Kitabı oku: «Finding Henry Applebee», sayfa 4
5
The Promise
BLACKPOOL, FEBRUARY 1948
Henry
The North Pier is almost deserted apart from Henry and Francine, who stand at its furthermost tip, four-penny bags of cod and chips in their hands, a crisp wind whipping about their ears. The sky is leaden and eerily still, while below them waves slosh and break repeatedly against the pier’s wooden ballasts. The water is washday grey, streaked with menace. Henry is aware it’s a testament to their desire to see each other again that they find themselves here at all, blown about like sea-drift, when most people have retreated indoors to the comfort of a cosy tearoom, a favourite armchair, a lover’s tender embrace.
Francine’s presence beside him feels rare, disarming. She’s wrapped in a powder-blue coat a shade or two lighter than her eyes. Her cheeks glow with a wintry flush, and a dab of soft-hued coral-coloured lipstick enhances the natural lustre of her mouth. Henry thinks she looks gorgeous. She took his arm when she met him at the station, and he – unsure whether she would be there or not, but hoping for the best – offered to take her to a restaurant for lunch, so they could chat and get to know one another better, but she said no, not to worry, fish and chips would do just fine.
‘I know a good place down by the pier,’ she said, a faint, nervous breathlessness to her voice. ‘You’d never find it without me. Come on, I’ll show you the way.’
They talk in quick, excited bursts. Like the day before, the conversation flows in an effortless current between them. It is, Henry thinks, a tacit commitment on both their parts to share as much of themselves as possible, conscious that they only have today before he has to return home to London and face the responsibilities of a brand-new civilian life.
Around them the wind thickens and roils in great swirling eddies, whisking the waves to a pearly-white froth. Between the cold and the lingering spectre of disorientation, Henry’s hunger is acute. He wolfs down the last of his chips, pausing only to steal shy, sideways glances at Francine. Lying on his bunk in Kirkham the previous evening, he was certain he’d be able to visualise every contour, every quirk and subtle complexity of her face. But it was her eyes – her fearless, wild, liquid blue eyes – which had branded themselves so indelibly on his brain.
‘I’m glad you came back today. I had a nice time yesterday,’ she says, squeezing in close against his arm.
At the gentle pressure of her body, Henry feels the gravitational pull between them intensify. His stomach flips, and a jolt of electricity sparks like tinder along his spine. He takes a breath. Reins it in.
‘I was looking forward to seeing you again,’ he replies. ‘In fact, I was afraid you might not be able to get the day off.’
When she told him what she did for a living she’d seemed almost apologetic at first. But then, in the delicate arching of her neck, in the involuntary upwards tilt of her perfectly formed chin, he’d seen a flash of defiance, of self-preservation. Being a waitress wasn’t something she’d aspired to, she told him, but it paid the rent, and it was better than doing the exact same thing for less in Sheffield where she grew up.
‘I always knew I’d like to try my luck somewhere new,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘And Blackpool seemed as good a place to me as any. Plus –’ she added with well-appointed irony – ‘at least here I can get a bit of sea air.’
The wind whistles through the railings and flies under the skirt of her coat, sending swathes of powder-blue fabric fanning like an accordion around her legs. Francine screams and grabs hold of Henry’s arm with one hand, while with the other she tries frantically to preserve her modesty by wedging a fistful of pleats between her knees.
‘Anyhow, you needn’t have worried,’ she says when she’s composed herself. ‘Getting time off wasn’t a problem. February’s off season. If it weren’t for the Americans and the lads like you visiting from Kirkham, Blackpool would be a ghost town at this time of year.’
Henry scrunches his empty chip paper into a ball and looks around for a waste bin. On the roof of the Pavilion Theatre immediately behind them, a turbo-sized gull stretches its wings and follows his movements with immense, twitching eyes. Henry slips a protective arm around Francine’s shoulders, and with a forced air of nonchalance says, ‘The Americans have always had more money to throw around than we have. I suppose here’s the obvious place for them to spend it.’
Francine stares evenly at the horizon. In the daylight, away from the twilight shadows of the Tower Ballroom, her skin appears even more radiant, even smoother and more unblemished than he’d recalled. And there’s a freckle, he sees now; a small brown beauty spot nestled just below her jawline at the side of her neck. Henry manages to stop himself from leaning in and kissing it. Instead, he tries to intuit what she’s thinking, what unknown visions are unfolding behind her eyes. He doesn’t want to think about all the other servicemen who’ve passed through the town as he is doing, least of all now, when his own uniform is due to be handed back in in just twenty-four hours’ time.
He leans his torso against the railings, swivels his head to catch her eye. ‘You look very pretty today, by the way.’
‘Thank you! It’s a new coat.’ She smoothes the fine, woollen fabric over her hips and smiles. ‘I’ve been saving up for it for ages. Mam says I like to kid myself I’m Rita Hayworth.’
‘Oh, Rita’s a bombshell all right,’ Henry shoots back, ‘but she doesn’t have your eyes.’ He sees the look of delight on her face and laughs. ‘I’m not sure where that came from… I mean I meant it, obviously – but I’ve never said anything smooth before in my life.’
‘Come on, I don’t believe it!’ she cries. ‘I’ve never met an airman yet who didn’t have a ready line, though that was a particularly flattering one, I’ll be honest.’
Henry shakes his head. ‘I’m serious! Despite all my brother’s efforts to educate me, I can guarantee that any smooth-talking genes in our family went exclusively to him.’
A small wound, calloused over the years, briefly makes its presence felt in Henry’s chest. It’s ingrained in him by now – this terrible ache of being in thrall to someone he looks up to so much, and yet can never match, never live up to, no matter how hard he tries. Devlin has always had such a seductive charm about him. Obstacles – be they romantic or otherwise – just seem to disintegrate in his path. Never in a million years could he know the agony, or inevitability, of always feeling second-best.
‘Well,’ Francine assures him with a smile, ‘I think you’re sweet.’ She throws him a long, penetrating gaze. ‘Henry? Can I ask you something?’
‘Of course.’
‘What time do you have to be back at your billet?’
All at once, her smile wavers. Henry catches her by the hand and pulls her towards him. ‘Not for hours and hours yet. Let’s not worry about that now. But we should get inside out of the cold. Your hands are freezing.’
They walk arm-in-arm along the pier towards the promenade, the pleats of Francine’s coat brushing against the side of Henry’s leg as she moves. On the beach below them a cocker spaniel races along the shoreline, pawing at the water, sending flecks of surf cartwheeling into the air. Francine turns to watch it, and the same lock of hair which slipped loose from her bun the day before tumbles against her cheek. It flutters momentarily in the breeze before whipping round and catching on her lipstick.
Henry grins.
‘Hey! What’s so funny?’ She digs him in the ribs, plucks the strand of hair from her mouth, and with the same relaxed ease clips it back behind her ear.
‘Have you ever had your tea leaves read?’ she asks, as they approach the entrance to the pier. Directly ahead of them is an elaborately painted sign advertising the clairvoyant skills of a woman with the rather dubious name of Madame Futuro. ‘A girl at work read mine the other day – just for fun. I didn’t believe what she told me, though.’
‘Why not?’ Henry replies. ‘Did she tell you that you were going to meet a handsome stranger?’
Francine draws to a stop. ‘Yes. One who would change my life. How did you know that?’
‘I don’t know…’ He clears his throat. ‘I mean, honestly, I was just kidding. Isn’t that what they tell everyone?’
‘Probably.’ Francine rolls her eyes. ‘She said I was going to meet a man in uniform. Which in this part of the world doesn’t exactly narrow it down… And then she said something about a farm, and that part made no sense to me at all. I just kept nodding. No way was I going to let on what I was thinking, and then –’ She breaks off, squeezes Henry’s arm.
‘And then what?’
‘Nothing I choose to believe in. I’m sure she was making it all up as she went along. Anyway, you’re from London, aren’t you?’
‘Yes,’ he replies. I’ve lived my entire life in a neighbourhood called Chalk Farm.
‘So I was right! It was all nonsense.’
‘Why?’ Henry asks, his curiosity getting the better of him. ‘What else did she say?’
For a second, the light in Francine’s eyes dims. She steps towards him and kisses him on the cheek. ‘I’m just really happy to see you.’ Her voice is so unexpectedly tender, it sends shivers along Henry’s spine. ‘Forget I mentioned it. It was silly of me to bring it up.’
They pull away from each other, and holding hands, leave the entrance to the pier. Henry weighs the silence – the first one he’s been conscious of since they met. He glances sidelong at Francine. Her gaze is fixed straight in front of her, her features composed, but Henry senses that whatever she’s left unsaid is lingering, still, between them.
‘Million-dollar question,’ he says, in an effort to lighten the mood. ‘You find a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. There’s a card attached with your name on it. What do you do?’
‘Anything?’ Francine says at once.
‘Anything.’
‘That’s easy. I’d open a dance school. I’d hire someone to teach me, then I’d run classes of my own. I’d be the Ginger Rogers of the North. I’d be in heaven, Henry! No one would even recognise me back home. Either that, or I’d give it all away and join the circus.’
Her delivery is so deadpan that Henry doesn’t dare ask her if she’s being serious.
‘I don’t see either one happening, though,’ she adds with a touch of sadness. ‘But the dreams themselves cost nothing, do they? What about you? What will you do when you leave the RAF?’
Her question, natural as it is, catches Henry off-guard. ‘I haven’t decided yet,’ he replies. He raises his hand to his neck and fiddles needlessly with his tie. ‘My father died not long after I volunteered, and my brother, Devlin, saw active duty in the end, though it was only for a few months. Thank God he made it back in one piece, his ego fully intact…’ He smiles, a rush of anticipation seizing hold of him. ‘So much has changed since I’ve been away. It’s the oldest cliché in the book, but whatever I end up doing, I’d like to make a difference if I can.’
The second the words are out of his mouth he fears he’s said too much, when in reality, he knows perfectly well he hasn’t said enough. He lowers his eyes and stares with studied intensity at the tips of his boots. Tell her. Tell her, you idiot. You know she’ll understand.
‘What is it, Henry?’
He lifts his head and smiles. ‘Before I volunteered I was doing pretty well with my studies. Devlin never showed much interest in school, but he’s always been charisma on a stick, so somehow it didn’t seem to matter.’
‘Charisma on a stick?’ Francine cuts in. ‘Are you sure you two are related?’
Henry bursts out laughing. ‘Yes – although Devlin was first in line when they were handing that out, too.’ A flicker of insecurity flares inside him all over again. ‘Trust me, I speak from experience when I say you’d understand if you met him.’
‘But I haven’t met him,’ she says. Her gaze zeroes in on him with laser-sharp focus. ‘I’m right here – with you. Anyway, I think charisma is for film stars, and highly overrated for everyone else.’
Henry realises he’s beaming like a prize fool.
‘Stop trying to distract me,’ she says, smiling back at him. ‘Go on, tell me what you were going to say about your studies.’
‘You really want to know?’
‘Yes!’
‘Okay, well, discovering I had a gift for languages was a revelation, almost like acting in a way – a chance to reinvent myself and shine. So I’ve been thinking I might go in for a career in teaching. Maybe then I can inspire others the way my teachers inspired me.’ He pauses. ‘I didn’t actually say that out loud, did I? God, the clichés are just pouring out of me today.’
‘No they’re not!’ Francine replies. ‘I think it’s wonderful.’ She steps towards him and presses her hands against his chest. ‘You have to promise me you won’t let anyone tell you otherwise. You’ve got that look about you, Henry! You might even be one of the greatest teachers London’s ever seen!’
She slips away and runs along the promenade. Henry chases after her, catches her by the waist and lifts her into the air. As he swings her round, her face, the pier, the sky, the Tower, blur and merge before him. Francine screams, and with a lightning swipe, she grabs hold of his cap and brandishes it like a trophy above her head.
‘Come on,’ he says, lowering her to the ground, ‘let’s go inside somewhere and have a cup of tea to warm up. What about over there?’
Henry motions towards an imposing building with an elegant red-brick façade on the opposite side of the road. The Shore Hotel looks decidedly grand, a watering hole for the privileged no doubt, a whiff of the silver spoon about them, but Henry doesn’t care – right now he’d be happy to go just about anywhere as long as he’s with Francine.
She follows his gaze and quickly shakes her head. ‘No, Henry, we can’t go there. That’s where I work. I don’t want my colleagues waiting on us. It wouldn’t feel right on my day off.’
‘Of course, how stupid of me. A film, then? Some place warm and cheery?’
‘Yes. The Winter Gardens! If we’re quick, we’ll be just in time for the matinee.’
She waits for a Fleetwood-bound tram to rattle past them, then she takes Henry’s hand and leads him in the opposite direction from the hotel. When they reach the other side of the road she comes to an abrupt stop and looks at him with an expression of such startling gravity, he wonders what can possibly have transpired to unsettle her in that briefest of journeys from one side of the promenade to the other.
‘What’s wrong, Francine? Have you changed your mind? We could always do something else if you prefer?’
Her arms fall like a rag doll’s to her sides. ‘Nothing’s wrong,’ she replies.
‘Then what is it?’
Henry scans her face. Her eyes are laced with such intricacy of emotion that every attempt he makes to interpret them proves utterly beyond him.
Francine glances at the pier, at the Shore Hotel rising large and grandiose behind them. Turning slowly to face him, she floors him with the most ingenuous of smiles.
‘Okay, Henry, here it is: I’ve never met a boy like you before. I’m just a regular Yorkshire lass, not like the London girls you’re used to. I don’t have fancy tastes. I’m smart, and I’m passionate about the things I like, but I’m not cultured or clever like you.’
She holds her palms out from her sides and shrugs. ‘I’m a waitress who scrubs up well and only owns one good coat, and this is it. But I wear my heart on my sleeve, and I swear it’s every bit as hopeful and fragile as the next girl’s.
‘You won’t break it, will you?’
6
The Return
KING’S CROSS STATION, LONDON, DECEMBER 6: DEPARTURE, 8:47 A.M.
Henry
The hairy trek between concourse and train with an unknown, if kindly, teenager was rapidly turning into the longest walk of Henry’s life. But then so far, nothing at all was going the way he had expected.
He moved steadily forwards, his vision trained in missile lock-on with the carriage door ahead. An invalid! He’d been made to feel like an invalid! And all he’d done was tell a little white lie about the fact he wasn’t travelling alone, and even that wasn’t an entire fabrication.
In Henry’s inside coat pocket a Basildon Bond envelope grazed lightly against his chest. Two tickets had been purchased at his niece, Amy’s, insistence, and yet barely ninety minutes had passed since she’d telephoned to say that she wouldn’t be able to accompany him after all:
‘I’m so sorry, Uncle Henry, but the twins woke up with chickenpox and Dan’s renovation job in Berkshire has overrun. I feel terrible about letting you down, but I’m going to have to stay home and take care of the girls. Will you be all right on your own?’
This, in a way, had been Spanner Number One, though Henry wasted no time at all in assuring her that he was more than capable of making the journey by himself. The point was, her intention to go with him had been there, so what difference did it ultimately make if instead of being here by his side, she was trapped at home in Ladbroke Grove?
As he manoeuvred himself one footstep at a time towards the waiting train, Henry briefly entertained the possibility that somehow, via a perverse twist of fate, he’d inadvertently willed the morning’s events into being. In truth, not once during the course of the last few tumultuous days had he considered it necessary for Amy to escort him – like some glorified minder! – on his trip. And yet, he acknowledged with a faint twinge of guilt, there was no denying that if it hadn’t been for her chance discovery, he wouldn’t now find himself at the epicentre of one of London’s busiest train terminals at all.
Henry brushed the thought from his head and reminded himself that he didn’t need a babysitter; his destination was Scotland, not the moon. And he wasn’t that incapacitated! Just because he was eighty-five (and counting) didn’t mean he couldn’t make it halfway across the country in one piece. Plenty of people his age would have driven!
He squeezed the handle of his suitcase and listened for the reassuring sound of the aged leather creaking beneath his fingers. His joints ached. His mouth, which still tasted ominously of blood, felt stale and dry.
If he could just get himself into his seat… If the guard would only blow his whistle and send the train wheezing and grunting out of the station… If he could put some distance at last between himself and the weary, winter-tide streets of cold, old, lonely London… Then and only then could he be certain that nothing and no one might prevent him from reaching his destination on time.
There had been all of eight days to digest the news, which in Henry’s world was less time than it took for the bulletproof avocados from his local corner shop to embrace their natural-born destiny and ripen. One minute he was pottering on the patio, mimicking the sound of the Papadopouloses’ chickens clucking in their homemade coop next door; the next, he was engaged in the most surreal telephone conversation of his life.
‘Uncle Henry, it’s Amy. I’m calling to say that I’ve found her. I think I’ve found the woman you’ve been searching for all these years.’
Henry pressed a finger to his ear and waited for the punchline, the dénouement, the inevitable Candid Camera reveal.
He stared at the framed reproduction of Monet’s sublime water lilies floating serenely on the hall wall. His instinct, once he’d had a second or two to process Amy’s words, was to gasp, but his jaw fell slack and all he could muster was an acute, ear-splitting silence.
He wrapped his hand around the empty glass vase on the bureau, moving it an inch this way, that way, keeping the pads of his fingers pressed to its cool, hard surface for no other reason than because it was the only object in his immediate line of vision that was solid, and tangible, and real.
A wave of longing rolled through his body. The sensation came close to overwhelming him until it was matched, molecule by molecule, by a slow-moving river of fear in his veins. What if there’d been a mix-up? What if this was all just another terrible mistake?
‘Uncle Henry, are you there?’
‘Yes, Amy,’ he replied. ‘I’m here.’
‘Good, because I need you to listen to this – it’s from an article in last night’s Evening Standard: “The inspiration for the novel came from the author’s mother, Yorkshire girl Francine Keeley, who in the aftermath of the Second World War worked as a waitress at Blackpool’s Shore Hotel.” Did you hear that? It’s her name. Her hotel. Same town. From everything you’ve told me, I don’t think there can be any mistake.’
Slowly, Henry let the vase go. Amy was right. The match was nothing short of perfect.
‘I’m sorry, Amy,’ he managed at last. ‘What exactly is this article about?’
There was a momentary pause.
‘Oh. Sorry, I should have said… It’s a spotlight on a new wave of debut authors, one of whom has written some sort of mystery-thriller set on the Lancashire coast in the 1940s. She credits her mother – “Francine Keeley” – and the Shore Hotel as the jumping-off points for her story. Honestly, you should thank the customer who left the paper behind in the café this morning, because otherwise I would never have seen it. I’ll drop it over to you after work and you can read it for yourself. In the meantime, I think it’s probably safe to assume that according to this, Francine is – or at one point was – married. Either way, the one thing we know for sure is that she has a daughter.’
Henry felt as though he were floating out of his shoes. He reached out his hand and grabbed the edge of the bureau before sinking in a state of burgeoning delirium onto the hallway chair.
Banjo raced in from the patio and began to paw frantically at Henry’s shins. Henry’s body slumped forwards, his elbows skidding to his knees. He was trying his damnedest to formulate a response, but his powers of expression were scrambled, his train of thought unclear.
‘I wouldn’t blame you for thinking it’s too late,’ Amy continued on the other end of the line. ‘It was practically a lifetime ago, after all. Then again – if she really is that important to you – if you make contact with her daughter, you’ll find Francine. The ball’s in your court, Uncle Henry. What do you want to do?’
Henry gripped the handle of his walking stick and pressed ahead. Determination coursed through every muscle of his body. He’d seen Francine in his dreams again last night, only this one was more real to him than most; so real he was sure he could even smell her perfume.
Her words haunted him still:
Francine.
Always and forever, Francine.
Even now, the memory cleaved Henry’s heart in two. Time, it seemed, had been cruel, and capricious. It had healed nothing.
One thing he’d learned for sure: digging around in his memories as he sat, pen in hand, bent over his notebook, was like sifting for gold; he never quite knew when the most precious nuggets of all – the ones with the power to steal his breath away – were going to filter up to the surface.
Catch me, Henry! – her arms beating wildly against her sides – Catch me if you can!
Her smile was electric. Sometimes it was a transitory feeling, gentle as a whisper, as intangible as a baby’s breath; at other times it was a profound ache that grabbed hold of Henry’s heart and tightened its grip like an iron fist. It astounded him how the human heart could remain so vital and complex with the passing of the years; an organ so unwaveringly loyal and pure and constant on the inside, while the outer body bowed to its inevitable decline.
And yet…
Henry glanced in renewed horror at his blood-splattered clothes. He’d experienced spontaneous nosebleeds once or twice before, but never like this. He wondered if it were a side effect of the medicine he’d been prescribed (but so rarely succumbed to taking) for one of his various ailments. He’d never placed much stock in doctors’ pills and potions; they handed them out far too readily for his liking, when mostly – just like every other lonely pensioner he knew – all he wanted was a chat and the opportunity for a bit of social interaction in the waiting room. And now look at him! A disgrace in his dove-grey suit! He wasn’t sure things could be going any worse. He must look like a decrepit Sweeney Todd!
Henry came to a stop alongside the train and placed his suitcase at the platform’s edge. Thank heavens for the girl: Ariel. Here she was standing right next to him telling him that she was travelling to Edinburgh, too:
‘I was supposed to be on the one that left at eight,’ she said, a little disconsolately. ‘But I had a total nightmare getting here on the Tube. I’m sure it’ll be fine if I just get on this one. I don’t suppose it’s full.’
As she spoke, a horde of passengers swarmed onto the platform behind them, and jostled past in a shamelessly undignified scramble to board the train.
‘Well, not completely full, anyway,’ Ariel added with a frown.
She turned and peered briefly through the First Class window. ‘Is this your carriage? It looks nice. Would you like me to see you to your seat?’
Henry smiled, partly at her kindness, but mainly at the expression of wonder on her face. He cast a discreet glance at the holes in her jeans, at her faded black plimsolls (just like the ones he and Devlin had worn in school!). At her side was what he assumed must be the hand-me-down exterior of her rather tired-looking suitcase on wheels. He didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but at her age he could never have afforded the luxury of first-class travel. More to the point, if it hadn’t been for her helpful intervention, in all likelihood he might not have been allowed to board the train at all…
‘My niece was supposed to be travelling with me today,’ he said in answer to her question. ‘But she’s been otherwise detained. Could I offer you her seat as a token of my thanks? Unless –’ he added somewhat doubtfully – ‘you already have a first-class ticket?’
He slipped the Basildon Bond envelope from his pocket and held out the tickets for Ariel to see. She looked down and regarded them with what appeared to be an expression of mild apprehension; or perhaps, it occurred to him with dismay, it was just sheer disbelief.
A violent rush of heat rose beneath his collar. ‘Of course,’ he muttered quickly, ‘if you’d rather not spend the entire journey in the company of an old man, and a bloody one at that, then I completely –’
‘Thank you, Henry.’ Ariel raised her head and gave him a shy, but none the less winning smile. ‘If you’re sure it wouldn’t be a problem, then yes, actually, that would be great.’
Relief flooded Henry’s face. ‘That’s settled then!’ he cried. ‘No sense in a perfectly good ticket going to waste!’
Ariel’s gaze shifted to the carriage steps, to his white-knuckled fingers curled around the handle of his stick. ‘Here, let me help you.’ Moving nimbly alongside him, she slipped her hand once more behind his arm.
Henry picked up his suitcase and stepped onto the train. The engine was already turning over, the microcosmic glow of the sleek, purring carriage firmly in his sights. The carriage door swung to behind him, gathering him up, buffering him in its steely embrace. He made his way inside, his heart pounding at the realisation that here, at last, was his return.
To his past…
And to the mistake that he’d give anything in the world to change.
