Whether she would ever have spoken of these things voluntarily I do not know, but I had got into my twenties before there came the knock on the door that brought it all out in the open. That was a terrible day with everyone full of anger and accusation. Who would have guessed that out of it would come the greatest joy of my life, though that too was to last only a few years till those madmen who rule our lives snatched it away again? But even at the height of my indignation, I won't conceal from you that I too, like my mother, felt a pang of shame though I hated myself for it. And there was resentment too that I'd been forced to confront the ignominy which attended his death. I'd surely been better off before with nothing but an old photo and a memory of him on his last leave, playing on the piano he bought soon after I was born, so that I too like the children of the rich could grow up with music at my fingertips. Well, he would have been disappointed there as you know! But once I got over that egotistical reaction, I was determined for his sake and for my own to find out as much as I could of the truth of things. Two of us living together both with our appointed quests — I used to say we should call our house Camelot! It seemed impossible back then with youth and vigour on our side that we shouldn 't be successful. But history has its own agenda and the Powers That Be, in and out of uniform, in the protection of themselves at least are superb strategists.
So the truth about my father remains hidden. Perhaps it will stay so forever. Certainly I no longer feel it matters. Whatever he did or did not do, I do not believe any power on earth had the right to tie its own citizens to a stake after the sketchiest formality of a trial, and shoot them dead. I have read many books written in recent years on the subject, and I believe that most right-thinking people agree with me that a terrible mistake was made, though naturally our political leaders refuse to acknowledge it.
Therefore it seems proper to me now that I should pass on to you, my executor, not the fever of my obsession, but its clinical record, because it is part of our family heritage. Perhaps it has even made us what we are today, which, if true, I am not very proud of.
Forgive me for the silly test I have set you before these papers could come into your possession. But a doubt remained, and this was a way of making a token gesture towards satisfying it. Therefore I shall instruct Barbara that if she has the slightest suspicion that you have merely scattered my ashes in the nearest ditch (and who would blame you?) then she should consign these documents to the fire.
And forgive me also, if you feel it necessary, or possible, for being what I am. Here in part you may find some of the reasons for it.
Your loving grandmother,
Ada
He put the letter down and checked on Rosie. She was lying on her stomach, completely absorbed in some sci-fi cartoon adventure. He said, 'No more after this, OK?' and smiled as she impatiently waved him away.
Now he opened the exercise book.
On the first page, written in the careful almost childish hand of a man not much used to penmanship, and light years away from the fluent minuscule scrawl of the leather-bound journal, he read:
April 16 1913 Mr Cartwright at the Institute reckons it ud help me with writing and reading and also with discussing new ideas if I wrote about something that I knew a lot about — I asked him what — and he said — What about yourself — your life? I said — Whod want to read that? And he said — How about your daughter when she grows up? So here it is Ada for you — if it turns out worth the keeping that is. MY LIFE.
Peter Pascoe turned the page.
viii
'Andy. I thought it might be you. Come on in.'
Cap Marvell led him into her living room. On the coffee table stood the bottle of paint-stripping Scotch, open with a full glass beside it. On the hi-fi a woman was singing agitatedly in German.
'You'll join me?' said Cap.
'No thanks,' said Dalziel. 'Still going on about the war, is she?'
'No. She's saying that she would never have let the children go out in such filthy weather. They've died, you see. He wrote a whole group of songs about children dying.'
'Right bundle of fun, weren't he?' said Dalziel.
'He had his moments,' she smiled. 'You know, though, this song could be about war. All wars. Sending children out where the bullets rattle like hail and the shell blasts carve swathes through forests and folk.'
The song ended. She switched the player off.
'You keep on going on like you lost your lad in the Falklands,' said Dalziel.
'In a way I did,’ she said. 'In his place I got a hero which isn't quite the same thing. I had dinner with him last night by the way.'
'Oh aye? Takes his spurs and sword off before he sits down to eat, does he?'
She frowned and said, 'Andy, from time to time I may be mildly satirical about my son but it is a privilege I don't extend to my friends.'
Dalziel scratched his left jowl like a chef tenderizing a T-bone.
'Well that's me pricked in the pecking order,' he said. 'With such a bad attack of the maternais, I don't suppose you earned your snout pay.'
'Of course I did,' she said. 'In fact it was surprisingly easy. With so much conversational no-man's-land between us, Piers always seizes avidly on any acceptable topic which does present itself and never lets it go till he's torn it to shreds. Buster Sanderson saw us happily through our entrée and well into the petit fours.'
'Buster?'
'As in Keaton. He is evidently quite unflappable and the mess, even when deploring his escapades, was united in admiration of the aplomb with which he met both discovery and disaster.'
'For instance?'
'Night exercise in Germany. The CO returned unexpectedly early to his caravan and found his bunk occupied by Buster on top of a Fräulein. Without interrupting his stroke, the captain looked up and said, "Interrogation, sir. Give me another minute and I'll have it out of her." Or during a mortar attack on their barracks in Northern Ireland, Buster was on the phone trying to persuade his bookie to extend his credit. Everyone else dived for cover. When they emerged Buster was still on the phone saying, "Bangs? What bangs? Look, another five hundred is all I'm asking.'"
'So, he's a randy dickhead,' said Dalziel, unimpressed. 'But is he a crook?'
'He had a reputation for being — how did Piers put it? — unsound in matters of finance or the heart. But when it came to a fight, you couldn't ask for a better chap in your corner. He came dangerously close on several occasions to being cashiered or whatever it is they do to gentlemen that steal the mess silver or cheat at snap. And though the CO claimed that he was never consulted about the regiment's redundancies, nobody was surprised when Buster's name came out of the hat. Or his man's.'
'His man's? You mean Patten?'
'No, of course not. Sergeant Patten left some months before Buster. I'd have thought you'd have known that.'
At this point a real snout would have found himself levitated by his collar, banged very hard against a wall, and advised that unless he had comprehensive medical insurance, it was unwise to get clever.
Dalziel said, 'Aye, I did know that. Who then?'
'His batman. Private Rosthwaite. Rosso. Took care of all of Buster's needs.'