‘It was saying it. Telling you. I haven’t had to do that before.’
‘Of course. I really, really don’t mind. I’m glad you did. It might help. A bit.’
What a stupid, crass thing to say to a man who had just told you his wife was dead; what could you, should you say to a man who had just told you his wife was dead? Who had walked into your house and stood very stiffly as if to attention in your hall, and looked around it rather vaguely and then asked if his little boys were there, and then when she had said no, they were at school, had said when would they be back because he had to tell them something, and then when she had said very gently what, had told her their mother was dead, had been killed in an air raid, two nights earlier, and had then asked if he might sit down and had gone to the bottom of the stairs and hunched himself up on them and stared at her in silence, his dark eyes filled with tears – so exactly like David’s that she felt she knew him enough to go towards him and sit beside him and put her hand just very gently on his arm while he struggled painfully, dreadfully to pull himself together, to recover his self-control.
After a while he had sighed heavily, smiled at her weakly and pulled out his handkerchief; and that was when she had suggested he came into the kitchen.
‘What about your – your driver?’ she said. ‘Would he like a drink, do you think?’
‘Oh, yes, I suppose he would. Thank you. I’d rather he wasn’t – well, didn’t—’
‘No, it’s all right,’ said Grace, ‘I’ll take it out to him.’ And he said, ‘You’re being very patient. Linda told me how nice you were.’
‘I – well, I never met her,’ said Grace, horribly aware that now she never would, was underlining the fact; but he didn’t seem to mind, he said, ‘No, but she said the boys reckon you. Reckon you a lot.’
‘Well,’ she said, smiling at him, ‘I reckon them too. A lot. I love them.’
She was surprised to hear herself say that, was afraid it sounded rather excessive, rather like Clarissa, but he didn’t seem to mind, smiled back at her, and when she returned from taking the driver his beer, had said carefully that she would ask him in in a minute, Ben Lucas seemed to be very much more in control, was standing up, smoothing back his hair.
‘Thing is,’ he said, ‘I’ve got to tell them. And I don’t know how. I don’t know if I can. But I must. Mustn’t I?’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘you must, I’m afraid. Unless’ – her heart quailing, flinching from the task – ‘unless you’d like me to—’
‘Oh no,’ he said, ‘no, that wouldn’t be right. No, I’ve got to do it. When will they be back?’
She looked at her watch. ‘In about an hour. Or is it, God I hope it isn’t, Wednesday?’
‘No,’ he said, and this time he smiled more easily, ‘no, it’s Tuesday. What’s so bad about Wednesday?’
He had a very nice voice; it was deep, and rather slow, and although usually she didn’t like the London accent, it somehow suited him, suited his carefully polite manners, his quiet awkwardness.
‘Nothing,’ she said and smiled again, ‘except it’s dancing day. At school.’
‘David and Daniel do dancing?’ he said; the concept was plainly astonishing.
‘Well, no they don’t. But I play the piano for dancing and they wait for me.’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘Linda said you’d been giving David lessons on the piano.’
‘Yes I have.’
‘That was very kind.’
‘Not at all, I love doing it. He’s very musical, you know.’
‘Is he? Well, he might have some music in him, my dad played the violin quite nicely.’
‘Did he really?’ said Grace. ‘Did he teach you?’
‘He tried, but he didn’t have much time, or strength come to that, by the time I was of an age. He got the gas, in the last war, he died when he was only forty-two.’
‘How sad,’ said Grace, ‘and your – your mother – is she –’ and then stopped with horror, realizing that she was probably dead too, only Ben Lucas had not said so, knowing that Linda and she lived together in the little house in Acton.
‘Yes,’ said, understanding her silence, ‘yes, she was killed too, with Linda.’
‘Look,’ she said, ‘would you like me to go and get the boys? So you don’t have to – well, it must be terrible, waiting—’
‘No,’ he said. ‘It’d only worry them, wouldn’t it, and if you don’t mind having me here, I’d rather wait, get myself together a bit more, work out what I can say to them.’
‘I don’t mind having you here,’ she said. ‘Of course I don’t.’
She offered him some food, ‘just bread and dripping and tomatoes, I’m afraid, but there’s plenty,’ which he refused, but said the corporal would like some. She asked the corporal to come in; he was very, very young, didn’t look more than eighteen, and was clearly completely out of his depth with the hideous human drama confronting him. He came from Derbyshire, he told her, had been drafted from Salisbury to bring Ben over; he was due to go overseas any day. ‘Probably North Africa, they said.’
‘Oh really?’ said Grace who was trying desperately to make conversation with the poor lad. ‘That’s where my husband is.’
‘Is it all right then, over there?’ asked the corporal.
‘Yes, thank you. It seems absolutely fine,’ she said, anxious to sound reassuring, aware that she might have been describing a holiday resort.
David and Daniel burst into the house through the kitchen door, shouting, demanding to know what the truck was; Grace stood up as they came in, watched their faces turn to incredulity and a wild joy as they saw their father. They flew into his arms together as one small wiry creature; he encased them, kissed them, hugged them, told them they’d grown, that they looked well, and was dragged outside to see the chickens, Flossie, Charlotte. He looked back at Grace helplessly as he went; she watched with a dreadful pity as he sat down on the grass, a child on each side of him, put his arms round them, and began to talk. They had their backs to her; but she watched grief first touch them, then hit harder, saw Daniel’s small, hopeful face looking up at Ben, darken, crumple, watched him hurl himself into his father’s lap, his small body heave with sobs, saw David say and do nothing, nothing at all, just sit very still, staring straight ahead, and then move slightly away from Ben, hugging his knees, burying his head in his arms, watched it move from side to side, that small dark head, like an animal in a trap in terrible pain.
For a long time they sat there. The whole place seemed hushed and still; even Charlotte seemed subdued, lying a little apart from them, her head drooped between her paws. Corporal Norris asked if he could use her toilet; horrified at her lack of hospitality Grace showed him into the cloakroom, gave him a towel, went back into the kitchen, tried to think of something she could do, something appropriate that would not seem callous, careless, something that might even help Ben Lucas in his dreadful task.
It was almost evening now; the sun was lower on the hills, the birds were beginning their evening chorus, she could hear a tractor throbbing up the lane. Perhaps the chickens, yes, that was a good idea; she fetched the saucepan off the stove with the boiled-up mash, and the bag full of scraps, went out into the garden, walked past them very slowly and carefully.
‘Hallo,’ she said, ‘I’m going to feed the chickens.’
Daniel looked at her, removed the thumb from his mouth. ‘Our mum’s dead,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ said Grace, ‘yes, I know. I’m so very, very sorry.’
‘You couldn’t be,’ said David, and he was glaring at her, through eyes streaming with tears, ‘you didn’t know her, you couldn’t be sorry.’
‘David!’ said Ben gently. ‘David—’
‘It’s all right,’ said Grace and sat down quite near, but not too near. ‘I didn’t know her, David, of course, except what you told me about her. But I’m sorry for you, so very sad and sorry. And for Daniel and your daddy.’
David looked at h
er and then got up and walked down to the paddock fence, ducked under it and set off across the field. Ben went to follow him, but Grace put her hand on his arm.
‘Leave him. He always goes over there when life gets hard for him.’
‘You know him quite well, don’t you?’ he said, looking at her curiously. Daniel was lying against him again, his head buried in the crook of his arm.
‘Quite well. We’ve lived together for – goodness, eight months. We get along pretty well.’
‘I think they’re lucky to have you,’ he said.
He had a week’s compassionate leave, then he had to get back to Liverpool and his squadron, ready to sail for North Africa.
‘But I’ve got to get to London,’ he said, ‘sort out the – well, the funeral and that.’ He glanced down at Daniel, but he appeared not to have heard. ‘I’ll have to do that tomorrow.’
‘Oh God,’ said Grace and found tears in her own eyes at his plight, his dreadful, infinitely sad plight. She brushed them away impatiently, smiled at him awkwardly. ‘Sorry,’ she said.
‘That’s all right,’ he said, ‘it’s nice of you to be so upset.’
‘What do you want to do now?’
‘Well, we’re supposed to go back to the barracks at Salisbury. Me and the corporal.’
‘What, tonight?’ said Grace, her eyes wide with horror. ‘You can’t, you can’t leave the boys so soon, it would be so cruel—’
‘It’s all cruel, Mrs Bennett. It’s a cruel war. That’s what my colonel said.’ He looked at her and his face was harsh. ‘I think he meant it helpfully. Well, I s’pose he did. Anyway, what I could do, maybe, is send the corporal back and go up to London in the morning. On the train. If I could get to the station, if you’ve got a bike or anything.’
‘I’ve got a car,’ said Grace, ‘and I get a petrol allowance, it’s for some work I do for the Land Army. I’ll take you.’
‘I couldn’t ask you to do that,’ he said.
‘Of course you could. I’d like to, I want to help so much.’
‘Well, it’s very kind. You’re very kind. Might be better,’ he added, looking at the now distant figure of David across the field. ‘I could stay in a pub or something maybe—’
‘You can stay here,’ said Grace. ‘Of course you can.’
‘Mrs Bennett, I don’t think so,’ he said, and there was a wry amusement in his eyes now. ‘Whatever do you think people would think, my CO apart from anyone else, your husband – well, anyway, I couldn’t do that.’
‘Your CO needn’t know,’ said Grace firmly, ‘my husband is thousands of miles away, and I really don’t care about anyone else. You can tell Corporal Norris anything you like. But I want you to stay here.’
‘You’re very kind,’ he said again, ‘I can’t say it wouldn’t be nicer. I’m really grateful. I don’t know what else to say.’
‘There isn’t anything to say,’ said Grace briskly. ‘Now I have to feed my hens.’
‘I don’t want to help,’ said Daniel, ‘I want to stay here with my dad.’
‘Of course you do,’ said Grace.
It was a difficult, sad evening. The boys refused to eat, David wouldn’t speak. He seemed consumed by a seething, sullen anger, especially hostile to Grace. Ben, at first gently patient, became embarrassed.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said to Grace when David went out of the kitchen, slammed the door, ran upstairs. Daniel had fallen asleep, exhausted with crying, on the lumpy old kitchen sofa.
‘Don’t be,’ said Grace, ‘I don’t mind. He can hardly be blamed for anything.’
‘Maybe not. Gets it from me, I s’pose. I get angry when I’m upset.’
‘Are you angry now?’ said Grace gently.
‘Not at the moment. I was. I wanted to smash the colonel’s face in. Talking crap, telling me to be a man – sorry, Mrs Bennett, I—’
‘Please stop saying you’re sorry,’ said Grace, ‘or I shall get angry.’
‘OK.’ He smiled at her weakly. ‘And I was angry with her, with Linda. Why couldn’t she have got to the shelter, and why then? There hadn’t been a raid for bloody weeks, I was bloody crazy with it all. But, I’ve calmed down now. Just feel – well, you know.’
‘Horrible.’
‘Yes. That’s about it. I’d best go to him, to David.’
He came down, looking wretched, sat down heavily again on the sofa. ‘He won’t talk to me. Gone under the bedclothes. Poor little bugger. Sorry. Sorry! I don’t know how to help him, Mrs Bennett, I really don’t.’
‘You can’t,’ said Grace, ‘not yet. Nobody can. He loved her so much. He used to talk about her a lot, tell me all about her, how pretty she was, what fun –’ She looked at Ben anxiously, afraid she was saying the wrong thing, but he smiled.
‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘yeah, she was fun. A live wire. She and my mum used to fight a bit, but they were good pals underneath. She was – she was holding Mum’s dressing gown, you know, when they found her, I think she must have been waiting for her, she was slow, was Mum –’ And then he cracked, his face crumpled and he began to sob, noisy, dreadful sobs, staring ahead of him, his hands clenching and unclenching on his lap.
‘Oh Ben,’ said Grace tenderly, and without thinking what she was doing even, she went and put her arms round him, pulled his head onto her shoulder; he turned and clung to her, still weeping, and little Daniel stirred slightly on his other side, put out his own skinny arm and said, ‘Don’t cry, Dad,’ and they all three sat there for a long time while the sky darkened and the moon came up.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, finally, sitting back, looking at her. ‘So sorry. I couldn’t help it.’
‘Of course you couldn’t,’ said Grace. ‘Of course you couldn’t. It doesn’t matter. I’m just glad I was here, that’s all.’
‘I’m glad too,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’ He blew his nose, looked down at his filthy handkerchief.
‘Here,’ said Grace, ‘that’s horrible. Let me get you a clean one.’
She went up to Charles’s dressing room, opened his chest of drawers, took a couple of his handkerchiefs out, linen they were, with CB embroidered on the corner, a present from his mother.
‘Here you are,’ she said to Ben, handing them to him. ‘Have them. Not a lot of use here. At the moment.’
He looked at them. ‘Very grand handkerchiefs,’ he said, ‘very grand. This is quite a grand house, isn’t it? Well, it seems it to me, anyway.’
‘I suppose it’s quite big,’ said Grace carefully, ‘too big really. That’s why it was so lovely for me to have David and Daniel.’
‘You didn’t – don’t have any kids of your own then? Yet?’
‘No,’ said Grace, ‘not yet.’
‘Pity. They’d be company for you, wouldn’t they?’
‘Yes, I suppose they would. But – well, you can’t have them to order, can you?’
‘We did,’ he said, ‘like clockwork they came. Linda fell straight away, David was a honeymoon baby, and Daniel two years later, the minute we decided it was time.’
‘You were lucky,’ said Grace. She heard the slight bitterness in her voice, and hated it.
He looked at her sharply. ‘Is it a problem then?’ he asked. ‘Having them, I mean. For you.’
It was a very intimate conversation, she thought, but the events, the emotions of the day had driven them far forward, curiously close.
‘I’m not sure,’ she said, ‘actually. We haven’t – well, we haven’t been married very long.’
‘No?’
‘No. Only two years.’
There was a long silence, then he said, ‘Well, I’d best get this little chap up to bed. Where does he go?’
‘I’ll show you,’ said Grace.
They all went to bed then; she lay awake most of the night, thinking of him there, down the corridor, hurting, suffering, wishing there was something, anything she could do to ease the pain. And knowing there wasn’t.
She woke up very early, before si
x, went down to the kitchen; he was already there, wearing nothing but a towel wrapped round his waist.
‘Oh God,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Bennett. I was going to have a quick wash, I hope that’s all right, and I heard your dog crying, so I came to let her out.’
‘It’s all right,’ she said, smiling at him. ‘I really don’t mind. Why don’t you have a bath? There’s plenty of hot water, the boiler’s well stoked.’
‘Are you trying to tell me I need one?’ he said, grinning at her; it was the first time he had smiled, really smiled, and it was an extraordinarily engaging smile, creasing his angular face up, showing surprisingly white if slightly crooked teeth.
‘Of course not,’ she said, ‘but—’
‘I probably do. It’d be a treat. Would that really be all right?’
‘Of course. I’ll make some tea.’
She watched him go out of the kitchen; he was brown, very lean, very fit, and his legs were extremely long, long and muscular. He actually had needed a bath, she noticed; there was a smell of sweat in the air. Male sweat. It seemed like a rather good smell, in her spinsterish house.
‘The boys are both asleep. I have to talk to you about them,’ he said.
‘Yes of course. You’re not – you’re not going to take them away, are you? I mean, to live somewhere else?’ she said, hearing her own voice so alarmed that he smiled again.
‘I hope I’m not. That’s what I wanted to ask you, though I’m going away. For a long time, I expect, maybe – well, for a long time anyway. Would you be prepared to keep them? I mean, they’ve got no one else now. If anything – anything did happen, you might be stuck with them.’
‘I want to keep them,’ said Grace, ‘I want to keep them very much.’
‘They’ll prob’ly be difficult,’ he said, ‘for a bit. I’m sorry I won’t be here to help.’
‘I’ll manage,’ said Grace, thinking rather fearfully of the grief of her two little boys, robbed not only of their mother and their home, but their father too; how was she going to comfort them, help them through it? It was a hideous prospect.
‘You’re so nice,’ he said.
‘You keep saying that,’ said Grace, laughing
Forbidden Places Page 29
