I decided to cook some porridge, a comfort food that reminded me of home and my mother. It was also cheap. I was on the point of excavating the grey lava from the bottom of the pot when a little voice took me unawares and banished my night time blues.
“Knock, knock. Is there enough for two?” Val said.
I was inexplicably happy to see her beaming face, and grinned at her. “Only if you have it with salt. I’m not letting you English put sugar on my porridge.”
She screwed up her face and came into my room. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Its end curled round her neck. She looked just fine.
“I’ll try it. Why not? We eat anything now, don’t we? Horses, yum, yum. Powdered eggs, goody, goody.”
I laughed. “I’ll get my mum to send us some haggis.”
“That’s where I draw the line.”
“One of my guys caught a snake in the desert and ate it.”
“Yuk! Was he sick?”
“Violently. I think he ate the wrong end.”
I lifted up the top of the fold-down table and sat out two bowls on the red Formica. When I make porridge I always make too much, so it stretched easily. I spooned the steaming sludge into the bowls.
“Watch, mind. There’s nothing hotter.” She flicked her ponytail back. “It’s nice like that,” I said staring appreciatively.
She blushed and tugged at it. “It’s too long. Drives me mad. I’m thinking of having it all hacked off. Like those magazines.”
“Don’t do that! You’ve got lovely hair.”
She smiled. “OK. I’ll keep it. For you.”
I took a chance. “There’s an old Scottish custom that says if you share porridge with someone, you must share a secret.”
She looked wary. “A likely story.”
I pressed on. “I’ve met you twice now and I don’t know anything about you, except your name. I don’t even know where you live.”
She shook her head and laid a scalding spoon of porridge back down. “Don’t make it hard, Danny. I told you, I don’t want to get involved. I just want to be able to drop in and have a natter. I don’t want the third degree.” Her eyes were determined. I was scared she’d up and leave. And what did it matter where she lived or what she did? “OK, pal. Just curious.” I smiled.
She sighed. “Look, there’s this bloke. He hurt me real bad. I’m trying to sort things out. Maybe then I’ll tell you the whole thing, ok?”
I knew it. We’re all bastards. Was she living with him? Would she leave him? Not if I pushed her. I changed the subject. I told her about Kate Graveney and the strange coincidence of Tony Caldwell. Val seemed rapt and let her porridge go cold. Or maybe it was the salt. She had her elbows on the table and her hands under her fine jaw. Her eyes were big and dark, weighing everything.
“Why did she need you to find Mrs Caldwell? She could have got anybody to ask at his club. Women like her know lots of men. It wouldn’t have been hard.” I noticed the little bit of spite in her voice as she spoke of women like her.
“It worried me too. Like it’s all being done for my benefit. To keep me away.”
I told Val about Liza Caldwell’s comments, how Caldwell had probably told SOE not to divulge his whereabouts. Especially to me.
It was then that Val came up with the mad idea, and I felt it take root in my brain like the seeds of a fever.
“Won’t SOE have files on you and Tony Caldwell?”
“Yes…?”
Her eyes were gleaming. “Why don’t you get in and see for yourself?”
“You mean break in?!”
“Would it be hard?” she asked, all innocence. She lit a fag.
I thought about the layout of Baker Street. It had grown like a rabbit warren to take up virtually the whole street. But I knew the records on agents were kept centrally at number 64. I also knew they were closing the whole shebang down.
They didn’t need our kind of talents anymore. So security might not be as tight as it used to be. If I could get past the guards at the door and then hide till…
“This is daft! Completely daft! You’re a madwoman, so you are, Valerie Brown.
And you’re turning me as mad as you.”
“I’m crazy,” she agreed and blew a smoke ring. “But I’m not mad. Come on, eat up. I’m taking you to feed the ducks. Got any old bread? Better not take any of this stuff, or they’ll sink!”
She didn’t finish her porridge. I dunked the two bowls in water so they wouldn’t set like concrete. Then she dragged me out. The weather was kinder; broken clouds and a South westerly. We chased a bus and leapt on as it slowly eased away from the stop. We landed breathless on the platform, faces aflame and laughing. I saw nothing but kind eyes from the passengers. We must have looked like lovers.
We got off at Hyde Park Corner and ambled into the park. The rolling slopes were winter drab, and the green seemed to have leeched into the Serpentine.
Bare-armed trees stood around the flat water as though they’d been stuck in the ground upside down. There were ducks marshalling by the landing stages and hoovering up the soggy bread thrown at them by squealing kids. Val joined in and I stood and watched her and felt something turn over inside. She was so fragile.
She came back to me, smiling. “What? What you looking at, then?”
“You, you daft thing. Like a big kid.”
“That’s me. Come on. Let’s run.” And she was off. I could have caught her in ten steps but I let her run till she was shrieking and breathless. There were dozens of folk around, but all in our distance. I caught up with her and collapsed on a bench beside her. Her cheeks were glowing. I would have kissed her then. I should have. We watched the water shimmer and the ducks take off in a panic of wings.
“What happened to your dad?” she asked suddenly. She knew my mother was still in Scotland.
I realised I’d never talked about it. I could talk about it now. I remembered the day like it happened last week. I was sixteen.
“My mum always waited by the window every evening. Darning socks or polishing the brass. But she’d keep looking at the clock. To make sure he came home. One night he didn’t. You know what happens when a pit collapses? And when they finally get the bodies out?” I didn’t expect or wait for an answer. “They lay all the men out in rows on open carts at the pithead. Then the women walk along and pick out their men.”
I felt her tense beside me. “They were all wearing shawls and sobbing and holding on to each other. I walked with my mum. She was clinging to me as if I could stop her from drowning.”
I paused and watched the wind whip up ripples on the water.
“She used to kneel at his feet and take his boots off every night when he came in from the pit. He never asked her to do it; it was just something she did. To thank him for putting food on the table, a roof over our heads. He’d stick his feet in the grate. I can still see the steam rising and smell his socks.”
Val said nothing, just looked at me with the same anguish she’d shown at midnight in the park.
“This time, she knelt by the cart and held on to his boots. As though she could stop him. As though she could haul him back from his journey. She kept them for me.”
I didn’t tell Val that I still carried the guilt of not being down there with him, like the other sons. Maybe I could have done something. I was young and strong and quick. Instead, I was poncing around in a school blazer, talking about university when there was real life and real death going on all round me.
Val got me up and walking again. Right round the lake. We were quieter now, closer. It was the best day I could remember. I would have stopped time. No, that’s not true. I felt this was the start of something and that the best would come if I had the patience. To crown it all, we got off the bus near my flat and the newspaper seller was calling out, “Read all about it, read all about it.
Ripper caught! The Soho Ripper caught!” I bought a copy. They were going fast. I greedily scanned the text.
“Look at this, Val. They’ve caught the bugger.”
“Oh, that would be fine, Danny!”