Winter in Madrid

  ‘ ’Ave a good summer?’

  ‘Bit boring. Uncle James was ill a lot of the time. Glad to be back.’

  ‘You ought t’ave spent it serving in my dad’s shop. Then you’d know wot boring is.’

  Another face appeared in the doorway, a heavily built boy with black hair. He put down an expensive-looking suitcase and leaned against the doorpost with an air of supercilious detachment. ‘Harry Brett?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m Sandy Forsyth. New boy. I’m in this study.’ He hauled in the suitcase and stood looking at them. His large brown eyes were keen and there was something hard in his face.

  ‘Where have you come from?’ Bernie asked.

  ‘Braildon. Up in Hertfordshire. Heard of it?’

  ‘Yes,’ Harry said. ‘Supposed to be a good school.’

  ‘Yeah. So they say.’

  ‘It’s not bad here.’

  ‘No? I hear they’re quite hot on discipline.’

  ‘Cane you as soon as look at you,’ Bernie agreed.

  ‘Where are you from?’ Forsyth asked.

  ‘Wapping,’ Bernie said proudly. ‘I’m one of the proles the ruling class allow in.’ Bernie had declared himself a socialist the term before, to general disapproval. Forsyth raised his eyebrows.

  ‘I bet you got in more easily than I did.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘I’m a bit of a bad lad.’ The new boy took a packet of Gold Flake from his pocket and pulled out a cigarette. Bernie and Harry glanced at the open door. ‘You can’t smoke in the studies,’ Harry said quickly.

  ‘We can shut the door. Want one?’

  Bernie laughed. ‘You get caned for smoking here. It’s not worth it.’

  ‘OK.’ He gave Bernie a sudden broad grin, showing large white teeth. ‘You a red, then?’

  ‘I’m a socialist, if that’s what you mean.’

  The new boy shrugged. ‘We had a debating society at Braildon, last year one of the Fifth spoke for Communism. It got pretty rowdy.’ He laughed. Bernie grunted, giving him a look of dislike.

  ‘I wanted to lead a debate in favour of atheism,’ Forsyth went on. ‘But they wouldn’t let me. Because my dad’s a bishop. Where do people go here if they want a smoke?’

  ‘Behind the gym,’ Bernie answered coldly.

  ‘Right-ho then. See you later.’ Forsyth got up and sauntered out.

  ‘Arsehole,’ Bernie said as he disappeared.

  AND THEN, later that day, Harry was asked to spy on Sandy for the first time. He was in the study alone when a fag appeared with a message Mr Taylor wanted to see him.

  Taylor was their form master that year. He had a reputation as a disciplinarian and the junior boys held him in awe. Seeing his tall, thin figure striding across the quad, the habitual severe expression on his face, Harry would think back to the day he had come to Uncle James’s house; they had scarcely spoken since.

  Mr Taylor was in his study, a comfortable room with carpets and portraits of old headmasters on the wall; he was devoted to school history. A large desk was strewn with papers for marking. The master stood in his black gown, sorting through papers.

  ‘Ah Brett.’ His tone was cordial as he waved a long arm to beckon Harry in. Harry stood in front of the desk, hands behind his back in the approved manner. Taylor’s hair was receding fast, the widow’s peak now a separate black tuft beneath a balding crown.

  ‘Did you have good holidays? Aunt and Uncle OK?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The master nodded. ‘You’re in my form this year. I’ve had good reports of you, I shall expect great things.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  The master nodded. ‘I wanted to talk to you about the studies. We’ve put the new boy in with you in place of Piper. Forsyth. Have you met him yet?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I don’t think Piper knows.’

  ‘He’ll be told. How are you getting on with Forsyth?’

  ‘All right, sir,’ Harry said neutrally.

  ‘You may have heard of his father, the bishop?’

  ‘Forsyth mentioned him.’

  ‘Forsyth comes to us from Braildon. His parents felt Rookwood, with its reputation for – ah – order, was better suited to him.’ Taylor smiled benignly, making deep creases appear in his thin cheeks. ‘I’m telling you in confidence. You’re a steady boy, Brett; we think you could be prefect material one day. Keep an eye on Forsyth, will you?’ He paused. ‘Keep him on the straight and narrow.’

  Harry gave the master a quick look. It was an odd remark; one of the studied ambiguities the masters spoke in more and more as the boys got older. You were expected to understand. Officially it was frowned on for boys to sneak on one another, but Harry knew many masters had particular pupils whom they used as sources of information. Was this what Taylor was asking him to do? He knew instinctively he didn’t want to; the whole idea made him uneasy.

  ‘I’ll certainly help show him around, sir,’ he said carefully.

  Taylor eyed him keenly. ‘And let me know if there are any problems. Just a quiet word. We want to help Forsyth develop in the right direction. It’s important to his father.’

  That was clear enough. Harry said nothing. Mr Taylor frowned a little.

  Then an extraordinary thing happened. Something tiny moved on the master’s desk, among the papers; Harry saw it out of the corner of his eye. Taylor gave a sudden shout and jumped away. To Harry’s amazement he stood almost cringing, eyes averted from a fat house spider scuttling across his blotter. It stopped on top of a Latin textbook, standing quite still.

  Taylor turned to Harry, his face bright red. His eyes strayed momentarily to the desk and he looked away with a shudder.

  ‘Brett, get rid of that thing for me. Please.’ There was a pleading note in the master’s voice.

  Wonderingly, Harry took out his handkerchief and reached for the spider. He picked it up and held it gently.

  ‘Ah – thank you, Brett.’ Taylor swallowed. ‘I – ah – we shouldn’t have such – er – arachnids in the studies. Spread disease. Kill it, please kill it,’ he added rapidly.

  Harry hesitated, then squeezed it between finger and thumb. It made a faint pop, making him wince.

  ‘Get rid of it.’ For a moment, Taylor’s eyes seemed almost wild behind the gold-rimmed pince-nez. ‘And don’t tell anyone about this. Do you understand? You may go,’ he added brusquely.

  AT WILL’S HOUSE the soup at dinner was tinned, heavy with watery vegetables. Muriel apologized as she passed it round.

  ‘I hadn’t time to make any, I’m sorry. Of course, I’ve no woman to help now. I have to deal with the cooking, looking after the children, the ration books, everything.’ She pushed back a stray hair and gave Harry a challenging stare. Will and Muriel’s children, a thin dark boy of nine and a little girl of six, sat watching Harry with interest.

  ‘It must be difficult,’ he replied solemnly. ‘But the soup’s fine.’

  ‘It’s scrumptious!’ Ronald called loudly. His mother sighed. Harry didn’t know why Muriel had had children; he supposed because it was the done thing.

  ‘How’s work?’ he asked his cousin to break the silence. Will worked in the Foreign Office, at the Middle East desk.

  ‘There could be problems in Persia.’ The eyes behind the thick glasses were troubled. ‘The Shah’s leaning towards Hitler. How was your meeting?’ he asked with exaggerated casualness. He had phoned Harry a few days before to tell him some people connected with the Foreign Office had spoken to him and would be in touch but had said he didn’t know what it was about. From his manner now, Harry thought he had guessed who the ‘people’ were. He wondered whether Will had talked about him in the office, mentioned a cousin who had been to Rookwood and spoke Spanish, and someone had passed the information on to Jebb’s people. Or was there some huge filing system about citizens somewhere, which the spies had consulted?

  He nearly answered, they want me to go to Madrid, but remembered he mu
stn’t. ‘Looks like they’ve got something for me. Means going abroad. A bit hush-hush.’

  ‘Careless talk costs lives,’ the little girl said solemnly.

  ‘Be quiet, Prue,’ Muriel snapped. ‘Drink your soup.’

  Harry smiled reassuringly. ‘It’s nothing dangerous. Not like France.’

  ‘Did you kill many Germans in France?’ Ronnie piped up.

  Muriel set her spoon in her plate with a clang. ‘I told you not to ask questions like that.’

  ‘No, Ronnie, I didn’t,’ Harry said. ‘They killed a lot of our men, though.’

  ‘We’ll get them back for it, though, won’t we? And for the bombing?’

  Muriel sighed deeply. Will turned to his son.

  ‘Did I ever tell you I met Ribbentrop, Ronnie?’

  ‘Wow! You met him? You should have killed him!’

  ‘We weren’t at war then, Ronnie. He was just the German ambassador. He was always saying the wrong thing. Brickendrop, we used to call him.’

  ‘What was he like?’

  ‘A silly man. His son was at Eton and once Ribbentrop went to the school to meet him. Ribbentrop stood in the quad with his arm raised and shouted, “Heil Hitler!” ’

  ‘Crumbs!’ Ronnie said. ‘He wouldn’t have got away with that at Rookwood. I’m hoping to go to Rookwood next year, did you know that, cousin Harry?’

  ‘If we can afford the fees, Ronnie, maybe.’

  ‘And if it’s still there,’ Muriel said suddenly. ‘If it’s not been requisitioned or blown up.’ Harry and Will stared at her. She wiped her mouth with her napkin and rose.

  ‘I’m going to get the steaks. They’ll be dry, they’ve been under the grill.’ She looked at her husband. ‘What are we going to do tonight?’

  ‘We won’t go to the shelter unless the siren goes,’ he replied. Muriel left the room. Prue had gone tense. Harry noticed that she had a teddy bear on her lap and was clutching it tightly. Will sighed.

  ‘When these raids began we started going up to the shelter after dinner. But some of the people there – well, they’re a bit common, Muriel doesn’t like them, and it’s pretty uncomfortable. Prue gets frightened. We stay at home unless Wailing Winnie starts.’ He sighed again, staring out of the French windows across the back garden. Dusk was deepening into night and a clear full moon was rising. ‘It’s a bomber’s moon. You go over, if you like.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Harry said. ‘I’ll stay with you.’

  His uncle’s village was on the ‘bomber’s run’ from the Channel up to London; the sirens often went as the planes passed overhead, but they ignored them. Harry hated Wailing Winnie’s swirling howl. It reminded him of the sound dive-bombers made: when he first came home after Dunkirk he would clench his teeth and clench his hands till they turned white every time the sirens went off.

  ‘If it goes in the night, we’ll get up and make for the shelter,’ Will said. ‘It’s just over the road.’

  ‘Yes, I saw it.’

  ‘It’s been bad. Ten days of it leaves you so bloody tired, and God knows how long it’s going to go on for. Muriel’s thinking of taking the children to the country.’ Will got up and drew the heavy blackout curtains. There was a sound of breaking glass from the kitchen, followed by an angry cry. He hurried out. ‘Better go and help Muriel.’

  THE SIRENS STARTED at one a.m. They began in Westminster and, as other boroughs followed, the wailing moan rippled outwards to the suburbs. Harry woke from a dream, in which he was running through Madrid, darting in and out of shops and bars, asking if anyone had seen his friend Bernie. But he was speaking in English, not Spanish, and nobody understood. He rose and dressed in moments, as he had learned to do in the army. His mind was clear and focused, no panic. He wondered why he had been asking for Bernie, not Sandy. Someone had phoned from the Foreign Office at ten, asking him to go to an address in Surrey tomorrow.

  He twitched the curtain open a crack. In the moonlight shadowy figures were running across the road, making for the shelter. Huge searchlight beams stabbed the sky as far as the eye could see.

  He went out into the hall. The light was on and Ronnie stood there in pyjamas and dressing gown. ‘Prue’s upset,’ he said. ‘She won’t come.’ He looked at the open door of his parents’ bedroom. A loud, terrified child’s sobbing could be heard.

  Even now, with the siren wailing in his ears, Harry felt reluctant to invade Will and Muriel’s bedroom, but he made himself go in. They were both in dressing gowns too. Muriel sat on the bed, her hair in curlers. She nursed her sobbing daughter in her arms, making soothing noises. Harry wouldn’t have thought her capable of such gentleness. One of the little girl’s arms hung down, still clutching the teddy bear. Will stood looking at them uncertainly; with his thin hair sticking up and his glasses askew he seemed the most vulnerable of them all. The sound went on; Harry felt his legs begin to tremble.

  ‘We should go,’ he said brusquely.

  Muriel looked up. ‘Who the bloody hell asked you?’

  ‘Prue won’t go to the shelter,’ Will explained quietly.

  ‘It’s dark,’ the little girl wailed. ‘It’s so dark there, please let me stay at home!’

  Harry stepped forward and grasped Muriel’s bony elbow. This was what the corporal had done on the beach after the bomb fell, picked him up and led him gently to the boat. Muriel gave him an astonished look.

  ‘We have to go. The bombers are coming. Will, we have to get them up.’ His cousin took Muriel’s other arm and they raised her gently. Prue had buried her head in her mother’s breast, still sobbing and holding the teddy bear tightly by its arm. Its glass eyes stared up at Harry.

  ‘All right, all right, I can walk by myself,’ Muriel snapped. They released her. Ronnie clattered down the stairs and the others followed. The boy switched off the light and opened the front door.

  It was strange to be in a night-time London without streetlamps. There was no one outside now, but the dark shape of the shelter was visible in the moonlight across the road. There was a distant sound of ack-ack fire and something else, a low heavy drone from the south.

  ‘Hell,’ Will said. ‘They’re coming this way!’ He looked suddenly confused. ‘But it’s the docks they go for, the docks.’

  ‘Maybe they’re lost.’ Or want to hit civilian morale, Harry thought. His legs had stopped shaking. He had to take charge. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s get over the road.’

  They began running but Muriel was slowed by the little girl. In the middle of the road Will turned to help her and slipped. He went down with a crash and a yell. Ronnie, ahead, paused and looked back.

  ‘Will, get up!’ Muriel’s cry was hysterical. Will tried to lift himself but fell back. Prue, the teddy bear still dangling from her arm, began screaming. Harry knelt by Will’s side.

  ‘I’ve twisted my ankle.’ Will’s face was full of pain and fear. ‘Leave me, get the others into the shelter.’ Behind him Muriel held the keening Prue tightly. Muriel was swearing, over and over again, language Harry wouldn’t have thought she knew.

  ‘Bloody fucking bastard Hitler oh God Christ!’

  Still the siren wailed. The planes were almost overhead. Harry heard the whine of bombs falling, growing louder and ending in a sudden loud crump. There was a flash of light from a few streets away, a momentary tug of hot air at his dressing gown. It was so like Dunkirk. His legs were shaking again and there was a dry acid taste at the back of his mouth but his mind was very clear. He had to get Will up.

  There was another whine and crump, closer, and the ground shook with the impacts. Muriel stopped swearing and stood stock still, eyes and mouth wide open. She bent her thin dressing-gowned body over to protect her still weeping daughter. Harry took her arm and looked into her terrified eyes. He spoke to her slowly and clearly.

  ‘You have to take Prue into the shelter, Muriel. Now. See, there’s Ronnie; he doesn’t know what to do. You have to get them in. I’ll bring Will.’

  Life came back in
to her eyes. She turned wordlessly and began walking rapidly towards the shelter, stretching out her other hand for Ronnie to take. Harry bent and took Will’s hand. ‘Come on, old chap, get up. Put your good leg down, take the weight.’

  He hauled his cousin to his feet as another great crash sounded, no more than a street away. There was a brief yellow flash and a wave of blast almost toppled them over but Harry had his arm round Will and managed to keep him steady. There was a feeling of pressure and a whining noise in Harry’s bad ear. Will leaned into him and hopped on his good leg, smiling through gritted teeth.

  ‘Don’t get blown up,’ he said. ‘The sneaky beakies will be furious!’ So he had guessed who wanted me, Harry thought. More bombs fell, yellow flashes lighting the road, but they seemed more distant now.

  Someone had been watching from the shelter, holding the door open a crack. Arms reached out, taking hold of Will, and they fell together into the crowded darkness. Harry was guided to a seat. He found himself next to Muriel. He could just make out her thin form, still bent over Prue. The little girl was still sobbing. Ronnie was huddled against her as well.

  ‘I’m sorry, Harry,’ Muriel said quietly. ‘I just couldn’t bear any more. My children, every day I think about what could happen to them. All the time, all the time.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘It’s OK.’

  ‘I’m sorry I went to pieces. You got us through.’ She raised an arm to touch Harry’s, but let it fall, as though the effort were too much.

  Harry leaned his throbbing head against the gritty concrete wall. He had helped them, taken control, he hadn’t fallen apart. He would have a few months ago.

  He remembered his first sight of the beach at Dunkirk, walking over a sand dune then seeing the endless black columns of men snaking into a sea dotted with boats. They were all sizes – he saw a pleasure steamer next to a minesweeper. There were smoking wrecks too, and German dive-bombers buzzing overhead, shrieking down and dropping their bombs on the boats and the men. The retreat had been so fast, so chaotic, the horror and shame of it had been almost too much to take in. Harry was ordered to help line the men up on the beach for evacuation. Sitting in the shelter, he felt again the numb shame that came then, the realization of total defeat.