Recovery and the Return of Ethan Hart (2 page)

When at last we get our table, conversation becomes less superficial. We already know they're stationed at Halesworth, some eight miles away, but now we hear more of the details. They're members of the 5
^th
Emergency Rescue Squadron. They specialize in air-sea rescue work. Walt talks with enthusiasm about their lifeboat-carrying B-17s, their CA-10 Catalina amphibians and in particular their P-47 Thunderbolts. For a minute I wonder if he should be telling us all this but then I realize that at this stage it can hardly matter. He also tells us—probably sensing the need to recapture Trixie's interest—about the time last August when Glen Miller came to Boxted. (They had moved the short distance to Halesworth only this January.) Trixie wants a rundown on every piece of music that was played, and descriptions not simply of the late major—no one still believes, unhappily, that after all these months he can be referred to any longer as just missing—not simply of him, but of almost every member of the band. While Walt does his best to satisfy her I take the opportunity, surreptitiously, to have a good look at his friend.

Matt's full name is Matthew Cassidy. Before, in the church, it hadn't occurred to me he was especially handsome; only that I liked something about his face. But now I must have got my eye in, for handsome he undoubtedly is. Coarse fair hair—though not as short as you'd expect an English officer's to be; blue eyes, straight nose, firm jawline. For what I think must be the first time, I really know what ‘clean-cut' means; even his wrists and hands seem to exemplify it. I am twenty-four and probably have never felt so stirred by the way a man is put together.

Or am I allowed to dignify this and say that of course his whole personality must have contributed? That I'm speaking of the full package?

Walt exhausts the charms of August 6
^th
and of the sweet strains flooding through the main hangar on that golden Sunday afternoon. “We were sitting on the wing of a B-24 that was being serviced—you remember, Matt? And, ladies, I don't mind telling you, it was swell but it sure made us feel a little homesick.”

“Yes, I'll bet,” I say. “But at least you'll soon be getting back there, won't you? Though do you realize: you haven't told us yet where home is?”

“For him, Connecticut,” says Walt. “San Francisco, for me.”

“Oh, then you must know that song!” cries Trixie. She starts to sing it. “‘San Francisco…open your golden gate…'” Heads turn towards our table and she giggles and feigns bashfulness. “I remember Jeanette MacDonald singing it in that film with Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy and the earthquake. I suppose the song's called ‘San Francisco'. I can't remember what the film is.”

“‘San Francisco',” Walt supplies and we all laugh. I get the passing thought that it was calculated (Trixie is by no means the dumb blonde she pretends, any more than I'm the brainy brunette she also claims) but it's still quite funny.

“And I once read ‘A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court',” I say to Matt. “So I'm well up on where you come from, too.”

This time it's only him and me who laugh. Trixie is too busy saying to Walt, “I liked that film; I found it ever so inspiring. Spencer Tracy's in the one we're going to see tonight. It's called ‘Without Love'.”

“Well, is that right? We've been wanting to catch up on that movie for months. Didn't you say so just the other day, Matt?”

“What?”

Walt has to remind him meaningfully of what he had said so emphatically just the other day.

“Oh, sure,” Matt confirms. “I've been boring everybody senseless!”

We arrive at the Electric Picture Palace in time for the full programme—and bypass the longest queues by going in the dearest seats and needing to stand on the staircase for only a few minutes. The full programme comprises a second-feature, the news, Food Flashes, trailers, a Pete Smith Speciality, a medley of tunes on the theatre organ… I'm always pleased to get my money's worth and so, I find out now, is Matt, “even down to your God Save the King,” he shamelessly confesses. But Trixie and Walt decide not to see the end of the big picture (so that we'll have longer in the pub) and Matt and I fall in obligingly.

“You didn't mind?” he asks, as we walk together a short way behind the other two—who proceed first arm-in-arm and then, soon after, arm-round-waist.

I shake my head. “But I'm not the one who's been so frantic to catch up with it.”

“In fact, I have an admission.” I'm sure he already surmises, from the little he's drawn out of me, that he isn't really spoiling my enjoyment. “I found it talkative and dull.”

“Oh, what a letdown! I'm truly sorry.”

“And irritating! All those ‘by gums' which were clearly meant to be so full of charm!”

“I know! You sat there almost waiting for the next! And what about her proud and tearful memory of her dying husband—who ‘grinned that grin of his'? I think I'd even have accepted a couple of extra ‘by gums' in exchange.”

“Careful! Two more might have brought us to screaming point!”

So in a way, although the film undoubtedly had entertaining moments (which we conscientiously acknowledge), we have more fun pulling it to pieces than we got out of watching it.

“Anyhow, despite all that, it was a good night out at the pictures. A very good night,” I add on impulse.

“For me, too. Though I'd have to say not entirely on account of the movie. I don't know if you gathered that.”

“Thank you for treating me.”

Then we talk about how wonderful it is that the last blackout restrictions have finally been lifted and that the streetlights are on again; no more being obliged to carry torches which could only be directed at one's feet. No more need, even, for headlamps to wear a covering—nor traffic lights—although admittedly there isn't much traffic now except for bikes. It's like a glimpse of El Dorado to see the light from the pub spilling out across the pavement.

Through the open door there comes the welcome of a singsong,

“Yes, we have no bananas,

We have no bananas today,”

which suggests that dealings in contraband must be at a remarkably low ebb, since a bent old seaman with a beard and runny nose tells me while we wait for Matt and Walt to do battle at the bar—well, he tells Trixie too but she plainly isn't listening—that the Lord Nelson has a dormer window on its seaward side, from which signals could be flashed to smugglers coming in below the cliff, and that there's many a whispered tale of blocked-up passages which once led from the cliff into the cellars. Matt gives the man one of the two glass tankards he's brought, and heroically returns to fetch himself another. By the time he comes back, Walt and Trixie have been able to muscle their way onto a crowded bench—she's sitting on his lap—and the seaman has swallowed his drink and has moved off in search of some other sucker (Matt's phrase). “The artful old lush—well, good luck to him,” he says.

We then decide to join the group around the piano; yet just as we get there it disbands. So we eventually manage to edge into a corner, holding our glasses up high, apologizing as we go and meeting with cheerful reassurance. We could of course have taken our drinks outside and sat on a parapet overlooking the sea but, despite the cardigan I'm now wearing, the night feels chilly. Besides—it's exciting to be part of a good-natured crowd that's soaked up the warmth of the day, even if at times it's a little difficult to hear what each of us is saying. He asks where Trixie and I are putting up in Southwold and I tell him about Mrs Herbert's guesthouse.

“It's simple but seems luxurious compared to our farm-worker's cottage—where the plumbing is so primitive it's sometimes hard to get rid of the day's caking of mud.”

“No wonder you need to escape.”

“But it's a good life, being a land girl.”

“Will you be in Southwold next Saturday?”

His question takes me by surprise. “Well, usually we only get away once every—”

“I wish you would,” he says. “We could meet earlier in the day and go for a picnic—fit in a swim. I think I could probably wangle us a jeep.”

“It sounds fun. I—”

“And I'll take care of the picnic. I mean it. No arguments.” He looks round briefly. “I guess Walt's probably making similar plans with Trixie…aiming to get off on their own.” I glance round too; we both smile. “But Rosalind?” Suddenly he seems embarrassed.

“Mm?”

“I don't quite know how to put this, without sounding bigheaded. But, you see, back home… Well, back home I'm engaged to be married.”

A slight dip of disappointment—silly, I suppose, on the strength of merely a six-hour acquaintance. Come to that…not such a slight dip, either.

“Congratulations, Matt.”

“You'll still come out next Saturday? Maybe even Sunday as well?”

“I'd like to.”

“I damn well wish that I was free tomorrow. You're just about the nicest person I've met in England. And that's not to say England isn't very full of nice people.”

“Thanks. And you must tell me about your family and your fiancée and we'll keep our fingers crossed that the weather next weekend is at least half as good as today's.”

I laugh.

“Especially if you're serious about that swim.”

3

The detective takes the snapshot from my hand. “I think it's time we shut up shop,” he says.

“I can't help wondering who she is.”

“Naturally you can't.”

His apartment is on Finchley Road, over a bakery called Grodzinski's. “I like this area,” he tells me. “Bus conductors cry, ‘Get out your passports, we're coming to Golders Green!' But that's what's good about it. Jewish. Cosmopolitan. Lively.”

“Maybe. But my trouble is—can I really believe in any private eye who doesn't come from Southern California?”

“I know. I sometimes have the same problem.”

I ask about his average day.

“It may not inspire you with confidence.”

“But I can't take my business anyplace else, can I? Especially when you've just bought me a toothbrush and washcloth. Did Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe ever do as much for any of
their
clients?”

So he mentions process-serving. Debt-collecting. Surveillance work. Investigating cases of pilfering for a company which doesn't want to call in the police. Carrying out a lot of grindingly tedious research. “I'm not sure what's average. Certainly not becoming involved with missing heiresses and stumbling upon fraud and ancient unsuspected murder. Probably just sitting in the office and hoping for business.”

“Like this afternoon?”

“Like this afternoon. Your timing was impeccable.”

I ask him other things, more personal things. “No,” he says, “no wife nor family. Obviously I've never met the right girl. Not yet.”

However, although his tone is light, I get the feeling he'd rather not talk about his private life. Well, fair enough.

We listen to Elgar and drink Scotch while waiting for the supper to be done; he's boiling some potatoes and has put the contents of two packets of Lean Cuisine into the oven: fillets of cod with broccoli in a white sauce. He's also put some Riesling in the fridge.

After supper we channel-hop: half-watch, amongst other things, ten minutes of a programme on Pirandello. I scarcely take in any of it, but Tom says, “Sometimes I feel
I
might be a character in search of an author. Or may have existence only in the minds of others.” He smiles at me. “God knows how the world works!” he says.

One thing is fairly certain. He's drunk far more of the wine than I have. I go to bed quite early.

This could be a mistake. For the first time in several hours I'm alone with all the haunting speculation. Just what is it, exactly, I'm so anxious to forget?

Maybe it's this, maybe it's that. Maybe I'm a guy with a broken marriage, a failed career, a smashed ambition; with a terminal illness, a kidnapped child, a dead wife. Maybe I'm wanted by the police. Wanted on a charge of tax evasion, drunken driving, manslaughter, murder…

Surprisingly, I eventually manage to sleep.

Tom wakes me with a cup of tea.

“And…?” He sounds too eager. “Has anything come back?”

“You mean, anything apart from ‘I tort I taw a puddy tat' or ‘I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows'?” This morning I'm finding it hard to hide a growing note of bitterness.

But he ignores it. “Do you want to shower before or after breakfast? And how do you like your eggs?”

While we're eating he says:

“About that snapshot. During the night I had an idea. Suppose your father was over here in the war? Long before he thought of marrying your mother he met this English girl. The war ended and they lost touch. But now, when he heard that you were coming to London, he asked you to try to trace her.”

“Why?”

“Nostalgia, perhaps?”

“Yes, but I mean if he cared that much why didn't he come himself? The guy's had forty-five years in which to look for his little buttercup.”

“What I'm saying is—suddenly he has this strong desire to take stock; to come to terms with his past.”

“And this is the sort of thing you'd get your son to do for you?”

“Depends,” says Tom. “Whenever he's here himself he's probably with your mother. And maybe it's something you could speak of more easily to your son.”

“Well, I don't know… I don't know if I buy that.”

“It's just a theory.”

After a moment, though, I give a shrug and do my damnedest not to sound perverse. “And I suppose it's the only one we have. Okay, then. Why not?”

Tom stirs his coffee. “Actually I'm hoping there could be another woman somewhere. A bit more contemporary.”