‘It won’t help them either. It’ll make it harder for them to move around. Can we meet early tomorrow? First thing? I’m at home now, but I’m going to the embassy straight away.’
‘In this fog? It’s the middle of the night.’
‘Justice never sleeps,’ Gunther said.
DAVID WOKE NEXT MORNING to the sound of voices downstairs and the smell of frying bacon. He heard the quick murmur of Eileen’s voice, Sean’s slow one. Only a dim grey half-light penetrated the thin curtains of the room. Geoff was still asleep. He didn’t look well; several times in the night David had woken to hear him coughing.
He got up and dressed in the change of clothes he had been given the day before. Geoff sat up, coughed again and took a drink. David pulled aside the curtains. In daylight the smog was a dense greyish-yellow, pressing against the windows, which were dotted with greasy smuts of soot. He could make out, dimly, a brick wall surrounding a little yard. ‘It’s as bad as ever out there,’ he said to Geoff. ‘How are you?’
There was a sheen of sweat on Geoff’s forehead. ‘Not brilliant. My throat’s still sore. I’ve a headache. God, how that filthy stuff seeps in, I can smell it. Sorry if I woke you last night.’
‘You couldn’t help it.’
‘Funny, I had a dream I was back in Africa. I was going to see Elaine. Her husband was away and I was walking up the steps to her bungalow but it was my parents who opened the door, Mum and Dad. They looked young, like they were when I was a child.’ He lay staring pensively up at the ceiling. David had never before heard him talk with such lack of reserve.
‘They’ll be all right,’ he said.
‘It’s just the thought I’ll probably never see them again.’
‘Unless we kick out the Germans, eh?’
Geoff smiled weakly. Sarah must feel the same, David thought, about her family. It was all right for him, he just had his father now and he was safe in New Zealand. He might even go and join him.
Downstairs they found Ben and Natalia already eating breakfast, Eileen bustling round with plates. A radio in the kitchen played
‘A bit groggy.’
‘I’ll get some headache pills. I’m afraid this pea-souper looks set to go on all day, according to the radio, maybe longer. They’re worried about the Smithfield cattle show; some of the animals are getting ill. Filthy stuff. Here now, sit down.’
As they sat David met Natalia’s eye. She smiled sadly, half conspiratorially. She had washed her hair; it was brown and lustrous. David saw that Geoff had caught the look between him and Natalia, and quickly glanced away. ‘Where’s Frank?’ he asked Ben.
‘He’s no’ feeling too good either. I’m going to take his breakfast up in a minute.’
Sean stood. ‘I’m off to work. Back about six.’ He nodded at his guests, then kissed Eileen tenderly on the brow. ‘You be careful, you hear? Keep everyone safe.’
‘Get off now.’ She touched his cheek briefly, then hurried back out to the kitchen. The front door shut behind Sean. ‘Frank thinks Sean’s got it in for him,’ Ben said quietly. ‘That’s why he wanted to stay upstairs.’
‘People are afraid of mental illness.’ Natalia shook her head. ‘Frank could see it in Mr O’Shea.’
David said, ‘I’ll take him up his breakfast. Has he had his pill?’
‘I gave it him when he got up.’
‘He is addicted to those pills, isn’t he?’ Natalia said.
‘No,’ Ben answered. ‘He isnae. They’re no’ addictive, but people get used tae feelin’ calmer with them, so ye have to take them off them gradually. We’ll wean him off them when we’re safe.’ Ben looked at her seriously. ‘But for now he needs to be kept quiet, not just for his safety but ours, too.’
David took a tray upstairs. Frank was sitting on the bed, wearing one of Colonel Brock’s old cardigans, staring out at the fog. A single-bar electric fire took the edge off the cold. He gave David a sad little smile, quite different from that horrible rictus grin.
‘I brought you up some breakfast. Hungry?’
‘Yes. I could do with something.’
‘Ben said you didn’t want to come downstairs.’
‘No. That Mr O’Shea . . .’ He shrugged wearily.
‘Sean’s all right. It’s just a worry for him, having us here.’ David put the tray on the bed.
Frank gave a long, despairing sigh. ‘He sees.’
‘Sees what, Frank?’
‘I’ve always felt I was under some sort of curse.’ Frank spoke so low David had to bend to hear. ‘There’s something in me – I don’t even know what –’ he waved his bad hand in a helpless gesture – ‘that makes people want to hurt me. It’s always been like that.’ He looked at David and gave one of his harsh little laughs. ‘You think it’s my madness talking, I can see.’
‘Frank, some people are just, well, afraid of people who’ve been – where you have. And you’re not mad,’ he added firmly.
‘No, it’s always been the same.’ Frank shook his head decisively. ‘Since I was a little boy, before I went away to school. Mother had her life controlled by this fake spiritualist, Mrs Baker. She got me sent to that school. I dreamed about her last night, she was sitting in a garden. There were angels in the sky, I suppose it was heaven. She was drinking whisky from a bottle and laughing at me.’
David touched him on the arm. ‘Eat your breakfast, eh? It’s getting cold.’
Obediently Frank took the tray on his knees and began to eat. Despite not having full use of his right hand he could use his fork dexterously. Experience, David supposed. When he had finished Frank said abruptly, ‘Did you notice it when you met me?’
‘What? Your hand?’
‘No. Everyone notices that. I mean this thing about me, this – aura. My mother used to talk a lot about auras.’
‘No, Frank. I just thought you were – afraid. I thought maybe because of that school; you didn’t say much about it but it sounded bad.’
‘It was.’ Frank looked out of the window at the fog again. ‘But most people survived it. I just couldn’t, somehow.’ He shook his head. ‘Unless you were exactly like them and did what they wanted – well, they’d do anything to you. They were like the Nazis in lots of ways. You know,’ he added, ‘I always had a feeling my life would end with something really bad, it was bound to somehow.’ He glanced at David and said, curiously, ‘You remember yesterday, in that field, I said I’d always wanted to be normal and you said you’d always felt the same. Why? You’re not like me, you’re the opposite of me. People respect you, they like you. They always have.’
‘Do they?’ David shifted uneasily. ‘They expect things. Since I was a kid, everyone expected something special. I had advantages, you’re right, but I always felt I couldn’t be just normal, any more than you.’ He remembered school, diving into the swimming pool. Down into silence, peace. ‘Anyway, I brought all this on myself. I went into the Resistance, deceived my wife, everyone I worked with, because—’
‘Why?’
‘Because underneath it all I was so angry. I think I always have been.’ He turned to his old friend. ‘You must be too, Frank. You must be angry?’
Frank shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Maybe. But what’s the point of being angry with your fate?’ His voice sank to a whisper. ‘Frightened, yes, because you can’t change fate, you can’t do anything.’
‘You pushed your brother out of that window.’
‘That was an accident. But yes, he made me lose control. I have to keep control.’ Frank spoke with a sudden emphasis. ‘If I hadn’t, they’d have got it all out of me at the hospital. You – have – to – keep – control,’ he repeated, slowly, fiercely. ‘I learned that at school.’
‘Easy, Frank, easy. No-one’s threatening you here. Not Mr O’Shea, not any of us.’
‘All right.’
‘That took some guts, not spilling what your brother told you when you were alone in that hospital, or to the
