To Die but Once (Maisie Dobbs #14)(44)
“Quite right,” said the man who had allowed Maisie to slide into the queue, as Margaret Rose hid her face in her mother’s skirts.
“From the mouths of babes,” said a woman in front of them.
There was little time for a long conversation with Billy, but there was an opportunity for a brief chat. “Is Bobby at home?” asked Maisie.
Billy sighed, and exchanged glances with his wife. “Yep, he’s at home. And that’s where he’ll stay if I’ve got anything to do with it.”
“Billy—he only—” said Doreen.
Billy shook his head. “Nothing like having a sixteen-year-old know-all in the house, is there? He’s gone and signed up to be a mechanic for the air force. Says it’s not dangerous, that he’ll be working on the aeroplanes, not in them. Well, that’s all very well, but they could just as well send him up, in time.”
Doreen looked at Maisie and raised her eyebrows. Maisie realized, then, that the woman who had previously suffered such debilitating mental illness was now calm, and was likely the one keeping a level head.
“What do you think, Doreen?”
The woman linked her arm through her husband’s, as if to chivvy him into a better mood. “We’ve got young Billy over there in France, so it’s easy to think Bobby should wait, just a bit, before he goes in for anything to do with the army or air force or whatever. But one thing occurred to me—because we always call them ‘young Billy’ or ‘young Bobby’ it’s too easy to forget they’re men. They know what they want, and I don’t think we should hold Bobby back. Not if this is what he’s got a knack for—we can’t expect him to want to work in that garage down the road forever, can we? And it’s a good opportunity for him to get a proper profession with real prospects, isn’t it?”
“It’s a difficult situation, especially as Bobby needs your consent,” said Maisie, drawing her attention from Doreen to Billy. “I know he’s named after your brother, and you thought the world of him.”
“Two peas in a pod, me and our Bobby,” said Billy.
Maisie watched as Doreen bit her lip and turned away, then at once swung round again, her cheeks flushed. “And you haven’t forgiven the fact that he died too young fighting over there, have you? But your son—our son—is not your brother. The way I see it, you have a choice. You can either acknowledge him and the fact that this is what he wants. It’s something he has a talent for, and he landed this opportunity with no help from anyone—and that’s no mean feat, Billy. No mean feat on the part of our Bobby. Or you can withhold consent, which means you can do something you were powerless to do with your brother, his namesake—and that is to stop him.” She had kept her voice low, but every word carried the weight of her frustration with her husband. “The truth is you could never have stopped your brother, because he knew what he wanted, and he wanted to prove himself to be a man worthy of his country’s respect. Bobby is old enough to go to this air force college, to learn a new trade and then to take up a new job. And if you’re trying to save him, my love—just you remember how Sandra’s Eric died. Poor girl lost her first husband when he was working on an engine in a small garage. There’s no accounting for fate’s timing. No accounting at all.”
Billy was silent, staring at his wife. “I’d forgotten about Eric,” said Billy, distracted.
Maisie stepped forward as the queue moved. She made no comment that might come between man and wife. They had almost reached the entrance to Westminster Abbey when she heard Billy break the silence with Doreen. “Anyway, I’ll think about it.” She looked around at the same time as Doreen leaned toward Billy for him to put his arm around her shoulders.
“Right,” said Maisie. “We’re almost at the door. I have to go in that direction now—Lady Rowan has saved a seat for me. I’ll see you tomorrow, Billy. In fact, I can take you all down to Hampshire, because that’s where I’m planning to go.”
“Oh, Margaret Rose and I are staying—we’re not going to the country,” said Doreen.
“And that’s another nice bag of worms opened up, just as we’re about to go into a church!” said Billy. “Mind you, if there’s an invasion, it might be better for my girls to be closer to London.”
Maisie looked from one to the other. “Well, the offer’s there—I can take you all, if you wish. Anyway, Billy, we must speak tomorrow morning at the office in any case. About Archie Coombes.”
“Oh yes, Archie Coombes. He’s a different kettle of fish, no two ways about it. I’ve a few things to report on that young man.”
Maisie opened the French doors that led into the walled garden from the sitting room, and went into the kitchen to put away the few grocery items she had brought back from Chelstone. She placed a bottle of milk in her new refrigerator, a half loaf into an enamel bread bin on the table, and poured a quarter pound of Brooke Bond tea into the caddy. Slipping off her pale blue summer jacket, she hung it over the back of the chair, filled the kettle with water and put it on the stove. Standing by the stove, staring at the flame licking up around the kettle, Maisie began to formulate a plan for the following day. Teddy Wickham—she wanted to talk to the young man who had decreed that Joe Coombes was on “top form.” And she wanted to see the place where the lad’s body had been found—there had been no time to pay a visit when she had been brought to Hampshire to identify the body. She would have to speak to Detective Inspector Murphy to gain access to the area, but she had found him to be an approachable man, so did not envisage a problem with her request.