‘She did not, and I’m convinced she stayed true to her name all her life,’ said Sunny. ‘Being nothing but cold, hungry and fearful for the first years of one’s life does close one up somewhat.’
‘One doesn’t necessarily need traumatic reasons to close up.’ Edward heaped jam and cream on a scone. ‘Sometimes one chooses to simply because it’s easier.’
He took a large bite and turned deliberately to address April. ‘How is the entranceway coming along?’
It’s no Tudor extravaganza, more’s the pity, was April’s thought. A thought she decided not to share.
‘It’s a lot larger than I first estimated,’ she said. ‘I feel like I’ve been painting for months.’
‘Oran has done a very skilled job of restoring that staircase,’ said Edward. ‘I try not to be amazed, and yet …’
‘Don’t forget that he had an excellent teacher,’ said Sunny. ‘George Rose was a true craftsman. Meticulous and particular, with the sensibility of an artist.’
‘And quite hard on young Oran, I’d imagine,’ said Edward.
‘George was tough, yes, but patient. And Oran did so want to please him. He really was the sweetest boy. One of those people who always choose to look on the bright side, who always see the good in people.’ Her lips thinned in disapproval. ‘He even spoke of his frightful parents with nothing but love, as if they’d actually cared for him. All they cared about was their own sybaritic pleasure!’
‘You see?’ said Edward. ‘Sex complicates matters.’
‘Nonsense! Only if you let it,’ said Sunny. ‘Personally, I’ve always found it remarkably straightforward, enjoyment pure and simple. Once Perry and I started, we were so delighted with each other that we were at it right up until just before he died. I miss it terribly.’
She saw their faces. ‘What did you think? That because I’m wrinkled like a dead leaf on the outside, that I’m as dry as one, too? That there’s no juice left in me at all?’
‘Lawks,’ Edward murmured, and tipped his hat back over his eyes.
‘Where is Oran, by the way?’ April had a sudden jolt of panic. ‘He’s not been robbed again, has he?’
‘No, no,’ said Sunny, with a satisfied smile. ‘He was issued a last-minute invitation to be the guest of the local folk club. I happen to know that their co-ordinator is an extremely pretty young woman with an excellent voice. They’d make a very sweet pair.’
April found she did not share Sunny’s pleasure at the prospect of Oran pairing up with a sweet-voiced young folk singer. It occurred to her that she had made Oran’s stubborn loyalty to his wife a marker for her own situation. If he could stick to his principles for so long, then so could — and should — she.
‘Oran told me that he’s been faithful to Cee-Cee ever since she left him,’ said April. ‘And that he means to continue being so.’
‘I’m sure he has the best intentions,’ said Edward. ‘But — what would that be? Eight years without sex? Even I might bestir myself before then.’
April did her best not to bridle. Edward and Sunny could be insufferably smug sometimes.
‘He was adamant about it.’
‘No doubt,’ said Edward. ‘But we don’t always remember what we do when drunk, do we? Or we try very hard not to.’
‘Eight years is far too long. If our folk co-ordinator falls through, Edward, you will need to find a girlfriend for Oran.’
Edward pursed his mouth, aggrieved.
‘Have you considered that I might want to find myself a boyfriend first?’ he said.
‘Well, then, be quick about it!’ said Sunny. ‘We’re none of us getting any younger.’
CHAPTER 28
June, 1941
James stood in front of the trophy cabinet, counting. Sunny appeared at his shoulder.
Virgie flushed two of your medals. They’ll be in the North Sea by now.’
‘She flushed them? For God’s sake, why?’
‘Because she could,’ said Sunny.
‘There’s something wrong with that girl,’ said James. ‘At first, I thought it was an intestinal worm — I’ve never seen anyone put away that much food and still be no wider than a billiards cue. Now, I think it’s something deeper — a fundamental flaw in her being.’
‘Pish. She spent nine years being starved and beaten, that’s all. That’s enough to make anyone a bit odd.’
James folded his arms huffily. ‘I wanted to take the trophies to Cambridge with me.’
‘I wouldn’t. Unless you want the other undergrads to think you’re a boastful arse.’
James’s shoulders sagged.
‘I doubt that will make any difference,’ he said. ‘I’ll be the stain-man’s son to them. Beyond the pale. A Potts blot on the landscape.’
‘They won’t all be posh snobs,’ said Sunny. ‘And if they are, flash your cash. It’s all about what you can buy these days, no matter how much the government tries to clamp down. Money talks and the black market whispers back. You know that’s true.’
But it wasn’t entirely true, was it, thought James. Money might talk loudly, but the real conversations still went on behind doors that only people with lineage like Sunny’s and Day’s could open. James had been accepted into St John’s because he’d passed the entrance exam with flying colours, and because his sporting prowess had lent him an added attraction. Cambridge might emphasise its amateur athletic status but that did not mean it liked to lose. His interviewers saw him as a potential blue, James knew. An asset.
But that wouldn’t be enough to keep him there. James’s gut lurched, as it did so often these days, and for so many different reasons. A pressing one was the fact that Levers had not renewed their offer to his father. They’d decided instead to focus on running Royal Ordnance agency factories, making munitions and filling explosives. James’s father’s factory was not suitable for conversion to war manufacturing of any kind, and with so many households tightening their belts, the demand for stain remover had plummeted. James’s father brushed off the jibes from Sunny’s mother. Potts was in fine shape, he declared. Firing on all cylinders. If it weren’t, he said, how could he afford to take all that time off for his political work? He was sure Sunny’s mother could do better than imply he was a rat deserting a sinking ship. She was far too smart to resort to unimaginative clichés.
James wanted to believe him — there’d be no more Cambridge without Lewis Potts’s money. But he was not blind. Thanks to rationing, everyone’s clothes were old and shabby now. They had more important things to care about than appearances.
Sunny, James couldn’t help but observe, looked far from shabby. But then she always did, even when her clothes had clearly been reconstituted. Today, she wore white shorts that showed a lot of tanned leg and a slim-fitting blue and white striped top that would have been eye-popping on a more lavishly endowed girl. The shorts, James guessed, had once been a pair of old cricket flannels — possibly her father’s, which would make them at least two decades old — and the top had been painstakingly hand-knitted from fine cotton. Sunny may well have sewn the shorts, but James had no doubt that the top was one of his mother’s creations. Cora Potts was earning a reputation as a talented knitter and seamstress, with an eye for fashion that brought young (and not so young) women to her door with hoarded fabric and skeins of wool, usually poor in quality and ugly in colour, pleading for Cora to transform it into some item that would made them look as cool and sophisticated as Veronica Lake. Hardly any of them could pay her, but James’s mother didn’t seem to mind. She’s found her calling, Sunny’s mother had said once over breakfast — creating beauty from stony soil. James’s mother had blushed and told her not to overdo it. It was only sewing. Women’s work, not God’s.
It didn’t stop with sewing and knitting, either, thought James. They’d become fiends for economising, Dimity and Cora. They’d even started to make their own soap with, of all disgusting things, mutton fat, though Virgie would probably eat it without hesitating. It dr
ove James’s father insane, but what could he do? For one thing, any attempt to curb such work would be unpatriotic. For another, Empyrean had now lost the last of its servants to the war effort. One housemaid was now a land girl, the other a nurse, the boot boy had lied about his age and joined the navy, and the men who came to garden had handed in their notice not long after the cook. Dimity and Cora, aided by Sunny and Virgie, were the cooks, cleaners and gardeners now, and James’s firm impression was that his mother had never been happier.
The arguments continued, though. Behind closed doors. Whatever it was that Sunny’s mother wanted, she was not giving it up without a fight.
James felt a quick rush of vengeful satisfaction. He needn’t care about Sunny’s bloody mother any more. He was eighteen and leaving for university. When September came, he’d be his own man. He could carve out his life exactly as he wanted. And answer to no one.
‘Perry’s enlisted,’ said Sunny.
The news punctured James’s self-regard like a pin, and immediately, he grew resentful. First, because Day had told Sunny and not him, his best friend. And second, because now he’d be in the spotlight. Everyone would look at him and ask why he hadn’t enlisted. Day was a selfish bastard, thought James. And a foolish one, too. Being eligible for conscription didn’t mean you’d get called up immediately, so why not wait for them to come to you? Why rush in to what might well be an early, and probably nasty, death?
‘What in God’s name was he thinking?’ he said. ‘Stupid idiot.’
Sunny stuck out her jaw. ‘I think it’s heroic.’
‘There’s no bloody point in being heroic if you’re dead, is there?’
‘He won’t die,’ said Sunny, with a smile James found insufferably smug. ‘I know it.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake.’
James gave the trophy cabinet a wallop with the flat of his hand. It rocked, and the tall cup James had won at the lakeside sports fell over. One of the fine silver wings snapped off.
‘You can solder that. I’ll show you how. If you can be bothered.’
James rubbed his palm. The blow had stung.
‘I suppose Rowan’s enlisted, too, hasn’t he?’ he said.
‘You haven’t spoken to him?’
Sunny was far from smug now, James saw. Her blue eyes had lost all their light.
‘Not yet …’ James searched her face for clues. ‘Why? What’s up?’
‘Meet me at the apple tree in an hour,’ said Sunny. ‘And I’ll tell you.’
James arrived first. Every year, he thought, as he placed his hand on its trunk, the apple tree seemed to shrink. He could probably still climb it, but that swing would never hold him now. Sunny had told him how the London children had needed to be shown how to push themselves. They’d never been on a swing before, and not all of them liked the motion of it. But all of them liked to climb. James had seen them swarm up the tree like monkeys. Or rats, he thought. More apt for city dwellers.
He heard Sunny approach. She was humming a song, and for just a moment, it harmonised with the bees that were all over the climbing roses. Golden brown Sunny, thought James, always busy, always in the thick of it, humming and buzzing with energy. Sunny the bee, James thought, with a smile. Queen Bee. Yes, that’s exactly who she was.
What animal would he be?
Sunny had brought afternoon tea, and spread it out on a blanket beneath the tree. There were scones that she’d baked. Cordial she’d made from elderflowers. Boiled eggs, ham. Jam and butter, too.
‘I suspect we’re not suffering the privations that others are,’ said James. ‘That’s country living for you.’
‘That’s the generosity of the Blythes,’ said Sunny. ‘They give us milk, cream, meat and eggs in exchange for help on the farm. With Lily’s brothers gone …’
James knew why she’d paused. Lily’s oldest brother was gone for good now. Killed at Dunkirk. One of the unlucky ones.
‘Even Virgie knows how to milk a cow,’ said Sunny.
‘It’s a wonder the pail of milk has anything left in it,’ said James, spreading butter on a scone. ‘Still, I’m enjoying the fruits of her labours, so I shouldn’t carp.’
It took him a minute to realise that he was the only one eating. Sunny was hugging her knees, staring off towards the far wall of the garden. Sunny might often be belligerent but she was never down. She was the kind of person who’d think Hamlet’s question stupid. Take arms, of course, she’d say. Don’t be such a big baby.
‘What’s up with Rowan, Sunny?’
‘Ellis Blythe sent him packing,’ she said. ‘Because Rowan told him he intended to register as a conscientious objector.’
‘A conchie?’ James was amazed, and then he wasn’t. It made perfect sense.
‘He didn’t even need to.’ Sunny was near tears. ‘Farm workers are exempt.’
‘He needed to,’ said James softly. ‘You know Rowan couldn’t bear to live a lie.’
Sunny buried her face in her knees.
‘And Ellis Blythe could not tolerate a man who would not fight for his country, when one of his boys had already died for it,’ said James. ‘Where’s Rowan now? I can’t imagine Old Ted will have taken him back.’
‘In the woods,’ said Sunny. ‘It was that or wait to be taken away to the internment camp.’
‘Of course.’
‘He’s fine now, because it’s summer. But when winter comes …’
James shifted closer and put his arm around her.
‘No one knows the woods like Rowan. There are old sheds there and charcoal burners’ huts and all manner of shelter. He won’t freeze, don’t you worry.’
‘Lily and I have talked about bringing him food over the winter months,’ said Sunny. ‘It will be so much easier for me but Lily’s determined.’ She smiled wryly. ‘I always wished she’d gain some gumption and now she has.’
James could not share even her tempered gratification. At first, the prospect of Rowan working and living on the farm, being in daily contact with Lily, had caused James no end of jealous frustration. Until he’d realised that Rowan would never approach her. He couldn’t. Rowan was there as her protector; he’d made a vow to her father. He could no more make advances to Lily than he could torture an animal.
But that was all over now. That vow was null and void. Lily and he would be alone together in the woods, away from reproachful, restrictive eyes. Free to do whatever they chose.
He should not care about that, James told himself. He should care that his friend had been banished, exiled, for holding to principles that in any other circumstance would be lauded. They were Christian principles, for God’s sake — love thy neighbour, blessed are the meek, thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not secretly covet thy neighbour’s daughter …
‘Do you want to see him?’ Sunny said. ‘I don’t know where he’s living, but I know how to find him. We leave an oak leaf under a rock by the swimming hole. On the ledge above the falls.’
‘I know it.’
‘He meets us there at noon the next day.’
Did he want to see Rowan? He’d always intended to. This was possibly his last summer at home, after all. When Rowan had abandoned Ted and vice versa, James’s time in the woods with Rowan had ended. But James had always been welcome at the Blythes’, and that’s where he’d expected to see his friend. And Rowan was his friend, he reminded himself. A friend he should care about.
‘I’ll do my best,’ said James.
Sunny stretched out her legs, shaking them to bring back the blood.
‘I need to be home by four. That’s when Perry’s due back. Our last week before he’s off to the training camp.’
Of course it was, thought James. It was typical that Day was here and typical that he’d never told James he was coming. Petrol was rationed now, so, really, he shouldn’t be able to make the drive that often. Yet somehow, here he was. Again.
Stop it. Day is also your friend. He was one of the few at school to overlook James’s tradesman o
rigins. Day liked James for himself, and he didn’t give a hoot what anyone else thought about that. It was thanks to Day that the others came around to accepting him, too; thanks to Day that James’s school life had been a pleasure and not a misery. James owed him, and should feel nothing but warmth towards him. So Day and Sunny were in love, what of it? He should be glad, not envious.
But those little green demons wormed their way in, didn’t they? Pricked and burned like nettles.
‘Where is Day?’ James said. ‘Running errands?’
‘He’s taken Virgie, Liza, Mary, Ern and Fred out motoring. He found out they’d never been in a motor car before. Fred had been nearly run down by one in Packington Street, which hadn’t half put him off the buggers, he said, but Perry convinced him there was a big difference being on top of the wheels rather than under them, so off they all went in a cloud of dust and exhaust. No room for me, alas.’
‘He’s like the Pied Piper. Rather him than me.’
‘He’s performing a civic duty. Ern has completely worn out old Mrs Lacey. She applied to have him re-billeted, so she could have a rest. Mrs Cake has offered to take him in. Ern won’t know what’s hit him.’
‘I think he will. Mrs Cake’s wooden spoon is quite easily distinguished.’
James helped Sunny pack up the hamper. Offered to carry it for her, but she refused.
‘Sunny,’ he said, as they headed back. ‘Are you and Day — you know?’
‘Are we what?’
‘You know. Doing that.’
‘Oh,’ said Sunny. ‘That. Yes, we are. What of it?’
‘Nothing. Forget it.’
‘Cambridge will be full of willing girls,’ said Sunny. ‘Eager to offer you free access to their cunts.’
‘Sunny! Christ almighty!’
‘Don’t be such a prude. And don’t be your usual cautious self. It’s wartime. Bombs are falling. Planes are strafing. Invaders might well be gathering on the shore. Nobody’s safe, remember that. It’s too late for fucking when you’re dead.’
The Hiding Places Page 27
