L'Aimant – Chapter 57
Summary:
A group outing to the flickers proves to be a revelation—in more than one sense.
Set after "Broken Souls". November 1944 onwards.
Chapter 57: Georgie feels she's being 'managed'. Foyle's family expands.
Disclaimer:
The creative rights to the characters and plotlines in "Foyle's War" belong to Anthony Horowitz. This story is a not-for-profit homage to the television series, to the talented actors who bring its characters to life, and to a fascinating era.
Author's Notes:
We are now straying into the province of All Clear, the final episode of Series 6. My timings of events might differ slightly from those in canon. Because (my skewniverse) they can ;o) As you may recall, I'm on a mission to "fix" that awful hand the episode dealt Kiefer.
…
dancesabove and I spent a fair amount of time drooling over puppy pics for this chapter. Thanks for your careful beta, dances!
Previously, in "L'Aimant"
He drew her head into his lap and gently mopped the beads of sweat away.
"She pushed her child into some soldier's hands, wrapped in a filthy blanket," intoned Georgie dully, "begged him to feed it."
"Hush... there..." he soothed.
"And when the soldier looked inside, the baby had been dead for days..."
"You don't mean to tell me that they showed you that?" Foyle's tone betrayed his irritation at such journalistic commitment to the truth.
"Not pictures, no," she answered wearily. "It was a story the reporter told us. But I saw it in my mind's eye, just as sure as if they'd shown it in the picture... Christopher?"
"What is it, Love?"
"Some losses are so small, compared with others."
Above her, Foyle's face crumpled.
When Sergeant Brooke arrived in the constabulary's second car, he found two figures huddled in the shelter: the boss was sitting with young Mrs Foyle's head cradled in his lap, and Brooke was hard pressed to decide which one of 'em look peakier. He helped the DCS to load the girl into the back seat of the car, still wrapped up in the boss's overcoat.
Then he nipped back round the shelter to make sure they hadn't left any belongings. As he shone a torch into the gloom, his light fell on a patch of red, soaked through the hessian of the sandbags where the young woman had been sitting. He bit his lip and gazed back at the bulb-lit insides of the police car, where the figure of the girl, wrapped in Foyle's coat, was leaning up against her father-in-law. Rubbing stinging eyes, Brooke made a quiet bet that the DCS's overcoat would not be making an appearance at the station for a fair old while.
Chapter 57
Monday, 23rd April 1945
"Brooke, a quick word?"
Barely breaking stride on entering the station foyer, Foyle gestured for his desk sergeant to follow him.
"Right you are, Sir!"
Brooke looked up from the front desk, just as a small, uniformed figure walked in behind the boss. He was relieved to see that Mrs Foyle-the-younger seemed in altogether finer fettle than the last time he'd clapped eyes on her.
The sergeant greeted Georgie with a friendly wink.
"Good to have you back, Love."
Georgie mouthed a shy 'Thank you', as Foyle hovered briefly at the double doors, and pivoted.
"Um, Georgie? Cuppa, soon as you can manage it. And, er, make one for yourself. No special hurry to bring mine."
The DCS exited the foyer, still noticeably coatless after the best part of a week, and drawing Brookie in his wake.
"Eddie, are you up for tea?" called Georgie. "You look as if you need a cup." Her words, delivered with a cheery cherub smile, were addressed to Davis, half-slumped over his desk.
The young constable's posture testified to the weariness of a man who'd hardly slept, but at the sound of Georgie's voice, he brightened. "Yes, please, Mrs F. You want someone to stir the pot?"
"I'll manage. You sit there," she grinned, and pressed on.
Brooke trailed behind the boss into his office, and Foyle closed the door judiciously behind them, with a glance towards the foyer.
"The, um, matter of the, ah..." Foyle crooked a finger and rubbed the side of his nose.
"Puppy, Sir?" The sergeant's eyes snapped to the wall ahead, but soon crept sideways, watching with amusement as the boss trailed a hand round the edge of his desk and lowered himself with studied care into his seat.
"That's, um. Ah, yes... the, uh..." Foyle winced in embarrassment. This wasn't police business.
"All seen to, Sir!" Brookie grinned. "Constable Davis fetched one from the breeder on 'is own time Sat'dy morning. He soon settled in on Mrs Davis's veranda. Been sleepin' in a cardboard box done out with old socks."
"Ah. Well, splendid. I'll of course reimburse..."
"Yes, Sir. Course, I meant the pup, Sir, on the veranda. Davis sleeps upstairs. Well, mostly. When he's in his mum's good books, like. Heh-heh."
The boss's eyes rolled, but his mouth twitched in a flash of weakness.
"Like to thhank you for the effort that you've both put in. And I'll convey my appreciation to Davis, just as soon as... wull... the coast is clear."
Brooke beamed, and pulled his shoulders back. "Oh, he was pleased to do it, Mr Foyle. He hasn't had much sleep these last two days, but you know how 'e loves dogs, 'specially since Hector. The pup's here, by the way, all safe inside the tool shed round the back. I'll get Davis to deliver him to the 'ouse this afternoon, shall I? Be a nice surprise for young Mrs F, when she gets home from work."
"That would be most kind."
...
Georgie busied herself in the station kitchen, happy to be occupied at work, contented to be making tea, and, actually, although she'd cherished her weekend away, relieved to have returned to Hastings.
She'd been 'packed off'—or so it had felt—to Arundel for the weekend. Papa had turned up unannounced on Friday morning, and spirited her off before she'd had much chance to summon an objection. To that extent, she knew she'd been stage-managed—certainly cut out of conversations between her Hastings family and her relatives in Arundel. She'd tried her utmost not to mind, but felt a tad infantilised. To be at work felt better—back on her own two feet again.
"Please... no fuss..." she'd begged Sam, the day after the seafront incident. "I want to go to work... ask Christopher."
"Absolutely not today. Perhaps tomorrow," Sam had pronounced firmly. Then Friday, out of the blue, Dr Rose had turned up at Steep Lane.
In her sudden rush of unbidden joy at seeing her father step out of the car after some months without seeing any of her immediate family, Georgie had betrayed more vulnerability than she'd intended. Thomas Rose had arrived soon after Brooke had turned up early to collect Christopher for work, (Georgie had been standing at her attic window, nose pressed disconsolately to the glass, as she watched them go), and so that meant that she, her father, and Samantha were the only ones left in the house. That grouping was perhaps less awkward than the alternative might have been, since Georgie hadn't openly discussed the circumstance of her condition with her father-in-law. A silly pretence, when one considered he'd had more exposure to her distress than anyone; but the artifice was intimately caught up in her desire to appear self-possessed and composed, just so that they'd let her go back to work.
That Friday morning she had tried the same act with her father, and had miserably failed.
"Pa, I'm needed," Georgie bargained. "They're short-handed at the station. And I've had enough time off..."
"So I should tell your mother 'no', her married daughter won't come and see her?" negotiated Thomas Rose, all bushy browed benevolence. "And Tom and Faye so curious to know what 'married Georgie' looks like..." Lips pursed into a pleading moue, he slowly shook his head in mock dejection. "Your old pa wouldn't mind a decent look at you, himself. We haven't seen you properly in months..."
Sam watched her guest over a smile. The only exchanges she'd had with Dr Rose before today had been in the surgery at Lyminster, and a few cordial telephone calls. Now, as the workings between him and Georgie played out before her for the first time, his imposing stature (though slightly stooped under the weight of years) seemed to fill her living room with an aura of kind-heartedness, and the more she saw of him, the more she liked.
It had started with a quiet handshake as she'd let him in.
"Samantha, are you well? Recovered?" Then a second broad, strong-fingered hand descended to wrap itself around her own, and Sam recalled why she had always much preferred this man to Dr Stirling on her visits to the Lyminster surgery.
They had, at best, a moment to themselves before his daughter hurtled downstairs, arms outstretched, to be enveloped in a bear hug.
"There's my girl. My rosebud." Thomas Rose's head bent over Georgie's, swallowing her in shadow.
"Oh, Papa!" she sighed, and hugged him back.
Sam felt tears pricking, and withdrew to wait inside the living room. Once they were settled, she leant back to watch the scene unfold.
And Dr Rose revealed himself a diplomat. "...if Sam and Christopher can spare you," he began, deferring to his daughter's frown, even as he subtly canvassed Sam's support, "you should come home for a day or two."
"Mmm, Darling. Might be a good time, don't you think?" pressed Sam solicitously. "Have a look at everyone who's missing you at home, then start with a nice clean slate next week?"
While Georgie chewed things over, Sam tried to work out what convoluted kinship she might claim with Thomas Rose, given that his daughter was officially her step-daughter-in-law. After a couple of half-hearted goes, fuelled mainly by the appeal of the man's charm, Sam finally dismissed the exercise as a waste of mental effort, settling instead for a warm, unlabelled kinship, born of shared concern for someone whom they both loved.
In the meantime, Dr Rose poured practised balm on troubled waters so that, when Georgie finally conceded, with a shy glance towards Sam, "Well, I was going to try and visit soon in any case..." the matter appeared settled at last.
Sam pushed herself to her feet. "Shall I help you throw a few things into a bag, then?"
Dr Rose's hearty laugh betrayed familiarity with his daughter's suitcase habits.
"Oh, very funny, Pa." Georgie nudged him as she got up from her seat. "Sam's here to put the brakes on what I pack. But since you've brought the Lanchester," she added with a touch of mischief on her way out of the room, "the kitchen sink would fit inside it very nicely."
While the ladies took themselves upstairs to the attic suite, Thomas Rose leant forwards in his armchair, balancing his Homburg on his knee, and took in his surroundings.
This, then, was his daughter's new home, and on this trip, it appeared, he was to be denied an introduction to the house's owner. Still, to judge by his repute, and by their telephone acquaintance, Christopher Foyle was a man whose company Thomas would have welcomed. They'd spoken on the phone on more than one occasion—that very week, in fact, concerning Georgie—and Thomas found him genial, self-deprecating, sensible and fair. A man whose voice and manner advertised reliability and trust, as the man's profession and his seniority within it testified.
Which was just as well, considering this was now mid April, with Thomas Rose's daughter almost two months married to a young man whom he'd also never met, and living in the young man's father's house to boot. Misgivings—for the short time Dr Rose had had them—had quickly vanished in the early days under the force of Georgie's calm assurances, and the happiness he'd heard in every conversation they had shared. So Thomas Rose had taken note of all these things, reflecting (round the intermittent fretting of Georgina's mother) that his girl had actually made good choices for herself. For this, he thanked the mercy of a God whose love and whose forbearance he was apt to call upon in testing times.
Now, as a father should, he steeled himself to do his best and smooth the first small wrinkle in his daughter's married life. His broad experience of women told him that the physical effects of early losses of this kind were not the issue; and he found it reassuring that his daughter's family-in-law appeared to understand the same. But then, their intuition shouldn't have surprised him, given Georgie's awed account of recent almost-tragic happenings with Sam. His daughter was, he knew, a level-headed, plucky girl, endowed with (occasionally unnerving) insights, and possessed of natural resilience. Such times, however, tested everybody's vulnerabilities. Domestic happenings aside, it was only natural for the atrocities of the death camps to work their shock on Georgie.
To Thomas Rose, who'd grown up around stories of the pogroms, these revelations from the BBC of all the Belsen horrors merely reinforced a prior knowledge of the depths to which humanity could sink. But shock? He shook his head in sadness. He'd known full well that there'd be more to follow when the news of Auschwitz, liberated back in January, had reached British ears and eyes just weeks before.
Liberated. Thomas mulled the term. No simple throwing wide of gates could undo what the concentration camps had done. The only liberty would be for lesser victims of the Hitler madness: those who had cowered behind their doors in fear and silence while such things occurred around them. For the victims of the camps—the ones who'd watched their families systematically annihilated or cruelly starved, yet clung to life against the odds—freedom from the memories of brutality and death would be a long time coming, if indeed it ever came.
He and Georgie's mother Moira had both ministered to the victims of the Great War, but had never dwelt upon the subject in front of Georgie. The desire to shield her had been natural enough, but now, thought Thomas, probably unwise. Another war had introduced its own brand of obscenity, and modern journalism had the power to bring these horrors home, and into the deceptive comfort of a local picture house.
Thomas tapped his Homburg on his knee and cast around for something to divert his mind. His eyes fell on the photographs atop the mantelshelf: a recent one of Sam, and of the man he now knew to be Christopher—Samantha's corsage and the buttonhole pinned to the man's lapel revealed it as a wedding photograph. Foyle's eyes were kind, thought Thomas, and his smile serene; the jaw determined—fitting for the valiant man described with such affection by his daughter. Along the mantel stood a picture of a sad-eyed, dark-haired beauty whom he took to be the man's first wife. He rose, and, reaching down the frame, remembered Judith, lost to influenza—not so young as this, my sweet one, but still young to me. He felt inside his jacket for his wallet and took out the photograph of Andrew sent him by Georgina. The young man had his mother's dark eyes, but a hint of mischief round the mouth entirely absent from the solemn features of the mother. Thomas turned to reassess the wedding picture of his absent host: this chin, in spite of its determined set, might lend itself to mischief too. The eyes, now that he looked again, bore something of a twinkle, which perhaps explained the man's appeal to a much younger woman.
Cast out the beam from thine own eye. A salutary verse sprang out at Thomas from his wide religious reading. As he smiled down upon the photograph, his brows contracted in a wistful frown, revisiting his own sweet courtship of Georgina's mother. He stroked his chin. The saying went that 'Valiant men control their passions'; but clearly, neither he nor Foyle deserved the title of a valiant man.
…
Sam and Georgie sat awkwardly on the bed, staring into an open suitcase. This visit home to Arundel had certainly been engineered, and it left Georgie with the sense that she owed some sort of apology.
"Sam… if I've been a nuisance, particularly to Christopher, I'm sorry."
Sam looked up anxiously and grasped the younger woman's hand across the case. "Darling, this has absolutely nothing to do with being a nuisance." She spoke in what Georgie already thought of as her 'motherly' way. "You're precious to us. But you're precious to your other family, as well. They haven't had their fair share of you lately."
Georgie lowered her eyes. "I feel like a failed wife who's been demoted back to childhood."
"Oh, lord! Don't say... don't even think that. Christopher and I..." —and there it was: admission of conspiracy. Sam flushed to feel her friend's eyes burning into her.
"It's just... we simply want your mind off things a while—a change of scene. And when you didn't want to 'burden', as you put it, Andrew, and since I knew you'd told your father, I thought—we thought... We love you Georgie." Sam shook her head as if to cast away the guilt, then took a steadying breath.
"Actually, it was my idea. I knew that if you stayed here, you'd just be looking at this..." Sam's hand swept down her front. "I'm sorry, Darling. If this trip feels as though you're being banished. Really, if it's going to make you feel worse, I can speak to your father now... explain to him. He's such a sweet man..."
Georgie bit her lip, then slowly shook her head. "It's okay, Sam," she answered quietly. "I'll go."
Now, three days later in the station kitchen, as she scalded tea leaves in the Judge enamel pot, Georgie mulled over the warmth and security she'd felt while being fussed over by her family. She weighed those up against the sense of independence her job and marriage and new family gave her. In addition to familial love, the trip to Arundel had brought this important benefit: her mother and Faye had shared the reassurance of recovery from their own sad losses, persuading her to be less hard on herself. On balance, though, Georgie was grateful that she didn't have to turn the clock back permanently. The place she felt most at home now was Steep Lane and Hastings.
"Eddie!" she called happily into the corridor. "It's ready! Come and get your tea!"
Surprised not to hear an answer, she stuck her head around the door. Instead of Davis, Hardcastle was at the front desk, taking details from a portly woman with a pheasant feather jutting from her hat.
"The old pram went missing when, exactly?"
"Couldn't say for sure, Dear. Either Saturday night or Sunday morning. My husband uses it to wheel his garden tools to the allotment on a Sunday. Search me why a thief would want it... it's a mystery to us."
"Funny times we're living in, Madam. Might be kids, of course."
The woman snorted. "Parents ought to tan their hides!"
...
Out back, behind the garages, Brooke stuck his head around the tool shed door.
"Time to give the dog a home then, Eddie. Boss is asking for him."
Davis, who was sitting cross-legged on the shed floor feeding the puppy, turned and looked up in surprise.
"It's a bitch, Sarge."
"Yeah, I know, mate," sympathised Brooke, "but the station ain't a dog's home, and I warned you not to get attached. You can't hang onto him."
The young man blinked up at the sergeant. Confusion turned into suspicion, and Davis' tongue clicked once against his palate. "Sarge. It's a bitch. The puppy. It's a girl. Ain't you even noticed?"
Brooke's jaw slackened for an instant, then he grappled for his dignity.
"Well, I ain't turned it upside down, 'ave I? Thought I told ya, get a dog. The boss has got a load of women in the 'ouse already. He needs a dog to even up the score a bit."
"I tried, Sarge," wheedled Davis, "but the dogs was spoken for. Nobody wants the fuss of bitches. End up with a load of puppies, don't ya? Only got to look at Mr Fff... "
"Shut it, Eddie." Brooke spun round anxiously to check they weren't being overheard, then ran a nervous hand through his cropped curls. "Well, too late now. Just drop it round to Mrs F—to Sam at home this lunchtime, will ya? That way it'll be a nice surprise for Georgie when she gets back after work."
"Okay, Sarge." Davis rearranged himself on hands and knees and scooped the puppy from its box. "She's been a little darlin', got to say... Not 'ouse-trained yet, but it'll come."
...
In the corner of the kitchen at 31 Steep Lane, the puppy stirred inside her sock-lined nest and ventured forth—unevenly at first—waddling across the floor to sniff out her new environment. Her sensitive muzzle led her to the doormat, next to which stood Christopher's brown suede house-shoes. There she plunged her nose into the toe of one, and tried in vain to fit herself inside it, muzzle-first. Failing to complete the operation, the puppy whimpered, turned instead and squirmed her hind legs backwards into the comfortable softness. Her head and front paws now projected over the heel. Not yet comfortable with that posture, she burrowed her nose into the collar of the shoe, paws dangling over the sides, and with a low growl of canine contentment, yawned and fell asleep.
Which was how Sam found her small charge, moments later. With a soft cry of delight, she scooped the sleeping puppy from its nest, front paws hanging limply from her palm, and placed it gently back inside the padded box, resolving to recount the tale to Christopher when he came home.
As soon as Sam had left the room, the puppy stirred again, and finding that she missed the closed-in softness of the slipper, clambered from her box once more, and crammed herself determinedly back inside the comfort of the shoe to finish off her snooze.
In due course voices nearby roused the pup from doggy slumber. She cocked an ear, and then two golden eyebrows, instinct telling her that the deeper voice belonged to a dominant male. Submissive impulse drove her then to pee reflexively into her soft suede nest. The sudden and bewildering wetness sent her scrambling with a faint whine out of Christopher's slipper, and skittering back across the kitchen to her box.
"So, where've you put the mutt?" enquired the boss dog.
"In the kitchen, Darling. And she's beautiful."
"She?"
Sam tossed her hair. "Yes. Isn't it marvellous? Aren't you spoiled?"
Foyle peered around the kitchen door, to be met with a high-pitched yap of greeting.
"Hel-lo," he said softly, and crouched to scratch the pup behind the ears. The puppy ducked her head in wariness at first, but Christopher was soon rewarded with a nuzzle and a lick to the hand.
"Atta girl," he whispered, glancing back to check that Sam, who'd lingered in the hall, was out of earshot.
He found a chair, unlaced his shoes, and gratefully slid his feet into the waiting slippers. The sodden insole squelched around his toes.
"Um. Sam?" Pulling off the shoe, he shook his foot in puzzlement. His sock dripped. "Any idea why...?"
"Isn't she a sweetie?" Sam bustled past him into the kitchen, greeted by another eager yap, and bent to stroke the puppy's head.
"Love that crinkly soft fur..."
She made a beeline for the sink to fill the kettle, then came back specially to run a finger up her husband's curly nape.
"My, ah..." Christopher probed the insole with his index finger, "this, ah, slipper's wet inside... How...?" Tugging his confused gaze from the footwear, he looked up at Samantha.
Sam's eyes darted towards the newest family member, whose chocolate eyes were trained upon them. The puppy's tail was resolutely still, as if some intuition told her that her fate hung in the balance. As it happened, Sam was having a few bladder problems of her own, and empathy dictated there'd be no tales told today.
"Oh, here... let me," Sam's brain snapped into cover mode. "I must've spilled some water on them earlier, when I was making tea. Soon have this dry for you."
She mopped the inside of the house-shoe with a handy floor rag, and passed it back to Christopher.
"Perhaps it's time you threw these out," she added nonchalantly. "They've seen a reasonable amount of active service. Don't they pre-date me?"
"Which bit of you?" Foyle frowned. They were definitely pre-war. But then, strictly speaking, so was Sam. After a dubious sniff at the slipper, he wrinkled his nose.
"Yeah, well, never mind. All right. Why not?"
"That's my sensible husband." Sam bestowed a light kiss on his pate.
Christopher stretched his arms. It had been a long day. He yawned and raised a forefinger to rub the corner of his eye, but before the finger made it to his face, Sam had deftly caught his hand and, grabbing a bleached dishcloth from the draining board, wiped it clean.
"Nasty, Dear." Brisk levity hid genuine concern for what the fingertip must be coated with. "Not after it's been inside your shoe."
Her tone sparked something impish in Foyle. With a wicked smile, he closed a hand around her fingers, bringing them against his lips.
"Love it when you boss me, Sam."
The silken warmth that pressed her fingers quite distracted Sam. "Ummm. Need to... pick your coat up... from the cleaners anyway, tomorrow," she began, haltingly, "so I'll... so I'll see if I can find you a new pair while I'm in town."
"Since you're offering"—he flirted shamelessly over the gallantry, lingering with her fingertips—"I, ah, prefer the soft ones. Similar to these. And suede, if you can manage it."
"Mmm-hmm. I know you like your comfort."
"Yep." He didn't let Sam's fingers go, and drew her, unresisting, into his lap, wrapping both arms round her vanished waist. "Goes back to the, ah, early years when I was on the beat. It's tiring, being on your feet all day."
"Mmm," Sam nodded tolerantly. "I imagine so. Poor thing. How you have suffered, no earthly tongue can tell."
He smiled and sank his nose into the flowered bib of her pinafore. "You smell of... lemme see, now..." Closing both eyes, he breathed in her scent, and made a game of picking out the accents. "JJJasmine...? AAApricots...?"
"... and Parozone. Flatterer." But Sam's face glowed under the pleasure of him. Then there was a whimper from the corner of the kitchen, and her eyes were drawn away.
The small fleecy body stood propped on splayed hind legs, golden paws and ears flopped over the side-wall of her cardboard box. Gleaming brown-button eyes observed the goings-on under soulful eyebrows that comically brought to mind a pleading Christopher.
"We girls have to stick together!" mouthed Sam, and gave a little finger-wave over her unsuspecting husband's shoulder. She was rewarded with a hopeful yap and several eager thuds of puppy tail against the floor of the box.
"Even less chance of getting you alone now," grumbled Foyle into his fragrant pillow.
...
Scarcely had Georgie called, "I'm back!", and turned from hanging up her hat and coat, when a full welcoming committee materialised in the hall.
"Aha!" beamed Sam, clutching Christopher's arm. "The wanderer returns."
"Well... yes..." blinked Georgie, thrown by such unusual attention to the simple act of walking through the door. "Didn't Christopher mention? Sergeant Milner had a lead on some supply thefts, Bexhill way. That's why Brookie brought you home, isn't it?" Her eyes shifted to Christopher then to Sam and back again, inviting support.
All she got was an amused quirk of the lip.
"Everything... all right?" she asked uncertainly.
"Oh, I should say!" Sam caught Georgie by the hand and tugged her down the hall. "Come here, and have a good old look at this!"
Christopher pasted himself against the wall to avoid being mown down by the march of female determination, and suddenly shy of the anticipated gratitude his gift was going to engender, he sank his hands into his pockets, smiling at the floor.
...
Tuesday, 24th April, 1945
"Good morning, Sir!"
"Brooke."
"All quiet on the 'Ome Front, Sir?" Brooke's manner was that of a co-conspirator.
"Youuu'd better ask the, ah, young lady." Foyle levelled the hat he held in his hand towards the station entrance, then pushed on through the separating door into the corridor.
"Oh, Sir?" Brooke called after him, "A Mr Griffiths waiting for you. Local councillor. I put him in your office. Hope that's all right?"
Foyle halted in his tracks, half-swivelling towards his sergeant. "Griffiths, you say?" He hesitated for a split second, then canted his head. "Fffine."
And it was fine. Better than fine. Opportune, even. No pretext needed now to acquaint himself with Griffiths, as per instructions from Miss Pierce. The chap had wandered squarely onto his turf.
"Thhank you, Sergeant." Foyle sent Brooke a rare tooth-flashing smile that set his sergeant preening.
...
"So," grinned Brooke, propped rakishly against the front desk as Georgie bounced into the station seconds later, "howzabout that, then? Happy?"
"Oh, you corker, Brookie!" Georgie skipped across the foyer, cheeks flushed from the stiff breeze outside, and leaning over the desk on tiptoe, landed a peck on his left cheek. "Where's Eddie? I've got one of these for him as well!"
Brooke wiped the beam of pleasure from his face, affecting an expression of disgust. "Pah! Waste yourself on him? If there's another smacker going, I'll have it."
Georgie shot him a look of amused reproach and, craning her neck around his shoulder, called out "Eddie?"
"What've you named her, then?" Resting his chin on one hand, Brooke glanced round lazily to see where Davis might have got to. He slyly hoped that Davis might have fallen down a manhole in the station yard.
"Mr Foyle named her. We're going to call her 'Wommel'."
"Funny name." Brooke frowned. "Womble? What sort of name is that?"
"No," Georgie told him patiently. "Wommel."
"Sounds... I dunno..." the sergeant scratched his ear, "like some toff that can't say his 'r's." His hand swept outwards in a wide dramatic curve. "'Wound and wound the wuggèd wock the waggèd wascal wan!'"
"Hmm." Georgie raised her brows mysteriously. "A toff. Well, fancy that!"
...
Eddie Davis' tongue poked up the side of his top lip as he peered down at the typewriter keys, and wondered where the letter N had disappeared to. Reports and forms were getting easier to do, but he was still in the two-fingered rank of typists.
He stuck it out, though, in the hope he wouldn't be shipped off on yet another typing course with that old dragon at the council. Him and Hardcastle had suffered there, all right. The pair of them had sat and trembled like a pair of schoolgirls while Miss Belling—frightening old bat she was—had tapped them with a twelve-inch rule and snapped that they must raise their wrists or they would never put sufficient pressure on the keys. Hardcastle had sniggered that that streak of white hair sweeping backwards through her otherwise dark updo made her look like Elsa Lanchester in Bride of Frankenstein, and earned himself a sharp rebuke for sitting 'like a drunken sailor' with his left shoulder lower than his right.
Now Eddie battled through the final sentence.
"...do...N'...t...like...bei...n...g...on...there...own."
All done. He sat back, flushed with achievement. Then, as an afterthought, he swept the heavy roller back and hit the carriage return once more for good measure, adding a short row of asterisks to denote the end.
A few twists of the platen knob released the sheet of paper, and Eddie flattened it on the desk next to the machine to review his work.
The title read, in an uneven mix of capitals:
PUPPy CXRE
He tsk-tsked at the errant X. Soon as he'd typed it, he'd seen the mistake, and it had bothered him. He'd wanted to chuck the sheet away and start again, but if the sarge had caught him, there'd have been some grief around the paper shortage. Instead he'd let it ride, and now he set about erasing his mistake with a slim, flat typewriter rubber, blowing gently to remove the ink-stained paper dust. Satisfied the X was faint enough, he took a sharpened 2B pencil and painstakingly wrote in an A. Then he lengthened the strokes of the lower-case y to make it look like a capital.
PUPPY CARE
Not bad, mate, he congratulated himself. Well, it wouldn't do for the old dragon—the memory of her thin-lipped disapproval set his ears tingling—but, strewth! Would anything?
Eddie leafed one last time through his flip-up notepad, making sure he hadn't missed any of the bits of advice gleaned from the breeder. Cocker spaniels was people dogs. You had to have 'em with you. Both the Mrs Foyles was going to have to see to that. No banishing them up the yard. They liked to sit on laps and sleep in bedrooms; else they'd pine.
He stretched himself, the muscles pinging in his back. His mother hadn't let him have the puppy upstairs in his bedroom over the weekend, so Saturday and Sunday night he'd slept in the veranda in a deck chair.
"Davis? What you up to?" Brooke's voice cut into his contemplations.
"Nothing, Sarge."
Eddie slipped the sheet into a buff manila folder. This he wanted to give Georgie himself—not have the sarge nicking his thunder.
...
Foyle sat across from his visitor: a long-necked fellow with sharp nose and high-domed forehead (which he mopped impulsively at frequent intervals, although Foyle saw no signs of breaking sweat).
Late thirties? As Foyle scrutinised him, it was actually hard to say. He had a fussy spinster look about him. Old before his time. Griffiths had parked a thumb inside his waistcoat; long, thin (probably 'artistic', thought Foyle) hands on gangling wrists that poked out of his shirt cuffs; slender fingers dangled in the posture of a startled squirrel.
The dark-rimmed eyes behind round, metal frames roved nervously around Foyle's office. Finally they settled, seemingly by last resort, on Foyle. He noticed Griffiths' fingers twitch, as if to shed dirt lodged between them.
"It's the Victory Day celebrations."
Foyle's head canted the merest inch. "Nnnews to me. There's been a victory?"
Since the story had broken of the Red Army pushing into the outskirts of Berlin two days before, a plethora of memoranda had crossed his desk. The fall of the Third Reich, it seemed, was imminent. But still, as it appeared to Foyle, a little 'previous' to necessitate the town being galvanised for celebration. Many a slip...
Bureaucracy, however, tended to make fodder for itself.
"Sadly, no," acknowledged Griffiths, dabbing a limp handkerchief at his temple. "But it will come. And when it does, the council has a responsibility to prepare for large numbers of people out on the streets, day and night. There are certain issues we have to keep in mind."
Foyle's bottom lip folded down against his chin. It seemed to him that people had been shut in long enough, and the months-old Curfew Abolition Order showed that the authorities agreed with him.
"What issues in particular?"
"As far as I'm concerned, nnone at all, but the municipality is of a contrary opinion. As you'll see, I've been asked to chair a committee to look into all aspects of public order and safety."
"As... I'll see?" Foyle's eyebrow rose.
"Forgive me." Griffiths pulled a typed page from his jacket inside pocket, unfolded it, and pushed the sheet across Foyle's desk. "List of committee members, Mr Foyle. Your name is at the top."
"Nnice to be informed." Foyle's eyes flashed over a rictus of restraint. Yet another case of bureaucratic cart-before-the-horse. Apparently the memorandum-writers had omitted to inform him that he had a role. Still, as it happened, this surprise would serve his purpose.
"We do need to co-ordinate with the police," continued Griffiths, sensing mild resistance.
"Wull, of course." Foyle stretched his mouth into a smile, reining in something of the fierceness that imbued his smiles in situations such as these. "Pleased to be of help."
"Thank you." Some of the stress appeared to drain from Griffiths' posture. He moistened his lips.
"We have... I... have," he amended carefully, "a genuine wish to plan for the avoidance of unnecessary... mishaps... caused by... oversights." He raised his eyes, blinking rapidly to disperse a sudden welling of moisture. "To my way of thinking, the planning can't begin too early."
Foyle saw his opportunity.
"Wull, a pre-committee meeting, you and I?" His hands opened in an expansive gesture. "I could drop by? Your office? Home?"
Griffiths mopped his brow and swallowed. All of this weight of responsibility upon him, and here was a man who was actually co-operating—throwing him a life-ring. He filled his lungs, exhaled raggedly, and steeled himself for business in a way he hadn't done in many, many months.
"Very kind. My office happens to be at the Telephone Exchange in Cambridge Road, Mr Foyle. As you might deduce, quiet time is rare... However, my mother's front room, perhaps? One tea-time? We wouldn't be disturbed."
"Sounds absolutely fine to me."
Foyle's visitor managed a weak smile, and took out his pocket diary, easing out the slim pencil from its spine.
"When might be convenient?"
Foyle noticed that the hand that held the pencil trembled. On impulse, he ran his eye down the committee list, and read the members' names beneath his own. Longmate? Not the foggiest. Ziegler? Dr Ziegler. Medic. Hmm.... Kiefer. Foyle's hand found his chin, and anchored itself there, thumb tracing deliberatively across his lip.
"Um. Major John Kiefer is in Hastings?"
Griffiths' eyes locked on the sheet of paper. "Not yet, as far as I'm aware. My understanding is he'll be here in a week to ten days, commitments allowing. Do I take it that you know him?"
"I do, indeed. He was stationed in this area for several months in 1942. Haven't seen him since. Hhhow... does he come to be on this committee?"
"I'm sorry, Mr Foyle. I have no idea. Is there a problem?"
"Nup. Not at all." Foyle caught Griffiths' wary look and defused it. "Got to know the man quite well while he was stationed here. Be vvvery good to see him again."
The cloud appeared to lift from Griffiths' face. "Ah. Quite so. Now then," he resumed, pencil poised over his diary, "when shall we say?"
****** TBC ******
More Author's Notes:
"It's a bitch, Sarge."
Just rewatched The Hide (S7E3) – the one where Milner's dopey sidekick, Perkins, fails to tell a stallion from a mare. Couldn't resist. And there's another priceless bit of dialogue from the episode as well:
Foyle to Milner: "You're on your own now."
Perkins: "He's got me, Sir."
Foyle: "Precisely."
…
GiuC