Where Earth Meets Sky

by Annie Murray

  As he spoke, to her astonishment, she felt a lump rise in her throat and the beginning of tears. She did not know what he had seen in her, nor did she really know what there was to be seen, but it felt a miracle that anyone had tried to see and understand. She lowered her gaze, embarrassed by her emotion.

  ‘Lily?’ He came to her and put his hands softly on her shoulders, then, as she did not resist, drew her into his arms. It was as if something broke open in her then, something quite unexpected and long dammed up, his gentle concern reducing her to sobs which shook her whole body, seeming to come from somewhere so deep in her that she was silent for long seconds at a time before they broke over her.

  ‘Oh, my girl,’ he said, so lovingly that it made her weep all the more, feeling held, somehow like a child, and being treated kindly. It brought out a deep tenderness in him.

  ‘Oh, darling, little darling,’ he said, stroking her hair, and as she grew calmer, he drew her to the bed. ‘Come – lie down and let me embrace you . . .’ When she was calmer he looked seriously into her face. ‘I would marry you, d’you know that? I want you to know, Lily. If I could see a way . . . I feel so very strongly about you.’

  She stared back at him, astonished. But he scarcely knew her at all! How could he be so sure? She thought men very strange.

  The comforting turned to lovemaking, and she surrendered to him, to being held and cared for. As they lay together he lifted himself on to his elbow, his gentle face looking down at her. ‘I shan’t leave you with a child,’ he told her, adding with a faint smile, ‘I have a way to stop it. Of course, Virginia has educated me very thoroughly about this with all her talk about women needing control over their fertility.’

  His fingers teased open the front of her nightgown, pulling back the soft cotton until he could see her breasts. He gave a low moan of pleasure and began to lick her nipples, his eyes closed, seeming to lose himself in her. Lily felt flickers of pleasure go through her, knew she was beginning to respond to him, her body seeming to spread and open at his touch, yet her mind was quite detached.

  He rolled on to her, needing urgently to be inside her, and he moved in her with absolute pleasure and absorption.

  ‘Oh God,’ he gasped, breathless, ‘Lily, oh, my Lily . . .’ And after a number of urgent movements he climaxed in her with a sob, holding her very tight and close as if she were the most precious thing in the world.

  Lily held him as he recovered his breath in her arms, feeling the comforting warmth of him, his hair close to her cheek. She liked the smell of him, a mixture of sweat and something sweet and exotic. Staring up at the shadowy ceiling she knew she was held in the arms of a nice man, a kind enough one for her to have let herself weep. But could she love him? She did not believe so, but in those moments she wished that she could.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  At first, Lily had never considered that Piers Larstonbury might be able to help Cosmo.

  He conducted his affair with Lily with absolute discretion, so that she was certain no one else knew what was going on. He was very cautious about coming to her at night, choosing times when Virginia was away or when it was so late that she was asleep, so their time together was limited.

  The winter passed and Virginia was as preoccupied as ever, going out to her theosophy meetings, lunching with her friends, exploding over political disappointments.

  ‘They’ve turned down votes for women in the United States!’ Lily heard her voice expostulating from somewhere in the house one morning. ‘And I thought they were supposed to be an enlightened country!’ Virginia had been a suffragette in her younger days, marching for the vote before it was granted to women in 1918.

  ‘I suppose that was when I fell in love with her,’ Piers told Lily. ‘She was so full of conviction, so fiery, and of course so lovely to look at as well.’ He sighed with great melancholy. ‘The trouble is, I’m not sure women like that are meant for marriage.’

  ‘I don’t want to hurt her feelings,’ he said one night as they lay together. He stroked Lily’s back. With a pang, it reminded her of Sam. ‘I just need you, Lily, my darling. You came and took me by surprise.’

  It was that night that she decided to tell him about Cosmo. Piers had somehow managed to bring a tray of tea up to her room in the small hours, waking her because he longed for her so much and Lily laughed at the picture he painted of him creeping about down in the kitchen once the maids were asleep.

  ‘Anything for you, my darling,’ he twinkled at her. Often he sat just staring at her adoringly, as if he could not drink in the sight of her enough. ‘Hell, high water . . . Anything for my love!’

  Lily smiled in what she hoped was a proper acknowledgement of his words.

  ‘My goodness.’ He sat holding his teacup, eyes fixed on her. ‘You’re such a mysterious woman. I never have any idea what’s really going on in your beautiful head. It makes you even more attractive, darling.’ He leaned forward and kissed her lips, lingering over it. He drew back and asked, ‘And where did you go today?’

  It had been Lily’s day off, a break she was allowed every fortnight.

  ‘I went to meet a friend.’ She hesitated, frowning. Cosmo had worried her that day, more than ever before. ‘I say friend – he was the boy I looked after in India – Cosmo Fairford. He’s grown up now, of course, and working for Lloyds Bank. I can hardly believe he’s already nineteen, and so very handsome, towering above me!’

  ‘Fairford . . .’ Piers mused. ‘Is he one of the Warwickshire Fairfords?’

  ‘Yes – his uncle oversees the estate. His father Charles stayed on in India – in the army. He was killed in the war. Cosmo came here to school, of course.’

  ‘Oh, well I’m sure he’s thriving,’ Piers said lightly. She could tell he was not really interested, but listening because he felt he had to. He put his empty teacup down and sat beside her, stroking her. This was always the beginning of lovemaking, the warm movement of his hand on her shoulders, her neck, before his fingers found their way inside her nightdress, seeking out her breasts.

  ‘I’m not sure.’ She could not keep the worry from her voice. She wanted him to hear what she was saying, not go off into the trance of lovemaking without taking notice of her worries. Intimate relations had narrowed the social gap between them and she wanted to make this demand on him. ‘It’s not really what Cozzy’s cut out for at all. He’s always been rather more of an outdoors sort of boy. I wish I knew how to help him.’

  Piers rested his hand on her collarbone, looking down into her eyes and said, ‘Tell me more about him.’

  She had met Cosmo in the Lyons Corner House in Oxford Street that afternoon. They sat at a table close to one of the grand marbled columns, not too close to the orchestra, and she drank in the sight of him. He was even more handsome than the last time she had seen him. His hair had remained thick and blond, his eyes were a vivid blue, gazing coldly from above a nose which had developed to become prominent and aquiline. Lily was full of pride at the sight of him, though he had come rather more casually dressed than she would have liked, attired as if for summer in white flannels, a grey jacket and rather foppish bow tie. But she passed no comment as she was so pleased and grateful to see him, and his mood was already sombre and off-hand. She felt she must humour him, until he softened and became her boy again.

  ‘Now, let me buy you tea,’ he said expansively. He seemed to be putting on a rather lord of the manor attitude which Lily found touching and sad because he also seemed to her so young. He ordered a huge tea of scones and cakes, far more than was really needed, and they sat talking while the orchestra played jaunty waltzes and mazurkas.

  ‘How are you enjoying the work – any better than last time I saw you?’ Lily ventured. She saw him about once a month now they were both in London.

  Cosmo was spreading copious amounts of butter on a piece of fruit tea bread.

  ‘Oh, it’s not so bad,’ he said airily. Then he stilled the knife and looked up at her. His face fell into somet
hing less posed. ‘Actually, I loathe it. Every damned minute of it, to tell you the truth. It’s like being buried alive.’

  ‘But you were so fortunate to be taken on,’ Lily said encouragingly. She said no more but both of them knew she was talking about his disastrous school record. Lloyds seemed a great career to her. ‘And I’m sure you’ll be marvellous at it.’

  ‘You know I loathe being stuck indoors all day,’ he said, biting ravenously into the tea bread.

  ‘But you could have stayed on the estate, surely?’

  ‘What with Uncle William, that crazed old fool? God in heaven, I’ve had a lifetime’s worth of him, I can tell you. The only reason I go there at all is that it’s the only place I can drive. He hardly knows what’s going on on the estate any more and he certainly doesn’t take any notice of what I do. But I don’t want to be running the blasted place. When my turn comes I’ll pay a man to do it. I want to be driving, Lily – motor racing! That’s my thing. I know it! If I could just get someone to take me seriously, get a break . . .’

  Lily watched him sadly. She wondered how good a driver he really was. And no wonder nobody would take a risk on him with a record like his. When he was twenty-one, perhaps he might have the wealth to buy himself into whatever he desired, but at the moment he did not have the connections or personality to get where he wanted. She knew he put people off by his manner and her heart ached for him when she thought how sweet and trusting he had been as a boy. She watched sadly as she saw him take a little hip flask from his pocket and steal a drink out of it, even while they were taking tea.

  ‘Cosmo,’ she reproached him. ‘Is that really necessary?’

  ‘Oh, don’t you start,’ he snapped, really unpleasant for a moment and she immediately had to appease him.

  ‘I expect things’ll work out: they have a manner of turning out in ways you don’t expect,’ she said lamely. What else could she say? ‘How’s your mother? Have you heard from her?’

  ‘Oh, I suppose she’s about somewhere,’ Cosmo said bitterly. ‘I had a birthday letter from her, that’s all.’

  Perhaps you’re not nice enough to her when you do see her, Lily thought. Perhaps you drive her away.

  She and Susan were in contact occasionally, short notes which mainly exchanged news of Cosmo. Susan was now living down on the south coast and did not disclose much about her life to Lily. However, she had once mentioned her encounter with Sam Ironside when she was a VAD in 1918 and the thought made Lily ache. There was nothing else she could do except hope that meant that he had safely survived the remainder of the war.

  Sitting here with Cosmo, though, she also felt a pang of possessive pride that once again she was the one seeing him, mothering him, not Susan. She needed Cosmo to need her, for her to be special to him.

  But when she parted from him she felt uneasy. He was unhappy, felt thwarted by his work in the bank, which he had in fact chosen to do himself, even though he always made out he had been forced into it. Why had he gone to do the very thing he was going to dislike so much? she wondered. He had succumbed to the pressures of his class and family, it was true, but it seemed more than that. There was a vein of perverse self-destruction in him that she could sense and which worried her deeply.

  As the weeks passed, she mentioned Cosmo to Piers Larstonbury quite regularly. She did not tell him that Cosmo had been expelled from Eton, or about any of the other troubles. She painted a picture of an admirable, if frustrated young man who was trying to make his way in the world.

  As Piers fell more and more deeply in love with her, he seemed prepared to do anything for her.

  ‘Perhaps we could meet somehow – you and I and Cosmo?’ she suggested. It was Cosmo who talked about Brooklands, about how he loved going there. He haunted the racetrack as often as he could. Lily did not think Piers knew much about cars, but she had heard him say many times that he was interested in widening his life, in finding out about new things.

  ‘It’s as if I’ve narrowed things down so that I barely do anything except work,’ he said. ‘I feel younger with you, Lily. I don’t know much about the motor car, but maybe we could find a way to go without it being a problem. I know – we could take Hubert. He might be very taken with it all!’

  And so, come the Whit holiday, when she had been Piers Larstonbury’s mistress for four months, she found herself at Brooklands with Piers and Cosmo – and Sam Ironside.

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Sam returned to Birmingham from Brooklands that evening after the Whitsun meeting, feeling set on fire.

  After the long ride back to Northfield in the dark, once he had dropped Loz off, he had a feeling of bottomless energy, as if he had just been reborn. As he pushed his motorcycle round to the back of the house he knew that whatever happened, there was no going back. In those few hours, everything had changed.

  Helen was standing in the back room, heating a pan on the range. She looked a little hunched, her long hair tucked in the back of her checked dressing gown. Her hair was still a caramel colour, but thinner and less abundant now. Her face looked thin and sallow. He realized again with a shock that she was younger than Lily Waters. As he stood at the back door he was able to watch her for a second before she saw him, and he had a bewildering sense of her being utterly strange to him. Although she was the mother of his four daughters, it was as if he did not know who she was and never had. He found it disturbing and reassuring at the same time, as if he knew he did not belong to her, and was sure now that he did not want to and had never truly wanted to.

  ‘You’ve made good time,’ she said, glancing at him, while her attention was still half on the simmering milk. He knew she was resentful of the way he could just take off for the day and she couldn’t, even if in truth she did not want to go anywhere herself.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, pulling his jacket off. The room felt warm and cosy after the buffeting night air. ‘It was a good run.’ He flung the jacket over a chair. On the table there was a teapot with a crocheted green and yellow cosy which Helen’s mom had given them, and the last of a loaf, lying face down on the board next to the bread knife. There was also a bowl of sugar with a few crumbs in.

  ‘Want some cocoa? Or tea?’

  ‘Stick the kettle on, will you? I’ll make the tea.’

  She silently did as he asked and brought her own cup of cocoa and spooned sugar into it, tutting.

  ‘Girls’ve made a mess of the sugar again. I’ve told ’em and told ’em.’

  And then she gave him a long, penetrating look.

  ‘What’s up with you?’ she said.

  He did tell her, but not then. He had to get used to the idea, of all that Major Larstonbury had said that afternoon.

  ‘I am, as I have said, an outsider to the motor trade and motor racing,’ the major said. ‘However, thanks to . . . circumstances’ – once more his eye rested on Lily for a second – ‘I can see myself becoming quite an enthusiast. Today has been an eye-opener: you’ve impressed me, Ironside. So – I’m prepared to make available whatever funds are needed to keep you for, let’s say a year. I’ll rent you the work space to build your motor car and you will have a free hand in all technical aspects, which I know very little about. You will, I know, do the job to the very best of your ability. There is only one condition I would ask of you: that once you are ready to enter your vehicle in track races, your driver will be’ – he gestured – ‘Cosmo Fairford.’

  Cosmo sat up straight and looked utterly astonished. Sam could not take in what he had just heard either. He looked at Lily, who was watching him, her eyes aglow. Sam stuttered into questions. What did Captain Larstonbury mean – where was he to work? Who with? Did he seriously mean simply to hand over the project to him, trusting a man whom he had met only this afternoon?

  ‘It sounds to me as if the best place you could possibly work is here, at Brooklands,’ Piers Larstonbury said. ‘If that would be acceptable. And you mentioned that you already have colleagues who are ready to work on developin
g the vehicle with you? I am offering myself as your patron. My own instincts and those of Miss Waters, who clearly thinks highly of you, point in the direction of a very fruitful partnership. I realize this may mean some personal sacrifices for you and your family. Perhaps you’d like a little time to think about it?’

  ‘No!’ Sam was mentally rushing ahead. He could not think straight about the details. He only knew he was being made the most astounding, once-in-a-lifetime offer and all his instincts told him to grab it! He could scarcely take it all in and felt like dancing about on the tables.

  ‘I’d be delighted to accept,’ he said as soberly as he could manage. ‘Thank you, Major Larstonbury.’ All his class niggles were forgotten now. What a great man the major was! ‘We’ll build a marvellous Special. We won’t let you down.’

  There were hand shakings and the writing down of addresses in Piers Larstonbury’s artistic hand, and he assured Sam that he would make arrangements for him as soon as possible. He would even write a letter to request leave of absence for him from the Austin works. Sam felt as if his fairy godmother had arrived and he was in a daze as they stood up to go. And then he knew he had to part from Lily.

  He was beside her as she walked from the clubhouse, holding the boy’s hand again. Cosmo, full of life now, was talking animatedly to Piers Larstonbury.

  ‘Lily – this was your doing, wasn’t it?’

  She turned and looked at him and he could not read her expression. It was triumphant yet amused, as if she were celebrating her own sense of power.

  ‘He’d do anything for me,’ she said softly, looking down at the ground.

  Sam leaned close to her, with a desperate impulse. ‘I’ve got to see you.’

  Lily raised her eyes. ‘I expect we shall meet, through all this.’ And her gaze left him again.

  Hope leaped inside him at what he thought he saw in her eyes. She was still his woman – deep down they both knew it. But there was not time to say anything else. He took his leave of the party, and watched them depart towards their car, and it was only then, once he was alone, that the full impact of what had happened had hit him. He was going to work at Brooklands and build a Special!