Shrapnel (13 page)

‘FAG?' LINTON BARKER
held out a Woodbine packet. It was morning break; I'd tracked him down on the playing field.

I shook my head. ‘No thanks, you'll get murdered if old Hinkley sees you.' I scowled at him. ‘Why'd you say that about my brother, Barker?'

He shrugged. ‘Sorry, Price. Chap looked like him, that's all. Didn't mean to upset you.'

‘Well, you did. It's no picnic you know, losing somebody.'

He nodded, drawing deeply on his foul
Woodbine. ‘I know, my Uncle Peter was on the
Royal Oak
.'

‘Really?' The
Royal Oak
was a battleship, sunk in Scapa Flow by a U-boat. Hundreds drowned. ‘I never knew that, Barker.'

‘No.' He blew out a plume of smoke. ‘I don't talk about it. What did your brother
do
anyway, Price?'

I pulled a face. ‘I don't know, exactly.
He
didn't talk much either. I think it was important.'

Barker nodded. ‘I think we're
all
doing important stuff, Price. You know: carrying on, keeping our end up. Except the spivs, of course. Whitfield was right about them. My dad says they should round 'em all up and shoot them.'

I nodded, then grinned. ‘He didn't half lay into old Deadman though, didn't he? Anybody'd think Dicky stood by the gates after school every day, flogging sardines and nylons.'

‘Well, he swindled plenty of chaps over those bits of tin he said were from an enemy bomber. Whitfield obviously knows about that.' Linton let out a phlegmy chuckle. ‘He ran home, y'know – his mum brought him back just before break. Some cock of the school, eh?'

‘Yes,' I murmured, feeling guilty. Dicky's plight was all my fault – I hadn't meant to have him branded a spiv. ‘Things aren't exactly ticketyboo for Deadman just now.' I smiled. ‘Talking of spivs, did you hear the one about the woman who buys a tin of sardines from a spiv?'

‘No.'

‘Well, he charges her a shilling for them, and when she opens the tin at home the fish are rotten. So next day she keeps her eyes open and spots the chap on a corner, looking shifty. She marches up to him and says, “You sold me a tin of sardines yesterday, and they were rotten.” And he says, “Those sardines weren't for
eating
, darling – they were for buying and selling.”'

Barker looked at me. ‘
Then
what happened?'

I shook my head. ‘Nothing. That's it.'

‘And that's a
joke
, is it?'

I shrugged. ‘It's going round. Sort of a warning, I suppose, against buying stuff off spivs.'

‘Yes, well.' He looked at me. ‘Don't audition for a job on
ITMA
, will you, Price?'

AFTER TEA I
decided I'd pop across to Norman's. He didn't know about Raymond and I thought it was time he did. You don't keep stuff like that from your best chum. I hadn't even told him we were back home.

‘Oh, Gordon,' he said when I broke the news about my brother. ‘How utterly awful, your poor parents. How are you managing?'

I pulled a face. ‘We're all right, Norman, thanks. Got to be, haven't you?'

He nodded. ‘May I tell Dad and Mum? They know about the railway arch – Dad went
there next morning – but they've no idea . . .'

‘Yes, of course. I'll wait here if that's all right. It's just – I don't like to see grown-ups upset.'

I waited in the playroom under the roof, but I didn't get away with it. A couple of minutes passed, then my chum returned.

‘Mum says I'm to bring you down, they want to offer their – you know? I'm sorry.'

It was pretty horrible. They were kind to me, but they were
too
kind, if you understand what I mean. People like the Robinsons, they put everything into
words
. Thoughts and feelings. I mean everybody has them, but most people keep them inside. They're private, and anyway you can't find the right words, they don't come
out
right. Norman's mum managed it, I don't know how. She reminded me of Greer Garson in
Mrs Miniver
. All the time she was talking to me I felt as if we were in a film.

But I know she meant every word.

We went back upstairs, Norman and I, and played with his planes. At half-past eight, just as I was thinking of going home, the sirens went. Naturally the Robinsons made me go with them to their shelter, even though I said my parents
would be worried. Doctor Robinson offered to phone them, but we aren't on the telephone. Luckily, it turned out to be a false alarm. No raid developed, and at eleven o'clock the all clear sounded. I was invited to stay the night – Sarah could be sent to tell my people where I was – but I said I had to go.

Something happened as I was biking home which made me wish I hadn't.

There's a short cut you can only take at night. It means crossing a factory yard, and in the daytime its loading bay is always busy – lorries backed up, chaps carrying stuff into them, little trolleys scooting about. It isn't a public right of way, you get shouted at if anybody sees you. There's no night shift though, and because I knew they'd be fretting at home I decided to save a minute.

There was a lorry backed up to the bay. No lights were on, not even the lorry's sidelights. The place was in total darkness. At first I thought the lorry must have been parked there for loading first thing in the morning, but then I saw movement and jammed on the brakes. I was just inside the gateway, practically invisible to a
casual glance. I remembered Dad's story of the chap shot by the Home Guard. I stood straddling the bike, absolutely still, hardly daring to breathe.

The loading-bay shutter was up. Men were humping stuff out, passing it over the tailgate to somebody in the back of the lorry. There was no talk. Somebody had a torch, which he switched on briefly now and then. It was a feeble light, but it flitted once across a face I'd know anywhere – a face I'd thought never to see again.

It was the face of my dead brother.

I STOOD, PARALYSED
with shock. Queer thoughts whirled in my skull.
Ghosts, loading a lorry?
Surely not.
Zombies, then
. In nineteen
forty-one
, in the middle of England?
Don't be an ass. Wish Norman was here. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride, so get a grip, Price, you're a secret agent. Think, laddie
.

Two possibilities. One, it isn't Raymond, just someone who looks like him. After all it was a fleeting glimpse, in feeble light. Or two, it is Raymond and he's alive. The police made a mistake, like Dad said. And the watch? Who knows?

One thing was obvious – whatever was going on here didn't want an audience. The fellows over there on the platform might even be my brother's colleagues – the chaps he warned me about, who
don't mess around
. So instead of standing here like a twerp, waiting to be shot, I'd better make myself scarce.

Moving as stealthily as I possibly could, I started to back away. Each cautious step took me further into shadow, but I never took my eyes off the loading bay. Chaps were still carrying stuff out. The torch flickered now and again, but it didn't find my brother's face. After what seemed like ages, I was out of the yard and free to pedal away.

I was relieved, of course, but my mind was a mess.
Had
I seen my brother? Impossible, surely. A glimpse, a momentary impression. Not
nearly
enough to justify mentioning it to Mum and Dad, upsetting them all over again.

I saw your brother's ghost last night, driving a Morris
. Linton Barker's words. Coincidence, nothing more.

Funny though.

A quarter to midnight, I arrived home. They'd
both waited up. My explanation wasn't enough. In fact it wasn't listened to. Dad bawled me out while Mum blubbed. I could have stopped the pair of them dead in their tracks, but I'm not that cruel.

And that's why it couldn't really have been Raymond – he wasn't that cruel either.

NEXT DAY I
couldn't concentrate on anything. I was yelled at in history and caned, one on each hand, in Divinity. There seemed to be a little cinematograph inside my head. It kept projecting the same fragment of film – a face, seen fleetingly in the beam from a flashlight. And each time, the face came to look more and more like Raymond's.

It was a talkie too.
Is your brother alive?
it asked, over and over.
Is your brother alive?
It was driving me batty.

I
must
have been batty, because I didn't go
home at home time. I biked into town, chained the Raleigh to the lamp post and stood in the doorway of the vacant shop, just like before. Two things were different – I'd scrounged no fags from Linton Barker, and I was waiting for a dead man.

And he didn't come. Of course he didn't. I waited till the jeweller's clock said five, then crossed to Farmer Giles. Inside I went straight to the counter where the same woman stood.

‘Hello,' I said. She looked at me as if she'd never seen me before. ‘I wonder if you can help me?'

‘
Help
you, dearie?' she said. ‘Why, is something the matter?'

‘I . . . I'm looking for my brother, he comes in here a lot. You know – Raymond?'

The woman looked baffled, shook her head. ‘I don't know any gentleman of that name,' she told me. ‘Sorry.'

‘Yes you do, I've sat with him, over there.'

She shrugged. ‘I serve a lot of people, dearie. Hundreds, I shouldn't wonder. Don't learn most of their faces, and as for
names
 . . .'

‘Yes, but Raymond's one of
you
.' I whispered
this, glancing around. There were five men at two tables, busy chatting. ‘You
know
?'

‘One of
me
? I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about, young man.'

‘Oh, look.' I leaned in. ‘I
know
it's all hush-hush, but that's all right –
I
'm one of you as well.'

She was becoming angry. ‘You're one of them
crackpots
if you ask me – one of them
loonies
. It's blast, I expect. I want you to leave now, or I'll call on one of these gentlemen here to show you the door.'

I walked out. The cold air must have brought me to my senses, because as I unchained the bike I thought:
What have I done? Why did I come here, mentioning Raymond's name? What about the chaps who don't mess around? She'll tell 'em. Bound to. Young Price is cracking up.

I rode home in a blue funk. They'd shoot me for blabbing. I'm probably pedalling into the telescopic sight of someone's high-powered rifle at this moment.