‘What is it?’ asked Stratton.
‘Arabic.’ Reg gestured at the hilt with his free hand. ‘Look at that workmanship. They used to ride into battle on camels with these.’ He lunged forward with a warlike yell - Reg of the Desert - and narrowly missed the top of Stratton’s ear.
‘For God’s sake, put it down. I don’t want blood poisoning.’
Jenny clattered down the stairs looking flushed and patting her hair. Stratton noticed that her legs were bare, and wondered if Reg would pick up on it and put two and two together. He decided it was unlikely - Reg wasn’t very observant at the best of times, and even if he did cotton to Jenny’s dishevelled appearance, he probably wouldn’t attribute it to what he leeringly referred to as (Stratton winced inwardly) ‘conjugal doings’.
‘What’s happening?’ asked Jenny.
‘Reg has found an Arab sword,’ said Stratton. ‘Now all he needs is a camel to go with it.’
‘What have you brought it round here for?’ Jenny asked. ‘It’s filthy.’
Reg gave her a patronising smile. ‘Never mind the whys and wherefores, my dear. Someone,’ - he glanced meaningfully at Stratton - ‘has got to protect all you ladies from the Boche, even if it’s only old Reg here. Experience counts for something, you know.’ For the last nine months he had reminded them constantly of his service in the Great War, although, given the absence of medals or, indeed, corroborative evidence of any sort, Stratton very much doubted that his military career was as glorious as he made out.
Now he said, soothingly, ‘I’m sure experience counts for a lot, Reg, but perhaps you should clean the sword up a bit before you go on parade with it. Where did you get it from, anyway?’
‘Donald. Just been round to collect it. Belonged to one of his uncles, apparently - been stuck in the attic for years. He mentioned it when I asked him if he’d got anything we could use for the Defence Volunteers. Can’t understand why he didn’t tell me before. But that’s why I’m here - you haven’t got anything, I suppose? ’
Stratton shook his head. Heaven help us, he thought, if the country’s last line of defence is Reg with a camel sword. He’d heard one or two people - including Reg himself - say, ‘If I go, I’ll take one of them with me,’ but he didn’t know if it was truth or fashionable bravado. He also didn’t know, he realised, what - if it came to it - he himself would do.
‘Well, never mind. If you do think of anything,’ Reg added, officiously, ‘you’d better let me have it. We don’t want valuable weapons getting into the wrong hands.’
As he turned to go, Jenny said, ‘How’s Johnny?’ Stratton wondered why she’d asked. Reg’s sullen nineteen-year-old son, recently turned down for the services because of flat feet, was not a comfortable subject at the moment. Even Lilian, who doted on the boy and could usually be relied upon to bring him into every conversation, hadn’t mentioned him once over their midday meal.
‘Fine! Couldn’t be better.’
The heartiness wasn’t convincing. ‘Has he left his job at the garage?’ Jenny asked.
Reg raised his eyebrows. ‘Why should he want to do that? He’s doing very well there. They think a lot of him, you know.’
‘No, it was just . . .’ Jenny shrugged. ‘I saw him on Friday, out with a group of young lads. Hanging about. It was in the afternoon, and I just thought . . . Well, I was surprised he wasn’t at work, that’s all.’
‘Probably out running an errand and saw some of his pals. They’re like that at that age. High-spirited. Mark my words, your Pete’ll be just the same.’
Listening to this, Stratton wondered if Reg, unable to cast Johnny as his brave soldier son, one of ‘our boys’ and all that went with it, had re-invented him as A Bit Of A Scamp. He felt a sudden prick of anxiety: if Johnny had got into bad company (and he was certainly capable of it) and his bloody idiot of a father couldn’t, or wouldn’t, admit that it was anything more than youthful high-jinks, the boy might easily go right off the rails and end up in prison. ‘Do you want me to have a word with him?’ he asked.
‘Good Lord, no! Let the boy have his fun. God knows, we all need a bit of that, don’t we? Especially in these troubled times.’ He walloped Stratton between the shoulder blades in a manner that was hard enough to qualify as painful, rather than jovial, and continued, ‘Too strait-laced, old boy, that’s your problem. Never off duty. He’ll mind his p’s and q’s all right, never you fear. Now, I must go forth. Duty calls, and all that. A fine repast, my dear, if I may say so,’ - Jenny winced as he patted her cheek - ‘a veritable feast.’
He opened the front door, executed a couple of deep knee bends on the porch, and marched off down the garden path with the sword clasped to his shoulder. As they stood watching him go, Stratton thought, I should have realised there was no point offering to talk to Johnny. Even if Reg was worried about his son - and surely, for all his faults, the man had to have some feelings - Stratton was still a comedic policeman to him, not a real one. He’d often imagined Reg in the beery bonhomie of some saloon bar with his fellow commercial travellers, joking about having a copper in the family - ‘Have to watch your step with old Ted around, aye, aye!’ All policemen were plodding, helmeted buffoons, just as all Scotsmen were mean and all landladies, termagants: life as a seaside postcard.
‘You know,’ said Jenny, shutting the door, ‘I feel sorry for him.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he doesn’t realise, does he? Do you know,’ she continued, ‘when Monica was six, she asked me, “Why does Uncle Reg keep telling jokes when nobody ever laughs?” I didn’t know what to tell her. I could hardly say it’s because he’s so conceited he thinks we’ve all missed the point.’
Stratton glanced at his wife to make sure that mentioning Monica wasn’t going to bring on more tears, but she seemed all right. Nevertheless, he decided it would be best to change the subject. ‘Do you think Johnny’s in some sort of trouble?’
‘I’m not sure. It just seemed a bit odd. I mean, he should have been at work and he was just lounging about. I recognised one of the boys, the Dawsons’ son. You know, the one who’s been in trouble.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Well,’ Jenny busied herself with the kettle, ‘when you came in from work yesterday, you went straight out to the allotment, so I haven’t really had a chance.’
‘You could have told me on Friday.’
‘Yes, but . . . Well, you seemed a bit preoccupied.’
Mabel Morgan and those bloody teeth, thought Stratton. ‘I was,’ he admitted. ‘Something at work. Do you think Reg’ll talk to him?’
‘No. And if he did, Johnny wouldn’t listen. He despises Reg and now Reg has got something over him because he fought and Johnny can’t. Honestly, Ted, I don’t see it getting any better.’
Christ, thought Stratton, I hope me and Pete aren’t going to be like that. ‘Did you mention it to Lilian?’ he asked.
‘No point.’ Jenny shrugged. ‘You know what she’s like, thinks he makes the sun shine.’
Stratton sighed. Jenny was right. Lilian had been finding excuses for Johnny ever since he could walk. ‘There’s something not right,’ Jenny said, spooning tea into the pot. ‘I know it.’ Stratton wanted to say something reassuring, not just about Johnny, but the invasion, the children - all of it - but he couldn’t think of anything. He suddenly felt the need to be by himself for a while, to potter, and perhaps turn things over a bit in his mind. When Jenny handed him his tea, he said, ‘I think I’ll take this out to the shed, love. God knows it needs tidying up, and I’ve been too busy down at the allotment.’
‘You do that. I think I might put my feet up for ten minutes. Have a read of the paper.’ Stratton knew this was Jenny’s way of telling him that everything - for the time being - was all right. He wanted to kiss her, but, feeling that would be making too much of it, he contented himself with turning in the doorway to say, ‘What about Reg with that old sword, eh?’ and receiving a smile in return.
FIVE
Diana Calthrop emerged from the tube at South Kensington and stood on the pavement looking around her. She glanced at her watch - three minutes to four - then checked her appearance in a shop window. A tall, elegant blonde stared back with a slightly haughty expression; clearly, she did not look as tense as she felt. She tried to breathe slowly and deeply as, keeping her back to the street, she removed the glove from her left hand, slipped off her wedding ring, and dropped it into her handbag. ‘It’s just over there.’ Diana jumped. Her colleague Lally Markham, equally tall and equally blonde, was standing behind her. She glanced in the direction Lally had indicated, and saw an innocuous-looking tea room.
‘You’re clear about what to do?’
Diana nodded.
‘Ready?’
‘As I’ll ever be.’
‘Remember, talk about normal things - the blackout, the weather - and if you can mention that you work at the War Office, so much the better. The thing is to get her to trust you.’
‘I’ll do my best.’
‘Off we go, then.’
As they crossed the road, Diana prepared herself by making a mental inventory of what she knew about the Right Club: organisation of right-wing anti-Semites against the war, founded by Peverell Montague, Unionist MP since 1931, friends with Lord Redesdale, the Duke of Wellington, Lord Londonderry and Sir Barry Domvile, all members of the pro-Nazi Anglo-German Fellowship. Nothing much to connect him with Mosley - at least, not recently - but he was acquainted with William Joyce. Has accused the press of being Jew-ridden and distributed pamphlets with anti-Semitic verses, but since the arrest of Mosley the organisation has been under the control of Montague’s wife . . .
The bell clanged as they entered the tea room. Diana was surprised by the interior; she’d expected something grander, or at least something less ordinary. The place was clean, but not in any way showy: polished wooden furniture, white napery, bowls of paper flowers, landscape prints on the walls, and a few people sitting, either singly or in pairs, at the tables. Diana and Lally arranged themselves at a table halfway down the room and ordered tea from the waitress.
After ten minutes sipping, smoking and chatting, the bell clanged again. Lally, who was facing the door, murmured, ‘She’s here.’ Diana started involuntarily, and Lally said, ‘It’ll be fine. Don’t be nervous. Just be yourself.’ Her voice and expression - kind and slightly anxious - reminded Diana so much of her mother’s just before Diana’s coming-out ball that, for a moment, she wanted to laugh. She heard footsteps behind her and watched as Lally’s face became animated, her eyebrows arching in an expression of delighted surprise. ‘Mrs Montague!’
The real Mrs Montague looked somewhat heavier than her photographs had suggested, but her dark, liquid eyes and wide smile were turned on Lally just as brightly as they had been on the camera lens. Her light-grey suit, worn over a discreetly patterned blouse, was modishly severe, and a smart little hat completed the costume. She could be my mother-in-law, or anyone I know, thought Diana, then wondered why she should be surprised by this.
‘Do come and sit down!’ cried Lally. ‘That is,’ she added, ‘if you’re not meeting anyone.’
‘Thank you.’ While Mrs Montague took off her gloves and drew up a chair beside Diana’s, Lally continued to gush. Diana, watching her, was amused in spite of herself.
‘It’s marvellous you’re here,’ said Lally, ‘I’ve so wanted you to meet my dear friend Diana Calthrop. We’ve known each other for years, haven’t we, darling?’
Diana smiled. ‘Oh yes. A very long time. How do you do?’ She held out her hand.
The shake was perfunctory - a touch of the fingers - but the eyes still looked warm. Lally offered cigarettes, ordered more tea, and exclaimed several times about the serendipity of the meeting before saying, ‘Diana and I were just saying how we miss our dogs, now that we’re both in London so much.’
‘Yes,’ said Mrs Montague, ‘It’s dreadful, but what can one do? I must stay, for Peverell’s sake - that’s my husband, Miss Calthrop - and my little Dash would simply hate it here.’
Diana almost corrected the ‘Miss’ but remembered just in time that she was not, so far as the Right Club was concerned, supposed to be married. Instead she said, ‘Dash? What a nice, old-fashioned name. Queen Victoria’s dog was called Dash, wasn’t it?’
‘Was it?’
‘I read it somewhere. A spaniel, I think.’
‘Such nice little dogs . . . Are you interested in history, Miss Calthrop?’
‘Oh, yes! I don’t know much, of course, but I enjoy reading about it.’
‘Diana’s terribly clever,’ said Lally. ‘We used to have our lessons together and I was always stupid, but she was frightfully good at remembering things.’
‘Only if I was interested in them,’ said Diana hastily. ‘I was always abysmal with figures. Not that it matters in my work, of course, but—’
‘She’s being modest, Mrs Montague,’ said Lally. ‘She’s in the War Office.’
‘That must be interesting.’
‘Not really.’ Diana grimaced. ‘I’m in the filing department. Surrounded by pieces of paper.’
After a moment’s pause, the conversation turned to the latest shortages in the shops, and a quarter of an hour’s inconsequential chat followed before Diana glanced at her watch and said she didn’t realise it was so late and she must leave at once, but she hoped that they’d meet again. Mrs Montague replied, blandly, that she hoped so, too, and five minutes later Diana found herself in the street, where she hailed a taxi.