Sons and Daughters Page 11

  ‘You were,’ said Bess. ‘What a hateful and shallow person she must have been.’

  ‘Infatuation takes all common sense out of a man and makes a fool of him,’ said Jeremy. ‘It won’t happen again. Bess, thanks for our time together today, and for the rowboat ride. I’ll be in touch.’

  ‘That’s a promise?’ said Bess, little flutters, hitherto unknown, happily attacking her.

  ‘It’s a promise,’ said Jeremy. ‘Now go and meet your friends. Goodbye, Bess. For a while.’

  He touched her hand, that was all. Then he walked into the hotel, and Bess walked to meet her noisy, exuberant friends. For once their boisterousness didn’t irritate her. Something very nice had happened, something that put brightness into her eyes and her smile.

  Mrs Kloytski, returning from shopping in the market, saw one of her very appealing neighbours, Mrs Cassie Brown. Cassie was putting a shine on her iron doorknocker.

  ‘Ah, you are the good housewife, Cassie,’ said Mrs Kloytski.

  ‘I’m not out here because of that,’ said Cassie, ‘I’m out here because it’s bedlam inside. Listen to my terrors.’

  From the interior of the house came yells, bangs, clangs and thumps.

  ‘Heavens, what is happening?’ asked Mrs Kloytski.

  ‘Muffin and Lewis are playing at being a brass band,’ said Cassie. ‘Muffin’s using Lewis’s toy drum, and Lewis is using our dustbin lid and the kitchen poker. If you’d like to go in and watch them, you’re welcome.’

  ‘Oh, I think not,’ said Mrs Kloytski.

  Pity, thought Cassie, if she went in the noise alone could injure her. Cassie had begun to actively dislike the lady. She didn’t trust her smile or her bold blue eyes, or the way she kind of sidled up on Freddy. Cassie treated herself to happy thoughts of waylaying the buxom Polack in the dark and spoiling her looks with the dustbin lid.

  Clang went the makeshift cymbal. Bong went the drum.

  ‘School holidays, I don’t know,’ said Cassie.

  ‘It is a youth organization they need,’ said Mrs Kloytski, ‘with good strong men in charge. Like sergeant majors, yes?’

  ‘Not for my cherubs, thank you,’ said Cassie.

  ‘Ah, well, goodbye for today,’ said Mrs Kloytski and walked on to her house where, once inside, Mr Kloytski put an immediate question to her.

  ‘Any danger signals?’

  ‘None,’ said Mrs Kloytski. ‘The woman at the stall—’

  ‘The peasant?’

  ‘Yes. No-one has asked her about me. I told her that if anyone did make enquiries, it would probably be someone who knew me and my family in Poland during the war and is trying to trace me. She said she’d be glad to let me know, and called me “ducks”.’

  Kloytski, thoughtful, said, ‘It occurs to me that if the man you saw last Saturday did have suspicions about you, he’d have made enquiries before now. Therefore, he either had no suspicions or he could not place you in his memory.’

  ‘Perhaps because he could not see me in the atmosphere of a London market as he saw me at that first meeting,’ said Mrs Kloytski.

  ‘A very different set of circumstances,’ said Kloytski. ‘All the same, we’ll take no chances. Open the door to no-one without first taking a look through the spyhole.’ He had fitted that several days ago. ‘If he should call, don’t let him in.’

  ‘I’m not a fool,’ said Mrs Kloytski.

  ‘After he’s gone, go and see the peasant woman again,’ said Kloytski. ‘Tell her you are now sure you once knew the man and would like to call on him. Ask for his address.’

  ‘She may not know his address.’

  ‘Ask her,’ said Kloytski.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Friday. Going-home time.

  ‘Well, Saunders, I hope you can manage while I’m away,’ said Paul. He was going to do a week’s walking tour of the Yorkshire Dales with a Young Socialist friend.

  ‘I’m confident you won’t be missed,’ said Lulu, wearing a long loose ankle-length brown dress, which Paul thought Noah’s wife might have worn on the Ark, and which Noah, when the Flood receded, told her to put in a jumble sale.

  ‘Watch out that you don’t fall over your confidence and break a leg,’ he said.

  ‘I suppose you know women have to be twice as good as men if they want to be recognized,’ said Lulu, cramming a black knitted pull-on hat over her twin curtains.

  ‘Recognized as what?’

  ‘Bloody marvels,’ said Lulu.

  ‘Tuppence in the box,’ said Paul.

  ‘What box?’

  ‘The swear box. It’s new and I’ve just put it on the window ledge. It’s to discourage unwelcome language when visitors are present. Also, I’m against women speaking like that.’

  ‘Why should it be exclusive to men?’ demanded Lulu.

  ‘Men are more uncivilized,’ said Paul.

  ‘And women are sweet, soppy and goodygoody?’ said Lulu. ‘Listen, Adams. There’s been an earth-shaking war. It’s changed things. Kicked conventions to bits. Made women look for independence.’

  ‘Don’t forget to answer every letter that arrives,’ said Paul, ‘and don’t forget to sign them on behalf of Paul Adams, Secretary.’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘It’s an order,’ said Paul.

  ‘You’re too young to give orders,’ said Lulu. ‘Wait till you’re old and hairy.’

  ‘Get your hair cut and styled,’ said Paul. ‘Make this office look a bit pretty. So long now.’

  She followed him out.

  ‘Grow a moustache,’ she said as they parted company on the pavement. Paul went off grinning, she went off like Boadicea looking for her fiery chariot.

  ‘They’re back,’ said Matthew over supper that evening.

  ‘I know,’ said Rosie, ‘I heard the vixen caterwauling in the night.’

  ‘I heard her too,’ said seven-year-old Giles, a slim boy with an unruly mass of dark hair.

  ‘Oh, was it the foxes?’ asked Emily, only a week short of six. She was as golden-haired as her mother, with a quick smile already cheeky. She had been named after Rosie’s late adoptive mother, Boots’s first wife.

  ‘It was, little chick,’ said Matthew, ‘but they did no damage, apart from trying to dig their way under the chickens’ wire fence. I suspect they’ll have another go tonight.’

  ‘Still, I like foxes, don’t we, Daddy?’ said Emily.

  ‘You can’t say I, then we,’ said Giles.

  ‘Mummy, I’m not,’ protested Emily.

  ‘I didn’t mean wee,’ said Giles. ‘Soppy date.’

  ‘Let’s have some improved conversation, shall we?’ said Rosie.

  ‘Kids grow up with saucy ways, and give their parents worrying days,’ said Matthew.

  ‘Crikey, you made a rhyme, Dad,’ said Giles.

  ‘Just another piece of ancient Dorset doggerel,’ said Rosie, ‘but we’d feel deprived without it.’

  ‘We’ll be watching for the beasts tonight,’ said Matthew.

  ‘You and Jonathan?’ said Rosie. Jonathan and Emma were enjoying their own supper in the annexe.

  ‘Oh, can I watch with you, Dad?’ begged Giles.

  ‘Will you be awake, my lad?’ asked Matthew.

  ‘Yes, course I will,’ said Giles.

  ‘We’ll see,’ said Matthew.

  Dusk was descending over the gentle hills of Surrey, and there was no sign of the foxes. Matthew and Jonathan were close to the wired-in henhouses. Giles was absent, having failed to stay awake, of course.

  ‘I wonder,’ whispered Jonathan, ‘do those four-legged chicken-slayers know we’re here?’

  ‘I’m thinking about laying traps if we don’t bag ’em soon,’ murmured Matthew.

  ‘That won’t please everyone in the village, Matt.’

  ‘Nor the four-legged enemy.’

  Night followed dusk, but they stayed where they were. They were both handymen, and Matthew’s war years with REME had made him the complete electrician. W
ith Jonathan’s help he had fixed a floodlight to illuminate the wire-guarded henhouses and beyond. Close to his recumbent body was a remote control, and on this occasion he and Jonathan both had shotguns. They were armed to protect their livelihood.

  Time went by. Eyes strained in attempts to penetrate the darkness. They were prepared to wait until midnight at least, when they would keep solo watch in three-hour shifts.

  At eleven, they drank hot coffee from a flask, their movements as quiet as possible, their whispered exchanges the bare minimum. Bless my good old pa who used to put paid to foxes down in Sussex, thought Jonathan, these contrary Surrey foxes are lying low, and I’ve got an ache in every muscle.

  Beside him, Matthew alerted. Jonathan whispered.

  ‘You hearing something?’

  ‘I’m hearing a vehicle in the lane,’ whispered Matthew.

  The lane ran past the bottom of the field. Jonathan listened. The noise of a motor engine reached his ears, the vehicle hidden by hedges. But they heard it stop. The lights and the engine were switched off.

  ‘Visitors?’ murmured Jonathan.

  ‘RSPCA?’ murmured Matthew.

  ‘Someone’s informed them we don’t care too much for foxes?’ murmured Jonathan.

  In the deep quiet of the night, a creaking sound was audible.

  ‘Well, blow my boots off,’ said Matthew, ‘whoever it is, Jonathan, is coming through the hedge gate.’

  ‘I’d like to know who,’ whispered Jonathan, ‘but I can’t see for looking.’

  Down at the gate, Large Lump was doing some whispering himself.

  ‘The sheep first, Rollo.’

  ‘You sure there’s sheep?’ said Rollo, a heavy.

  ‘Didn’t Poky Prodnose inform the boss there was?’ said Large Lump. ‘And didn’t Mr Ford inform me likewise? So get at ’em.’

  ‘I ain’t against taking one home,’ said Rollo, ‘me and the missus is partial to roast mutton.’

  ‘Find ’em, and run ’em out through the gate,’ said Large Lump.

  ‘Find ’em?’ said another heavy. ‘In the dark?’

  ‘We use our torches, you faggot,’ said Large Lump, ‘and don’t forget Mr Ford wants ’em to keep running till they fetch up at Land’s End.’

  ‘Ain’t that where the sea is?’ asked one more heavy.

  ‘Yus, and where they start swimming the Atlantic,’ said Large Lump. ‘Get moving.’

  On went the torches. Startled sheep stood up. So did Matthew and Jonathan as they spotted four tiny beams of light in the distance.

  ‘Ruddy cows,’ breathed Jonathan, ‘what’s going on?’

  ‘My guess is black market sheep rustlers,’ said Matthew. Meat shortages had resulted in the emergence of more than a few such opportunists.

  The sheep and their fat lambs were running, a frightened herd, but not towards the gate. They were heading for the area of the henhouses. The beams of light followed them.

  ‘Well, sheriff?’ said Jonathan.

  ‘Let ’em come, cowboy,’ said Matthew.

  The running sheep were bawling, the lambs bleating.

  ‘Sod me,’ panted Large Lump, ‘that Poky Prodnose didn’t mention no noise, the bleeder, did he? I hate noise.’

  The sheep and lambs scattered as they neared the wired enclosure. Booted feet thudded after them, torches piercing the darkness. Their bright beams, however, were suddenly lost in the totality of a dazzling floodlight.

  ‘’Ere, what’s ’appening?’ hollered Rollo.

  ‘We’re bleedin’ nailed, that’s what,’ shouted Large Lump, and turned tail. He had enough savvy to know Mr Ford would get cross, very cross, if any of them landed in the arms of the law. So he bolted. So did the other three, the floodlight encompassing their going.

  ‘Jonathan!’ Matthew was urgent. ‘I think the gate’s open!’

  ‘Christ,’ said Jonathan, ‘the sheep!’

  They were running all ways, the ewes, their lambs bleating for their mothers. The shotguns stayed silent. To blast off would panic the already frightened animals. Matthew and Jonathan took off as fast as they could, Matthew’s gammy ankle not as much of a handicap as Jonathan’s tin knee.

  The Fat Man’s bruisers heard them coming at a thumping run.

  ‘Bloody hell, it’s got to be the cops!’ panted Large Lump. ‘This ain’t what I like.’

  He galloped over the ground. The other men picked up pace. They didn’t like the prospect of letting the law catch up with them any more than he did. Cops weren’t friendly. They had badtempered ideas about how a bloke earned his oof. You could never trust a flatfoot to mind his own business.

  Torches lit the way for the four bruisers, although the beams wavered and shook in hands that moved to the tempo of each man’s flight. At this stage of the sweating retreat the open gate seemed as far away as Land’s End. Large Lump felt shocked at the growing suspicion that somehow some coppers’ nark had listened at a door and used his squeaky cakehole to spill the beans. He plunged on, panting, and his heavies panted with him.

  Matthew, legging it at a fast limping run, was yards in front of Jonathan, whose liability was slowing him down. Need Emma’s legs, so I do, he thought. Best runners in the family, Emma’s got. Her sister Annabelle would have queried that, so would Eloise and Helene. Rosie, who had unequalled stems, would have laughed and told Jonathan to keep going. He kept going anyway, conscious that the sheep, led by a robust if fearful ewe, were following.

  Bleedin’ elephants, thought Large Lump, where’s the perishing gate? He was hot, wet with perspiration, and short of breath. Rollo reached the open gate first and bounded through the wide gap to pound for the van. After him lurched Large Lump and the other men. Matthew was coming up fast and, just as conscious as Jonathan of the following sheep, he slammed the gate shut. It shook and vibrated, and the metal connections rattled. He glimpsed what he thought were the black market rustlers, an active breed these days. He shouldered his shotgun and fired a burst high over their heads. High it might have been, but Large Lump felt something like a fiery needle prick his backside. He bawled. Two of his confederates were tumbling into the back of the van, which contained axes and fire-lighting items. The third man, Rollo, was climbing into the driving seat. Large Lump threw himself into the back, swearing about the fact that unless the redhot pain in his bum went away, he wasn’t going to be able to sit next to Rollo. Nor sit at all. Lying on his broad stomach, he thumped on the partition.

  ‘Get going!’ he bawled.

  The van jerked forward and motored off noisily. Jonathan, arriving at the closed gate, said, ‘Damn all, they’re away.’

  ‘They won’t come back,’ said Matthew. ‘How’s the knee?’

  ‘Complaining,’ said Jonathan.

  The sheep were all around them, nuzzling close to known bodies.

  ‘I don’t think the foxes will turn up now,’ said Matthew, ‘but we’ll keep the floodlight on just in case. That’ll keep them away from the henhouses. If they attack any of the lambs, I tell you, I’ll set traps.’

  ‘Those lambs are due for the market,’ said Jonathan.

  ‘I’ve let the butcher know,’ said Matthew, ‘and he’s arranging collection on Tuesday.’

  ‘What’s he offered?’ asked Jonathan, as they began their walk back.

  ‘Top price,’ said Matthew.

  ‘My knee feels better,’ said Jonathan.

  Matthew clapped him on the shoulder.

  ‘On my Sunday boots, Jonathan, I’m happy to be related to you.’

  Well, he was married to Emma’s cousin Rosie, and that was as good a relationship with Jonathan as he could get.

  * * *

  Saturday arrived. Boots and his family were up early, very early. So were Sammy and his family. The journey to Cornwall could take ten to twelve hours. They had to cover over two hundred and fifty miles, and with few town by-passes available on the route, they would be lucky to average twenty-five miles an hour.

  So they were away from their
respective houses just after six a.m., having arranged to meet for breakfast at the Hog’s Back Hotel, a little way on from Guildford.

  Large Lump, reporting to the Fat Man that afternoon, was complaining that failure to get the sheep running and to chop up the chickens was due to the fact that a squad of interfering rozzers had been waiting for them with a shotgun.

  ‘You useless fairy,’ wheezed Fat Man, ‘rozzers with a shotgun?’

  ‘I tell you, guv, I got potted in me exterior,’ said Large Lump. ‘Had to go to ’ospital this morning to have it dug out. Talk about painful, and there was blood as well. And it’s still sore, it’s interfering with me walking.’

  ‘Are you telling me you’re responsible for a washout?’ growled Fat Man.

  ‘Guv, we had to scarper bloody quick, like,’ said Large Lump. ‘If it wasn’t the cops, it must’ve been Sammy Adams’s whole bleedin’ family.’

  ‘You’re making me spit,’ said Fat Man evilly. ‘Stop fidgeting, will you?’

  ‘It’s me sore backside.’

  ‘Oh, is it?’ said Fat Man. ‘Take a seat.’

  ‘’Ere, have a heart, guv, I ain’t going to be able to take a seat for a week and more.’

  ‘I’m crying my eyes out, ain’t I?’ said Fat Man.

  ‘Kind of yer, guv,’ said Large Lump. ‘Listen, I think we’ve got a nark in the firm, yer know, and that he’s been listening at keyholes. Well, it’s me honest belief that it was either the cops or Sammy Adams’s family waiting for us.’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Fat Man. ‘We’re going to have to think again about Sammy Adams’s business. I’ve still got his factory and all that nylon keeping me awake at night.’

  ‘I can put a couple of bombs together,’ said Large Lump.

  ‘You’ll blow up Belsize Park and Happy Hampstead as well,’ said Fat Man. ‘I want a fire job done, one that won’t look like arson. So I need an expert. Someone like Sparky Dewdrop, known for his runny nose and his baptismal monicker of Cyril Juggins.’