Your Father Sends His Love (24 page)

The aeroplane banked, dropped and juddered. He had been flatulent on the flight and he felt an uncomfortable settling in his gut. Their big suitcase was old-fashioned and too large for the overhead lockers, but he had refused to buy a new one. They would be made now to wait at the baggage reclaim and his own stubbornness irritated him.

Before the seatbelt light was extinguished – against the instructions of the pilot and the steward – passengers were on their feet. In the gangways people dithered, blocked others in, held up the line. Contained rage is the overriding modern emotion. You feel it everywhere. Gibbs had said that. How many years ago now? Don had not agreed then, but waiting to disembark from the plane he understood what Gibbs had meant.

He and Gibbs had started work on the same day. In separate rooms, in different council buildings, they signed the Official Secrets Act and were taken to the Bunker. They met in the induction, in the briefing room beneath ground level. Five chairs in a low-ceilinged antechamber and an operational map behind a lectern. Some joke shared together, something that Gibbs said to make Don laugh. Then the speech from the captain. First line of
defence. A Cold War we will not lose. Victory from the jaws of Armageddon.

The Bunker had been built at disproportionate expense, one of eleven secret facilities across the country, set deep and safe into the Cheshire plains. It was built for when the bombs would come: one hundred and thirty-five people – military, political – would shelter there; one hundred and thirty-five working towards keeping order, broadcasting essential information and encouragement to survivors. It was 1978 and he and Gibbs and two others were seconded from their posts. They would be setting up the communications systems. They would oversee the entire enterprise. They spent sixteen years there in the end. Testing equipment, running diagnostics, taking part in endless drills. They were young men but aged quickly. Neither had children. Neither wanted them. Don's wife said she understood; Gibbs' wife said she did not.

Don watched Maggie talk on her phone. She was standing by the baggage carousel while he waited, hands tightly gripped on the trolley. Slender still, her grey-honey hair in a band. White T-shirt, cardigan and culottes. Sensible shoes she'd replace with a showier pair before walking through customs. Over their years together she'd retained her accent and he had almost lost his. Scottish her; Midlands him. He was thankful it was that way around. Her voice aroused him. They were that kind of
couple: middle-sixties and still with the shock of lust about them.

In the arrivals hall Maggie's son, James, his wife and their daughter were waiting for them. In Gracie's four-year-old hands was a felt-tipped sign: Nanny Mags + Poppa Don. There were loud greetings, awkward laughter. James shook Don's hand. James's wife, Andrea, kissed Don's cheek. But when Don bent down to hug Gracie the child turned quickly back into her mother's denimed leg. Don laughed. He told Gracie he'd get her later.

‘Good to see you, James,' Don said.

‘You too,' James said. ‘Welcome home.'

Don had only ever seen James when he'd come to visit them in Cyprus. His stepson would always arrive with a sneer about him, a condescending sniff at the clientele in Don's bar; at the pub quizzes, at the bingo sessions. Had Don ever had children, had he responded to his then-wife's creeping silence, he knew he'd have ended up with a boy like James. Politely distant. A sharer of small talk. A man of average height and intelligence who, despite his own limitations, would manage to convey an air of modest amusement towards his father.

It was cramped in the car with the child-seat wedged between them. The windows fogged and Don wiped the glass to see the other cars and drivers, the new superstores and drive-thrus, the illuminated signs on elevated poles.

‘How long's it been, Don?' James asked.

‘Twelve, no, thirteen years,' he said.

‘Far too long,' Maggie said and put her hand on Don's thigh.

Don looked out of the window. Maggie and he used to drive across the country in separate cars to a common destination. City breaks: Dundee, Hull, York, Bristol. Anywhere she could claim as a business trip. One night and then a day of walking, holding hands, kissing outside galleries and local places of interest, until the next day they ended up back at their adjacent cars, rain maybe falling by now and dampening their clothes, saying goodbye again.

For their more regular meetings they'd found a hotel twenty-five miles from her house and twenty-one from his. It was an ugly building even for the seventies, and it was there they'd called an end to the affair. That day should have looked more like the one he saw now, out the window of James's family car: sink-grey skies and belts of rain. Instead it had been pleasantly hot, and they'd agreed that it could not go on, knowing this was untrue and yet true. They said goodbye and drove away and he could not remember where he had driven to, how long it had taken to make it back to his wife.

That same hotel had almost caught them out. Don had been distracted after paying and had put the room
receipt in the hip pocket of his jacket. Jayne was not a suspicious person – she had a faith in Don that he found defeating – but had come across the slip of waxy paper while hunting for a lighter. She looked it over and left it on the kitchen table for him to find. He spotted it as he was pouring himself a drink; he picked it up and it felt icy to the touch.

‘Where did you find this?' he said. Jayne turned from the chopping board on which she was heading lettuce.

‘In your grey jacket,' she said.

‘Thank God!' he said. ‘We've been looking for that all day. I must have picked it up by mistake.'

Jayne put down the knife. ‘You were looking for a hotel bill?'

‘Anderson had to stay there the other night. Just come down from Strathclyde. He's been in a terrible state about it. Without a receipt he can't claim it back on expenses.'

Jayne nodded.

‘You'd have thought they'd put them up in a better hotel,' she said. ‘That place is a monstrosity.'

They pulled off the motorway. James and his mother were chatting; Andrea was on her phone. Don tried talking to Gracie, but the child ignored him. He had an itch around his throat. He scratched it, the noise coarse. Gracie looked at him. Donald smiled and frowned and gurned and made some experimental noises. For a time,
she was diverted; then she looked away and he was pulling faces for no one.

Years after the affair and his marriage were over, he discovered Cyprus. Barry – a co-worker from the Bunker – had moved there after his wife died. His bones had always felt the cold, he explained in a letter to Don, and the heat of Cyprus was something else. But he missed the old times, missed his war buddies, and so he'd invited him over to catch some sun.

Barry had picked him up from the airport and driven him to the resort. A little England. The cafes and bars. Small shops with racks of the
Daily Mail
and the
Sun
. Televisions showing football matches and the soaps at off-schedule times. Traditional home-cooked food alongside specialities of the region. HP sauce on the tables. Salad cream. PG tips. Barry thought it was perfect. Barry stood up for the national anthem. Barry liked talking to Americans because they understood about taking pride in your country. Donald resisted asking Barry why he'd moved away if he loved his country so much.

‘This is new, isn't it?' Don said to James as they took a right turn. ‘The bypass?'

Don couldn't recall what had been there before. Waste ground, houses, factories, something anyway. The edge of town, just off the motorway, a few miles to his and Jayne's old house and in the opposite direction, Maggie's.
He looked at Gracie and she looked back at him. Just for a moment. Then she looked out of the window.

They ate an Indian takeaway at James's dining table, Gracie already bathed and in bed. This was what Maggie always did when she came to see her son. The house was newly built and perfectly situated for a new family. The beer wasn't cold enough and Don had lost the taste for curry. He ate slowly. No one noticed his quiet, not even Maggie.

In the night Don woke, uncomfortably full, and sat for a long time in the bathroom. A thick book was set on top of the cistern, an encyclopaedia of trivia and facts. He held the best pub quiz in the resort, no question. Regulars knew the answer to the last question was always ‘Sweet Caroline'. The bar would rise in song, Don leading them through the chorus.

He thought of Elvis reading
The Scientific Search for the Face of Jesus
as the King crapped out the last of his life. He put down the book. Pulled up his pyjama bottoms. Looked at his watch.

The Bunker had opened to the public the year before. There had been a gala reception and he'd been sent an invitation. Gibbs called to convince him to come; it had been too long, they hadn't seen each other in a decade. Maggie had tried her best to convince him too.

‘When do we ever get invited to a gala anything?' she
asked him. ‘Will we ever get invited to anything like this again?'

‘I said no and I mean no,' he said. ‘I don't care if the Queen and the Red Arrows are there. No.'

He started to dream of the Bunker after that. Months of dreams of its telephones and computers and static. Of coming home to Jayne as she peeled potatoes for dinner, the shower he took to wash off the smell of the Bunker, or of Maggie; the beer he drank sitting at the kitchen table, an unread copy of the
Manchester Evening News
folded and creased.

— Good day?

— When it's not, you'll know about it.

The same question each night, each night the same reply.

After the gala reception, Gibbs emailed him links to a news report he could watch and a couple of local newspaper stories with pictures. One was of the Bunker, cold and silent, the other was of the museum's curator: a man with a ginger beard; a tubular body sat atop a disarmed missile. Gibbs had met him. Was scathing about what he'd done to the Bunker. He wouldn't say why. You need to see for yourself, old boy, he'd written. Gibbs liked to use old-fashioned English expressions: old boy, jalopy, charabanc, by George, cripes.

Don put down the book and went back to the bedroom.
Maggie had kicked down the covers. He drank from the glass of water on the bedside table and looked down at her. The bed was still warm, the pillows heavy with an unfamiliar detergent smell. He thought about Elvis – young,
King Creole
-era – until he fell asleep.

There was no daybreak, so the lamplight woke him. Maggie had brought him tea, same as she did every morning. She was dressed in an unfamiliar robe with a broken belt loop. He drank the tea though it was scalding hot. She sat on the edge of the bed.

‘Are you excited?' she asked.

‘I don't know. Nervous, I think.'

‘Of course. It's only natural.'

She put her hand to his forehead.

‘I almost went. To the Bunker, I mean. The last time I was over.'

‘Why would you want to do that?'

‘I could always imagine what Jayne looked like,' she said. ‘What kind of person she was, but that place . . . ?'

He put his hand on her arm. It weighed there for a time.

‘So what stopped you?' he said.

‘I wanted you to show me around. Show me now what you couldn't show me then.'

When the satnav failed, he directed them from memory. There was a signpost, a nuclear-hazard sign in black and gold,
SECRET BUNKER THIS WAY!
printed above it. The building itself was a squat, unremarkable structure; grey concrete surrounded by still-fortified metal fences. It could have been mistaken for an electricity exchange or something similar had there not been an aerial atop one of its roofs. There were five cars parked outside, a man leaning against one of them. It was Gibbs. Unmistakable, though he was fat now. Not sweating fat, but big and fleshy. He saluted as the car pulled up.

‘Been too long, old boy,' Gibbs said. They shook hands for a long time. ‘Shame about Barry.'

‘Five years now he's been gone, can you believe it?'

Gibbs finally let go. ‘And this must be Maggie's daughter,' he said.

‘You don't change a bit,' Maggie smiled.

Don introduced everyone else to Gibbs and Gibbs rubbed his hands together.

‘Shall we then?' he said.

The sign at the entrance said
EXPERIENCE ALL THE TERROR OF A NUCLEAR WAR – WITHOUT THE RADIATION!
Gibbs nudged him and pointed. ‘That's just the tip of the ruddy iceberg,' he said.

The lobby was almost as Don remembered it: seating and tables for those on the way to shift or just finishing.
Behind the counter, where Janice used to serve stewed tea, a pair of girls checked their phones. There was merchandise – Russian hats, gasmasks, model warheads, reproduction ‘Duck and Cover' instruction booklets – and when the deskphone rang, one of the girls picked it up and said, ‘Hello, Secret Bunker?'