Crooked Heart (12 page)

‘Hello, Birgit,' replied one of the girls, without enthusiasm. ‘Haven't got a couple of fags, have you? Avis and I are all out – the boys kept pinching ours.'

‘Of course.'

‘Handing out fags?' asked the lion, jovially. ‘Got one for me? Tell you what, I'll take one for now and one for later. You don't mind, do you?'

‘No, no.'

‘And maybe one for the morning – you can spare it, can't you, for a soldier boy?'

‘Oh yes,' said Birgit, brightly. ‘I haff plenty.'

‘Getting a secret stash dropped in by the Luftwaffe, are you?'

‘Oh yes, we aliens are kept very well supplied.'

‘In that case, I'll take a couple more.'

Birgit let out another scream of laughter, and Donald heard a sharp sigh from the darkness next to him.

On impulse, he raised the torch. Birgit's companion had turned and was walking away, one hand trailing along the panels of the garden fence.

‘Are you all right?'

She turned. She was short and pale, her dark hair scraped back and tucked into her hat. She looked as if she were about to pass out from disgust.

‘I chust cannot listen to this,' she said. ‘With Birgit everything is funny. The food, the chob, the rudeness of people to us – all is ha ha ha ha
ha
.'

There was an answering burst of laughter from behind them, Birgit's shriek a beat or two behind the others.

‘Day after day I have to listen,' said Hilde. ‘They even put me on the next machine so I would have a
frent
. Luckily I cannot hear her because of the noise.'

‘I got told this one today,' said the soldier, over Birgit's yelps. ‘Might be a touch ripe for the ladies, but here goes. This slip of a tit goes up to the bar and she says to the barman, “Pull us a pint, Charlie,” and he says . . .'

Hilde stood unmoving while the filthy joke unwound, and
then, as the punchline slithered past, she raised her eyes and for the first time looked directly at Donald.

‘I should not have to listen to this sort of talk,' she said. ‘This is not what I am used to. At home we had a pastry cook. I studied the
harp
.'

Something happened inside Donald's chest: he felt a gasping heave, like the shudder of a beached fish, and for a moment he thought he must be dying, but his heart pounded onward and Hilde continued to speak, her voice low and emphatic.

‘And they make us share a room. It is filthy. There is a woman who calls herself a cleaner, but you could grow
marshrooms
in the skirting boarts, she uses the same cloth which also is for the lavatory and I know this to be true because one day I watched her, even though she tried to hide from me. At home the maid would clean the skirting boarts twice a week with lemon chuice and every year they were painted again so they were always fresh. When we arrived at The Beeches I complained about the skirting boarts and the warden was so rude I thought I would have to leave, but of course, there is nowhere to go. We are not welcome anywhere.'

She was looking past Donald's shoulder, her hands, in crocheted gloves, clasped together as if praying. ‘Sometimes there is so much rudeness that I have to close my eyes and think I am sitting in our summerhouse at Wiener Neustadt, with my skedging book. Skedging.'

There was a flare of light, and Donald turned to see one of the other girls leaning forward over a match, a cigarette between orange lips.

‘Ta everso,' she said, flapping her eyelids at the soldier.

He looked back at Hilde. It was like switching his gaze from one of his mother's hat decorations to a real flower. His heart flailed again.

‘What did you sketch?' he asked, and the voice didn't sound like his own.

‘Various things. Horses. Clouds. '

‘And what do you enjoy doing now? In your time off, I mean?'

‘There is nothing that I enchoy doing. My life is horrible.'

‘The pictures?'

‘I went once. There was a stain on the seat and the man beside me was old and disgusting.'

‘Did you sit upstairs or downstairs?'

‘Downstairs.'

‘You get a better class of person upstairs. There are half-crown seats in the circle.'

‘Half-
crown
?'

‘My treat. When could you go?'

‘Go where?'

‘To the pictures with me. Wednesday evening?'

She looked at him with irritation, as if he'd suggested she work an extra shift at the factory.

‘Oh,
Hilde
,' said Birgit, roguishly from the darkness. ‘Are you coming in or do you wish to keep
talking
?' She managed to souse the last two syllables with a bucketful of filth.

‘I wish to keep talking,' said Hilde, restoring the word to instant cleanliness.

With much sniggering, the other girls opened the gate and went up the path. The front door snapped shut.

‘So what do you want to talk about?' asked Donald.

‘I don't. I chust want not to talk to Birgit. If I wait a short time she will be asleep when I get to our room.'

For a full minute there was utter silence. Donald had lowered the torch, and all he could see of Hilde was her feet. They were clad in dainty black Oxfords with tassels on the laces; he had sold many similar pairs in his time at de Souza's (‘A classic choice, madam. And may I interest you in a pair of shoe trees?').
She had tiny feet – he'd estimate a size 3, double C fitting – and he imagined kneeling before her, while she rested her small heel in the palm of his hand. The thought caused another unexpected throb, lower down this time.

In the darkness, he heard Hilde take something from her handbag.

‘Need a light?' he asked, quickly feeling for his matches.

‘I am eating a biscuit I have safed from luncheon.'

He heard the soft crunch of it between her teeth, and tried to think of something smoothly fascinating to say. And failed.

‘You like biscuits, do you?' he asked.

‘Yes.'

‘Any sort in particular?'

‘Vanillekipferl.'

‘Would those be Austrian biscuits?'

‘Yes.' She coughed on a crumb and he hovered his hand above her back, but didn't dare touch, didn't trust himself (for the first time in his life) not to carry on touching.

There was another minute of silence.

‘I will go now,' said Hilde. ‘Good night.'

‘Come to the pictures on Wednesday.'

‘I am sure Birgit will come to the pictures with you.'

‘I don't want to go with Birgit.'

‘Why not? She has blonde hair and a
figure
.'

‘Because she's common. You're . . .' He paused, and then the perfect word came to him. ‘Uncommon.'

There was a short, surprised pause.

‘I know nothing about you,' said Hilde. ‘I do not even know what you look like.'

Mutely, Donald held out the torch, and she took it and shone it back at him. He tried for a pensive expression, head tilted in thought.

‘What is wrong with your neck?'

He straightened. She was thorough; the light traced a semi circle and lingered on his profile.

‘Roman,' she said, and he thought he could detect a hint of approval in her voice. She placed the torch back in his palm.

‘What else do you want to know?' asked Donald.

‘Such things as your family. Your studies, your chob, why you would choose to live in this small place.'

He didn't hesitate; never had a fork in the road been more clearly marked. To one side lay the dingy truth.

‘Donald Sedge de Hannay,' said Donald, moving effortlessly in the other direction. ‘And I was born in London. I won a scholarship to study mathematics at Cambridge but before I could take any of my exams I got a letter. It asked me to come to an interview at an address in Whitehall . . .' He could see himself, knocking three times on an unmarked door, murmuring a password through the letter box.
Come in, Mr Sedge de Hannay, we've been expecting you
. The dry handshake, the shrewd assessment, the tricky questions. ‘After being interviewed for sixteen hours I was taken straight to a training camp in the Highlands and taught how to shoot, ride and navigate blindfold without a map.'

He risked a glance at Hilde. She was looking faintly puzzled. ‘So why are you choosing to live in this small place?' she asked, again.

‘Secret government work. I might be moved at any time, but I can't tell you anything more under pain of death. By firing squad.'

‘What is that?'

‘They'd shoot me.'

‘I see.' She seemed curiously unimpressed by this last piece of information. ‘And what chob is your father?'

‘A banker.'

And his mother wore large hats and satin gloves, buttoned up to the elbow; he had three older sisters, all married, and when
he went up to London in the Austin Tourer, he stayed at his club and dined late. He could describe the carpet in his room, the bed linen, the bloodstone tie-pin he wore with the green silk tie – it was the life he should have been leading . . .

Hilde was speaking. ‘I beg your pardon,' he said, hastily.

She gave a short sigh and repeated the question.

‘I was asking, what is showing at the pictures?'

T
he lines around her eyes were like peg-marks on a dried sheet. Vee patted some more powder over them, and applied a second coat of lipstick before smiling at herself in the compact mirror. ‘Hello, Harry,' she mouthed. ‘Long time no see. Can I have a word?'

And then, before her nerve could fail her, she left the arcade, where she had just spent nearly an hour queuing for some hake (and if the fat woman directly in front of her hadn't turned out to be running a civil servants' billet –
nine portions
, she'd taken – Vee might have actually got some) and crossed the road to Fleckney's Garage.

It was busy, as usual. It had always been a going concern, a smart purpose-built premises, brick and tile, even a panel of stained-glass in the side window, showing a green sports car racing along a purple road. Harry had been lucky. Though of course he'd had to marry the boss's daughter to get it, so you had to weigh the benefits of money in the bank against the daily sight of Jenny Fleckney, who'd always looked like a municipal lamp-post and who hadn't grown any lovelier with age.

Vee edged past a spill of oil. ‘Have you seen Mr Pedder?' she asked a boy in stained overalls.

‘Pit,' he said, nodding towards the back of the garage. Hammering was coming from beneath a police van, and a
familiar liquid whistle, like an evening blackbird. Vee bent her knees and tried to peer under it.

‘Mr Pedder?' she called.

‘Who's asking?'

‘Vera Sedge.' There was a clatter, and a pause, and then Harry's face appeared between the front wheels, his expression horrified.

‘Hello, Harry,' said Vee, ‘long time no see. Can I have a word?'

He didn't move, but his eyes darted past her to see who might be watching.

‘Won't take long,' said Vee.

‘You can't come in here.'

‘Why not? People do.'

‘People with motors.'

‘Well . . . I could be thinking of buying one.'

‘Don't be soft, they're all up on bricks for the duration. It's only official and business now.'

‘That's what I'm here on. Business.'

She drew herself up, and gripped her handbag.

‘Oh Christ,' he said. ‘All right. Come to the office.'

He didn't offer her a seat, but she sat down anyway. Harry wiped his hands on a rag, and stood by the office door, gnawing on a thumbnail. She hadn't expected him to be pleased to see her, but it wasn't nice to see the panic in his eyes. They were fine eyes, all the same: navy blue, with Donald's long lashes. His hairline had slipped a bit, but he was still handsome.

‘You look all right,' she said to him, shyly.

‘I thought you was in Harpenden.'

‘We moved to St Albans last year. You must've seen me passing the garage enough times, I'm always about.'

He shook his head. ‘Too busy to notice. What do you want, Vee?'

There wasn't a speck of sentiment in his voice, not a particle of pleasure. She tried to keep her tone light.

‘Just a bit of a favour.'

‘I can't give you no money,' he said, quickly.

‘I wasn't going to ask for any.'

‘Jenny does the books, see. She's in charge of all that, now her dad's dead. She's got a head for figures. I'm the mechanical side, and she's accounts, she's red-hot on all that, checks the ledgers four times a week, you can't get nothing past her.'

‘I said I wasn't going to ask for any.'

‘Well, what do you want then?'

‘You could be a bit polite,' she said, stung. ‘I've never made trouble for you. I could've, but I didn't.'

‘How could you have?'

‘You know how, you know
exactly
. When I caught for Donald your mother gave me money to get rid of him.'

‘To look after him.'

‘Don't make me laugh. She gave me the address of that doctor in Glebe Street.'

‘You chose to go, she didn't take you there.'

‘But I changed my mind, didn't I?'

‘And kept the money.'

‘The doctor had already taken it, I
told
you.' She'd run down the stairs, leaving her knickers and cash behind, and when she'd gone back five minutes later, he'd refused to answer the door. God knows her life had been crammed with humiliation, but the memory of begging through a letter box for twenty pounds and a pair of peach crêpe camis came pretty near the top of the list.

‘I could have made trouble and I didn't,' she repeated, wearily.

‘None of it would have stuck,' said Harry. ‘He doesn't even look like me.'

‘He does now.' And it was true, though it wasn't until this second that she'd thought of it. The change to the shape of Donald's nose was slight, but it had altered his face, pulled the
flesh tighter across his cheekbones so you could see the structure beneath. ‘He looks a damn sight more like you than your daughters do. Same height, for a start.'

He opened the office door and jerked his thumb. ‘Out.'

She shook her head, beginning to enjoy the encounter. It was like the rare occasions on which she'd downed a whisky: a few seconds of wincing and then fireworks all the way. ‘I want a favour, Harry. I need to change a banknote.'

‘What sized banknote?'

‘Twenty.'

‘
Twenty?
Where did you get that?'

‘Someone gave it to me.'

‘Did they heck.'

‘As the Lord God is my witness,' she said, solemnly. ‘An old lady of my acquaintance.'

‘If it's all above board, then why are you coming to me? Ask a bank.'

There was a pause.

‘I'll take nineteen pound ten for it,' she said.

Harry smiled and pushed the door fully open. ‘Out you go.'

‘Nineteen and six?'

‘No.'

She continued sitting, though without a plan in mind. All she knew was that Harry was nervous, and she wasn't; not any longer. His gaze flicked towards the office clock. ‘You've got to go now, Vee,' he said.

‘Why? You expecting Jenny?'

She knew from his face that she'd guessed correctly. He moved his shoulders as if shifting a harness.

‘Please, Vee,' he said.

‘Oh, so now you're being pleasant?'

‘Have a heart, I'm a family man.'

‘I've got a family too,' said Vee, shrilly, ‘in case you've for gotten. Four mouths to feed.'

‘
Four?
'

‘One's an evacuee. A half-wit cripple,' she added, virtuously. ‘And Donald has to be careful with his health, and my mother's been an invalid since the day I told her I was expecting.'

‘All right, all right.' He shut the door hastily. ‘I'll change the bloody thing.' There was a strongbox in the corner and he took a bunch of keys out of his pocket and began to sort through them. ‘Give me the banknote, then,' he said, over his shoulder, crouching down.

Vee took the creased rectangle out of her handbag. ‘I want it all in change,' she said, hearing the rustle of notes.

‘Twenty quid in
change
? You'd need a bloody wheelbarrow.'

‘Nothing larger than a pound note, then.'

He inspected the twenty carefully, while she folded the notes and counted the coins into her handbag.

‘Thank you, Harry,' she said, politely.

He wasn't looking at her. He locked the box, and peered round the door again. ‘I'll take you through the back,' he said, ‘just in case. And don't let me see you here again.'

He scuttled ahead, but she took her time, arms wrapped around the leaden handbag. Behind the garage was a walled yard, with a long, open-sided shed on the left and a padlocked gate at the far end. Harry had almost reached the latter when he turned on his heel and raced back past her. ‘Left the bloody keys in the bloody office. Stay here,' he ordered.

Vee waited. A pair of swallows twisted past her and up into the eaves of the shed. ‘Handsome is as handsome does,' she said, out loud. For a few moments in the garage, waiting for Harry to catch sight of her, she'd felt extraordinarily young, a sixteen-year-old wearing a bottle-green cloche and riding a borrowed bicycle over the ruts to Colney Heath. The act of actually speaking to him seemed to have had the opposite effect: she'd been flung forward, right over the handlebars and into middle age. Her back hurt.

She heard a tiny splash, and then another. It took her a second or two to spot the islands of bird droppings that had fallen from the swallows' perch into the puddle beneath. And then she moved forward and peered more closely, not quite able to understand what she was seeing. The bird droppings were drinking up colour, changing from black-and-white to a brilliant crimson, and the puddle itself was dark red, fed by a red rivulet that ran from beneath the chassis of a wheelless van, parked within the shed.

She checked that no one was in sight, and then she stepped into the shadows and walked around the van. Behind it was a row of dustbins, one of them on its side, and it was from the latter that the dark liquid was still trickling. Beside it lay a large funnel. The air was heavy with fumes. She lifted the lid of the next dustbin along and it was heaped with something spongy and red – and she almost shrieked before she realized that she was looking at loaves of bread, steeped in red dye. The third bin was filled to the brim with petrol, and she knew, then, what Fleckney's garage was up to – filtering dyed government petrol to sell to civilians. She put back the lids and hurried out to the yard again.

Harry wasn't in sight, but half a second later an apprentice came out, holding the keys self-importantly, and Vee thanked him as he opened the gate. ‘What's Mr Pedder like as a boss?' she asked, innocently.

‘All right,' said the boy.

‘And her? Mrs Pedder?'

He didn't reply but his expression was eloquent. Vee cradled her handbag and found herself almost smiling. She had hoped for a pinch of old passion and instead she'd come away with a hefty slice of knowledge; it wasn't such a bad bargain. She'd certainly have no trouble changing another note from Mrs Gifford.