Sensible Life

by Mary Wesley

  She was amazed that she had recognised him. She said, “I supposed you were in Holland. I imagined you there.”

  Felix said, “Technically, I am.”

  Flora said, “It’s lovely to see you, how are you?” as convention decreed.

  “Well,” said Felix, leaning against the wall. He was sweating, she noticed. She said awkwardly, “And I am not technically here. I live in the country. I only come to London occasionally to see to the house; that is what I have been doing.” Idiotically she wondered whether he would notice the smell of furniture polish.

  Felix said, “Your finger is bleeding. You have blood on your skirt.”

  She said, “It doesn’t matter.” She sucked the finger. “Would you like some tea or coffee? I can’t offer you a drink; my employers are teetotal.”

  Felix said, “I would like to sit down.” He glanced round the empty hall.

  She said, “Come upstairs. There’s a sofa.” Then, backtracking, “But you say you are in Holland?” She led him towards the stairs.

  “As you are in the country.” He followed her to the drawing-room and sat on the sofa. “I am not officially here. I am a bird of passage.”

  Flora said, “I will get us some tea.”

  He said, “No, just let me sit here while my heart settles.”

  “Your heart? Are you ill?”

  “Scared. That cloth cracked like a pistol.”

  Flora laughed. “No pistols in Thurloe Square.”

  Felix leaned back and closed his eyes. “No pistols, that’s nice. So I’m safe, am I?” He looked tired. His hair was grizzled and he had put on weight. What did he mean safe? Watching him, she thought, It was I who felt safe all those years ago when he held my hand, safe when he waltzed with me. She found herself thinking that she would not feel safe with him now. He had a closed expression which she did not recognise. His face was a funny colour; his hand, when she had taken it, had felt damp, not dry as she remembered it at Dinard. Nor is he cool, she thought, as he was all those years I lay in his arms.

  He was watching her.

  “Are you really in Holland?” she asked.

  He said, “Of course not, I was joking. I am here, sitting on this sofa in London. Why is the room half-empty?”

  She explained that most of the furniture had been moved to the country, that only the basics were here. “It’s half-empty because of the war.”

  “As I am half-empty,” he said.

  She said, “I don’t understand your joke.”

  “What joke?”

  “About Holland.”

  “Oh, that.”

  “Rather mysterious.”

  “Oh, all right. It was a slip. I am visiting. I am not supposed to meet anyone I know. You surprised me into telling the truth.”

  She said, “Is that another joke?”

  Felix began to laugh. “I am not very good at this, am I?” His laugh was strained.

  “Good at what?” she asked.

  Felix said: “Never mind. Actually I am here secretly to meet some people, Hubert Wyndeatt-Whyte among them. D’you remember him?”

  She said, “Yes.”

  “He’s something in intelligence; the navy, I believe.”

  “I thought he was a newspaper man.”

  “The work intertwines in wartime.”

  “I did not know that,” she said.

  Felix smiled. “You offered me tea, but what I would really like is a bath. The hot water failed in the place I am staying at.”

  Flora said, “Of course, have a bath. When are you meeting these people?” She would not stress Hubert’s name.

  “Could I stay the night? It would be wonderful to stay where nobody knows where I am, liberating.” She remembered his slight accent.

  Flora said, “Yes, do stay.”

  “Then I could have another bath in the morning,” he said.

  She did not remember him as one of the world’s great washers, but what exactly did she remember? She would put him in Mr. and Mrs. Fellowes’ bedroom, take the sheets to the laundry afterwards; no need to tell them they had had a visitor. “I will make up a bed for you,” she said, “and after your bath, I could give you something to eat. An omelette? Would you like that?”

  “Real eggs?” he asked.

  “And a salad. I bring them up from the country.”

  “Is there a telephone?” He looked about him.

  “Disconnected for the duration.”

  “I wish I could be.” He smiled; she had forgotten his teeth. “Now, what about that bath?”

  She said, “I will get you a towel, then we will eat in the kitchen; this house is put away, so to speak, for the war.”

  Felix said, “What a luxury to be put away, how nice,” stressing the word nice.

  Was this a joke, too? She felt she should not question him. He followed her to the bathroom. She said, “When you are ready, I will cook supper.”

  In the doorway he said, “I was persuaded to come because I know Hubert. How is he?”

  She said, “I have not seen him for years.”

  Felix said, “I should not have mentioned his name. I am hopeless at this. Never mind, it is nice to talk to you. Now for my bath. Oh good, bath salts!” He sounded derisive; she had not known him derisive. Had she ever known him?

  Presently, eating his supper, Felix said, “It’s a pleasure to talk to you, to be indiscreet. I so long to be indiscreet.” Then he said, “I suspect you are the soul of discretion. My wife is not discreet; I can’t talk to her. I hardly dare share her bed. Does that sound true?”

  Flora said, “Not particularly.”

  He said, “It takes someone like you who has been hurt to be discreet.” (How had he known she had been hurt?) “I remember your small closed face in France,” he said, “and Irena Tarasova was another. I used to talk to her. The secrets were there, but different.”

  Flora said, “I see her sometimes.”

  “Give her my regards if you do. Does she still dressmake?”

  “Yes.”

  “I cannot talk to my children, they chatter like their mother.”

  “In Holland?” It was difficult, watching Felix eat his omelette, to believe in Holland; she had imagined England separated by the Channel from occupied Europe for the duration. Had he really come from there? “Your mother and sisters?” she asked.

  “I dare not endanger them. We are occupied by the Germans, as you know. This is good.” He ate his salad and Flora’s ration of cheese. “I shall get into trouble for disappearing,” he said. “It will do them good to fuss. English people in their nice safe offices are too bloody pleased with themselves—” He was contemptuous.

  “They will think you spent the night with a tart,” she said.

  Munching his last mouthful of cheese he observed her thoughtfully. “I shall spend the night with you,” he said. “It’s a long time since I held a strange body in my arms.”

  It was not the first time she had noticed that the urgency of war inclined men to cut the preliminaries, but Felix surprised her. Belatedly resentful, she said, “When you took me out to lunch from school, you were afraid of catching my cold.”

  “You haven’t got a cold now.” Felix laughed. “And later I heard that your cold was measles. Come on, darling—”

  She was glad to hear him laugh. “You don’t laugh much,” she said.

  “It’s difficult if you are in a permanent state of fear. Come on, Flora.” He took her hand. “Come to bed?” He smothered a yawn and stood up, stretching his arms.

  She said perversely, “I must wash up the supper things.” Then, distancing herself, “I can’t see what good you can do in Holland if you are stunted by fear.” What was he doing that made him so afraid? Anxiously she adjusted her thoughts, finding it hard to believe what he said. “Have you really come from Holland?” she said.

  “Oh yes, I am not making it up.”

  “Then why not stay on now you are here?”

  “Come on, Flora. Upstairs.”
He watched her. “You haven’t changed much,” he said, “but you have filled out in the right places. At Dinard you looked like a bundle of sticks, but your eyes glowed.”

  “Why can’t you stay?” She altered her question.

  “There are things I can still do.”

  “Such as?”

  “Irritate the Germans for one.” He spoke lightly. “What it amounts to is what’s called ‘standing up to be counted.’ Oh, come on, Flora, leave the washing up.”

  This is a mistake, Flora thought as she undressed. Felix, already in the bed, said, “Hurry up.”

  Sensing that what she was about to do in her employers’ bed would not meet with their approval, Flora hesitated.

  Felix reached from the bed and pulled her knickers down. “Come on,” he said, “get in.”

  A love-making, expert but impersonal, slow, slow, quick, quick, slow, ending with a thunderous chord. The marble Felix was never like this. She stifled a laugh.

  “Did you enjoy that?” He stroked her flank. “Nice,” he said, not waiting for an answer. “You are muscular, like a boy.”

  “I work outdoors. I am a farmworker.”

  He was not interested in her work. “Do you remember the picnic?” He stroked her. “Billy must have been about eleven.”

  “Who was Billy?”

  “The girl with white eyelashes and buck teeth’s little brother, Billy Willoughby.”

  “She re-arranged her looks, married a rich American.” Flora could not remember Billy.

  “Dear Billy. I wonder what he is up to these days?” Felix murmured.

  Flora lurched away from Felix. Perhaps it would be better if she turned her back.

  “Don’t turn away.” He pulled her round.

  She tried to remember what he had looked like in Dinard: not grey and middle-aged.

  “Mr. Fellowes, who I work for, is working on a book which hopes to prove the Nazis could have been defeated by peaceful means,” she said. “He is a man of peace.” Felix snorted. This bed was Mr. Fellowes’; she had felt obliged to mention him. “He collected Hubert’s articles for reference,” she said, “before the war.”

  Felix was fingering her biceps. “Billy was about your size in adolescence,” he said, pinching her.

  “I am not Billy.”

  “I wish I had time to look him up.”

  Flora debated whether she might retreat to her own bed on the floor above. “I think I should leave you to sleep,” she suggested.

  “Don’t leave me alone. I need to talk.” He held her tightly.

  “About what?” If I went to my own bed, she thought, I could kick, bite the bedclothes, scream, laugh or whatever. She felt as though she had knitted a gigantic garment which unravelled as she watched.

  “Stay with me, listen to me.” Felix held her. “My family,” he said, “my children, they are so pretty, so small, so trusting. The boy is clever. One had had hopes—my wife Julia has hopes and much spirit. She battles with the rations and the black market. You cannot understand. We have money. Of course, we are better off than most. My mother and sisters try to help people who are at risk. It is absolutely diabolical existing under an army of occupation, one feels helpless. A lot of people fight this—”

  “Don’t you?”

  “Not enough. One’s efforts are puny. The Jews—”

  “You help them?”

  “They disappear, my dear; here one minute, gone the next.” His tone was bitter.

  “Oh.”

  “And one does not want to follow them. Am I boring you? Elizabeth and I used to wonder whether we bored you, you were so much younger.”

  “I was not bored.” She noted the stubble on his chin; she would find him a razor in the morning. Felix began to talk. He talked of the price of vegetables in Holland, the lack of petrol; he seemed obsessed with minutiae. She grew sleepy and struggled to keep awake. His body beside her was taut. “One has to watch oneself all the time,” he said. “One slip might mean many lives.”

  After a while he was quiet. Then, in a new and desperate voice, he said, almost shouting, “Actually I take damn good care not to get involved, not to risk my neck. This trip is a stupid one-off risk. I shan’t let myself get talked into another, I have to think of my family.” As she remained silent he said more soberly, “That is the truth and I have really very little need to be afraid.”

  She said, “Then why on earth did you come?”

  “Why on earth does one do anything?” he said angrily. “Perhaps I was showing off. Perhaps I felt I must try just once to do what other people do all the time.” He held her close and pressed his face between her breasts. “I am not a hero,” he said, his voice muffled.

  Presently he propped himself on his elbow and in a formal voice said, “You must understand that it is not so bad for us; we are fairly well known, respected, rich. The Germans hesitate to interfere with people like us. All we have to do is behave ourselves.”

  She said, “I should have thought that could make things more difficult.”

  He said, “It cuts both ways.”

  She remembered Felix’s mother and sisters arriving at the Hôtel Marjolaine in 1926; the head waiter bowing and scraping, the English families’ sibilant whispers, six baronnesses, six.

  She said, “But you helped the Jews.”

  “I did not help the Jews. If I had, I would have put my family in danger. I feel guilty, can you understand? Doing nothing breeds guilt.”

  “I think I understand.”

  “I was afraid to help the Jews. As I am afraid to work for the Resistance, and even worse, more terrible to contemplate, afraid to collaborate.”

  “Collaborate?”

  “With the Germans. People do,” he said.

  Flora was shaken. “I did not know,” she said.

  Felix said, “So I feel helpless. I think I am only out to save my own skin.”

  She said, “Try not to be ridiculous. Do not denigrate your courage, it’s absurd.” Lying in Mr. and Mrs. Fellowes’ bed after a colourless love-making, this seemed a pompous thing to say, but she repeated it. “Do not denigrate your courage.”

  Felix said, “Funny little Flora.” He lay back and presently dozed.

  When he woke he was cheerful; he put his arm round her and pulled her head onto his shoulder. “Do you remember that picnic? How beautiful Cosmo and Hubert were, and those girls, so silly and lovely. It was amazing when they sang.”

  Flora said, “They have families now, like you, to care for.”

  He said, “I do not suppose they are any less silly. It is a form of courage; my wife has it. It is a gift not to take life au grand serieux. Do you think I am too old to learn?”

  She said, “You do not need to learn about courage. It is brave to admit that you are afraid. You shouldn’t harp on it.”

  “Does it bore you?”

  “A little.” She felt out of her depth.

  Then Felix said, “Shall I tell you one of the things which frightens me most?”

  “What’s that?”

  “I am shit-scared of the Gestapo arriving to arrest me when I am in my bath.”

  Flora said, “That I can understand. Was that why you came to England, to have a carefree bath?”

  He said, “One of the reasons.”

  She said, “Do you tell your wife your fears?” She tried to imagine his wife; he had not described her except as silly and brave.

  He said, “She would not understand. I dare not upset her, but I can talk to you.”

  As one talks to strangers, she thought.

  Towards dawn he fell asleep. She eased herself from the bed and went to her own room. She bathed her face, brushed her teeth and combed her hair. When she was dressed she went quietly about the house, finishing the task Felix had interrupted. When Felix was gone she would have a bath, check that all was well in the house and catch her train back to the country.

  There was no time now to question Felix; it was too late. He would wake, have a bath, eat the b
reakfast she would provide and go, leaving her with the price of cabbage and swedes in occupied Holland. And the knowledge that he loved a brave and silly wife, that he loved or had loved Billy Willoughby, and that he was afraid. Quite a lot, really.

  All the same she felt numb and resentful. He had shown no interest in her life; he had asked no questions, used her. “A convenient receptacle for his fear,” she said out loud, and went in search of Mr. Fellowes’ spare razor. He will tell the person he should have spent the night with that he has been with a tart, she thought with sour amusement. Then she thought, Come now, play fair, the poor man has no idea of the part he has played in your life. Trying to recapture the Felix she had known for so long she laughed out loud and went to knock on Mr. and Mrs. Fellowes’ bedroom door and wake him. “Time to get up. I have brought you a razor.”

  At breakfast Felix was cheerful; he had had a wonderful bath, he said, and breakfast was delicious. What a treat to have real coffee. She must come and stay after the war, she would love Julia. On the doorstep he kissed her. “It’s done me so much good to talk. You must have thought it a lot of nonsense.”

  “Take care of yourself,” she said.

  He said, “Never fear, I will.” And, “It would be best not to tell anyone I was here.”

  Flora said, “I won’t. My employers might not understand.”

  But he was not interested in her employers, she thought as she watched him stride jauntily down the street, any more than he would be interested to know that he had used up all the hot water for his bath. At least I was able to supply a carefree bath, she thought, watching him reach the pillar-box at the corner and disappear. In spite of her numbness she felt sadness for Felix and sadness for herself, for the man she had shared Mr. and Mrs. Fellowes’ bed with did not seem to be anyone she had ever known.

  As she stripped Mr. and Mrs. Fellowes’ bed she wished she had not seen Felix; he had robbed her of an agreeable, if faded, dream.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  WE MUST NOT BE too long.” Mabs stood while Irena, on her knees, pinned the hem of her skirt. “We are meeting Hubert for lunch.”

  “How is he?” Irena’s mouth was full of pins.