Coming Home (141 page)

‘Here.’ She handed over one of the bits of writing-paper and the pencil. ‘Your address. Where I can get hold of you.’ He wrote, then pushed them back to her.

Ardvray

Bancharty

Aberdeenshire.

She folded the sheet of paper and stuffed it in her pocket. Then it was her turn.

The Dower House

Rosemullion.

‘If I write, will you promise to answer, Gus?’

‘Of course.’

‘We haven't, either of us, got much left, have we? So we must sustain each other. It's important.’

Now it was he who folded the paper and buttoned it into the breast pocket of his shirt.

‘Yes. Important. Judith…I think I must go back now. I mustn't be late for the tender. Miss the boat.’

‘I'll come with you.’

‘No. I'd rather go alone.’

‘We'll find a taxi. Here…’

‘What's that?’

‘Money for the fare.’

‘I feel like a kept man.’

‘Not, not kept. Just pretty special.’

He gathered up his parcel (which still looked like a bottle, despite its wrappings) and they left the terrace, going back through the foyer and out of the door. The doorman called a taxi, and he held the door open for Gus to get in.

‘Goodbye, Judith.’ His voice seemed a little hoarse.

‘Promise to write. I'll let you know the moment I get back to England.’

He nodded. And then said, ‘Just one thing. Will you tell them all, at Nancherrow, about today?’

‘Of course I will.’

‘Tell them I'm okay. Say I'm fine.’

‘Oh, Gus.’ She reached up and kissed him on both cheeks. He got into the taxi and the door slammed shut. Then he was driven away, out into the road and down the length of the Galle Face Green. Judith, smiling and waving, watched him go, but as soon as the car was out of sight, she could feel the brave smile slipping from her face.

Silently,
Keep in touch,
she called after him.
You mustn't disappear again.

‘Can I get a taxi for you?’

She turned and looked at the doorman, attentive and resplendent in his bottle-green uniform. For a moment she couldn't think what she was meant to be doing, nor where she was meant to be. But no point in returning to the Fort. She would go home, take a shower, flake out on her bed.

‘Yes. Another taxi. Thank you.’

The Galle Road once more, but now driving in the opposite direction, in a degree of comfort, and not lurching about at the back of a three-ton lorry.

Will you tell them all, at Nancherrow, about today?

She thought about Walter Mudge, and Nathaniel and Loveday. The marriage that should never have taken place. The child who should never have been conceived, nor born. Loveday was her closest friend. No person in the world could be better company, and nobody could be more infuriating. Staring out of the window at dusty pavements, passers-by, and the wheeling avenue of palms, she could scarcely bear to contemplate the bleak home-coming that awaited Gus. It was so dreadfully unfair, and not what he deserved. Heavy-hearted, and angry on his behalf, she took her resentment out on Loveday, silently raging.

Why do you always have to be so pig-headed, so impetuous? Why didn't you listen to me, that day in London?

I was already having a baby.
Loveday, shouting at her, as though Judith were a fool. Loveday giving as good as she got.

You've made such a mess of everything. Gus is alive and he's coming home, and he's got no family because his old parents have died. He should be coming to Nancherrow, to find
you
waiting for him. It could all have been so perfect. He should be coming home to
you.
Instead he's going back to Scotland, and an empty house, and no family and no love.

What's to stop him coming to Nancherrow? He was Edward's friend. Mummy and Pops thought he was great. Nothing to stop him.

How can he come to Nancherrow, if you're married to Walter? He loved you. He was in love with you. He's spent all this time building foul railways in Burma, and telling himself that you were waiting for him. How can he come to Nancherrow? You must be without heart or imagination to suggest such a thing.

He should have let me know he was alive.
Now, she sounded sulky.

How could he? Like he said, he could scarcely ring you up on the telephone. He only managed one letter, and that was to his parents, and he can't be certain that they ever even
got
it. Why didn't you go on hoping? Why didn't you wait for him?

I can't think why you're so involved all of a sudden.

I'm not
involved.
But I do feel responsible. He must
know
he has friends. We mustn't let him disappear again. But I don't think he'll return to Nancherrow, and I doubt if he'd come and visit me at The Dower House either, because he knows that we all live on top of each other, and sooner or later he'd have to see you again. Can't you see, you've put me in an intolerable position?

We surely weren't his only friends.

But you know how he
loved
Cornwall. It was a sort of heaven for him, with you there and his painting. How can you be so hard? Why do you always make such a mess of everything?

You don't know that I've made a mess of everything. You and I have hardly seen each other for five years. How do you know I'm not happy with Walter?

Because he was the wrong man. You should have waited for Gus.

Oh, shut up.

Now the taxi was slowing down, drawing into the side of the road. She saw the familiar gates, the sentry. She was home. She got out of the taxi, paid the driver off, and went through the gates.

And then, on this extraordinary day of extraordinary events, the last extraordinary thing occurred, that was to drive all preoccupation, all thoughts of Gus and Loveday from Judith's mind. The doors of Bob's bungalow stood open, and even as she trod up the drive, he was there, running down the wide steps, and striding across the neatly raked gravel to meet her.

‘Where have you
been?
’ He had never in his life been angry with her, but now he sounded quite distraught. ‘I've been waiting since midday. Why weren't you back? What have you been doing?’

‘I…I…’ Completely knocked off course by his outburst, she could scarcely find the words to explain. ‘…I met someone. I've been at the Galle Face Hotel. I'm sorry…’

‘Don't be sorry.’ He hadn't been angry, just anxious. He put his hands on her shoulders and held her, as though at any moment she might start falling apart. ‘Just listen. This morning I got a telephone call from your Second Officer in Trincomalee…A signal's come through from Portsmouth, HMS
Excellent
…Jess survived…Java, Jakarta…
The Rajah of Sarawak
…a lifeboat…a young Australian nurse…internment camp…’

She watched his craggy face, his eyes keen with excitement, his mouth opening and shutting, making words that she scarcely understood.

‘…tomorrow, or the next day…RAF…Jakarta to Ratmalana…she'll be here.’

It finally sank in. He was telling her that Jess was alive. Little Jess. Not drowned. Not killed in the explosion. Safe.

‘…the Red Cross will let us know when she's due to arrive…we'll go together and meet her off the plane…’

‘Jess?’ It took an enormous effort even to say her name.

Abruptly, Bob pulled her into his arms and held her so closely she thought her ribs would snap. ‘Yes, Jess,’ and there was a break in his voice that he didn't even try to conceal. ‘She's coming back to you!’

‘Pretty exciting day for you.’

‘Yes.’

‘Your sister, the group captain said?’

‘Yes.’

‘How old is she?’

‘Fourteen.’

It was five o'clock in the afternoon. Judith and Bob — driven in certain state in his staff car — had presented themselves at the RAF station, Ratmalana, at a quarter past four. There, the station commander had met them, and escorted them to the mess, where they had been given cups of tea, waiting until word came through from the Control Tower to say that the plane from Jakarta would be landing in a matter of moments.

‘Think you'll recognise her?’

‘Yes, I think so.’

They walked from the mess across the dusty parade ground, towards the Control Tower. Bob Somerville and the group captain had gone on ahead, both in uniform, and deep in service talk. The junior officer — a flight lieutenant in some sort of attendant duty (Secretary? First lieutenant? Aide-de-camp? Equerry?) — had fallen into step beside Judith, and now engaged her in conversation. He had a huge fighter-pilot moustache, and wore his battered cap at a slight angle. She guessed that he enjoyed a reputation as something of a ladies' man. Whatever, he was clearly relishing the bonus of a youthful and not hideous female, and one, moreover, tricked out in an attractive dress; a nice change from the ubiquitous khaki drill of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force.

‘Will you be in Colombo for long?’

‘I really don't know.’

Outwardly cool, inside she was trembling with nerves. Suppose the plane never came? Suppose, when it did land, there was no Jess on board? Suppose something awful had happened, some hitch or other? Or an explosion, causing the aircraft to drop out of the sky, and killing all the passengers?

‘Do you work for the Admiral?’

‘No, I'm just staying with him.’

‘Wizard show.’ He was doing his best, but she didn't want to talk.

In front of the Control Tower, they joined the others, and, as well, some ground crew, wearing grubby overalls and in charge of maintenance trucks and fuel tankers. On the far side of the runway stood hangars and neatly parked groups of aircraft, Tornadoes and Hurricanes. The runway was clear. The wind filled the airsocks.

For a bit nobody said anything. It was a moment of acute anticipation. Then the flight lieutenant broke the silence. ‘She's coming now.’ Judith felt her heart leap. The random groups of ground crew began to peel off, re-assorting themselves, clambering into their trucks. A batsman, in a scarlet vest, appeared on the far end of the runway. Shading her eyes, staring up into the sky, Judith could see nothing for the dazzle of the lowering sun. Straining her ears, heard only silence. She wondered if the flight lieutenant had been blessed with extra-sensory powers. Perhaps his moustache was sensitive as the whiskers of a cat, and he was able to…

And then she saw the plane, a silver toy, suspended in light. She heard the hum of the engines as it floated down out of the south-west, losing height, beamed in on the runway, wheels down, coming in to land. It touched down in a blast of thundering noise, wheels smacking the runway, and Judith instinctively put up a hand to shield her face against the resultant turmoil, the blown clouds of choking dust.

After that, once the dust had subsided, another five minutes of hanging about, waiting for the Dakota to come slowly taxiing back from the end of the runway, to halt finally in line with the Control Tower. The propellers were still. The heavy bulkhead doors opened from the inside, and makeshift steps trundled up. The passengers alighted in dribs and drabs and began to walk across the concrete apron. An RAF Squadron Leader, a group of American pilots; three neatly dressed Tamils, bearing briefcases. Two soldiers, one of them on crutches…

Finally, just as Judith was about to give up hope, she was there, clambering down the steps. Skinny and brown as a boy, wearing shorts and a faded green shirt, and with sun-bleached hair clipped in a crop. Clumsy leather sandals that looked as though they were two sizes too big; a small canvas rucksack slung over one bony shoulder.

She paused for a moment, orientating herself, clearly a bit lost, anxious and apprehensive. Then, bravely, the girl set out after the others, ducking beneath the wing of the plane; coming.

Jess. At that moment they might have been the only two people in the world. Judith went to meet her, searching, in that bony, stony little face, some trace of the chubby child, the sweetly weeping four-year-old to whom she had said goodbye all those years ago. And Jess saw her, and stopped dead, but Judith went on, and it was wonderful, because Jess's eyes were upon her, and they were just as blue and as clear as they had ever been.