‘Here.’ She handed over one of the bits of writing-paper and the pencil. ‘Your address. Where I can get hold of you.’ He wrote, then pushed them back to her.
Ardvray
Bancharty
Aberdeenshire.
She folded the sheet of paper and stuffed it in her pocket. Then it was her turn.
The Dower House
Rosemullion.
‘If I write, will you promise to answer, Gus?’
‘Of course.’
‘We haven't, either of us, got much left, have we? So we must sustain each other. It's important.’
Now it was he who folded the paper and buttoned it into the breast pocket of his shirt.
‘Yes. Important. Judith…I think I must go back now. I mustn't be late for the tender. Miss the boat.’
‘I'll come with you.’
‘No. I'd rather go alone.’
‘We'll find a taxi. Here…’
‘What's that?’
‘Money for the fare.’
‘I feel like a kept man.’
‘Not, not kept. Just pretty special.’
He gathered up his parcel (which still looked like a bottle, despite its wrappings) and they left the terrace, going back through the foyer and out of the door. The doorman called a taxi, and he held the door open for Gus to get in.
‘Goodbye, Judith.’ His voice seemed a little hoarse.
‘Promise to write. I'll let you know the moment I get back to England.’
He nodded. And then said, ‘Just one thing. Will you tell them all, at Nancherrow, about today?’
‘Of course I will.’
‘Tell them I'm okay. Say I'm fine.’
‘Oh, Gus.’ She reached up and kissed him on both cheeks. He got into the taxi and the door slammed shut. Then he was driven away, out into the road and down the length of the Galle Face Green. Judith, smiling and waving, watched him go, but as soon as the car was out of sight, she could feel the brave smile slipping from her face.
Silently, Keep in touch, she called after him. You mustn't disappear again.
‘Can I get a taxi for you?’
She turned and looked at the doorman, attentive and resplendent in his bottle-green uniform. For a moment she couldn't think what she was meant to be doing, nor where she was meant to be. But no point in returning to the Fort. She would go home, take a shower, flake out on her bed.
‘Yes. Another taxi. Thank you.’
The Galle Road once more, but now driving in the opposite direction, in a degree of comfort, and not lurching about at the back of a three-ton lorry.
Will you tell them all, at Nancherrow, about today?
She thought about Walter Mudge, and Nathaniel and Loveday. The marriage that should never have taken place. The child who should never have been conceived, nor born. Loveday was her closest friend. No person in the world could be better company, and nobody could be more infuriating. Staring out of the window at dusty pavements, passers-by, and the wheeling avenue of palms, she could scarcely bear to contemplate the bleak home-coming that awaited Gus. It was so dreadfully unfair, and not what he deserved. Heavy-hearted, and angry on his behalf, she took her resentment out on Loveday, silently raging.
Why do you always have to be so pig-headed, so impetuous? Why didn't you listen to me, that day in London?
I was already having a baby. Loveday, shouting at her, as though Judith were a fool. Loveday giving as good as she got.
You've made such a mess of everything. Gus is alive and he's coming home, and he's got no family because his old parents have died. He should be coming to Nancherrow, to find you waiting for him. It could all have been so perfect. He should be coming home to you. Instead he's going back to Scotland, and an empty house, and no family and no love.
What's to stop him coming to Nancherrow? He was Edward's friend. Mummy and Pops thought he was great. Nothing to stop him.
How can he come to Nancherrow, if you're married to Walter? He loved you. He was in love with you. He's spent all this time building foul railways in Burma, and telling himself that you were waiting for him. How can he come to Nancherrow? You must be without heart or imagination to suggest such a thing.
He should have let me know he was alive. Now, she sounded sulky.
How could he? Like he said, he could scarcely ring you up on the telephone. He only managed one letter, and that was to his parents, and he can't be certain that they ever even got it. Why didn't you go on hoping? Why didn't you wait for him?
I can't think why you're so involved all of a sudden.
I'm not involved. But I do feel responsible. He must know he has friends. We mustn't let him disappear again. But I don't think he'll return to Nancherrow, and I doubt if he'd come and visit me at The Dower House either, because he knows that we all live on top of each other, and sooner or later he'd have to see you again. Can't you see, you've put me in an intolerable position?
We surely weren't his only friends.
But you know how he loved Cornwall. It was a sort of heaven for him, with you there and his painting. How can you be so hard? Why do you always make such a mess of everything?
You don't know that I've made a mess of everything. You and I have hardly seen each other for five years. How do you know I'm not happy with Walter?
Because he was the wrong man. You should have waited for Gus.
Oh, shut up.
Now the taxi was slowing down, drawing into the side of the road. She saw the familiar gates, the sentry. She was home. She got out of the taxi, paid the driver off, and went through the gates.
And then, on this extraordinary day of extraordinary events, the last extraordinary thing occurred, that was to drive all preoccupation, all thoughts of Gus and Loveday from Judith's mind. The doors of Bob's bungalow stood open, and even as she trod up the drive, he was there, running down the wide steps, and striding across the neatly raked gravel to meet her.
‘Where have you been?’ He had never in his life been angry with her, but now he sounded quite distraught. ‘I've been waiting since midday. Why weren't you back? What have you been doing?’
‘I…I…’ Completely knocked off course by his outburst, she could scarcely find the words to explain. ‘…I met someone. I've been at the Galle Face Hotel. I'm sorry…’
‘Don't be sorry.’ He hadn't been angry, just anxious. He put his hands on her shoulders and held her, as though at any moment she might start falling apart. ‘Just listen. This morning I got a telephone call from your Second Officer in Trincomalee…A signal's come through from Portsmouth, HMS Excellent…Jess survived…Java, Jakarta…The Rajah of Sarawak…a lifeboat…a young Australian nurse…internment camp…’
She watched his craggy face, his eyes keen with excitement, his mouth opening and shutting, making words that she scarcely understood.
‘…tomorrow, or the next day…RAF…Jakarta to Ratmalana…she'll be here.’
It finally sank in. He was telling her that Jess was alive. Little Jess. Not drowned. Not killed in the explosion. Safe.
‘…the Red Cross will let us know when she's due to arrive…we'll go together and meet her off the plane…’
‘Jess?’ It took an enormous effort even to say her name.
Abruptly, Bob pulled her into his arms and held her so closely she thought her ribs would snap. ‘Yes, Jess,’ and there was a break in his voice that he didn't even try to conceal. ‘She's coming back to you!’
‘Pretty exciting day for you.’
‘Yes.’
‘Your sister, the group captain said?’
‘Yes.’
‘How old is she?’
‘Fourteen.’
It was five o'clock in the afternoon. Judith and Bob — driven in certain state in his staff car — had presented themselves at the RAF station, Ratmalana, at a quarter past four. There, the station commander had met them, and escorted them to the mess, where they had been given cups of tea, waiting until word came through from the Control Tower to say that t
he plane from Jakarta would be landing in a matter of moments.
‘Think you'll recognise her?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
They walked from the mess across the dusty parade ground, towards the Control Tower. Bob Somerville and the group captain had gone on ahead, both in uniform, and deep in service talk. The junior officer — a flight lieutenant in some sort of attendant duty (Secretary? First lieutenant? Aide-de-camp? Equerry?) — had fallen into step beside Judith, and now engaged her in conversation. He had a huge fighter-pilot moustache, and wore his battered cap at a slight angle. She guessed that he enjoyed a reputation as something of a ladies' man. Whatever, he was clearly relishing the bonus of a youthful and not hideous female, and one, moreover, tricked out in an attractive dress; a nice change from the ubiquitous khaki drill of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force.
‘Will you be in Colombo for long?’
‘I really don't know.’
Outwardly cool, inside she was trembling with nerves. Suppose the plane never came? Suppose, when it did land, there was no Jess on board? Suppose something awful had happened, some hitch or other? Or an explosion, causing the aircraft to drop out of the sky, and killing all the passengers?
‘Do you work for the Admiral?’
‘No, I'm just staying with him.’
‘Wizard show.’ He was doing his best, but she didn't want to talk.
In front of the Control Tower, they joined the others, and, as well, some ground crew, wearing grubby overalls and in charge of maintenance trucks and fuel tankers. On the far side of the runway stood hangars and neatly parked groups of aircraft, Tornadoes and Hurricanes. The runway was clear. The wind filled the airsocks.
For a bit nobody said anything. It was a moment of acute anticipation. Then the flight lieutenant broke the silence. ‘She's coming now.’ Judith felt her heart leap. The random groups of ground crew began to peel off, re-assorting themselves, clambering into their trucks. A batsman, in a scarlet vest, appeared on the far end of the runway. Shading her eyes, staring up into the sky, Judith could see nothing for the dazzle of the lowering sun. Straining her ears, heard only silence. She wondered if the flight lieutenant had been blessed with extra-sensory powers. Perhaps his moustache was sensitive as the whiskers of a cat, and he was able to…
And then she saw the plane, a silver toy, suspended in light. She heard the hum of the engines as it floated down out of the south-west, losing height, beamed in on the runway, wheels down, coming in to land. It touched down in a blast of thundering noise, wheels smacking the runway, and Judith instinctively put up a hand to shield her face against the resultant turmoil, the blown clouds of choking dust.
After that, once the dust had subsided, another five minutes of hanging about, waiting for the Dakota to come slowly taxiing back from the end of the runway, to halt finally in line with the Control Tower. The propellers were still. The heavy bulkhead doors opened from the inside, and makeshift steps trundled up. The passengers alighted in dribs and drabs and began to walk across the concrete apron. An RAF Squadron Leader, a group of American pilots; three neatly dressed Tamils, bearing briefcases. Two soldiers, one of them on crutches…
Finally, just as Judith was about to give up hope, she was there, clambering down the steps. Skinny and brown as a boy, wearing shorts and a faded green shirt, and with sun-bleached hair clipped in a crop. Clumsy leather sandals that looked as though they were two sizes too big; a small canvas rucksack slung over one bony shoulder.
She paused for a moment, orientating herself, clearly a bit lost, anxious and apprehensive. Then, bravely, the girl set out after the others, ducking beneath the wing of the plane; coming.
Jess. At that moment they might have been the only two people in the world. Judith went to meet her, searching, in that bony, stony little face, some trace of the chubby child, the sweetly weeping four-year-old to whom she had said goodbye all those years ago. And Jess saw her, and stopped dead, but Judith went on, and it was wonderful, because Jess's eyes were upon her, and they were just as blue and as clear as they had ever been.
‘Jess.’
‘Judith?’ She had to ask, because she couldn't be sure.
‘Yes. Judith.’
‘I thought I wouldn't know you.’
‘I knew I'd know you.’
She held out her arms. Jess hesitated for an instant longer, and then flung herself forward and into Judith's waiting embrace. She was so tall now that the top of her head reached Judith's chin, and holding her felt like grasping something very brittle, like a starved bird, or a twig. She buried her face into Jess's rough hair, and it smelt of disinfectant, and she felt Jess's skinny arms latch tight around her waist, and they were kissing each other, only this time there were no tears.
They were allowed their little time together, and, when they joined the three patient men who waited, were met with great kindness and tact. Jess was greeted in the most casual of tones, as though she made the momentous journey from Jakarta every day of her life. Bob did not even attempt to kiss her, simply rumpled her hair with a gentle hand. She didn't say much, and she didn't smile. But she was all right.
The group captain walked back with them to where the car waited in the shade of a palm-thatch awning. There, Bob turned to him.
‘I can't thank you enough.’
‘A pleasure, sir. A day I won't forget.’
And he didn't immediately go, but waited, seeing them off, saluting smartly as the car moved away, and standing waving until they passed through the guarded gates, and out onto the road, and could see him no longer.
‘Now —’ Bob settled himself comfortably and smiled down at his small niece — ‘Jess. You're really on your way.’
She sat between them, in the back of the huge car. Judith couldn't stop looking at her, wanting to touch her, smooth her hair. She seemed all right. There were three hideous purple scars on her right leg, each about the size of a half-crown, and you could see the bumps of her ribs beneath the thin cotton of the threadbare shirt. But she was all right. And her teeth were too big for her face, and her hair looked as though it had been chopped off with a carving knife. But she was all right. She was beautiful.
‘When you saw Uncle Bob, did you recognise him?’ Judith asked.
Jess shook her head. ‘No.’
Bob laughed. ‘How could she? How could you, Jess? You were only four. And we were together for such a little while. In Plymouth. And it was Christmas.’
‘I remember Christmas, but I don't remember you. I remember the silver tree, and someone called Hobbs. He used to make me dripping toast.’
‘You know something, Jess? You talk like a little Australian. I like it. It reminds me of some good cobbers of mine who were shipmates in the old days.’
‘Ruth was Australian.’ She pronounced it ‘Austrylian’.
‘Was she the girl who looked after you?’ Judith asked.
‘Yeah. She was great. In my bag I've got a letter for you from her. She wrote it yesterday. Do you want it now?’
‘No. Wait till we get back. I'll read it then.’
By now, they had left Ratmalana behind them, and were bowling back, north, along the wide road that led to the city. Jess gazed, with some interest, from the windows.
‘It's a bit like Singapore used to be.’
‘I wouldn't know. I was never there.’
‘Where exactly are we going?’
‘To my house,’ Bob told her. ‘Judith's been staying with me.’
‘Is it a big house?’
‘Big enough.’
‘Will I stay there?’
‘Of course.’
‘Will I have a room by myself?’
‘If that's what you'd like.’
Jess didn't reply to this. Judith said, ‘I've got two beds in my room. You could sleep with me if you'd rather.’
But Jess did not want to commit herself. ‘I'll think about it.’ And then, ‘Could I change places with you, so I can see out of the window?’
&n
bsp; After that, she didn't say anything more, simply sat with her back to Bob and Judith, intent on all that passed them by. Countryside at first, little farms and bullock-carts and wells, and then the first of the houses, wayside shops and ramshackle filling stations. Finally, they entered the wide length of the Galle Road, and it was only when the car slowed and swung in through the gate that she spoke again.
‘There's a guard on the gate.’ She sounded a bit alarmed.
‘Yes. A sentry,’ Bob told her. ‘He's not there to stop us getting out, just to make certain no unwelcome guests come in.’
‘Is he your own sentry?’
‘Yes, my very own. And I have a gardener too, and a cook, and a butler. They're all my very own. The gardener has filled the house with flowers for you, and the cook has made a special lemon pudding for your dinner, and the butler, who is called Thomas, cannot wait to meet you…’ The car drew up, and stopped. ‘In fact, he is there, already, come to greet you.’
It was a great welcome. Thomas was already down the steps and opening the door of the car, hair freshly oiled, hibiscus blossom tucked behind his ear; beaming with joy and delight, gold teeth flashing, he helped Jess out, stroking her head with his huge dark hand. He gathered up her rucksack and led her indoors, with an arm about her thin shoulders, and generally carried on as though she were his own lost child, and he her loving father.
‘…you have had a good journey? On the aeroplane? You are hungry, yes? Thirsty? You would like refreshment…?’
But Jess, looking a bit overwhelmed, said that what she really wanted was to go to the lavatory, so Judith stepped in, retrieved the rucksack and led her down the passage to the quiet sanctuary of her own cool bedroom.
‘You mustn't mind Thomas.’