Here Be Monsters

'That's not too far from the truth.' Mr Willis nodded happily at Elizabeth. 'In your fifties you worry when your contemporaries die. In your sixties and seventies you shake your head sadly, for the way of all flesh. But after that it's a cause for secret congratulation -I am still here, in spite of everything, you say to yourself… But - Loftus - '

'Elizabeth Loftus. Miss Loftus to you, Willy,' said Audley.

'No, no - Captain Loftus, RN - and with that rare piece of purple ribbon, and that ?10 per annum pension for valour - ?' It wasn't really a question, because he had read her face.

'Fought those German E-boats in the Channel - invalided out, and wrote history books?'

His expression amended itself hurriedly. 'Two or three years ago… he died?'

Three-and-a-half, corrected Elizabeth. Or three million? 'He was my father, Mr Willis.'

'There now!' He didn't try to disguise his old man's satisfaction with an undiminished memory. 'It must be a great comfort to you, Miss Loftus - to have that cross, with its ribbon.'

'She gave it to the Navy, Willy,' said Audley, almost casually.

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Audley knew that score, thought Elizabeth. But he didn't know it from her, because she had never added it up for him. And he wasn't flaunting his knowledge now to let her draw that conclusion, but only to put this difficult old man in his place. All she had to do was to hammer the point home.

'It wasn't my medal, Mr Willis,' she said meekly.

'Ah…' He nodded, equally meekly. But that was how it always was in the presence of Father's VC: everyone was a push-over in its shadow, somehow. And the fact that she hadn't sold it to the highest bidder - with the fact that she neither wanted to keep it, nor needed to sell it, carefully hidden - was always to her credit. So now she must cash in on that.

'But we're here on business, I'm afraid, Mr Willis. Of which my father would have approved.'

'Ah…' Something in him hardened unexpectedly. 'But… you mustn't go on addressing me as 'Mr Willis', my dear. For then I must continue addressing you as 'Miss Loftus'.' He sipped his hock- and-Seltzer. 'I'm only 'Mr Willis' to boys and tradesmen - and then only to my face. Behind my back… well, in pre- war days I was always 'Willy' - sometimes even

'Little Willy', rudely.' He nodded. 'But in the war I became 'Wimpy' for 'J. Wellington Wimpy', because my brother-officers considered me somewhat loquacious. Which, compared with them, I was - since all of them were inarticulate, and some of them never spoke at all, so far as I remember. Except to order drinks from the mess waiters, anyway.'

He smiled at her again at last. 'But David here belongs to the earlier period. So, for convenience's sake, if you joined him… then I might perhaps address you less formally?

As 'Elizabeth' - greatly daring?'

'Greatly daring?' Audley echoed him derisively. 'Huh! You can call her anything you like, just so you stop talking for a moment and start listening, Willy. Because we have some urgent questions for you.'

The old man looked up at Audley with a strangely mixed expression on his face, of affectionate distaste. 'Dear boy, I know - '

'I'm sure you don't - '

'Or I can guess well enough, more's the pity, from what you let slip on the telephone.'

Obstinacy joined the expression. 'Knowing what I know about you… and about other matters.'

'Other matters being Haddock Thomas.'

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'Other matters being other matters.' Mr Willis came back to Elizabeth. 'The decline of the nickname is a phenomenon I have observed in recent years. When I was a boy they were common. And in the army every 'White' was 'Chalky', or sometimes 'Blanco', and

'Millers' were almost invariably 'Dusty'. But now it does not seem to be the rule - I wonder why?'

'Haddock Thomas, Willy,' said Audley.

' Doctor Thomas to you, dear boy. And to me,' corrected Mr Willis. 'Dr Thomas - yes? Or no, as the case may be?'

'You know him. You were both in that classical association of yours. You were on its committee together.'

'That is factually correct. Although he was a grandee, and I was a humble member, far below the salt.' The old man's face had changed: now it was blandly innocent. 'He's well, I hope? He was younger than me, though grander. But even he must have retired from full-time teaching by now, surely?'

Audley considered his one-time guardian and godfather for a moment, then drank some beer, and then reconsidered him. 'You're not going to be difficult, are you; Willy? Elizabeth wouldn't like that.'

'I - difficult?' Mr Willis turned his innocence on her. 'Why should I be difficult?'

Why indeed? wondered Elizabeth. 'We do need to know about Dr Thomas rather badly - '

She couldn't call him 'Willy': She couldn't call anyone Willy ' - Mr Willis.'

'Badly? Rather badly?' There was a glint of mischief in his eye. 'Now, by that do you mean

'urgently'? Or is it a Freudian slip, and you need to know badly … in order to do badly?'

'Willy - '