When Phyllis had finished the letter she looked at Hugh. She thought she understood what he was feeling: pleasure for the boy, but some little needle of sorrow that it was with another man that he had fired his first shot.
‘It’s awfully hard, being so far from the children. It’s a funny thing, but sometimes their letters make it worse, not better,’ she said, folding Edwin’s letter back into its envelope.
Hugh managed a half-hearted smile. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You’re very wise.’
She knew herself how keenly she hoped to hear that the children were all right; but there had been occasions – more than one – when she had felt her tears coming to her eyes as she read that they’d been to some matinée as an end-of-holiday treat, or even just that they’d had fun at the coconut shy at a village fête. She would so have liked to have been with them, then; to have seen their faces, heard their laughter.
16. Sussex, autumn 1943
It was late September when Phyllis at last came home. She and Hugh had been sent together back to Holloway first. It was wretched to be back within the walls of the prison after the relative freedom of the Isle of Man: the smells, the confinement, the petty rules were all oppressive. Yet these weeks had been bearable because she knew, now, that their release was imminent. The children barely troubled to write any more, since their mother would so shortly be freed.
Patricia and Greville, and Nina and their younger child, Bobby – who Phyllis had never seen and therefore thought of as a perpetual baby, although he was now a toddler with chunky little legs encased in flannel shorts and not a babe in arms – came to greet them, bringing Julia and Frances and Edwin, who had been given special permission to leave their schools for the day. Only Antonia was at school, while Nina’s older boy, George, was with Eric’s mother. The adults had agreed it would be better for the children if they congregated at a London hotel rather than at the prison gate. In any event, there might have been press photographers outside Holloway. Patricia suggested a place near Russell Square, a large red-brick establishment with acres of claret-coloured carpet. Phyllis noticed the shock on their faces as they caught their first sight of her, before they’d had a chance to recompose their features. Only Greville registered no change of expression, but she had not forgotten how he too had blanched when he’d been to see her in prison, all that time ago. It was true that both she and Hugh were thinner, but so were the others. It was her almost-white hair that shocked them, she supposed. The children hesitated in front of their parents before stepping forward to be embraced.
‘You poor darlings!’ said Patricia, to break the ice. ‘You must be gasping for a cup of tea, let’s order straight away, don’t you think?’
‘You’re looking very spruce,’ Phyllis said to Patricia.
‘Say hello to your auntie and uncle, Bobby,’ prompted Nina.
The child scowled and mumbled, ducking his face into his mother’s skirt.
They all laughed. ‘Well, I don’t suppose I blame you, never having set eyes on us before,’ said Hugh.
‘So unnecessary to bring the child,’ Patricia hissed into Phyllis’s ear. A waiter showed them to a window table.
‘Come and sit by me,’ said Phyllis. Frances slid across the window seat and took her place by her mother, followed by Julia. Phyllis patted the tub-chair to her other side. ‘Edwin, will you sit here?’ she asked. The children’s hovering made her feel quite shy.
‘Splendid. That’s the stuff,’ said Greville to no one in particular.
Little Bobby would not sit in a chair of his own, but stood by his mother, making curious mewing noises to indicate that he wanted to sit on her knee. Patricia glowered. She had never made any secret of the fact that she found small children tiresome: that’s what nannies were for. Nina picked him up and kissed the top of his head.
‘Edbin,’ he said, pointing at his cousin.
‘Yes, it’s Edwin, he’s your favourite, isn’t he?’ said Nina.
‘Edbin,’ said the boy, this time with some determination. He shuffled crabwise towards Edwin and then stood with his arms lifted, wanting to be picked up.
Patricia raised an eyebrow in Phyllis’s direction.
The absurd little pantomime of her eldest sister’s disapproval riled Phyllis. Could she never resist an opportunity to do Nina down?
‘Have you been to London since the raids?’ she addressed her own children. ‘Had you seen the craters before, and the rubble everywhere? It’s awfully dramatic.’
‘We could see the wallpaper, still, in some of the buildings, and the fireplaces: one on top of another, in the same place on each floor,’ said Frances.
‘Except there weren’t any floors,’ said Edwin.
‘You don’t realize how tall some of the houses are, until you see them without their sides,’ ventured Julia.
‘One had its staircase going the whole way up. The whole way up to nothing. There wasn’t any roof,’ said Edwin.
‘When you see the wallpaper and sometimes the curtains, too – with flowers on them, or stripes – still flapping at the bombed-out windows, you can imagine the people who chose those patterns and that stuff; imagine how they must have thought there’d be nothing so safe as the homes they were making. It’s sad, really,’ said Frances.
‘Well, yes. I hadn’t thought of it quite in that way,’ said Phyllis. ‘I mean, I thought it was a pity, of course. But I hadn’t thought about the people choosing the things.’
‘I wouldn’t like to go with bare feet. You could get horrible splinters, from all the broken glass,’ said Edwin.
‘I don’t imagine the mothers let their children out without shoes,’ said Greville.
‘Shoes,’ said little Bobby, delightedly, proffering his own pudgy foot in its small brown Start-Rite. Where the leather crossed the top of his sock in the shape of the letter ‘T’, his foot bulged slightly, like rising dough.
‘You’ve got your very own shoes, haven’t you, Bob?’ said his mother.
‘God knows what it’s all going to cost, to rebuild,’ said Hugh.
‘Heaven knows,’ echoed Patricia. ‘Where will it all end?’
‘The people all have to find somewhere to lodge,’ said Nina. ‘I wonder where on earth they all go. They can’t all have obliging relations in the country, after all.’
‘Well, no,’ said Phyllis.
The waiter brought a tray with tea and a jug of scalding hot water, as well as a plate of rather mingy crumpets. They’d been left toasting for too long, so that their edges were sharp.
‘What one’d give for a slice of Madeira cake. Just a sliver,’ sighed Patricia.
‘We’ve got plenty of jams and things, you’ll find in the larder when you get home,’ said Nina. ‘We spent the first exeat picking blackberries, didn’t we, girls? It gobbles up the sugar, of course, but at least it makes it go further. And we did a batch of apple chutney. That’s more economical. Vinegar’s not on the ration.’
‘Wherever did you learn to do all this?’ asked Patricia.
‘Needs must,’ shrugged Nina. ‘There’s a war on – in case you haven’t noticed.’
‘So kind of you. Thank you, Nina,’ said Phyllis.
All the talk – all the personalities – was giving her a headache. It was absolutely wonderful to see the children, but she rather wished they’d gone straight home rather than trying to battle through pleasantries in this hotel. She’d have preferred it if it had been only Hugh and herself and Julia and Frances and Edwin: they wouldn’t have been so fidgety if they’d simply come home for the afternoon. Her sisters meant well, but it was wearisome having to manage their petty little digs at each other all the time. After tea they went in two taxis to Victoria. Patricia and Nina had arranged for Greville to take Edwin back to school, while the girls would travel independently; someone from the school was to collect them at the other end. Nina and little Bobby and Patricia and Phyllis and Hugh would take the Bognor train. Phyllis wished that she and Hugh were accompanying the childre
n back to their schools, but everyone had assumed that they would be exhausted, after their ordeal: it was thought they’d simply want to get home, to rest. It was a wrench to be parted from the children, so soon.
On her first morning in Sussex there was a thick fog, but as soon as Phyllis was dressed she stepped out of her house and along the sandy lane away from the sea. Hugh stayed at the house, anxious to check that the property had been adequately maintained during their absence. Nina and Eric had moved back into their own house, which had been let to one of Eric’s employees. Phyllis carried on walking, scarcely able to see where she was going, until she came to farmland and pasture. She climbed a gate into a field. It was so long since she had been free to wander at will in the countryside. To be alone outdoors, unobserved. There was a lightness, a sense of infinite possibility: she might walk on and on for ever. The low mist gave an air of unreality which made her feel as if she could disappear into the vapour and no one would ever miss her or notice she’d gone. It was an odd feeling, made odder by the poor visibility. Phyllis was not fey, not given to flights of fancy, but the solitude and the intimation of space, combined with the strange, hemmed-in atmosphere created by the fog, flooded her senses with images: suddenly everything reminded her of something else. Perhaps, too, it was an effect of her new-found liberty.
She noticed things more acutely than she ever had before. The stems of blackberries were a rich purple, as if the juice of the fruit was blood flowing along the arteries of each slender branch; the withered black fruits still clung on, encased in cobwebs, like tiny sticks of candy floss. A flock of small dark birds climbed and cascaded and climbed again in the mist above her, like motes of ash dancing in the smoke of a blaze. Along the field-verges silver droplets of water clung to the grass, so that the ground before her looked almost white, like a snail’s trail. Here and there were patches of longer grass where huge beads of water, like so many glass necklaces, seemed to be strung along each blade. Suddenly, without thinking, Phyllis knelt on the wet ground and at once felt her clothes, the wool of her heavy skirt, absorb coolness and moisture; she could scarcely tell which was which.
She felt the heat in her shins diminish as the cloth, like a soaked bandage, began to cling to her skin. Not minding, she leant and put her face among the long grass. She felt something like thirst, some instinct which could scarcely be checked. The silky cold leaves and the drops of water were delicious against her cheeks, her eyelids. Her skin and her body willed her to lie down, to stay and lie quiet here in the deep dew. But her mind told her this was ridiculous; that she would catch cold, or drown in the leaves like someone bewitched. Yet it was as if the low mist and the wet grass were a strong river whose current was urging her in and down. Only by an effort of will did she stand and recompose herself.
Back at the house, Hugh was in a state of some agitation.
‘Oh there you are, I was wondering where you’d got to. I’ve been going through the post that’s accumulated and there seems to be some sort of anomaly about my naval pension,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t paid while we were … while we were away. And it doesn’t seem to’ve been reinstated. Frightful nuisance. I shall have to write to the Admiralty, get it sorted out.’
‘I’m going to book an appointment at the hairdresser’s before I do anything else. I’m sure there are all sorts of things crying out to be dealt with but they’ll have to wait, just for today.’
‘Let me know when you’re going in, there are one or two things I need to do in Chichester. I take it you will be going into Chichester?’
‘I’d thought so, yes. Nina suggested that we might meet for lunch, at the White Horse.’
Phyllis realized that for the first time in her life, she didn’t have a pocket diary. She’d had no need for an engagement book during her incarceration; but now she would be able to make plans once again, to book appointments, to accept invitations. Would there be any invitations, though? After Sarita’s death she and Hugh had rather fallen away from social life and now it was uncertain whether people would welcome a couple who had been imprisoned for what most people seemed to consider a kind of treason. She sighed. Perhaps it would not matter too much, if they were dropped by some of what Nina called the county. There was enough to do without the endless round of drinks and dinners: there was the house to get back to rights, the Christmas holidays to make arrangements for, her sisters. In prison she had become accustomed to a small life.
As it transpired, this was to be the least of her troubles. After protracted correspondence it emerged that Hugh’s naval pension had been stopped as a result of his imprisonment. Since he had been neither tried nor convicted, Hugh fought this with some vigour. There seemed to be a vague acknowledgement that the situation was unusual, but not sufficient acknowledgement to alter the case. Hugh felt very wronged by the Service. It was not only a question of the money: there was a point of honour, here, that he felt was being breached. He had served his country in good conscience. He was guilty of no crime. To simply halt the pension to which he was entitled was surely wrong. He lobbied his MP and wrote letters to the high and mighty, but nothing came of it. Then the rubber company did not renew the offer of part-time employment they had made when Hugh and Phyllis had first returned to England. He received a small annuity from the company, in recognition of the long years he had worked for them, but it was not enough to cover the children’s school fees, let alone to maintain the house and his and Phyllis’s expenses besides. Further, it meant that he had nothing to do, nothing to take him out of the house. His weekly trips to London had given him a sense of purpose, but now his reduced world seemed to diminish him. Coming into the morning room one morning, Phyllis was shocked to see how small he looked, in the bright sunlight: almost wizened. He always dressed formally and with care, but she saw now that his neck looked wrinkled and too narrow for his collar and tie, like the neck of a tortoise.
The sensible thing to do was to take the girls out of their school. There was a perfectly good day school, St Bride’s, not far away in Worthing: moving schools was so much less of a stigma for girls than for boys. In any case, Julia was coming to the end of her education. A course in Pitman’s shorthand and typing was a possibility next summer, either by correspondence or in Chichester.
What would happen once Frances had completed her Higher School Certificate was a different matter. She was passionately interested in history and always had her nose in a book. Her reports already hinted that she would be a suitable candidate for university, but while Hugh was pleased to have produced a daughter with brains, he considered that what he called Girton Girls were rather a nuisance: it was quite possible to become too clever by half.
Edwin, though, was another case entirely. For a boy not to have been to public school would be a major impediment: Hugh was prepared to go to whatever lengths were needed in order to make sure that he did. Selling the house was an idea, although they could not expect to do well from it, with the war still on and the future uncertain. Hugh considered Littlehampton or Worthing. Here they could pick up a fair-sized Victorian villa for very much less than the value of their own house, with its desirable private road, well-planned rooms and proximity to the beach, albeit still cut off by barbed wire. Phyllis’s heart rather sank at the thought of Worthing, which had always struck her as a dreary sort of place. If there had been any question of her and Hugh finding their way back into county life, even in a modest way, taking up residence in what amounted to suburbia would put paid to it; but Edwin’s future came first. In any event she had never cared for their house as much as Hugh always had, having overseen its construction with such attention.
It was at lunch one Sunday that Patricia and Greville put their proposal to them. Afterwards Phyllis felt sure that they had been invited in order to place them at the disadvantage of being guests, so that they would be caught on the back foot. It was her brother-in-law who spoke. While Phyllis and Hugh had been away, he said, they had become very fond of Edwin. It had been especially nice
for Antonia, as an only child, to have the company. It made Rose Green come to life, having the little chap about the place: he was such a dear fellow. They were lucky enough to have a nice house with some land. They were fortunate to be in a position to help, where Edwin was concerned. He’d already spent the holidays with them, they’d grown used to one another; the boy seemed to enjoy some rough shooting: if his parents were to agree to their proposal, he fancied that he might take Edwin up to Scotland for some salmon fishing next year.
‘It would be an informal arrangement, of course. Not an actual, legal adoption or anything,’ said Patricia, once her husband had finished. ‘He’d still spend part of the holidays with you, of course, especially while Frances is at home.’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t quite follow,’ said Hugh. ‘What is it that you’re actually suggesting?’
There was a silence.
‘They’re saying they’ll pay Edwin’s school fees if we hand him over to them,’ said Phyllis. She could not look at her sister or at Greville. ‘They’re proposing that they buy our son.’
After the Party Page 24
