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June 2001

Colin shivered as dusk finally fell. Evenings seemed to hold themselves in check that summer, as if deliberately prolonging the violence on the streets, delaying the moment when the daytime drama of open warfare gave way to darkness and covert sniping.
     He parked his spluttering Ford Escort - ninety-eight thousand miles on the clock and overdue for a service - stepped out into the sodium-lit street and pulled up his coat collar. A cold mist had earlier crept up between the banks of Belfast Lough and now smothered the city buildings like a malignant disease waiting for the cover of darkness before infecting the population.
     He hurried past armed soldiers patrolling the street outside the hospital, tolerating their suspicious glances. Which of their colleagues was being tended inside? The young private hit by a petrol bomb, or the officer shot in the back while patrolling the Falls Road? Meanwhile, the illusion of a peace process dragged on. Deliberately closing his mind to the matter, Colin bent his head low and hurried through the hospital entrance.
     The noise changed; an abrupt switch from the low rumble of passing cars to the shrill screech of human belligerence. Amidst angry cries and obscenities rising and falling discordantly amongst the crowd in the waiting area, a policeman in a flak jacket attempted to hold apart two brawling drunks.
     "Where are you going, sir?" The voice was gruff, Lowland Scots. It came from a burly army sergeant in camouflaged combat gear. Colin flinched.
     The soldier stuck out prominently in the hospital's antiseptic surroundings. He caressed his assault rifle like it was a slender young woman pressed up against his chest. And the look on his face said he had had enough for one night.
     Colin jerked himself upright, his full six-foot two-inch height putting him eye to eye with the soldier. He raked a hand through his thick mop of hair and then adjusted his glasses. "One of my parishioners was injured in the rioting. I came to see if I could help." He pulled back his coat flap, revealing his dog collar.
     "Sorry, Padre. You are …?"
     "Father Portesham."
     "Wait here just a moment, will you." As if puzzled by a priest with an English accent, the sergeant beckoned to a grey-haired officer in battle fatigues who had been overseeing the chaos from the background. "Catholic priest, sir. Wants to see one of the wounded."
     The officer negotiated his way closer and smiled grimly. "Sorry, Father. Not tonight, eh?" He gestured frustratingly towards the boisterous sprawl of injured rioters. "It's a bit fraught here with the Shankill mob. Not the healthiest place for a priest. The Catholic casualties have been taken to other hospitals." His eyes reflected his bitter tiredness.
     Colin shook his head sadly. "I tried them first but they sent me here. They said an elderly lady -"
     "Old ladies should be tucked up in their beds by now, Father." The officer's eyes glazed over, as if he was well out of his depth. Where in rural England would he have come across this sort of civil war damage?
     Colin coughed to clear his throat. "Well, maybe I should see what I can do out in the community."
     "Very commendable." The officer's dry tone revealed not an ounce of conviction. He turned to walk away and then paused, as if reacting to a sudden thought. "You've got transport?"
     "Yes."
     "Well then, perhaps there is someone here you can help. A young woman working for a television news team. Sound recordist, I think. She took an injury in this afternoon's skirmish. Been patched up and now she's mooching around for a lift somewhere. Sergeant! Is she still around?"
     The Scot laughed. "You mean Sleeping Beauty? Probably putting on more make-up, sir. Heavy duty Polyfilla."
     "That's enough, soldier!" Quickly recovering his composure, the officer turned to Colin and sighed. "Sorry, Father. The men can get a bit carried away. It's the stress of the job over here."
     "I understand." He had heard more than enough sick jokes in Belfast. Only last week he'd overheard a young petrol bomber boasting he was getting six Brits to the gallon after changing to Super Unleaded.
     How much more could he take?
     "Her face is a bit of a mess," the officer went on, with an expression of genuine sadness. "It's obviously an old wound. But not the sort of thing you like to ask about."
     "And she was hurt again today?" Colin shook his head at the woman's misfortune.
     "Nothing serious." The officer beckoned to a matronly staff nurse striding past. "Excuse me. The television woman, what's her name?"
     "Miss Penrice?"
     "Yes. Is she still here?"
     "She's been discharged but she's still somewhere on the premises. By the coffee machine, I think." The nurse flicked a hand in the direction she had come. "Just around the corner."
     "Perhaps I should try to find her." Colin nodded in the direction of the nurse's gesture. When no one agreed, he spread his hands and sighed. "Do you want to search me for hidden weapons?"
     The officer waved him on, the renewed glaze in his eyes indicating no interest. "Be our guest, Father. But don't expect to make any religious conversions."
     As if he would even try!
     Colin strode on through the reception area, shuttering his ears to the coarse obscenities of the out-patients. A fetching young nurse walked by with a handsome doctor at her side, chatting brightly. Colin shook his head. Life went on.
     Out there, in the harsh reality of the Ardoyne, gangs of angry people were rioting, throwing petrol bombs, setting cars alight. Out there, the little girls of Holy Cross School were settling down to sleep and learning all about real nightmares. And here, in the sterilised confines of a hospital, a handsome young doctor chatted up a pretty nurse.
     He rounded a corner and the out-patient noises faded into the background. His attention now focused on a young woman seated alone alongside a coffee machine with her body slumped towards him, head down as if she was staring at the floor. She wore a tight, sleeveless sweater and an immodestly short denim skirt. With such slender, graceful limbs, he figured she ought to be a beauty. But her golden, shoulder-length hair fell forward, hiding her features.
     He stopped a few feet from her and coughed to attract her attention. "Miss Penrice?"
     She reacted instantly, snapping her head up. Those golden curtains swished aside, suddenly revealing her face.
     He gasped and, for just a second, his breathing stopped. The power of speech deserted him.
     Her face is a bit of a mess. God, what an understatement!
     He froze while his thoughts turned summersaults. A long-forgotten snippet of memory rushed forward like a feather blown on a stiff breeze; visible for only a moment and then snatched away.
     Surely, he had once seen that face in its original purity, with not a hint of disfigurement. Did he not once know this girl intimately? Hadn't he lived close alongside her, held her, loved her? But how could that be when this was their first meeting?
     "You're staring at me." She drew back her head and shoulders, emphasising the rounded contours of her chest.
     Yes, he'd been staring, horrified by her disfigurement which had robbed him of all courtesy. Embarrassment hit him hard, but he had to shake off the lure of her husky sensual voice before he could form his lips around an apology. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to."
     An utterance lurking inside his brain urged him to turn away, pretend he had made a mistake, pretend he was in a hurry. But an even deeper emotion robbed his legs of movement, holding his feet rooted to the ground with the heaviness of lead encrusted boots.
     He drew a hand across his eyes, puzzled. That same deeper emotion seemed to be telling him to stay. Hadn't he coped with this before? Again, a hint of some long-hidden memory surged forward before it was sucked back into the depths of his subconscious, too deeply buried to be recovered again.
     With his heart racing, he searched for something to say, a reason for looking at her. Surely a priest should be able to handle this with compassion. He had seen enough bomb injuries already, but this situation felt completely different. She aroused in him enigmatic thoughts he could not even begin to understand.
     Surrounded by appalling scar tissue, deep blue eyes focused on his, almost as if she were flirting with him. Flirting? Dear God, surely not! Walk on, he urged himself, walk away now, before you make a fool of yourself.
     But he couldn't walk on. Not yet. That damned emotion again brought back other hazy, fleeting memories that instantly vanished, leaving behind puzzlement and confusion.

Six

Mid October 1939

James Portesham jerked up in his bed. Somewhere outside, a roaring Merlin engine stalled and then caught again. Still breathing deeply, he stretched out in the dark for a pullover dumped at the end his bed.
     Minutes later a Very pistol barked; a dawn take-off for some poor sod; the start of just another routine day at Biggin Hill. He wriggled back down beneath his bedclothes but his blackout curtain was out of alignment and the green Very flare dimly illuminated his room.
     Irritated, he patted his hand on the bedside cabinet, searching for his cigarettes. He needed a nicotine fix, needed it badly. Damn, the packet was almost empty. His hands shook as he lit up. One day soon the Luftwaffe would pull out all the stops, come over in force and knock the hell out of the RAF, and he would be in the thick of it. They all would. How then would he experience the thrill of fighting for his country? Where was the glory in falling to earth inside a burning Hurricane?
     Thank God he wasn't flying today. With the war seeming boringly inactive, he had engineered a forty-eight hour weekend pass and planned to make good use of it. He was into a fresh packet of cigarettes when the first light of day permeated his room.
     Feeling nauseated, which was far from unusual these days, he missed breakfast. Before other pilots could engage him in the sort of inane conversation that dominated life in the mess hall, he took an early bus to Croydon and caught a dirty commuter train into London, Victoria. From there he took a short underground ride to Waterloo Station. The prospect of meeting his sister further dampened his spirits.
     Beneath Waterloo's arched roof, simmering trains waited to leave in clouds of hissing steam. One old engine, looking drab with grimy black streaks and patchy rust, shunted a line of clattering green coaches into a platform. The air was heavy with the sound and smell of steam, oil, smoke, the occasional distant whistle and the clanking of coupling rods.
     He found his sister, Rebecca Thompson, in the station tearoom hunched over a cup of tea and a half-eaten biscuit. A dull green dress, frayed coat and mousy hair tied into a bun aged her well beyond her thirty years. He eyed her sceptically. Were vicar's wives supposed to look that dowdy?
     "Tea! What a jolly good idea. I'll have a dose of that." He screwed up his face. How could he offer his sister a warm greeting with a head feeling thick and stuffed full with lingering nausea?
     Rebecca peered along the length of her pointed nose, her eyes squinting at him. "You look like hell, James."
     It never ceased to surprise him how such a powerful voice could escape from between those barely-parted pencil-thin lips. "Thank you, my dear. Nicest thing you've said to me in a long time."
     Rebecca sniffed loudly. He should have guessed she would be in no mood for pleasantries. She rarely was.
     "What have you been up to lately? Drinking and whoring at RAF expense, I suppose?"
     "And I love you too, Becky, my sweet." James gave her a peck on the cheek and mouthed to the woman behind the counter that he wanted his tea black. He flopped into the seat opposite his sister. "How's the jolly old vicar doing these days? Still saving the souls of the good people of Ruislip?"
     "Robin is well, thank you." Her tone remained acid.
     James set his peaked cap on the table then ran a hand through his tousled hair. "Jolly good. And the little devils? Still spoiling the vicar's sermons, I hope."
     "Andrew and Jane are well also." Her thin lips came firmly together in one even line.
     "Splendid. And you, my sweet? How's my big sister doing?"
     "Well enough."
     He grinned. "And long may you reign."
     Rebecca threw the dregs of her tea down her throat and leaned back in her seat. "Why don't you go to hell, James? You don't have to play games with me. This whole thing is bloody inconvenient right now."
     "That's no language for a vicar's wife." James wagged a finger at her face. "You'd better watch what you say in the front of Granny and Gramps."
     "It's all you're going to get so take it or leave it." Rebecca's eyes blazed; a sign of further angry words ready to jump out and bite him. He checked the counter where his cup of black tea sat waiting.
     Catching his action, Rebecca snapped: "You'll get no table service here."
     He collected the cup and paid the woman behind the counter. A cigarette dangled from her lips while a wedge of simmering ash was in danger of falling onto an array of empty cups. Turning away, his glance scanned a large poster announcing: WOMEN WANTED FOR EVACUATION SERVICE. OFFER YOUR SERVICES TO YOUR LOCAL COUNCIL. In the stylised picture, a smartly dressed woman tended a group of young children.
     James let out a brief snort. Two evacuees had been billeted at the manor. Undisciplined and unfriendly, their stay was mercifully short. Mary Portesham was relieved when their parents took them back to the East End of London where foul language, lice and bed-wetting was a normal way of life.
     He took his seat again, raised his cup halfway to his lips and asked: "So, what's to do about Lucy? Had a rambling letter from Granny. Not too explicit."
     Rebecca draped one arm behind her seat. "The old people are getting tired and wondering what to do about her. If you ask me, they're leading up to putting her away, and about time too. I've said all along -"
         He slammed down his cup. "They wouldn't! Surely."
     "It's for her own good, James. They can't cope with her down at the manor. And you can't do anything useful while you're prancing about in your little aeroplane. And there's no way Robin and I could have her. We've got our own lives to lead and besides …"
     "Besides what?" James recovered his cup, leaned forward, elbows firmly planted on the table, the cup poised in mid air. "You really think we should just wipe our hands of Lucy? Put her in a mental asylum? She's our sister, dammit!"
     Rebecca leaned over the table, leaving only inches between their faces and jutted her chin, a direct challenge. "She's a mental cripple. We should do what needs to be done and then forget all about her. It's best for all of us."
     James hesitated. He eased himself back and sipped at his tea, giving himself time to think. Rebecca was six years his senior and always had been the strong, opinionated one - overly strong and overly opinionated. Even when their parents died and inconsolable grief tore him apart, Rebecca had allowed him no quarter.
     He measured his tone carefully: "I think you're being immensely cruel, Becky. Mum and Dad would be shocked if they could hear you now."
     "Well they can't hear me now so it doesn't matter." Rebecca's voice rose an octave and her eyes flared. "You weren't at home after Mum and Dad died. You were the stuck up little snob sent away to boarding school. I was the one who had to stay home and put up with Lucy. All that crying and shouting. I was the one who had to listen to it day in and day out. Not you!" She thumped the table. "I know what she's like. And I say she should be put away."
     Rebecca's tirade ended abruptly. In the aftermath, an uncomfortable silence settled over the tearoom. James stared at her, focussing on the line of her ruler-straight lips. Under his intense stare, they began to twitch and a horrible thought came to him. Dear God, how she must hate Lucy.
     A wave of tiredness washed over him. He set down his cup and picked up his cap. It was approaching ten o'clock, and they both had tickets for the through train to Swanage leaving at ten thirty.
     He rose to his feet. "I need something stronger than this. Best I go for a quick snifter by myself, eh? I'll see you on the train."
     The intense look of anger in her eyes frightened him.

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