Great.
Les said, ‘Meet Carlo.’ He held up the baby for me to inspect. ‘I think he looks like you.’
The baby was asleep. He had round red cheeks and pale eyelashes. I could see one perfect hand, and tiny fingernails.
‘I’ve already told you. It’s not mine. Where’s Grace?’
‘Gone, according to the abandoned Fräulein here. Gone off with some Eyetie, heading for Eyetie Land. She left you a baby and a letter. Congratulations. The baby’s a good ’un, but I haven’t read the letter yet.’
‘Can I have it please?’
Les spoke Kraut to the Kraut. He told me, ‘She has a name: Gretchen. Sounds like a fairy tale.’
She popped open a button on her top, and fished a creased envelope from her bra. The letter smelled of soap. It was a cheap envelope of coarse grey-white paper. It had Charlie on it, in Grace’s big flowing handwriting. I walked away from them to read it.
Charlie
Enough. Stop following me, please. That’s what we agreed the last time we met. When I said before, that I’d marry you if you caught up with me after the war, I didn’t expect you to. I meant it at the time, but don’t any longer; if that makes sense. Sorry. What do you think of Carlo? Having him was a bad decision I made after seeing a bombed-out school in London. That’s what our bombs did in Germany when I flew with you. Everything else followed on from that. No one wanted me to have Carlo: not even you. Until Grayling told me you were looking for me, I had good memories of you. After that I was running away from you too. I’m leaving Carlo, which really puts you on the spot. You can walk away from him here, where he’ll die unless someone takes him on, you can go home and give him to Adelaide, and tell her that you did half the job, which is better than none of it . . . or you can keep him yourself. A load of old garbage, of course; I would never leave him if I believed that you wouldn’t do the right thing. Grech has something for him. Bye,
Grace.
Bye, Grace.
Just like that. I read it through twice before I handed it to James. He read it, and gave it to Les. Les had the child balanced over one shoulder. It belched. A soft, damp sound. I took the baby from him, and asked, ‘Where did that German girl go? The one who had the letter?’
‘There.’ She was talking to Alan.
‘Ask her if she has anything else from Grace.’
‘Why don’t you ask her yourself?’
It was Les she smiled at when she popped another button, and went fishing again. It was the other tit this time. Grace’s fibre tags with her name and number, on a leather cord. I didn’t know that the ATAs had tags: I’d never seen Grace with hers, naked or dressed. Les gave me back the letter. I folded it into its envelope, and buttoned it into the breast pocket of my khaki blouse alongside Grace’s tags. The baby felt comfortable on my shoulder, and there was a curious tension in the air. It was as if I was supposed to know what to do next.
When I stood outside on the steps, with Les, the Major and the Scot, Alan, around me, Les popped the question. He asked me, ‘What next?’
From near by came the sound of weird music. It was something between the sound of a barrel organ and the Northumbrian pipes. Ingrid stood at the foot of the steps wearing a thick topcoat that someone had given her. She was talking with Cliff, who had popped up from somewhere, and they were standing alongside Chasseur. There was a familiar small boy sitting in the back of it, alongside the big radio: he wore a camel-coloured coat with a dark brown velvet collar. Someone had tied a label to his sleeve as if he was a parcel. He looked cold and tired. Cliff was as interested in my reply as anyone. He cocked his head on one side, and looked up at me. I found that my voice wasn’t shaking, nor betraying any emotion.
I said, ‘That should be the bloody finish of it, of course. I’m not sure. This is where the rest of you get off, if you like.’
Ingrid pointed to the boy, and said, ‘This is Dieter. You will remember him. It was confirmed that all of his relatives are dead, so he was sent to you.’
‘That was quick. Does he know all that?’
‘Of course. He believes that you are to be his new father. Did you tell him that, Charlie?’
‘I may have done.’
She didn’t reproach me. Not even with her eyes.
Les asked, ‘What did you mean, not sure?’
‘I’m not sure that I’m ready to finish this until I’ve actually seen Grace.’
Cliff looked away.
Les said, ‘We’ll need a car then, won’t we?’ just as James sat down very suddenly on the steps.
James sat down so quickly that for a moment I thought he’d been shot again. It was like the air being let out of a balloon. He put his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands. That bloody music was on us, and James was crying. There was no grief or noise or anything embarrassing like that. The tears just ran down his cheeks. Poor old sod. He said, ‘That’s a bloody hurdy-gurdy. We’ve played them across Europe for four hundred years or more.’
It was always the damned history that got to
