Peter Lovesey - Rough Cider

She backed away as if I had the plague.

This was the girl who the previous night had stripped and waited in my bed for me.

“What’s up?” I asked her.

“I don’t want to.” She took another step back.

I smiled and made light of it. “I don’t mind playing kiss and run, but not to these rules.”

She reddened. “What do you mean?”

“Just take it easy.”

She tugged severely at her hair and explained, “I hate to be a drag, but I can’t relax while there’s so much on my mind.”

So we got back in the car and drove down the hill into Bath. I don’t force myself on women, and I don’t beg, either. Dismiss it, I thought. Yet it bothered me.

There wasn’t time to speculate. We were in the Circus, approaching the Royal Crescent, and we hadn’t yet made any ground rules for the meeting with the Ashenfelters. I didn’t expect them to come at us with a shotgun, but I could foresee mayhem if Alice started laying into Harry for abandoning her mom. I took an extra turn around the Circus before we moved into Brock Street.

“About these people,” I said. “Let’s remember that they haven’t seen either of us since we were kids. Why don’t you keep in the background to start with?”

“You mean, not say who I am?”

“You don’t need to volunteer the information. It might get us off on the wrong tack.”

She said dubiously, “It seems kind of devious. I like to be straight with people.”

“Like you were when you brought your tray to my table in Ernestine’s Restaurant?”

She protested with a harsh intake of breath. “I told you my name.”

“And how much else?”

“I needed to get to know you first.”

“Get my confidence.”

“Well, yes, but…” Her voice trailed away.

I laid it out for her. “What it comes down to, Alice, is what you want to get out of this meeting-assuming they agree to talk to us at all. If you want a family reunion, that’s up to you, but if you’re hoping for some insights into Duke’s behavior in 1943, I suggest you play it my way.”

After a pause for thought she murmured, “Okay.”

I’ve already pulled the plug on Bath, so to speak, so I won’t knock the Crescent. For anyone who hasn’t been there, it’s built on high ground with a view of the city across open parkland. A single block of thirty three-story houses in an elliptical curve, with a facade of 114 Ionic columns and a roof-level balustrade. Enough said?

We bumped over the cobbled roadway and parked under a street lamp on the far side. Alice confirmed that there was a light behind Harry’s blinds.

Harry himself came down to answer the bell.

I apologized for disturbing him, explained that we’d driven over from Christian Gifford and that I was the boy evacuee he and Duke had befriended in 1943.

It wasn’t the admission ticket I’d hoped it might be.

“Is that a fact?” said Harry without a glimmer of interest. The years had creased the Cagney profile into something closer to Edward G. Robinson. Some sagging about the eyes, more weight on the jowls, less hair, and thick-rimmed bifocals. He’d never been much to look at, but the saving sense of fun had vanished. He was in leather carpet slippers, fawn trousers, and a thick brown cardigan.

“A bloody awful time for all of us,” I said, plowing on. “I can tell you, I was more than grateful for the kindness you fellows showed me.”

“So?”

“So when I heard that you lived in Bath, I thought I couldn’t go by without calling on the off-chance that you were in.” I was beginning to feel, and sound, like a door-to-door salesman.

“Who told you I was here?” asked Harry, as if he meant to throttle them.

“The people in the pub. They said you came back to England after the war to marry Sally. How is she, by the way?”

His stubby hand cupped his chin in a defensive gesture.

“You know Sally?”

“We all picked apples together, didn’t we?”

My first question had given him a let-out. “She’s not so good, so you won’t mind if I don’t invite you in.”

I was on the point of cutting my losses and pushing Alice forward with her guess-who-I-am speech when a woman’s voice from inside called, “Who is it, Harry?” and Sally appeared in the hall in a white housecoat and swansdown mules.

I assumed it was Sally. She wore dark glasses, and her red hair had taken on a synthetic orangey hue. Unlike Harry, she’d shed weight since the apple-orchard days. Too much: I’d say she looked gaunt.

Harry held on to the door and said over his shoulder, “You don’t have to come out. I can deal with it.”

Sally, bless her, ignored him. “Anyone I know?” she asked, shuffling up behind him and resting a hand on his shoulder.

“What did you say your name is?” Harry asked me with each word sticking in his throat.

I told him.

He repeated it to Sally as if she were deaf, adding, “He was the kid evacuated to the Lockwoods in the war.”

“That little boy with the fringe and the front teeth missing?” Sally laughed. “Well, what a funny old world this is. And he’s brought his young lady to meet us. What are you doing, keeping them on the doorstep, Harry? Let them in, for God’s sake, and let’s all have a drink.”

Harry decided not to make an issue of it. He shrugged and stepped back, allowing Sally to shake our hands. I introduced Alice, using just her forename. I’m certain that Harry didn’t recognize her. She was a small girl of eight when he’d last seen her.

I’d expected grandfather clocks and rosewood tables, but the drawing room we were shown into was furnished in steel, glass, and white leather. Only the marble fireplace and molded ceiling were antique. Sally, obviously used to people gaping, explained, “Everyone thinks we’re puggoo-headed, filling a room like this with modern furniture, but Harry likes to get away from his business.” Puggoo-headed. I was glad to hear a bit of Somerset. Once I would have filed it away in my memory for Duke, with “Or I, then?”

“You have a shop in Bath?” I asked.

“Nope,” said Harry, making me wish I hadn’t inquired.

Sally explained. “He has three warehouses. Two in Bristol, one in London.”

“What do you drink?” Harry asked me.

He’d ignored Alice, so I turned to include her in the offer.

She gave me a twitchy smile. She was extremely nervous.

“Fruit juice would be fine, if you have one.”

“Gallons,” said Harry, as if it were someone’s fault. “And yours?”

“A Scotch and soda.”

He started to leave the room. Sally called. “Get me a vodka and…” She didn’t finish because he’d ignored her. She waved us into chairs and offered us cigarettes, taking one herself and standing by the fireplace with a length of unstockinged leg protruding from the housecoat. “Harry’s a big wheel in the antique world,” she told us. “You’re lucky to find him at home. He travels all over. Buys up the contents of houses and exports most of it to the States.” Her eyes traveled to my shoes. “So you’ve had a day in the country.”

I’d noticed the white carpet as we entered but failed to remember the state of our footwear. There were tracks to my chair.

Alice saw that I was literally wrong-footed and responded for me. “Yes, we went to see the farm where Theo stayed.”

“You’re American!” said Sally. “Harry will be delighted.”

I couldn’t imagine it. I pitched in again, taking the lead from Alice. “Yes, the farm hasn’t changed much.”

“Except for the orchards,” commented Sally, drawing on her cigarette. “They grubbed out all the trees.”

“Understandably,” I said. “Frankly, I was surprised to find the Lockwoods still in occupation.”