Unexploded (31 page)

After morning service at St Peter’s and a long visit at his grandmother’s house, Philip investigated, for the first of several times, Mrs Dalrymple’s suspicions about Number 5. He pressed his ear to
its back door and ate his entire Christmas orange on duty, but he heard nothing at all, neither gull, mouse nor ghost.

When he gave up and went back indoors, he found his father in his chair, blowing smoke at the ceiling, and his mother in her chair with her chapped hands folded in her lap. He strapped on his RAF helmet, spread out on the floor, opened his new sketchbook and tried again to draw a Spitfire that actually looked like a Spitfire while the King’s voice rolled gravely on. ‘If war brings its separations, it brings new unity also, the unity which comes from common perils and common sufferings willingly shared. To be good comrades and good neigh-bours in trouble is one of the finest opportunities of the civilian population …’

His mother sighed and reached for her book. His father glanced at her, frowning, and asked Philip if he liked his new coin.

Then New Year came and fireworks weren’t allowed, but Lord Baden-Powell died so they made do with that instead as Scouts from all over Sussex gathered on The Level for a mournful jamboree. Philip watched it all from Hal’s window through Orson’s new Christmas binoculars. Hal’s man was there to dress Hal and carry him from his bed down the stairs to his wheelchair, which waited outside on the drive. Hal’s man was called Marion and had arms like oil drums.

Marion buckled Hal in and heaped rugs over his legs. He pushed his hands into mitts and placed a sheepskin cap over his head. Then he whistled for his greyhound, who was called Dirk. Orson said that sometimes on their walks, Dirk towed Hal’s chair down icy streets, and Hal’s face lit up with what everyone agreed was happiness.

‘Coming, Beaumont?’ said Orson. He pushed Dirk’s lead in his pocket, in case Hal fancied a tow.

Outside, Marion let Orson and Philip push Hal’s chair, one at each handle, until they reached the frozen boating pond where Marion
told them to wait while he and Dirk nipped up the road to put a bet on. Then he disappeared into the crowd, with Dirk trotting to heel.

On The Level, thousands of Boy Scout legs were turning blue in the cold misery of the day. Grown-up men in Scout uniforms boomed out prayers and hymns through loudspeakers. Orson complained about the obstruction to Hal’s usual route. Philip peered through the binoculars.

‘Tubby! Look! There’s Tubby!’

It had been months.

Orson put on his specs.

Tubby was taller but as thin as ever. ‘Poor Lord B-P,’ he said after he’d escaped the ranks of boys. His knees knocked.

‘Tell him,’ said Orson, although they stood together in a huddle, ‘that he may borrow one of Hal’s blankets.’

Philip gawped. ‘Crikey, thanks, Orson. Thanks, Hal.’ He laid one of Hal’s blankets across Tubby’s shoulders, Red Indian-style. Orson passed his cornet of sweets to Philip, and Philip passed it to Tubby. ‘Ta very much, Orson,’ said Philip.

‘Ta, Phil,’ said Tubby, ‘it’s my lucky day,’ and Philip felt something warm and sweet buzz through his chest.

Orson stowed the cornet in his pocket. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Are we ready?’

‘What about Marion? He told us to wait here.’

Orson took up position behind Hal’s chair and nodded at Philip to do the same. ‘Is Norman coming?’

‘Are you coming, Tubby?’

‘’Course,’ said Tubby. ‘I’ll help you push.’

The sun was falling fierce and red by the time they made it to the promenade. Behind them, the windows of the Queen’s Hotel were
on fire. Before them, on the derelict beach, a roll of razor wire blew past like tumbleweed. Tank-traps rose like dark, squat lookouts. The wind was up. The tide was swollen with winter.

Orson parked Hal at the railings. ‘What larks!’ said Tubby.

They eased themselves through a small gap in the fence and made a dash down the beach, weaving their way through the anti-landing spikes as if the entire beach were an obstacle course and this was Sports Day at school. Orson waved them into the shelter of the Pier, out of the roar of the wind. Tubby was still smiling when Orson gave him a sherbet lemon, told him to sit down, took Dirk’s lead from his pocket and strapped him, looping the lead round and round his middle, to a steel pile.

Philip felt strange. Orson hadn’t said anything about a game.

Orson turned to wave cheerily at Hal on the prom.

‘I’m It!’ Tubby laughed.

‘Yes,’ said Orson. ‘You are. So close your eyes and count to two hundred.’

The sea hissed up the beach. Seaweed lay rotting everywhere and, not far from the Pier, the carcass of a dog rolled in the surf. Philip stared at Tubby, transfixed by the dream of what you could do if no one was looking.

‘Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen …’

Orson tugged hard on Philip’s arm. ‘Come on.’

‘Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two …’

‘The tide’s on its way in, not out.’ But already he could feel himself succumbing to the spell of Orson’s orders.

‘Hurry, Beaumont. Hal’s all by himself.’

Philip turned, trudged back up the beach, and was halfway to the prom when he stopped.
Was
it a game? He looked from Tubby to the waves to Orson and back again. Then he remembered Clarence.

The stones crunched loud beneath his feet as he ran. ‘Tubby’s not a Jew!’ he panted at Orson. ‘I told you before!’

‘You don’t know what one is.’

‘We can’t leave him down there.’

‘He’s a good pretend Jew.’

The sea churned. Tubby’s count was growing fainter. When they reached the prom, Hal was trembling in his chair.

‘Hal, look!’ sang Orson. ‘Can you see the little Jew? He’s going to have a wash.’

‘Crikey. Hal’s having another fit.’

‘No he’s not, Beaumont. He’s shivering and he’s sad. You can’t just forget your promise now that we’re here.’

Philip felt his brain go limp. Hal was shaking, Tubby was on number one hundred and forty-three, and the sea was already lapping at him like a tongue.

He shook himself and turned.

‘Where are you going?’ Orson hollered. ‘I haven’t said it’s time!’

Philip was running and sliding back down the shingle, the stones turning underfoot. ‘Tubby doesn’t understand!’

‘Traitor! You traitor, Beaumont! You’re no friend of ours! Not now you’re not! Do you hear me?’

He wobbled into a run. Clarence was dead, Tubby was still forbidden, and now, Orson would hate him for ever because that was how much he loved Hal.

39

In the solitude of his kitchen-turned-apartment, Otto didn’t hear the footsteps on the terrace, and as the door creaked opened, tea from the pot splashed and scalded his hand. He’d forgotten to turn the key in the lock.

The brown top of a head appeared, then a small face. The boy could have been the ghost of another.

‘I heard someone,’ the boy said. ‘Are you a tramp?’

Otto looked and then quickly turned away. The boy’s arrival was a shock in his afternoon, but even greater was the shock of the resemblance.

At Sachsenhausen, Dr Metzger had rigged up a mechanized hammer that could deliver a blow to the head every five seconds. Before he died from his injuries, Jakob – a bright-eyed boy who’d once lived with his mother, his baby sister and a pet goose called Gigi – went insane.

‘Am I a tramp?’ He ran cold water over his hand. ‘No …’

‘You look like a tramp.’

‘That’s because I am a painter, and the two are easily confused.’

‘Why does your hair look like that?’

‘Like what?’

‘Like it does.’

‘I cut it myself. I’m getting quite good. I don’t even need a mirror.’

‘You
do
,’ said the boy. ‘You do need a mirror.’ He peered into the kitchen, observing its odd state: the table pushed up against the wall; the mattress in the middle of the floor; the vegetables and drawings that littered the countertops.

‘Have you stolen those vegetables from the Park?’

‘I have.’ His heart was leaden.
Go, go
, he wanted to say. But he lowered himself to his haunches, and met the boy at eye level.

The boy stepped past him. ‘Why do you keep your shutters closed?’

‘You know already: I am a shameless vegetable thief. This said, I would be grateful if you didn’t tell anyone I was here stealing vegetables because the police would lock me up.’

Philip didn’t want to say that he, too, understood the fear of prison. ‘Are you foreign?’ he asked.

‘Do I sound foreign?’

‘You do a little.’

‘Well, that’s because I’m Welsh.’ He clapped his hands together. ‘Now then!’ He went to the sink and rinsed out a second cup. ‘Tea?’

Philip nodded. Tea was foul but no one had offered it to him before in a grown-up way.

The following day, three cheery taps sounded on the door, and he appeared again, bearing his sketchbook. ‘Father Christmas brought it,’ he said, and, in that moment, something crossed his face. ‘Were you here on Christmas Day?’

‘I was,’ said Otto.

‘Alone?’

‘I’m rather good at being on my own.’

‘Without any goose or presents?’

He smiled. ‘I am Jewish, you see, and we have different holidays.’

‘You’re a Jew?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘A
Welsh
Jew.’

‘A Welsh Jewish painter?’

Otto nodded. ‘A Welsh Jewish painter vegetable thief.’

‘Why do you say “Velsh”?’

He could see the boy trying not to laugh at him. ‘It’s the vay ve speak in Vales.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Truly. For example, you and I would say “Paris”, but Parisians themselves would say “Paree”. It is the same only different.’

‘I can never draw a Spitfire.’ He clutched his sketchbook to him.

‘They
are
tricky … I may be able to assist. But first, you must tell me your name.’

‘Philip,’ said Philip. He reached into his pocket and held out a boiled sweet. ‘Have it. I don’t mind.’

And Otto saw again the small red lozenge stuck to Jakob’s clenched, dead palm.

4 0

The borders of Otto’s world were narrow, but he took a grim comfort in that. He travelled only between the Crescent – the back of it – and St Wilfred’s, with forays into town to look for work. Employment was the challenge, a greater one than he’d anticipated. The theatre that had once employed him to paint sets was shut for the war. The owner of the camouflage factory had regarded him warily. One of the painters working on the Pavilion, repairing the blast damage, knew that he’d been imprisoned at the Camp. Brighton was a small town. Small towns the world over were suspicious. Small towns awaiting invasion were hostile.

He ate once a day at the soup kitchen. Most days passed in the wide loneliness of the church’s nave. Winter eased. Spring took delicate hold. He saw no one except for the boy, who arrived almost daily at the back door with his sketchbook.

She appeared in April.

He was returning after another failed effort at job-seeking and considered avoiding her – turning the corner or dashing across the road – for she seemed to emerge from another realm and the distance between their worlds was painful. How exotic her happiness seemed. How blind. Yet when she spotted him, there on a mundane street, below the brick face of the Technical College, he suddenly felt it was
possible to die from the want of her – he who knew death as more than a lover’s convention; he who knew its terrible intimacy with life; its brute weight; the body carried from the Camp’s gallows.

She wore her hair pinned back and rolled. A small ridiculous hat sat on her head at an unnatural angle, defying gravity. Her hat, her bag and shoes matched. She looked prettily, predictably bourgeois. Something had happened to her. This wasn’t a woman who would be seen carrying bags of books or walking up hills to labour camps or stripping off her stockings in the heat of the day. Yet however well she’d disguised herself, she couldn’t hide her pleasure at the sight of him.

‘Otto!’

He ran a hand through his hair. ‘Mrs Beaumont.’

‘Evelyn!’

‘Of course.’ He nodded solemnly. He must have looked to her like a pauper.

‘How goes the fresco?’

‘Well,’ he nodded. ‘Yes. Thank you …’

Her face was heavily powdered. Her lips were crimson. ‘I hope Geoffrey and I will be invited to the private view?’

Was it irony? ‘I don’t think so … I mean, I don’t expect there will be one. A church … Wartime …’ He smiled at the pavement. ‘A Jew …’

‘Don’t be silly.’ She blushed and turned her face to the sky. ‘Glorious weather.’

‘Yes.’ How long before he could take his leave?

‘Though the nights,’ she added, ‘are still very cool.’

The weather. She spoke to him of the weather. Could the injury be any worse?

‘With winter past, no doubt we shall have to ready ourselves again.’

‘Shall we?’ He hoped that was a drop of rain.

‘For the invasion,’ she said. ‘The crossing …’

‘Of course.’ He kept a straight face. ‘Those Germans.’

She caught her lip in her teeth and smiled. ‘I wonder if you can guess where I’m going.’

‘To read at someone?’

She laughed, and he wished that he could pluck it from the air between them, the music of her.

April blossom drifted at their feet. A tram went ringing and dinging past. The silence after it passed left him mournful.

At length, she looked up, as if a decision had been made; a gamble, calculated. ‘Tell me, Otto. May I borrow you for an hour or so?’

Inside the lecture theatre, the omnipresent porter motioned them down the steps. The rows of neat heads descended in tiers. The oversized chart of the Periodic Table was as certain as ever, and their host, once more, presided gloomily.

Mr Hatchett sat midway along. She nodded to him as they passed. ‘My butcher,’ she said to Otto, and she felt herself thrill to the ease of those words and also, to the presence of Otto beside her – Otto who, like her, had loved
The Waves
. She felt slightly giddy at the thought that Mrs Woolf was about to arrive. ‘Back by popular demand,’ she whispered to him, ‘though I don’t imagine she gives two hoots for “popular” anything. I’m quite sure she’s above all that.’