‘All right, darling. That’ll do.’
She sat on the freezing cold train as it crawled its way to Lon don, and tried to feel cheerful. She couldn’t imagine what she was going to say to any of Clarissa’s smart London friends. She would probably fall asleep over the soup; a deep weariness possessed her these days, a sense of total uselessness, which not even Imogen could dispel. She could not imagine ever again wanting to do anything; it was all a most dreadful effort. She had failed at everything; she had been a disastrous wife, she had made another man wretchedly unhappy, she had brought an illegitimate child into the world, she had no career, no talents, no qualifications; and she looked much older than her thirty-three years.
It was very kind of Clarissa to have her to stay, but Florence was sure she would most assuredly regret it; she wished devoutly now that she had refused. By the time she reached Waterloo, she had decided to go to Sloane Avenue and stay there, phone Clarissa and plead illness, a migraine, anything. But as she walked slowly down the platform, she saw Jack standing at the barrier, smiling at her. He still looked so very strange, with his small, blunt nose, his shiny, grafted skin, his little eyes. If he could be brave and smile, Florence thought, then surely so could she.
‘You look tired,’ he said, giving her a kiss, taking her case. ‘Now look, don’t blame me, but Clarissa’s booked you into her hairdresser, says it will give you a little boost. So I’m to take you there and collect you again afterwards.’
‘Oh,’ said Florence, ‘well, that’s very kind, but surely, Jack, you have better things to do with your leave than wait around while I have my hair done.’
‘It’s only one afternoon,’ he said, ‘and it does mean I can pop into the club. Play a game of bridge.’
‘I’m not going to run away you know,’ said Florence, exasperated, choosing to forget she almost had. ‘I’ll turn up at the dinner party on time.’
‘I know, but Clarissa said that’s what I had to do, and you know what that means.’
‘Yes, I suppose I do. Well, all right.’
She actually rather enjoyed her afternoon; she sat and read Vogue in the hairdresser’s; it was full of wonderful pictures of the liberation of Paris, including one of General de Gaulle passing Vogue’s Paris office, and she learnt several interesting facts that she thought she could trot out at the dinner party: that Elsa Schiaparelli had found food cost twenty times as much as it had in 1939, that Colette was writing her memoirs, and that there was only one hairdresser in Paris, one Gervais, who could dry hair, by a most tortuous method involving teams of boys riding a stationary tandem in the basement by way of power.
After that Jack took her out to tea at the Ritz. ‘This is ridiculous,’ said Florence, laughing.
The sandwiches were very dull, and the cakes a little conservative, but the service was as superb as ever, and the palm court almost as lovely.
Jack told her his plans. ‘I’m going to study as a plastic surgeon,’ he said simply. ‘I don’t care how long it takes, many years of course, it means going right back to the beginning, going to medical school. But it fascinates me so much and I know I can do it; and I feel I can pass on some of the wonders that were worked for me. Clarissa says she’s going out to work,’ he added. ‘She and her friend May are going to go into business together.’
Florence stared at him in something close to awe.
When she arrived at the house Clarissa was ecstatic. ‘Your hair looks divine, darling, and what are you going to wear? Show me.’
She pronounced the wine jersey restaurant dress that Florence had bought in 1939, tucked and pleated across the bosom, as perfect: ‘Not dated at all, but you must let me lend you a pair of shoes, those won’t do, I’m sorry,’ and sent her off to have a bath. ‘And don’t come down till I call you, I really can’t cope if you’re under my feet. Lie down with some pads on your eyes or something. Help yourself to scent, darling, off my dressing table. See you in a couple of hours.’
Florence, to whom having a bath had become no more than the briefest rather chilly dip in between getting Imogen up and leaving for the canteen, or alternatively late at night when the water was even colder, surrendered herself to pleasure.
At seven-thirty she sat and looked at herself in the mirror, and actually smiled. Her hair, two inches shorter and softly waved off her forehead, softened her face; her eyes, accentuated by mascara, looked larger, and her mouth, etched sharply with deep red lipstick, wonderfully dramatic, rather than just large as she had come to see it. Even her bosom, tiny as it was these days, looked fuller beneath the layered pleats and folds of her dress. And at least her legs were still the same. Long, slender, ‘racehorse legs’, Giles had once called them. She pushed Giles out of her head by a huge effort of will, sprayed herself copiously with Clarissa’s Arpège, and as she heard the doorbell ring went slowly down to the drawing room.
Expecting a crowd of people, she was surprised to find it empty; empty and shadowy-dim. Only one of Clarissa and Jack’s beautiful Tiffany table lamps was lit, and there were candles on either end of the fireplace but otherwise the room was in darkness apart from the fire, throwing golden arched shadows on the walls.
Frowning slightly, bemused, she sat down on the sofa, not knowing quite what to do, reached out for the cigarette box. As she opened it, she heard a footstep outside, and looked up. The light outside silhouetted a man standing in the doorway. ‘Oh Jack,’ she said, relieved, ‘Jack, I—’ and then she stopped.
For it did not seem to be, it wasn’t Jack; the figure was too tall, the hair too light, the shoulders too narrow. And she sat there, staring in absolute disbelief into the shadowy shape, which couldn’t be, which seemed to be, that was, unbearably, unbelievably was, yes, was Giles, his face very serious, his eyes tenderly moving over her. There seemed an infinitely long distance between them, one that she seemed unable to travel, but he moved slowly towards her, holding out his arms, and she stood up and very, very gradually, as if easing herself out of some dreadful danger, she went forward into them, and she felt him holding her, felt his face buried in her hair, heard his voice saying her name, quite quietly, over and over again, and then she heard Clarissa, her voice strange, saying, ‘We’re going out now. We’ll see you much, much later,’ and heard the front door close, very gently, and for a long time they continued to stand there, not moving, not doing anything at all, just knowing happiness and remembering what it truly meant.
Chapter 30
Winter 1944–Spring 1945
‘Look,’ said Grace, ‘I’ve agreed to – well, sell the Mill House. I’ve agreed to move away from the Thorpes. Those are two big concessions. Not even concessions,’ she added, seeing the warning expression in Ben’s eyes, his mouth tightening in preparation for yet another clear expression of his will. ‘Good, right moves. But I don’t want you to stay in the army.’
‘Because you don’t think it’s right for me?’
‘Yes. I don’t think it’s right for you.’
‘Not that you don’t want to be a sergeant’s wife?’
‘Oh Ben, please!’ said Grace. She felt the newly familiar flood of exasperation filling her. ‘Give me some credit. No, actually, I don’t want to be a sergeant’s wife. I don’t want to be an army wife. It’s perfectly simple. And I don’t think deep down you’re an army person. Or an engineer, come to that. I think you’d be a wonderful teacher. I think that’s what you ought to do.’
‘Grace, we’ve been over this so many times,’ said Ben. ‘I haven’t even got my school certificate. Not enough qualifications to get into teacher training college.’
‘Ben, you’ve done all those evening classes, you could pass your school certificate tomorrow, you know you could. You’re just being awkward. Laying it on with a trowel, to make me feel bad.’
He looked at her, his eyes angry; then suddenly, as it so often did, his face softened, he smiled at her. ‘Yeah, well, maybe I am. So go on.’
‘So you could do that this summer even. Well, ma
ybe. You could ask. You said yourself your arm was getting worse, and the headaches. I think you could get invalided out. I think you should, actually. The country could just possibly get by without you now.’ She gave him a kiss, to show him she was joking. She had to be much more careful these days.
‘I don’t think I could,’ he said.
‘Have you talked to the MO?’
‘No. But if I did get out, then what?’
‘Then you could apply for college.’
‘And how would we live while I was at college?’
‘Ben, I have some money. The – the sale of the house would provide more. You have some compensation for your house, don’t you?’
‘Not enough. And I won’t live off you,’ he said. ‘I won’t go into all that again. I don’t know why you keep on trying.’
‘But Ben, not even for three years? That is so stupid. And then you can let me live off you for the rest of our lives.’
‘Well – maybe.’ He genuinely seemed to be considering what she said; she felt more hopeful. ‘And when would I go to college, do you think?’
‘This autumn maybe. Why not? The war will be over.’
‘You have information on that, do you?’
‘Yes, I do. Well, I read the newspapers.’
‘And I don’t do that, of course. Find the words a bit long.’
‘Ben, stop it. This is ridiculous.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ he said. He held out his arms. ‘Come here. I’m really sorry. It’s – difficult for me, you see. Suddenly.’
‘I don’t understand why,’ she said, moving into his arms. ‘You were so easy before, so relaxed about – about everything, seemed to think it was funny almost. I don’t see why it’s so difficult suddenly.’
‘It’s because it’s so near,’ he said slowly, ‘making it formal, official, telling people, taking you on, taking care of you, assuming responsibility for you. You and – and our children. Thinking what people will be saying, wondering how I can make it work—’
‘How we can make it work,’ said Grace firmly.
‘Yes, all right. We. But I have to do most of it.’
‘Ben, that’s not true. I resent that.’
And they were off again. Arguing, actually quarrelling sometimes, unthinkably hostile to one another. She thought back to the soft, gentle, easy Ben of a year ago and wondered what had happened to him.
‘Grace,’ said Daniel, ‘did I hear you saying you were going to sell this house?’
‘Well – I might.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, you see,’ – she hesitated – ‘your dad wants to – to live somewhere else.’
‘What, with us? Without you?’ He looked frightened, panic-stricken, as if he might cry.
Grace thought very carefully. Then she said, ‘No, not without me. With me.’
‘Oh. You going to get married then?’
‘Well – we might. We just might. You’ll have to ask your dad.’
Daniel leapt up, tore up the stairs, rode down the banisters doing a war whoop. David appeared on the landing looking cross. Like Ben, thought Grace suddenly.
‘What’s going on?’
‘Grace and Dad. They’re getting married.’
‘Daniel, I—’
‘Yeah, I knew that,’ said David coolly. ‘Dad told me.’
Grace stared at him. ‘When did he tell you?’
‘Oh – ages ago. When he came back, after being away.’
‘Oh,’ said Grace, slightly uncertainly.
‘Dad says we’ve got to move from here,’ said Daniel. ‘Live somewhere else.’
‘Whatever for?’
‘Dunno.’
‘That’s daft,’ said David. ‘I’ll tell him.’
The next time Ben came home they had a monumental row. David, as he’d promised, told Ben he thought it was daft to move; Ben asked him who’d said they had to, and what had it got to do with him anyway; David said Grace had said so and if they were getting married it was a lot to do with him. Ben asked Grace what the hell she was doing, getting the boys on her side, and Grace said she wasn’t, and what the hell was he doing telling David they were getting married when they’d agreed they wouldn’t. Daniel burst into tears and said if they had to leave the Mill House he wasn’t coming, and David went storming out of the house and didn’t come back for so long they began to get seriously worried about him.
They made it up, in bed: a strange, fierce hour of love-making during which Ben seemed alternately angry and grieving, dominating her, pushing her to her climax in a frantic urgency, leaving her exhausted by its violence. But ‘I love you so much,’ he said afterwards, restored to tenderness, sweetness, ‘you’re so lovely, so everything I want. And I know that ought to be enough. But it isn’t. It’s got to be got right. All of it.’
He had not asked about being invalided out, said it would scupper his chances of a sponsored course. He said he hated the idea, it seemed wrong.
‘But Ben, if your shoulder is genuinely more painful, you won’t be able to stay in anyway.’
‘Yeah, well, I think I’d rather that was left to them to decide,’ he said.
‘All right. Have you thought any more about what I said? About the teaching?’
‘Yes. And I don’t want to do it.’
‘The teaching? Or being dependent on me?’
‘Both.’
‘I know that’s not true,’ said Grace and went out of the room, slamming the door.
She talked to Florence about it, thinking how extraordinary it was that she should feel so close to Florence now, that she could ask her advice on something so complex, so delicate. That worried her too: that she had changed so much, come so far. Florence was sympathetic, but cautionary.
‘You’ve got a real problem, Grace. I always thought so. Ben is very proud. He’s bound to be. It’s a class thing. I know that sounds snobby and awful and all right, maybe it is. But it’s something you’re going to have to accept. And make all the concessions.’
It didn’t help. For the first time almost since she could remember, she found herself thinking about Linda. Wondering what she had really been like. And how she, Grace, so clearly and extremely different in every way, could possibly replace her.
They seemed to be on a steep downward spiral. The slightest thing made it worse. David telling Ben he was really good at explaining things and ought to be a teacher produced a furious accusation that she had planted the idea in his head. Daniel crying because he didn’t want to leave Flossie made Grace cry too, and led to a resentment so furious that she couldn’t bear Ben to touch her that night. Florence flying into the Mill House to say she and Giles were getting married on his next leave and Ben, when she told him, simply saying ‘Oh’ rather dully, not proposing any kind of date for them. Even her starting to look at pretty little town houses in Salisbury made him angry. ‘We should be doing this together,’ he said, ‘not you on your own, making decisions.’
Sharply, almost frighteningly then, she began to think about Charles and her marriage to him: even to miss him.
She wouldn’t, couldn’t, give in to Ben totally, go along with him, with what he wanted, all the way. She knew it was wrong. That was the way Charles had run their marriage and it had made her resentful and miserable. She was older and a great deal wiser and she knew there had to be compromise.
‘How did you and Linda work things out?’ she said carefully, casually one night, when he was home for a few days, when they were feeling closer, safer.
And ‘I know why you’re asking that,’ he said, and she could feel him withdrawing from her, both physically and emotionally, ‘and I’d really rather you didn’t.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s not fair. To either of us.’
‘But why not, Ben?’
‘Because,’ he said, ‘because we didn’t have the same kind of problems, that’s why,’ and wouldn’t enlarge any further. She was silent; it was what she was most afraid of.
>
Slowly and rather painfully she began to question seriously the wisdom of what she was doing: blinded by love, by desire, by happiness, she had turned her back on reality. She tried to think forward a few years: when the first joy of being with Ben, being his wife, would be gone. Were the differences between them greater than she had realized? Did the new qualities in him that she had discovered, the need to dominate and to be seen to dominate, not only her but her situation, the almost overbearing pride, the strong driving will, did they really all spring from the fact that his background was so different from hers? Was there more to class than accent, education, stupid things like expressions of speech?
Hurt by her own difficulties in the past, she had refused to accept that there was; Ben had seemed simply to be exactly the kind of man she warmed to, liked, wanted. She had never for a single moment felt embarrassed by him, awkward when he was with her family, minded the way he spoke. Rather the reverse: she was fiercely, happily proud of him, astonished by how right he was for her in every way. Now more crucial things were arising: she could see endless conflicts over money, friendships, her own life and independence even. Was he going to become possessive and overbearing with her, turn into some kind of stereotype of working-class manhood? Charles had been a stereotype – in a very different but equally class-ridden way, and she had hated it, had thought that in Ben she had found originality, escape. She tried to equate this new person with the sweetly liberal one who had excused Clarissa’s behaviour with Giles, and wondered at the difference.
The crisis came, as crises so often do, over something very small. It was a Saturday morning and Ben had arrived late the night before; his shoulder was hurting and he was tired.
He looked out of the window and said, ‘Those beds need sorting.’
‘I know,’ she said, ‘Mr Blackstone couldn’t get along this week.’
‘I’d better see to it,’ he said.
‘No, Ben, don’t, that’s silly, when your shoulder’s so sore. I’ll do it. When I’ve got time.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t want you to do it.’
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