Knife Edge (2004) (16 page)

She did not finish it, but signed only her name.

De Lisle said, “Here, get this down you.”

They touched glasses, and De Lisle asked with studied casualness, “So. What do you think you got out of all this, eh?”

Ross walked to the windows and saw a junk moving past, slowly, through the haze.

“I think I grew up.”

He imagined he could hear her laugh.

Ross Blackwood felt the seat belt tighten across his chest as the car braked hard behind a large builder’s lorry, but only for a few seconds before they were swinging out and overhauling it, even as another car came speeding toward them.

He looked over at his sister as she blew some hair out of her eyes, gauging the next stretch of road. She was driving too fast, and enjoying it.

He loosened the seat belt and tried to unwind a little, put his thoughts in order. He felt like a complete outsider.

Sue had met him at the station, right on time, as she had promised. He glanced around yet again. A sleek, cream-coloured convertible, brand new by the look of it, and by the smell of the leather upholstery. A Mercedes, and expensive. She was doing well. But a stranger to him.

He shaded his eyes as the sun lanced off the gleaming bonnet and said, “What happened to old Follett’s garden centre? Have they pulled that down as well?”

She took one hand off the wheel and rubbed finger and thumb together.

“Money, Ross. Don’t they teach you about these things in the Corps?”

She had nice hands, well-shaped and strong. She wore no rings of any sort. The last time they had been in touch . . .
Stop right there.
It had not worked out.

She had not changed. Still confident, quick-minded, perhaps a little harder. Unsettled. He felt the brakes again.

“Are we there already?”

Her mouth softened slightly in a smile. The Sue he remembered.

“The cops keep watch on this piece of road. Just past the garage.”

Sure enough, he saw the aerial and blue light showing above a clump of ragged bushes.

She added, “I’ve already got one endorsement. No sense in spoiling things!”

He consciously relaxed his hands in his lap. The skin was very tanned. All those miles. Faces. Challenges. And now he was back in a world he had almost forgotten. Like the bus they had just overtaken: packed with children, balloons trailing from the windows, grinning faces, an adult trying to pour drinks, others waving to this car as it flashed past.

She had said, “School holidays. Glad when they’re over!”

It was July, nearly August, 1980. A week or so ago he had been in Hong Kong yet again, with the Raiding Squadron for duties against illegal immigrants. Before that, in the New Hebrides. Then Cyprus, and of course Plymouth. His life seemed like a film in motion, playing at different speeds.

He glanced over at his sister once more. Unbelievably, she was thirty years old.

“Get ready, Ross. We turn off in a few minutes.”

He asked suddenly, “What made Mother come back to Hawks Hill, after everything that happened? The memories . . .”

She shrugged. “
Because
of the memories, I guess.”

She flashed a thumbs-up to another car which was giving
way to her as she turned. “Still got a lot of friends in this area, you know. A lot of women have to sit around and put up with things!”

He watched the road, a little anxiously. All concrete and high-slung lighting. “Not you, Sue.”

She blew another piece of hair from her eyes. “Too right.
Not me!
”

A modern-looking pub with a large, empty car park. Where the hell had that come from? The familiar lines of trees were all gone. On one side of the road was a white-painted motel.
The Blackwood Arms.
How had they managed that?

She braked again and steered toward a pair of opened gates. The old farm, at least, had been by-passed by progress.

Another set of gates, and a painted sign that read,
Hawks Hill Livery Stables. Accommodation Available.

The car had stopped. She was looking at him, one hand on the key in the ignition.

“Stop thinking ‘it’s not how it used to be’. It’s ten years since you made your decision and went off to be a hero.” She reached out and seized his hand, the first time they had touched since the station. “Since I took that job with
Focus
, remember?”

Two girls in riding kit were crossing a cobbled yard, leading horses. One of the girls waved.

She said, “Yes, this place is different, but it’s alive. What Joanna needs, don’t you see?”

Ross nodded, but turned as if to look at the old house, which had been a beginning and sometimes an end. There was only the road now, and the steady flow of traffic.

His sister was taking out the one case he had brought with him.
Until the next time.

“Here she comes now. Don’t forget what I said.”

He heard his mother’s step on the cobbles, the catch in her voice as she called his name.

She was in his arms, hugging him, laughing as he always remembered, close to tears. The same old straw hat hanging from one shoulder, like those other visits. A week, a few days, in some one else’s flat or house. This, at least, was her own.

Her hair was darker, where it had been grey the last time. It suited her.

She dabbed her eyes with her knuckles.

“You’re early. I must look a mess.” She leaned back in his arms. “I was expecting to see you in uniform!” She pulled away. “I have to deal with somebody.”

Ross watched her hurry into the shadow of the house, glad she could not see his face. You were never ready when it happened.
I was expecting to see you in uniform.
When he had gone to visit Glynis, and they had become lovers. He had never forgotten. How could he?

He had even gone back to that same street in Hong Kong. Pointless, painful, but he had gone. Even more like a dream. The apartment building, Java House, had vanished. In its place was yet another tower block, hiding the harbour . . .
I was expecting to see you in uniform.

Everything had been different. Like the Raiding Squadron. No longer a casual, hit-or-miss operation. Every marine was armed and ready.
Us or them.

He looked at the last of the trees, where the developers and their machinery had come to a halt. A part of England still. That other, secret war only rarely hit the front pages.
Nothing to do with us.

Did people really forget so easily? Less than a year ago it had struck at the Corps and the whole country. Earl Mountbatten of Burma, the Colonel Commandant of the Royal Marines, had been brutally assassinated by the IRA
while holidaying with his family in Ireland. It should never have happened. Poor security, over confidence, some called it arrogance; but the stark fact remained.

Ross heard Joanna’s voice again. Just as her husband had been killed in Cyprus ten years before. War was still a fact of life, although now it was called terrorism.

“How long this time, Ross?” Her hand was linked through his arm, their shadows joining across the cobbles.

“I have to go to London – next week, I think. The M.o.D. or something.”

“Are you worried about it?” She was looking at him; he could feel her eyes. “Things are so uncertain these days.”

Tell her. Promotion is almost at a standstill. Cutting down. Always cutting down.
And there was to be yet another government White Paper on the subject of the country’s defences. It could only get worse.

In two months’ time he would be thirty-five years old. About the same age as Major Keith Houston when he had been killed on that Malaysian beach. Probably the same age as Captain John Irwin when he had been told at Hong Kong that he was no longer required for active duty. It had been his whole life, all he had ever wanted. Needed. They had found his body in one of the workshops at
Tamar
, a pistol still jammed between his teeth.

De Lisle had retired as a full colonel. It did not seem as if he had been given much choice, either.

Another training appointment, perhaps? Eager faces, commandos in the making. The drills, and the aches and pains of mock combat, at Lympstone, or one of those godforsaken camps in Scotland.

Don’t wait to see who’s following you, lad! Move your bloody self! Stay in the lead if you want that green beret, my son!

They stopped by the pond. It had once been near the
edge of a moat dating from Tudor times. You could hear the traffic, in particular the heavy lorries, quite easily from here.

She squeezed his arm. “You’ve never let
them
down. And I know what it cost you.” She looked at the sky. “We’ll ride tomorrow, and you can tell me all about Singapore.”

He smiled, and felt the claws of tension easing their grip. “Hong Kong, love!”

Welcome home.

Ten days passed before the official letter arrived at Hawks Hill Livery Stables. They were the longest ten days Ross had ever known. It was impossible to get used to his surroundings. Hawks Hill was always a ghostly presence, something which even the dull murmur of traffic or the whine of lorries in the night could not dispel.

Curiously enough, it was the same postman he remembered from past visits; good news and bad, he had known the Blackwood family for many years. He had brought the news of Ross’s promotion to captain, and the announcement of the Colonel’s death in Cyprus.

He was here now, watching Ross sign his register.

“Back to the Corps, then, Major. Don’t give you much rest, does they? Seems like only yesterday you was down at the pub, before they pulled
that
down!”

Ross slit open the letter. He could sense Joanna loitering by the kitchen door, some cut flowers in one hand, an empty vase motionless in the other, as if she were holding her breath. Outside on the cobbles a solitary horse was being led to a loose box. The local milkman had just called, and was chatting up one of the girls.

A sane, everyday world. And the end of the line.

He reread the brief, almost matter-of-fact message a second time. One word stood out, the rank of full colonel,
and the name of an office in a building of which he had never heard. Whitehall. The Ministry of Defence.
You are requested . . .
The rest seemed blurred.

“What is it, Ross? Please tell me.”

He walked over to her and put his arms around her waist.

“A staff appointment. I’m not sure . . .” He did not continue.

She had put down the vase and was hugging him, the flowers draped over his shoulder. “You thought it was the axe, didn’t you? After all you’ve done, whatever next!”

“I never realized until this moment how much it mattered, how much I cared. It was always there, you see? Then suddenly . . .”

“Staff job, eh? Not the cut an’ thrust you’ve bin used to!”

They had both forgotten about the old postman.

She said something and closed the door, and Ross could hear him calling out to the milkman. It would be all over Alresford within the hour. He could feel the excitement running through him. Second lieutenant to major. Nothing changed. One step at a time. He stared at the official envelope.
But not the end of the line.

He heard himself say, “I must acknowledge this. There’s a special phone number, too.”

She watched him. Sharing it, as she had done many times, before Cyprus.

“You old sod! I just heard!” Sue strode across the kitchen and shook a riding crop at him. “And I thought you were beginning to show some sense at long last!” She laughed aloud. “But give me a shout, and I’ll drive you up to London in style.”

Joanna smiled at them.

“In one piece too, I hope.” She turned her back, and added quietly, “Come back here, Ross, whenever you can.”

“You see?” Susanna Blackwood eased the wheel and braked to allow some pedestrians to use a zebra crossing. “Said I’d get you to your appointment on time. Just over the river, and bingo!”

It had certainly been a fast drive. Up early for a quick breakfast, Joanna already dressed and making sure he would forget nothing, the car out in the cobbled yard, the hood down, Sue making some notes in a pad which she was rarely without.

The stables had been awake, too. A group of women were being instructed by one of the grooms, horses watching from their boxes, tossing heads and munching titbits for the benefit of the first clients.

He had also met John, the manager of the stables, who had been working for Joanna for about a month. Not a young man; he was probably the same age as his employer. Straight-backed, an ex-soldier. Very formal when they had been introduced, his eyes partly hidden by a battered old trilby.

A strong handshake. “Served in the Blues, Major. About a hundred years ago!”

As he had climbed into the trembling Mercedes, Ross had seen his mother touch hands with the new manager. It was not by accident.

He had mentioned it to his sister.

She remarked crudely, “Wants to get his feet under the table, that’s all!”

He watched her now. All that way, through the Hampshire countryside, by familiar routes and some unknown to him; they had stopped only once, somewhere outside Guildford. She had filled the tank at a garage, and made a phone call at the same time.

She had seen him looking at his watch and had said almost sharply, “Heaps of time, Ross! They can wait, surely?”

Was she always on guard against something? Getting too close, even with him? Her black jacket was in the tiny rear seat, her hair tied back severely with a piece of black ribbon. A red silk scarf was the only colour about her.

He adjusted his own jacket, a lightweight grey suit he had brought from Hong Kong. Here it was summer, but with the car roof down he was almost shivering.

He stared across the river at the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben: the tourists’ London. Red double-decker buses, the familiar taxis . . . He looked at the old clock. Sue was right.
Heaps of time.

She was saying, “Don’t forget the address I gave you. I wrote the phone numbers down, too, just in case . . .” She banged the wheel with her fist. “Come
on
, then!”