A TIME OF WAR

by MARY HOCKING

  `You won’t belong,’ she said to Kerren. `You’ve grown into another person; but they’ll never accept it, they’ll want you as they’ve always known you.’

  Kerren shrugged her shoulders. `We were never very close as a family. If I find I don’t belong, I shall have to settle somewhere else when the time comes.’

  Her equanimity surprised Cath.

  `But don’t you feel you’ve got to have something definite ahead of you . . . that you’ve got to arrive somewhere when all this is over?’

  `Indeed I don’t! Tomorrow will look after itself.’

  But in spite of her contemptuous unconcern, she was considerably shaken when she heard the next day that Adam had been drafted to a ship. In all that had happened to her since she came to Holly Green, he was the one constant factor. When she first arrived, she had expected to embark on a romantic adventure. Adam had been the first naval officer she had encountered, and she had known at once that he was not a part of the romantic dream. Adam was real. Now that there was nothing left of the dream, the one reality that she had established was of tremendous importance to her and lately the prospect of getting to know Adam better had occupied more of her thoughts than she would care to have admitted. He was also of importance to her because he was older; his character was formed and he was less likely to change than were her contemporaries. This stability meant a great deal to her and she felt utterly bereft when she heard that he was leaving. He, on the other hand, was quite heartlessly enthusiastic. He hummed to himself as he bent over the chart and he drew the line of a cold front over the Atlantic with a fine, if inaccurate, flourish.

  `You seem pleased,’ P.O. commented.

  `It’s a reprieve. I thought their lordships had decided to leave me here to die.’

  `You could always die at sea,’ Kerren pointed out.

  He responded by singing, `Some are going West lads who’ll ne’er see Devon again, some will sleep their long, long sleep `neath the Spa – a – a – nish main!’

  The C.F.C.O., who was in the corridor talking to one of the pilots, opened the door and said:

  `Rather early in the day, old boy!’

  `He’s not drunk this time,’ Kerren said. `He’s just overjoyed at the prospect of escaping from all these tedious Wrens.’

  `On the contrary,’ Adam said equably, `that is my one regret.’

  `I should hope so,’ P.O. remarked. `You won’t have anyone to cover up for you when you base your forecast on the wrong chart.’

  Later, when P.O. had gone to lunch, he tried to make amends, though circumspectly.

  `I shall miss you all, of course.’

  `I’m sure we’re all delighted about that.’

  He sighed, and putting his pen down on the table, addressed it cautiously:

  `I shall miss you particularly. You have done a great deal for me.’

  `Covering up?’

  `No, no. You know I don’t mean that.’

  He paused, obviously hoping that he might be allowed to leave it at that. Kerren persisted in dogged misery:

  `What have I done for you, then?’

  `I wanted to shut myself away from people. You made me see that that was not possible.’

  `You’re making a remarkably good stab at it now.’

  But he was not to be drawn any further. She was afraid to pursue the matter. At any moment a pilot might come in for a route forecast or flying control might `phone to find out the cloud height over Dincote Hill. There was only time to say the really important thing.

  `I shall see you off, of course.’

  He said, `I wasn’t proposing to say good-bye here.’ But she had a feeling that if this had proved possible, he would have been well content. As it was, they arranged that she should go with him to Templedene station when he left for a week-end in London the following evening.

  In the utilicon on the way to the station they talked of anything but their own affairs. Kerren said:

  `You’re going at the right time! Hunter did a very odd forecast this morning; it didn’t make sense and not one of the sentences was finished. Corder was nearly frantic!’

  Adam said evasively, `We all do odd things from time to time.’ He was glad to be getting out before it became imperative for someone to warn F about Hunter.

  It was only when they were standing on the platform, huddled in their greatcoats, that she said:

  `It will be ghastly without you.’

  `You’ll soon settle down again.’

  Kerren looked down the track. She could not think, it was cold and this seemed to have slowed down her mind. Then, in the distance, she heard a train whistle, an urgent stab of sound which roused her. She said:

  `We are going to keep in touch, aren’t we?’

  He put his hand on her arm, a gesture that was restraining rather than reassuring.

  `I tried to say this yesterday, but there wasn’t an opportunity. We’ve helped each other – at least, I imagine I may have helped you . . .’

  `Oh, you have, you have!’

  `Then I’m glad. But one can’t always lean on another person. Real recovery means managing without a crutch.’

  `What a beastly thing to say!’

  He looked at her sharply. She felt the sudden pressure of his fingers on her arm, an involuntary expression of emotion which made her realize that he had lost some of his usual composure.

  `You don’t feel like that, then?’ he asked uncertainly.

  `No, I do not!’ Something dark bore down on the shining line of tracks; she saw sparks flying out and she attacked desperately. `A crutch indeed! After the time we’ve known each other, all the laughs we’ve had, the blasphemies we’ve exchanged, how could you talk such dreary nonsense!’ The train had crawled to a halt and doors were opening. `You let me share your music, too,’ she said, her voice beginning to shake. `You lent me your records . . .’

  Adam bent towards her. `Please don’t cry, or I shall cry, too!’ But he did not sound in the least tearful, he sounded in very good spirits. He put his hand in his pocket and drew out a piece of paper. `This is the address of my flat in London. Get in touch with me there and I’ll play you the rest of my records.’

  The guard had blown his whistle. Kerren stood clutching the piece of paper while Adam boarded the train. When he opened the window and leant out, she said fiercely, `I shall use this.’

  He laughed; he was very pleased with life now. `I hope you will.’

  The train started to move. She stood quite still, not waving. When there was nothing to see but the sparks flying round the wheels, she turned and walked slowly out of the station. He had not kissed her and she was not sorry about that; a kiss in such circumstances was like being sent flowers, one knew it was all over.

  The utilicon had gone, but there was a truck waiting. She climbed in. There was a sailor in front with the driver. No one else. She was glad to be alone.

  At least he gave me his address, she thought. But why his home address? I won’t be able to reach him there for some time, perhaps not until the war is over. So much could have happened by then. Was that the point? Changing scenes bring changing faces and the old faces are soon forgotten. Did he think that after a few months she would not bother to get in touch with him, was it merely a kind way of getting rid of her? But if that was what he had wanted, why had he given her his address at all? He could have promised to write from the ship and then conveniently forgotten. Whatever the answer, she was too tired to wonder any more.

  The truck had reached the end of the village, and now there were fields on either side. It was a nice night, clear and very still, with a lot of stars. Not unlike the night she had arrived, only there was no searchlight. She felt empty; not desolate, just empty. `So now I’m back where I started,’ she thought. Surprisingly, it did not dismay her. It was like coming into your own home when all the guests have gone, closing the door, feeling that at last you can be yourself again. The air seemed to blow through her mind, clearing away the anxious clutter of thought.


  She leant against the side of the truck and closed her eyes. For a moment she felt nothing; it was not an empty nothingness, but the kind of peaceful nothingness that comes on the borders of sleep. A breeze stole across the fields; light and unexpectedly soft, it brushed her cheek for a moment and passed on. And suddenly she was thinking not of Adam, but of Peter. She sat very still, her hands resting quietly on her lap; her lips moved and she said sweetly and without stress, `Oh my darling, my darling!’

  The truck rattled on, lurching from side to side. She opened her eyes and saw the swaying fields and hedgerows, the wheeling arc of the sky. I shall remember this, she thought. Other things came to mind; once memory’s store was unlocked image jostled image: an upturned bicycle, the spinning wheel turning slower and slower; Beatie crouched in front of the stove, the soft golden curls at the nape of the neck; someone bending over her bunk at Mill Hill Training Centre, shaking her shoulder as the air raid siren wailed; the green coast of Larne slipping away as the boat headed into the Irish Sea. Soon she would be going back there. And what happened after that was not something to worry about now. Life was a journey, this much at least she had learnt; it was no use expecting to arrive somewhere.

  When the truck stopped at B camp she got out, but she did not go back to the cabin. She was on night duty and she decided to walk to A camp. This small break in the usual routine exhilarated her. She felt more free than she had felt for a long while. She realized that Adam had given her time and she was grateful. Although it was comforting to know that his address was in her pocket, it was good to be free of decision, free of commitment. It was good to feel that she had time, time to nourish the spark of life which had been kindled in the last few weeks, time to learn to live again.

  When she had walked past regulating office and was heading towards the B camp gates, she looked back. She could see the trees, but the cabins were hidden from view. In ten years, all trace of them would have disappeared and the local people would have forgotten that there was once a camp there in the wood. She turned towards the lane. A little way down it one of the camp trucks passed her and she heard men singing, `She’ll be wearing silk pyjamas when she comes . . .’ The voices grew fainter and fainter until they were lost somewhere in the night. Ahead there was just the lane, winding past farms sleeping till cock-crow.

  Mary Hocking

  Born in London in 1921, Mary was educated at Haberdashers’ Aske’s Girls School, Acton. During the Second World War she served in the Women’s Royal Naval Service (Wrens) attached to the Fleet Air Arm Meteorology branch and then briefly with the Signal Section in Plymouth.

  Writing was in her blood. Juggling her work as a local government officer in Middlesex Education Department with writing, at first short stories for magazines and pieces for The Times Educational Supplement, she then had her first book, The Winter City, published in 1961.

  The book was a success and enabled Mary to relinquish her full time occupation to devote her time to writing. Long before family sagas had become cult viewing, she had embarked upon the `Fairley Family’ trilogy – Good Daughters, Indifferent Heroes, and Welcome Strangers – books which give her readers a faithful, realistic and uncompromising portrayal of ordinary people caught up in extraordinary times, between the years of 1933 and 1946.

  For many years she was an active member of the `Monday Lit’, a Lewes-based group which brought in current writers and poets to speak about their work, an enthusiastic supporter of Lewes Little Theatre, and worshipped at the town’s St Pancras RC Church.

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  Copyright

  First published in Great Britain by Chatto & Windus 1989

  This edition published 2016 by Bello

  an imprint of Pan Macmillan

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  www.panmacmillan.co.uk/bello

  ISBN 978-1509-8193-48 EPUB

  ISBN 978-1509-8193-24 HB

  ISBN 978-1509-8193-31 PB

  Copyright © Mary Hocking 1968

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