Piece of Cake (42 page)

“Well, that's nice,” Fitz said. “Congratulations, Flash. I hope you'll both be very happy.”

“Piece of cake,” Flash said; and saw it in his mind's eye, a colossal great slice of wedding cake, the size of a barn door, all covered in icing; and him eating it, forever and ever and ever. Shit. Too late now. He'd said yes.

The long-range weather forecast indicated little change. Rex sent Cox and Fitzgerald on leave.

For a couple of seconds, Fitz considered not going. He was
worried about Mary's safety: the smashed window, the scribbled obscenity. She lived alone. Perhaps he had brought this hatred upon her, by visiting her so often. There was anti-British feeling in the area; others had noticed it. Rex saw him hesitate. “It might be now or never, Fitz,” he said.

“I'll go.” There was his family to think of, too.

“Truck leaves in ten minutes,” the adjutant told him. “There's a plane from Rheims with some spare space. Catch that and you'll be in London tonight.”

Fitzgerald packed fast and ran downstairs with his bag. He met Cattermole returning from squash, very content after beating the new man, Dutton. “Moggy,” Fitzgerald said. “Do me a favor? I'm off on leave. Would you keep an eye on Mary? Pop in occasionally, make sure she's okay? I'm a bit worried. She's on her own, you see.”

“Of course I will!” Cattermole said heartily. “You go off and enjoy yourself and think no more about it. I'll see she's all right.”

“You're a gent,” said Fitzgerald gratefully, and ran for the truck.

Fanny Barton discussed with Kellaway and Skull the matter of Cattermole's hostility toward Stickwell. What made it puzzling, he said, was the fact that they used to be the best of friends. Now, all of a sudden, Moggy seemed to hate and despise him. He really was quite vindictive. Kellaway said it was just boredom. That was Kellaway's standard explanation for anything peculiar or pointless that pilots did. “No action, you see,” he said. “No Huns to hunt, no Boche to bag. You can't expect them to keep it bottled up.” Barton pointed out that they weren't all being bloody; just Moggy, and only to Sticky.

Skull put it down to post-adolescent instability. “Say again?” said the adjutant. It was a familiar experience at university, Skull explained. Young men often developed friendships of a certain intensity, and sometimes there was a reaction, equally strong, in the opposite direction which … “This is Fighter Command,” Kellaway interrupted. “Not a lot of pansies with silk hankies stuffed up their sleeves.” Skull was not discouraged. Fighter pilots, he pointed out, were young men with a strong romantic streak, highly competitive, obliged to lead a largely monastic life, and
therefore … “Drivel!” barked the adjutant. “Bosh, tosh and poppycock!” Skull smiled, and said no more. Barton wondered what was the best thing to do. “Get 'em back into action, old boy,” Kellaway said briskly. “It works like a dose of salts. I've seen it time and time again.” Barton nodded. Micky Marriott had three snowplows whacking away at the drifts that rolled across the airfield like ocean swells; but it would be a few days yet. And meanwhile Moggy never missed a chance to needle his former friend. “God knows what pleasure he gets out of it,” Barton muttered. “The pleasure of destructiveness,” Skull suggested. “That is, after all, Cattermole's
raison d'être,
isn't it?” Kellaway scoffed: “Raisin pudding!” Barton went away, little the wiser.

CH3 had a very short meeting with his commanding officer.

“Reconnaissance Liaison Unit,” he said. “Does that mean I liaise with reconnaissance or vice versa?”

“Please yourself.”

“And have I your permission to modify my Hurricane?”

“No.”

“One last question, sir. What the hell is going on?”

“It's called the phony war,” said Rex. “If you don't understand it, I can't explain it to you.”

Cattermole borrowed a motorcycle and went to visit Mary Blandin. He took a small present with him: a book of Irish poetry that he had found on Flip Moran's bedside table. She was surprised to see him, and amused by Fitz's concern for her, and touched by the gift. She made coffee, and they talked about Fitz. “He's very conscientious, isn't he?” Cattermole said. “In some ways older than his years, in some ways younger … D'you find that?”

She thought, and nodded. “He does get awfully anxious at times.”

Cattermole smiled inquiringly.

“Nothing special,” she said. “Just little things. But he takes them so seriously.”

“It's a good fault, Mrs. Blandin.”

“Oh, please! Call me Mary.”

“May I? Thank you. And you must call me Lance. Everyone else does … No, he's a very hardworking chap, is young Fitz. It
was one of the things that first impressed me when he joined my flight.”

“He's in your flight?”

“I'm his flight commander, yes.”

“My goodness. I'm honored.”

“On the contrary, Mary, I'm privileged. You've no idea what a pleasure it is to escape the responsibilities of command and enjoy the company of a beautiful woman.”

That brought the color to her cheeks. “I'm afraid I live a very sort of unexciting life, compared with yours, Lance.”

“You underrate yourself,” he murmured, “enormously.”

Cattermole stayed for only half an hour. On the way out he saw the broken pane and the scribble. “It's some kind of greasy crayon,” Mary said. “It won't wash off.”

“Wait here.” He went to the motorbike and dipped his handkerchief in the petrol tank. The crayon dissolved and vanished in a couple of wipes.

“You're brilliant. I would never have thought of that.” A combination of frosty air and gratitude made her eyes sparkle. “Now you've ruined your handkerchief. Give it here, I'll wash it out.” She took it before he could argue.

“You're very kind. You also make uncommonly good coffee, and in all respects you are a truly delightful person. Goodnight.” He stooped and kissed her on the cheek.

The machine started at the first thrust of his leg. She watched him speed away, changing gear briskly, until the taillight vanished.

He came back the following night to collect his handkerchief. There was a fresh obscenity scribbled on the door. This time she gave him a rag to dip in the petrol tank.

“Mary, who is treating you in this frightful way?” he asked gently, when they were inside.

“Someone in the village. You can't be a schoolteacher without offending parents, I'm afraid.”

She made coffee and they talked about the village children, about her own childhood, about parts of England that they both knew. Cattermole could be a very good listener when he chose, and Mary found herself remembering incidents and anecdotes from long ago, all of which he found vastly interesting and entertaining.
His attention was so flattering that she began to feel guilty. “I wonder what Fitz is up to at this very moment?” she said suddenly.

“Oh, heaven knows.” Then he chuckled in a way that made her look. “One thing's certain: he won't be writing long letters every day.”

“Does he usually?”

“Not usually, Mary: infallibly. I've often wondered what the deuce he finds to say to …” Cattermole shrugged. “…whoeverit-is.”

She smiled, briefly. “It can't be easy.”

“I've no doubt young Fitz is on the spree, painting the town pink, drinking the bars dry, and reminding society that nobody's daughter is safe when a fighter pilot's loose. At least, that's what he'll tell us when he comes back.”

“He's a very good dancer.” It was the only safe thing she could think to say.

“Is he really? D'you like dancing? You should. You have the figure for it.”

Mary found the records from Geneva while Cattermole wound up the gramophone. As they danced he tested his observations, and found that he was right. She had a very good figure indeed.

Next night there was yet another abusive scribble for him to clean off the front door. “Persistent blighters, aren't they?” he said.

“Yes. I'm at school all day, so it's easy for them.”

“Have you told the police?”

“The French police? I don't need to. The village bobby is very anti-British. If the spelling weren't so good, I might think he was doing this.”

“You're very brave about it, Mary.”

“Oh, well. I haven't much choice. Anyway, dirty words can't hurt me.” But she was very glad to see Cattermole. All day she had been wondering if she would come home to more filth on her front door, and when she had seen it she had been afraid, and had slammed the door behind her and given herself a big drink, fast. Cattermole was tall and strong and very reassuring. She felt able to relax and to seem as brave as he thought she was.

They were roasting chestnuts at the open fire when it happened. He had brought some wine, a Sylvaner, and they were trying to
find words to describe its taste and color. “No, Mary, you're quite wrong,” he said.
“Not
winter sunshine. And certainly not fields of golden buttercups.”

“I wasn't serious about the buttercups.”

“That's a relief. For a moment I feared you were turning into the Fairy Queen.”

“Oh. Would that be so bad?”

“Catastrophic, my sweet. I have it on the evidence of my governess, who was the third biggest liar north of the Tweed, that fairy queens slide down moonbeams.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“Depends what you mean by fun.” He rescued a smoking chestnut. “That's how pixies are born, you know.”

“What? By sliding down moonbeams?”

He nodded. “Harley Street is quite unanimous.”

“Well, they're all wrong. Everyone knows that pixies are made by rubbing two rainbows together.”

Cattermole made a little show of spilling his wine. “That,” he said, “is by far the most erotic statement I have heard all week.”

She smiled with cheerful pleasure; it was a long time since she had so amused and impressed a man. “Anyway, I still think it's like winter sunshine,” she said.

“No. I'll tell you what it is.” He topped up his glass and looked at her through the wine. “It's you, in that absolutely stunning dress.”

She was wearing the sleeveless silk dress, the color of old ivory. For a long moment she simply sat and enjoyed his admiration. Something banged like a big firework and the room seemed to explode inwards with a crash of glass and shattered wood. The curtains billowed violently and on the opposite wall a picture was suddenly ripped across; it jumped and hung slewed. Mary was knocked flat by Cattermole's diving body. “Keep still!” he shouted; but she had no choice: he was lying on top of her. He was holding the bottle of Sylvaner, and she could feel the wine soaking through her dress. The last fragment of glass tinkled. He rolled off her and ran across the room. The lights went out. He was back, helping her up. “Keep your head down,” he said. They scuttled into the bedroom and sprawled on the floor. “Better,” he said. “Nice stone
walls. I think that was a shotgun. You're not hurt? Good. Stay there.”

“For God's sake don't go!” She forbade herself to cry. It was only shock. Be sensible: control yourself. She found herself crying, sobbing for breath, all control gone. There was a muffled thud as Cattermole dragged everything off the bed, mattress and all. Then he was back, lifting her onto the heap. “Keep below window-level,” he said. Her arms were around him, and they lay together until she had exhausted her tears.

“You're soaking wet.”

“Wine.”

“That's no good. Better take it off.”

“Yes.”

But she did nothing, so he unbuttoned the dress and peeled it away.
Surprise, surprise,
he thought. He sat on the edge of the mattress and untied his shoes, carefully, so as not to get the laces knotted. Half a minute later he was in bed, and she was curling her arms around him. “Don't go, don't go,” she whispered. “Wouldn't dream of it,” he said. “Quite the reverse.”

Stickwell raised the revolver, aimed, fired. The explosion ripped out the calm of the day, and the recoil flung his hand upward. He brought it down and fired again, teeth clenched and eyes squeezed half-shut.

His fourth shot hit an ear.

“That's better, Sticky,” Flip Moran said.

“Really? I didn't see anything.”

“Yes. You got an ear.”

They walked over to the targets, a row of statues set up in a corner of the kitchen garden behind the chateau. Moran pointed to the missing ear. “See?”

“Damn. I wasn't aiming at that chap. I was after the next-but-one.”

“You don't say?” Moran's thick black mustache twitched. “My stars, Sticky, you're an awful dangerous man with a gun, and that's a fact.”

“It's not funny, Flip. I told you, I can't shoot to save my life. Well, that doesn't worry me, I don't care what Moggy says, I'm not afraid of getting killed, I can face that. But I ought to be able
to do something before I snuff it, oughtn't I?” He spun the revolver on his finger.

Moran took it from him and applied the safety-catch. “This proves nothing, this thing,” he said.

“What about the Dornier? I missed the Dornier completely.”

“That didn't matter.”

“It mattered to me, Flip. The trouble is my eyes seem to go funny when I try to shoot someone down. They keep blinking. That's no good, is it? It happened at the Battle of Southend Sands. I couldn't even hit a bloody Blenheim!”

“Just as well.”

“Not the point, though, is it?” Stickwell picked up a chunk of the ear and tried to replace it on the statue's head, but it fell off. “I sometimes think Moggy's right,” he said. “I'm not cut out to be a fighter pilot. All my family have funny eyes, you know.”

“Moggy knows nothing. The man's a bag of wind.”