Peter Dickinson - Shadow of a Hero

‘We’re waiting for the bloody press, as usual,’ she said. ‘Sorry about this, Grandad. You’re early and they’re late. Are you warm enough? I’ve got some cocoa in a flask. I suppose they wouldn’t let the car wait.’

‘My Marks and Spencer thermal underwear I am wearing,’ said Grandad, in English. Mollie could hardly speak Field at all.

‘Good for you,’ she said. ‘Don’t you think we look a miserable bunch? Isn’t there something we can sing? A national anthem or something?’

‘The words nobody will know. Funereal also the tune.’

‘Well then, a folk-song. Steff’s always whistling bits of folk-song. I bet you know some folk-songs.’

She had turned as she spoke and said this to a couple of what looked like students next along the line. They’d been holding hands and staring with adoring expressions at Grandad. The young man began to stammer.

‘What about “The Two Shepherds”?’ said the girl. ‘Everyone knows that.’

‘Except me,’ said Mollie. ‘What about it, Grandad?’

‘Good. But Mr Jaunis and Mr Orestes you will consult first?’

‘Yes, of course.’

She darted across. Letta watched the by-play. Mr Jaunis pursed his lips, but the skinny man, Mr Orestes presumably, creased his face into a surprisingly gleeful smile and did a couple of small jig-steps. Everybody cheered up. They divided without being organized into two groups on either side of the gateway. Mr Orestes stood in the middle to conduct.

‘The Two Shepherds’ was a sort of nursery rhyme with silly words, two young men calling to each other across a valley, boasting about how they’ve got the best sheep, the best dog, the best crook, the prettiest girl, and so on. It had a cheerful tune, but the main point was the chorus, which was pure nonsense, the Varinian version of ‘With a folderolderolio’ and you sort-of-yodelled it. Everyone enjoyed themselves. Their voices echoed off the stuccoed walls of the Embassy and up through the branches of the planes into the bright winter sky. The yodelling sounded particularly good. To Letta’s surprise they came to a verse she didn’t know. Then another. Listening carefully, she realized why.

‘What was that about?’ said Nigel, as the other group took up the tune.

‘It’s not the sort of thing an aunt should go telling her innocent little nephew.’

‘Oh, come off it!’

‘Well, he was saying . . . Hold it, I’ll tell you next time.’

It was their turn again, and yet another verse she didn’t know. These words were even more surprising – though there were some she’d never heard before. The woman behind her shoulder had a penetrating clear soprano and sang with great gusto, but when Letta glanced up and caught her eye she stopped short.

‘You understand?’ she whispered in English.

‘Most of it,’ said Letta cheerfully. ‘I can guess the rest. It makes much more sense like this, doesn’t it?’

The woman was not amused, and kept her mouth firmly shut during the next verse, so Letta missed most of it, and then, while they were doing the yodel, which seemed to get longer and twiddlier with each verse, two photographers showed up. The singing stopped, but the photographers wanted them to start again because a singing protest was a bit of a change. Letta heard Mr Orestes telling them that ‘The Two Shepherds’ was a patriotic anthem. A few of the women were wearing national costume – rather bogus-looking, Letta thought, with a big bead shawl and a wide-brimmed hat down on one side – so the photographers made them stand in front and sing, or pretend to in the case of the one nearest Letta. Like Mollie, she was English and didn’t know the words.

Next, Grandad was due to deliver his protest. The photographers wanted him to take the Englishwoman in national dress up the steps with him, because she was prettier than the real Varinians, but he put his foot down. He refused to have any of them.

‘Not a charade, this is,’ he said loudly. ‘A protest we deliver about those serious and tragic events that in our country are taking place. A deliberate effort by the Romanian regime is being made to destroy our country, our culture, our language, our sense who we are. Those who resist they torture and kill. Let this be truly understood.’

He had been waiting in the cold and looked frail but his voice came out strongly. Though he was a small man and his English was peculiar, the moment he spoke you forgot about that and he became the one who mattered, the centre of things. Mr Jaunis handed him an envelope and he turned and walked up the drive, with Mr Jaunis a pace or two behind his shoulder.

‘Who is this guy, then?’ said a man who’d come with the photographers. There was a woman with them too. They both had notepads and pencils.

‘He is our last democratic Prime Minister, Restaur Vax,’ said the woman who’d worried about Letta understanding the words of the song.

‘Spelling?’ said the reporter, and wrote it down. ‘How old, anyone know?’

‘Over eighty, I believe,’ said the woman.

‘Eighty-one,’ said Letta.

‘Sure, love?’ said the reporter patronizingly.

‘She’s his granddaughter,’ said Nigel. ‘And I’m his great-grandson.’

Letta could have kicked him. It wasn’t his fault not knowing about her pact with Grandad, but even so . . . Luckily, no-one took him up on it.

The woman started trying to tell the reporters about Grandad being named after the national hero, but they weren’t very interested, and at that point things started to happen at the Embassy door. There was a flight of steps up to the pillared porch, and Grandad had been standing patiently on the doormat while Mr Jaunis rang the bell. He’d tried short rings and nothing had happened, and he now had his finger steadily pressed on the bell-push. The door opened a crack. Grandad had the envelope held out and a hand came through the crack and snatched it from him. Whoever it was just tore the envelope in half, stuffed the pieces back through the crack and tried to close the door, not realizing that Mr Jaunis had turned his umbrella upside-down and hooked the handle round the bottom, so that it wouldn’t quite shut.

This was obviously against the rules, because the policeman made a disapproving face, said, ‘You just wait here, all of you,’ and started up the drive.

Whoever it was behind the door made several attempts to heave it shut before they realized what had happened. Then they flung it open and rushed out, two stocky, thuggish-looking men in grey suits. They simply barged Grandad and Mr Jaunis out of the way, rushed back in and slammed the door.

Mr Jaunis was knocked clean off his feet and sprawled across the doormat, and Grandad, staggering back, tripped over him, teetered for a moment, and was actually falling down the steps when the policeman caught him. At the same moment the whole group of Varinians went rushing up the drive and gathered, clamouring furiously, on the Embassy steps.

Letta was swept up in the rush but managed to push her way out and found Grandad sitting on the bottom step with Mollie and Nigel kneeling beside him and the policeman standing over them.

‘All right now, then?’ said the policeman.

‘I don’t think he’s hurt, just shaken,’ said Mollie. ‘Thank you very much, officer. If you hadn’t caught him . . . These bloody people! God!’

‘Better get him to hospital,’ said the policeman. ‘Now I’ve got to sort this little lot out.’

He turned and started trying to persuade the infuriated Varinians back into the road. Letta sat beside Grandad and put her arm round him. She was weeping. She couldn’t help it. If the policeman hadn’t caught him he’d have been badly hurt, with his thin old bones crashing down the stone steps.