CHAPTER 55
"Where, then?”

“We’ve got ten days at the Gold Coast, all inclusive”

Erwin mock-frowned.

“Told him I did better food, and could get him a deal at King River caravan park, but would he listen? Kids of today, got no gratitude”

The lad just grinned.

“Still got to fly to Perth for the connection, though. Be about the same flight time altogether as going to Bali, just don’t need a passport. Direct flight from Perth to the Gold Coast, though”

Friedl tapped his arm.

“Girls are back, son”

Connor held out a hand.

“Give me your jacket and cap, and I’ll hang them up. Off to get changed myself. Susie?”

“Aye?”

“This’un’ll be off to the dancefloor, but I think the adults fancy a chat. Mind if I join you?”

“Course not!”

“Five minutes, then. There’s some tables under the awnings for those who don’t want to gyre and gimble”

As predicted, Gwen simply dragged her new husband into the centre of the dance floor. Our own little one was outside with the others of her age, running backwards and forwards being aeroplanes, or something else fast and loud, so the rest of us followed Trudi to the suggested spot. They were followed by two of the waiters, pushing what looked like a couple of small dustbins, which proved to contain iced water plus various bottles.After a bit of fishing, Trudi raised a glass of white wine.

“To absent friends. To Gerald Barker, Doctor and Mr Hemmings”

We drank, and then she looked around the group, smiling sadly.

“I just wish we had met so much earlier, so that I could have said hello once again. The gifts you brought… Sometimes, you know, you use a word, and it’s overblown, but then, now and again, it’s the only word that fits. I’m thinking ‘priceless, ey?”

Susie took her hand.

“There’s more, love”

“Sorry?”

“Well, it’s sort of an offer. Tome Edwards, BBC man, he did those documentaries. He’s the man who sorted DVDs for you. He’s a sharp bugger, he is. I mean, our wedding, my and my Andy, aye? He only comes down with a camera crew. Got a keen eye for a story, that man. Anyway, he’s offering to fly a couple of you over, do the interview stuff, but also take you round York”

She paused for a bit, fiddling with her glass, and then added the rest.

“He asks if you’d be willing to go back to that other place, Trudi”

There was silence for a while, until Dad Pete broke it.

“Nobody needs an answer right now, so I’ll do some filling in. Me and my boy met Gerald in a pub, so it was a decent start. As the pub is right next door to a campsite and Gerald’s boatyard, I believe the Rhodes know the pub”

He was clearly asking for a laugh, so I gave him one, remarking that the pub was called the Ship, and giving a very condensed explanation of Canning Van Planning.

“So I got the idea from a canal boat just north of London, use it for business in WA, and then end up by the originator, drinking Timmy Taylor in her local”

Trudi found her voice again.

“What can you tell us about Gerald, Pete?”

“Simplest answer is that I cannot imagine a nicer man. Friend to me, as well as the boy here, and… And that didn’t stop when my boy came home hurt”

He looked across at Connor as he spoke.

“Bit of shared history with the lad. Gerald was with fourteenth RTR, Royal Tank Regiment, Pete was REME. Mechanics and that”

Friedl asked if Pete senior was ex-Forces, and he shook his head.

“I was a copper, mate. Some of the same nastiness, but… They were a tight crew. One of the things I know Susie gave you is a drawing, cartoon of them all. After the war, one of them moved out to Australia, and… Right. Can’t get through this without talking of some real nastiness. We went to that place where his tank was knocked out, where they lost a mate. The lad who came out here, he and his wife adopted the dead lad’s kid. Yes, the lad lost his Mum as well, but not for today. The kid was back for Susie’s wedding, and I suspect Tom Edwards will be ringing him as well. Gerald…shit. Gerald lost three other mates. One was sniped, the other two, well, if I say OFFICIALrecords on both were ‘accidental death’, you’ll take my hint. And another coincidence: the lad killed when their tank was wrecked, his middle name was Connor”

Susie’s voice was almost inaudible.

“He never forgot those two. One… Trudi?”

“Yes?”

“How are you feeling? This is really nasty stuff”

Trudi squeezed her husband’s hand, then raised it for a kiss.

“How could it be otherwise? Please go on”

“If you’re sure… Harry was their driver. When they went… That place, it were so bad they had to use bulldozers. While Dad and the rest were doing all the helping and caring, Harry was pushing bodies into mass graves. It was on the way home, on the boat. The accident was with a pistol”

There were a couple of quiet comments such as “Oh shit”, as Susie continued.

“He did say… I met a couple of Dad’s mates, one of them a lad called Ernie, and Bill was the man who adopted Wilf’s son. Gerald says… You’ve all seen the footage of that place. Dad said he got up one morning, Ernie and Bill doing the night watch, and there were three more naked bodies on the ground, Ernie and Bill just looking hard at him, as if asking ‘And what?’. Bodies weren’t skinny like the rest”

Trudi’s face broke into a huge grin.

“The Black Devils! They were the dog men! Oh, wow! I remember, god, I was so frightened of them, we all were, and then, there they were, covered in all sorts of marks, even footprints. I mean, I was only little, but I knew enough to hate, and I was old enough to fucking spit on them. Sorry. Thank you! Oh, I so wish I could have met those boys. Funny how some memories have stayed so clear”

Susie shook her head, eyes damp.

“That was the thing, Trudi. His memories were with him all the way. He only ever told me one or two things about that place, but Julian and Charles, they were more open. Julian talked us through that place, and then he broke down. Said he felt so futile, supposed to be a healer. And there were so little he could do. Spent rest of his life trying to atone, cause that’s the word. So Gerald had lost Wilf, and then Harry, and then Bob”

Connor quietly asked what had happened to the other ‘mate’, and Susie started to weep.

“Gerald was married, soon after he came home. His wife miscarried---I mean, with our ages, you’ll know he wasn’t my natural father, aye? Anyway, it were Valentine’s Day, I believe. He lost his wife, and the little girl she was carrying, and… Pure coincidence; name they had chosen for her were Susie. Anyway, there was someone else who loved him, every other bugger but Gerald could see that. Complicated story, but they’re buried together, all of them”

Dad Pete looked sharply at the woman.

“I never knew that, Susie”

“It were Bob Wainwright, Pete. His sergeant. Accident with town gas in his rooms”

She looked at each of us in turn.

“Not simplest of things to get out, aye? Bob were gay, Dad weren’t. Bob got caught, Dad, Ernie, the others in that Belgian trip, they went down to the court martial and got him off. Andy here knows a bit more”

Her husband winced.

“Aye. I’m… shit, I didn’t realise how many cans of worms we’d be opening. My wife had issues in earlier life”

Connor coughed.

“I’ll risk a punch in the mouth, but if I have this right, it’s a gender thing”

The woman nodded, and Andy continued.

“I got a lot of shit about that, and I also got a lot of crap at school about, well, I wasn’t coolest kid in town”

“You were cool enough for me, love”

“Thanks, love. Anyways, there were one lad, always at head of being an arse queue, and his granddad were someone in a reserved occupation. Never went to, what Gerald said: never went to see the elephant. Anyway, he were, granddad were, right nasty to Gerald’s mate, right up to point Gerald knocked nine bells out of him. When I took up with my lass here, the younger one was an arse, so, well, I had words, and he had mates”

Susie was staring at him.

“When you had fat lip?”

“Aye”

“And those mates?”

Andy grinned happily.

“Darren and Ricky just happened to be nearby, love. Anyway, that’s sort of Gerald’s life for you. Joking a bit, but this is where we say ‘any questions’, aye? Just one point: what I saw of Gerald, Susie will back me up, and these two lads: he never, ever felt he were anything special. Finest man I have ever known, bar bloody none, and he thought he was somehow guilty for not having died”

He raised his glass.

“To Gerald Barker”

We drank the toast, and the stories continued, from Connor as well as from our side, and Susie steadily and quietly, with no fuss at all, got very drunk.