The Return of Captain John Emmett (49 page)

As he walked into Victoria Station in a mist of drizzle, he was met by the sight of a scrawled headline on a paper stall,
SUBMARINE LOST IN THE NORTH SEA
. He was curious; he had never even seen a submarine. He bought a paper without stopping to read it and moved on towards the platforms. It was ten to five by the clock. Her train was due in at five. He tucked the ends of his scarf into his coat, buttoned his gloves. His eyes flickered down to the headlines. Beneath the submarine tragedy was a short report on an inquest. The coroner had opened the inquiry into what the paper called 'the tragic accidental death of the hero of Mafeking, General Somers'. He looked up at the board, feeling dizzy as he tipped his head back.

After he'd heard the news originally he had gone up to the Lovell house, taking with him the copy of Brabourne's magazine,
Post-Guard.
He had wanted Mrs Lovell to know that her son's poetry had been published, but the house had been all closed up. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut and the giddiness passed. Opening them, he saw with a start that the train had come in early. Putting the paper in a bin, he elbowed his way urgently in the direction of the platform.

Although his greater height gave him an advantage over the people ahead of him, he felt nervous as he tried to pick out his sister from the mass of travellers crossing the concourse. Around a bushy Christmas tree the station band was playing 'O Come All Ye Faithful'. They had drawn quite an audience, some of whom were singing along. Two policemen passed behind them, their eyes scanning the crowd. People were moving sluggishly because so many passengers were loaded with parcels or stopping for emotional reunions with arriving passengers. Above them all, the vault of the station was clouded with breath and steam.

He tried to imagine what his sister looked like now. It was eighteen years since she had disappeared to India. War had blocked her intentions to return once her children were less dependent. He could hardly remember her features; it was easier to recall her bossy presence: a big sister both loving and admonitory. He took off his gloves. Two or three women passed him with sons of approximately the right age in tow. He was looking across the platform when he felt a tug on his sleeve.

'Laurie?' asked the woman beside him, smiling tentatively.

He realised in an instant that he would have changed much more than her and felt a surge of warmth at her courage.

'Oh Millie,' he said, holding the sister he recognised instantly—smaller, rounder, but just as he now remembered her—first at arm's length and then pressed to him, so swiftly that her hat was knocked sideways and she had to extricate a hand to hold it on to her head. Her thick hair—pinned up in rather an old-fashioned way and much as his mother had styled hers—escaped in curls. She still had such a pretty smile.

He was suddenly aware of the boy standing next to her. Taller than his mother, indeed nearly as tall as Laurence, dark-eyed in a way that instantly reminded Laurence of his father. He smiled nervously and shot out his hand. Laurence took it and held it with his other one.

'Hello—Uncle Laurie,' said the boy. He had nearly said sir.

'Hello, Will.' He was suddenly and simply a man with a family, getting ready for Christmas.

'It really is so very good to see you, Millie.'

Their eyes finally met. Impulsively, he flung his arms round her again, then pulled back slightly and looked down at her. Her eyes were brimming with tears; she fumbled in her bag. He felt in his pocket and gave her his handkerchief, grateful that he had ironed it.

'I'm sorry,' she said. 'About everything,' she added, in a muffled voice, as she wiped her nose.

Laurence imagined the scene through her eyes. At twenty-six she had left England, her home, friends, parents and brother, for the furthest shores of the empire. He suspected that by then she had begun to think she would become an old maid and was glad to be married even to a man nearly twenty years her senior. However, she could never have guessed how completely her world would crumble behind her. During her long sojourn in India, she had lost not just both parents but a way of life they had all shared. The family home was long gone; friends had gone; the brother she had left as a schoolboy was a widower, not far off middle age.

'And how old are you now?' said Laurence and before his nephew could tell him fourteen, which he knew perfectly well, he laughed. 'I'm afraid I'm being a complete ass at this—you must be thinking I'm the most pompous uncle you could imagine.'

'No,' said the boy, a smile hovering, 'definitely not.'

'You must remember Henry's brother Norton? Will's other uncle?' Millie said. 'It's hardly a fair competition.'

Now she had linked her arm through his, yet still grasping his hand. Hers, gloveless now, was warm and dry. A porter hovered with a trunk and two cases, leading the way as they began to push a path through the crowds.

They were level with the station band when Laurence saw a face he recognised. Standing, listening to the carols, was Leonard Byers. Byers hadn't seen Laurence, who paused, just for a second, taking in the hatless young woman with bobbed hair, clinging to Byers' arm. As the porter parted the crowds, Laurence saw her in profile. She was very pregnant. She said something in Byers' ear, he grinned down at her and she laid her head against his arm.

One minute Laurence, Millie and Wilfred were having to muscle their way through the mass of people and the next, having come through the great arches, they were free, standing on the edge of the shining black street, where streams of cabs and dark cars moved swiftly in both directions. His sister looked from her brother to her bags and back to him again, as if she couldn't bear to raise her eyes and encompass the vastness of the new life around her. The boy looked in every direction: at the entrance to the underground station, the advertisement hoardings, the chestnut-seller, the clerks and shop girls getting off the bus, the passers-by slightly bowed under black umbrellas. His face was alert and excited.

In a way Laurence was glad that proper conversation was still impossible; the carols had died away behind them but now there was a constant hiss from the wheels of the traffic and a paper boy still shouting out the late headlines. They found their cab, loaded the bags, he tipped the porter and they were away, sucked into the city and the winter's night, with the bright shop windows and the slanting rain moving faster and faster behind them.

They were about twelve miles from Fairford now, approaching Faringdon. He could tell by the sinking sun that the road was heading almost due west. On the left, stunted willows marked what must be the distant course of the Thames or one of its small tributaries. This was countryside he had once known well. To the south there was a gentle sweep of open land and a wide view through leafless trees rising to hills on the horizon. The temperature had dropped fifteen degrees in the last twenty-four hours and there was a dusting of snow on ploughed fields tinged faintly pink by the sun. To his right, John could see a small mound, almost artificially neat, with a cluster of dark trees on its summit. Somers looked straight ahead as the road curved in front of them. From the trees rose an extraordinary tower. It seemed to stand alone, its castellated battlements clear against the sky.

'
What's that?' John asked. 'Is it a castle?'

He remembered from his Oxford days that there had been skirmishes fought around here in the Civil War, although this looked more like a building from a fairy tale.

The general turned his head briefly. 'It's a folly. Faringdon Folly. Just a tower. Decorative but useless. Four empty rooms stacked one upon another,
Gothic windows and a marvellous view from the top. When I was young you could see into three counties from up there, though it scared us all to pass by it at night. The boys too in their turn. It's all locked up now, I believe.'

John recalled there having been a folly here long ago when he was a schoolboy. Was this it? It was summer then and everything had looked different.

'Could we go closer?'

'I'll drive as near to it as I can.'

He was grateful that the general asked for no explanation but simply added, 'I think the last stretch is just a bridle path'

They bumped their way up a rutted lane. It was only a few minutes before the car stopped.

'I'd like to get out here,' John said. 'I'll walk the rest of the way.'

The general looked mildly surprised. 'I'll come with you.'

'No. All the way back to Holmwood, I mean. I'd like a chance to think.'

'Good God, man, it's ten miles or more to Fairford. It'll be dark in two hours and bitterly cold by the look of it.'

'Don't worry' John said, evenly. He opened the car door. 'I've walked all my life in all kinds of weathers. Like this'—he indicated his greatcoat and borrowed boots—'I'll be fine. It's a good road. If I reach Lechlade and it's too cold, I'll put up at the New Inn. Might even get Chilvers on the telephone and make his son fetch me.' He almost smiled. 'I'd like to walk, to be honest. After this, I'll have precious little freedom.' He ran a hand through his hair. No solitary excursions for me for a while, I imagine. I'll see the Folly while it's light and then follow the road back. I feel better than I have for an age. Free.'

The general looked at him. John was very pale, but calm: a man who had finally relieved them both of an intolerable burden.

'Take this' he said, handing him a hip flask, from under his seat. I keep it in case of the car stranding me somewhere inhospitable. Oh, and this'—he unwrapped the striped woollen scarf from around his neck. 'It was Miles's scarf. House colours. Still serviceable, you'll find. You'll need it.'

'Thank you.'

John thrust the flask in the less bulky of his pockets. He opened the door, then paused.

'You will tell her everything?' he said.

'You have my word.'

It was certainly cold and he was glad of the scarf. He had once owned one like it, a long, long time ago. He wrapped it round his neck and ears, stuffed his hands in his pockets and started to walk uphill, unsteady on the frozen, roughly ploughed ground. General Somers waited for some minutes, the engine idling unevenly. Then, when John had climbed over a stile and looked back to wave with his right hand, clutching the cross-bar with his left, he turned the car and drove slowly away, bumping down the frozen track.

As he drew closer to the copse, John could see that although it contained a few bare sycamores and elms, it was mostly fir trees, which made it dense even in winter. For so long he had avoided thick undergrowth, afraid of what violent surprise might be concealed there. But there was nothing to hurt him here. The war was over. It was all over.

A slight wind stirred the upper branches. It had been achingly cold in the open and the grass crunched underfoot; once he was in the trees, he had some protection. The ground was softer here and covered in pine needles. By the time he reached the tower, he was slightly breathless; the bitter air, coming on top of the months of virtual confinement, had left him slightly out of breath. All the same it was good to be out of doors.

The tower loomed above him: dark brickwork with greenish streaks running upwards from the base. Had he been here before? He walked right round it and found a single door, heavily padlocked and offering neither protection nor imprisonment. He looked up; the empty, mullioned windows reflected the red sun, giving the impression of afire burning at the heart of the building, while orange-streaked clouds moved slowly overhead. With his head tipped back he had a momentary illusion of the tower falling. He looked down and steadied himself with his fingertips on the damp brickwork. He inhaled deeply and the effort made him cough.

He sat down with his back against the tower. The hefty material of his coat would protect him for a while from the iron cold behind and beneath him. So much cold in his life. He turned his collar up. He wondered where he had left his gloves. The sky, which had been so blue, was turning a soft violet; the fields were losing their colour. Rooks were wheeling about the tallest elms. After some time—he had no idea how long he had been there—he saw a single star come out. Venus. The next time he looked there were hundreds; thousands, in a clear night sky. He could still identify the constellations his father had shown him as a child on night walks in Suffolk. It was August—the dog days, his father had said, stroking the panting Sirius on the head. High above him was Pegasus, the winged horse, with Orion the hunter and Canes Venatici, the hounds of the hunt. He felt the close hug the old man had given him as a consolation for his sudden terror of infinity; safety smelled of tobacco and elderly terrier.

How proud his father had been to see him an officer. He thought again. That was wrong; his father had never known of his choice but he had made it, hoping to please him. To make up for leaving him, just like everybody else, and going so far away. War was something his father would, at first, have understood, had he lived to see it. But what followed would have been incomprehensible.

A half-moon shone over the monochrome landscape. Miles away, a few lights marked an unknown hamlet. Had he fallen asleep? His breathing was shallow and his chest hurt slightly. He couldn't really feel his feet. He felt in his pocket for paper and a pencil. Hadn't he had a pencil when he set out? It was gone. Instead he found the hip flask and, opening it with stiff fingers, he took a drink; it was brandy, which made him shudder but warmed him. He set the flask beside him, felt in his other, heavier, pocket and drew out a package wrapped in cloth, which he set on his lap. The rooks had quietened now. A pale barn owl skimmed across the fields, suddenly swooping to reach its prey. From time to time small creatures scrabbled in the darkness around him. Not rats, he hoped. Then a larger animal passed behind the tower: a badger or a fox, maybe, busy in this other world. He was glad to be here. He knew it was where he should be.