This evening, though, as soon as she had finished supper and the glass, plate, and cutlery were washed, dried, and put away, Maisie sat at the dining table in front of Michael Clifton's letters and journal, which she had opened at the beginning and was reading once more. She found herself smiling at certain excerpts--his mimicry of his soldiers' accents, which, when written out phonetically, were certainly humorous. A listing of new words learned along the way had led him to observe, "And I thought they'd be speaking the same language. I might as well have joined up with the French."
I don't know where the idea came from that the English are subdued. The boys--the mates--I've met aren't afraid to let you know exactly what they're thinking. Mind you, they all keep quiet when the inspecting officer makes the rounds of the billets and says, "Any complaints?" That's a stupid question, when you've got "cooties" running along the seams of your shirt and driving you crazy. If you say, "Well, sir, I do have a complaint," you're likely to find yourself up on some kind of disciplinary action. And as for cooties, they're the nasty little bugs that get into everything. I'd never heard that word before. I think Dad must have lost his native language by the time I was born.
Here are a few words I've learned. The Tommy calls his rifle his "barndook," I think because it's harder to say than "rifle"--that's a limey thing too. And I've started liking the thick sludge they call "char." It's tea, but the way they brew it! "Go on, mate, it'll put 'airs on your chest!" they'll say. It's more likely to cut off the blood supply to your throat! I really don't mind Oxo, a sort of beef cube that when dissolved in hot water makes a fortifying drink--the boys' mothers send them out because the advertising says that Oxo is "British to the Backbone."
Another one: gum boots--rubber boots to keep your feet dry in the trenches, should you be one of the lucky lads to get a pair (the rest of us just get wrinkled feet that you have to rub with rum, otherwise they'll drop off when you most need them). And the lads have all sorts of nicknames for the different bombs--the hairbrush (looks like one), the Minnie (Minnewerfer, a German trench mortar, you don't hear it until it hits you), a fifteen-pounder (one of ours, thank God!), five nine (one of theirs), and the one the Germans hate--the four-point-five. There are so many of them, I could write a dictionary of British warfare! But here's a name I like--the "housewife"--Tommy calls it a "hussif." It's a little needlework kit, so you can fix your own uniform, otherwise that guy with the pips will be all over you like a rash of cooties if you're so much as missing a button--and it doesn't matter if you lost it while narrowly avoiding being hit by a Minnie!
Maisie smiled as she read more of Michael Clifton's impressions of the men who were serving alongside him, and could see that these early entries had been made before he had received his promotion to junior officer. But although she was drawn in by the young American's observations of life among the Tommies, she was more interested in the unfolding of his love affair with the woman known as Tennie. She went over paragraphs she'd read before, then came to a place where the pages had fused and she had not attempted to pry them loose earlier because she thought they might tear. It seemed that only layers of mold were holding them together. Once again, she used her Victorinox knife--Caldwell had sent a man over to the office to return the gift from her father--to work on the pages, taking care to protect the handwriting as far as she could. Soon the task was accomplished, with only a few words here and there missing.
I don't know how I managed to swing another short leave in Paris, but here I am, and it is perfect. Even more perfect than it was before, and I thought I came here to walk down memory lane with my head low, but instead...who would have known the outcome. I don't know how this will end, but I know that right now, in this place, I am a man who is on top of the world, yet on the edge of the precipice.
Maisie frowned. She picked up the letters and identified the point at which, according to letters from "Tennie," the courtship had ended. Then why was Michael Clifton so happy at what she thought must be a later date? Had there been further correspondence from the unknown woman that had since been mislaid? Were they reunited in Paris? Perhaps there was another letter he'd kept close to heart and that had been lost in battle, or mulched down into the earth along with skin and bone? After so many years, when human remains were discovered, she knew they really were remains. Had Michael's lover changed her mind? Was there news from her that elated him? Here was a man experiencing a joyous hiatus away from war, and at the same time he could see ahead, down into an event he called "the precipice," which she took to be his return to the battlefield. Indeed, as she turned the pages, she realized that this was Michael Clifton's last journal entry--what she had assumed would be the next page of writing was a combination of mold and ink that had soaked through the paper.
I am a man who is on top of the world.
But why?
Maisie looked back and forth through the journal and letters, scanning over excerpts again and again. She ached each time she read of the affection between Michael and his English nurse, and recognized that feeling of joy juxtaposed with a sense of despair waiting in the wings. Had she not felt the same when she was with Simon on leave? It was as if the thrill of the moment, that being together, was intensified, framed by the knowledge that their emotions were distilled in an almost make-believe hiatus from the war. Soon they would be there again, among the dead and dying, and the intimacy so dearly cherished would be like a dream gone before morning.
She rubbed her forehead, closed the journal, and set it down on the table, but as she did so, she noticed a loose page opposite the back cover that had slipped free. She reached forward, opened the book, and saw that it was not a page, but a folded sheet of paper. Using her knife, she teased the sheet apart and set it down to reveal a single curl of black hair. She picked up the hair to examine it, then placed it on top of the journal while she read the note, which had faded into invisibility in several places. It was a poem fragment.
What's the best thing in the world?
June-rose,
Truth, not cruel to a friend;
Pleasure, not in haste to end;
Beauty,
Love, when, so, you're loved again.
--Something out of it, I think.
Though Maisie enjoyed verse, so many other aspects of her studies had demanded attention that she immersed herself in poetry only to the extent necessary to pass an exam or gain a respectable mark on a paper. She knew that to discover any significance in the curl's wrapping, she would have to take the fragment of verse to someone who knew poetry and see if knowledge of its author might help her in some way. She had no idea who might assist her, but there was something about the words that remained with her, that nagged at her to take notice. Pleasure, not in haste to end. She picked up the lock of hair, turning it between thumb and finger. Love, when, so, you're loved again.
Later, after she'd put away the letters and journal, first taking care to replace the poem and single black curl, she turned off the lights and made ready for bed. And try as she might to banish all thoughts of the day so that she could meditate before sleeping, the words echoed in her mind so that, eventually, when she at last went to bed, she drifted to sleep knowing that this was one poem, or fragment thereof, that she would not forget:
Love, when, so, you're loved again.
When Maisie first bought her MG, she had taken the opportunity to drive everywhere. She loved the freedom to go where she wanted, when she wanted, and when she traveled outside London the open road ahead beckoned, along with the promise held in the journey itself. But now, often frustrated by slow-moving London traffic, she drove to work only when her day demanded an excursion outside the metropolitan area, or she had to visit a place not reached by the transport services. For the most part, within the capital the bus, tram, and tube served her well, and in particular, she had always enjoyed traveling by bus. She would step aboard, make her way up the winding stairs to the top deck, and from that vantage point look down upon the world as it went about
its business. The bus passed houses where people were getting ready for their day: a husband kissed his wife on the cheek as he stepped out on his way to work, briefcase in hand and bowler hat in place; a woman opened the door of her ground floor flat clutching a worn kimono around her as she let the cat in from a night on the prowl and collected the milk from the doorstep; and in another house, she saw children being made ready for school by a uniformed nanny. As the bus drew nearer the shops of Oxford Street, already clerks and assistants were walking and running purposefully towards their day's toil. And she could see the moving throng as it formed into tributaries and streams, running ever onward towards the ocean of commerce, a day's work and a day's pay. Each of the people had a life and, if they were fortunate, family who loved them and who they loved in return--perhaps a wife at home, a babe in the nursery, an aging parent who needed help, brothers and sisters. It was as if she had been looking down upon a landscape of human activity, a charting of everyday endeavor. As she considered, not for the first time, the part she played in the grand scheme, a question came to mind, almost as if Maurice had prompted her. Was she forging ahead in a stream of her own making, or was she allowing herself to be carried out by a riptide, ever onward towards...what?
Mornin', Miss!" Billy was already at his desk when Maisie arrived at the office. "You've been a bit busy, haven't you? How was Dr. Blanche? Any improvement?" He stood up, ready to take her rain coat.
"I have been rather busy, Billy--and I am afraid I haven't yet made a dent in my list of female letter writers."
"Want me to crack it open?"
Maisie nodded. "Yes, I do. In the meantime, Dr. Blanche is not at all well, but I am assured by Dr. Dene that--"
"Dr. Dene?"
"Yes, Billy. Dr. Dene is close to Maurice, as you know, and Maurice gave instructions that he should attend him should a deterioration in his health lead to him being admitted into hospital care." She paused. "It was all right, Billy. It was nice to see him--his wife is expecting a child, so they are very happy."
Billy nodded. He was not one to pry, nor would it have been proper to do so, but he knew that once upon a time Maisie and Dene had been close.
"So, what did Dr. Dene say? Will Dr. Blanche be better soon?"
"He thought Maurice would be home by Saturday afternoon. I'll go down to Chelstone in the evening, and hopefully see him on Sunday." Maisie flicked through the post as she was speaking, but looked up as Billy sat down again. "Oh, and I'm still planning to drop in to see Doreen this afternoon--is that all right?"
"She's looking forward to it, Miss." Billy began placing mugs on a tray, ready to make tea. "And I'd like to know what you think, Miss. Whether you reckon she's getting better."
"She's going back for her outpatient appointments, isn't she?"
He nodded. "Never misses, so far. But I...I still worry."
"I'm sure you do, Billy. Remember, you've all been through so much, and recovery is a long road to travel. You can expect some stumbles while she--and you and the boys--feel your feet. Everything's changed now, but you'll see that, at some point, her progress should speed up. She'll gain ground, and you'll realize you can't remember the last bad day."
Billy shrugged. "From your lips to God's ears, as the saying goes."
Maisie smiled. "Think how far you've all come. Now then, let's have a cup of tea and see where we are before I have to go off to see Ben Sutton and his friend with the cine film."
They discussed the Clifton case while sitting in front of the case map.
"So, what you're saying, Miss, is that when Mr. and Mrs. Clifton came down into the hotel foyer, before they went back upstairs to their rooms and were attacked, there were six people there who stood out, and two of them might've been acquainted, but the Cliftons didn't know that?" Billy tapped the map with his pencil.
"Yes. It's rather a leap, but yesterday I saw Thomas Libbert, who was in the foyer on the day of the attack. He got into a taxi-cab with a man who--even though I didn't get the best view of him--appeared to be wearing a cravat and had the look of a military type. If you remember, when I asked Mr. Clifton to try to envision coming down to the foyer, he said he recalled a man with a cravat. And then there was the man and woman who were having an argument--could that man have been Mullen? Or was it someone else? And if it was Mullen, who was the woman? And did Mullen know Libbert?"
"There's a lot of ifs in there, Miss. And I hate to say this, but a lot of blokes wear them cravats when they're not wearing ties, and as for having that military bearing, well, look how many men were in the army in the war. All that 'chin up, chest out' lark gets trained into you."
"What we do is peppered with 'ifs' all the time. If it wasn't for the 'ifs' we would take more steps backward than forward." Maisie sighed. "And this case is beginning to feel a bit like that." She stood up, walked around the table, leaned against the window frame, and looked out at the square. "Then there's this fragment of verse--at least, that's what I think it is. I'll stop at the library to see if someone can tell me whether it's from a well-known poet, or perhaps it was something Michael Clifton's ladylove penned while on night duty in a freezing cold ward."
"That's definitely more up your alley, Miss. Never been one for your verse, unless it's rhyming slang, of course."
Maisie laughed, and shook her head. "Billy, you're a diamond. Now then, I had better be on my way. You'll look into the rest of our list?"
"It's as good as done. I'll stick to the ones in London today."
Maisie arrived early for her appointment with Ben Sutton at his friend's house in Notting Hill, which gave her an opportunity to look around the area. Priscilla had informed her that as far as she knew, Henry Gilbert had inherited the red-brick terrace house, and now rented out the upper two floors to students, which seemed to fit Maisie's brief observation of the comings and goings of several people who might have been described as "bohemian" in certain circles--a man wearing a coat of Edwardian vintage with a bright yellow scarf, and a woman with very short hair and equally short skirt, even though, as far as Maisie knew, the very fashionable women had allowed their skirt lengths to fall once more.
She watched Ben Sutton arrive in a taxi-cab. He ran up the steps and knocked at the door, which was opened some moments later by a young man with an open-necked shirt, his sleeves rolled up. He was wiping his hands with a cloth, and smiled at Sutton as if they had met before.
Maisie suspected that it was time to cross the road and knock at the door.
"There you are, on the dot! Just as I expected you would be." Ben Sutton stepped back so that Maisie could cross the threshold, then leaned down and kissed her on the cheek as if he had known her for more than one evening. "Henry's waiting for us in his studio. He has a sort of complex of rooms downstairs in what used to be cellars--completely purpose-built for his work. Perfect for running cine film. Follow me."
Sutton led her down a staircase, then along a dark corridor and into what was a surprisingly large room. She looked around and, when she became accustomed to the light, could see that there had been reconstruction to provide a spacious studio, and behind her a smaller room with what she took to be a film library and a glass window with a hatch through which the lens of a projector extended. There was another door at the opposite end of the room, which was closed. A dozen quite comfortable-looking chairs were positioned in two semicircular rows; the experience would be somewhat more pleasing than a visit to the cinema--at least one would be able to view the cine film with a few friends, rather than half of London, most of whom always seemed to be sneezing.
"The door leads out into another couple of rooms, one where Henry and his assistants do their editing and such like, though of course, they do a lot of this sort of thing at the studios in Twickenham."
"I see," replied Maisie, though she really did not see at all. "I should confess, my knowledge of film stops at the odd trip to the cinema, and in viewing X-rays."
Sutton laughed at the same time as the door opened and two men ent
ered, one carrying a series of large round canisters. "Ah, Henry, here's Miss Dobbs."
"Delighted to meet you, Miss Dobbs--Maisie, isn't it?"
"Thank you for agreeing to show me your cine film, Henry--and yes, it's Maisie."
"This is my assistant, Roland Marshall." He turned to introduce the young man who had opened the door for Sutton. He nodded his head, his burden too heavy to allow him to extend his hand.
Henry Gilbert was not quite six feet tall and wore his hair short, Maisie suspected, so as not to draw attention to a growing bald patch. His movements were precise and quick, and she had no trouble envisioning him working on the front line, filming soldiers going about the business of war.
"Now then, let's get the show running. I have a lot of film, Miss Dobbs, so I wondered, do you have any specific interests? The veterinary corps, for example."
"Well, yes--do you have anything on cartographers in the war? Or mapmaking? I know it's a bit obscure, but I thought you might have something--especially as, from what I've been given to understand, you may have been in France at the same time as my friend's son. He was a cartographer."
"You may be in luck--I spent quite some time filming cartographers," said Gilbert. "I didn't want to come back with hours of film of basically the same thing, so I chose several different areas of work: the men who operated the big guns, the veterinary corps, and the cartographers. Of course, I have some film with soldiers in the trenches, the wounded being brought back, but for the most part I wanted to draw attention to the fact that there is more to war than Tommies with guns. And the cartographers took extraordinary risks, all for information--as we all know, a war is never won without information."