Free The Captain and the Enemy by Graham Greene

wore ordinary clothes like a disguise, and I wondered if perhaps this might not be an unknown brother turning up. He said, ‘I wanted to speak to your father.’
    ‘He doesn’t live here,’ I told him without lying, because of course I thought that he meant the Devil.
    ‘Where’s your mother?’
    ‘She’s out buying bread.’
    ‘I think I had better stay until she returns.’
    He sat down in the one easy chair and looked more than ever like a relative on a visit. ‘You a truthful boy?’ he asked.
    I thought it best to be accurate as I was speaking to one of the police. ‘Sometimes,’ I said.
    ‘Where does your father live when he’s not here?’
    ‘He’s never here,’ I said.
    ‘Never?’
    ‘Oh, he’s been here once or twice.’
    ‘Once or twice? When was that?’
    ‘The last about two years ago.’
    ‘Not much of a father then?’
    ‘Liza and I don’t like having him around.’
    ‘Who’s Liza?’
    ‘My mother.’ I remembered again that I was expected to be truthful. ‘Well, sort of,’ I added.
    ‘What do you mean – sort of?’
    ‘My mother’s dead.’
    He gave a sigh. ‘Do you mean Liza’s dead?’
    ‘No, of course she isn’t. I told you. She’s at the baker’s.’
    ‘My God, you’re a difficult child to understand. I wish your “sort of mother” would come back. I’ve got questions I want to ask her. If your father doesn’t live here where does he live?’
    ‘I think my aunt told me once it was a place called Newcastle, but my aunt – she lives in Richmond,’ (I went on talking and giving him all the information I could in order to show my goodwill) ‘and they don’t get on all that well together. She calls him the Devil.’
    ‘Perhaps about that,’ he said, ‘judging from what you say, she may not be far wrong,’ and at the same moment the door above opened and I heard Liza’s footsteps on the stairs.
    Something made me call out, ‘Liza, there’s a policeman here.’
    ‘I could have told her that myself,’ he said.
    Liza came belligerently in, holding a loaf of bread like a brick that she was prepared to launch. ‘A policeman?’
    He tried to reassure her. ‘I just wanted to ask you a few questions, ma’am. It won’t take a moment. I think you may be able to give us a little help.’
    ‘I won’t help a policeman and that’s that.’
    ‘We are trying to trace a gentleman who goes by the name of Colonel Claridge.’
    ‘I don’t know any Colonel Claridge. I don’t mix with Colonels. I’ve never known a Colonel. Can you see a Colonel coming into a kitchen like this? Just look at the stove there. A Colonel wouldn’t be seen dead with a stove like that.’
    ‘Sometimes, ma’am, he goes by other names. Victor for instance.’
    ‘I tell you I don’t know any Colonels or any Victors. You’ll get nothing out of me.’
    I have always wondered what might have happened after that visit and what it was that had happened before to cause it. Several years were to pass before I saw the Captain again. His visits then were short and I was not always there. Sometimes when I returned from school I would notice only a half-empty teacup.
    Did I miss him? I have no memory of any emotion unless it was the occasional wild desire for something interesting to happen. Had I grown to love the Captain, this putative father who was now as distant from me as my real parent? Did I love Liza who looked after me, gave me the right food, dispatched me at the correct hour to school and welcomed me back with an impatient kiss? Did I love anyone? Did I know what love was? Do I know it now years later or is love something which I have read about in books? The Captain returned of course, he always seemed eventually to return.
    Now that I have left Liza and abandoned what I had learned to call home, I only know of his absences at second-hand when I visit Liza. Sometimes a year has gone by, sometimes two. I have never heard her complain. I always use the same code on the bell, for