Nothing So Strange (31 page)

He kept on saying he was sorry.

“Brad,
will
you forget it?… I don’t mind a bit. Is there anything
you’d like? Some coffee?… I could go down and make it…. Or would you like
me to get a book and read here till you go to sleep again?”

He said if I would just stay for a little while without a book or
bothering with coffee…. “I’ll be all right. It’s happened before. It’s not
important provided nobody else thinks it’s important…. Did I
say
anything?”

“
Say
anything?”

“Was I talking … when you came in?”

“No.”

He eyed me sharply. “But you’d say that even if I had been, wouldn’t
you?”

He saw me wondering if I would have; that made him laugh a little.

“Never mind,” he went on. “It’s just one of the things I’m up against. The
feeling that everybody’s watching me all the time, listening to me when I’m
asleep … hoping I’ll have a nightmare and spill something.”

“Was it a nightmare, Brad?”

“Sort of.”

“About flying?”

“No.”

“What then? Or don’t you want to tell me?”

“I’d tell you if I could. Maybe it was too much of that wonderful fish
chowder at dinner.”

“Or too much Framm after dinner.”

He smiled nervously. “We’re through with him now, anyway…. So he was
killed at Peenemünde.”

“You said you knew.”

“We … I … yes, I had that information. But one couldn’t be sure. I
suppose they got proof after Germany collapsed.”

“Maybe.”

He was silent for a moment; then he said thoughtfully: “I wonder if the
bastard was brave … at the end. Probably. But physical bravery’s a swindle.
The worst people can have it—yet you like them for it … more than you
like screamers in the middle of the night.”

“You know what you’re asking for when you say that.”

“What?”

“An argument, Brad. If bravery’s the opposite of screaming in the night,
then
what is it you’re afraid of
?”

He answered moodily: “I’m not afraid
of
anything. I’m afraid
for
something. I’m afraid for the whole bloody world.”

I waited for him to add to that, but he shook his head in what I took to
be an advance refusal of any of the possible questions I hadn’t yet asked. I
said at length, cheerfully: “Anyhow, it wasn’t about flying.”

“No, not this time. And I’ve an idea about that—or rather it was
your idea. Maybe I
should
go up again?”

“You would? Oh, that would be fine—when would you like to? There
ought to be a place where we could rent something.”

“Not so easy these days.”

“We’ll find out.”

“You mean you’d go up with me?”

“Why not if you can fly? You said you could.”

He hugged me as much as he could in the positions we were in; he was
leaning up in bed, I was sitting on the edge of it. “You’d trust me as much
as that?”

“That isn’t so much.”

“Oh, but surely….”

“No,” I answered. “I’d hate you to think me
too
trusting. I fly a
bit myself. I think I could land a dual-control if you got scared.”

“Of course that spoils it all.” But he was smiling again.

“Oh no, it just makes it sensible. I’m quite serious about it if you
are.”

There was a book on his bedside table that had a map of California; we
measured a rough line a hundred and fifty miles inland, for the seaward side
of that was forbidden to private flying in wartime. We figured it could not
be more than fifty or sixty miles from where we were to the nearest likely
flying ground we could use; that would be in the desert somewhere. “Or the
mountains,” he said, studying the map.

“Except that it wouldn’t be too safe over mountains. Those small planes
don’t go higher than eight or nine thousand. And there are downdrafts.”

“You’ve done some real flying, then?”

“A few hours solo—in the East.”

He began to talk technicalities, and if anyone had been listening at the
door it must have sounded a rather teen-age conversation. I left him after
about half an hour; we were both sleepy by then.

The days that followed had a degree of eventfulness that
made them
timeless. I suppose there are only a few weeks in every century when the
accumulated stresses of years break through to absolute flash point. July of
1945 was like that. The Okinawa battle was over; the great fire raids on
Japanese cities had begun. A total end of the war looked near, and then
nearer.

In my own life the pattern of California sun and sky slipped over the
days. They were not without happenings. My father had another slight
stroke— not more serious than the first, but cumulative in its effect.
He did not now leave his room, and there were nurses in attendance; he
regained part of the lost ground but it was clear he would never recover
completely. I did what I could to cheer him up, but it was little enough. He
spoke with a slur, like someone at pains to conceal the effects of drink; and
he was sad about himself, with moods of reminiscence that took him back to
old times and places. He pondered a great deal about his will, in which (he
said) I was the chief legatee. There were relatives of my mother’s in England
(he also said) to whom he had left less than he had once intended, because
now he didn’t want much of his money to go out of America. (Could this be
patriotism?) But surely, I argued, with lend-lease at the rate of millions a
day what difference could it make? But no, it wasn’t that; it was the new
English Labour government. He didn’t like them. He remembered once meeting
Attlee—he hadn’t thought much of him. And as for that fellow Strachey
whom they had made Food Minister—a most peculiar person, he had met him
also once, and there was a portrait of him in the Tate Gallery with a beard
and very long legs lolling in a wicker chair. Fancy a man like that being
given a ministry!

“You’re thinking of
Lytton
Strachey,” I said. “He’s dead. The Food
Minister’s another Strachey….” I had to convince him of that.

“Well, anyhow,” he said, “England’s changing. They wouldn’t like me there
any more. I remember poor old Neville Chamberlain saying the last time I saw
him, that was in January 1939….”

He was always poor old Neville Chamberlain to my father, perhaps because
he too had been disappointed….

Mr. Small telephoned once. What was happening? Anything?
Was it worth
while yet for us to have another meeting? How
was
he? Had I anything
special I wanted to convey?

I said no; he was all right; we were taking walks; there was no need for a
meeting yet.

“You think you’re getting anything out of him?”

“Well, I don’t know quite what you’re expecting….”

“Get all you can, whether it’s what we expect or not.”

I didn’t like the way he said that, or maybe it was the telephone voice
that sounded more strident than it really was. Yet I couldn’t think of any
sufficiently challenging reply, so I just waited in silence till he
exclaimed: “Hello … hello … what’s the matter? Are you there?”

“Yes,” I answered. “I’m still here.”

I was childish enough to think that would confuse him but seemingly it
didn’t. He merely said: “Well, I’m not going to bother you, but do remember
he’s not simply on holiday. Taking long walks and climbing mountains is all
right, but … oh well, never mind. We’ll give you a bit more time, but if
nothing happens we’ll have to have him back.”

“
Back
?”

“Sure. He’s not well yet by any means. Newby wanted a lot of convincing
before he’d agree to the experiment, and if it doesn’t work—”

I interrupted: “I think it will work. Give me another week. I’ll call you
then.”

“No, I’ll call you. Or else one of us will come up and see him….

“Okay, then. Good-by.”

As I hung up the receiver one decision was already made in my mind. Brad
must get discharged from that hospital. I hadn’t an idea how I could expedite
this, but there were doubtless things I could do or help him do for
himself.

As I walked away from the library table something else occurred to me,
quite icily. I didn’t think I had ever said anything at all to Mr. Small
about mountain climbing. Or had I? And if I hadn’t, how had he known? And had
his slip, if it were one, been accidental, or deliberately to intimidate?

I told myself that the spy business was catching, that the imagined eye
and ear at every keyhole was the most diabolical softener-up of everything
gutlike in one’s brain and personality; all the more reason, then, why Brad
should free himself.

And I lunched again with Paul Chandos. This time it was I
who noticed that
he
was preoccupied. I asked if he were worrying about the picture.

He said no.

“That’s good. I hate to ask you, because you never mention it—but of
course I’m a bit interested in how it’s coming along.”

“Fine. I’m halfway through.”

“
What
?”

“The writing, I mean. I’m what they call a writer-producer.”

“But—but—you mean—you’ve already got a story?”

“A sort of one, though I may change it. The main thing is, I’ve got a
character.”

“Who?”

“You.”

He went on hastily: “I didn’t intend to tell you yet, but I don’t suppose
it matters. I think you’re a rather remarkable person. Your whole book is
really about you—not egotistically, that’s what’s so good—but
because you’re real. You’re real in the book. And now that I know you
actually, I know that you’re
really
real.”

“I don’t quite get it. You mean that these meetings we’ve been having have
been just to study me, as it were … like sittings for a portrait
painter?”

“At first I thought they were, but I’ve enjoyed them so much that….” And
he suddenly leaned forward across the table. “I don’t know how you
feel—I don’t know if you even like me, though I know we look at things
the same way … so many things…. Incidentally, are you—by any
chance—engaged—or tied up to anyone?”

“No,” I said, doubtfully. And because I wanted to spare him whatever he
might be risking, I added: “I like you very much—perhaps as much as any
man I’ve ever met, with one exception.”

“Ah,” he replied. And then, quite briskly after a pause: “You know, Jane,
you
are
the part. What a pity you can’t act!”

“How do you know I can’t? I can when I’m nervous enough. I’m acting a bit
now…. Shall we break a rule and have a drink before lunch? I feel like
it….”

“Sure, but it’s no rule. I hate rules, anyway.” He summoned the waiter and
ordered two martinis. “How’s your scientist getting on? Recovering?”

“I hope so. It’s mental more than physical. He’s staying with
us—with my father and me. I’m trying to set him right. He’s the man in
my book—on page 117—the man in the Burggarten in Vienna.”

“The one who thought the Binomial Theorem would survive along with
Beethoven?”

I nodded. The sweetest compliment he could have paid me was to know that
so instantly.

He said: “Now I
would
like to meet him. When can you arrange
it?”

“Soon. You might be able to help him too—by talking and arguing. I
think he’s your kind of person. Perhaps we both are.”

And one morning I drove eastward towards the desert. Dan
had found there
was an airfield at a place called Lost Water, used by the C.A.P. since the
war, but owned by a certain Mr. Murdoch who sometimes rented out a plane if
he knew who you were. Because of the gas shortage you weren’t supposed to fly
for pleasure, so it was all very chancy; I should just have to go there and
see what it was like, or perhaps let Mr. Murdoch see what I was like. The
distance was over eighty miles, but the last thirty were arrow-straight, so
that far ahead one saw where Lost Water must be. It had an elevation of
twenty-two hundred and lay in a shallow saucer with gritty hills rimming it
on all sides. A plume of smoke on the horizon indicated a small town that
from the map was half a dozen miles further on.

The “airfield” turned out to be nothing but a T-shaped patch cleared of
scrub, but not of stones, sand, and weeds. A tumble-down hut surmounted by a
windsock was the only likely sign of habitation; a few rough sheds housed
planes. When I drove up a grizzled dust-gray character came out of the hut to
introduce himself as Murdoch. He looked like an old-style sheriff who had
somehow switched from the horse to the air age without anything in between.
He scratched his head and stroked his chin when I asked if there was any
chance of going up. He wasn’t supposed to do it, he answered; he would get
into trouble; there were so many government regulations nowadays. But even as
he said all this I could see he was the kind of man who resents government
regulations enough to break them now and again out of sheer nostalgia for
pioneer freedom. All he asked after we had talked for a while was which plane
I preferred; I chose the newer-looking red-painted Porterfield. Quite
efficiently then he checked the oil and gas, warmed up the machine, and
climbed inside. “Now show me what you can do,” he said. I removed the chocks,
got inside with him and took off. After about ten minutes in the air he told
me to land, which I did. He made no comment, except to warn me of prohibited
military areas near by, so I flew on my own for an hour or so, made several
near-landings, then came in finally because of approaching dust storms. The
warm air and the ground altitude were conditions new in my experience and I
was glad to have had some practice with them.

When I paid Mr. Murdoch I asked if he had any suggestions for a full day’s
excursion somewhere. You couldn’t do it, he answered promptly, because of
wartime restrictions and gas shortage and one darned thing and another. But
presently he said that the real trouble was too few landing grounds near
enough; except for one at Giant’s Pass there wasn’t any that a civilian could
use.