All Things Bright and Beautiful Read online

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

  “That cheque I’ve just taken. Did I give it to you?”

  “No, you put it in that pocket I saw you.”

  “That’s what I thought. Well it’s gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “I’ve lost the bloody thing!”

  I laughed. “Oh you can’t have. Go through your other pockets—it must be on you somewhere.”

  Siegfried made a systematic search but it was in vain.

  “Well James,” he said at length. “I really have lost it, but I’ve just thought of a simple solution. I will stay here and have one more beer while you slip back to Walt Barnett and ask him for another cheque.”

  41

  THERE IS PLENTY OF time for thinking during the long hours of driving and now as I headed home from a late call my mind was idly assessing my abilities as a planner.

  I had to admit that planning was not one of my strong points. Shortly after we were married I told Helen that I didn’t think we should have children just at present. I pointed out that I would soon be going away, we did not have a proper home, our financial state was precarious and it would be far better to wait till after the war.

  I had propounded my opinions weightily, sitting back in my chair and puffing my pipe like a sage, but I don’t think I was really surprised when Helen’s pregnancy was positively confirmed.

  From the warm darkness the grass smell of the Dales stole through the open window and as I drove through a silent village it was mingled briefly with the mysterious sweetness of wood smoke. Beyond the houses the road curved smooth and empty between the black enclosing fells. No…I hadn’t organised things very well. Leaving Darrowby and maybe England for an indefinite period, no home, no money and a pregnant wife. It was an untidy situation. But I was beginning to realise that life was not a tidy little parcel at any time.

  The clock tower showed 11 p.m. as I rolled through the market place and, turning into Trengate, I saw that the light had been turned off in our room. Helen had gone to bed. I drove round to the yard at the back, put away the car and walked down the long garden. It was the end to every day, this walk; sometimes stumbling over frozen snow but tonight moving easily through the summer darkness under the branches of the apple trees to where the house stood tall and silent against the stars.

  In the passage I almost bumped into Siegfried.

  “Just getting back from Allenby’s, James?” he asked. “I saw on the book that you had a colic.”

  I nodded. “Yes, but it wasn’t a bad one. Just a bit of spasm. Their grey horse had been feasting on some of the hard pears lying around the orchard.”

  Siegfried laughed. “Well I’ve just beaten you in by a few minutes. I’ve been round at old Mrs. Dewar’s for the last hour holding her cat’s paw while it had kittens.”

  We reached the corner of the passage and he hesitated. “Care for a nightcap, James?”

  “I would, thanks,” I replied, and we went into the sitting room. But there was a constraint between us because Siegfried was off to London early next morning to enter the Air Force—he’d be gone before I got up—and we both knew that this was a farewell drink.

  I dropped into my usual armchair while Siegfried reached into the glass-fronted cupboard above the mantelpiece and fished out the whisky bottle and glasses. He carelessly tipped out two prodigal measures and sat down opposite.

  We had done a lot of this over the years, often yarning till dawn, but naturally enough it had faded since my marriage. It was like turning back the clock to sip the whisky and look at him on the other side of the fireplace and to feel, as though it were a living presence, the charm of the beautiful room with its high ceiling, graceful alcoves and french window.

  We didn’t talk about his departure but about the things we had always talked about and still do; the miraculous recovery of that cow, what old Mr. Jenks said yesterday, the patient that knocked us flat, leaped the fence and disappeared for good. Then Siegfried raised a finger.

  “Oh, James, I nearly forgot. I was tidying up the books and I find I owe you some money.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes, and I feel rather bad about it. It goes back to your pre-partnership days when you used to get a cut from Ewan Ross’s testing. There was a slip-up somewhere and you were underpaid. Anyway, you’ve got fifty pounds to come.”

  “Fifty pounds! Are you sure?”

  “Quite sure, James, and I do apologise.”

  “No need to apologise, Siegfried. It’ll come in very handy right now.”

  “Good, good…anyway, the cheque’s in the top drawer of the desk if you’ll have a look tomorrow.” He waved a languid hand and started to talk about some sheep he had seen that afternoon.

  But for a few minutes I hardly heard him. Fifty pounds! It was a lot of money in those days, especially when I would soon be earning three shillings a day as an A.C. 2 during my initial training. It didn’t solve my financial problem but it would be a nice little cushion to fall back on.

  My nearest and dearest are pretty unanimous that I am a bit slow on the uptake and maybe they are right because it was many years later before it got through to me that there never was any fifty pounds owing. Siegfried knew I needed a bit of help at that time and when it all became clear long afterwards I realised that this was exactly how he would do it. No embarrassment to me. He hadn’t even handed me the cheque….

  As the level in the bottle went down the conversation became more and more effortless. At one point some hours later my mind seemed to have taken on an uncanny clarity and it was as if I was disembodied and looking down at the pair of us. We had slid very low in our chairs, our heads well down the backs, legs extended far across the rug. My partner’s face seemed to stand out in relief and it struck me that though he was only in his early thirties he looked a lot older. It was an attractive face, lean, strong-boned with steady humorous eyes, but not young. In fact Siegfried in the time I had known him had never looked young, but he has the last laugh now because he has hardly altered with the years and is one of those who will never look old.

  At that moment of the night when everything was warm and easy and I felt omniscient it seemed a pity that Tristan wasn’t there to make up the familiar threesome. As we talked, the memories marched through the room like a strip of bright pictures; of November days on the hillsides with the icy rain driving into our faces, of digging the cars out of snow drifts, of the spring sunshine warming the hard countryside. And the thought recurred that Tristan had been part of it all and that I was going to miss him as much as I would miss his brother.

  I could hardly believe it when Siegfried rose, threw back the curtains and the grey light of morning streamed in. I got up and stood beside him as he looked at his watch.

  “Five o’clock, James,” he said, and smiled. “We’ve done it again.”

  He opened the french window and we stepped into the hushed stillness of the garden. I was taking grateful gulps of the sweet air when a single bird call broke the silence.

  “Did you hear that blackbird?” I said.

  He nodded and I wondered if he was thinking the same thing as myself; that it sounded just like the same blackbird which had greeted the early daylight when we talked over my first case those years ago.

  We went up the stairs together in silence. Siegfried stopped at his door.

  “Well, James…” he held out his hand and his mouth twitched up at one corner.

  I gripped the hand for a moment then he turned and went into his room. And as I trailed dumbly up the next flight it seemed strange that we had never said goodbye. We didn’t know when, if ever, we would see each other again yet neither of us had said a word. I don’t know if Siegfried wanted to say anything but there was a lot trying to burst from me.

  I wanted to thank him for being a friend as well as a boss, for teaching me so much, for never letting me down. There were other things, too, but I never said them.

  Come to think of it, I’ve never even thanked him for