In Sunshine Or In Shadow Page 40

  The truth of this remark was brought home one evening to Artemis when on her way back to Bayswater the air was suddenly split with the banshee wail of air raid sirens. For a moment everyone around her stood stock still, as if unable to believe their ears, and then suddenly a panic set in and Artemis found herself in the middle of a jostling and running crowd, fighting their collective way to the nearest shelter. Unable to keep up with the mob, Artemis was knocked to the side, off the pavement proper and on to the road, losing her stick in the process. No-one paid her any attention, as they were all too concerned with seeking sanctuary. Some glanced fleetingly up at the skies above them but most just hurried heads down as fast as they could into the makeshift shelter below a large department store.

  Artemis was one of the last down the steps which she had to negotiate carefully, one at a time. A man passed her, and seeing that he was carrying her silver topped stick, she called out to him. But he failed to stop, disappearing into the crowd which had already settled into place, either seated on slatted benches or standing against the walls, staring upwards at the ceiling as if it were a part of the sky.

  ‘It’ll be another false alarm, don’t you worry,’ a man next to Artemis announced to all and sundry as the crowd waited in near silence. ‘The only casualties in this bleedin’ war are the poor baskets gettin’ knocked down in the black-out.’

  Ten minutes later the all clear sounded, and with a mass sigh of relief, everyone began to make their way above ground once more. But while they had been waiting, Artemis had at last found the man who had her walking stick, and had made her way across to him. He was sitting on a bench at the far end of the basement trying his best to prise the silver top off.

  ‘That’s mine, thank you,’ she said, standing in front of him.

  ‘Yeah?’ He looked up, a young sallow-faced man with a black pencil moustache.

  ‘Yes,’ said Artemis and held out her hand.

  ‘There’s no name on it,’ the man said, after giving it a cursory look.

  ‘There’s a crest though,’ Artemis said, ‘which you’ll find matches this.’ She showed him her signet ring.

  The thief eyed her, taking in her lop-sided gait, and as the shelter began to clear, got up and made a run for it, pushing Artemis to one side so that she fell across the bench. Seeing what was happening, a large man in a collarless shirt, his work trousers hitched round his belly with a thick leather belt, caught the thief by the scruff of the neck and lifted him up on his tiptoes.

  ‘Drop it, son,’ he said. ‘There’s a good boy.’

  The large man returned Artemis her stick. ‘Steal the froth off your beer, that sort would,’ he said, nodding after the disappearing figure. ‘Makes you wonder who we’re fightin’ for.’

  The cab driver found the address with no difficulty.

  ‘This is a good neighbourhood,’ he said over his shoulder to Ellie, never taking his eyes off the road. ‘Nice.’

  ‘It’s number 1219,’ Ellie said, looking at a line of smart suburban houses, with their manicured lawns and washed motor cars, and wondering how her father now came to be living here.

  ‘I got you, lady,’ the driver said. ‘Number 1219.’

  There were two cars parked outside number 1219, one of them, a pale yellow saloon, looking brand spanking new. The cab-driver whistled. ‘Hey!’ he said. ‘Nice! A new Chrysler Imperial! Very nice!’ He moved his gum to the other side of his mouth and opened Ellie’s door by just reaching out behind him with his arm. ‘One dollar ninety, lady,’ he said, and then as Ellie looked for the money in her purse, he reappraised the Chrysler. ‘Oh yes ma’am. That is very nice indeedy.’

  A black maid opened the front door. ‘Who shall I say please, ma’am?’ she asked.

  ‘Mrs Tanner,’ Ellie said, taken aback one more step. ‘Mrs Eleanor Tanner. Mr Milligan’s daughter.’

  The maid shut the door behind Ellie and beamed. ‘Why of course!’ she said. ‘Miss Eleanor! Why I have heard so much about you! Please follow me through here now, and I’ll go tell your daddy that you’re here! I don’t think he was imagining you would be here till this evening!’

  The maid led Ellie through into a comfortable and well-furnished sitting room, so different from the home in which Ellie had been born and reared that she thought she had to be dreaming. There was a three piece suite of furniture, a nest of occasional tables, a small white grand piano which was covered with photographs of ‘the Broth’, and even a glass fronted bookcase, full of good looking books. More than that, the whole room was close carpeted and decorated with a pretty floral wallpaper.

  ‘You must be just dying for some refreshment, Miss Eleanor,’ the maid said, plumping up some cushions in a chair for her. ‘After such a journey. What can I fetch you now? Some coffee? A hot chocolate? Or would you like some tea like your daddy likes? A nice strong cup of tea?’

  Ellie decided on tea and then sat down to wait for her father who, it appeared, was on the telephone in his den.

  ‘Are any of my brothers around?’ Ellie asked, before the maid finally departed back to the kitchen.

  ‘Why bless you no, Miss Eleanor. All your brothers, except young Patsy of course, all your brothers they is off working as usual.’

  ‘Do they still work for my father?’

  ‘Oh yes, Miss Eleanor, they sure do. And they’s all doing so well!’

  Ellie could see that from the photographs, which she examined when the maid had gone. She knew Dermot had married, because Patsy had told her that much at least in his letters. Her new sister-in-law was blonde and enthusiastic looking, with broad shoulders and large breasts. She was grinning rather than smiling and holding on to Dermot’s arm as if she was never going to let go, now that he had vowed himself to her until death did them part. Mike and Fergal were not yet married, but there were new photographs of them as well, smart suited and with their dark hair fashionably brilliantined down. Their pictures flanked the one of Dermot and his bride, and there was no doubt about it they were a fine looking bunch.

  No new picture of Patsy graced the white piano, nor indeed of Eleanor. There was just the same old tired yellow snapshot there had always been, the one taken of them aged ten and eleven respectively, in their Sunday best, standing together back to back because it was the last picture on the roll of film.

  ‘Eleanor?’ said a voice behind her. ‘Is it you?’

  ‘Hullo, Pa,’ Ellie replied, putting down the cheaply framed photograph and turning round. Her father stood in the doorway, looking more handsome than she’d remembered him, a fact she decided must be more to do with the fine suit he had on, and the way his now almost white hair was so well cut, rather than to any actual change in his countenance.

  ‘I never thought you’d come,’ he said. ‘Never.’ He nodded at her in such a way as to make Ellie uncertain of whether it was in welcome, or because she herself had visibly changed. Ellie smiled by way of reply.

  ‘And so where’s this famous grandchild of mine?’ Her father now walked into the room, passing Ellie by to stand in front of the fireplace, hands folded behind his back. ‘You said on the telephone you were bringing the child.’

  ‘He’s at the hotel, Pa,’ Ellie explained. ‘He’s caught a bit of a cold.’

  Patrick Milligan clicked his tongue and shook his head as if the cold could have been avoided. ‘A cold indeed. That won’t do at all. A cold. Fancy.’

  The maid came back in with a tray of tea and set it out in silence. Ellie sat down while the maid poured the tea.

  ‘You’ve said nothing about the new house,’ her father said after the maid had been dismissed. ‘Sure I might just as well never have moved.’

  ‘I was waiting for you to tell me,’ Ellie replied, slipping back easily into the old game of cat and mouse.

  ‘It’s a fine house,’ her father announced. ‘The sort of house a man can be proud of. Particularly when it’s a house he has earned through the sweat on his brow.’ Here he gave a look, which was intended to be tellin
g, but which Ellie stone-walled with a polite smile. She was determined on silence, remembering how it always provoked her father into telling.

  ‘It hasn’t been easy,’ he continued, when he had failed to get the anticipated rise. ‘But then the virtue of honest labour is that it is always finally rewarded. And this house is a monument, a testimony to the labour of your father and of your three eldest brothers, fine men, every one of them.’

  Ellie had no need to ask of Patsy. She knew from his frequent letters that he was going from strength to strength in Hollywood, no longer now working as a stand-in and stunt man but as a junior assistant producer.

  ‘This house is a monument to industry,’ her father sighed. ‘Industry, and nouse.’

  ‘You’re still building then?’ Ellie asked, unable quite to contain her curiosity.

  ‘In a manner of speaking,’ her father replied. ‘In a manner of speaking. But tell me something.’ He put his teacup on the mantel behind him, then fixed her with a steady gaze as he switched the conversation. ‘Tell me, what do you make of the war then? Particularly you, as an American. The feeling here, if it’s any interest to you, is the whole thing is a result of the bully-boy tactics the English and the French adopted with the Germans in 1918, at Versailles.’

  ‘Yes,’ Ellie agreed, anxious not to get embroiled into an argument about the war, but only to discover how Madame was, since after all this was the purpose of her visit. ‘Yes, I’ve heard all that.’

  ‘Ah,’ said her father with a nod. ‘You’ve heard all that, have you?’

  ‘Hugo says people have short memories, particularly certain Americans.’

  ‘Really? Is that really so?’ Her father nodded once more, but this time not in agreement.

  ‘He says,’ Ellie continued, ‘that a lot of Americans seem to forget their own President Wilson was the principal author of the Treaty of Versailles.’

  ‘Their own president,’ her father picked up. ‘Their own president. Uh huh. Uh huh.’

  There followed a silence, during which Patrick Milligan stared up at the ceiling. ‘Myself,’ he finally announced, ‘and this may sound strange coming from an Irishman, but myself – I hope that we – America that is, I mean by we I mean America – yes I hope we do get into the war.’

  ‘Why do you hope that?’ Ellie asked, her curiosity again getting the better of her. ‘It doesn’t seem at all like you.’

  ‘Because,’ her father replied with a smile, ‘it’d be good for business.’

  Ellie frowned. War and the building trade seemed hardly compatible, and she was about to say so when her father held up his hand.

  ‘Don’t you want to see Madame?’ he enquired. ‘After all, that’s the only reason you’re here, isn’t it?’

  Ellie agreed, ignoring the inference, pulling on her gloves and straightening her hat.

  ‘Fine,’ said her father. ‘Then come along.’

  Nothing was said on the journey regarding Madame’s health or condition. All that Ellie was told was that Madame’s health, which apparently had never been strong, had suddenly and rapidly deteriorated, and since they were not driving out towards Westfield Drive, Ellie assumed that their destination must be the hospital. For the last part of the journey her father lapsed into total silence.

  But instead of a hospital, the car pulled up at a sidewalk outside a nondescript building. Her father picked his hat off the back seat, adjusted it in the mirror and then opened his door.

  ‘Where are we?’ Ellie asked suddenly, bending down to try and see exactly outside which shop or building they were parked.

  ‘We’re going to see Madame,’ her father replied, before leading the way into the sombre building, where they were greeted by a dark-suited man with grey eyes and oddly transparent skin.

  ‘Mr Milligan,’ he murmured, with a slow bow. ‘And this will be?’ He turned his pale grey eyes to look at Ellie.

  ‘This is my daughter, Mr Saul. Mrs –’ Her father paused just long enough to make it sound as if he was searching for her name. ‘Mrs Tanner,’ he said.

  Mr Saul gave Ellie his hand and even through her leather glove Ellie could feel its undue warmth. ‘Mrs Tanner,’ he slowly bowed and turned to show them the way.

  The casket was of deeply polished oak, lined with quilted white silk. Madame was dressed in a gown of her favourite colour, red, and in her perfectly manicured hands rested a garland of flowers. She looked, quite simply, as if she slept, but only lightly, as though the slightest of noises would awaken her and bring her back to life.

  Mr Saul took two steps back, expressing as he did his opinion that Madame Gautier looked at peace and quite beautifully so. Ellie’s father sighed deeply as he gazed down on the dead woman, pursing his mouth in sadness and slowly shaking his head.

  ‘Requiescat in pace,’ he whispered. ‘And may God love you always.’

  Outside it had begun to snow, large perfect flakes which fell straight to earth in the windless conditions.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Ellie asked her father in a trembling voice when they stood once more outside the funeral parlour.

  ‘You didn’t ask,’ he replied.

  ‘I did. I asked you how she was.’

  ‘And I told you how she was. I said she was mortally ill, and so she was.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me she was dead!’

  ‘No?’ her father asked, turning his collar up against the cold. ‘No I don’t suppose I did.’

  They drove back through town in silence, Ellie sitting huddled in the corner of her seat, with her coat pulled tightly around her.

  ‘You look just like your mother,’ her father said with an accusing glance, finally breaking the silence.

  ‘When did it happen?’ she demanded, watching the frozen rain settle on the rooftops. ‘When did she die?’

  ‘Ten days ago. At five past one in the morning. She just slipped away.’

  ‘Ten days ago?’

  ‘Ten days ago.’ Patrick Milligan nodded and then wiped the inside of the screen with the back of his gloved hand.

  ‘You should have told me,’ Ellie said, looking out of the window, unable to face her father. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘Because you wouldn’t have come, Eleanor.’

  ‘Of course I would.’

  ‘Indeed you would not. And you know it.’

  Her father was right, but Ellie wouldn’t admit it. She would never have come over. Never, not at this time, risking her baby’s life and her own, leaving Hugo to fly off God alone knew where, leaving her beloved home, leaving her life. She would have stayed in Brougham, with her baby, waiting for her husband to come back, as other women all over England were doing, waiting for their men, waiting for the war to end, waiting for peace. And then she would have come.

  ‘I won’t forgive you this,’ Ellie said in a low voice. ‘Ever.’

  ‘Mmmm?’ said her father, pretending not to have heard. ‘Let’s have some lunch.’ He pulled the car over to stop outside a plum colour painted restaurant with steamed up windows. ‘I could do with some food. And a drink.’

  Ellie followed him into the warmth of the restaurant, in a haze, still numb with the shock. The place was full of people, all eating and drinking as if nothing had happened, or worse, as if nothing was happening. Ellie suddenly wanted to put them all to rights and tell them that something had happened, that someone unique had just died and was now lying embalmed in a casket, dressed and made up to look as if her life had been a cakewalk. And she wanted to tell them that other things were happening, too. That a world was going to war, and that young men, every one of them someone’s son, were about to lay down their lives so that all of them could still sit and drink cocktails, and eat beefsteaks, and shout to each other at the tops of their voices.

  And then it all went dark.

  ‘She’s had a bit of a shock,’ she heard her father saying, somewhere in the distance. ‘Bring some brandy.’

  Someone lifted her and sat her down in a booth c
urtained off from the main room, while someone else wiped her forehead with a linen napkin soaked in cold water.

  ‘What happened?’ she asked, trying to bring her surroundings back into focus.

  Her father was by her side, one arm round her shoulder, half propping her up. ‘You fainted,’ her father replied. ‘’Twas the heat most likely. Coming in from the cold into this heat.’

  A waiter arrived with two glasses and a bottle of brandy. Her father poured Ellie a shot, which he held first to her nose for her to inhale and then to her mouth to sip. Ellie took the glass and eased herself away from him. As she did, her father poured himself half a tumbler, which he all but drank in one.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Ellie muttered, reaching into her purse for a handkerchief. ‘I don’t know what came over me.’

  ‘Probably some sort of shock,’ her father sighed. ‘You were losing your colour in the car.’

  He drained his glass and called a waiter in to the booth to take an order. Ellie wanted nothing, but Patrick Mulligan insisted on ordering her some thin hot soup and a little fish, before instructing the waiter to bring him chicken broth and a ten-ounce steak.

  When the waiter had gone, Patrick Milligan tugged the curtain tight shut and poured some more brandy. ‘You know what Madame used to say?’ he asked. ‘She used to say what is life without death. What is life without death? Death has to be there, she said, waiting for us at the end of the walk. Or else we wouldn’t see the flowers and we’d never hear the birds.’ He gave a laugh, as if what he had said was just bar room banter, while Ellie stared at him. ‘I should have told you, of course,’ he finally admitted. ‘The poor woman – God rest her – when I wrote to you to say she was ill, she was already comatose. But I knew you thought a lot of her. And so I thought you’d want to pay your respects. Before she was consigned to the earth.’

  He looked at her, over the rim of his glass, his eyes hard and unforgiving, while Ellie stared evenly back. For a while, neither of them spoke. Then her father took a deep draught of his brandy and wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, reached in his pocket for a cigarette.