,’ said Tancred, holding up a hand and bowing his head in a gesture of humility. ‘We’re the lucky ones, gentlemen, for being alive and well enough to undertake this journey. Yes, we often used to irritate one another and may do so again before the weekend’s out. But to meet again is nonetheless cause for celebration. Shall we try to put half-remembered petty grievances aside and concentrate on the task in hand?’

‘I’m all for that,’ said Judd.

Lloyd shrugged. ‘So am I.’

‘Me too,’ said Harry.

‘But…’ Askew looked thoughtful. ‘What task would that be… exactly?’

‘Why, enjoying ourselves, of course.’ Tancred beamed benignly at Askew. ‘What else?’