September Song (10 page)

I did hope that the banging on the door and my to-ing and fro-ing had roused Jerry, and that, even in his befuddled state, he'd had the presence of mind to make a note of the car's registration plate, which was more than I had, but I wasn't overly optimistic that he'd even woken up.

The car was parked on the wrong side of the road, facing Lea Bridge Road, and so described a beautiful arc as the driver executed a perfect U-turn, the headlamps sweeping across the pale-yellow wall of the Gaumont cinema and, for a brief moment, lighting up the window of Enzo's dark and deserted café.

Then the surprisingly powerful motor accelerated smoothly along Church Road, empty at this time of the morning, swiftly passing all the old familiar landmarks made eerie and alien by the early morning light and silence. We glided past the bomb site where Maman, Papa and Grand-père had met their fiery end; past the Oliver Twist pub, where the road made a harsh left, and St Mary's Church; past the congregational church and the hall where the 1st Leyton Boy Scouts meet every Friday night; and then we turned into Leyton High Road at the cavernous Lion and Key pub.

Within minutes, we'd swung into Grove Green Road and I had more than an inkling of where we were going. I started to feel a little less scared, even relieved. Anyone wanting to do bad things to me would probably have taken me off to a secluded glade in Epping Forest, rather than whisking me off to their home. This was going to be a warning, at worst.

We swished to a halt outside one of the only houses with any lights on. In fact, it was lit up like a Christmas tree. Once again, the driver parked on the wrong side of the road, facing the non-existent traffic, and, once again, he stayed in the car, with the engine running, lighting up a cigarette as we slid out and the big man gently eased me in the direction of the wide steps that led up to the front door, his hand on the small of my back. His companion bounded up the steps and rattled the knocker. The door was opened instantly.

I was manoeuvred into the standard working-class-made-good front room. There was a lot of gleaming dark wood, a thick, fitted carpet with a headache-inducing, swirly pattern in dark greens and browns, and some cut-glass vases. There was also the same alabaster Alsatian dog with a small child wrapped around its neck that I'd seen at Daff's perched on the sideboard. It made me smile.

There were also a number of hard-looking men scattered about the room, sitting stiffly on high-backed dining chairs, all smoking furiously. Even through the fug, I recognized two of them, and two of the others shared a family resemblance. The smile was short-lived.

Dave Mountjoy got up from his chair and walked towards me. He'd put on a little weight since I'd last seen him and lost some of his hair. He looked more like the older man who was sitting on the only comfortable-looking armchair in the room than like the sour-faced Ricky, who was sprawled untidily on his chair. Something decidedly unpleasant inside me took great pleasure in the discovery that I wasn't the only one suffering after last night's little fracas. Ricky had a very nice Technicolor bruise just under his jawline.

‘Thanks for agreeing to come at such short notice, Mr Gérard,' Dave Mountjoy said. He extended his hand, and I saw no choice but to take it. We shook perfunctorily. ‘Cup of tea?'

I nodded, and he jerked his head at the big man who had steered me into the room. He left silently. I was now far more intrigued than scared. We were going to drink together. What could be friendlier?

‘Sit,' Mountjoy said, and he indicated a vacant seat by the window. It was starting to get light outside. What I could see of the sky, as I stepped to the chair, had some pale-pink streaks sketched across it.

When I was sitting, Mountjoy beamed at me. ‘Good, good. Tea won't be a minute,' he said. He seemed nervous, and I couldn't understand why.

‘Maybe you could tell me what you want to talk about,' I said. ‘I'm very curious.'

‘Yeah, of course,' he said. And then he stood silently for a few seconds, apparently lost for words.

‘I won't beat about the bush,' he said, beating about the bush. ‘I'll get straight to the point.' He then signally failed to get to the point, either directly or by some devious route, because the door opened and my tea arrived.

The small, delicate teacup and saucer looked tiny in the big man's big hand. I wondered if there was more than one swallow in it.

‘I didn't know if you took sugar,' he said, handing me the cup that looked considerably more substantial when transferred to my hand, ‘so I put two spoons in.'

‘That's fine,' I said, though it wasn't. ‘You were saying, Mr Mountjoy?'

‘Yeah, the thing is we heard – well, Ricky told us – that you had a run-in with him last night, and Ricky just wanted to say he was sorry. You know, like, all forgotten, water under the bridge, no hard feelings.' He looked across at Ricky and encouraged him to speak.

‘I was out of order last night,' Ricky said in a flat monotone, staring at the floor. ‘And I'm sorry for having a go at you. I shouldn't of.'

His father nodded at him again.

‘Yeah, I'm really sorry. I apologize.' He was squirming like a puppy on a leash being taught to walk to heel.

This was decidedly odd but welcome all the same. If I wasn't entirely convinced by his sincerity, well  . . . I smiled in his direction, anyway. He still wasn't looking at me. I decided this was probably not a good moment to tell him that Big Malc wanted a word.

‘That's fine by me,' I said. ‘There are no hard feelings on my part. I told you that last night. I never wanted to take this thing any further.'

‘That's good,' Dave Mountjoy said. ‘So we're all kosher here. All forgiven, eh? I don't want any misunderstandings about unfinished business or assumed vendettas. I just wanted it clear that there's none of that.'

‘Sure,' I said. ‘I'm happy to hear that.' I was really puzzled now, but I suspected I was going to have to be patient. I wasn't going to find out what this was all about here. I slurped as much sweet tea as I could stomach and then stood up. ‘Well, thanks for the apology, which really wasn't necessary, and for the tea, which I really needed.' I looked around the room. ‘All right if I head back home now?'

‘Yeah, yeah. Benny'll give you a ride back,' Dave Mountjoy said.

‘No, you're all right,' I said. ‘I'll walk back. It'll do me good.' I made for the door and then stopped and clicked my fingers as though something had just occurred to me. ‘Actually, this is quite a coincidence. I needed a word with Mr Mountjoy senior.' I looked at the old boy, who was still sitting in his comfortable chair, puffing on a pipe. ‘In private. If that's possible.'

The room fell silent, and Dave Mountjoy looked at his brother who looked at Ricky who shrugged. He had dumb insolence down to a fine art. I almost wished that I had mentioned Big Malc. It would have been a real treat to watch the little oik turn an even sicklier shade of pale yellow.

‘That all right with you, Dad?' Dave Mountjoy said.

‘What?' the old boy said. He was wearing a flat cap and had a sturdy walking stick by his side. He had a truculent air about him that suggested he used it more as a weapon than an aid to getting about.

‘Mr Gérard would like a word with you.'

‘What about?' the old boy snapped.

‘It's just about something that happened a long time ago,' I said. ‘Before the war, back in the late twenties.' The clarification was in case they thought I was going to bring up the beating they'd administered to my father.

‘That's a long time ago,' the old boy said. ‘All right. I'll see if I remember anything.'

‘Thanks,' I said and waited for the others to leave.

It took them a long time to cotton on. Eventually, Dave Mountjoy looked embarrassed. ‘Right,' he said. ‘Right. We'll leave you to it then.' And he ushered everyone out.

When they'd gone, Mountjoy the elder looked at me balefully. ‘What do you want then?' he said, chewing on the stem of his pipe, which, mercifully, had gone out.

‘Oh, it's nothing important,' I said and told him the story I'd heard about Daphne and his son and how I understood that he and his wife had adopted the child.

When I'd finished, he looked at me like I was a piece of dog poo on the sole of his shoe.

‘Never happened,' he snapped.

‘What didn't? I said.

‘None of it,' he said. ‘None of it.' He paused. ‘Well, Joe might have knocked the little bint up, and we might have bunged her a few quid, but we never even saw the little girl. Kid. We certainly didn't adopt the brat. Nah. Never happened. You've been misinformed.' His grip on his stick had tightened, and he looked like he wanted to start wielding it.

‘Well, thanks for putting me right,' I said. ‘I appreciate that.' And I started to walk towards the door just as he spoke again.

‘Life's nothing without a woman,' he said. ‘Nothing.'

‘Sorry?' I said, turning towards him.

But he was lost in his thoughts, and he clearly hadn't been talking to me.

As I closed the door behind me, I wondered what ancient memories I'd dug up.

I was also as sure as I could be that he'd been lying to me. Just as young Ricky had been when he'd said he was sorry and that our little contretemps was at an end.

I walked slowly back along Grove Green Road in the cool, early morning and turned into the High Road as the first bus busily breezed past, lights blazing. It was empty apart from the driver and conductor. I hummed a few notes of ‘St James Infirmary' and then let Louis Armstrong take up the tune, in the concert hall of my mind.

I stood on the corner for a moment before dawdling towards home, thinking of the old boy, pipe clenched fiercely between his teeth. I wondered what ghosts from the past were haunting him, just what had ‘never happened'. I glanced at my watch as I passed the imposing red brick and Portland stone of the Victorian town hall. There was something solid and reassuring about it. And I needed reassurance. Twenty to seven on a fine Saturday morning. A fine Saturday morning that could well turn into a very ugly day indeed.

Clearly, something very worrying had happened. Something that involved Ricky Mountjoy. And me. I couldn't think of much that connected us, and I kept coming back to Lee the piano player.

Coronation Gardens wasn't open yet, so I couldn't sit there and contemplate what to do. Not that there was much to contemplate. I could either do nothing and wait to find out what had occurred, or I could ask around. The first course of action (or inaction) was very appealing. As far as I could see, its only drawback was the likelihood that something could come out of nowhere and completely floor me. The second was much less appealing. It would mean that I wouldn't be able to potter about in the garden or watch Orient play that afternoon. The fact that I didn't have a garden and that Orient were playing at Southend did take the edge off that argument, but it might mean that I wouldn't be able to schlep out to Ealing to see Mrs Williams – Ann – that evening, and I really wanted to see her. It might also see me blundering into matters that were nothing to do with me and were way beyond my control.

There seemed only one way forward.

Fortunately, Enzo had opened Costello's Café by the time I reached the corner where Jerry's record shop and home nestled, and the shiny coffee machine that was Enzo's pride and joy (if such a lugubrious person could ever be said to exhibit pride or joy) was hissing like a seriously cheesed-off and deadly snake.

Enzo performed a very impressive double-take when I entered and, a bit too theatrically, I thought, checked his watch three times.

He wiped his hands on a grubby tea-towel and then leaned on the counter. ‘So,' he said, ‘it must have been some night, you get home this late.'

‘Just up a bit earlier than usual, Enzo,' I said. ‘How about some coffee and a couple of slices of toast?'

‘Sure,' he said. ‘When do you ever get up before Sunday on a Saturday?'

I was hurt and would have showed him a very unhappy face if he hadn't turned his back on me to shove a couple of pieces of bread under the grill and align a cup under a steaming nozzle on his gleaming machine.

Since the unhappy face wasn't going to cut any mustard, I felt I had to speak.

‘I'm hurt, Enzo,' I said, ‘that you should think I slug around in bed all the time.'

‘I don't think that,' he said over his shoulder. ‘I just think that you keep very strange hours for an accountant.'

‘I'm not really an accountant, Enzo,' I said for the umpteenth time.

‘Then why you do my books?' he said, turning around and plonking my coffee on the counter.

‘I don't do your books, Enzo,' I said. ‘I just check your figures.'

‘I bring your toast in a minute,' he said.

I shook my head, picked up my coffee and went to find an empty table. That wasn't difficult, as there was no one else in the place. Well, it was ten past seven on a Saturday morning.

The coffee tasted better than usual. Well, maybe it didn't. Perhaps I just needed it more than I did on most mornings.

I couldn't really argue with Enzo about this being a particularly early start to Saturday for me. Basic training, back when I was first called up, had persuaded me that five o'clock reveilles were not events to relish. And, later, when I was in France, working with Ghislaine's husband, Robert, Big Luc and the others, I developed a hearty distaste for sneaking around before dawn. Particularly when it involved wet fields, irritable, raucous crows and armed men. Which it so often did.

Still, it was beginning to look as if I'd been up in time to see the best of the day. After Thursday's drop of dampness, Friday had been very hot, but it had rained overnight and it appeared that the spell of good weather had broken. Some cloud was coming in, and it was a lot cooler.