“You know a hell of a lot about it,” Tucker said.
“I had a rear gunner used to be a bookie’s runner. Got the chop coming back from Bremen. Good type.”
“Rear gunners,” Hallett said. “I never understood how anyone could volunteer…” He shook his head.
“You volunteered for Vulcans,” Silk said. “No, forget I said that. Awfully bad form.”
Tucker was fooling about with the cello. He plucked hard on the bass string, making it buzz as it boomed. “Hear that? I can play this fat fiddle better than Silko, and I’m piss-poor.”
“Hands off,” Silk said. He took the cello away, before Tucker broke it.
ASK THE REINDEER
That was in late August. September went by easily. Silk felt untroubled and complete in a way that he hadn’t known since he’d stooged across America with Barney Knox in the Harvard. There was a boyish pleasure in being one of the gang. Two gangs, in fact: Quinlan’s crew, and Tess Monk’s friendship. Where Zoë fitted in, he wasn’t sure and didn’t care. She was away most of the time: CND conferences, rallies, seminars. Parliament was on its summer break but politics never stopped. Nor did television. “Saw your wife on the box last night,” someone at Kindrick would say. “On top form, as usual.”
Silk always gave the same reply: “Everyone needs a hobby.” Neutral. Untroubled. Brief.
Zoë was fit and busy doing what she liked, and so was he. Whenever he could, he got off the base and drove to the farmhouse. If Tess wasn’t there he knew where she hid the key. Sometimes he took the bull-terrier for a walk in the back garden. The dog was old and barrel-chested, and it wheezed as its paws left prints in the grass. At the end of the garden they both rested, and Silk told it jokes. Sometimes it dozed. Once he couldn’t wake it and he had to load it in a wheelbarrow and trundle it up the garden. Tess came home as he was rubbing his side. “Pulled a muscle,” he said. “Heavy dog.”
“Leave him be. He’ll come when he’s hungry. I have just the stuff for your muscle.”
He went inside and upstairs and undressed. She came in, carrying a quart bottle whose faded label said Dr Sloane’s Liniment. “That’s for rugby players and dead horses,” he said.
“I’ve jazzed it up. I cut it with rubbing alcohol and aftershave and dissolved some red ants in it.” She cupped her hand and poured a little. “If this doesn’t work, you deserve to die.” She rubbed his side. His eyes widened; he stood on one leg and waved her away. “Enough!” he cried. “I’d sooner die. Jesus wept… That stuff’s banned under the Geneva Convention.” He walked in a circle. “Whooo.”
She was looking at his loins. “Aphrodisiac, too.”
“I’ll strangle you first.”
“Make a man of you.”
“Ain’t bust. Don’t fix. And go scrub up. Those hands are lethal weapons.”
She went out and washed. He climbed into the four-poster. His side was cooling to a pleasant glow. She came in, wearing nothing but elbow-length gloves of scarlet silk. As they began to enjoy the first, slowly accelerating ski-ride of sex, he wondered: Was Zoë ever like this? And rapidly lost interest in any answer.
Sometimes she cooked supper for him, usually sausage and mash or egg and chips. Once in a while they drove into Lincoln for a Chinese meal. The risk of their being seen together worried him a little. There was no reason why he shouldn’t take his music teacher to dinner after his lesson. There was no lesson, although he carefully carried his cello into the farmhouse and carefully carried it away when he left. That meant he could truthfully say, if anyone asked, that he’d gone for a cello lesson. And he always paid, thinking She needs the money. Anyone who takes a bath under a hose in the back garden is hard up.
He never mentioned his work and she never asked. Otherwise, they talked freely. Silence bored her, so she filled it with information. She said her father had been a racing driver called Fast Eddie. Also that women made the best barbers and she could shave him with a cutthroat razor in thirteen seconds. Also her late husband had three testicles and webbed feet. Also that Al Capone was not dead but hidden by Catholics in Mayfair. And so on, and on, anything to make Silk argue. She said her father was a blind jazz pianist until he got hit with a bottle and his sight returned.
“In time to become a racing driver, I take it.”
“I never said he was a racing driver.”
“Didn’t you? I can’t keep up with your phenomenal family.”
“You’re too slow. Listen faster, Silko. Dogs have better ears than men. Dogs hear earthquakes coming hours before they happen.” She rubbed the bull-terrier’s belly with her toes. It almost woke, and it drooled on the carpet.
“See? Tidal wave coming,” Silk said. “We’re all doomed.” He thought: Zoë would have that carpet cleaned instantly. The dog, too. He smiled.
“What’s funny?” she said.
“You are. We are. It is.”
Something other than good sex and pinball-machine talk kept Silk coming back to the farmhouse. Tess Monk lived for the moment. She wasn’t a prisoner of the past and the future didn’t interest her. By contrast, everyone else – all the men on 409 Squadron, all of Zoë’s friends and colleagues, Zoë herself – seemed to be trapped on an upward escalator. Silk liked meeting Tess Monk because there were no goals in her life, no targets, no scores. He was getting tired of targets. Especially targets that nobody was allowed to hit. It was about as much fun as coitus interruptus, and Silk had never been a fan of that.
The Vulcan got repaired. It went through a series of ground tests, and then a flying test, and was declared operational.
Skull briefed the crew for an unusually long-range training exercise. They would stand by for a scramble, fly to RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, refuel, and make a high-level approach over Turkey and Iran to the Black Sea in order to simulate a Blue Steel attack on Sevastopol, then reverse course and fly home.
“Crimea,” Quinlan said.
“Indeed. We fought a war there once, nobody knows why. Nearby is the town of Balaclava, named after the famous British woolly hat. Sevastopol is the home port of the Soviet Black Sea fleet. Various Soviet air bases are in the area – Adler, Saki, Oktyabr’skoyn – so if you miss Sevastopol you’re bound to hit something useful.”
“We shan’t miss.”
“Of course not.”
“How many cathedrals has it got?” Dando asked.
“Three. St Sophia’s is particularly splendid. Today is her saint’s day, so the cathedral should be very full. Also the beaches, of course, since it’s the school holidays. We expect large carnage, not to mention the nuclear annihilation of many warships. Now, your alternative targets…”
They sat in the aircrew caravan until the phone rang. Quinlan cried: “Kick the tyres and light the fires!” and they sprinted to the bomber. Take-off took one minute thirty-eight seconds. Soon there was little for the pilots to see and to do except to follow the navigator’s instructions and to switch fuel tanks.
They completed the exercise, taking care to stay out of Russian airspace. A carpet of cloud covered Europe. They lost height over the North Sea and landed at Kindrick in steady rain.
Debriefing was simple and straightforward.
“We missed the cathedral,” Dando said. “Hit the monastery, though. Next to the dogs’ home. Do we get an extra point?”
“I’ll bear it in mind,” Skull said.
“There isn’t a cathedral in Sevastopol,” Silk said. “Nor a monastery.”