‘It’s delicious,’ she said reassuringly.
‘Molly always does us fish on Fridays,’ said Fred, who seemed tickled by this token of his wife’s Catholicism. Connie noticed Olivia’s mouth pursing at the fond allusion: for some reason she had conceived a brooding suspicion of Catholics which even Molly’s good-naturedness could not placate. Old Mr Callaway had also picked up the reference. ‘Old colleague of mine, when I was working in Mayfair … he was a Catholic. Every Friday, he’d always have his lunch at Wilton’s.’
‘Hmm. I’m not sure that’s quite in the spirit of self-denial that was intended,’ said Connie.
‘Oh, I dare say,’ replied Mr Callaway agreeably, and then embarked on a knight’s-move reminiscence of old restaurants in London he used to frequent. Connie meanwhile looked around the table, trying to decide whether she was missing some vital point to the evening. She was still baffled as to why Olivia and Lionel were present: it surely couldn’t have been to show off the new car?
Next to her, Mrs Rhodes said gently, ‘You look rather tired, my dear. I hope they’re not working you too hard.’ In truth Connie’s feet ached, having pounded the wards since seven o’clock that morning, but she merely deflected Mrs Rhodes with a little shake of her head. Admitting fatigue would only rouse her mother to a tutting aria of lamentation. Across the table, Molly was carefully removing the bones from the fish on Fred’s plate. That homecoming … He had arrived at Victoria Station from France, chaperoned by two friends from his company. Connie had gone to meet him there, having instructed herself to behave in as breezy a spirit as she could muster, for both their sakes. But on seeing the bandage blindfolding his eyes and the tufty disarray it made of his hair she felt all her hard-won professional calm begin to crumble; she, who had seen men without faces, men without limbs, was still not ready to see her own brother without eyes. When through the crowd she called his name, Fred had jerked his head, like a dog hearing a whistle, and said, uncertainly, ‘Con?’ At that she threw herself against his shoulder, sobbing violently, to the evident discomfiture of his two guides. But she was past caring. In that intense disabling tumult of pity, she had struggled to understand how losing one’s sight could be any less terrible than losing one’s life. Once her heaving shoulders had slowed, Fred put a hand to her cheek and said, with a brave chuckle, ‘Good job you didn’t bring Ma with you, else we’d be here all day.’
Now, watching Molly’s tender ministrations, she saw that even the most wretched misfortune could resemble, in another light, a strange sort of blessing. If Fred had not been blinded, he would probably never have met the reader who visited the hospital every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, or nurtured a friendship that would become, within months, a serious love match. Connie could understand the attraction from Fred’s side – no man, blind or otherwise, would fail to be charmed by Molly’s sweet manner, or the confiding warmth of her voice. As Fred once said, you could always hear the smile in it. But she could not help puzzling over Molly’s willingness to pledge herself to Fred. Much as she loved him, she felt that the commitment required of a wife would be different from that of a sister. It was not just the everyday responsibility it would entail, but the haunting thought of Fred never once having looked upon her face. How could she bear it?
The dinner plates had just been cleared when Mrs Callaway turned to Connie. ‘I had a telephone call from Nicoll’s this afternoon, darling. They said your dress is ready to collect.’
‘What dress?’ asked Molly. Connie explained that she was to attend Lily’s wedding in a fortnight’s time.
‘Lily – you mean your friend from school?’ said Olivia, her tone incredulous.
‘Yes. What’s so remarkable about that?’ asked Connie.
Olivia gave a little shake of her head, and said, in a voice just loud enough for Connie to hear, ‘If she can find a husband, there’s hope for everyone.’ Across the table, Lionel stifled a chuckle. Connie felt a rush of dislike towards Olivia at that moment. What she had really meant was hope even for Connie.
‘That’s rather unkind of you, Olivia,’ said their mother. ‘From what I hear he’s a very eligible fellow.’
‘And she’s a very eligible woman,’ said Connie coolly. ‘Lily’s had offers of marriage before. She was just waiting for a man she honestly loved.’
‘Like you, my dear,’ her grandfather suggested, obliging Connie to smile at his unsubtle gallantry. ‘Now, that fellow we met at Lord’s –’
Fred cleared his throat loudly at this point. ‘Do excuse me, Grandpa, but I think this might be the moment to let you all know – um, I – that is, we have a certain announcement –’ He reached out for Molly, who took his hand.
‘You’re expecting a child?’ Olivia almost shrieked. Molly blushed deeply, her smile all the answer that was required, and the company dissolved into a ragged chorus of happy exclamations. Mrs Callaway had clasped her hands together over the shocked ‘O’ of her open mouth, as though the news might have been of fast-approaching disaster. Olivia was exulting in the prospect of her own two boys ‘at last’ having a cousin. Connie wondered if at that moment her face were registering appropriate signs of gratification. She was delighted for Fred and Molly, but their news had isolated her once more as the odd woman out: having escaped being ‘the daughter at home’, her role would now be the family’s spinster aunt. But she would not be pitied. This was the path she had chosen in life – no one had forced her to go it alone. Amid the excited gabble of congratulation Molly shot an uncertain look at her over the table; there seemed to be a kind of appeal in it. Judging it to be hopeful of sisterly solidarity, Connie raised her glass, and offered her broadest smile.
Later, once Olivia and Lionel had left (with a fruity parp of the car horn) and the rest of the family had retired for the evening, Connie had gone to smoke in the study when she heard a knock, and Molly put her head round the door.
‘I’m not disturbing you, I hope …’
‘No, of course not. Come in. May I fetch you a drink?’ Molly shook her head, and sat down on the sofa opposite, one hand absently palpating her stomach. ‘I’m sorry if you were a little overwhelmed by the family,’ Connie said. ‘My mother already thinks you’re a kind of saint – so tonight was your canonisation.’
Molly laughed, and looked embarrassed. ‘I don’t much enjoy being the centre of attention – especially when I’ve done nothing to deserve it.’
‘Ah, but according to Grandpa you’ll be continuing the Callaway name, remember. He seems quite convinced of it.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Molly, frowning. ‘Will he be awfully disappointed if it’s a girl?’
Connie gave a sceptical half-laugh. ‘He’ll get what he’s given – and be grateful for it.’
Molly sat back, fiddling with a button on the arm of the sofa. After a brief silence she looked over at Connie again. ‘I was going to mention this to you before, but Fred told me not to while your mother was about. When we were at the cricket on Tuesday, we bumped into someone you know – knew.’
‘Oh?’
‘William – Will – Maitland. Fred said you were once – friendly with one other …’
‘Oh.’ It was not a name she had expected to hear. After their last encounter she had thought of writing to him, once it became clear that he was never going to write to her. But in the end she had resisted the impulse. What, after all, was there to say? ‘How is he? Married, I suppose?’
‘No, it seems not. He gave me to understand that he had been engaged –’
‘Good Lord. How long did you talk to him for?’
‘Well, our seats were close to one another – so we had most of the afternoon together.’
Connie was curious to know how much Will had told her about the two of them. It was perfectly conceivable that he loathed the memory of her. ‘Did he seem at all … bitter?’
‘You mean about the war?’ asked Molly, guessing wrong. ‘He didn’t talk about it, really, apart from the story of his being wounded. He s
aid that if it hadn’t been for you he would have died! It sounded very dramatic, I must say.’
Connie shrugged non-committally. It seemed that Will had given Molly a judiciously edited account of their friendship, one which, moreover, cast Connie in the best possible light. She had not expected such generosity of him. Molly was now looking at her intently. ‘Actually, I got the impression that he’s made an awful hash of things. He said that he’d let people down very badly, and that picking up his life again after the war was much harder than he’d imagined. I did feel rather sorry for him.’
‘It sounds like he feels rather sorry for himself,’ said Connie.
Molly flinched slightly. ‘I think he’s been through a lot, Connie. If you ask me, he seemed a little … lost. Fred said there was once – between you – some attachment …’
Connie sighed and let her gaze drop. ‘It was a long time ago. I dare say we’re both quite different now. But I’m sorry to hear he was out of sorts.’
‘I thought of asking him to dinner, if you’d –’
‘You think he would come?’
Molly hesitated for a moment, enough for Connie to notice. ‘I’m sure he would, given encouragement.’
How odd, she thought, that Will hadn’t married. It was a surprise. When he had asked for her hand those years ago she had wondered whether his real motivation was the idea of marriage, as others are spurred on by the idea of wealth, or fame. Was that at the back of her mind when she refused him that night in Kensington Gardens? He had always seemed driven by a headlong determination to ‘take a wife’, rather than waiting to find a woman he could love. It occurred to her now that she may have misjudged him.
‘Perhaps it would be best to leave alone,’ she said presently, though the conversation had stirred her to candour. She studied Molly as she sat in profile. ‘D’you mind my asking – were you certain that you wanted to marry Fred?’
Molly looked almost offended by the question. ‘Of course. I’d never been more certain of anything in my life.’
‘But – how was that? You must have considered the difficulties of marrying someone who –’ She paused, and rephrased the thought. ‘Did you not worry that you were limiting yourself – that you’d never be able to share things together, like – I don’t know – playing tennis, or going to a gallery?’
Molly knitted her brow in puzzlement. ‘Well, it’s not really about seeing. It’s about understanding. I can play tennis or go to a gallery with anyone. Fred isn’t like anyone else. Think of all the wonderful things about him – why would I give them up just because he’s blind? You of all people must understand that.’
‘But he’s my flesh and blood. You chose him, in the knowledge –’
Molly shook her head, as though amazed that she had to explain. ‘We are what we love, Connie. The secret – the thing we hope for – is having that love returned.’
They talked for a while longer about the evening just gone, then Molly rose and, kissing her goodnight, left the room. But Connie remained in the study afterwards, smoking, and thinking.
One could always find such extraordinary things in The Times, thought Will. Ever since Eleanor had alerted him to the news of his former betrothed’s happy event, he had found himself scouring the columns of announcements – for what, he didn’t know. Deaths, he observed, were never in short supply; many of them were commemorative notices supplied by the parents of young men killed in the war. One could tell it was the anniversary of a major action by the length of the lists. He wondered how many they would number come July. But something quite different had caught his eye a few days ago. It was halfway down the personal columns, squeezed between advertisements for ladies’ companions and holiday homes in Margate. It was short, and to the point.
MURIEL – Worrying dreadfully. Do please send us news.
Promise you no recriminations – Mother.
He speculated as to what might have estranged them. Was it a recent tiff or a long-nursed resentment? One had to suppose there was a man involved. Mother was evidently beside herself, but she was prepared to let bygones be bygones if only her errant daughter would send word. Something about the desperation of her plea nagged away at him, and after a few days he realised what it was. If he, Will, ever took off quite suddenly, who would put out a newspaper advertisement imploring him to come back? His own mother? Perhaps; eventually; once she had swallowed her pride. Eleanor would make it her business, he supposed. Yes, he could depend on Ellie. But, in truth, he was stuck to think of anyone – anyone – outside of his family who might miss him enough to worry. He had put a distance between himself and the army; the few friends he had made during his time in France were either dead or had disappeared into the anonymity of civilian life. He had been close to none of his M—shire teammates, apart from Tam. Now that he thought of it, he was more like Tam than he had ever imagined. He was respected as a player, but he could not claim to be cherished as a friend by any of them. Was he really so alone in the world?
His encounter with Fred Callaway and his wife at Lord’s the previous week was the first time in ages he had enjoyed the company of others. He had warmed to the familial trio during the afternoon, particularly to Molly. It had moved him, the way she was solicitous of both her husband and the old man, then the way she had shared her sandwiches with him, a virtual stranger. When she had asked him to dinner, he had made an excuse, uncertain as to whether he could face Connie with equanimity. At the close of play he had said goodbye to them outside Lord’s with the melancholy inkling that they would never meet again. It didn’t matter: life would go on as before. The hardest part was knowing that he would survive.
He had been walking, aimlessly, up Albemarle Street, having returned from Lewin & Co. in the City, carrying a new set of whites. His old kit, not worn since 1914, had looked so frowsy and forlorn he had thrown it out. The shop assistant had asked him which county he played for, and Will had been silently disappointed when his name on the cheque prompted no sign of recognition. Now, recalling the moment, he heard himself laugh out loud, a short mirthless ha! that caused a couple passing by to turn and look at him. It didn’t matter, any of it. Glancing in the window of a gallery, his eye fell upon the title card of an exhibition mounted within.
Paintings and Drawings
A retrospective of works by
Denton Brigstock, RA
Brigstock. He felt sure he knew the name: wasn’t it the painter he had met that night, years ago, when he had been with Connie and Tam? A night he recalled making a fool of himself, what’s more … A bell above the door tinkled as he entered, and he wandered unobtrusively through a set of rooms, the walls uniformly painted a card-table green. The paintings were a mixed lot, some bucolic landscapes and still lifes which he admired, then a middle sequence of melancholy interiors, blotchy, blurred and dimly inhabited by people who looked close to dereliction. The fellow seemed incurably fond of seedy back rooms and squalid public houses, painted in such a way as to make them appear even more dismal than they probably were in real life. They did not encourage a lingering appraisal, and he pressed on into the next room. A small knot of people had gathered inquisitively around the room’s main focus, a huge canvas whose subject only became apparent when he had cleared a space through the stragglers.
He reared back, as if before an apparition. It was a group portrait of army brass hats, foremost among them a face he had not seen up close since the summer of 1916. The truculent set of the jaw, the roasted-looking complexion, the eyes burning like danger lamps: there was no mistaking Brigadier-General Culver. The painter had caught that haughty, impatient demeanour quite chillingly, though what impressed Will more was the accusing detail of the captain’s uniform draped over the chair; would that pointed comment of the artist have given the Brigadier-General a jolt? Probably not. A man who could dispatch countless soldiers to certain death would not be easily upset by a painting. Will, on the other hand, could hear the blood in his ears; he felt a wave of impotent fury surge th
rough his body and up into his mouth. Was that bile he could taste? Around him he sensed the murmuring throng of gallery visitors absorbed in the canvas simply as a work of art. It was quite likely none of them knew or cared about the identity of the foregrounded officer: the war was over, the world had moved on. But Will hadn’t. He glanced sideways at his immediate neighbours, a tweedy fellow holding a catalogue, two women in fashionably complicated hats, all training the same neutral gaze upon one of the bungling strategists of the Somme. If only they knew. Before he could stop himself he turned to face the small assembly and, in the manner of a curator, gestured at the painting.
‘I’m not sure if any of you are aware,’ he began, noting their interested looks, ‘but that man – is Brigadier-General Hubert Culver, of the Fourth Army. His battle orders at the Somme resulted in thousands of needless casualties, including the loss of three-quarters of my own company at Mametz. It strikes me as odd that his reward should be to have his portrait painted, when really he ought to have been tried for criminal incompetence.’ His audience, stunned into silence, looked at him as if he might be dangerous, though his voice had remained calm. With nothing more to say, Will shrugged and walked away. He felt a little better, even at the cost of being marked as a madman. The exhibition continued on a mezzanine floor and, without a backward glance, he mounted the staircase. Entering this last room, still light-headed from his impromptu public speaking, he was pottering alongside a series of small oils when another face he knew ambushed him. And a rather more agreeable one than the first. It was a squarish portrait, about twelve inches wide, of a woman seated on a sofa, her head propped against her hand, a smile on her lips. It was that smile, the warmth and humility of it, which identified her beyond any doubt. Connie. Reminders of her seemed inescapable at the moment; first at Lord’s, now here. So she had sat for Brigstock … He would have liked to banish the next thought, but the horrific possibility that she might have done other things for the painter was leaking into his brain like poison gas. He knew that she had lived near him in Paris – she had told him so, the night of the party in South Kensington. It was quite conceivable that they had become intimate with one another: the relationship between an artist and his model didn’t tend to be chaste. Why should that dismay him now?
Half of the Human Race Page 44
