Camomile Lawn

by Mary Wesley

  ‘I don’t know, darling. Go and wrap up.’ Sarah was startled by the transparent garment.

  Tony carried his cup to the sink. He wondered whether Sarah, who had followed Sophy from the room, believed he had left Sophy’s virtue intact. It would seem unlikely. Helena’s silk nightdress made her look much older than she was, more desirable. He called up the stairs, ‘I have to go, Sophy. I’ll ring up and find out how you are. Where will you be?’

  ‘With Aunt Sarah at Polly’s.’ Her cheerful voice came down the stairs. ‘Or with Calypso.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Wood. We’ll let you know.’ Sarah leant over the banisters. He knew that she suspected him of malintent. ‘I will take care of her now.’ She was dismissive.

  ‘I will be off, then,’ he said. ‘Goodbye.’

  ‘Goodbye,’ said Sarah. ‘Thanks again.’

  Tony walked down the street feeling empty. For a few hours Sophy had turned to him; now she had her robust tweed-suited aunt. Oliver’s mother, rather a dragon.

  ‘When you are dressed,’ said Sarah to Sophy, lying in the bath, ‘we must go to Calypso. There’s been a letter from Oliver. I gather something has happened to Hector.’

  ‘If he’s dead Oliver will be delighted.’

  ‘What a dreadful thing to say.’

  ‘But it’s true,’ said Sophy. ‘Nothing would please him more.’

  ‘Sophy!’ Sarah was shocked.

  ‘It doesn’t please me, though.’ She reached for her school vest and bloomers. ‘And I hate these clothes,’ she said viciously.

  ‘Can you tell me why you ran away? Is it serious? What happened? What did you do?’

  ‘Nothing happened. I didn’t do anything. It’s serious to me. I am not going back.’ Sophy’s face was closed. Sarah was realistic enough to know that Sophy would sooner part with her back teeth than oblige with information. Quietly she thanked her God who voted Conservative and was on the side of the Allies that she was not blessed with a daughter. She sat watching Sophy put on her school skirt, tie, jersey and sensible shoes, obliterating the brilliant image that had appeared in the kitchen.

  ‘We can catch a Number Eleven bus if we walk to Sloane Square,’ she said.

  ‘Of course.’ Sophy looked as pleased as though Sarah had said Pumpkin Coach.

  Presently they stood on Calypso’s doorstep and pressed the bell. Inside the house Fling barked furiously, running to the door, his nails clicking on the tiles. Nobody came.

  ‘She must be out.’

  ‘I’m sure she’s in.’ Sophy rang the bell again, holding her thumb hard on the button. Fling barked crazily, choking with excitement. Sophy pushed open the letter flap and tried to peer in. The door opened suddenly.

  ‘Hullo,’ said Calypso. ‘Come in.’ She picked up the dog with one hand and scooped letters off the mat with the other. ‘Come in,’ she repeated. ‘Nice to see you.’ She kissed her aunt and Sophy and began sorting the letters vaguely. ‘Mostly bills,’ she said, laying them down. ‘Shut up, Fling, be quiet now. He’s made a mess, mind where you put your feet—he hasn’t been out yet.’

  ‘I don’t suppose he could last, it’s long after ten.’ Sarah, prepared to lavish sympathy, was furious with herself at her implied reproach.

  ‘I’ll clean it up presently. Mrs Welsh doesn’t like him. I thought you were at school, Sophy.’

  ‘I’ve run away.’

  ‘I don’t blame you. I was asked to leave mine, accused of flirting with the gardener, I ask you, as Uncle Richard would say. A spotty youth. It was an insult to my intelligence. I was about as ignorant as a newborn baby.’ Calypso made a faint choking sound, thinking of her ignorance so brilliantly enlightened by Hector. ‘Come to the kitchen. I’ll make tea or something.’ She walked down the hall, her body unbalanced by her pregnancy.

  ‘I had a letter from Oliver, darling.’ Sarah watched Calypso fill the kettle, wondered when the child was due.

  ‘Told you Hector was dead, I suppose? He must be pleased.’

  ‘Oh no, darling.’ Sarah was shocked.

  ‘How are his boils?’

  ‘What boils?’ Sarah was caught off balance.

  ‘Oliver’s. Hector wrote that Oliver had desert boils. Didn’t he tell you?’

  ‘No.’ Sarah wondered how to get through the barrier of indifference Calypso wore. ‘I came, I came,’ she said bravely, ‘to see whether there is anything I can do.’

  Calypso watched the kettle. ‘Thanks, Aunt Sarah, there’s nothing at all.’

  Sarah asked: ‘When did you hear? Why haven’t you—’ She paused.

  ‘Why haven’t I told you all? Rather be alone, I suppose.’ She spooned tea into the pot and poured from the kettle. ‘Except that I’m not alone, there’s this bloody baby. I can’t wait to get my body back to myself. Roll on the ninth month.’

  ‘Naturally you are upset.’ Sarah flinched at her inadequacy.

  ‘Why can’t they tell the truth? What’s the use of “missing believed killed”? They only say that because they haven’t found the body. They didn’t find Walter’s. They only say it to prolong the agony.’ Calypso blazed with anger. ‘D’you like milk and sugar?’ Her expression snapped back to normal.

  ‘Just milk, please.’ Sarah sat on a kitchen chair, her back stiff. ‘It’s the most terrible shock when you are in love with—’

  ‘I don’t know what love is,’ Calypso said. ‘Sugar, Sophy? I married Hector for his money. I’ve got his money. He made a generous will, everything to go to the baby after me. I can marry again if I want to and still keep the money for my life. The child is provided for separately.’ She sipped her tea, smiled wryly. ‘“Separate” being the operative word. Once this lump and I are separate everything will be OK. That about wraps it up. There isn’t any “in love”, Aunt.’

  ‘I’ll go and clear up that dog mess and give him a run.’ Sarah stood up, too horrified to speak.

  ‘His lead’s on the table.’ Calypso watched her aunt leave the room with the dog, then grinned at Sophy. ‘She can walk him round Parliament Square and cool down,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you stay with me, Sophy, love, while they get used to the idea that you won’t be going back.’

  ‘D’you think they will let me?’

  ‘Yes, I do. Monika tried to kill herself. Tony rang me up before you came. Don’t worry, she didn’t succeed. Aunt Helena will be busy smoothing things down in Cornwall. I’ll take charge. Aunt Sarah can’t have you in Bath, she is dreadfully busy with her W.V.S. You stay here for a while and amuse me.’

  ‘If only I could.’

  ‘You can, we’ll fix it. Have to get you some clothes, you can’t go around looking like that.’

  ‘Coupons?’

  ‘Mrs Welsh has an inexhaustible supply at a pound each from the Marché Noir.’

  ‘A pound! Gosh!’

  ‘I’m rich, so what’s a pound?’

  ‘What did you say about Monika? Aunt Sarah said she was ill.’

  ‘She would. I daresay she is ill. All Tony knows is that she tried to jump over the cliff. I think the war is affecting people’s minds. Do you know what Hector’s letters have been about? Trees, planting trees, “designing” is the word he used, designing woods. You’d think he had no interest in anything else.’

  ‘She wouldn’t fall far,’ said Sophy, who wasn’t listening. ‘The Army have blocked the Terror Run with barbed wire.’

  Sarah, her equanimity recovered, came back into the kitchen with the dog.

  ‘What does Oliver write about in his letters, Aunt Sarah?’

  ‘Oh, darling, he writes that the desert is cold and gritty, that he is bored, that he is tired, that he is—’

  ‘Frightened?’

  ‘He doesn’t say so but no doubt he is. He can’t write what one wants to hear because of censorship. It’s all so horrible.’ Sarah sat down and stared at her niece anxiously.

  ‘Hector wrote about trees. Before that he wrote about politics, that the whole Army will vote Labour next time and so w
ould he and that he was going to give up politics. Well, it doesn’t matter now.’

  ‘He’s only missing, darling.’ Sarah spoke gently.

  ‘Believed killed,’ Calypso replied steadily. The two women stared at each other, then Calypso said brightly: ‘I’ve asked Sophy to stay with me. She can keep me company. Will you deal with her school, say she’s not coming back?’

  ‘Helena should deal with the school. Perhaps Sophy should go back, I don’t know why she left.’

  ‘I do,’ said Calypso, who had been told by Tony. ‘She can’t possibly go back. Why not leave it to me?’

  ‘But—’

  ‘They won’t know I’m only twenty, they won’t know it’s me. I can be awfully toffee-nosed. I will deal with them, tear them off a strip. I will enjoy having Sophy here, she will take my mind off things.’

  ‘If you think—’ Sarah began weakly.

  ‘I do, Aunt Sarah, I know. This will be good for us both. Sophy will care for me, won’t you, Sophy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, for the moment. Just for a short time—’ Sarah in her country tweeds looked worriedly at Calypso wrapped in a lace dressing gown which did nothing to hide her shape. ‘If I could have her I would.’ She stood up, feeling she must leave. ‘I shall talk to Helena and Richard.’

  ‘The bulge and I will be very glad to have her,’ said Calypso.

  ‘I’ll see you to the bus,’ said Sophy.

  ‘Can’t I get you to a taxi?’ Calypso kissed her aunt, mentally speeding her off.

  ‘No, a bus, Number Eleven.’ Sarah kissed Calypso. ‘Look after yourself, darling.’ She felt inadequate, shut out.

  ‘I will. And Sophy.’ Calypso was cool and firm.

  ‘I wish I knew whether I was doing the right thing.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Aunt. Don’t fail to tell us news of Oliver.’

  ‘I’m sure he writes to you oftener than me.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ cried Calypso, waving from the doorstep, ‘of course not.’ She waved again, then gathered the letters from the table where she had laid them, among them one from Oliver.

  ‘I bet he’s gleeful, the bastard,’ she muttered. Slitting the thin air mail letter open she read: ‘Now that you are a widow, my darling, we can start making plans for our future in case I survive this bloody fucking war. I calculate we can live very comfortably on your late lamented (not by me) husband’s money while I write my first novel, after which all will be plain sailing into the sunset. Talking of fucking, we are very deprived here in the desert so get set to make up for lost time when—’ She screwed up the letter and threw it onto the floor. ‘The shit,’ she muttered, ‘shit, shit, shit.’ She watched Fling pounce on the letter and tear it to shreds, growling and shaking it like a rat. Coming back into the house Sophy said: ‘What is he eating?’

  ‘A letter from Oliver.’

  ‘He told Aunt Sarah about Hector. I suppose he is pleased.’

  ‘Don’t sound so desolate. Oliver may get killed, and the twins, and that will be the end of our lot, not that Hector belonged—’ Her voice trailed.

  Sophy asked: ‘Has Oliver really got boils?’

  ‘So Hector said. Let’s go and light the fire in the drawing room.’ Calypso led the way up the stairs. ‘I hope Mrs Welsh has laid it.’ She struck a match, held it to the paper, watched the flame creep and take hold. ‘Don’t tell me about school if you don’t want to. I can guess. Was Tony kind?’

  ‘Very, but he said I stank.’ Sophy described Helena’s bathroom, her soaps and scent. ‘I used too much. He kissed me goodnight.’ She touched her mouth unconsciously. Calypso smiled.

  ‘He will fall in love with you.’

  ‘Nobody will do that. The girls at school call me—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Eurasian. They say none of their brothers—’

  ‘Bugger their brothers. You don’t need that kind of girl’s brother. Sophy, you are lovely, beautiful, didn’t you know?’

  ‘Me?’ Sophy stared at Calypso in astonishment. ‘You are just trying to be nice.’

  Calypso grinned. ‘Nice is not a word much applied to me. I am going to dress. You read these while I have my bath, then we will go shopping and buy some clothes for you.’ She handed Sophy a batch of letters and left the room.

  Sophy held the letters, turning them this way and that. Letters from Hector, written on air mail paper. She began to read, unfolding them carefully, refolding each one as she finished it. When she had read them she laid them on a side table and sat staring into the fire, where Calypso presently found her.

  ‘I wish someone would write letters like that to me.’

  ‘About trees,’ Calypso scoffed. ‘What was he thinking about, what did he mean by it? There’s nothing, absolutely nothing about the war or what he’s doing. The nearest we get is Oliver’s boils.’

  ‘Perhaps he didn’t want to think about the war. The letters are all about after the war and things he wants to do for you, with you—’

  ‘I haven’t read them properly.’ Calypso was defensive.

  ‘He wanted to plant a forest with your name spelled with wild cherry trees.’

  ‘You make it sound poetic. It is wasted on me. Let’s go shopping. I don’t want to talk about Hector, Sophy. He isn’t like that, he’s a tough who gets drunk and—’

  ‘So do Oliver and the twins, so does Uncle Richard, so did Walter.’

  ‘Was Tony drunk last night?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You were lucky.’ If he had been drunk, thought Calypso, Sophy wouldn’t be sitting there looking so virginal. ‘It’s the war. Everybody’s drinking, even Aunt Helena.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, she is. People say it’s fear. I think it’s because people think there’s a shortage. They soup it up in case the next person wants it. The war’s driving us to drink. At the moment. It makes me sick. As soon as I am delivered of this lump I shall go on a bender.’

  Filling in the time before the funeral Sophy walked along the cliffs in the wind, which stung her eyes. She remembered the time spent with Calypso while here in Cornwall Richard and Helena had cared for Monika, each solicitous for a different reason, Richard because he was truly fond, Helena because she wanted to get back to London. Max had travelled to Cornwall whenever he could leave London, deeply concerned for Monika. He would come and sit with Calypso, bringing presents of books or flowers, and talk about life in Vienna before the war and on rare occasions of Pauli, his son, hinting with perplexity at a stormily aggressive character who might or might not, if he survived, become an artist, a youth who somehow frightened his parents into an excess of guilt, giving the impression of some dire force which made him unlovable. Then he would pause, rub his hands together, shake his shoulders, laugh and change the subject. Similarly Calypso rarely mentioned Hector, and Polly, who came often after work, never mentioned the twins except casually and jokingly as the High or Hoi Floyers.

  As she strode along the path, neatly signposted by the National Trust, Sophy remembered those months in London as months of happiness. Calypso taking her shopping, buying her pretty clothes, teaching her how to care for her hair and nails. Max, Brian Portmadoc, Tony Wood and other friends of Calypso and Polly came to spend evenings, talking, joking, cooking supper in Calypso’s kitchen, sharing bottles of wine which one or other would bring. They had all, Sophy thought, shied away from anxious subjects like Hector, Pauli, Oliver and the twins and turned to her as a person they could share communally in safety without awkwardness. They had taken her to the cinema and out to lunch. Once or twice Max had taken her to a concert, several times Tony had smuggled her into a pub. She walked Fling in the parks with Brian. It was generally understood, though not underlined, that presently, when Monika was well again, when Helena came back to London, Sophy would go back to Cornwall and help with the cow and the hens, go to day school perhaps. The attitude seemed to be that there was no hurry, things would work out, meanwhile forget beastly school, have fun,
grow up. Ah, thought Sophy, walking over the short cliff grass in her green gumboots, those were the days when I grew up, when we chattered and gossiped and phoned occasionally to the old people, Helena, Sarah, Uncle Richard and Monika, none of them, except perhaps Uncle Richard, as old then as I am now.

  They had discussed war news, shortages, the unexploded bomb which had lurked for months under Knightsbridge while the buses trundled over it, the flooding of London by the Americans, who got noisily drunk and were so helpful and polite, giving nylons to the girls, nylons, nylons. Sophy tramped over the cliff, hearing the gulls’ high-pitched crazy cry, as they had always cried over the grey sea. She tried to remember what Calypso had said to her school, that nightmare place, and failed. We were all in love, she thought, stopping on the headland, looking out to sea, Uncle Richard with Monika, Max with Monika and Helena, Polly with the twins, Helena with Max, I with Oliver. Oliver and all the men with Calypso, who said she didn’t know what love was.

  Sophy wondered what Calypso looked like now she’d had a stroke, recovered, they said, except for her face. It was some years since she had seen her. She wondered whether she dyed her hair, and what she would look like with her face twisted, though someone had said it was twisted only a little. I remember, Sophy told herself, I shall always remember what she looked like when the news came that Hector was a prisoner of war and not dead at all.

  Thirty-three

  TURNING BACK TOWARDS THE house, the wind nudging her along with threats of winter stinging her ears, she could see across the fields the church tower rearing above the squat little village, protecting as it had for centuries the bones of the dead, among which lay Uncle Richard, the Floyers and Monika, where tomorrow they would lay Max with whom she had spent the day that Calypso was given the news that Hector was no longer missing but a prisoner of war.

  With the wind bringing colour to her high cheekbones, Sophy remembered that day, or thought she did, for she knew well enough that memory plays false, that mind and emotion build on memory. The picture which is not clear at the time becomes lucent with recollection.