Day (24 page)

‘Ah, I'm . . .' But there it was, really there at his feet, preventing speech, ‘I'm . . .' Neatly sawed planking and joist, shoring – and another man, you could hear him, lost inside the hole, over his head and digging, tunnelling out a dream. ‘You're . . .'

‘Had to be done.' Gad peered down almost shyly. ‘Didn't imagine I would when I came here, but –'

He was interrupted by a shout from the excavation. ‘Gad? Who are you gossiping with now? Another bloody pair of hands, I hope. We'll never get anywhere near at this rate.'

Gad turned to Alfred, all benevolent enquiry. ‘You heard the man . . . You being someone who was here before – you'll understand.'

A hollowness spreading in everything: the walls, the chairs, the view stuck up against the window, the lies walking past alive, and you're thirsty suddenly and very tired, head pressing your neck. ‘I'll . . . I can't today. Tomorrow. I'll maybe come back tomorrow.'

‘Awful decent of you if you could.' Gad's joy shading itself slightly. ‘Such a lot to do, if we're to put up a proper effort. And the film and that – it takes up our time so.'

‘I'll . . . if I can.' Already easing your weight back, starting your first move for the door. ‘If I can.'

‘Cheerio for now.'

‘Yes. Cheerio. You take care.'

‘Oh, we do. We do.' He pats the cut edge of the wood. ‘We take care.' He's proud.

You nod, have to close your eyes as you spin round to leave.

‘You, ah . . . you won't . . .' Gad too polite to continue.

‘Of course. I won't tell anyone.' Talking to the open door, can't face him again. ‘No one to tell.'

‘Splendid, splendid. Well, must get on.'

And you run after that, run through the evening light that's thready with dust, run to the shower block – the one with real plumbing for practical use – also employed as a background in several light-hearted scenes. You stand in beneath the water and you wash.

Bod you recognise from Hut 26 comes in. He nods vaguely towards the wall behind you and leaves. He saw that you're fully dressed but didn't mention. Because everybody is mad here, all permanently mad.

drop

You're sitting with Joyce and the world is beneath you, set out in a long, slow scoop that rises to the far slopes and their trees.

‘This is good, is it?' You have to check, because perhaps she isn't happy and perhaps you can't make her be – something in your day feels lost and you want to mend it, ease it. ‘The view and the tea and everything. Isn't it good?' Tea and plum bread given you by a large-handed, powdery woman who says you should call her Dot and come back for more if you want it and smiles as if you and Joyce are a couple when you can't be. ‘God bless the WI.' The city rolling down from you to the meadows and the wreck of the Bishop's Palace at your back, honey walls shedding the May heat, making the air seem heavier, tighter, and behind all of that the cathedral.

See it from miles off, even on the ground – the big box of a spire, calm on its hill. The only proper hill you could find on that plain, that level which did so nicely for building airfields. Drive to it from the drome in about an hour along roads the fens make too easy, too smooth – ditches hiding in reeds to either side if you risk yourself and race, misjudge a bend, stop caring. Pilot broke his neck that way – motorcycle. Can't recall his name and there's no need to since he's gone.

Joyce leans back slightly, stretches out her hand into the grass – she's sitting on your jacket. You love that's she's sitting on your jacket, it makes you delighted.

‘It is very . . . it's pretty.' But everything about her is only sad.

You would like to ask why, but don't in case this has to do with you. ‘Bit too hot?'

‘No, it's just right. London never really seems to get any proper weather. And I don't get out into the country any more. Sorry.'

‘For what.'

‘Complaining.'

‘Complain if you want to. I won't tell anybody.'

She smiles at the view, but only gently, maybe tired. There's a dance tonight and you want to go with her, hold her that way, to music – if she's tired, though, perhaps she'll say she'd rather not.

But you won't think that, haven't a way to stand it and so you let yourself lean, lean further, then topple – gently, safely, control the descent – so that your head is rested up against her. Not in her lap, you wouldn't chance that, but your skull is touching, leaning maybe halfway along her thigh – something about which you cannot think too hard.

The light of her – made you want to cover your ugly face – made you want to be so much a better man.

Joyce reaching down then, setting her palm beside your cheek, the too-hot mess of your cheek, and the cool of her was perfect, the mercy of her perfect and lifting you out of your chest, your self, the touch of her gloved in the touch of your mother when she woke you – some old, unfurling memory you can't prevent – her gloved in your mother and your mother gloved in her so that you shake, so that you are terrified.

‘Alfie?' The edge of her thumb brushing by the corner of your eye, finding the start of a tear that you hadn't known about, the start of something you can't finish, not here. ‘You all right? Alfie?'

‘Glare.' A wild, hot noise inside you that you should never let out. ‘Not used to so much daylight.'

‘Well then, close your eyes.'

And you do as she tells you and in the red dark you are not alone because her hand is there, so near, so smooth beside your mind.

‘Thank you.' For taking care of you, when you should take care of her.

Close to a laugh in her voice, a new lightness, ‘For what, silly?'

You should have noticed that, how it worked – that if you were sad it made her happy.

But you never will know if that was true. If she's been as happy for all of these years as you've been sad.

At the time, you don't mind and she asks you, ‘What are you thanking me for?'

‘For coming all this way. For seeing me. You'm a fine wench. Yo am.' A fast, hard weariness hitting you now, a wish for sleep.

To sleep with her.

Wouldn't work.

But I can want it anyway.

And sometimes, when you want, you ask and then you get. But you shouldn't overdo it, should only try just every now and then.

It's the second time she's travelled up to meet you.

It's the second time you've asked.

The first trip was truly awful – having to rush out to Lincoln in the evening and the crew along with you. They said they would like to meet her, that she'd cheer them up, and they were your crew and you couldn't refuse them, not even Cyril Parks. But it turned out they almost ignored her and did what they would have anyway – drinking to not talk about Pluckrose, drinking his money, until they had to say he'd been a pal and a good man and a bloody fool and an utter shit and an excellent navigator and a madman. Joyce had stayed quiet, tucked in between you and Molloy, who was playing the gentlemen very well.

But then he leaned across her and asked you, ‘I'd want to know.'

‘What's that, Dickie?' You stroked Joyce's arm to keep her feeling she was safe, but she was staring across the room and keeping herself beyond you. No chance to even tell her your mother's gone. And you don't know if you want to, if you can. ‘Dickie?'

‘What they put on his stone, now – I'd have liked a say in that.'

‘The usual, I'd suppose.' You tickled your finger across her hand. She wasn't wearing a wedding ring. But that was about not wanting any talk and should have no particular meaning for you. ‘The squadron crest. I don't know.'

Molloy nodded heavily, agreeing with himself before he spoke. ‘Should put something he'd have wanted.'

And because you knew what that would be – what he'd have wanted – and you missed your poor bloody Pluckrose and were slightly drunk and you fucking bloody missed him, you said out loud what you shouldn't – not with Joyce at your side. ‘
I wasn't fucking finished
. That's what he'd want.'

Knowing it was a mistake as soon as you said it and Joyce having to leave and head for her hotel not too long after, maybe because she was offended, uneasy, maybe because she was frightened you had no chance, were a rotten bet, and you walked her along and up that bastard hill that winded you both, stopped you talking.

But it made her take your arm.

But when she left you at the door of the little hotel she shook your hand, no more.

But she leaned in and told you she'd kiss you if it weren't for the way it would look.

But you wanted to kiss her then and for her to not care how it looked.

‘I'm so . . . I was going to say sorry about your friend, but that would sound useless.' She folded your hand in both of hers and you started to sweat, although it was a chill night, misty. ‘If you liked him, he must have been . . . he must have been fine.'

‘Yes.'

‘Thanks for asking me, for wanting me – that I should come and see you.'

This as if she'd punched you, or torn away something you'd used to hide your face. ‘Couldn't help it.' You want to say about your ma. You want to cuddle her in. You want her to cuddle you in.

‘Well, thanks, anyway. Even if this is – I mean, it's a shame you're so busy. But lucky to see you at all.' She pressed your hand. ‘I . . . appreciate you.'

‘I appreciate you.'

But there was no more to be done, not beyond watching the door close with you on the wrong, cold side and then clattering down to catch the bus – the roaring bus, the press of lunatics, the rest of your crew swept away from you in the mob, and you're sat at the back with a strange bomb aimer, just a sprog. The din was almost solid.

Because sometimes there's a chance to scream when other bods are there – don't need them to listen, don't expect it – you understand they'll all be screaming, too.

The bomb aimer beside you spoke about some girl at home when you'd rather he hadn't – although he was talking to himself. And there was crying somewhere, sobbing, and a loud fellow laughing about it and maybe you recognised Molloy's voice binding about watered beer, but you weren't sure and then somebody kicked up singing.

‘I'll shoot 'em down, sir, I'll shoot 'em down, sir,

I'll shoot 'em down, if they don't shoot at me,

Then we'll go to the ops room and shoot a fucking line, sir,

And then we'll all get the DFC
.'

Close air and damp running down the windows, couldn't look out if there'd been anything to watch for and you needed visibility, it worried you to lose it, made you jump, and the thick smell of blue was on you, in you, and the blood under the blue, the meat, and this thing you all feel, this red, loud, hunting thing you have become.

The bus clattered you back to the station and the kites, to the oil and metal places where you now belonged.

Up by the palace it's civil, civilian, civilised.

From the Latin.

You twitch out of a tiny doze, sit too fast and dizzy yourself, blink at her grin.

‘Hello.'

‘I'm sorry, was I . . .'

‘Only for a minute or two . . . But now I know you don't snore.' After this she brushes her skirt and stands – as if talking about your sleeping was more than she ought to do – and you sit for another moment, stupid with the thought of her and a sour rag left behind from your dream, a kind of mist.

Then you walk with her, lead Joyce on the milky paths and under the shade of chestnut trees, those broad-fingered leaves. A few other bods about, doing much the same – the month just tipping into summer and they're out enjoying it, wanting their year to turn forward as if it had hope, wanting to forget the lousy spring and dirty weather are probably why they're still alive, but now it's clear and dry and fine for flying and will maybe stay that way.

You don't think of flying or death, you only stroll and attempt to be dapper, be RAF beside her. This is the only time you enjoy the uniform, the flight crew wing – people are used to flight crew around here, but they still notice, pause over you more than they might and you hope it makes Joyce think well of you, feel slightly proud. That's what you catch in the watching eyes: in the other people who don't know you, who just guess – that you're something to be proud of. Or else you're their anger, the way it will be expressed. You're going to take revenge for them – because of some loss, or no loss, or nothing to do with the war, some personal hate. Or else you're meant to be their son, or their sweetheart, or their fear, or their dead.

Gets a bit much, after a while.

But you miss it when it goes, cocker. Oh, you don't half miss it when it's gone.

Back in the pale walled streets of Lincoln the afternoon is shaking with its heat and thickening, humidity pressing your skin.

Without thinking, you've wandered with her to the front of her hotel and it seems only sensible to duck inside and have a drink, some shade – the thought of her bedroom burning up above you, the guesses you can't begin to make.

You sip half a pint of shandy and watch while she rocks a sherry, then looks at you for a breath, downs it like medicine – like something to do with you, an antidote you've made her need.

‘Alfie, this is . . . I so much like when we're together, or you write to me, or . . . It's all so nice.'

A kind of horror in this, because she seems to have made a decision and doing that could hurt you in ways you might not be able to resist. Maybe she doesn't love you and this is where she says so kindly.

Or else she does love you, she truly does.

And you've made her love a dead man, a problem, a disgrace.