Someone Special (50 page)

There is nothing more painful, anyway, than not being told something important by someone you love. I’ve got to tell, so it might as well be now, Nell thought as they reached the steps of the trailer and climbed into the living wagon. Ugly Jack deposited the snake and went out again, only to reappear seconds later with two rabbits, still in their fur but otherwise very dead.

‘Don’t you skin them?’ Nell asked, torn between fascination and horror as her mother dropped the first of the rabbits into Phillips’s haybox. ‘Surely all that fur can’t be good for him?’

‘It is though; he needs roughage and rabbit skin supplies it,’ Hester said at once. ‘I never watch him eat, it’s not a pretty sight, but Jack does and he says Phillips really relishes a bird with all its feathers or a rabbit with its fur and that. He’s been very fit ever since we’ve taken to giving him his food as it comes instead of going to the trouble to pluck hens and skin rabbits.’

‘Oh. Well, so long as he’s happy. You’re happy too, aren’t you, Mum?’

Hester smiled gently. ‘Very happy, dear. Of course I’d be even happier if you came home to live. Are you going to, now that the war’s over?’

‘It isn’t all over, not yet,’ Nell temporised. ‘Anyway,
I can’t leave the Land Army until I’m allowed. But then … I’m not sure. I – I might get married.’

‘Not to Snip?’

‘Well, he hasn’t asked me, but no, not to Snip. To another fellow.’

‘One you like, but haven’t brought home. Darling, are you ashamed of us, Jack and me? Or are you ashamed of him – the boyfriend?’

‘Neither, honestly Mum. I’ve never told him we’re with the fair … you’ll understand why in a moment, but he’s in the Air Force, stationed up in Lincolnshire, so our friendship has been a bit difficult and we’ve neither of us met the other’s people. That is, well, you have met him, in a way, though it was a long time ago.’

‘What’s his name?’ Hester’s voice was light; she was getting plates down from the dresser, arranging them in front of the fire to warm. ‘What’s his rank?’

‘Flight lieutenant. His name’s Dan.’

‘Dan. Now that’s a nice name … d’you remember when you were small, dear, you had a little friend called Dan?’

Hester sounded relaxed, easy, as though the recollection gave her pleasure. Now or never, Nell resolved, and took a deep breath.

‘It’s the same Dan, Mum. Dan Clifton. We’ve been writing to each other for years, but about twelve months ago we met again, and we’ve been meeting on and off ever since. He asked me to marry him just after my leave last summer and I said I probably would. I’m longing to introduce him to you all over again, but he’s hardly changed at all. He’s still absolutely gorgeous … and he thinks I’m pretty nice, too.’ Nell smiled at her mother, then the smile slowly faded; never had she seen such an expression on Hester’s face. ‘What’s the matter, Mum? Don’t you remember Dan Clifton?’

‘Yes, I … remember him. How strange, the two
of you meeting up after all this while. Darling, there’s something, I don’t know how to say this, but …’

‘Mum, do you know something about Dan that I don’t? He was a little beast when we were young, I expect, but …’

Hester looked deathly white and her eyes would not meet Nell’s. She played with the edge of the tablecloth, she rearranged the knives and forks, she picked up the salt cellar and put it down again. Then she took a deep breath.

‘Darling, do you really mean to marry?’

‘Yes, we do,’ Nell said baldly. Her mother’s reaction had shaken her, but that didn’t mean she had changed her mind. She loved Dan and he loved her, so surely marriage was the happy ending they both wanted?

‘If I tell you it just isn’t possible … can we leave it at that?’

‘Don’t be so silly …
just isn’t possible
! As though the king was about to forbid it, or the archbishop of Canterbury! Mum, I’m beginning to wonder if you’re all right in the head, or if it’s me that isn’t.’

Unexpectedly, Nell felt large tears form in her eyes and trickle down her cheeks. She had expected her mother to be surprised, then pleased for her, but this!

Hester’s cheeks went slowly from white to scarlet. She stared straight at Nell, her eyes suddenly hard. She looks as if she hates me, Nell thought wildly; what have I done? All I’ve done is to tell her I’m in love with Dan Clifton and she’s acting as if I’d told her I’d murdered someone.

‘Nell … I have every reason to believe that – that Dan Clifton is your half-brother.’

Nell laughed. She had never heard anything so absurd; what was her mother going on about this time? She obviously didn’t like Dan so she had thought up this monstrosity to put them off the whole idea of marriage. Half-brother indeed!

‘Sorry to laugh, Mum, but that’s ridiculous. I mean, well, it just is. How could such a thing be true?’

‘Matthew Coburn, my husband, threw me out of the house because he said he wasn’t your father. Do you remember?’

Nell frowned, unease beginning to prickle along her spine. ‘Ye-es, I remember something like that. So?’

‘Mr Geraint told Matthew that he was your father. And it could have been true, love. I – I think it probably was true. I did have an affair with Geraint before I met your father. Just before. And it was common knowledge that there was always something between Mr Geraint and Mrs Clifton. And, well, I don’t know if you remember the portrait of the lady in the Long Gallery? She was awfully like you.’

‘It can’t be true,’ Nell said slowly, but even to herself her voice lacked conviction. ‘It just can’t be true. Anyway, why should Mrs Clifton have made love with Mr Geraint? She was a real lady.’

Hester hung her head and Nell jumped up from her chair and ran to her mother, hugging her, petting her, smoothing the thick, springy hair from her broad, pale brow.

‘I deserved that,’ Hester muttered. ‘But I was very young, darling, younger than you are now. I was just sixteen and I’d been cooped up in the Sister Servina Home for as long as I could remember. I desperately wanted love, any sort of love, and …’

‘Don’t, Mum. I spoke without thinking, honestly I did. You’re the best mother and the nicest person. Whatever happened it wasn’t your fault! Why, Matthew was years older than you and that Mr Geraint older still. They had no right to try to rule your life because of a mistake when you were even younger than me. Besides, half-brother and sister isn’t the real thing, is it? I don’t see why we shouldn’t marry, Dan and me. We love each other, and …’

‘Darling, it’s not only forbidden in the bible, it’s forbidden by the law of the land. I don’t understand it, I just know you can’t marry Dan. It’s all my fault, but perhaps the way you feel for each other is really the natural love of a brother and sister. Could it be that?’

Nell collapsed into a chair. She was remembering the things they had done, the way they had clung, that night at the farm. The wonderful, arousing intimacy of it had been a sin … it could have resulted in something terrible, like that man who had chased her in the wood that time, who had been strange because his parents had been related to each other. But at the time she hadn’t known, she had had no more idea than Dan had that they were even distantly related. Sitting there, she felt her stomach turning over, bitter bile rising in her mouth. She stood up, heaving, and made for the door. She hadn’t meant to do wrong, she hadn’t known …

She was halfway across the room when Ugly Jack, laden with newspaper parcels, came into the living wagon.

‘Hello, Nell, can’t wait for your fish and chips, eh?’ he said cheerfully, plonking the jug on the side and the newspaper parcels on the tablecloth. ‘Come along, let’s get these ate whilst they’re … what’s wrong?’

‘I – I’ve got to go back right now,’ Nell gabbled. ‘I can’t stay for the chips. Mum, I’ll write to you.’

And on those words she plunged out of the trailer and into the night.

13

THEY HAD FIRED
the torpedoes and scored two direct hits before the hunters homed in on them. So close inshore, in such a narrow channel, they must have felt themselves safe, and now they were no such thing; a shark had entered their waters. The problem now, for the shark, was how the hell to get out without being spotted.

The trouble was, Snip thought, squatting by his silent engines and trying not to count the clanging roars as depth charges exploded around them – now near, now far – the trouble was that the hunters had moved so fast. Of course it was theoretically possible for a sub to make its escape after firing its ‘fish’, but the enemy must now have a shrewd idea that they were trapped. Which meant, God help us, absolute silence for as long as it took … and it would take, Snip reckoned, as long as the air lasted.

Everything is turned off when the hunter becomes the hunted. The Asdic, sweeping its listening ear in ceaseless circles, cannot help you now. You are too low to use the periscope; indeed, you can’t use anything, or nothing which makes a noise. Up above the hunters circle, trying to see through the limpid water; thank God that here in the narrow channel the current swirls the sandy bottom so continuously that eye contact is virtually impossible. They use their listening devices constantly, hoping for some desperate seaman to use the heads, or touch a spanner against metal. In the end you are afraid even to breathe, especially when the air is stale and has every man aboard panting like a dog.

It’s going to be a tricky one this time, Snip mused as the depth charges clanged around them. We’re in shallow waters with strong currents running; they know
we’re here, and they’ll be very angry, very keen to get us. The old man is pretty sure we got the Jap U-boat and a troop-carrier but checking was impossible. Whether they had hit or not, a lot of people would have been scared and would now be very angry; a lot of little yellow men up there would be intent on revenge whatever the cost. Snip reflected that you could scarcely blame them. It had been an audacious attack – now they must pay for it.

The air in the engine room grew clammier as the temperature rose. One of the officers came around with a chemical spray designed to absorb the noxious gases which made what air there was foul, but despite the assurances of the scientists who had worked on it, the stuff made the men cough and clutch their chests. Snip, who already suffered from asthma, began to retch and waved the man away hurriedly. When it was safe to move – if it ever was – his engines would need him.

Presently Snip’s chest began to ache ominously. It was as though his ribs were telling him his lungs were on their way out and didn’t he intend to do something about it? But there was nothing he could do except to lie on the floor and pray that the pursuers would give up, go back into harbour, let them off the hook.

Near at hand, a man gave a strangled moan and began to be sick. The smell, acidic and strong, had an inevitable effect on someone else, who followed suit. Snip lay still and tried to remember what it was like to wake at dawn and go out of your tent, take a deep breath of clean mountain air, amble down to the river for a quick dip …

Sickeningly, he returned to the present, to the humidity, the airlessness, the stench. The skipper would have to take a decision pretty soon or they’d all be dead. A little tin coffin for thirty or so men, rocking on the currents at the bottom of the ocean. No one would know that they had died of carbon-dioxide poisoning, perhaps no one
would care very much. It would be just another case of submarine overdue, the resigned shrug of comrades in the service, an hour or so of conjecture, then it would be forgotten, pushed under the carpet. Another preventable tragedy which had not been prevented.

Nell would care. They would have got married if he’d made it back to Blighty. He’d not asked her, but he knew how it would have been. He had loved her since they were kids … she loved him too, it stood to reason. What would she do if he didn’t get back, then? Marry someone else, he supposed dully, that fellow she had talked about. He couldn’t blame her, all he could do was hope she found happiness. She was a good kid, was Nell.

He tried to lie very still, to conserve what strength he had left. Waves of blackness kept swamping him; he lost consciousness, then came round again, sick and giddy, for just long enough to register that they were still on the bottom, that the depth charges were still sounding, though fainter and farther off, or was that the effect of lack of oxygen? He didn’t know, hardly cared.

Then, suddenly, he found he wanted to look at his photograph. He had a picture of Nell which he kept somewhere on his person at all times; if he still had the strength he could fish it out and at least die with her steady gaze on him. He rooted feebly in his shirt pocket; his fingers found the photograph. It seemed huge and heavy, big as a church bible, but he got it out after a terrible struggle which nearly finished him and looked down at it through the red mist coming and going before his eyes. He saw his sweat drip down and mark the picture but it didn’t matter, not now. No one would ever see the picture again …

He had time to smile at Nell before he tipped forward into the blackness. He had lost consciousness before his face hit the deck.

*

He came to gradually when someone started to shake him. A voice reverberated around his head; was he imagining it or had he really heard those wonderful words?

‘Start engines, Snip; they’ve give up, we’re goin’ to surface!’

It was a life-saver – just the knowledge that it was over, that they would soon be able to breathe again. He hauled himself to his knees, then to his feet, the blood pounding in his ears like a regiment of foot soldiers. His fingers knew what to do even when his oxygen-starved brain was forgetting everything it had ever known; the engines hummed softly into life and
Hesperides
began to creep along the bottom with her nose lifting, like an old hound which smells meat.

‘A bit more speed please, Morris. We’ll surface as far away from here as we can manage.’

Snip increased the speed; with the engine’s hum, life returned to the ship. What air there was moved sluggishly, but at least it moved. Electric fans sprang into life, the sweat stung as it dried on the little red spots of prickly heat.