As the Crow Flies Read online

  Once again I wanted to hug her, but I simply asked if she could stay and share dinner, as I had a hundred other questions that still needed answering.

  “Sorry, not tonight,” she said as I opened my case and began to unpack. “I’m off to a concert with a gentleman friend.” No sooner had she added some remark about Tommy’s picture than she smiled and left. Suddenly I was on my own again.

  I took off my coat, rolled up my sleeves, went downstairs to the shop and for several hours moved things around until everything was exactly where I wanted it. By the time I had packed away the last box I was so exhausted that I only just stopped myself collapsing on the bed and grabbing some kip fully dressed. I didn’t draw the curtains so as to be sure I would wake by four.

  I dressed quickly the following morning, excited by the thought of returning to a market I hadn’t seen for nearly two years. I arrived at the garden a few minutes before Bob Makins, who I quickly discovered knew his way around—without actually knowing his way about. I accepted that it would take me a few days before I could work out which dealers were being supplied by the most reliable farmers, who had the real contacts at the docks and ports, who struck the most sensible price day in, day out, and, most important of all, who would take care of you whenever there was any sort of real shortage. None of these problems seemed to worry Bob, as he strolled around the market in an uninterrupted, undemanding circle, collecting his wares.

  I loved the shop from the moment we opened that first morning, my first morning. It took me a little time to get used to Bob and the girls calling me “sir” but it also took them almost as long to become used to where I’d put the counter and to having to place the boxes out on the pavement before the customers were awake. However, even Becky agreed that it was an inspiration to place our wares right under the noses of potential buyers, although she wasn’t sure how the local authorities would react when they found out.

  “Hasn’t Chelsea ever heard of passing trade?” I asked her.

  Within a month I knew the name of every regular customer who patronized the shop, and within two I was aware of their likes, dislikes, passions and even the occasional fad that each imagined must be unique to them. After the staff had packed up at the end of each day I would often walk across the road and sit on the bench opposite and just watch the comings and goings in Chelsea Terrace SW10. It didn’t take long to realize that an apple was an apple whoever wanted to take a bite out of it, and Chelsea Terrace was no different from Whitechapel when it came to understanding a customer’s needs: I suppose that must have been the moment I thought about owning a second shop. Why not? Trumper’s was the only establishment in Chelsea Terrace that regularly had a queue out onto the street.

  Becky, meanwhile, continued her studies at the university and kept attempting to arrange for me to meet her gentleman friend. If the truth be known, I was trying to avoid Trentham altogether, as I had no desire to come in contact with the man I was convinced had killed Tommy.

  Eventually I ran out of excuses and agreed to have dinner with them.

  When Becky entered the restaurant with Daphne and Trentham, I wished that I had never agreed to spend the evening with them in the first place. The feeling must have been mutual, for Trentham’s face registered the same loathing I felt for him, although Becky’s friend, Daphne, tried to be friendly. She was a pretty girl and it wouldn’t have surprised me to find that a lot of men enjoyed that hearty laugh. But blue-eyed, curly-headed blondes never were my type. I pretended for form’s sake that Trentham and I hadn’t met before.

  I spent one of the most miserable evenings of my life wanting to tell Becky everything I knew about the bastard, but aware as I watched them together that nothing I had to reveal could possibly have any influence on her. It didn’t help when Becky scowled at me for no reason. I just lowered my head and scooped up some more peas.

  Becky’s roommate, Daphne Harcourt-Browne, continued to do her best, but even Charlie Chaplin would have failed to raise a smile with the three of us as an audience.

  Shortly after eleven I called for the bill, and a few minutes later we all left the restaurant. I let Becky and Trentham walk ahead in the hope that it would give me a chance to slip away, but to my surprise double-barreled Daphne hung back, claiming she wanted to find out what changes I’d made to the shop.

  From her opening question as I unlocked the front door I realized she didn’t miss much.

  “You’re in love with Becky, aren’t you?” she asked quite matter-of-factly.

  “Yes,” I replied without guile, and went on to reveal my feelings in a way I would never have done to someone I knew well.

  Her second question took me even more by surprise.

  “And just how long have you known Guy Trentham?”

  As we climbed the steps to my little flat I told her that we had served together on the Western Front, but because of the difference in our rank our paths had rarely crossed.

  “Then why do you dislike him so much?” Daphne asked, after she had taken the seat opposite me.

  I hesitated again but then in a sudden rush of uncontrollable anger I described what had happened to Tommy and me when we were trying to reach the safety of our own lines, and how I was convinced that Guy Trentham had shot my closest friend.

  When I’d finished we both sat in silence for some time before I added, “You must never let Becky know what I’ve just told you as I’ve no real proof.”

  She nodded her agreement and went on to tell me about the only man in her life, as if swapping one secret for another to bond our friendship. Her love for the man was so transparent that I couldn’t fail to be touched. And when Daphne left around midnight she promised that she’d do everything in her power to speed up the demise of Guy Trentham. I remembered her using the word “demise,” because I had to ask her what it meant. She told me, and thus I received my first tutorial—with the warning that Becky had a good start on me as she had not wasted the last ten years.

  My second lesson was to discover why Becky had scowled at me so often during dinner. I would have protested at her cheek, but realized she was right.

  I saw a lot of Daphne during the next few months, without Becky ever becoming aware of our true relationship. She taught me so much about the world of my new customers and even took me on trips to clothes shops, picture houses and to West End theaters to see plays that didn’t have any dancing girls on the stage but I still enjoyed them. I only drew the line when she tried to get me to stop spending my Saturday afternoons watching West Ham in favor of some rugby team called the Quins. However, it was her introduction to the National Gallery and its five thousand canvases that was to start a love affair that was to prove as costly as any woman. It was to be only a few months before I was dragging her off to the latest exhibitions: Renoir, Manet and even a young Spaniard called Picasso who was beginning to attract attention among London’s fashionable society. I began to hope that Becky would appreciate the change in me, but her eyes never once wavered from Captain Trentham.

  On Daphne’s further insistence I started reading two daily newspapers. She selected the Daily Express and the News Chronicle, and occasionally when she invited me round to Lowndes Square I even delved into one of her magazines, Punch or Strand. I began to discover who was who and who did what, and to whom. I even went to Sotheby’s for the first time and watched an early Constable come under the hammer for a record price of nine hundred guineas. It was more money than Trumper’s and all its fixtures and fittings were worth put together. I confess that neither that magnificent country scene nor any other painting I came across in a gallery or auction house compared with my pride in Tommy’s picture of the Virgin Mary and Child, which still hung above my bed.

  When in January 1920 Becky presented the first year’s accounts, I began to realize my ambition to own a second shop no longer had to be a daydream. Then without warning two sites became available in the same month. I immediately instructed Becky that somehow she had to come up with the money