The Dower House

by Malcolm Macdonald

  ‘Or even major,’ Adam added. ‘She’s going into private practice when . . . well, you’ll see.’

  Marianne had meanwhile been appraising the pony. ‘A creature like this should be worth a fortune in Hamburg,’ she said. Then, to Felix: ‘That’s where I was living since the liberation, until we got married last month. D’you know it?’

  The two men glanced in dismay at Felix, whose heart fell. How could he make them understand he didn’t require their solicitude – or not in such small ways as that? If they wanted to pull strings to get him commissions, a free studio, a pension or two . . . fine. But not all this pussyfooting – as if he still had feelings, for heaven’s sake.

  ‘Hamburg!’ he said. ‘My favourite city – what’s left of it! I suppose it had to be done. Ironic, though, that it was the most anti-Hitler city in all Germany. He got a very poor reception there.’

  ‘You’ve seen it?’ Willard asked.

  ‘Several times. I went there for medical tests. And convalescence.’

  ‘Not during . . .’ Adam faltered.

  ‘No.’ He chuckled drily. ‘Not during. Funnily enough, I, too, was there last week. We must just have missed each other.’

  When they realized he was joking they laughed. Too much.

  Adam cut in: ‘As I was saying – Willard was with us the day you were liberated. In fact, Tony and I were present as guests of the American section of AMGOT.’

  ‘I remember,’ Felix said – which embarrassed them because, as Adam had been about to add, Willard had been on the far side of the camp at the moment when he and Tony had realized that the Felix Breit they were helping was the Felix Breit. And Felix had lapsed into a near-coma by the time Willard arrived.

  ‘Liberated?’ Marianne asked.

  Adam explained. She reached across him, squeezed Felix’s arm, and looked ahead, rather fixedly.

  They reached the bottom of the slope below the forecourt and turned left, facing a reluctant pony up the hill. The watery sun cast shorter shadows on the slope ahead of them and soon their outlines were lost in the blunted, lacy penumbra of new, half-formed leaves on the overarching trees.

  ‘So what’s with this Great Secret out here in the boondocks?’ Willard asked Adam. ‘Tony was very cagey. It had better be good.’

  ‘It’ll be interesting, anyway,’ he replied. ‘Interesting to hear what you think of it.’

  ‘And that’s all you’re going to tell us?’

  ‘Until I can just say voilà! Tony and Nicole are there already, waiting for us – so I can promise you a wonderful high-tea, conjured out of nothing.’

  ‘Yeah – that’s another thing I meant to ask: She was back in Trouville, you two were in Hamburg – how did those two get together again?’

  ‘He went back and found her. Couldn’t face life without her.’ He paused and asked Marianne, ‘Why the grin?’

  ‘When you said “went back and found her”,’ she replied, ‘so was it with Willard and me.’

  ‘All last winter,’ Willard confirmed. ‘I used to sit in my office staring at the Mystic River, seeing her face in every ripple.’

  Adam levelled an accusing finger at him but said nothing.

  Willard said it for him. ‘I know, I know. You done tol’ me!’

  ‘What did he tell you?’ Marianne asked.

  ‘Never mind.’

  ‘I told him he was a fool if he ever thought he could go back home and forget you.’

  ‘Adam – how nice! When was that?’

  ‘Right after . . .’ he began and then fell silent.

  Felix could feel the tension rise again.

  ‘Oh, I get it,’ she said flatly. ‘Right after I was denazified.’

  ‘Oh, Marianne!’ Felix heard Willard murmur to his left. But he kept his gaze on the woman, who turned to face him at last.

  ‘Now you know,’ she said. ‘I will understand perfectly if you should now wish to—’

  ‘Her parents were the real Nazis,’ Willard said. ‘They deliberately sent her to Germany and—’

  ‘Please!’ Felix forced a laugh and then followed it with one that was more genuine. ‘We draw a line, right? How old were you, Marianne? Eighteen?’

  ‘Seventeen. Albert Speer was great friend to my father. We supplied steel. It should be smart for a steel maker to keep on the good books of Hitler’s favourite architect – especially since he also was Minister for Armaments!’

  ‘A bit like the gravel company with Tony Palmer and me,’ Adam tried to say. ‘As will soon be explained . . .’

  Felix and Marianne ignored him; unspoken secrets were being passed behind their words. Besides, nothing that had happened in England this century could in any way equate with this.

  ‘Who can answer for his or her opinions and actions at seventeen?’ Felix asked. ‘Not me, I do assure you! I had no love of the Jews, either – when I was seventeen and did not even know I was a Jew. For that I have my shame to carry. We draw a line, OK? The whole of Europe must draw a line. I have earned the right to say this, otherwise I am still not free. Sorry, Adam – the gravel company, you said? Were you telling Willard about this house that you and he—’

  ‘Da-dee-da-dee-da . . .’ Adam sang loudly. ‘It’s a secret until we get there – which will be in about five minutes.’

  ‘Have you and Tony telled Nicole of me?’ Marianne asked Adam.

  ‘Not yet,’ he confessed awkwardly.

  ‘Then I will – so soon as we meet. It’s not fair on her – not after what has happened her.’

  ‘Oh?’ Felix asked.

  ‘Willard was telling me yesterday night. Nicole worked as chef on her uncle’s restaurant on Trouville during the war. It was much . . . I mean very popular with Germans and so the maquis asked her to pretend to collaborate to get information out of them – which she has done. Her secret was well kept – too much so that, after liberation they have done to her what they have done to all collaborateuses.’ She mimed the shaving of her head.

  Felix whistled. ‘And she doesn’t know . . . that you . . . ?’

  ‘She shall. That’s what I say.’

  Having reached the hamlet of Harmer Green, at the top of the hill, they all mounted the gig and set off on the more or less level drive toward Dormer Green. The county councils were putting back the road signs all over England. The one at the hilltop said TEWIN and DORMER GREEN.

  ‘Are we close now?’ Willard asked.

  ‘Close enough, maybe,’ Adam replied. ‘I’ll end the suspense, anyway. Tell me – d’you remember a night we spent beside an overturned truck on Lüneburg Heath? We were headed for Bielefeld and left the road.’

  ‘Vaguely . . . were we sober?’

  ‘D’you remember what we talked about?’

  He nodded. ‘The destruction of Hamburg.’

  ‘And of Europe generally. But especially about the chance it had given us to rebuild everything in a different way – a chance that we hoped would never come again but which we mustn’t miss? Does that ring a bell?’

  ‘I seem to remember a depressing conclusion – that people wouldn’t take the chance. They’d play safe and go back to all the old ways – the old ideologies.’

  Adam became slightly agitated; he wanted Willard to remember it exactly. ‘We realized that we – the architects who would be needed in our thousands to rebuild this shattered continent – we could play our part. Surely you remember? Where three hundred slum houses had stood back-to-back in cramped little alleys we could sweep them all away – if the RAF or the Luftwaffe hadn’t already done it for us. We’re doing it now, in fact. We’re turning the city green. And in each green oasis we’re raising those three hundred families high into the sky in clean, modern, comfortable machines-for-living-in.’

  ‘The things we say under the strain of war!’ Willard laughed uncomfortably.

  ‘OK, you played the cycnic then and—’

  ‘Too damn right! My ol’ grampappy had dreams like that. He used to say that if the working man was
paid a decent wage and given good housing . . . education . . . health . . . all that, he and his family would divide their time between the library, the art gallery, and the concert hall. Everyone would be cultured and civilized!’

  ‘But that’s true – they would. Look at the thousands of ordinary people – men in the street – and women – who went to Dame Myra Hess’s concerts at the National Gallery during the war.’

  ‘There’s a connection?’ Adam could sense he was getting nowhere with the global argument. ‘There was also the way we were going to live – putting our own ideals into practice. Can’t you remember our list? Our no-no list, you called it?’

  Willard gave a reluctant laugh. ‘God, I’d forgotten that.’ He scratched an ear. ‘Let me see. We were against the nation-state and its chauvinism – all kinds of nationalism. We wanted—’

  ‘Yes, but personally. For ourselves. What were the things we rejected for ourselves?’

  ‘While we were still sober, you mean? I guess . . . the Victorian family and the old lines of authority. The tyranny, the cruelty, the economic dependence of woman on man . . .’ He turned apologetically to Marianne. ‘You know the sort of thing. It’s hardly new.’

  ‘You don’t believe it any more?’ she asked.

  Adam grew impatient as he saw the discussion slipping away yet again. ‘We wanted to take the next step beyond.’

  ‘Maybe. I can’t remember what it was, though.’

  Adam sighed. ‘You can – you just don’t want to. In a little while now I’m going to show you a house – a large English country house, mainly Georgian with a Tudor remnant and a Victorian addition, and stables and outhouses . . . walled garden . . . five acres of wilderness that was once lawns, formal garden, fish pond, shrubbery . . . et cetera. I think all that is our “next step beyond the Victorian nuclear family”.’ He let the words sink in before he went on. ‘Imagine eight or nine families living there. All like us. All about our age. We each have our own part of the house, of course. Not by virtue of title deeds or padlocks or anything like that, but just by common consent. I’d even say communal consent. But we have one kitchen where we cook one main meal each day and we all eat it together. And we play billiards or ping-pong or whatever we want in our communal playroom. And we have our music room. And our gardens. And this – our pony and trap in which we go shopping each Saturday. But the our and the we in all those things is not “Mum and Dad”. It’s all of us, including the children. We are the community of the future! It’s the next stage of civilization. But even more than that, it’s our only hope of moving forward from the tight, cloying, inward-looking, neurosis-breeding, festering, stultifying cocoon of the Victorian family.’ He leaned triumphantly back and asked quietly. ‘So what do you say? Tony and Nicole are already in, as I said. You’ll see them when we get there. And Sally, naturally.’

  Willard let out a deep breath he did not realize he had been holding. ‘Gee, Adam, what the hell were we drinking that night? Are you sure it was just liquor?’

  Marianne began speaking suddenly, almost intoning her words, ‘An Englishman.’ She nodded toward Adam: ‘A Frenchwoman . . . an American with English, Italian, and Greek forefathers . . .’

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ Adam said, staring at Willard as if he saw him in a new light.

  ‘. . . and a Swede with German and Irish in the blood.’

  ‘Nicole has Irish blood, too,’ Adam said ‘A little. And German cousins.’

  ‘And Felix?’ she asked. ‘Is there room for him, too?’

  ‘I was just about to say . . .’ Adam began.

  But Willard reached out and took Marianne’s hand. ‘Honey? Are you seriously considering this fantasy?’

  ‘The same like you.’

  ‘I am?’ He shook his head in disbelief. ‘You know – I have the craziest feeling.’

  ‘Ideals aren’t crazy,’ Marianne said. ‘If we can’t succeed, what hope for the United Nations? What hope for the world? There must be community!’ She turned to Adam as she said the word. ‘Community among all peoples like us. Ordinary peoples. We do it now, the world does it tomorrow.’

  Willard cleared his throat awkwardly. ‘But you miss the point, sugar. I’ve never acted out of idealism in my life – not when there were good, solid reasons for doing the other thing.’

  ‘You want good, solid reasons, too?’ Adam said. ‘I’ll give you a good, solid reason for staying this side of the pond. Which country has suffered more war damage, England or America? Where will you find the more desperate need for architects?’

  ‘Where will the architect be king?’ Felix asked.

  Willard had his eyes shut in a parody of pain. ‘You’re hitting me where it hurts,’ he said.

  ‘And where better than with a couple of fellow architects who are working on the Greater London Plan, eh?’ Without waiting for an answer, Adam turned to Felix. ‘Listen, old chap. When we met at the Lansdowne in the week, Tony and I desperately wanted to suggest that you join this little community. One of the old stables would make a wizard studio for you. But we had this absurd rule, you see, and, being English, we obeyed it.’

  ‘Rule?’ Felix echoed.

  ‘It was Sally’s idea, really, but we all agreed to it. She pointed out that if we overwhelmed people with our enthusiasm and they joined us against their better instincts and then regretted it later, it would cause a lot of ill feeling. So the rule was that would-be joiners had to ask directly; we would never be the first to suggest it.’

  ‘It sounds like good sense,’ Marianne said. ‘Why are you breaking it now?’

  ‘Because of the fickleness of women, if you must know. The minute I told Sally about it, she called me every sort of fool and said of course I should have broken the rule at once and asked Felix if he’d like to join us. Her own rule! Anyway, Felix, that has now become the point of your visit today. If you like us and like the house and think the stables would make a good studio . . . just say the word. When we’re up to full ration strength, each rent will be about sixty quid a year including insurance. If you took one of the stables, it would be even less.’ After a pause he added, ‘Say?’

  ‘I’ll say yes now, please,’ Felix replied. ‘What is your English saying? A sculptor should never look three gift-architects in the mouth! Five if these two join as well.’

  Adam had one more pearl to cast: ‘I know we’re all supposed to be working class now . . . certainly we’re all workers. But we want some of the families – one or two – to be real working-class people. That’s also part of the new order.’

  ‘You English and your class system!’ Willard began.

  But Marianne cut in: ‘It won’t work! That bit of it won’t work.’

  ‘I don’t mean the lumpenproletariat – the erks. But people in skilled trades – people who made sergeant in the skilled support corps – REME . . . the Service Corps – we all met them. We all got on with them pretty well. Anyway, Marianne – how d’you know until it’s been tried?’

  Marianne clearly had a stack of counter-arguments but all she did was smile and say, ‘This beautiful, unspoiled countryside! Is America as cosy as this, darling?’

  ‘This is very like New Jersey – Mercer County . . . the country round Princeton—’ he began.

  Felix interrupted, ‘What happened there?’ He pointed to a large patch of bare earth beside the road.

  ‘Ammo dump,’ Adam said.

  ‘Please?’

  ‘It was probably an ammunition dump. During the war they dispersed small piles of ammunition all over England, mostly in little roadside heaps – all secure in locked metal boxes and under cover, of course. Safer than keeping it all in one huge arsenal. There are thousands of them still, not yet dismantled – all over the countryside.’

  Felix whistled in amazement. ‘And they weren’t afraid of revolutionaries?’

  ‘Not really. We don’t go in for that sort of thing. What revolutionaries, anyway? The communists? They were all on our side.’

&nbs
p; ‘Not any more!’ Willard said vehemently.

  But Marianne had a different agenda. ‘It would be so easy to forget the war here.’ She smiled at Felix and added, ‘To draw a line.’

  ‘Talking of which’ – Willard switched tracks effortlessly – ‘you’re right! I could draw a lot of lines right here in England. There’s something about all those hundreds of thousands of bomb-damaged acres that appeals to an architect’s eye. How about work permits . . . stuff like that?’

  Adam’s only response was a withering look. ‘You couldn’t fix that?’

  Willard shrugged. ‘I still can’t believe I’m taking it all seriously.’

  ‘Try it for a year,’ Adam suggested. ‘What does that cost at our age? Just give it a year. It’ll be an experience if nothing else. Something to tell your grandchildren.’

  The road curved away to the left among coppiced trees that had run wild again. It increased the sense of enclosure and the snug, tunnel-like ambience. The curve proved to be the first half of an S-bend, with the road swinging back to the left again – toward Bull’s Green, as another newly repainted fingerboard told them.

  But it was what stood on the far side of this second bend that made Marianne and Willard catch their breath. ‘What a little beauty,’ he said.

  She agreed. ‘A jewel!’

  The object of their wonder was a gatelodge. It stood inside and to the left of an impressive stone entrance way, which had once, no doubt, been furnished with equally impressive railings and gates in wrought iron; but, like most such ironwork, they had been melted down in 1940 for ‘the war effort’. The lodge, however, was intact. The gable ends were concave, like those on a Chinese pagoda; the bargeboards were carved, not simply sawn; the windows were gothic; the chimneys were in fluted spirals and walls were of red brick.

  The Johnsons dismounted and crossed the road, pressing against the sheep hurdles that had replaced the wrought-iron railings.

  ‘D’you think we could?’ Marianne asked hesitantly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Have a peep inside?’

  Adam laughed. ‘You can live there if you like – unless Felix wants it, of course. He’s got first refusal.’