Clifton Chronicles 02 - The Sins of the Father (27 page)

One thing Patrick had instilled in her was never to be late for the theatre. He felt there was nothing more embarrassing than treading on people’s toes as you made your way in darkness to the inevitable centre seats after the curtain had risen.

Mike was already standing in the foyer holding a programme when Maisie walked into the theatre ten minutes before the curtain was due to rise. As soon as she saw him she smiled, and couldn’t help thinking how he always raised her spirits. He returned her smile, and gave her a gentle kiss on the cheek.

‘I don’t know a lot about Noël Coward,’ he admitted as he handed her the programme, ‘but I’ve just been reading a synopsis of the play, and it turns out to be about a man and a woman who can’t make up their mind who they should marry.’

Maisie said nothing as they entered the stalls. She began to follow the letters of the alphabet backwards until she reached H. When they made their way to the centre of the row, she wondered how Mike had managed to get such superb seats for a sold-out show.

Once the lights faded and the curtain rose, he took her hand. He only let go when Owen Nares made his entrance, and the audience burst into applause. Maisie became entranced by the story, even if it was a little too close for comfort. But the spell was broken when the loud whine of a siren drowned out Mr Nares’s words. An audible groan went up around the auditorium, as the actors hurried off stage to be replaced by the theatre manager, who efficiently organized an exit strategy that would have gladdened the heart of a regimental sergeant major. Bristolians had long been familiar with flying visits from Germans who had no intention of paying for their theatre tickets.

Mike and Maisie made their way out of the theatre and down the steps to a bleak but familiar shelter that had become a home from home for regular theatregoers. The audience grabbed any place that was available for the unticketed performance. The great social equalizer, as Clement Attlee had described life in an air-raid shelter.

‘Not my idea of a date,’ said Mike, placing his jacket on the stone floor.

‘When I was young,’ said Maisie, as she sat down on the jacket, ‘many a young fellow tried to get me down here, but you’re the first one who’s succeeded.’ Mike laughed, as she began to scribble something on the cover of the programme.

‘I’m flattered,’ he said, placing an arm gently around her shoulder as the ground started to shake with bombs that sounded perilously close. ‘You’ve never been to America, have you, Maisie?’ he asked, trying to take her mind off the air raid.

‘I’ve never been to London,’ admitted Maisie. ‘In fact, the furthest I’ve ever travelled is to Weston-super-Mare and Oxford, and as both trips turned out to be disastrous, I’d be perhaps better off staying at home.’

Mike laughed. ‘I’d love to show you America,’ he said, ‘particularly the south.’

‘I think we’d have to ask the Germans to take a few nights off before we could consider doing that,’ said Maisie as the all-clear sounded.

A ripple of applause burst out in the shelter, and everyone emerged from the unscheduled interval and made their way back into the theatre.

Once they’d taken their seats, the theatre manager walked on to the stage. ‘The performance will continue with no interval,’ he announced. ‘But should the Germans decide to pay us another visit, it will have to be cancelled. I’m sorry to say there will be no refunds. German regulations,’ he announced. A few people laughed.

Within moments of the curtain going back up, Maisie once again lost herself in the story, and when the actors finally took their bows, the whole audience rose in appreciation, not only for the performance, but for another small victory over the Luftwaffe, as Mike described it.

‘Harvey’s or the Pantry?’ asked Mike as he picked up the programme, on which each letter of the play’s title had been crossed out and rewritten below, arranged in alphabetical order, A E E I I L P R S T V V.

‘The Pantry,’ said Maisie, not wanting to admit that on the one occasion she’d been to Harvey’s with Patrick, she’d spent the entire evening glancing around the tables dreading the thought that Lord Harvey’s daughter Elizabeth might be dining there with Hugo Barrington.

Mike took a long time studying the menu, which surprised Maisie, because the choice of dishes was so limited. He usually chatted about what was taking place back at camp, or the fort as he liked to call it, but not tonight; not even the oft-repeated grumbles about limeys not understanding baseball. She began to wonder if he wasn’t feeling well.

‘Is everything all right, Mike?’ she asked.

He looked up. ‘They’re sending me back to the States,’ he said as a waiter appeared by their side and asked if they would like to order. Great timing, thought Maisie, but at least it gave her a little time to think, and not about what she wanted to eat. Once they’d ordered and the waiter had left them, Mike tried again.

‘I’ve been assigned to a desk job in Washington.’

Maisie leaned across the table and took his hand.

‘I pressed them to let me stay for another six months . . . so I could be with you, but they turned my request down.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ said Maisie, ‘but—’

‘Please don’t say anything, Maisie, because I’m finding this difficult enough already. Though God knows I’ve given it enough thought.’ This was followed by another long silence. ‘I realize we’ve only known each other for a short time, but my feelings haven’t changed since the first day I set eyes on you.’ Maisie smiled. ‘And I wondered,’ he continued, ‘hoped, prayed, that you might consider coming back to America with me . . . as my wife.’

Maisie was speechless. ‘I’m so very flattered,’ she eventually managed, but couldn’t think of anything else to say.

‘Of course, I realize you’ll need time to think it over. I’m sorry that the ravages of war don’t allow for the niceties of a long courtship.’

‘When do you go home?’

‘At the end of the month. So if you did say yes, we could get married at the base and fly back together as man and wife.’ He leant forward and took her hand. ‘I’ve never felt more certain about anything in my whole life,’ he said as the waiter reappeared by their side.

‘So which one of you is the chopped liver?’

Maisie didn’t sleep that night, and when she came down to breakfast the following morning, she told her mother that Mike had proposed to her.

‘Jump at it,’ was Mrs Tancock’s immediate response. ‘You’ll never get a better chance to begin a new life. And, let’s face it,’ she added, glancing sadly at the photograph of Harry on the mantelpiece, ‘there’s no longer any reason for you to stay here.’

Maisie was about to express her one reservation when Stan burst into the room. She got up from the table. ‘I’d better get a move on if I’m not going to be late for work.’

‘Don’t think I’ve forgotten about that ’undred quid you owe me!’ he shouted as she left the room.

Maisie was sitting on the edge of her seat in the front row when Mr Holcombe entered the classroom at seven that evening.

Her hand shot up several times during the next hour, like a tiresome schoolgirl who knows all the answers and wants teacher to notice her. If he did, he didn’t let on.

‘Could you start coming in on Tuesdays and Thursdays in future, Maisie?’ Mr Holcombe asked as they strolled across to the pub with the rest of the class.

‘Why?’ asked Maisie. ‘Aren’t I good enough?’

‘Am I not good enough,’ corrected the schoolmaster without thinking. ‘On the contrary,’ he added, ‘I’ve decided to put you into the intermediate class, before this lot,’ he said, indicating her fellow classmates with the sweep of an arm, ‘become overwhelmed.’

‘But won’t I be out of my depth, Arnold?’

‘I do hope so, but no doubt you’ll have caught up by the end of the month, by which time I’ll have to put you into the advanced class.’

Maisie didn’t respond, as she knew it wouldn’t be too long before she would have to tell Arnold that she’d made other plans for the end of the month.

Once again, they ended up sitting alone together at the bar, and once again he accompanied her back to Still House Lane, only this time, when Maisie took the front-door key out of her bag, she thought he looked as if he might be trying to summon up the courage to kiss her. Surely not. Hadn’t she got enough problems to cope with?

‘I was just wondering,’ he said, ‘which book you ought to read first.’

‘It won’t be a book,’ said Maisie as she placed the key in the lock, ‘it will be a letter.’

30

P
ATRICK
C
ASEY
had breakfast, lunch and dinner in the hotel restaurant on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

Maisie assumed that he would take her to dinner at the Plimsoll Line in the hope that it might evoke past memories. In fact, she hadn’t been back to the restaurant since Patrick had disappeared off to Ireland. She was right, and it did.

Maisie was determined that she would not be seduced once again by Patrick’s charm and good looks, and she intended to tell him about Mike and their plans for the future. But as the evening progressed, she found it more and more difficult to raise the subject.

‘So, what have you been up to since I was last in Bristol?’ Patrick asked her over a pre-dinner drink in the lounge bar. ‘Not that anyone could miss the fact that you’re running the best hotel restaurant in the city while somehow managing to fit in evening classes at the same time.’

‘Yes, I shall miss all that when . . .’ she began wistfully.

‘When what?’ asked Patrick.

‘It’s only a twelve-week course,’ said Maisie, trying to recover.

‘In twelve weeks’ time,’ said Patrick, ‘my bet is you’ll be the one who’s giving the classes.’

‘What about you? What have you been up to?’ she asked as the head waiter came over to tell them their table was ready.

Patrick didn’t answer the question until they’d sat down at a quiet table in the corner of the room.

‘You may remember I was promoted to deputy manager of the company about three years ago, which is why I had to go back to Dublin.’

‘I haven’t forgotten why you had to go back to Dublin,’ said Maisie with some feeling.

‘I tried to return to Bristol several times, but once war broke out, it proved almost impossible, and it didn’t help that I couldn’t even write to you.’

‘Well, that problem may well be solved in the near future.’

‘Then you can read to me in bed.’

‘And how has your company fared during these hard times?’ asked Maisie, steering the conversation back on to safer ground.

‘Actually, a lot of Irish companies have done rather well out of the war. Because of the country’s neutrality, we’ve been able to deal with both sides.’

‘You’re willing to do business with the Germans?’ said Maisie in disbelief.

‘No, as a company we’ve always made it clear where our allegiances lie, but you won’t be surprised to know that quite a few of my countrymen are happy to do business with the Germans. Because of that, we had a couple of tough years, but once the Americans entered the war, even the Irish began to believe the Allies might end up on the winning side.’

That was her chance to tell Patrick about one American in particular, but she didn’t take it. ‘So what brings you to Bristol now?’ she asked.

‘The simple answer is, you.’

‘Me?’ Maisie quickly tried to think of a convincing way of bringing the conversation back on to a less personal footing.

‘Yes. Our managing director will be retiring at the end of the year, and the chairman has asked me to take his place.’

‘Congratulations,’ said Maisie, relieved to be back on safer ground. ‘And you want me to take over as your deputy,’ she added, trying to make light of it.

‘No, I want you to be my wife.’

Maisie’s tone changed. ‘Didn’t it cross your mind, Patrick, just for one moment during the past three years, that someone else might have come into my life?’

‘Daily,’ said Patrick, ‘which is why I came over to find out if there was someone else.’

Maisie hesitated. ‘Yes, there is.’

‘And has he asked you to marry him?’

‘Yes,’ she whispered.

‘Have you accepted his proposal?’