Devotion Read online

  LOUISA YOUNG

  Devotion

  Copyright

  The Borough Press

  An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  Published by The Borough Press 2016

  Copyright © Louisa Young 2016

  Louisa Young asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

  ‘Begin the Beguine’ words and music by Cole Porter © 1935 (renewed) WB Music Corp. (ascap) all rights administered by Warner/Chappell North America Ltd.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  Cover Design by Claire Ward © HarperCollinsPublishers

  Photographs © Dragan Todorovic/Trevillion Images (scene); Alexa Garbarino/Trevillion Images (woman)

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. Some characters (or names) and incidents portrayed in it, while based on real historical figures, are the work of the author’s imagination.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  Source ISBN: 9780007532872

  Ebook Edition © 2016 ISBN: 9780007532896

  Version: 2016-04-19

  Dedication

  To Derek Johns: Agent Emeritus, consigliere, and friend

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Part One: 1928

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Part Two: 1932

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Part Three: 1933–4

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Part Four: 1938

  Chapter Twelve

  Part Five: 1938–9

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Part Six

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also by Louisa Young

  About the Publisher

  Part One

  1928

  Chapter One

  An English school, July 1928

  Tom Locke, twelve, tall for his age, goose-pimpled and shivering, practically naked in his knitted bathers, was hopping about under the trees at the end of the lake. They were about to be put through swimming, and Tom felt there was a genuine opportunity to disappear up one of the larches and avoid this frankly absurd dunking, the last of term. Yesterday the Beaks had carpeted him because he’d been swimming – well, yes, without permission – and after dark, but so what, he’d wanted to observe the nocturnal bird life and lake-life, he’d explained it perfectly clearly – or would have, if they’d given him a chance – and now they were forcing him in when it was cold and he didn’t feel like it. This morning the lake looked like a lake which might give a chap pneumonia.

  Soft needles cushioned his feet; grey-black water gleamed in front of him. The other boys, squawking, slapped their hard faded towels at each other. A bit of dank sun slid through the branches above.

  Tom had goggles and a phenomenal lung capacity for such a skinny boy. He would go under gracefully and glide through the greenest murk, slipping between spirals of slime, hardly disturbing whoever lurked down there. It was like flying through water. Surfacing, he would go eye to gelatinous eye with half-submerged toads, breathe a little, and sink again. Underwater was lovely to him. But today he didn’t feel like it. He flung two quick arms up, grabbed, pulled and slithered, and was up, on a scratchy branch, in the shadows of the shaggy heart of the larch, where cobwebs and grey ghosts of old growth hung in the remnants of winter.

  It was bloody cold up there too. Must be some kind of meteorological front, he thought, and glanced around for birds’ nests, insects, lichens.

  *

  As it was the third time this term, in the third school of the past four years, that Tom had decided to do what he wanted instead of following instructions, and as the usual measures had had no effect, his father was called upon to appear. Tom knew perfectly well that his father would not appear. His father had only recently started appearing out of his study, where he had been lurking ever since he came home from the war ten years ago. Why would he suddenly appear in front of the Head? He never had been what one could reliably call reliable, why would he start now? Riley Purefoy would as usual take his place.

  This delighted Tom. Discipline rolled off his back, but a visit from Riley was a jewel beyond measure.

  Tom was standing outside the Head’s study when Riley appeared, and grinned like a loon at the sight of him. Riley grinned back, his constricted harlequin smile. Just then, two seniors lounged past, which distracted Tom for a moment. One of them, Slater, had on a previous occasion suggested that Tom’s mother was negligent, as she never appeared at sporting events. ‘Oh no,’ Tom had said, ‘I have no Ma’ – with a flick of his big blue eyes – very like his mother’s, in fact – which had led Slater to think that perhaps Locke’s mater was a runaway. ‘Has she bolted then?’ Slater had asked, scenting prey. ‘You could put it that way,’ Tom had said, with the slightly amused-looking expression he used for covering what he point-blank refused to talk about. His mother – Julia. Julia. Joooolia – had been dead for ten years, died having Kitty, the kid sister – bad bargain probably. Of course he didn’t talk about her. A chap wouldn’t even talk about a living mater, let alone a dead one. And anyway Nadine was a perfectly good substitute.

  And anyway if he started talking about mothers he’d have to start thinking about them, and fathers too. Nadine had said, during Tom’s last exeat, ‘Peter is so much better than he has been, isn’t he, Tom, since he went to France with Riley? I’m so glad he’s writing his book now.’

  The book was about Homer and the Great War. Tom had shrugged. Perhaps when Peter came out of his study he wasn’t as odd and unpleasant as he used to be, and he smelt a bit better, but Tom still had nothing to say to him.

  Not that any of that was any of Slater’s beeswax. So Slater had been confused, and, not being very intelligent, had marked Locke as an enemy and potential victim.

  Now, as they ambled by, Slater and his companion caught sight of Riley’s face, or to be precise its unlikely shape, and the scars which held it together. They stalled, walked on, giggled, then turned back and behind Riley’s head started a little dance of mockery, fingers pulling at the flesh of their own young faces, eyes rolling, at Tom.

  Tom flared.

  ‘What is it?’ said Riley, turning. The T was lost in the ghost of the cockney accent of his childhood; the entire phrase just caught in his rebuilt mouth.

  ‘Wo’ issit?’ leered Slater.

  So Tom lurched forward, punched him, kicked the other in the balls, and to his shame let the words escape him, ‘Don’t you bloody laugh at him, you bloody snobs!’

  *

  Riley, though he felt as strongly as ever the instinctive, instant urge to pull
the lad out, restrained himself. His reason was impeccable: if his patched-up face were to suffer a blow he could lose the remains of his jaw, and be a half-head once again, and God knows what would become of him. He had promised Nadine, after the contretemps during the strikes in Wigan in 1919, to be careful. In fact, he’d promised her again last week, when he’d told her about dropping the splint while cleaning it, and needing to see Mr Gillies about a new one. Of course he had learnt that he had to behave.

  So he stood back, just barked ‘Tom!’ and the Head came out. An unpleasant scene ensued. Slater was made to apologise, Riley was made to listen to it, and Tom was expelled.

  *

  They thought they might as well go home to London immediately, as soon as Matron had Tom’s trunk packed up.

  Tom, a black eye rising mauve and cloudy on his white face, was simultaneously delighted with his fearsome defence of Riley’s honour, and deeply embarrassed by the fact that Riley knew what it had been over.

  ‘Don’t do it again,’ Riley said. ‘It’s understandable but not useful.’

  ‘Never?’ said Tom. Though many didn’t, Tom understood Riley’s constricted speech clearly. He wanted to, which helped.

  ‘Never,’ said Riley.

  ‘So, you’re saying, violence is never to be used?’ said Tom.

  ‘It’s very rarely a useful response,’ said Riley. ‘Don’t put words in my mouth’ – with a little smile. He looked tired.

  ‘Shall we see if we can get a cup of tea?’ Tom said. ‘Evans will probably make one for us.’

  So they slipped off to the sickbay, where Evans the under-under-matron, sixteen and as pretty as a Renoir, laughed and glanced and provided not just tea but digestive biscuits, with a fair amount of ‘Oh, I shouldn’t,’ and ‘If Mrs Dale catches us!’ and ‘He’s got us all eating out of his hand, Mr Locke, sir.’

  Riley was accustomed to being Mr Locke on such occasions, and let it pass. Evans may well have been wondering why Tom Locke, pale and blond and tall for his age, looked nothing like his broad-shouldered, black-curled dad, but then Tom said: ‘I’m off, Evans – been chucked out again …’ Her face actually fell, and her ‘oh!’ was small and soft.

  Riley noticed that Tom did not notice.

  *

  Walking out to the car, Riley said, ‘By the way—’ but by the time he said it, Tom had already seen. A long tall figure was leaning against a narrow tree, smoking. Tom found that his face had gone a little hard and he was looking at the ground. He’d have to go in the back of the car now. And – Peter! Out of doors!

  ‘Hello, Tom,’ Peter said. He dropped his cigarette on the hard muddy path and came forward.

  There’ll be hell to pay for someone, Tom thought. Cigarette ends in the grounds. ‘Hello,’ he said, with just enough courtesy not to annoy Riley.

  ‘Didn’t want to swim, eh?’ said Peter. ‘Thought you liked swimming.’

  Since when did you ever know anything about me? Tom thought.

  ‘Not always, sir,’ he said, and glanced up, and saw that Peter didn’t seem saddened by this response, and that Riley looked almost approving. It’s so hard to tell with grown-ups if they ever actually feel bad about anything at all. They’re just oblivious or happy or angry. Perhaps sadness is only for children.

  It was not the first time he’d thought this. But when you are born into sadness, and normality is based on it, it is difficult to winnow out what sadness actually is. Happiness now – happiness was a recognised stranger, to be welcomed with a big embrace and clung to like a departing parent. Tom always had his eye out for happiness, and grabbed it where he could. For example: Tom had very much looked forward to being with Riley, and talking as they drove back up to London. He thought it definitely worth being expelled for. But with Peter there, it could not be. As well as Peter being the gooseberry, it was much harder to follow Riley’s speech over the engine noise when you were sitting in the back. You couldn’t see his face.

  Riley said, ‘We need to find you another school. Assuming there’s any left that will have you.’

  Tom’s eyes flickered over the dull green fields outside; heavy wet English summer. He appreciated Riley’s attempts to interest him in ordinary education and proper work. He terribly wanted to indulge him, but he couldn’t care less about education – and how could he say anything important with Peter there?

  A while after they reached the main road, Peter fell into a doze.

  ‘There’s really no point,’ Tom hissed, leaning forward to Riley’s ear. ‘Books send me to sleep. Anyway it’s the hols now.’ Without noticing, he repositioned himself so he could see Riley’s face in the rearview mirror.

  Riley eyed him, and attempted to put to one side how very much he would have loved to have had this boy’s educational opportunities.

  ‘Work bores me to sobs,’ Tom said.

  Riley’s mouth twisted a little.

  ‘It’s a waste of money,’ Tom tried.

  ‘Peter doesn’t have very much else to spend his money on,’ murmured Riley.

  At the mention of his father, Tom glanced at him, his worn and pale face, his thin hair, and grew a little mulish. ‘He could buy me a decent pair of goggles,’ he said. ‘Or a motorbike. I could learn to dive. Or fly! Something useful. There are spear fishers in Italy who live in the sea. I could go and live with them.’

  ‘You must go back to school,’ said Riley.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To make Nadine happy,’ said Riley, at which Tom gave him a mock-evil look and said, ‘That’s below the belt, old man. Totally below the belt.’

  ‘Like that blow you gave that poor senior,’ Riley pointed out.

  ‘Different!’ cried Tom.

  ‘Why?’ asked Riley.

  ‘That was self-defence!’ Realising he was on slippery ground, he amended it to, ‘I was defending my family honour.’

  Riley blinked at him fondly, in the rearview mirror. Tom started laughing.

  Riley said, ‘What if – all right – you crash your bi-plane on to a Greek island, while on a diving trip to discover Atlantis. A ferocious peasant with a huge moustache and an ancient blunderbuss approaches you. Would you rather know some Greek, or not?’

  ‘I wouldn’t crash,’ Tom said. ‘But say I have allowed some second-rate chap to pilot me, and we go belly up, how ancient is the ferocious peasant? Because we only do ancient Greek.’

  ‘If you speak to him in the tongue of his ancestors, of the wine-dark sea and rosy-fingered dawn, is he more or less likely to shoot you?’

  ‘More!’ said Tom.

  ‘Then you reduce me to emotional blackmail,’ Riley said. ‘I would have liked the education you are having. I need you to continue, so that you can come home and teach me all that I don’t know.’

  ‘Totally unfair,’ said Tom. ‘I’ll work as hard as you like but school is wasted on me.’

  ‘Ordinary bribery then,’ said Riley. ‘Goggles?’

  ‘Motorbike!’ said Tom.

  ‘So you’re open to negotiation. Good. We can ask Nadine to find the only school left in the country which hasn’t yet chucked you out. I dare say she’s still got the list.’

  ‘BSA!’ said Tom.

  ‘Possible motorbike, when you go to university, if your father agrees.’

  ‘University!’ the boy yelped, in new despondency.

  ‘Would you not rather design your own aeroplane?’

  ‘I don’t want to be an engineer!’

  ‘Do you want to spend your life at a disadvantage to other men?’

  ‘Well you haven’t!’ Tom cried. ‘And you didn’t go to university!’

  Riley smiled his crooked smile. ‘Thank you, Tom,’ he said, and only then did Tom realise what he had said. But the car went over a pot-hole, and Peter woke, and didn’t even say, ‘Did I miss anything?’, just started staring out of the window, his mouth slightly pursed. Tom fell silent. After a while he enquired what was for dinner. Riley didn’t know.

  *

 
Home was not Peter’s house, the elegant and pastoral Locke Hill, near Sidcup, where Tom had spent some months before his mother’s death. Nor was it the grand cottage of his grandmother, Julia’s mother Jane Orris, to which Tom had been snatched during the war. (Mrs Orris was the kind of relative with whom you would have tea if you had to, and whose voice on the telephone filled you with gloom.) No, home now, was in London: Nadine’s father’s comfortable and fadedly glamorous Georgian house on Bayswater Road, which had somehow become, over the years, Nadine and Riley’s comfortable and fadedly glamorous Georgian house on Bayswater Road, in which Nadine’s father lived with them.

  Kitty was there in the hall, her arms folded across her smock. ‘Welcome home I don’t think,’ she said. ‘What are you doing here? It’s not holidays for boys yet.’

  ‘It’s holidays for me!’ Tom said, in his most annoying voice. ‘Now go away.’ He checked the foreign stamps Nadine had put to one side for him in the hall – several Italian ones, excellent – and in passing greeted Kitty with a casual clout about the head. Last time they had seen each other, as he had left for school, he had by a mere slip of the tongue called Riley ‘Daddy’, whereupon Kitty had kicked him and bared her teeth, making hissing noises. Not that it mattered in the slightest to him what she thought. But order had to be maintained.

  Nadine was coming down the stairs, ink-stained, messy-haired and surprised from her studio in the attic, though she can’t be that surprised, Tom thought. She’d be cross, but Tom knew she wouldn’t be for long. She was concerned, but Tom didn’t concern himself with that; that was what women were for.

  Kitty started scampering around Nadine’s skirts, saying ‘Tom’s been sacked again, he’s such a bad boy—’