“Caitrin!” Elinor said, suitably scandalized.
“Elinor!” Caitrin replied, suitably contrite. “Sorry. Apples. I meant gold-plated apples.”
They grinned at the joy of being wicked together, embraced again, and Caitrin felt Elinor’s tears wet on her face. Hector gave an impatient cough as he started the car. Caitrin took her seat and waved as they drove away. In the mirror Elinor was small, overshadowed by the house. They turned a corner, and she was gone.
The first miles were driven slowly because the sun had yet to rise and the headlamp was too feeble to illuminate the road properly.
“You love your mum, don’t you?” Caitrin said and startled Hector. He mumbled a few words and fell silent. “It was a simple question. I wasn’t asking you to reveal your most personal secrets or chat about wearing women’s underwear, Hector.”
“Yes, I do, then,” he said, and in a bolder tone added, “Of course I do.”
“She knows the truth about your father’s death,” Caitrin said. “And I suggest that if you were to talk openly to each other, it might make the pain easier to bear. Might bring you closer together. You don’t have forever, and there are only two Neville-Percys left in the world. You need to be honest with each other.”
Hector grew quiet.
“I didn’t mean to upset you, Hecky. Now I’ll mind my own business.”
“No, it’s all right, thank you,” he said and sighed. “When I called London, they told me something I wasn’t going to mention.”
“Let me see. The war is over, or the zipper jammed, Winston’s stuck in his romper suit, and we have to race back to London to save him?”
“No. They think we’re being followed.”
15
A caped police constable with sad eyes above a red nose and a splendid walrus mustache waved them to a halt at the border town of Carlisle. Hector got out of the car and went to meet him, smiling, arms spread and calling out, “Bonjour, monsieur policier. Comment ça va?”
“Je vais bien, et vous?” The constable replied in heavily northern English-accented French.
“My apologies,” Hector said, stunned by the policeman replying in French. He recovered. “How silly of me. Wrong language. I was daydreaming of France and the terrible things happening over there. C’est la vie.”
“More c’est la guerre, non?”
“Oui. Yes, you’re absolutely right. What may I do for you, Constable?”
“You can start by assuaging my curiosity, Sir. First by telling me where you’re going to at this hour of the morning.”
“Scotland. Greenock.”
“I see. And where have you come from?”
“Marlton.”
“Uh huh,” the billowing walrus mustache said because Hector could see no sign of lips moving. The constable took a step back, tilted his head, and squinted an inquiring eye along the horse box. “And what might you have in there?”
“Hay bales. We’re taking hay bales to Greenock.”
“Towing hay bales all the way to Greenock from Marlton. Are you aware, Sir, that civilian motorcar traffic is no longer allowed? The exigencies of war, you understand. La guerre and all that.”
“Yes, of course I am aware.”
“Would you mind opening the horse box for me?”
“Ah, that might be a problem,” Hector said and raised a finger. “Give me one second if you don’t mind.” He opened the car door, found the letter he had shown the policeman at the Tower of London, and offered it to the constable. “Perhaps this might clear things up.”
The constable read the letter with great concentration, folded it, and handed it back. He raised his hand and touched the rim of his helmet to salute Hector and gave a little bow. “I beg your pardon, m’lord. Carry on.”
“Merci bien,” Hector said with a wink and climbed into the car.
“Bon voyage,” the constable’s mustache said as Hector pulled away.
“What the dickens was that all about?” Caitrin asked. “Bonjour, monsieur policier?”
“It was an unexpected lesson in humility, for me. Once upon a time, and not too long ago, a chap rattling off a few words of French, or even Latin, along with some odd, vaguely foreign gestures”—he fluttered his hands, shrugged, and wiggled his eyebrows to look foreign—“would utterly bewilder the local, rather uneducated gendarmerie. Flustered, they would let you go rather than deal with a pesky foreigner. Now it seems they’re getting more educated. He even used the words assuaging and exigencies and looked as though he knew exactly what they meant.”
Caitrin looked smug. “That’s what will happen under socialism. No more of the effete elite hoodwinking the unwashed, uneducated masses. They will be more educated, smarter, and it’s only going to get better.”
“Or worse.” He made a face at her.
“What’s in that letter?” she asked.
He handed over the letter. “Why don’t you find out for yourself?”
She read it. “My goodness, you’ve been given the keys to the kingdom. ‘Failure to render all and any services requested by Lord Marlton will be considered a direct contravention of the Defense of the Realm Act and be most severely punished. Signed, Winston Churchill.’ ” She folded the letter and handed it back. “With this in hand, you could even get an extra helping of chips at Bertie’s Fish Shop in Clapham.”
She sat back and watched the outskirts of Carlisle disappear. With most of the large cities behind them and the Scottish border a few miles ahead, Hector had stopped using the side roads and entered town by the main London Road. It was an eerie experience. The sun had just risen above the horizon to light the spires and rooftops, but the streets were still in shadow. And deserted.
“Empty streets, no lights. This is what the end of the world must look like,” Caitrin said. “No life.”
