The Captain changed gear and raced along Grange Road and the great houses of authority that hid behind the evergreen hedges and wrought-iron gates, then turned left down Queen’s Road, sounding his horn at a weary troop of shuffling infantrymen who stood back against the stone wall as they flashed past, the Captain acknowledging their courtesy, Veronica staring ahead, pretending that she was invisible to their whistling barrack-room taunts. At the crossroads he plunged over, hardly bothering to look left or right, taking the dog-leg of Prince Albert’s Road with wheels squealing. Once through the bend he pushed back the hem of her dress high over her bare knee, accelerating into the straight. She closed her eyes. She knew where they were going. It was not the quickest way, but it allowed him speed. It fed his batteries, and if there was one thing the Captain liked, it was to be fully charged up. At the end of the road he swung the car quickly to the right. She leant into him hard and stayed pressed up against him, and they turned once more, into the steep narrow streel, where halfway down he parked the car in a overgrown siding off Val Fleury Close, safe from prying eyes. She unbuttoned the flap to his pocket and eased in her hand. The key lay at the bottom, long and cold. She took it out and held it up to the light. It surprised her. It was shiny and new.
“What happened to the old one?” she asked.
The Captain took it from her, smiling, and put it back in his pocket, patting its shape through the flap. He said nothing.
The car rides and cold-weather picnics had lasted a week. Then, the following Monday when she had plumped down beside him, removed her hat, straightened her dress and asked, “Where to today?” Zep had turned the key, rewed the engine and had announced, “A surprise.” He had driven around for ten minutes, then, turning down Hauteville, had parked by Vktor Hugo’s house with its scrolled plaque set inside the wall.
“I thought I would give you a guided tour of the premises. You have never been?”
She had never been. What on earth would she want to go in there for?
“I’m not a great one for visiting museums.”
“No matter. It is not what we came for.”
“Game for?” she asked, though she knew well enough, had known it with sinking heart the moment he had uttered those words, and though it came as no great shock, what it was he expected from her, what he would always expect, there was a brief flicker of hope, when he leaped out and walked round to open the passenger door, bowing in that exaggerated manner, a greenhouse orchid produced from behind his back, that he had planned a small surprise for her, something intimate, unusual, which indeed he but only as to the placing of the old, familiar event. “From the had, Major’s desk,” he smirked once they were standing in the dark and peculiarly quiet hall, waving the key triumphantly in the dusty air as if the Major were a schoolmaster and he the prankish boy.
“What are we doing here?” she whispered, blushing at her own unconvincing naivety, and the Captain, laughing, pulled her to him and running his finger in between the rim of her collar and the damp flesh of her neck, replied, “There is no need to whisper, Veronica. We can make as much noise as we choose,” and with that started to lead her through the rooms, his hands clasped behind his back, her holding on to them like in some silly party game, the Captain releasing her now and again, like a man might let loose the slip of his dog leash, while she ran her fingers over the surface of some long gilt frame, or traced the design on some silver brocade, marvelling at the heavy shine that made every artefact appear so deep, so endless, before pulling her back en route to their destination. Finally they reached the third floor and a room entombed with dark, somnambulant tapestries, and in the centre, mounted on a pedestal, shrouded like some dormant chrysalis, stood an enormous bed. She’d seen smaller vegetable plots.
“Built for Garibaldi,” he said proudly.
Another name Veronica did not recognize.
“The father of Italy,” he told her, walking her towards it. “The only man famous for inventing something that has not worked. This bed was made specially for him.”
“Big, was he?” she offered facetiously, nervous now to be enclosed in this heavy darkened house with this restlessly demanding man. “Or did he move about a lot?”
The Captain refused to laugh.
“He never arrived to use it,” he said, pulling back the cover. On an embroidered pillow lay a bottle of champagne and two glasses. “No one has ever used it. Until now.”
Veronica had wondered if that was true, wondered whether the Captain had not entertained a host of girls here.
“What, not even Molly?”
The Captain looked surprised.
“Molly? Molly would want to move in, so she could boast about it.”
It was the first time since that time in the surgery that her name had come up. She had been the reason for the clandestine nature of these meetings, at least that was what she told herself. She didn’t see much of Molly these days. Molly had pulled out of the amateur dramatics the same time they’d found Isobel stuffed down that shaft, just when they had nearly completed preparations for their spring variety show. Not one but two girls short, Mrs H. had complained! It sounded especially callous coming from her, but it was true. It was going to be something special this time too, the first time she was taking the lead. The Captain coughed and stood waiting. She made one attempt at decency.
“What about Mrs Hallivand? I wouldn’t like her to come barging in.”
“She comes only in the mornings,” the Captain promised her. “No one will see. The afternoons will be ours alone to enjoy.”