Here Be Monsters Page 20

  What was he talking about now? She still had her smile pasted on her face,but although it suddenly felt out-of-place she didn’t know what to do with it. ‘Your age?’

  ‘That’s right. I thought I heard a car—he did telephone me, and he did say he might have someone with him. And there you were … and there he wasn’t … But also I come from a generation which does have difficulty in acclimatizing itself to the fullest implications of the sexual equality revolution. Which is why I jumped to that most unfortunate—indeed, unpardonable—quite unpardonable—assumption.’ He continued not to smile. ‘Simply, when he said why he was coming, I expected one of his wary young men. You must be acquainted with the type. Perfectly respectful, even respectable. But always looking around, not to say over their shoulders, but noting everything just in case. Which I know, because for a brief space of time at the end of the war, I had something to do with their breed. Or different breeds. I used to divide them into foxes, ferrets and hounds, for convenience’s sake: different animal for different job … Is it the hen-house you want raiding? was what I used to say to myself. Or something fierce to put down a hole? Or is it a hunt, and the quarry has to be tracked and driven out of a field of kale or a briar-patch?’ He studied her for a moment. ‘But you don’t look like any of those, my dear young lady. In fact … in fact, if I didn’t know better -or worse, perhaps … I really don’t quite know what I’d make of you.’ The scrutiny continued, like the non-smile. ‘But no doubt that is part of your stock-in-trade.’

  Elizabeth became aware that she was still smiling. But there was an undoubted nuance of disapproval in what he had said, though of an entirely different sort from that in the look he had given her when he had taken her for the plainest playmate of all time. So perhaps she ought not to be smiling.

  But the devil with that! He had served her with misunderstanding, and then good manners and the story of his daisy lawn, and with hock-and-Seltzer to come, only to give him time to study her at leisure. So she owed him nothing yet.

  ‘Is that your complete apology? Or is there more?’ She worked to improve her smile. ‘I am a vixen? Or—I don’t know the term for a female ferret.’ He looked a bit like an elderly ferret himself, thin where he had once been wiry, but still sharp enough to catch the unwary. ‘But with hounds I suppose the word is “bitch”?’

  He sat up, and the canvas stretched dangerously under him. ‘My dear Miss Loftus!’ He blinked at her, pretending embarrassment. And then looked at her sidelong. ‘Loftus … Loftus … Now, where did I read that name? Unusual name—‘ He compressed his lips and stared at his daisies. ‘Loftus?’

  Audley appeared with a clink of glass and a somewhat disgruntled expression on his face. In turn, he handed them tall, cool glasses, and took one look at the third deck-chair and decided against it, ending up standing, looking down on them as from a great height. Elizabeth formed the impression that, after his initial pleasure in returning to a man whom he loved (and who returned that sentiment with interest), he was no longer quite so sure it had been a good idea.

  He settled on her finally. ‘Well, What have you told him?’

  The old man sat back. ‘Dear boy, she has hardly got a word in edgeways yet.’

  ‘I can well believe that.’ Audley buried his face in his beer.

  ‘Loftus—of coursel’ Mr Willis turned back to her, his hock-and-Seltzer still untasted. ‘The Times obituary column! My favourite reading!’ He beamed his delight at her. ‘When you get to my age you’ll be just the same, you know.’

  ‘He knows he’s still alive if he isn’t in it,’ murmured Audley.

  ‘That’s not too far from the truth.’ Mr Willis nodded happily at Elizabeth. ‘In your fifties you worry when your contemporaries die. In your sixties and seventies you shake your head sadly, for the way of all flesh. But after that it’s a cause for secret congratulation -I am still here, in spite of everything, you say to yourself … But -Loftus—‘

  ‘Elizabeth Loftus. Miss Loftus to you, Willy,’ said Audley.

  ‘No, no—Captain Loftus, RN—and with that rare piece of purple ribbon, and that £10 per annum pension for valour—?’ It wasn’t really a question, because he had read her face. ‘Fought those German E-boats in the Channel—invalided out, and wrote history books?’ His expression amended itself hurriedly. ‘Two or three years ago … he died?’

  Three-and-a-half, corrected Elizabeth. Or three million? ‘He was my father, Mr Willis.’

  ‘There now!’ He didn’t try to disguise his old man’s satisfaction with an undiminished memory. ‘It must be a great comfort to you, Miss Loftus—to have that cross, with its ribbon.’

  ‘She gave it to the Navy, Willy,’ said Audley, almost casually.

  Audley knew that score, thought Elizabeth. But he didn’t know it from her, because she had never added it up for him. And he wasn’t flaunting his knowledge now to let her draw that conclusion, but only to put this difficult old man in his place. All she had to do was to hammer the point home.

  ‘It wasn’t my medal, Mr Willis,’ she said meekly.

  ‘Ah … ’ He nodded, equally meekly. But that was how it always was in the presence of Father’s VC: everyone was a push-over in its shadow, somehow. And the fact that she hadn’t sold it to the highest bidder—with the fact that she neither wanted to keep it, nor needed to sell it, carefully hidden—was always to her credit. So now she must cash in on that.

  ‘But we’re here on business, I’m afraid, Mr Willis. Of which my father would have approved.’

  ‘Ah … ’ Something in him hardened unexpectedly. ‘But … you mustn’t go on addressing me as “Mr Willis”, my dear. For then I must continue addressing you as “Miss Loftus”.’ He sipped his hock-and-Seltzer. ‘I’m only “Mr Willis” to boys and tradesmen—and then only to my face. Behind my back … well, in pre-war days I was always “Willy”—sometimes even “Little Willy”, rudely.’ He nodded. ‘But in the war I became “Wimpy” for “J. Wellington Wimpy”, because my brother-officers considered me somewhat loquacious. Which, compared with them, I was—since all of them were inarticulate, and some of them never spoke at all, so far as I remember. Except to order drinks from the mess waiters, anyway.’ He smiled at her again at last. ‘But David here belongs to the earlier period. So, for convenience’s sake, if you joined him … then I might perhaps address you less formally? As “Elizabeth”—greatly daring?’

  ‘Greatly daring?’ Audley echoed him derisively. ‘Huh! You can call her anything you like, just so you stop talking for a moment and start listening, Willy. Because we have some urgent questions for you.’

  The old man looked up at Audley with a strangely mixed expression on his face, of affectionate distaste. ‘Dear boy, I know—‘

  ‘I’m sure you don’t—‘

  ‘Or I can guess well enough, more’s the pity, from what you let slip on the telephone.’ Obstinacy joined the expression. ‘Knowing what I know about you … and about other matters.’

  ‘Other matters being Haddock Thomas.’

  ‘Other matters being other matters.’ Mr Willis came back to Elizabeth. ‘The decline of the nickname is a phenomenon I have observed in recent years. When I was a boy they were common. And in the army every “White” was “Chalky”, or sometimes “Blanco”, and “Millers” were almost invariably “Dusty”. But now it does not seem to be the rule—I wonder why?’

  ‘Haddock Thomas, Willy,’ said Audley.

  ‘Doctor Thomas to you, dear boy. And to me,’ corrected Mr Willis. ‘Dr Thomas—yes? Or no, as the case may be?’

  ‘You know him. You were both in that classical association of yours. You were on its committee together.’

  ‘That is factually correct. Although he was a grandee, and I was a humble member, far below the salt.’ The old man’s face had changed: now it was blandly innocent. ‘He’s well, I hope? He was younger than me, though grander. But even he must have retired from full-time teaching by now, surely?’

  Audley conside
red his one-time guardian and godfather for a moment, then drank some beer, and then reconsidered him. ‘You’re not going to be difficult, are you; Willy? Elizabeth wouldn’t like that.’

  ‘I—difficult?’ Mr Willis turned his innocence on her. ‘Why should I be difficult?’

  Why indeed? wondered Elizabeth. ‘We do need to know about Dr Thomas rather badly—‘ She couldn’t call him “Willy”: She couldn’t call anyone Willy ‘—Mr Willis.’

  ‘Badly? Rather badly?’ There was a glint of mischief in his eye. ‘Now, by that do you mean “urgently”? Or is it a Freudian slip, and you need to know badly … in order to do badly?’

  ‘Willy—‘

  ‘No!’ The old man silenced Audley with a gesture, without taking his eyes off Elizabeth. ‘I will tell you a story, Miss Loftus. A little story?’

  ‘So long as it is little,’ snapped Audley.

  ‘Many years ago, Miss Loftus—more years than I care to number … but it was the year our 1st XV swept the board in the schools’ rugger, that I do recall—many years ago, a ferret came to see me.’ He cocked his head at her. ‘A ferret—yes?’

  Elizabeth nodded.

  Mr Willis nodded back. ‘A frightened ferret, actually. But perhaps that was because he had a powerful letter of introduction with him, from a foxy type I’d known in the war—a foxy type which had metamorphosed into a hound—a wolfhound. Or a wolf—the leader of the pack, no less!’

  ‘Willy—‘

  ‘The ferret wanted to know about a young man of my acquaintance. But at first he didn’t show me his letter. Are you with me? So because I didn’t trust him I demanded to know why I should give him more than the time of day, and that shortly—‘

  ‘It was 1957, Elizabeth,’ said Audley from above. ‘Sir Frederick Clinton was sniffing out my private life. Get on with it, Willy, for God’s sake!’

  ‘What?’ The old man’s voice cracked with irritation. “Well—now that you’ve altogether spoilt my story—have you got a letter, Doctor David Longsdon Audley?’

  ‘Do I need a letter?’ For the first time in Elizabeth’s experience there was a note of something less than confidence in Audley’s voice. ‘Don’t you trust me?’

  ‘No, I certainly do not, dear boy! I haven’t trusted you since you were sixteen years old. I didn’t trust you then, and I certainly do not trust you now.’

  ‘Why not?’ Audley shook his head, almost as though bewildered.

  ‘Why not? Well, if you don’t know—?’ Mr Willis stared up at him. ‘I hold you in my affection, and I have the highest regard for your abilities and intelligence, you know that—‘

  ‘Why not, Willy?’

  ‘Because your ways are not my ways, and your gods are not my gods. Because we live on different planets. Because I will not make the same mistake as Marcus Aurelius did, David.’

  ‘Bugger Marcus Aurelius!’ Audley’s voice was harsh. ‘You spilt the beans about me to Fred Clinton’s man. And Fred and I come from the same planet.’

  ‘But you have not got a letter, David,’ the old man spoke gently, almost regretfully. ‘Have you?’

  ‘Who am I supposed to get a letter from? The Queen? Or the Prime Minister—‘

  ‘Certainly not her.’ Mr Willis shook his head. ‘I’m afraid there’s no letter you could produce which would induce me to tell you anything I know about a good man … except that he is a good man … in case you are able somehow to twist it to your own purposes.’ He shook his head again. ‘You gave me time to think—you shouldn’t have done that. But you did. And I have.’

  Elizabeth stared from one to the other, from the old man, gently regretful but utterly determined, to the big man, utterly nonplussed.

  ‘I think there’s something you should know, Mr Willis,’ she heard herself say.

  ‘My dear young lady, I’m sure there’s a lot I should know. But at my age one becomes resigned to the knowledge of one’s ignorance.’

  ‘Dr Thomas was investigated many years ago,’ began Elizabeth.

  He raised his eyebrows at her. ‘If that’s what you want me to know, my dear, I’m afraid it is old intelligence. I heard that story many years ago. Not from Dr Thomas himself, but from another colleague. But perhaps you have a different version of the story?’

  She must discount his gentle manner and his years, which were equally deceptive: he had had time to think, and he had deceived them both—not least probably at the start, by pretending to mistake her status, in order to gain more time in which to study her. But that was a game he could only play once with her. ‘I have the true story, if that’s what you mean. Because Dr Thomas was cleared, Mr Willis. Is your story different from that?’

  ‘I’ll bet it is.’ Audley gazed around casually, at the cottage thatch, at the roses, at the daisy-lawn, and finally at Elizabeth. ‘He indulges himself with his liberal conscience. His is the generation of Our Gallant Russian Ally and smiling Uncle Joe Stalin, the great anti-fascist. And the heroic International Brigade in Spain before that.’

  ‘Dear boy, they were heroic—while you were hardly more than a snivelling child.’ The old man’s voice was mild. ‘And we would both be dead most likely—maybe a year or two later, in some bloodbath somewhere other than Normandy, and less victorious—if our Gallant Allies hadn’t fought Jerry all the way to Moscow and back.’

  ‘Very true, Willy. But they did not fight for us, you silly old bugger.’ Audley’s voice had become equally mild, and weary with what must be an endless division of opinions between them, thought Elizabeth. ‘Nor even did they fight beside us, like my Gallant American Allies, whom you affect to despise with such hypocritical doublethink.’ He toured the scenery again, and came back to Elizabeth once more. ‘You see, Elizabeth—as I was saying? He indulges his liberal conscience, and his tortured 1930s guilt complexes … and we hold the sky suspended above him—and for his peace-loving pupils, so that they can enjoy the same luxury—do you see?’ He smiled hideously at her. ‘I should have remembered that. I should have got a letter from somewhere.’

  This would never do: they would tear themselves to pieces arguing old disagreements, to no possible purpose! So they had to be separated.

  She drained her hock-and-Seltzer. ‘Get me another drink, David.’

  ‘A capital notion!’ Mr Willis drained his glass, and offered it up for replenishment. ‘And your own glass, dear boy. And leave us to exchange great lies, and forget our course—eh, Miss Loftus?’

  She waited until Audley had gone. ‘”Elizabeth” will do, Mr Willis.’

  He studied her again, and she knew that she was being re-measured, just as she had re-measured him. So she must allow for that.

  ‘Let me guess, Mr Willis: your Dr Thomas was driven from the Government service back to teaching by security persecution, although he was pure as virgin snow—would that be close?’ She had to hit him hard, he would expect nothing less.

  He still measured her, playing for time. ‘And if it was?’

  ‘It would be partly true, I think. But do you know who vetted him?’

  That was news to him, her unspoken name. And it hurt him too, enough to dry up his reply.

  ‘David did as he was told.’ The tactics of the hockey-field in a fast break-through applied now. ‘And he cleared him. And then something else came up. So he was ordered to vet him again. And he obeyed his orders again—he didn’t like it, but he did it.’ She prayed that Audley would take his time, with the hock and the Seltzer and the beer. ‘And he cleared him again.’ In other circumstances she would have given him a chance to react, but not now. ‘And that was in 1958. But now something else has come up—‘ Time hammered at her back, forcing her to play her highest cards by instinct, against her better judgment ‘—a man died recently, we think, because of it—‘ Once played, the cards made their own logic ‘—and do you know why we came here early—shall I tell you?’

  Suddenly he looked older, and much more frail, so that for a moment she had scruples. Then she remembered Major Turn
bull’s false teeth, and her heart hardened because of that. ‘Now there’s another man dead, Mr Willis. Someone I knew.’ She didn’t know Major Turnbull at all. But Major Turnbull was nonetheless someone she knew—‘Grime has nothing whatsoever to do with coal-mining, Miss Loftus’, he had said. So she knew him. ‘Do you know what I am, Mr Willis?’

  He stared at her, still struck dumb against his nature. And she knew in that instant that Audley wasn’t coming—that he wasn’t stupid, so he trusted her just enough to take his time.

  ‘I’m David’s letter, Mr Willis, is what I am.’

  ‘His … letter?’ That sparked him, out of his ancient memory of whatever Sir Frederick Clinton’s letter-of-power had contained.

  ‘In a way, yes.’ She mustn’t blow it now. ‘I don’t suppose you could tell me what Sir Frederick wrote, that made you change your mind all those years ago?’

  He raised his eyebrows again. ‘Good gracious, no!’ He opened his mouth to continue, then closed it tightly on unsaid words.

  ‘No, of course.’ That must have been strong medicine of Sir Frederick’s, she thought—to open his mouth, and then to close it like that. She smiled a hard little unsmiling smile at him deliberately. ‘He must have had something pretty good on you, though.’

  ‘My dear young lady—‘ He weakened almost comically ‘—we all have our little secrets, which we would fain remain secret. Mine is safe, I’m glad to say, since I alone guard it now.’

  Elizabeth kept her nasty smile in place, and waited patiently.