He said, “You smell delicious.”
“Chanel Number Five. I found some in the bottom of a bottle. I thought it might have gone a bit stale.…”
“Not stale.”
“No … do I look all right? I tried on about six dresses, but I thought this was the best. It’s dreadfully old and a bit short, because I’m taller than Sophie, but…”
Ambrose set down his drink and reached out his hand. “Come here.”
She came, and placed her hand in his. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her, very gently and tenderly, because he did not want to do anything that might disarrange her elegant hair or her modest make-up. Her lipstick tasted sweet. He drew away from her, smiling down into her warm, dark eyes.
“I almost wish,” he told her, “that we didn’t have to go out.”
“We’ll come back,” she told him, and his heart leaped in anticipation.
The Dancing Years was very romantic and sad and quite unreal. There were a lot of dirndls and lederhosen, and pretty songs, and the characters all fell in love with each other, and then bravely renounced each other and said goodbye, and every other tune was a waltz. When it was over, they went out into the pitch-black streets, drove up Piccadilly, and went to Quaglino’s for dinner. A band was playing and couples danced on the stamp-sized floor, all the men in uniform and a good many of the girls as well.
Bourn.
Why does my heart go bourn,
Me and my heart go boum-boumpety-boum,
All the time.
Between courses, Ambrose and Penelope danced too, but it wasn’t really dancing because there was space only to stand in one spot and shift from foot to foot. But that was all right, because they had their arms around each other and their cheeks touched and every now and then Ambrose would kiss her ear or murmur something outrageous.
It was nearly two o’clock before they returned to Oakley Street. Holding hands, stifling laughter, they made their way in the inky darkness through the wrought-iron gate and down the steep stone steps.
“Who bothers about bombs?” Ambrose said. “We can just as easily kill ourselves stumbling around in the black-out.”
Penelope detached herself from him, found the key and the lock and finally got the door open. He walked past her into the warm, velvety blackness. He heard her close the door behind them, and then, when it was safe to do so, she turned on the light.
It was very quiet. Above them, the other occupants of the house slumbered in silence. Only the ticking of the clock disturbed the stillness, or the passing of a car in the street outside. The fire that he had lighted was nearly out, but Penelope went through to the far end of the room to stir the embers and turn on a lamp. Beyond the archway the living room was suffused with light, like a stage set after the curtain has just gone up. Act One, Scene One. All that was needed were the actors.
He did not immediately join her. He felt pleasantly tipsy, but had reached the point when he knew that he wanted another drink. He went to the whisky bottle and poured himself a tot, filling the tumbler with soda from the siphon. Then he turned off the kitchen light and went through to the flickering flamelight and the huge cushioned sofa and the girl he had desired all evening.
She knelt on the hearthrug, close to the warmth of the fire. She had taken off her shoes. As he appeared, she turned her head and smiled. It was late, and she might have been tired, but her dark eyes were bright, her face glowing.
She said, “Why is a fire such a companionable thing? Like having another person in the room.”
“I’m glad it’s not. Another person, I mean.”
She was relaxed, peaceful. “It was a good evening. It was fun.”
“It’s not over yet.”
He sat, lowering himself onto a low, wide-lapped chair. He set down his drink. He said, “Your hair is all wrong.”
“Why wrong?”
“Too tidy for love.”
She laughed, and then put up her hands, and began slowly to unpin the elegant knot. He watched her in silence, the classic feminine gesture of raised arms, the flimsy cape of her dress falling against her long neck like a little scarf. The last pin was removed, and she shook her head and the long dark mass of hair, like a tassel of silk, fell down over her shoulders.
She said, “Now I’m me again.”
From the kitchen, the old clock struck two gentle resounding notes.
She said, “Two o’clock in the morning.”
“A good time. The right time.”
She laughed again, as though nothing he could say could give her anything but delight. So close to the blazing fire, it was immensely warm. He set down his glass and pulled off his jacket, unknotted the tie and stripped it loose, unbuttoned the restricting collar of his starched shirt. Then he stood up, and stooping, pulled her to her feet. Kissing her, burying his face in the clean, scented profusion of her hair, his hands felt, beneath the flimsy silk of her dress, the slenderness of her young body, her rib-cage, the steady beat of her heart. He picked her up in his arms—and for a girl so tall, she was amazingly weightless—took a couple of strides and set her down on the sofa, and she was still laughing, lying there with that magical hair spread all over the threadbare cushions. Now, his own heart thumped like a drum, and every nerve in his body jangled with need of her. At times, during his short relationship with her, he had found himself wondering whether or not she was a virgin, but he no longer wondered, for it had ceased to matter. Sitting beside her, he began, very gently, to undo the tiny buttons down the front of her dress. She lay there, complaisant, not trying to stop him, and when he began to kiss her again, her mouth, her neck, her round and creamy breasts, her response was both sweet and accepting.
“You’re so beautiful.” After he said this, he realized, somewhat to his own surprise, that he had spoken instinctively, from his heart. “You’re beautiful too,” Penelope told him, and put her strong young arms around his neck, and drew him down. Her mouth was open and ready for him, and he knew then that all of her was simply waiting for him.
The firelight flamed, warming them, lighting their love. Memories stirred, deep in his subconscious, of a night nursery, drawn curtains—long-lost images of babyhood. Nothing to harm, nothing to disturb. Security. And as well, this flying sense of elation. But, too, somewhere at the very edge of this exultation, a small voice of common sense.
“Darling.”
“Yes.” A whisper. “Yes.”
“Are you all right?”
“All right? Oh, yes, all right.”
“I love you.”
“Oh.” No more than a breath. “Love.”
* * *
In the middle of April, somewhat to her surprise, for she was hopelessly impractical about such matters, Penelope was informed by the authorities that she was due for a week’s leave. She accordingly presented herself, with a queue of other Wrens, at the office of the Regulating Petty Officer and, when her turn came, requested a rail pass to Porthkerris.
The Petty Officer was a cheerful lady from Northern Ireland. She had a freckled face and frizzy red hair, and looked quite interested when Penelope told her where she wanted to go.
“That’s in Cornwall, isn’t it, Stern?”
“Yes.”
“Is that where you live?”
“Yes.”
“Lucky girl.” She handed over the pass, and Penelope thanked her and went out of the room clutching her ticket to freedom.
The train journey was endless. Portsmouth to Bath. Bath to Bristol. Bristol to Exeter. At Exeter she had to wait an hour and then get onto the slow, stopping train that would take her on to Cornwall. She did not mind. She sat, in the dirty train, in a corner seat and stared through the soot-smeared window. Dawlish, and her first glimpse of the sea; only the English Channel, but still, better than nothing. Plymouth, and the Saltash Bridge, and what looked like half of the British Navy at mooring in the Sound. And then Cornwall, and all the small halts with their saintly and romantic names. After Redruth, she let do
wn the window by its leather strap and hung out, not wanting to miss the first glimpse of the Atlantic, the dunes and the distant breaking rollers. Then the train trundled over the Hayle Viaduct, and she saw the estuary, filled with the flood tide. She pulled her suitcase off the luggage rack and went to stand in the corridor as they rounded the last curve and drew into the junction.
It was by now half past eight in the evening. She opened the heavy door and stepped thankfully down, lugging her case behind her, and with her uniform hat stuffed into the pocket of her jacket. The air felt warm and sweet and fresh, and the low sun cast long beams down the platform and out of its dazzle walked Papa and Sophie, come to meet her.
It was unbelievably wonderful to be home. The first thing she did was to race upstairs, tear off her uniform, and put on some proper clothes—an old cotton skirt, an Aertex shirt left over from school, a darned cardigan. Nothing had changed; the room was just the way she had left it, only tidier and shiningly clean. When, bare-legged, she ran downstairs again, it was to go from room to room, a thorough inspection, just to make sure that there, as well, everything was exactly the same. Which it was.
To all intents and purposes. Charles Rainier’s portrait of Sophie, which had once held pride of place over the sitting room mantelpiece, had been moved to a less important position and its place taken by The Shell Seekers, which had, after a number of inevitable delays, arrived from London. It was too large for the room, and the light was insufficient to do justice to its depth of colour, but still, it looked very handsome.
And the Potters had changed for the better. Doris had lost her pudgy curves and become quite slender, and she was letting her dyed hair grow out, so that now, half peroxide and half mousy brown, it resembled nothing so much as the coat of a piebald pony. And Ronald and Clark had grown, and were losing their spindliness and city-bred pallor. Their hair had grown as well, and their cockney voices had a distinct overtone of pure Cornish. And the ducks and hens had doubled in number, and one old hen had gone all broody and had, when nobody was looking, hatched out a brood of chicks in a broken wheelbarrow hidden deep in a thicket of brambles.
All Penelope wanted was to catch up on everything that had happened since the day—which now seemed immeasurably distant—when she had climbed on the train and set off for Portsmouth. Lawrence and Sophie did not let her down. Colonel Trubshot was running the ARP (Air-Raid Precautions) and being a nuisance to everybody. The Sands Hotel had been requisitioned and was full of soldiers. Old Mrs. Treganton—the town’s dowager, and a terrifying lady with dangling earrings—had tied an apron around her waist and was in charge of the Services Canteen. There was barbed wire on the beach and they were building concrete pillboxes, spiked with sinister guns, all along the coast. Miss Preedy had given up her dancing class and was now teaching physical training in a girls’ school that had been evacuated from Kent, and Miss Pawson, in the black-out, had tripped over her stirrup-pump and bucket and broken her leg.
When at last they ran out of things to tell her, they hoped, naturally enough, to hear their daughter’s tidings; every detail of her new—and, to them, unimaginable—life. But she didn’t want to tell them. She didn’t want to talk about it. She didn’t want to think about Whale Island and Portsmouth. She didn’t even want to think about Ambrose. Sooner or later, of course, she would have to. But not now. Not this evening. She had a week. It could wait.
* * *
From the top of the hill, the land lay exposed, drowsing in the sunlight of a warm spring afternoon. The great bay to the north glittered blue, dazzled with sun pennies. Trevose Head was hazy, a sure sign of continuing good weather. To the south curved the other bay, with the Mount and its Castle, and in between lay farmland, winding high-hedged lanes, emerald fields where cattle grazed amongst the outcrops of granite. The wind was light, scented with thyme, and the only sounds the occasional bark of a dog, or the pleasant chuntering of a distant tractor.
They had walked, she and Sophie, the five miles from Carn Cottage. They took the narrow lanes that led up onto the moor, where the grassy hedges were studded with wild primroses, and ragged robin and celandine burst from the ditches in a profusion of pink and yellow. Finally they had climbed the stile and made their way up the turfy path, winding through thickets of bramble and bracken, which led to the summit of the hill; to the carns of lichened rock, piled tall as cliffs, where once, thousands of years ago, the small men who inhabited this ancient land had stood to watch the square-sailed ships of the Phoenicians sail into the bay, to drop anchor and trade their eastern treasures for the precious tin.
Now, weary from the long hike, they rested, Sophie supine on a patch of turf, with an arm across her eyes against the glare of the sun. Penelope sat beside her, elbows resting on her knees, her chin in her hand.
Far up in the sky a plane, a tiny silver toy, flew over. They both looked up and watched it go. Sophie said, “I don’t like planes. They remind me of the war.”
“Do you ever forget it?”
“Sometimes, I let myself. I pretend it hasn’t happened. It’s easy to pretend on a day like this.”
Penelope put out her hand and tugged at a tuft of grass.
“Nothing much has happened yet, has it?”
“No.”
“Do you suppose it will?”
“Of course.”
“Do you worry about it?”
“I worry for your father. He worries. He has been through it all before.”
“So have you.…”
“Not as he did. Never as he did.”
Penelope threw away the grass and reached out to pull at another tuft.
“Sophie.”
“Yes.”
“I’m going to have a baby.”
The sound of the aircraft engine died, absorbed into the summery immensity of the sky. Sophie stirred, slowly sat up. Penelope turned her head and met her mother’s eyes, and saw on that youthful, sunburned face an expression that could only be described as one of the deepest relief.
“Is this what you have not been telling us?”
“You knew?”
“Of course we knew. So reticent, so silent. Something had to be wrong. Why did you not tell us before?”
“Nothing to do with being ashamed or apprehensive. I just wanted it to be the right time. I wanted to have time to talk about it.”
“I have been so worried. I felt you were unhappy and regretted what you had done, or that you were in some sort of trouble.”
Penelope wanted to laugh. “Aren’t I?”
“But of course you aren’t in trouble!”
“You know, you never fail to amaze me.”
Sophie ignored this. She became practical. “You are certain you are having a child?”
“Certain.”
“Have you seen a doctor?”
“I don’t need to. Anyway, the only doctor I could go to in Portsmouth was the Naval Surgeon, and I didn’t want to go to him.”
“When is the baby due?”
“In November.”
“And who is the father?”
“He’s a Sub Lieutenant. At Whale Island. Doing his Gunnery Course. He’s called Ambrose Keeling.”
“Where is he now?”
“Still there. He failed his exams, and he had to stay on and do the whole course again. It’s called a re-scrub.”
“What age is he?”
“Twenty-one.”
“Does he know you’re pregnant?”
“No. I wanted to tell you and Papa before anyone else.”
“Are you going to tell him?”
“Of course. When I get back.”
“What will he say?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“It doesn’t sound as though you know him very well.”
“I know him well enough.” Far below, in the valley a man with a dog at his heels came through a farmyard, opened a gate and began to climb the hill to where his milk cows grazed. Penelope lay back on her elbows and watched him go. He wore a r
ed shirt and the dog ran circles around him. “You see, you were right about my being unhappy. At the beginning, when I was sent to Whale Island, I don’t suppose I’ve ever been so miserable in my life. I was such a fish out of water. And I was homesick and I was lonely. That day I joined up, I thought I was picking up a sword and going out to fight, along with everybody else, and I found myself doing nothing but handing round vegetables, drawing black-out curtains, and living with a lot of females with whom I had nothing in common. And there was nothing I could do about it No escape. Then I met Ambrose, and after that everything started to get better.”
“I didn’t realize that it was as bad as that.”
“I didn’t tell you. What good would it have done?”
“If you have a baby, you will have to leave the Wrens?”
“Yes, I’ll be discharged. Probably dishonourably.”
“Will you mind?”
“Mind? I can’t wait to get out.”
“Penelope … you didn’t get pregnant on purpose.”
“Heavens no. Even I couldn’t be as desperate as that. No. It just happened. One of those things.”
“You know … you surely know … that you can take precautions.”
“Of course, but I thought the man always did that.”
“Oh, my darling, I had no idea you were so naïve. What a rotten mother I have been.”
“I’ve never thought of you as a mother. I’ve always thought of you as a sister.”
“Well, I’ve been a rotten sister.” She sighed. “What are we going to do now?”
“Go back and tell Papa, I suppose. And then go back to Portsmouth and tell Ambrose.”
The Shell Seekers Page 26
