Forbidden Places

by Penny Vincenzi

  ‘There’s always next time,’ he said smiling.

  ‘If he gets any more leave. I’m not sure that he will. And I don’t think that anyway I can – oh Robert, I am sorry. Making such a fool of myself. What on earth would Florence say?’

  ‘She’d say I was doing my duty, to a kind sister-in-law,’ said Robert. Now where can I find a hot-water bottle? I’m sure it would help.’ He brought it to her, laid it gently on her tummy; the relief was immediate.

  ‘Oh Robert,’ said Grace, no longer embarrassed in the face of his easy kindness, ‘you’re so nice. Been such a wonderful help today. It’s been so lovely having you here. What can I do to thank you?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he said, pouring himself another cup of tea. ‘It’s been a pleasure. Except, of course, tell me immediately if you find out where Florence is. You will do that, won’t you? Promise?’

  ‘I promise,’ said Grace.

  Bunty Levinson’s private gynaecologist finished examining Florence, told her to get dressed; when she came back into his office, he looked at her dolefully from behind his desk.

  ‘I’m very sorry Mrs – Smith,’ he said, ‘but there really is nothing I can do. Your pregnancy is too far advanced. You must be – what? – almost four months. The uterus is already in the abdominal cavity. And I do not do that kind of – surgery. I’m sorry.’ He smiled at her, a heavily regretful, oleaginous smile. ‘Now then, if you will excuse me, I have another patient –’

  ‘Yes of course,’ said Florence. ‘I quite understand. But couldn’t you—’

  ‘My charges for examination and assessment are a hundred pounds,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you could pay the receptionist on your way out. Good morning, Mrs Smith.’

  ‘A hundred pounds!’ said Clarissa. ‘For doing nothing! The bastard!’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ said Florence.

  ‘That’s all right, darling. I don’t mind. I’m just furious. What do we do now?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Florence, ‘I really, really don’t.’

  ‘Robert’s rung already this morning. He got back very late last night. Went down to Wiltshire apparently. God knows how he got the petrol.’

  ‘Robert can get anything out of anywhere,’ said Florence miserably. ‘He’ll have told some lie, wangled some coupons out of somewhere, told the army I’m ill, anything.’

  ‘Yes, well, it’s the charm, darling. He has got lots. Of a rather creepy kind. Anyway, poor old Dorothy’s been lying through her teeth, saying I’ve gone to stay with a friend. But I don’t think we can hold him off yet another day. He said to tell me that he was on his way here. We have to get you somewhere. Somewhere safe –’ She looked at Florence thoughtfully. ‘What about Grace?’

  ‘Oh, I couldn’t. I haven’t really been very nice to Grace. She doesn’t like me. And we had a bit of a fight at Christmas. She – well, she saw me with Giles once in London. She told me. I honestly don’t think she’d take me in.’

  ‘I think she would. Poor little soul. Goodness I feel sorry for her. But anyway, we can’t worry about her now.’ She paused, looking at Florence thoughtfully. ‘Flo, how about your father?’

  ‘My father!’

  ‘Yes. That’d be a safe house, surely.’

  ‘Clarissa, I couldn’t. You don’t understand.’

  ‘Darling, what is the matter with you? Of course I understand. He’s only doing what you’re doing. What’s the big deal?’

  ‘I – said some very hard things to him,’ said Florence reluctantly. ‘I can’t ask him for help now. I just can’t.’

  ‘Of course you can. That’s what fathers are for. I’d ask mine, only the old darling’s in Scotland. Do you have a number for him?’

  ‘Well I do, it’s the Baker Street flat, but—’

  ‘Give it to me,’ said Clarissa determinedly, ‘I’ll deal with it. Florence, this is a state of emergency. You have to do whatever’s necessary.’

  Clifford was on the doorstep of Chiltern Court, his arms open, when Clarissa and Florence got out of the taxi. The porter shot forward, saluted, took her bag.

  ‘My darling child,’ he said, ‘my darling, darling child. Come in. Florence, this is Jerome. Jerome, this is my daughter Florence and this beautiful creature is Clarissa Compton Brown. A veritable angel of mercy.’

  Clarissa threw herself into his arms, kissed him rapturously. ‘Oh I’ve missed you, you wicked old thing,’ she said. ‘Thank goodness you were here, thank goodness I thought of you.’

  ‘And where is Robert? Do we know?’

  ‘On his way to my house. We think he must have spent last night at a hotel. He’s been down to Wiltshire looking for her, according to Dorothy. We got a couple of phone calls, but he didn’t leave a number. Don’t know why not,’ she added.

  ‘These people are very cunning,’ said Clifford. ‘He probably thought if you knew where he was, you could act accordingly.’

  ‘What people?’ said Florence wearily.

  ‘Psychopaths, darling. That’s what you’re married to.’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Florence, her eyes very haunted and frightened suddenly. ‘He is not a psychopath. I can’t have him called that.’

  ‘Oh Florence, don’t start feeling sorry for him,’ said Clarissa impatiently. ‘He is a psychopath, Clifford’s quite right, and if you’re going to start feeling sorry for him it won’t help you at all. Now look, Clifford, nobody knows this number, do they? Apart from Moo, I mean.’

  ‘And she will have struggled hard to forget it, I’m sure,’ said. Clifford, ‘but yes, Grace knows it. Now come along, both of you, into the lift, and Jerome, if you’d just pass me that bag—’

  ‘Grace! Oh goodness, yes. Of course. Dear Grace,’ said Clarissa absently, ‘but anyway she won’t know Florence is here, and as long as she doesn’t, then we don’t need to involve her. Robert will have to go back to his regiment in – what? – three days now. As long as we can keep Florence safely hidden till then, we’ll be all right, we can think what to do. Is there really room for her, Clifford? It looks awfully safe and sort of hidden.’

  ‘It is awfully safe,’ said Clifford lightly. ‘No one will get past Jerome. My excellent daily, Mrs Peterson, is hard at work even now, getting the spare room ready for you. I have been to Harrods, my darling, and bought some new sheets. At the most outrageous expense. I cannot imagine why this war should have put up the price of sheets.’

  ‘You didn’t need to,’ said Florence. Embarrassment and remorse at her behaviour were making her monosyllabic.

  Later, when Clarissa had gone, Clifford sat her down, offered her a drink.

  ‘I imagine you are allowed to drink. If not I will drink yours as well as my own. I find I need a great deal of alcohol at the moment.’

  ‘No, I’d love something,’ said Florence, ‘thank you. Sherry would be very nice. Um – so are you alone here, Daddy?’

  ‘I am indeed. Fancy-free and free for anything fancy. As they say.’

  ‘Oh – I see,’ said Florence.

  ‘You probably don’t,’ said Clifford easily, ‘but let us not dwell on any of that. Florence, my darling, however sad the circumstances under which we meet, I cannot tell you how lovely it is to have you back. And how very much happier I feel.’

  Florence looked at him and smiled; a warm, tender smile. ‘It’s lovely to be back,’ she said, ‘and I’m sorry about the things I said. So sorry.’

  ‘Understandable and forgotten. Long forgotten.’

  ‘No,’ said Florence, ‘I had no right. No right at all. Especially under the circumstances. It’s just that – well—’

  ‘I know. One’s father should not have feet of clay. Well, let us not talk about it any more. We have more important things to discuss. Like yourself, and what we are to do about you.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Florence, ‘and what on earth are we going to tell Mother?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Clifford, ‘we should enlist Clarissa’s help with that one.’

  After Robert had gone,
Grace sat down and cried for a long time. She still felt a sense of bereavement about her failed pregnancy, over and above her loneliness, and the prospect of greater loneliness ahead. Not only was she frigid, it seemed, she was barren as well. If she hadn’t conceived then, she was surely never going to. She couldn’t quite see how she was going to get through the next months, or even years: with no purpose in life, no companionship, nothing to look after, apart from a puppy. A puppy with a broken leg, she thought, smiling at Charlotte through her tears; and she wouldn’t even have her if it hadn’t been for Clifford.

  Dear Clifford. She wondered how he was; she didn’t dare phone him very often, in case Charles asked her why the phone bill was so big. Not that he’d be paying the phone bill for the foreseeable future, or seeing it, come to that: all these jobs had become hers, paying bills, dealing with tradesmen, getting things fixed. She was a little hazy about where the money was coming from these days, Charles had simply assured her that the housekeeping money would continue to be paid into her account, that the firm would continue to pay him. She sometimes wondered about it all, now that Clifford was no longer working for Bennett & Bennett, but when she had tried to raise the matter with Muriel, her mother-in-law had told her that as far as she was concerned she would continue to take all the money she needed, which was a great deal. Grace supposed it must be all right; anyway, she was doing what she was told and not asking any questions about it. As usual.

  And she was doing all right at it, making a good job of running things: so far at any rate, she thought with a sudden stab of pride. She wasn’t a total incompetent; and she had learnt to drive. The thought made her feel better; there must be something, something she could do. Something that Charles hadn’t forbidden, or expressed a strong reservation about; something that Muriel wasn’t going to quash or crush, or report her for doing. Heavens above, Grace, she thought suddenly, what has happened to you, whatever happened to the Pride of the Fifth, which Miss Murgatroyd had once called her when she’d got the winning goal in a hockey match? Or even to Miss Marchant, whom the managing director of Stubbingtons had proclaimed as totally indispensable. Become a wife, that was what, and to someone too good for her: and at this moment Grace would have given a great deal not to have done so.

  She sighed at the despairing turn of her thoughts, and turned on the wireless; caught the end of Music While You Work and a request for ‘all the girls doing such a splendid job with the Women’s Land Army in Buckfastleigh and the surrounding farms in South Devon’. The Land Army! Perhaps that was something she could do. She had never mentioned that to Charles, had never even thought of it, so he had certainly not forbidden it and it sounded extremely suitable. She could probably work for the farm down the road, doing goodness knows what, but making butter or cheese or some thing. It would be companionship, fun, shared endeavour, something useful.

  Her mother was coming over for lunch today; she would ask her about it. She knew all about everything like that.

  Betty was not very enthusiastic.

  ‘Darling, they work so hard, I’ve seen them, and they’re very coarse, some of them, and it’s not really a job for – well, someone like you.’

  ‘Nor is stripping engines,’ said Grace, ‘which I’d be doing in the WRACS. Mother, I’ve got to do something. I’m going to go mad.’

  Betty looked at her carefully. ‘You haven’t thought of – of well, having—’

  ‘No,’ said Grace briefly, ‘I haven’t.’

  ‘I see, dear.’ Betty sighed. ‘I wish you’d come home and live with us. You’d be so much less lonely.’

  ‘Mother, I can’t. You know I can’t. This is my home. I have responsibilities here.’ (To what? she thought, A few chickens and a puppy.)

  ‘Yes, dear, of course you do. Well now, look, I’m going into Shaftesbury tomorrow on the bus, why don’t you meet me there? It will make a nice day out for us, we can have lunch with your father, and we can go to the town hall and see what we can find out. Only I don’t know what Charles will—’

  ‘Charles isn’t here,’ said Grace firmly.

  There were a lot of posters up in the town hall, in the recruitment room, extolling the virtues of the WRNS, the ATS, the WVS of course – and the Women’s Land Army, a picture of a great long line of girls bursting through a cornfield, smiling radiantly. It was that above all that appealed to Grace. She wanted to be one of a long line of girls too.

  She settled an anguished Betty in a waiting room and went to try to join them.

  ‘Now have you any children?’ said the recruiting officer (actually a harassed housewife, trying to cram the day’s work into five hours before her own children came home from school, newly bereft as she was of her domestic help, who had left her for the more congenial and companionable work of the factories).

  ‘No,’ said Grace, trying to smile brightly. ‘No I haven’t.’

  So far it had all gone well; she met all their requirements (not overexacting, over five foot, between the ages of seventeen and forty-one, her health good).

  ‘Well, that’s the main thing. And you don’t have a husband at home?’

  ‘No. He’s – well, he’s about to be sent overseas. That’s why I want to help.’

  ‘Yes, of course. You wouldn’t prefer the WVS? Or the Red Cross?’ said the recruiting officer carefully.

  ‘No,’ said Grace, firmly. ‘I wouldn’t.’

  She knew about the WVS and the Red Cross, formed largely, in Wiltshire at any rate, of Charles’s friends’ wives and their mothers; the thought filled her with horror.

  ‘Well, you see, I really don’t know—’

  ‘Look,’ said Grace, ‘just tell me what I have to do. And I’ll do it. I don’t mind what it is, clearing out pigsties, anything.’

  ‘Yes, well, you’d certainly have to do that. But it’s not a question of doing it here, near home.’

  ‘Why ever not?’ asked Grace in astonishment. ‘It seems so obvious. All the farms near here, all with the young men going off.’

  ‘Yes, I know that, but the regulations are that you go as far away as possible.’

  ‘How far?’ said Grace, envisaging perhaps a daily journey in the direction of Wells or Taunton, thinking how extremely foolish and time-wasting it would be.

  ‘Well, you would probably go to Yorkshire. For example. And the girls from Yorkshire would come down here.’

  ‘Yorkshire! But why? How ridiculous, I don’t see—’

  ‘Those are the regulations,’ said the recruiting officer briskly. ‘The girls settle better. They are more wholehearted about it all. And there is less danger of them running off home when things get a little – tough.’

  ‘But that would mean I’d have to live somewhere else.’

  ‘Well, obviously.’ The brisk voice sounded increasingly impatient.

  ‘You would live in a hostel. With the other girls. Which is why—’

  ‘Oh,’ said Grace. She suddenly felt totally bleak. Yet another plan hopelessly scuppered. It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fair. But she couldn’t do it, it was impossible, lock up the house, leave Charlotte, Charles would be furious, she couldn’t do it. She looked at the recruiting officer through a blur of tears.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, fumbling in her bag for a handkerchief, ‘so sorry. I’m just so disappointed. I wanted to—’

  ‘Look,’ said the recruiting officer, sounding more sympathetic suddenly, ‘look, there is something else you could do. For the Women’s Land Army. If it appealed. And frankly, I do think it would be much more suitable for you – well, your situation in life.’

  She means I’m too posh to join the real thing, thought Grace, blowing her nose, amused in spite of herself. If only, if only she knew.

  ‘Do you drive?’

  ‘Yes. Yes I do,’ said Grace decisively.

  ‘And you have some time, I imagine?’

  ‘Yes. Lots of time.’

  ‘Well now, there is a great, a crying need for reps for the WLA.’
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br />   ‘Reps?’

  ‘Yes. It’s unpaid work, I’m afraid, but quite crucial. And you’d get some kind of petrol allowance, although of course where possible we like you to use a bicycle.’ She looked at Grace rather fiercely.

  ‘Yes of course.’

  ‘The reps visit the girls in the hostels and at the farms, investigate any complaints, make sure their living conditions are all right, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Are they bad then?’ Grace asked curiously.

  ‘No, no, of course not. Well, only very occasionally,’ said the woman hastily. ‘But the girls do get homesick and imagine things, work themselves up into thinking they are worse than they are. It really is very worthwhile work keeping them happy, I do assure you. What would you think about that?’

  ‘I’d think it would be wonderful,’ said Grace simply.

  ‘Good. Then I will put your name forward to the county secretary, and she will contact you. She has the final say, of course, in selecting the reps, she and her committee, but I really don’t think she will be anything but very pleased to have you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Grace, ‘thank you very much.’

  Betty was clearly hugely relieved.

  ‘So much more suitable, dear,’ she kept saying over tea and some very plain sandwiches in King Alfred’s Kitchen. ‘I know Mrs – Muriel would have been most unhappy about your joining those girls—’

  ‘Mother,’ said Grace firmly, ‘I don’t care whether Muriel is happy or not.’

  Soon after she got home, the phone rang; it was Mrs Boscombe. ‘Could you ring the Regents Park number, dear? As soon as possible. And the major rang. He’ll phone later. About seven. He sounds very well, dear. No need to worry about him.’

  ‘Good,’ said Grace, ‘thank you.’

  She asked Mrs Boscombe to get her Clifford’s number. It rang for a long time; maybe he had gone out. It was only a flat; it couldn’t take long to get to the phone. Finally it was picked up and a voice answered, said hallo rather hesitantly: only it wasn’t Clifford and it wasn’t Mary Saunders. It was Florence.