Florence drove very slowly back to the Priory, following Robert. She could hardly see for a thick, suffocating fear; it was exactly like being in a nightmare.
Muriel was waiting on the doorstep. ‘Thank goodness he found you,’ she said, ‘so absurd, rushing off like that, Florence.’
‘I need the phone – I want to speak to Imogen.’
‘Florence, she’s fine,’ said Robert. ‘How many more times do I have to tell you?’
‘I want to speak to her.’
‘You can in a minute. Come in here.’ He half pushed her into the drawing room; Muriel with a rare and most unwelcome tact had disappeared. ‘Sit down,’ said Robert, ‘you look terrible. Let me get you a drink.’
‘I don’t want a drink.’
Robert looked at her with an extraordinary blend of distaste and pity. ‘I think you do.’ He moved over to the sideboard, found a bottle of sherry, poured her a glass. ‘Drink it.’
‘Robert, I don’t want it.’
‘Drink it, Florence.’
Florence drank it. He sat watching her. ‘Now,’ he said, very quietly. ‘Now then, Florence. We need to have a little talk.’
The familiar crawl of icy fear crept up Florence’s spine. She swallowed, gripped the empty glass. ‘Robert—’
‘Be quiet. Listen to me. Very carefully. I do not, I repeat not, want a divorce. You are my wife, I want you to remain that way. I want this whole wretched, absurd business dropped. Do you understand?’
She was silent, staring at him.
‘Once you’ve accepted that, everything will be very much better. Won’t it? Florence, I said won’t it?’
Florence nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said, her voice weak, croaky.
‘So I want you to sit down now and write to that absurd solicitor of yours and tell him the whole matter is closed. All right?’
‘Yes. Yes, all right, Robert.’ She felt exhausted, deathly weary.
‘I’d like you to do it now. I’ve put some paper and envelopes out for you. Over there. On the desk.’
Florence got up, walked over to the desk, sat down heavily.
‘There are a couple more things,’ said Robert.
‘Yes?’
‘I don’t like the idea of that girl looking after my daughter. Not at all. She seems grotesquely unsuitable to me. Your mother agrees with me. I want her out of this house, within the week. All right?’
‘Yes,’ said Florence, hating, despising herself.
‘Good. I shall look forward to hearing she’s gone. Your mother has promised to let me know.’
‘Can I speak to Imogen now?’
‘When you’ve written the letter and given it to me.’
When she had finished she looked at him. ‘Anything else?’
‘Not really. No. I’ll telephone my mother and her friend, you can speak to them and to Imogen, and then I’ll go and collect her.’
‘I’ll collect her,’ said Florence furiously. ‘If you think I’m—’
‘Oh no,’ he said, ‘I’ll bring her back. What on earth do you think I’m going to do, run off with her or something? How absurd you are. No, I feel much happier about everything now. Of course if I heard anything, anything at all that might indicate you were not being entirely loyal and supportive over the next few months – well, who knows? It hasn’t been very difficult, borrowing her for a few hours. I might easily want to do it again. For a bit longer even. Sweet little thing. I find myself surprisingly fond of her. Surprisingly. And I would like to think we’ll have some more children, after the war. You and I.’
She spoke to Imogen; she sounded cheerful, excited even; Robert left and was back within the hour. Imogen rushed in. ‘Went driving,’ she said, ‘went driving in Daddy’s car.’
Florence sat holding her, hugging her for a long time. Then, when she had put her to bed, she sat down and wrote to Giles. She knew when she was beaten.
Chapter 26
June 1944
Major Robert Grieg, who had been involved in a mission of the utmost secrecy and importance for many months, was finally to be granted his frequently expressed wish for a return to active service. He was to travel with his unit to the Isle of Wight for final training and to prepare for embarkation early in June for a destination unknown. The details were secret but the broad picture was well known, widely anticipated. It was truly the beginning of the end of the war, the final trouncing of Hitler’s army, the Allied invasion of France on a vast scale.
Lieutenant-Commander Giles Henry was on his ship, waiting for orders for his own departure for France in an agony of impatience. His depression was such, after receiving a letter from Florence telling him she no longer loved him, wanted never to see him again, had decided finally to stay with Robert, that he could not imagine that anything fate might throw at him, death included, could be anything but welcome.
Squadron Leader Jack Compton Brown was in his beloved Spitfire again, riding the deadly skies on target support missions, paving the way for the great invasion of Normandy. He found himself in mortal danger, day after day, in the direct line of fire from German aircraft. It was all he had dreamt of, longed for, pushed himself for in the long months in hospital. He was joyfully triumphant; he had won his own war.
Clarissa, awaking on 6 June to the eerie emptiness of Dartmouth Harbour, having grown accustomed over the previous months to seeing it filled so tightly with all manner of ships and landing craft it seemed impossible that it could accommodate even a dinghy more, and hearing the endless roar of aircraft overhead, sent up a small fervent prayer for Jack, and then became caught up in a spiral of work so intense, so absorbing, she ceased to notice hunger, thirst, weariness, until, waking one night on the lavatory, she realized she had been there fast asleep for over an hour. She was grateful for it, grateful for the work; it crushed the fear.
The departure of the ships had taken place over several days; people had waved them off from balconies, windows, offices, knowing where they were going, what lay ahead, not saying so to each other, to anybody. Years later, when she told an American she had been there that day, his eyes filled with tears as he told her how a group of Wrens had signalled Goodbye and Good Luck in semaphore as they left the Dart.
On the morning of the 6th, cold, windy, she heard a great roar from far out to sea. She knew what it meant. The invasion had actually begun.
Ships came in endlessly through the weeks for fresh supplies, ammunition, tanks, troops, bringing the wounded who had then to be taken on to hospitals. The casualties were legion.
The Wrens formed a cohesive part of the infrastructure of the operation: drivers, riders, cooks, telegraphers, coders, plotters, and the boatscrews, who buzzed about the packed waters delivering messages, orders and supplies to the ships. Clarissa was plotting herself some of the time, watching awestruck as the great naval invasion bore down the Channel and later sailed up from the Mediterranean.
The triumph was great, but the tragedies profound. She looked at the faces of the young men, many scarcely more than children, some filled with bravado, some with fear, on the nights before they sailed and wanted to weep. She read of the mounting casualties, of the sweep of death in the wake of victory, and wondered again and again where it would end. She only knew it was worth it: it had to be.
Grace, guiltily aware she had nothing personally to fear, felt impotent, set apart from it all. She offered Florence – a gauntly wretched Florence, dark eyes craters of misery in her white face – her help with the WVS, was told shortly that she’d be more trouble than she was worth, that it was a bit late, that she might have thought of it sooner instead of wasting her time with stupid land girls. Grace, knowing the reason for the misery, the wretchedness, having been given a brief résumé of the events of the dreadful day of the kidnapping, accepted this meekly, and busied herself instead making soup for Clifford and the other members of the Home Guard on their night watches. It was hardly vital work but it was something practical she could do.
Jeannette,
spared from banishment by the information that Robert was overseas, made soup too, in huge quantities, for Florence to take to the canteen, and played her own small part in the victory effort by boosting the morale of the troops she met in the pubs and bars of Salisbury on her occasional nights off.
Robert Grieg was in Arromanches now, with his men, part of the mighty, almost unimaginable achievement of the construction of the Mulberry harbours, the great floating bridges that were to become one of the most crucial lifelines to the British Army.
Florence was busier than she could ever have imagined, working long days, and sometimes longer nights. Troops poured through the canteen endlessly, en route to Portsmouth and Southampton; trainloads of women and children arrived from London, seeking refuge from the vengeance of the Luftwaffe which it was widely anticipated would follow the invasion. Like Clarissa she became too tired to think or to feel, and was grateful for it. That Robert was actually in France, actually in danger, after being safe for so long, she found oddly disturbing; Grace was not alone in discovering she did not really know herself or her feelings. As for Giles, Florence couldn’t believe he would survive: she followed the progress of the ships, on the news, in the papers, knew he must have been involved in the landings, almost certainly in the first most dreadful days when death hovered over and stalked the beaches and the seas, striking haphazardly, pitilessly, taking no hostages.
‘Do you think,’ said Grace, putting down the paper after reading of the great success of the invasion, of the million Allied troops in Normandy, and also of further fighting, further casualties, the desperately slow progress of the Allies through France, the inevit able claims of victory, ‘do you think it’s going to be all right?’
‘Good Lord yes,’ said Clifford. ‘Got Hitler on the run now. Don’t worry. I shouldn’t read that stuff too much if I were you, my darling. Just be thankful you’re not up in London. Nasty things, those V2s. Look, I’m going up to the Priory for a bit. Muriel’s got a bit of trouble with her roses. Blackfly again. Need urgent treatment.’
He winked at her; Grace smiled back. Only Muriel, at this hour of the nation’s greatest drama, could find her blackfly an urgent problem.
‘Yes of course. I’ll see you later.’
It was a grey, almost misty June day. A good old-fashioned English summer day, she thought, smiling. Almost cold enough to think about lighting a fire. Only there weren’t any logs, and she didn’t feel quite cold enough to make the effort to go out and chop some. She rummaged through the hooks in the utility room and found a very large, thick old cardigan of Clifford’s and huddled into that instead, thinking rather guiltily about Ben, about how happy she was.
The phone rang suddenly; she went out to the hall. And it was Ben. ‘You all right, my love?’ he said.
‘I’m perfectly all right. So are the boys.’
‘I wanted to tell you I love you. That’s all.’
‘That’s enough,’ she said.
‘And to say I’ve got a forty-eight this weekend. I don’t suppose you’d have time to see me, would you?’
‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘No time for you, Ben. No time at all.’
He came to Salisbury by train and she met him; they went for a walk, holding hands, and he kissed her a great deal, and then they went home and had tea with the boys, and they all played Ludo.
Clifford was up at the Priory, having supper with Muriel. ‘He’s there a lot now,’ said Daniel. ‘I think he’s going to marry her again.’
‘Do you now?’ said Ben.
‘Yes I do. I think it’d be good too. He’s been lonely. It’s not nice to be lonely.’
‘Too right it isn’t,’ said Ben.
‘Grace gets lonely, don’t you, Grace?’
‘Mmm – a bit. Sometimes. But not as bad as I did before I had you.’
‘You should’ve had your own boys,’ said Daniel. ‘Why didn’t you?’
‘Oh – I don’t know,’ said Grace quickly. ‘It – well, it seemed a bad idea, what with the war and everything.’
‘Florence didn’t think so.’
‘No, well Florence is different from me,’ said Grace.
‘How? How is she different? Do you mean she likes babies more than you?’
‘Dan,’ said Ben firmly, ‘concentrate on the board, will you? And it’s rude to ask personal questions.’
Later he said, laughing, ‘Would you like to have your own boys? If – well, if you were married again.’
‘I might,’ said Grace, ‘and then again I might not.’
‘Oh,’ he said. He looked slightly hurt. She laughed, leant forward and kissed him tenderly. ‘I might want my own girls,’ she said. ‘Too many boys around already.’
‘I’d like to have babies with you,’ said Ben. ‘We can talk about it one day, maybe. But not just yet.’
‘No,’ said Grace. ‘Not just yet.’
She was constantly amazed by how right he got everything. Next day they climbed the hill. ‘This is where I first knew I really wanted you,’ she said, ‘really badly. When you held my arm, do you remember?’
‘Of course I remember,’ he said, ‘but did that really have that much of an effect on you?’
‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘I sat here and I could hardly contain myself, I just wanted to take all my clothes off and – well—’
‘Good Lord,’ he said, laughing, ‘what a great bloke I must be. Move over, Errol Flynn.’
‘Now don’t get bigheaded,’ said Grace, ‘or I shall go off you.’
‘Oh Grace,’ he said, very serious suddenly, ‘as if I could get bigheaded. About someone as lovely as you.’
Just before lunch, Florence appeared in the garden with Imogen. She looked tired and pale, her hair needed washing and the hem of her dress was hanging down; she snapped at everyone, shouted at Imogen and even at one point slapped her. Then she burst into tears. ‘How could I have done that?’ she said.
Ben passed her his handkerchief, picked up the wailing Imogen and cuddled her. ‘Do her good I expect,’ he said calmly. ‘They need to know grown-ups are a bit dodgy sometimes.’
‘Goodness,’ said Florence, blowing her nose, ‘you’re a clever one. As Nanny Baines would say.’
‘Not really.’
‘It’s just that everyone’s so bloody happy,’ she said, ‘it’s not fair. You two are happy, and Clarissa and Jack are happy, and now even Mother and Daddy are happy. I can’t stand it. I really can’t. Grace, don’t just sit there looking soppy, go and get me a drink for heaven’s sake. Anything’ll do, even that foul elderberry stuff you make.’
Grace looked out of the window while she struggled to open a bottle of the wine, and saw Florence talking rather intently to Ben. When she had gone, she asked him what she’d been saying.
‘Oh, much the same,’ he said. ‘She’s just bloody miserable. Who could blame her? Locked up with a bastard like that. I still wish I’d cut his balls off that day.’
‘Oh Ben, don’t. What good would that have done?’
‘A lot,’ he said grimly. ‘You’re barmy, the pair of you.’
‘You just don’t understand,’ said Grace. ‘He’s got her exactly where he wants her. Cornered. Completely cornered. I can’t imagine anything worse than that. There being no escape. I think I’d run away.’
‘No you wouldn’t, love,’ he said, reaching out, stroking her arm, ‘you wouldn’t do anything of the sort. You’d see it through, too. I know you.’
‘Well, you may be right,’ she said, ‘but with luck I won’t be put to the test.’
When they went to bed that night, she felt edgy, miserable, dreading his departure, perversely reluctant to make love, to do and be what she knew he wanted her to do and be. ‘What’s the matter, love?’ he said after kissing her a few times. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said fretfully, ‘I just don’t know. I think I’m tired, that’s all.’
‘Well you might be,’ he said, ‘but that’s not what the problem is. Don
’t you – don’t you want to, Grace? Make love?’
‘No,’ she said very quietly, ‘no I don’t. I don’t know why, I just don’t. I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t say sorry,’ he said, smiling. ‘It doesn’t matter. Just tell me, next time, that’s all.’
‘I couldn’t,’ she said, shocked, ‘I couldn’t.’
‘Why not? That’s silly. You’re no use to me pretending. I’ll wait, I’d much rather. It’s hard for you, I suppose, having to switch it on and off to order. Give me a kiss and we’ll go to sleep.’
She went to sleep with him curled round the back of her, woke in the darkness wanting him desperately. He was deeply asleep, breathing heavily; cautiously she eased herself away from him, put her hand behind her, felt for him, began to fondle him, very gently. Desire pierced his sleep; he stirred, stretched a little, his penis began to harden. She turned to face him, began to kiss him softly, tenderly, and he awoke to her, began to kiss her sleepily, first her face, then her breasts.
Grace moaned quietly, the longing for him hot, liquid in her; and ‘That’s more like it,’ he said, and she could hear the smile in his voice, ‘that’s much more like it.’ He turned onto his back, and she lay above him, sinking, working onto him, feeling him thrusting upwards deep within her. He pushed her up gently, and she sat astride him, feeling something close to pain, so huge and deep was the pleasure.
It was growing light; she could see him now, his eyes moving over her, loving her, a slight smile on his face, his hands caressing her stomach, and she wished it could last for ever, that moment, when she felt she could actually see love, see it as a great, perfect whole, tangible and abstract, physical and emotional, momentary and eternal.
Before he left, he said, ‘I love you so much, Grace, I can’t believe it.’
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