The Forgotten War Page 5

  So I spent my first night free in London after the war sleeping in the same bed I’d slept in on my last night in England in 1945. Before I’d set off with Les and the Galloping Major for big bad Germany. The ghosts from Germany and Holland crowded around me for a while, but eventually I slept, and the sun was shining when I awoke. O, Brave New World.

  3. I Hate a Man Like You

  At least they had the taste not to interview me in the same cell. I was met by a tall, thin civil servant. He had thinning greased hair and a manner and accent that sprang from one of the better schools – and Oxford. He sounded like one of the officers from my old squadron. His pale skin clung to his bony face. It was like talking to an animated skull. I hated him immediately.

  He had a sticky, wet handshake. ‘Hello, old boy, take a pew. I’m Piers Fortingale.’

  I got my hand back, and felt like wiping it on my handkerchief. I sat on a plain wooden chair and Fortingale sat behind his desk.

  ‘The War House asked me to apologize for our little mistake, Charlie; can we take that as read?’

  ‘ “Little mistake”? You sent me to bloody prison!’

  ‘If you ask my opinion, I’d say that it was largely your own fault. You were a deserter, after all . . . what did you expect, flags and a street party?’ It was a sudden waspish snap.

  ‘I wasn’t a deserter,’ I spat back, ‘and I believe you know that. I was finishing a job I was sent out there to do. It was just that the job and the war didn’t stop at the same time.’ He sighed – a schoolteacher with a tiresome child.

  ‘Yes, and in consideration of that the Secretary of State and all of his little Under Secretaries of State undid your sentence. They were uncommonly merciful because they accepted that you might have misinterpreted your responsibilities.’

  ‘No, they weren’t. That’s a load of old bollocks. The British Legion or the Bishop of Liverpool rattled their cage so hard that they began to wet themselves. Then they let me go.’

  ‘You don’t honestly think that the War Office is afraid of a bunch of old soldiers in the Legion, old boy? Don’t kid yourself.’

  ‘I won’t. I’m beginning to see how things work. Yes, I do think that the War Office doesn’t want to take on the Legion at the moment. I don’t know why, but I’ll find out.’

  Pause. Stand-off. Piers made a steeple of his fingers and rested his mouth against it. Then, incredibly, he smiled. Like a camera flashgun. He said, ‘Do you know, I really believe that you might? And you could be right. They wouldn’t tell me, of course.’ He made a production of looking at his wristwatch, which was a thin gold thing that looked incongruous on a wide military strap. ‘Care to slip down to the pub for a couple of jars, and lunch?’

  It was not quite 11.30 a.m. Welcome to peacetime soldiering, Charlie.

  We walked to a pub in a little back street. It called itself the Printer’s Devil. On the way there Piers stopped at a news-stand and bought a copy of the News Chronicle. He said, ‘Thank you, my dear,’ when the newspaper seller returned his change. He knew the image that he was creating, but somehow I got the impression that that was maybe all it was: an image. Underneath it all, I suspected that Piers was as tough as old boots.

  In a small cubicle of age-blackened wood we drank pints of Fuller’s beer, and he told me that I was still in the RAF. OK – I wasn’t soldiering any longer, so why did I feel so uneasy? Between the first pints he handed me a large brown Ministry envelope. I looked at it suspiciously. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Back pay. Nice fat cheque. You can cash it at a bank, or pay it into your own account if you have one.’ The way he said it made me suppose that he thought that was unlikely – so maybe the bastard didn’t know as much as he thought.

  ‘You don’t need envelopes this size for a cheque. What else?’

  ‘Movement order and joining instructions, old boy.’

  ‘Bollocks. I’m demobbed.’

  ‘Not yet, old boy, not yet . . . and, to be frank, we’re not demobbing radio ops at the moment. There is a sudden scarcity of members of your trade. You can apply to get out, of course, but that will take weeks and weeks to process. If I was you I’d get used to giving Mother England another six months of your life. Nice safe little place near Cheltenham; you’ll love it.’

  ‘Who said?’

  ‘Never you mind; another drink? It’s a good pint here, isn’t it?’

  I still don’t know how the government manages to find so many greasy bastards like Piers. I asked, ‘And what if I tell you to sod off?’

  ‘Jankers again, old boy. Haven’t you seen enough of that recently?’ When I didn’t reply he asked, ‘What do you fancy for lunch? The place is famous for its mutton stew.’

  The woman who served the tables was a tall Australian with hair the colour of Chianti. It seemed as if she knew most of the customers by name and that they were there for the banter they enjoyed with her. She had a very fast return of serve. When it came to our turn she said, ‘Hiya, Piers,’ and then she held out a hand to me and said, ‘Hiya. My name’s Denys – spelled with a Y – my old man couldn’t spell. Wasn’t much cop at telling the boys from the girls, either.’ She’d said that before. I liked her handshake; just a quick up and down and let go. And she was firm without being grippy.

  ‘I’m Charlie Bassett. I think that Piers owns me.’

  ‘Then you’ll be OK, won’t you? Piers owns all of us, but he looks after us as well.’

  ‘Den was a WREN, weren’t you dear? She didn’t want to go home after it was all over. HMG was thinking of insisting – too many waifs and strays in the country at present.’

  ‘What happened?’

  Denys was more than capable of speaking for herself. ‘About a year ago, when I was serving here, I felt old Piers’s hand go up between my legs, and I knew that I was going to be all right.’

  ‘He hasn’t done that to me yet.’

  ‘Good job: they’re arresting people for it again. Now: what grub do you want?’

  I asked for the mutton stew.

  ‘When am I going to meet an adventurous man?’ She laughed when she walked away.

  ‘You really french her?’ I asked him.

  ‘Saves time, old man. Know where you are immediately. She held a table knife to my throat, as I recall, and sweetly bade me desist.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘Something like, “Get yer fingers outta there, afore I cut yer effin’ tongue out from underneath yer effin’ chin.” It was an interesting turn of phrase.’

  ‘Then you helped her?’

  ‘Let’s just say that we cut a deal, shall we? Just like the deal I’m going to cut with you.’

  When Denys came back to the table with two plates of fatty mutton swimming in gravy and sliced potatoes, I asked her if she’d come out with me. She put both plates down without spilling anything; then she straightened up and said, ‘Charlie, I’m nearly a foot taller than you. People’d think I was out with my little brother.’

  I persisted. ‘Will you come out with me?’

  She suddenly switched a smile on. She didn’t wear lipstick. Didn’t need to: her lips were dark, like the hollyhocks when I was a kid.

  ‘Love to,’ she told me, and when she walked away from us she was laughing again, her hips swinging out an invitation. It had been a long time: I hoped the invitation was for me.

  The deal was that I had another week’s leave to ‘sort out my affairs’ before I reported to my new station, which Piers told me was a small RAF radio station in Cheltenham – west of Oxford along the A40. The RAF wanted another six months out of me until they could train a new generation of radio officers . . . or convince bods they had already demobbed to re-enlist. Oh yeah; I had a new rank. I was a sergeant once more. It was on the replacement fibre discs they gave me. My old Pilot Officer rank had disappeared like snow off a dyke: that’s the old usage of the word, mind you.

  I stayed at the Highgate safe house, the only occupant apart from Stan and his family downstai
rs. He had a pretty and friendly wife, a daughter and a couple of boisterous boys . . . I enjoyed the company. Two days later I dated Denys. She’d exaggerated – there were no more than six inches between us.

  The address that Denys had given me was in Kensington, and it took me a while to find. It turned out to be a small street of mews garages with flats above them. Most of the outside brickwork had been freshly painted white – it cheered the street up. Denys came down to the small street door to let me in, wearing a dark red bath robe that almost matched her hair and smelling of soap. Her skin had that scrubbed look that you fall in love with; at least, it had had that effect on me before. I followed her up the narrow stairs and out into a large room that combined a kitchen, dining room and sitting room. I liked its economy. She poured me a glass of red wine which matched a half-consumed one of her own, her hair and the robe. She obviously went for matching colours.

  ‘This is a great place,’ I said. ‘How’d you find it?’

  ‘Through Piers. Cheers.’

  ‘Cheers.’

  ‘His friend Stephen owns it. He’s the dentist who lives next door. Only just qualified, I think, but he has loads of friends, and money to spend. Stephen gets us dates when we’re in the mood and splits the money with us.’

  ‘Money?’

  ‘Men pay good money to dance with a pretty girl. I’m pretty.’

  ‘I noticed.’

  ‘But that’s not why you asked me out, is it?’ she challenged me.

  ‘No. I liked your lip.’ Don’t ask me why I like lippy girls – I always have done. Something clicked from earlier in the conversation. ‘You said us.’

  ‘Yes. My flatmate. She’s at work at the moment.’

  ‘What does she do?’

  ‘Anyone ever told you that you ask too many questions, hon? Ask her if you meet her. Pour yourself another glass. I’m going to get dressed.’

  She dressed like money on legs – a pattern-printed skirt with a hundred small pleats that swung as she walked, a crisp white blouse, expensive stockings and low-heeled pumps. I think that the choice of the latter, which didn’t quite match her outfit, was to spare my feelings. As it was, my line of sight reached the dimple on her chin. That would do for me.

  We drank Mother’s Ruin in a small backstreet pub she took me to, played shove-halfpenny with a couple of thousand-year-olds who couldn’t take their eyes from her cleavage and then took in a Bogart double feature . . . Casablanca and The Big Sleep. Den insisted on sitting at the centre of the front row, so there were no back-row shenanigans, and I ended up with a crick in my neck from staring upwards. It occurred to me that if I dated girls this tall I would have to get used to the sore neck.

  Then she took me home, fed me corned-beef sandwiches, and rolled me into bed. I played hard to get, which slowed down the action for all of about thirty-five seconds. She made me watch her undress; I could touch her, she said, but not her clothes.

  ‘These stockings cost too much for me to risk you getting your paws on them, hon.’

  I was stupid. I asked, trying to be funny, ‘So who do I pay? You or your Stephen?’

  She laughed, looked away and shook her head, but it was as if she was laughing to herself. She told me, ‘Neither: we never danced, did we?’

  It was my fault, but it wasn’t the same after that. Me and my big mouth had changed the evening.

  Morning. Den looked even better in the half-light and half asleep. She looked like someone with an appetite. Afterwards she lay face down on the bed, whilst I sat on the edge taking simple pleasure from stroking her back. The light from the window leached in under the curtain: it was going to be another wonderful bloody day. Her head was turned away from me. She asked me quietly, ‘Does it worry you? My taking gifts from men?’

  ‘Do you sleep with them?’

  ‘Only if I want to.’

  ‘It would worry me, if you were mine. My girlfriend, I mean.’

  I felt inadequate enough as it was. The odd thing was that my old girl Grace had been the same; and I had learned to put up with her. But I think that that’s something love does to you.

  ‘But I’m not.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So that’s all right, then.’ That was a phrase we used a lot in ’47 and ’48. She rolled over and grinned at me. It was a genuine grin: ‘Y’know, Charlie, you’d make a bloody good Australian. You don’t really give a toss, do you?’

  So why did I feel such a little shit?

  Sherlock would have probably called that a one-pipe problem. So I pulled on my shirt, and went out into the kitchen to find my pipe and tobacco – in a pocket of my old flying jacket that was draped over the back of an upright chair. It was one of those pre-war shirts with tails down to your knees – and I was glad of that because I was standing there in nothing else, smoking my pipe and looking out of the window watching the mews come to life, when a woman I thought I recognized walked out of the other bedroom.

  We got an eye lock, and her face said, I know you. Nothing. No sound. Then she smiled, and looked just as pretty as I remembered. ‘Pilot Officer Bassett: you once asked me for a date. I thought that you were a fast worker.’

  ‘You said yes. I thought you were a fast worker too, but I didn’t come back for it.’ My memory kicked in: ‘You’re Section Officer Dolly Wayne.’

  She sat down at the kitchen table, and crossed her ankles under the chair. I remembered those ankles. Close to the end of the war she had driven me from Highgate to Croydon Airport in an RAF staff car and I spent half the journey watching her calf and thigh muscles tense and untense each time she changed gear. I didn’t know what to say next, so she took pity on me.

  ‘I’m glad you made it. I thought that you had a nice face.’ I was conscious of my grubby shirt and flapping shirt tails. Dolly was still wearing most of a WAAF’s uniform. Everything except the jacket.

  ‘Are you still in the mob?’

  ‘Yes, I stayed on – or rather, they let me stay on – nearly everyone else was demobbed. For months afterwards you’d meet people you knew, all looking for jobs.’

  ‘I’m still in too, only I’m a sergeant now. I wanted to leave but they say I have to stay on for a bit.’

  ‘Hard cheese.’ Dolly helped herself to a cigarette from a packet that Den had left on the table, waved it at me and said, ‘Breakfast.’ Senior Service. The smoke she left in the air was very blue in the hard morning light. Only Senior Service satisfy – that was the promise on the inside fold of the packet. She closed her eyes the first time she inhaled. Denys shuffled in with the bed sheet wrapped around her. All we could see were her head and her feet. She still looked bloody marvellous.

  ‘What’s this, service reunion? Where’re my fags?’ she asked.

  Dolly left after a car horn signalled to her from the road. She scurried back into her room for a uniform jacket and a raincoat, and then didn’t seem to know how to say goodbye. I smiled to see that she still carried a gas-mask case . . . they had been doubling for handbags for years.

  ‘Goodbye, then,’ she said. ‘I’ll probably see you later.’

  I said, ‘Yes. Maybe. It was nice meeting again.’

  Then she was gone, leaving just a breath of floral perfume in the air.

  Den asked me, ‘Were you two something together in the war?’

  ‘No, I only met her once. She drove me somewhere. Nothing happened.’

  ‘Coulda fooled me. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen her embarrassed about a man.’

  ‘Maybe it was the shirt. I look like a bloody Arab in this.’

  ‘Try again, Charlie. Dolly’s seen men in their shirt tails before.’

  She boiled us a couple of precious eggs and fried old bread in dripping. It was a delicious breakfast, of course, although we didn’t say much. She did ask me what I wanted to do when I got out.

  ‘I always wanted to emigrate. To Australia. Do you think they’d have me?’

  ‘I already told you: you think like an Aussie, so you must be i
n with half a chance. What are you any good at?’

  ‘Nothing much. Radio operator.’

  ‘You could always try the Flying Doctor service; you never know.’

  ‘I rather fancied being a sports journalist.’

  ‘What for? Most of the bastards over there can’t read.’ That put an end to it, really.

  I had a proper stand-up wash in the girls’ tiny bathroom and was on the street half an hour later. Den had offered me a razor they kept for visitors, but I hadn’t needed to shave since my face was singed in that air crash in 1944.

  The rest of London was rushing to work. The sun was shining, and they hadn’t noticed it. I felt pretty pleased with myself. Den had been the first woman I had been with for at least a year. I wondered if she’d noticed anything and decided I didn’t care if she had. I still felt as if I’d behaved like a bit of a shit. I decided that I didn’t care about that, either.

  4. Everybody Loves My Baby

  I rode the platform of a tram to Covent Garden, and found a pub open for the market workers. At mid-morning I moved on to Kentish Town, and from there hoofed it back to Highgate in a good frame of mind. I needn’t have bothered.

  Les was sitting in one of the old Chesterfield chairs in the house’s small bar, smoking one of his infernal roll-ups and sipping a Worthington IPA from a bottle. There were four dog-ends in the glass ashtray on the chair arm, and an empty beer bottle alongside him. He had the Daily Mirror opened at the strip cartoons page. Jane had lost her knickers again, and her little dog Fritz was taking in the view. I always liked that dog.

  ‘I didn’t know that you needed glasses,’ I told him. ‘When did you start them?’

  ‘Yesterday. All they do is make the print bigger. I could still read it all right when it was smaller. I went to the eye hospital because I woke up from a nap last week and my vision was blurred. First time it ’appened.’

  ‘Probably all that wine we drank in Italy.’

  ‘Could be.’

  I could see that he was worried about something else, so I gave him another opening.