by Juliet West
The campsite at Pryor’s Farm was only a two-minute cycle along Nyetimber Lane, but she couldn’t turn up this early. Eleven, they had agreed, and it was still only ten.
Hazel pedalled up Pagham Lane and left her bicycle against a stile that led into a cornfield. Harvest mice scurried and rustled ahead as she brushed through the waist-high stalks. She and Bronny had often tried to catch a harvest mouse. Hazel had once caught hold of a tail, but her nerve failed her at the last moment – it seemed too cruel – and she let it slip from her grasp.
In the far corner of the field was a sycamore tree. She sat underneath it and opened the book. Different Kinds of Kisses, was the next heading. A man, during the Prelude, was at liberty to kiss any part of a woman’s body, however intimate, and vice versa. Kisses could be delicate, fluttering, brief or lingering. Kisses could become violent; they could even take the form of a bite. Women are conspicuously more addicted to love-bites than are men. It is not at all unusual for a woman of passionate nature to leave a memento of sexual union on the man’s shoulder in the shape of a little slanting oval outline of tooth-marks.
Did Charles and her mother bite each other? She remembered how she had watched Charles when he first came to stay last year. The weather had been heavenly, hot as high summer though it was early May, and he was sunbathing after a swim, wearing only a pair of navy trunks. She would have noticed any love bites, surely? She had been lying on a towel in her bathing costume, with a sun hat tipped over her face, but she had a perfect view of him through the tiny holes in the woven straw. The beauty of it was, he hadn’t a clue she was looking at him. The pinholes were like so many microscopes, and she could examine his smooth tanned skin, the sand sprinkled in the fair chest hairs, the fleck of seaweed that lay below his navel. At one point Charles propped himself up on his elbows and waved to her mother, who was still in the sea floating idly on a raft they’d moored to a groyne. Then, unmistakably, he turned to look at her. Examined her body. She had closed her eyes, anxious, suddenly, that her face wasn’t quite masked by the hat, and she felt her skin burn under his gaze.
A green sycamore seed twirled down and landed on the book. She brushed it away, and checked the time on her watch. Almost eleven o’clock. Lucia and Edith would be waiting.
By the flagpole, Lucia had said. A Union flag flying twenty feet high. Hazel found the flagpole easily enough, but she couldn’t see anyone standing next to it. A few young boys were playing nearby, spelling out HAIL, MOSLEY on the rain-starved grass using buckets full of pebbles. Beyond them, a crowd of children queued to buy ice cream from a wagon, coins rattling in their hands. Opposite the flagpole was a large marquee, and scores of blackshirts were sitting at picnic tables and benches outside the tent. Hazel felt like a perfect idiot. Everyone would be staring at her. The boy might be there, too, watching, wondering what on earth she was up to. She could at least have worn a dark-coloured blouse, instead of this silly white tennis top that marked her as an outsider. She scanned the field but there was no sign of Lucia. It was ridiculous to have come here where she didn’t belong, expecting to meet two girls she barely knew. She decided to run, run as fast as she could, back to the hedge where she’d hidden her bike. But just as she turned, there was a call from one of the tables.
‘Hazel! Over here!’
Lucia was waving, her long arm swaying in a wide arc. Hazel made her way to the marquee, keeping close to the edge of the field, and Lucia raced up to meet her.
‘There you are,’ she said. ‘I didn’t think you’d come.’ She was wearing a different uniform today: black slacks instead of the grey skirt, and a silver badge pinned to the breast pocket of her shirt. ‘But I kept hoping. Join us, won’t you?’
They walked over to the crowded tables. Edith was next to another girl who held a paper parasol above their heads. No one else seemed to be taking any notice of her; perhaps she wasn’t such a spectacle after all.
The talk was of the meeting last night, of how well the speeches had been received, and not just by the blackshirts but by the people of Bognor Regis who had come along out of curiosity. ‘People like you,’ said Lucia.
A whistle sounded and Edith groaned.
‘Back to babysitting duties,’ she said, brushing biscuit crumbs from her hands.
‘Babysitting?’ asked Hazel.
‘The little greyshirt boys. We’re supposed to be keeping them amused. Obstacle courses, gymnastics practice, that kind of thing,’ Edith sniffed. ‘Most of them are here without their parents and they’re prone to run wild, just as they do in the slums of Shoreditch or wherever it is they’re from. Military discipline is what they need, according to Mrs Winters. Catch ’em young and all that.’
‘But I’m let off the hook until after lunch,’ announced Lucia, rising from the bench.
‘Really?’ asked Edith, her voice suddenly sharp. The other girl, Alexia, snapped shut the parasol and they both looked up at Lucia, their eyes narrowed against the sun.
‘I told Mrs Winters that Hazel might be visiting. She said I should show her around the camp. Make her welcome.’ She turned to Hazel. ‘You can stay for an hour or so, can’t you? We’ll have a wander down to the woods.’
Hazel nodded and lifted her haversack from the grass. ‘I’ve nothing to get back for,’ she said. ‘Nothing at all.’
As they walked towards the copse at the bottom of the campsite, Lucia linked her arm in Hazel’s. Hazel knew the copse well; it belonged to old Pryor, and when they first moved to Aldwick she and Bronny had often trailed down there to play in the stream. Yet today it felt like Lucia’s territory, the way she trod the path, somehow leading the way though they walked side by side.
A magpie landed on a low branch and Hazel thought of the blackshirt boy, his muscles flexed as he crouched on her garden wall.
‘I met someone else from your camp yesterday,’ said Hazel.
‘Oh, yes? What’s her name?’
‘It was a chap, actually. From Lewisham, I think he said.’
‘And how did you meet him?’
It was a mistake to mention the boy, Hazel realized. She couldn’t talk about their meeting like that, the fact that he was hunting birds’ eggs in her garden at midnight. She didn’t want to get him into trouble.
‘Oh, it was just a brief chat. After the meeting.’
Lucia laughed and waved her hand dismissively. ‘Well, don’t expect me to know him. There are hundreds of boys here, and they all look identical in their uniforms.’ And then Lucia was in full flow, chatting breathlessly about camp life, how the food was jolly good considering, but the beds were like boards and she had a crick in her neck from the lumpy pillow.
Lucia began to talk about fascism, opening and closing her eyes in an exaggerated blink, her voice wavering with emotion. Her eyes were almond-shaped, glossy like a deer’s. It was almost as if she was in a state of bliss. She told Hazel that this was just the beginning and that the British Union was a wonderful force for good. Just look at the national socialists in Germany, she said. Unemployment falling every day and the country positively bursting with patriotic pride.
‘I expect you’ve heard all sorts of rubbish about the blackshirts, haven’t you? The press are against us, even the Daily Mail now, and the Mirror. Yet only a few months ago we could do no wrong. What newspaper do your people take?’
Hazel frowned. ‘My father used to take the Guardian but . . . he works in France now.’
‘Oh? Never mind,’ said Lucia.
Never mind what? wondered Hazel. Was it to do with the Guardian, or the working in France?
‘Anyway, I’ll give you a copy of our paper before you leave. I’m sure you’d enjoy it.’
Hazel hesitated for a moment and Lucia laughed. ‘What a bore I must sound!’ she said.
‘I’m not bored,’ said Hazel. And it was true. She wasn’t bored in the least. The way Lucia spoke was so vivid, so interesting. She made politics sound thrilling, and Hazel felt foolish for allowing her world to be so narrow a
nd ill-informed.
They had reached a shallow stream where a rope swing hung from a tall ash tree. Instead of crossing the stream, Lucia stopped abruptly. She turned to face Hazel and grasped both her hands.
‘The thing is, Hazel, I can’t help chattering on. It’s just that when one feels strongly about something, well, all one wants to do is spread the word. I can’t tell you how wonderful it is, being part of the Union. Everybody is so passionate, working together for a common purpose. And to know in one’s heart that something is right . . . it’s simply the most glorious feeling.’ She laughed again, squeezed Hazel’s hands tighter. ‘I felt it when we met at the theatre yesterday, Hazel. I knew you would be the most terrific friend. And in fact it was before we met, do you remember? It was you yesterday, wasn’t it, leaning against the pillar in the blue dress, watching the parade? I felt, somehow . . . a connection.’
Hazel swallowed drily. It was odd to feel Lucia’s hands in hers, their warm palms pressed together.
‘Yes, that was me. I was on my way to buy cigarettes.’
Lucia dropped Hazel’s hands and took a step back. There was something scolding about her expression, but then it softened and her lips broke into a conspiratorial smile. ‘Cigarettes? Do you have some now?’
‘In here.’ She patted her haversack.
‘Let’s share one, shall we? Edith and the others are dreadful prigs about smoking.’
Hazel began to unbuckle the haversack. ‘So’s my friend Bronny.’
‘The one who couldn’t come to the meeting?’
‘Yes. Her grandmother’s ill so she had to go to Wales. I’m at school with her.’
‘Boarding?’
‘No, day school.’
‘Pity for you. I loved my boarding school. Miss it like hell.’
‘What do you do now?’
‘I work in town, at the B.U.F. headquarters. Voluntary, of course. My father would think it terribly vulgar if I were paid.’
‘Is he a blackshirt?’
Lucia laughed. ‘No. My mother was. She died last year.’ For a moment the brightness of her voice dimmed.
‘I’m very sorry . . .’
‘Don’t be.’ She twirled the ring on her finger. ‘I find it best not to think about it. What about these cigarettes, then? I’ve spied the perfect place to sit.’ Lucia pointed to a fallen tree trunk on the other side of the stream. ‘Wish me luck.’ She laughed again and took a running jump at the dangling rope. Somehow she managed to look graceful as she swung across and dropped down onto the dusty bank. ‘Your turn!’ she called, slinging the rope back over the stream.
Hazel swung off, but as she landed on the bank she tripped on a half-buried rock and flung her arms outwards to save herself. The haversack thumped to the ground, landing upside down so that everything tumbled out: the cigarettes, the uneaten slices of bread, the book.
She scrambled to her feet, her hands stinging. Lucia rushed to her side.
‘I’m fine,’ Hazel said, trying to laugh as she grabbed at the scattered contents. But Lucia had picked up the book before she could reach it.
Lucia looked at the title and smiled, her eyes alight. ‘Isn’t it enthralling?’ she said. ‘Have you reached chapter eight? Quite filthy.’
‘You’ve read it?’ Hazel couldn’t stop herself blushing, but Lucia didn’t seem in the least embarrassed.
‘Esther Levine had a copy at school. Stole it from her parents’ house. We had to pay Esther, of course. Two shillings for one week’s loan. She bought gin with the proceeds and sold it by the double. Quite the entrepreneur. Typical of her race, one might say.’ She paused. ‘What’s your opinion of the Jew, Hazel?’
‘Which Jew?’ asked Hazel absently. She could think only of the book, of wanting to cram it back into her haversack, into darkness.
Lucia screeched. ‘Which Jew? Oh, you’re too adorable.’ She shook her head and began to leaf through the pages. ‘Now, where was it . . . Ah, yes. It’s all very well reading this stuff, but don’t you think one is left with more questions than answers?’ She pointed at the text and read aloud. ‘By sexual intercourse we refer exclusively to normal intercourse between opposite sexes. It is our intention to keep the Hell-gate of the Realm of Sexual Perversions firmly closed. Ideal Marriage permits normal activities the fullest scope, in all desirable and delectable ways. All that is morbid, all that is perverse, we banish: for this is Holy Ground.’
Lucia shut the book and held it out towards Hazel. ‘What can he mean, do you think? “The Hell-gate of the Realm of Sexual Perversions”? Now that’s the book I want to read.’
Hazel found that she could not meet Lucia’s gaze. She wanted to be with someone familiar, with Bronny in her bedroom, playing a game of Sorry, or with Miss Bell, practising piano. Notes played in Hazel’s head, a chromatic scale ascending.
‘I don’t understand most of it, if I’m honest,’ said Hazel, stuffing the book into her haversack. ‘It’s just . . . well, it’s interesting, that’s all, because we’ll have to get married in the end and so . . . we might as well know what to expect.’
‘I’m not getting married for ages,’ said Lucia. ‘Never, if I can help it. Mother wanted me to come out. Parade me around the debs’ ball like a show pony. At least that’s one fight I’m spared.’ She shuddered and sat on the fallen trunk, patting the space next to her. A ray of sunlight fingered through the canopy, flashing on her silver badge. Hazel could see the emblem closely now. It was a curious design, she thought: a bundle of sticks and an axe, bound together with rope.
Hazel made a show of looking at her wristwatch. ‘I promised our housekeeper I’d be home by now. Sorry, but . . . take a cigarette for later?’ She edged one from the packet and held it out.
Lucia shook her head. ‘No, you keep them. Another time. But we must pop back to the camp first. I was going to give you the newspaper. And if you’d like to leave your address, I can sign you up for our postal list? It doesn’t commit you to membership or anything. Just an expression of interest.’ She stood and flicked a fragment of moss from her slacks.
It would be quicker to cut through the bottom of the wood to the hedge where she had left her bicycle, thought Hazel. But to disappear now might look as if she was running away. She would take the newspaper and sign up for the list because it would be rude to leave suddenly when, after all, Lucia had been nothing but friendly. It was amusing about the book. There really was no need to feel embarrassed.
8
When he saw her walking back from the wood with Lucia, he dodged behind a water tank next to the cookhouse rather than walk up to say hello. Lucia was talking at the girl non-stop, lecturing no doubt, and he knew that he wouldn’t be welcome if he interrupted. As they passed twenty yards ahead, he peered out to have a proper look, to see her face in daylight. Her hair was a little tamer than last night, and it shone a kind of reddish-gold. He supposed that was what they meant by strawberry blonde. Her shirt was tight and he could see the outline of her figure, her bust and the dent of her waist.
Tom wondered whether she’d really meant what she said, about going back for the eggs.
At night, when the others were fast asleep, he finally made his decision. Madness, that’s what it would be, to go anywhere near that garden again. He’d allowed himself to dream a little, to conjure a kind of romance, the type of soppy tale his mother brought home from the Lewisham library. But real life wasn’t like those novels. He worked for a newspaper, didn’t he? Knew how messy and fucked-up real life was. Sometimes, for a half-hour skive, he would sit in the public gallery at the Old Bailey, listening to the trials. Mind-bending, what people were capable of. Carnage.
In real life, lads like him didn’t get friendly with girls like her. There would be a catch. The most likely catch being that her father would be standing on the other side of the garden wall, cigarette in one hand, garden spade in the other. No, the father wouldn’t hold the spade. He’d have some lackey standing by to do his dirty work, to chase him off and make
sure he never came close to his precious daughter again. And all the while the girl would be watching from her bedroom window, enjoying the drama of it, the thrilling slice of scandal, something to giggle over with chums when she went back to her finishing school or her exclusive secretarial college or wherever she was bound after the hols.
He pictured her standing at the door of the summer house, one arm around her waist. You can’t imagine how dull this summer has been.
Blood sang in his ears, and an insistent pain throbbed where the flint had pierced his skin.
There was always Jillie. Jillie with her devoted eyes and her tendency to titter at everything he said, whether or not he’d meant it as a joke. She was decent enough, pretty despite the spots. But the weekend before he left for Sussex she’d come over all serious as they canoodled behind the Gaumont; she said she loved him more than anything, would let him do whatever he wanted. He was grateful and couldn’t believe his luck, and afterwards she seemed grateful too, wouldn’t stop kissing him as they walked back through Manor Park, squeezing his hand and saying ‘I love you’ till he felt so sickly and smothered he might as well have had lilac blossom stuffed up his nose. If he stayed with Jillie, next thing she’d be expecting and he’d be married by eighteen, just like it’d turned out for Ted Field. Poor bugger was stuck in his mum’s back bedroom with a wife and baby. That was his life now, no going back.
Perhaps it would be better to break it off with Jillie, to let her down as kindly as possible. He’d tell her he needed to concentrate on his studies. True enough: he wanted nothing more than to go to evening classes, to learn typing and shorthand, because then he might be in with a chance of becoming a reporter. It was another dream, he knew that, but it wasn’t unheard of for lads like him. Archie Kent, the Chronicle’s chief court reporter, had been in the workhouse before starting as a tea boy on a local rag in Essex. Tom wondered whether he might even approach old Kent and ask for some advice. If he was polite enough and keen enough, Kent might let him into the press box at the Old Bailey. Tom had often watched the reporters from the public gallery. Eyes down, scribbling for their lives, the quick bow and the dash out of court when it was time to file their copy.
