Tell Tale Read online

  I really didn’t mind the fact that his school uniform was so much smarter than mine, and that his shoes were handmade escaped me altogether. However, I was aware that he was taller and better looking than me, and clearly brighter, because he was offered a place at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge (pronounced Keys—something else I didn’t know at the time), to read modern languages.

  I actually spoke to Bairstow for the first time when I entered the lower sixth, and he had been appointed school captain, but then only because I was a library monitor and had to report to him once a month. And indeed, if we hadn’t gone on holiday together—well, I shouldn’t exaggerate …

  Fred Costello, the senior history master, was organizing one of his annual school excursions to the Continent, as it was known before it became the Common Market, or the EEC, and as I was studying history and hoping to go to university, my parents thought it might be wise for me to sign up for the trip to Germany.

  When we all clambered on board the train at Leeds Central to set out on the journey, I was surprised to see Mark Bairstow was among our party. Well not quite, because he sat in a first-class carriage with Clive Dangerfield, who was also going up to Cambridge, so we didn’t see them again until we all pitched up at our little hotel in Berlin. I shared a room with my best friend Ben Levy, while Bairstow and Dangerfield occupied a suite on the top floor.

  There were fifteen of us in the party, and I spent most of my time with Ben who, like me, supported Leeds United, Yorkshire, and England, in that order. It was our first trip abroad and therefore one we weren’t likely to forget.

  Mr. Costello was an enlightened schoolmaster who had served as a lieutenant in the Second World War and seen action at El Alamein, but believed passionately that Britain should join the Common Market, if for no other reason than it would ensure there wouldn’t be a third world war.

  My abiding memory of Berlin was not the Opera House, or even the Brandenburg Gate, but a concrete monstrosity that stretched like a poisonous snake across the center of a once united city.

  “I want you to imagine,” said Mr. Costello, as we stared up at the Wall, “a twelve-foot barrier being built from the Mersey to the Humber, and you never being able to visit any of your family or friends who live on the other side.”

  The thought had never crossed my mind.

  After a few days in Berlin, we boarded a charabanc for Dresden, but never once left the coach as we stared out of the windows in disbelief to see what was left of that once historic city. It made me feel that perhaps at times the British had also behaved like barbarians. I was pleased when the coach turned around and headed back to Berlin.

  The following day was a schoolboy’s dream. After driving to Regensburg, we spent the morning on a coal barge trudging sedately up the Danube, billowing black smoke as we made our way to Passau. After lunch, we took a train to Munich, where we spent three days in a youth hostel with young women actually sleeping in dorms on the floor below us. The next morning we explored the capital of Bavaria, and there wasn’t much sign that this had once been the birthplace of the Nazi party. I much admired the Residenz, the vast palace of the Wittelsbachs, where Mark Bairstow looked so relaxed he might have been visiting an old friend at home.

  In the evening, we went to the Cuvilliés Theater to see La Bohème, my first introduction to opera, which was to become a lifelong passion. It would be years before I appreciated how much I owed to Mr. Costello, a teacher whose lessons stretched far beyond the classroom.

  The following day, we visited the Alte Pinakothek, and I can’t pretend I was able to fully appreciate Dürer or Cranach, as I couldn’t take my eyes off a group of girls who were being shown around the gallery by the same guide. One in particular caught my attention.

  My extracurricular activities in Bavaria included my first experience of beer, frankfurters, attending the opera, and being kissed good night by a girl, although I don’t think she was overwhelmed. I just wished we’d had another week as she was clearly in the class above me.

  On our final day, Mr. Costello brought us all back down to earth when we boarded a bus that didn’t announce its destination on the front. We must have traveled some fourteen miles north of Munich before we reached a small town called Dachau. Of course, I knew my closest friend was Jewish, but I only thought of him as a classmate, and we never quarreled about anything except who should open the batting for Yorkshire. And when Ben once told me that his grandmother kept a packed suitcase by the front door, I had no idea what he was talking about.

  When the bus came to a halt outside the entrance of the concentration camp, we all got off in an uneasy silence and stared up at the uninviting rusty gates. I didn’t want to go in, but as everyone else trooped after Mr. Costello, I meekly followed. Our first stop was at a vast black wall, where a thousand names had been chiseled into the marble to remind us who had been there only a few years before, and not during a holiday excursion with a tour guide. I saw Ben weeping quietly as he stared at the thirty-seven Levys, three of whom hadn’t lived as long as he had. I looked across to see Mark Bairstow looking thoughtful, but apparently unmoved, while the rest of the group remained unusually silent.

  The young German guide then took us through the huts that had remained untouched since their occupants were liberated by the Americans. Row upon row of four-tiered bunks, with inch-thick mattresses and no pillows. At one end of the hut, a half-filled bucket of water that had been the lavatory for the fifty-six occupants, emptied once a day. But worse was to come, because Mr. Costello had no intention of sparing us.

  We climbed back on the bus and took the journey to Hartheim, where our young guide led us into a large soulless concrete building, where we entered a cold eerie room where time had stood still. He pointed to the holes in the ceiling where, he explained, the gas was released into the chamber, but only after the prisoners had been stripped and the doors locked. I felt sick, and didn’t have the courage to enter the final room to view the vast ovens that our guard told us had been built in 1933 soon after Hitler had come into power, and where the bodies of his innocent victims were finally turned into dust.

  When Ben eventually emerged, he fell to his knees and was violently sick. I thought of his grandmother, and for the first time understood the “packed suitcase.” I rushed across to join my friend, surprised to find Mark Bairstow already kneeling beside him with an arm around his shoulders, trying to comfort a boy he’d never spoken to before.

  * * *

  I was delighted to follow Mark Bairstow as school captain, even if I couldn’t hope to emulate his style and panache. I worked diligently during my final year and, with the conscientious help of Mr. Costello, was offered a place at Manchester University to read history. I accepted the offer, even though for a Yorkshireman to cross the Pennines into Lancashire in order to further his education was tantamount to high treason.

  By the time I graduated, I didn’t need Mr. Costello to tell me the profession I was best suited for. And if this tale had been about a schoolmaster, and the years of fulfillment he gained from being a teacher … but it isn’t.

  * * *

  I was teaching at a grammar school in Norfolk when my wife became pregnant, and I had to explain to her why she would have to travel up to Yorkshire to give birth to our son otherwise the lad couldn’t play for the county. Not that she had any interest in the game of cricket. It turned out to be a girl, so the subject was never mentioned again. However, I took advantage of being back in Leeds to look up my old friend Ben Levy, now a local solicitor, to suggest we spend a day at Headingley and watch the Roses Match.

  Being Yorkshiremen, we were in our seats long before the first ball was bowled, and by the morning break the county were at 77 for 2. “A spot of lunch?” I suggested as I rose from my place in the Hutton stand and glanced up at the President’s box to see a face I could have sworn I recognized, despite the passing of time. But he was wearing a dog collar and purple shirt, which threw me for a moment.

  I touc
hed Ben on the elbow and, pointing to the box, said, “Is that who I think it is?”

  “Yes, it’s Mark Bairstow, the new Bishop of Ripon. Still loves his cricket.”

  “But I always assumed he was destined to be the next chairman of Bairstow’s, the finest iron forgers in the county.”

  “And therefore the world,” laughed Ben. “But when he went up to Cambridge, he changed courses in his first term and read theology. So no one was surprised he ended up as a bishop.”

  * * *

  Like Mr. Costello, I too organized an annual trip to Europe, and after excursions to Rome, Paris, and Madrid, I felt the time had come to return to Berlin and see how much the German capital had changed, since the Wall had finally come down.

  I found the city was transformed. Only one small graffiti-covered section of the Wall still stood firmly in place, an ugly monument to remind the next generation what their parents and grandparents had endured, which they were now studying as history.

  Dresden turned out to be a modern city of steel and glass, and you would have had to search Munich to believe the Germans had ever been involved in a war. And when we visited the Cuvilliés Theater, two of the boys showed the same excitement that I had felt when I saw my first opera.

  When the final day came, I considered, like Mr. Costello, it was my duty to visit Dachau, as anti-Semitism was once again rearing its ugly head in my country. I was just as apprehensive as I had been the first time, although I tried not to let the boys and girls know how I felt. When the bus came to a halt outside the main entrance, I silently led the children through the even rustier gates and into the camp, and as far as I could see nothing had changed. My young wards spent some time staring at the names on the memorial wall, and when I saw the thirty-seven Levys, I thought of Ben. The huts remained untouched, and I could see the look of disbelief in the children’s eyes when they saw the water bucket at the end of the room. They would never complain again about their cramped dormitories.

  Our guide then took us into the museum, where we studied the photographs of prisoners whose black-and-white striped pajamas hung on their skeletal frames, and of the bodies of lifeless men and women being dragged from the gas chambers to the ovens. There was even a photograph of Himmler to remind us who had carried out Hitler’s orders.

  I felt sorry for our German guide, not much older than myself, whose sad eyes suggested that the Nazi era couldn’t be that easily cast aside, although like myself, he would have been born after the war.

  And then the final stage of the tour, which I had been dreading. I still felt sick when I entered the gas chamber, but at least this time I had the courage to follow my wards into the building where the ovens were situated. I stared at the temperature gauges and switches on the wall and bowed my head. When I raised it again, my eyes settled on the large oven door, and I understood for the first time the journey one young man had taken before he became the Bishop of Ripon.

  BAIRSTOW & SON

  IRON FORGERS

  FOUNDED 1866

  THE CUCKOLD

  ADAM WESTON AND Gareth Blakemore always met on a Sunday evening to share a bottle of wine and put the world to rights.

  The venue never changed, only the wine, which was always vintage and selected by Adam. But then he was the proprietor of the Swan Inn, a popular gastropub on the outskirts of Evesham.

  Gareth was Adam’s oldest friend, a successful lawyer by profession, with chambers in Lincoln’s Inn. He’d recently been appointed a QC, and he and his wife, Angela, lived in a Victorian pile at the the other end of the village. Gareth would usually drop into the Swan around seven, before traveling on to London. Tonight, he was late, very late, and Adam knew why.

  Gareth walked in just after nine, looking tired and depressed. He gave his friend a weak smile, before seating himself on a stool at the far end of the bar. Adam uncorked a bottle of wine, poured two glasses, and joined his friend.

  “What is it?” asked Gareth after taking a sip.

  “An underrated Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa Valley that’s proving rather popular with my regulars.”

  “I can see why,” said Gareth, taking another sip.

  “How’s your week been?” asked Adam, aware there was no time to waste.

  “You don’t want to know. Tell me your news, because it’s got to be better than mine.”

  “We had a good week,” said Adam. “Greene King have offered me the opportunity to buy the pub, but at the moment I just don’t have that sort of money.”

  “How much are they asking?”

  “Two million. It’s a fair price, and the only stipulation they’re insisting on is that I continue to sell their beer for the next ten years.”

  “That seems fair enough,” said Gareth, “assuming you made a decent return last year.”

  “Turnover was almost a million, and after rent, rates, and taxes, I showed a profit of around ninety thousand, not including my salary.”

  “Sounds like a worthwhile investment to me.”

  “And I have plans to add another dozen or so covers in the restaurant. I’ve also got my eye on a chef who’s working at the Savoy. Tells me he’s sick of commuting up and down to London every day.”

  “That all seems rather promising, but what’s the bank’s attitude?”

  “They’d loan me a million at four percent, but would expect to have a lock on all my assets, including the pub. So I still need to raise another million from other sources, and wondered if you’d consider coming in as my partner?”

  “I’d love to,” said Gareth, “but you couldn’t have chosen a worse time.”

  “But I keep reading in the press that you’re one of the most successful barristers in the royal courts.”

  “Yes, but not for much longer.”

  “How come?”

  “Angela’s filed for divorce. I have a preliminary meeting with her lawyers tomorrow morning. They’re the meanest in the business, and I should know—I recommended them.”

  “How come?”

  “Angela told me she was asking on behalf of a friend, and the friend turned out to be her.”

  “I’m really sorry,” said Adam. “I had no idea,” he added as he looked across the bar at his old classmate.

  “I have to admit that it hasn’t been a bundle of laughs lately,” Gareth said, after taking another sip of his drink, “and I’m mostly to blame. If you spend the week in London and can’t always get back at the weekends, it doesn’t help.”

  “But divorce or no divorce, you must still have a worthwhile income from the bar.”

  “And I’m going to need every penny of it,” said Gareth. “Angela’s lawyers are driving a hard bargain. They’re demanding the manor house as well as the villa in the south of France, and that’s just for starters.”

  “But you’ve still got the Chelsea flat, which must be worth a bob or two,” said Adam.

  “True, but I’ll need to hold on to it if I’m going to survive,” said Gareth. “Fortunately she thinks it’s rented and I told her it’s coming up for renewal next year.”

  “Then perhaps it might be wise to settle with her before she finds out how much it’s really worth.”

  “I’d agree with you in normal circumstances,” said Gareth, lowering his voice, “if I hadn’t just found out she’s having an affair. And if I could only discover who the bastard is, I’d be in a stronger position.”

  “What makes you so sure she’s having an affair?”

  “I found a cufflink under the bed, and it certainly wasn’t mine.”

  * * *

  “Gareth found a cufflink under the bed and told me it wasn’t his.”

  Angela calmly lit a cigarette. She inhaled deeply before saying, “Then we’ll have to be more careful in the future. If Gareth were to find out we’re having an affair, there would be no chance of me getting my hands on the two million my lawyers are demanding. Which would also mean I wouldn’t be able to invest in the pub.”

  “But you still want to b
e my partner?” said Adam nervously.

  “In every sense of the word, my darling,” Angela replied, blowing out a cloud of smoke. “But if I don’t get hold of that money, I could end up serving behind the bar.”

  “That wasn’t part of my overall plan,” said Adam. “Although the moment I can move in with you, I’m going to convert the top floor of the pub into bedrooms, which would bring in some much needed extra income. But I’ll need your help when it comes to the interior design.”

  “Only too happy to play my part,” said Angela as she stubbed out her cigarette. “But I still think it would be wise for us to cool it for the time being.” Adam couldn’t hide his disappointment.

  She leaned across and kissed him gently on the lips. “But once he’s signed the divorce papers,” she added, breaking away, “I’ll not only be free to become your partner, but your wife.”

  “I can think of another way that would convince him to settle quickly.” Angela raised an eyebrow. “Demand to see the details of the lease on his flat in Chelsea.”

  “No. It’s much better he still believes that’s his trump card, and in any case, it would only hold up your deal with Greene King.” She lay back on her pillow and pulled the sheet over her. “How’s that going, by the way?”

  “I had a meeting with a brewery representative last week, and we agreed terms. They told me as soon as I’m ready to put down a deposit, they’ll draw up a contract.”

  “Then all you’ll need to do on Sunday is convince Gareth that he should come up with the two million, and the pub will be yours.”

  “Ours,” said Adam, as he placed a hand on the inside of her leg and slipped back down under the sheet.

  * * *

  “It’s a burgundy,” said Gareth.

  “You’d have known that,” said Adam, “by just looking at the shape of the bottle.”

  Gareth frowned and took another sip. “I must admit it’s quite superb. My bet is a Clos de Tart?”