Dear Deceiver Read online

  The night was pleasantly warm, but it seemed a long way, probably since every few yards ‘Fair Chignon’ had to put down her case and take a breath. None of the other passengers now remained in sight and there seemed to be none coming behind. It was a No Man’s Land of yards and wire fencing and the odd lamp gave only eerie light, but a striped kitten perched on a gate took some of the strangeness away. When there was an animal about Haidee was never too tired or too forlorn to notice. She hurried ahead to stroke it.

  The kitten who, doubtless, had received a thousand or so pats to date was graciously pleased to accept another. It stood up to make the most of Haidee’s fingers, laid its ears back and squeaked with interest. It was short-lived. A sudden howl from the darkness of the passageway behind sent the kitten scurrying away and Haidee’s heart into her throat.

  ‘Oh, crumbs!’ ‘Fair Chignon’s’ voice exclaimed. ‘Your toe!’

  ‘Brown Waves’ had already teased her about the weight of her suitcase. For the even later comer than themselves who, edging past, had had it set down on his foot it had obviously been no joke. Too dark to be seen properly, he was a chunky build with a big dark head and the silhouette of a Borg collared jacket and high sweater roll.

  ‘Why not look what you’re doing?’ he suggested wrathfully.

  ‘Why not sound your horn?’ ‘Fair Chignon’ flashed.

  ‘I don’t expect—’

  ‘And neither do I—when I pay x pounds to Aer Lingus—to have to hump my case for miles in the dark—’

  ‘You’re one of the air lot?’ Haidee, diffident about joining them, could detect no note of sympathy. ‘I might have guessed. I’ve had them all over me since Euston. Don’t know when they’re well off.’

  ‘I beg your pardon!’ ‘Fair Chignon’ gasped.

  ‘About time. You nearly had my toes off,’ the voice accused. It was a strong voice and it sounded young. ‘Come on. Give me that and next time what about thinking about the trouble it’s causing to get you home.’ Still speaking, he had shouldered both ‘Fair Chignon’s’ coffin weight of leather and his own dark grey slimline case and was now marching ahead.

  ‘Nice work!’ ‘Fair Chignon’ whispered irrepressibly to Haidee as they fell into step behind. If anything, the encounter had restored her. It was Haidee who in the darkness had not even been noticed whose cheeks flamed with mortification. So true. They shouldn’t grumble, and all along she had felt a wretched coward for not saying so. She hoped the aggressive stranger would once again not notice her when they reached the ship.

  He did not. Indeed ‘Fair Chignon’, to her marked disappointment, received hardly a glance. At the head of the gangway he looked at the ship’s officer, said briefly: ‘Saloon passengers,’ and strode as directed along the deck. Rather like a turkey cock leading his hens, Haidee thought, stifling a giggle. At the foot of the companionway he set down ‘Fair Chignon’s’ case, disdained her thanks and went off about his business.

  ‘Just what I like with my morning tea,’ ‘Fair Chignon’ said appreciatively.

  ‘Him?’ Haidee queried ungrammatically.

  ‘Who else, love? In my book quite something.’

  ‘ In my book—very rude!’

  ‘A man without rudeness is like a kiss without a moustache,’ ‘Fair Chignon’ told her lightly. ‘And now, my child, what next?’

  Haidee said she supposed they ought to see about berths and a woman in the crush beside them laughed in her face. They could queue if they wanted to, of course, but where did they think berths were coming from for twelve hundred extra people? The full complement had all been booked weeks ago by the passengers who weren’t ex-airline. ‘We’ve been conned,’ she finished.

  Haidee’s ‘sheep’ half tried to be fair, her ‘goat’ half was dominant. The ship in their first glimpse of it had looked incredibly small and to say there wasn’t a spare foot of space aboard was no exaggeration. People were sitting on the steps of the stairs, stretched out flat in the corridors, standing round the lounges.

  ‘If I could only have a wash!’ ‘Fair Chignon’ sighed and suddenly brisked up. ‘What’s the betting he’s got a cabin? He’s not from Aer Lingus or B.E.A. He as good as said so. So he’ll be an ordinary passenger with a berth booked at the time. Let’s find it.’

  ‘Find it?’ Haidee did not think she had heard aright. ‘What good would that do?’

  ‘It worked before, didn’t it? Unintentionally perhaps, but it worked. I’m going to try again.’ She bubbled with laughter at Haidee’s expression. ‘No, love, not that. Just a hot water tap.’

  ‘Do you mean...’

  It was vain. ‘Fair Chignon’ was actually turning the handle of the nearest cabin. She looked back grinning and shook her head. A few doors on, however, she beckoned madly. It was impossible to go on ignoring the urgent signals. Haidee gave in eventually and went to join her.

  ‘I was right,’ ‘Fair Chignon’ said triumphantly. She pointed to the case, dark grey and slim line, which was resting on the neatly blanketed bunk. ‘That’s his. I spotted the label when we were coming along.’ It had printing on it in a foreign language. ‘Swedish or Norwegian,’ ‘Fair Chignon’ opined. ‘And it’s new. He’s just been there.’

  ‘I don’t care where he’s been,’ Haidee retorted desperately. ‘I’m not going in.’

  ‘Not even for some hot water and a beautiful British Railway towel—and soap!’ ‘Fair Chignon’ mocked. ‘You’re chicken, as my son would say.’ She really was going to wash herself. She had laid down her handbag and was turning back her cuffs. Water—and delectable it looked after six hours’ travelling—spouted from the tap. ‘Fair Chignon’ bent and splashed her face. ‘Marvellous! Come on, get the grime off,’ she invited. ‘He’ll probably spend the night in the bar.’

  ‘I won’t. I couldn’t.’ Haidee did not care how frantic she sounded because frantic was the way she felt. If only they could have kept up with ‘Brown Waves’. He would never have let things take such a crazy turn. ‘Brown Waves’ had been kind, straightforward, dependable—he’d known about blinds and lights and where each station was, that kind of thing, and mighty comforting it had been. ‘I’m going back to sit on my case,’ she finished defiantly.

  She had abandoned the said case quite recklessly, but thank goodness it was still there protruding at an angle across the corridor. The queue for berths had not moved an inch, so it was still there too, and a man was easing along between it and the wall. For a second Haidee had to ask herself was it he. She was seeing him now front view and in colour—sweater deep blue, suit a smoky herringbone, hair mid-brown, face long and wry—but yes, it was, she was sure, and in a minute ‘Fair Chignon’ would be caught red-handed.

  There wasn’t a second to lose. Haidee forgot about the case and dashed back to warn her. She had just reached the door of the cabin where the miscreant was now drying her hands luxuriously when the crash came. She didn’t think he went right down, the passage was too crowded. She heard voices, explanations, someone asking: ‘Who left it there? Whose is it?’

  Above all and tryingly she heard ‘Fair Chignon’ laughing. ‘You’re priceless, you know that! I didn’t need rescuing. I was looking forward to the bedroom scene. Now you’ve probably broken his leg. Let’s hope it’s not the other one.’ She chuckled happily as Haidee, with the strength of desperation, dragged her from the cabin.

  ‘Sorry,’ ‘Fair Chignon’ said penitently. ‘I’m sure you were a good little girl till you met me.’ Contrite as she was, her way of making amends had had exactly similar characteristics. She had made up to a young steward in the dining saloon and he was letting them sit on at the table long after other patrons had been evicted.

  It was now something past five. It had been three-forty-five before they’d slipped away from Heysham, the sea a grey table, and the past few hours had been peaceful. Exhausted travellers had fallen asleep anywhere and everywhere; Haidee had had to step over some when she had stolen back up the corridor to retrieve her case, and
outside the dining saloon a youth had lain down on the open deck.

  Peaceful too in another sense. ‘Fair Chignon’ gave her name, Irene, and showed photographs of her children, unbelievably both in their teens. She was on a visit to her mother in Dublin and she listened with sympathy as Haidee, in turn, confided her circumstances. Asked, however, for the name of her friend, she looked puzzled. ‘Name? Friend? Oh—on the train! I don’t know, love, he didn’t say. I don’t know him from Adam,’ she went on. ‘We just met up yesterday afternoon at the terminal after he’d laughed at the lipstick on my husband’s cheek. Why?’ Her eyes narrowed shrewdly. ‘Did you like him?’

  How to answer that one? ‘Well—I...’

  ‘He liked you,’ Irene confided. ‘Picked you out at Euston.’

  Flannel, thought Haidee, who was not without shrewdness herself. If ‘Brown Waves’ had liked her on acquaintance he would hardly have been in such a hurry to get away.

  Time passed. The curtains of fog which had been waiting off the Lancashire coast had well and truly closed in. Beyond the deck rail nothing could be seen but grey. Haidee had got used to the monotonous tramp of feet on the boards outside and in the dining saloon all the tables except theirs had been cleared. Irene’s little friend among the stewards had certainly done his bit, and for the past twenty minutes or so Irene herself had been nodding, her cheek against her hand.

  Haidee’s eyes were her weariest part; they ached from staring at the indistinguishable horizon and yet it mesmerized her. So much so that when a voice addressed her she all but jumped out of her skin.

  ‘At last!’ the voice said.

  ‘Brown Waves’, a little flushed, a little dog-eared, was standing behind her chair. He had been searching for them ‘for hours’, had feared they might still have been on the dock at Heysham, and wanted to make his apologies for what he termed his ‘getaway’. ‘Fact is, I saw someone on the platform I couldn’t stand getting mixed up with.’

  ‘In that crowd?’ Irene queried incredulously. ‘Fifteen hundred people and you saw someone you know?’

  ‘Ah well, not such a coincidence. I thought he’d be on that train and I’d had my bellyful of him all last week in Sweden.’

  ‘Sweden?’ It rang a bell. Who, Haidee asked herself, had mentioned Sweden to her just lately ... of course ... Irene had when she’d pointed to the label on that dark grey slimline case. And clearly, by the looks of her companion, the same bell was ringing for her.

  ‘Sweden?’ Irene echoed. ‘Go on.’

  ‘A meaningful tone if I may say so,’ ‘Brown Waves’ remarked. ‘Do you know Rory Hart?’

  ‘We hope so,’ Irene quipped. ‘Who is he?’

  ‘Brown Waves’s’ despairing head shake was understandable. ‘I could tell you, but I’d better not. Let’s just say he’s in the Irish Forestry Division and he was attending an international conference on Forest Yield which I, for my sins, was covering.’

  ‘You work on a paper?’ Haidee asked.

  ‘Freelance, actually. This is for a series on Conservation. The name’s Freeman, Paul Freeman, but you won’t ever have heard of it, so don’t mind saying so.’ The neat little smile showed.

  ‘Wait a minute!’ Haidee was thinking frantically. ‘I have. At least I’ve seen it. Articles, you said?’ She frowned. It was coming back—newsprint, columns, ‘Paul Freeman’ at the bottom. What at the top? ‘Glenglass!’ she shouted triumphantly.

  How could she, even momentarily, have forgotten? Twelve months ago it had been Battle of the Year. Paul Freeman had started it. He had paid a visit to Glenglass Forest in the northern half of Wicklow and thereafter in a leading newspaper had called the people of Ireland to witness ‘the outrages’ that had been perpetrated there—indiscriminate felling, the overwhelming preponderance of conifers towards broadleaves in afforestation and the slaughter of wildlife.

  The Forestry Division had contented itself with one or two succinct and reasoned replies, but the general public had taken up the cause of Glenglass with enthusiasm. Fences had been damaged and there had even been an abortive attempt at firing a planting of Sitka spruce. Haidee’s anxiety had been for the red squirrels said to be threatened with extermination. She remembered that Paul had written a delicate piece of irony on ‘Squirrels or Telegraph Poles?’ which had cost her a night’s sleep. After that she had stopped reading the controversy. Her mother was her first care and week by week was failing. Emotional involvement that spelled tears and fury also spelled danger to the patient. Haidee had never known how the battle had ended.

  ‘So far as I’m concerned it hasn’t,’ Paul said. ‘And if you’d been in Sweden last week you’d have seen plenty of smoke.’

  ‘You brought it up at the conference?’

  ‘Let’s say with one of the heads—a bonehead. My friend Hart. He’s the Forester-in-Charge at Glenglass.’

  ‘Is he about thirty, standard right hook model, short hair, short navy jacket, carrying a grey suitcase and walking with a limp?’ Irene’s usually sparkling face was deadpan.

  ‘Come again,’ Paul invited faintly.

  ‘That’s one thing he won’t do,’ Irene assured. ‘He’s in cabin number ten along the passage with five crushed toes and a broken leg!’

  Paul, appraised of the situation, declared ghoulishly that a public service had been done and drinks were called for. ‘You really are bitter about him,’ Irene observed.

  ‘So are a lot of people. Neither of you ever met the Whittakers, I suppose? They used to own Glenglass, and you should hear Antonia on Rory Hart. When he took over he went through the place like a little Hitler. Nothing that can’t be turned into a telegraph pole has any chance of survival. Long-term, of course, but that’s the manifesto, a clean bill of destruction. That’s why I tried to start something a year ago. The national conscience needed stirring. Antonia Whittaker couldn’t do much on her own.’

  He had a few more words to say about Antonia. She had inherited Glenglass from her father and had struggled for years against death duties and rising costs to keep it. Even after the sale she had stayed on. The Forestry Division had rented her a flat in the mansion pending its conversion into a research unit and extension school. How wise this decision had been, Haidee questioned silently and Irene aloud.

  ‘I’d have cut my losses and jumped the first plane to Bermuda!’

  ‘It’s a point of view,’ Paul agreed. ‘But Antonia’s heart was in the place. She had no idea what was involved or who the axe-man was going to be. That was the final indignity.’

  ‘How so?’ Irene asked.

  ‘The bold Rory’s a local. Father kept the village shop and I’ve no doubt touched his forelock when the Whittaker limousine drew up outside it. Fifty years ago people did those things. Rory’s day was slightly more emancipated, I’ll admit, but he still did delivery boy for his father—to the tradesmen’s entrance, of course. Which you’ll agree makes the present circumstances all the more galling.’

  ‘Sorry. Not agree. I don’t,’ Irene said sharply. ‘If a lad can get on in the world more power to him. My own grandfather began with a stall in the market.’

  It was given and taken in good part. ‘You’re quite right,’ Paul conceded amiably. ‘Let’s go and have that drink.’

  ‘Not for me, thanks,’ Irene said promptly. ‘I’m stopping here till I’m thrown out.’

  ‘You’ll come, won’t you?’ He looked at Haidee and when she rose guided her skilfully through the melee outside.

  ‘Is the bar as bad as this?’ she asked doubtfully.

  ‘Worse! Would you rather brave the elements?’

  ‘Much.’

  ‘On your head be it, then,’ he laughed, and took her out into the grey crepe morning. ‘How does this grab you, outdoor girl?’

  Not deliriously, she had to admit, but the closed-in feeling made conversation easy. Paul asked where she lived and she answered by asking if he could persuade the captain to bear to starboard and put her off on the Bull Wall. Paul, it seemed, had
‘no permanent resting place but many one-night stands’. There was a basement flat in London where he grew nasturtiums in the area and a primitive cottage in Donegal to which he fled when he had been working all out. Dublin saw him these days ‘for work purposes only’. As a city it had lost its character and its soul.

  ‘But it’s still good for eating. You’ll have lunch with me, won’t you?’

  ‘If you want me to.’ The invitation was a delightful surprise.

  ‘Please. Very much,’ Paul said warmly.

  They had been steaming for so long through the grey curtain that Haidee had begun to feel it would go on for ever, but, around eleven o’clock, a pessimistic glance from the dining saloon where Paul had bought them a second breakfast revealed, with startling suddenness, the outline of Dun Laoghaire pier. Half an hour later they were in a taxi speeding towards Town.

  Irene was duly dropped at her mother’s house in Ballsbridge and Paul insisted on taking Haidee the whole way to Dollymount.

  ‘It will cost the earth,’ she remonstrated.

  ‘Perhaps I feel like spending the earth!’ he retorted.

  By this, the taxi had woven its way through Seville Place and was in Fairview. All the way from Dun Laoghaire the fog had been lifting and now a magically clear atmosphere made its existence difficult to believe.

  The crude red of the bandstand stood out against the limpid green of the park which not so long ago had been slobland. Here, on a Good Friday nine and a half centuries ago, Brian Bora had joined battle with the invading Danes and defeated them. Today green grass and golden privet stretched peacefully to the blue waters of Dublin Bay and as the taxi rounded the top of the inverted U bite into Clontarf the prospect widened. Three miles across the water on the south arm of the bay was the road up which they had travelled from Dun Laoghaire, and all along the skyline were the Dublin foothills and overlooking them the dark wooded Wicklows.

  At home everything was in order. Last night’s obstructed phone call had not mattered because the closing down of the airport had been widely publicized. In consequence, the friend who had been minding Brand was still there. Brand was there too, a golden-caped image on the windowsill.