I have just come in from having tea at the Watsons. The weekly invitation from Laura has become a rite which I am too weak to break with. Every month of peace seems to lessen the interests and to widen the gulf between Laura and myself; but across the tea table we fling a bridge of reminiscence. Laura’s memory of A.T.S. life grows more detailed with time, whereas mine becomes dimmer and much less enthusiastic; but I find a sort of fascination in her anecdotes: I cannot believe that we lived and talked and behaved in the fantastic and adolescent way Laura depicts. It would be laughable were it not for the almost religious fervour with which she speaks of those years.
I take off my rain coat and leave it in the hall. As soon as I reach the sitting room, I feel soothed. There is a well tended fire and the curtains are drawn. All around me familiar objects welcome me with well worn faces. The irritating goodness of Laura and the pettiness of Mr. Watson are things of the past.
Upstairs, I can hear Gyp moving about between our room and the bathroom. He always has a bath after evening surgery. As I listen, it seems to me that I am suddenly back in the pre-war years and that there has been no five-year gap in our existence. At the thought, I am conscious of the immediate differences. At one time the thought of Gyp in his bath was exciting and tender; now I only wonder whether he has mussed up the soap or the bath mat. I don’t care if he has, but I wish I didn’t wonder about it.
In a few minutes he will come downstairs and I shall hear him calling to Jenny:
“What’s cooking, Jenny Wren?”
She will tell him what there is for supper and after that he will mix cocktails for us and we will warm our backsides against the fire while we drink. I feel stimulated and a little uneasy—almost as I used to when I left school and was going to a party where I wanted to shine.
Jenny has left the afternoon’s post on the mantelpiece. It’s funny the way she insists on propping it up there instead of in the hall. I’ve told her that the hideous wedding-present salver on the hall table is for letters and cards but she still goes her own merry way. Maybe in the W.R.N.S. their Lordships decreed that letters should be propped on mantelpieces or whatever the equivalent naval furnishing was.
I pick them up and there are the usual obvious bills and payments, two O.H.M.S. ones for Gyp and one, addressed in very blue ink, for me. Why do I know that writing?
Suddenly I am breathless with shock because it is Brian’s writing; the next instant I feel fury and panic flooding over me. How dare he write to me here? Has he gone mad? Anyone could have seen this letter. Gyp might have seen it first. My heart is pounding and I am weak with apprehension.
It is a very short letter. Brian wants us to meet in London. He says that he’s got to make an important decision and that I am the only person who can advise him about it. He suggests that we meet for lunch soon—one day next week if possible. I am to let him know the day and he will be at the Tour Fondue in Soho at one o’clock.
I feel the blood rushing to my face and my whole body is shaking with fury. How dare he? The outrageous suggestion that he only has to ask and I will be there. The impertinence of writing to me here in Gyp’s house. I am impotent in my rage.
And then, quite suddenly, my emotion is spent. As Gyp would say, I’ve had it. My God, I’ve had it. The sham hollowness of my existence since I left the army; my life with Gyp and my suppression of Brian; the frustration of being a civilian and a housewife again. It occurs to me that I am no longer an individual; my personality is smothered beneath the artificiality of an outward manner. I am not an actress and my performances are third rate. Brian’s letter has torn down the safety curtain.
Dear God—of course I shall see Brian again. How, I don’t know at this moment, but I shall arrange to do so. I don’t know what he wants, but his letter no longer angers me. I re-read it and it is suddenly a most sensible communication. It is not emotional and it is sincere. Underlying it there is an urgency I cannot disregard. I owe that to Brian. There are some debts which will always remain on the debit side. I cannot repay Brian for safeguarding my morale and physical well-being during the latter years of the war. But I can stop being hysterical about him, and therefore I shall meet him in London. It is a perfectly natural and sane thing to do.
But Gyp must not know. Why do I feel that when Gyp is the most understanding person I have ever met? I would like to tell Gyp about Brian, but now I have left it too late. It is better to say nothing at this distance. No, Gyp must not know.
Gyp comes into the room and, without realizing it, I have Brian’s letter in my pocket. Gyp is in good form. I can see it in the way he has brushed his hair. It is very grey at the sides, but it is still crisp and much more virile than the smarmy heads of the very young. This evening, the short army cut which he still maintains is shining alert above his wide, tanned brow. Gyp is feeling well.
“Gin or whisky basis?” he asks, moving towards the cupboard where the drinks are kept. We are in the happy, first week of the month, the period when we still have our quota of both.
“Gin, please.” While he mixes and whistles to himself, I wonder what he really thinks about me. It is terribly important to know what your husband thinks about you. In the days when you are first in love and married, the familiar questions on personal reactions are answerable because of physical desire. Afterwards they become either routine or—as I now feel with Gyp—embedded in unbreakable reserve.
Gyp brings over the drinks. We raise glasses and sip. Gyp says:
“What’s the matter with your hair?”
“My hair? Nothing, why?”
“Just the enveloping drapery.” He takes the letters from the mantelpiece.
I realize then that I have not removed my head-dress which consists of an old scarf of Gyp’s. I do so and comb my hair out before the mirror above the mantelpiece. It is a nice mirror, Adam’s period; when Gyp and I first bought it we used to fantasy about the people who lived on the other side of it—the people who had a room furnished like ours and who drew their chairs up close to the fire so that you couldn’t see them or hear what they were saying. It was fun in those days when one could speculate without fear. Today I am glad Gyp has forgotten about the people on the other side of the mirror. I stare at my reflection and feel a little hypnotised.
Gyp has strewn his letters on the sofa beside him; now he looks up and says:
“I’ll have to go to London for two or three days next week for a medical get-together. What about coming with me?”
I am too startled to answer. In books, coincidences of this kind are quite unreal. I feel unreal myself. Gyp mistakes my silence for indecision; he continues: “Not if you don’t want to. It was just an idea.”
“But I’d love to, Gyp. Where shall we stay?” I wonder if I have spoken too quickly.
“Michael Cross said he’d always put us up in his flat. Unless you’d prefer to stay at a hotel. We could ring up a few tonight, but it’s short notice.”
“No; I’d rather be at the flat. Michael’s a dear. It would be fun.” My heart is singing and I feel warm with the relief of a problem solved. Now I can do what Brian has asked, and Gyp need never know. It would have been very difficult going to London without Gyp.
I am filled suddenly with love for my husband.
Gyp pours us another drink and grins at me.
“One day I think I shall probably propose to you, darling.”
“Don’t be silly, Gyp.” I feel embarrassed.
“Well, you look so nice and expectant at times; it seems a pity to disappoint you. Just at this moment, for instance, you look like every young girl one has ever taken out to dinner and kissed in a taxi.”
“I hardly know whether that’s a compliment or an insult, Gyp. I’ve reached the great age when it might be either.”
“It was meant to be nice,” Gyp says seriously and, for that, I could kiss him.
Jenny taps at the door and tells us that supper is ready. She has a cold in her nose and I suggest to Gyp that it is about time medi
cal charity started at home, and what about some of those innoculations he forced me to have at the beginning of the winter? Gyp snaps back at me:
“Until Jenny Wren comes and tells me she can’t bear sniffing any longer, just as any other villager would do, I’m damned if I’m going to pander to her.”
“Why not?”
“Because she’s so full of old wives’ tales and naval customs that if I asserted my influence she’d immediately accuse me of practising vivisection on her—or worse. Can you imagine the scandal in the village?”
I can, but I think Gyp is exaggerating.
“Well, if your innoculations are really any good, you and I needn’t worry about catching Jenny’s colds, need we?” I ask sweetly.
Gyp looks at me and says:
“You’re horribly factual, aren’t you?”
I am glad we have mussel soup because it is one of his favourites. I got the mussels in a jam jar from Mary Cross who was up in London today. She says that the woman in her market who sells them is quite the rudest woman she knows, but the mussels are first class. Mary says the woman has every right to be rude because of the queues, and her son being killed at El Alamein, and being blitzed out three times, and having a murder committed on her doorstep on V.J. night. The police even searched her cellar for the weapon. Mary says the mussels are a miracle.
They are, and Gyp makes appreciative husband noises about them.
“Jenny Wren can cook,” he says as we gluttonize over the weekly meat ration—two small grilled fillets of steak. My pleasure is a little overshadowed at the thought of unending fish meals to come—that is if I manage to please Mr. Stokes the fishmonger. If not, it’ll be starvation corner on the remainder of our points. I don’t think I’m a very good housekeeper; I feel, somehow, that I oughtn’t to use up our rations on anything quite so good and small as these steaks. On the other hand, I don’t believe Gyp even begins to understand how complicated it still is to cater in this country. He says:
“How were the Watsons?”
“I hate Mr. Watson,” I reply and notice that Jenny has not cleaned out the dining room as I intended. Tomorrow I’ll do it myself. Luckily I like housework. There is something remarkably soothing in sweeping and polishing. I believe I should have been much happier and learned a great deal more about the important things of life if I had remained an orderly in the A.T.S. as I was when I first joined up.
“The old man is a bit of a bind,” Gyp says, “but then Laura is too, bless her heart.”
I feel I must stand up for Laura who knows so much about my life that Gyp doesn’t.
“Laura has an integrity and loyalty that possibly you and I can’t understand,” I say priggishly.
“What d’you mean?” he asks sharply.
“Just that Laura has principles and definite ideas on what’s black or white, and although her father is a crashing old bore and quite unworthy of the devotion she expends on him, she is nevertheless entirely sincere in her feelings of duty and service towards him. I’m not saying she isn’t crazy to be like that, but it doesn’t alter the fact that she does it in a completely altruistic way. That’s why she’s a better person than most of us. She’s capable and decent and she could be a success in quite a number of other channels. She ought to have stayed on in the army.”
“Stayed on in the army? Good God, why?”
“It would have been a career for her. She wanted to stay when she heard about the ‘regular’ A.T.S. She’s a responsible sort of person and, as I’ve just implied, she’s got a sort of itch to serve. It’s too bad that it should be wasted on anything quite as selfish as Mr. Watson. Why, he wouldn’t even let her take on a part time job at Little Copse.”
“But no one,” says Gyp slowly, “no ordinary civilian, that is, ought to have wanted to stay on. It’s unnatural.”
“Is it?” I wonder at his seriousness.
“But of course it is. I saw the chaps who went all out for deferment when the release scheme started. With very few exceptions, I’d say they were all psychologically maladjusted, sort of mentally arrested—” he stops suddenly and I am conscious again of being married to a man whom I hardly know. It seems to me that he has done and seen so much that I know nothing about. Perhaps he feels the same about me. Shall we ever be able to build up the security of completely shared interests again?
“But, Gyp, we’ve got to have a strong army, navy and air force, even though the war is over,” I say gently.
“Of course.” He is dissecting an orange in the way I remember so well: quartering the skin and peeling it neatly off until the fruit emerges, free of its white fluff, with the peel lying, like a golden water lily, intact on his plate. “I’m not talking about the regulars,” he goes on, “or the chaps who joined up with the intention of making it their career. But the great multitude of civilians who volunteered or were conscripted—they’re the people who want to get out when the fighting’s over. Those who don’t are the failures, the poor mutts who can’t take life in their stride. They can’t progress, they’ve lost the ability to adapt themselves to circumstances and so they try to defer their release; they’ll now exist on the past, eternally remembering the good old days of war. Of course they’re abnormal. They’re frightened of living.”
“Or maybe service life has sapped their initiative. After all, it’s very comforting always being able to pass the baby, up or down.” I like talking like this with Gyp. I like to see him frowning at what I say and taking it in as if I were Michael Cross or some other ex-service friend who has been through the same experiences as he has.
“You’ve got something there, Helen. That’s the worst aspect of service life from an individual’s point of view. There always was a bloke to complain to, and whose job it was to see that your complaint was dealt with. You got to depend on an organization, and even when obviously sane and efficient improvements got strangled with red tape or were still-born in a pigeon hole, the machinery still churned out a basic security and a fool-proof justice.”
“So what’s unnatural about wanting to remain in it?”
“Lots of things. Oh, lots of things!” He smiles across at me and I realize that I am very glad that Gyp was not one of those people who wanted to remain on in the army.
“Let’s go up,” I say, “Jenny will want to clear.”
Upstairs, over coffee, he says, curiously:
“You wouldn’t have wanted to stay on, Helen, would you? Even without a returning husband who would have created hell if he hadn’t found you back at home?”
“No, I wouldn’t,” I reply slowly, and I wonder if he realizes that I could have left the A.T.S. on the 18th of June, 1945, as a married woman, but that I stayed on longer than Laura Watson who came out under age and service group ten. Laura, who wanted to stay on, came out because of her father, and I, who wanted to leave, stayed on because of Brian. It was easier to be with Brian as a service woman than as Dr. Townsend’s wife in Kirton.
Gyp’s arguments are all very well in principle, but they fall down when it comes to an individual case. There are people like Laura and myself who come out or stay on for emotional reasons; and then there are those who are financially affected or who, like some of the women I know, can’t bear to part with the power of a few badges of rank on their shoulders—even honorary ones, like Recruiting Officers. False values, no doubt, but very important for those to whom only a war gives opportunities.
Gyp has lit an enormous cigar. He is very much the master in his own house tonight. To be with him gives me a feeling of safety. He blows unconscious smoke rings and the ash grows in an even circle, blue grey and compact.
“I’m sorry, I decried your friend Laura,” he says suddenly.
“But you didn’t, Gyp. At least, not much. She is a bore, of course.” And I can hear a cock crowing outside the window of a Dumfries hotel.
“What you said about her itch for service is right, and it’s a good thing. But you don’t have to stay on in the army to serve. You may get
the urge there, and I think a lot of people did. Uncomfortable and browned off, they were nevertheless very much part of an act performed for the benefit of a cause and not necessarily to the benefit of an individual. And a number of chaps getting back to civvy street are carrying on where they left off in the army; you’ll find them helping with youth clubs, going in for local government, being active in their unions and turning up in all sorts of unexpected situations with a self-conscious grin and a grouse about something. They didn’t have to stay on in the army to serve.”
I am listening to Gyp but, as usual, my thoughts about him are chaotic. He speaks so unemphatically about things which are important and he is still very much the soldier. When we were first married he was very much the doctor. I wonder sometimes if any other officer in the R.A.M.C. was as absorbed by service life as Gyp. But then Gyp is like that, he never does things half-heartedly. Besides, he spent his war with men who were actually fighting; he was never M.O. in a home establishment or some depot miles behind the lines. My war was a long distance from his, in every sense.
“Tired?” he asks.
“No. Why?”
“Just silent, then.”
“Yes. What’s on the wireless?”
He turns it on and it is the Brains Trust; we groan in unison; he switches over to the Light Programme and we are assailed by the sound of bagpipes. As he turns off he says:
“If this goes on much longer, I’m damned if I’ll pay them ten bob a year.”
This makes us both laugh because we have never yet paid a radio licence. It’s one of the things we keep meaning to do and never get around to. He leans back in his chair with a smile.
“Thank God I haven’t got to bother to listen.”
No, but I have—to him. The thought races through my mind and I feel guilty. But I want to think. What does Brian want to see me about and why couldn’t he have put it in his letter, once he’d been foolhardy enough to write to me here? I wish Gyp would read a book or something. I brought two new ones from the library today but he has only picked them up, read the blurb on the jackets and flung them aside again. Is our life to be endless evenings of bad radio and indifferent novels? With Gyp and I growing older and dimmer and more rheumaticky in our arm chairs, and the carpet between us spreading its worn pattern until we are separated by a limitless expanse of faded memories.
Wine of Honour Page 13
