Louis Shalako: Heaven Is Too Far Away, Chapter Seventeen. Louis Shalako.

Chapter Seventeen

Weekend at Bernie’s

On Friday we packed up and went to a nice place in the Chiltern Hills, west of the City. A good, long ways west, although the big, opulent vehicle that Betty’s part-time driver chugged out of the old three-bay coach house was comfortable enough.

As the sun rose to its winter peak, I chatted with the driver. Toby was a black with the most cultured Oxford accent. Extremely well-educated, he answered my questions ably enough.

“It’s a six-cylinder engine, with overhead camshafts and three valves per cylinder. She can hit seventy-five on a long smooth stretch, although I’ve been politely instructed not to do it.”

In response to more questions, he explained the various permutations of side-valves, overhead valves, camshaft located in the block or in the head, ‘et cetera.’

“Here’s a long, straight stretch coming up now.” I noted, taking a sidelong glance at Betty.

“Would that be one intake valve or two?” I asked, just to divert attention.

“Two intake, one exhaust. Due to the location of the intakes, exhausts, and where the cams are located, there’s no room for dual exhaust valves, which in my opinion would be more logical.”

He thought for a moment.

“That and the dual sparking-plugs. That helps with the power as well.”

Sounds pretty busy under that bonnet.

“Un-burnt fuel is bad news.” Toby offered. “It’s inefficient.”

Toby was almost imperceptibly increasing the throttle setting. Perhaps he was unconscious of it. He was peeking at Betty in the mirror, and caught my eye for a second.

The speed crept up.

“Simply put, it pushes a lot more air-fuel mixture through the combustion chambers, and the engine breathes better, revs up higher, and produces more power.”

Lots of people understand it. Few can explain it so clearly.

“Toby was studying for an engineering degree when the war came.” Betty said.

“The best-laid plans of mice and men aft gang agley,” said the honorable gentleman.

The speed crept up.

“What happened?” I had to know.

This man was so intelligent, so cultured. Surely he had a story to tell.

“Gas.” Was all he said.

The speedometer now read seventy-five miles per hour, as I studied it over the seat’s top.

“Ah, yes.” No further comment was needed.

Toby would never run up the steps of the school, never play cricket, never work at an active or even busy job. I never saw Toby smoke, but I did notice a funny little cough now and again, and in fact it was whenever I lit up.

“Toby?” She said.

The speed began to creep down. He was still smiling, and that made me feel better. He seemed like a hell of a good man, and it was nice to know Betty wasn’t totally without friends and help if anything should keep me away.

“Is it ever getting dark out.” Advised Betty.

“If those clouds come down any lower, it’ll be blacker than my bum.” Said Toby as I choked on a sip of brandy.

It took a moment to undo the damage. I caught my breath finally.

“I appreciate you driving us.” I grinned. “If it’s okay with you, I’d like to use that line on someone else sometime.”

“Pardon me?” Betty and Toby asked at the same instant.

“Oh, you know. It’s the sort of thing writers do. Save up a few good lines and use them when we can.”

It was just a silly conversation and we were all enjoying the trip due to just this sort of nonsense.

“The night was sultry.” Quoth Toby.

“And blacker than Toby’s bum?” Gasped Betty.

“We’ll have to work on it.” I said sadly as the two of them laughed uproariously.

My windpipe was still stinging from the inhalation of booze.

“The drive in the country does me good. I sit and read the papers too much. Mrs. Worthington tells me I have to get out and about more.”

“This is as good a time as any to announce, that I’m buying a motorcycle.” I told Betty, and incidentally, Toby.

“Oh, really?” Asked Betty. “That sounds like fun. When do I get a ride?”

Thank God she wasn’t the kind that couldn’t bear the idea of riding on a bike.

“Oh, soon enough.” I said, with a gleam in my eye.

Boy, was she in for a surprise.

“What kind are you getting?” Asked Toby.

Innocent enough question, but I found myself blushing furiously. I didn’t even know.

“Um, um, I bought it from Peterson, down in the…”

“Oh, he’s good, one of the best.” Toby acknowledged.

“What kind is it?” He went on. “Some marques have a better reputation.”

“It’s big.” I told them, and they laughed at that.

“Really, really big, and loud, and fast.” I told Betty, giving her a special look.

I put my hand on her knee, and gave it a little squeeze.

“You’ll get your ride, young lady.” I murmured, staring obliquely out of the corner of my eye to see if she blushed.

She did, a little, but it was all quite amusing.

“It just pulsates and throbs with power.” I stated in a neutral tone.

Toby’s ears perked up.

“Never mind that. Just tell us about the bike.” Betty said.

“Oh, you’ll see soon enough.” I said it mysteriously, and bent over and kissed her on the neck, just in behind her ear.

It kind of reminded me of that one time Melissa kissed my forehead. It seemed that I wasn’t a hundred percent Betty’s. Would Melissa always haunt me? That thought was just something I had to live with. This too shall pass, hopefully.

The basic plan was to have Toby drive us to Holly Brook, spend the weekend at Bernie’s, Toby takes the car home and Smith-Barry was having someone fly a plane up for me. I thought of telegraphing, to make sure it was an Avro or something with two seats, but reasoning that he did tell me to bring a guest, hopefully he would have anticipated that.

If I felt a little shy, a little out of my depth upon waking up and discovering Betty was a young lady of independent means, and owned her own big town house in London, and didn’t really have to work due to a massive inheritance, I was totally intimidated when we turned up the drive and saw Holly Brook House.

My guts flipped over and over inside for a moment.

I was cleaning up my language, and had been fairly successful at purging out cuss words, if not all slang and derogatory statements entirely.

But I think I said, “Fuck.”

I’m pretty sure that I did.

Betty understood, a little. Toby gave a startled glance in the mirror.

"Fuck."

“Well, I saw the holly, I’ve seen the brook, and oh, my, God. Now I’ve seen the fuckin’ house.” I breathed in desperation.

What in the hell was Smith-Barry getting me into?

“I’ve met them, as I said, and they are quite nice, actually.” My lady reminded me, but this place was something unbelievable.

It must have been an eighth of a mile…no, maybe not that big, across the front. It was sitting in the middle of a field. If you can call something so green, so verdant, so well- manicured a field. It was about six or seven hundred acres of the prettiest rolling pasture-land I had seen in quite some time.

A valley in the hills, all to itself.

“We’ve been so lucky, no snow.” Said Toby. “And the grass is still in good shape.”

There were about fifty acres of relatively flat land. There were a number of aircraft sitting at the east side of the house, and I could see barns and outbuildings on the other side of the giant clearing in the woods. The last radiant light of the sun broke out of the clouds and a bomb-burst of rays shot up across the lowering, stained, grey and white billowing cloudscape. Patches of darkening blue sky could be made out at regular intervals in between serried rows.

“Flock of sheep clouds.” I told Betty, as we stepped out.

We waited for Toby to open up the boot so I could get at our bits and pieces of kit.

Me, I travel light. You know women.

“Very pretty.” She murmured, tipping her head back.

It was the signal for another kiss.

The weekend might not be too unbearable, I thought. But that’s harsh. I had no idea of what to expect. And I was suffering from a little case of the nerves. I thanked Toby for the ride. Having thought it out ahead of time, I made no hint of tipping. No confusion, no arguments, no wasted nonsense. You don’t tip a friend.

“It’s too bad you have to return so soon.” I told him. “I’d be glad to take you up some time.”

“I’d love to take a look at that motorbike of yours when you get the chance,” he responded diplomatically.

Betty winked at me from behind his shoulder. Shaking hands, we left him closing up the car. We were welcomed into the house by a good old English butler, who was the tallest man I would meet all weekend, so I studied him a bit.

This man had social skills. I could learn a thing or two from him. He took our coats, called someone to dispose of our luggage, and told us where the main party was at. All of this, and found us a very nice room on the first floor, which is actually one up in England.

***

It was a real high-class dinner.

After settling into our room, unpacking, and freshening up, we dressed for evening.

The moment was a little awkward. Several folks turned in their chairs and watched us navigate the big double stairway, with its rosewood banisters sweeping like wings, coming down from above. Elizabeth was at my arm. She smelled oh, so sweet, and she looked radiant. That was no cause for worry. I looked good, too. While I wasn’t fastidious as a dresser, I took my time about it tonight. The big question was, who in the hell was I supposed to be making an impression on? And where the hell were they?

I’m not a big fan of guessing-games. We had a stroke of luck. Elizabeth recognized someone. Just for the weekend, she was to be ‘Elizabeth,’ and not ‘Betty.’ I didn’t want to make a big issue of it, but she recognized that coincidental to our burgeoning romance, my life was at a bit of a crossroads. Naturally, she wanted me to make the best of the opportunity. I never had any thoughts of a so-called career before, but had been doing some hard thinking lately. Married men have responsibilities, and while admittedly not married, you never know, do you?

I had no plans of being a kept man.

It’s fair to say that I was head over heels in love with the lass, and on my best behavior. Which I have found challenging in the past, and if you don’t believe me, ask Constable Ralph McKyber of the village police, or a couple of others back home.

All bets are off in a war zone, where we are given license to sin by society, the church, and our families. As long as we sin against the enemy. All her friends kept coming up and saying things like, ‘Hi Betty. How are you? How is your Mom?’

My plan of calling her Elizabeth went right out the window. But as she introduced me to various friends and acquaintances, it was pleasant enough, (I guess.)

Soon our hostess appeared. She didn’t seem to know who I was, and it was a little awkward. My neck reddened and I started getting kind of hot under the collar.

Our lovely hostess, ah, Missus What's 'er Name.

Luckily Bernie appeared. He seemed to know who he was looking for, and came up with outstretched hand.

“Ah, you must be Too-kair,” he vowed in some abominable and almost indecipherable foreign accent. “My name is, ‘Hair-Cue,’ but you must call me Bernie if it ah-keeps you from laughing out-a loud-a at a poor-a foreign-a gentle-a-man.”

He beamed at me. Thank God. There was no way I could pronounce that name.

I found out later that was his Wop impression. He didn’t always sound like that.

“Oh, ar, um.” I murmured. “Jolly good. Right-oh.”

I responded with a dark and morose inner glee. This just kept getting better and better all the time. They say he’s a Belgian or something, most of the time.

‘All-a da time-a,’ I corrected silently.

Where the hell was my boss? Someone to make sense out of all this mess.

And I was about ready to begin growling at people, which I didn’t wish to do in front of my lady friend. Perhaps sensing my confusion, Bernie turned away to beckon for a drink. Betty came to the rescue.

“Take me out and show me the planes.”

“We-a talk-a later-a.” Bernie, or ‘Hair-Cue,’ acknowledged.

“They say he’s something big in Belgian Intelligence.” Betty began, huffing and puffing a little as we walked down the hallway in the direction of the east wing.

“Who is?” I murmured, intent on her lovely neck, her pink little ear.

I gave it a quick peck as we walked slowly along.

“Bernie…les Monsieur ‘Hair-Cue.’” She enunciated carefully for my benefit.

I couldn’t even spell it. I didn’t find out until later.

She wasn’t too used to walking in those high heels, either.

“Who?” I muttered, taking in the frieze of voluptuously-painted ceilings, plasterwork, heavy wood wainscoting, and you name it, it was expensive-looking.

“Bernie.” She repeated.

“I wondered.” I answered idly. “Anyway, if he didn’t do it, somebody else would.”

She slapped me for that one.

I thoroughly considered grabbing her and dragging her into one of the little side rooms, which must lurk behind every door. I had a condom in my wallet.

“Hah. I hear he is that, too.” She said in sheer mischief.

“He’s what?” I gaped. “What the heck are you talking about?”

We strolled arm in arm down the apparently endless corridor. My jaw was kind of hanging open in sheer awe at the decor. Finally an exit led out onto a promenade which extended along the side of the place, visible in the lights strung along the balusters.

“We’d better lay a trail of bread crumbs if we leave the room tonight.” I was unable to stifle an immature giggle.

I couldn’t help it. What an awe-inspiring pile of bricks.

Turning around and craning my neck, I could see the dormered windows of the servant’s quarters, high up over the crenellated fake battlements. The blackness of the roofline was accented by twinkling lights inside, silhouetted against a violent sky.

It was cold and dark out there. After a quick walk around an Avro 504, one I remembered from Gosport, we hurriedly nipped back inside. Standing in an alcove, I wrapped my arms around her figure as we warmed each other up.

She looked up with mysterious eyes.

My lady had a little smirk on her lips, as sweet and red as raspberry wine.

“So that’s the competition.” She kidded gently. “The other great love interest that I shall have to contend with.”

“A man has to have a job.” I told her, no bullshit there.

I couldn’t really conceive of the idea of capital, and being able to live off of the income or interest. People did it of course, but I didn’t think it would ever happen to me.

(And I was right.)

“I know.” She said. “Otherwise you would have to go off and be a coal-miner, or a pirate, or a mountain climber, or some other dangerous profession.”

“I suppose you’re right, old girl.” I said equably.

A sudden thought crossed my mind.

“I remember this one time, we were inside the Great Barrier Reef, off the Cape York Peninsula…” I began in an earnest tone, and she seemed to believe it at first. “I stood on the burning deck, my feet were all in blisters…”

“Ah, baloney.” She said with a tinkling laugh. “But go on.”

“Later.”

We needed to get back to the party. We were proceeding down the hall again when a door popped open and Smith-Barry was right there.

“Ah. Will. Excuse me, young lady.” And drawing me aside, he asked, “Can you meet me back here in about five minutes?”

“It’s as good a time as any to perform my antics.” I joshed, but he didn’t appear to be in the mood to joke around too much.

I left Betty in the main hall with the others gathering for dinner. Duty called. It always makes me grumpy to be held up for a hot meal.

They were waiting in a small, eighty-foot den off to one side of the entrance hallway. Stepping in and closing the door behind, I advanced into the room. Smith-Barry wasn’t there. Before I had time to contemplate this, one of the gentlemen spoke.

I stood as the Astrakhan rug stroked my ankles.

“Come in, sit down, my boy.” Came the thick, gravelly, lisping voice of the Right Honorable Mr. Winston Spencer Fucking Churchill.

Winnie.

Aw, damn. Is that twit involved? There was a chair in front, facing a row of oaken desks. Another man sat looking at some notes which had been prepared for the group. Each had a thick docket in front of him. A third, and a fourth, and another came in, and sat down. They hemmed and hawed, whispering among themselves. Cough, cough. Silence as they all read again. Squirm, fidget, a sudden urge to scratch my balls, which of course took it into their independent minds to develop a real doozie of an itch. Lord have mercy.

Naturally, I understand that they are responsible to the taxpayers, and shouldn’t be so dumb as to buy a pig in a poke, as my dear old granddad would say.

Some of these men could use a good hiding. Winnie in particular. Too bad the Boers missed the old fart. The big one that got away.

Well, now what? I sat as they read it all again. I thought of what the Boers said in their wanted poster. God almighty, would I ever love a copy of that one.

‘Skinny Englishman, five-foot eight, red hair, blue eyes, walks with a limp, cannot pronounce the letter ‘s’…’

Bob in his younger days. (L)

All true enough, but they left out the pompous ass bit.

His escape? He ran away—big deal.

Finally one cleared his throat, and they all looked up and around and at each other.

“That seems clear then.” A little bird-like man offered, and puffed contemplatively on a battered old briar pipe.

Tiny, glistening beads of sweat appeared like tinsel on his head. I sat fascinated.

“Any questions?” The unidentified bald-headed chairman inquired.

There were no questions.

“Any objections?”

There were no objections, although they didn’t actually ask me.

“Any questions, young man?” Asked Winnie.

His grizzled face, yes, it was kind of grizzled-looking even then, stared over his half-glasses, and his stinking cigar stank up the room just like it always did.

They all sat and looked quizzically at me.

“Nope. I’ll start a week from Monday.” Brevity is king, after all.

That was easy. Now I could eat.

“Congratulations,” someone said, and the interview was over.

An aide handed me a couple of sealed envelopes. One for me and one copy for my boss, or former boss would be more accurate. His copy would release me. My papers authorized a program. Simple as that. I never knew I had that much power before.

As I left the room, Smith-Barry was lunging for me, and I noticed another nervous-looking young fellow awaiting his turn at the hot-seat in their secret little committee room.

“Good luck, buddy. They’re in a fire-eating mood.” I joked, and the guy blanched somewhat.

You have to have a laugh, especially when it’s Navy pukes.

“This is awesome.” I told Smith-Barry, babbling like an immature idiot. “You got me three destroyers and a dirigible? What’s that for?”

“Give me that.” He barked uncharacteristically, snatching the orders from my hand.

All of a sudden Bernie appeared from a curtained alcove further up the hall.

That didn’t surprise me at all, for some reason.

Even though he hurried by without eye contact, and pretended to be zipping up his fly.

“Yeah, that and a regiment of cavalry. Just what we needed.” I babbled, steering Smith-Barry out into the reception area, where a cluster of personages were still backed up at the entrance of the dining hall.

Betty was looking around for me.

“I got to go to the can, man.” I told Robert.

He impatiently read my papers, and then had a quick glance at his.

“Fine. We’ll chat later. She’s a stunner, by the way. Congratulations.”

We parted on that note, Smith-Barry heading to the dining hall and I took a quick side trip, confirming that there was indeed a bathroom behind the curtain. But that didn’t really prove anything, did it? Some of those old English houses were simply riddled with secret passages and stuff. I read that somewhere.

I was so hungry. I think it affects my judgment at times. Please don’t think that I’m totally without social graces. Seeing Winston always ticked me off, because a cousin was there. Okay, he was admittedly on the Turkish side, but he lost a leg, and he was kin.

That was at Gallipoli.

END