‘Will he ask questions?’
‘I wouldn’t mind if he did. He was a navigator, and we did our basic training together – he won’t let me down.’
‘OK.’
‘Then I’ll make the bookings for us. There’s a hotel in Shieldaig, just the other side of the hill your brother hit. If he had cleared it he would have ended up in their front garden.’
She sat back in her chair, and looked steadily at me.
‘Hey, Charlie. Don’t mind me. Don’t mind my feelings.’ Then she looked away.
I pulled out my old straight briar, and made a business of filling and lighting it.
‘I’m sorry, Doris, but I didn’t know him, and I don’t know you. My generation doesn’t grieve over strangers – we had enough grieving to do over folk we knew. OK?’ She OK’d me back, but it was a bit on the grudging side. ‘When I make the hotel booking I’ll find out if they can hire someone to take us up the hill – a local stalker or gamekeeper, someone like that.’
‘What will you tell them?’
‘That you and George are related to someone killed in the crash, and are making a kind of pilgrimage to the site. That’s the truth, isn’t it? Is it a problem?’
‘I’d rather people didn’t know my business, that’s all.’
‘I think you’ll find them very respectful. There isn’t a community up there which hasn’t given up sons to the war. They’ll understand.’ She nodded. I went on to ask, ‘Whose idea was it for you to sound as if you’d just got off the Deadwood stage?’
‘George. He says the British would expect us to sound like Americans – something to do with the war. Where I come from it’s sometimes hard to tell.’
‘Where do you come from?’
‘Boston.’
‘And George?’
‘New York.’ She switched tracks on me and asked, ‘In a few days you’ll be able to say when we fly up there?’
‘Yes. Except we won’t fly, we’ll take the night train. You’ll like it.’
She stretched her arms and sighed. Her body rippled as though a small earthquake was imminent. If you could measure sex appeal on the Richter scale it was about a Force Five. Every man in the bar stopped drinking to watch. Don’t get me wrong; Doris loved it. She turned on the hokey-cokey voice again.
‘What am I going to do in London, honey, while I’m stuck here waiting for you and George?’
‘Go shopping for warm clothes. You’re going to need them up there.’
She pouted and asked, ‘At least you’ll have supper with me tonight?’
‘Yeah, I’ll have supper with you tonight.’ I was probably leering: it’s a sort of expression that comes over a man’s face when he’s not looking.
The Savoy Grill; and the best steak I’d ever tackled in my life. The waiter hovered. That wasn’t my fault. Its was Mrs Handel’s fault. Noël Coward was entertaining his pals at a big round table in the window: I didn’t fancy his date – a washed-out specimen with a poet’s flowing hair. Doris wore the low-front little black number again. Her shoulders were as white as the moon, and the streams of light from the chandelier caught in her hair. Every time she leaned forward her front bumpers surfaced like Moby Dick and his twin sister. If I had been the waiter I’d have hovered too.
As we worked our way down a bottle of claret she had selected from the wine list by simply going for the most expensive, my repartee probably veered towards the risqué. Not so much a case of in vino veritas as a hopeful in vino coitus. She dabbed her mouth with a napkin, and leaned forward to speak quietly to me.
‘You really fancy your chances with me; don’t you, honey?’ she asked.
‘Am I so obvious?’
‘You and half the men in the room.’
‘Only half ?’
‘The rest are fairies – you English are famous for it.’
‘Should I apologize?’
‘No. It’s sometimes kinda fun, but it’s better to tell you right now that you don’t. Have a chance, that is. I’m faithful to Mr Handel – always will be. I don’t see any reason to stray. I never did. I wouldn’t want you two to fall out over me. So before you try . . . the answer’s no. Big N, big O. This is the put-down.’
I dived into her eyes and began to swim for the shore.
‘Hey, Doris,’ I said. ‘Don’t mind me. Don’t mind my feelings.’ It was a joke I spoiled by finishing with a soft belch I had been unable to contain. I did apologize for that. What surprised me was that she smiled a quick smile before she paid attention to her plate again. She was saying, Look but don’t touch: I’d have to settle for that.
I got the soft lips on my cheek again as we parted, and was conscious of the pressure of one of those wonderful bumpers against my arm. Consolation prize or just a twist of the knife?
When I walked outside and turned left onto the Strand I should have been conscious of a car pacing me from behind, but I wasn’t. Black unmarked Rover. Eventually it pulled in front of me, and stopped at the kerb. The round-faced man with the pencil-thin moustache who rolled down the back window asked, ‘Mr Bassett?’
‘Yes, why?’
‘Chief Inspector Fabian, sir. Metropolitan Police. Would you care to jump in? We’ll give you a lift.’
‘And if I said no?’
‘I can arrest you here if you’d prefer it.’ I believed him. He was a thoroughly unpleasant man being thoroughly agreeable. I was leaning in to his window by then. He could probably smell the wine and brandy on my breath.
‘Do you have a warrant card, or a badge, or something like that?’
Another cat-like smile.
‘My driver, Mr Webb, has a cosh in his pocket. Much more
