I'll Be Seeing You (32 page)

I found the button and jabbed at it. The same Spanish-accented voice floated tinnily out of some holes.

‘Your name, please?'

‘Juliet Porter.' If there was a camera it was well hidden and, anyway, there was nothing to smile about.

‘Please enter, Mrs Porter.'

The gates began to swing open. Behind me, Rob, the callous louse, had started up the Jeep engine and was driving away, leaving me all alone.

A driveway led down to a building. This was no Beverly Hills fanciful flight into the past but an ultra-modern structure of glass and stone and concrete. I walked towards it, passing a straw-hatted Mexican gardener clipping back shrubs, another sweeping with a large broom, another raking stray leaves off perfect lawns. The front door, when I finally reached it, was bronze and massive. There was no bell to push, no knocker to knock, and no handle to turn. As I stood there, wondering what to do next, the door was opened by a manservant, also Mexican and dressed in a white jacket and trousers and white buckskin shoes.

‘Please come inside, Mrs Porter.'

I followed him down a long, light corridor. The floors were slate, the walls limestone, the full-length windows on each side a single pane of glass. Outside, ornamental trees grew in giant pots beside rectangular pools of water. I was shown into a circular room where the ceiling soared, pavilion-like, to a high point in the centre. The floor was pale wood, the furniture all white, three walls were hung with enormous canvases of modern art – bold works in bold colours using bold brushstrokes. The fourth wall was almost entirely made of glass. I went over and gazed out onto a stone terrace and a sparkling swimming pool below. The wooded hillside dropped away to a golf course even lusher than the one I had seen in Palm Springs and with similar white beetles crawling over it.

I didn't hear him come into the room and I didn't see him because I was too busy admiring the view.

‘Mrs Porter?'

I turned around very slowly, afraid to look.

He was standing a few feet away from me – tall, upright, silver-haired, dressed in a blue shirt and cord trousers. I knew, at once, that it was the man in the photograph – even without the sheepskin jacket, the American cap, and all the rest of the flying kit. Even before he smiled.

There was a moment's silence and then he held out a hand. ‘I'm Howard Hamilton. Glad to meet you.'

No wonder Madeleine Lucas had remembered his smile. I shook his hand politely. ‘How do you do.'

He was still looking at me, still smiling. ‘You're very like your mother.'

‘Yes, I've always been told that.'

I was invited to sit down on one of the white sofas, offered a drink which I refused, though I could have done with a large brandy. He sat back in a chair opposite me, one leg crossed over the other, elbows resting on the chair's arms, apparently totally at ease. The clothes might have been casual but they were certainly very expensive. There was a perfect white orchid plant growing in a moss-covered pot on the glass table between us and I pretended to be enraptured by it for a moment, rather than be caught staring at him. I knew he was watching me intently and that he would weigh up every word I said.

I stalled cravenly, gushingly. ‘You have a beautiful home, Mr Hamilton. And what a lovely view! The golf course looks wonderful.'

‘I don't play myself,' he said. ‘My late wife did, but I've never cared for the game.'

For some reason, I was glad to hear it. I couldn't picture him driving around in those little electric carts but it wasn't hard to imagine him at the controls of a heavy bomber. In fact, it was very easy.

He said, ‘Well, where should we start?'

Where, indeed? I had to look him in the eye then and hope that he couldn't read my thoughts. This total stranger was my father – I was certain of it – but I still couldn't grasp the fact that I was a part of him, just as much as I had been a part of my mother. More nervous throat-clearing on my part.

‘Take your time, Mrs Porter. I'm in no rush. Are you sure you wouldn't like something to drink?'

‘Well, perhaps something soft.' Rob would have laughed out loud if he'd been there. If only he were.

He called over his shoulder and the manservant appeared silently. Jose, Mrs Porter would like something soft to drink. What do we have to offer her?'

‘Iced tea, sir? Or mineral water? Or fresh orange juice? Whatever the señora wishes.'

I said, ‘Iced tea would be lovely.'

‘Would you prefer it hot? Jose knows how to make English tea.'

‘No, iced would be fine.'

The manservant left. I had used up my stalling time; he was waiting patiently and politely for me to speak.

I got rid of another frog.
Play it straight down the middle with him
. ‘As I told you on the telephone, Mr Hamilton, my mother left me a letter and a photo when she died. I found it in her desk, at her home in Oxford.'

‘Do you have them both with you?'

‘Yes. The letter's . . . rather private. Would you like to see the photo?'

‘Very much.'

I took it out of my bag and gave it to him. He stared at it for a moment in silence, turned it over, turned it back again.

‘How did she get this?'

‘I don't know. She didn't say. As you can see, there's no date, or place or any names. I wondered if it was your crew? If you were the captain?'

He looked up at me. ‘Oh yes, Mrs Porter. It's my crew. This was taken in January 1944, just before we left on our last mission. One of the ground crew took it and we weren't too thrilled to be kept standing around in that cold. You'd never know it, though, would you? We're all of us saying cheese. I'm on the far right, at the back, next to Ray, my co-pilot.'

I said, ‘Yes, I can see that. Please keep the photo, if you'd like to.'

‘Thank you.' He put it away in the breast pocket of his shirt and looked at me. ‘You told me that your mother had never talked to you about her wartime service.'

‘No, she didn't. I didn't even know the name of the bomber station in Suffolk. I don't think she ever mentioned it.'

‘Then would you mind telling me, Mrs Porter, how you managed to trace me from an unidentified snapshot almost fifty years old? I'm as curious as you must have been.'

‘It's rather a long story.'

Just give me the outline.'

Again, I was saved by the return of Jose with the tea borne on a tray. I took the tall glass from him and drank, playing for more time while I thought out what I was going to say next. The tea was ice-cold, lemon-scented, delicious.

‘Whenever you're ready, Mrs Porter.'

I said, ‘Well, in the end I traced the airfield from the name of a pub – the Mad Monk. My mother spoke of it in a letter to her sister. Perhaps you knew it?'

‘I certainly did.'

‘It's an unusual name – even for England. I went to Suffolk and drove around until I found it. It's not called that any longer, so it took a while to track it down.'

‘What's it like these days?'

‘It's called the Cricketers and it's been done up. Remodelled, I think you'd call it. Restaurant tables, fancy menu, new bar, carpeting.'

‘In my day, there was just the old bar, warm beer, a dartboard, and a brick floor, if I remember rightly. There was a piano, too, and a lot of singing.'

“Roll me over in the Clover”? ‘“Roll out the Barrel”? “Tipperary”?'

He smiled. ‘How did you know?'

‘Someone told me. The piano's gone, I'm afraid. But there are still some photos of the old air base hung on the wall, and some signatures carved on a board.'

‘I can remember guys doing that . . . I never did myself, though. So, you found the old pub. Did you find the airfield?'

‘Yes. I went along Nightingale Lane and up by the water tower onto the perimeter track. It wasn't difficult to find.'

He said, ‘There was a short cut down through the woods, from the base to the village green. Your mother told me she'd heard a nightingale singing there once.'

‘I'm afraid they've probably gone too.'

He said softly, as though to himself, ‘Maybe to Berkeley Square.'

‘As in the song?'

He smiled again. ‘You've got it. So, the airfield's still there?'

‘Very much so. Do you remember Mr and Mrs Layton who owned the land and farmed there during the war?'

‘Sure. I remember them well. They used to ask the crews over to their home – nice people. As a matter of act, your mother was billeted with them.'

‘Yes, I found that out too. Mr and Mrs Layton have both died but their grandson, William, lives in the house with his family, and he's looked after the old airfield buildings. Most of it's still there – the control tower, the hangars, the runways.'

‘That's great.'

‘They get a lot of visitors – Americans who served there during the war.'

‘I've never been back,' he said. ‘Never wanted to.'

‘Actually, there was a big American reunion while I was there and the Laytons invited me to the lunch they were giving at the farm. Somebody recognized you from that photo. A Joe Deerfield.'

Joe! He was my crew chief. From Arizona. How was he?'

‘Fine. He remembered you well.'

‘We both used to grumble like hell about the English weather.'

‘That's what he said. He couldn't remember your proper name, though. Just that your crew called you Ham and that you came from California.'

He rested his head sideways on one hand, watching me. ‘So on the strength of that you came to California, Mrs Porter, and you went to see Mr
Ham
lyn.'

‘And a Mr Hammond Wright in Orange County who was at Halfpenny Green, too. He's the one who told me about the singing in the pub. But neither he nor Mr Hamlyn knew the photo.'

‘If you don't mind my asking, how did you manage to trace both these gentlemen?'

‘The people I'm staying with introduced me to someone who has a friend at the Veterans' Administration.'

‘I see. You must have been
very
curious, Mrs Porter.'

I pulled the sketchbook out of my bag. ‘I think I may have something else of yours.'

He took it from me, went through it slowly, pausing for a long while when he came to the drawing of Ma at her table, holding her fountain pen. At last he said, ‘I did these at Halfpenny Green . . . hell, I'd forgotten all about them. Where did you find this?'

‘In a drawer in my mother's desk. There was a record there, too – an old 78. Frank Sinatra singing a wartime song. She kept them both together.'

Silence. And then he closed the book and looked at his watch. ‘I'd like to take you to lunch, Mrs Porter. There's a place just around the corner. We can talk some more there.'

A place just around here?
‘I'm not very smartly dressed.'

He smiled. ‘Nor am I. But they'll take us just as they find us, I assure you.'

The manservant, Jose, drove the Rolls-Royce to the Bel Air hotel. We walked from the car over a wooden bridge beside a lake with swans. Pink-washed walls, terracotta roofs, awnings and archways and trellises, crimson bougainvillea, scarlet poinsettias, the orange plumage of birds of paradise, oleanders and orange trees dappling the sunlight. In the dining room white columns supported a pergola roof laced with greenery. It was open to the skies but cunning heating made it June in January.

‘Do you like lobster?' he asked. ‘It's usually excellent here.'

I was happy for him to choose for me, not much caring what I ate or in any state to grapple with the menu. He ordered wine from the hovering sommelier and when it had been poured raised his glass. ‘To you, Mrs Porter. I'm very glad we've met, at last.'

At last?
‘Please call me Juliet,' I said.

‘Thank you – Juliet.' He set down the glass slowly. ‘Now what can I tell you about your mother?'

‘Anything you like.'

He nodded. ‘Let's see, then. We met at Halfpenny Green in the spring of 1943. I saw her around the base and in the pub but it was quite a while before I got to have a conversation with her. She wasn't too keen on us Yanks at first. We were a cocky bunch – till we'd settled down and found out a few home truths. Then we learned fast. Your mother worked with the RAF liaison officer – I can't remember his name, I'm afraid. She used to sit beside him at mission briefings and in the interrogation room after. There was always a lot of urgent communication going on between the US and the RAF.' He paused while the waiter served a salad. ‘I finally got to talk to her at the Laytons' home – the first evening they invited some of the crews over.' He smiled. ‘It was Lieutenant Hamilton at first till she found out that maybe we weren't such bad guys, after all. Then she called me Ham, like everybody else.'

‘Do you remember Madeleine – the daughter at the farmhouse? She would have been about seven years old then.'

‘Sure. She had a brother called Peter. I remember them both well. They were nice kids.'

‘She came to the reunion at Halfpenny Green when I was there. She gave me a photo of my mother that her mother had taken. It would have been in the summer of 1943. During the harvest. I brought it with me – in case you'd like to see it.'

I passed over the photo of Ma in her too-big dungarees tied up with string and the spotted scarf round her hair. He stared at it. ‘I remember exactly when this was taken. Some of us went over to the farm to give the Laytons a hand with the harvest . . . your mother was helping, too. She'd borrowed these overalls and they were much too big for her . . . it was the first time I'd ever seen her out of uniform.'

‘I found the scarf when I was going through her clothes – she still wore it sometimes.'

He gave me back the photo. ‘Why did she die?'