The brigandshaw chronicl.., p.156
The Brigandshaw Chronicles Box Set 2, page 156
part #4 of The Brigandshaw Chronicles Series
“He’ll have to come home to England to be demobbed if he wants to leave the army. In the army, you go where they tell you. Joe’s a regular soldier.”
“Why don’t we all take a trip to America? When I see you two together I’ll know. I want to be certain there’s nothing deep in the back of your mind to haunt us later on. People do weird things if they don’t lay their ghosts. We can go by ship. We never took a honeymoon. You can visit Glen Hamilton in Denver. Mix business with pleasure. I’m not too pregnant to travel. Janet will look after our house.”
“You really want to go down that path, Betty?”
“I insist, lover boy.”
“Why not? Maybe I can syndicate the story of the wedding and pay for the new furniture. Do you think Horatio has had an invitation?”
“Why don’t you ask them? They’re not exactly far away.”
“We can put Ruthy in the pushchair.”
“Silly. She can walk. It’s all of three doors. She can run there and back quicker than you.”
“It’s so nice having friends close by.”
When Trevor Hemmings picked up his invitation to the wedding at the Royal Air Force Club in Piccadilly he was at a loose end. With only the prospect of the chemist shop in Collins Street as a way to use his degree in pharmacology, he was not inspired to catch the first boat home to Australia and face the boredom of wearing a clean white coat for the rest of his life. His sisters would fuss all over him after his kid brother’s untimely death. They had lost one brother. He had lost his brother and most of his friends. Anyway, he thought, as he opened the invitation standing in the lobby of the club where the doorman had handed him his mail, no woman would want to marry a man with a face scorched like his.
Being away from the blokes on his terminal leave from the RAF did not help his mood. He was on his own. Why he came to the club. Hoping to see a familiar face after so many years among all the male family of the squadron. He missed the banter. He missed the company. He even missed the war. At the moment of reading the invitation to a film star’s wedding in America he had no purpose left in his life. He was empty. Drained of excitement. He didn’t even want to get drunk. Certainly not among strangers. Certainly not alone.
“Well, I’ll be buggered. My mate’s marrying a bloody film star. Now there’s an idea.”
“Pardon, sir?”
“Don’t worry, Jim. I’m just an uncouth Australian. You ever been to America?”
“No, sir.”
“Neither have I. Anyone in the bar?”
“I haven’t looked, sir. There are usually a few gentlemen in the downstairs bar at this time of the day. The ladies’ lounge upstairs is not open until six o’clock. Of course the ladies you bring to the club must enter through the Park Lane entrance. The back entrance so to speak.”
“Of course. How silly of me to forget,” said Trevor, his sarcasm going over Jim’s head. “Can you book me a room in the club? Instead of going straight back to Australia on the next boat, I’m going to hang around. Take a boat through the Panama Canal to the west coast of America. It’s halfway to Australia. Tomorrow I’ll go see Cook’s. They’ve got a shop off Piccadilly Circus.”
“Very good, sir. One single room for Squadron Leader Hemmings.”
“Thank you, Jim. Suddenly I feel much better. The old fox. Tinus marrying a film star. I’ll be buggered.”
When he looked back over his shoulder on the way down the wide corridor to the bar, Jim was back at the pigeonholes sorting out the members’ mail, the man unfazed by his Australian habits. On both sides of the corridor, right up the walls, were pictures of aircraft, mostly from the First World War.
“How Harry Brigandshaw flew those things is beyond my understanding. Stretched parchment. Wood. Held together with piano wire.”
At the long, mahogany bar a man he had met at RAF Abingdon in 1940, just before he crash-landed his plane on return from a raid over Germany, was standing on his own, a half-drunk pint of beer in front of him.
“Wally Chapman. This is a pleasant surprise. Trevor Hemmings. Abingdon. 1940. You feel like getting drunk with an old friend?”
“Trevor Hemmings! What a pleasant surprise. What can I get you?”
“The same you’re having, Wally. You discharged like me?”
“Once it’s over it’s over. No point hanging around. Even if they’d let you. Back to civilian life for me.”
“What are you going to do?”
“No idea.”
“Join the club. What did you do before the war? Where did they post you after Abingdon? Are you staying at the club? Just booked myself in for a couple of nights. Taking a slow boat back to Australia via America. You ever see an actress called Genevieve?”
“Of course. Everyone has seen her films.”
“I’m going to her wedding. Have a look at this.”
“I’ll be buggered,” said Wally reading the invitation.
“Tinus Oosthuizen was Fighter Command. Met him before the war. They’ve known each other for years.”
Esther was drunk when her invitation came in the afternoon mail. The postman opening the hard-sprung lid attached to her front door caught her attention, followed by the sound of the envelope dropping inside the cage. Her friend Joan had come from Lambeth to Esther’s flat in Chelsea, the lease on the flat paid for by Merlin. They had been drinking gin since lunchtime, Esther with nothing to do with her days for most of her life. With the formal, printed invitation purportedly from the Eighteenth Baron St Clair of Purbeck requesting the pleasure of her company at the marriage of his daughter to Wing Commander Martinus Oosthuizen, son of Mrs Madge Oosthuizen and the late Barend Oosthuizen of Elephant Walk, Mashonaland, Rhodesia, came a handwritten letter from Genevieve which she read and handed to Joan before pouring them both a stiff gin. While Esther was reading the letter, Joan had read the fancy invitation after a struggle in her handbag to find her reading glasses. Joan was a few years older than Esther.
“Well, ducks, are you going to America? Who’s the relative who’s going to do all the arranging and going with you on the aeroplane?”
“Not Merlin. He won’t go. Given some reason. Didn’t send the invite neither. Men know how to get out of things they don’t want to do.”
“You haven’t answered my question, Esther.”
“Of course I am. She’s my daughter.”
“You’ll have to keep off the gin.”
“I only drink gin for something to do. During the war Genevieve sent cases of gin from America when we couldn’t get it. Weren’t we lucky?”
“There’s still a war with Japan.”
“One o’clock news says they’ve had it. Weeks they said. Now the Japs will have to do what they’re told. They’ll be run by the Americans.”
“Don’t know nothing about that. What’s the boy like?”
“Bit younger than Genevieve. She’s had her eye on him since the lad was seventeen. He’s twenty-eight. She’s thirty-one.”
“Long time to wait.”
“He wouldn’t marry her when the war was on. In case he got killed. Came right through the war from the very beginning. Battle of Britain. His uncle taught him to fly.”
“I thought she was going to marry Gregory L’Amour? So tell me, Esther. Who’s the bloody relative she’s referring to?”
“Her Uncle Barnaby runs her money. He has a bastard son. Must have found his conscience. They do you know.”
“Come off it. Would you have married Merlin?”
“Don’t be daft. Mind you, he’s been good to me, Merlin. He’s been good to Genevieve. Stick me away in the countryside, no thank you. Anyway, they’d never have let us. Even for the kid. Turned out all right.”
“She wants you to live in America.”
“Saw that. Have to behave myself. Here I can do what I like. No one to boss me around. I like my flat. What would I do without you, Joan? Want another gin, love?”
“Haven’t finished this one. Aren’t you frightened of going up in an aeroplane?”
“Why should I? My future son-in-law’s a fighter pilot.”
“Does he come and see you?”
“Never seen him in my life.”
3
Six weeks later, Gerry Hollingsworth was sitting on his porch at Long Beach, California, looking at the sea as workmen erected a marquee on his lawn. The previous day an American bomber had dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, obliterating most of the people and buildings. If the Emperor did not surrender they were going to drop another one according to a man Gerry knew in the army. The Pacific was blue, with no indication of the holocaust inflicted on the other side of the ocean. Three people were walking the beach in the hot sun, others were swimming in the sea. Further out, a man was fishing from the back of a moving boat. To all intents and purposes, there was peace on earth. When Gerry called to his wife inside the house there was no trace of a British accent in his voice. To the outside world, Louis Casimir and his Jewish religion were gone forever, like his son David killed in the war. Inside his heart, his son still lived along with his religion. When Carmel came out from the house she sat in a chair. Together they contemplated the ocean.
“Now the war’s almost over, don’t you think it’s time we went to shul?” said Gerry. “We don’t have to pretend anymore. In Europe they are putting the Nazis on trial for war crimes. Never again will they massacre the Jews.”
“You want to be Jewish again, Gerry?”
“I’ve never not been Jewish. Just kept my mouth shut.”
“Do we have to change our name back to Casimir?”
“That doesn’t matter. I’m too well-known as Hollingsworth in America. People don’t like to be confused. They’ve nearly finished the marquee. Do you want to have a look inside?”
“Where do we go to shul?”
“Can you find out? How many guests are actually coming?”
“Two hundred. Maybe more. The press are inviting themselves.”
“Is this too much of an intrusion in our home?”
“Not for Genevieve. You owe her a lot.”
“She owes me a lot. She won’t go on much longer.”
“Why do you say that?”
“She’s got a lot of pretty actresses ten years her junior snapping at her heels. If she has kids she’ll want to retire. She’s worth more than me. Did you know that? Spoke to the Honourable Barnaby St Clair. Her uncle runs her financial affairs through a trust to avoid tax, clever chap. Bought up dozens of bombed out sites in London dirt cheap. They’re going to sit on them. Wait for the economy to pick up. Then build with the money they got from the British government for the bomb damage. To look at him you wouldn't think he was rich. The old aristocracy don’t have to show off. There’s nothing like old money or an old title. Not that Barnaby’s money is old. Made it all himself. Took the risk on the stock exchange with good information and came out top. Got out before the ’29 crash. Had friends inside the companies giving him information. They’re going to make it illegal in the States. Insider trading. Trick is to find the loopholes before they block them.”
“What’s she going to do with all that money?”
“What do people do with money, Carmel? They show off.”
“Not Genevieve. You forget. She’s old aristocracy from her father.”
“Then she’ll send all her boys to Harrow or Eton. Tinus went to Oxford. On a Rhodes Scholarship. Forget all the stuff about the decorated fighter pilot and the Battle of Britain. He’s got a top economics degree. Good cricketer. Played cricket for Oxford. She’s picked the right blood in Tinus. If his Cousin George went to England he could call himself Sir George Manderville, Bart, Harry Brigandshaw told me. By the luck of the draw, Harry owns the Manderville family seat in Surrey. That’s what George wants. The family manor house. Anyway, they’re now in business together. George is going to grow cigar wrapper leaf on his tobacco plantation in Virginia. Told me so. Calling his cigars Mandervilles with a knight in armour on the box. There are tobacco merchants in London selling ‘Churchills’. Not a bad marketing idea. Said the idea of the name came from Tinus. One smart lad.”
“Where are they going to live?”
“Haven’t said. Tinus prefers the West Coast. After growing up in Rhodesia in the African sun, he doesn’t like the cold. Look at that, Carmel. That chap’s caught a fish. Look at it leaping out of the water on the end of his line.”
“Poor fish.”
“You still eat beef. Someone has to kill the cow.”
“You want tea or a drink?”
“A drink. Can you imagine what that lawn is going to look like on Saturday? I’ve hired six buses to bring them from LA. Instead of them driving all the way back.”
“It’s so nice under this tree.”
“Isn’t it? The Pacific Ocean is so blue. None of the Rhodesians have come to America for the wedding. Not even his sisters.”
“Maybe they can’t afford it. Do farmers in Rhodesia make any money?”
“You know the old saying. Plough it back into the land. Probably short of ready cash. Shall I call Mrs Mendez or will you? She can bring out the drinks cabinet with lots of ice in the bucket. I like America. Even the drink cabinets have wheels in California.”
They were married by the Reverend Jethro Thackeray of the Methodist Church, a compromise between Genevieve’s Church of England and Tinus’s Dutch Reformed Church, the church of Tinus’s Afrikaans ancestors. Tina had chosen the Reverend Thackeray, impressed with his nickname of ‘Priest to the Stars’. A second bomb had been dropped on the people of Nagasaki, ending the Second World War. The Emperor had surrendered. The clear blue Pacific Ocean was untroubled as they vowed to be man and wife until one of them died.
Against his wishes and with special permission from the Air Ministry in London, Tinus wore his uniform, drawing the line at including his medals. Any one of the British at the Long Beach wedding could have read the ribbons on his chest. A Distinguished Service Order and a Distinguished Service Cross with a bar on the ribbon. After the ribbons for bravery on his chest were a small row of campaign ones. After much argument from Tina who wanted a brand new outfit, Tinus had worn his old uniform, the wings on his chest dulled by the years of war. One of the cuffs was slightly frayed. Janusz Kowalski was his best man.
Janusz, also in the same kind of faded uniform worn by Tinus but with the word ‘Poland’ on the shoulders, stood next to Tinus as his fellow pilot. The ribbons on his chest were exactly the same. Looking distracted, Janusz’s mind was elsewhere.
After he spent a week in Warsaw searching for any trace of his previous life, the RAF had been told by the Russians to send him out of the country. Uniform or no uniform, they would have him arrested. Ingrid he had found the first day of his visit.
“Where did you spring from, Janusz? I’m married, you know. What were all these messages you kept leaving for me? We were children, you and I, before the war. Just children. My husband is a leading member of the Polish Communist Party. Take my advice and go back to England. We’ve won the war.”
“You mean the communists. Not Poland. Where did they take my father?”
“To some nice cold place in Russia where he won’t be a nuisance.”
“My mother and sisters?”
“I have no idea.”
“I’ve been asked to go to America.”
“Good riddance. Unless you are a communist you have no place in Poland.”
“Goodbye, Ingrid. I kept your pretty face in my head all through the war.”
“Then you were a fool. Before the war you were a Count. Now you are nothing.”
“I’m still a Count.”
“Tell that to your friends, the Americans, and see how far you get.”
As Janusz gave Tinus the ring, he forced himself to only think of the present and the crowd of people seated in chairs on the lawn overlooking the sea. At least he had a job and a temporary permit to live in America. Three of the bridesmaids were well known in the cinema. One of them smiled at him as he took a pace back. The Reverend Thackeray, who it seemed liked the sound of his own voice, went on, extolling everyone’s virtues. Janusz had heard the Reverend’s enemies considered him a frustrated actor unable to get a good part in a movie.
Janusz smiled back at the girl who had starred in a movie. All the girls in America smiled at the men. Unlike in England, it meant nothing. The polite way to behave in a society where everyone said they were equal. It was going to take him time to adjust to a life in the New World where every second émigré called himself a Count in a pronounced, un-British accent. Genevieve was going to let him live in her flat now she was married and going to live in a house. Gillian Kannberg, who shared the flat with Genevieve, was about to go and look for her husband. William Smythe, the well-known newspaper and radio journalist, was taking her to Singapore once the country was liberated and returned to British rule.
Across to his right, the bomber pilot from Australia gave him the thumbs up, giving a nod and a wink towards the bridesmaids. Next to him was Harry Brigandshaw who had given away the bride and a strange-looking woman in a pink dress Genevieve said was her mum. It was one extreme to another. From the rubble and political uncertainty of Poland to the rich, ordered opulence of America dressed up for a movie. When the party was over and Janusz got back on the chartered bus that would take him to his flat in Los Angeles, it would start the beginning of a new life with all its fear and opportunities. Then he smiled. It was good to be alive.
Three rows behind Harry Brigandshaw, sitting between his wife and the man they called Cousin George from Virginia, Betty Smythe was watching the new bride and groom with a smug grin on her face. The ghost was laid. The skeletons in her husband’s cupboard had been rattled into silence, the final curtain coming down in front of the Reverend Thackeray, a fraud if Betty had ever seen one. The ghost-laying had begun when they met each other, Betty standing back to have a good look. Genevieve had smiled with her mismatched eyes, the one almost the colour of smouldering coal, the other a bright, intense blue. She had expected her husband’s knees to buckle, but nothing had happened. The chemistry for William had gone. Instead of the face that haunted his dreams was the face of a friend, a friend who quickly talked of old memories, friend to friend, no glimmer from either of them of lover to lover. For Genevieve there may well have been nothing but a roll in the hay. For William, whatever it had been that had taken him in so wholeheartedly, it had gone. Now Genevieve was safely married to Tinus Oosthuizen, no longer a thorn in Betty’s imagination every time William mentioned Genevieve in passing. Or they went to the cinema and watched her up on the screen.
