The Buried Circle - Jenni Mills [140]
‘You know why old Donald’s so het up, don’t you?’ he said. ‘He’s not happy flying circuits round Yatesbury–too tame. But there’s a question mark over whether they’ll allow him back when the squadron moves to Colerne.’
‘Why?’ I asked, but he ignored me.
‘Not looking forward to Colerne, myself. Have to learn a whole new set of gubbins when we fly the de Havilland Mosquito.’
‘Should you be telling me that?’ I said. ‘My fellow usually keeps mum about what he flies.’ Davey had passed his exams in the summer, top of his class, and had been posted to a night-fighter squadron in East Anglia. His tight-lipped letters gave little away about his job, though I gathered he was kept busy patrolling the coast and chasing German bombers. But they revealed far too much about his feelings for me, and his longing for a transfer back to Wiltshire.
‘Pilot or wireless op?’ asked the airman. He wasn’t interested enough to wait for my reply. ‘Anyway, Don shouldn’t fret. He’ll be operational before Christmas, I bet–too good a pilot to waste in training, though I hope to Christ Yatesbury will have calmed him down.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Silly bastard was taking too many risks. Final straw was when he chased a bomber all the way to France, against orders I might add, and was shot up so badly he only just made it home on one engine. It looked touch and go, and he told his wireless op to bale out. Don brought the plane down safely, but Tony landed in the drink, and washed ashore dead. After that, word went round the squadron he was bad luck. No one wanted to fly with him.’
Donald was very drunk by now, sitting close to Mr Keiller near the middle of the table and doing his best to compete for the attention of the woman in the violet dress. For all my fear of him, I could pity him that night. He’d always been a good-looking boy. When you caught him unguarded, there could be gentleness in his face, but he seemed to want to slough off that side of himself. And I knew, because I’d seen it in the house in Swindon, that he was terrible frightened of his uncle. I wouldn’t have liked to be the one to tell him he shouldn’t come to the party.
The clock chimed the quarter hour. Forty-five minutes to midnight. The dessert plates were being cleared. Mr Keiller looked at Mr Cromley. Mr Cromley lurched to his feet, banging his cake fork against his glass, leaving a yellow smear of custard. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he slurred, ‘when you have finished your coffee and brandy, please assemble in the Library to prepare for our sss-solemn ritual in honour of the late Barber Surgeon of Avebury’ On cue the door of the dining room swung open, and the surly housemaid came in, carrying two tall coffee pots. She scowled when Mr Cromley beckoned to me and I stood up, full of dread, aware of curious eyes on me all around the table.
In the Library, I was shaking as he dressed me in the hooded white cloak and the black domino mask. I had known for several days what would be expected of me: he had come knocking, bold as brass, at the door of the Lodge one evening and made me go with him to the Red Lion where he bought me a port and lemon and explained the ritual. Hadn’t seemed so much, then, just more silly games like I’d seen them play in the Manor garden with the white chalk pizzle.
But now, after the humiliation of the evening, with midnight approaching and the mask on my face, for two pins I’d have run away if it weren’t for the power of his whisper to harm Mam.
He stood back, eyes narrowed, then reached to adjust the set of the cloak on my shoulders. ‘One more detail.’ He took from his breast pocket a five-pointed silver star on a chain and hung it round my neck. A trace of white powder was caught in