On the Edge [= Dead Gorgeous]

12

On the night before the funeral Rose was surprised to get a phone call from Rex Ballard, one of the Kettlesham Heath pilots, a Squadron Leader who it turned out was still serving there. He had heard about Barry’s death from his sister who worked in the coroner’s office. He remembered Rose, of course. He said he would be driving up from Suffolk in the morning with three old chums from Battle of Britain days. Rose tried explaining that it was to be a quiet family funeral. Rex was not to be put off. In that case, he said, there would be room at the graveside for a few old friends who wanted to pay their respects, wouldn’t there?

The ‘old friends’ had grown to fourteen by the time they gathered around the grave in Brompton Cemetery. Three civil service people from the Stationery Office who Rose had never seen before stood rigidly at one end with their furled umbrellas in front of them like reversed rifles. The Irish couple who lived two doors away in Oldfield Gardens and never missed a thing had turned up, thoughtfully with only two of their six children. Also, wearing black armbands, one of the barmen and two regulars from The Orange, where Barry used to drink. Then the quartet from the RAF, stouter and redder in the face than they’d looked in 1940 and now without a moustache between them.

The family group consisted of Barry’s stepsister Daphne and her obnoxious husband Ronald, Rose’s parents and Aunt Joan. And Rose herself.

Her father had offered to read the service. She’d said at the risk of hurting him that she would find the whole thing too distressing. She preferred to have the words spoken by a priest she didn’t know. Daddy nodded and said he understood. Rose hoped to God that he didn’t and never would.

Even then it was an ordeal going through the motions of lament with them beside her and everyone watching for evidence of grief from the wretched widow. She kept her head bowed and bit her lip and dabbed her face with a hankie. They were genuine tears. The ritual hardly touched her, but she wept for all the lies she would be forced to tell before the afternoon was out.

They all said afterwards how splendidly brave she had been.

Her mother and aunt had helped her prepare some food at the house for after the funeral. Spam sandwiches mostly, plates of digestive biscuits and slabs of trench cake. The cake was her mother’s contribution, from a First World War recipe that the Ministry of Food had disinterred for the Second. It was made without eggs and Mother rashly announced that the original trench cakes had kept for three months on the Western Front. No one enquired why they hadn’t been eaten in all that time, but when she offered to pass the recipe on there was an embarrassing silence. Only the Irish children tried any.

Much against her desire, Rose remained the centre of attention. Offers of support were showered on her.

‘I want you to know, my dear, that we at the Stationery Office wouldn’t want you to get into difficulties. If there’s anything that needs attention, my name is Gascoigne and this is McGill and our young colleague here is Tremlett. Remember, won’t you? Anything under the sun.’

She had an engaging picture of Gascoigne, McGill and Tremlett under the sun, bare-chested on the roof replacing the war-damaged tiles.

‘So kind.’

‘Not at all. Barry was held in the highest esteem at the depot. We shall not look upon his like again, as the Bard expressed it. Now that we know each other...’

The bonhomie was excessive, like Victory Day all over again. Why am I so cynical? Rose asked the kettle as she filled it.

As for the RAF mourners, they had their own way of combating depression. They took turns going out to the car to top up with something from a bottle. Out of respect for the cloth, as they put it (meaning Daddy, who could see very well what was going on, and wouldn’t have been averse to a nip), they used teacups and let it be known that they were drinking Russian tea.

‘Never would have guessed your Pop was a parson, Rose. You should have told us, you know.’

‘Why?’

‘Freddie here would have moderated his language.’

‘Did he say something? I didn’t hear him.’

‘Lord, no. He’s been the soul of discretion today. I’m talking about the war. In the ops room. The things you heard must have made your toes curl.’

Rose shook her head. ‘Let’s make no bones about it, we were all living on our nerves. I said a few strong words myself when I was pressed.’

‘My dear, I never heard them pass your lips. But you’re right about the pressures. Say what you like about our flying skills, we needed the luck of Old Nick to survive. Dear old Barry, rest his soul, was in the thick of it and came through triumphant every blessed time. Even when he got in trouble he limped back somehow, hours late, with that beautiful fatuous grin on his face. He was indestructible.’

‘So were you, as it turned out.’

‘Yes, but we could all name plenty of good lads who didn’t make it home. If there’s any sense in it all, we’re bound to ask why we were spared.’

‘Rex, I’d better get round with the tea before it gets cold.’

‘Just a moment, dear. I’m shockingly hamfisted with words, I know. Always was. What I’m getting at is this. Somehow we knew Barry would always come back. He gave you that sense of living a charmed life. So when I was told he’d fallen off a railway platform, I couldn’t believe my ears. The Piccadilly Line? Dear old Barry? That’s not like him, I said, not like him at all.’

‘Accidents happen all the time.’

‘Not to the likes of Barry. To tell the truth, I still haven’t taken it in properly. Standing there in the cemetery this afternoon I kept thinking, this isn’t right. Any minute I’m going to feel a tap on my shoulder and I’ll turn round and it’ll be old Barry in his flying kit having a bloody good laugh at us.’

One of the others, Peter Bliss, had been getting restless. ‘Put a sock in it, Rex.’

‘What’s up?’

‘You’re talking baloney.’

‘Pardon me, old son, but it’s a fact. Barry always came back. Always.’

‘This is hardly the time and place to go on about it.’

Rose gave Bliss a nod of thanks and moved off to fill the teapot again. She found her mother in the kitchen washing plates with Aunt Joan. An opportunity, Mummy had decided, for a heart-to-heart.

‘Now that it’s over, we want you to come home with us for at least a few weeks, my pet. You look so dreadful, I can hardly believe it’s my own daughter.’

‘Mummy, I appreciate the thought.’

‘It’s more than a thought, dear. I absolutely insist, and so does your father.’

‘I know you mean well, but it’s out of the question. There’s too much to be done here.’

‘Nothing that can’t wait. I couldn’t possibly go away tonight and leave you alone in this dreadful... I mean, in this house with... with so many memories.’

Aunt Joan came tactfully to her sister’s aid. ‘It was that face on the hoarding across the road that upset us. So depressing for you to look out on all the time.’

‘The widow? I’ve got used to her now. She doesn’t bother me in the least. Really.’

‘As if we haven’t all seen enough horrors since the war ended.’

‘I’ll manage perfectly well by myself, Mummy.’

‘It isn’t as if you have friends you can turn to. I don’t mind telling you I don’t take to those Irish people.’

‘They’re neighbours. I’m not without friends, believe me.’

‘Friends? Up here in London? Who, for instance?’

‘Um, people you wouldn’t know. Ex-service.’

She was too late to bite back the last words. Her mother gave her a sharp look. God, how much longer would the kettle take? She tried turning the gas up. It was already fully on.

The cross-questioning began in earnest. ‘Air Force people then?’

‘Yes.’

‘Ex-service, you said. You don’t mean the men in the other room?’

‘No.’

‘WAAFs?’

‘You wouldn’t know them, Mummy.’

‘I didn’t see any WAAFs here today.’

‘They couldn’t manage it. Would you be a dear and put out some more biscuits? We’re about to run out in the other room.’

‘There’s plenty of cake left. They’ve hardly touched it. Do you really want to use up all the biscuits? All right, if that’s what you want. We’ll talk about this again, dear. I’m far from satisfied.’

Rose filled the teapot and went in search of the civil servants. They’d managed to corner her father and were telling him about the inner workings of the Stationery Office. He was reacting with every muscle of his face, as if no subject interested him more passionately. By the nature of his occupation he was a splendid listener. She’d watched him earlier doing his stuff with the Air Force. Dear, generous-hearted Daddy.

It would be folly to go home with her parents, sweet as they were. Between Mummy’s sharp questions and Daddy’s spirituality she’d be confessing everything before the train left Waterloo.

What a shock they’d get! She had never so much as hinted that the marriage was unhappy. The few Saturday afternoons she’d taken Barry back to the Rectory he’d played the part of the loving husband and she’d been grateful for the effort he put into it. The fact that he’d spent the previous evening in the arms of a tart in some hotel room seemed as unthinkable as Daddy dropping an ‘h’ or Mummy a stitch.

How, then, could they even begin to comprehend the truth about Barry’s death and her part in it?

Gascoigne the civil servant appeared beside her. ‘My colleagues and I will be leaving in a few minutes, Mrs Bell.’

‘Thank you for coming.’

‘It was a pleasure.’ He coughed. ‘That is to say, thank you for your hospitality. One small matter I wished to mention. Mr Bell left a few personal items in his desk including a photograph that may be of some sentimental value, a fountain pen and, I think, some tickets for a dance. I placed them in an envelope for safe keeping.’

‘I don’t suppose they’re important.’

‘Ah, but I wouldn’t want to dispose of them without your seeing them.’

‘Could you put them in the post?’

‘I’m concerned about the possibility of the pen leaking over the other things. Would you like me to arrange for someone from the depot to bring them here? It didn’t seem appropriate today.’

‘That’s all right. I’ll come to the depot and see if they’re worth keeping.’

‘Really? I don’t want to put you to any trouble.’

‘I’ll let you know when I’m coming.’

After repeating his offer to do anything of practical help that Rose could think of, Gascoigne gathered McGill and Tremlett and left. For a moment it appeared as if the Kettlesham Heath crowd were lining up to say goodbye as well. Not so. Rex Ballard still had something on his mind.

‘I suppose you haven’t run into any of the girls lately?’

‘The girls?’

‘WAAFs, my dear. Your fellow-plotters.’

Rose’s pulse beat faster. Rex was one of those people who put you at ease and then poleaxed you with something he’d discovered. He’d found out about the funeral. What else did he know?

‘I think we all went our own ways. One met so many people in the war.’

‘True.’ He looked wistful. ‘They’re a very insipid bunch on the station now. No sense of fun. I wouldn’t mind having a get-together one weekend with some of the wartime crowd. A sort of reunion. Do you think it’s a good idea?’

Was that all he meant? The relief!

‘I’d need to think about it.’

‘We’d have to find out where they are now, of course. You’ve lost touch with everyone, have you?’

With uncanny timing, her mother pushed a plate of trench cake between them. ‘Far from it, Squadron Leader. Rose was telling me just now that her ex-service friends are all she’s got in London, weren’t you, dear?’

Rose sidestepped. ‘Mummy, we’re talking about Kettlesham Heath now, not Hornchurch. I met Rex at Kettlesham Heath.’

‘Oh, I’m out of order as usual, am I? Have some cake anyway.’

‘It looks delicious. Unfortunately I’m not the cake-eating type, Mrs Mason, but I say, if there’s another Spam sandwich...’

While her mother went off to cut more bread, Rose let it be understood that a squadron reunion wasn’t to her liking. She told Rex candidly that she’d regard it as an ordeal rather than a pleasure. He said he sympathized. However, in case she changed her mind later, he’d let her know if the idea came to anything. Soon after, the RAF party set off for Suffolk in their Standard 12.

When her parents finally left with Aunt Joan they all but dragged her off the doorstep and into their small car. She escaped by undertaking to visit them at the earliest opportunity. They also extracted promises that she would say her prayers each night and finish every crumb of the trench cake. She thought, I’ll need more than prayers if I do.