Paula shook her head.
“I have tried, I cannot tell you how hard I have tried to get at what may be the trouble, but I have got nowhere. One thing I do know, it is not fear of pain; of that there is no fear at all. I think she knows how that will be. I think there has been another baby.”
“No! I thought it was her first.”
“She speaks as if it was the first, but I do not think it is so. There are things. I cannot explain but it does not seem to me that she is ignorant.”
Mabel gazed at Paula. Paula, in her own kitchen, had a dignity that she had not connected her with. When she had first arrived at Peasefield she had been “that refugee woman down at the cottage.” At the time of Dunkirk she had been collectively with Mr. Bettelheim and the children—“those Germans.” When they had been released and had rooms in the house she had become “Mrs. Bettelheim,” winning Mabel’s approval for her quietness and unobtrusiveness. Already she knew, since nothing was a secret in Peasefield, that she was a good housewife. She had kept the cottage beautifully and, therefore, she deduced that she was keeping her rooms beautifully, in fact, a sight better than the cockneys who had been there before her. Since she had been in this house Mabel had not thought much about her. She slipped up and down the back stairs with her shopping basket, always ready with a shy greeting; sometimes she had the little girl with her. The little girl was a proper chatterbox, full of talk about her dancing classes; many a time Mabel had heard Paula quieten her, telling her to wait to speak until she was outside. Mabel did not care for Jews and being German Jews made it worse. Mr. Bettelheim was everything she meant when she said she did not like Jews, but she had acquired, over the years of their acquaintance, a sneaking liking for Paula. Now, sitting in Paula’s kitchen, listening to the familiar kitchen sounds, the whirr as the machinery of the refrigerator got going, the tick of the kitchen clock, the bubbling of something cooking on the stove, she felt more. In her own kitchen Paula radiated a quality. Mabel had no gift for finding words; the best she could do was to think to herself, “Good, somehow.”
“You’ve been keeping an eye on her?”
“More than anything she needs company, but that is not enough; she needs understanding. I do not understand.”
Mabel got up to go.
“Would you let me know if there’s anything I can do? I cook her dishes to tempt her. We don’t want anything to go wrong. It’ll be quite a thing having a baby in the house.”
Paula tore a piece of skin off the guinea fowl. Her voice deepened and warmed.
“I love birth. There cannot be sufficient babies.”
What a way to talk, thought Mabel, but she appreciated it. It was true; in her life there had been no child, but the preliminary steps to having a child she had taken whenever opportunity arose. She had never regretted that nature, usually so tactless with the casual lover and so parsimonious with those legally entitled to babies, had not looked her way; but all her life she had been aware of the life stream. She felt a lifting of heart when the fields were full of lambs, foals and calves. She would not have dreamt of saying what Paula had just said, but she knew what she meant. However, enough was enough. She changed the subject.
“You going to cook the breast of that guinea fowl on its own?”
“For my husband. It is jucier to roast the whole guinea fowl and then remove the breast, but he may be late and then it will be necessary the children have their meal first.”
“How are you doing it?”
“With mushrooms cooked in butter; to that I add cream and cook it until it is so thick there is only half the original quantity. I then thicken my sauce with two tablespoonfuls of cream sauce. You make that?”
Paula was a beautiful cook. In the presence of another cook she was carried away and missed the expression on Mabel’s face, and the tone of Mabel’s voice as she said:
“How do you make that?”
“As you would make it I think, with butter, flour, milk boiled, a little salt, and again, of course, cream. Sometimes I take a simpler sauce, using a little stock from the cooking of the guinea fowl. To that I do not add the cream.” She lowered her voice. “He never complains, but sometimes I think that my husband suffers from his liver.”
Mabel felt rather as a girl with fifty pounds a year to spend on clothes might feel at a dress parade at Hartnell’s.
“And then what?”
“That is all. Sometimes I add a little this or a little that, then I pour the sauce over the breast of the guinea fowl and serve it very hot. My husband is particular that things are hot, which is not easy in this flat. If he is in an extra hunger I place some grilled ham under the breast. You like it that way?”
The spell was broken. Mabel was back on solid earth clutching a bottle of Mrs. Willis’s special allowance of milk for expectant mothers. She was to arrange the lunch as Charlotte had a sick headache, and very well she knew it was going to be fish, steamed fish because she was short of fat. If there was one meal that Mabel disliked cooking more than another it was steamed fish. She got to her feet.
“Chance is a good thing.”
Paula, too, came back to earth. She was in England, in the year 1946; she was telling the cook of Lady Nettel of all the luxuries Heinrich managed to obtain. She, who had even warned Irma not to talk about cream. Furchtbar! Her mouth felt dry. What had she done!
Mabel saw the horror-struck look in Paula’s eyes, the hand that had flown to cover her lips, the colour that came in a wave to her cheeks. Poor thing, she thought, she thinks I blame her. She little knows there’s nothing that wouldn’t come into my kitchen if I knew how to get hold of it and if her Ladyship would spend the money. The chance was too good to miss to be righteous, she who had so seldom in her life represented the righteous. She walked with as much dignity as her small stature would allow to the door before she spoke.
“Very nice for those as can afford it.”
Outside the door her dignity left her. She giggled all the way down the stairs as far as Mrs. Willis’s flat. Fancy her thinking she shocked me. You wait till I get a bit of soap for her old man to slip on. She tapped on Jenny’s kitchen door and looked in. Jenny was at the sink washing up her breakfast things.
“Mrs. Bank come?” Jenny shook her head. “Never say die, she may be late. You pop along up to Mrs. Bettelheim. I dare say between us all we’ll make the flat decent later on.”
Jenny, slowly climbing the stairs, heard steps galloping up behind her. It was Mr. Duke. She stood aside to let him pass.
Jeremy felt he ought to say something. He had taken a dim interest in Jenny since the day he had found her sitting on the stairs; a queer kind of interest, not like you’d feel for a girl, more the way you’d feel about a child.
“How are you? Our front door bell’s ringing all the morning, and so’s the telephone. It’s my wife’s first night and people are sending things round or ringing up every minute. Look.” He undid the wrapping of paper round some flowers he was carrying. “Funny not to send them to the theatre, but I suppose they thought they would only die there.”
Jenny sniffed at the great ragged chrysanthemums. They looked like rich and pompous relations of the little brown ones in her kitchen which Jack had brought her. She was so paralysed by her own affairs that it was a real physical effort to speak of someone else.
“Mrs. Bettelheim told me that Mrs. Duke is an actress. Is her play to-night?”
Jeremy, living with Freda, had caught the idea that all England was interested in Freda’s first night. His voice showed his amazement.
“Yes, didn’t you know? She’s in no end of a flap.” The thought of Freda made him hurry. Every day lately she had been out at rehearsals and he had been free to write his book. Unbelievably his idea that he had something to say, and saw how to say it, seemed to be true. For more days than he cared to think of very little of the reams he wrote were worth keeping, but
people were coming to life, they were leaving the paper and becoming flesh and blood, able to stand on their own legs and unable to say things and do things foreign to their characters. The creatures of his imagination were already far more real to him than the people he met and spoke to. To-day Freda would be home all day making a fuss, expecting to be waited on, and, for this one day, he was prepared to give in to her. In his novel he had drawn an actress, not Freda’s sort of actress, but a sensitive young girl with the germ of greatness, and, in writing about her, he had felt a little of what a first night must mean. He was willing for this one day to be the dog’s body fetching, carrying and being talked at; but not to-morrow; not on the countless to-morrows while the play lasted, those days belonged to his book. He was prepared to fight for them, even to the extent of locking his study door. He grinned at Jenny and bounded up the stairs.
“What a hell of a time you’ve been! What was it?”
Jeremy went into their bedroom. Freda was sitting up in bed; the morning was chilly, she had put a little green padded coat over her black nightdress. She had not made up her face but she had done her hair, powdered her nose and put on some lipstick. Almost any man but Jeremy would have found her startlingly attractive.
Jeremy put the flowers on her bed. She tore the paper off and read the card.
“From your mother and father. Nobody but your parents would send flowers to the house. How stupid not to send them to the theatre.”
In his determinedly good-natured mood he bit back what he would have liked to have said. He refrained from pointing out that such flowers were very expensive and that his mother, who was fond of flowers, seldom had even cheap flowers herself. He did not remind Freda that neither his father nor his mother could approve of her going back to the stage; they thought she had plenty to do, and all that any woman ought to want to do, in looking after her husband and her child.
“What does she say?”
“‘To the nicest daughter-in-law in the world, from us both. I hope you make a great success.’” Freda threw the flowers to the end of the bed. “Like hell she thinks I’m the nicest daughter-in-law in the world.”
“You know she does. She takes it for granted she likes her sons and daughters-in-law, and so in the end she does like them.”
“She’s an old ostrich and you know it.”
Jeremy picked up the flowers.
“Shall I put them in water? Where would you like them?”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort.” Freda put on one of her more wheedling expressions. “I suppose you wouldn’t be an angel and do them up again, and take them to the stage door. Makes quite a lot of difference, flowers and telegrams and things. They don’t mean anything, really, but people notice how many you get.”
Jeremy turned over the idea in his mind. It was not a bad suggestion. It would get him out of the house. He would walk and chew over to-morrow’s work. There was a scene when his little actress went to a stage door; he might get an idea. He schooled his face into disinterestedness. One sign that he would enjoy the walk and Freda would take the flowers to the theatre herself.
“All right. ’Tisn’t far.”
Freda looked at him from under her eyelashes. She knew perfectly well he was longing to get out; that he grudged this day away from his writing. His good looks almost hurt. She was feeling a hag herself. A girl had to do a lot of things she would rather not do to get on in the theatre, and you had to do things that you detested doing when you took the long-term view and planned ahead for your family. She did not dislike much about herself but she did dislike the fact that she needed Jeremy. Her weakness about Jeremy had muddled her life. Even now it was spoiling things. When it was dark, and somebody else had their arms round her, she could, for a few seconds, kid herself that it was Jeremy, but that was a frustrating sort of way to live. She had woken up this morning feeling like hell. Excitement, especially the sort of nervous excitement of a first night, made her feel like that. What she would give if only Jeremy would get into bed with her. Her nerves would relax. She would look different. She would give a marvellous performance. It was no good jumping at things; Jeremy had to be lured. Even in the days before the war, when he really had loved her, he had never been fond of a matinée performance. If he was nice to her now it was almost a lunch-time performance.
“Don’t go till I’m up. The bell will probably ring, and the telephone’s certain to ring. We’ve got that champagne and I’ve ordered two dozen oysters to come round as it’s an occasion. Silly to have a first night in October and not eat oysters.” While she spoke she was slowly rolling back the bedclothes. Her black nightdress only veiled her, it hid nothing. She made a face. “Ugh! I’ve got a touch of that fibrositis again. Be a lamb, Jeremy, and massage my neck.” Jeremy, determined to be a dog’s body, sat down beside her on the bed. She rolled over with her face on his knee. He had sensitive fingers; he knew exactly where massage could help. “Marvellous.”
She moved her head. As she moved the scent that she always used mixed with the scent that emanated from the red-headed; it bemused him like an anæsthetic. He did not like Freda, most of the time he loathed Freda, but there was no question about her physical charm. He fidgeted. She raised her head and laughed.
* * * * *
The policeman walked round the square. He threw the light of his torch into the areas. He climbed the steps and tried the front doors.
The caretaker of the house still requisitioned by the government was leaning against his front door. He jerked his pipe towards the garden.
“Leaves fallin’ fast.”
The policeman nodded.
“Can’t expect much else. Fairly rotted off, they have, this year.”
“Nights drawing in now.”
“That’s right, November next week.”
The newsagent came strolling into the square, his pipe in his mouth. He greeted the policeman and the caretaker with a nod.
“Stepped out for a breath of air while the missus is making a pot of tea. Fine for once.” The outline of the garden was dimly visible. “Wonderful the way the old gentleman’s tidied that up. It was a shocking mess.”
The caretaker spoke in a proprietary voice.
“The Yanks used to drive their jeeps in there; parked them there of a night time. Proper swearing there used to be in the mornin’ when it’d been rainin’. Shockin’ the mud was sometimes.”
There was silence for a moment. In it could be heard little noises. The scratching of dead leaves blowing up the pavement. The howl of a cat on a distant roof. The bark of a dog. Foreground sounds against the continual dull roar of the Piccadilly traffic. The policeman moved off on his beat. The caretaker and the newsagent watched him go with that feeling of pleasure that comes to those who, having finished their day’s work, watch another start out on theirs. The caretaker pointed his pipe at the policeman’s back.
“That young fellow found a big change when ’e came back from the army. Told me once it gave him the creeps going round these squares. ‘Gives you the creeps,’ I says, ‘what about me?’ It was different during the war, what with the Yanks about and the Belgians parley-vooing all over the place.” The mention of the Belgians made them both turn to look at the Nettels’ house. The caretaker lowered his voice. “You seen that actress lives up at the top.”
“Mrs. Duke, she is. My missus was showing me a picture of her in a paper. Miss Freda Bell, that’s what her stage name is.”
The caretaker puffed at his pipe. He would have liked to have told the newsagent of the hours at which Freda returned and the snatches of conversation that he had overheard from his doorstep, but he was not one to gossip. It was correct and proper that he and the newsagent should know who lived in the square and their business, but no chattering; they could leave that to the women.
“You go to the match Saturday?”
The newsagent had been about to stroll hom
e. Cissie would have got the tea made, it was getting chilly, but he could not resist a few minutes chat about football. The two men leant against the area railings, their voices dropped to almost cat-like purring. There was nothing to argue about, just sharing of enthusiasms and exchanging of views. Into the night words dropped pleasantly. “Arsenal,” “Chelsea,” “Sheffield Wednesday,” “the Wanderers.”
A girl came down the square. She minced along on her high heels, her tight skirt gripping her thighs, her short fox coat swaying with each step. As she came level with the newsagent he stopped what he was saying and gave her a nod. He got a faint sign of recognition in response. The caretaker winked at the girl’s retreating back. The newsagent said:
“Funny about that girl; she lives round here, works round here as you might say. One night when the war was on, back in forty-one this was, they brought up a whole lorry of refugees from the docks, women, children, even men. Shocked they were. My post warden he sends me along with a lady warden to fix them up comfortable in an empty shelter. We do what we can, gives them tea and that, fixes them up with rugs and hot-water bottles. There was one we was worried about, expecting she was, not that night, but you never know with shock, and we couldn’t stay. Suddenly the door of the shelter opened and in came that girl. She was looking much as she looks to-night. She says, ‘Can I help?’”
The caretaker nodded.
“They were good.”
“We leaves her in charge, and I said to her, ‘You know where the post is, when you want anything will you come round for it?’ Round about three in the morning she came to the post. Shocking, it was, guns firing, fires everywhere. She brings the hot-water bottles for refilling and three baby’s bottles for food. I go up with her to the door; you could hear the stuff pattering down on the roofs and the road. I said, ‘You’d better take my tin hat, miss.’ She strolls off just the same as she walked past us just now, she looks at me over her shoulder and says, ‘I never wear a hat.’”
Grass in Piccadilly Page 13
