I didn't get up. "Hullo, mein Gottfried," I said.
"Hullo, old man," He came in. Sat down on my armchair like a man performing an emergency appendectomy with a rusty razor blade. He lit a Sobranie.
As an afterthought he flung the packet to me. I took one, lit it and shoved the packet under the mattress.
"I thought I'd look in," he said.
"How sweet of you. It must be two years now. Still, Christmas is the time for the family, isn't it?"
"Well, quite ... How are you?"
"Rubbing along, thanks, Godfrey. And you?"
"Not too bad."
The scene galled me. When we were young, before the war, we had been friends. Even if we hadn't been, brothers were still brothers. It wasn't that I minded hating my brother, that's common enough. It was that I didn't hate him the way brothers hate. I hated him coldly and sickly.
At that moment I would have liked to fall on him and throttle him, but only in the cold, satisfied way you rake down a flypaper studded with flies.
Besides I still couldn't see why he had come.
"How's the — playing?" he asked.
"Not bad, you know. I'm at the Merrie Englande these days."
"So I heard."
Hullo, I thought, I see glimmers of light. He saw I saw them — he was, after all, my brother.
"I wondered if you'd like some lunch," he said.
Normally I would have refused, but I knew he might stay and catch Frenchy coming back. So I pretended to hesitate. "All right, hungry enough for anything."
We went down the cracked steps and walked up Park Lane. The drizzle had stopped and a cold sun had come out and made the street look even more depressing. Boarded up hotels, looted shops, cracked façades, grass growing in the broken streets, bent lamp standards, the park itself a tangled forest of weeds. It was sordid.
"Thinking of cleaning up, ever, Godfrey?" I asked.
"Not my department," he said.
"Someone ought to."
"No man-power, you see," he said. I bet, I thought. Naturally they left it. One look was enough to break anyone's morale. If you were wondering how defeated and broken you were and looked at Park Lane, or Piccadilly, or Trafalgar Square, you'd soon know — completely.
Godfrey took me to a sandwich-and-soup place on the corner. A glance and the man behind the counter knew him for an FP holder. So the food wasn't bad, although Godfrey picked at it like a man used to something better.
Conversation stopped. The customers bent their shoulders over their plates of sandwiches and munched stolidly. Godfrey didn't seem to notice. He probably never had noticed. I had to face facts — although a member of my own family, Godfrey had always been a kraut psychologically. Always neat, always methodical, jumping his hurdles — exams, tests and assignments at work — like a trained horse. It wasn't that he didn't care about other people — I can't say I did — he just never knew there was anything to care about.
"How's the department?" I asked, beginning the ridiculous question and answer game again — as if either of us worried about anything to do with the other.
"Going well."
"And Andrea?"
"She's well."
She ought to be, I thought. Fat cow. She'd married Godfrey for his steady civil service job and made a far better bargain than she'd thought.
"What about you — are you thinking of getting married?"
I stared at him. Who married these days unless they had a steady job at one of the factories or on road transport, or, of course, in the police?
"Not exactly. Haven't really got the means to keep my bride in the accustomed manner."
"Oh," said Godfrey. Watch it, I thought. I knew that expression. "Oh, they said Sebastian'd been riding Celeste's bike, mother."
"Oh, father, I thought you'd given Seb permission to go out climbing."
"I mentioned it because they told me you were engaged to a singer at the Merrie Englande."
"Who are they?"
"Well, my private secretary, as a matter of fact. He's a customer."
Yeah, I thought, like a rag-and-bone-man's a customer at the Ritz. He'd heard it from some spy.
"Well," I said. "I can't think how he managed to get that idea. I'm not sure there is a regular singer at the Merrie ... "
"This girl was supposed to be like you — a sort of casual entertainer. A German girl I think he said."
Too specific, chum. That line might just work with a stranger — not with your little brother.
"I think I've met her. In fact I've played for her once or twice. I don't know much about her, though. I'm certainly not engaged to her."
Godfrey bit into a sandwich. I'd closed that line of enquiry. He was wondering how to open another.
"That's a relief. She sounds a tramp."
"Maybe."
"We want to repatriate her — know where she is?"
"Why should I?" I said. "Apart from that, why should I help you? If she doesn't want to be repatriated, that's her business."
"Be realistic, Sebby — anyway, she does want to be, or she would do, if she knew. Her aunt's died and left her a lot of money. The other side has asked us to let her know so she can go home and sort out her affairs."
I went on drinking soup, but I wondered. Perhaps the story was true. Still, I didn't need to put Godfrey on to her — I could tell her myself.
"Well, I'll tell her if I see her. I doubt if I shall. I should leave a message at the Merrie."
"Yes."
He looked up broodingly, staring round in that blank way people have when they're bored with their eating companion.
I followed his gaze. My eyes lit on Frenchy, Loaded with parcels, she was buying food and having a flask filled with coffee at the counter. I went rigid. Frenchy had gained confidence — she was buying like an FP holder. And anyone with that amount of stuff on them attracted attention anyway. She was attracting it all right. Godfrey was the only man in the room who wasn't looking at her and pretending not to. He was just looking at her. I couldn't decide if he was watching her like a cat or just watching.
"Heard about Freddy Gore," I said.
"No," said Godfrey, not taking his eyes off her.
"He committed suicide," I said.
"Well I'm damned," said Godfrey, looking at me greedily. "Why?"
"It was his wife. He came home one afternoon ... " I spoke on hastily. Frenchy was still buying. Half the customers were still pointedly ignoring her — apart from anything else she looked quite good in her new gear. She picked up her stuff and left without showing her FP to the man behind the counter. She left without Godfrey noticing. I brought my tale of lust, adultery, rape and murder in the Gore family to a speedy close. A horrible thought had struck me. Godfrey was a high-up. He knew about Frenchy and he knew I knew her. There were a lot of cops on the job and he might have fixed it so that some were watching my hotel. Somehow I had to shift him and catch. Frenchy before she got back.
"Shocking story," said Godfrey, looking at his watch. "I must be getting back. Like a lift?"
"Not going in that direction," I said. "Thanks all the same."
So he flagged down a passing car and told the sulky driver to take him to Buckingham Palace — the krauts had restored it at huge expense for the Ministry of Security as well as our paternal governor.
I walked slowly down the road, turned off and ran like hell. I caught Frenchy, all burdened with parcels, just in time.
"Better not go back," I gasped. "They may be watching the hotel."
There was a car standing outside a house just down the street. I ran her up to it and tugged at the door. It wasn't locked. I shoved her in, paper bags, flask and all, and got in the driving seat.