Most young men might be bored accompanying Hazel around the expensive stores, but Francis would happily comment on each shoe Hazel tried on, suggesting that she try just one more pair as they sat besieged by assistants. Both would savour the joke of barely being able to afford a coffee and a Lyon’s bun, never mind the new soft-shouldered Christian Dior hourglass outfits in the windows, which were condemned in parliament for wasting precious fabric with their full-length billowing skirts.
Eva was relieved to let them explore London alone, because it gave her time to try and locate her brother. Eva knew that Art had moved to London last year. He had a right to be left alone, but also the right to know about his mother’s condition. More importantly he was the only person Eva trusted enough to verify the death certificate in her handbag.
She decided to call at the offices of the Morning Star where a young man curtly denied that Art had any connection with that newspaper. The British Communist Party was equally unforthcoming, though the belligerent attitude of the woman there with a slight limp made Eva suspect that she knew who Art was. At a loss, she sought out an afternoon drinking club on the Strand near the BBC studios, rumoured to be frequented by Irish poets, political activists and contributors to The Third Programme.
An Ulsterman descending the narrow staircase heard Eva’s accent and offered to sign her in as a guest. Once inside she felt uncomfortable in the smoky atmosphere which seemed more bitchy than bohemian. No daylight penetrated the cramped cellar where small groups drank. A wireless played behind the counter and Eva was shocked and fascinated when two men began to dance together in what at first seemed a parody but then became a genuine embrace. The other drinkers appeared indifferent but Eva could not stop watching. Was this where Francis would end up, risking a furtive dance to a crackling radio set? These men were the first homosexuals she had knowingly encountered, apart from her son and poor Harry Bennett who had reportedly died during one of the last air raids on London. She didn’t know if Freddie suspected anything about Francis’s brief relationship with his tutor but when discussing the liberated camps Freddie had once expressed satisfaction that while the Jews and Gypsies were freed, the homosexuals were simply transferred to Allied jails.
The two men broke free as the tune ended. One gave a mocking bow, carefully reducing their dance to the camouflage of farce.
The Ulsterman bought Eva a gin that she didn’t want. A poet, whose name was familiar to her from the radio, he knew of Art by reputation but had no idea where he lived. However once the pubs officially opened he offered to take Eva to a nearby bar where Irish labourers drank, because some regulars there had been interned in the Curragh. He insisted on buying a second gin while they waited so that Eva was tipsy by the time they reached the pub which stood alone – the buildings on both sides lying in ruins. The atmosphere here was different, the type of establishment where a woman’s intrusion was unwelcome. Leaving Eva at the door, the poet pushed through the crush, addressing various men who turned to scrutinise her. Finally he returned with a man who had been studying the racing page of a newspaper.
‘This is Murray Bolger from Wexford,’ the poet said. ‘He remembers your brother from the Curragh.’
‘Not well,’ the Wexford man said. ‘But I never approved of him being court-martialled for making crazy speeches. Not that I ever attended his meetings. Life is too short for all that yap-yapping. I just wanted the Brits out.’
‘Do you know where he’s living?’ Eva asked, sensing something familiar about his face.
‘No.’ Murray paused. ‘But I heard that he sells the Irish Democrat around pubs in Whitechapel at closing time, though he gets chased out of most of them.’
Eva wanted to go to Whitechapel immediately, but she was already late for meeting her children in the barracks. When she got there, an orderly had let Hazel and Francis into Freddie’s quarters. Freddie had left a note to say that he would go straight to the Dorchester Hotel where tonight’s banquet was being held for families of officers mentioned on the Honours List. Maud would be in Oxford by now, so at least Mother was being looked after. Eva tried to focus on helping to get Hazel ready for the banquet and on making herself respectable too. Francis fussed around them both, at ease with women in a way that few men were. Eventually they made it into the waiting taxi.
Freddie stood alone in the bustling hotel foyer. From the neck down Eva would have hardly recognised him. His dress uniform was impeccably presented, the attire of a confident man who had made a success of life. But his shoulders were hunched, reminding her of that young boy who must have sat alone in the kitchens in Glanmire House after his father died. A boy who never contemplated surrendering to tears at the grief he could not articulate, with the only visible sign of suffering being his shoulders hunched up like this. Freddie straightened up, seeing his family amid the crowd. Hazel ran ahead to greet him, savouring this glamorous occasion, with every detail to be relayed to her chums back at school.
‘Hello, Daddy,’ she said. ‘You do look smart.’
As Hazel kissed him, Eva saw Freddie thrill at having such a beautiful sixteen-year-old daughter. Francis was less forthcoming, formally shaking his father’s hand. Three weeks into his first term at Trinity College, he towered over Freddie.
‘Congratulations, Father. Give the king my regards tomorrow.’
‘I’m sure he will be chuffed to receive them.’ Freddie laughed, looking past the children at Eva. His whole face suggested happiness except his eyes. ‘Hello, old pet.’
Eva longed to take him into a corner and discover the problem. But she had no time. An officer named Templeton approached, his wife steering him towards them like a decorative tugboat. Eva remembered her piercing laughter from wartime barracks parties and knew that her son was attending the English boarding school where Francis had his troubles.
‘Is it really Eva?’ she gushed. ‘How marvellous to see you, and to see Francis looking so recovered.’
Eva tried to chat back while Freddie clicked his fingers for a waiter to fetch wine and sherry for Francis and Hazel. Hazel was attracting attention as Freddie introduced his children to fellow officers, getting ribbed about keeping such a young beauty hidden away. Less was said about Francis, with several officers aware of his ignominious departure from Castlebridge College. But Eva was pleased to see Francis hold his own in conversation, his gaiety and grace evident as he laughed. Nobody would openly comment on his good looks but every girl in the foyer was acutely aware of him.
Any sadness left Freddie’s eyes as he revelled in the attention his children were receiving. Eva was pleased for him. Most officers of his rank – those who had attended the right schools and drank in the best clubs – would receive the more prestigious OBE tomorrow, but none could boast of such striking children.
‘I imagine you have done nothing except shop since arriving,’ Mrs Templeton was saying. ‘Ireland may be awash in meat and butter, but it must be a relief to encounter stores with a sense of style.’
The woman was half correct in that Eva had spent any free time away from Mother looking in shops. But not for clothes. She had searched secondhand bookshops on Charing Cross Road to find books on child art by Herbert Read and the Austrian pioneer, Professor Cizek. These were two more pieces in the jigsaw of a secret new life forming in her mind. Freddie had reinvented himself in the army and now – with the children almost grown – it was Eva’s turn to grasp at freedom. She had made her last winter plans when the children returned to boarding school and she retreated to spend time alone in Glanmire House. Moving from room to room as shifting winds chased rain through the house, she had finally despaired of the chore of arranging enamel jugs to catch the drops and brought her bed down to the kitchen.
Some abandoned Big Houses in Mayo were starting to be reoccupied as old families returned, horrified at the advent of a British Labour government, in what one Mayo Protestant called ‘the retreat from Moscow’. For Eva, last winter had been the start of the process of letting go of h
er old life. Snowed in and burning woodwormed furniture, she had reread Rudolf Steiner’s Way of Initiation, slowly absorbing its layers of meaning about how the slow path to inner tranquillity led to a knowledge of higher worlds. She had memorised each initiation stage from preparation and enlightenment to control of feelings. Sensing the companionship of a familiar presence in the wine cellar, some nights she had sung Francis’s favourite hymn from the doorway:
‘Blessed are the pure in heart,
For they shall see our God;
The secret of the Lord is theirs,
Their soul is Christ’s abode.’
One weekend Francis had arrived from his Quaker boarding school in Waterford, concerned both for her and for a young beech tree he had noticed the previous summer hemmed in by dead wood. Eva had helped him to clear a path for it up into the light and, after he left, realised that this was what she needed to do for herself. Maureen had known it was time to leave their cocoon at Glanmire when she emigrated three weeks after the war ended. There was little prospect of meeting eligible men in Mayo as they flocked to Britain to rebuild its cities. But Eva wondered if Maureen was spurred to choose New York after a postcard of strolling couples on Coney Island arrived, addressed to ‘Any remaining staff, Glanmire House’. There was no message, just the signature of the Foxford maid who quit when Jim Gralton was hiding there.
Mrs Templeton was still addressing Eva in a torrent of words that only required her to nod occasionally. Freddie rescued her and the officer’s wife released Eva reluctantly, like a child not quite finished inspecting an exotic creature in a zoo. Making his way into the ballroom, he commiserated: ‘That woman is a frightful snob, always waiting to stick in the knife. She said nothing, did she?’
‘About what?’
Freddie shrugged. ‘Anything really. Let’s take our places. Hazel has cut quite a dash, you know.’
They were seated down the main table, with Francis and Hazel at a side table where the young people created such chatter that Eva longed to be among them. Still, she liked the old brigadier on her left who had been informed by Freddie about Mother’s condition. When he expressed his sympathy Eva told him how Mother wanted Tennyson’s Crossing the Bar read at her funeral. The old man nodded his approval, closing his eyes to recite:
‘Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea…’
Eva was moved by the lines, wishing that she was still in Oxford as a clink of glasses heralded the first speaker. There were six courses, four containing meat. Freddie glanced at her as the first one arrived, anxious lest she show him up by insisting on what he termed her oddball vegetarian beliefs. With the meat ration in Britain reduced yet again in the latest austerity cuts, any seeming ingratitude at this feast would be frowned upon. Nausea swamped her as she forced herself to swallow the first bite, determined to support Freddie this final time by playing the obedient officer’s wife. After tomorrow’s ceremony she would tell him about her plans. Conversation at the table turned to politics, with the turmoil in the Empire being discussed.
‘I consider it a shame to abandon India to slaughter just because Gandhi has whipped them up,’ a young officer named Cooper stated.
‘Slaughter is too mild a term,’ insisted Templeton. ‘Four thousand were hacked to death after the Muslim Direct Action Day. For all Gandhi’s balderdash the next atrocity will probably top that.’
‘I don’t think Gandhi speaks balderdash,’ Eva said quietly.
Templeton bristled. ‘Do you not? And what has the daft beggar got to stop millions from killing each other?’
‘A vision.’
‘A vision?’ He suppressed a laugh. ‘God help any country where public order is maintained by a vision.’
‘The government is talking of sending Mountbatten,’ Freddie interjected for her sake. ‘He will make a difference.’
‘You might think so, Fitzgerald,’ Templeton replied, ‘but have you actually been to India? Those of us who served there and know what we’re talking about know that the Congress Party are criminals. People will be at each other’s throats within days of our pull-out and it will be left to the army to return and rescue the situation.’
The old brigadier snorted. ‘Thirty years ago your father said the same about Ireland, Templeton, and they have done fine without us.’
‘Even the fish off Ireland are fat,’ Cooper sneered. ‘From feasting on the carcasses of British seamen.’
‘Enough Irish seamen drowned for them to feed off,’ Freddie replied hotly. ‘Irish lads who willingly gave their lives in your uniform. Thousands more from my Free State, Cooper, than from the loyal Ulster province where your cousins sat on their hands. And not one man I ever met felt that de Valera should have joined the war.’
‘So why did your sort fight then?’
‘Gentlemen,’ the brigadier interrupted, with the prerogative of old age, ‘tonight is for celebration, not politics. All I can say is thank God that decent chaps like Fitzgerald did join us. Now were any of you at the MCC when Denis Compton was batting last week? I never saw such cavalier cricket…’
Others agreed, keen to brush over the argument. It was typical of Freddie – while criticising de Valera in private – to publicly defend Ireland. He had been defending Eva too, but she sensed that he seemed outside things at the table. Normally he was in demand for what people termed his Blarney. Officers were avoiding her eye. Freddie touched her hand as the next course arrived. ‘Stick to your guns,’ he whispered. ‘Only eat what you like.’
This evening was not working out as planned, with Freddie’s malaise increasing as the banquet crawled by. Eva picked at the vegetables and wondered how to tell Freddie about the house she saw in Dublin’s Frankfurt Avenue last month, with leaded glass in the fanlight above the door. She had known, with every nerve-end of what Steiner called the ‘faculties slumbering in the human soul’, that this was the house in which to commence her new life. The light-filled kitchen was perfect for children to come and open their imaginations.
Mr Ffrench had been wrong to predict that Eva would be a great artist. What seemed glorious in her mind’s eye was inconsequential to others who dismissed her work as possessing the mere vision of a child. But children should be allowed to express their unselfconscious vision without being corralled by adult expectation. She longed to create a haven where children could realise that vision. Frankfurt Avenue would cost every penny that Mother was leaving her, but Eva’s needs were simple and the art classes would help pay her way. She would not be a burden on Freddie who, once he supported the children, could get on with army life in London. For years they had prevaricated, maintaining this pretence of marriage. But Eva hoped to make him understand that by choosing separate paths they might both be fulfilled.
The banquet finished with a speech in praise of the officers being decorated and a final toast to the King. The young people were impatient for the music to commence. Francis so adored dancing with girls that Eva had briefly allowed herself to hope that his homosexuality was a passing phase. He had laughed when she expressed this hope, saying, ‘You know, Mummy, I love dancing with girls. They’re like rose petals, but I feel nothing else. I don’t fall in love with them.’ Nothing about his appearance suggested the hidden life which he often confided to her. For a second she imagined the scene in this ballroom if Francis’s secret was known. An image of officers in dress uniforms transformed into baying hounds made her shiver. Freddie touched her shoulder as couples left the main table to regroup in tight-knit circles.
‘Are you cold?’
‘Just worried about Mother.’ She smiled. ‘Is there a table you want to join?’
Freddie pointed to an empty table near the dance floor. ‘We’ll keep our own company.’
He led the way, his limp somehow more pronounced in this dress uniform. She knew that many in the ballroom mistook it for a war wound. He ordered fresh d
rinks, lit the cigar he had chosen when the waiter carried around the box and puffed slowly, casting a disdainful eye over his colleagues.
‘What’s the matter, Freddie?’
‘Nothing that won’t keep, old pet.’
‘Please,’ she pressed. ‘I’d sooner know now.’
Freddie waited until the waiter brought their drinks and moved away. ‘It was decent of you to come with your mother so ill.’
‘She insisted. She didn’t want me to miss your big day.’
‘Aye.’ Freddie sipped his whiskey. ‘When I get my medal and some initials after my name. Other men only get a watch and chain.’
‘You sound like an old man at the end of his working life.’ Eva tried to disguise her apprehension.
‘Forty-six is hardly old, is it?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Life is just starting, what?’
‘What are you saying, Freddie?’
‘I planned to say nothing till tomorrow, but you’d best hear it from me rather than from some frightful gossip. It’s cheerio time.’ Freddie affected an English accent. ‘“Do pop back for regimental dinners. We love your ‘Oirish’ stories.”’
‘You’re leaving the army?’
‘Being kicked out without a pension, though they’d use a politer term.’
‘But they know you want to stay?’
‘For so long as a war was on I could be one of them, as British as the next man. Irish first, of course, but still British. Times have changed. They don’t need half-breeds clogging up the system for their sons coming in. It appears that a detailed report about me was posted.’
The Family on Paradise Pier Page 47
