Hot Water Man Read Online Free Page B

perhaps that was somewhere else.
    With a creak, Duke settled beside him. Donald had liked Duke from the start, when with commendable American frankness Duke had told him his wife was going to have a hysterectomy. Most people, himself included, would have steered murmuringly around the precise nature of her trouble. Christine leant across him.
    â€˜When’s the op, Duke? Last time I saw you, you hadn’t heard.’
    â€˜Saturday. I have faith in the guy – finest surgeon in Kansas.’
    The whirring insects, or frogs, were reinforced by the whirr of the projector. People stopped talking. A pale, fluid shape appeared on the screen, flicking with numbers. It was an old picture, in black and white. Through a hoop the British Lion snarled, shaking its mane and growling. Showing its teeth, it resembled Grandad’s, tiger skin, now balding and stored in the attic.
    Two people sat down in front. It was Shamime and her brother Aziz; they both turned around to smile. Aziz was as tall and as dazzling as his sister.
    The film started. The hero wore R.A.F. uniform.
    â€˜We all have to do our bit, old girl.’
    â€˜Reggie darling. Each time I look up in the sky I’ll think it’s you.’
    â€˜Don’t cry.’
    â€˜I’m crying because I’m so proud.’
    The faces were familiar from scores of British films; they were smoother and younger here. Donald was absorbed. Shamime’s piled-up hairstyle blocked his view; he tilted to the side. The scene changed to an airfield. Shamime was adjusting a pin in her hair; through the gap in her arm he glimpsed a Hurricane’s wing. Reggie was talking to another pilot now. His voice came from her
coiffure.
    â€˜Before you know it we’ll be home. First one back at base sets up two pints.’
    â€˜I’m already saying cheers.’
    In front, the two heads bent together. A muffled giggle; Shamime whispered something to her brother. Donald stiffened. What were they laughing at?
    A roar; the fighters were off the ground. Donald could almost smell the petrol. Through grey 35mm clouds, lit by the sunset, the Hurricanes sped. Voices crackled on the intercom.
    â€˜Can you hear me. Number Two? Over.’
    A silence.
    â€˜I said, can you hear me?’
    An explosion: streaks, flashes, the screen burst with fireworks.
    Silence. Donald sat very still. Up in the black sky, a jet whined over Karachi. Its passengers were safe. On the screen, smoke plumed. A splash. Water settled; smoke drifted. Donald’s throat tightened.
    Beside him Christine shifted, rummaging in her handbag. But it was not for a handkerchief, it was for a cigarette. She leant towards him in a cloud of smoke.
    â€˜Dash it all, and it was his round.’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜His turn’, she said patiently, ‘to buy the drinks.’
    She sat back, crossing her legs so casually in her wartime dress. Donald grunted. He thought of his mother, a wartime sweetheart and so soon a wartime widow. She had worn a dress similar to Christine’s but hers was not bra-less; underneath it she wore solid foundations. Christine seemed so untested. He was so untested. His father had braved the flak. How would he, his father’s son, behave under enemy fire?
    He would be called Don. At one period he had tried this name but nobody seemed to notice, so he went back to Donald. His life had been so safe; his father and thousands like him had made it secure. On the beach at Brinton there was a derelict bunker;
bang-bang
he had shouted to his friends, crouched in its interior which was littered with sweet wrappings.
    â€˜He was in a fighter squadron,’ he told Duke after the film, another gin and tonic in his hand. ‘But he wasn’t killed on ops.’ He stopped. ‘Ops’ seemed, in the circumstances, a poorly-chosen word. ‘He was bombed in a train coming home on leave, in 1945. So near the end of the war. Ironic really.’
    But his father had