The Snowfly (22 page)

“Fish,” she said. “Trout. My strain of the family disease.”

“You didn't fish with us.”

“My symptoms are a bit different,” she said. “Care to see?”

We each took another glass of brandy and I followed her to one end of the house where she had a large room. All around it hung color photographs of fish. Not exactly fish, but the colors and patterns of fish. I had never seen anything like them and they were beautiful.

“Charlie's a photographer, but you're an artist,” I said.

“Good God, don't tell him that! He thinks he's Ansel Adams!”

We both laughed.

“Tomorrow I will do my best to get you a beautiful trout to work with,” I said, raising my glass in salute.

“Try for the little ones,” she said. “They're the gaudiest.”

When we said good night, she hugged me and presented her cheek for me to kiss, the way polite and civilized Brits did, but when my lips neared her cheek I kissed her on the mouth.

She did not immediately pull away and when she did she declared, “Very, very nice.”

 

•••

 

Charlie was gone when I got into the kitchen in the morning. Anjali was brewing tea. “Bugger ran down to the best holes to get the edge on you. He's very competitive,” she said, with the sort of tone reserved for incorrigible children. “Always has been. Simply cannot help himself.”

“Must've been a hell of a soccer player.”

“Had he not been injured, Charlie would have been the best to ever play for England,” she said proudly.

But his head start that morning didn't help him. I caught many more fish than he did, largely because I focused on small ones for Anjali. I held each one so that she could work her camera magic, releasing them carefully when she was done.

“You are,” she said, “not at all what I would expect in an American journo.”

I also caught two browns that both were longer than twenty inches. When Charlie heard this he threw his rod on the ground and cursed for five minutes.

Tantrum done, he extended his hand. “I hate to lose, but when it's to a better man, it's an honor.”

I doubted that I was a better man in any sense.

Charlie cooked mussels that night, serving them in a huge vat of seawater, and we ate them with hard rolls and drank white wine until we were all stuffed.

We retired after dinner to brandies in front of the fireplace and again Charlie went to bed first, not to get a head start in the morning but because we had to return to London. After he had been gone several minutes, Anjali set her glass down, stood up, stretched, and reached her hand out to me.

“The fish today were up to your standards?” I said, standing up.

“Yes, perfect, and you were so helpful.”

I wanted very much to kiss her again but was hesitant. There was an aloofness to her that was daunting.

I lay alone in my room and thought of her in hers and took a long time falling asleep.

Anjali drove us to the station in Penzance early the next morning and kissed me on both cheeks in a very proper way before we boarded our train. Charlie grinned, but said nothing and I slept most of the trip.

As the train swayed and clattered east through outskirts of London, Charlie said, “I'll hunt up Ozzie, but be forewarned, it may take a while.”

“Thanks,” I said.

Charlie looked nervous and flashed his toothiest smile. “Anji has had a rough go on the roads of love, old boy. Wouldn't do to get your hopes up.”

I couldn't think of a clever or sensible rejoinder and as soon as we alit in the station, he was on his frenetic way.

 

•••

 

I went to see Daly the next morning. Dolly smiled when I walked in. “Good angling?”

“Not bad,” I said.

Daly seemed distracted. “Problem?” I asked.

“My daughter,” he said. “She's disappeared into the north. Nobody knows where she went or when.”

“Probably just following a story,” I said.

“The shit is starting to fly between Catholics and Protestants,” he explained, before looking up at me. “What do
you
want?”

“You told me you knew somebody who knows about codebreaking during the war.”

“I did?”

“When I first got here.”

“Right. General Centre. Gotta be mideighties now, and crusty as week-old bread, but he was still sharp last time we talked.”

“Can you call him for me?”

“Sure, no problem. What's this about?”

“I'm not sure,” I said.

“Working a story?”

“Not exactly. Don't worry, Joe, your daughter will show up. You know how reporters are.”

“Shit,” he grumbled. “Don't remind me.”

It was a couple of weeks before I met the general. We met at the Inner Temple of the Middle Temple Inn. The property once belonged to the Knights Templar and the Inn now was akin to a bar association. The complex was a maze of courtyards with old offices and people wandering about in black robes and misshapen white wigs perched on their heads.

Lieutenant General Sir Edington Centre arranged for us to have a private dining room. He was dressed in a pinstripe suit. One of his supernumeraries met me on the street and escorted me to the dining room.

The general pulled out a black pipe and asked, “Mind?” I said no and took out my cigarettes. He scowled at them, but I lit up anyway.

“How's Joe?” the general asked, popping smoke puffs from his pipe like a steam locomotive trying to get started.

“He's well,” I said. There was still no word on his daughter and he was beside himself, but I didn't share this with General Centre.

“Interested in the war?” he asked.

He had a soft voice and deliberate way of speaking.

“Yes, sir.”

“Something to do with that business in Vietnam?”

I said, “Not exactly.” He waited for me to explain. “There's a man called M. J. Key,” I said. “Or was. Author and expert on trout.” I told him about Michigan Agricultural College, Key's leaving, the rumors, his article on codes with Vijver, all of it except that my only real interest was the snowfly and what Key's work might tell me about it. The general listened attentively and silently, asking no questions, betraying no emotion. “I visited with Lady Hoe a few weeks back,” I said.

“Did you?” he asked, his eyes subtly wary. He set his pipe on the table.

“She told me Key was a mathematician and though she did not say this, I have been told that Key was part of Bletchley Park during the war.” I had no evidence of this but wanted to see how it played with the general, knowing he'd correct me if I was wrong. “Your Key may or may not be my Key. They may be different people.”

“How'd-she-look?” the general asked, speaking all the words so quickly they nearly blended into one. He leaned slightly forward over the table.

“She's in a wheelcair, but her mind is keen.”

“Always was,” he said. “Always was. Hard as diamond.” I saw in his eyes that he wasn't with me anymore.

“I'm not trying to pry into state secrets,” I said. Then, taking a chance, I told him about Key's manuscript and the Trout House and the North Vietnamese attack. Having finished my tale, I again asked if he knew M. J. Key; I wanted to confirm that there were two men with the same name. Was the Key who wrote the snowfly manuscript the Bletchley Key?

As before, the general listened without comment and, once again, took his time answering. “It would seem to me, young man, that if the alleged manuscript is gone, there is no point wasting your time chasing it, eh? It would be like seeking Camelot.”

Why had he immediately focused on the manuscript? “I have a reliable source that indicates that Key was writing a manuscript for publication in the early to mid-nineteen-forties. Not the book that was published in 1943, but something different, probably the manuscript I saw in Vietnam. It occurs to me that with manuscripts, there's often more than one copy.”

“Curiosity and cats,” he said.

Was he threatening me?

“I'm an angler,” I said, trying to explain.

“All Fleet Street types may fairly be said to be anglers,” he told me.

It was not intended as a joke.

“As are intelligence types,” I countered.

“Shall we dine?” the general asked, snipping off the exchange.

We ate in heavy silence. Dover sole fillets and creamed potatoes. The general picked at his food like a bird, chewing thoroughly before swallowing.

After lunch we went into a sitting room and had tea. The room's walls were covered with photographs of people in robes and wigs.

“The German code was broken at Bletchley Park,” I said.

“Yes,” he said, after considering his response.

“M. J. Key was involved.”

The general leaned over to me. “Do you know Shakespeare?”

After a momentary pause, he said, “‘For Jesu's sake forebear to dig the dust enclosed here. Blest be the man that spares these stones, and curst be he that moves my bones.'”

“His epitaph?” I said, guessing.

“And Bletchley Park's,” the general said somberly. “Good day, Mister Rhodes. My regards to Joe, if you please. I must go.”

I sat there alone, watching him stride from the room, his jaw stuck out.

After the fishing trip, I had written to Anji to thank her for her hospitality. She'd responded briefly and with a perfect decorum that left me no clue to her feelings. For my part, she was often on my mind, but I could not bring myself to call her.

Northern Ireland was suddenly in the news. Protestants were brutalizing Catholics in Londonderry and other parts of the north and Parliament was discussing sending paratroops to lend a hand to Royal Ulster Constabulary. Joe Daly's daughter was still unaccounted for. People were being killed.

It was August and Charlie and I had finished an assignment in Liverpool, where I had interviewed young musicians trying to follow in the footsteps of the Beatles. They were hard-edged and desperate. Living conditions in Liverpool were appalling and pent-up anger among young people was palpable. I smelled bad times ahead and saw racist graffiti worse than anything I had ever seen in the States.

We took the train back to London. It was a Sunday night and I was tired when the train pulled into Victoria Station. As we waded into the herds of humanity returning to the city, we saw Anjali Toddywalla standing beside a black limousine, her arms crossed tightly and a shocked look on her face, the same look I had seen on soldiers emerging from a bloody fight. She looked like she had been crying.

“It's Auntie,” she announced with a quivering voice.

“Gone?” Charlie asked.

She nodded and they moved silently to hold each other and I heard Charlie weeping. When they separated and he got into the limo, I held out my arms; Anji turned and put her head softly on my chest. I slid my arms around her and held her.

“I'm very sorry about your mother,” I told her.

“I'm so glad she and Charlie reconciled before she went. They loved each other, you see, but they both were so bloody stubborn. She went quietly in her chair, looking out on her river. It was a cerebral hemorrhage.”

“When is the funeral?”

“In a few days, I should think. We shall bury her in Cornwall, beside the Drake. She wanted a private ceremony, invited guests only. There's so much to prepare for and we simply must pay attention to the lists or push some blue nose out of place,” she said with a weary smile. “I'm taking Charlie home now. Can we drop you somewhere?”

I was disappointed not to be invited to the funeral, though I knew I had no reason to be there. I turned down the offer of a ride. They were family and I wasn't.

To my surprise, Charlie called the next morning from Cornwall and said he and Anji both wanted me there and would I mind catching a train to Penzance?

I was met by a chauffeur in another limo and rode in silence out to Drake Hall.

Charlie met me on the back steps of the manor house. “This will be an event to remember,” he said. He said it with a less-than-enthusiastic tone and I wondered where Anjali was.

There was no ceremony in a church and no clergyman to officiate. We met instead in the rear garden of the giant house as people arrived in chauffeured Bentleys and Rolls-Royces. The affair was by invitation only and I expected a small crowd, but it was anything but. Most of the mourners were elderly people, many of them in wheelchairs or propped up on canes.

Anjali came in wearing a black dress and a hat with a veil. She took my arm and I sat with her and Charlie in front of the guests.

“She believed in God,” Charlie whispered to me, “but not in churches. She'd boff a vicar quick as lightnin', but not take his spiritual advice.” Charlie got to his feet, smoothed his hair, and opened the ceremony very simply. “Good to see you all, thank you for coming. Auntie, you will be pleased to know, went peacefully and without pain. Most of you know that she and I were at odds for a long time, but we made our peace only recently.” The mourners applauded politely. “She left no instructions for how this should go, so I suggest that if you wish to say a few words, please step forward and do so.”

Charlie sat down beside Anjali, who was beside me, and whispered, “You're her daughter, Anji. Bloody ridiculous for me to be up there.”

She patted Charlie's arm in sympathy.

At least one hundred people offered some words, memories, condolences, and nearly all of them shed tears. The vast majority were males of the upper class, sirs-this and lords-and-ladies-that, all the titles meaningless to me.

As the parade went on, I saw General Centre, sitting alone, his hands atop a cane, his face long and sad.

I slipped out of my row to approach him. “Hello, General.”

“You,” he said, not looking up. “Saw you up there.” His tone suggested he did not like seeing me with Anjali and Charlie.