Let's Kill Uncle (15 page)

‘For Pete’s sake, what’s the matter with you? She said it was all right.’

Christie sniffed and gave him a very odd look.

When Lady Syddyns returned, she was bearing a silver teapot.

‘I’d like to see you break this,’ she said with a chuckle as she rapped Christie on the head with her diamond rings.

Christie rose to the occasion with a faint smile and finished pouring the tea. Lady Syddyns chatted on and kept the conversation from being a strain, but Christie was subdued for the remainder of the visit.

As they were leaving, the old lady gave them each a present, a snuff-box for Barnaby and a tiny silver vinaigrette for Christie.

In her garden she cut them an armful of her most beautiful roses, and as she kissed them goodbye she made them promise they would visit her again.

They nodded gratefully, then walked slowly down the dusty lane.

When they were around the bend of the road, Barnaby turned to Christie with a scowl.

‘Why did you have to make such a fuss about breaking the teapot? You never even said you were sorry, just sat there with that funny look on your face.’

Christie handed him the armful of roses and leaned against a tree.

It was a shockingly pale, frightened little girl who stared at Barnaby.

‘I saw him,’ she said tonelessly.

‘Who?’ asked Barnaby.

‘Your uncle. He was looking in through the French doors, just behind the piano. You and Lady Syddyns had your backs to him. He took off his dark glasses and laughed. His eyes! I’ve never seen anything like them! And then he rolled
them way up, till only the whites showed, just like Little Orphan Annie.’

Barnaby sat down suddenly, the roses spilling from his arms.

He was speechless for a few moments, then: ‘Yes, that’s what he does to scare me. Now you really believe me about what he’s like?’

‘Yes, but why? Why? And why me?’

Barnaby lowered his head. ‘He’s after you too now.’

Christie picked up the roses.

‘The sooner we kill him the better,’ she said. ‘Come on, we’d better be going. Mr and Mrs Brooks and Auntie will want to hear all about how it was at Lady Syddyns’s. Don’t say anything about me breaking the teapot.’

‘Okay.’ Barnaby lowered his head again, then looked up at her and touched her arm lightly.

‘I’m sorry, Christie.’

Christie took a deep breath.

‘It isn’t your fault,’ she said. ‘You couldn’t help it that he married your aunt.’

They were silent as they walked home.

‘S
ERGEANT
!’

Mr Brooks was calling from the porch of the store.

‘Sergeant, your package from London came in on yesterday’s boat!’

Sergeant Coulter changed his stately military pace and almost ran to the store. When Mr Brooks handed him the parcel, the Mountie’s face broke into a pleased, boyish smile.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘It’s a book written by a friend of mine, an archaeologist. We were POWs together.’

Mr Brooks watched the policeman walk toward the dock. How like his father Albert had become.

Mr Brooks remembered Albert and the old Sergeant-Major coming into the store when the top of Albert’s head barely reached the counter. The little fellow would look longingly at the gum and horseshoe all-day suckers and then turn silently to the old Sergeant-Major. The old soldier would shake his head. They were as poor as church mice, eking out a frugal living on the Sergeant-Major’s Imperial Army pension.

Mrs Coulter died when the boy was four, but the old soldier kept Albert neat, and his black, steel-capped boots were polished even if they had holes in the soles.

He and Dickie were the same age, or had been, although one never would have guessed it. As Mrs Brooks said, Albert had always been so big for his age.

Mr and Mrs Brooks had not lived behind the store then, but in their own cottage, the one that Major Murchison-Gaunt rented now.

And Dickie had been alive.

The two boys had never been close, but somehow they had always been together, because they had both, even then, been odd men out.

Many of the boys were sent back to the old country for schooling, but Albert and Dickie belonged to the social strata that attended the village school. It was used to store fire-fighting equipment now.

He remembered Albert calling for Dickie on the way to school, knocking timidly on the door, too shy to come in, and Dickie, with a jam-smeared face, seated at the kitchen table, eating his breakfast.

Albert was always early.

When he was finally coaxed in, Albert stood staring tongue-tied down at his shining boots, although he answered politely enough when spoken to. The old Sergeant-Major brought him up well.

Mr and Mrs Brooks encouraged Albert to be with Dickie; that way Dickie was not teased so mercilessly by the other boys.

Perhaps they had tried too hard to shield their boy, but they had done what they thought was best; and in the end, what difference had it made?

But Dickie had been safe enough with Albert. Even then Albert seemed to have the policeman’s instinct for law and
order, for protection of the weak. He wasn’t aggressive, but there was a hardness behind his shy exterior, and boys who pushed him around were beaten by Albert, who then wiped his hands on the seat of his patched trousers and went quietly on his way, making neither friends nor enemies. A lonely little boy who walked dutifully beside the tall old Sergeant-Major, the Punch-cartoon Sergeant-Major, with his ramrod back and waxed pointed moustaches. A self-contained man, like his son, somehow cut off from the rest of humanity, wanting but unable to make contact or small talk.

Sergeant Coulter paused when he reached the war memorial. A forlorn figure was sitting hunched on the granite step, its pointed chin on its knees and its shoulders looking pathetically small.

‘Hello,’ he said. ‘What’s your trouble?’

Christie turned her pixie face to him, the big grey eyes disconsolate.

‘I haven’t got anybody to play with.’

‘Where’s your little pal?’ The Mountie, in a rare mood of companionship, sat down beside her, his precious book laid carefully across his knees.

‘He’s visiting his uncle until tomorrow morning. Did you get a present?’

‘Yes, a book.’ He wondered what to say next.

‘Well,’ he said finally, ‘it’s going to be a real scorcher today.’

The wise, black-lashed grey eyes looked at him without comprehension.

‘Your name’s not there.’ She jerked her thumb to the marble shaft at her back.

‘I know,’ he replied drily.

‘Were you in the war?’

He nodded. Now it was beginning, the third degree kids always gave you if you treated them like human beings.

‘Did you kill anybody?’

‘Of course not,’ he lied.

Her eyes were unbelievably clear.

‘I bet you did.’

He didn’t answer her. Instead, he took out a package of cigarettes and, absent-mindedly, nearly offered her one.

She was now conducting the interrogation in earnest.

How many? Did they cry? Did you cry? What did it feel like? You know, killing people. With a gun? Do you ever think of them now? Do you suppose they are in heaven? Did Germans go to heaven? The same one as us?

‘I don’t know, I forget. I don’t know. Maybe.’

‘How come?’

‘How come what?’

‘You know, how come you didn’t get killed like everybody else?’

‘Just sheer luck,’ he replied. ‘Whether it was good or bad, I can’t say. Maybe I hadn’t suffered enough and fate spared me for you and his lordship.’

‘Who’s that?’

‘Barnaby.’

She liked that little joke and laughed heartily, then, mumbling, she prepared to pull out the pin in the grenade.

‘What did you say? I can’t hear you.’

‘Oh,’ she was vague, ‘just about what Mrs Rice-Hope said.’

He leaned toward her, his eyes only a few inches from her face.

‘Well, what
did
she say?’

Her eyes were innocent.

‘We had tea at Lady Syddyns’s. I bet you didn’t know that, did you?’

‘No. What did she say?’

‘I bet you don’t know what else we did.’

Sergeant Coulter replied, not unnaturally, that no, he didn’t.

‘We had tea with Mr and Mrs Rice-Hope at Benares. Barnaby and me. Last Wednesday. We had chocolate cake.’

‘Yes, yes.’ He was impatient.

‘How did you know we had chocolate cake? Barnaby ate six pieces and then he threw up and Mrs Rice-Hope put a cold cloth on his head.’

Sergeant Coulter tried to possess his soul with patience. He hated questioning juveniles. If you looked sideways at the little bastards they burst into interminable tears. Tears that made sympathetic old magistrates cast cold eyes on big cruel Mounties.

‘What
did
she say?’

‘Oh, you mean about you?’

He swallowed hard.

‘Yes.’

‘About you being handsome?’

‘I don’t know, do I, until you tell me?’ He gritted his teeth.

‘I’ll bet you did. Kill people in the war.’

‘What about me being handsome?’

‘She thinks you are.’ She gave him a delightful smile. ‘I do too.’

‘Did she say that?’

Christie nodded.

‘But why?’

‘Because I asked her. I said, “Mrs Rice-Hope, don’t you think Sergeant Coulter’s handsome?” ’

He leaned closer. ‘Yes?’

‘That’s what she said. Yes. He’s nice too, don’t you think? He’s got awfully thin legs, but he’s nice. He took us swimming. She hasn’t.’

‘Hasn’t what?’

‘Got thin legs.’ She paused for breath and pointed to the plane. ‘What kind of plane is that?’

Sergeant Coulter’s head was reeling. If she ever fell afoul of the law, he fervently hoped to God it would never be his lot to question her.

‘It’s a De Havilland Beaver. Did Mrs Rice-Hope say anything else?’

‘Yes. Do they cost a lot of money?’

‘Yes,’ said Sergeant Coulter. ‘What else?’

‘How much?’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he sighed wearily, ‘about eighty or ninety thousand dollars, I guess. Did she say anything else?’

‘Yes, but it’s a secret. I’ll tell you another secret though.’

She beckoned him down and whispered.

He straightened up.

‘What did he do?’

She whispered again.

‘What do you mean! Now look here, you quit this. He can take off his glasses if he wants. And if you don’t want to look at him, don’t.’

She shrugged.

‘All right. I won’t tell you any more then. But the aeroplane and all the money is really Barnaby’s and when he gets the money he’s going to give me a million … ’

She stopped and put her hand over her mouth.

‘Don’t tell Barnaby I said anything.’

‘Don’t worry, I won’t. I’ve got to be going now.’

As he took a step she put her hand on the holster of his gun.

‘Don’t touch that!’ he said sharply. ‘Now or any other time.’

She nodded.

He should never have sat down and started talking to her. The golden head was bouncing by his elbow.

‘I don’t, do you, Sergeant Coulter?’

‘Don’t what?’ he said irritably. It was like trying to get rid of a friendly puppy.

‘I don’t like Barnaby’s Uncle Sylvester.’

‘You run along home now,’ he said.

‘Okay. He’s a real wicked uncle.’

He stopped.

‘Now look here, it’s not nice to say things like that about people. You remember what I say, and run along now.’

She turned and ran back to the store. From the porch she waved to him in a friendly manner.

He shook his head as he strode back to the launch. Kids! Well, it served him right for starting the conversation. They were all the same.

And then a pleasant glow suffused his body.
She
thought he was handsome. Oh, the little girl wasn’t bad. Imagination too lively, that’s all. Still, she shouldn’t tell stories like that. Saying Barnaby’s uncle had done something awful, he had taken off his long pause glasses and she had seen his long pause eyes. Innocent men had been sent to prison because little girls started nasty rumors.

She was right about Dudley. He was a damned nice fellow.

Albert felt honourable liking Dudley Rice-Hope. It helped balance the scales and the incontestable fact that he was in love with Dudley Rice-Hope’s wife.

He wondered, on his way to Benares, if he would catch a glimpse of her there.

The police launch was cutting past the arbutus point, and looking up, Sergeant Coulter could see the Brookses’ cottage. He lifted his binoculars and swept them in an arc over the place. Everything seemed in order. Uncle, Barnaby, sitting on the front porch. Uncle waved, then, as if prompted, Barnaby did. Sergeant Coulter raised a hand in greeting.

That evening he began his weekly letter to her, the precious book unwrapped and at his elbow, and the soft slap, slap of the waves against the hull making him feel contented and drowsy.

The little girl told me today that you said you thought I was handsome. She doesn’t always stick to the truth, but in this case, I hope she has.

I finally got my copy of
Fascinating Fragments of Etruscan Pottery
from Professor Hobbs. He wrote an inscription to me in it. It’s a wonderful book, with marvellous colour illustrations. Speaking of Hobbs, by the way, I must write to him. Brooks tells me that the boy’s uncle was at Colditz. Hobbs was finally sent there from our
Stalag.
I don’t suppose the name Colditz means anything to you, but that’s where they sent the bad boys, mostly officers, but in Hobbs’s case they made an exception. The veteran escapers and the ones who wouldn’t accept discipline, or, as the Jerries called them, the incorrigibles, were sent there. Hobbs, being an archaeologist, just had to dig. Force of habit, I suppose. He dug himself out of our camp four times before they sent him to Colditz. Even Hobbs couldn’t dig himself out of that place. It was supposed to be escape-proof, a huge medieval castle set on a rock mountain, walls twenty feet thick and all that sort of thing. I’d like to have a chat with Murchison-Gaunt about it, but old Brooks says he can’t, the Major, that is, bear to
speak of it. Well, he’s not the first POW to feel that way. When we were liberated by the Americans, some of us were taken as witnesses to view the concentration camps. I still can’t speak of that.