Sky High (19 page)

‘Have some more tea,’ said Sue. ‘I suppose the war didn’t help.’

‘Yes and no. He got straight into Special Service – almost as soon as they invented it. Games again. He’d played football with someone who was starting a special unit—’

‘I know,’ said Sue. ‘Awfully good chap, Artside. Played scrum half for the ‘Quins. We
must
have him.’

Both women suddenly giggled.

‘Anyway,’ said Liz, ‘it saved him from life in a wartime officers’ mess. And I think it democratised him. I don’t believe that what he did was any more dangerous or uncomfortable than a front line soldier’s job, but the point of it was that it was mostly solo stuff – at the most he might have a sergeant or a couple of men with him. One of the men he worked with most was a private in the Middlesex Regiment.’

‘Does he still keep in touch?’

Tm afraid he’s too grand,’ said Liz sadly. ‘He owns a whole chain of second-hand car shops. He still sends Tim a box of cigars at Christmas.’

There was silence for a bit. The rain was thickening now, coming down in a solid, heavy curtain.

‘He’s bit wrapped up in himself,’ said Sue at last, as if she was answering some thought of her own.

‘Before the war,’ said Liz, ‘I thought I understood him as well as any woman of my age could understand a boy. Now I hardly know a thing about him. He might do anything in the wide world.’

‘Just what does he do?’ said Sue. ‘I suppose I oughtn’t to ask really.’

‘There’s no harm in asking,’ said Liz, ‘because all I can tell you won’t make you much wiser. After he came back from Palestine—and was I glad to see him get clear of that!—worse than the war – and so unnecessary – as I say when he got back he had a shot at a lot of things. Forestry estate management. I’m not sure he didn’t even try bee-keeping. But they all seemed to want capital or experience which were the two things he was short of. Then, quite suddenly, one day, he announced that he’d got a job. That was that. Every day he puts on a dark suit and a clean collar and trots off with all the other commuters to this job, whatever it may be. It brings in money every week. Not much, I think, but enough. He doesn’t seem to have to be at the office terribly early, and he usually gets home in good time. I don’t suppose he stays away for the night more than two or three times in a year. And that’s really all I know about it!’

‘Does his job take him into Essex, by any chance?’

‘Not that I know of. Why?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Something he said. Listen, isn’t that Bob’s car?’

Both women went over to the window. Sue’s hearing must have been extraordinarily acute. The car had only just turned into Melliker Lane. Its headlights cut out a path through the dancing rain.

As they watched the car swung out to make the turn into the drive.

Liz felt Sue gripping her arm.

Then she saw it, too.

She wrenched at the window and started to shout abruptly.

Out of the very corner of his eye, Bob Cleeve noticed the window swing open and, with the reflex of a good driver who sees something he cannot at once account for, he braked lightly. The noise of the engine drowned any shout.

Too late, he saw it too and stood on everything.

There was a twang like a bowstring as the taut rope across the gate hit the car. A crack as the windscreen buckled. A sharper crack as one of the gate-posts heeled and snapped, and the car, skidding wildly, thrashed the gravel and turned broadside on across the width of the drive.

Then, for a long moment, no sound but the drumming of the rain.

Armado:
‘
Why tough signior? Why tough signior?

Moth;
Why tender juvenal? Why tender
juvenal.
’

‘Easy does it now,’ said Cleeve. He was bleeding freely from the face, but seemed otherwise intact. ‘Easy again. I’ll shift the seat.’

There was a bruise, already puffy, on the General’s forehead, a bruise from which blood was beginning to ooze dark and slow. His eyes were shut.

Sue’s face was as white as her grandfather’s.

‘Ring the doctor,’ said Liz. ‘Bob and I can manage now. And stop looking like a frightened duck. He’s survived worse bumps than that.’

Cleeve got one arm under the General and, Liz helping, they lifted him, curiously light, she thought, as though under the outer husk of his clothes, age had been stealthily eating up her friend.

During the slow passage from the car to the front door the fresh air and rain must have achieved something, for the General opened his eyes, shook his head, winced and shut them again.

They propped him on a chair in the hall.

‘The fire’s upstairs, in my room,’ said Sue over her shoulder. ‘Oh, is that you, doctor? Sue Palling here. Yes. Could you come across right away. Only be careful when you get to the gate. It’s blocked. A sort of car smash. Yes, it’s the General. Right away, if you would.’

‘We’d better carry him up,’ said Liz. ‘Warmth’s the thing.’

‘If you say so,’ said Cleeve. ‘Disturb as little as possible would be my diagnosis.’

‘Walk,’ said the General, faintly but firmly.

And walk he did, helped on either side.

They put him on the sofa, in front of the fire, with a rug over him.

‘Hot sweet tea,’ suggested Liz.

‘Nonsense,’ said the General. ‘That’s the treatment for shock. This is concussion.’

They were still arguing when the doctor arrived. He was young and brisk and confident.

‘Slight concussion,’ he announced, when he had finished cleaning up. ‘You’d be better in bed. I’ll put you up a sedative.’

‘I’ve had concussion more times than you’ve had birthdays,’ said the General. ‘Never been to bed for it yet. Always found a glass of red wine useful.’

‘The great thing is not to worry,’ said the doctor. The General eyed him malevolently out of his bloodshot right eye. His left one was so puffed as to be temporarily useless. ‘And you’d all be better for dry clothes. We don’t want three more patients.’

He clattered off down the stairs. Sue went down to let him out, and came back again.

‘He’s absolutely right,’ said Liz. ‘I’m soaking. That was real rain. Is your car still functioning?’

‘What? Yes, I think so,’ said Cleeve absently. ‘Just the windscreen. It’ll be a bit draughty.’

‘If you could run me back to my house, I’ll get changed and arrange for someone—’

‘I don’t like it,’ said Cleeve suddenly and sharply.

‘Sue’ll be all right for a bit. We can arrange for a nurse later.’

‘Of course I shall be all right.’

‘Nurse,’ said the General. ‘Who for?’

‘Curiously enough,’ said Cleeve, ‘it’s not you or Sue that I’m worrying about at all.’

This achieved its object. There was a moment of silence.

‘What do you mean?’ said Liz.

‘Look here. You’re all assuming that rope was put there by the same—the same madman who destroyed MacMorris. Aren’t you?’

The General started to nod but thought better of it. Liz and Sue said ‘Yes’.

‘All right. But doesn’t it strike you as a chancy and inefficient way of knocking us off?’

Liz said, the puzzled look still on her face, ‘Do you mean that he wasn’t to know you’d both gone up to town. Because if so, it’s only fair to say that I mentioned it to half a dozen people, in Brimberley alone.’

‘That’s one aspect of it,’ said Bob. ‘But it wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. Granted that anyone
might
know that we were due back after dark, why set about it that way?’

‘It seems to have worked reasonably well,’ said Sue. She sounded cross.

‘Slight concussion,’ said the General defiantly.

‘By a series of flukes, he got some results,’ agreed Bob. ‘But tell me this, General. If it hadn’t been pelting with rain, would you have allowed me to bring you to your front door?’

‘Certainly not,’ said the General. ‘If anyone’s kind enough to give me a lift I invariably jump off at the end of the lane.’

‘Right,’ said Cleeve. ‘And if it hadn’t been for the same rain, I don’t believe I’d ever have hit the rope at all. I’d have seen it in plenty of time and stopped. Or been going so slowly it wouldn’t have mattered. And why a rope? It couldn’t be strong enough to wreck the car. A steel hawser, now—’

‘For goodness sake,’ said Sue. ‘Perhaps he hadn’t
got
a steel hawser.’

‘What are you getting at, Bob?’ said Liz.

‘I’m getting at this,’ said Bob. ‘Every Friday, after dark, throughout the winter, Liz comes to this house on that motor-bicycle of hers, which she rides to the public danger. Just imagine her pelting round that corner and getting the rope under her chin.’

‘Good God,’ said the General, sitting up.

‘And that’s why I don’t particularly want Liz out of our sight. At least, not until Tim’s back, and can keep an eye on her.’

‘Where
is
Tim?’

Liz said, ‘I can usually get hold of him when he stays up on a Friday. There’s a number I can ring. It’s a friend’s flat.’

‘All right,’ said Cleeve. ‘Give it a try. But if you can’t get hold of him, I’m going to take you all home with me. I’ve got plenty of beds – and hot baths,’ he added as Sue sneezed. ‘I’m going out now to extract the car.’

The friend was in his flat when Liz rang, but knew nothing of Tim’s movements. Which was not surprising, as Tim was, at that moment, conversing with Mr. Smith of Holborn.

‘All aboard, then,’ said Cleeve. ‘Bring your toothbrushes and pyjamas. The house can supply the rest. We’ll prop the General up in the back seats with cushions and a rug, and Liz to hold his hand. You sit in front with me, Sue. Mind the upholstery. There’s glass everywhere. All set? Then tally ho!’

Three hours later a warm, well-fed, reasonably easy-minded and very sleepy trio were sitting in front of the big open hearth in the drawing-room at Clamboys Hall.

The leaping firelight threw the rest of the big room into shadows. Sue was half sitting, half lying in a box-like brocaded sofa so wide and deep that she seemed to be trapped in its folds. Liz squarely filled a chair on one side of the fire, opposite her host on the other. The General was in bed and was thought to be asleep.

‘And the deuce of a job I had getting him there,’ said Sue. ‘He won’t remember that he’s no longer a child of sixty.’

‘As soon as people remember their age they curl up and die,’ said Liz.

‘He’s a tough nut,’ said Cleeve. ‘Very bad luck, actually. He hit his head on the window stop. If it hadn’t been for that he’d have got off quite lightly.’

‘Have the police made anything out of it?’

‘I shouldn’t think so. They’ve shone their torches on the ground and stamped around a bit. They won’t be able to do anything useful until it’s light.’

The door at the far end of the room opened and Rupert came in. He was wearing a dressing-gown and his hair was tousled from his bath. He said good night composedly to everybody in turn and withdrew as quietly as he had come.

‘Chickens and hens,’ thought Liz. ‘How little the young thing looks like the finished product. In five years’ time he’ll be long and pimply and will have forgotten how to come into a room.’

‘You’ll have to look after him,’ she said out loud.

‘Do all I can,’ said Cleeve, startled. ‘Why?’

‘His voice, I mean. He’s the only real treble we’ve got. Without him the Hedges quintet are as sheep without a shepherd. Where’s he get it from?’

‘Must be on his mother’s side. His father never had any voice to speak of. He’s a good-looking boy, isn’t he?’

‘He’s a banger,’ said Liz. ‘Pity he’s got to grow up really. You ought to be able to preserve him in his status quo. Under a glass case. Like Lenin.’

Cleeve affected to consider the matter. ‘I don’t think he’d fancy that,’ he said. ‘Very active boy. He’s got a war on with cook’s cat. I saw the cat go up a tree after a bird the other day, and Rupert going after the cat. I don’t know which of ‘em climbed better. The bird got away but the cat didn’t.’

There was such a warmth of affection in Cleeve’s usually impersonal voice that Liz and Sue caught each other’s eyes and smiled.

‘I sometimes wonder if he isn’t lonely here. It’s a big house, you know, and only servants to talk to. I’m not here a lot, and even when I am I can’t give him all the time I’d like. He had a governess up to this summer. Strong-minded woman. But no real stamina. She had a nervous breakdown in July. He’s been running his own trail since then.’

‘I don’t think he minds being on his own,’ said Liz. ‘He’s the most terrifyingly self-sufficient boy I’ve ever had anything to do with. How old is he now?’

‘Ten and a bit. I’m afraid it’s got to be boarding school. Got a lot of prospectuses here. I’d like you to look at ‘em, Liz. They’re all the same, though. Staffs of graduates. Young, energetic headmasters assisted by wife and mistresses. Twenty acres of playing fields and own dairy herd. Boys not driven but brought forward by kindness. It all sounds remarkably unlike any preparatory school I can remember but perhaps things have changed since I was a boy.’

‘I think they have changed a bit,’ said Liz.

‘Rupert doesn’t need kindness. He needs competition,’ said Sue sleepily from the depths of the sofa.

‘What nonsense,’ said Liz. ‘All children want kindness. That’s right, isn’t it, Bob?’

‘I’m not sure,’ said Bob. ‘I’m kind to him. But that isn’t policy, it’s weakmindedness. Anyway, what children want and what they need are different kettles of fish. Too much pampering, bring ‘em forward quickly, no fruit worth speaking of. Cut ‘em back now, good crop later.’

‘Children aren’t Ribston Pippins,’ said Liz. ‘And what’s more, I don’t believe you believe a word of it.’

‘I
believe
it,’ said Cleeve. ‘I don’t practice it. Fact is, I always let personalities creep in too much. Whenever I get a problem – and I’ve had a few – say it’s juvenile delinquency. My mind’s eye doesn’t see the average juvenile delinquent. It sees Rupert. If you see what I mean,’ he added, for Liz seemed suddenly to have lost herself.

‘Yes, I do,’ she said at last. ‘It’s a national failing.’