Unexploded (20 page)

‘Mr Pirazzini died this morning,’ she said at last. ‘Did you know?’

He stiffened. ‘Yes. Yes, they telephoned me at the Bank. I was frightfully sorry to hear it.’ He turned to her. She looked washed out, dishevelled. ‘I’m sure you were a great comfort to him, Evvie.’

She trained her gaze on him. ‘Why do you say that?’

‘Why do I say what?’

‘That you’re sure when you’re not sure at all.’

‘I’m sure he was lucky to have you visit as often as you did.’

‘Geoffrey, every ounce of Mr Pirazzini’s luck left him the day he was taken to the Camp. Has his wife been informed?’

‘Why do you ask,’ he said, ‘when you know the answer?’ She blamed him. Never mind Government policy. She was making Mr Pirazzini’s fate a consequence of his actions or inaction, or possibly both. But today, unusually, her resentment didn’t rankle. The new feelings he had – of discovery, of life and appetite – insulated him from whatever hostility lay between them. They made him feel compassionate and undefensive. He felt a curious lightness of the soul; a silken sense of something wider. More than ever, he wanted his wife to have what she wanted and to be released from the anger that was exhausting her.

He wanted, too, to tell her that something strange had happened:
that he had fallen in love, or into a passion at least, and that the woman was a Jewess, or at least she gave him to believe she was a Jewess – and that it didn’t
matter
. He couldn’t explain it. Perhaps he didn’t actually love her, perhaps it was her exoticism, but he was, against all expectations, chiefly his own, in the grip of something. A fascination, a sense of – he didn’t have the words – of being
alive
.

Even now, ironically, impossibly, Evelyn was the person he longed to tell.

She crossed her ankles and turned her face to the setting sun, closing her eyes to him, and to the world bearing down.

He rolled up his shirtsleeves. He could almost feel Leah’s long, beautiful fingers once more on his shoulders, on the back of his neck.

Evelyn’s mind wandered back to the Camp.

When she’d been quite sure that Otto had fallen asleep, she’d surprised herself by standing and walking around to the other side of the screen. Suddenly she had wanted to make a gift of
The Waves
, to leave it, with the page marked, on the washstand beside his bed. It made her feel glad, a little thrilled even, to imagine his delight when he awoke and found it.

He was sleeping on his stomach. In the sweltering heat he wore only the bottoms of his regulation nightwear, and the sheet with its official four-digit number had slipped down his back. She drew closer. His ribs stood out like the staves of a ruined barrel. But his back …

Her hand flew to her mouth. She’d had to look away to get her breath.

She’d picked the book up again, slipped it into her bag and walked away as noiselessly and quickly as she could. She’d had no right.

High above the terrace, the canopies of the golden acacias were drenched in the light of early evening. They rippled in a breeze she
could see in their leaves but could not herself feel. Such heat, even at this time of day. She thought of him up at the Camp. When, she wondered, would he see so much as a tree again?

‘Evvie, listen.’ Geoffrey’s voice made her start. ‘Simply tell me what it is you would like. If it will make you happy, I’ll give you the grandstand itself.’

The grandstand. She smirked. None of his words these days seemed like his. Her husband was an imposter.

‘And if you want to continue your efforts at the Camp, I’ll speak to the Head of Patrol,’ he said.

‘I would simply like to read to the other man in the infirmary. His name, I believe, is Otto.’ She knew it was. ‘I realize of course that the barracks, when he returns to them, won’t be appropriate but surely there is somewhere –’

‘I’m afraid not.’ He rose from his chair. A shaft of evening light shone broad and mellow on the trunk of the old beech tree. He had to shake himself, focus. ‘Otto Gottlieb isn’t entitled to privileges.’

She shrugged. ‘I’ve discovered he likes to read.

He likes books.’ He could hear something more in her voice. The man, his plight, had touched her in some way.

‘Choose anyone else.’

She blinked and smiled falsely. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Otto Gottlieb is a Category A.’

‘Goodness. He’s too thin to do anyone any harm – except himself of course, as we know already. Do you feed them up there, Geoffrey?’

And still the man’s voice was in his ear:
I daresay it’s also rare to meet a Superintendent who takes so great an interest in his prisoners.

‘He came to us from a camp in Germany. He’s no stranger to trouble. He’s not worthy of your efforts, Evvie.’

‘An hour or so, perhaps once or twice a week. What’s the harm?’

I am being accurate, not insolent, Superintendent.

‘We searched his bed in the barracks yesterday.’ He heard the words leave his mouth and he marvelled at his own speed of thought. He’d never been a liar.

‘Why? He’s still in the infirmary.’ Then she realized. That was the point.

‘The Head of Patrol had no choice but to confiscate what he found.’

‘For goodness’ sake. He’s a man who tried to kill himself. Surely, with all those hundreds of prisoners, there are more urgent matters?’

‘It was contraband, Evvie.’

She batted at a wasp. ‘Cigarettes? A bottle? I hardly think it’s –’

‘He arrived in this country with cash, all of it counterfeit. Nevertheless, the authorities accepted his story and granted him asylum, subject to a tribunal. The tribunal designated him Category A but he was granted the right to stay. He drifted from London to Brighton, for no clear reason. He has no family here; no contacts, or at least none he would name. That said, his sponsor was the Bishop of Chich-ester. He’s here, in other words, on Christian charity and British goodwill. Yet when the internment arrests were made – all Category A, B and C aliens – the police found more forged notes in his lodgings. He was living off the stuff. Now’ – he rubbed the bridge of his nose – ‘we’ve discovered still more of it stuffed in his mattress. It beggars belief.’

Somewhere in the Park, a child was wailing.
All’s lost
, she thought.
All’s lost
.

For Philip’s eighth birthday, Geoffrey had taken their son to see how sterling was made at the Royal Mint. A man’s wage packet, a
person’s bank book, a country’s currency – all represented something fundamental to Geoffrey. If he had a deep faith of any kind, it was in a work ethic. The sight of unemployed men, men thrown from the path of their lives, as if by some dark, ungovernable horse, haunted him.

He glanced back at her. She was still brooding on it. She hadn’t given up the idea. ‘There’s more, I’m afraid.’ He gripped the terrace’s low balustrade.

‘More money?’

‘More reason not to cater to him: black-market activity among the interns.’ He bowed his head. ‘We strongly suspect he’s behind it.’

She sat up, blinking. ‘Of course he’s not –’

‘Evvie, I don’t think I need to convince you how low and despicable a thing it is to profit from desperate men.’

She felt winded, dizzy. She would have put her head between her knees were it not for a fear of looking overly affected by the fate of a Category A prisoner. ‘Have you reported him to the police?’

He turned, finally. His pulse twitched at the corner of his eye. ‘I’m Camp Superintendent.’

Yes
, he was saying.
Of course I have
. Counterfeit cash, for Geoffrey, was not merely a crime, it was a profanity.

A part of her brain still worked in its habitual way: how had he gone an entire day with his shirt misbuttoned? The other part reeled.
Was
Otto Gottlieb a conman?

The fact that he enjoyed books was neither here nor there. Even conmen might read – and paint. He’d said he was a painter. Even conmen might be sensitive, thoughtful, aware. No one was
one
thing. After all, she was, she knew, a snob, a regrettable product of her class. She both clung to and despised most of the things it stood for. And Geoffrey – Geoffrey was a man respected for his sense of fair play,
for his decency and good sense, yet he harboured an irrational contempt for an entire race of people. Casual hatred required neither examination nor confession. Many of the best people hated casually enough.

How sheltered she’d been. Perhaps conmen were
more
, not less, sensitive than most. Had Otto really kept vigil over Mr Pirazzini’s body or had he simply told her he had? A confidence trickster had to … gain one’s confidence. And he had. Clearly her ability to read people, to read situations, had failed her. She’d lost her bearings.

Damn Geoffrey, damn him. And damn herself.

Their evening passed in its ritual tranquillity. Dinner unfolded without Philip, a novelty which made the meal both easier to bear and more awkward. Then came the washing-up; the
Evening Argus
for Geoffrey; Evelyn’s dutiful check on the vacant houses of neighbours; the hanging of the keys; the closing of the shutters; the buzz of the wireless. Finally, it was the book in her lap and the start of an hour’s uncomfortable silence while they waited for the news.

When the knock at the door went, just after eight, ‘I’ll go,’ he said. It had to be Philip, back from Tubby’s – early. It hadn’t yet gone dark.

When Geoffrey didn’t reappear, she opened a shutter. A bobby stood on the doorstep, his face downcast and his helmet in his hands. Geoffrey was nodding, his features sombre and heavy. She could hear the low rumble of their voices but not the words they spoke. When he stepped inside again, it was only to ask if she would dash upstairs for his suit jacket and tie.

‘Is it about the Category A man?’ She brushed down his jacket, miming wifely duty.

‘I’m afraid so,’ he said.

The point, he told himself grimly, was to spare her the facts: Philip, roaming the town with the Dunn boys again, and now frightened out of his wits in the lock-up like some little ruffian.

It was a collateral stroke of luck that Evelyn had assumed the Constable had come to the door to follow up on the case of Otto Gottlieb.

‘Can’t it wait until Monday?’ She made herself say that much. Whatever the man had done, he was still recovering from surgery, although the image that flashed through her mind was, not of his shoulder, but of the scarred landscape of his back.

Geoffrey resolved he would add nothing to his lies if he could help it. He ignored the question and checked his wristwatch, holding it up to his ear, as if it, like him, were losing time. ‘As I’m out, I might as well return via Tillie’s and collect Philip.’ He sounded off-hand enough.

‘Geoffrey?’

He hovered at the threshold. His jaw flexed softly, like a well-oiled trigger.

Who are you?
she wanted to ask.
Who are you now?
Somewhere within her, the words were pushing, pushing.

‘Shan’t be long,’ he said. Then he kissed the top of her head and shut the front door, too hard, too quickly.

Bang.

24

Summer was ending, Tubby was forbidden, and Orson, it seemed, was nowhere. Philip pulled hard on the bell at Hanover Crescent.

‘Sorry, Mr Stewart-Forbes. I thought you would be Ivy.’

‘I am not usually Ivy, Philip.’

‘Could Ivy please call Orson down for me?’

‘Ivy is not with us today.’ Mr Stewart-Forbes always spoke slowly, as if each word had to be released from a stone paperweight.

‘That’s all right. I can go up and knock on his door myself.’ ‘Orson is not at home.’ Beneath Mr Stewart-Forbes’s cardigan, the aged slump of his shoulders straightened.

‘I haven’t seen him all summer. Is he sick?’

‘He’s in Steyning, at his grandmother’s house.’ Mr Stewart-Forbes’s eyes were clouded and rheumy. ‘I will tell him you called.’ Then he nodded into the distance – ‘On your way now’ – squinted briefly into the sunshine, hoisted his trousers, and closed the door.

Only Clarence remained. When Philip spotted Mrs Dalrymple at her window that overlooked the Park, he ran across their terrace at Number 7, into the Park, and up the stairs to her terrace at Number 6.

But: ‘No, I’m afraid Clarence cannot come out to play, Philip Beaumont,’ she declaimed from her window. ‘He is unhappy. He is hiding somewhere – out there!’ She gestured with her gnarled,
bejewelled hand. Even as they spoke, the Park’s lawns were being turned and tilled by a team of volunteer intruders. ‘The war effort, the bloody war effort,’ she railed. ‘It’s the new religion!’

‘We’re Church of England, Mrs Dalrymple,’ he offered feebly.

The gold in her teeth flashed. ‘Vegetables! Victory! It’s claptrap and rot. Clarence has been off colour ever since this lot marched in like evangelists ready to dig for Jesus – or Churchill, or whoever’s leading the charge this time. In six months, you watch, they’ll be digging just as zealously for Hitler.’

‘Do you think Hitler
will
come to Brighton, Mrs Dalrymple?’

‘Who can say? He isn’t one to leave a calling card, is he?’ She put a withered hand to her mouth and cooed over the Park. ‘Clarence … Clarence … Come home, sweet boy!’ Then she dabbed at her eyes with the tip of the foxtail she wore, even in summer, over her nightdress.

Philip cooed too.

25

Could she do it?

She had seen the police constable outside their front door. She’d heard the low, urgent tones, but still it didn’t make sense. A man who is about to kill himself does not wheel and deal on any black market. A man who wants to end his life does not bother to hoard cash.

Wednesday was Geoffrey’s half-day at the Bank and his weekly trip to London.

She could hear him upstairs, shaving, dressing. In a moment or two, he’d come dashing down the stairs, the bloodied specks of tissue on his face a testament to his impatience to be gone.

She reached up to the key board, took down his set, and prised the two shiniest keys from the fob.

It was the child he saw first, or rather the child’s hoop, just visible from his office door. He remembered it suddenly, sticking out from beneath Leah’s bed. Yellow, if his sense of colour could be trusted. Now, here it was, out of place, like a sickly detail from a dream.