by Caro Fraser
‘Maybe tomorrow. Come on, snuggle down. This is a late bedtime for you.’
Max grinned. ‘I know.’
Paul leaned across and kissed Max’s forehead. ‘Night night, old fellow.’
‘Night, Daddy.’
Meg read to Max for a short while, listened to him say his prayers, then switched off his light and went through to the bedroom where Paul was sitting on the edge of the bed, buttoning up his pyjama jacket.
‘Honestly, Paul,’ she said mildly, ‘must you go into grisly detail? I’m sure it will give him bad dreams. He’s only five.’ She sat down on the edge of the bed.
‘I doubt it. He’s a boy. He finds it exciting.’
Suddenly she remembered a piece of news. ‘Oh, I haven’t told you – Lotte’s going to go and live with her brother in New York. She’s managed to get a passage on a ship in the New Year.’
‘I’m pleased for her. Though no doubt you’ll be sorry to see her go.’
‘There’s been less for her to do since Max started at the village school. He was upset at first, but he’s come round. I think he likes the idea of having my full-time attention. There’s no question of getting another nanny. I don’t really think I need one, despite what my mother says.’
Paul laced his fingers through hers, and her stomach tightened. Did he want to make love? Lately when he was on leave he did, not with Dan’s mad, lovely overwhelming desire, but as though it was a form of consolidation, a way of anchoring himself to his marriage. Mostly, though, he was too exhausted. She waited.
At last he said, ‘Do you like it here?’
She looked at him in surprise. ‘Yes, of course I do. I’m so grateful to Sonia for giving us a home – when you think how grim the alternative might have been. Finding good houses is well nigh impossible these days. Why do you ask?’
‘Well, I’m grateful, too, for being given food and a bed when I come here on leave, but I always feel like a guest. I suppose it’s because that’s what we are. Guests. Besides, lovely as Woodbourne House is, it’s a hell of a slog from Mildenhall. I’d much rather you and Max were closer at hand, in a home of our own. I know wartime isn’t the best time to be trying to find a new place to live, but even if it’s just something temporary, I think we should.’
Meg’s heart fell. The last thing she wanted was to be in some wretched house in deepest Suffolk, just the three of them. She looked down at his hand clasping hers, his thumb stroking the palm of her hand. She longed to pull away. She felt utterly no warmth or connection.
‘Paul, we’ve only just got used to living here. Max is happy at the village school. Everything’s working so well. Couldn’t we wait just a few months?’
There was silence for a moment, then Paul said gently, ‘Meg, don’t you want a home with me?’
She looked up, startled. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Things haven’t been entirely happy between us for a while. We both know that. Whatever the problems are, I think we can put them right. But I need to know you want to be with me. If you don’t want to be, now’s the time to tell me.’
This could have been the moment, she realised, when she might have told him everything, been brave, taken her chance, and left to be with Dan. But there was no Dan to go to.
‘Yes,’ she said at last, in a low voice. ‘I want to be with you.’
He squeezed her hand. ‘I’ll start looking for a place. Perhaps you should tell Sonia sooner rather than later that we’ll be leaving in the New Year.’
*
When Paul returned to his base the next day, Meg told Sonia of their decision over dinner.
‘We’ve have been so grateful, Aunt Sonia, and we’ve loved being here with you, but we’ve decided we should find a place of our own. We can’t live off you for ever. And the journey to get here isn’t the easiest for Paul when he’s on leave.’
‘I do understand,’ said Sonia, who was disconcerted nonetheless. ‘Of course this was always going to be a temporary solution. I shall miss you and Max terribly. And Paul, of course.’
‘Perhaps I should say this now,’ said Diana, ‘since we’re talking about it. Roddy and I have been having the same discussion. Morven and I will be moving to Norfolk, just as soon as we can find somewhere near Roddy’s base. It’s been wonderful living here, Sonia. But like Meg and Paul, we feel we have to move on.’
‘Oh dear, it really is all change, isn’t it?’ said Sonia, with a little attempt at a laugh. ‘What a quiet place it’s going to be, without all of you.’ She glanced at her sister. ‘Don’t tell me you’re thinking of going back to London, too?’
Helen had in fact been giving thought to how long she would stay. She was grateful to be in the country and under her sister’s protection, rather than in London, but it was something of a mixed blessing. Woodbourne House was Sonia’s domain, and she had no say in its management. And she missed her home. She thought often of her precious belongings, her china and her pictures all wrapped up carefully in baize, her lovely furniture lying shrouded in dustsheets. Decay would already have begun, the silver slowly tarnishing, infinitesimal spores of damp seeping into the fabric of the sofas and chairs and filming the wood of cabinets and escritoires. She dreamt of returning to Cheyne Walk, throwing back the shutters, lighting fires to warm every room, unpacking her belongings and settling back into her old life, defying the bombs to fall. But Meg’s account of how the area had suffered, and a feeling that she might find London rather bleak and lonely, told her that it made sense to stay put for the time being. Besides, she had her WI work to occupy her, to say nothing of the beehives.
‘I’m very happy to stay here for as long as you need me, Sonia.’
‘Well,’ said Sonia, mildly irked by the suggestion that Helen’s continued residence at Woodbourne House constituted something of a favour, ‘I’m sure I’m grateful for that, my dear.’
*
That night in bed, Sonia lay mulling over everything. She had no right to feel upset that Meg and Diana were leaving. The young people had to make their own lives and run their own homes. It was just that she enjoyed having a household teeming with people. Life was so full. Planting all those vegetables, keeping hens and pigs, what would be the point of it for so few people? Even fewer, when Helen eventually went back to London, as she would in time. Well, she had to face the fact that nothing stayed the same for ever.
She switched off her bedside light and lay in the dark, thinking of the days ahead. Relief at the thought that Avril would shortly be going back to boarding school filled her with guilt. Avril had been so difficult over the Christmas holidays – surly to everyone, mean to Laura. It was hard to find any connection with her, as though Avril was intent on shutting her mother out. She wondered if it was her own fault. There had been those problems after Avril’s birth, of course. Avril, though she seemed to crave love and attention, never properly returned one’s affection. Not like Laura, who had such a loving disposition. Was it wrong to love someone else’s child as much as one’s own daughter? She thrust away the thought that she might love Laura more. No, no. It was just that Laura was such a sweetly demonstrative little thing. It dismayed her that the bond she had expected to develop between the two girls had so far not materialised. In the beginning, despite Helen’s warnings, she had been convinced that Avril and Laura would become like sisters, sharing toys and secrets and laughter. That hadn’t happened so far, but perhaps it wasn’t surprising. After all, a six-year-old wasn’t much of a companion for a twelve-year-old. Maybe the age difference would smooth itself out as they got older.
She shut her eyes tight, telling herself she had done the right thing, that Laura could not have a better home and that all would come right with Avril. She prayed for sleep to come.
7
MEG AND MAX left Woodbourne House in early January. The house that Paul had found for them stood in the countryside on the outskirts of Bury St Edmunds, and was set back from the road and surrounded by an acre of garden. It was decent enough in siz
e, with four bedrooms, a drawing room and dining room, and a cosy living room next to the kitchen, but it was a far cry from the glories of Hazelhurst. The kitchen was north-facing and somewhat gloomy, and the old-fashioned, darkly solid furniture wasn’t to Meg’s taste. The village in which the house stood was more of a hamlet, and had no shops worth speaking of, so Meg had to take the bus into Bury St Edmunds to do her shopping, where she had to forge new relationships with the grocer and butcher and fishmonger to wheedle those scarce little extras – the odd onion, a couple of oranges, a cod tail, a piece of liver – which made all the difference to the weekly rations.
As she began to get to grips with her new existence, Meg realised how easily she had taken for granted the bounty of Sonia’s kitchen garden, and the extra bacon and lard from her pig-keeping, to say nothing of the jars of Helen’s honey which had obscured the meagreness of the sugar ration and cheered up the daily slice of toast. Hard fruit, such as apples and pears, had been abundant at Woodbourne House, lasting all winter thanks to Lobb’s careful storage, but in the depths of winter both were hard to come by. All Paul’s money couldn’t buy them more than their ration books would allow. Faced with the prospect of just one egg a week for each of them, she thought of building a hen coop in the garden, but discovered that the wire netting which she needed was impossible to obtain. She considered taking a trip to Hazelhurst to see if she could salvage some from there, but she couldn’t face seeing the wreck of her former home, or envisage the possibility of carrying such a thing home on a train heaving with soldiers and dispirited civilians. So, like all other British housewives, she abandoned the idea and made do with sachets of powdered egg.
When spring came she thought that at least turning over part of the garden to growing vegetables would require no more than a bit of spadework, but when she first tried she found the ground still too cold and hard for her to manage. There was no Lobb or Dixon to come to her assistance. She would have to wait for milder weather or for Paul to come home on leave, assuming he had enough energy.
For the first time in her life Meg was without servants, except for a woman from the village who came in once a week to scrub floors and do the dusting. At Woodbourne House there had been Mrs Goodall to shop and cook, Effie to do most of the basic cleaning, and the rest of the general housework had been shared by everyone, so that the odd spell at the mangle, changing beds, or airing blankets, hadn’t seemed like much of a chore. When one had to do all the shopping, cooking, cleaning, washing and ironing oneself, it was sheer drudgery.
*
As 1944 unfolded, it seemed to Meg the hardest year of her life. Never had she felt so hopeless and loveless. Had it not been for Max, she might have fallen apart utterly. It was difficult to sustain affection in her relationship with Paul, though she did her best because Paul himself was unfailingly cheerful and kind. He seemed to have rekindled his faith in their marriage. Even when he came back exhausted from his operations, he always had time for both of them, playing with Max and answering his endless questions, fixing shelves, helping in the vegetable garden, sitting with her in the evenings by the wireless, smoking his pipe and trying to soothe her evident sadness with bright conversation. She knew she was being petulant and selfish, but the confusion of her feelings, the knowledge that she had destroyed her relationship with Dan, and committed herself to a marriage to which she could offer almost nothing, left her without moral strength. The only events which relieved the monotony of her existence were trips now and then to London to visit her mother, who had decided that spring to move back to Cheyne Walk, and the occasional visit from Diana.
*
In December Sonia wrote to say that Dan had been badly wounded.
He says his right shoulder and left leg are rather badly smashed, but that he hopes to be right as rain in a few months, though he fears he may have something of a limp at the end of it. I am just glad he is alive, and capable of writing at all. It could have been much worse. He is in a hospital in Perthshire, where he says there are lots of pretty nurses (typical Dan!) and that he has plenty of time to refine his chess skills. Reading between the lines, I suspect he is lonely and in a great deal of pain, so I propose to make a visit in the New Year.
I am the closest thing the poor boy has to family, so am more than happy to brave the trains, and I have a cousin I can stay with in Inverness.
If you care to write to him, I am sure he would be delighted to hear from you. The address is at the foot of this letter.
With love,
Sonia
Meg’s first impulse was to pick up a pen and write, and tell Dan how much she still loved him, to try and keep something alive for the future. The hope rose and faded in almost the same instant. She knew in her soul that too much harm had been done. Their love was like a plant which had struggled to survive in the harshest circumstances, and was now so badly blighted and damaged that it could never grow green and vital again.
*
The wee, small hours, as Sister McInnes called them, were the worst for Dan. It wasn’t so much the pain of his wounds, which throbbed infernally no matter what the hour, as the thoughts that beset him. At two o’clock in the morning a man might feel he was the only person awake in the whole sleeping world. It was a lonely feeling. The loneliest. Dan would lie listening to the mutterings and groans brought on by the pains and dark dreams of his injured fellows, and think about Meg. Sometimes he would relive the times they had had together in the house in South Eaton Place, sometimes he would summon up the memory of the first time he had kissed her, then all the times after that, before she finally became his, or remember how she looked in some particular dress, or at some special moment. But these thoughts, while they helped to ease the deadliness of the early hours, only ended in the wretched knowledge that she was further from him than she had ever been. He had gone over and over that last argument, and he no longer knew who or what was to blame for the way it had ended. Maybe it was simply that people and events had conspired to defeat them, so that carrying on with their affair had become too difficult. Or perhaps it lay in Meg’s ultimate weakness, her need not to estrange those whose good opinion seemed to count for more than his love. Thus he would torment himself, thoughts going round and round in his tired mind, until eventually sleep would descend for a few blessed hours before the nurses began their six o’clock rounds, and the journey of another day would begin.
He had received his injuries during a raid on the Norwegian coast in mid-December, a combination of a bullet wound to his shoulder, and severe damage to his left thigh from a grenade which had killed two of his comrades. The military hospital to which he had been sent to recover, Moray House, was a former grand country house on the outskirts of Inverness, and he had been there for several weeks. The bullet to his shoulder had smashed his collarbone, and the wound was taking a long time to heal. The damage to his left thigh was considerably worse; his thigh bone had been broken in three places, and he had lost a lot of muscle tissue. On the day that Sonia was due to visit, he had only been hobbling around with the help of a crutch for a few days, but he was glad that at least he would be able to greet her on his feet.
That morning Nurse Blain helped him to shave. The stiffness in his shoulder still made such tasks tricky.
‘Another couple of weeks or so and you’ll be able to do this all by yourself,’ she said, rinsing the suds from the safety razor in a tin bowl of water next to the bed. She had a soft Ayrshire accent which Dan particularly liked.
He dabbed the remnants of soap from his chin. ‘That’s a shame. I like being shaved by you. You have a delightful touch.’
Nurse Blain raised an eyebrow. She was small, with a neat figure, mischievous eyes and soft, curly brown hair, and was far and away Dan’s favourite. She and Dan had developed a flirtatious relationship laced with jokes, and her manner with him held a mild suggestiveness which made Dan wish he were better placed to explore its possibilities. Dan, who had never quite lost the vanity of his younger years, knew h
e was something of a heart-throb among the nurses, and doled out his charm in what he thought was an admirably even-handed manner, but he kept a special reserve of it for Nurse Blain.
‘You can help me get dressed, too, if you like,’ added Dan.
‘Away with you. You can get dressed fine by yourself,’ she retorted with a smile, bundling together the towel and shaving kit, and picking up the basin.
‘Such unkindness,’ sighed Dan. He reached for his crutch and rose stiffly, then limped away to put on his fatigues.
*
Sonia’s journey from London to Inverness in January 1945 was every bit as bad as she had anticipated. After sharing a sleeper compartment on the train north with a fat woman who snored thunderously for the entire night, she arrived in Edinburgh in a state of exhaustion. The canteen at Waverley Station had run out of food the previous evening, forcing her to go hungry while she waited two hours for her next train. There was then a heart-stopping moment on the way to Perth when the train halted on the Forth Rail Bridge while a fleet of German bombers flew overhead, but their target apparently lay elsewhere, and she reached Perth intact, though in a famished and somewhat nervous condition. Fortified by a lunch of a cheese sandwich and a cup of tea, she then endured a long and very chilly bus journey to the house of her cousin in Inverness. After a sound night’s sleep in a comfortable bed, however, she was refreshed and in good spirits, and looking forward to seeing her godson.
Dan was waiting for her in the recreation room, formerly one of the Moray House drawing rooms, where the patients met to play cards or board games, or to read and write letters. It was a handsome room with large windows leading to a terrace overlooking the sloping gardens, the snow-covered peaks of the Cairngorms visible in the distance. Sonia was relieved to see that despite his wounds Dan looked well. She kissed him warmly.
‘Oh, it’s so good to see you. We’ve all been so terribly worried about you. Come, sit down again. I’m sure you shouldn’t be on your feet.’
