Romeo Blue (6 page)

Then the doorbell rang in the front. Derek ran into the hall. “Fliss,” he called, “he’s here! Open it. No, don’t. What if he doesn’t like me?”

“Oh, Derek, he will,” I said.

“What if I don’t like him?” he said.

“You will. He’s your father; of course you’ll like him. You’ll just naturally have things in common. You’ll see.” But then I felt a tug of something. Something I couldn’t quite identify. It was like looking at a blurry photograph and trying to guess what was in the blur.

“Go on, then,” he said, turning back into the parlor. “Answer the door.”

As it happened a great gust of wind came up from the north and a window upstairs slammed shut on its own. I stopped cold in the hallway. It sounded like a gunshot, shattering everything. Then the house was silent. I went towards the front door and turned the handle.

“Good afternoon,” said Derek’s father. He had a likable, relaxed, and easy air about him and he looked quite comfortable in his hat and necktie. “I am to meet a Derek Blakely for lunch?” He smiled at me with a mixture of happiness and regret.

“Oh yes, of course,” I said. “Please follow me.” Then I opened the door of the parlor and said, “Derek, there’s a gentleman here to see you.”

“My son!” said Mr. Blakely, going towards Derek with open arms. “This is indeed a great moment.”

“I shall bring the sandwiches shortly,” I said and though I didn’t want to, I backed up and left the room and closed the double doors as Derek and his dad embraced.

When you live among a family of secret agents, you know much more than you should. You try to not hear or see things, but the truth is, everything is laid out before you and in that way you too are a kind of agent. The next day a very large package for Uncle Gideon arrived from Mr. Donovan’s office in Washington. I had to carry it upstairs, though it was quite heavy. I went down the hall with it and knocked on the door of Uncle Gideon’s private, off-limits study.

“Well done, Fliss,” said Uncle Gideon, opening the door. “That package is almost bigger than you and you managed it just like a pro!” I handed him the box and then he said, “I shall miss you, Fliss, when I’m away.” He sort of stumbled over his feet and almost fell. Then he backed up and said, “You won’t forget your old what-cha-ma-call-it, will you?” He took my hand and squeezed it.

I looked up at him for a moment but then it felt like my eyes might be getting tearful, so I decided to study my shoes. That’s a clever British trick I learned. If you look down at your shoes, it completely fools everyone. No one will ever suspect that you are about to cry. Then my what-cha-ma-call-it carried the package into the study and closed the door behind him.

I went on down the hall to Auntie’s room. She was sitting on her bed, putting nail varnish on her toenails. “Flissy, sweetest,” she said, smiling, “want me to paint your toenails with nail polish?”

“Oh yes, I would,” I said, looking out her long windows at the ocean. The water was all foamy and white and full of worry and wonderment, the waves slapping back and forth in the autumn air. The big, dark rocks along the shore looked almost like large animals crouching, ready to leap into the water. In the daytime they looked like dogs. At night they looked like dark whales.

“Do you like the color of this nail polish? It’s called Pink Passion. Would you like some Pink Passion on your toenails?” said Aunt Miami. I thought of my mum Winnie. Perhaps she would not approve. How far away Winnie seemed now, as if she were only made of filmy, threadbare memory. My longing for her was so constant that I had grown accustomed to it, the way you become accustomed to the constant hum and rhythm of the sea.

I sat down on the edge of the bed and Aunt Miami painted my toenails.

“Derek says Brie is hotsy totsy. Do you think there’s a chance I could be hotsy totsy, I mean, now that my toenails are Passion Pink?” I said.

“Oh dear,” said Auntie, looking into my face, reading it like it was one of those painted portraits of Captain
Bathburn’s daughters. “Oh dear. I see, you’re quite gone on Derek, aren’t you?”

“Yes, rather,” I said.

“I can understand why. He’s a darling, handsome boy. We love him so much, Flissy. We couldn’t bear to lose him. I am so glad he decided to tell that father of his to shove off.”

“Yes,” I said and I looked away. I am quite sorry to say that I was a bit clever about changing the subject then. I added, “You’re rather gone on Mr. Henley, aren’t you?”

“Yes, oh yes, Bobby is wonderful,” said Aunt Miami and then she got up and spun round the room. I hadn’t heard Mr. Henley called Bobby before.

“Do you love Bobby desperately?” I said. “Has he popped the question yet?”

“Oh, you’ve picked that up from Gideon. He’s an awful tease. Don’t you go and become a tease like him,” said Auntie.

“What will you wear when you go out dancing with Bobby?” I said. “Do you like taffeta or silk? Do you think if I had a lovely new frock that Derek would forget about Brie? Derek has told me he thinks I should buy some new ‘duds.’ Do you think new duds would make me a bit more hotsy totsy?”

“Flissy McBee, I think you and I should go shopping for a new dress for you before they ration clothes. Before you know it we will have to have tickets to take a breath
of air! It’s time you had a brand-new store-bought dress anyway.”

I smiled and then I skipped round the room a bit and went out into the hall. I skipped up and down along the stair rails, looking at my Pink Passion toes. I paused for a moment. The study door was slightly ajar. I could hear Uncle Gideon in the kitchen below, with The Gram. I pushed the door a little wider open. There I could see the large empty box sitting on the desk, and hanging beside it on a hook on the wall was a wool soldier’s uniform. That must have been what was in the package. It was quite clearly a German officer’s uniform because it had fancy gold trim on the shoulders and a red armband with a Nazi swastika on the sleeve.

The next morning the air had a soft, forgiving feel. It was a warm autumn day and for some reason that made me remember spring in England. In London we usually had crocuses in our little walled-in garden. I can remember their brilliant purple color against the brown, newly melted earth. I don’t suppose a bomber flying over England ever thought about a bed of crocuses finally coming to life and blooming after a whole winter of darkness and waiting.

Uncle Gideon was out on the porch with his morning coffee, looking at the sea. I went out and stood with him. He was very quiet, which for him was unusual. After a while he pulled on my braid and said, “What do you call this in Britain? Isn’t it a
plait
? Have I got that right, Fliss?”

Then he made a whistling sound and within minutes Sir William Percy was flying towards the porch, squawking all the way. He was a bit of a baby, that seagull, I thought. Uncle Gideon had made a proper pet of him, feeding him all the time and he had named him after a teacher he had at Oxford, in England. The Gram had been cross about it at first, saying we would soon be
inviting huge packs of seagulls, but in the end she too fed Sir William Percy. He had sweet, red-rimmed eyes and he talked and cried, and usually every morning he was waiting for his breakfast on the porch railing.

“When you’re overseas,” I said, “who will feed Sir William?”

“Oh, Fliss, I should love so much not to go, to stay here, and be your father.” He looked over at me and then he looked down in a shy way. “About Sir William Percy, I’ll be counting on you,” Uncle Gideon said and then he was silent again.

I couldn’t think of an answer, so I grabbed on to the weather, the way people do when there are no other words in sight. “Is it going to rain or will the wind blow or will it be sunny today? I don’t know.” And I rhymed the words by mistake. I wanted to say that I would miss him terribly, but somehow those words hadn’t appeared as I had hoped they would.

We just stood there until finally Gideon said, “By the way, Fliss, Miami says you received a telephone call yesterday from a Mr. Fitzwilliam. You should call him back. I’ve left his number on the table on the landing. And if you don’t mind, may I ask what this is about?”

“Oh, it was nothing. It was about those posters we put up all over town,” I said, and I gave Sir William the last of my toast.

Later, during the afternoon, in the dining room, I put a 78 record on the Victrola. I was waiting for Derek, who was late for dance practice. The record was playing the song “When I’m Not with You.”

When I’m not with you

the sky’s no longer blue.

I was sitting at the table alone, listening to the music. All the somber daughters of Captain A. E. Bathburn watched me from their painted gold frames. They thought I was a dreadful sneak for not telling Uncle Gideon about Derek’s father and his visit. Most British children are proper and honest. Perhaps I wasn’t British anymore. Perhaps I’d turned into a dreadful “dual citizen,” who had no country and no manners. Still, I loved Derek and I wanted to be loyal to him. If he wished to keep his father’s visit a secret, then I should stand by him, even if it did make me into a dreadful beast of a child.

As I sat there, I was wondering about a lot of things, but most especially why Mr. Fitzwilliam had rung
me
up. I did not want to speak to him. I would never tell him anything about my mum Winnie. I would certainly never tell him that her code name was Butterfly, but he seemed to know that already, didn’t he?

When I’m not with you

the sky’s no longer blue.

When you’re not with me

the stars fall in the sea.

When I see you not

the clouds pile up and plot.

The wind kicks up a knot

when I’m not with you.

When Derek finally walked into the dining room that evening, he seemed quite happy, really. He looked like he had just removed a dark, heavy blackout curtain that had been hanging over him, shutting out all the light. Ever since April, the government had announced that we were to cover our windows and all light from our houses at dusk with blackout curtains so enemy submarines could not see our coastline or our ships leaving the harbor at night. Some people were lazy down the road and painted their windows black so they didn’t have to bother to close blackout curtains every evening. But I shouldn’t like to live in a black room.