‘And do you know who – who found him?’ said Angela.
‘Not really. A jeep-load of Allies. Under German guard. They were also prisoners, on their way somewhere. They reported the – what they had found, and I think it must have been the International Red Cross went into action. Informed us.’
‘I see,’ said Angela.
‘And then he was of course properly buried. By the Germans. Apparently they were really very good in that way. Kept to the Geneva Convention and so on.’
‘Yes, I know. And in time, apparently, I will be notified as to where the – the grave is. So I suppose gradually the fog is clearing –’
Her rather quiet voice faded away; Grace felt desperately sorry for her. ‘Charles did say the chaos was indescribable,’ she said. ‘It is possible to see how this sort of thing might have happened. And in particular in Italy. The street fighting, literally man to man. It sounds so ghastly.’
‘Yes, when you read about it, think about it, you somehow imagine it all being rather remote and impersonal, don’t you? Distant guns, bombs dropping, that sort of thing. Not two men, face to face in a street somewhere. Er – your husband didn’t say exactly where this was? This farm? Where he left Colin?’
‘No. No he didn’t. But very near the Italian-French border.’
‘Not much use, I’m afraid. I was thinking, if I could get the name of a town, or a village, I might go down there some time, in the future of course, try to find the exact place, perhaps even the farmer who helped, thank him. I expect that sounds very silly to you.’
‘Not at all silly,’ said Grace. ‘And I’ll ask my husband, but I really don’t think he knows. I’m sorry.’
She did go and see Florence, and stayed the night. Florence was full of self-importance about her political work, talking in a rather proprietary way about the party. A casual listener, Grace thought, might have imagined Florence was actually in the shadow cabinet.
‘Do you really think you might be an MP?’ she said. ‘You’d make history if you did, wouldn’t you? Being a woman.’
‘Not quite,’ said Florence, ‘there are a few precedents. Lady Astor was the first, and then there’s that terrible Braddock woman, and Jennie Lee of course, but there certainly aren’t many. I’d certainly like to be the first woman prime minister,’ she said and grinned. ‘Anyway, what about you?’
‘Oh I’m fine,’ said Grace.
‘And how are things?’
‘All right. Fine.’ She never felt she could say anything really derogatory about Charles; it wasn’t fair to Florence. But later she went to see Clarissa, who as always made her talk.
She had spoken to Clarissa the morning after the show, primed her on the lie she had told Florence. Since then, their relationship had shifted: Grace felt less in awe of Clarissa, more in control. She no longer disapproved of her, she just felt oddly closer to her, more able to cope with her various excesses.
Now Clarissa looked at Grace anxiously. ‘You look rotten, darling.’
‘It’s all right, I suppose,’ she said. ‘I just feel totally and absolutely low all the time. As if there’s no hope of being properly happy ever again. I mean of course I’m very lucky really, and Charles is being very sweet to me, which—’
‘Which makes it worse,’ said Clarissa briskly, ‘makes you feel you’ve got to stay loyal.’
‘Yes. Well, I have got to. It’s what’s right. You know how strong Charles is on doing the right thing.’
‘And telling you about it,’ said Clarissa with a slightly grim smile. ‘Oh Grace, darling, I wish I could help somehow.’
‘You can’t,’ said Grace. ‘Nobody can.’
She asked Charles, carefully casual, if he knew exactly where the farm was where he had left Colin Barlowe; he was, as with any enquiry into his war, irritably vague. ‘I told you I have no idea. Three days on the run, mostly in the dark. How could I possibly know exactly, as you put it? Anyway, why?’
‘Oh – I just thought the – the farmer might have said something. To indicate where you were.’
‘Well he didn’t.’
Afterwards she did actually wonder that Charles hadn’t asked the farmer: simply to find out where he was, in which direction he should go. But she didn’t like to raise the question again.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said to Angela Barlowe, after she’d arranged to meet her again, ‘he really can’t tell you. Doesn’t know.’
‘Never mind. It was so kind of you to go to so much trouble. I would really like to meet your husband, thank him for what he did do for Colin. However it turned out, he obviously tried so hard to help him. Why don’t you both come over – maybe for lunch one Sunday? Or I could put you up for a night, it’s quite a big house.’
‘That would be lovely,’ said Grace carefully, ‘but it’s a very long way, and it might be a bit difficult at the moment, petrol still being rationed and everything. Thank you for asking us anyway, it’s most kind.’
‘I think a bed for the night and a meal is a very small return for what your husband did for Colin,’ said Angela, ‘and I would like to meet him. So if you change your mind, or if you’re in the Cirencester direction, do please let me know.’
‘Yes, of course I will,’ said Grace.
‘Did you ever get in touch with that woman?’ asked Sandra Meredith.
‘What woman?’
‘The one whose husband you found. Dead. You know, Brian, the one whose ring you got.’
‘No, I didn’t,’ he said, ‘and it’s been on my conscience. I don’t quite know where to start, to tell you the truth. How to find the address and that. War Office might not like what I did.’
‘No need to tell ’em,’ said Sandra. ‘Just say you want the address. You’ve got his number and all, haven’t you, and his name?’
‘Never forget it,’ said Brian Meredith with a faint shudder. ‘He – well, he’adn’t just died that day. Not that week, even.’
‘Oh Brian, do stop,’ said Sandra. ‘You’re putting me off my tea.’
Brian Meredith resolved to write to the War Office that very evening.
The woman at Australia House was very nice and helpful. She said she was sure Ben and the boys would stand a good chance of being accepted as Australian citizens; they were exactly the sort of people the country would welcome. She gave them a lot of leaflets to read, and some forms to fill in; they would need references of course, she said, clean bills of health and so on, and proof that they had a bit of money behind them, but that wouldn’t be a problem, would it? She said they would have considerable trouble getting a passage on a boat, and it would be better to wait until the following year, when all the stranded servicemen were home, not to mention their brides and fiancées, numbered in hundreds if not thousands. Ben said he wouldn’t want to wait a year.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘the best way for you, then, would be by air. On a short empire flying boat, one of the old Sunderlands. That would be an adventure for your boys, wouldn’t it?’
‘Don’t know about the boys,’ said Ben, ‘it sounds pretty exciting to me too.’
Sydney was lovely, she said, but if they wanted somewhere that would feel more at home, they might be better choosing Melbourne; anyway, he should go home and think about it.
With a miserable Christmas behind him and the ache in his heart no better, Ben couldn’t see there was an awful lot to think about. He began to fill in the forms and to line up some references.
Chapter 34
Spring 1946
Charles had told Grace he wanted to talk to her. She knew what it meant. It meant he had something serious on his mind. She even had a fairly shrewd idea what the serious something was. And she shrank from it.
She was right.
‘I think it’s time,’ he said carefully after dinner one evening, ‘that we started our family.’
‘Oh really? But—’
‘Grace, I don’t see any buts. We’ve been married almost seven years.’
‘Well, not e
xactly,’ she said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean you were away for five of them at least.’
‘You’re splitting hairs,’ he said, smiling just slightly grimly. ‘The fact is we were married almost seven years ago, and that seems to me quite long enough to wait. I’m nearly forty, Grace, that’s a little late to become a father for the first time. Now I realize that it’s because of the war, and indeed at my insistence, but I really think we’ve put it off long enough.’
‘Yes, I see,’ she said. She could hear the dullness in her voice.
‘Darling, do try to be a little more enthusiastic! Don’t you want children?’
No, thought Grace, not your children. I don’t. The thought of something that was partly Charles growing inside her, invading her body, made her feel sick. It frightened her, that sickness; she wanted to run away, not only from Charles, but from it.
‘Yes, of course I do,’ she said, trying to smile. ‘Of course. It’s just that—’
‘Yes?’
‘Well, you know I said I needed time and—’
‘Grace, you’ve had a great deal of time. If you’re talking about that – that business, I’ve been extremely patient, I think, and it’s very much in the past now.’
‘Charles—’
‘Grace, please! You’ve obviously forgotten part of the marriage service.’ He smiled again, the self-confident, persuasive smile this time that she most hated. ‘It was designed for the procreation of children. Apart from anything else, it’s beginning to look odd. People will think – well, anyway. So is that all right, darling?’
‘Yes of course,’ said Grace, forcing herself to smile back. She supposed she could go on putting it off herself for a bit longer. He never seemed to know if she had her cap in or not.
‘Good. That’s settled then. Oh, and there’s something else. I’d like to have a really big dinner party as soon as it’s feasible. I thought that would be rather nice. We’ve had such a lot of hospitality lately, and we never seem to get quite on top of repaying it. So would you think about that, darling? How best to organize it and so on.’
‘Well, I will, but—’
‘Grace,’ said Charles, ‘you did say that none of our friends seemed to have much time for you in the war. Can you wonder, if you don’t make an effort for them? Now if you draw up a guest list, I’ll have a look at it. I’m going for a walk now. Stretch my legs. Got a bit of a problem at the office, need a breath of air.’
‘What sort of problem?’ asked Grace.
‘Oh – not the sort of thing you’d be interested in.’
‘I might be. I’d like to help, to be involved in your work—’
‘No, honestly, darling, it’s terribly complicated, it would take much too long to explain. You get on with that guest list – the most helpful thing you can do for me is some entertaining, I’m always telling you that.’
‘Yes, all right,’ said Grace humbly.
Later, when she got into bed, he leant over, kissed her on the mouth. Her heart sank. He was obviously planning on putting his plans for a family into action immediately.
‘I do love you,’ he said unexpectedly, ‘and I so want you to have our children.’
She smiled quickly.
‘You do love me, don’t you?’ he said.
‘Yes. Yes of course. You know I do.’
‘Say it then.’ There was a strange note in his voice. She was startled.
‘You know I do.’ She had not yet been able to bring herself to actually tell him she loved him: not since he came back.
‘I know you never tell me you do.’
‘Oh Charles—’
‘Say it,’ he said, and he sounded rough, angry. ‘Say it, Grace. Now.’
‘I – I do,’ she said very quietly.
‘Say you love me.’
‘I love you.’
‘You don’t still think about him, do you?’ he said, his voice still harsh. ‘That – that man. It is over, isn’t it? He’s gone?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Charles. You know he’s gone. I never, never see him, I told you, I—’
‘But you still think about him, don’t you? Go on, admit it. You do, I know you do. I can tell.’
‘Charles, please.’
‘Stop it,’ he said and forced her down in the bed, pushing her legs apart, ‘stop thinking about him, remembering him. I’ll make you, do you understand? I’ll make you. All right?’
‘Yes, Charles, all right. All right.’
Sex had never been uglier; she felt Ben a physical presence in the bed, with herself betraying him. She had never felt nearer to hating Charles.
‘And get rid of that cap thing, will you?’ he said as he rolled off her. ‘I can tell it’s there. Always. Don’t think I can’t.’
‘Yes, all right.’
She fell asleep, woke up much later to find him gone; in the morning he was in the guest room.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said as she went in with his cup of tea. ‘Very sorry. About last night. It’s only because – because I love you so much. And get upset.’
‘It’s all right,’ she said.
‘Is it? Is it really?’ His eyes had a slightly desperate, pleading expression.
The ever-present guilt surfaced. ‘Yes. It really is.’
‘I’ll feel much, much happier, I know, if we have a child. More secure. Give me a kiss.’
She gave him a kiss, quickly, and left the room. Later she went for a walk with the dogs and wondered how she was going to survive.
She decided to throw herself into the party. It wasn’t exactly what she most wanted to do, but it made for a quiet life and eased her guilt. Charles had told her to hire a marquee, brief caterers; he clearly had something very grand in mind.
‘Get my mother to help you with the guest list,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to miss anyone out, any of my old friends, or someone who might have been especially kind while I was away.’
Grace didn’t say no one had been especially kind; she knew it would only lead to more trouble.
‘Charles, I’ve had an idea for the catering,’ she said. ‘Jeannette, you know, who helped Florence, married Ted Miller, she’s a wonderful cook, and she could do a marvellous buffet. In fact she’s setting herself up in business with—’
‘Grace,’ said Charles, and there was an expression of acute exasperation on his face, ‘that woman is not what could by any stretch of the imagination be called a caterer. And I don’t want her in this house. She’s insolent, she’s slatternly, she’d probably bring that half-caste child with her, and—’
‘Clarissa had her for a party in London,’ said Grace. She smiled innocently at him. ‘She did supper for fifty. Apparently it was quite wonderful.’
Charles stared at her coldly. Then he said, ‘Find someone else, will you?’ and left for the office.
Muriel read the guest list.
‘Well, there are obviously several omissions,’ she said, making it plain such a thing was so predictable as to be taken for granted, ‘but I can help of course. I’m glad Charles had the sense to ask me. I’ll make a second one, and let him have it. Now then, tell him he mustn’t forget the Hardings, or the Wilsons. Both very important.’
‘Yes, all right, I will.’
Muriel looked at her. ‘Are you feeling quite well? You’re very pale.’
‘I’m fine,’ said Grace. ‘A bit tired. I’ve got the curse,’ she added.
‘Oh,’ said Muriel. She went rather pink; she didn’t like such matters talked about. It was one of the reasons Grace had told her. The other was that she didn’t want Muriel thinking she was pregnant. She knew her mother-in-law was watching her, waiting for it to happen with some impatience. She herself was filled with dread; so far she had been lucky, but it couldn’t last for ever.
Just, please God, until she felt a bit better. The feeling bad couldn’t last for ever either. Could it?
She spent a lot of time trying to analyse her feelings for
Charles, in an attempt to come to terms with them. It didn’t really help. She knew she didn’t love him; but neither did she actually dislike him. She wished him no ill, at times she managed to feel quite fond of him, in spite of his faults, his arrogance, his insensitivity. It was just that he was not the person she wanted to be with; it was not him she wanted to live with, to wake in the morning with and go to sleep with at night, not him she wanted to look at across the table, not his friends she wanted to entertain, not him she wanted to make love with, not his children she wanted to bear, and the simple fact of knowing that for the rest of her life she had no option weighed on her constantly, a dreadful leaden burden, crushing her spirit, draining her courage.
‘I’ve written to her,’ said Brian Meredith, ‘the lady. About the ring.’
‘Oh good,’ said Sandra. ‘That’s good. She’ll be ever so pleased, I’m sure. Where’s she live then?’
‘Wiltshire. Near Salisbury. Thought I’d go down there with it, if she wants it. Don’t want to trust it to the post.’
‘You’ll do no such thing, Brian Meredith,’ said Sandra. ‘It’s a long way and think what it’d cost.’
She was pregnant, and not entirely happy about it; they were going to be very stretched, managing with another mouth to feed, and any suggestion of expenditure made her jumpy. ‘Get her to come to London, I ’spect she’s got plenty of money. What’s the address?’
‘The Mill House. Thorpe St Andrews.’
‘Well, there you are then,’ said Sandra, as if that settled the matter.
Grace was immensely touched by Brian’s letter. ‘Dear Madam,’ it said:
I hope you will forgive me for writing to you in this way. I have in my possession a ring belonging to your late husband. I am the soldier that found him. I took it, because I thought it would be nice for you to have something of his back. I hope you will not mind that, and that this will not be too much of a shock for you. I did not want to send it, in case of it getting lost in the post, but could meet you with it, London would suit me best, if that would be all right, and give it to you. You can write to me at the above address.
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