Читать книгу Death and the Butterfly - Colin Hester - Страница 14

Five

It had to be Phillip’s, the motorbike—an Ariel—that was parked by the curb as she came up the walk from school. It was bullet-colored, that dull flat deathly gray, and it had a stubby sidecar and the other traffic on this side of the street that passed by—a black taxi, a tiny Morris Minor, a tilting bus—did so very closely and she was faster and faster walking up the front path now, the grass a deep green on either side. In those days the doors of English houses had neither door handles nor latches—only key-entry dead bolts—so she slipped the straps of her school satchel off her shoulders, and resting the satchel on the doorstep she unbuckled its front mini-pouch and wiggled out her door key, and as quietly as she could she inserted her key and unlocked and opened the door. As she did, within the door’s slender cut-glass panes she could see the many crystalline images of the front hall that she stepped inside of and into. She was almost out of breath but she could hear voices from the kitchen, some she didn’t recognize:

“Thanks, Mrs. McEwan, but I’m meeting a girl, I’m afraid.”

“There, Phillip, you see?”

“Mother!”

“Your son’s too picky, Mrs. McEwan, that’s the problem.”

“Oh, bugger off, Roger.”

Soundlessly she closed the door behind her back. She set her satchel on the floor by the brolly basket, hung her snouted gas mask on the coat tree, and continued to listen while slowly and quietly approaching the kitchen.

“No matter how good-looking they are, Mrs. McEwan,” yet another male voice told her mother, “he says they’re all U-S.”

“American?”

“RAF-speak, Mum,” Phillip explained. “As in unsuitable. Roger and Nial here may be on leave, but they never really leave.”

“Hello, then!” Roger announced, seeing Susan standing in the kitchen doorway.

She looked at them. Her mum over by the sink in a puffy-sleeved blouse and pleated skirt—both cream-colored—with a glass of sherry, holding its stem like a recently cut flower. And Phillip and Roger and Nial down by the window, each of them holding sherry glasses as well and leaning a free hand on the iron shoulder of the laundry mangle. Behind them through the window, the garden—as English gardens strangely are—was, in the overcast, a deeper green than even when the sun shone.

As for Phillip and Roger and Nial, they were in their pastel-gray RAF uniforms, each with the winged insignia on his left lapel like a white feather or flame.

“You didn’t tell me you’d an older sister, Phillip,” Roger said. He was tall and lank with a lion of blond hair and otherwise craggishly handsome and he straightened like a coil of rope brought to life. Sipping slowly from his sherry glass, he appraised her standing there in the doorway, never allowing his eyes—which were a soft Cadbury brown—to leave her body or her own eyes.

She looked down at the floor.

“Why, love,” her mother said, “you’re home early.”

“I—I told class about Phillip,” she said to her mother before finally looking at her brother.

Ah, her brother. He had thick wavy hair that he combed straight back, and his eyes, because of his dark brows, seemed almost locked if not in a frown then in puzzlement. The rest of his face was good-looking enough, so her girlfriends said, to overcome this shadow upon his features and he said to her, softly:

“Susan!” and blindly passed his sherry glass to Nial who took it, and he crossed the kitchen and took her hands and kissed her one cheek then the other.

She stood on her tiptoes while he did, though she’d no need.

“You’re still here,” he said.

“Not evacuated,” she said, “yet.” She nicked a quick glance at Phillip’s other mate: not quite as tall as Roger but less angular and with the rain-dark hair and flutter-giver smile of a potentially truant choirboy.

“If your dad’d let me,” her mother told Phillip, “I’d have her up in Godmanchester in a minute.”

“What?” Phillip said. “Uncle Cec’s?”

“His brother-in-law, Ben’s.”

“The smithy?”

Susan still held Phillip’s hands, and she said his name and asked:

“Can—can we go swimming?” She came down onto her heels and looked away, and her eyes met Roger’s once again.

“Swimming?” her brother repeated.

“Yes,” she said. “Tomorrow?”

He touched her chin, looking at her gently. “I can’t say,” he said.

“Why—why ever not?”

He thought for a moment. “Well, Roger and Nial, they cadged the Ariel.”

“The motorbike?”

“We’ve it unofficially.”

“Our own two-man den of thieves,” Nial said.

“True enough,” Roger said. “Though we two thieves have no need for it.”

She glanced across at him. Her mother said:

“But Captain Grey, I thought you were meeting a girl.”

“I am,” Roger said. “But she has a car.”

“My word,” her mother said. “That’s rather posh.”

“Actually, Mrs. McEwan,” Nial said, “she has several.”

“There, you see?” Roger said. “If Saint Nial himself said it, it must be true. So take it,” Roger insisted, and as he did, behind him in the garden the sun came out briefly; then the shade returned. “Hold on,” he said, coming across the kitchen. As Phillip let go of Susan, Roger said: “I—”

Roger stopped, looking at her.

“What?” she asked.

Roger didn’t say anything.

“What is it, Captain Grey?” her mother said.

“Hmm?”

“Captain?”

“Don’t, Roger,” Nial cautioned, “all right?”

“Oh, shush, little brother. Well?”

Roger hadn’t taken his eyes from hers. They could all hear the front door click open.

“S’that Dad?” Phillip asked, turning to face the hallway.

“You’re cross-eyed,” Roger told her.

“What?” Phillip said.

“Mmn,” Roger nodded.

The front door opened. “Phillip?” her father called.

“Cross-eyed?” Phillip repeated.

She heard the anger in Phillip’s voice. She immediately lowered her eyes and heard her father step inside and close the front door and call again, “Phillip? Phillip?”

“He’s in here, Mac,” her mother said. “Captain Grey’s only saying what he thinks he sees, Phillip.”

“Cross-eyed?” Phillip said once more.

“Yes,” Roger said, “but barely. I’d never’ve caught it but when she looked across at me, the sudden sunlight in the window—”

“Roger,” Nial said in a lowered voice but equally as emphatic, “this is his sister.”

“My thirteen-year-old sister,” Phillip added and said to Roger, “not one of your—”

“Phillip!” her father called, coming down the hall. “Son!”

He wore his brown pinstripe, weskited and with a lighter brown tie under his stark white shirt.

“Hello, Father,” Phillip said.

Her father stood in the kitchen doorway, blinking, his eyes moist. “What’s this ‘Father’ business?” he asked his son.

“Sorry, Dad.”

“It’s Mac to you now, son—Mac.”

“All right. Fine. Mac, then.”

Her father held out his hand, and her brother took it and was at once hauled in to a half embrace, half pat on the back. Her father stepped back. For some moments he looked at his son. He shook his head ever everso slowly. Shut his eyes and opened them again that he might see his son, taste with his eyes the very life of this man, this flier, his pride. Which he did. Sighing, he looked at Roger, at Nial, then back at Phillip.

“This is Captain Grey,” her mother announced—Roger bowed his head—“and Flight Lieutenant McKellan,”—who did likewise.

Her father extended his hand and first Nial took it and shook it and then Roger.

“What,” Roger said with a grin, “no hugs for us?”

Her father frowned in puzzlement.

“It’s just him, Da—Mac,” Phillip said.

“Take no notice, Mr. McEwan,” Nial said.

Her father and Roger were still shaking hands and then her father yanked Roger towards him, as if to indeed give him a hug and Roger in trying to avoid it stumbled on his own feet like a calf and Nial and her brother and father laughed, though warmly. Susan too was smiling, as was her mother.

“We’re having sherries,” her mother said.

“Damn,” her father said, glancing at his watch. “Why can’t it be five?”

“Oh, go on,” her mother said, “it won’t hurt you.”

“Rules are rules,” he said. He looked at Susan. “Hello, love,” he said. “You must be feeling dreadfully ignored.”

“Actually, no,” she answered, blinking several times.

“Rules are made to be broken, Mr. McEwan,” Roger said.

“Hearts are made to be broken, Captain Grey,” her father said.

“Please, it’s Roger.”

“Roger, then. Rules aren’t even meant to be bent.”

“And I’d agree, Mr. McEwan,” Nial said.

“Well, I’m siding with Roger,” her mother said. “This isn’t London Transport. Once isn’t going to hurt, for Lord’s sake.”

“I doubt He’s having one,” her father said.

“How d’you know? Perhaps He might. And Susan will have one too. Love? Yes?”

She looked at her mother then her father.

“Oh, all right,” her father said, “corrupt your child as well then. And your Lord God in His ludicrous Heaven.” He crossed the kitchen and stood beside her mother and then kissed her quickly on the cheek. “What’s next, I don’t know.”

“A glass of the driest,” her mother answered. With her hand she smoothed her skirt across her thighs and crossed the kitchen to the table. The sherry bottle was there on it, standing sleek and tall and darkly opaque and there were three extra long-stemmed glasses and her mother lifted the bottle and uncorked it and began filling one of the glasses with the honey-colored wine. “Then Captain Grey is meeting a girl,” she said. “One with a car.”

Her father nodded in approval and sipped his sherry and glanced at Nial. “And surely you too, Flight Lieutenant?”

“Merely the third wheel, I’m afraid,” Nial said.

“This—this girl,” Susan interrupted, asking Roger. “Is she cross-eyed?”

Roger grinned. “All my girls are,” he said.