I swallowed another mouthful of the whiskey to cover the prickling in my eyes. At the graves of my family I hadn’t been able to shed any tears, yet sitting here, with a man who knew what I had been through, what I had experienced, they now seemed to want to flow.
I blinked them back and simply said; ‘Thank you, sir.’
Greene contemplated me for a second longer.
‘Do you know anything about oil burners?’ he suddenly asked.
He showed me his hands.
‘The bloody boiler has been playing up. I’ve been whacking it about the head and neck with a spanner but it hasn’t seemed to have worked.’
So we went down to the cellar and, within an hour, I got the boiler working.
Greene was ecstatic.
‘Oh, good show!’ he cried. ‘Oh, jolly well done! I knew I was right to offer you the job. This bloody thing has been the bane of my life since I got back.’
He stuck out his dirty hand again and I gripped it with my own.
‘Welcome to Longwood,’ he said.
*
I soon settled into the routine of working for Jonathon Greene. To my amazement and pleasure, the job came complete with a gateman’s cottage. My very own house. It was a small, stone-built affair, with a simple open fire in the kitchen / sitting area, a separate bedroom and an outside privy. The privy even had a flushing toilet! It was heaven.
My job evolved over the years into a sort of gardener-cum-handyman role, as well as the responsibilities of a gamekeeper, and it was a role I cherished. Whilst at Longwood, I believe I started to live again, started thinking about my future and enjoying my present. It was as if my blasted soul, battered by the horrors and deprivations of the war, began to wake up and started to learn how to smile again. The work was hard but it kept me in shape and I had my little cottage to sit in at night by the fire.
One of the Labradors at the Big House had a batch of puppies and I chose a stout male to train. I named him Hector. During the day he would come with me on my rounds and at night he would lie beside me in front of the fire and listen to my stories. Every now and then Greene would visit, often arriving in the dead of night, clutching a bottle of some sort under his arm and grinning conspiratorially. On those nights, Hector would hear more stories and memories shared. He would hear the laughter of friends. As I have said, those years were good.
But they didn’t last. Nothing ever does. It was on my twenty-sixth birthday when things changed forever. Sixth of August, 1922.
The night-time visits from Greene had begun to lessen over the last year-and-a-half, and I was more than aware that the reason for this was because of the appearance of a certain Miss Jane Godley.
She was a beauty, I’ll give her that. Small and slim with huge, baby blue eyes and golden hair. She was the daughter of a local businessman and, although I obviously never said anything, I guessed that her wealthy background was as big a pull for Greene as her appearance.
Like all the landed gentry in those days, Greene was seeing a huge adjustment in his fortunes. The war had changed a lot of things, not least the balance of power in the country. Commerce and trade had replaced title, and Longwood was expensive to run. Jane Godley must have seemed like manna from heaven for my captain and employer.
She didn’t like me. That was made clear from the first time we met. One evening, in early June of that year, I was finishing my rounds, and the sun was setting as Hector and I made our way back towards the cottage.
I was thinking of supper. I’d bagged a hare out on the back fields and it would go nicely with some of the vegetables I grew in the small garden by the cottage. Hector, as usual, was bounding along ahead of me, and he’d disappeared around a bend in the leafy lane. I heard him bark and then I heard a woman’s shrill shriek.
I pelted around the corner to find Hector jumping up and wagging his tail at a pretty young woman dressed in a pale blue dress that was now caked in mud at the front where Hector had pawed at her. He was a friendly dog, but over exuberant at times. He shouldn’t have jumped up to be petted, I’d told him off enough times about it. But he didn’t deserve the clout he received from the young woman’s parasol. He yelped and scuttled backwards away from her as she advanced, the parasol brandished threateningly in her hand.
‘Hector!’ I bellowed. ‘Come!’
He immediately ran to me and slunk around my legs, sitting to heel. He looked up at me and regarded me balefully for a second. I could see he was upset.
But as I looked back at the woman, I also saw he wasn’t half as upset as she was.
‘That beast needs destroying!’ she shouted at me. ‘He tried to bite me!’
I stepped forward, shaking my head.
‘Hector would never do anything like that, Miss. He’s just over friendly. Please accept my apologies.’
‘Look at my dress!’ she shrieked at me. There were two red spots on her pale cheeks. She was furious. She wailed when she followed her own advice and looked at the dress. It had paw prints all over it.
‘It’s ruined!’ she screamed.
‘I’ll gladly pay for the dress to be cleaned, Miss…’ I started, but she broke me off.
‘Who are you? Why are you skulking around on my land? Are you a poacher? Is that what you are? I’ll have the police onto you, you rogue. Come along, explain yourself, you impertinent ruffian!’
I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about.
‘Your land?’ I asked. ‘This is Jonathon Greene’s land, Miss. Perhaps you’re lost? I can show you back to the main road.’
‘I know whose land this is!’ she bellowed at me, making Hector cower. ‘Do you take me for a complete fool?’
I have to admit, I was starting to think that very thought. I opened my mouth to ask her what she was talking about, when Greene appeared through the trees.
‘Hello! What’s all the ballyhoo?’ he asked. ‘Is everyone alright? I heard shouting.’
The woman turned to him, her demeanour changing instantly from dragon to damsel-in-distress.
‘Oh, Jonathon. Thank goodness you’re here. This man’s dog attacked me. I think he may be a poacher or some other such villain. Look what the beast did to my dress.’ She clung to his arm and showed him her dress.
Greene shook his head.
‘No, no, my dear. This is Deakin. He’s my gamekeeper. And that’s Hector. Hector wouldn’t hurt a fly, would you, old thing?’ He patted his knee and Hector ran forward to be petted.
The woman squealed and Hector stopped mid-track, nervously eyeing the parasol.
‘He works for you?’ she asked.
Greene nodded. ‘Jane, Rob Deakin. Rob, Miss Jane Godley.’
I nodded and touched my cap at her, but she just gave me a venomous look and then turned back to Greene. ‘Can we go back to the house, Jonathon? I feel rather unwell.’
Greene immediately looked concerned and took a firmer grip on her arm.
‘Of course, dear. We shall go and have lemonade. That will make you feel better.’ He turned to me. ‘Thank you, Deakin. That will be all.’
That in itself was strange. Greene had every right to speak to me like a servant, but he had never done so in the past. It had always been ‘Rob’ or ‘Sergeant.’ I touched my cap again and simply said, ‘Sir.’