Not Thinking of Death Read online

  ‘Flies all over the place. Wherever the customers want to be taken. Mostly sporting events, race-meetings and so on. But anywhere – including France, Ireland—’

  ‘Fascinating… Although Andrew roams much more widely than that. South Africa, Sweden, America – I go there with him, usually. God knows what for… I need another drink.’ Glancing round… ‘Damn, they’ve finished dispensing them. And we can’t send for one when nobody else is getting any. Tell you what – if we creep out together, just slip out like wraiths—’

  ‘I’ve had more than enough, Zoe. Truly. Besides, I must go. Did I gather you won’t be up here much longer?’

  ‘Leaving tomorrow. Andrew’s staying here, says he has to. And – Rufus, London is definitely no place to be alone.’

  ‘I can’t believe you would be. Not for long, anyway.’

  ‘That’s the second nice thing you’ve said. You know, if you really tried—’

  ‘I was telling those fellers there—’ A heavy, dark-suited man of about fifty was talking as he lurched up to them.

  Zoe ignored him, told Chalk ‘You do improve on acquaintance, Rufus. In fact I think if I took you seriously in hand—’

  ‘– my considered opinion, dear lady, that war became inevitable back in ’34, when the German army took the oath of allegiance to Adolf Hitler. That oath’s not given lightly, d’ye see—’

  ‘I’m sure it isn’t.’ Chalk nodded to him, then turned back and took Zoe’s free hand, squeezed it gently. ‘I really do have to go.’

  ‘I suppose if you have to—’

  He’d nodded. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Remember – in the book – Andrew Murray Buchanan. Second initial’s important, because—’

  ‘I’ll write it down.’

  ‘Same evening Hindenburg died.’ The bulky man took a grip on Chalk’s arm. ‘August second, ’34. Nazis had it set up ready for the old feller to breathe his last, and that very night every serving unit in the square-head army had to swear by God to render to Adolf Hitler – I quote from memory – render to Adolf Hitler, leader of the German nation and people, Supreme Commander – unconditional obedience. Unconditional, mark you!’

  Chalk disengaged himself from the clutching hand. ‘Doesn’t improve the prospects, I agree. But I’m off now, so—’

  ‘Aye. You be off.’ The man turned all his attention on Zoe. ‘D’ye see, Mrs Buchanan – that oath’s binding on ’em. Any man as—’

  ‘Rufus, try not to be proper?’

  ‘I will.’ He called back, ‘I promise!’

  ‘– any man as broke it, they’d put him up against a wall. So no matter what Hitler may want ’em to do henceforth—’

  Chapter 6

  ‘Ozzie’ Ozzard was a tallish, large-boned man with bushy eyebrows and dark hair already wearing thin. He was a lieutenant-commander, in his early thirties. Chalk had met him once – in Gibraltar, years earlier, when he’d been an L-class boat’s first lieutenant and Chalk a brand-new sub-lieutenant, and he remembered even from then the older man’s abrupt, jerky manner of speech. Which hadn’t changed. But he’d thought it unlikely that Ozzard would remember him, and sure enough he didn’t. They shook hands: ‘Decent of you to come out, Chalk.’ He raised his voice: ‘Maggie! Come down and meet Rufus Chalk!’

  There was a large, cool room, originally a dairy, full of luggage and packing-cases which they weren’t intending to unpack here, only when they moved into the Pargeters’ cottage, about half a mile away; they’d be transferring themselves to it when Trumpeter left to join her flotilla, in about six weeks’ time. From Barlows’, this place was about halfway to Helensburgh, on high ground above a river called the Leven. And on this Sunday morning Ozzard was wearing old flannel ‘bags’ and a torn open-necked shirt, Chalk remembered.

  ‘Is there anything I can help with, sir?’

  ‘No. Thanks… Except I want to see Threat – whatever there is of her.’

  ‘Whenever you like. I’ve transport outside.’

  ‘Pargeter said you had your own. I’ll have to get one too, when I can. Meanwhile we’ll get lifts from them – or you… Ah, Maggie. Rufus Chalk, my Number One.’

  ‘Sacrificing his weekend – or some of it.’ She was about five-four, and not by any means bony. Curly light-brown hair framed a round, smiling face. Cotton frock, plimsolls and an apron; the small hand grasping his was hot and damp. ‘We aren’t fit to be seen, either of us. But how very nice of you to come out.’

  ‘Not at all. I’ve been looking forward to your getting here.’

  ‘Hah!’ A bark of amusement from Ozzard. ‘Bet you have!’

  ‘Fact, sir. For one thing your official correspondence has been – to put it mildly – voluminous, and until a few days ago I’ve been single-handed as far as desk-work’s concerned. It’s all cleared up, I’m glad to say; and now we have a Leading Telegraphist who can actually type, and a Leading Stoker as engineer’s store-keeper. Among four hands who joined this week.’

  ‘What about the plumber?’

  ‘Eason. Commissioned Engineer. Knows his stuff, keeps at it, and he has the eyes of a hawk for the yard trying to put one over on us.’

  ‘That happened?’

  ‘It would have, but thanks to Eason – well, a stitch in time. Barlows’ are very cooperative, actually, this was just one blunder that he put his finger on… Question of timing now, sir – seeing Threat – do you have any plans for lunch?’

  ‘Sandwiches.’ Maggie Ozzard told him, ‘Courtesy of the Pargeters, and they’re feeding us tonight too, bless them.’

  ‘What about early afternoon, Chalk?’

  ‘If I’m back here to pick you up at – 1400?’

  ‘Perfect!’ Glancing at his wife. ‘Eh?’

  ‘Well – do you have far to go now?’

  ‘No.’ Chalk told her, ‘Dunbarton – I’ve digs there. It’s no distance – four miles, roughly.’

  ‘And will there be room for me, on this guided tour?’

  ‘Lots of room.’ He looked back at her husband. ‘I’ll give Eason a ring, sir – he’s expecting it, and he’ll meet us down there. Oh, and I’ve made some notes for you – left ’em in the car, I’ll get them – Barlows’ personalities, and so forth.’

  ‘Good. Well done.’

  ‘You were diverted to Palma, we hear.’

  ‘Weren’t we. Expecting thirty-six hours in Gib, and dear old Pompey a week later – then zingo, off to the bleeding Balearics!’

  ‘As from the moment I heard of it—’ his wife put in ‘—I’ve been conscious of a deep hatred of Italians.’

  ‘I can imagine.’ Chalk added, ‘But you’ve left trouble behind you in China too – according to the BBC this morning?’

  ‘Heard some of that.’ Ozzard said, ‘Switched on too late. Japs on the warpath near Peking, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Battle for some bridge, and the fighting was said to be spreading.’

  ‘There’s trouble brewing in Shanghai, as well.’ Maggie added, ‘It won’t be the Chinks who start it, either… Like some coffee?’

  ‘But you haven’t even unpacked?’

  ‘This lot isn’t going to be unpacked. We’ll live out of suitcases, for now. But vital necessities such as coffee and gin are available all right. May be just a little early for the Plymouth… Coffee for you, Tim?’

  ‘Please.’ He pointed at a packing-case, as his wife went through to the kitchen. ‘Sit down, Chalk. Smoke? About the Japs – in my opinion we’re facing a bigger threat from them – in the short term – than from Germany. Not the conventional view, I know – and I’ll admit I don’t like what I heard two days ago in London about goings-on in Austria, for that matter. Hitler’s appointed an SS officer to command the local Nazis, and this chap – Keppler – has induced Chancellor Schuschnigg to let an equally unsavoury squirt called Seyss-Inquart into his government. Trojan horse if there ever was one. All working in the same direction now, isn’t it? Ah, Maggie… Point is, Chalk, they may need us to be out of the bu
ilders’ hands a lot sooner than they think!’

  The Ozzards had arrived late on the previous evening, so the Pargeters had given them a meal and put them up. Chalk, waiting for a call from Jacko Pargeter that never came, had spent the evening writing letters to various people including Guy and their sister Betty, and he’d had a long telephone call from Diana. In his letter to Guy he’d included a reference to Toby Dymock, mentioning that the other Cameron-Green daughter, Patricia, would be down from Cambridge soon and that they were all hoping she and Dymock might like each other.

  He, Chalk, was hoping they might, anyway. It was wishful thinking, considering that Dymock was up at Glendarragh this weekend, with Suzie to himself. Not even Alastair was going to be there to queer his pitch for him. Easier not to think about it… Although another piece of wishful thinking – the odds against which he thought might be slightly shorter – was that by the end of a weekend of undiluted Dymock, Suzie might decide she’d had enough of him.

  Maggie Ozzard asked him later, on their way back from the ‘guided tour’, ‘What do you usually do with your weekends, Rufus?’

  ‘I’ve friends at a place called Glendarragh. A few hours away by road – in the wilds up towards Fort William. My younger brother’s known them for some time and they got in touch when he told them I was here.’

  ‘Would you have been up there now if we hadn’t been coming?’

  ‘Might have.’ He looked round at her and smiled. ‘I knew you were coming, so the question didn’t arise.’ He changed the subject – on that white lie – to Trumpeter, her near completion and his hope of getting his own name on the passenger-list for her acceptance trials. Ozzard’s gruff answer was what he’d expected: he, Ozzard, would certainly expect to go along, Chalk’s chances would depend on whether or not they had room for him.

  He added, ‘But there’ll be several T’s completing at other yards before we do. You’ll get your chance, Number One.’

  * * *

  Chalk asked me – after he’d been into the house to fetch two tankards of beer – ‘for lubrication of vocal chords. Not so sure that you're entitled’ – whether I’d known Ozzard. Which I hadn’t.

  ‘I knew of him, of course.’

  ‘Earned himself a chestful of gongs, didn’t he. In the Med, when he had—’ the old man put a hand up to his forehead – ‘damn it. Name of his boat – in the 8th Flotilla. Can't have forgotten!’

  My memory had slipped too. So – creep up on it… Ozzard had had three stripes by then: and his boat had been a ‘T’, for sure…

  ‘Got it. Typhoon.’

  ‘Of course!’ He shook his head. ‘Frustrating business, getting old. I think something happens a split second before you’re going to say whatever it is. Like a connection breaking… And – well, I can only say I think it was on one of the next few evenings, in the week after Dymock had been at Glendarragh solo, that Zoe Buchanan telephoned me at my lodgings. Could have been later, but – doesn’t matter, it was about then. I asked her how on earth she’d got the number – when there must have been about a thousand Mrs Blairs in the book – and perhaps a hundred of them in Dunbarton – and she said she’d got it from Toby Dymock. Then she added – after I might have left rather a marked silence, by way of a comment on her having had his number – that she hadn’t had it, her husband had, she’d looked it up in the book he kept on his desk. Then she’d got through to Dymock and got my number from him. She wanted to know whether I’d done any thinking about taking a long weekend and spending it in London. I told her – untruthfully, I suspect – no, I hadn’t. Mind you, I found it difficult to believe that it was me she was after, I thought it more likely that she was using me as a stalking-horse just to get hold of Dymock. It was obviously Zoe whom he’d been supposed to meet in London, he’d ducked out of it – for whatever reason or reasons, possibly similar to those which deterred me from any such involvement – at that time… But that was why she’d been going for him at the cocktail party – to embarrass him in front of me, punish him for having let her down. I hadn’t said anything about it to Dymock, incidentally – although I’d been tempted to pull his leg. What he did or did not get up to with Mrs Buchanan was hardly my business, after all.’

  ‘But you thought she was still pursuing him.’

  He put down his tankard. ‘I liked her. Partly I dare say because she’d shown interest in yours truly – whether genuine or not, the effect was the same – isn’t it always? But she was so outgoing – in a funny way, honest. Perhaps I mean forthright. She’d say what she thought, and she’d expect you to tell her what you thought – no half-truths or prevarication. Downright lies, certainly – but that’s – well, the other side of the coin, isn’t it. She was a man’s woman – that sums it up. And ruthless – also an attraction. Fascination, in fact – oddly enough… But I was very cautious. To start with I suppose I was by nature, and then – well, matters were tricky enough already vis-à-vis Dymock, and even more so there was Andrew Buchanan as a major factor in the equation. He couldn’t have been unaware that his wife had a tendency to kick over the traces when she felt like it. At least, I didn’t see how… As things turned out – well, we’ll come to that. But he was no fool, and – well, holy smoke, last thing I’d have wanted was a run-in with a Barlows’ director! Inconceivable. I’d have had to leave my job – one way or another. Might account for Dymock’s having developed cold feet too, eh?’

  He added, after a pause, ‘I liked Buchanan, anyway.’

  ‘Did she ring again?’

  A nod. ‘Can’t tell you exactly when or how often, but she – kept in touch, all right.’

  ‘With Dymock too?’

  ‘She did tell me – later – that she hadn’t. But – hardly matters, does it? She was no more than – well, a slight distraction, and barely that; one’s thinking was dominated by the Suzie-Dymock affair.’

  ‘Affair?’

  ‘The Suzie-Dymock relationship, then.’

  ‘So she hadn’t had a surfeit of him, that weekend?’

  ‘Regrettably not. But now listen. Of this period – four or five weeks it must have been – I’ve been working at it, but all I can remember are bits and pieces, snatches of conversation and – as I may have put it before – an occasional visual memory like a snapshot. Which one then wonders if one trusts: to what extent the mind distorts recollection over the years. And certainly rearranging the jumble in any logical sequence is beyond me. Possibly because it’s overclouded by what followed? But that’s the best I can give you now – pictures in the fire, as it were.’

  ‘I’ll paste them together.’

  ‘Glad I don’t have to. What d’you think of this beer?’

  ‘I’d like to know where to get it. It actually tastes of hops.’

  ‘I make it myself. Saves money, and I agree with you it compares favourably with a lot of the swill that comes in cans… But – nose to the grindstone, now – we were talking about the weekend of 10–11 July – when the Ozzards arrived.’

  ‘And Dymock was at Glendarragh.’

  Chalk nodded. ‘There particularly of course, I can’t do more than put two and two together – possibly coming up with five. Not having been present… Dymock himself didn’t mention the weekend, not a word, and I didn’t question him about it. Didn’t want to show that much interest, I suppose. I wasn’t exactly seeking his company, anyway. There was more to be learnt – deduced – the weekend after, when I was up there. I’ve a sort of rough diary here, you see, so at least the dates are right… But from as much as I did see of Dymock, he was – riding high. Frenetically active – Trumpeter nearing completion, with all these tests and inspections in progress, and she had her full crew by this time. But he was obviously delighted with himself – radiating good humour towards all and sundry.’

  ‘Except towards you, I suppose.’

  ‘Well – we were keeping out of each other’s way.’

  ‘But are you saying he was in love?’

  ‘No, I’m not.�
�� One of those quick, almost imperceptible headshakes of his: it was a signal of impatience, or annoyance, or both. Telling me quite sharply, ‘Draw that inference if you like. All I’m saying is he was cock-a-hoop.’

  * * *

  Arriving at Glendarragh late-ish on the Friday evening – the 16th, this was – he was met not by Suzie but by her mother – with MacKenzie in the background, as always – and from the moment he saw her he was aware of her embarrassment and efforts to hide it. How lovely to see him, etcetera, and how they’d missed him last weekend: then, spotting the loose end of a conversational link dangling from that, she’d asked him whether his captain had arrived, and did Chalk like him: oh, and his wife, he was married, was he not? – what was she like? It was quite a few minutes before she told him – volunteering the information, since Chalk hadn’t asked – that Suzie was exercising her pony. It had been so hot these last few days, early mornings or evenings were really the only times…

  ‘Has she heard from Guy, d’you know?’

  ‘I – think so…’

  Momentary hesitation: the doubt in her mind being – he guessed – whether or not Suzie’s correspondence with Guy was a safe subject; then she’d decided either that it was, or that she’d hardly be able to avoid it. This was, after all, Guy’s brother she was talking to.

  ‘Yes, she did have a letter from him. I’m not absolutely sure she’s written back to him yet, though.’ That bright, high laugh: ‘Suzie’s terribly lazy, when it comes to letterwriting!’

  ‘So’s Guy. They’re obviously made for each other.’

  The laugh again – only worse, almost a short burst of hysteria. ‘I wouldn’t necessarily have been told, anyway. She’s so secretive, these days, one never knows – I mean, one simply doesn’t…’

  The line might as easily have been It’s her business, none of mine.