42
DO YOU KNOW when you’re dead?
Does it happen in an instant, and then suddenly you’re no longer there?
All Harry could be sure of was the images that appeared before him were like actors in a Shakespearian play, each making their exits and entrances. But he couldn’t be sure if it was a comedy, a tragedy or a history.
The central character never changed, and was played by a woman who gave a remarkable performance, while others seemed to flit on and off the stage at her bidding. And then his eyes opened, and Emma was standing by his side.
When Harry smiled, her whole face lit up. She bent down and kissed him gently on the lips. ‘Welcome home,’ she said.
That was the moment when he realized not only how much he loved her, but also that now nothing would ever keep them apart. He took her gently by the hand. ‘You’re going to have to help me,’ he began. ‘Where am I? And how long have I been here?’
‘Bristol General, and just over a month. It was touch and go for a while, but I wasn’t going to lose you a second time.’
Harry gripped her hand firmly and smiled. He felt exhausted, and drifted back into a deep sleep.
When he woke again it was dark, and he sensed that he was alone. He tried to imagine what might have happened to all those characters during the past five years, because, as in Twelfth Night, they must have believed he’d died at sea.
Had his mother read the letter he wrote to her? Had Giles used his colour-blindness as an excuse not to be called up? Had Hugo returned to Bristol once he was convinced Harry was no longer a threat? Were Sir Walter Barrington and Lord Harvey still alive? And one other thought kept returning again and again. Was Emma waiting for the right moment to tell him there was someone else in her life?
Suddenly, the door to his room was thrown open and a little boy came running in, shouting, ‘Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!’ before leaping on to his bed and throwing his arms around him.
Emma appeared moments later and watched as the two men in her life met for the first time.
Harry was reminded of the photograph of himself as a boy that his mother kept on the mantelpiece in Still House Lane. He didn’t have to be told that this was his child and he felt a thrill he couldn’t have begun to imagine before. He studied the boy more closely as he leapt up and down on the bed – his fair hair, blue eyes and square jaw, just like Harry’s father.
‘Oh my God,’ said Harry, and fell into a deep sleep.
When he woke again, Emma was sitting on the bed beside him. He smiled and took her hand.
‘Now I’ve met my son, any other surprises?’ he asked. Emma hesitated, before adding with a sheepish grin, ‘I’m not sure where to start.’
‘At the beginning possibly,’ said Harry, ‘like any good story. Just remember that the last time I saw you was on our wedding day.’
Emma began with her trip to Scotland and the birth of their son Sebastian. She’d just pressed the doorbell of Kristin’s apartment in Manhattan, when Harry fell asleep.
When he woke again, she was still with him.
Harry liked the sound of Great-aunt Phyllis and her cousin Alistair, and although he could only just remember Detective Kolowski, he would never forget Sefton Jelks. When Emma came to the end of her story she was on a plane crossing the Atlantic back to England, sitting next to Mr Harold Macmillan.
Emma presented Harry with a copy of The Diary of a Convict. All Harry said was, ‘I must try and find out what happened to Pat Quinn.’
Emma found it difficult to find the right words.
‘Was he killed by the landmine?’ Harry asked quietly.
Emma bowed her head. Harry didn’t speak again that night.
Each day produced new surprises because, inevitably, everyone’s life had moved on in the five years since Harry had seen them.
When his mother came to visit him the following day, she was on her own. He was so proud to learn that she was excelling at reading and writing, and was deputy manager of the hotel, but was saddened when she admitted she had never opened the letter delivered by Dr Wallace before it disappeared.
‘I thought it was from a Tom Bradshaw,’ she explained.
Harry changed the subject. ‘I see you’re wearing an engagement ring, as well as a wedding ring.’
His mother blushed. ‘Yes, I wanted to see you on my own, before you met your stepfather.’
‘My stepfather?’ said Harry. ‘Anyone I know?’
‘Oh yes,’ she said, and would have told him who she’d married, if he hadn’t fallen asleep.
The next time Harry woke it was the middle of the night. He switched on the bedside light and began to read The Diary of a Convict. He smiled several times before he reached the last page.
Nothing Emma told him about Max Lloyd came as a surprise, especially after Sefton Jelks had made a reappearance. However, he was surprised when Emma told him that the book had been an instant bestseller, and that the follow-up was doing even better.
‘The follow-up?’ enquired Harry.
‘The first diary you wrote, about what happened to you before you were sent to Lavenham, has just been published in England. It’s racing up the charts here, as it did in America. That reminds me, Mr Guinzburg keeps asking when he can expect your first novel, the one you hinted at in The Diary of a Convict?’
‘I’ve got enough ideas for half a dozen,’ Harry said.
‘Then why don’t you get started?’ asked Emma.
When Harry woke that afternoon, his mother and Mr Holcombe were standing by his side, holding hands as if they were on their second date. He’d never seen his mother looking so happy.
‘You can’t be my stepfather,’ Harry protested, as the two shook hands.
‘I most certainly am,’ said Mr Holcombe. ‘Truth is, I should have asked your mother to be my wife twenty years ago, but I simply didn’t think I was good enough for her.’
‘And you’re still not good enough, sir,’ said Harry with a grin. ‘But then, neither of us ever will be.’
‘Truth be known, I married your mother for her money.’
‘What money?’ said Harry.
‘The ten thousand dollars Mr Jelks sent, which made it possible for us to buy a cottage in the country.’
‘For which we will be eternally grateful,’ chipped in Maisie.
‘Don’t thank me,’ said Harry. ‘Thank Emma.’
If Harry was taken by surprise when he discovered that his mother had married Mr Holcombe, it was nothing compared to the shock when Giles walked into the room, dressed in the uniform of a lieutenant in the Wessex Regiment. If that wasn’t enough, his chest was covered in combat medals, including the Military Cross. But when Harry asked how he’d won it, Giles changed the subject.
‘I’m planning to stand for Parliament at the next election,’ he announced.
‘To which seat have you granted this honour?’ asked Harry.
‘Bristol Docklands,’ Giles replied.
‘But that’s a safe Labour seat.’
‘And I intend to be the Labour candidate.’
Harry made no attempt to hide his surprise. ‘What caused this Saint Paul-like conversion?’ he asked.
‘A corporal I served with on the frontline called Bates—’
‘Not Terry Bates?’ said Harry.
‘Yes, did you know him?’
‘Sure did. The brightest kid in my class at Merrywood Elementary, and the best sportsman. He left school at twelve to work in his father’s business: Bates and Son, butchers.’
‘That’s why I’m standing as a Labour candidate,’ said Giles. ‘Terry had just as much right to be at Oxford as you or me.’
The following day, Emma and Sebastian returned, armed with pens, pencils, pads and an India rubber. She told Harry the time had come for him to stop thinking and start writing.
During the long hours when he couldn’t sleep, or was simply alone, Harry’s thoughts turned to the novel he had intended to write if he hadn’t escaped from Lavenham.
He began to make outline notes of the characters that must turn the page. His detective would have to be a one-off, an original, who he hoped would become part of his readers’ everyday lives, like Poirot, Holmes or Maigret.
He finally settled on the name William Warwick. The Hon. William would be the second son of the Earl of Warwick, and have turned down the opportunity to go to Oxford, much to his father’s disgust, because he wanted to join the police force. His character would be loosely based on his friend Giles. After three years on the beat, walking the streets of Bristol, Bill, as he was known to his colleagues, would become a detective constable, and be assigned to Chief Inspector Blakemore, the man who’d intervened when Harry’s uncle Stan had been arrested and wrongly charged with stealing money from Hugo Barrington’s safe.
Lady Warwick, Bill’s mother, would be modelled on Elizabeth Barrington; Bill would have a girlfriend called Emma, and his grandfathers Lord Harvey and Sir Walter Barrington would make the occasional entrance on the page but only to offer sage advice.
Every night, Harry would read over the pages he’d written that day, and every morning his wastepaper basket needed emptying.
Harry always looked forward to Sebastian’s visits. His young son was so full of energy, so inquisitive and so good-looking, just like his mother, as everyone teased him.
Sebastian often asked questions no one else would have dared to: what’s it like being in prison? How many Germans did you kill? Why aren’t you and Mama married? Harry sidestepped most of them, but he knew Sebastian was far too bright not to work out what his father was up to, and feared it wouldn’t be long before the boy trapped him.
Whenever Harry was alone he continued to work on the outline plot for his novel.
He’d read over a hundred detective novels while he was working as deputy librarian at Lavenham, and he felt that some of the characters he’d come across in prison and in the army could provide material for a dozen novels: Max Lloyd, Sefton Jelks, Warden Swanson, Officer Hessler, Colonel Cleverdon, Captain Havens, Tom Bradshaw and Pat Quinn – especially Pat Quinn.
During the next few weeks, Harry became lost in his own world, but he had to admit that the way some of his visitors had spent the last five years had also turned out to be stranger than fiction.
When Emma’s sister Grace paid him a visit, Harry didn’t comment on the fact that she looked so much older than when he’d last seen her, but then she’d only been a schoolgirl at the time. Now Grace was in her final year at Cambridge and about to sit her exams. She told him with pride that for a couple of years she’d worked on a farm, not going back up to Cambridge until she was convinced the war was won.
It was with sadness that Harry learnt from Lady Barrington that her husband, Sir Walter, had passed away, a man Harry had admired second only to Old Jack.
His uncle Stan never visited him.
As the days went by, Harry thought about raising the subject of Emma’s father, but he sensed that even the mention of his name was off-limits.
And then one evening, after Harry’s doctor had told him that it wouldn’t be too long before they released him, Emma lay down next to him on the bed and told him that her father was dead.
When she came to the end of her story, Harry said, ‘You’ve never been good at dissembling, my darling, so perhaps the time has come to tell me why the whole family is so on edge.’