Reggie slept in on Sunday. He had no curiosity about the raid. Of course it had sounded like a big one, but when you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all. He had declined to take advantage of the Savoy’s bomb-proof shelter, had bunged wax ear-plugs into his ears, several shots of malt whisky down his throat, and slept the sleep of the brave, oblivious to the booming guns and falling bombs. He awoke late, took breakfast in bed, soaked leisurely in his bath by cheating on the national bathwater limit and about noon felt ready for a stroll.
He headed for Chester Street, as he did once in every while, to gaze at the ruins of his house. He had bought the house in 1927 with the last of his inheritance. It was, in a way, his dream house, in that he had dreamt of such a house long before he was in a position to buy one – had dreamt about it when he was away from it, and dreamt about it now he had lost it. It fulfilled, and simultaneously thwarted, a persistent adolescent fantasy – that he would one day find the perfect place and somehow lose it – a bit like the lost domain of Le Grand Meaulnes. That his personal lost domain should turn out to be his own house was irony piled upon irony.
Now they were using it as an emergency water tank. Civil Defence had dug the rubble of the house out of the basement and flooded it. Of course, he still owned it. The site was his, and once the war was over he could rebuild. How do you rebuild a dream? This house had survived the imaginative flights and dire conformities of both his wives. Up on the first floor he could still make out the pattern of the wallpaper in his bedroom. His second wife had chosen it. It was such a pity. The Luftwaffe had managed to demolish his house and still the bitch’s awful taste was left plastered to the wall for all to see.
‘Reggie?’ said a voice behind him.
It was his next-door neighbour, Clive Powell, a retired cavalry general from the last war. An old fool of the first order, a bow-legged believer in the efficacy of horse against tank who would not have been out of place at the charge of the Light Brigade. And he was wearing a uniform. What lunatic had taken him off the retired list?
‘They brought me back, y’know. I’m in the Home Guard now.’
That explained part of it. The uniform was his old Great War cavalry khaki. His general’s tabs removed and three captain’s pips set in the epaulettes. Shoulder flashes, clumsily sewn on, spelt out Home Guard. Privately, Reggie thought the Home Guard the best place for men like Clive. They could still wear a uniform, they could prance around giving orders to men too old or, in a few cases, too young for the armed services, in the certain knowledge that they could do little harm. They were the front line in a battle that would never happen. The Battle of France had been a pasting for the British, the Battle of Britain the hard-fought, costly victory of the few. There would be no battle of London. All the same, he had to admire the old boy’s modesty. Most generals would have held such a vast drop in rank to be an insufferable indignity and sat out the war in their clubs. Old Clive was doing his bit, at least.
‘I’ve a platoon of railway clerks from Victoria station,’ Clive went on. ‘The odd porter, and a stoker, but mostly clerks. Just finished a morning’s drilling. Absolutely bloody hopeless, but there you are. If the Hun ever make it to Victoria the worst they could do is sell ‘em the wrong ticket. Send them to Penzance when they want to go to Preston.’
He broke into song.
‘Oh, Mr Porter, what shall I do? Me Panzers are in Birmingham and me Führer’s stuck in Crewe. Time for a cuppa, Reggie?’
Why not? thought Reggie. Humour the old bugger. After all, room by room the general-captain’s house was identical to his own. All he had to do was sit with his cuppa, pretend to listen to the old boy’s theories of how to win the war, mentally strip away the mounted heads of wildebeeste and gazelle, ignore the tigerskin rugs and the elephant’s-foot umbrella stand, and paint onto those same rooms the colours of his dream.
An hour or so later, he had peeled off all his wife’s excrescent wallpaper, redecorated in plain pastels and heard Clive’s latest theory.
‘Y’see,’ Clive said, tipping the sugar bowl onto the tablecloth in order to draw an outline map of Europe with the thin end of his teaspoon, breaking up the last ginger biscuit on the plate and using its pieces to represent the capital cities. Rome, Paris, Berlin and Moscow dotted about on the sugar. There wasn’t enough for London. Clive rummaged around in the biscuit barrel, prised out a gooey macaroon stuck to the bottom and plonked it down on England.
‘First we take Italy from the Med, come up through the flabby gut of the Continent, knock her right out of the war.’
A silver teaspoon shot up Italy from the toe with all the savagery of a steel bayonet. Reggie ate Rome.
‘We delay any invasion of France until the Russians are on board and winning.’
Reggie ate Moscow. He’d always wanted to do that.
‘Then we land a vast seaborne invasion just where Jerry doesn’t expect it – somewhere like ... I dunno . . . Normandy . . .’
A row of determined cake forks hit the sugar near Caen. Reggie ate Paris.
‘Then we catch the buggers in a pincer movement between the British and the Russian advances
The salt and pepper pots advanced across Europe like great silver tanks. Reggie ate Berlin.
‘And that’s exactly what would have happened in the last war if the Bolsheviks hadn’t surrendered – could be we end up racing for Berlin. Of course, the Americans would be jolly useful if . . .’
Clive waved a hand in the air demonstrating an all too obvious conclusion. Reggie eyed London, the last biscuit on the map. That tantalising crispness, that elusive hint of almonds. Clive ended his gesture with his hand flat on top of it. He wolfed the macaroon before Reggie could make his move.
‘Well? Whaddya think?’
Reggie made a mental note never to mention any of this to anyone in case they thought him as cracked as he thought old Clive to be.
‘Wizard,’ he said, and brought a smile to the old man’s lips. Pity about the macaroon, he thought.
Reggie waved bye-bye to Clive and drifted all afternoon. If he ever had to account for his movements that day he could probably have done no better than ‘here and there’. He picked his way through the splendour and devastation of London and found himself oddly unmoved by either. When, he thought, you’ve seen your own house knocked off the face of the planet, you tend to take a bit of bombing in your stride. By six o’clock he was sorely in need of a wee dram and discovered that by pure chance his feet had led him to Pall Mall and to the steps of Pogue’s – a gentleman’s club of which, again by pure chance, he happened to be a member.
As he went up the steps he bumped into his brother-in-law, Archie Duncan Ross, the elder brother of the first Mrs Ruthven-Greene, coming down.
‘Archie, I was just going in for a snifter.’
Ross was shaking his head sadly.
‘Complete washout, old boy – the Hun put one right through the roof, through five ceilings and into the wine cellar last night.’
‘The swine! My God, the 1912 Margaux!’
‘Broken glass and red puddles, I’m afraid. But there is good news.’
Reggie felt there could never be good news again. The 1912 Margaux – good God, the Nazis were ruthless. First his house, now the finest drop of claret in the city.
‘I hear,’ said Ross, ‘That there is Krug ‘20 to be had at the Dorchester.’