Bell Timson

by Marguerite Steen

  “You didn’t mind my bringing him, Mummy? His home’s in Coventry — was — and he hasn’t got anywhere to go.”

  Jo’s verbosity more than made up for the others’ silence; unintimidated by the presence of a fellow serviceman, she poured out her delight in her Army career; the other girls were “sports,” the officers “a very decent lot,” drill and duties of secondary importance to “ragging’ — in short, Jo managed to convey the impression that her camp was an improved version of the Towers, with superior liberties, and Jo herself, if she kept reasonably on the right side of authority, had every prospect of getting into the Sixth and becoming a prefect. The young soldier, whose name turned out to be Bob — it did not transpire until the following morning that Jo had not troubled to acquaint herself with his patronymic — seemed timidly amused. Bell, sharp at placing people, decided that he came of a humble background, which afflicted him with an inferiority complex that a good standard education had failed to cure. He had rather fine hands, which he used nervously, a nondescript physique, and a head and face of that mediocre pleasantness which the British as a race produce in quantity and which almost invariably fails to impress itself on the memory. Bell felt sure that if she met him in the street she would not know him again.

  Gradually thawing under the glow of Jo’s kindliness, he became a little more communicative, but his fatigue was so marked that Bell pitied him, although it was difficult to see what, apart from her incurable benevolence, accounted for Jo’s bringing him home.

  “He can have my bed, Mummy; I’ll sleep like a top on the sofa.”

  “No fear” began her visitor.

  “Shut up,” said Jo. “You’ve done Dunkirk — he has, Mummy; and he’s only been out of hospital a fortnight. So he’s got to have a bed, wherever the rest of us turn in.”

  “Look here.” Bob made an effort to assert himself; his brows knitted with mingled annoyance and embarrassment at Jo. “Nobody’s going to give up their bed for me. I told you I could get in at the Red Cross.”

  “We’ll see about that tomorrow,” put in Bell shortly. “I don’t suppose any of us will see our beds tonight; it’s nearly time for the raid to start, and you’ll all go down to the shelter.”

  “Blow the shelter. I haven’t seen a raid yet,” said Jo. “I vote we stop up here — don’t you, Bob?”

  The spasm that twisted the youth’s face, leaving it blank, did not escape Bell’s quick attention.

  “As you like.” His mouth was stiff.

  “There’s no ‘as you like’ here. I’m not having either of you make more work for the wardens.” Bell picked up a rug as the silence of the blackout was ripped by the wail of the sirens. “There you are — and fetch your overcoats; it’s none too cozy down there.” To refuse to go herself would, she knew, call forth a torrent of argument from Jo; she resigned herself reluctantly to spending a night downstairs and looked for the attaché case which, like all raid-hardened Londoners, she kept packed in readiness for such occasions. Susan appeared, and they trooped out — since the lift, as usual during air raids, was not working — to the stairs.

  “I say, they don’t lose any time, do they?” Already the hum of planes mingled with the dying moan of the sirens. Jo, her teeth flashing in the twilight of the stairs, was obviously set on enjoying a new experience. No one answered her. After a pause, more timidly, her hand on Bell’s shoulder, she lowered her voice to ask, “Is Kay out in this, Mummy?”

  “I expect so.” Her ordeal had begun.

  Other people were descending the stairs. No one mentioned the bombers. Getting her first lesson in air-raid etiquette, Jo lapsed into silence until they reached the shelter. In passing through the door, Bell’s arm brushed against the soldier’s; she gave him a sharp look. The nerves of his face were fluttering like a moth’s wing. Bother the fellow! Either he was yellow or his nerves were in such a state that he was not fit to be in the Army. Queer for a man who had been through Dunkirk — unless it was some sort of delayed shock; and if that was the case they ought to have found it out before turning him out of the hospital. Bell pushed a packet of cigarettes quickly toward him.

  “Get one of them between your teeth!” A nice thing if he were to start a fit of hysteria in the shelter. How like Jo — to pick up a lame duck like this and plant it on them!

  The shelter was very well organized, each person having his allotted place. Susan began to open the deck chairs which belonged to the Timson party, while Jo stood, with her hands in the pockets of her tunic, taking all in with an air of lively interest.

  Bell saw Bob fumbling in his pocket, saw him bring out a box of matches and strike one after several attempts; she saw his hands jerking so much that he could not bring the flame in contact with the cigarette. Several people had begun to notice, their attention drawn by the presence of khaki; a very nervous old couple from the first floor were staring openly; the old lady’s lip started to quiver. Damn him! thought Bell, about to hold the light for him, when Jo moved sharply. Standing so that her broad body made a barrier between the man and the watchers, she coolly whipped a cigarette from her own case, lit it, and, taking the one from between his lips, substituted it with her own: the whole maneuver performed so quickly and neatly, for Jo, that it was hardly noticeable. She stood there easily, covering him, smoking and chatting, while the others settled into their places.

  It was a bad raid. Bell took it with outward stoicism, filling a tot glass at intervals from her flask; once she passed the glass to the soldier — let that steady him! She did not look at him again. Susan, her arms folded on her bosom, seemed peacefully to sleep, but Bell knew that behind the ruddy, impassive mask the thoughts raced parallel with her own. Kay. Kay. God help Kay. God, look after Kay.

  Even Jo was impressed when the sound of bombs confused itself with the thunder of the guns, and the bells of ambulances racing along the street overhead added their clamor to the infernal orchestration of the night. She sat on a rolled-up mattress beside the soldier, her elbows resting on her knees, her hands linked lightly together, her sturdy feet planted well apart. Her face was intent and serious; she, too, was thinking about Kay. It did not seem right, somehow, that she should be there, in safety, and Kay, somewhere, threading the horror of that night. There was too much tension in in the shelter — shelters were known not to be infallible — for anyone to notice that her thigh was wedged against the soldiers. At first she had felt his shivering, then, as the pressure of her own strong friendly body communicated its confidence to the weaker one, she felt it relax. Poor Bob. Rotten to feel like that and have to go on being a soldier. Rotten to spend your leave with all that din going on overhead.

  There came a thud that rocked the foundations. One of the old couple gave a mouselike squeak, and someone’s nerves crackled into a “God blast them!” Listening for some sequel to the shock, puzzled by the utter silence, Jo, her lips pursed for a whistle, looked across at her mother.

  “That was a homely slosh, wasn’t it? Think we’ve got any glass left?”

  “Well see presently, when it’s over.” Bell’s eyes had gone to the soldier. His face was the color of lead, and shone as if it had been greased; the sweat rolled down it and dripped on his tunic. In the dim light a little black hole showed where his mouth should be.

  Jo’s eyes following the direction of her mother’s, she spoke quickly.

  “It gets pretty hot down here, doesn’t it?” — an unfortunate observation, as for some reason the heating had failed and most people were feeling chilly. Undaunted by looks that questioned her sanity, Jo rose cheerfully, unbuttoning her tunic and letting out a puff of breath to emphasize her own warmth.

  “Come on, Bob, let’s go out on the stairs for a bit; I’ll blow up if I stop down here much longer!”

  Bell checked her protest; if the fellow was going to faint he had better do it on the stairs — not start a panic among all these already jittery people. But Jo must be told there was to be no more picking up chance acquaintances — even
if they wore khaki — and bringing them home on air-raid nights.

  The blue bulb on the stairs gave the faintest of glimmers. They stumbled up a couple of steps, then his knees gave way suddenly and he crumpled against the wall. Jo’s arms went round him, her hard hand pressed his head into her bosom.

  “That’s all right, Bob; you’re all right. It’s the heat — go on! You’ll be better if you don’t try and hold it in. It was a smacker, wasn’t it? Why, it scared the pants off me! And I haven’t been through half what you’ve taken —”

  He sniveled, snatching at the poor rags of his pride, “Oh, shut up!” And, a little later, “I’m getting out of this. Go on, let me get out! I can’t stick them, looking at me!”

  “Who’s looking at you?” She clutched him back. “Who the hell are they anyhow? A lot of windy old cows — they’d never notice if a bomb fell on the backs of our necks, so long as it didn’t hit them!”

  “No, I’m getting out.” Again he struggled for freedom against the determined muscularity of Jo.

  “I’ll give you a half arm under the jaw, my lad,” she muttered fiercely, “if you don’t shut up! Didn’t I tell you Mummy’s a nurse? She knows all about shell shock and that sort of thing. Let’s sit here” — she seemed partly to have reassured him — “and have another cigarette; I bet we’re as sate here as in the shelter.”

  The raid was dying down, the gun salvos distant and scattered; but the All Clear had not yet gone, and no one made to move from the shelter; some had been caught that way before. The return to quiet was almost stupefying; silence battered on the eardrums, the voices of wardens sounded faintly, calling from the street, there was a curious absence of other sounds.

  On the stairs, under the blue bulb, he lay against her shoulder trustfully, quietly, like a child against its nurse. Somehow — he would not trouble to think how — she had drawn the shame out of him, given him back, for a while, his frail and wounded manhood.

  “Jo ...”

  “Hello, Bob.”

  “Give me a kiss.”

  She felt her cheeks bum; the instinct of flight started in her. She looked helplessly, shamefully, up the stairs and down, instinct warning her that this would not be like other kisses — the hearty, homely busses on the cheek she had exchanged occasionally with youths as unsentimental as she was herself. She paused, conquering a sense of both fear and repulsion; then she turned fiercely and fastened her mouth to his.

  When Kay came off duty she was met by shoals of glass, an unknown young man in khaki sweeping her bedroom floor, and her sister Jo with her sleeves rolled up and her arms plunged to the elbow in a bucket of grimy water. There was the usual stench of burning and soot, a thick layer of black powder over all the surfaces which Bell and Susan were tackling. The curtains and blackout trailed in rags from the broken rods that made a trellis with a blasted window frame. Kay stood in the doorway with her hands in the pockets of her overcoat, swaying a little with fatigue and laughing faintly.

  “So we’ve caught it this time, have we? Gosh, what a filthy mess!” Jo, on her hands and knees, looked up, her greeting arrested for a moment by the look on her sisters face. White, streaked with black from brow to chin, eyes red-rimmed with smoke and purple-ringed with weariness — it was yet a young face; it was Kay’s face at seventeen — as if, thought Jo, the last few months had burned away the years, burned them back, burned out all the superficial and left only the fine framework, the delicate cage of young aspiration that was the seventeen-year-old Kay.

  “Hallo. It’ll be all right in a moment or two.” Jo waved a vague arm that included the wreckage, the pail, and the young man who, somewhat self-consciously, went on sweeping up glass. “Oh — this is Bob. We meant to get it done before you got in — your room caught it worst, and the sitting room. Susan’s room is all right, and you’re to go into her bed — and we’ve cleaned up the bathroom, but the water hasn’t come on yet and the bath’s still full and all covered with muck!”

  “Right-ho.” Kay smiled, and nodded laconically to the young man, who muttered a stiff “Pleased to meet you.” She and Jo left the room arm in arm for a tour of inspection; Bell, her head tied up in a scarf and her dress covered with an old cotton housecoat, came out of her bedroom, nodded, said, “Ready for breakfast, deary?” and went into the kitchen.

  “Aren’t you about done in?”

  “Oh, I can use a cup of tea — then I’ll lend a hand in here.” Kay was unbuttoning her overcoat; as she tried to draw her arm out of the sleeve Jo saw her wince. Another attempt and her teeth sank grinning into her lower lip; she shook her head. “Sorry; no can do!”

  “What’s up?” Jo was alarmed.

  “Ran the bus into a bit of a crater and jammed my shoulder — that’s all. Where’s that tea? I say, Jo, you look — fine!” The tired eyes bathed Jo in admiring affection. “Got a cigarette about you? There’s a horrid shortage of them up here; I haven’t had one since about six o’clock.”

  A splutter and a gush from the bathroom; Susan calling to say the water had come on; getting Kay’s coat off, and then her tunic and blouse, and discovering the swollen and discolored shoulder (“I’ll see to that,” from Bell); Kay being helped to have her bath, cracking a few tight-lipped jokes, and finally being bullied into bed by Bell ...

  Bob came on Jo behind a door, rubbing her head as though something had hurt it. She gave him a dazed look.

  “Lost something?” He shot one of his quick, unpleasantly furtive looks past her — it was easy to see he wasn’t popular with the old girl— while his hand fumbled with a startling familiarity for Jo’s body. She leaped from him as though it had stung her.

  “Go on — you give Susan a hand in the kitchen. I’m going to talk to my sister while she has her breakfast.”

  “Mummy.” It was afternoon, and they were sitting together in Bell’s bedroom; Bob, to the latter’s relief, had gone. “Mummy ... isn’t it queer it should be Kay?”

  “What do you mean, deary?”

  “It always used to be me. I mean — I was the tough one. And here am I, with a soft sort of a job in the Army, and Kay’s doing the real work. It feels — no, not wrong, but funny, as if Kay was the elder —”

  “But she is.”

  “Yes. But I’ve always been the elder up to now,” said Jo, slowly nodding her head.

  About a month after Jo’s leave ended Bell received a letter.

  ... What do you think? Bob’s medical board turned him down again, and he’s having a special neurological course at a place only a couple of miles from our camp. I expect Coventry, coming on the top of Dunkirk, did it; coming home and finding he hadn’t got a single, solitary thing left in the world — no family or anything. I understand it much better, because of that night in town. Well, it’s nice his being there, because we see quite a bit of each other; it takes no time to hike over from the camp, and we’ve been to the pictures two or three times and seen a bit of the country, which is lovely round here. Did you know the Somervells’ place is quite close? They’ve given it over to the Red Cross for now, but we’ve been into the park, and it’s just as Susan described it — the gates with the stone owls on top, and ...

  “What do you make of that?” Bell passed the letter to Susan, who read and passed it back calmly.

  “She’s having a good time, isn’t she? Jo will always have a good time; she takes her happiness with her.”

  Bell made an impatient exclamation; it was not what she was asking for. But she said no more; if Susan was too stupid to see what she was getting at she was not going to start a discussion. The following evening she said to Kay:

  “What do you think of that fellow of Jos?”

  “What fellow?” Kay sounded genuinely surprised.

  “The one she brought in here,” said Bell shortly. Was everyone except herself impenetrably stupid — or had the war so focused them upon their own affairs that they had lost their powers of perception? Kay knitted her brows, apparently in an effort of memory. “Oh —
that soldier. I don’t know, Mummy — I hardly saw him.” “H’mph. Jo’s seeing plenty of him.”

  “Is she?” The matter did not seem to interest Kay, scanning the evening paper.

  “I didn’t think much of him.”

  “Non-com, wasn’t he, of some sort? I’m sorry, but I didn’t really notice him.”

  “Didn’t Jo say anything about him to you?”

  “I don’t really remember — oh, I think she said something about picking him up in the train; he’d been bombed out, hadn’t he? Nowhere to go for his leave or something. You know Jo!”

  “Yes, I know Jo.” Bell spoke slowly; she was darning a stocking, but her hands had fallen to her knees. “The only worry that child’s ever given me was over her softheartedness. All her life she’s lapped up any hard-luck story like mother’s milk. It scares me, sometimes, to think of the advantage people could take of her —”

  “Why, Mummy dear!” This time Kay’s attention was captured; she smiled, laid down the paper, and came and sat on the arm of Bell’s chair, one long, graceful leg swinging in the badly cut service trouser. “Don’t tell me you’re worrying about Jo’s boy friends? Bless her, she’s hardheaded enough when it comes to chaps! No man’s ever going to mean as much to Jo as one of her puppies. Picking a man up in the train — that doesn’t mean a thing to Jo; you’ve only got to look as if you’ve got a toothache or nobody loves you, and Jo’s maternal instinct gets into top gear and she starts mothering you! If Jo had got emotional about everybody she has ever done a good turn to — I hate to think what her life would be like by now!”

  How much softer her laugh has grown! thought Bell. I used to think it was like glass tinkling, but now, somehow, it’s gentle; it’s warm; as if she had found out about life, and it has made her sorry ... About life? Or about death?

  “That’s all right, Katie.” She herself spoke gently. “But in wartime it’s different. They get excited — and they are away from all their familiar surroundings.”