She wondered, as she scanned the road again, if she was a courtesan. Fluffy word, but it meant prostitute. She was certainly what her grandmother would call a ‘bad girl’. Bad ged-el, in Dublinese.
A story came back to her. Of her grandmother telling her, apropos of nothing, that ‘bad girls’ were taken to the mattress factory and squeezed to death between two of the best quality mattresses.
Kitty had looked for a moral there, and come up empty-handed. For all she knew – Dublin was a kooky town – it might be true.
She drifted back in. Upstairs, where the attic rooms folded inwards like origami. To the kitchen where she put away a pan and leaned her forehead against the cupboard door. There was a pattern of holes, punched into the wood to let air circulate among the dried goods. Kitty poked her fingers in, and then took them out again.
A knock at the door sent her hurtling through the house. No need to pinch her cheeks; the blood rushed to her face. She paused for a second to shuck off her knickers. She must be gay, she must be bright. The courtesan must earn her keep; if Alec wanted to walk away the whole of society was on his side. Nothing tied him to her except his desire.
It was Jane Gilpin at the door.
A breeze floated up Kitty’s dress as she listened to Jane ask if she had seen a kitten, silly really to get so attached, but you see Jane had christened it and fed it and now the dear little chap was nowhere to be found, so she was knocking on doors and asking if a fluffy little something wandered into the garden would they be so kind as to bundle it up and bring it to Woodbine Cottage?
‘Yes, yes, of course, Miss Gilpin,’ said Kitty.
‘It’s very furry. Almost looks as if it’s wearing pantaloons! Answers to the name of, well, Denholm.’
Kitty closed the door, and put her knickers back on with great solemnity.
APRIL
‘I do so love our tootles in the car,’ chirped Blanche from the back seat.
She watched Morgan’s eyes with their great thatched brows in the rear-view mirror. Saw how diligently he watched the road. How often his eyes slid to the passenger up front beside him.
‘Nance, you’re too good,’ said Blanche, ‘giving up your Sundays for a sour old dame like me.’
‘No, no, don’t be silly.’ Nance was inoffensive. In her manner, which was gentle, and her speech, which was demure. Even the neat bun at the nape of her long neck was neither ‘done’ nor casual. She smelled good, better than Blanche would expect of a woman who spent seventy per cent of her day in close proximity to ham and cheese and sawdust shavings.
‘They’ll be planting potatoes there, too,’ said Morgan, waving his arm at a field that stretched up and away from the edge of the road. To Blanche it looked like every other field; she heard Nance murmur something. What? What does one reply to such a comment?
‘Potatoes everywhere, thanks to Dan Archer and the War Ag,’ Morgan went on. ‘Carbohydrates will win the war for us, ladies!’
‘That, and blood,’ said Blanche. News of Denmark’s invasion had broken. The phony war was over; it was all too real now. The trance that held them in thrall since September had released them into garish Technicolor. Blanche had always thought of Denmark – if she thought of it at all – as a clean and sensible little country. It was a shame. A great shame. And there was no going back.
The privations and the inchoate fear would continue. There would be an ending that would be written about in black and white in future history books. Blanche wasn’t among those who wondered what the books would say. She was engrossed in the moment. In herself.
The car hopped over a pothole.
‘All right in the back?’ Morgan was solicitous.
‘It’s like a fairground ride. Tell me, Doctor, what were you talking about so mysteriously to my sister while Agnes was dressing me?’
‘Were we mysterious? Jane’s very tired, she’s suffering with disturbed sleep. Says the house is haunted, that she can hear dead children padding about at night. You and I know, Blanche, that it’s Jane’s nerves that are the real problem.’
‘It’s me who’s the problem, you mean.’ Blanche ploughed through the pooh-poohing. ‘I know what it takes out of Jane, looking after me.’
‘Miss Gilpin loves you,’ said Nance. ‘She’s happy to do it, I’m sure.’
‘Such tact,’ said Blanche, enjoying the condescension. ‘Do you know what you’d make, my dear? You’d make an excellent doctor’s wife.’
‘Oh, I—’ Nance laughed. As if Blanche was being preposterous. ‘Goodness.’ Even her voice was blushing.
Morgan ignored the comment, and said, ‘I don’t believe in ghosts but I do believe in the restorative power of a good night’s sleep. I prescribed Jane a stronger sleeping draught.’ As Ambridge’s doctor he had proved unwilling to mete out medicine on demand; this was often met with consternation. Instead, he tended to be, as some of his patients put it, ‘dreadfully talky’. ‘It’s powerful stuff. You be my eyes and ears, Blanche, and make sure she doesn’t overdo it.’
‘My sister never overdoes anything. I am considered a debauchee if I suggest a second small sweet sherry.’
‘And look, on our left—’
‘Morgan, please don’t tell me what’s planted in that humdrum little field that looks just like all the other little fields. Let the poor thing maintain some mystique.’
Morgan laughed. A big ‘Ha ha!’ He glanced at Nance when she laughed too. ‘I have to ask, Blanche, if you’re entirely over that whole unsavoury business with the anonymous letter.’
Nance’s laugh was cut off as if somebody had pulled out her plug. ‘Those horrible things!’ It was the most animated either passenger had ever seen her. ‘They should be made to pay, whoever they are, playing tricks like that on their neighbours.’
Blanche was far less energetic. ‘Over it, Morgan? I was over it before I read the end of the first line. I won’t pay some silly troublemaker the compliment of losing sleep over their fibs.’
‘You’re very brave,’ said Nance, twisting her neck to look at the brave, prone woman behind her. ‘They’re so mean. I dread the next one being about me.’
‘Why? What have you done? Oh, don’t colour up, Nance. Isn’t she pretty when she blushes, Morgan? I don’t suspect you of having a past.’ Blanche hesitated, enjoying the power this conversation had handed her. ‘Or do you have hidden, racy depths, miss? Some secret love? Oh, Nance, what have I uncovered?’
‘No, nothing, I, I just go pink easily,’ said Nance. She was tormented, as if Blanche was a cat and she a little field mouse.
‘We all have secrets,’ said Blanche. ‘Even our beloved doctor here.’
‘Me?’ Morgan let his mouth hang open in mock amazement. ‘But I’m an open book.’ He put his foot down imperceptibly and the car picked up speed. ‘Yes sirree,’ he said, more to himself than to the ladies. ‘An open book.’
‘I wondered at first if the letter writer could be some enemy of mine,’ said Blanche.
Nance smothered that. ‘How could you have enemies? No, no, no.’
‘Even a cripple can rub people up the wrong way.’ Blanche enjoyed the slight cringe Nance gave at her use of ‘cripple’. That’s what I am, she thought, confident it wasn’t who she was. ‘For that theory to hold water, I’d have to share an enemy with Alec Pargetter, and that feels unlikely.’
‘Neither letter is true,’ said Morgan. ‘Which makes us all potential victims. This character just makes up stories and broadcasts them. Not a damn thing we can do about it.’
‘Worst part is,’ said Blanche, looking out at, yes, another field, ‘Whitey doesn’t come up and lie on my bed anymore. I miss him.’
Nance gave a discreet Ahem.
* * *
A soft night.
Clouds like eiderdowns.
The sky a warm lilac turning to the blue of RAF uniforms above the hills.
The moment shimmers.
Jack is nowhere near the blue hills. In Chatham barracks, he lies on th
e camp bed nearest the window. It hit him today that there really is a war on, and he really is a soldier. A man at the far end snores, and Jack can smell the incense of a dozen mingled farts as he thinks of Peggy Perkins, and the snapshot he has in his head of her. She is turning away from him on the platform at Hollerton. Her hair swings and her eyes half-close and she could be smiling but no, she’s almost certainly laughing at him. She does this again and again, the soft susurration of her hair singing him to sleep.
Morgan sits on the end of his bed. No trousers. One shoe already off. He feels oldest at this time of day. The bed is big. He doesn’t always allow himself to acknowledge that he still misses his wife. He misses her scoldings. They were a kind of absolution. He would confess if he could, but this isn’t one for the vicar.
Dottie kicks off the covers. Mrs E is a great believer in layers of blankets and sheets and quilts, but Mrs E doesn’t sleep with a passenger. Dottie pulls up her nightie. From below her breasts her body is a hillock in the moonlight. Bigger and bigger it grows, making her feel out of sorts and then sleepy and then suddenly full of pep. Arms growing in there, fancy that. And a winkie too, if it’s a boy. Stay in there as long as you can, mate, she implores the baby. The later the birth the easier it will be to pass it off as her other half’s.
Avoiding the creaky board outside Christine’s door, Doris hears her daughter’s voice. It’s one of the great joys of Doris’s day, listening to Christine’s doll, Miss Grizelda, on the receiving end of another life lesson. Better than the wireless, it is! Doris stops. Smiles. Strains to listen. ‘And then you kneel down, that’s right, Miss Grizelda, and you start off by saying “Our Father who art in heaven”.’ Doris jerks away from Christine’s door as if the old wood burns her cheek. She doesn’t want to hear her child’s prayer. Can’t stand the trusting confidence in Christine’s voice as she speaks the words Doris taught her. She hurries down the hall. She climbs into bed beside Dan, who says, ‘Doris, it’s been a while, love, how about a spot of—’ and she snaps ‘No!’ and punches the pillow and closes her eyes.
* * *
It was clear the first anonymous letter, the one accusing Alec, had only made things worse for Kitty.
Almost three weeks had passed since Easter. Since then, Kitty had encountered Alec in the shop, on the street, by the pond. Each time his face was closed, a public disguise. He had greeted her blandly. They had nothing in common, no secret code, and he offered no scrap for her to pore over. She was reduced to this piracy, stumbling across The Green, dragging Caroline by the hand, hoping he might pass with Hero.
‘That child should be in bed,’ said a woman as she passed.
Kitty knew that. ‘We’re visiting the ducklings,’ she said. She had applied her lipstick carefully. She had curled her hair with the poker, having burned her finger on the gas hob. She had added a beauty spot by the edge of her mouth with the licked end of a pencil. All for the ducklings.
In her pocket was a letter to Alec: a proscribed and terrible act. On the envelope she had sharpened up her curly letters, rendering them as masculine as possible. She had rewritten the note many times, until she was satisfied that it would not give them away should it fall into enemy hands.
Dear Mr Pargetter,
I hope this finds you well.
Please do not forget the business matter we discussed. I am ready to proceed at your convenience, and can be found at the usual address.
Yours, G. Oak Esq.
The name had jumped out from Far from the Madding Crowd. The book had tripped her up on the rug, where she had thrown it after an evening spent trying to escape into its pages. She had run out of gin. She had run out of all but the most basic of food. Noon Cottage was a place of famine.
On the back of the anodyne note, Kitty had written something in tiny letters. A dare. A lure. Small enough to go unnoticed unless he looked for it. Surely, surely, he would look for it.
Kitty was jumpy. Disconnected. As if her shoes were on the wrong feet. She disappointed her little girl, who was accustomed to a merry playmate, not this anxious mother who went through the motions of hide and seek, and who cried when she sang the end of day lullaby.
If Kitty truly was a boat then she was drifting through wreckage in a night sea. The lighthouse she relied upon was dark, no longer casting a cheerful stripe on the waves.
There he was. The far side of the pond. With Hero. And there was Dan, too. And, oh sweet Jesus, there was Mrs Endicott and Dottie coming from the other direction. Why? she thought, her face hot. Why did they all choose this moment to step out of their doors?
Kitty hurried around the pond’s uneven bank. She ignored the ducklings. If she sped up she could intercept him. ‘Come on, hen.’
Caroline stumped along, her feet slipping in the mud. ‘Ducklings,’ said the girl. ‘Babies!’
‘I know, later. Oh! Alec!’ Kitty was toothy, over-loud. ‘Hello there!’
Dan beamed at her. Dan always did. She cheered him up, she could tell. ‘Look who it is!’
Whereas Alec looked hunted. His eyes, always so soft when they looked at her, were pinwheels of confusion. His fear of exposure was the only thing that made him stop and listen to her; she could tell he wanted to run away, knees up, zigzagging, like the partridges who used to scatter in front of Noel’s car. ‘Hello, Kitty.’ He lifted his cap woodenly.
He was such a bad actor; good thing Dan was too guileless to suspect.
‘Alec, could you do me a huge favour and pass this note to your wife? I need to borrow a bicycle and Mrs Endicott told me Pamela has one she rarely uses and never minds lending it out.’
Mrs Endicott had stopped, her arm through Dottie’s. ‘That’s quite right, I did tell you that. But Kitty dear, do reconsider. A bicycle is a deathtrap. A cousin of mine fell off one in Wootton Bassett and can only take soft foods from that day to this.’ She turned to Dottie, stricken. ‘Even a boiled egg is an effort.’
‘Could you?’ Kitty folded Alec’s hand over the cream envelope. ‘I’d be so grateful.’
‘Of course.’ Alec pulled his hand away.
No electricity.
* * *
Mr Frank Brown
Requests the honour of your company
at the wedding of his daughter
Nancy
To
Dr Morgan Seed
at St Stephen’s Church, Ambridge
on Saturday the second of June
at 4 o’clock
and afterwards at The Bull
Whitey White delivered the wedding invitations early on the morning of the twenty-fourth of April. By midday, it was standing room only at Blanche’s bedside.
Jane shared a low chair with Mrs Endicott. She was disentangling a gold chain; she’d been jubilant to find it in the bottom of her jewellery box. It might take up half an afternoon if she was lucky.
Dottie leaned on the back of the chair, while Magsy filled the window. Doris had looked in, then backed out.
They all talked at once, until Blanche let out a roar. ‘Ladies! One at a time!’ She had powdered her face and the crow had curled her hair. Agnes curled the front with care and the back badly, which was very Agnes. ‘Am I being indelicate to point out that there’s quite an age difference between bride and groom?’
‘Twenty years or so?’ speculated Dottie. ‘If he’s fifty summat and ole Nance is thirty-ish. Not too bad. Better than the other way around, Blanche! It’d be like you marrying Jimmy Little.’
A copy of the invitation lay on the bed. It was flimsy, a corner already torn. The ink was faint. Jane took it up and smoothed it out on her lap. Poor quality, of course, like so much else since the war began. ‘I for one think it’s awfully romantic.’
‘Hear, hear!’ Dottie slapped her on the shoulder. ‘Every old sock needs an old shoe. Besides, the doc must make a few bob. Nance is set for life.’
‘One interesting kink of this new development,’ said Blanche, ‘is that Nance will be stepmother to Morgan’s two boys.’ She p
ressed her lips together. ‘Excuse me. I misspoke. To George. Not poor Anthony, God rest his soul.’
All present blessed themselves except Magsy, who was too agitated to do so. ‘She will not be his stepmother. George had a wonderful mother in my sister, and another in myself. How can she perform that most tender of roles for a young man who is, I’m sorry to say, nearer her age than Morgan? I have nothing against Nance, she’s a good and kind person, but she’s just a girl.’
Dottie, who considered Nance a little long in the tooth to be a girl, said, ‘She is lovely though, in’t she? Lovely hair, lovely way of talking. You’d never know she grew up over a shop. I reckon old Morgan did well for hisself, the randy sod.’
‘I wish them both happiness,’ said Magsy, strangling a handkerchief in her fingers. ‘I really do. But I confess it’s a shock. I mean, everyone, everyone, thought he’d marry me.’
She silenced the room with that remark.
First to take pity, Jane buckled. ‘Of course, of course,’ she said, her eyes slithering so Blanche couldn’t find them. She would be teased later for propping up Magsy’s silly notions. But sometimes, Jane knew, silly notions were all that kept a woman going.
The door opened and Agnes sighed on the threshold with an enormous tray. The lace cap the sisters insisted she wore when company visited had slid down over her fringe. ‘I swear,’ she said, ‘if I have to keep coming up the stairs with this blessed teapot I’ll never make a start on the pie.’
‘Pie?’ squeaked Mrs Endicott. Rationing ensured they were all obsessed with food. Mrs Endicott dreamed nightly of eating up a sugar-paste likeness of Cary Grant and woke licking her lips. ‘Did she say pie, Blanche?’ She sounded shocked, as if accusing her old friend of keeping slaves, or showing her knees.
‘Doris left a rabbit for me. People are so kind,’ said Blanche.
‘To you they are.’ Agnes elbowed her way through the pleats and wool and stout hosiery.
The Archers Page 9
