I skipped downstairs and out the front doors, to find Rupert standing at the edge of the square, apparently having a conversation with a pair of starlings. I felt my face shift in an unaccustomed way then – into a smile. Not the sort of dogged, forcing-up-the-corners-of-one’s-mouth that I’d been doing for so long, but a real, spontaneous smile that spread all the way to my eyes. I ran up to Rupert, not caring if the birds got frightened away, and was absurdly pleased to see that he, too, broke into a wide grin when he caught sight of me.
‘I brought sandwiches,’ he said, holding up his satchel, ‘as it’s such a nice day. We could go to the park.’
I knew Anne and her giggly friend from the typing pool would be there, and the prospect of having to introduce Rupert to them and make polite, meaningless conversation (and then endure endless hours of teasing about him in future lunch breaks) made me say, ‘I know somewhere quieter. Come on.’
I led him up the road and round the corner and along a side street, to a block where half the houses were derelict, the roofs blown off and the sky showing pale blue through the empty windows. One of the houses had collapsed, and the remaining residents had raked the rubble into piles and planted vegetables in the cleared spaces. Summer’s abundance had now come to an end, but there was a square of feathery carrot tops, three rows of cabbage and a sturdy line of leeks that marched off towards what had once been a formal garden at the back of the house. The battered remains of a fountain were still there, along with a fragment of mosaic paving that I liked to pretend was Roman, and an ancient, twisted fig tree. Rupert was suitably impressed.
‘Why, this is wonderful,’ he said, gazing around.
‘Thank you,’ I said, as though I were responsible for it. I pointed at one corner. ‘A few months ago, there were sunflowers over there – half a dozen of them, with faces like dinner plates. The birds went crazy over them. I don’t suppose there was ever enough sunlight before, but everything’s so opened up now.’
We sat down on a broken slab of marble chimneypiece and unwrapped our sandwiches.
‘It’s like St Paul’s Cathedral,’ said Rupert. ‘It looks so much more impressive now, doesn’t it, with all those surrounding buildings having been razed to the ground? Not that I want to give the Nazis credit for anything – least of all for creating something beautiful in the world.’
I glanced over. ‘Have you heard anything from Charlie yet?’
‘No, but the Red Cross says they’ve passed on our letters to him. They’re very good, the Red Cross in Switzerland. They send packages to all the prisoner of war camps. Food, medicine, blankets, all sorts of things – even footballs.’
‘He must hate it so much, though. Being locked up.’
‘Yes,’ sighed Rupert. ‘Yes, I imagine he does. He’s with the rest of his unit, though. He’s not alone. And he’s probably already started digging an escape tunnel with a teaspoon.’
‘At least you know where he is,’ I said. ‘Rupert, do you think –’
Then my courage failed. I took a big bite of my sandwich, so that I had an excuse for not continuing. But I’d forgotten that Rupert’s years of communing with animals had given him a preternatural ability to read unspoken thoughts.
‘The thing about Toby,’ Rupert said, staring off into the garden, or perhaps into the past, ‘was that he always had the most extraordinary luck. Whenever he broke the rules at school – which was pretty much all the time – he’d manage to get away with it. Although perhaps it wasn’t luck, but cleverness, or charm, or just sheer audacity. Once, for instance –’
And Rupert began to laugh.
‘What?’ I said.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘there was this really awful bully, a couple of years ahead of us, and Toby came up with a mad scheme to get revenge. I begged him not to go ahead with it, I knew there wasn’t the slightest chance it would work – except it did. And no one ever found out it was Toby! I couldn’t believe it.’
‘But he got expelled.’
‘That was much later. And he made sure he was caught then. He wanted to be expelled.’
‘Rupert,’ I said, grasping the nettle, ‘do you think he’s alive?’
Rupert’s smile faded. ‘Oh, Sophie,’ he said. ‘It’s been so long –’
‘Twenty-six weeks and four days.’
‘I know.’ He cleared his throat. ‘And the rational part of me knows that he’s probably dead – that they didn’t find his body because it was burnt up with the plane. If he’d bailed out, he must have been captured by now, surely, and we’d have been told about it. And yet . . . I can’t help thinking that if anyone could manage to escape, it would be Toby. If he’d got out of that plane, even if he’d been wounded, he’d be able to talk people into hiding him, giving him food. Even though they’d be putting their lives at risk by helping him. But then I think . . . Well, maybe I only think that because I so badly want him to come back. It’s as though, if I hope enough, if I believe in him, it’ll be all right –’
‘Oh, Rupert!’ I cried. ‘That’s exactly how I feel!’
‘There’s always a chance, isn’t there?’ he said, trying to smile at me, and failing, and looking away.
Sorrow has made me so self-centred and stupid. I hadn’t understood till that moment just how much Rupert grieved for Toby, too.
‘Veronica thinks there’s a chance,’ I told Rupert, taking his hand, ‘and she’s the most rational person I know.’
‘Yes,’ he said.
And we sat there for ages, holding hands, not saying anything, until we were startled by a rustling noise behind us. I whirled about, and there, stalking towards us through the undergrowth, was a ravening tiger.
‘Poor little thing,’ said Rupert. He peeled apart his sandwich, pulled out the slice of Spam and tossed it over. The tabby froze, then narrowed its eyes. It stretched out its thin neck, sniffed at the offering, shot us another wary look, then crouched over the meat and devoured it in a couple of gulps. I could count every one of the ragged little creature’s ribs. I was sorry I’d finished my own sandwich (but not completely sorry, as I’d been quite hungry myself). Rupert gave the cat his crusts, then searched through his satchel.
‘Nothing else for you, I’m afraid,’ he told the cat. ‘Unless you like apples?’
The cat considered this, then retreated a few steps to a faded patch of sunlight and began cleaning its paws.
‘More for us, then,’ Rupert said to me. I poured two mugs of tea from his thermos, and he took out a penknife and sliced the apple into quarters. The cat followed all of this with an unnerving yellow stare.
‘One can understand why cats used to be regarded as the Devil in disguise,’ I remarked.
‘Oh, no, they’re on the other side, really,’ said Rupert. ‘Think of Christopher Smart’s cat, Jeoffry: “For he is the servant of the Living God, duly and daily serving him.”’
‘What?’
‘“For he keeps the Lord’s watch in the night against the adversary.
For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes.
For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life.”’
I thought that was a very comforting idea. Sometimes I feel so guilty about enjoying the smallest pleasures in my life, knowing that Toby – wherever he is – can’t share them. But living life to the fullest is a way of counteracting death.
‘Although,’ I couldn’t help pointing out to Rupert, ‘cats are quite often the bringers of death, if one happens to be a mouse.’
‘Ah, but even then, cats are kindly:
“For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it a chance.
For one mouse in seven escapes by his dallying.”’
I smiled, then caught a glimpse of Rupert’s watch.
‘Oh, no!’ he said, jumping up at once. ‘Will you get into trouble for being late?’ He started snatching up sandwich wrappers and bits of apple core.
‘Probably,’ I said, following
his movements at a more leisurely pace. A lecture from Miss Halliday for being ten minutes late would be no worse than one for being two minutes late, so I wasn’t terribly concerned. ‘I mean, it’s not as though there’s anything important to be late for,’ I told Rupert. ‘Do you know what we’re working on at the moment? The Christmas Potato Fair. It’s going to be held in Oxford Street, in the bombed-out John Lewis site, and I’m working on the wording of the Potato Pledge. Each person who visits the fair is going to be asked to promise to eat home-grown potatoes, instead of bread made from imported wheat.’
‘I’d sign,’ said Rupert. ‘I like potatoes.’
‘You wouldn’t if you worked in my department,’ I said. ‘You’d detest the sight of them by now.’ Then, as we walked back up the road, I asked, ‘What is it, anyway, that you do?’
But he just said something vague about working in ‘communications’.
‘You won’t be sent abroad, will you?’ I said. ‘I mean, when the Second Front starts in earnest and we do invade France?’
‘Oh, no,’ he said. ‘No, I shouldn’t think so.’
We’d reached the Ministry of Food by then and we said goodbye in our usual awkward manner. If he were family (or a friend who was a girl), I’d hug him, or kiss his cheek, but he’s not, so I can’t. Yet shaking hands seems ridiculously formal after our conversations, which are nearly always heartfelt ones these days. So we just sort of waved at each other and then I ran inside.
It was only after I reached my desk that I thought about what he’d said. He shouldn’t think he’d be sent abroad! What does that mean? I’d imagined there’d be no chance at all he’d be in danger. There – something new to worry about! I should have realised my cheerful mood couldn’t last.
12th December, 1942
I’VE BEEN FEELING ABSOLUTELY FURIOUS at Simon, but had to suppress it because I didn’t want Veronica asking too many questions. I was so angry, I might just have told her everything, which would have been a disaster – I could just imagine her storming off to berate him for taking advantage of me. Which made me even angrier – after all, I’m not a child. I don’t need her to protect me, least of all from my own decisions! Fortunately, I realised how idiotic I was being – condemning Veronica for something she hadn’t even done – and I took myself off to bed before I could do or say anything too stupid.
But now she has gone off to her meeting at Whitehall and I can scribble down all my rage, although I must admit it has subsided a bit. After all, it wasn’t totally unexpected news. I was aware Simon wanted to leave his job, and I ought to be glad he’s had the opportunity to get away. I’d just thought he’d tell me first – and I’d never dreamed he’d go so far away.
‘You saw him where?’ I asked, staring at Veronica as she unpacked her suitcase.
‘The aerodrome at Gibraltar,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t believe it, either. You know how it is when one sees a familiar person in an unfamiliar place – and anyway, men all look the same in uniform. But as I got nearer, I saw it really was him. I called out, “Simon! What are you doing here?” And he looked as startled as I felt, but the Air Commodore next to him said, “Ah, a friend of yours, Chester? Do introduce us.” So he did, and then I had to run off to my plane, but before I did, I told him, “Write to Sophie!”’
‘And he didn’t say where he was going?’
‘Well, he couldn’t, could he? Not in front of his commanding officer. I expect he’s on his way to Cairo, or somewhere else in the Middle East. That’s where most of them were headed.’
The Middle East! Where all the fighting is going on! I must have looked absolutely horrified, because Veronica stopped unpacking long enough to pat me on the shoulder.
‘Don’t worry, it’s not as though he’s flying fighters,’ she said. ‘It’s probably just some administrative job.’
Then, this morning, she added kindly, ‘You know, I doubt Simon got much notice of his new posting. In the services, they move people about constantly, without telling them a thing. He probably didn’t have time to tell you.’
Right. More likely, he’s a complete and utter coward. I bet he requested some dangerous overseas posting. What better way to punish himself over Toby, while avoiding any embarrassing future meetings with me? Why I ever felt –
Oh, someone’s knocking at the door.
MUCH LATER. It was Daniel, who’d received the message that Veronica was back from Spain, but not the one about her having to go in to work today.
‘Sorry,’ I said, even though it wasn’t my fault. Actually, I wasn’t sure if Veronica had told him about her meeting – she couldn’t have expected he’d come straight round. Usually it takes ages for him to arrange a day off.
‘I don’t suppose she mentioned when she’d be back?’ he asked, rather plaintively.
‘Well, when she goes in on Saturdays for meetings, she generally doesn’t get home till quite late.’ All the lines in his face sloped downwards at this, so I said, ‘Look, why don’t you come shopping with me? We’ll leave a note about where we’ve gone, just in case she comes home early, and then I’ll make you luncheon. I’ve got a new Ministry of Food recipe to try out – it’s mock goose and there’s no meat in it at all. For pudding, we can have the rest of last night’s mock apricot flan. With mock cream!’
He assumed an expression of mock horror, but obediently picked up my basket and followed me off to the shops. As I’d hoped, he cheered up a bit when we got there, especially after a woman wearing a fur stole and silk turban joined the line behind us. Daniel thinks wartime queues are fascinating opportunities for sociological observation, and he adores seeing rich and poor joined by a common goal (in this case, trying to buy under-the-counter chicken). Not that there are any really poor people around here. Anyway, it’s hardly a representative sample of the British population. I rarely see any men at the shops – even though nearly all women now have to do some form of war work, unless they’re looking after small children or a male relative (female relatives don’t count, in the government’s opinion). Today, the only man in evidence, other than Daniel, was an elderly gentleman with his head swaddled in woollen scarves. His daughter-in-law told us he had an ear-ache, but she couldn’t leave him home alone because he tended to wander off and get lost. Then she and Daniel had a long discussion about the inadequacy of the old age pension.
‘Yes, and what about pensions for people who’ve been injured in the raids?’ said another woman, further ahead of us. ‘Twenty shillings a week! How far does that go, with food prices as high as they are?’
‘Well, my sister lost her leg in a bombing raid,’ said another indignantly, ‘and they told her that housewives weren’t entitled to a pension, only people who’d been working! They said if she’d had a husband, then he could have an allowance to pay a maid to replace her. But she’s a spinster, isn’t she, looking after our mother. So she’s not entitled to anything at all! Hasn’t she been wounded by the enemy, just as badly as any soldier?’
‘If the recommendations of this new Beveridge Report are implemented, things will be much better for everyone,’ Daniel said firmly. ‘The unemployed, the elderly, the disabled – they’ll all receive enough to reach a decent standard of living. There’ll be a special allowance for bringing up children, too, and everybody will be entitled to free medical treatment.’
‘Yes, well, it all sounds wonderful,’ sighed the daughter-in-law. ‘But it won’t really happen, will it? Churchill says we can’t afford it.’
‘If the government can spend millions of pounds on bombers and warships,’ came the unexpected contribution of the fur-draped lady, ‘then it can surely afford to help the needy.’
Then someone else said that the priority ought to be helping ordinary, decent people to rebuild their bombed-out houses, not handing out money to people who didn’t want to work, and the woman with the crippled sister snapped that if there wasn’t going to be a kinder, more compassionate world after the war, then what on Earth were we fighting for?
>
I do love Daniel, but honestly, something like this happens every time I go out in public with him. It’s so embarrassing. At one stage, it looked as though the fur-draped lady and the rebuilding-houses lady were about to come to blows, but luckily, the queue had moved closer to the shop window by then, so I pointed at it and said, ‘Look! An onion!’ and everyone was distracted.
After we finally arrived back at the flat with our shopping, Daniel sat down at the table and polished all our silver while I made ‘mock goose’. We both wondered how potato, apple and sage, cooked in vegetable stock and sprinkled with grated cheese, could possibly taste anything like goose – and what a surprise, it doesn’t. Daniel diligently praised every aspect of the meal, but grew quieter and more downcast as it progressed and Veronica failed to appear.
I tried to divert him by asking whether he thought one had to be religious (or mad) to appreciate Christopher Smart’s poetry. Rupert had sent me a copy of Rejoice in the Lamb: A Song from Bedlam, but apart from the bits about Jeoffry the cat, I’d found it quite incomprehensible – even allowing for Keats’s idea of Negative Capability and being content with ‘half knowledge’ of poetry. Daniel said that Christopher Smart had been confined to a madhouse due to his habit of praying loudly in public, and that a sincere and personal devotion to a Divine Being could well seem insane to others – perhaps even to the man himself.
Then, as if this followed on quite logically, he asked if I thought Veronica was in love with ‘that Michael person’.
‘Who?’ I said. ‘You mean Michael from the Embassy in Madrid? Oh, Daniel! He’s her colleague, that’s all.’
‘But she’s always talking about him,’ said Daniel miserably.
‘Because she works with him! He’s the one helping to get Allied servicemen out of France.’
The FitzOsbornes at War Page 27
