The Brothers

Then she became a turtle dove,
To fly up in the air,
And he became another dove,
And they flew pair and pair.

Traditional

Gerry. My brother Gerry. Geegee to his school friends. Lieutenant Moon, Royal Navy, whose ship had been sunk in the German Ocean. Gerry and Eugénie, his lovely meerkat-daemon.

Gerry alive. Alive after all. Here in Geneva. Alive and well. Oh Daddy, I thought. Wait until I tell you about this!

- 0 -

They helped me back onto the chair and I put my head in my lap and held Alfie until the buzzing in my ears calmed down. I was ashamed of having fainted, which was silly as I'd had nothing to eat or drink for hours. What a schoolgirly thing to have done, all the same, and I didn't want to behave like a schoolgirl. I wanted Gerry to... see me differently. I don't know - I was so confused. I'd never known how happy I could feel. I never knew that happiness could be so physical. I wasn't in control of myself - not my body, not my mind. Certainly not of Alfie who was running around madly chasing his tail. Gerry sat on the edge of the table and took my hands in his.

'Oh Sunny, it's so wonderful to see you. I thought I'd have to wait until this blasted war was over before I'd be able to find you again. And now...' He wrapped his arms around me, sinking to his knees in front of my chair as he did so. Then he kissed me; and his lips were as warm and firm and dry as they always had been, and his arms were strong and taut, and I tilted my head back and smothered his lips with my own, and I hoped with all my heart the kiss would go on for ever and ever and never, never, ever have to end.

I think I must have swooned again for a few seconds, for the next thing I remember is Gerry's arms under my shoulders lifting me to my feet. 'Come on, old girl. Let's get you out of here. Herr Birkicht!'

The interrogator looked resentful. He had not moved from his seat since I had first entered the room. 'Yes, Lieutenant Moon?'

'I am taking Driver Moon with me to the Consular Quarters.' Gerry looked sternly at the interrogator. 'It is very fortunate for you that you called me. If you had not...' The threat hung in the air.

'Very well, Lieutenant Moon. Will you be requiring any assistance?'

'No thank you, Herr Birkicht.' And with that Gerry changed his position so he was standing on my right. He supported me as we left the interview room and passed into the stone-walled corridor beyond.

I said little as we walked along. I was enjoying the sensation of feeling Gerry's left arm around me and our bodies moving together as we proceeded down the corridor and into a lift at its end. Gerry held me tightly as the lift floor pressed against my feet and we rose by five or six levels. I wondered how near to the top of the Citadel we would go.

The doors slid open and Gerry helped me down another corridor, softly carpeted in a pattern of red and grey. At the end was a mahogany door and on it there was a sign which read Brytish Consulate above an enamel Cross of St George.

'Is that it?' I asked Gerry. 'Is that the Brytish Consulate? It's not very grand, is it?'

'No, it's not the main bureau,' he replied. 'This is just one of the apartments which comprise the Consul's Residence.'

'Oh, I see. Is it where you've been living?'

'Some of the time, when I've not been out on missions.'

'Missions? That does sound exciting!'

'Perhaps. I'll tell you about them later. Now, can you and Alfie stand up by yourselves while I get this door open?'

'Of course we can!'

Gerry pulled a key from his pocket and unlocked the door. He opened it and bowed to me, in the funny old way he used to bow to Aunt Sybil when her back was turned. 'After you, Mam'zelle.'

'Thank you, Monsieur.' We passed through the door. There was a small lobby inside and another door at the far end of it.

'Go on through,' said Gerry. I did as he said, and Alfie and I found ourselves in a sitting-room, furnished with two large, comfortable-looking leather sofas, a coffee-table and a sideboard. In one wall an anbaric fire glowed redly. I sat down on one of the sofas and Gerry sat facing me on the other.

'Oh Gerry,' I said, sitting back and sighing. 'It really is you, isn't it?'

'Yes, sweetheart, it's really me. Now sit tight while I go and make us a cup of tea.' He got up and left the sitting-room by another door. I heard running water and a rattling of pots.

By the time Gerry returned from the kitchen I was fast asleep.

- 0 -

I returned to wakefulness one step at a time. Usually I wake up all at once but this time I registered things in a sequence, as if I were listening to somebody telling me a story. One moment I was asleep, the next my eyelids were fluttering open. I was lying on a Chesterfield sofa, wearing day clothes rather than pyjamas or a night-dress and there was a blanket - no, an eiderdown - covering me. A pillow was cushioning my head, coming between it and the arm of the sofa. The lights were a dim shade of orange-yellow.

There was something I had to remember. Yes, that was it. I must only admit my name, rank and service number. No, wait. Something else had happened. Something wonderful. It was...

'Are you ready for a cup of chai now?'

It was the something wonderful, wearing his naval uniform and standing over me with a tray in his hands. I sat up slowly and stiffly and took the cup he offered. It was hot and delicious and I sipped it slowly.

'How long was I asleep?'

'Two hours,' Gerry said. 'It's getting late. Look!' he pulled back the curtains. Outside the window the sky - the dome, that is - was the bluey-violet colour that signified night-time in Geneva. I got up slowly and looked out with my hands on the window-sill. Gerry stood close beside me, ready to hold me if I should fall.

The apartment was near the top of the Citadel and it faced towards the south, across the Old Town and the New, over the concrete lake to the villas on the far side and the rising wall beyond them. In the days before the city was covered over the view must have been magnificent. It was still quite impressive. As I looked out and held Alfie up to see, a violet flash flickered across the artificial sky. A crackling boom followed a second later.

'Was that inside?' I asked. 'Have they broken through? Our army, I mean. Have they reached us?'

'No,' Gerry answered, 'but they're not far off. The roof was cracked last night by a corebuster. What you just saw was the light from an explosion outside. There's going to be a lot of repair work needed once this show is over.'

'Is it safe,' I asked.

'Oh yes. There are steel reinforcements threaded all through its structure. It's not about to fall down, if that's what you're worried about.'

'Are they going to repair it?'

'Certainly.' Gerry turned to me. 'This is the centre of the world. This is the place when the Holy Spirit speaks directly to us. It must be kept safe.'

'Yes,' I said. 'Of course it must.'

'Now look,' said Gerry after a pause. 'We'll be having something to eat in a mo, but you look all in. Why don't you go there,' he pointed to a door opposite the entrance to the kitchen, 'and have a wash and brush-up. You'll find some things to put on in the wardrobe.'

I looked down at myself. The floral dress had seen better days, even though I hadn't had it very long. 'Right-ho,' I said, scooping up Alfie.

There was a bedroom on the far side of the door - a large room with a wide double bed, a pair of oak wardrobes and another door which led to a compact bathroom. A bath! I hadn't had a proper bath since... I couldn't remember. I turned the hot tap on as far as I could and emptied a bottle of rose-scented bath-salts into the steaming water. Once the bath was full, I tore off my old clothes - and now the room was saturated with fragrant steam it was obvious that both they and I smelled pretty unpleasant - and lowered myself carefully into the tub.

'Ahhh.....' This was heaven. Alfie wrapped himself around the hot tap and watched me soak. I very nearly fell asleep again but eventually I dragged myself out of the bathtub and over to the basin where I washed my hair. It was just reaching the length where it was beginning to curl again. At last I'd be able to do something with it.

Back in the bedroom and with the huge dressing-gown I had found hanging on the back of the bathroom door flapping around my ankles I looked in the left-hand wardrobe. It was full of men's suits and I supposed they were Gerry's. The other wardrobe was another matter altogether. Frock after frock, half-concealed by the tissue-paper they were wrapped in. Drawers full of lacy silk underwear. A row of shoes in patent, satin and soft glove leather. Everything was so pretty, so nice.

Poor Gerry! He must have got terribly fed-up waiting in the sitting-room while I lifted every dress in turn from the rail, unwrapped it and held it up against myself while I looked in the full-length cheval glass which stood in one corner. It was nearly impossible to choose one. Everything was in my size, and as I thought of that I suffered a twinge of jealousy. If this was Gerry's flat and those were his suits in the wardrobe, then who did these clothes belong to? Did he have a girlfriend or a lover; even a wife? Well! If he did, I was determined not to take second place to her. I squeezed myself into a black silk bodice with matching drawers, garter-belt and stockings and took out the shortest, clingiest, most décolleté dress I could find. It was made of wine-red velvet, sleeveless, with a nice bit of detailing at the bust and the hem and a cinched waist. I found a pearl necklace and earrings in a little mahogany box and took a pair of matching shoes from the rail. There was a bottle of Numéro Quinze on the dressing table and I applied the lightest of dabs to my wrists and neck. Finally, I put a little setting lotion on my hair and back-combed it until its waves were firmly held in place.

I looked at myself in the glass. I'm not ashamed to say that I was pleased with what I saw. My lips were rather pale, though, and there were shadows under my eyes so I put on some powder and lipstick. Now - how was that? There was only one way to find out. I opened the bedroom door and, with my heart thumping, stepped out into the sitting-room.

The results were highly gratifying. I heard a sharp intake of breath and Gerry said, 'Sunny! You're... you're amazing!'

'Not Baby Sis any more, then?'

'No, you're most certainly not. Not by a long chalk. Lady Gresham?' Gerry bowed, and a great surge of pleasure flooded through me. 'Would you like to accompany me?' And he took my arm and led me to the dining table which had been set up by the window while I dressed.

- 0 -

Although the apartment had its own kitchen, Gerry had supper sent up to us. It must have come from a very good restaurant because everything was delicious - onion soup with croutons, fillet of sole with lemon sauce, chicken stuffed with tarragon and parsley, blackcurrant and mint sorbet, and wine from Hochheim and real kaffee with real cream in it. I hadn't had anything so nice to eat and drink for ages. I wondered where the ingredients had come from in this city where so much of the food was ersatz.

We sat facing one another while a silent, white-jacketed attendant served us. There were so many questions I wanted to ask my brother, but he moment I opened my mouth to speak he held up his hand. 'Eat first, talk afterwards,' he said.

So we ate, and afterwards we talked. We sat side by side on the sofa and I put my arm around him and held him close. 'If only we could see the moon and the stars,' I said.

'"The Moon is the World's Daemon",' Gerry said, quoting from The Lay of Imlachoïs.

'"And the Stars His Flower'd Meadow",' I responded, completing the line. I leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. 'Come on now. You've kept me waiting long enough. Tell me everything that happened.'

'Everything?'

'Absolutely everything. Start with the last time you left Pompey.'

Gerry turned to face me. His eyes were blurred, as if they had lost their focus. 'Sunny, this is very difficult for me. After Thaxted was torpedoed and sunk I spent a long time in the water. I was tied to a lifebelt, otherwise I'd have died... drowned. I was knocked out, you see. A serious blow to the head. Somebody saved my life, and I don't know who it was. I'd like to thank him one day, but I don't know if he lived or died. So I don't remember very much of what happened, and what is worse...'

'Yes?'

'There are great gaps in my memory, from the times when I was growing up. Mummy, and Daddy, and the farm, and the house, and Aunt Sybil - some memories are very sharp and clear and others... aren't.'

'Oh, you poor thing,' I said. 'I'll try to help you.' And I hugged him even tighter. Gerry carried on with his story.

He had been washed ashore onto the Doytch coast, he said. From there, confused and suffering badly from the effects of his long immersion, he had found his way to a farmhouse, where he had collapsed on the doorstep. The farmer's wife had taken him in and put him in her son's bed and looked after him until he was able to get up and walk around again. Of course, he'd been very keen to find his way back to Brytain and report back to the Admiralty. There would have been an inquiry into the loss of his ship, but he was sure he'd have been exonerated and allowed to carry on serving his country. He'd probably been given a new ship to command.

But something happened. The local priest heard about Gerry from the farmer, during Confession. He had sent a message to his bishop, who had contacted his superior Cardinal. The result was that, a day or two before he was ready to try to make his way home Gerry had received a deputation from the Church. They had an offer to make to him. How would he like to work directly for the Magisterium?

At first, Gerry had rejected the offer out of hand. He'd wanted nothing more than to return home as soon as he could. But there was something in what they were saying. He could be a special agent, doing the work of the Holy Spirit in a different way. Sometimes, the Cardinal said, the Call is disguised. Sometimes God's will showed itself through apparent misfortune.

All this time, while Gerry was telling his story, Alfie and Eugénie sat on our laps. But as time passed, and Gerry got me a bowl of brandwijn and I sipped at it and felt its calming, relaxing warmth soothing me, they moved slowly closer to one other until, with a strange, familiar shock, they came into contact. I looked, startled, into Gerry's eyes, but he smiled reassuringly and it was all right. It was like it had been before, when we were children. I sat back again and closed my eyes for a moment. I could feel Eugénie's fur rubbing against Alfie's, giving me a lovely, exciting, floating sensation in the small of my back.

The lights in the sitting-room were orange-dim. The air was warm and the sofa was soft and comfortable. Again I found that I was feeling sleepy, but this was a different kind of sleepiness. I found myself slipping in and out of consciousness as Gerry told me how he'd decided to give the Magisterium a try and gone to Geneva with the Cardinal to see the Blessed Pierre Leroque himself. He had been completely won over.

'Since then,' Gerry said, 'it's been one thing after another. I've been to Carolesburg, and Moskva and Mumbay. New Lincoln and Juliesville - even to the Antipodes. Perth in December - good heavens! Hot and sticky wasn't in it.'

But I was paying him very little attention now. I'd meant to ask him why he hadn't got in touch with Daddy and me. Why hadn't he sent a letter or a 'gram to let us know he was alive and well? Perhaps he had - perhaps he'd told Daddy but it had been a great big secret and he wasn't allowed to tell me. How unfair that would have been!

I had been sitting upright on the sofa to begin with but as time had passed I had slipped down on its polished leather and the hem of my dress had ridden up so that I was in danger of committing an immodesty, as Aunt Sybil would have put it. I tugged it back down again and tried to sit up.

'What were you doing in Perth?' I murmured. I was feeling very dozy, but relaxed and euphoric too. The brandwijn's fumes were dizzying me, but with a nice kind of dizziness. Alfie and Eugénie were intertwined now and the lovely feeling had spread all along my spine. I sighed and wriggled, feeling the velvet material of the dress brushing against the silk of my underclothes. I slid down again on the sofa's leather covering, and this time it hardly seemed to matter that the tops of my stockings were showing or that the red dress was slipping from my shoulders. I tucked my legs underneath myself. I was becoming increasingly aware of the sound of my heartbeat, thumping in my throat. I kissed Gerry again, on the cheek, and he responded by turning his face to mine and kissing me once more on the lips.

That kiss... I felt Gerry - the strength of him, the warmth of him, passing to me though his touch. I moaned, and threw my head back and put my arms around him and pulled him to me as hard as I possibly could. I could hardly breathe, but I didn't want that kiss to end.

We parted - we had to, to catch our breath - and I put my head on his shoulder, gasping and feeling the short hairs at the back of his neck standing up against my face. I kissed him again, many light kisses, tasting his skin, breathing the scent of him, and I heard his breathing become as shallow and quick as mine. I put my hand through the buttons of his shirt and let it rest against his chest, my bare skin next to his bare skin.

'Gerry?' I said, 'Could we?' I was trembling violently. I wanted him next to me, unclothed. I wanted to get out of my own clothes. I wanted his arms around me in the bed in the next-door room. I wanted him to make love to me. I pulled at his tie, ruining its perfect knot, and undid the top button of his shirt so I could bend and kiss the hollow of his throat.

'Sunny...' No. He wasn't going to deny me. I wouldn't let him. He was going to be mine. 'Sunny, look...'

'Shush,' I said, and undid another of his shirt buttons. I tasted his salt-sweet skin with my tongue.

'No,' and it was an order from a naval officer, 'Look.' The idea that I might be subject to Gerry's orders thrilled me strangely, so I obeyed him.

I looked, and what I saw made me doubt my eyes for a moment. Alfie had Changed. He stood on the rug that covered the floor between the two sofas, lit on one side by the red light from the fire. I've said before whom he looked like when he Changed, or at least hinted at it. There was Gerry next to me on the sofa, and there he stood, naked, on the rug before us. But not only Gerry. My head swam. Next to Alfie, with her arms linked around his waist, stood a tall, slender girl with long dark hair, hazel eyes and an expression of utter delight on her face.

Eugénie. She too, all along. It wasn't only Alfie and I who had been special. Just as Alfie had taken Gerry's form, so Eugénie had taken mine.

Alfie was deeply aroused, I could tell; not only by looking at him but also by the feelings that were chasing through my loins. I became completely motionless and so did Gerry, waiting to see what would happen next. Eugénie stepped back to the opposite sofa and pulled Alfie towards her. She lay down on it, with one hand resting on its back and the other trailing on the floor and looked up, smiling, at him. 'Come on, Alfie,' she said. 'What are you waiting for? Please, be with me now.'

Alfie knelt in front of the sofa and kissed Eugénie's breasts, and held her head in his hands before joining her. Gerry and I kissed too. Then our daemons performed that act of which I had read many times and imagined often, but never conceived could engulf me so, while Gerry held me tightly lest I come to harm.

- 0 -

Afterwards I hoped we would all sleep - and I mean sleep - together, but Gerry said he had urgent business - Church business - to attend to, even though it was late, so Alfie and I gave him and Eugénie a goodnight kiss at the door. They had both Changed back by then.

Later, lying between the bed's satin sheets in a lovely long soft white cotton night-dress, I dreamily asked Alfie what it had been like for him.

'It was... you know.'

No, I don't know.

'Nor will you ever, you being a girl and all. Now quiet please, Sunny. I'm tired.'

So was I. Too tired to ask him why he was speaking out aloud rather than directly to me. I let him climb into the bed and we went to sleep.

- 0 -

The next morning Alfie and I were still alone. I got up and took another bath and, returning to the bedroom, looked in the wardrobe to choose a day-outfit to wear. But by mistake I looked in the wrong one. I must have still been rather befuddled. 'Silly!' I said and shut the door with a bang. But as I turned away to walk around the end of the bed and look in the other wardrobe there was a clattering sound from inside the one I had just left. I went back to have a look and when I opened the door, something fell out. It was an officer's sword.

So this was Gerry's wardrobe after all, and that was his sword!

'No, it can't be,' said Alfie.

'Why not?'

'Because... Where's its sheath? Why isn't the sword in it? And why's it here and not at the bottom of the sea? He wouldn't have been wearing it on duty. It would have been in his cabin.' Alfie jumped down from my shoulder and looked closely at the weapon.

'No, it's just as I thought. It's not Gerry's sword. It's yours.'

Mine? I stooped and picked it up. Beggar me, but Alfie was right. Here was its regimental insignium and there were the melted bits the sky-bolt had made.

'I don't understand.'

'Neither do I.'

Holding the sword in my hand I opened the bedroom door and passed through into the sitting-room. The window was open and the full light of Geneva's false day was streaming in. Resting on the table where Gerry and I had dined the night before was Peter's knapsack, and on it a piece of paper, which read: Here are your bits and pieces. Back later. Breakfast in the kitchen. Gerry xxx.

'My things?'

'You had them with you when you were caught by the security forces. That's why Gerry thinks they're yours. Besides, those are your clothes rolled up inside it.'

'I suppose so.'

I opened the knapsack and emptied its contents onto the table. Everything seemed to be there - the books, the funny photogram, the alethiometer, the broken Sony and my Brigade uniform. I had an idea.

Alfie, I think I'll wear the uniform today. It's a bit on the muddy side, but...

But it's the right thing to do. Good, you're making sense again.

Oh, and we're talking normally again, are we?

We are.

Because...

Because you're behaving normally again. I stopped and thought for a moment.

Alfie... you're not ashamed of what happened last night, are you?

Bloody beggaring hell! What do you think?

But it was what we both wanted to do, wasn't it?

Was it? Are you sure? Tell me something, Sunny. Gerry told you everything that had happened to him after his ship went down, didn't he?

Yes...

But why didn't he ask what you had been doing? Wasn't that was a little odd, don't you think? Why didn't he want to know what his sister had been up to for the past two years? Why didn't he want to find out how you got here?

And why did he try to hide your sword?

- 0 -

I brushed down and sponged my uniform as best I could. It wouldn't have passed Sunday Inspection, but at least it wasn't so offensive to the eyes and nose any more. There was a supply of bread and eggs and bacon in the larder and kaffee in a jar on the counter-top, so I made myself a fry-up and took it and the kaffee back into the sitting room to eat. According to my watch it was ten o'clock in the morning.

I changed out of the night-dress and into the uniform, being sure to fasten the sword securely to my belt.

Gerry appeared around midday. He looked surprised to see me wearing the uniform and he said so.

'No, it's not funny really,' I said, giving him a sisterly peck. 'I'm still in the Ambulance Brigade, so it's right that I should wear its uniform.'

'But not a sword, surely? Ambulance drivers don't fight, do they?'

'Only when they have to. Now look, Gerry, There's somebody I've got to see.'

'What - when you've got me?' Gerry grinned and put his arms around my waist. The sword bumped against my left leg.

I gave him another kiss. 'You bet, brother mine. It's Peter, the man I was with. He's not well. I've got to see if he's all right.

' He is all right, isn't he? They weren't too rough with him?' I released myself from Gerry's embrace.

'The cripple? Yes, they took him to the Cantonal Hospital.'

'Hospital?' I felt something clutch at my heart. 'They've taken him to hospital? Peter's hurt? Oh Gerry, we've got to go there now! Straight away!' I picked up the knapsack and slung it over my shoulder.

'Now. Right now. I mean it.' Cripple. I hated Gerry for calling Peter that.

- 0 -

The Cantonal Hospital was built in the form of a letter U with a real grass lawn - the only one I saw in all that city of concrete and stone - enclosed within its arms. Gerry and I took a lift down to the street level entrance of the Citadel and walked - very briskly - the half-mile to the hospital buildings. A nurse-receptionist took Gerry's details, made a telephone call, and directed us to the third floor where, she said, we would find Mister Joyce in Room 343. He was in a private room, then. This either meant he was being well looked after, or that he was very sick and perhaps likely to die.

I couldn't bear to wait for the lift to come, but dragged Gerry after me to the third floor and into the corridor. I wasn't all that familiar with the layout of hospitals - they hadn't let me go in when Mummy was dying - but I was sure I'd be able to find a numbered room.

301, 303, 305, 307... I was obviously going in the right direction. Yes! Here was Room 343, all the way at the end.

This doesn't look very good, said Alfie. My heart sank. No, it didn't. I opened the door of the room.

Peter was lying with his eyes closed in a tightly made-up iron-framed hospital bed, with white pillows piled up behind his head and his arms stretched straight out in front of him on top of the blankets. A flexible tube led from a bottle suspended from the head of the bed to a needle taped to his left wrist. Poppy. They were drip-feeding him intravenous poppy. That was what they had done to the worst cases in the Field Hospital - the ones who weren't going to be shipped back to Blighty. The ones who were going to be allowed to die in peace.

Gerry stood behind me in the corridor, invisible from inside the room. I rushed in and, being careful not to disturb the poppy-tube, bent over Peter and kissed him. His Viola stirred.

'Peter, Peter, it's me. Sunny. It's all right, I'm here now.'

'Sunny?' Peter's eyes opened slowly. 'Sunny here?'

''Yes! Look! It's me! We're safe.'

Peter's voice was slow, slurred. He must have been receiving an enormous dose of poppy. His face had been so cold...

'Safe?'

'Yes, safe.' I choked for a moment. 'Soon our boys will be here, and the city will be liberated and we'll be able to go home.'

Peter looked up. 'Home? Have you got it?'

'Got it?' I didn't understand.

'The Word,' Peter whispered. 'Have you got the Word?'

'Oh, never mind that for now,' I said.

Sunny! said Alfie. I ignored him.

'And Peter! Look! The most amazing, wonderful thing has happened. Oh, you won't believe it! You'll never guess who's turned up!'

I turned to the door. 'Come in, Gerry.' My brother entered the room.

'Gerry, meet Mister Peter Joyce, a Master of the Guild of Temporalists. Peter, this is my brother Gerry. Lieutenant Gerald Gresham Moon, of His Brytannic Majesty's Royal Navy.'

I'd imagined this moment many times. It was going to be... so lovely. So happy. It was going to be the happy ending, the last page of the story where the Prince and the Princess have, after all their troubles and adventures, finally got married and drive off in a pumpkin coach to live Happily Ever After. But no. Not this time. Not for me, and not for Peter.

His face, which had been relaxed and calm under the influence of the poppy, became twisted with hate. Hate, and despair. 'Oh no,' he said. 'Oh, in the Name of Christ, no.'

'Peter, what's wrong? What have I done?'

He smiled ruefully. 'You haven't done anything, sweetheart. Nothing at all. Nothing wrong. But as for him...' He turned in the bed and faced my brother.

'I know you. I know who you are. You are Martin James, and I claim my five pounds.'