The FitzOsbornes at War

by Michelle Cooper

  Finally, he pulled away and said, ‘Stop. Sophie, we can’t.’

  I took a deep breath and closed my eyes and said, ‘All right. Fine.’ It wasn’t fine at all, I wanted it to go on and on. ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Undo my buttons. Then go, if that’s what you want.’

  He turned me round, and neither of us moved for a long, silent moment. Then his hands swept up my hair (which had all fallen down by that stage) and I felt his lips on the back of my neck, and I melted. I could barely stand up long enough for him to get the dress unfastened. He laid me down on the bed and I tugged him on top of me and . . .

  And now I’m at a loss as to how to describe it. His hands, that’s what I recall most vividly, his warm palms smoothing across my skin, his fingers lacing with mine when I stretched my arms over my head. But then there were his lips, and his tongue, and oh, just the weight of him. He kept breaking off and saying ‘Is this all right?’ and I’d say, ‘Yes!’ or, occasionally, something like, ‘No, your shirt’s scratching me. Take it off.’

  It did turn out to be a bit messier than I’d expected, but on the whole, I was too caught up in breathtaking sensation to remember to feel shy or awkward. The other thing that struck me was how he was so much more knowledgeable about what I might like than I was. It wasn’t that everything he did was blissful – some of it was merely nice. But at one point, he slid my fingers down my own body and stopped kissing me just long enough to say, ‘Here,’ and it was like flicking a switch, setting off a shiver that ended with a jolt of electricity flashing all the way up my spine. Why hadn’t I already known that? (I didn’t need to wonder how he knew it. Years of practice with girls other than me, of course.)

  At last, we fell asleep, huddled together on my very narrow iron bed. Even then, he kept hold of me. When I woke a few hours later, his arm was curled round my waist, his face was pressed into my neck and the rest of him was squashed against the wall. It couldn’t have been at all comfortable, but when I twisted round to examine his face, he looked more peaceful than he had all day.

  I considered that he must trust me a great deal, to allow me to see him at his most vulnerable. Then I started thinking deep thoughts about love and romance and intimacy and what we’d just done, and I pictured them all as interlocking circles, overlapping only in parts. But then I fell asleep again, and the next thing I knew, the blackout curtain had been pulled aside, sunlight was striping the blanket covering me, and Simon was burning toast in the kitchen.

  We pretty much spent the rest of the day in bed, after Simon delivered an entirely predictable ‘Oh no, how could I have done this to you?’ speech, and I told him to stop being such an idiot. I wasn’t interested in being the subject of a new load of guilt on his part. (I hadn’t been drunk. I was of age. I could have stopped it any time I’d wanted. If anything, I’d taken advantage of him. And it wasn’t as though we’d done anything that could have dire and irreversible consequences – technically, I was still a virgin.) It wasn’t very difficult to convince him. I held out my arms and he hesitated for about half a second before crawling back into them. Not that I thought for a moment that this was due to my captivating beauty or alluring nature. It was simply that Simon was lonely and desperately unhappy and in need of comfort, and I was there, able to offer comfort.

  Still, there was nothing noble or self-sacrificing about my own actions. I’d been feeling miserable, too, and it was wonderful to have his undivided and expert attention, especially after I’d been infatuated with him for all those years. I’d been curious, too. What was sex like? Now I realised it was both overwhelming and nowhere near as significant as people made out. I was the same person I’d been the day before. I hadn’t fallen either into or out of love with Simon. I wasn’t sure love had much to do with it at all. However, I was certainly feeling very fond of him as I lay there, stroking his chest and marvelling at how different the bodies of men and women were, quite apart from the obvious bits. Wherever I had soft curves, he was all hard lines and planes. It seemed odd that some people – Simon, for instance – could be attracted to both sorts of bodies. Then the thought occurred that he was here with me because I was the closest he could find to Toby. I didn’t like that thought at all, so I shoved it away and concentrated on other things. How pretty the pink glow of sunset looked when filtered through my dusty window, for one thing. How hungry I was, for another.

  ‘I never know what you’re thinking,’ Simon sighed. ‘Especially when you smile like that,’ he added.

  ‘Actually, I was wondering whether there’s anything interesting in the kitchen to cook for dinner,’ I said, quite truthfully. ‘Or we could go to that British Restaurant down the road. The food’s not too bad and it’s really cheap and we wouldn’t need our ration books for it. What do you think?’

  ‘I think,’ he said, propping himself up on one elbow, ‘that we should get married.’

  I started to laugh, then saw his face.

  ‘Why not?’ he said, hurt suffusing his voice. ‘People do get married, when they care about one another. Don’t you think I’d look after you? You once said I was hard-working and clever. You thought I’d make a good husband then.’

  I couldn’t believe he’d remembered that conversation. Or that we were having this conversation. Usually, conversations with Simon made some sort of sense.

  ‘Is it because your family wouldn’t approve?’ he went on, pulling away from me.

  ‘You are my family,’ I reminded him. ‘Besides, it’s not even legal, is it?’

  ‘Of course it is. Royalty are always marrying their cousins. Look at Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Anyway, we aren’t officially cousins.’ Then he grabbed my hand. ‘Oh, Sophie! Don’t think about what everyone will say! Don’t worry about any of that. We’ll go away, far away. Scotland or, or . . . Ireland! Yes, Ireland’s neutral! There’s no war there.’

  ‘Is this about you leaving the air force? Because you can’t just desert! Simon, this is ridiculous.’

  I sat up and retrieved my dressing gown from the floor. When I turned round, he was glowering at the wall behind me.

  ‘You haven’t even mentioned the word love,’ I said gently. ‘You just want to escape. So do I, sometimes. But this is real life.’

  ‘Just say yes or no,’ he said tightly.

  I leaned over and kissed the top of his tousled dark hair. ‘No,’ I said. ‘But thank you for asking.’ He averted his face from mine, so I sighed and walked off to the bathroom. When I came back, he was in Veronica’s room, getting dressed.

  ‘You don’t have to go,’ I said, but he only frowned and concentrated on knotting his tie. ‘Well – can you at least promise me that you’re going back to your job?’

  He buttoned his tunic and glanced around for his cap, his lips pressed together.

  ‘Oh, honestly!’ I said. He was probably already regretting his impulsive proposal. He’d probably only done it because he’d thought he should. He always did have such old-fashioned, hypocritical ideas about women. I stomped off to get dressed myself, and a few minutes later, he appeared in my doorway.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said.

  Asking what he was apologising for might have led to another argument, so I simply said, ‘I’m sorry, too.’ He came over and kissed me, very quickly. ‘Are you really going?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m supposed to be on the early shift tomorrow.’

  I didn’t like the uncertain sound of that verb phrase, but he refused to discuss it.

  ‘I’m fine,’ he said, turning his cap around in his hands. ‘I’ll be fine. I have to go now.’

  He didn’t even want me to walk him up to the taxi rank. I bit back an entreaty for him to write to me, because I was starting to feel I’d forfeited my role as his confidante. He did look better than he had when he’d arrived – there was that, at least.

  After he’d gone, and I was certain he wasn’t going to return, I threw myself across my bed and pretended I was Anna Karenina, a fallen woman abandoned by her cr
uel lover. I needed an excuse to cry. My emotions had been so tossed about over the past two days that I felt some ardent sobbing would help, and, not surprisingly, it did.

  I think men would have far fewer problems if they learned how to cry properly.

  11th July, 1942

  HENRY HAS ARRIVED FOR A VISIT. She’s also decided that she wants to leave school and join the Wrens. She announced this about two minutes after we collected her from the railway station this morning.

  ‘But I thought you liked this school,’ I said. ‘You’ve made all those friends, and you’re captain of the hockey team, and you even had a decent report at the end of term.’

  ‘For once,’ added Veronica.

  ‘Yes, and that means I’ve learned all I can there,’ Henry said. ‘Now I should be doing my bit for the war effort. I want to join the women’s navy.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Veronica. ‘You’re fifteen years old.’

  ‘Sixteen, in a couple of weeks!’

  ‘They don’t let sixteen-year-olds join up.’

  ‘They do! Jimmy wrote and told me about his friend’s cousin, who lives in Plymouth. She joined the Boat’s Crew Wrens, and she was underage! She just had to get her parents’ permission!’

  ‘Well, then!’ said Veronica. ‘You know what Aunt Charlotte thinks of girls joining the services.’

  ‘That’s how she used to think. She’s different now. She’d agree if you two talked her into it.’

  Then Henry twisted round in the back seat of the taxi and directed her most winning smile at me.

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘All right,’ she said mildly. But we knew perfectly well that she wasn’t going to let it rest there. When we got home, she ‘unpacked’ (this involved upending her duffel bag over the sofa, scattering socks, fishing magazines and gnawed pencil stubs across our sitting room floor), then snatched a piece of paper out of the clutter and followed me into the kitchen.

  ‘Look,’ she said, thrusting a pamphlet under my nose. ‘They want girls who can sail, row and swim, and I can do all of those. And Wrens only need to be five foot three, and I’m five foot seven and a half! Plus, I already know Morse code.’

  ‘Where did you get this?’ I asked, taking the pamphlet from her.

  ‘There was a recruiting van parked outside the tea shop where all us girls go on Saturday afternoons,’ Henry said. ‘Did you know that women can be officers?’

  ‘Have you actually looked at this WRNS motto? It says, “Never at sea”.’

  ‘Some Wrens do go to sea! Like Jimmy’s friend’s cousin – she takes a motor launch out to the big ships to deliver supplies.’

  ‘It’s very difficult to get into the Wrens, you know,’ said Veronica, pulling cutlery out of the drawer. ‘You don’t even have your School Certificate yet. Anyway, I think you’re temperamentally unsuited for any of the services.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Henry said indignantly.

  ‘Well, you’d have to follow orders, for one thing.’

  ‘I can follow orders!’

  ‘All right. I order you to clean up your mess in the sitting room.’

  Henry rolled her eyes. ‘Yes, fine, I’ll do that later. Anyway, Wrens don’t do housework. They do important, useful stuff like coding and mechanical repairs. I could do that!’

  ‘Besides,’ Veronica went on, ‘they prefer girls who have relatives in the Royal Navy or the Merchant Navy, which you don’t have. Even if you did, you’d still need references from someone important.’

  ‘Really?’ said Henry.

  Then she looked thoughtful, which is always an ominous sign.

  Still, it is nice having her around. She’s so irrepressibly cheerful that it’s difficult to remain glum in her presence, and our clothes-shopping expedition this afternoon (no doubt, part of her Soften-Up-Sophie campaign) was a pleasant distraction from my worries, if only for a few hours. My anxiety over Toby is like a bad toothache that nags constantly, except for brief moments when I forget and bite down too hard, and it flares into agony. But there’s nothing I can do about that pain, except endure it.

  My concern for Simon is different. It’s not as intense, and yet I feel more responsible for it, more guilty. I began wanting to check that he was all right almost as soon as he left the flat, but I didn’t feel I could contact him. Would a letter make him feel worse? How would I feel if he didn’t respond? So I was very relieved, a few days after Veronica returned from Spain, to find an envelope in our letter box addressed to her, in his handwriting. It was probably just some correspondence regarding Mr Grenville, the family solicitor, who’s arranging some London property purchases on Aunt Charlotte’s behalf. But it was a good sign that Simon was thinking about those sorts of practical, sensible things, surely? I tried not to look too eager as Veronica opened his letter – I didn’t want to prompt any awkward questions. All I’d told her was that Simon had visited while she was away.

  ‘Oh, he’s been sent off to do some new training,’ she said, scanning the letter. ‘Hmm. It doesn’t sound as though he’ll be going back to his old job after he’s finished his course, either.’

  ‘Right,’ I said, as though I knew all about this. ‘Well, he wasn’t very happy where he was.’

  ‘But I don’t know why he expects I’ll have time to meet with Mr Grenville this week,’ Veronica went on, frowning. ‘Absolutely typical of Simon. He always believes that whatever he’s doing has to be more important than any job of mine! When I’m so busy with all of this –’

  But I didn’t hear the rest, because I was thinking of how I’d felt after Simon left. Sometimes it seemed as though his visit had been a particularly vivid dream. Surely it hadn’t actually happened? I could have dismissed it as a product of my fevered imagination, except for the fading finger-shaped bruises on my hip, where he’d grabbed me when I’d started to fall out of bed. And the scent of his hair cream, which lingered on my pillow for days. And the raw, tingling feeling of my skin whenever I ran my hands down myself, wondering if I could re-create the sensations he’d drawn out of my body . . .

  So, perhaps I’d been wrong to regard the experience as insignificant, to assume I’d be unchanged by it. I wish there was someone I could talk to about it. Certainly not Veronica, not when it involves Simon. Anyway, I’m not sure someone who thinks pleasure is a waste of time and effort would understand what I was going on about. Perhaps Julia, if I didn’t mention any names . . . but no, she’d know exactly whom I meant. It would be too awkward, too embarrassing. And I couldn’t discuss it with Anne – she’d be shocked that I’d done anything at all with a boy without getting engaged to him first . . .

  Anyway, I’m fine, really. If Simon is all right – if he’s busy with some fascinating new training course, if he’s managed to escape the job that had such awful memories attached to it – well then, I’m all right, too.

  5th September, 1942

  SUCH HORRIBLE NEWS. THE STANLEY-ROSS family have just learned that Charlie was part of that disastrous Allied raid on Dieppe last month. He was captured by the Nazis almost as soon as he landed and it seems he’s been sent to Germany, to some camp. That’s all the family knows – that he’s alive, that he’s a prisoner of war. They’re supposed to be grateful for that. More than a thousand Canadian and British soldiers were slaughtered in a couple of hours during that raid, with twice as many captured, and for what? For nothing. The rest of the Allied troops were forced to withdraw without achieving any of their objectives. They didn’t destroy any of the German coastal defences. France is still firmly under Nazi rule. If the raid was meant to divert German troops from the eastern front, to bring some relief to the poor besieged Russians, then it was an utter failure. How are we meant to win this war, when the Allied armies are so useless?

  I wrote to Rupert, via Julia, but haven’t yet heard back. I don’t know where he is or what he’s doing. He, at least, can’t be sent into combat. Can he? No, surely not.

  Henry returned to school last week,
but continues to bombard us with letters, pleading to be allowed to join the Wrens.

  Veronica is so busy with her work that I’ve scarcely spoken with her for days.

  Simon continues to pretend that I don’t exist.

  There is no news whatsoever about Toby.

  Also, I hate my job.

  I hate my life.

  16th November, 1942

  TODAY, FOR THE FIRST TIME in months, I woke up feeling happy. Or no – not happy, exactly, but I didn’t feel crushed flat by the leaden weight of my despondency. It was possible to sit up, to fling out an arm and throw back the heavy curtains and let in some sunlight. And there actually was sunlight – admittedly, rather weak and grey sunlight, but then, this is London. One can’t expect miracles (and if any miracles were being offered round, I certainly wouldn’t waste mine on brightening the weather).

  I think it was the church bells that lifted my spirits. I hadn’t realised how much I’d missed the sound of them. They’d been banned, of course, years ago – permitted to be rung only in an emergency, as a warning, in the event of the Germans invading. But an invasion seems far less likely now, after our definitive victory in North Africa. All the German and Italian troops there have surrendered, so Mr Churchill ordered the bells of Britain to ring out in celebration yesterday morning. Veronica and I sat on our front step to listen, the chimes floating towards us on the breeze with the last of the autumn leaves. It made me think of Sunday mornings at Milford, the congregation spilling out of the church doors, set free by the peal of the bells. It made me picture beaming brides with their veils thrown back, and infants in long christening gowns being held up to an admiring crowd.

  It was the sound of hope, and not even an extended lecture on punctuation from Mr Bowker could dampen its resonance this morning. Then Rupert, back in London for a few days, telephoned to ask if I’d meet him for luncheon and, luckily, Miss Halliday wasn’t in the office to scold me for taking personal calls at work or order me to finish all my typing before I took my break.