London Calling (17 page)

James didn’t answer him, and the man continued on his way. Once he was out of range, James muttered, “If you go to the gym, why are you so bloody fat?” He looked at Dad. “Make it twenty-five.”

“Twenty-five it is.”

“I ain’t no housekeeper, boys. You can have a quick look, but you’re not to touch anything. Understood?”

I assured him, “Yes, sir.”

He led Dad and me up one flight of worn wooden stairs. He put his key in the lock and opened the door onto a very dingy living room with a small kitchen area and a side door leading to a bedroom. The place smelled like sweat and cigarettes and stale beer. Everything seemed to have a faded yellow tinge to it. Still, I was thrilled to be in there. I took in the sight of each object hungrily. There, on the wall, was the poster:
VERY WELL THEN, ALONE!
To the right was a program for a football match: “Arsenal v. Spurs, White Hart Lane, 12 October 1940.”

It was all exhilarating, and all heartbreaking. He had a narrow table set up by the front window. On it were the collection of World War I medals and a thick old book:
Illustrated Bible Stories for Children.

Dad peeled off twenty-five pounds and handed it to James as I walked closer to the table. I pointed to the book and said, “May I just touch this one item, Mr. Harker?”

“Why?”

“I want to see if a certain painting is in there.”

“Which one?”

“Abraham and Isaac.”

He stared at me for several long seconds. Then he whispered hoarsely, “You know it’s in there, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right, then. Go on. Look at it.”

I grasped the heavy cover, opened the book, and turned until I found the page. The grisly picture was the same—crazy and shocking. I looked at the questions on the left side. They were followed by answers, half completed in black ink in a young boy’s hand. I thought,
You didn’t finish your homework, did you, Jimmy?

Dad looked over my shoulder. “Do you know that painting, Martin?”

“Yes. It’s at All Souls, in the Administration Building.”

“Do you know it, Mr. Harker?”

“Aye. I know it bloody well. The son of Abraham gets sacrificed to God.” James Harker stuffed Dad’s money angrily into his pocket. “But he’s not the only one, is he? Even the son of God—Jesus himself—gets it. God the Father was willing to sacrifice Him!”

Dad said, “It sounds like you know your Bible stories.”

“It’s the same story over and over, isn’t it? If you’re not willing to sacrifice your son’s life, then you’re not a man of God. I guess I’m not a man of God, then.”

Dad told him, “I guess I’m not, either, Mr. Harker.”

“You’ve paid your money. You can call me James.”

“Thank you, James. You had a son, too. I know that.”

“I did. But he got sacrificed.”

“I’m really sorry.”

“Aye. So am I.” He told Dad, “Be nice to your boy, Jack Conway. Give him something good to remember you by. I wish to God I had done that.”

I had to interrupt. “You did good things for your son. I know you did.”

“You do?”

“Yes.”

“Then tell me why I can’t remember any? Looking back now, all I can remember doing is punishing him. He was all I had! And all I can remember is punishing him!”

Dad tried to console him. “I’m sure you thought you were doing what was right.”

James’s face twisted in anguish. “How could that be what was right?” He gestured at the medals. “What was I trying to do, turn him into another little soldier? So some politician, or some general, could use up his life to make a big name for himself? Is that what I was doing? My Jimmy already did his bit, standing up to Hitler like he did. Like we all did. He didn’t have to do anything else.”

James pointed a nicotine-stained finger at Dad. “Be kind to your boy while you can. Talk to him kindly. I can’t talk to mine. All I can do is pray, and I never hear anything back.”

Dad nodded his solemn agreement. He joined me in looking at Jimmy Harker’s Bible book.

I couldn’t contain myself any longer. I blurted out, “Maybe you
are
hearing something back.”

“What?”

“Maybe that prayer has been answered.” James Harker started getting that agitated look again, but I couldn’t stop. I talked faster. “Sure, I could have looked up the score of that Arsenal match and found out that Arsenal had won five–nil. But I could not have learned this: that Bill Lane got kicked out of the stadium because he threw a dart at a linesman.” James’s eyes bulged wide. “ ‘Hit ’im right in the arse.’ ”

James’s hands began to shake.

“It seems impossible, Mr. Harker, but it isn’t. You have to believe me. I didn’t come all this way to lie to a stranger.” James put his hands over his ears, but I knew he could still hear me. “I know that you were a good father. You had to be Jimmy’s father
and
mother. I know you went into school and stood up for him. You sorted out that Master Portefoy, and he never touched Jimmy again.”

James rasped at me, “What are you, a trickster? A mind reader? A bloody teenage con man?”

I tried to placate him. “No, sir—”

“Well, you’ll get nothing from me, because I have nothing.”

“We don’t want—”

“Get out now! I mean it. Or I’ll call the coppers.”

I crossed to the door and opened it, already kicking myself for what I had done.

Dad put the Bible book down and followed me, saying, “We’re very sorry to have upset you, Mr. Harker. We meant no harm. Really—”

Mr. Harker slammed the door behind us. We stared at it for a few seconds more. Then I trudged down the stairs ahead of Dad, feeling totally stupid and totally defeated. Out on the street, I told him, “That’s it. It’s over. He’ll never talk to me again.”

Dad tried to console me. “He’s a very old man. You don’t know what memories you’re disturbing.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Well, then, you don’t know what words are going to set him off. Let him sleep on it. Maybe he’ll be different in the morning.”

Bizarrely, at that very moment a tall man dressed in black with a high-top mortician’s hat walked past us. He was followed by about twenty people with cameras, fanny packs, and other tourist trappings. I knew who they were right away. “That must be the ghost tour,” I told Dad glumly. “I was hoping we could take that, once all this was over.”

Dad answered impulsively, “Then let’s take it!” He called after the mortician guy, “Hey! Can we still join the tour?”

The man turned a dark comic visage toward us. “How many souls are in your party?”

“Just my son and me.”

The mortician held out a bony hand. “That will be five pounds.”

Dad fished out a pocketful of coins and paid him. The tour resumed, with Dad and me now bringing up the rear. I wasn’t really listening to the guide, though. All I could think about was my own stupidity. I had sprung things on James Harker too quickly. He would never see me again, not if he could help it.

I looked over at Dad. He wasn’t into the tour, either. The mortician’s jokes seemed to depress him. Many of them were about drunks. Maybe that hit too close to home. For whatever reason, when the tour passed by the Shambles, he asked me, “Are you enjoying this?”

“No. I’m not even listening.”

“We can walk to the hotel from here. How about if we get out now, before we get too far away?”

“Sure. Okay.”

So we gave the mortician and his followers the slip. We found a fish-and-chips shop where we stood and ate french fries soaked with vinegar. I was ready to go crash after that, but Dad had one more stop to make. We went into an off-license liquor store, where he purchased a bottle of Napoleon brandy.

Once back in the room, I lay on the cot and tried to go to sleep, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t stop replaying my two disastrous meetings with James Harker over and over in my mind.

I secretly watched Dad for a long time. He was sitting next to the window and drinking the brandy, swig after swig. He was clearly upset. He kept looking outside longingly, as if he had lost something; as if he was hoping to find it again in the black, ghost-filled streets.

IN THE QUIRE

Dad didn’t get up in time for breakfast at the Wayfarer, which consisted of eggs, toast, and sliced tomatoes. He must have consumed half the bottle of Napoleon brandy before going to sleep, because the other half remained on the fireplace mantel in our room. During breakfast, I asked the manager about sending e-mail, and he directed me to an Internet café at the end of our street. I walked down there, paid a fee, and sent this message to Margaret:

I went back to the room, keeping as quiet as I could. I screwed up my courage and plugged the radio into the adapter. The Philco 20 Deluxe worked fine, delivering a few seconds of sports talk very clearly. I turned it off right away to avoid tuning to a space between stations. Then I put the radio and the adapter back into the box, minus the packing foam. It would be easy enough to carry for a short distance if and when I had the chance to use it.

I didn’t have a clear plan for the day, but I knew that whatever I did would require Dad’s help. I waited until he finally got himself together, at about eleven. The manager was kind enough to bring out some coffee and toast for him. Then Dad dutifully followed me through the winding streets to the entrance area of the York Minster.

We found a bench in the triangular park and sat for a long time. I looked down toward Stonegate, waiting to spot James Harker. Dad, I could tell, had his eye on a pub across the street called the Three-Legged Mare.

When I finally caught sight of James Harker’s wiry figure approaching, I whispered urgently, “There he is.”

Dad placed a firm hand on my elbow and stood up. “Let me handle this.” He walked straight toward James Harker and called out, “Mr. Harker! I am truly sorry about yesterday.” Mr. Harker detoured enough to walk around him, but Dad turned in pursuit. “Those kids can do amazing things on the Internet now. It seems like hocus-pocus stuff to us, but it’s really not.”

He reached out and touched the old man on the shoulder.

I froze, wondering whether Mr. Harker would turn to listen to him or to punch him in the nose. Fortunately, he listened. “For example, if you type in a boy’s name and a school and a year, you can pull up his teacher’s name. Even from sixty years ago. Or if you type in the name of a team and the year, you can find out about every match that team ever played. And what happened in that match.”

The old man heard him out. But then he turned back, without reply, and started to walk away. Dad called after him, “Are you working today, James?”

Mr. Harker stopped again. I hadn’t known he was aware of me until he pointed in my direction. “Why don’t you bloody ask him? He knows everything about me.”

“Because, if you’re not working,” Dad continued, “I would like to buy you a drink.”

James’s answer to that question was a barely perceptible shrug. However, he did walk ahead of us, straight into the Three-Legged Mare, so Dad and I followed.

James Harker slapped his hand loudly on the bar. He pointed at the bartender and explained to us, “Jocko here won’t let me in unless I show him my money.” He turned and looked at me. “Ain’t that a shame, considering I’m a national hero and all, and being written up in a fine encyclopedia.” He told the bartender, “Give me a bitters,” and asked Dad, “Do you fancy a bitters, Jack?”

Dad answered, “Sure.”

“Make it two, then. And a Squirt for the boy.”

As Dad put his money on the bar, James commented, “Jocko here can tell you, I spent some of
my
finest hours right here in this pub.”

The bartender set down a green bottle with
LEMON SQUIRT
on the label and two brown bottles with
YORK BITTERS
on theirs. James collected them all and led us to an oblong table set on top of two barrels.

As soon as we sat down, Mr. Harker asked Dad, “So, Jack Conway, tell us: Did your father serve in the great World War Two?”

“He did, sir. He served in the Pacific, with the Marines.”

“Ah. Nasty business, that. Guadalcanal. Iwo Jima. Fierce fighting.”

“Yes, indeed.”

“Did he ever talk about it?”

“No. Never.”

“Can’t say I blame him.” James hoisted his bottle. “Here’s to the Marines, then.” He drank half of the bitters down in one gulp. Dad took a swallow of his, but he did not seem to like it.

I took a swig of my Lemon Squirt, a syrupy, tart soda. I grimaced, then said, “Can I ask some questions, Mr. Harker?”

He growled, “If you must.”

I pulled out my Sony voice recorder and my sheaf of papers. James Harker suddenly slapped his hand on the table and pointed at the Sony recorder. “Don’t that beat all! Your grandfather, your dad’s dad, fought in the Pacific war, and you’re standing there with a bloody Jap radio?”

“It’s a voice recorder.”

“Do you know what they did to your Marines? They chopped their heads off.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. I looked at Dad. He gestured that I should turn the recorder off, which I did.

“That’s right. No prisoner-of-war camps for the Japs. No Geneva Conventions. No. They chopped their heads off. And here you are, buying their bloody products. Isn’t that the bloody end?”

I spoke up for myself. “That was a long time ago, Mr. Harker. Two generations ago. You can’t blame the grandchildren for what hap—”

“I can and I do! It was yesterday for me, my boy. I blame them all. The Germans. The Japs. I’ll hate them till I’m dead. And you should, too, if you have any sense. If they’d do that to your grandfather, what would stop them from doing it to your father? Or to you?”

James pointed at the recorder. “Turn that thing back on. Tell your encyclopedia that World War Two was hell. Tell them that war isn’t anybody’s ‘finest hour.’ It’s not an hour at all. It’s weeks and months and years of a living hell. It’s having breakfast with lads in the morning, and talking and smiling with them, then seeing them two hours later, char-broiled and dead, like Egyptian mummies. Burned alive. Looking like they’re still smiling, ’cause there’s no flesh left to cover their teeth. That’s war. It’s a bloody, horrible, endless thing. And the poor people of the world fight it, make no mistake about that. The rich people come on the radio and make the speeches.”

I let him calm down a little; then I said, “But sometimes you have to defend your country. Right?”

“Oh, that’s right enough. Except, as it turned out, not too much of this country belongs to me. Just a little flat, without smoking privileges.” He paused. “By the way, do you mind?” Without waiting for an answer, he reached into his pocket, pulled out a cigarette, and lit it.

No one said anything else for a few minutes. Mr. Harker got another bottle of bitters; Dad didn’t seem to be drinking his. I knew what I wanted to ask next, but I was afraid to. I opened my Millennium Encyclopedia letter and held it so that he could see the raised seal. Eventually he growled, “Ah, go on. Your dad’s paying. Ask away.”

“Mr. Harker, did your family stay in London during the war? Or did they evacuate?”

“A bit of both,” he answered. “I sent Peg down to Dorset with Jimmy early on. She didn’t want to go, but she knew it was best for him. She wasn’t feeling well when she left; had a bad cold. I made her promise to have it looked after down there. Turns out she and Jimmy got put with a farm family. They was in an upstairs bedroom with no heat; cold water only. Peg’s cough got aggravated. She didn’t want to be trouble, so she kept her mouth shut. Finally she asked the family to fetch a doctor. Doctor put her right in hospital, but it was too late. She’d had pneumonia for a week. The medicines they gave her did no good.”

He flicked ashes from his cigarette onto the floor. “Stupid bloody farmers. Didn’t have proper medical care, if you ask me. Peg died the second day in hospital. I went down and got her and brought her back, with Jimmy. It’s ironic, eh? Peg leaves London to be safe, and she dies.”

After a somber moment, I went on, “And if I may ask, sir, how did Jimmy die?”

“Jimmy?” He said the name awkwardly. I wondered how long it had been since he had talked about him. “A bomb. An accident. A case of builder’s negligence. All of the above.” He took another deep swig of York Bitters and then continued. “We had a bloody air-raid warden on our block who fancied himself a builder. Couldn’t build a doghouse. He tried it once; built it too big to get it out of the bloody basement. And they let him build bomb shelters! He built one on our street. It caught a bomb, and it caved in. It caved in and crushed my Jimmy.”

I couldn’t look at him after that. I turned to my list again. “Then . . . what did you do after the war? Did you continue on in the Fire Service?”

“No. They disbanded the Auxiliaries. Didn’t need us no more, us being auxiliary and all. I had no job. And let me tell you, there was no jobs to be had.”

“You left London?”

“Aye. I took the train up to York. I drank up what money I had left. Then I wandered into the cathedral and sat there.”

“In the Quire?”

“That’s right.”

“Why there?”

“It felt right. It felt like the right place to do my penance.”

“Your penance for what?”

“That’d be my business, lad.”

“Do you feel like you did something terrible?”

“More mind-reading, my boy?”

“No, sir. I just want to know—”

James swilled down the last of his drink. He hopped to his feet and held up one hand to me, like a traffic cop. “That’s it. The interview’s over. I ain’t telling you nothing else.” Before we could even react, he walked quickly to the door and left.

Dad said, “You’d better let him be, Martin.”

“No. I know exactly where he’s going. I need to go there, too.

“Do you want me to come with you?”

I looked at the brown bottles on the table. “No. You stay here.”

“You tell me if I can do anything.”

“All right. I might need you to do something. I just might.”

As soon as I emerged from the smoky pub, I looked toward the Minster. I saw James Harker disappear through the cathedral door, and I ran right after him.

I entered, placed a donation on the desk, and walked through the nave. Moving slowly and quietly, I settled into a seat behind him in the Quire. No one else was around. I spent a few moments looking at the dark, finely carved wood, studying the figures of human beings, and heavenly beings, and hellish beings.

To my surprise, James Harker spoke aloud. “Do you know anything about angels, then?”

“Uh, no, sir. I don’t really know anything about them.”

“They’re all called angels, aren’t they? But really, there’s nine orders of celestial beings, and only the lowest order should properly be called angels.”

“I see. What should the highest order be called?”

“Seraphim. The next step above the seraphim is God. So they tell me. They tell me that God’s up there.”

“I believe that.”

“You do? Why? Because your mum and dad told you to?”

“At first, yes. But lately I’ve been having my own experiences. Weird experiences. Unexplainable. Unless, of course, they come from God.”

“Is that right? Well, I have had no such experiences. I have sat here every day for sixty years and talked to God, but I haven’t heard back from him yet.”

“What do you talk about?”

“I ask forgiveness for my sins.”

I waited a long moment before asking, “For one sin in particular?”

I expected another angry explosion, but he answered calmly. “That is correct. But God has not deigned to reply to my request. Perhaps he’s too busy to bother with a janitor.”

I walked around the wooden bench and sat next to him. He half turned toward me. It seemed like the right time to get to the point. “Mr. Harker, what do you think happens when you die?”

His blue eyes registered surprise. He answered, “I expect you’re dead. And that’s that.”

“But you’re not sure?”

“I’m not sure,” he admitted. “Who knows for sure? Look at Hitler. He killed tens of millions of people; destroyed the lives of millions of others. Then he shot himself, and he was dead. But he was no deader than anybody else, was he? They were all
equally
dead. Does that mean he bloody got away with it?”

“No. I don’t think so. I think he had to answer the question. And I think the answer, for him, was a damning one.”

“What are you on about?”

“The question is
What did you do to help?
And he didn’t do anything to help. He had to answer for all he had done to hurt people. If there’s a hell, he is in it.”

James turned so that he was looking right at me. “Who are you?”

“I am an American boy who, somehow, met your son Jimmy.”

“No. You did not.”

“Yes, sir, I did.”

He hissed, “You’re bloody ten years old!”

“I’m thirteen.” His eyes bored into mine. “I met him . . . back in time. In 1940. I traveled there.”

“You’re off your head. Leave me be now.”

“I will. I’ll leave you in peace. But I have to tell you some things first. Some things from Jimmy.”

“Jimmy? What are you talking about? My Jimmy?”

“Yes, sir. Jimmy wants me to tell you—”

“Stop using his name!”

“He wants me to tell you that he’s sorry.”

“Sorry?” he whispered.

“Yes.”

“For what?”

“For going outside that night, that December night, against your orders. For making a bad decision. For ruining his life, and yours.”

James seemed to look within himself. Then he concluded, “You’re preying on the old. That’s it. Because the old want to believe there’s something, don’t they? Because they’re knocking on death’s door.”

We sat in silence for a few moments. Then I made one last try. “Mr. Harker, put aside everything I’ve said to this point, and just listen to this. This is why I’m here, to tell you this. Are you listening?”

He slowly turned toward me.

“You think you killed a man. A man named Harold Canby. An air-raid warden. You think you killed him on the night of twenty-nine December, 1940, the night of a massive German air aid, the night your son died in the surface shelter.”