The Captain and the Enemy Read Online Free PDF Page B

It took him quite a while to decide on the shilling. He said, ‘Go back and get two éclairs: she likes éclairs,’ and when I returned, he said, ‘Let’s take a walk.’ Take a walk we did – down several streets, in complete silence. Then the Captain said, ‘It’s a pity you’re not sixteen.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘You can’t even look sixteen.’
    We went another street-length before he spoke again. ‘Eighteen I think it is anyway. I always get it mixed up with the age of consent.’
    I still didn’t understand.
    ‘That’s what’s wrong with this bloody country,’ he said. ‘The lack of privacy. There’s no way that a man can talk quietly to a boy under age. It’s too cold for the park, and Liza wouldn’t forgive me if you caught a chill. You are not allowed in a pub. Tea shops aren’t open – not for any refreshment which a man can drink. I can go into a bar, but you aren’t permitted. You can have a cup of tea in a tea shop, but too much tea – but don’t tell Liza that – upsets me and they won’t serve me what
I
want. So we’ll just have to go on walking. It’s different in France.’
    ‘We could go home,’ I suggested. I had begun to use the word ‘home’ consciously for the first time – I had never thought of my aunt’s flat as home.
    ‘But it’s Liza I want to talk about. I can’t talk in front of her.’ He dropped into silence again for a couple of streets. Then he demanded, ‘You are carrying those éclairs carefully, aren’t you? Don’t squeeze the bag. They are like toothpaste tubes if you squeeze them.’
    I assured him that I was not squeezing them.
    ‘She’s very fond of éclairs,’ he told me, ‘and I wouldn’t want them ruined.’
    We walked perhaps a hundred yards further before he spoke again. ‘I want you to tell her,’ he said, ‘tell her – but very gently, mind – that I won’t be around for a month or two.’
    ‘Why don’t you come and tell her yourself?’
    ‘I don’t want to go into explanations. I don’t like telling lies to Liza and the truth would only worry her. But tell her – tell her on my word of honour – on my word of honour, mind you say that – I’ll be back, and everything will be hunky-dory. Just a few months away. That’s all. And give her my love of course – don’t forget that – my love.’
    He stopped and asked in a tone of anxiety, ‘You know where you are? You know the way back?’
    ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘the butcher is at the next corner but one. I’ve been there often.’
    ‘Well, son, I’ll say goodbye then. Time for me to be off.’ Yet he seemed strangely unwilling to go. He asked me, ‘You two getting on well together?’
    ‘Oh yes,’ I said, ‘fine.’
    ‘You call her Mum like I told you?’
    ‘She wants me to call her Liza.’
    ‘Oh, that’s Liza all over. She always likes things straight and true. I admire her for it, but the trouble is that straight and true can be a bit dangerous at times. For instance it’s much safer if you called her Mum, not Liza. If people hear you calling her Mum they sort of accept the situation. They don’t ask questions.’
    ‘She says it might make them wonder where I’ve sprung from.’
    He pondered a little over my reply and then he said, ‘Yes. I hadn’t thought of that. Perhaps she’s right. She does think things through. She learnt that in the school of suffering, poor Liza did. That devil your father …’
    ‘Does she know my father?’ I asked with curiousity, for I could hardly remember much of him myself.
    ‘She knew him once, but don’t you speak of him to her. I want her to forget.’ He repeated ‘to forget …’ He added, ‘And here I am forgetting the most important thing of all.’ He took an envelope from his pocket and said, ‘Give her that and tell her if there’s any trouble, if she’s short of anything … give it to she knows who.’
    ‘To she knows who,’ I repeated. It was a difficult message to memorize, like a phrase in a