The Piper's Tune (47 page)

‘He promised he'd look after us.'

‘He will. He will,' Gowry said. ‘But he won't be blackmailed into marrying her, if that's what's on your mind. Take it from me: I know my brother, he's capable of anything when he's crossed.'

‘I was under the impression he cared for her.'

‘I think he does, or at least he did,' Gowry said. ‘It could have gone happily on for years and years if only she'd had the savvy to let well alone. She tried to trap him, Bertie. She tried to trap him with the oldest trick in the book and I'm not entirely sure that you didn't put her up to it.'

‘Now, now, now, no need for that.'

‘All right. I'll give you the benefit. None the less,' Gowry said, ‘I'd advise you not to tamper with the Franklins.'

‘Your brother ain't a Franklin, nor is Tom Calder.'

‘Not to tamper with that family in any shape or form,' Gowry said. ‘My brother will do what's right by her.'

‘Like marry her?'

‘Rot! That's rot – and you know it. Sylvie might have feathers for brains, Bertie, but you certainly haven't. Marriage was never on.
Never.
He'll see her right as far as money goes, but don't expect any more from Forbes than he's prepared to give. And don't – you hear me? –
don't
drag Calder or anyone else from the family into this mess.'

‘I thought you liked my plan.'

‘Maybe I do, maybe I don't,' Gowry said. ‘But I've been around long enough to realise that the best-laid schemes have a way of going wrong, especially if you're dealing with my brother.'

‘Is that a threat?'

‘No, it's a warning, Bertie. And you would do well to heed it.'

Albert grunted and, getting to his feet, stepped away from the arm of the lock-gate. He had no qualms about Gowry McCulloch. But behind Gowry stood the Dubliner, the smooth-tongued snake who – as he, Albert, saw it – had corrupted them all. He hated those smart young men who claimed the world for themselves. He hated them with a smouldering hatred fired more by jealousy than justice, a weak-kneed, impotent sort of hatred that crushed him and kept him in his place.

‘Sixty shillings a week,' Gowry said.

‘Rent paid?'

‘Rent paid,' Gowry said. ‘And get her to a doctor or, if she really won't wear that, fetch in a midwife to give her the onceover. If there's one thing I don't want, it's for Sylvie to lose this child.'

Surprised, Albert said, ‘The child? What do you care about the child?'

Gowry grinned. ‘Spare a minute to think about it, Bertie.'

After a pause, Albert said, ‘Don't tell me you're setting up the kiddie as protection against your brother?'

‘Got it in one, Bert,' Gowry said, and, still grinning, went off towards the bottom end of Wordsworth Street where he had parked the motor-car.

*   *   *

Lindsay's tour of the submarine both excited and depressed her. A team from Vickers-Martin were fitting a wicked-looking machine-gun on the bow quarter, for on submarines, so Geoffrey informed her, the weapons, along with everything else, were installed before launching. The Vickers' crew was being assisted by several of Franklin's metal workers supervised by George Crush. Geoffrey had instructed her to wear a tight-fitting skirt, shoes with low heels and to put her hair up into a knot and cover it with a scarf and as she was helped up the scaffolding and led to the conning tower Lindsay was conscious of the men's eyes upon her. She did not know what awaited her within the fish-shaped hull or if she would be alone down there with Geoffrey and, if so, what speculations that would give rise to and what sort of twisted story might wend back to Forbes before the day was done.

She should have known better. The claustrophobic chambers at the foot of the iron ladder were crowded. There were men everywhere: men kneeling, men lying on their backs, men in overalls, men stripped almost naked. In the operating-room steering cables were being adjusted and it was all Geoffrey could do to find sufficient room to point out the gauges and explain their functions. The engines too were all in place and Lindsay inhaled the odours of oil and sweat mingled with a throat-catching whiff of chlorine from the accumulators. A submarine was no place for a woman, she realised. The word that sprang into her mind was ‘foetal' as she inched after Geoffrey along the plating to inspect the tiny saloon where the sailors would sleep during off-watches. Franklin's joiners were busy assembling bunks. The rapping of hammers seemed to vibrate throughout the vessel and Lindsay was soon headachy and rather breathless. She was proud of the Franklin's workforce, however, for it was plain that it was not just the prospect of wages that kept them hard at it but the satisfaction of creating something intricate and complex by the exercise of their skills.

She was relieved when, after twenty minutes below, Geoffrey guided her up out of the glare of the electric lanterns and into hazy sunlight. She shook her head to clear it and looked at the greeny-brown coil of the Clyde and thought of the open sea and the depths to which that skinny fish-shaped shell would descend, carrying with it all the ingenuity of which men were capable, backed by human lives.

‘Do you ever think what might happen if a piece of equipment fails?'

‘Too much to do making sure that it doesn't,' Geoffrey said.

‘How many in the crew?'

‘In this craft, two officers and twenty men. That's a hefty complement for a submarine but we need a large crew to operate such a powerful vessel.' Reading her concern, he said, ‘Cruising underwater isn't as bad as you might imagine, not nearly as bad as chasing through a rough sea in a rocky old destroyer.'

‘Will you be on board during the trials?'

‘Yes, certainly.'

‘Who else – besides the crew, I mean?'

‘Two naval inspection officers, plus three from the yard.'

‘My father?'

‘I doubt it. Tom Calder probably, and a couple of engineers.'

‘Geoffrey?'

‘Hmm?'

‘Is she safe?'

‘As houses,' Geoffrey said.

On the ride back to Brunswick Park in the taxi-cab, he made no attempt to kiss her, for which Lindsay – in a way – was glad.

*   *   *

Baby Philip was greedy that evening. He suckled on her breast with a petulance that suggested punishment. Harry, on the other hand, was quieter than usual and contented himself by building elaborate constructions on the tabletop with his collection of wooden alphabet bricks. Lindsay watched him out of a corner of her eye and wondered if he had inherited the Franklins' aptitude for thoroughness and if, in twenty or thirty years' time, he would be designing and building ships too and, if so, what sort of ships they would be: great liners that would slip smoothly across the Atlantic in three or four days perhaps, or warships so swift and deadly that nothing that sailed in or upon the seven seas would be safe from their guns.

The rain had drifted away and the evening sky had taken on a shimmering brilliance that filled the rooms to the front of the house. In the dining-room the table had been set and dinner would be served as soon as she had finished feeding Philip. With her baby at her breast and Harry in sight, Lindsay felt more relaxed. Winn had gone off in a huff because she, Lindsay, would not say where she had been that afternoon. In fact, she had returned home before Forbes and had spent a few minutes with her father in the parlour discussing the prototype's place in the navy's programme of modernisation and what it might mean to Franklin's future, then she had gone up to the nursery.

Winn had been on to her at once, quizzing, interrogating, probing. There would be more of the same from Forbes, no doubt, an inquisition that she would just have to endure. She had nothing to hide, everything to hide: kisses and state secrets, the effervescent sensation that being in love endowed her with, and the confidence to keep such inspiring secrets to herself.

Forbes would probably make love to her tonight. He usually did when he thought she was avoiding him. He would take her with angry determination, no longer expecting her to give him pleasure or admit that he was pleasing her, thrusting himself into her with all the force of a pugilist, as if she were an opponent from whom he must wrest a victory. She would match his energy stroke for stroke, though, lifting herself rhythmically against him while dwelling only on the spasmodic sensations that he wrung from her, sensations that she had learned to enjoy even although she knew that his purpose was pragmatic, not to give and take love but to teach her a lesson in obedience, and render her pregnant once more.

Geoffrey would soon be gone. At least for a time they would become letter-lovers, their kisses replaced by tenderness of another kind, less satisfying but in its way more tangible. Forbes had simply failed to realise that babies protected her, rendered her more mother than wife. Another baby, another child, would only increase her happiness and strengthen her position, for no matter how many sisters and brothers Forbes imported she would never allow herself to become a prisoner in her own home again.

Pappy Owen had given her a measure of independence and for that she was grateful, but in hindsight she resented his ill-considered match-making, the fact that he had thrown Forbes and her together to heal old wounds, the wounds of a former generation. She missed Pappy, his joviality, his appetite for life, but he had been replaced by others, particularly by her children. They were her family now, her centre, her future. They were the deciding factor, if only Forbes would realise it, that kept her from taking Geoffrey Paget as her lover or of running off with him to live in scandal and in sin.

She watched Harry place one brick precariously upon another and heard Philip sigh as he removed his mouth from her nipple.

‘Hello,' said a voice from the landing. ‘Anyone home?'

Harry looked up. He cupped his little fists over the tower of bricks and held them, squeezing down, as the nursery door opened and Gowry put his head around it.

‘Oh, sorry,' he said. ‘I'll come back when you've done.'

‘It's all right.' Lindsay turned the chair and covered her breast with a square of cotton cloth known as a Mother's Modesty. ‘Come in if you wish. If you're looking for Winn, though, she isn't here. I believe she's in the kitchen with Blossom.'

‘I'm not looking for Winn,' Gowry said. ‘I'm looking for you.'

‘Me?' said Lindsay, surprised.

‘You, and this lump,' Gowry said. Harry, abandoning his tower, raced across the floor and threw himself against his uncle's legs. Gowry stooped and lifted the little boy into his arms. ‘I've never been up here before.' He swung Harry down to his hip and round again as if he were as weightless as a straw doll. ‘It's nice and quiet.' He tucked Harry under one arm and pulled out a nursery chair. He placed it at a discreet angle and seated himself upon it, Harry on his knee.

The boy chattered, ‘I builded a steeple, Uncle Gowry. See, I builded a steeple.'

Gowry gave his attention to the bricks on the table, nodding. ‘So you have, sure and you have,' he said. ‘That's a marvellous bit of architecture, Harry, but if I let you go will you be tiptoeing over there and make sure it doesn't fall down.'

‘Won't fall down.'

‘Well, it looks a wee bit shaky to me.'

‘Archy – archy…'

‘Archy-teck-ture,' said Gowry. ‘It means a building.'

‘My building.'

‘Yes, your building. Go and look after it. Add some more.'

Harry slid from his uncle's knee and returned to the table. He clambered on to a chair and stared hard at the bricks. ‘Archy-teck-ture,' he said, frowning, as if the nature of the word had changed the concept of construction for him. ‘Archy-teck-ture,' then he lifted a coloured block and with exaggerated care placed it on top of the column.

Philip, meanwhile, returned to the breast.

‘What do you want, Gowry?' Lindsay said. ‘Did Forbes send you?'

‘I do have a mind of my own, you know,' Gowry said. ‘Forbes doesn't know where I am.' He looked around. ‘So this is where the kiddies live, is it? Got everything they need, I see.'

‘Winn could have told you that.'

‘You can't always be trusting what others tell you. Him, for instance.' He nodded at Philip, hidden in the crook of Lindsay's arm. ‘How long will he be feeding off you?'

‘I thought you would know that, given all those sisters and brothers.'

‘I didn't pay enough attention when I was a boy at home.'

‘He will have milk for another month or two, until he's fully weaned.'

‘Is it sore?'

‘Gowry!'

‘Well, is it?'

‘I'm tender, if you must know. But, no, it's not painful.'

‘Good,' Gowry said, with an odd little nod of the head. ‘That's good.'

He sat silent for a moment, contemplating the crown of the baby's head, then he said, ‘Supposing you – I mean, supposing a woman has no milk to give, what happens then?'

‘A wet nurse is employed.'

‘Yes, I've heard about those.'

‘Or a milk formula can be purchased from the chemist's suitable for even small babies,' Lindsay said. ‘Why are you asking
me
these questions, Gowry? Surely Winn or Blossom would have been able to answer them.'

‘I don't want them to know I'm interested in babies.'

‘Why are you interested in babies?'

‘In the lodging where I live there's a girl, a young girl. She's been left in the lurch in – well – a delicate condition. I feel sorry for her.'

‘Do you mean that she's pregnant?'

Gowry nodded.

‘Is it yours?' Lindsay said. ‘Are you the father?'

He looked startled, then shocked. ‘God, no! She's not my sweetheart. No, no, it couldn't be mine, not mine.'