I'll Be Seeing You (30 page)

‘How's Flavia?' I asked him later when we had a moment alone.

He dropped the American accent. ‘She's fine. Been busy at the mag with summer. They're doing a Rustic Renaissance feature – you know the sort of thing: rough-hewn plaster, rag rugs, yokels' smocks on hooks, wild-flower meadows . . .'

‘When will you hear about the audition?'

He shrugged. ‘When they've seen all the others. Days, weeks, months . . . who knows? They're footing the bill for me to stay on a couple more days – a few parties lined up. I think LA's bloody fantastic.'

‘That's a very good word for it.'

He looked at me with his gorgeous green eyes, through the thick black lashes. ‘Not really your sort of place, is it Juliet?'

‘Not really.'

‘It's mine, though.'

‘Yes, I can see that it is.'

‘I'm not really the sort of man you want for Flavia either, am I? Be honest.'

‘I'm afraid you'll make her unhappy, Callum – in the long run.'

‘I know you are,' he said. ‘You could be right.'

The limo collected him later and he slid smoothly into the back and waved as though he'd been accustomed to such things all his life.

Dan and Chris had been invited to a New Year's Eve party and tried to persuade me to go with them but I ducked out, pleading tiredness. The truth was that I'd never much enjoyed New Year parties. To me, there always seems something sad about the old year going and something frightening about a new one arriving. And with the passing of this particular year, my mother was slipping further away into the past. Or that was how it felt. Kim and Ricki had gone off to another party and so I had the house to myself – me and the fake Christmas tree and the gas log fire. I sat watching the realistic flames flickering and the fairy lights winking and blinking, and thought of Ma. What had she really wanted? Simply to tell me about the man she'd loved so much who was my father? Or for me to go out and search until I found him? I'd never know the answer. And finding him seemed so unlikely. Almost impossible without some of the luck that Stella Morrison had spoken of.

The phone trilled in bursts, American style, and it was Rob Mclaren.

‘Julie? Why aren't you out celebrating?'

Hearing his voice had made me smile. ‘Why aren't you?'

‘I've given up New Year parties as well as Christmases.'

‘So have I.'

‘Good. That means you won't be hung-over tomorrow. We're going to follow up another lead. This guy's called Hamlyn. Craig Hamlyn. Lives in Palm Springs, out in the desert.'

‘It sounds a long way.'

‘Only a couple of hours' drive.' A pause. ‘You getting cold feet again?'

‘Just a bit.'

‘I'll hold your hand all the way, and you can hide behind me like last time.'

‘Thanks.'

‘Pick you up around nine in the morning.'

The line clicked silent. I went on watching the flickering flames and the twinkling lights, and thinking about Rob and how much I was getting to like him.

He was at the door dead on nine and he held out a hand to me. ‘OK, Julie. Let's go.'

I put my hand in his.

As we drove off in the Jeep he asked if I'd eaten anything.

‘I had some coffee.'

‘We'll stop and get some breakfast. You can't do this sort of thing on an empty stomach.'

He swung into the parking lot of an IHOP. ‘This place is pancakes and all kinds of stuff that's bad for you. You'll love it.'

We sat in a booth and a pretty Mexican waitress brought coffee, big menus and glasses of iced water. There were flags strung along the ceiling and Muzak playing. Two enormously fat women had somehow managed to squeeze themselves into the next-door booth and were working their way steadily through a mound of waffles and cream and strawberries. The Muzak, for some reason, was playing ‘Begin the Beguine'.

‘What do you recommend this time?'

‘Pretty much everything,' he said. ‘How about buttermilk pancakes with eggs, bacon, and sausage links? You can have fruit on top.'

‘On top of the
eggs
?'

‘No, the pancakes. Or instead of buttermilk, you could have chocolate chip, banana nut, buckwheat . . . Or you can have any kind of omelette – country, chicken fajita, Santa Fe, cheese, avocado . . . Or Belgian waffle – they're good.
Or
a T-bone steak and eggs, with pancakes on the side. The choice is yours, ma'am. Me, I'm going for hash browns and eggs over easy.'

I settled for the eggs and bacon with buttermilk pancakes on the side, which came in pairs and were each the size of a small dinner plate. He pushed a rack of syrup jars in my direction. ‘Take your pick – maple, blueberry, strawberry, butter pecan.'

Which to choose? I went for the maple and poured it all over the pancakes.

Rob started on the hash browns. ‘I called this guy and got his wife first. She took some persuading but she put him on in the end. He checked out OK. B-17 pilot, Halfpenny Green, '43/'44, shot down, and all the rest of it. He says he can't remember there being
any
English WAAFs on the base. Anyhow, he said we can stop by so long as it's p.m. They play golf in the mornings.'

‘What did you say about me?'

‘Same as before. And I'm still your old and trusty friend. Have you got the photo?'

‘Yes.'

He patted his jacket pocket. ‘I've got the sketchbook. That's the clincher. Last time we didn't even need to show it. It stuck out a mile that that guy was the wrong one.'

‘How could you be so sure?'

He signalled the waitress for more coffee. ‘Hell, Julie, there's no way someone like that could be
your
father.'

We left via downtown Los Angeles – through shadowy skyscraper canyons, then fast along the San Bernadino freeway out of the city and on across miles of scrubland – the kind of arid, rocky-outcrop terrain that you see in Westerns. I half-expected a posse of gun-toting cowboys to materialize over the horizon in a cloud of dust, and come thundering full tilt towards us. On the Jeep radio some man was playing a guitar and crooning a country song.

Palm Springs lived up to its name. There were palms galore and there must have been springs because it was a green and fertile oasis in the middle of a desert, lying at the foot of the San Jacinto mountains. Hotels, condominiums, haciendas, lakes, lawns, swimming pools, golf courses, flowers, sunshine . . . and a perfect air temperature somewhere in the high seventies.

It was too early to call on the Hamlyns and too soon to eat anything else after the pancake-house breakfast, so we went to a bar where Rob ordered two margaritas.

‘Mexican courage, Julie. You're looking panicky again. As though you might make a run for it – if I let you.'

‘Where would I run to?'

‘Nowhere. You'd die out in the desert.'

As soon as I'd finished my drink, he ordered another. ‘When we get there, turn up the phoney English accent to max. It'll impress the wife and she needs impressing.'

‘Phoney?'

‘Most Yanks can't believe it's for real. There's a theory that if you wake up an Englishman in the middle of the night, shouting
Fire! Fire!
he'll drop the accent and start talking normally – like an American.'

Between the margaritas and the joking, I felt better. Even so, as we arrived at the gated condominium where the Hamlyns lived, the panic came back, together with the sledgehammer heart and the jelly knees. I wasn't sure if it was because I so hoped he was my father, or because I so hoped he wasn't. I was so afraid of being disappointed by him.
Why run the risk? It could be such a big mistake
. A security guard admitted us through the gates into the compound. The condo was shining white stucco with flowers in dazzling, regimented bloom, dense emerald-green grass, more palms and exotic greenery, immaculate grounds.

‘This is retirement living,' Rob said. ‘No kids, no noise, no hassle and a golf course right in their back yard. A dream come true.'

We found the condo number and Rob rang the bell. He smiled at me. ‘Hang in there, kid.'

A woman's voice crackled from a grille beside the door and he answered. There was a click and the door swung open.

Mrs Hamlyn was as immaculate as her surroundings. She was probably well into her sixties but nothing had been allowed to slide – hair, make-up, clothes, figure were all in apple-pie order. Cowardly as
The Wizard of Oz
lion, I hung back and left Rob to do the talking; he turned the charm full on. We were conducted into a living room that was a far cry from the one in Garden Grove. The furniture and pictures and ornaments looked as if they had been transplanted direct and complete from an expensive show house, the potted plants were flourishing, not a single thing was out of place.

‘Craig will be joining us momentarily,' Mrs Hamlyn said. ‘He's been taking a shower. We only just got back from the golf club.'

I could see the golf course out of the big picture window: acres of verdant lawns, sandy bunkers, velvet greens, silvery-blue eucalyptus trees and electric golf carts crawling slowly about like white beetles. ‘It looks a lovely course.'

‘Oh, it is. That's why we came here. Craig and I took up golf a few years back, when he retired, and we're just crazy about the game. We play every day.' She was looking me over as she spoke and I don't think she was too impressed. I'd made the big mistake of wearing linen and my skirt and blouse had turned to rags. ‘Coming from England, I'm sure you'll like some tea. We're quite familiar with British customs. We had tea at the Ritz Hotel in London when we were last over there.'

‘That's very kind of you. I'd love some.'

‘Do you prefer Earl Grey or Lapsang Souchong, Mrs Porter? I have both.'

‘Earl Grey would be very nice, thank you – if it's not too much trouble.'

She looked past me. ‘Oh, Craig, this is Mrs Porter from England. And Mr Mclaren.'

I turned, heart in my mouth. He wasn't quite as tall as the one before – but with more hair and not a pound overweight. To the pristine slacks and the leisure shirt and the slipper-like loafers on his feet, I added an American Air Force cap to see if the face was right. It could have been, except for the mouth which wasn't. The lips were too thin and the corners turned down, not up. But then, I reasoned, mouths probably change over the years. A long marriage to Mrs Hamlyn might have caused his to droop a trifle. We shook hands. His wife left the room – presumably to make the tea – and we sat down on the uncomfortable show-house chairs.

He said politely, ‘What part of England do you come from, Mrs Porter?'

‘From London.'

‘We were over there last summer. We stayed in London for a few days, then went on to Stratford-upon-Avon and Oxford and some other places.'

‘You didn't by any chance go to the Bomb Group reunion at Halfpenny Green, did you?' I couldn't remember him at all, but then there had been a lot of people. I could easily have missed seeing him.

He shook his head. ‘We've been to a couple of those over here, but we don't care for them. I've never gone back to Halfpenny Green, I'm afraid.' He shifted in his chair – perhaps he found them uncomfortable too. ‘I understand your mother was a WAAF with the Royal Air Force during the war?'

‘Yes. She died last year and I'm trying to piece some missing parts of her life together. I was hoping to come across people who remembered her then. She was stationed at Halfpenny Green.'

He frowned. ‘I got there in late '43 but I don't recall any British WAAFs.'

‘Actually, she was the only one left when the Americans took over. She worked with the RAF liaison officer.'

He had steepled the tips of his fingers and was tapping them precisely together. His wrists were thin and bony. ‘Did she? I don't remember him either.'

‘I wonder if you knew a pub called the Mad Monk in the village? I think my mother went there sometimes.'

‘I was teetotal in those days. I still am. I never went to pubs. Flying and alcohol don't mix, in my view. Some of the crews didn't agree with that, of course. A lot of them got drunk regularly, I'm sorry to say. They frequently paid the price.'

I couldn't imagine Ma falling deeply in love with this man and remembering him for the rest of her life. Could anyone describe him as
wonderful
? Nor could I imagine him piloting a heavy four-engined bomber – he seemed more suited to the controls of a golf cart.

‘How long were you at Halfpenny Green, Mr Hamlyn?'

‘Four months. We had engine trouble on a raid over France and had to force-land. I managed to evade capture and got out through Spain. I was posted back stateside and spent the rest of the war over here.'

I brought the photo out of my bag. ‘I don't suppose you'd recognize any members of this crew? They served at Halfpenny Green.'

He took it reluctantly, glanced at it, and returned it. ‘No. I don't. You have to realize, Mrs Porter, that there were around fifty crews stationed on the base at any one time. That's a lot of men – five hundred, to be precise. They were arriving and leaving constantly, flying different missions, living in different quarters . . . And it was fifty years ago.'

I said apologetically, ‘Yes, of course. It was asking a lot.'

Rob produced the sketchbook. ‘This wouldn't ring any bells either, would it?'

He flicked over a few pages. ‘It looks like it could be Halfpenny Green, but I've never seen any of these drawings before.'

Mrs Hamlyn reappeared wheeling a tea trolley equipped with gold-rimmed cups and saucers, matching teapot, strainer and milk jug. They were Royal Doulton, she said. She had bought them in Harrods china department on their last trip and had them shipped back home. We made polite conversation about the Royal Family, the terrible English weather, the wonderful London taxis, the beautiful Oxford colleges, William Shakespeare, Anne Hathaway's cottage, and so on. After a suitable interval, Rob and I stood up to leave. At the door we all shook hands again.