Perfect Gallows (10 page)

There was an odd emphasis on the word “satisfactory” which suggested that Cousin Brown was thinking of more than simple convenience, that she took a personal pleasure in the neatness of the solution, the arrangement of other people's lives. It was a moment of decision. If Andrew agreed, it would mean saying good-bye to Lily. A fortnight till term. She would certainly find another bloke. And farm-work was not his idea of fun. But he had called Caliban from his cave and more than a voice had answered.

“OK,” he said. “How do you see Miranda?”

“It is the relationship between you that really concerns me, and that in turn depends on your relationship with both Ariel and Caliban.”

“It all depends on how beastly you want poor old Caliban to be.”

“Exactly. That is the nub. We have to start from the point that Samuel is very strong in the part. Bestial but noble. Old, too—after all he is in fact only a few years younger than my father, at least Prospero's equal in age. This affects the balance of the play in what I hope will prove interesting ways …”

The pony plodded between the hedgerows. The blackthorn buds were swelling, pale dots in the watery evening light. Andrew had not yet fully adjusted to double summer-time, which had just come in, and the uneasiness added to the strangeness, the sense of moving between worlds which did not quite belong in the same space-time. Cousin Brown, absorbed in her plans for the production, seemed to forget that Samuel was sitting in the back of the trap and talked about him as though he weren't listening. Sometimes she forgot about the pony too, and let it drift almost to a halt and lower its head to try and browse at a patch of fresh-sprung grass on the verge.

“I see Prospero as really a bit potty,” said Andrew. “He's got his magic power, but the power has done things back to him. Sometimes you can see it shuddering through him. I'd like to try that.”

“My thought exactly! He is a shaman—the text says he falls into a trance in Act Five …”

“And Miranda when she's explaining to Ferdinand …”

“Of course. So those awkward moments in your first scene with her …”

“Not
her
losing interest.
Him
going dopey and shaking himself out of it …”

“
Dragging
himself out. The dark backward …”

“She'll have to feel it too—be a bit scared?”

“Perhaps … yes … but soothing too. Used to his fits. She says so to Ferdinand. They must know each other extremely well, as well as I know my own … Dear me, is that a motor? It is extraordinary how some people manage to acquire the petrol.”

The trap had heaved out of a dell of coppiced hazels. Just over the crest was a Rover Fourteen, black, facing towards The Mimms with its side-bonnet up and a man bending into the engine-space. He straightened and turned at the sound of hooves. Cousin Brown reined the pony in, but Andrew had recognized the coat and hat before he saw the face. Mr Trinder raised the hat.

“May we be of any assistance?” said Cousin Brown.

Mr Trinder held his hat over his heart, like a war veteran at an Armistice Day celebration. He glanced quickly at Samuel and Andrew, but with no sign of recognition.

“Would you be going anywhere near the camp, ma'am?” he said.

“The Americans? Yes, indeed. We pass the gate. But I fear a fourth passenger would be too much for Brutus. It is barely half a mile to walk.”

“Perhaps the young gent would do us a favour and ask after Sergeant Stephens in Supply. Tell him how Mr Trinder's stuck out this way, and if he could send a truck with a mechanic …”

“Right-oh,” said Andrew.

“Ever so grateful. Do you a good turn one day. Scout's honour.”

The wink was in his voice, not his eyelid.

“What a peculiar man,” said Cousin Brown, almost before the renewed hoof-beats could cover her strong voice. “A
spiv
, right out here in the country! No doubt he gets his petrol from his American friends—they seem to have such masses of everything. I think I told you in one of my letters that we now have American officers in the house, General Odway's staff, preparing for the invasion, if it ever takes place. May plays bridge with the General most evenings. Do you know, when they first arrived they brought their own drinking-water, in
tins
, shipped all the way from America, in case ours was not safe to drink! Think of the dreadful cost in the lives of our poor seamen! And we have had to move ourselves upstairs into the old nursery wing, though Father of course has retained his study … Now, another problem with Prospero is to establish his
right
to behave as he does. His own dukedom has been usurped, but he is in definite sense also an usurper …”

Halfway down the drive to The Mimms the-smooth tarred surface, laid to take the big American trucks, swung left. Cousin Brown flipped the reins as soon as Andrew had climbed down and the pony, brisker now with thoughts of home, took the trap scrunching down the unmended gravel of the lower part of the drive. The new road led out under arching holm oaks into what had been the park. At the point where it emerged into the open it was barred by a red and white pole which could be swung up to let traffic through. A soldier sat in a canvas booth beside the barrier reading a pulp magazine. He was chewing gum. His cap was pushed to the back of his head.

“Yeah,” he said—as much a yawn as a word.

“I've got a message for Sergeant Stephens. In Supply.”

“Right on up the track. Take a left at the crossroads. Second Quonset under the trees.”

“Thanks.”

“You're welcome,” muttered the soldier, already reading again.

On his earlier visit Andrew had seen nothing of The Mimms by daylight. The road led across a shallow sloping valley. The house—red brick, red tiles, large white-painted windows, massive fluted chimney-­stacks—stood on a platform of terraced gardens with woodland slanting away beyond and looking across the valley to the wood that crowned the opposite slope. The parkland between was dotted with coppices, whose shelter had been extended with screens of camouflage-­netting to hide trucks, huts and tents. The main camp lay in the wood. It was from there that the tannoy sounded, loud despite the distance. It was playing “Is you is, or is you ain't, my baby?” A jeep came storming out of the wood and whipped down a side-road to one of the smaller collections of huts, but once there the driver merely climbed out and leaned against the mudguard, smoking. The scurry had nothing to do with urgency. That was how Yanks behaved. So was the waste of petrol.

A few yards before Andrew reached his turning a new object came into sight, hidden till now by the alignment of the coppices. It was so odd that he actually stopped and looked. Well down towards the bottom of the valley, outside the fence that divided the camp from the ploughed field beyond, rose a squat, round flint tower, pierced with two rows of small holes. A dovecote, or something like that, plain and functional for its lower two storeys but crowned with a ridiculous top-knot like something out of a fairground with fancy pillars and bobbly bits and a green copper dome with a weathercock on top. More than anything it reminded Andrew of Mum slopping round the house in her slippers and apron but wearing one of her party hats to cheer herself up. It was a joke building, inviting you to laugh at it, just the way Mum used to when she was in one of those moods, so Andrew laughed and walked on.

His side-road took him up towards a coppice of sycamores which with their surrounding net hid half a dozen nissen huts. There seemed to be nobody about. Food smells floated on the breeze, unfamiliar and interesting, the oil they'd fried their evening meal in, mainly. It was nearly seven. Not much chance of finding this sergeant still in his store … But the door of the second hut was open, and light shone from inside. He tapped, heard a grunt and went in. It was a sort of office, a shadowy cave under the arching roof, lit by a pool of yellow light from a lamp on one of the three file-cluttered desks. A man was sitting at that desk reading his way through a document and making ticks on it as he compared it with another piece of paper. A black cheroot slanted up from the corner of his mouth.

“Yeah?” he said, not looking up.

“Sergeant Stephens?”

“Right.”

“Mr Trinder asked me to tell you that his car has broken down about half a mile from the gate. If you could send a truck and a mechanic, he says.”

“Jesus Christ! He figures we're over here for that!”

The sergeant spoke in a slow nasal monotone and went back to his figures. Andrew waited.

“You tell him …” said the sergeant.

“I'm not going back. They're expecting me down at the house.”

“Uh. You visiting?”

“Yes. I'm here for three weeks.”

“What's your name, sonny?”

“Andrew Wragge.”

“That so? One of the family?”

“Sort of.”

The sergeant made a note at the bottom of the sheet he had been checking and rose. He was extremely tall, about six four, but thin as a dangling skeleton, with a narrow muscular face, black brows and close-cropped grey-black hair.

“OK,” he said. “Let's go.”

He switched off his lamp and locked the door as they left. They climbed into a jeep and went bouncing down to the main track and then more smoothly off to the wood on the ridge. Here there were signposts with military initials, and white-painted guide-ropes so that men could find their way around in the black-out. The camp seemed to spread endlessly off under the trees, but there were not many soldiers around. The tannoy was playing “Why don't you do right?” The cooking smells were strong, their foreignness making them seem to promise much more exciting tastes than British wartime food. The sergeant swung into an area of camouflaged trucks and braked beside one where a man's feet protruded behind the front wheel.

“Hey! Tony!” he said.

A grease-smeared face craned out below the running-board. “Get a tool-box and tag along,” said the sergeant.

“Look, I promised Captain Schwitters …”

“OK, OK, I'll fix the captain. You pack your tools.”

The sergeant unfolded himself and loped away. His long, thin legs in their sharp-creased trousers ended in a pair of enormous boots, size fourteen at least, so his gait was that of a figure in an animated cartoon. The mechanic humped his toolbox into the back of the jeep and stood leaning against the side. He seemed to have no doubts about the fixability of Captain Schwitters.

“The officers, they figure they run the camp,” he said. “Sergeant Stephens and the men, we know different.”

His New-York-Italian lilt was very strong. A few minutes of him would be more useful than twenty gangster films.

“Are you from New York?” said Andrew.

“Brooklyn. You ever been in New York?”

“Not a chance yet.”

“When you go, you never want to come away. This dump …”

His dark southern eyes looked out from under the trees.

Across the valley the house was in shadow but the setting sun still lit the big chimney-stacks, whose smoke drifted into the pale spring sky.

“Does everyone feel like that?” said Andrew.

“It ain't home. You get pretty sick waiting. Eight months I been here, sitting on my ass. I got a girl …”

The movement of his hands accented his longing. He fell silent. To start him going again Andrew gazed around and said,

“It seems a bit empty.”

“Sure. Transit camp, ready for the invasion. When we start filling up you'll know it's gonna happen.”

“There's a general and his staff moved into the house.”

“Sure. It'll be this year. It gotta be. June, I heard a guy saying.”

“What's your girl like?”

“She's great. She's …”

Tony's enthusiasm carried him on without further prompting until Sergeant Stephens came loping back. The engine seemed to start before the lean rump touched the driving seat. They went storming up to the camp gate with the horn blasting. The sentry slouched out of his booth to raise the pole.

“I'll get down here, please,” said Andrew.

“Not coming for the ride?”

“No thanks. It's been fun, but I'm late already.”

“Right. Say, you the kid who ran away from fifty million bucks?”

“Me? Oh, well, I didn't exactly run away. I got thrown out.”

“But you're back to collect.”

“I don't know about that. I don't even know if I want it.”

“Jesus! Kids! Well, I guess it's your life.”

“At least it isn't anyone else's. Thanks for the ride.”

“You're welcome.”

There was a sentry-box now inside the porch of The Mimms, with a military policeman—white helmet, clean uniform, gleaming boots, stiff pose, very different from Sergeant Stephens's casual lope and lounge.

“You Mister Wragge?” he said. “OK, pick up your pass at the front desk.”

The hall had been turned into a kind of office with a telephone switchboard, desks, filing-cabinets, pin-boards. As Andrew waited for the WAC receptionist to find his pass he noticed another difference, in its way much more surprising.

“It's warm!” he said.

“I'm from Florida,” said the WAC, “and I say it's cold.”

“Last time I was here … I suppose they've got the central heating going.”

“Just about stops the icicles forming,” she said, cuddling herself sexily. She was not particularly pretty but wore a lot of make-up and looked as though she expected anyone who came through the door to make a pass at her. They probably did, too. It was almost part of their language, like the “You're welcomes”.

The big radiator at the foot of the main stair was too hot to touch. How many tons of coke a week would that take? Three officers came down the stairs with files under their arms. They seemed to be working­ late.