by Betty Burton
She took the compliment gracefully, as she did everything.
‘Even without your clothes you look expensive. You look as though you come from some great house called The Cedars, where you have a Nanny Bryce, and a gardener, and a daddy who owns a factory and gives you white MGs and diamonds.’
‘I’m still just a bit of a tart who books a hotel room and brings back a sailor on leave.’
‘Expensive tart. I’ve never been in an hotel like this. The Savoy. For Christ’s sake, what would my Dad say to this?’ Their room had flowers, drinks and a room-service tray.
It was the night of a victorious march-past in London to honour the men who had been involved in the scuttling of the Graf Spee. The country had been in dire need of it, to proclaim some good news for a change. David Greenaway, who had not yet been able to exchange his seaman’s round hat for an officer’s cap, and was still awaiting his new posting, had been at the Battle of the River Plate. Eve Hardy, without saying where she was going, had packed an overnight bag and gone by train to London to watch the march-past.
At another point along the route, Vern and Nora Greenaway too had watched. Vern had caught a glimpse of Freddy Hardy’s girl in a First-Class compartment of the same London train on which he and Nora travelled, and had guessed rightly why Davey was not spending his twenty-four-hour pass at home.
If Eve Hardy was anything, she was a romantic. If she could do nothing else worth while, she could give herself to a returning hero. Not altogether selflessly, for her first venture into a true liaison was altogether quite as wonderful as she had expected that it would be.
‘What are you smiling at?’
He outlined her features. ‘Lovely, lovely tart.’ In his grammar-school years, he had discovered the Pre-Raphaelites, D. H. Lawrence and Eve Hardy all within the same short time-span.
‘Would you like to get married, Eve?’
She stared at the ceiling and considered, smiling. ‘No, David, let’s wait. Let’s be lovers for a while. Secret lovers. Whenever you get leave, wherever you are, I will come to you.’
‘I don’t think you’re serious about me.’
‘You know that is stuff and nonsense. How much more serious can a woman be than to give a man her virginity?’
He laughed aloud. ‘Eve Hardy, you could scarcely wait for it.’
Married or not, he wanted her very much. It was not so bad if their affair had been between a rich boy and a pretty girl from the local newsagent’s. A man may take a girl up the social scale, but not the reverse. He could never imagine her living in Naval married-quarters, not even if he got promotion and it was in officers’ accommodation.
She was right, they could wait. They had nothing to gain by marrying.
1941
Compared with other men serving in Britain, Georgia thought that Hugh came off a very poor second when it came to getting leave, but assumed, as he led her to, that this was because of the special nature of his work.
‘There’s a war on, we just have to lump it. Small team, darling; when one of the team is out of action, the whole shoot suffers.’
Although the war had been on for more than a year, and Hugh had been home very little, on the first afternoon of a four-days’ leave at the very end of December, they had at once dropped back into their old ways, almost as though he hadn’t been away. They had sat before the fire and talked. Georgia had enjoyed having something to tell him instead of always listening to him. And he actually listened.
‘It sounds jolly impressive, Georgia. I never thought you’d stick it. And it’s excellent pay. I must say working seems to suit you. You look terribly fit.’
‘That’s because I’m so happy, Hugh.’
In an answer to his question, she said, ‘Darling, of course I miss you. I mean that I am happy about having such a super job. It is so satisfying. I can understand now why you were always so pleased with yourself. People who have jobs with titles are important. And I like it. I like being called an Administrator. I like being important, and I do the work very well, even though I say so myself.’
They walked around the garden which Hugh now seemed to view with some sentiment. ‘And you haven’t let the house go. Running a home is a job, and jolly important too. It’s a great comfort to me when I’m out on The Project to think of you, and Markham, and the garden and the roses. I’m pleased that you have kept it up so well.’
‘Well actually, I’ve taken on some help in the garden. I had to. I thought it best to get somebody who knew what they were doing.’
‘You were lucky to find someone, especially if they are not overcharging, doing the job properly.’ He had already approved of the way the roses had been pruned and the grass scarified. ‘He did a nice job on the roses.’
‘Actually, it’s Nick Crockford. You remember Nick? He remembers you. He’s in the Fire Service now, and does gardening in his spare time.’ Omitting, of course, the fact that this was the only garden. She felt that she was rushing on too quick, but if she did not, then she would falter and the words would come stumbling out sounding like the lies she was in danger of telling. ‘I’m glad you think he’s made a good job. He always cleans things and tidies up before he goes.’
‘Of course I remember him.’
Of course Hugh remembered Nick. Hugh Kennedy had stepped in front and removed Georgia Honeycombe from under the unsophisticated nose of the young Nick Crockford.
‘Well, I met him at some meeting at the Town Hall. He’s based in Southampton now, so that he can’t spare much time, but he’s a good gardener.’ She did not trust herself not to go floundering on, so she turned her attention to taking in the shirts he had brought home for her to wash.
That night, they went to bed as they had always done, except that Hugh had worn only his pyjama bottoms. They made quiet love to Hugh’s satisfaction. Georgia played her part adequately and added to her store of fantasies.
The following day was New Year’s Eve. In spite of quite a few of the younger members having gone into the forces, the Sports Club had organized a party for those who were on leave. Georgia dressed in a tan-coloured dress which was a darker shade of her hair colour. Her hair she had had set in the new style, falling loose so that it hung over the right eye, and revealed her left ear with its white ear-ring as large as a penny. Her eyebrows were finely arched above shimmering Vaseline-traced lids and heavily mascara’d lashes, her full lips gleamed with scarlet lipstick, and her complexion had the fine peach-bloom of precious Max Factor powder.
‘I say, Georgia, you really do look just the thing. Here, I bought you these, you should have had them at Christmas, but you know how it is, being on the Project.’ His gesture suggested the difficulties of the hush-hush war on Badger Island.
As he said it, her cautious mind betrayed her with a glimpse of Nick when she had first worn her hair hanging down. He had stood in the hallway looking up at her as she came downstairs, pretending to hide his eyes. ‘God help us, Georgia Honeycombe, there ought to be a law against you looking like that.’
They had been going dancing in Southampton, he had got some petrol and Georgia, now a proficient driver from Eve’s tuition, had driven Hugh’s car. He had been dressed in a dark grey suit, starched collar and exotic paisley tie. His curly hair had sprung forward on to his brow, and he had looked so rugged and handsome that she had wondered how she had ever come to believe that she preferred sleek and shining Hugh. And as usual she had behaved badly to Nick to atone for having such thoughts, but he ignored it until the lights and the music and the dancing drew her good temper back.
As Hugh made the excuse to Georgia, he too had a vision. A week ago, when there had been a Christmas Party in the Officers’ Mess on Badger Island, he had seen Anny for the first time in a long evening skirt, velvet moving over her narrow hips and her unleashed breasts within swathed georgette. ‘Anny, Anny, Anny! If you continue standing there looking so absolutely edible, I swear I shall not be able to stand upright in public.’
‘Darlin
g, you really are so so… ha! I shall not tell you again, or you will become quite swollen headed.’ That had been the night she had dropped her off-hand and arch pose and had told him that she was head over heels in love with him. ‘Absolutely ass over tipoff, darling.’
Hugh’s hand trembled as he handed Georgia the little jeweller’s box.
At the New Year’s Eve party, Hugh was in his element. A few of his old team on leave, but the majority of the revellers were older men who fought their war through the young element. Hugh, the centre of interest, hinting at the secrecy of his job – something scientific. Elegant and smooth in his uniform. He had grown a Clark Gable moustache which really did suit him. They danced a great deal. There was little choice of drink these days, one took what one could get. They drank Irish whiskey mostly, and Hugh had kept drinking. Before the war, because he was usually in training for some event or other, he had seldom had more than one or two or a few beers.
Georgia preferred this almost lighthearted, urbane Hugh to the sports-captain type. That evening, there was something in the way he held her when they danced, more sexual, and when they danced Latin American, he half-closed his eyes, breathed heavily and hummed the music as he pressed her close, then flung her twirling away from him, unheedful of correct stance or steps. He had always been a very good dancer in the athletic way of some sportsmen, but that night as she watched him scooping and dipping the wives and fiancées of their friends, she felt that he had quite changed since he had been in the Army. He didn’t keep smoothing his hair, but allowed the curving lock to fall on his brow. He loosened his tie – there was a kind of recklessness in him.
Watching him from the table they were sharing with a dozen noisy cricketers and tennis-players, she suddenly realized what was different. She recognized in him the same joy that she, even now without Nick present, had bubbling inside. Joie de vivre. Joy in life. Delight in being alive. Nothing she knew of him and his inhibitions suggested that it could be anything but enjoyment of Army life.
The New Year arrived at the Markham Sports Club to the usual cacophony at midnight, but this year there was no bursting into the streets, no snaking line of dancers, no Lord Palmerston to have a beer-mug put into his hand and a chamber-pot on his head. By one o’clock they were in the cold night air, with Hugh and his cronies exchanging maudlin farewells.
‘God, Georgia, I put away some booze tonight.’
‘You can sleep it off in the morning, darling.’
Georgia helped him stumble upstairs. ‘Darling. Darling. Darling.’ He held on to her like the drunken reveller he was. ‘That… is absolutely… the most beautiful word in the… Anny, I say, I think I’ve had quite a skinful… most beautiful word in the English…’ He fumbled with the buttons of his uniform.
‘Let me.’ She had helped him undress and rolled him on to the bed where he had slid between the sheets which he had immediately flung back.
‘No pyjamas, Georgia. That’s the Army for you. No bloody jim-jams.’ He had at once fallen into a heavy sleep.
Georgia had been wide awake and stayed a long while sitting before the embers of the living-room fire. Of all the things which she had anticipated might happen on that reunion with her husband, she had never for a moment thought of Hugh coming out of his shell. He was almost a different man, one or two of their friends had joked about it.
‘I say, Rosie, look at old Hugh, he’s going it a bit.’
‘You can say that again, he was like an octopus with ten testicles when he grabbed me in the Conga.’
‘Eight, Rosie, eight tentacles.’
‘I know what I meant!’ With New Year’s Eve high laughter.
‘Old Hugh’s come out of his shell.’
‘Looks a bit off his game to me. A bit off his game is he, Georgia?’ Tennis-player guffaws.
Slowly it dawned upon Georgia that there was a woman somewhere. Although he had said that the hush-hush was a Combined Ops outfit, it hadn’t occurred to her till now that it was a combined gender outfit too. Twice he had seemed to be calling her Annie.
When she at last climbed in beside him, he momentarily roused dozily from his sleep and said, ‘Had too much, Anny… Irish.’
‘Go back to sleep, Hugh.’
‘Tired. Jus’ hold me, sweetie.’
Sweetie!
Even though she was not entirely innocent, she had allowed Nick to kiss her on several occasions, she and Nick were not having an affair. But then, there was nothing to say that Hugh… but the pyjamas. And the way he had drawn her hand to hold him. Hugh had never been like that. His love-making always sprang from a kiss, an unspectacular arousal and an almost furtive connection, as though he ought to get it over before she knew what was happening.
She did not know what to think. Was her guilt about Nick colouring up some mild affair that was really only black and white? It could all be explained away. Annie could easily be a colleague, a name he used every day. Drinking and a carefree manner were not uncommon in wartime. And as for his bed manners… well he was home very little these days. Even so, Georgia was not blasé – who is when one has a glimmer of suspicion that one’s spouse might be having an affair? Adultery is, after all, a major Thou Shalt Not.
On the final evening of his leave, when they were coming home from the Club and he was telling her something about some report, Georgia asked, trying for a small-talk voice, ‘What sort of a chap is he, this Naval officer you work with. Is he a decent type?’
‘St John’s not a him, Georgia, she’s a Wren Officer – one of the girls in blue, as they say.’
Georgia did not want to see the tell-tale indicators of his assumed casualness.
‘I see, I see. When one hears “Naval Officer” one thinks “man”. What’s her first name?’ She was sure that it would be Anne.
They had been walking linked, and she had felt the sinews of his arm contract. ‘One tends not to get into first names on a project like XJ-R6. It’s ah… Angela. Yes, it is… Angela St John.’
Angela! And he calls her Annie, or perhaps it was Angie. And he’s lying through his teeth.
‘Well, I expect women have a civilizing influence. I think all men together isn’t good – you know, like with the rugby and the cricket teams when you tour on your own. You all descend to the level of schoolboys.’
The more she thought about it, the more convinced she became that the Wren meant something to him. She was very angry and confused, and jealous of the change in Hugh that this woman had brought about. She could not have borne to be thought to be like her mother, but Alice Honeycombe was a woman who could not bear clouds on the horizon or uncertainties in the present. ‘Don’t lie to me, Georgia. I can’t abide it when things aren’t out in the open. I don’t care how bad a thing you’ve done – just tell me so that I know the worst.’
When he was packed and ready to go back, he looked down at her to say goodbye. Really quite handsome with his Clark Gable moustache and Brylcreemed hair, uniform immaculate, everything, as he said, tickety-boo.
‘Be off now then, Georgia.’
Suddenly she felt that she could not let him go back without knowing. Not for rows or tears, but just to know.
‘You’ve got plenty of time. Half an hour before it comes in.’
‘Never like to rush – you know me, Old Girl.’
‘Hugh, listen. There’s something I wanted to say.’
‘Fire ahead, Old Girl.’ Absent-mindedly as he did a double check of the room for any possessions he had not collected.
She thought of Nick as she had throughout the weekend. Images of him hovered around. Going to pictures together, going dancing, keeping one another company. In spite of a few kisses, we are good friends. Nothing serious. We grew up together. How childish then to be jealous if Hugh went about a bit with a Wren. It was wartime, standards were different, people got lonely.
‘Well, Old Girl, spit it out.’
‘It’s nothing.’
‘Now then, what is it?’ He caught her hand and
spoke to her as though she were six years old.
‘It’s… well, I don’t like being called Old Girl, women don’t.’
He brushed back his glossy moustache with his knuckle. ‘Ah, yes. Sorry, Georgia, mea very culpa. I’ll be off… my dear.’
‘“Darling”, Hugh, we quite like to be called “Darling”.’
‘Can’t change the habit of a lifetime overnight.’
‘No, of course not.’
‘Take care of yourself, Georgia.’
‘And you.’
‘I say Georgia… you did look absolutely splendid at the Club.’ He found it so difficult to say. ‘And you’re doing splendidly at your war work – keep it up.’
‘Thank you, Hugh.’
And he was gone, leaving Georgia still with a feeling that something major had happened, but she was not sure what.
1941
Midsummer Day
Glorious weather, the kind of day when Mont Iremonger loved to pack up and get out of Markham. As soon as he had finished his shift, he packed his watercolour kit, made a couple of doorsteps with new bread, beetroot and chutney, packed it all in the saddle-bag of his high-handled bike, and rode off through the town, over the stone bridge, and along the water-path until he came to the stile where Markham ended and the green Hampshire countryside began.
Mont’s hobby and ambition were one. He loved to paint with watercolour, and many years ago he made a plan to paint the entire indigenous fauna and flora of Markham. It took him ten years to realize that he had set himself an impossible task. Hampshire was too exotic, too prolific. He would fill a book with pondside life, only to find that he had missed an entire species. It did not worry him that he had been over-ambitious, it was a comfort to know that he would never be at a loss to find a subject.
Today, he was not doing illustrations, but a composition that he could frame. He watched a male demoiselle glistening kingfisher blue. If I could only get that! Iridescent. Catch the light on its wings… its eyes.
Within minutes of settling down, he was lost in his search for the illusion, the magic. He never thought consciously about that search, he let his brush seek it out as his mind wandered.
