by MARY HOCKING
‘I find it difficult to know what goes on inside May; in fact, I sometimes think she has no inner life at all,’ Grandmother Fairley complained to Stanley. ‘I have realized since I lived here that she doesn’t have a Quiet Hour.’ As she never allowed her daughter a quiet ten minutes, let alone an hour, this was hardly surprising. ‘I have never seen her reading the Good Book. It’s no wonder the young ones go astray.’ She nodded her head in sombre satisfaction at having thus involved Aunt May in Louise’s downfall; she was a firm believer in the sins of one generation being visited upon the next.
Yet, co-existing with her severe moral beliefs was an expectancy of human frailty which enabled her to accept Louise’s downfall without any of the pain felt by Judith and Stanley; and it was without heartsearching that she had made her house available to Louise and Guy. The thought of their indebtedness pleased her, and she never failed to say to Louise when she saw her, it will be yours when I’m gone.’
Louise spent long hours with the baby. His eyes followed her round the room; when she looked at him and made a sign he chortled. They had such laughs together! She sang and talked to him as she worked, and he gurgled with pleasure; he was the best audience she had ever had. He had great talents, too, waving his arms as though conducting an orchestra positioned above the cot; when she took him for walks in the park he conducted the trees. ‘He’s very strenuous,’ Judith said. ‘I can’t imagine what he’ll be like as a toddler.’ Every new object delighted him and he would stretch out his hands to touch. Whatever Louise gave him he accepted and trusted because he trusted her. She marvelled at the miracle of his body; the pearly, dimpled flesh, the tiny fingernails, the limbs that were already surprisingly strong, the indomitable will contained in such a fragile package. Most of all, she rejoiced at his infinite capacity for wonder.
She and Guy had the two top floors of the house and her view was a roofscape: slates gleaming in the rain, smoke from a chimney, a tree thrusting up from a hidden garden, birds, street-lamps and clouds formed her world. She seemed always to be gazing upwards.
It was not all joy, though, and she was conscious, after she had tucked him away in his cot, of how strangely apart she seemed from the bustle of life now that she spent so much of her time watching from the window. Visitors became very important.
On a lovely evening at the end of July, Alice came to supper. Guy was out visiting his parents and Louise looked forward to talking to her sister. She and Alice were very companionable now.
Louise had lost most of the weight she had gained when she was carrying the baby, and to prove it to Alice she put on a navy- blue linen dress she had worn on her honeymoon. It still fitted well, and only pulled a little across the small of her back. Some changes there had been, however: the bridge of her nose had thickened, she was fuller around the jaw and the line of neck and shoulders had a new solidity. The face was as lively as ever and glowed with good health, but life had briskly firmed the delicate lines of youth, and it would be fanciful now to imagine her a beauty.
While she was waiting for Alice she did some of the ironing, and when her sister arrived the linen dress was crumpled.
‘Shall I take over?’ Alice, who hated housework at home, enjoyed helping Louise.
When Louise had finished at the gas stove she watched Alice methodically smoothing a shirtsleeve to eliminate all creases before bringing the iron down on it. ‘Here, let me,’ she said. ‘I can’t bear to watch you fiddling like that.’
It was hot in the room although the windows were open. Louise smelt of sweat, and Alice wondered if she was unaware of it, or didn’t care. She was herself fastidious about sweat, and had dress preservers stitched into her frock; they scratched and were not entirely odourless, having a rubbery smell, but they prevented the damp patches which she considered so disfiguring.
‘What have you been doing today?’ Louise asked. Although she was married and was, therefore, the one to whom the really exciting thing – the making of a new life – was happening, there was no getting away from the fact that as far as the trivial day-to-day business of life was concerned, Alice now had the more to report.
Alice said, ‘I did shopping and homework in the morning and I went to the pictures in the afternoon.’
‘Surely you could give Gary Cooper a miss on a lovely day like this!’ Louise felt a stab of envy at such spendthrift use of sunshine hours.
‘Jean Gabin, please!’
Alice had moved from the cinema as entertainment to the cinema as art, though it had to be admitted that the translation had been eased by the discovery of the young Frenchman.
‘Does Daddy know?’
‘Yes. I can’t keep hiding things. I’m allowed to go once a month now, provided I tell him what I am seeing.’
‘French films are a bit daring, surely? All those naughty mad¬emoiselles!’
‘Daddy doesn’t think about them. He just thinks about the war and the villages on the Somme.’
Alice could smell batter cooking, and wondered what they would have for supper. Louise said, ‘So, it’s still film stars with you is it?’
‘There’s no one very interesting around Shepherd’s Bush,’ Alice said disparagingly. ‘Only silly boys with boils on their necks.’
‘No one like Jean Gabin? There never will be, you know. There aren’t any heroes. But I suppose you will have to find that out in your own way. Only, take your time, Alice.’ She paused, looking out of the window, and said, as though it still surprised her, ‘Marriage is forever. It’s the whole of the rest of your life decided. That’s an awfully big thing.’ She began ironing again, but less briskly than before. ‘It’s all right for me, of course, because I was very sure what I wanted. But even so, it . . . well, it comes over me in odd moments that I’m not free to do as I please. Even in small things, like going for a walk, there is someone else to consider. And as for the future, that’s all laid out. I can’t say “Perhaps this will happen, or maybe I shall go another way altogether.” Taking a husband is as irrevocable as taking the veil! So, you take your time, poppet. You’re growing up much more slowly than I did. Don’t let anyone rush you.’
Alice thought it rather soon for Louise to be talking in this old-married-woman way, but she answered peaceably, ‘No, I won’t,’ though in fact she was appalled at the slow rate of her growth in this respect.
They had toad-in-the-hole for supper, cooked as Alice liked it, with nicely-browned batter and crisp sausages.
‘Why do you say your future’s all laid out, Lou?’ she asked. ‘When Guy becomes an actor you’ll probably move all over the country; Audrey Punter’s brother is in rep and he doesn’t know where he is going to be from one week to another.’
‘Guy has given up any thought of that. He says he’d never earn enough to keep me and the baby.’
‘You mean he’s going to stay in accountancy?’ Alice could not keep the dismay out of her voice. ‘Doesn’t he mind?’ It was the nearest she could bring herself to asking Louise if she minded.
‘Perhaps.’ Louise looked as though she was considering an unknown man – not Guy, about whom she had in the past always been so sure. ‘I think he’s disappointed and relieved and ashamed of being relieved. You would understand that better than I, Alice; you’re more of a dreamer. What happens when people don’t put their dreams to the test? Do they become embittered, or are they glad they kept the dreams intact?’
‘I hadn’t thought of Guy’s being an actor as a dream. I thought it was something he wanted to do – like me wanting to be a writer.’ She blushed as she said this, because she did not often speak of her ambition. Louise however was still thinking of Guy.
‘He wouldn’t be able to cope in the theatre. And anyway he’s not a very good actor.’ She delivered this judgement with an impartiality which surprised Alice, and reminded her of the way their mother sometimes spoke about their father’s sermons.
‘But he was so good in Dear Brutus.’
‘By St Bartholomew’s standards he was
good. He tried to get into the Questors and they wouldn’t have him. When I saw what that did to him I was thankful he decided to stay in accountancy.’
‘Isn’t it a bit dull, though?’
‘You think too much about films.’ Louise took Alice up sharply. ‘It’s time you came down to earth. I didn’t marry Guy because he was going to be an actor; I married him because I loved him and it doesn’t make any difference whether he works in an accountant’s office or sweeps the road.’ She scraped the last of the toad from the tin and slapped it down on Alice’s plate. ‘And what’s all this talk about writing? How often have you sent anything to the school magazine, let alone for publication?’
Alice was too taken aback by the unfairness of this attack to see it as a defence of Guy. They ate in silence for a few uncomfortable minutes; then Alice said, seeking to make amends for any criticism she might seem to have made of her sister’s new way of life, ‘I do envy you living here, Lou. I’ve always wanted to live in Holland Park.’
‘It’s nice enough, I suppose.’ Louise missed the more congenial company of neighbours in Shepherd’s Bush. ‘The people aren’t very friendly.’
Alice looked out of the window. She could see into the sitting- room of the house opposite; the piano with photographs on it was still there, and had the appearance of not having been disturbed by music since she last regarded it. She looked further along the road towards Number 33. ‘Once, when I was here with Grandma, I saw Daphne’s father going into one of the houses opposite with a woman. I found out afterwards that they were having an affair. Did I tell you?’
‘Yes, you did. You were very shocked.’
Alice felt a need to tell Louise about the other thing which she still found so disquieting. She prepared her way for it. ‘Do you remember Dolly Bligh at the chapel? Her children had to be sent away because Mr Bligh . . . misbehaved . .’
‘I find that shocking! I think any man who gets up to that sort of thing ought to be castrated.’
Alice did not like to say any more.
‘Can I take a peep at James?’ she asked when they had finished supper.
‘As long as you don’t wake him.’
Louise was still disgruntled. Bad moods never lasted long with her however, and when they were washing up she put her arm round Alice, and said, ‘Perhaps you’ll write a story about Holland Park one day, pet, and put us in it!’
When Alice left it was still light, and she walked into the grander part of Holland Park. The houses were magnificent, tall and spacious; looking down the long line of the road and seeing the storeys rise one above the other, the decorated balconies giving way to the rim with the dormers above, the buildings were like a beautifully-layered wedding cake.
The evening with Louise had left: Alice feeling not exactly disappointed but a little flat: perhaps she had hoped for too much. Whatever was wrong, Holland Park had no answer to this, and she turned away regretfully from the beautiful marzipan-and-icing world and made her way into the main road.
She walked towards Shepherd’s Bush, and then turned into Norland Square. Irene lived here, but Alice did not know Irene’s parents well enough to feel that she could call univited. There were lights on in the house and the curtains were still drawn back. Alice could see Irene’s father sitting in a chair by the window, reading a book by the light of a standard lamp. How her life had changed! Once it would have seemed impossible that she should be friendly with anyone who lived in Norland Square. Her spirits rose. She was sure she would become a writer, and that she would live in this area and know a great many artistic people, and she would marry a man who would sit in just such a window reading with the light of the lamp falling over his shoulder. She could see his hands holding the book, but not the face. Oh poor, poor Louise! to feel that there was no ‘perhaps’, no ‘maybe’!
Katia usually wrote to Alice during the summer holidays; letters full of hints and allusions, plentifully punctuated with exclamation marks, words underscored, drawings of faces and all so smudged and disorganized that Alice had little idea of what Katia was trying to convey, other than that her exploits were such as to shame the doings of Jonah and Company, her favourite reading.
Alice had excitements of her own this year and failed to notice the absence of letters from Katia.
One of the girls in her form lived in Ealing. Alice and Irene had become friendly with this girl, and they now met her for coffee at Zeeta’s in Ealing Broadway. On a Saturday morning Zeeta’s opened its basement and this room was taken over by the young, of whom there seemed to be considerably more in Ealing than Shepherd’s Bush.
In years to come when morning coffee was a time for relaxing tired limbs and aching feet, it would be hard to recapture the intense excitement of walking down the stairs at Zeeta’s, hearing the clamour of voices and waiting for one’s first glimpse of the occupants of the smoke-hazed cavern.
Within two weeks of meeting there, Alice and Irene had come to know several people by sight, and as they descended the stairs they glanced round in pleasurable anticipation. At first, they merely noted whether the redhaired girl was still the companion of the young man in the dark-blue sports blazer who looked so attractive With his lopsided face and flattened nose. ‘He’s a rugger player,’ Peggy told them. ‘All rugger players have broken noses.’ Such knowledge, her tone implied, could only be come by in Ealing. After three weeks, Alice and Irene began to look for particular young men. Alice’s hero was tall and dark with what Alice took to be aristocratic features and an air of lazy indifference to his surroundings; he was her idea of Chief Inspector Alleyn. Usually he was with a group of young people and Irene assured Alice that, having observed them closely, she was satisfied he was unattached. When he was in the coffee room, Alice was as nervously excited as if they had been the only two people present. She made inconsequential remarks, laughed too much, and was clumsy with her roll and butter. Occasionally, boys whom Peggy knew joined them, but these – being young and callow – were never as interesting as the company at other tables.
Alice thought she had never seen so many handsome, self-assured young men in her life. Unfortunately, for every handsome young man there was an attractive young woman.
‘Our families moved to the Greystoke estate at the same time,’ Peggy said. ‘We all grew up together.’
It did not occur to Alice and Irene that they might lure any of the handsome Ealing men away from their girlfriends. When Alice saw, the next time she came down the stairs at Zeeta’s, that her dark young man was sitting alone with a girl, she noted immediately that the girl had striking physical attributes which she, Alice, would never possess. It was a moment of intense pain.
‘She just throws it all around!’ Irene said scornfully when she and Alice were alone together in the cloakroom. ‘And that was Californian Poppy she was drenched in.’
Reassurance of a kind came next week. Irene’s hero, a blond young man with a narrow face and lantern jaw, who usually acknowledged Peggy, much as he might a younger sister, came to their table and asked if he might join them. It was apparent that it was Irene who interested him. Alice looked with pride at her friend. Irene, neat as a character from Jane Austen and every bit as sharp, had drawn this young Viking away from girls whose charms were more obviously displayed. To Alice’s surprise, however, Irene, having landed her catch seemed inclined to throw it back whence it came. In the company of her own sex she was notably articulate and amusing, but faced with this engaging young man she behaved in a standoffish manner and talked about matters which did not concern him. Alice took pity on him and asked him questions about his life. She soon found herself talking to him quite easily, and even teasing him about wearing a bowler hat when he became a trifle pompous about his job in the City. At the end of the morning he asked her if she would meet him for coffee the following week.
‘It wasn’t me he wanted,’ Alice said on the way home. ‘But you didn’t encourage him. Didn’t you like him? You said you did the other week.’
&
nbsp; ‘I didn’t like him in close-up: his eyes were too close together.’ Irene turned her head and looked out of the window.
‘Should I meet him next week?’
‘Why not? It’s nothing to do with me.’
Alice supposed that ordinary young men held no attraction for Irene; there was probably one man for her and Irene would wait until he crossed her path and then they would strike sparks off each other like Beatrice and Benedict. She sighed, knowing she would never be like that.
The following week she had coffee with the young Viking. They got on well and he asked her to go to the pictures with him. On the appointed day, he held her hand in the cinema, but when he wanted to kiss her she explained that she thought she was a bit young for that, and he accepted it good-naturedly, saying she was ‘great fun’.
It was at this time that Alice thought how much she would enjoy telling Katia that she now had a boyfriend. Then she thought it was odd that Katia had not written. When she met one of the twins in the street, she said, ‘What is the news of Katia?’
‘We haven’t heard.’ He looked wretched.
‘I expect she’s having too good a time to write.’
He shook his head. ‘She always writes.’ He turned away and went on up the street. Alice had never before seen either of the twins when they seemed concerned about anything outside their private world.
She related the conversation to her parents. One morning later in the week, as Mr Fairley was walking Rumpus, he saw Jacov come out of a telephone booth. He decided to ask about Katia, but as he approached, Jacov turned away as though he had not seen him. Mr Fairley was a little disquieted. When he returned home he said to Alice, ‘You had better enquire if the Vaseyelins have had any news of Katia.’
It was a long time since he had agreed to any visits being made to the Vaseyelins’ house. Alice, feeling this was an opportunity not to be missed, since it might pave the way for further relaxations, lost no time. She half expected Mrs Vaseyelin to answer her knock, since Jacov must by now have gone to work and Anita always went out early to do the shopping in the market. It was Jacov, however, who opened the door. He led her into the big room where, years ago, they had had that strange Christmas party. There had been magic in the air then, but the atmosphere was different now. For one thing, the room seemed to be dominated by Mr Vaseyelin, although he was not doing very much – just standing by the mantelpiece gazing at the clown and the dancing girl. Alice was aware of his pain. She had never known anyone project suffering as Mr Vaseyelin projected it now. The twins were at the far end of the room, frowning at the floor in a moody fashion, more sullen than suffering. Mrs Vaseyelin sat on the sofa, a still figure examining the hands clasped in her lap indifferently, as though she didn’t see much future for them. Anita stood behind her, eyes closed, muttering to herself. No one seemed to be looking directly at anyone else. Alice was surprised that they weren’t doing anything. She could not imagine her parents being inactive should Claire not return from camp with the Children’s Special Service Mission.
