Camomile Lawn

by Mary Wesley

  ‘I do. If you don’t know what love is how can you be sure I don’t love you?’

  ‘You have a point. But it won’t last, you can’t insure it. You can’t insure an emotion, it’s a pleasure like eating or drinking.’

  ‘It will last with me.’

  ‘That’s your affair. I can’t help it, can I? Now you should get back to your gun and I must get some sleep.’

  She watched him as he dressed, putting on his uniform, doing up his buttons.

  ‘Shall I see you again?’ He stood by her bed.

  ‘I expect so. Telephone. Can you let yourself out?’

  She listened as he went downstairs, waited until she heard the front door slam. In his basket the little dog whimpered.

  ‘Oh, Fling,’ she said, ‘I am so lonely.’ The dog jumped up on the bed. She lay face down, trying to sleep, then reached out and switched on her radio, twiddling the knobs. Over the air came ghostly voices speaking in German, French and English. She wondered what the hell was going on in the world. What was the time in Egypt, where Oliver was supposed to be? What was Hector doing, and where? She had had no letter for so long and only a B.F.O. address to write to. What could she write about? He would hardly be glad to hear she had slept with Brian Portmadoc and intended sleeping with his French friend. He would get no pleasure on hearing that she quite often slept with Tony when he was not on duty at his fire station. Were most grass widows faithful, were girl friends true? She could write to him, she thought, about her visit to Cornwall and the carryings-on of the older generation, but then she could not, she thought, since Helena and Hector were of much the same age.

  She slept and dreamed uneasy dreams which turned to nightmare. She was running through the streets of a town she did not know to escape she knew not what. Her legs would not move, her breath came in gasps, she tried to wake for she knew she was asleep and if she could wake she could tell Hector of her fear. She reached out her hand to wake him, her hand pushing into his hair. Then she screamed, for she felt not his warm cock but something cold and wet. Her terror was so great that she clutched at the hairy thing, which was wet and cold, and it yelped with pain for she squeezed Fling’s nose instead of Hector. Instead of Hector to wake her from nightmare there was a frightened little dog.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, consoling Fling. ‘I did not mean to hurt you. Oh, Fling, my Highland Fling boy, I feel sick.’ Sweating and greasy she got up and went downstairs to make tea. When she had drunk it she was very sick indeed and felt so faint she had to lie on the bed until she felt better.

  In the morning she telephoned Polly.

  ‘Polly, I haven’t seen you since I went to Cornwall.’

  ‘How were they all? Come to supper and tell me about it. Come tonight.’

  ‘I can’t come tonight, I’m going out with a Frog friend of Hector’s. What about tomorrow, if I’m well enough?’

  ‘Are you ill?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve eaten something, I feel sick and nearly fainted just now. Come to think of it, I was sick in Cornwall when they fired the gun. I thought it was just fright. It must be some bug I’ve picked up.’

  ‘Have you missed the curse?’

  ‘I’m bad at counting.’

  ‘Well, count. I am late for my office. You for yours too, for that matter.’

  ‘I must look at my diary.’

  ‘See you tomorrow. Goodbye.’

  ‘Goodness.’ Calypso looked at her diary. ‘Goodness,’ she murmured, looking at the small pages, ‘goodness gracious me. I meant it. But it seemed a sort of joke,’ she muttered as she went to clean her teeth, which made her sick again. She telephoned her office and asked leave for the day as she felt ill.

  ‘Seen a doctor?’ said her boss briskly.

  ‘Just going to make an appointment.’

  ‘Well, mind you try and get here tomorrow, you know how busy we are. You’re the only one who knows that file on—’

  ‘I know, I know. I’ll be there.’

  ‘And don’t let me catch you lunching in the Écu de France with some Frog.’

  ‘Is that where you’re lunching?’

  ‘No. I shall be at my club.’

  Calypso telephoned Hector’s doctor for an appointment. Then thoughtfully she dialled again: Helena’s number. Max answered.

  ‘Listen, can you give me lunch today? Dutch, if you’re feeling poor. I’m in need of moral support.’

  ‘Where would you like to meet?’

  ‘Écu de France.’

  ‘It’ll have to be Dutch.’

  When she left the doctor she took Fling to Hyde Park, walking on the grass, watching him run. Men and women in uniform walked briskly along the asphalt paths, barrage balloons rocked at anchor. Crossing Mayfair she found a post office, found a form. She wrote Hector’s name and rank and his alien secret address. She wrote ‘Hamish en route Calypso’ and handed it to the clerk.

  ‘Better write in English,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Looks like code. Is Calypso a ship?’

  ‘No, Calypso is my name.’

  ‘Better put your surname, then.’

  The message ‘Hamish on the way Calypso Grant’ looked chilly. She tore up the form. ‘He’s not a trunk,’ she said to the clerk behind the desk. ‘I will write.’

  ‘Please yourself,’ he said. Then, finding Calypso pretty, smiled.

  She went out into the street. ‘It’s a commercial undertaking,’ she said to herself. ‘I shall have to put it in writing.’

  Early for her lunch appointment, she strolled through the streets, noting here a gap and there a gap where bombs had struck. Nobody stood to stare or paused as they went by. Calypso paced slowly, with Fling on his lead trotting sedately. At the Écu de France she said to Max: ‘I’m feeling generous, I’ll stand you lunch.’

  ‘Ta very much.’ He switched his gaze to the more expensive dishes on the menu. ‘What are you celebrating?’

  ‘A private joke.’

  ‘May I hear it?’

  ‘Sometime, perhaps. What do you think is the best thing to eat?’

  They discussed, chose, gave their order.

  ‘Did you tell Helena you were lunching with me?’

  ‘She is out shopping.’

  ‘Who taught you to say “ta”?’

  ‘Isn’t it snob?’

  ‘Who taught you, come on Max, tell me.’

  ‘A young woman I know.’

  ‘You are being unfaithful to Helena.’

  ‘And to Monika. I am not a faithful man just as you are not a faithful woman.’

  Calypso grinned. ‘I went to bed with you, Max, in a purely exploratory fashion. I wanted to find out whether my aunt is on to a good thing, whether you will break her heart.’

  ‘Dear Calypso, would it be too much to ask you to mind your own business?’

  ‘Promise you won’t hurt her? Don’t let her find out you are sleeping around. We are all very fond of her and Uncle Richard. They are part of our childhood.’

  ‘“Our” meaning you, Polly, Oliver, Walter, Sophy and those twins?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I will not hurt her, I am a sensitive man. Under that British phlegm your aunt is also sensitive.’

  ‘Is she really?’ Calypso was thoughtful. ‘I would never have known it.’

  ‘There is a lot you do not know, for instance your Hector.’

  ‘What about Hector?’ Calypso was instantly on the defensive.

  ‘Your Hector is sensitive.’

  Calypso laughed. ‘Oh, come on! Hector isn’t sensitive, he’s a great big hunting, shooting, aggressive politician.’

  ‘And oh so rich.’

  ‘That’s why I married him, for his money and in exchange—’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘In exchange he has a pretty wife.’ Wild horses, Calypso thought, feeling the blood rush to her face, wild horses will not make me tell Aunt Helena’s lover that I am bearing Hector’s child. I am keeping my promise, and he’s got
to be the first to know. Why should I tell Max, who isn’t great shakes in bed anyway, one single thing about Hector’s baby? Hector’s baby, she thought, not mine, why should it be mine when I don’t even like children, what on earth shall I do when I’ve got it?

  She remembered the chugging train and Hector’s voice telling her ‘You must have Catherine’ and again his voice saying curtly, ‘She’s lame’. The rocking movement of a lame person would lull the baby as she carried it.

  ‘May I come back to your house this afternoon?’ Max liked copulating in the afternoon before a rehearsal.

  ‘Sorry, no, I have to write letters. Why not Helena, why not the girl who says “Ta”?’

  ‘Your voice is cruel, your letters can wait.’ Max was persuasive.

  ‘How could you know? Will you ask for the bill, please, Max.’

  He signalled to the waiter while Calypso fished in her bag for money.

  ‘Did you not enjoy our afternoon together?’

  ‘It was all right, but I think I shall stick to your concerts for Helena’s sake.’

  ‘You are very considerate suddenly.’ He looked at the bill, which the waiter had put by him folded on a plate.

  ‘Today is a day to be considerate,’ she said gravely, as she put money on the bill.

  ‘Shall you perhaps reconsider?’

  ‘I think not. Now,’ she exclaimed lightly, ‘thank you for your company. Give my love to Helena, see you soon, goodbye.’ But as she gathered up her bag a man who had been sitting at another table came across the restaurant. He excused himself to Calypso, drew up a chair, leant across the table and talked to Max in German.

  Not understanding a word Calypso watched the two men. The newcomer was large, well dressed and expensive, his shiny hair brushed back in wings. He smelled of cigars, wore a heavy gold watch. Listening, she heard and understood odd words—America—concert—dollars. Monika’s name was mentioned. Max was shaking his head, speaking rapidly, gesturing with his hands. His expression lost the look she rather despised of wishing to please and assumed one of pride. He finished what he had to say in English: ‘No, I cannot and I will not.’

  The stranger turned to Calypso. ‘Forgive me, please, Max did not introduce us.’ He looked at Max, who stared back, making no effort to do the polite conventional thing. ‘I am trying to make Max accept a wonderful offer.’

  ‘And what’s that?’ Calypso was not taken by the stranger, whom she found too opulent.

  ‘I offer him a contract in the States, a passage to America for himself and Monika and he refuses. In America they will be safe and make lots of money. There is no necessity for them to stay where they are in danger. In America Jews are safe.’

  ‘Safe here, too,’ said Calypso.

  ‘Only until the Germans come, then they are in terrible danger.’

  Calypso opened her mouth but Max laid a hand on hers and said: ‘I must speak for myself, Calypso. This man was German. Now he is American, you understand. He is trying to make me run away and I will not. I have run far enough. Here I can work.’

  ‘For less money,’ put in the stranger.

  ‘Ja, for less money maybe but I work for people who shelter us. I will try to repay their kindness with my music.’

  ‘I’ve not been particularly kind,’ said Calypso.

  ‘Your country has and for that I will pay in the only way I can, with music.’ Max sounded pompous, Calypso thought, but his air of pride carried it off. She looked from one man to the other, sizing them up, liking Max.

  ‘Oliver would say you are paying with an idea.’

  ‘Ideas are his speciality.’ Max relaxed and laughed.

  ‘Who is this Oliver?’ asked the stranger suspiciously. ‘A conductor, perhaps? Amateur?’

  ‘A young man who fights the Nazis, fights for the Jews. So do the twins and the other boy Walter.’

  ‘Who are these people? An orchestra?’

  ‘Nothing you would understand. They also have ideals.’

  ‘Do they play the violin?’

  ‘They play with death.’

  The prosperous stranger laughed, settling his broad bottom on the chair. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘England is losing the war. Soon Rommel will be in Egypt. The British Army is retreating. Hitler invades this country after a bit more bombing and then it is goodbye to your talent, goodbye to Jewish refugees. I am here at great risk to find you and others and bring you to the United States. Be sensible, think of your art, your talent, do not waste it. It is no use your listening to this Churchill, who I admit makes good propaganda, but England will starve very shortly. I know you eat a good lunch today but for how long? Do you know what the U-boats are doing, do you hear of the millions of tons which are being sunk? In a matter of months it is all over in Europe, whereas in America I offer you a future. Even to bring your mistress.’

  Calypso, watching the two men, became conscious of a Max she did not know. Helena’s lover, charming, talented, lighthearted, fairly good in bed, changed into a steely creature who made her shiver. She had seen anger, she had seen rage, everyday emotions compared to what Max was experiencing. He began to speak in a low hard voice in German, staring into the eyes of his enemy, for she guessed that if the stranger had not been an enemy before he was one now. He spoke with bitterness. The stout man tried to interrupt with sneering remarks. Max suddenly spoke in English.

  ‘Now will you go? Get out, leave this country where you are not even worthy to shit, get back to your safe America. I hope the U-boats you so admire will sink you on the way. Get out, get out, you Dung—’

  The stranger pushed back his chair and went away. People at neighbouring tables, who had overheard, stared after him then back at Max. Calypso stared back at their disconcerted faces. They looked away. She took Max’s hand.

  ‘Have a brandy? Who was that creep?’ She signalled to the waiter. ‘Brandy, please.’

  ‘A German producer. American now. He makes and breaks in the music world.’

  ‘Well, he didn’t frighten you, did he? Here’s your brandy, sip it slow.’

  ‘I hate that man. Have I been vulgar, as vulgar as saying “Ta”?’

  ‘As I don’t understand German I can’t say, but you sounded good and rude.’

  ‘Good.’ Max’s colour was creeping back. He squeezed Calypso’s hand. ‘Friends?’

  ‘I feel,’ she said, ‘that I have grown up several years. I was beginning to grow up this morning. Will this scene upset your music, spoil your concert tonight?’

  ‘I shall play better than ever, for me anger works better than an orgasm.’

  Calypso laughed, stood up to leave. Max found her a taxi. As she travelled through the streets made shabby by war she mulled a thought, new for her, that she had no need to go to bed with Max because now she was his friend. She wondered whether she could put this into words in her letter to Hector and decided it was too difficult. As she stood on the pavement outside her house paying her taxi, Max drove up in pursuit.

  ‘You forgot your poor Fling. You left him tied up in the ladies’ cloakroom.’

  ‘People like me are not fit to have a dog.’ She took Fling from him and watched him drive away. ‘And as for being fit to have a child, God only knows,’ she said to the forgiving dog. She went into the house, where her bicycle was propped against the wall in the hall. How long could she go on riding it without harming the baby? She sat down at her desk and began her letter: ‘Darling Hector—’

  Twenty-three

  ENDURING SCHOOL, SOPHY DEPENDED on Richard’s weekly letters, a factual account of life in Cornwall. News of the dog, the cow, the hens was far more important than history or mathematics. Every Monday Richard’s plump white envelope brought the news which would enable her to survive the week. He wrote about the Home Guard and what the village thought of it, he wrote that the General was bossy. He wrote about the Rectory evacuees returning to London when there was a lull in the air raids, only to hurry back when the raids started up again. He wrote about the wrang
le as to whether a mounted Home Guard was feasible in Cornwall, the jealousy of Home Guards who were said to be mounted on Exmoor. He wrote about the Belgian fishing fleet in Newlyn and of how the Cornish fishermen were called up into the Merchant Navy. He wrote of the harvests, the flowers on the General’s farm. He told Sophy when Monika made jam and how she saved up the sugar. He wrote about bartering Monika’s butter for meat and swapping eggs for fish. He told her which boy had been called up from the village to which regiment, and who was fortunate to be in a reserved occupation. He wrote that Monika and Mildred were shocked that it was possible to buy clothing coupons under the counter from the village shop. He told her which hen was destined for the pot. He wrote about rabbit pie and blackberries, the weather, rain, fog, wind, sun, all recorded in faithful detail, his new leg and Calypso’s visit, the gun and the firing of it. He wrote that the pits made by the stick of bombs would become useful ponds; wild duck would come to them.

  Sophy put the letters in the locker by her bed to re-read during the week. Every night, homesick and wakeful, she visualized Richard and Monika sitting by the fire, Richard writing his letter, Monika sewing or knitting. She dreamed of summer days when Polly, Walter, Calypso and Oliver had lolled on the camomile lawn, laughing and joking. She treasured the evening she had spent with Oliver in London. Whenever she was cold she remembered the icy streets by St Paul’s. She remembered Oliver weeping and her holding his hand when something terrible to do with Calypso had happened. He had let her hold his hand for several minutes before dropping it to blow his nose. Every night before she slept she wished herself back in her bedroom; from there she could climb out along the branch of the Ilex above the camomile lawn and sniff its scent, mixed with the salt smell of the sea. With pain she remembered Oliver loping down the hill to the war.

  Once a week she wrote to Richard of her school life, what she was learning, how she hated the cold and the games, what they were allowed to listen to on the radio, the News, ITMA and The Brains’ Trust. Occasionally, if Richard wrote asking permission for her, she was allowed to listen to one of Max’s concerts. She longed for the holidays. She never wrote of her unease with Mrs Penrose, nor could she mention Richard’s habit of putting his hand up her skirt, which when she was small had not bothered her but now was distasteful, though small cost to keep in touch with the only home she knew. She would find a way round these troubles without causing embarrassment to Richard, who was her only link with Oliver. For Richard would sometimes, among the minutiae of his daily life, write that there had been news of the others. He wrote when Polly and Walter’s parents were killed, ‘Can’t have known anything about it, nice way to go.’ He wrote that Sarah had heard from Oliver now fighting in the Desert, ‘Jolly good show’. He wrote that Hector, old though he was, forty-four, might also get in on the action, another jolly good show as there was ‘No real need for him to take risks’. For Walter on the North Atlantic run he had no praise, ‘Foolish fellow not to get over his seasickness, look at Nelson.’ He occasionally noted that the Rector and Mildred had heard from the twins, ‘Now separated, which only makes sense’. He wrote praising Mr Churchill and criticizing the generals, he wrote that like it or not one had to agree that ‘this Hun General Rommel is the best general in the war, he would get defeated though it was hard to imagine how’ and that, awkward chap though he seemed to be, ‘This General de Gaulle fellow is the only Frog to stand up and be counted.’ In those days Sophy grew almost to love him. She forgot in her loneliness the revulsion she felt for his dismemberment, her horror of his smelly breath, the disgust she felt when he touched her, patting her thigh as he had patted stinking old Farticus, now long dead. He did not pat Ducks but fondled his ears, muttering, ‘Only good thing to come out of enemy territory.’ She wove round Richard’s weekly reports the substance which kept her heart alive. She was too young to find it ironic that Richard, whom she had never liked, and who had never liked her, should be the only person to bother to keep her in touch with base.