The Broken Chariot (14 page)

But should he go? Hard to say. In Nottingham he could have talked the matter over with Isaac, though in the end the decision would be his and nobody else's. It wasn't worthy of a grown-up to be uncertain when a brigadier wants to see you. There was nothing to do but, as with headmaster or foreman, do it with neither thought nor malice.

London was familiar, and he walked as if the streets belonged to him. You could still tell the place had been bombed, odd corners roped off, brambles proliferating behind wire fencing. Gower Street was shabby, but he supposed it always had been. Smells of petrol, coal smoke and plaster dust enriched the air. At eighteen he felt superior to everyone, a soldier with creases as sharp as his reactions in dealing with traffic when crossing the road, disdaining green lights and Belisha beacons. Boots were blackened to the utmost shine, gaiters blancoed, and a belt buckle that winked at whatever young secretary, darting from a door on the way to get her sandwich for lunch, might glance back at him.

The Underground train rattled along to Notting Hill Gate. He stood without strap-hanging, well enough balanced and controlled to stay upright at the stops and starts. Most of the people looked worn out, so closed in on themselves he wondered if they weren't, in the words of Mrs Denman, sickening for something.

He found the place easily on his map, a small but three-storied cottage kind of house in a street south of the main road. Within the railings two wooden tubs stood by the door, each holding an evergreen. Herbert adjusted his cap – though there was no need – to conceal his hesitation, not willing to put a hand on the knocker. He saw himself walk smartly away, a jolt to the heart at such a move, for he would never afterwards make contact. But they'd know where to find him, so escape was impossible. It would be easier and more sensible to meet them.

He detected regret in the man who opened the door, at not having a skivvy to do the job. Times had changed. There were no servants now, at least not in this country, unless you were a millionaire or in the Labour Government, his father's expression seemed to say. Herbert was led into a parlour whose bay window fronted the street. ‘Maybe we'll have someone to look after us when we get back to the old place in Norfolk.'

‘When will that be?'

‘I'll be out next year. And then we'll see. Meanwhile this doll's house costs ten pounds a week. Sit down, my boy, and let's have a look at you. I hope you don't mind sandwiches for lunch?'

Herbert's head was level with that of this erect oldish bloke of nearly sixty who claimed to be his father, bald but for a few grey strands, a returning trace of rubicund in his face after the sea voyage. He removed his beret and stared into his father's grey eyes. ‘Not at all, sir.'

Hugh smiled. Mufti or not, you could tell he was a soldier, straight and slender, head seemed more inclined to the ceiling than to anybody else's level. He held Herbert's right hand with both of his, instead of returning the handshake that was offered. ‘Do you know, my boy, we were never worried when you bolted.' He spoke as if the escape was yesterday, though maybe it was to him. ‘We were surprised at first, a little annoyed, I won't say we weren't, but that was about all. I always dreamed of doing it from my school, but never had the initiative to carry it out. It was good of you to let us know so soon, though. The first thing I did was write to your school and tell 'em they weren't to go after you. Don't suppose they liked it, but they must have known better than to argue.'

Herbert smiled, at what must have been the longest ever speech from his father. All his fears about being caught had been for nothing. Bugger it! – almost came to his lips, though he considered his chagrin unjustified because, on looking back, it seemed he had rather enjoyed being a fugitive. ‘It was good of you to take it like that.'

They sat as if both were too big for the armless chintz-covered chairs. ‘Well, I didn't think it would do you any harm, especially when you wrote and said you were working in a factory. Everything helps to make a man of a boy as long as he puts his back into it.'

Herbert struggled for a moment to keep his accent from straying. ‘I liked the life.'

‘I'm sure you did. A lot of my chaps came from such places in the Great War, as well as in this one. We had a few bad eggs, but most of them did well. And when they did well, there were none better.'

Expecting a shouting at, he felt at a loss, glad when the half-shut door was kicked open and the woman he supposed would turn out to be his mother came in with a tray of cups and saucers. Thick grey hair was tied back, showing her strong profile, and a string of brown beads fell over the white blouse covering a sloping bosom.

She must have known he had been in the house five minutes already, so had been waiting to compose herself for the moment of reunion or, more like it, hadn't thought it necessary to break off what she was doing; the latter more likely, because pride grew out of her bone marrow.

‘I even have to learn how to make coffee – though I always could, you know.' She set the tray on a shining walnut wood table between them. The crockery rattled, a sign of nervousness at the longed for meeting, he could only suppose. ‘How are you, Herbert? It's been so long, such a dreadful time, not being able to see you. You were quite a small boy …'

‘Hadn't started to grow,' Hugh laughed.

He had already stood up, as you did when someone came into the room. She grasped his forearms, and he was embarrassed at the fervent kiss, at her eyes glistening with love and recognition, a definite tear in one of them. He hoped she didn't notice the drawing back in his heart and hands. Could he believe she had dreamed of this reunion for years?

‘I can see you're well,' she said, 'and I can't tell you how glad I am that you are. Apart from the height you've not changed a bit. You're the replica of your father when he was your age. Isn't he, Hugh? Just look at him.'

‘Is he?' He smoothed his moustache, the first real pleasure he had shown.

She touched his arm. ‘How much sugar, Herbert?'

‘Two, please.'

They sat without talking for a while, so much to tell that nothing would come out. Maud knew it wasn't done not to say a word or two. ‘You look a very smart soldier, but I do wish you'd go in for a commission, Herbert. It would be natural for you. You're our only child, and we want you to do well.'

‘We'll have lunch, and talk about that afterwards.' Hugh dangled his watch, spun the chain around a long finger, then threaded it into his waistcoat. ‘I suppose we can fix him up with a show this evening? That's what I always liked to do in London.'

Maud picked up the
Daily Telegraph
. ‘There's
The Gang Show
at the Stoll. Not very much really. What about
Song of Norway
?'

‘Bit musicky, isn't it?' Hugh said.

‘Well, there's
Caesar and Cleopatra
at the pictures. Shakespeare, Herbert?'

‘Expect you got that rammed down your throat at school, didn't you?' Hugh winked.

He smiled. If they sat in the cinema it would be two hours when he wouldn't need to talk. ‘Well, yes, but all the same I'd like to see it.' He turned to his mother. ‘That'd be fine.'

‘All right,' Hugh said. ‘Might be just the thing.' He stroked Maud's wrist, and Herbert noticed his loving smile. ‘Vivien Leigh's damned good to look at.'

‘That's settled, then.'

Herbert knew he couldn't berate them any more for shovelling him into those dreadful schools, but neither did he feel any flush of returning affection. He'd have to go back too far for that, to his infancy in India when they mooned over him with so much pleasure and, he now realized, spoiled him rotten. His heart was like a stone, as if he'd just come back from its funeral. ‘I don't intend to sign on in the army,' he told them at lunch. ‘All I want is the experience for two or three years. After that, I'll decide what to do.'

Hugh's fingers drummed some garbled message on to the table, while Maud worked at her beads, looking to the window as if a solution to the situation might show itself in the glass. ‘I suppose we can at least be pleased at the way you seem to chew things over before you speak,' Hugh said.

She stacked the plates to clear the table. ‘Well, that's just like you, isn't it, dear?'

His father could be as sarcastic as he liked. Nothing would alter his mind. Not that he knew what his mind was. He didn't much care, being on Fate's conveyor belt, and he could do nothing about that even if he wanted to. Neither, therefore, could they, which suited him fine. You could hardly expect such old parents to understand. At the same time he was beginning to feel so much part of them that there was nothing more to be said or done, except do exactly as he bloody well liked. Time in the factory had strengthened his will against intimidation. If they thought to change his mind later about their ideas for his future they would be thwarted because a troopship would soon be taking him to he didn't know where, a place he hoped would be as far from them as he could possibly get, Japan for preference.

Eight

He walked across the deck for a change in the view, bracing a leg at each step, to find that the opposite horizon had the same aspect of violence and colour, coming equally close at the tilt of the ship, but he felt the world to be his, and that he was part of it, feet solid on the wood, in harmony with the world on water, body invulnerable. He had never felt better, or more himself or, more to the point, that he had no interest in who he was, merely that he was separated as far as could be from his past yet was part of a moving organization in which he had for the time being found refuge.

A light from France flickered white as the troopship made a long turn towards Biscay. ‘We're on our way,' Pemberton said.

‘I'm glad. You?'

In the last months Pemberton had lost the oversensitive uncertainty of his mouth. The light had gone out of his eyes, the quick movement that remained due more to self-preservation among the mob than from any kind of fear. ‘All right. Neither good nor bad, philosophically speaking. Things just are.'

Herbert smiled, and asked if he wasn't leaving a nice girl behind.

‘You don't meet girls when you're swatting for Higher School Cert. The girls in the office were difficult to approach, though there's one I write to. We're just friends.'

‘You mean you've never had one?'

‘Had one?'

‘Well, I think if the fucking boat turned a somersault, and a fish floated up with your number on it – would you be very happy knowing you'd never shagged a girl?' Pemberton looked blank: what you hadn't had you can hardly regret. ‘Though I suppose', Herbert went on, a stiffened arm stopping him getting cracked ribs at the rail, while Pemberton weathered it with some fancy twitching of the feet, ‘that if you have had it you regret dying even more in knowing you'll never have it again.'

‘I imagine that's the case,' Pemberton said. ‘But I'm going down to find my hammock, before I start to feel queasy.'

Herbert was also sad to be leaving, so could relish the best of both states. He took Eileen's letter from his battledress pocket for another musing read. Now that she hated him, and wished he would – as if such a journey would somehow scare him – ‘go to bleeding hell', he imagined himself still half in love, though no more so in yearning for her warm body and cow-like generous trust to be with him now. Maybe he would get a reply off at Gibraltar, asking her to think again, wait for him, even to forgive, though he didn't know what for.

A shudder of regret was meaningless to the waves, which was no bad thing. He was on his own at last. The opposite rail started its exorable lift, beams and girders taking the strain. Rain hit the portholes like gravel, peppering the superstructure. He put the letter into his notebook and, before it could get wet, slotted it back into his pocket; then zigzagged into the dimly lit other ranks' saloon.

Bumping between the crowd showed no place to sit. For a while he stood with his legs apart to counteract the swaying. Fag smoke and diesel smells weeded out all but the strongest stomachs. Barraclough put down his unfinished half-pint and, with muslin features, pushed by on his way to be sick.

When the sun shone from a clear sky off the coast of Spain he sat among hundreds on the open deck to relish the cruise. Passing Cape Trafalgar, a sandy-looking bluff in the distance, he opened his notebook to write up the log of his travels. A copy of the farewell missive from Eileen rested there, as well as his reply. He pulled both out and tore them into the smallest pieces possible, and watched them blow away from the stern like snow, a confetti that disappointed the gulls. She had callously reminded him of what he didn't need to know, that there were a lot more pebbles on the beach. Being compared to a pebble irritated him beyond endurance, especially since he was one of a thousand on this three-funnelled troopship heading for some outpost of the Empire.

The Med was stormier than Biscay, and his stomach wasn't too steady, so he was glad to clatter down the companionway to the bottom of the ship for bulkhead duty, a paperback snatched from the library in his back pocket. So far below, he was clear of the sea-howl, stew-reek and diesel stench that thickened in the air of upper decks.

The steel doors either side were to be rammed shut if a mournful death-in-the-heart signal indicated that the sea had broken in. Very comforting, he thought, but practical. The bottom length of the ship was divided into compartments, each to be made separate and watertight so that if rock was struck or a stray mine left from the war brought in the floor the vessel would stay afloat. Crippled but viable, it might even make a few knots, which kind of mechanics made firm sense. The sergeant of the watch came striding in. ‘Not supposed to have your nose in a book when on guard, are we?'