The Road Between Us (16 page)

‘Nothing. Can I paint you in front of a plane?’

‘OK, but if we’re scrambled you’ll have to leg it. We’re having a bit of a busy day for some reason. Been up twice already.’

As they walk towards the planes, Charles says: ‘How long have you been a pilot?’

‘A year. Joined up straight from school.’

Hardy’s Spitfire is the third along a row covered in grass and matting camouflage. He taps the tip of its wing, a perfect ellipse. ‘Beautiful, isn’t she? The most romantic plane ever built. She reads your mind. You only have to think of a move and she responds.’ He runs his hand over the aircraft’s skin. ‘It’s like having wings yourself.’

Charles stares at the machine and nods. He never got to fly one – the closest he came during his training was a Harvard – but he would have loved to have had the chance. Victory rolls. One of the Few. Perhaps … No, if he is going to borrow a plane it must be one that is not needed.

There is a cartoon painted on the fuselage, Doc from
Snow White
. It triggers a memory of Anselm. He tries to remember why they had gone to see
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
together that day in Leicester Square. Afterwards, as they strode home singing ‘Some Day My Prince Will Come’, Anselm had linked arms with him but, fearing this a risk too far, Charles had pulled his arm free. They had called each other Dopey and Grumpy after that.

There are also three miniature swastikas on the fuselage, marking Hardy’s kills. On the tail fin is a parachute, ready to be grabbed. When the red, white, blue and yellow target marking on the side of the Spitfire reflects in the young man’s round sunglasses it gives Charles an idea. ‘Could you stand in front of the target,’ he says, ‘use it as a sort of frame?’

He begins sketching, a series of circles and cubes. The yellow outer band of the target looks like another halo around the young man’s head. ‘I like the cravat,’ Charles says. ‘Is it silk?’

‘You have to wear them,’ Hardy says. ‘Because of the constant twisting left and right as you search for bandits. It chafes the neck … Some of the boys borrow their girlfriends’ stockings to keep them cosy at high altitudes.’

Charles hesitates. ‘I bet those blue uniforms are an aphrodisiac.’

‘You bet right. But you can’t do so badly with the girls. Don’t they all want you to paint their portraits?’

Charles laughs the question away, feeling strangely exhilarated by his own imposture, as if he is a spy operating behind enemy lines. Hardy has mistaken him for one of his own, a red-blooded ladies’ man. Wholesome. Normal. And he likes how it feels. How much easier his life would have been if he was one.

The outline done, he begins experimenting with his watercolours, holding one brush between his teeth as he dips another in a jar of water. ‘Do you hate the Germans?’

‘The Luftwaffe pilots? No, not really. Sometimes. There’s a mutual respect, I suppose. I heard of one pilot in a duel with an ME 109 who ran out of ammunition at the same time as the Hun did. Our boy spread his hands philosophically. Jerry did
the same and they both banked away from each other, laughing.’

‘We have more in common with them than we do with the French, or even the Americans,’ Charles says, rolling the paintbrush to one corner of his mouth so that he can talk out of the other. ‘We’re Anglo-Saxons, after all. The Germanic tribes were here before the Normans. And we were on the same side in the Napoleonic wars … Well, I mean the Prussians were on our side, and we couldn’t have won at Waterloo without them.’ He holds up his brush in line with his thumb to judge the scale of his subject. ‘We enjoy the same things. Prefer beer to wine. Love the forests. Sausages. Brass bands. We have the same temperament. Phlegmatic. Even our royal family is German.’

‘You seem to know a lot about them.’

‘I knew one once. Before the war. He was studying art in London.’

Hardy flicks his hair like Anselm used to. ‘Can I have a look?’

‘Not yet.’

‘They’re a funny lot, the Hun. When the rescue boats pick them out of the water they salute and stand to attention. And when they are taken prisoner, the first thing they ask for is boot polish … Do you have a girl?’

Charles flattens the bow of his lips as he thinks. He then pictures Maggie at the National Gallery. Well, she had seemed friendly. He blinks his assent.

‘Does she have a friend?’

‘Why?’

‘
Gone with the Wind
is showing at the Plaza in Croydon. We could take them there. Do you fancy it?’

Charles laughs, partly out of surprise, partly embarrassment. Hardy seems so guileless, so keen. ‘Why not? Is there a telephone I could use?’

‘We’re not supposed to use the one here. There’s one in the village. Leave a message for me at the mess if … What’s her name?’

‘Maggie.’

‘If Maggie clears us for take-off.’

When Charles arrives at the picture house at 6.30, still wearing his battledress, he buys four tickets. He is having to fight down his breathlessness, as if his deception might be exposed at any moment. Seeing an old and partly ripped Ministry of War Transport poster pasted to the cinema wall, he wanders over to it and starts reading. Its message, hastily written the previous summer, no longer seems relevant.

IMMOBILIZATION OF VEHICLES IN THE EVENT OF INVASION
. Every owner of a motor vehicle should be ready in the event of an invasion to immobilize his car the moment the order is given. Owners of petrol vehicles should remove distributor head and leads, and empty the tank or remove the carburettor.
HIDE THE PARTS REMOVED WELL AWAY FROM THE VEHICLE
.

The words seem to take on a personal meaning. Am I the invader here? Will Maggie be immobilizing her vehicle? He scratches his head as if to clear it, checks his watch and wishes he hadn’t agreed to this strange double date.

‘Charles!’

He looks up to see Maggie stepping off the back of a still-moving bus. She is wearing her ATS uniform and it becomes her. She is followed by a voluptuous young woman whose breasts bounce against her cotton frock as she jumps down. Even with the white wimple she is wearing over her bunched-up auburn hair, she cannot be mistaken for a nun. The nurse’s cape covering her shoulders confirms her true vocation.

Maggie gives a little wave as she gets closer and then, to his surprise, she kisses him on the cheek. She smells of strawberries and sunshine.

‘This is my friend Gloria,’ she says. ‘Gloria, this is Charles, our latest recruit to the WAAC.’

‘Charmed,’ Gloria says with a West Country lilt, holding out her hand.

‘Thank you for coming all the way out here,’ Charles says. ‘Hardy should be here soon.’

‘Is he really a Spitfire pilot?’ Gloria asks, her eyes widening.

‘Really.’

Maggie brushes dust off Charles’s jacket with flicks of her hand, a motherly gesture. ‘Do you live around here?’ she asks.

‘No, but Biggin Hill isn’t far away. That’s where I was working today. Where Hardy is based.’

‘Did you tell him I was your girl?’ Maggie says with a playful punch.

Charles can feel the colour rising in his cheeks.

She laughs. ‘I’m just teasing. You look very dashing in your new uniform, by the way, Captain.’

‘Thank you. So do you. Pretty, I mean.’ His smile dims momentarily.

Hardy announces his arrival with a honk of his car horn. He is driving a small, red two-seater Alvis. ‘I borrowed it!’ he shouts over the noise of the engine. He parks to the side of the cinema and vaults out of the seat as if dismounting from his plane. Charles looks at Gloria. Her mouth has gone slack. She swallows audibly.

When the film starts and Maggie’s hand feels for his, Charles imagines for a moment that it is Anselm’s hand. But the illusion does not last because this hand feels softer and smaller. His thoughts now on Anselm, he suddenly remembers why they had gone to see
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
that day in the spring of ’39. They had heard about
Gone with the Wind
and wanted to see it, without realizing it hadn’t been released.
Snow White
had been considered an ironic compromise. Each had dared the other to go in.

Maggie gives his hand a squeeze. As he realizes he has never held a woman’s hand before, apart from his mother’s, he also realizes how much he has been missing physical contact. He likes Maggie, she has a certain warmth and a sense of fun. But what he likes most about her is how she makes him feel. Wanted.

It strikes him now that in the two years since he last saw Anselm, he has not thought of another. He has been thinking of himself as
‘the man who waits’. But what if his friend isn’t coming back? What if he is dead? They will meet at the Student Union bar on Good Friday, he said. How naïve and empty that promise seems now.

Forty minutes into the film, the screen goes blank and a notice appears announcing that an air raid is in progress. The audience boos. Some get up to leave but others wait to see if the projectionist will put the film back on. When the lights come on instead, there are more boos, less emphatic this time, and patrons start making their way to the exit.

Outside, the four of them can hear the distant sound of air-raid sirens, fire engine bells and ack-ack guns pounding the night sky. Maggie makes Charles laugh with her imitation of Scarlett O’Hara: ‘Fiddle-dee-dee! War, war, war; this war talk’s spoiling all the fun at every party this spring.’

Instead of making their way to the shelters, they enter a pub which has sawdust on the floor and woodworm in its low beams. When Hardy goes to the bar, a man in a patched and rumpled suit registers his uniform and, drunkenly slapping him on the back, offers to buy him a drink. Charles looks around: there are a few other servicemen in, but mostly the regulars are civilians who look tired and lean, their teeth gappy and crooked, their hair greasy. The women are wearing boxy dresses and laddered stockings. One, with horn-rimmed spectacles, is wearing a scarf. Rubbing hair with dry towels has become a substitute for shampoo, he has heard, just as sponging with lukewarm water in the sink has replaced regular baths. Certainly the close, smoke-filled fug of the pub seems to bear this out. Hardy returns with a tray bearing two halves of foaming bitter and two sherries. ‘Now,’ he says. ‘Who wants to hear my story about being rescued by a fisherman from Weymouth who thought I was a Jerry?’

As Charles listens to Hardy entertain his small audience, he takes out his pad and begins sketching the scene. He wonders if it might be possible to have an ordinary relationship with Hardy. A proper friendship with a man. Would that wash away the taint of Anselm,
of his court martial? Instead of stealing a plane, he could begin a new, manly life of drinking and gambling and football and chasing girls and telling stories. A life free from rumour, innuendo and blackmail. Free from dirty words shouted by strangers, from conversations that stop when he enters a room.

Even as he is thinking these things he finds himself investing Hardy with Anselm’s beauty. Projecting Anselm’s face and voice on to him. Trying to feel for him what he felt for Anselm. The beast that Anselm has awoken in him, it seems, will never go to sleep again.

No, he tells himself with a nod of determination. He must find his friend. There can be no substitutes.

At 10.20pm, when the barman rings a bell, Charles realizes two things: first, that he has been having so much fun listening to Hardy’s stories he has lost track of time; second, that he is drunk.

Ten minutes later they hear a bicycle bell being rung outside. A policeman wearing a cloak attached around the neck by a chain appears in the doorway and, catching the barman’s eye, taps his watch. The barman gives a thumbs-up signal. Charles finishes his bitter and thumps it down as a signal for the others to do the same. Policemen make him nervous.

As they stumble out past the sandbags into the night air, they gasp with laughter and hold on to each other for support. Hardy has his arm around Gloria’s waist and only when he reaches his borrowed sports car does he recall it is a two-seater.

‘Don’t worry,’ Charles says, ‘we’ll walk.’ When he sees Hardy getting into the passenger seat by mistake, he adds with an indulgent laugh: ‘Might be safer anyway!’

Because of the blackout, the headlights have been all but covered, leaving only two slits of light showing. Hardy revs loudly for a few seconds before putting the car in gear and dropping the clutch. ‘Good to meet you, Maggie!’ he shouts over the noise of the engine. ‘See you tomorrow, Charles!’ The car swerves to avoid a litter bin. Gloria waves goodbye. They disappear into the night.

With Hardy gone, Charles suddenly feels self-conscious. Left alone with Maggie he wonders again why he is here, why he has agreed to this double date. Was he trying to impress Hardy? Was he using Maggie to get closer to him? To befriend him? He tries to put these thoughts from his head as they walk arm in arm, following a kerbstone that has been painted black and white to help pedestrians navigate the darkness.

In the distance, over the London docks, they can make out the shapes of barrage balloons silhouetted against the glow of burning buildings. ‘Looks like the East End caught it again,’ Charles says. ‘Poor devils.’

Maggie tilts her head so that it is resting on his shoulder. ‘
Carpe diem
, Captain,’ she says. ‘
Carpe diem
.’

In the absence of street lighting, other pedestrians are reduced to dark shapes. They listen to footsteps recede. The moon emerges from behind clouds to reflect on the canal. There is a small iron bridge across it and, leading down, stone steps. Maggie goes first and then, when they are under the bridge, she turns. She is breathing rapidly. As their fingertips touch, she tilts back her head. When he withdraws his lips from hers, he sees her eyes are closed.

Without releasing her hold of him, Maggie takes a couple of steps backwards so that her shoulders are against the wall of the bridge. She unbuttons her coat, hitches up her skirt and wriggles her hips as she tugs down her camiknickers and steps out of them one leg at a time before stuffing them in her pocket.