A Song At Twilight (18 page)

Ben was the only member of the squadron who didn’t take up Andrew’s invitation that Christmas Day.

He went to dinner that evening in the mess, sitting at the long tables with the other pilots without really noticing what he was eating – it could have been roast beef, turkey or fish and chips for all he was aware. He drank steadily, listened to some jokes and speeches without taking in anything that was said, and finally got up, pushed back his chair and excused himself.

Outside, the darkness was lightened by the moon which had enabled them to see their way to Germany last night. He stood for a few minutes in the narrow road, letting his eyes get accustomed to the stark black and white, and then turned to walk along beside the perimeter fence. He didn’t want to go inside the airfield – there was too much chance of bumping into someone he knew, even on Christmas night, or having to explain himself to some sentry. Instead, he stayed outside, trudging along the moonlit ribbon of roadway, his thoughts far away from the quiet shadows of the moors.

He had still not come to terms with his brother’s death, partly because his mother was unable to accept it. He had managed one more quick visit home a week ago, hitch-hiking part of the way, and found her moving through the days with a blank face. She had greeted him with a kiss, but her smile had been pallid and forced, as if it were no more than a crack in the face of a marble statue, and when he talked to her he wasn’t sure that she heard his voice. She seemed abstracted, as if listening for something – or someone – else, and when she replied it was with a cool, remote tone in her voice, as if she weren’t really interested in what she was saying.

She made Ben a cup of coffee and offered him a biscuit, talking all the time as if he were a stranger. He sat at the kitchen table with her, watching her pale face and noting the pink rims of her eyes, and felt as if a fist were clutching his heart.

‘Mum,’ he said at last, breaking into a flat-voiced monologue about the Sunday School Christmas party. ‘Mum, tell me how you are.’

‘I’m very well, thank you, Ben,’ she said after a moment during which he wondered if she’d heard him. ‘And how are you? Are they feeding you properly? You look thinner.’

They were all the things she always said to him, yet they sounded different now, as if they were lines in a play that she’d learned and was now repeating to his cue. She didn’t sound as if she wanted to know the answers.

He hadn’t known what to say to her. He had the feeling that she was made of thin glass and the slightest clumsy movement might break her. He mumbled something and she went back to what she had been saying. Little Sylvie, the evacuee at the Suttons’ farm, had won the prize for best attendance, but she wouldn’t be at the Christmas Eve carol service because she was going home to Portsmouth for the holiday … All the Bagshaw children had turned up for Sunday School on the last two Sundays before the party, to make sure they were invited, even though everyone knew they wouldn’t be seen in the church again until next November … Freddy Phillips had got into a fight with Micky Morrison and almost knocked over the Christmas tree … It had been even more difficult than usual, finding presents to give the children … Old Mr Merryweather had decided his arthritis was too bad to allow him to play Santa Claus this year, so Bert Mullins had done it instead …

It was all the sort of news she would have told him at any other time, but the flat voice in which it was delivered made it seem again like lines from a play – a play she wasn’t interested in and just wanted to have over and done with, so that she could go back to that deep place somewhere inside her, where she could hear and talk to that other person – the one she really wanted to hear.

‘Mum,’ he said again, reaching across the table for her hand. She looked down as if she had never seen hands before and he felt the fist squeeze a little more tightly around his heart. ‘Mum, please. Look at me. Talk to me.’

She met his eyes and he wished he hadn’t asked. It was like looking into two pools of emptiness, with nothing but desolation at their heart, and he felt suddenly as he had felt once as a little boy, when the night-light had blown out and he’d been left in the dark. ‘Mum, please!’ he repeated shakily. ‘I know we’ve lost Peter, but you’ve still got the rest of us – Ian and Alexie, and me. Doesn’t that help at all?’

The hollow grey eyes seemed to look right through him and then she said in that flat voice he was beginning to hate, ‘I know I’ve got the rest of you, Ben. I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t. But I haven’t got Peter, have I? I haven’t got Peter, and I’m never going to see him again.’

Her pain tore at his heart. He shook his head helplessly, and said, ‘Oh, Mum, isn’t there anything at all I can do to make you feel better?’

The back door opened, quelling any words that she might have spoken, and his father came in. John Hazel-wood’s face lit up at the sight of his son and then the smile faded as he saw the look on his wife’s face. He shucked off his Wellington boots and came quickly across the cold brown quarry tiles in his socks and put his arms around her slender shoulders.

‘Olivia. I’m here, my dear.’ He looked at Ben. ‘It’s good to see you. How long can you stay?’

For once, Ben didn’t make the usual response, that what his father was really asking was ‘How soon are you going back?’ He said, ‘I’ve only got the day. I’ll have to catch the train this evening.’ He felt his eyes slide towards his mother again and saw that she was still sitting upright, making no acknowledgement of her husband’s hands on her shoulders. ‘Can we have a – a bit of a talk sometime, Dad?’

‘Of course. Come over to the church with me. I only slipped back for some papers.’ John Hazelwood glanced down at his wife. ‘You’ll be all right, won’t you, my dear? It’s a pity Jeanie’s not here to keep you company.’

With a small shock, Ben realised that he hadn’t given Jeanie a thought; he’d been so alarmed by the sight of his mother, so pale and remote, that he’d forgotten all about her and Hope. He looked around now, as if expecting her to step out from behind the dresser. ‘Where is she?’

‘She’s gone to Portsmouth for a day or two,’ Olivia said in the cold, dry voice that seemed so different from her usual soft, silvery tones. ‘Her mother and father wanted her to spend some time with them.’ She put her palm to her forehead and began to get up. ‘I think I’ll go and lie down. I’ve got such a headache …’

‘I’ll bring you a cup of tea,’ John suggested, but she shook her head.

‘I don’t want anything. I just want to sleep.’ She drifted out of the room and they heard her feet climbing slowly up the stairs.

Ben and John looked at each other. At last, Ben said, ‘Is she ill, Dad?’

John sighed and spread his hands on the table. ‘Not ill, no. Not in the usual sense. Just grieving. But I’m afraid—’ He stopped, as if he didn’t want to voice his fear, but Ben couldn’t let him leave it.

‘Afraid of what? Tell me, Dad. Please.’

‘I’m afraid she doesn’t know how to grieve properly. To let it out – to
use
it, even, to stop it going bad inside her. She’s holding it inside.’

‘She seems like a spring,’ Ben said. ‘Tightly wound up. I was almost afraid to say anything in case she snapped.’ He looked at his father’s kind, worried face. ‘What would happen, Dad, if she did snap?’

‘I don’t know. I’m afraid to think about it.’

For a few moments, both were silent. John looked at the table and Ben noticed that he hadn’t finished his coffee. He drank it, even though it was cold and unpleasant, and then asked, ‘What about church, Dad? Doesn’t that help?’

The silence this time was longer. Then John shook his head.

‘No, it doesn’t. It can’t.’ He looked up and met Ben’s eyes. ‘She doesn’t give it a chance to help. She won’t go inside the door. She’s lost her faith, Ben – lost it at the very moment when she needs it the most.’

Ben thought of this visit as he walked alone through the moonlit lanes of Harrowbeer on Christmas night. He had gone over to the church with his father and they’d discussed the situation without coming to any answer. ‘If we were in a Victorian novel,’ John had said, ‘I’d have said your mother was going into a “decline”, and there doesn’t seem to be a thing I can do about it. But I’m sure it will do her good to have you home for a few hours. We both appreciate your coming, Ben.’

Whether it had really done his mother any good, Ben didn’t know. She had drifted around the house like a ghost, lost in her own world. His father had assured him that his visit had helped, that she was better for it, but all Ben could do was wonder just how bad she had been before. Towards the end of the day, she had seemed to make an effort, smiling at him, joining in their conversation, and hugging him when he left. But as he walked away down the lane towards the railway station, he had felt again like a little frightened boy, crying because his mother had left him alone in the dark.

He’d written to Alexandra, asking what she thought about their mother, but there seemed to be nothing else he could do. Nothing, other than put all his energies, all his grief, into his flying. Nothing, but avenge his brother and all those friends he had lost, in the only way he knew.

All this while, he had been walking fast along the perimeter fence, with no real purpose or direction. He came to one of the gateways and hesitated, debating whether to go inside and call it a day. The moon shone brightly down from the cold, clear sky and he could see the outlines of the huts and hangars, the shapes of some of the planes and, away in the distance, the dark silhouettes of the hills with their rocky outcrops – Sheepstor, Cox Tor, Vixen Tor. There were no lights showing, but he knew that in some of the huts men would be playing cards, perhaps singing a few songs, celebrating their own Christmas. In his own mess, there would be someone to drink with, to share a joke with. He thought about it a moment longer, aware that the sentry must be watching him, and then, feeling suddenly weary of it all, sick of war and of everything that would remind him of it, he turned abruptly and walked away, the airfield at his back, still half inclined to call in at Andrew’s cottage after all.

The lane was narrow, the hedges towering on either side. Tall trees whispered softly in the breeze, high above his head. The moon was higher too now, a gleaming silver bauble in the sky, and he realised that he had passed the Knights’ cottage and was approaching the Prettyjohns’.

As he came to the gate, the door opened and someone came out, drawing the blackout curtain quickly. Ben paused, and the figure stopped and said, ‘Is someone there?’

‘May!’ he said, feeling an unexpected surge of pleasure. ‘It’s me – Ben Hazelwood. Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.’

‘’Tis no matter.’ She came down the path and rested her hands on the gate, looking up at him. Her face was pale in the glimmering light and her eyes no more than shadows beneath the dark curls. ‘Were you coming to see us?’

Ben felt confused and embarrassed. ‘No – I mean, I was just out for a walk. I didn’t really notice where I was until I found myself here. I wouldn’t have disturbed you, not on Christmas night.’

‘Why ever not? We’m happy to see you any time.’ She began to open the gate. ‘Would you like to come in now, and have a Christmas drink? Grandpa’s opened a bottle of elderberry wine.’

‘Oh no! I really didn’t mean – I was just out for a walk.’ He paused and looked up at the sky. ‘It’s a lovely night. Usually, we’d be flying on a night like this, but …’

‘Tell you what,’ May said as he paused, ‘I was just thinking of a walk myself. I’ve been indoors most of the day. Why don’t I come along of you now, and then you can come in for some of Grandpa’s elderberry when we come back? He and Mother would be pleased to see you, and so would Father. We decided to bring him downstairs for Christmas and he’s having a lovely time.’ She paused, then added quietly, ‘Or did you want to be on your own? I heard about your brother.’

‘Yes,’ he said after a moment, ‘it was a bad show. But there’s plenty of others in the same boat.’ He looked down at her again and then smiled. ‘That sounds a really good idea. If you’re sure they won’t mind?’

‘Of course they won’t. I said I was coming out for a breath of fresh air anyway. I’ll just pop back and get my coat and tell ’em I’ll be about half an hour, if that’s all right.’ She beamed at him and slipped back through the door. In a few minutes she was back and he held the gate open for her. They walked on along the lane together.

‘I suppose you know all the fields and footpaths for miles around,’ Ben said after a moment.

‘My stars, yes. Played on all these fields as a little maid, went for picnics in the woods, down to the river at Double Waters, and swimming at Lopwell, and on the common, everywhere. I don’t reckon there’s a blade of grass I don’t know. Mind you, ’tis very different now, with the airfield there. Used to be able to walk for miles, us did, before that were built, and it was so quiet too. You could go outside and hear nothing but birds singing.’

‘I shouldn’t think the local people were very pleased about that,’ he remarked. ‘It’s not exactly quiet now.’

‘Well, there was talk of building an airfield here before the war. A proper airport, you know. But it didn’t come to anything. I suppose now that it’s here, it’ll stay, once the war’s over. Yelverton and Milton Combe and Buckland won’t ever be the same again, but what can you do about it?’

They walked on in silence. Instead of keeping to the roads, as Ben would have done, May led him along footpaths through moonlit fields and shadowy woods. They came to a stile and paused for a moment, gazing down at the broad ribbon of the estuary streaming away to the sea. A few miles further down were the naval docks at Devonport, so often a target for the German bombers. People said that the Germans found them by following the river, May said, and Ben knew it was true. A shining silver pathway like this was a godsend to a pilot.

‘I suppose people came out here to be safe,’ he said thoughtfully, and she nodded.

‘They used to come out in buses and sleep in the old school and the Reading Room. Then they’d go back to Plymouth next morning. Some of us took them in as well, if us had room, and us had the liddle tackers as well, to stay all the time. Most of them have gone back now that the bombing’s stopped.’ She turned her head to look into his eyes. ‘I was real sorry to hear about your brother, Ben.’