New and Collected Stories (73 page)

He fastened the top button of his tunic. ‘I'll collect my books, and then I absolutely must be away.'

Her disappointment was easy to cover with a smile. A cake was packed in a box. I'll throw it out of the car. Every time he left there was a cake in a bloody box. The bow came undone as she put it on the table. But she retied it before the major could get up to do so – as she had known he would.

Baxter handed him his card by the door: ‘Telephone when you can come again,' he whispered. ‘Make it as soon as possible.' He had written his request on the back also, and there was a similarity to the sharp cramped handwriting in the diary. He put it in his flap pocket. Peter had no longer been a young man when he had scribbled those last entries.

He saw himself telling his tale in a Notting Hill pub. I've got this batty old pair who think I'm their pilot officer son killed in the war. He couldn't, though it was hard to give up what laughs he might get. Baxter admired his car:

‘New one, isn't it?'

‘I borrowed it' – he loosened his tie, and threw his cap on to the back seat – ‘from the adjutant.'

A few more visits would complete his tour of operations. He'd often decided not to call on them again, not even for the cupboard of toys he had discovered under the stairs. He had taken away one or two that wouldn't look amiss in an antique shop window. But the Baxters had been different from his own parents in their treatment of the son they had once had, because they had kept all he'd ever possessed.
His
father had flung everything out when he'd gone to prison.

Baxter was whistling some idiot song from the thirties as he stood at the stove cooking breakfast. He stopped as soon as he was aware of Peter's approach, and glanced at his undone tunic. When nothing came of it he went to work with the spatula to prevent bacon and sausages burning. ‘Did you have a good sleep?'

Peter lit a cigarette, to cut the pungent smell of smoking fat. ‘Marvellous, thanks.'

‘The air's fresh down here, that's why. There are cornflakes over there. Sauce. Bread. Butter. Marmalade. All you need.' Every time he stayed overnight he was given the same instructions, as if he was never expected to learn. ‘Grapefruit you'll find on the dresser.'

Whenever he had gone so deeply into sleep he wasn't hungry for breakfast, yet took one of the leathery, stained eggs on to his plate while Baxter sat to a meal of scorched streaky and broken sausages, surrounding it with blobs of sauce and dabs of mustard, as if laying out picquets against wily enemies waiting to launch a surprise assault from the wilds of Waziristan. When he suggested they go shooting that afternoon it was merely his way of giving Peter the morning to himself. ‘We'll take the Malcombes.'

‘All right.'

Baxter put both plates in the sink. ‘Doesn't hurt to use them now and again. We might get a rabbit, or a pigeon if we're lucky. There's not much else around these parts.'

There was peace in the house, until an aggressive banging of church bells from the village began. The unholy assault on his senses as he wandered around the garden was so intense that he went up to his room and lay on the bed to look through the diary of his last year alive. A large greenish fly lifted into a zig-zag course before he brought a hand close to turn the page.

‘I don't much care whether I live or die. In fact it would be easy for me to make sure of the latter.' The last entry came soon after, and he was disappointed that there was so little to read: ‘Back to the squadron! I can't wait. Better there than here. More bang-on sport, the only sort I like.'

At lunch every button of his uniform was shining and fastened. He laid his cap carefully on the dresser, and as soon as Helen ladled the soup he said: ‘I'm having trouble paying my mess bills these days.'

Baxter stopped eating, eyes flashing behind his glasses, as if the shock was greater precisely because he had expected it, and he was now uncertain how to respond. Peter couldn't decide whether he was the most devious bloke in the world, or the most dense. ‘I'm afraid a few awkward questions are going to be asked.'

During the long pause Baxter's face assumed a blank expression, and became as sunburned as if he'd done another stretch in India. He was about to speak, but reached for his glass of lager, grunted, and drank off half of it.

Helen's hand lifted, and she looked at Peter. ‘You must have been very careless.'

‘I believe I was.'

‘We shall have to help you' – though speaking as if she at least wouldn't mind.

‘I'm sorry. It's an awful situation. But I need three hundred quid immediately. I'd hate the wing commander to find out.'

‘You should damn well watch your mess bills,' Baxter grumbled. ‘Take better care of things.'

He wanted to laugh at him squirming like a snail on a nail. ‘I'll try – from now on.'

‘It's easy to run 'em up, but hard to pay when the time comes.'

‘I'm sure he
will
try,' said Helen.

The glare was steady with disapproval, but Baxter felt too unsure of himself to say much more than: ‘Will he, though?'

Such well-contained rage could be ignored. ‘I might.'

‘You will, won't you, Peter?'

He hadn't stopped eating, so they couldn't complain of his lack of appetite. ‘I'll have a go.'

It had been a gamble, though he'd enjoyed the risk, which seemed almost as good sport as going after the clumsy old Stukas. Top-hole, in fact.

‘He's such a nice young man, isn't he, dear?' Helen said breaking the silence.

Baxter thought he might as well get something out of the situation, so looked as if unwilling to emerge from his sulk. ‘Who?'

‘Don't be silly, dear. You know who!'

She's never been deceived, Peter thought. She won't tell, either. It's Baxter who's deluded, though it'll make no difference in the end.

Baxter climbed a stile and moved across the meadow with the training and care of a lifetime. A couple of prime rabbits, ears at the sky, neither heard nor saw him. Peter stood fifty yards behind, aware that he would be hopeless in the matter. Two shots were so rapid that the noise rolled into one. Both rabbits spun on the grass, and Baxter ran from one to the other, stilling each with a chop at the neck.

‘Damned good cat meat.' He wiped specks of vivid blood from his glasses, then put the empty cartridges into his game-bag with the rabbits.

In spite of his flying boots, he went forward more silently, but on squeezing the trigger found to his chagrin that he had forgotten to push off the safety catch. He felt better, however, when he fetched a couple of pigeons down: ‘I'll get my batman to roast 'em on the spit!'

‘You should. You seem to pay him enough.' Baxter was unwilling to call him a robber outright. ‘I suppose you lost money at cards?'

Peter reloaded. ‘It'll help pay my rent.'

‘Or on women. That sort of thing.'

‘Not at all.'

‘Go on you can tell
me
.'

The wind had strengthened and changed direction. They couldn't get into the lee of it without wading the stream. ‘I owe a packet on my car. Don't want them to fetch it back.'

‘Mess bills are sacred. You should lay something by. Wouldn't hurt. Apart from showing the white feather, it's the worst thing out.'

He put the safety catch on. The temptation to become involved in the creation of a fatal accident was too great. ‘I'll try to be more economical, but I'm afraid I'll have to come back for more if things keep getting out of hand.'

Peter watched him moving up the lane, game-bag slung too low behind, gun crooked in his arm, head looking to left and right as if dreading an ambush. By the dark copse he turned a corner, too angry to want his company on the way home.

He need never see them again, yet a new-found formality with regard to Mrs Baxter contained a certain amount of pity, and he decided to make a few more visits. He couldn't yet walk off with one of the Malcombe guns, though hoped to before the appropriate goodbye.

A voice grated into his ear like a file pulled across balsa wood. ‘Peter?'

‘It's the middle of the night, for God's sake.'

‘It's me – Baxter. And it's nearly midday.'

The curtains were thin, and let in sufficient light for him to see his watch. God knows how he'd found the number. Maybe he'd followed him, or had him followed. Perhaps he'd searched his car while he'd been in Peter's room looking for more secrets, or gone through his things in Peter's room while he had been talking to Helen in the garden. But he'd never let them out of his sight or sound. ‘What do you want?'

He saw Baxter in a phone booth near the market, just off the High Street, a pile of coins neatly stacked on the Bakelite shelf. Couldn't phone from home in case Helen heard. ‘Your mother wonders when you're coming down for a day or two?'

Peter's lips were ready to shape obscenities at his pleading tone, but decided they were too good to waste at such a distance. ‘Don't know when I can.'

‘We'll be glad to see you. You know that. Don't you?'

His head ached, and he wanted breakfast to sop up the whisky he had been drinking till four o'clock. After days of intense work compiling a catalogue of their best books, many of which came from Baxter's choice collection, he felt the need of a long rest. ‘Do I?'

‘Can't you wangle a bit of leave? Even thirty-six hours?'

He hadn't been to see them for a fortnight, being tired of acting the part of their long lost son. When you found such easy plunder you were never far from being caught, so jump – before the axe fell. He put some encouragement into his voice: ‘I'll see what I can do.'

His speech droned on through his hangover: ‘Ask the CO. He'll let you have it. I remember him. He's a very good chap. I'm convinced he will.'

Still holding the telephone, he got out of bed and walked to the window, drawing back the curtains to let in daylight. ‘I expect you're right,' he interrupted, trying not to laugh. ‘He's such a ripping sport!'

Baxter chuckled. ‘He won't refuse one of his best pilots.'

He lodged the receiver under his chin while lighting a cigarette. ‘How did you find my number?'

‘What number?'

How dense can the silly old bastard get? ‘Telephone number,' he shouted.

‘Oh, looked it up in the book. But don't forget. Come down and see your mother. She's not well.'

The pushbike idea was too much like hard work, but he'd agreed because Baxter did deserve some consideration after having parted with over a thousand pounds. He swore when his ankle caught on the pedals. Nor was the bike much good for carrying valuable old tomes in the saddlebag to his car parked at the station nearly six miles away.

He opened the War Revision map sheet with Baxter's name scrawled in pencil along the top margin. The folds were torn after much use. It was not necessary any more but Peter had cycled home on his last visit and used a similar map which, so Baxter insisted, he always carried even though he knew every lane and stile around.

When a piece of grit lodged in his left shoe he leaned the bicycle against a bush and scooped it clear with his thumb. There was a gap in the hedge. Damp soil, pocked by cow hoofprints, was scattered with bits of dead twig. He screwed up the map and slung it there.

At the lane a fat youth went by on a motorbike whose noise seemed to tear the heart out of the countryside. Peter glanced at the bulbous pale cheeks under a red helmet, and the hunched body dead-set towards the village. He mounted his pushbike and pedalled the last few hundred yards.

They stood at the gate like an advertisement for a life of happy savers and insurance payers. He thought Baxter's arm was around her, but couldn't be sure. When he was close he saw them wave.

‘I shan't be seeing you for a long time.' They strolled back and forth on the lawn. ‘The squadron will be packing up for the Middle East soon. I can't tell you exactly when because it's very hush-hush.'

The major's eyes suggested he'd already said too much. Didn't he know that rhododendrons had ears? He looked nervously towards the hedge, and then at Helen who said:

‘We know you can't, dear.'

Brambles were growing outwards from the trees. The end of May had seen thunderous weather and a few hot days, and huge white Queen Anne's lace – as well as nettles – had become too tall to stand upright. The place looked more ragged than when he'd first seen it. ‘There'll be promotion, though. Another step up.'

Baxter liked the idea. ‘Be nice if you could reach squadron leader before it's over.'

If the war dragged on he might even get to wing commander, which would be one rank above major. Peter supposed it wouldn't do at all from Baxter's point of view.

We'd be very proud if you did.' Her dress was too long, but she was smart and self-confident these days, and he was sorry for her that it was about to end.

The major walked with a stick. He wore a panama hat and a pale light jacket. ‘We must mow the lawn sometime, Peter. Tidy things up a bit.'

His uniform was too hot, and he unbuttoned the tunic. A black-edged cloud which the met bods hadn't warned him about stood in the west. If Baxter grumbled at him for being improperly dressed he would tell him what to do with himself. Helen's ready smile made him think that she knew what was in his mind. Bad show. He had taken the diary home months ago, and there wasn't a word he didn't know by heart.

He sat on a straight-backed chair in the cool living room. Baxter made a jug of lemonade, and Peter hoped he'd splash in some gin. He didn't. The cat spread itself across a magazine on the window ledge like an old wine skin and closed its eyes. Helen's smile disconcerted him because it didn't quite fit what she was saying. She said with folded hands, ‘I pray to God you'll be all right when you go overseas.'