Nancy Atherton - Aunt Dimity's Death

The walls at the far end of the room were hung with photographs. They were snapshots rather than professional portraits; framed, black-and-white pictures of men in uniform or in flying gear, standing beside their aircraft or sitting at camp tables, grinning.

“They’re so young,” I said, looking from face to face.

“And they stayed that way,” said Paul.

Miss Kingsley frowned slightly at him, then turned to me. “These are the boys who didn’t come back,” she explained. “Their comrades put the pictures here, in tribute. We keep them here, to remember.”

The faces of those boys remained with me throughout my time in London. My mother had always spoken of the war as a great adventure, a time of unforgettable sights and sounds, of strong friendships quickly made. She had never mentioned the friendships that had been even more quickly ended.

* * *

Bill seemed to hold the keys to the city. He got me into the building where my mother had worked—now just another maze of modernized corridors—and out on the roofs of St. Paul’s, where she had seen the incendiaries fall. He found an elderly general to give us a private tour of the Cabinet War Rooms, the underground bunkers from which Churchill had conducted the war during the Blitz, and he somehow got permission for me to view Imperial War Museum photo archives that were usually reserved for scholars.

Bill was so solicitous, in fact, that he made me edgy. There was nothing I could point to, no overt act that embarrassed or annoyed me, but there was something in his manner…. Perhaps it was the return of the same secret, knowing smile he had tried to hide during his tenure as my chauffeur in Boston. In London it gave me the feeling that something was up, that he was planning some monumental prank that would leave me flabbergasted.

As far as I could see, however, he only put his foot wrong once in London, and even that wasn’t his fault. It was pure bad luck that brought us together with a guy who had frequented the rare book reading room at my university in Boston; a genuine, bona fide, one-hundred-percent-guaranteed creep named Evan Fleischer. Evan was in his late twenties, with stringy, shoulder-length black hair, thick glasses, and a hairy little potbelly that peeked out between the lower buttons of his ill-fitting shirts. I might have found him endearingly scruffy if it hadn’t been for the fact that he was the single most egocentric individual I had ever met.

I was never able to pin down Evan’s area of expertise because he claimed to know everything. The word “important” was frequently on his lips, but he defined it rather more narrowly than the rest of the English-speaking world. If anyone else had a deadline to meet, it was inconsequential, and the same went for ideas: only Evan’s were “important.” One day in the reading room, when he referred to his laundry as “important,” I laughed in his face. It didn’t faze him. He simply explained, in little words that even I could understand, why doing his laundry was a service to humanity. Looking pointedly at his grease-stained tie, I conceded that he had a point, but the jibe was lost on him. He merely assumed I’d seen the light.

And how he loved to enlighten people. He gathered around him a coterie of emotionally disturbed undergrads who hung on his every word, which reinforced his self-image as an altruistic mentor. He led them on in order to feed his own ego, and that, when all was said and done, was what made him a creep rather than just another obnoxious jerk. I had no time to explain any of this to Bill when I heard Evan call my name in the lobby of the Tate.

“Lori? Lori Shepherd?”

I would have tucked my head down and sprinted for the exit, but Bill was already shaking Evan’s hand, eager to meet another one of my friends.

“What a pleasant surprise,” said Evan.

“You’re half right,” I muttered.

“I don’t believe we’ve met before.” Evan blinked owlishly at Bill. “I am Dr. Evan Fleischer. You may call me Evan, if you wish, although naturally I prefer Dr. Fleischer. Lori and I are old friends.”

“It’s very nice to meet you, Dr. Fleischer,” said Bill. “I’m Bill Willis. Lori and I are—”

“I’m sure Evan doesn’t have time for small talk,” I interrupted.

“Only too true,” said Evan. “I’m delivering an important paper on Dostoyevski’s use of patronymics this coming Saturday at the British Museum. I’m sure you would find it instructive, though perhaps a bit esoteric. I find it difficult to write for a general audience, you see, because—”

“What a shame,” I said. “We’re leaving London on Saturday.”

“Where are you off to?”

In full Mr. Congeniality mode, Bill piped up: “We’ll be staying in a cottage in the Cotswolds, near a place called Finch.”

“What about our change of plans?” I asked Bill urgently.

“What change of plans?”

“Oh, but you mustn’t change a thing!” Evan exclaimed. “It’s a fascinating area. I’m sure I can find the time to visit you there. I’m always eager to give foreigners the benefit of my extensive knowledge of the sceptered isle.” Since Evan had been born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, his use of the word “foreigners” was highly suspect.

“I’d rather you didn’t,” I said. “Really, Evan, I’m going to be awfully—”

“It would be my pleasure.” He checked his watch. “I’d love to tell you about my paper, but I have some important appointments.”

“Picking up your laundry?” I asked.

“No, I had that seen to this morning,” he replied. “Now I’ve really got to run. Where are you staying?”

“The Flamborough,” said Bill.

“I’ll be in touch.” He strode off toward the exit, leaving me to glower at Bill.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing much,” I said. “Only that you’ve saddled us with a visit from one of the most obnoxious human beings on the face of the planet. Once he moves in, we’ll never get rid of him. Oh, God,” I groaned, “he’ll probably try to read his paper to us.”

Bill had the grace to hang his head. “I thought he was a bit of a pill, but—”

“I know. You also thought he was my friend.” I sighed and took his arm. “Oh, come on. I’ll tell you all about him while we look at William Blake’s visions of hell. After a brush with Evan, they’ll seem soothing.”

* * *

Bill redeemed himself by showing up at my suite the next day with enough of the finest Scottish wool to keep Meg’s knitting needles flying for a good long time. Impressed, I had to admit that he noticed far more than I gave him credit for.

I bought a few things I couldn’t resist—a couple of sweaters, a book or two—and others I didn’t even try to resist. A flashlight, for instance. From Harrod’s, of all places. And I made sure to have a brand-new brolly handy when I went to the zoo. Even when I was caught up in shopping, Dimity and my mother were never far from my thoughts.

I kept seeing them in my mind’s eye, sharing a bag of chips, riding bicycles, running for shelter during an air raid. I touched the shrapnel-gouged walls of buildings along the Embankment and tried to imagine what it had been like to hear the rumble of German aircraft overhead, to feel the sidewalk shake as the bombs struck home. There was one moment, driving past Hyde Park, when I thought I saw the greensward scarred with trenches, sandbags piled high, conical canvas tents staked out in rows across the fields. The image was startlingly vivid. I called out for Paul to stop the car, but before he could pull over to the curb, the vision was gone, the helmeted Tommies replaced by the usual lunchtime throng of trench-coated Londoners. When Bill started to question me, I only shook my head and asked Paul to drive on.