Deep Water (18 page)

For the next half-hour, Mike was crushed by pessimistic presentiments. But, to his joy, the boats returned only a little more slowly than on the first trip, having taken full advantage of the slack before the tide turned. All the agents were now on the trawler, and half the airmen. They agreed to return one more time.

At three in the morning, Mike was still waiting for the boats to reappear, and blaming himself bitterly for having let Tony go again. He stood alone just aft of the galley, leaning against one of the gallows on which trawl nets were suspended when not in use. With his binoculars fixed on the strait between Beguen and Runiou, it scared him to see no trace of either boat. Squalls were tossing up larger waves, forcing him to consider starting an engine to take the strain off his coir-grass anchor line. If it came to this, he would certainly regret not having used a heavy anchor chain. It would be horribly ironic to have avoided a few seconds of metallic rattling only to find himself dependent on a noisy engine for several hours.

A translucent glow was lighting the eastern
horizon
by the time Mike finally spotted his boats. Both vessels were side by side, and, through his glasses, he saw a man being transferred from the dinghy to the dory. He lowered his binoculars sadly. Tony had decided to sacrifice the larger boat to give the smaller a better chance of returning. Already perilously low in the water, the dory, with Tony aboard, was blown back behind Pen ar Guarc’h reef towards the dunes. The water there was too shallow for Mike to risk bringing
Luciole
in to assist them. He could have wept with frustration. If Tony and his sailors were not drowned, or shot, or taken prisoner, they would have to be rescued within the next ten days, along with the remaining airmen.

Waves were breaking over the dinghy, but
somehow
she kept inching closer to
Luciole.
What this
effort was costing the oarsmen Mike tried not to imagine. Sensing that the little boat was wavering, he ran to the wheelhouse where he gave the order to start both engines and weigh anchor.

By the time the men on
Luciole’
s
foredeck could throw a line to the dinghy, she was sinking. Mike broke his rule of silence and used the ship’s tannoy to order every sailor out on deck to pull the men up the nets, and hoist the waterlogged vessel aboard. If that dinghy sank here, she would probably be washed ashore, handing the Germans evidence of the navy’s visit, and advance notice of their inevitable return. The dory ought not to pose the same problem, since Tony would bury her in the dunes if he could stay long enough on the beach. After the engagement with the gunboat, the Germans would be searching every beach and cove for evidence of a landing.

Dreading the interview he would soon be having with Tony’s grief-stricken Elspeth, Mike gave his orders to the helmsman almost absentmindedly as
Luciole
entered Le Petit Tuyau. Imagining the
woman’
s angry tears, he felt almost relaxed about the possibility of meeting E-boats beyond the rocks. But bowel-loosening fear soon reasserted itself. Nothing could rival the fear of imminent death.

Soon after dawn, the protective cloud layer blew away, but the sky remained as empty of danger as the sea. And when
Luciole’
s
air escort joined her seventy miles south of the Lizard, only the irrepressible vomiting of several airmen was spoiling the celebratory mood below decks.

*

Mike walked into the Polwherne Hotel shortly before eleven in the morning, after a night entirely without sleep. He felt like a diver in an invisible diving suit, weighted down and distanced from the world around him. As he was sitting in his office, waiting to give Captain Borden a preliminary report, he slipped into a deep sleep that ended abruptly when his telephone rang. The Wren operator was telling him she had a Dr Pauling on the line.

‘Do you want to speak to him, sir?’

Mike couldn’t think who the hell this doctor was, until, like the flash of a 6-inch gun, the answer scorched his mind.

‘Put him through,’ he sighed, not wanting to speak to Andrea’s husband but knowing he would not sleep unless he did.

‘That you, Harrington?’

‘Speaking.’

‘I’m back in the village this evening, so what about coming over for a spot of lunch tomorrow?’

‘If Mrs Pauling doesn’t mind.’

‘Why on earth should she?’

‘Well, if you both want me …’

‘Right then. That’s settled.’ A slight pause. ‘I was thinking that the boys might find it amusing if you could bring over a bosun’s chair. We could rig it up between a couple of trees in the garden.’

‘I’ll see what I can do.’

‘Noon tomorrow.’

‘Fine.’

Mike pounded both his fists on his desk like a child in a rage. Not because he still did not know
whether the
MGB
had limped into another port, and not because Tony might be lying dead on the sand with the waves breaking over him. No, he was distraught because Andrea’s husband was coming home today, stopping her getting away tonight to make love to him. Mike rested his forehead against the table and groaned.

‘Cheer up, man.’ Sitting up sharply, he saw Borden’s red face looking down. ‘Behold the bearer of good news. The gunboat crawled into Dartmouth an hour ago. Three wounded, and their launch shot to
matchwood
. That’s why they shoved off.’ Since there was only one chair in the room, and Mike was sitting on it, Borden parked his large bottom on the table. ‘No news of the chaps you left behind. Sorry about that; but it’s early days.’

Mike looked past Borden’s broad back at the dirty window. The wind had dropped and the sun was stretching a net of filigree silver across the river’s gently ruffled surface. If only things could have been like this a few hours ago. Instead, Tony was missing. And all because I didn’t stop that disastrous final trip. Fool, fool, fool. Mike shut his eyes, and saw, as clearly as if witnessing it, a group of Germans gawping at the stern of the dory as it protruded, coyly, from a dune. Won’t the bastards give us hell when we come back. You bet they will.

When Borden had shambled out, Mike picked up the telephone and asked the girl to get him Andrea’s number. He hoped she would answer, but if she didn’t he wouldn’t let it worry him. He heard Leo’s voice.

‘Hello, Leo. Mike here. Your dad’s asked me to lunch tomorrow.’

‘He’s not here.’ Curt, matter of fact. Suspicious? Probably not.

‘Can I speak to your mother?’

The receiver was thumped down on the table, the noise hurting Mike’s head. ‘Mum, mum, MUM!’ he heard the boy yelling, and then as an afterthought, ‘Telephone! TELEPHONE! It’s the Commander.’

He heard footsteps, another voice, possibly Justin’s, then hers. His anger of moments earlier vanished as he heard her say his name. For a second he imagined himself telling her about Tony, and the pain reached him for the first time. His throat became tight.

‘I’ve just got in.’

‘That’s wonderful, Mike.’

‘Can you get to the school this afternoon?’

‘That sounds interesting.’ He guessed at once that the boys were still in the room.

‘What about four o’clock?’

‘I wouldn’t say that exactly.’

‘Three?’

‘Yes.’ A short pause. ‘Till lunch tomorrow then.’

The need for deception suddenly struck him as silly and wearisome. Maybe he should have encouraged her to tell Leo and Peter about him. After all, she’d been the one to suggest it. If she didn’t mind risking her marriage for a man who might be dead in a fortnight, why should he keep warning her that he was ‘a bad risk’? The harsh fact was that, if the dory had been found, his next mission would probably be his last. Why not see her every day till he sailed,
instead of once or twice? Who needed her more than he did? Her grumpy son? Her gullible husband? Of course not. His head felt incredibly thick and heavy but he knew he wouldn’t sleep for hours now. Maybe start his report.

Two hours later he was on his motorbike driving to Elspeth’s, rehearsing what to say. ‘He’ll be back in a week and none the worse for his ordeal.’ Would she believe this? Possibly. But there was no question of telling her what he really thought.

And this was how he lived now, always making things easier for other people but never for himself.

The moment Andrea had closed the heavy wooden door behind them, she and Mike clung together and kissed as if they had been apart for years. His face was grey with tiredness, and she was both proud and touched that he should have wanted to see her without sleeping first. He was unshaven, and, because she smelled whisky on his breath, she was afraid his mission had failed.

‘Was everything okay?’

‘No, but it’s fine now.’ His dark-shadowed eyes expressed strained dignity and a hint of shame. He went on ahead of her into the sunlit schoolroom. ‘I’ve just been explaining to Elspeth how I managed to mislay her dearest Tony.’

‘How horrible for you.’

Mike made an impatient clicking sound. ‘Not so nice for Tony either.’ He let himself slip down onto a child’s chair. ‘Elspeth was
simply
marvellous
in that specially guilt-inducing British way. Oh God, I shouldn’t say that. Last week, she’d fixed an informal
tennis tournament for tomorrow afternoon, and of course the show must go on. It’s at lunch-time tomorrow.’ He held his head in his hands for a moment. ‘It gets worse. Elspeth was going to play with Tony as her doubles partner, so she’s asked me to step in.’

‘So we won’t see you tomorrow?’

‘Hang on. Elspeth refuses to play doubles with anyone but Tony, so she got me to say I’d play in his place, with my own partner.’ He smiled at her. ‘Will you be my partner?’

‘You know I will.’

‘Your husband can come and watch – what am I saying – and Leo and Justin can be ball boys, if they like.’

‘They’ll like, I’m sure.’

‘And Peter?’

‘I never can tell what he’ll enjoy.’

‘Okay, he’s a maybe, but you and the boys are
definites
. Please don’t tell them about Tony. Officially he’s sick, not missing.’

Andrea frowned. ‘Will Elspeth play along with that?’

‘Elspeth knows lax security won’t help us get him back. So she’ll keep smiling, or die in the attempt.’

Mike stood up abruptly and walked towards the stove. As his smile collapsed, naked misery
transformed
his face. Moved by her memory of the two friends roaring into the night on Mike’s motorbike, Andrea reproved herself for remembering so little of her only conversation with Tony.

Mike murmured tenderly, ‘How long can you stay?’

‘A half-hour.’ Mike seemed to sag as if winded, making her feel terrible. ‘I’m sorry, sweetheart. Justin knows I took his bike that time. So I need to be careful.’

Mike said curtly, ‘Boys think grown-ups do all manner of daft things. Cycling at night probably won’t worry him.’

‘Oh Mike, it was raining,’ she objected. ‘Justin’s a hell of a smart kid. When you called me late that time, he asked if it was you, as if he knew.’

‘Even if he does – why should he tell anyone? He likes us both. I’ve promised to visit his school. In a funny kind of way we’re the parents he’d love to have.’

‘Mike, you were the one who said I shouldn’t take risks with my marriage – not yet, anyway.’

‘You’re right,’ he admitted sadly and looked away. ‘When does Peter go back to Falmouth?’

‘Monday. He’s going to London this time.’

‘Can you be with me all night Monday and
Tuesday
?’ His humility made her want to weep.

‘Yes, yes. You know I will.’

As he embraced her thankfully, she sensed he needed her more than he had before. Otherwise she might have suggested less risky options: an hour or two together instead of two whole nights. But believing him truly in fear for his life, she would not burden him with her own fears, though these had grown worse since Sally had said
her
son would hate her if he ever found out. And Leo was more
attached to his father than Andrea could imagine any other boy on earth being. At times recently, she had seen an unrelenting, almost accusing look in his eyes. And he didn’t know anything yet. So, if he ever did, how would they manage to live under the same roof? Mike was hugging her so tightly that she could feel the seams of his blue battledress jacket through her linen dress. Though the day was warm, she shivered. Ten days from now Mike could be dead, and Leo living with his father.

To escape such thoughts, she said more solemnly than she intended, ‘I didn’t bring my racquet to Cornwall.’

‘Hell’s bells, Andrea! The things you worry about! Elspeth has racquets galore.’

It had been sunny when they arrived, but now a few raindrops flicked across the tall windows and gusts rattled the frames. Andrea could think of nothing to say as Mike examined some little balloons painted onto large cards pinned to the wall.

‘I get it,’ he declared. ‘One gets a different coloured balloon for every maths table mastered. Competition starts early, even in the backwoods.’ He returned to her side. ‘What trinkets do your girls get for good work?’

‘Aside from merit marks? Knowing they’ve pleased me.’

‘Lucky girls.’ His dark eyes sought hers without amusement.

She kissed him softly on the lips and murmured, ‘You please me all the time. I really hate having to go now. What time do we meet at Elspeth’s?’

‘About one. She’s doing a sort of picnic’

As they were leaving, Mike paused to look at some of the younger children’s drawings – people with stick-like arms and legs, lollipop trees, suns with spiky rays.

He said wryly, almost to himself, ‘Funny how special our childhoods seem, when really they’re just like everyone else’s.’

They walked out into the school yard in silence. The flurries of rain had stopped and for a moment the sky was blue. Walking along the road, away from the village to where Andrea had left her car, they
passed
some tumbledown cowsheds and a filthy pond.

His fingers tightened on her arm. ‘Just for these few days,’ he said, ‘please could you not sleep with your husband?’

She nearly told him it wouldn’t mean anything if she did, but, instead, she squeezed his hand and whispered, ‘I haven’t wanted him for years.’

‘That isn’t a proper answer. Imagine I was going home to my wife as soon as I left you. How would
you
feel, Andrea?’

‘Terrible,’ she admitted, embracing him. ‘Forgive me. He won’t come near me, I swear.’

‘I hate being so bloody weak,’ he groaned, as they reached the place where he had left his motorbike.

‘If I had to do what you do, I’d be weeping all the time.’ He kissed her gratefully. ‘Shall we go back to the school?’ she asked, suddenly desperate to make up for having disappointed him.

He shook his head and smiled. ‘I can wait.’

Driving away between wet hawthorn hedges that
sparkled in the sun, she wished she had given in to him twenty minutes ago. Considering the strain he was under, he had been entitled to expect her to take a sizeable risk for him.

*

After his mother had gone out, Leo had spent a happy hour, one that would have been happier still if Justin had been somewhere else. They had both accepted the challenge set by Rose to straighten her crinkly hair, and, although wetting it and rolling it in curlers, they had achieved only a very transitory flatness. After coming to terms with failure, they had been reasonably content to let her teach them how to make bread.

A few days ago, Leo had been told by Justin that men and women put their tongues in each other’s mouths when they kissed. Leo had looked at his own in the mirror and had thought it looked disgusting, with a thin whitish coating that must be covered in germs and microscopic bits of food. The thought that Rose might welcome such a thing in her mouth horrified him. As for the noises which Justin claimed that women made when they were in bed with men – he was sure this couldn’t be true.

When Andrea suddenly appeared and wanted to know why Rose’s hair looked so strange, Leo felt irritated. Why did his mother have to make Rose feel bad about amusing him and Justin? Apparently because they might have been ‘taking advantage of her’ because she was a servant. His mother said this to them during tea.

‘I’m not saying she doesn’t want you around. Only that you shouldn’t assume she does.’

His mother was wearing a pale green dress, with squares of a thready material that pulled it in tight round her waist. It made her look girlish, and rather busty, in a way Leo disliked, though from the way Justin glanced at her he supposed it might suit her. He suspected that Justin had started drinking tea rather than orange squash in order to impress her. Anyway, there was no way
he
would pretend to be grown up for anyone.

Putting down her cup, his mother smiled at him. ‘We’ve been invited over for tennis at a country club. Isn’t that swell.’

‘We don’t play much at St Bede’s,’ Leo remarked quietly, aware that his mother knew this.

‘That’s not a problem. You can be ball boys.’ Her enthusiasm grated with him. Ball boys ran about all afternoon and were cursed and shouted at. He stared unhappily at the remains of one of Rose’s scones on his plate.

Justin took a sip of tea and asked politely, ‘Who’ll be playing?’

‘People we don’t know, mostly. But Mike Harrington should be there.’

Leo saw how pleased Justin was and pushed back his chair. ‘I don’t think I’ll come.’

Andrea said sweetly, ‘Dad’ll be home tomorrow and he’ll want to cheer me on.’

‘Don’t be such a spoilsport,’ cried Justin, as Leo left the room.

Outside in the hall, Leo began to cry. He had
wanted a family holiday with just his parents; what he had instead was a holiday in which other people made all the plans, while Justin sucked up to his mother, and his father was usually away, and this ‘frightfully decent’ but really rather pushy officer came round every other day – making it obvious how much more he liked Justin, and then dragged them off for tennis. ‘Oh good shot, sir,’ everyone would say, including mum. Leo felt sick to think of Mike hitting winners. Dad surely wouldn’t want to come and see lots of sporty people leaping about; but because he was so jolly good natured and doted on mum, he’d be bound to tag along. And then to cap it all he was going back to the Admiralty laboratories in London for the rest of the holiday.

*

The first people Andrea saw on arriving at Ferndene Park were Dr Lowther and Sally, getting out of her Sunbeam-Talbot. John Lowther looked much older. Without his usual baggy tweeds, his stomach could be seen, rolling over the waistband of a pair of white flannels that might have fitted a decade earlier. With Peter limping beside her and the boys running on ahead, Andrea wished she could forget about her friend’s dead pilot and stop imagining that Sally disliked her for still possessing a living, breathing lover.

‘They’re over there,’ called out Justin, pointing.

Across a patchy lawn, Andrea saw two
rust-coloured
clay courts beside a walled vegetable
garden
. While Justin swung his arms cheerfully, Leo seemed to be having trouble dragging himself over
the grass. He had only consented to come after some spirited arm-twisting from his father. Already, they could hear a hubbub of chatter, as if at a cocktail party. Right beside the courts, a small group of men and women were standing huddled together against the wind. Wondering whether Mike was among them, Andrea felt a nervous fluttering in her stomach.

Magnificent in a double row of pearls and swinging furs, Elspeth burst from the midst of a gaggle of
players
to welcome them. Andrea felt like applauding the bravery of her performance.

‘Greetings to our bushy-tailed ball boys! So nice to see you all. Since you won’t be playing, Mr Pauling, perhaps you’d like to umpire our final?’

To Andrea’s surprise, Peter seemed to consider the offer quite seriously for a moment or two, before politely declining. He let himself down, gingerly, into a deckchair.

A cool easterly wind robbed the fitful sunlight of warmth. Looking at the other women with their short tennis skirts and mottled legs, Andrea was not sorry that, with her own tennis skirt in Oxford, she had been obliged to wear slacks. She worried a little about her hair. Mike had never seen it tied back in a band. Nor did she relish the idea of getting red as a beet.

Seeing her lover coming towards her in white
flannels
and a sweater with a striped V-neck, she thought how handsome and athletic he looked. Incredibly, she hadn’t asked him how well he played. Though he looked the perfect tennis champion, it would be a
bore if he turned out to be one. Andrea hated games of mixed doubles in which the men darted around, denying their female partners the chance to lose (or win) more than a small proportion of the points.

As Elspeth announced the pairings, and who would be playing against whom, there were loud complaints and pleas. ‘Oh, Elspeth,
please
don’t make me play Prue Millington-Harris’ was the most common. She was rumoured to be the best player on the courts.

Elspeth dismissed these jitterers with a wave. ‘I’m giving her John Lowther as her partner, so that’ll even things out.’

A few minutes later, Mike and Andrea walked on court to play Sally Lowther and Mark, her teenage son. Andrea found it an added strain to have to treat Sally like a distant acquaintance. Justin appeared and asked Mike if he could be ball boy for this game.

‘Of course you can,’ said Mike, patting him on the back.

Sally smiled suavely at Andrea. ‘You’d better watch out, Yankee, Mark plays for the Malvern First Six.’

‘Second Six, mother.’

‘For God’s sake, darling! Psychology!’

Since Andrea played quite frequently with the girls at her school – but never with other adults because of Peter’s leg – she had no idea how she would shape up today. While she was unscrewing the press from Elspeth’s racquet, she heard a commotion behind the court. Leo’s anguished face was pressed against the wire. Andrea hurried to him.

‘Mum, Justin was a total pig to me when I said I wanted to be your ball boy for this game. Can you put him right?’

‘I can’t argue about anything right now,
sweetheart
. You be my ball boy next time I play.’

He said quite loudly, ‘The people on the other court are blotto. Looks like they’ve been plastered for hours.’