Dominion (21 page)

‘You’re tired,’ she said. ‘Go upstairs and change out of your work clothes. I’ll lay the table.’

She put the decorators’ note beside his plate. As David sat down to eat, and Sarah set out the lamb chops, she said, ‘That came this afternoon, while I was out. He can come next
week.’

David looked across the table. ‘Has that upset you, too? As well as those boys being attacked?’

‘A little, yes.’ She hesitated. ‘I don’t think we’ve always helped each other as we might.’

‘I know,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m sorry.’

She smiled ruefully. ‘It’s been a tough couple of years, hasn’t it, one way and another?’

‘Tough as hell.’

‘I’ve got another committee meeting on Sunday.’

‘Will you be all right to go?’

‘Yes. Yes, I’ll go.’

Afterwards they watched the news on television in their separate armchairs. Beaverbrook was broadcasting from Berlin; he stood on the steps of the Reich chancellery smiling
cheerfully at the reporters, bright as buttons as always. He spoke in his sharp voice with its Canadian twang: ‘I am happy to report, gentlemen, that my talks with Herr Goebbels have gone
very well. I also had an audience with Herr Hitler this morning. He sends his warm greetings to the British people and the Empire. A new era of economic and military co-operation with Germany is
dawning, which can only help our country in these difficult times. Tariffs on trade between Britain and Europe are to be reduced, easing trade conditions and helping our industries. The size of the
British army is to be increased by a hundred thousand men, amending the Treaty of Berlin, to strengthen our Imperial forces. I shall bring back the keys to a new prosperity and strength for our
country and Empire. Thank you.’

David laughed emptily. ‘If the Germans are going to let us trade more with Europe and recruit more soldiers they’ll want something in return. Trade – I expect that’ll
mean contracts for our arms industry; they’ve been trying to get in on the Russian war for years.’

‘Oh, God.’ Sarah shook her head. ‘Remember in the thirties, how people used to laugh at Mosley and his Blackshirts strutting along. We used to think British people could never
become Fascists, or Fascist collaborators. But they can. I suppose anybody can, given the right set of circumstances.’

‘I know.’

The television was now showing a giant fir being cut down in Norway, the annual gift that in a few weeks would be erected in Trafalgar Square. Prime Minister Quisling clapped as the huge tree
fell, sending up clouds of snow. Sarah knew the sight of him would bring back memories for David of the 1940 Norway campaign. He said, ‘I’ve got to go into the office tomorrow, early.
Just for a meeting. It’s a bore. I’ll be back by lunchtime.’

‘All right,’ she said with a sigh.

‘I’m tired. I’m going to bed,’ he said. ‘No need for you to come up yet. Stay downstairs if you want.’

Late on Saturday morning David returned from his meeting with Jackson with a hard, tense feeling inside him. Sarah must not know about Frank’s call, and when he went to
Birmingham tomorrow to visit him, she must think he was going somewhere else.

David had a great-uncle in Northampton, who had helped his parents when they first came to England. He had owned a small building firm but was in his eighties now, a childless widower.
David’s father had asked him to keep an eye on Uncle Ted, and David visited the old Irishman a couple of times a year, usually on his own for Ted’s grumpiness was legendary. The story,
he had decided, would be that Ted had had a fall and was in hospital. Frank’s telephone call, which Jackson said would come between four and five that afternoon, would supposedly be from him.
David had asked at the meeting, ‘How can I stop Sarah taking the call? We’ve a phone in the bedroom but why would I be up there at four on a Saturday?’

‘An illness,’ Jackson had suggested. ‘Not something that would stop you travelling the next day.’

On Saturday morning, after breakfast, he went out into the garden and tidied up the leaves. It was another cold, raw day. Sarah came out in a headscarf and old coat and helped
him rake the wet leaves into a pile. They lit a fire, and a thin column of smoke rose into the still air. Sarah’s cheeks had reddened with the cold; it was a long time since they had done
something like this together. She looked pretty, relaxed by the work. She was so honest, so good. David felt a dreadful stab of mingled affection and guilt.

At half past twelve Sarah went in to prepare lunch. As he worked on alone, digging out dead plants from the flowerbeds, David wondered what on earth it was that Frank knew. Or did he know
nothing? Had that fragile mind just snapped at last? No, that couldn’t be it, the Americans wanted him. He hated the thought of Frank in danger, hunted. He had felt in danger himself for so
long.

He remembered standing with his father on the wharf in Auckland, in 1946, waiting to get the ship back to England, at the end of his posting to New Zealand. Sarah had gone to the ladies.
David’s father said, ‘They say they’re having a bad winter in England. Still, it should be over by the time you get back.’

‘Yes, we’ll go from late summer straight into spring.’

Suddenly his father said, ‘Stay here, David. Things are getting worse in England.’

‘Dad, we’ve been through this. Sarah and I feel – it’s our country, we belong there.’

His father said quietly, ‘There’s one way you don’t belong there, son, not now. And that hardly matters here.’

‘Nobody knows. There’s no way anybody can.’

His father sighed. ‘I’ve often wondered what it was your mother was trying to say to you. Just before she died. Perhaps it was a warning.’

David remembered the last sight of his father, waving from the quayside as the ship pulled away, his greying black hair flying in the wind. He put down his spade and went in. He said to Sarah,
‘I think I’ve done too much bending, my back hurts. I think after lunch I might lie down.’

Over the meal Sarah looked at him sympathetically. ‘You did too much,’ she said. ‘Go on up and I’ll bring you a cup of tea. Lie flat on your back with
your knees bent, that’s the best way.’ She believed him and that made David unreasonably angry with her again – he wanted to shout that there was nothing wrong with his bloody
back. But he went up and lay down on the bed in the position she had suggested. On the table beside him stood the telephone extension he had installed last year; in case there was a night-time
emergency at work, he had told her.

She brought up the tea and he drank it. After a while the posture made him uncomfortable so he sat on the side of the bed, looking through the net curtains at the bare trees and grey sky.

At ten past four, just as the light was starting to go, the phone rang. Though he had been waiting for it the shrill sound made David jump. He snatched up the receiver. ‘Kenton
4815.’

For several moments he heard only silence, then a voice, thin and tremulous. ‘Is that David Fitzgerald?’

‘Yes. Who’s that?’

‘It’s – it’s Frank, David. Frank Muncaster. You remember?’

‘Of course. Frank? Long time no see. How are you?’ David spoke quietly.

‘Oh . . .’ There was a despairing note in the voice. ‘I’m – having a few problems. I’ve not been well.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that, Frank. Really sorry.’

‘I’m – well, I’m in a mental hospital.’ Frank’s voice was louder now, full of anxiety. ‘David, I’m really, really sorry to trouble you like this
out of the blue, but I need someone to help me. I’m in the hospital and there’s a problem with the fees – it’s not the money, I’ve plenty of money, but I can’t
get at it.’ Frank stopped suddenly, as though he couldn’t go on.

‘Listen, Frank, I’ll do anything I can to help. Just tell me.’

The voice became tremulous again, speaking rapidly now. ‘I’ve been certified as a lunatic, David. I can’t get out. They need a relative to be my trustee. But Mum’s died
and Edgar’s in America and they can’t get hold of him. David, is there any way you could help me get things organized somehow? There’s no-one else. No-one.’

‘Where are you?’

‘Bartley Green Hospital, just outside Birmingham.’

David took a deep breath. ‘Listen, Frank, I could come up tomorrow.’ He spoke quickly, he could hear Sarah’s footsteps on the stairs.

‘Could you? Oh, it’s so much to ask . . .’

Sarah came in, stood in the doorway looking down at him enquiringly. David said carefully into the telephone, ‘I’ll come. It’s easy on the train. What are the visiting
hours?’

‘If you could come in the afternoon. There’s a nurse, he’s called Ben. They have male nurses here, attendants—’

David cut in. ‘I’ll come tomorrow, say about – oh – three o’clock?’

‘Yes. Yes, that would be so good. Oh, thank you.’ Frank’s voice trembled again. ‘It’ll be good to see you. But I’m sorry – it’s your weekend, I
never asked how you are, and your wife—’

‘Sarah’s fine. Listen, I’ll see you tomorrow, I’ll do anything I can to help—’

‘Thank you. David, I have to go, this is the hospital line and it’s a trunk call.’

‘All right. Goodbye.’

‘Goodbye, David.’ Frank sounded tremendously relieved. ‘Thank you, thank you.’ There was a click. David waited a second, then said into the dead line, ‘All right,
Uncle. Don’t worry, I’ll see you tomorrow. Goodbye.’ He put the receiver down slowly, and turned to Sarah. ‘It’s Uncle Ted. He had a fall at home, he’s in
hospital.’

G
UNTHER LOOKED ROUND THE LOUNGE
of the big flat in Russell Square. It was Friday evening. I might be here for weeks, he thought. The flat was in a
Victorian building but the interior had been modernized, all clean lines, rectangular furniture, the lights round the walls shaped like inverted shells. In contrast the pictures were German scenes,
standard diplomatic issue. His eye was caught by a seascape, a view across windswept marram grass to the Baltic, grey-blue under a wide pale sky. A lone sailing boat was visible near the horizon.
It reminded Gunther of visits to the coast during his childhood.

There was a double bedroom, and a study with a large desk, where a notebook and pencil were laid neatly on the blotter. In a corner was a photograph of Reichsführer Himmler, his face in
half-profile, the keen eyes behind the spectacles staring at something just off-camera. It was a reminder that Gunther’s loyalties were to the SS now, not Ambassador Rommel.

He went into the kitchen. A tall refrigerator contained rye bread, spiced sausage and cheese as well as several bottles of beer. Good, the English policeman would probably expect a drink when he
came. He went into the bedroom, took off his jacket and shoes, and padded back to the lounge in his socks. A little clock on the mantelpiece showed a quarter to seven. The policeman, Syme, was not
due until eight thirty. Gunther wondered what he would be like. On his walk to the flat from Senate House he had noticed how shabby and tawdry London looked; dog dirt and litter on the pavements,
tired-looking people shuffling home after work, no zest or sense of purpose in their step. A newspaper hoarding spoke of more strikes in Scotland, a Special Conference of the Scottish National
Party resolving to assist the authorities all they could in return for a convention to consider Home Rule as a first stage towards possible independence. Gunther’s own vision of the future,
the German vision, was clear and logical and bright; a total contrast to this confused, dirty mess of a country. He switched on the television that sat in a corner. A cowboy drama was showing,
cheap American nonsense, not allowed on German television. He turned off the set, lit a cigarette and sat staring at the seascape, remembering his childhood.

Gunther had been born in 1908, six years before the Great War. His father was a police sergeant in a small town not far from Königsberg in East Prussia, Imperial
Germany’s easternmost province. He was ten minutes older than his twin brother Hans. They looked identical, the same square faces and light-blond hair, but their personalities were different;
Hans was quicker, funnier, with a quicksilver energy Gunther lacked. Gunther was more like his father, solid and steady. He was a clumsy, untidy boy, though, always creasing his clothes, while Hans
was as neat as a new pin.

Both did well at school though Gunther was a plodder while Hans was quick and imaginative, too much sometimes for the disciplinarian teachers. Gunther always felt protective of Hans, yet at the
same time jealous, envying him for the qualities that made him the more popular twin among the other boys and later, with girls. It was Hans, though, who always wanted Gunther’s company,
while often Gunther preferred to be alone.

Their mother was a small, tired, self-effacing woman. Their father was a big man, with a craggy face and a moustache with upturned waxed points like the Kaiser’s. In his uniform with its
tall helmet he could look intimidating. He believed in order and authority above all. When the Great War came he spoke proudly of bringing German order to all Europe. But Germany lost the war. The
decadence and disorder of the Weimar Republic that followed horrified the ageing policeman. Once at the dinner table, not long after the war, he told them with tears in his eyes, ‘There were
students demonstrating in the town today. Anarchists or Communists. We came and stood on the side of the square, to make sure it didn’t get out of hand. And they stood there
laughing
at us, mocking us, calling us pigs and lickspittles. What will become of us?’ Gunther was horrified to realize then that his father, his strong father, was frightened.

At secondary school, Gunther developed an interest in English; he was good at the language and became fascinated by British history and how Britain had built a gigantic
worldwide empire. Germany had overtaken Britain in industry, but had been too late to create an empire to provide the raw materials it needed. His teacher, a strong German nationalist, taught how
England was in decline now, a great people gone to seed through democratic decadence despite their magnificent past. Gunther wished Germany had an empire, instead of being what the teacher called a
cowed nation, provinces hacked away at Versailles, the economy ruined by reparations. Gunther would tell Hans about his thoughts of Empire and his brother, who had much more imagination, conjured
up stories for him of great battles on sweltering Indian plains, settlers in Africa and Australia struggling against hostile natives. Gunther was in awe of his brother’s ability to picture
another world.