“Never find her in this lot. Here he comes. The man of the hour with a bloody cigar between his fingers. Harry, just listen to that cheer. It’s louder than the one for the King. They’re all screaming ‘Winnie’.”

  “Churchill always looks bigger in an overcoat. He’s brought us all a long way. He’s loving it. Look at him loving it. The crowd’s going berserk. Why don’t we find a pub before the others have the same idea? I don’t do it often but tonight I’m going to get drunk. I’ll go home tomorrow with a hangover. You’re right, Vic. Who wants to struggle for a train tonight?”

  “What about the papers on the floor, Mr Brigandshaw?” asked Katherine.

  “Leave them. I’ll come in Monday and formally resign. Then we’ll tie up the loose ends.”

  “Will I be out of a job?”

  “I’ll need you, Katherine. My private affairs have been left to stagnate through the war. I’ll need an office in London. My nephew will be joining us before I send him to America. Drinks are on me. What a day. What a night. This is one we’ll remember till the day we die.”

  When Harry reached Leatherhead railway station the next day his motorcycle was still standing in the rain with the tarpaulin over the top tied to the wheels. Trying to kick-start the machine with his right foot over the saddle ended in frustration. Harry was suffering from what he termed ‘a creeping hangover’, the longer the day went the worse he would feel, the patriotic, drunken fervour of the night coming home to roost. He felt terrible. Most of what happened after dark he could not remember.

  Having flooded the carburettor, Harry sat on the bike in the rain, both feet on the gravel. There was always a price to pay for everything, even the pleasures of victory. Most of the people off the London train had gone on their way. One old woman was looking at him waiting for her lift under the overhang of the ticket office. There had not been a taxi at the station since the second year of war. Seeking redemption for his abandoned revelry, Harry put the cover back on his bike and began the walk to Hastings Court, his long raincoat pulled up to his chin. Thinking of Africa and walking for miles through the bush among wild animals, he began to enjoy himself. His circulation returned, his hands warmed. After ten minutes the drizzle stopped and the sun peeked out from behind a cloud. Harry began to whistle. He was thinking of Tinus as his mind walked through the African bush in his imagination. When he walked up the driveway, Kim was coming down on his bicycle.

  “Where’s the motorbike, Dad?”

  “Wouldn’t start. What are you doing home?”

  “They sent us all home. What are they going to say on the news now the war’s over? Did you walk all the way from the station? Beth’s home. You’d better go and explain to mother.”

  “What must I explain, Kim?”

  “Why you didn’t come home last night.”

  “You want the facts, son? I caught myself up with a nice crowd of drunks. The trains weren’t running, so they said. Everyone was celebrating. I saw the King and Queen at the palace. And the Prime Minister.”

  “Aren’t you working today?”

  “Questions. Always questions. I’m resigning. My job’s finished.”

  “What are you going to do with yourself? Mother says she’s bored.”

  “Not with you three home. Where are you off to?”

  “Questions. Always questions. Have you got a hangover?” Kim was grinning all over his face.

  “The worst of my life. They’ll find something to say in the news. It’s not over yet in the Far East. We still have to defeat Japan. There’s going to be a general election I should think.”

  “Dorian’s gone into the village to see his friend. The girl.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Won’t tell anyone. Mum’s up at the house. Good luck.”

  Harry shook his head, smiling to himself, and trudged on up the long driveway to the old house where the builders were repairing the bombed-out stables. For the clock tower they needed plans to be passed with the council before the men could start building. His home was almost back to its pre-war state. Poor Tina, he thought. The worst thing in life was to be bored. To have nothing to do. Nothing that was interesting. He would tell her they would go to America for Tinus’s wedding. He would put her in charge. Most women liked planning for a wedding.

  When he almost reached the house the dogs came hurtling down the steps, barking. When they reached him they all jumped up and put their dirty paws on his raincoat. Somewhere, an aircraft was flying in the direction of Redhill Aerodrome.

  “Thank God, Harry, it’s over,” said Tina coming out onto the terrace to look down to where he was patting each of the dogs in turn.

  “Did you hear the church bells? London was chaos. Walked down The Mall and back to Charing Cross. Then we all crawled from pub to pub. Even the bobbies were drunk. One lost his helmet and didn’t seem to care. No one cared. It was over.”

  “Are you hungry?”

  “Starving. The bike wouldn't start. Had to walk from the station.”

  Then they walked inside the old house holding hands, both of them thinking of Anthony and the new memorial among the cedar trees at the back of the house.

  When Tinus came home to Hastings Court he had taken off his RAF uniform for the last time. The war in Europe had been over for two months. As a Rhodesian he was one of the first to be discharged, along with the Canadians and the Australians who had ended up in the RAF at the start of the war. In his pocket was a very nice letter, he thought, from Lord St Clair saying how delighted his Lordship would be if Tinus married his daughter. And no, with his mother ailing from old age he wouldn’t come to America for the wedding. If Harry Brigandshaw was going, Merlin suggested in the letter in reply to Tinus’s formal request for Genevieve’s hand in marriage, Harry could give away his daughter. ‘She calls him Uncle Harry as he was married to my late sister.’ There was nothing immediately wrong with Lady St Clair. Tinus imagined his future father-in-law did not like travelling. If Esther came to the wedding his Lordship’s sense of decorum would likely be out of joint.

  “What are they going to do when they have grandchildren?” he said to his Aunt Tina while they were discussing the wedding.

  “It’s all the photographers, Tinus. All the newspaper nonsense. I’d love to plan your wedding. I’ll need a good month or so in America to learn the ropes. If Cousin George wasn’t so far away from Los Angeles we could stay with him. Maybe after the wedding. When you lovebirds have gone to your secret honeymoon. Where are you taking Genevieve for your honeymoon?”

  “She wants to go to a desert island with no one around.”

  “Have you found one?”

  “Not yet. You really don’t mind all the work of planning a wedding?”

  “Do you know what it’s like to be bored?”

  “Not recently. Janusz has gone back to Warsaw to look for Ingrid and his parents. His father, the judge, is nowhere to be found. The Russians called on him after Germany surrendered and he hasn’t been seen since. He was advocating elections in Poland. To elect a government after the German occupation. Now the Russians want to occupy Poland. Not getting any sense on the phone, he’s gone to look for himself with special permission from the Air Ministry. They’ve allowed him to wear his uniform. They think the British uniform will give him protection so they must know something is wrong. Everything’s very fluid on the east side of the Russian front line. The Russians are never going to let go of the territory they won from the Germans. Right of conquest, to hell with what the countries were before the Germans marched in. He’s a trained lawyer. Can’t practise law in the States with his Polish degree but he can give me legal advice when we look at expanding in America. He can join the firm of Brigandshaw Oosthuizen Inc. That’s what we are calling the consulting firm. Once I’m married I’m to stay in America with a full-time job with Uncle Harry.”

  “Won’t you miss your friends in the RAF?”

  “All of them, Aunt Tina. The living and the dead… Oh, I’m so sorry, that was terribly insensitive.”

  “I miss him so terribly. Every day I go and look at that damn memorial among the cedar trees. As if that will do any damn good.”

  “Seeing me come back alive doesn’t help.”

  “Of course it does, Tinus. What a terrible thing to say.”

  “Give me a hug. Why don’t we both go and have a look together? Uncle Harry showed me the moment I got to Hastings Court. I should like to see it again.”

  “Would you?”

  “He was your son. He was also my first cousin and a fellow pilot. Do you know, I think of André Cloete nearly every day. We called ourselves the three musketeers. Me, Genevieve and André. We were so young and innocent in those days. Feels like a hundred years ago. Then we can talk more about the wedding when we’ve paid our respects.”

  On the way to the ancient burial grounds of the Mandervilles, Tinus picked wild flowers from the side of the path. Beneath the cedars and next to the smaller yew tree, Tinus placed the flowers on the small plinth below the cross. The monument Harry had had built by a stonemason was small, no bigger than the others, in deference to the many of Anthony’s ancestors who had died fighting for their country. Only the Lord of the Manor was entitled to a mausoleum if the family was rich at the time. Sir Henry Manderville, buried next to the monument to his grandson, lay in a small grave, the headstone the same height as the cross. On the cross, people would read the words down the years of a young pilot killed in action. What was so big in his aunt’s heart, the poor woman crying without hiding her tears next to Tinus as they stood silently looking at the simple inscription on the cross, was the same pain so many women had endured down the centuries. There was nothing more Tinus could say to a woman who had lost her son, the first born, the one he was told was always the most precious to a mother.

  Taking her arm, he walked with her away into the afternoon sunshine, away from the deep shade of the cedar trees.

  “Thank you, Tinus, for not talking. Sometimes it isn’t easy… You were saying about the wedding?”

  “Like my esteemed father-in-law to be who will not be at his daughter’s wedding, neither will my mother be at her son’s. Like Lord St Clair, she won’t leave her mother alone on the farm. Grandmother could easily go to one of my sisters but mother won’t hear of it. She’s frightened, I think, of America. Of the whole big wide world outside Elephant Walk. To get my mother in the frame of mind to drive into Salisbury is an exercise all in itself. She doesn’t like leaving the farm where she feels safe. She doesn’t like strangers. She’s been as far as Cape Town. Seen the sea, believe it or not.”

  As he prattled on to distract his Aunt Tina, they walked back to the house. On the newly cut lawn on the side of the house away from the terrace that ran down the length of the front of the house, Uncle Harry was waiting for them at the wrought-iron table, the tea tray ready, the cosy on top of the pot to keep the tea warm while he waited for them. The children were away at school. Mary Ross had brought the tea tray and smiled at Tinus as they passed. Mary Ross from the village, he remembered, had worked part-time at the Court before the war. With her brother Herbert. She was going to be married about the same time as Tinus. Her wartime job at the Goblin factory had come to an end. She was saving every one of her pennies, she had told Tinus, for her wedding. They had had quite a conversation about her fiancé. Apparently there wasn’t much money to be made as a private soldier, even in time of war. In peacetime, the private was a plumber, a man, Tinus was told later by Uncle Harry, on his way to getting rich. Uncle Harry said lawyers and plumbers made about the same money.

  “Why don’t we give her a wedding at the Court?” he asked his uncle. Uncle Harry had stood up as his wife approached to pull out a chair. “Before I go to America. Aunty Tina can use it as a dry run for my wedding in Los Angeles. She’d like that. Her brother Herbert worked here part-time before he was killed.”

  “Why don’t you suggest the idea? She just gave you a beautiful smile.”

  “That’s what prompted me. We actually had a long conversation about her boyfriend this morning.”

  “Amazing what a woman can get with a smile,” said Uncle Harry, ignoring his explanation.

  “I’m about to be happily married.”

  “Tea, nephew?”

  “Thank you, Uncle. Milk and no sugar. I’ve got used to drinking my tea without sugar during the rationing.”

  “Lucky for you. There isn’t any sugar. It’s still rationed. They say in the village there’ll be rationing for years. During the war we couldn’t get it to the island. Now we don’t have the money to pay for luxuries. It’s a strong point in the Labour Party manifesto, sugar. Labour promises sugar. What a smart way to get votes. Churchill is still promising them a hard time until the country gets back on its feet. If he doesn’t try some of the Labour Party bullshit he’s going to lose the election. If you want to win in politics, don’t tell them the truth. I have written to Klaus and Birgit von Lieberman in Bavaria, to make sure they are all right. For weeks I’ve waited for a reply. Posted a third letter this morning. If we can’t get sugar, can you imagine what’s happening in Germany? I’ve got a mind to go back to Romanshorn and enquire of them across the lake. It was the big industrial cities we knocked to the ground with the help of the Americans. Heard from Ding-a-ling the Americans are threatening to drop an atomic bomb on Japan if the Emperor doesn't surrender. Vic’s still at the Air Ministry. Says he wants to stay. He’s going to marry Sarah Coombes.”

  “Doesn’t she own a tobacconist’s? Why doesn’t he get behind the counter? Expand the business. Turn it into a corner shop. The Air Ministry in peacetime must be boring.”

  “I’ll suggest your idea though I doubt you’re being serious. They’re still young enough to expand the shop. Maybe we should look at it if they need capital. A chain of corner shops. How does that sound?”

  “From selling a few packets of cigarettes, not bad. When do I start my new job?”

  “After you get married.”

  “I’m getting bored.”

  “There’s that word again. I don’t even know if Klaus’s family came through the war alive. We can take the train to Romanshorn and make our enquiries. Fly to Zurich and take the local train. Or whatever.”

  Tinus smiled to himself. His uncle was on a roll.

  “See if they reply to your third letter,” he said. “Have you tried phoning?”

  “The Post Office say there isn’t such a number. The only one I have is from before the war. When I phoned Klaus about Horatio Wakefield. Horatio is the one who asked me to find out. Janet wants to know. She says without his help she would never have had a family. She has so many patients now she doesn't know what to do. People came back from the war with stutters brought on by fear.”

  “When do you want to go to Romanshorn?”

  “Give today’s letter a couple of weeks. I’ve asked Klaus to phone me his new number.”

  “Why do you call him Ding-a-ling?”

  “It’s better than Ding Dong. Tina, will you pour the tea? You are much better at it than me. This time you will come with us to Switzerland. If the children are home they are quite old enough to look after themselves. Kim’s turning into quite a cricketer. Must run in the family. Have a piece of cake. Why don’t you go and ask Mary Ross?”

  “You mean, now?”

  “No time like the present. The tea won’t go cold. The sun’s shining. We can use the Great Hall. Ask Fleur and Celia to come down. I feel like a party.”

  Both of them just looked at him. Then Tinus got up and went to have a word with Mary Ross.

  “Do you really want to throw a wedding for Mary Ross?” asked Tina.

  “Why not? Show solidarity for all of us putting our backs to the war effort. Be a chance to invite all the tradesmen. They all know each other. I’m going to invite Sarah Coombes and Vic to the Court for a weekend. Vic’s told her I’m not quite as poor as she thought I was in the bomb shelter. You’ll like Sarah. Now that is a good idea. All our friends together… What did Mary say, Tinus?”

  “She was a bit overawed by the violins and the Great Hall. She’d like something a little simpler in the garden.”

  “There you are, Tina. Not as bad as you thought.”

  2

  William Smythe’s new house in Chelsea was three doors away from the three-storey house of Horatio and Janet Wakefield. He had bought the house at rock-bottom price a month before the end of the war. Next door was a bomb site. The house had taken a direct hit from a doodlebug at the end of 1944. The rubble had been cleared away. Weeds were growing out of the open foundations which was why their house was so cheap. Other people thought the foundations of William’s new house had been damaged by the blast. He didn’t care. At that price he could dig in underneath from the outside and pour concrete to cement the old foundations. Like Horatio’s house it was three storeys high with an attic. The attic was for Ruthy’s playroom. It was a house William had thought he would only afford in his wildest dreams. The river, not far away, was within an easy push for the pram, with trees overhanging the water. When Betty said she was pregnant with their second child, William’s happiness went on a trip to the moon. Even the invitation to Genevieve’s wedding in Los Angeles made no difference to his euphoria. She was all in the past. He was going to write Tinus a ‘can’t make it. Have a good life’ note and with it send a cut crystal wine decanter, not mentioning the invitation to Betty.

  “Are we going? I saw the invitation.”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Not to me.”

  “Are you still jealous, my darling? Joe’s going to be home soon. The Japs can’t last much longer.”

  “Will his house be here or Singapore? Won’t he stay out East? His children have as much Chinese blood in them as English.”

 

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