Too Many Heroes Page 8

  Chapter Ten

  When Grace gets back from her shopping trip, she hears the cricket commentary droning from the wireless upstairs. Dennis’s hat is hanging up in the passageway. Upstairs she finds her husband slumped back in his armchair with his mouth half open, the smell of whisky on him. It’s comical how, with each whistling exhale, the hairs of his moustache lift just a fraction. He used not to snore like this.

  For want of something else to do, she goes back down to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. Looking through yesterday’s Evening News she finds nothing of interest. In this heat it’s hard to concentrate on anything for long. She flicks through the pages of the Picturegoer but finds she’s already read most of the articles.

  In the quiet that follows the kettle’s whistle, she hears noises coming from the bar. It seems a tad early for Frank to be back. Perhaps he’s trying to impress her with his punctuality. Or maybe someone’s broken in. Should she go and wake Dennis, just in case?

  Instead, Grace decides to investigate herself. She slips off her shoes before easing open the door to the passageway. Maybe she should be taking this more seriously – what if she’s about to disturb a burglar in the act of stealing their stock? Turning the corner, she bumps straight into Frank.

  Both of them take a step back. ‘I’m really sorry – didn’t mean to scare you like that,’ he says.

  ‘I was surprised, that’s all.’ There’s the oddest smell about him; it’s not pleasant, that’s for sure.

  Grace retreats a couple more steps to stare down at the man’s soaked through trousers. There’s even a strand of what looks like pondweed dangling from one of his pockets. She can’t contain herself and bursts out laughing at the sorry state of the man. ‘Well now, if it isn’t Old Father Thames himself.’

  She straightens her face with some difficulty. ‘I see you’ve bin wetting your whistle this afternoon.’

  ‘You’ll forgive me if I don’t find it a laughing matter.’

  ‘You know, Frank, dressed like that, the world could be your oyster.’

  ‘I’m glad to be the cause of so much amusement to you, Mrs Stevenson.’

  ‘Come on now, joking apart, how on earth have you got yourself in such a sorry state?’

  He looks down at his trousers. ‘I was down at the lake – you know, the one in the park. Thought I’d cool off by dangling me feet in the water. As I went to get up again, I slipped on the wet concrete round the edge and fell in.’

  ‘So I see.’ She holds her nose. ‘Well, in all honesty, you smell worse than three-day-old fish.’

  ‘I would have gone home to change first but there wasn’t enough time.’ He holds his hands up. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘You’ll stink the whole bloomin’ pub out if you stay like that. There’s nothin’ for it – you need to have a bath before you’re fit to serve anyone.’

  When he looks reluctant, she waves him along the passageway. ‘Come on – you can use ours. It’s just out the back here.’ She ushers him on through the kitchen into the bathroom beyond. It’s so strange to see the barman standing there in their private space, to have him so close to her dressing gown hanging off the back of the door, the row of nylons spaced out along the towel rail.

  ‘Soap’s there on the side.’ Rather than fetch a clean one from upstairs, she hands him the small towel they keep by the basin. ‘You can use this to dry yourself. The Burco’s not been on so it’ll have to be a cold one, I’m afraid. Still, you did say you wanted to cool off.’

  He finally appears to see the funny side of the situation and gives her a wry smile. Her eyes dart to his trousers, how they’re clinging to the shape of him. ‘Those will need a good soaking too before they can go out on the line. At least they’ll dry soon enough in this heat. Fortunately for you, Frank Danby, my Dennis has some old ones you can borrow in the meantime.’

  ‘This is really good of you, Grace.’ He’s already unbuckling his belt when she closes the door.

  The mantle clock shows it’s just gone twenty past – only ten minutes until they need to open. Up in their sitting room, her husband’s still sound asleep and missing the commentary of Middlesex in action. There’s no point in waking him, she already knows his castoff clothes are in the bottom drawer of the wardrobe.

  She rifles through what’s there. Dennis can’t get into any of it these days, but he insists on keeping everything for some mythical time in the future when he plans to lose the weight. Frank’s the taller man so any of these trousers are likely to come up a bit short on him.

  Back downstairs she knocks at the bathroom door. ‘Are you decent?’

  There’s a splashing of water from inside. ‘I am now.’

  ‘These should do the job. I brought you a clean shirt as well. You’ll have to manage without underpants.’ She opens the door just a fraction, not looking at anything below ceiling level as she offers the clothing in her extended hand.

  ‘Thanks a million for this,’ he says, taking the bundle. ‘You’ve really saved my bacon.’

  Her resolve weakens for a moment and she glances down. The towel around Frank’s waist is covering the essentials but little else besides and what a body the man has on him! She’s aware of the colour that’s already sprung to her cheeks. ‘I’d better go and open up,’ she tells him.

  Grace unbolts each of the three outside doors in turn and the city-warmed air pours in. For once there’s not a soul waiting outside. She opens a couple of windows and props each door wide to create a bit of a through draft hoping there’s one to be had.

  Her mind’s eye keeps going back to the sight of Frank standing there in just that towel and looking every inch the man she’d imagined he might be.

  To clear these thoughts, she sets her mind to checking the bars, making sure all the ashtrays are in place and the clean bar towels are spread along the countertops ready for what’s likely to be a busy night ahead.

  A couple of spirit bottles in the saloon bar have run dry and need changing. Grace takes down the empties and fixes the optics into the neck of each one in turn before hanging them back up. It’s odd that the labels on both bottles – a Bell’s and a Gordon’s – seem to be a bit skewwhiff.

  The inner door creaks and she wonders if Dennis has finally woken up. She knows he’ll want an explanation as to why their barman is sporting his old castoffs.

  Frank is standing there in the room behind her wearing her husband’s clothing in a way he never did. He smells and looks a great deal fresher than when he’d walked in a half hour ago. ‘So – how do I look then?’ he asks, turning around so she gets the full picture.

  ‘A lot better than you did, that’s for sure.’ As she expected, those trousers are too short on him. She can see he’s had to pull them in with his belt at the waist. The shirt’s much too tight across his chest and one or two of the buttons have already popped open. Perhaps it’s her familiarity with a garment she’s washed so many times that makes her reach to button them up for him.

  At least that had been her intention. She hadn’t planned for her fingers to go stealing through that opening to explore the contours of his chest. Nor had she intended to press herself up against him, her free hand stretching up to encircle his neck and pull his lips down towards her open mouth.

  When Frank grabs her wrist the shock of it jars her back to her senses. ‘Don’t,’ he says. ‘We mustn’t.’

  Overcome by a sensation that’s close to, but not quite, shame, she withdraws her hand from his shirt.

  What on earth had she been thinking to behave in such a reckless way? How could she have contemplated kissing another man – a man she scarcely knows – and right here in the middle of the saloon bar with the door propped half open so anyone could walk in?

  They still could for that matter – her hips remain pressed against his and, regardless of his words, she can feel the extent of his physical arousal through the thin materials separating them.

  In truth, doesn’t she still want to take the risk of it, allow the poss
ibility of this one act that would blow apart everything in her life so that it could never be the same again?

  Frank bends to her ear: ‘At least not in here, Grace.’ His lips stray into her hair, stirring desire to an urgency that shocks her. ‘Not like this.’ He drops her wrist and turns away.

  ‘Is anybody serving in here?’ a man’s voice calls out from the public bar.

  Could they have been seen in the mirror? ‘Be with you in just a sec,’ Frank shouts sounding far cooler than he ought to.

  Unable to master her own feelings, Grace strides out, doesn’t stop until she’s walked right through the building and can lock the door of the bathroom behind her.

  With trembling hands, she opens the window and gazes out to where Frank’s hung his rinsed-out clothes on their washing line. He must have swilled them out in the bathwater but really, they need a good scrubbing with some Oxydol.

  She stoops to pick up the damp towel from where he’s draped it over the side of the bath and buries her face in it – in the faint smell of him that still clings there.

  Sitting down on the sharp edge of the bath, she tries to think through what’s just happened; the enormity of the risk she’d taken in a moment of madness. Is she even glad Frank had stopped things before they could go any further?

  When she finally glances down to the drained bathtub, she sees a quantity of yellow sand lying along the bottom. Strange. She’s familiar with the boating lake in the park; she’d walked past it many times while they were in the process of repairing some of the wartime damage. It seems unlikely, improbable even, that all this sand could have come from an artificial lake.

  If she had to put odds on it, she’d say Frank had lied to her about what happened to him. Where could he have gone off to in the short time they were closed? Had he been on a building site somewhere? Why didn’t he tell her the truth?

  Grace turns on the cold tap, taking care to swill every last grain of telltale sand down the plughole.

  One thing’s for certain – she can’t stay in here all evening. She turns to the mirror, adjusts her hair until it looks under control. Her compact is on the shelf below and so she dabs her cheeks with powder. A little lipstick and you’d think there was nothing amiss.

  Now she’d better go and wake Dennis, and explain why Frank is wearing his old clothes before he walks into the bar and sees for himself.

  ‘Not like this,’ Frank had said; she’s sure those were his exact words.

  And now, God help her, she’s imagining the two of them in a bedroom that isn’t hers or his. This one is big and sumptuously decorated. The bed has real silk sheets. There’s a tray with a cooling bottle and glasses full of half-drunk champagne filling her with Dutch courage. She’s slipping off the straps of her petticoat, first one and then the other, while Frank watches her every move.

  Is he standing in the shadows next to her? No, better than that he’s already naked, lying back in that wide bed with those smooth-as-anything sheets draped across the lower half of his body.

  Through the ceiling Grace hears an orchestra strike up on the wireless followed by the sound of someone walking about. She’d better go up and explain to Dennis what’s happened; the last thing she wants is to arouse his suspicions.

  Chapter Eleven

  He chews at the inside of his cheek, doesn’t stop until he can taste the blood in his mouth.

  ‘Pint of mild, if you please, Frank.’

  It had been a shock when he felt Grace’s cool hand exploring his chest. Tempted as he was – and what man wouldn’t be by such a beautiful woman – it had taken him every ounce of self-control to stop things going any further.

  ‘I said, I’ll have the usual please; if you don’t mind, Frankie.’

  ‘Sorry, Charlie – I was miles away. A pint, is it?’ He should have shown more restraint, told her it was never going to happen; that he isn’t the kind of man who fools around with another man’s wife.

  Charlie Metcalfe peers at him over his specs. ‘You seem a mite preoccupied this evening, son.’ The old man always smells of the Brilliantine he uses to slick back his iron-grey hair, and is never seen without a tie. ‘Got yourself a new shirt too, I see.’ He takes a sip of beer. ‘A tad tight across the chest – if you don’t mind me saying. If you were a woman, they’d describe an outfit like that as leaving little to the imagination.’ Charlie chuckles to himself. ‘I dare say old Ma Perkins’ eyes will be out on stilts if she comes in ’ere tonight.’

  More chuckling brings on a coughing spasm. Once he can catch his breath, the old man clamps his unlit pipe between his teeth and goes over to join the cribbage players in the far corner.

  A quarter-to-seven on a Saturday night and there’s still no more than a dozen customers in the place. The cribbage players are concentrating on their game, supping very little between them.

  The same can’t be said for the two college types who are having a stab at playing darts, their arrows flying in every direction but the board. If they’re still at it when it gets busier, he’ll have to have a word or someone might get hurt.

  Frank polishes up a few glasses that are looking a bit cloudy. Is he imagining it now or had someone at the beach been brandishing a camera? He keeps trying to picture the scene again but it all happened so fast that he can’t be certain what he saw and what he didn’t.

  ‘A couple more glasses of your finest ale, please barman.’ One of the dart players – the lanky, fair-haired one – is standing right in front of him, though he hadn’t seen the chap approach. The bitter’s running a little frothy tonight; Frank’s careful to tilt the glass a fraction more than usual as he draws it.

  ‘My friend and I feel certain that a touch more alcohol will help to steady our aims.’

  ‘That’s an interesting theory, which has one benefit at least,’ Frank sets his full glass down on the towel mat in front of him, ‘it certainly can’t make it any worse.’

  Laughing, the lad takes a sip from his bitter and then flexes his arm. ‘You know, I do believe I can feel the old brachialis loosening up already.’ Once he’s counted out a dozen or more coins into the damp patch on the counter, he picks up his friend’s glass. ‘Now, my dear chap, watch and prepare to be amazed.’

  Frank is prising the last coin from the counter when a kerfuffle breaks out at the end of the room. ‘That bloody dart just missed me hand by a gnat’s whisker.’ Bert Matthews is demonstrating the distance with two nearly closed fingers. ‘Playing reckless like that, you’ll take someone’s eye out next.’ Egged on by his fellow card players, he’s refusing to hand the offending dart back. Chairs are scraped as half a dozen elderly men get to their feet, fists tightening in defense of their territory.

  ‘Calm down, everyone.’ Frank strolls into the midst of it with his hands raised. ‘Come on, settle down now, gents.’ He turns to the two youngsters. ‘With respect, lads, I think we may have established darts may not be your game – your forte.’ He waves down their protests. ‘Whereas quoits – now that’s a game that requires superior skill. You need a good eye and subtle judgment to master it.’ He offers them a set of rubber rings. ‘Maybe you’d like to try your hand?’

  ‘A sound suggestion, old chap.’ Swaying a little, the lanky one snatches up the quoits. ‘You can all witness me thrashing my good friend here.’

  ‘As if we didn’t have better things to do,’ Bert mutters.

  Finding themselves equally poor at quoits, the two students eventually sup up. ‘Au revoir, good sirs,’ the lanky one says, almost overbalancing as he gives a low bow. ‘Á bientôt.’

  ‘Off you go – toot sweet.’ Bert watches them saunter out. They steady themselves on the doorframe as they go. ‘Let’s hope that’s the last we see of them ruddy dingbats,’ he says.

  ‘Evening, Frank; I’ve come to give you a hand.’ Dennis is carrying a plate with two hefty sandwiches on it. ‘My wife’s been telling me about your little incident.’ A smirk is playing on his lips.

  ‘Yes, Mrs Stevenson was
very kind – very helpful. I hope you don’t mind me borrowing your clothes like this.’

  The landlord looks him up and down. ‘Not the best of fits, I’ll grant you, but at least you’re halfway to being decent.’

  ‘My stuff ought to be dry before too long.’

  ‘There’s no need to fret about that.’ The landlord grips his arm. ‘Whole thing’s given Grace a good laugh this afternoon, that’s for sure. Brought a bit of colour to her cheeks for a change.’

  He releases Frank’s upper arm. ‘Oh, and these are for you.’ He hands him the food. ‘Grace reckoned you must have missed your tea and you’ll be no good to us half starved. Only dripping, though, I’m sure they’ll be tasty enough.’

  ‘That’s very decent of you, Dennis – of you both that is. As it happens, I haven’t eaten since breakfast.’

  ‘Then I’d say you need to look after yourself a bit better, young man.’ Dennis pats him on the back. ‘Mind, don’t you go eating these in front of the customers or they’ll all be demanding food. Best you take them out the back now before we get really busy. Off you go.’

  A smarmy looking chap in the saloon bar is waving a pound note to get attention. Dennis makes a beeline for him. ‘Good evenin’ to you, Cyril; Johnny; Arnold. I heard you wanted a word. But first off – what’s your poison tonight, gents?’

  Frank wolfs down his supper surrounded by crates. Mixed in with the dripping there’s a fair bit of lamb. Was this down to Grace’s kindness or her husband’s? Though he’s enjoying his meal, the afternoon’s events play on his mind. Despite the way the wet material dragged at his limbs, he’d set a brisk pace once he’d left the beach; keeping away from the main road by weaving in and out of various side streets. He’s fairly certain the few people he passed had been too caught up in their own business to notice him.

  Dennis is still chatting to the men in the saloon when he slips back in behind the bar. Straight away, Frank has to deal with a disgruntled and demanding queue in the public bar.