A Song At Twilight (12 page)

He strolled away and Ben, shaking his head, finished his own drink. He glanced at his watch and tried to remember the times of the trains from Yelverton to Plymouth. If he got his skates on, he could be home by teatime.

‘What a lovely surprise.’ Olivia Hazelwood stepped back and held her youngest son at arms’ length. ‘You should have let us know – we’d have done something special for supper.’

‘A fatted calf?’ he grinned, and she gave him a wry smile.

‘Well, a few eggs, at least! They’re the equivalent of a fatted calf these days. Anyway, you’re not a prodigal son.’ She linked her arm through his and led him into the house. He had met her as she strolled home from her WI meeting; humping his kitbag, he had walked from the tiny railway station through the familiar lanes, sniffing woodsmoke from cottage chimneys and listening to the caws of the rooks on their way back from the fields to their roosts in the tall elm trees growing in the churchyard. He had known the footsteps belonged to his mother as soon as he heard them treading softly through the fallen leaves, and he had waited at the gate, whistling quietly so as not to alarm her.

‘I knew it was you the moment I heard that tune,’ she said affectionately. ‘How long have you got?’

‘Forty-eight hours. That means I’ve got to leave straight after breakfast the day after tomorrow. There’s a good train to Plymouth and then I can get the branch line to Yelverton.’ He hesitated, then decided he might as well tell her straight away. ‘We’re going on to night-flying.’

‘Oh.’ She was silent for a moment or two. They stood in the hall, taking off their coats and gloves, then she raised her eyes to his. She knew quite well how dangerous it was, and that there was really nothing to be said about it, and after another minute or so she remarked briskly, ‘Well, we’d better have a look in the kitchen and see what Jeanie’s doing. The hens are laying well at the moment – we had six eggs this morning, so they’re nice and fresh. You can have one for your breakfast tomorrow.’ She was talking at random as she walked past him and through the kitchen door, and he heard her say to Jeanie, ‘Guess who’s come home? Come and see who’s here, Hope. It’s your Uncle Ben.’

‘Ben!’ Jeanie came through the door, her eyes bright and her round, pretty face beaming. She came to a stop a foot or two away, holding out her hands, and he took them in his, smiling with pleasure.

‘You’ve got flour on your nose,’ he said, and let go of one of her hands to brush it away.

Jeanie blushed and said, ‘I’m making a rabbit pie for supper. How long are you staying?’

‘Everyone asks me that,’ he complained. ‘It’s just another way of saying “When are you going back?” You can’t wait to get rid of me.’

‘Yes, we can!’ she protested, and blushed again when he laughed. ‘Oh, you know what I mean. We just want to know how long we can have you here.’

‘Don’t tease her, Ben,’ Olivia said, appearing in the doorway with Hope, who immediately squealed and flung herself at him, wrapping her arms around his legs and burying her face in his knees. He laughed and swung her off her feet.

‘How’s my favourite girl, then? How’s my little princess?’

Jeanie moved back towards the kitchen. ‘I’d better get back to my pie. And I expect you’d like a cup of tea.’

‘A huge one,’ he nodded, and followed her, still carrying Hope in his arms. Olivia busied herself putting the kettle on and taking cups and saucers from the dresser. She looked in the cupboard.

‘We’ve no cake, I’m afraid, but I got some broken biscuits in the village shop.’ She put the tin on the table and Ben fell upon it.

‘Broken biscuits! Any chocolate ones? Or custard creams?’

He pulled off the lid and Jeanie said smartly, ‘Now, you’re not to go ferreting about in there, looking for all the best ones. As for chocolate biscuits – I haven’t seen such a thing for years. I don’t think they make them any more.’

‘Never mind. I’ll make do with Rich Tea. And here’s a bit of custard cream for Hope.’ The little girl climbed on to his knee and he fed her the scrap of biscuit, then leaned back in the chair, letting his eyes roam about the big, warm kitchen. The curtains were drawn, the blackouts in place and the lamps lit, making a cosy cocoon filled with the warm scent of baking. Jeanie had made some rock cakes and a Victoria sponge, which were cooling on a wire rack on the scrubbed wooden table, and she had now returned to rolling out the pastry for the rabbit pie. The meat was in an enamel pie dish beside her.

‘I came home on the right night,’ he said, sipping his tea as he watched her. ‘Nothing like a bit of home cooking to feed the starving hordes.’

‘Go on,’ she said, curling the pastry round the wooden rolling-pin and draping it over the dish of meat. ‘I bet you get fed like fighting-cocks. I’ve heard all about it – eggs and bacon for breakfast every day, roast beef for dinner. Most people in Pompey have forgotten what a real egg looks like.’

‘Well, we have to be properly fed if we’re going to win this war,’ he said. ‘No good letting our tummies rumble while we’re flying – we might mistake it for enemy gunfire.’ He stopped, remembering that he intended to play down the dangers he faced in the sky. ‘Not that we get much of that on daylight patrol.’

‘You will when you’re on night-flying, though,’ John Hazelwood said, coming into the kitchen. He had let himself in through the back door and Olivia had gone to meet him as he took off his boots in the outer scullery. He slapped his hand on Ben’s shoulder. ‘Good to see you. How long are you here for?’

Ben and Jeanie burst out laughing. ‘You see?’ he said to her, and then grinned at his father. ‘Till the day after tomorrow. Then we start the new routine. I’m looking forward to it. Night-flying has something special about it – you’re in another world, a world of your own, up there with the moon and the stars all around you, and nothing but darkness below. Well, except for the neutral countries, of course. It’s odd to see all their lights shining when everywhere else is blacked out. But it’s hard to realise, sometimes, that there’s a war on. If it weren’t for that, I think I could fly for ever at night.’

His own eyes shone as he described it, and Olivia, watching him, could see that in his mind he was there now, flying amongst the stars, searching the glittering pathways of the moon on the shifting sea, far removed from the world below … She shivered. In peacetime, she would be able to share in his excitement, sense the thrill of it and imagine herself in that other-world where he felt so much at home. But this was war, and she knew that death could come blasting from that darkness; that the ethereal peace was false and concealed a bitter danger.

John glimpsed the shadow in his wife’s eyes and said quickly, ‘Well, I’ve got another surprise for you all too. Alexandra’s coming home tomorrow.’

They turned to him, all talking at once … ‘How do you know?’ ‘When is she coming?’ ‘How long can she stay?’ ‘Why didn’t you tell us before?’ until he lifted one big hand and called for them to quieten down.

‘She rang up while you were at the WI meeting,’ he said to Olivia. ‘And then I went to see old Norman Stanley – you know he’s ill – and when I came back Ben was here. And I’ve only just walked through the door, anyway! I haven’t had much chance.’

‘Well, tell us now,’ Ben said. ‘I haven’t seen Alexie since the middle of summer. How’s she getting on?’

‘Oh, much as usual, from what I can gather. They keep the VADs pretty busy at Haslar, and a lot of them went out to Egypt, you know. Anyway, we’ll find out more when we see her. She’ll be here about eleven, she thinks, and she’ll have to go back in the evening.’

‘Well, it will be good to see her.’ Olivia sighed. ‘If only Peter and Ian could be here too. It’s such a long time since we had the whole family together.’

‘I know.’ John took her hand. ‘And I’m afraid it will be a long time before we’re all together again. This war’s going to go on for a while yet, although I do think the tide’s beginning to turn. Russia’s making a good job of fighting the Germans off, and with Italy turning against them too they’re in a difficult position. I think the next year could see us looking towards the end of it all.’

‘Another year!’ Olivia said. ‘John, it’s been going on for over four years already. That’s even longer than the First World War.’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘But we won that, didn’t we? We’ll win this one too. You’ll see.’

Olivia said no more, but they all knew that her mind was with all those still fighting, and with her children especially: her son Ben, about to start night-flying, which could only mean accompanying bombers on their desperate missions deep into Germany, and her other sons – Ian, an Army chaplain somewhere in Italy and still in danger despite that country’s change of heart, and Peter, commanding a ship in the waters of the Pacific.

Even Alexandra, working at the Haslar Royal Naval Hospital in Gosport, had been in danger from the relentless bombing of Portsmouth and Gosport earlier in the war. And although that bombing had stopped, there had been disquieting talk of a ‘secret weapon’ and everyone was afraid that it might start again, even worse than before.

Jeanie had put the pie into the oven as they talked and was now busy with the vegetables. Olivia finished her tea and got up to help her, and Ben lifted Hope from his lap and set her on the floor.

‘I’ll take my kit upstairs.’ The bedrooms were always ready for any of them who came home unexpectedly, although it was a long time since Peter’s and Ian’s beds had been slept in. Followed by Hope, who had attached herself to him like a limpet, he hauled his canvas kitbag up to the room he had occupied ever since he was a baby and, before switching on the lamp, he stood for a moment looking down into the twilit garden. There was still just enough light to see the rows of vegetables where once his mother had grown flowers, and the little patch of orchard with its tiny lawn and the apple tree where he’d first met Judy Taylor, deafened by bomb blast, and where Hope had been born. He remembered climbing the tree when he was a small boy, eating so many of the windfall apples that he’d had a stomach-ache all night and, later, being allowed to pick those still on the tree when they were ripe. There had always been one or two just too high to reach, and they’d been left there all winter, to ripen and glow like scarlet lanterns against the sky.

He’d spent hours under that tree, first as a baby in his pram and then on a blanket with a book in front of him. He’d done his homework and holiday tasks there, he’d played noughts and crosses, draughts and chess with his brothers, and he’d just lain there in the dappled sunlight, thinking of nothing much and drifting off to sleep.

He had known this garden all his life, and to him it was the essence of England, the essence of all he was fighting for.

Hope tugged at his jacket; he drew the blackout curtains and turned away from the window to switch on the light. He had dumped his kitbag on his bed and, grinning at the little girl, he began to unfasten the ties around its neck.

‘I know what you’re after. Well, let’s see what we can find, shall we?’ Ferreting about inside the bag, he pulled out a bar of chocolate. ‘There, is that what you want?’

‘Chocolate,’ she breathed, her eyes widening. She took it almost reverently in both hands and Ben laughed.

‘You’d better not eat it before supper, or I’ll be in trouble.’ He began to unpack the few bits and pieces he had brought with him. Hope ran out, calling for her mother to show her what she’d been given and Ben flung himself down on his narrow bed and lay back, letting his eyes move slowly round the room.

It was the smallest of all the rooms in the vicarage except for the tiny box room where the family dumped all the things they had no room for anywhere else. Ben didn’t mind this at all – he enjoyed not having to share, as Peter and Ian did in their larger room. Here, he could spread his clutter around as he liked, without fear of anyone either moving it or complaining that he was taking up more than his share of space.

Apart from being tidier than it was when he was living at home, the room was much as he had left it. There on the chest of drawers were his treasures – the fossil he had picked up on the beach near Swanage during a family holiday; the sea-urchin shell his mother had brought back from Cornwall; the wooden model of a Spitfire he had made himself at school, soon after the beginning of the war, when he had just started to dream about becoming a pilot.

His cricket bat was still propped in one corner, and on the mantelpiece of the little fireplace stood the photographs of the various teams he had played in at school – the cricket and rugger teams, the rowing eight. On the walls hung three pictures – a photograph of his grandparents, looking stiff and stern in their Victorian clothes, one of his whole family taken just before the war started, and a rather gloomy picture in which you could just make out three Highland cattle standing up to their knees in a bog amongst shadowy mountains. It had been on the point of being taken to a village jumble sale when the ten-year-old Ben had rescued it and insisted on its being hung in his room.

On his bookshelf were a row of books from his childhood that he still couldn’t bear to part from – his
Rupert
annuals, other books on such diverse subjects as bees, internal combustion engines and volcanoes, and the set of Biggles stories by Captain W.E. Johns which had first fired his desire to learn to fly.

Ben closed his eyes for a moment. Faintly, he could hear the sounds of people talking in the kitchen or hallway. Hope’s excited babble was interspersed with Jeanie’s light voice and John Hazelwood’s deeper tones. The sounds were a comfort to him, reassuring him that there was another world, a world that wasn’t about fighting and killing other men. For although Ben lived for flying, although he revelled in the use and development of his skills in the air, somewhere in his heart was the dark knowledge that those skills were used to deal death to people he had never met and might even like.

These short visits home reminded him that peace was the ultimate aim, even of war. Peace, and the freedom to live in harmony and contentment.

A knock on the door roused him and he heard Jeanie’s voice. ‘Supper’s ready, Ben. You haven’t gone to sleep, have you?’