I do not think that Gyp will ever allow that to happen. He will get up from his chair whilst he still has the power of his limbs and he will walk out. It is I, with my weak fantasies of what our life should be like and my inability either to recapture the past or build a new future, who will be left, crippled in my arm chair.
It occurs to me suddenly how different Gyp and I are. He is fundamentally honest and I am not. Months ago, when he first came home, he told me, in that unemphatic voice of his, that he had not been faithful to me. ‘You might as well know about it,’ he said, ‘because I’d rather you knew everything about me. Physically—at the time—it meant a hell of a thing; afterwards, damn all. Just one of those happenings on local leave you know.’
It would have been so simple to have said then: ‘I know, the same thing happened to me.’ I would have said, it if I had felt the tiniest twinge of jealousy about Gyp. But I didn’t. What Gyp had done meant nothing to me at that moment and so I kept silent. Now, when I could tell Gyp about Brian, it is too late, and I have got to go on living my lie. If today I were to tell him that I had lived with Brian but that he meant nothing to me now, Gyp would not believe me. I have left it too long and the right moment will never be recaptured. In one of the papers today there was an article on wives telling their returned husbands the truth. I scoffed at it as trash, but all the time I knew it was my problem too. But I shall not tell Gyp. There’ll be a different solution for us—something else must save us from the drifting armchairs and the spreading carpet.
“I’ve been thinking,” Gyp says quietly, “that it might be a good idea if we packed up here, Helen.”
“Packed up? What d’you mean, Gyp?” My errant thoughts crumble before this unexpected impact with the present and I am suddenly drawn close to Gyp with an urgency that I thought could no longer exist.
“Well, the trip to London next week is part of it. Maybe I’ve got a bit of that urge to serve too. I’ve been wondering whether it mightn’t be a good idea to do some research. I’m seeing a chap about it next week. Tropical diseases, you know. I’ve had the practical experience; I think I could do something in that line.”
“But Gyp, what about your work here?” I am frightened because everything that I know and have built up is shimmering uncertainly before me. It has the fantastic shape of a dream and at any moment I may wake up and find it is gone.
“Any G.P. could take this over,” Gyp says shortly.
“But they couldn’t, Gyp. Not in the way you do it. Look at the mess Dr. Rawlins made of this practice while you were in the army. Hundreds of people depend on you here, and then there are all your committees and things and the Rural District Council.” It doesn’t sound very convincing as I say it, and I wonder if Gyp senses the desperation I am feeling.
“There’s something in your argument, but I’m afraid it’s only because I’m probably a better hack doctor than research wallah. But I’ll have a stab at the latter if you’d like me to.”
“Me? Why should I want you to?” How can I make Gyp understand that this house and everything in it and our life here as doctor and doctor’s wife must continue if we are ever to make anything of our marriage now.
“I wake up sometimes at night,” he says, “and think to myself that as far as this house and practice goes, you’ve had it.”
“But, Gyp, I haven’t. I . . . I love it.” Even if it is only the shell of what existed before, there is security in a shell and time will replenish the vacuum created by war and separation. I can’t say this to Gyp because I have never explained the vacuum to him.
“But you’re bored—you must be bored. What is there for you in Kirton, Helen?”
“Lots of things, Gyp dear. This house and Jenny Wren and catering and the Watsons and Mary Cross and the Gurney family; being tactful to your patients and—I nearly forgot—the Women’s Institute. Not to mention my husband.”
He smiles at this and my panic subsides.
“What a come down for a senior officer of His Majesty’s Forces!” he laughs.
“Is it?”
“Well; isn’t it? After all, you were once on the staff at the War House, weren’t you?” His voice is teasing again.
“For the briefest of spells, thank goodness.”
“Why?”
“Because I got the sack for not being sufficiently a yes-woman. Oh, you mean why was I glad it was brief? Because I couldn’t take it, darling—the almost religious hysteria of an all-feminine War Office directorate. We lost our sense of proportion and spoke of ‘Higher Authority’ in hushed voices. Our hair grew shorter and our noses longer until we were almost indistinguishable from ant-eaters, terrifying and insatiable and hoping, with all the intensity of our little minds, that the worst would turn out to be the worst. Frightened of our own shadows, but even more scared of the opinion of MEN! You see, most of us hadn’t got a man then. That was probably half our trouble.”
Gyp says slowly:
“You don’t often talk about it, do you?”
“No. It’s a long way away somehow.”
“I don’t understand that. Mine’s awfully close still. Come on, let’s go to bed.”
We do the things to a room which one does before leaving it. Gyp turns out the lights and says:
“I like hearing about your side of it, you know.”
“I’ll try to remember some more for you.”
“Will you?” He stands by the door, hesitating.
“What’s the matter, Gyp?”
“Nothing. I just wish you were happier, that’s all.”
“Darling, I’m all right. I wouldn’t say that if I wasn’t. Come on, let’s go up.”
He puts his arm through mine.
“The room looks nice in the firelight, doesn’t it?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you all the evening, Gyp.” I laugh nervously and hope he won’t ask me why I’m laughing.
* * * *
Lily Cobb laughed nervously.
“Don’t do it, Fred.”
The tall young man held her at arm’s length, searching in the dim light of the spring evening for something in her face which might give him an idea of her thoughts.
“What’s the matter, Lil?” His speech was slow and broad.
“Someone might see us. Someone might be passing this way.”
He tightened his hands round her arms, almost as if he would shake her.
“And what if they did, Lil? We’ve as much right to be here as anyone else, haven’t we?” He spoke roughly, almost bitterly.
She stared back into his face. He was russet coloured, like Charlie had been, but he was longer and narrower.
There were hollows in his cheeks and his eyes were set wide and deep beneath thick brows.
“You wouldn’t understand, Fred,” she said, slowly.
He relaxed his grip at her words and fumbled disconsolately in his pocket for a cigarette. She leaned back against the gate and now that Fred was no longer touching her she longed to feel his arms about her. Did he love her? He said so, but that didn’t mean a thing—or did it? There’d been plenty of other chaps from Little Copse who’d asked her out to the pictures. Mostly they’d wanted one thing. In the end she’d given up accepting invitations. Until she met Fred. He was different. In any case, she hadn’t met him in the bar. He was a friend of Dick’s who’d brought him in to supper one night a couple of months ago—a hungry young giant still scarred with the marks of a Jap prison camp.
Fred had found his cigarettes. He offered her one from a torn packet. The light from a match flared between them, casting deep shadows round their eyes. He let it burn itself out and flung it away as the blackened wood scorched his fingers.
“Lil,” he said slowly, “Lil, you wouldn’t bitch a fellow, would you?”
“Ssh!” she whispered. “Someone’s coming.” She had heard the steps whilst he was speaking. She pressed herself against the gate with her back to the road. “Fred, turn round, like me. No, not so close. Lea
n over the gate like I am and just smoke. Don’t say anything.”
He obeyed the panic of her voice, and the footsteps grew closer. A small bundle of a woman passed down the road and vanished round the bend. Fred drew close to Lil again.
“You’re shivering,” he said.
“That was Mrs. Metcalf,” she answered, “tomorrow all the village will know you and I were here tonight—up to no good,” she added bitterly.
This time he did shake her. Then he drew her gently against himself. She smelt the faint aroma of sawdust and kitchen soap which always surrounded him. She let herself relax and felt his embrace tighten.
“Listen, Lil, I want you.” His voice was rough and warm. “But I want you for keeps, see? I want you—and Tommy,” he added gently.
Suddenly the tears were scalding her eyes and she couldn’t speak. He did love her. He meant what he said. She lifted her face to look at him and his mouth was against her cheek, tasting the salt of tears.
“What are you crying for, girl?” he asked softly.
“I’m so happy,” she whispered. He kissed her again and this time she responded with all the urgency of her taut, young body.
Presently they drew apart, breathless in the still, soft night. “You love me, Lil.” The words were a jubilant statement.
“I love you, Fred.”
He was holding her small, square hand in his, playing with her fingers, and she noticed that he had an untidy plaster dressing on one of his thumbs. She thought ‘They’re always chipping bits off themselves at Little Copse,’ and she wondered, anxiously, if the cut was quite clean.
He said:
“I nearly got you a ring, over in Dimstone, this afternoon, and then I wasn’t sure, you see.”
“Sure of what?”
“That you’d take it. Now I’m sure, I’ll get it next Wednesday.”
“And you’re sure too?” she asked.
“Sure I’m sure!” They laughed and he held her close to him again.
“I’d like us to get married soon,” he said. “I’ll be through with Little Copse next month, so we might do it then.”
Next month. It seemed tremendously near somehow. Would they get married here or in Yorkshire where Fred’s home was? Dad and Mum would like her to be married from the Cock and Pheasant, she thought. So far as she was concerned she didn’t mind where it happened. There’d be a lot of chatter and stares in the village—but it would learn them. She shook her head defiantly.
“What you thinking about, Lil?” Fred asked. She said:
“Will your family like Tommy, Fred?”
“There’s only my old man left at home now,” he said slowly, “he’s a good one with kids. He won’t mind my marrying a widow when he sees Tommy.”
Lil felt the lump in her throat again. No one but Fred could have put it that way. Maybe having been through what happened to him as a prisoner of war made him sensitive like. She couldn’t remember ever having known a young man to be tactful to a girl. Not even Charlie. But then Charlie was always on Ops., nervy as a bullock waiting in the slaughter-house. Fred was nervy too, but he’d got it more under control.
She said:
“Fred, I’d like you to tell Dad.”
“What, ask his permission?” he sounded peeved.
“No, Fred. Just tell him soon. He’d like it, so would Mum. Even if they didn’t it wouldn’t make any difference to us. But they’ve been good to me and they’d like it. I nearly left here before last Christmas. Then I couldn’t somehow, because of everything they’d done.”
“Left here? What for?”
So he was jealous. Charlie had been jealous too. As if she cared. She couldn’t ever love more than one person at a time and now she’d got Fred.
“Work,” she replied. “Let’s go and see Dad now.”
“All right.”
But they stayed where they were, young and in love. Presently Lily said:
“We’ll look in on Else and Dick on the way back. I’d like them to know. Else doesn’t get about any more, her baby’s coming this month.”
Dick Cobb’s cottage was narrow and low. There was no light upstairs and only firelight gleamed through the lace curtains of the ground floor window.
“Funny, they don’t seem to be home,” Lily said, and then added: “They must be, the door’s ajar.”
Inside the narrow passage, they heard the sound of a woman crying. Lily said:
“Wait here, Fred.”
He felt constricted in the darkness, as if the walls would encompass him for ever. Prison. This was another prison. He sensed the sweat on his face and between his shoulder blades. He began to tremble uncontrollably. The sound of sobbing and voices came to him from a long way off. He must get out of here. He must breathe again. But he couldn’t leave—Lil was here too. The walls felt wet against the palms of his hands.
Inside the room, Lily searched for matches and the gas mantle.
“Else, Else, what’s happened?”
“Go away. Go away.”
“It’s me, Else. It’s Lil.” She’d found the matches and the gas spluttered shrilly through the room.
“Oh, go away, Lil.” The misshapen figure was crouched on the sofa, but her sobs were less loud.
“Where’s Dick? You’re ill, Else. Where’s Dick?”
“He’s gone.”
“Gone?”
“Walked out on me after tea.”
Suddenly Elsie’s face contracted and she gave an involuntary cry; she leaned back and then forward until her head touched her knees. Lil clenched her hands in sympathy.
“It’s my pains,” Elsie whimpered, “they started just after he left.”
Lily felt utterly helpless, inadequate in the face of Elsie’s pain and trouble.
“I’ll get Mum. Wait, Else; Fred’s outside; I’ll tell him to fetch Mum.”
“I don’t want no one. Go away, go away. I want to die.” Elsie wept loudly again.
Lily went outside the door. In the darkness she found Fred, lax against the wall.
“Fred, fetch Mum. Tell her Elsie’s pains have started. Tell Dick to come too if he’s there. Hurry, Fred, please.” He seemed difficult to move but she thrust him to the door. He gulped in the cool fresh air outside. “Go on, Fred, go. Else is in trouble,” she urged.
“O.K.,” he mumbled; then, more firmly, “You staying here, Lil?”
“Until Mum comes. I’ll be with you later. Hurry, please.” She gave him a little push.
Elsie seemed calmer when she got back. Lil wondered what she ought to do—-kettles, hot water, sheets. . . .
Elsie said:
“We had an awful row, Lil.”
“Don’t worry, Else. Mum’s coming; it’ll be all right.”
“He’s chucked up his job at Little Copse. I told him what I thought of him then. Why should he pack it up just when the baby’s coming. Why should he do that—tell me?”
“It’s part of his wounds, Else; he can’t help it.”
“He said he’d join up again if he could. He said the army got you places Civvy Street never could.”
“Well, he can’t join up again; he’s pensioned off,” Lily said soothingly.
“But why should he want to? That’s the trouble, Lil. I wouldn’t want to go back like him. Goodness knows I earned enough on munitions during the war, but once I’d got Dick and then Stevie, I wanted a steady life. Not a lot of chopping and changing.”
“I know; but then Dick was wounded.”
“So were a lot of others; no—I know the trouble, it’s the army. They shouldn’t ever have made him a captain. It’s made everything topsy turvy. He can’t settle now—wounds or no wounds.”
Lily’s mind buzzed with arguments, but she couldn’t contradict Elsie. Not when she had her pains and all. She ought to do something about Elsie, but what? She longed suddenly for the satisfying pattern of the R.A.F. where you just reported to the sergeant. Whatever happened after that, you were clear.
Maggie Cobb bustled i
n. Lily had never been gladder to see her mother. Elsie was gripped with pain again. Maggie said:
“Put the kettles on, Lil, and then go and tell Mrs. Mitchell. After that go by Dr. Townsend’s. Tell him you’ve called Mrs. Mitchell. And then go home and help your dad. We’re busy.”
Orders, orders—the blessed peace of carrying them out. Lily reached the midwife’s cottage.
“Mrs. Mitchell, Elsie Cobb’s started her pains. My mum’s there and I’m going on to tell Dr. Townsend. Good night, Mrs. Mitchell.”
And then the Townsends’ house. Jenny Cookson opened the door.
“Is Dr. Townsend there, Jenny?”
“Hello, Lil. No, he’s out on a visit.”
“Can I see Mrs. Townsend?”
Jenny wasn’t pleased, but she got the doctor’s wife.
“Mrs. Townsend, my sister-in-law, Elsie Cobb, has started her pains. I’ve let Mrs. Mitchell know and my mum’s there. Will you tell the doctor.”
Somewhere in the background Jenny Cookson’s ears were stretched.
“But of course, Lily. He won’t be long. He’s just gone up to the Manor to see Mrs. Zarek’s little boy. I’ll tell him as soon as he gets back—or phone him if he’s away long. It’s her second child so she shouldn’t have too bad a time, should she? How’s your Tommy?”
“He’s fine, thank you.” And then, suddenly:
“I’m getting married next month, Mrs. Townsend.”
“Oh, Lily, how lovely. Who is it? I’d like to congratulate him.”
It was no longer the doctor’s wife, but a friend talking to her. It occurred to Lily that Mrs. Townsend was beautiful. Funny, she hadn’t seen it before. A wistful and misty beauty like a close-up of Greer Garson. She said:
“To Fred Barrett. He was taken prisoner at Singapore. We shall live in Yorkshire—Tommy too, of course.”
“I’m so glad, Lily. But your parents will miss you—we shall all miss you at the Cock and Pheasant; Mr. Barrett’s a very lucky man.”
Wine of Honour Page 14
