“I’ll go out,” murmured Joe. “Tell her not to worry. I’ll see to things.”
Emma had the story, little by little. It was all concerning the missing Corporal Wagg. Captain Cockran didn’t seem to believe that Jack and Mick had been milking at the time the corporal had turned up, and that they hadn’t even known he had come to speak to Myrtle.
“ ‘You gave the corporal the brush-off, that was it, wasn’t it?’ the captain kept saying to Jack,” Mrs. Trembath told Emma. “ ‘You gave him the brush-off because you suspected he was after your daughter here. What did you do to him? Come on, out with it.’ Oh, Emma, Jack’s never been spoken to that way in his life, you couldn’t blame him for getting angry. ‘You get off my land,’ he said. ‘You’ve no right. First you shoot my dog, then you trespass on my property and accuse me of something I’ve never done. Get out of it!’ Well, that did it, you see. They seized him and bundled him into their jeep, with some difficulty, mind you, and then they took Mick…” She broke off and looked imploringly at Emma. “Are you sure your father can’t do something for us? Terry’s always told us he knows so many people up in London, members of Parliament and others…”
This was the worst moment. To admit Pa’s negative attitude. To admit defeat.
“He did stop them questioning Joe,” she said, “but possibly they weren’t going to take him off anyway. Joe didn’t protest, you see. He kept pretty quiet. I suppose it was because Mr. Trembath got angry that they got angry too.”
“But it was natural, wasn’t it? Who wouldn’t be angry? And my poor Jack was telling the truth, he was milking when the corporal came.”
Not the whole truth, thought Emma, not the whole truth. That’s the terrible part about it. He knows Andy killed the corporal. He knows what happened to the body. And you don’t, dear Mrs. Trembath, nor does Myrtle…
“Pa says he is sure they will let Mr. Trembath and Mick come back very soon,” she told her, “so please try not to worry. Look, Joe will do anything outside you need doing. He’ll manage the milking, he’ll get the sheep into the home field. What can I do for you here? Have you had anything to eat?”
“You’re a dear,” said Mrs. Trembath, wiping her eyes, “I’m very grateful to you.”
Grateful… And what are we? Your husband being put against a wall down at the camp, and your son too, because of us, because of us…
Emma spent the rest of the afternoon helping Mrs. Trembath around the house. Myrtle recovered herself sufficiently to go outside and help Joe marshal the cows to the sheds for milking—because he’s male, thought Emma, she wouldn’t do it for her mother. While she and Mrs. Trembath were getting the tea, somebody knocked on the back door.
“I’ll go,” said Emma. She opened it, and there stood Mr. Willis, peaked hat held in his hand, white thatch of hair upright in the wind. “Oh,” she said, uncertain whether to be glad or sorry, “it’s you.”
The blue eyes glinted at her behind the spectacles. “We’re here on the same errand, I’m thinking,” he answered, “offering our services to neighbors in need. I was down in Poldrea and I heard Mr. Trembath and the boy had been taken to the camp for questioning. News travels fast, doesn’t it? I came to see if I could do the milking. I can turn my hand to anything, as I expect you’ve noticed.”
“Joe’s in the middle of milking now,” said Emma, then called over her shoulder to Mrs. Trembath. “It’s Mr. Willis, come to know if he can help.”
Mrs. Trembath came to the door and stood beside her. “It’s very good of you,” she said doubtfully. “I don’t know where’d we be without good neighbors. Joe’s nearly through with the milking, but we’ve still to round up the sheep and count them. There was one missing the other night. Jack found her, though, after he’d been round the field with the Land Rover.”
Emma moved aside. Everything Mrs. Trembath said seemed to implicate them further.
“You stay where you are, missus,” said Mr. Willis. “I’ll give Joe a hand with the milking, and with the sheep. It’s true, then, they took away your husband? I didn’t credit it when they told me in the street.”
The story had to be retold from start to finish. Emma couldn’t bear it, her guilt was so intense. At least Mr. Willis shared the secret, but in a way this made it even worse. “I knew we were in for trouble the moment they landed among us last week,” she heard him saying. “Never can let well alone, look what they did in southeast Asia that time. They beat a man up if he as much as speaks his mind.”
“They won’t beat up my Jack, surely?” asked Mrs. Trembath anxiously.
“Not if he answers them sweetly,” was the reply. “You have to know how to handle them. Plenty of lip service and they’ll swallow it. Then, when the right moment comes, strike and strike hard, and they’ll scatter like starlings at the sound of a rattle. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll see what I can do to help the lad with the cows.” He vanished into the gathering murk outside.
“He’s very kind,” said Mrs. Trembath, “but he’s such an odd sort of man.” She peered outside towards the sheds across the yard.
“I know,” said Emma, “but I think you can trust him.” What is more, you’ve got to trust him, because there’s no alternative, she thought. He’s got you and me, sister, in his hands, he’s got our whole world in his hands…
The gale that had been blowing throughout the day was easing now. You did not feel it so much here at the farm, which was partly sheltered by the brow of the hill, as you did on the high ground at home. Emma wondered what had been happening up at Trevanal all afternoon. Mrs. Trembath had laid the table for all of them, Emma, Joe and Mr. Willis, saying she and Myrtle would be glad of the company and there was plenty to eat with her husband and son absent, but Emma shook her head.
“I can’t speak for Joe,” she said, “but I ought to get back.”
The sound of a car in the yard brought hope to them both, but it was Nurse Bennett, Mrs. Trembath’s sister. She too had heard the ill news by the all-pervading grapevine.
“They’ve been to all the farms around,” she said, “and to the cottages beyond St. Fimbar. And it isn’t just the missing marine they’re after, it’s explosives. What would we want with explosives, that’s what I want to know? You know Jim Couch with the ulcerated leg I dress, whose boy works up at Whitemoor? Well, it seems they’ve taken quite a few of the younger chaps for questioning, and the mood of the men is getting quite ugly.”
“The uglier the better.” Mr. Willis had reappeared, and he bowed with old-fashioned courtesy to Nurse Bennett. “We don’t want it to be a walkover, do we? It takes more than a handful of fellows up at Whitehall to make a union between countries. You have to have the backing of a whole nation.”
“That’s all very well, Mr. Willis,” replied Mrs. Trembath, “but they didn’t ask us, at least not this time. We did have a referendum when there was all that fuss about entering Europe.”
“Entering Europe had nothing on this lot,” said Mr. Willis. “As easy as going to Lostwithiel market with that one, exchange your cattle for a sow and piglets and everyone happy. No Yankee troops walking over your land and killing your livestock.”
“That’s true,” Nurse Bennett nodded. “All the same, we don’t want trouble.”
“That’s what the French said when the Germans occupied their country in the Second World War. We don’t want trouble, they said. We’ll do as we’re told. Some of them didn’t, did they? They blew up railway lines and junctions and prepared the way for the second front.”
Emma caught his eye and looked away again. She thought of Terry’s gelignite hidden securely somewhere in the hut in the woods.
“Mrs. Trembath,” she said, “I really ought to go. Perhaps you’ll tell Joe when he comes in.”
“He’s ready to go back with you now,” said Mr. Willis. “If there is anything more that I can do here I’m ready to do it. And again in the morning, at milking time.” He rubbed his hands with satisfaction. “The harder a man works the better he sleeps—that goes for every
one, doesn’t it?”
Mrs. Trembath looked uncertainly at her new farm helper as she poured out his tea. Emma felt that neither she nor Myrtle would have much sleep that night, not unless their menfolk returned safe and sound.
Joe was standing in the doorway waiting for her. “I’ll look in again tomorrow morning, Mrs. Trembath,” he said. “Mr. Willis tells me he will be here first thing. I do hope Mr. Trembath and Mick come home before that.”
“Please God,” she replied.
“I wouldn’t count on it,” said Mr. Willis. “They like to make you as uncomfortable as they can, otherwise it’s wasting their time. Do you good to sweat it out, that’s what they say.” He nodded to Joe. “Weather’s easing already,” he said. “We’ll have clear skies tomorrow and a beach full of driftwood from below my place right round to Poldrea. A fine harvest for all of us, and for the Yankees too, I shouldn’t wonder.”
Emma and Joe went out into the night. The clouds had parted, the air was sharper than before.
“I don’t know what it is,” said Emma, “but he gives me the creeps.”
“Me too,” confessed Joe, “but I know we can trust him. He was talking to me back in the shed. He said they can’t put anything on Mr. Trembath or Mick, because they will be telling the truth. They didn’t see Corporal Wagg when he called on Myrtle, and they’ll stick to that. Mick knows nothing of what happened later, so he’s absolutely in the clear. He also said feeling is rising locally against the marines, especially since this. Mr. Trembath is very highly thought of locally, everyone respects him.”
“Perhaps,” said Emma, “perhaps… but that doesn’t get round the fact that we all know, and so does Mr. Trembath, that the corporal is dead.”
They arrived back at Trevanal hoping to find a household, if not entirely happy, at least comparatively serene. They were disappointed. As they entered the house they heard the sound of the telephone in the cloakroom and Pa rushed to answer it. For some reason he had changed out of his polo sweater and was in his suit.
“Crisis… crisis…” he said, “everything blowing up.” He dashed into the cloakroom and shut the door. Emma and Joe went into the music room. Mad was putting more logs on the fire. She turned, and raising her eyes to heaven sighed and sat down on the sofa.
“It’s gone on like this since four this afternoon. We had a lovely silent hour, he even went to sleep in the chair while I held my breath, and then the telephone rang, his damn secretary from London. Don’t ask me what it’s all about. Zurich… New York… I’m not sure he didn’t even say Brazil. Anyway, he’s got to get back to London right away.”
“Oh no!” Emma’s spirits sank to zero.
“Darling, I’m as disappointed as you are. I know he’s maddening, but we both adore him.” Mad, of all people, had tears at the corners of her eyes. “We don’t see him often, that’s it, I suppose. Well, it can’t be helped. How was it at the farm? Are Jack and Mick back yet?”
“No,” said Emma, “but Mr. Willis has turned up to help.”
“That’s a relief. Dear Taffy. I don’t know what we should do without him.”
Joe slipped from the room, saying there were things to be done, though Emma guessed it was because he thought they wanted to be alone with Pa.
“The children have behaved like angels, bless them,” said her grandmother. “Dottie started to make the Christmas puddings, far too early, I’m sure, and she allowed Colin and Ben to help, she deserves a halo.”
“What about Andy and Sam?”
“They made a new hutch for the squirrel, the old one was smelling so dreadfully, one could hardly go into their room. The trouble is I don’t think the squirrel gets on terribly well with the pigeon, they don’t seem to see eye to eye.”
The patter in the cloakroom ceased and Pa came into the room. “I knew it was a mistake to leave London,” he said. “Everyone’s going round in circles, people completely losing their heads. USUK and Brazil at loggerheads over the new currency arrangements, I see myself flying out there to help sort things out. And some bloody fool put a bomb on the steps of the American Embassy, no damage, they found it in time, but it’s bad for propaganda. Emma darling, I can’t find my bedroom slippers, what did you do with my bedroom slippers?”
She hadn’t done anything, they were under the bed. She helped him sort his few belongings, pack his hairbrushes, his electric toothbrush, and suddenly she put her arms round him and held on to him.
“I don’t want you to go,” she told him.
“How very sweet of you,” he said, surprised, “how very touching. Darling Emma, how delightful it is to have a grown-up daughter, one doesn’t always realize it, this constant pressure. We must see more of each other. I wish you would come to Brazil, you’d love Brazil. Did you sort out your farming friends? I’m sorry I couldn’t do more for them. Out of the question.”
Typically, he didn’t wait for a reply but ran downstairs again two at a time, and was back in the music room drinking black coffee.
“This will sustain me until I’m through Exeter,” he said. “Once Exeter is past I enter civilization. I might snatch a sandwich off old Digby-Stratton, he’s only a few miles from Honiton, it depends on the time, and whether there are these confounded roadblocks everywhere… Emma, if the operator rings to say the Brazilian Embassy is on the line, tell them to cancel the call, I’ve left… No, no, mother beloved, I don’t want a Bath Oliver biscuit, it would give me indigestion hunched over the wheel, I must get organized, I must leave you.” He folded his arms round his mother and his daughter at the same time, hugging them to him. “If I do have to fly to Rio tomorrow and am out of touch for a few days, don’t let me return and find you both in prison. These are stirring times—put a foot wrong, and anything may happen. You have my office number, and if there’s a genuine crisis tell my secretary to contact me, but I shall be in conference continuously… Don’t forget to take your heart pills, take things easy, control those horrible children… I must go, I must go…”
Mad stood at the front door watching as Emma accompanied her father down the drive, and this is all repetition of yesterday, Emma thought, only it was then, with his visit ahead which might have lasted the whole weekend, and it isn’t then anymore, it’s now, and he’s going, and nothing has been achieved. It’s worse in a way than if he had never come at all, because one had got used to the thing of not seeing him. He was kissing her once again, then climbing into the car and roaring up the drive, the headlights pausing at the gates and shining upon them. Then no more. It was all over. Pa had gone.
Mad was standing before the fire in the music room. She had picked up an old picture postcard of herself from the mantelpiece and was studying it. It had been taken years ago when she was young. The face that launched a thousand ships, her husband used to say. The eyes were very large, the hair rather full, framing the rounded cheeks. Vic, aged about three, a sturdy replica of herself, sat on her knee. Emma went and stood beside her, then put her arms round her grandmother.
“It’s still awfully like,” she said.
“Of him, or of me?” asked Mad.
“Of you both.”
And yet, and yet… What was he thinking about, that plump little boy? Had it been laid out for him, planned, that he would grow up to become a burly middle-aged man tearing about in jets to Brazil and believing, or kidding himself, he could control the finances of millions? And that lovely sensuous woman, his mother, with the smile at the corner of her mouth and the looped tresses falling about her face, did she know then that she would live to be seventy-nine, an eccentric, rather imperious old woman? When the photograph was taken the world, if far from secure, still held some measure of stability, and Hitler’s war had not been launched. Later, the little boy, of an age to understand, would have heard Churchill’s famous phrase about fighting on the beaches, in the streets. Today the country had been taken over, annexed, by another power, with—at least according to the statement of the little boy of the photograph, now grown to full
maturity—the consent of almost the entire population. The fighting on the beaches had been done by a boy of seventeen, throwing his marine opponent in a Rugby tackle, and by a child of twelve, not in a street but on a plowed field, who, turning killer, destroyed the same opponent with a bow and arrow.
Mad put the photograph back in its place on the mantelpiece. “I had a funny feeling when I saw him go just now,” she said.
“What do you mean?” Emma asked.
“Oh, nothing, just…” Mad spread out her hands in the familiar gesture. “I feel it may be a long time before I see him again.”
Emma did not answer. She was wondering whether old people found that time went slowly or, on the contrary, much too fast. It was going fast at the moment because so many things seemed to be happening every day. If the crisis hadn’t come, would her grandmother have had the same sense of boredom, of frustration, that she herself had known during the past weeks? Or did Mad, because of being eighty very soon, want every day to drag, almost to stop still, because each moment must, by the nature of things, bring her closer to the end?
“Pa will only be a few days out of the country,” Emma said in reassurance, “and then he’s bound to come down for your birthday. We must make a thing of that, crisis or no crisis.”
Mad shrugged contemptuously. “My birthday,” she scoffed. “Who cares about birthdays at my age? We’ll do something when the moment comes to amuse the boys, but the real question will be, shall we have anything to celebrate?”
15
Jack Trembath and Mick were allowed to return to the farm on Sunday morning. It was a special concession, so the camp commandant told him, because of his livestock and the essential nature of his work on the land. He must be prepared to answer further questions should the need arise. The proceedings had been conducted not by Colonel Cheeseman, who had left for Falmouth in the warship during the storm the preceding day, but by his deputy, a Colonel Tucker, who was altogether tougher. One of the first things the farmer did was to come up to Trevanal and report in person.