The queue moved forward a few feet. This, for some reason, released a cat from between the vegetable crates. It ran haphazardly into the road and seemed to disappear beneath the wheels of a car. There were screams from the women at the end of the queue and an oath from a man passing by. A hoarse voice yelled to the greengrocer:
“Frank, your cat’s gone for a burton. Right under the wheels, he went. Saw it happen with me own eyes.”
But the cat was walking back across the road, sedately, with nothing more than its dignity hurt.
A voice said:
“Angela Worthing?”
Angela turned and found Mary Cross behind her.
“I thought I recognized your back, my dear. How are you?” Mary Cross noted that this was the first time she’d seen Angela looking her age.
Angela thought: ‘Lord, that woman! With all the queues in London, why must we choose the same one?’
“Hello, Mrs. Cross. Are you up for the day?”
“No, I’m staying the week. Our annual staff meeting, you know, and then I’m trying to arrange for Michael’s party next month. His book’s coming out on the twenty-fifth, so we thought we’d celebrate. You’ll be getting an invitation. We still have the flat in Mecklenburgh Square.”
“That will be lovely. I’ve got a place in Brunswick Square and I shall be there then as I’m leaving Little Copse and going to the B.B.C.”
“Lucky woman being able to change your job when you want. I seem to be inundated with letters from wretched girls who are either frozen to ministerial desks or directed into uncongenial jobs.”
Angela thought: ‘What a cat,’ but she answered sweetly: “I believe I still have to do something about a Green Card, even at my great age. But I’m hoping it’s only a formality.”
Mary Cross didn’t look like a cat. She looked more like one of the sacks of vegetables in her faded tweed suit and dusty brogues. She exuded earth and tobacco even in a London street. Angela decided that Michael’s mother was enjoying her peace. Her eyes sparkled beneath a grotesque felt hat and even in the revealing spring sunshine the creases in her face looked carefree and contented.
The queue gave one of its spasmodic forward movements. Mary Cross said:
“Gyp and Helen Townsend are coming to stay with Michael next week. Michael’s so fond of them.”
“How nice.” There didn’t seem anything else to add, but she wasn’t going to be silenced by this old woman who seemed so satisfied with life, so she went on: “I expect you’re very excited about Michael’s book, aren’t you? Is it good?”
“My dear child, don’t ask me. I’m his mother. I think it’s quite excellent.” Mary Cross gave one of her loud laughs.
“Let’s hope the reviewers have the same maternal instincts,” Angela replied and was glad to see she’d irritated Mary Cross.
“It won’t be my fault if they don’t. Hence the party! But let’s not talk about the Cross family anymore. You look tired, Angela; have they been working you too hard at Little Copse?”
The bitch, the queen bitch. Why hadn’t she said ‘You’re looking haggard and your nose needs powdering,’ when that’s what she meant.
“I am a bit tired, but it’s probably only the spring or war reaction or maybe plain liver.”
“I know. I get hundreds of tired letters at this time of the year.”
“So you’re still ‘Aunt Jennifer’?” Angela hoped her voice was derisive. She found Mary Cross intolerable at this moment.
“Still Aunt Jennifer? My dear, they’ve had to give me extra staff. You’ve no idea of the problems and questions we get asked. On every possible subject—from babies to beehives. Hundreds of them.” Mary Cross sounded delighted about it all.
Angela found her sense of humour returning.
“Then you might,” she said, laughing, “answer this one for me: what to do with a man who is apparently either incapable or unwilling to settle down to a job of work?”
Mary Cross looked at her seriously for a moment, then she replied:
“If I were you, Angela—I mean, if I were a woman of your ability—I’d have him taught cooking and then marry him.”
Dear, old-fashioned viper, Angela thought, good-naturedly.
PART IV
“You’ve changed a lot, Helen.”
“Have I, Brian? I suppose we all have.”
He has been silent during lunch, quite unlike the vigorous and voluble creature I remember. And yet I am more conscious of the changes in myself than him.
“I noticed such an odd thing from the top of a bus this morning, Brian.”
“What?”
“The trees in Aldwych. They’re bursting with green buds, but twisted and caught between the branches there are still some discoloured paper streamers from V.J. day. D’you remember, they flung them out of the top windows until the trees looked like a Swiss Christmas card scene. It seems incredible that any should have lasted through the winter. Like an obstinate hangover.”
“Why are you talking so much?”
“Probably because you’re so silent.” He gives a familiar grin at this and, for a flash, I can see him with past eyes.
I can now admit to myself that I was in a panic when I came to meet him today, a panic of uncertainty. What impression would he make on me? What unknown threads might suddenly draw me close to him again?
I need not have been afraid. I knew as soon as I shook hands with him that I was free.
Dear Brian, he is very sweet and I shall always like him. He looks sleek with his curling dark hair combed close to his head, and wearing that very correct blue suit. There is something almost too commercial about the suit and I am suddenly nostalgic for the glamour of a khaki battle-dress and a green beret. I like to remember people in the clothes that suit them best.
“Would you like a liqueur with your coffee, Helen? They’ve got a perfectly drinkable Spanish brandy which has the added advantage of being Government controlled!” He smiles again and I forget the blue suit for a moment.
“I’d love one, Brian.” I feel lightheaded and I want to celebrate my liberation.
Brian orders and watches the golden liquid being poured into warmed brandy glasses:
“Make them doubles,” he says, “and bring another pot of hot coffee, will you?”
I am looking round the restaurant. It is small and attractively arranged. It has no grandeur and no sordidness and I feel at home here. There are more women than men lunching today. I am always interested in watching women and I am curious about their lives. There are certain things you can tell at a glance, and a great deal you can guess at a second glance. But you’re never really sure about them.
There is a girl opposite with a man. She is not very young and not very beautiful. She wears no wedding ring, but I know she must have a lot of people in love with her and she certainly has a lover. You can read it in her hands. She has the most revealing hands I have ever seen. I don’t know why. I am reminded of Angela Worthing, although this girl is blonde. Then there is a married woman on our right who has lost interest in life. She is smart and good looking, but her face is dead. The man with her is obviously her husband and he has been reduced to silent contemplation of the girl with the hands. In a corner there are two desperate virgins. It is their own fault because they have no courage, and I am reminded this time of Laura Watson and the A.T.S. P.T. officer who, in the early days of the war, used to address all new recruits on the ‘Facts of Life.’ I can recall much of the speech which was an unbelievable blend of sentiment and obscenity. There was a bit about the ‘Little Bell.’ The ‘Little Bell’ which rang in every girl’s head to warn her of the dangers of a too fond kiss or a too long embrace. Laura Watson and the two desperate virgins in the corner had, unfortunately, always heeded the ‘Little Bell.’ I feel rather giggly at the thought and I wonder if the brandy is going to my head.
Brian says:
“I hear Dick Cobb’s gone to work in his father’s pub.”
“Yes. Lily Cobb
married an ex-prisoner of war and has gone to live in Yorkshire with Tommy. Dick’s wife had her second baby; he gave up the carpentering job at Little Copse and is now working in the Cock and Pheasant. I think the old couple are pleased. They want to feel that the business will be carried on by one of the family after they’ve gone. Dick seems to have settled down very well.”
“I wonder . . .”
“You mean because of his wounds and war shock?”
“Yes. And other things. It isn’t everyone who’s been lucky enough to settle down in Civvy Street as serenely as you have, Helen.”
“No, I suppose not,” I am still fascinated by the girl with the hands, and then I notice the hurt in Brian’s eyes. “I’m sorry, Brian. Have I said something wrong?”
“No, my dear. You’re just being typically yourself. You were always endowed with an obstinate honesty.”
I feel guilty, because of all the things I may possess, I can’t find honesty among the qualities, not even the obstinate variety. I am aware that Brian has not yet said anything to confirm the urgency of his letter making this appointment. I have been so filled with my own reactions, so delighted at my self-revelations. On my release certificate from the A.T.S. it said something about being released from actual duty but being liable to recall until the end of the emergency. My emotional emergency is over.
“Are you happy, Helen?” Brian’s voice sounds disinterested.
“Yes, Brian, I am.” I nearly add, ‘thanks to you today,’ but he might not understand.
“I came here with the intention of whisking you away with me if you weren’t,” he replies nonchalantly. I realize then that he is being serious.
“Well, you see, you haven’t got to,” I say awkwardly.
“Yes, I see that all right. Which makes me all the more sorry I didn’t do it months ago.”
“Brian, please. . . .” I don’t want to hear what he has to say.
“Sorry, Helen, but I’m going to go on talking. Of course I should have taken you away with me when the war ended. Then we would have been together today. You see, I happen to love you. You’re one of those things that happen once. I’ve got you, as the French say, ‘dans ma peau.’ I prefer that to the American version, don’t you? I made up my mind to let you go your own way last year because I hoped you felt the same about me. I was wrong. On the other hand I could have made you feel that way if we’d been able to stay together. But we weren’t. So what? So I asked you to come here today because I’m getting to be a very old man and I’ve got to know certain things before I settle down to senile decay. I know them now, but I shall always love you, Helen—even through the years of senile decay!” He is smiling at me and I feel embarrassed.
“I’m sorry, Brian. . . .” It sounds inadequate and foolish.
“I suppose I should say that I think Gyp is a lucky man. But I don’t. I just think I’m unlucky. I still maintain that you and I found something together which neither of us could or will—have with anyone else. That’s why I can’t be jealous of Gyp. I only curse myself for not having insisted on you and I going away together last year. I’m not jealous of Gyp because I don’t envy anyone a second-best existence. I only blame myself for letting the best slip away from me after I knew it to be the best—for both of us.”
I suppose I should feel angry at his impertinence. But I don’t. I only wonder at the little boy conceit of a grown man.
“I think, Brian, that you are forgetting one thing when you talk like that.”
“What?”
“The war. It was a long war and nobody escaped it. It buffeted our lives like a storm, pitching us out of our homes and into unnatural circumstances. It is not surprising if, emotionally, we rather lost our sense of perspective. I know I did. I knew it as soon as I got over the strangeness of being a civilian again. I expect there are hundreds of thousands of people going through the same reaction, the same process—sometimes painfully—of being imbedded in the security of familiar happenings again. Rather like plants curling their roots into the safety of solid earth when they’re potted out in the spring.”
“I’m not a potted plant, Helen, and I think your outlook is purely sentimental. Heaven knows, I don’t think we have to have a war to spur us on, but it very often works out that way. Even horrible experiences are beneficial when they evoke great things, whether it be courage or love. To want to settle back into an old rut is not necessarily always bad, but it’s nearly always sentimental. I hate sentimentality.”
“Because you can’t discern between that and sentiment.”
“Oh God, you don’t begin to understand. Have another brandy?”
“No thanks, Brian.”
“Then I will.” He gives the order to a waiter. The restaurant is nearly empty now. “After that I must go. I’ve got a date,” he speaks abruptly as though he had come to a decision. “As a matter of fact I’m going to get married. No, not this afternoon, don’t look so startled.”
I am taken aback and I feel rather breathless. It isn’t often that you get a man announcing his undying love for you in one sentence and his marriage to another woman in the next.
“I didn’t know, Brian . . .”
“Nor does she—yet.” He seems to be smiling at something I know nothing about.
“Well, I’m very glad, Brian, for you . . .” It sounds stupid and stilted.
“Thank you, Helen,” he says very solemnly and I wonder if he is a little drunk. “You have probably realized that this very natty gent’s suiting is not just a rough soldier’s disguise, but the outward expression of a worthy citizen who has ambitions to settle down. Like your blasted potted plants.” He laughs suddenly. “I thought I’d add that before you could accuse me of it.”
I don’t know Brian in this mood.
“What’s her name?” I ask for something to say.
“Serena.” His face looks less harsh. “Serena Hughes. She’s a grand kid. I’ve got a photograph of her somewhere.” He brings a wallet from his pocket and grins maliciously across the table. “A horrid rough soldier’s habit—carrying photographs around and inflicting them on a bored public. This one among others.”
He hands me one with a torn edge and I recognize myself in A.T.S. uniform. It was taken at Dumfries.
I look at it impersonally and register that I looked quite nice in uniform.
“You can keep it if you want,” he says.
“No, thank you.” I don’t want souvenirs of that sort.
“Then I might as well tear it up.”
“I should if I were you.” But he tucks it back into his wallet.
“This is Serena.”
It is a snapshot of a child on horseback and, again, I feel a little breathless, because here is beauty that catches me unawares. The clouds, the horse, the trees and the vulnerable girl seem to spring from the same vital force that is life.
“She’s lovely, Brian.”
“You can’t see it properly there. She’s got a copper head that is really gold.”
“You must be in love with her,” I say involuntarily.
“Is one in love with a child? With the moods and mad enthusiasms, the dignity and utter generosity of youth? Of course I am.”
“Brian, that’s rather a beastly thing to say.”
“Don’t be a prude, Helen. You, of all people, should know the way I feel.”
My memories stir, like moth-eaten ghosts, and I feel very old. Did I ever believe that it was possible to be in love with one person and to love another? That it was wanton and unethical but not madness? The year has turned full cycle.
“Don’t look at me like that, Helen.”
“How old is she, Brian?”
“Nineteen. Don’t say I’m nearly old enough to be her father. I know that. But fathers have been known to be good husbands too.”
“I’m not suggesting you won’t be.”
“Thank you, Helen. Let’s go.”
Outside, when I have left him, I am eager to see Gyp again, but he wi
ll not be back at the flat until six this evening. We are going out to dine with Michael Cross and a girl friend of his. Tomorrow we return to Kirton.
I have forgotten Brian and I have a lot to think about. I want to walk somewhere—Regent’s Park is lovely in the spring. I will take a 53 bus there.
I have forgotten Brian, but I am remembering the last six months with Gyp. We have never been quite in step and I think it has probably been my fault. I have been so busy trying to put everything back in its right place, so eager to attain a state of perfection as I imagined it. But life isn’t like that. You have to go on all the time, and places and people and circumstances alter. My vision has been narrow and I have no doubt missed a lot of important things whilst I have searched for old keys to doors which no longer exist. Maybe things will be different now that I am free. In any case I want to live, not just ponder and plan and torment myself with fantastic imaginings.
I want to walk in the sunlight, among the daffodils and narcissi in Regent’s Park. I have a sudden impulse to go to the Zoo too—but not to the Monkey House.
* * * *
“Nonsense, Laura. Why should I go up to London to hear a lot of people jabbering like monkeys in an over-crowded room when I hear the same people jabbering in the High Street of Kirton every day of my life.”
“It was just an idea, father.” Laura Watson fingered the invitation card which Mrs. Cross had sent for Michael’s party on the twenty-fifth. “There’ll be lots of people apart from the Kirton people,” she added, hopefully.
“I have no wish to meet strangers at my age, thank you. Have you hidden The Times away somewhere, Laura?”
“There it is, underneath your library book.”
That was that. Laura sighed, but silently. It never did to let Mr. Watson hear any manifestations of disappointment or irritation. It only made him more obstinate, and she was determined to go to the Cross’s party, whether her father accepted or not. She thought, ‘I’ll accept for myself and I’ll get a new dress for it; I’ve plenty of my demobilization coupons left.’ She remembered once when she was a child and had wheedled her father into allowing her to sit up for supper on her birthday. It had taken a whole week before permission was given and Aunt Bessie, who had been staying with them, had remarked to Laura’s mother, “That child could circumvent the Almighty.”
Wine of Honour Page 16
