For King and Country (40 page)

‘Why, it’s all right, like,’ said Will, ‘for women.’

Grandfather wouldn’t even try it.

‘There’s beer in the cellar,’ Miss Brewster said, ‘for the Philistines among us.’

‘That’ll be me, then,’ said Will, getting up to fetch it, ‘and me grandad.’

The tasting went on, with Miss Brewster offering one concoction after another, trying them herself and then pressing them onto her guests. Sally’s head began to spin as she sipped and Miss
Brewster became flushed, louder and more talkative. She began to regale them with the story of Will’s escape from the clutches of the law, delighting in the ruse so much that even Will and
Sally were agog. Then out came the sloe gin.

‘This is my
piece de résistance
,’ she announced.

Watching her pour it into lead crystal glasses put Sally dizzily in mind of the Sunday afternoon. ‘Why, Miss Brewster, I’d left the three glasses in the kitchen sink when I went to
hide Will. It was a dead giveaway, but when I took the policemen through the kitchen, one of them had vanished!’

Miss Brewster displayed all her yellow teeth and her braying laughter filled the room. ‘I know! I spotted them when I went through to open the garden door, and I pushed it in the pig bin,
under the swill!’ she exclaimed. But her grin became a grimace of disgust when she added, ‘And I had to fish it out again when the coast was clear, while you were rescuing your
beloved!’

‘Like I had to rescue Will’s things from underneath our . . . you know,’ Sally said.

‘Yes! They knew better than to disturb our “you know!”’ Miss Brewster roared again and Mrs Burdett joined her with a bit of the lustre back in her eyes, and a lopsided
giggle that so infected Sally that she was as helpless with laughter as the pair of them.

‘You’re tipsy,’ Will accused her, laughing himself.

‘Yes, you are,’ said Miss Brewster. ‘Disgraceful!’

‘I am,’ said Sally, raising her glass. ‘And this is the last. I’ll have to be at work tomorrow, while you’re all sleeping it off.’

When the noise had subsided, Miss Brewster looked directly at Mrs Burdett. ‘Don’t you worry your head. As soon as he’s fit I’ll send your Will to Stafford without fail.
They won’t rob you of the one you’ve got left. It’ll be over my dead body, if they try.’

Seeing Miss Brewster slightly the worse for drink, Ginny suddenly asked, ‘Why, how does that saying of your father’s go, Effie?
He who first a good name gets
. .
.?’

Miss Brewster hesitated, then took another sip of sloe gin and threw discretion to the winds.
‘May piss the bed, and say he sweats!’
she declared, and covered her mouth to
suppress a loud hiccup.

Solemn faced, Ginny said, ‘Why, there you are then, Sal, that’s what you can do.’

‘Miss Brewster!’ Sally protested, ‘I haven’t done that since I was three year old!’

‘I’ll teach you everything I know about distilling, and you can teach me all you know about photography. That’s a fair exchange,’ Miss Brewster had
bargained after their little Christmas gathering, and nothing more had been done or said about it. Now, on New Year’s Day 1919, they were trooping outside to use the last bit of film taking
photographs of the dogs.

‘That’s what photography means, drawing with light,’ Will announced, as Sally closed the back door behind them.

‘Oh, really?’ said Miss Brewster. ‘I may be a woman, but that doesn’t mean I’m a complete imbecile.’

‘I never thought it did.’

‘Well then, don’t state the obvious.’

‘I was only repeating what my uncle told me,’ said Will.

She rounded on him ferociously. ‘And how old were you at the time?’ she demanded. ‘Five?’

‘Aye, about that,’ he said, and looked at her with a straight face for a moment or two. Then to Sally’s amazement, the corners of his mouth began to twitch and he burst into
laughter, the first real laugh she’d heard from him since he got back from France, and so welcome to her ears.

It was answered by a broad grin from Miss Brewster.

‘All right, then,’ he said, still smiling. ‘This is the simplest kind of camera there is. All you have to do is put a roll of film in, and press the shutter release. You
can’t change the distance between the film and the lens, or the aperture of the lens, or the time of exposure. So as long as you’ve got a good light, there’s not a lot can go
wrong – if that’s not too obvious for you. You’ll get a good, clear picture on a day like this.’

‘All right, let’s get on with it. Scutum! Gladius!’ she called, and the dogs came bounding out of the outhouse.

‘You can pose them if you want to,’ said Will, with a wary eye on the bulldog, ‘but you’ll get a more natural photo if you wait for what my uncle calls “the
unguarded moment”. Why, then, that’s with people. I’m not so sure about dogs.’

‘My dogs
are
human, almost. More human than some people,’ Miss Brewster said, stepping back and pointing the camera at Scutum.

The mastiff’s big, soulful eyes gave some credence to her claim, but that bulldog! Sally wouldn’t trust him as far as she could spit, and she could see that Will had no more faith in
him, either.

‘You want the sun behind you,’ said Will. Miss Brewster moved round.

‘You’ll get a better photo if you get down on one knee,’ he said, ‘right down to their level, like.’ Miss Brewster did so, and Will crouched behind her, his scarred
face nearly touching hers while the dogs sat watching them, alert and perplexed. ‘Now look through the viewfinder, and move the camera till you get the picture you want. Keep it steady.
That’s it. Now, just a gentle squeeze . . .’

Miss Brewster squeezed the shutter. ‘I’m going into Newcastle tomorrow to get some more film,’ she said, ‘and I’ll get some developer, and some photographic paper.
I want to learn to develop them.’

‘You’ve got no dark room,’ said Will.

Miss Brewster nodded towards the bell pit.

‘There’s no running water down there,’ said Will, ‘and you need a lot of it.’

‘Hm . . .’ said Miss Brewster.

‘Our Ginny told us you might be here. I’ve come all the way from France so I can be Miss Brewster’s first foot, and I’ve brought a pal,’ Arthur
announced, that afternoon. ‘He’s nearly as tall, dark and handsome as me, so that means she’ll get twice the good luck, eh, Sal? He’s stopping with me and Kath for a week or
two until he’s been to see a few of his mother’s relations. Then we’re off!’

‘Off where?’

‘On the boat to Australia, of course.’

‘S’right,’ said Arthur’s companion, a burly, light-haired young fellow who towered over both her and Arthur. She stretched out a hand. ‘How do you do . .
.?’

‘Frank,’ said Arthur. ‘Frank Pickering.’

‘S’right,’ Frank drawled.

‘Hello, Frank,’ said Sally. ‘It’s nice to meet you.’

Frank nodded, and gave her hand a bone-crushing squeeze and a shake. Sally withdrew her mangled hand, politely masking all manifestation of pain.

‘Why, are you going to let us in, hinny?’

‘I daren’t let you in until I ask her, but she’s already had the first-foot. Just a minute,’ she said, closing the door on them. Miss Brewster had insisted that Will do
the honours of first-footing, surprising both him and Sally in view of his obvious lack of the third qualification.

Within a couple of minutes she was back at the door, to lead Arthur and Frank into the drawing room where they sat, polite and uncomfortable, on the sofa.

‘She won’t be long,’ Sally said, and had scarcely perched herself on the leather pouffe when Miss Brewster made her appearance.

Sally jumped up. ‘This is my brother Arthur, Miss Brewster.’

Arthur got to his feet and tossed a lump of coal onto the fire. ‘Aye, why, first foot or not, there’s not much point carting that back,’ he said, wiping his hand briefly on his
trousers before thrusting it out to Miss Brewster. ‘Happy New Year, and many of ’em,’ he said, pumping her hand. ‘“Lang may your lum reek, wi’ somebody
else’s coal”, like them tartan buggers say.’

‘Excuse his language, Miss Brewster. He’ll have had a bit to drink last night, and he’s probably still under the influence,’ Sally said, none too happy at the impression
he might be making.

Arthur gave her a withering look, and held out a canvas bag to Miss Brewster. ‘Our Ginny sent you a cake, an’ all.’

Miss Brewster put the bag on the mahogany chiffonier and opened the cake tin it contained. ‘That smells divine. Well, Mr Wilde, first foot or not, you and your friend had better have a het
pint, or a glass of whisky. Which would you prefer?’

‘I’ll have a whisky, thanks,’ said Arthur.

‘And your friend?’

‘What’s a het pint?’ Frank sounded dubious.

‘Pale ale, sweet and hot, with whisky and nutmeg.’

‘He’ll have the same as me,’ said Arthur.

Frank perked up considerably. ‘S’right,’ he grinned.

More comfortable and merry again after a couple of glasses of whisky and a slice of cake, Arthur gave Sally the news from home. ‘Our Ginny’s got our Lizzie and her
new husband staying at the Cock,’ he said. ‘A captain. We might have known nothing less than a captain would do for our Lizzie.’

‘He’s not that new,’ said Sally. ‘They’ll have been married two years this Easter.’

‘He’s new enough,’ said Arthur, ‘seeing he’s spent most of his time in France and then in German prisoner of war camps since they got married. They’ll be at
our Ginny’s for another week or two, and then he’s taking her to Paris for a “honeymoon”. It’s all right for some.’

‘He seems all right, though, or he did when I met him at their wedding,’ said Sally, reminding herself to go to the Cock and pump the captain for all she was worth about those
prisoner of war camps, while she still had the chance.

‘Next holiday I get,’ said Arthur, ‘’ll be the six-week boat trip to Australia. Frank says there’s plenty of work in the mines round Woolangong, and it’s a
sight better paid than here, an’ all.’

‘S’right,’ said Frank, then sotto voce to Arthur, ‘Dunny out the back?’

‘He means the lav,’ Arthur interpreted. Miss Brewster gave directions, and Frank departed.

As soon as he’d disappeared, Arthur leaned towards Sally. ‘Why then, what do you think to him?’ he whispered.

‘He seems very nice,’ she said.

Arthur looked as pleased as punch. ‘He’s not a bad looking lad, is he? And he’s a good worker. He’d be all right for you. If you fancied taking him on, you wouldn’t
have to wait for your nursing ticket, either. You could come to Australia with us, start a new life before the month’s out.’

Sally looked at him, speechless herself for a moment or two, then, ‘He hasn’t got much conversation, has he?’ she said.

She waved them off at the door, and then returned to the drawing room, where stood Miss Brewster, watching the retreating figures of her would-be first foot and his friend
through the bay window.

Sally joined her. Their eyes met.

‘He’s not a bad looking lad though, is he?’ Miss Brewster said, with an expression that was hard to fathom. ‘And he’s a good worker. He’d be all right for
you, if you fancied taking him on.’

‘S’right,’ Sally agreed, and was almost deafened by braying laughter.

When she got back from work the following day, Sally found Will and Miss Brewster with their heads together in the dining room, examining a new camera.

‘I saw it in Newcastle this morning, and insisted they deliver it today,’ Miss Brewster told her. ‘Magnificent, isn’t it?’

‘You could get some beautiful photos with this. A Newman and Guardia reflex, it’s one of the best on the market, man,’ Will said.

‘
The
best, according to the salesman,’ Miss Brewster corrected him.

‘Not cheap either. You don’t do things by halves. But it’ll be a lot more complicated to use than a box camera,’ he warned her.

‘The photography bug’s bitten me pretty deeply,’ Miss Brewster said. ‘And where there’s an interest, learning’s not too difficult, as a rule. And the salesman
said it was perfectly possible to use a bathroom as a dark room, as long as you make it light tight. And that’s precisely what I intend to do.’

Will looked up. ‘I hope you’re not expecting me to know everything that goes on in a dark room,’ he said. ‘The last time I was in a one was when I was about twelve year
old. Even then, I did more watching than developing.’

‘With what you remember, and what we can glean from the book, we’ll soon master it,’ Miss Brewster said, airily.

‘You might waste a lot of money in the process,’ said Will.

‘I can afford it.’

He gave her a wry smile. ‘Aye, I suppose you can,’ he said, ‘what with that perpetual money machine you’ve got going underground.’

‘Quite – three hundred feet too deep. I need a more gentle occupation; I’m getting too old to chase up and down ladders. When I’ve learned everything there is to know
about photography, perhaps I’ll give that little enterprise up and become a respectable lady photographer,’ she said.

‘And keep respectable hours, like any other decent clockwork person,’ Sally said. ‘I think you should, before your luck runs out. At least you can’t get gaoled for taking
photographs.’

‘There was a letter for you this morning. It’s on the mantelpiece,’ said Miss Brewster, when Sally returned from work with an agar plate in her coat pocket a
couple of weeks later. She put the plate carefully on the hallstand, hung up her coat and went into the drawing room to rip open the letter and begin to read.

‘Who’s it from?’ Will demanded.

‘Our Ginny.’

‘Why, what does she say?’

‘Never bother, it’s not about your mother. She doesn’t say a lot, except her husband’s back from France, so she’s giving a party to welcome him, and for a farewell
to our Arthur and Kath. They’re off to Australia next month.’

‘So soon!’ Will said. ‘I wish we had half a chance. I’d be off like a shot.’

But Sally had more immediate concerns than Australia. She pushed the letter back in its envelope and replaced it on the mantelpiece, then with a deep apprehension about what might be lurking
underneath, she looked at the filthy, crumbling plaster of Paris encasing his right arm.