The Haunt (8 page)

‘There
was
no
interception
that
morning.
Halifaxes
and
Blenheims
rested
peacefully
on
the
grass,
someone’s
weekend
toy,
a
little
biplane
painted
in
rainbow
colours,
nestling
alongside.
I 
thought
they
should
have
put
that
out
of
sight.
I
also
spotted
a
pair
of
longjohns
staked
out
to
dry.
Then
our
bombers
emerged
from
cloud
cover
and
the
raid
was
on.
Bombs
bounded
down
the
runway,
hangars
collapsed
in
a
sea
of
flame
which
went
leaping
up
to
the
sky.
The
ground
swarmed
with
running
men.
We
picked
off
their
machines
one
by
one.
A
few
struggled
up,
finding
spaces
between
the
bombs.
I
shot
down
two
before
they
were
airborne
and
sent
another
in
a
picture-book
spiral
into
a
herd
of
cows.

‘Have you kept your word?’ she said, snapping the book shut.

‘What word?’

‘You promised not to climb the oak tree.’

‘I promised and I haven’t,’ he said sulkily.

‘That’s somewhat equivocal. Could you please be more precise?’

‘I wouldn’t climb your rotten old tree if it was the last rotten old tree in the world!’

She sighed. ‘These aren’t bedtime stories I’m reading.’

Ernie couldn’t see the connection – if there was any, it was an insult. He said, ‘I’m going home tomorrow,’ as if it was his own decision. In fact, the letter from his parents had come as an unwelcome surprise. Not only did he not want to go home at this juncture, the idea dismayed him. He would have to go sometime, but the time was not yet. He wasn’t finished here.

Miss Pendennis was surprised too. The grey went out of her face: she turned sort of off-white. ‘So soon?’

As Ernie saw it, there were several possible answers to that: like ‘all good things come to an end’, or ‘there’s nothing to
keep me here’. He decided it was more important to seem not to care less. ‘My parents will be picking me up around noon.’ He brushed grass seeds off his trousers. ‘Pity about the reading.’

‘There’s one more passage I’d like you to hear.’

This time she did not watch him as she read, kept her head lowered over the page. ‘
Based
on
the
Pas
de
Calais
,
our
orders
were
to
make
several
sorties
a
day,
to
and
fro
across
the
Straits
of
Dover.
I
took
my
briefing
from
the
flaxen
Gretchen
of
a
boy
with
dimpled
wrists,
the
blithe
spirit
of HQ
and
something
of
a
little
god:
“Assemble
at
altitude
18,000,
prepare
to
climb
to
30,000
over
the
English
coast.”
I
said,
“That’s
the
lower
limit
of
the
stratosphere.”
He
laughed
in
my
face.
“You’
ll
need
it,
they
’
re
waiting
for
you.”
I
could
have
killed
him,
not
from
anger,
from
the
longing
to
feel
my
hands
on
his
pretty
neck.’

‘Damn cold up there, nought centigrade,’ Ernie said. ‘We did the stratosphere at school in General Science.’

‘I presume you asked to go home?’

Miffed, he said, ‘Of course I didn’t,’ and realised, too late, that it was an admission of parental control. ‘I’m not bothered one way or the other.’

If she believed him, she didn’t show it. ‘I don’t expect I’ll see you again.’

‘Reckon I’ll be busy packing tomorrow morning.’

‘Goodbye, Ernie.’ She held out her hand.

He gave her the key of the garden door. ‘You can lock up behind me. But watch out someone else doesn’t climb in through the tree.’

He was halfway across the garden when she said, ‘That’s
where he died.’ Ernie turned to find her close behind him. ‘Koenig,’ she said, ‘in that tree.’

‘What?’

‘He was shot down, his parachute caught in the branches. He hung there three days and nights, he couldn’t free himself, both his arms were broken. I think he must have had internal injuries as well, he bled so much. He cried, every time I went to him he cried, pleading, like a child to its mother.’

Ernie couldn’t speak. He told himself, You don’t speak when you’re dreaming, when you have a nightmare your tongue’s tied.

She said, ‘I didn’t tell anybody he was there. The beach was mined and the creek fenced off with barbed wire, so no one came this way. I left him to die. After the atrocities he and his kind committed should I have had pity? I hardened my heart, my heart was like a stone. And then we bombed Dresden, thousands of women and children were slaughtered and that beautiful city was razed to the ground. I thought enough is enough, one more is too much, and I went out to him. It was too late, he had strangled in the cords of his parachute.’

The sun beating down made Ernie feel sick. He couldn’t make it to the shade of the oak tree.

She said, ‘After he was gone, I picked up the diary which had fallen from his pocket. When at last they found him I pretended I hadn’t known he was there. They accepted that. But I don’t want you in that tree ever again.’ With her finger she lifted a bead of sweat from his cheek. ‘The evil those men did lives on in all of us. Even in you, blameless child.’

When she died she left the house in trust to Ernie. He did not change the name; he rather fancied ‘Bayview’, but ‘Bellechasse’ was classier for a hotel.

*

Elissa said she’d asked her neighbours to tea.

‘Why?’

‘Why not?’

Owen shrugged. He had mixed reactions: for a man in his position the mixture was unethical. When Elissa said, ‘I’d like to know her better,’ he was tempted to ask why again. She said, ‘Shall I make a chocolate fudge cake for the boy?’

Seeing her and Angela Hartop in close proximity with each other was disorientating. Angela had dressed for an occasion, though, as Elissa remarked later, it was scarcely a teatime one. She wore a black dress with chunky gold jewellery at neck and wrists. Her hair, pulled up through a bandeau, spilled over in fiery ringlets. Elissa, as familiar to him as his own self, lost her place in his world. It was temporary, but for an unappreciable time he seemed not to have a world at all. It took several cups of tea to restore it.

‘Where’s James?’ said Elissa.

‘Watching television.’

‘I made a cake for him.’

‘I never could cook. Greville used to say my custard was a killer.’

‘Shall I cut you a piece? Then you might like to take the rest of it back to James.’

‘How kind you are.’ She ate her cake with enjoyment, accepted another slice and pinched up the crumbs. ‘Isn’t it
really weird – this will turn into me but the rest will turn into James.’

‘Does he mind being left?’ was the nearest Elissa could get to a reprimand.

‘He doesn’t take after his father.’ Angela seemed to think that was answer enough. ‘I loved my husband.’ Owen thought he detected a note of challenge. ‘We were so happy, the three of us. Greville was always bringing presents for James and me, it was his delight to surprise us. James has a cupboard full of toys his father bought him. I can’t bear to see him playing with them, I’ve locked them away. Greville brought me jewellery. I remember how he loved to deck me in it. I can’t wear any of it now. I buried it.’

‘But you dug it up again?’ said Elissa.

‘This is costume stuff.’ Angela fingered her necklace. ‘Greville gave me real gold and diamonds.’

Owen said ‘Ah’, which was safe, even with feeling. The feeling was real, but what was it a feeling
of
?

‘Him dying was so sudden. I thought he was asleep. He looked lovely, so peaceful, I didn’t like to disturb him. I covered him with a rug and went to bed. In the morning he was stone cold.’

Owen thought, Is this right? Should she share the saddest moments of her life with virtual strangers?

Elissa said afterwards it wasn’t what she’d heard. ‘By all accounts it was a far from happy marriage. They fought like cat and dog, went at it something dreadful.’

‘Judging by the terminology,’ Owen said, ‘the accounts are Mrs Latimer’s.’

Elissa gathered up the tea things. ‘She forgot to take James’s cake.’

*

Owen had formed a habit of walking to the village shop after breakfast to buy a newspaper. Along the lane he came upon James sitting cross-legged in the road.

‘What’s this? What are you doing?’

‘Sitting.’

‘I can see that. Why?’

‘I’m tired.’

‘Don’t you know it’s risky sitting in the middle of the road?’

‘I have to go to the police station.’

‘For Pete’s sake!’

‘Who’s Pete?’

‘Why are you going to the police station?’

‘The policeman thinks you drowned me.’

‘Who told you that?’

‘She said I said so. She was angry.’

‘Your mother?’

‘Did I? I didn’t mean to. I have to stop him coming to arrest you.’

Owen laughed. ‘Nobody’s going to arrest me. We’re in the clear, you and I.’

‘Is Pete your son?’

Owen took one look at his darkening face and lifted him to his feet. ‘Tell you what, let’s go to the shop and buy sweets for you and a newspaper for me.’

‘Is he?’ Tight-lipped, James pulled at Owen’s hand.

Owen ruffled his hair. ‘I have no son, old son.’

James’s face cleared. He touched his cheek on Owen’s hand and ran ahead along the lane.

The woman in the village store – a collateral, surely, of Mrs Latimer – spoke in breathy whispers while James was choosing his sweets. She obviously believed he could not hear her. ‘Him and his father were real pals. They used to come and buy chocolate and Coke, sherbet and liquorice allsorts, he didn’t need to look twice at anything he fancied. But once the father was gone, the poor lamb was never let near. She said he was losing his teeth through too much sweet stuff. I told her, they’re milk teeth, he’s going to lose them anyway. This is the first I’ve seen him since Mr Hartop went. He loved to come here, laughing and larking with the boy. I said to my husband I’ve seen that man lose himself in the one bit of happiness he’s likely to have—’

‘What are milk teeth?’ James had come to the counter.

‘My, my!’ Halted in full flood, the woman leaned over to look at him. ‘Little pitchers have big ears. I was talking to this gentleman about things you couldn’t understand.’

‘I understand everything!’

‘My, my.’ She winked at Owen. ‘Little Master Knowall! We should put him on the telly—’

‘Why don’t you bloody shut up!’ Glaring, James tore open a packet and shook out the contents. Red, green and yellow sweets bounced and rolled across the floor. He trod on them as he made for the door. The shopkeeper cried out. Owen said, ‘Oh lord! I’m sorry – I’ll come back and settle with you,’ and ran after James.

He caught up with him in the lane, spoke with more mildness than he felt. ‘That wasn’t nice. Where did you learn such language –’ James responded with a look between pride and cunning – ‘it’s not clever, it’s not smart.’ Owen lengthened his stride, put distance between the boy and himself. He heard hurrying feet: James was at his heels, whimpering and clinging to the hem of his jacket. Owen rounded on him. ‘I don’t care where you heard it or who from, it’s bad language, and coming from someone your age it’s disgusting.’

‘Are you angry? Please don’t be angry with me—’

‘Promise you’ll never use such words again.’ A tall order to be carried into manhood.

James cried, ‘I promise – cross my heart and hope to die!’

Owen told Angela, ‘I found him sitting in the middle of the road.’

She was opening a box of cornflakes and did not look up. ‘He was probably waiting for you.’

‘I think you should know.’

‘Of course.’

‘He’s out there now, swinging on the gate.’ Owen said sharply, ‘I’m fond of him and he seems to like being with me, but he can’t always be.’

‘I didn’t know he’d gone out. It shan’t happen again.’

‘Can you guarantee it? I’d hate to feel in any way to blame if something happened.’

She looked up. ‘Will you come back later – this evening, after he’s in bed? I must talk to you.’

She was holding the box of cornflakes in her arms – ‘A great British Breakfast, fortified with 9 added vitamins’.

Owen resisted the urge to touch her hair.

*

‘Talk? What about?’ said Elissa.