‘Really not? I would have thought it was obvious.’
‘Not to me.’ She buried her face on his shoulder. The rough tweed smelled of the cold night air.
‘I suppose we had better get going.’ He sighed and switched on the ignition. ‘If I’m back too late …’
Sylvia said nothing and he turned off the engine.
After a while he said, ‘Jeanette and I got married before I left for France in 1940. It seemed the right thing to do. I mean, it was what she wanted. It was that sort of time – uncertain, everything up in the air, you know, well, you don’t, of course.’
‘I do a bit. I remember my father going off to fight.’ He had had tears in his eyes when he kissed her goodbye. ‘Remember me, won’t you, Princess?’ She was only five but she had never forgotten that.
‘I was going off to fight in France,’ the man in the car beside her said, ‘unsure if I’d be coming back. I wanted to leave her with some sort of stability, some sort of comfort, if only the comfort of the prospect of a widow’s pension. We hardly knew each other, though we kidded ourselves we did. It must have happened to thousands like us. A cliché, I’m afraid.’
‘How did you meet? Was she a nurse?’
‘No, a friend of my sister’s from school. In fact – this is a sort of quirk of fate – I was infatuated with another girl, who was a nurse. She dropped me for a more senior colleague and one Christmas I took Jeanette out in her place, to, I don’t know what, really – take some sort of revenge on this other girl, not that she’d have noticed, she was dead set on my colleague – cheer myself up – pique – God knows, I don’t any longer. I’d gathered from my sister that Jeanette was keen on me and it boosted my punctured self-esteem. We, I, anyway, got plastered and, well, one thing led to another. She was a virgin. I didn’t know.’
‘Oh.’
‘Or she said she was, I have wondered since.’
‘Oh.’
‘And the years as a POW rather cemented our differences. I came home hoping for the best and found we’d grown further apart. I’m sorry to unload all this sordid stuff on to you.’
‘Please. It doesn’t matter.’
‘It does rather, you see, because I can’t give you much. I can’t leave her. There’s Marigold.’
‘It’s all right. I know.’
‘So if you want to slap my face or get out here and have me find you a taxi home …’
‘I don’t.’
‘And this, what’s happened tonight, can stop right now and I’ll never touch you again.’
‘Please don’t.’
‘I shan’t, I promise.’
‘No, please don’t not touch me again.’
‘Are you sure? I can’t give you much.’
‘I know. Please don’t keep saying that.’
They drove back with his hand on her knee, saying little. As they approached East Mole Sylvia said, ‘You can’t drive me all the way home, someone will see you. Drop me at the towpath.’
He pulled up near the canal and got out to open her door. ‘I can’t let you walk there alone.’
‘It’s perfectly safe.’
‘Don’t be a goose. I’m coming with you, at least till we’re within spitting distance of your house.’
They walked by the canal, hand in hand. Suddenly he began to sing, as he had done before
‘I found my love where the gaslight falls,
Dreamed a dream by the old canal,
Kissed my girl by the factory wall.’
My shoes, my other clothes, Sylvia suddenly remembered. I must have left them at the George and Dragon or in the cathedral. But she didn’t interrupt him.
Although she would have sworn she had not shut her eyes all night, Sylvia was woken from a delicious dream by the sound of banging. She hurried downstairs in her dressing gown. A pink-faced Mr Collins was at the door.
Since the episode of the dead fox, exchanges with her neighbour had been perfunctory but civil. But now his pale eyes looked baleful. Instinctively, Sylvia adopted an ameliorating tone.
‘Good morning, Mr Collins. Nothing wrong, I hope.’
‘I am afraid there is.’
‘Oh?’
‘It’s my apple tree. It’s been damaged.’
‘Oh dear.’
‘I’d like you to come and see.’
‘Would you mind if I dressed first, only it’s a little cold?’
She dressed hurriedly and, looking about for her shoes, remembered she had left them in Salisbury. Pulling on wellingtons, she went outside, where her neighbour was standing by the fence.
‘Look at this.’ He pointed to where a branch of the apple tree that had overhung her path had been torn away, leaving a ragged stump.
‘Yes, I see.’
‘Well?’
‘I can only say that it wasn’t me, Mr Collins.’
‘I didn’t imagine it was, but those Hedges children constantly play in your garden and on your gate.’
‘It must have been affected by the storm. Perhaps that branch just fell off.’
Her neighbour’s expression became more truculent. ‘If it “fell off”, as you put it, the branch would be here. I’m not a fool, Miss Blackwell, and I know my rights. This is malicious damage. I must advise you that if you fail to supervise those children when they visit you and there is another such occurrence I shall inform the police.’
He walked out, banging the gate, and Sylvia went back inside to make tea and toast.
It was so cold in the cottage that she took her breakfast upstairs and got back into bed, trying to recover her dream. She felt that it had been of Hugh but Mr Collins’ rude incursion had banished all nebulous delights to oblivion. But there were plenty of exciting real-life events to ponder.
She lay back in the bed to review what had happened.
Although she had been at an all-girls’ school, she had escaped the usual crushes on older girls or the mistresses. But during a brief religious phase there had been a boy in the church choir she had once been kissed by, and for a while she had been entangled with a fellow student at library school. She and he had fumbled uncomfortably in various cinemas but these forays had not gone beyond his slipping an inexpert hand inside her bra. A suggestion that she visit him while his parents were abroad in Malta had come to nothing. Not that this was any great disappointment. She was aware enough to know that her feelings for him were the manufacture of the wish for experience rather than born of real desire.
She recalled again that uncanny experience she had had on the London Tube. The stranger in the next carriage, whose face at the open window that hot July evening she had so mysteriously seemed to recognise. From the first, Hugh had evoked in her that same feeling of familiarity. It was as if she already had a blueprint of him inscribed on her soul, merely awaiting realisation in the flesh. She had read about elective affinities. That expressed what she felt for Hugh Bell. And the wonder of it, the glorious wonder, was that he seemed to feel it too.
Before they parted he had placed his two hands on her shoulders and said gravely, ‘Sylvia, this isn’t something I have ever done before, I promise. Unsatisfactory as my relationship with Jeanette has been, I have, in practice anyway, been loyal to her. But I feel as if with you I have some prior loyalty. It’s very odd, my dear. Odd but, I must say, marvellous.’
Odd but marvellous. The words, so exhilarating at the time, as she rehearsed them now seemed to offer fewer possibilities. What could he, what could they do? As he had made clear, there was Marigold. And he was a GP with a reputation to maintain. Any meetings they had could only be infrequent. But that did not for the moment detract from the extraordinary and astonishing and altogether unlooked-for sense that even now he was thinking as she thought, feeling as she felt.
Wanting the good that had come to her to be shared, Sylvia dressed and went round to the Hedges’ to warn Sam that Mr Collins was on the war path. But their neighbour had anticipated her.
‘He was round here first thing, threa
tening us and making his accusations.’ June was livid.
Sylvia, who was pretty sure it was Sam who had torn off the branch, asked if she could have a word with him.
The twins were on the sitting-room floor, their legs outstretched, fashioning paper chains from strips of coloured paper. They had already licked off all the gum and were having to stick the chains together with paste and squabbling over the paste brush.
‘Shall we make paper chains for you, Sylvia?’
‘Yes, please, Twins. I’d like that very much.’
‘We’re not twins today,’ Jem said. ‘I am being Queen Elizabeth and she is being Princess Margaret.’
‘Princess Margaret is the pretty one,’ Pam explained.
Sylvia stepped over the paste and went through to the tiny room which served as Sam’s bedroom. Sam was working his Meccano funicular.
‘You heard all that, I dare say, Sam? Only, if anything like that happens again, he may well call the police.’
‘See if I care!’ Sam looked defiant.
‘Listen,’ Sylvia said. ‘It’s no skin off my nose. Just as long as you know the score.’
Unable to read or settle to anything, she decided to walk to the foundry. The rutted mud on the track was frozen hard, the hedges beside it beaded with scarlet hawthorn berries and wreathed in clouds of old man’s beard. Pondering the fracas over Mr Collins’ tree, which she guessed Sam had robbed for the mistletoe, she was reminded again of Hugh’s kisses.
She had gone to the foundry half in hope of finding him to match her thoughts of their first meeting there but the only other sign of life was a lone ginger cat which only put her in mind of Mr Collins. Poor pathetic Mr Collins with his pettifogging, old-maidish concerns. In her present mood she felt benignly towards him.
As if reading her mind, the cat came and wrapped itself round her legs and she crouched down to stroke its matted fur. ‘Hello, puss.’ The cat inclined its head. Two limpid green pools looked steadily up at her. Then the cat shook itself and walked off with its tail in the air. ‘I am the cat that walks by itself, and all places are alike to me,’ she called softly after it.
Still restless, she walked along the canal to the lock. The door of the lock-keeper’s house was open and a young man about her age was at the door.
He shouted across to her, ‘Mind how you go. Jack Frost’s been out.’
Sylvia remembered. ‘You know Lizzie Smith?’
‘Young Liz is here now, as it happens.’
Mrs Bird appeared in the doorway. ‘It’s brass-monkey weather. Tea’s just brewed and I’ve brought Ned here some of my Christmas cake.’
Sylvia crossed the lock gate to the cottage and was shown into a tiny room, where a heavy-looking fruitcake was being passed round. Lizzie was at first struck dumb by Sylvia’s arrival but she became more vocal once her grandmother had followed Ned into the kitchen.
They could hear her through the thin partition, saying, ‘Don’t tell me anyone’s going to be going through that lock on Christmas Day or, if there is, there ought to be a law.’
Sylvia, who had refrained from asking about the Grammar School in front of Mrs Bird, risked, ‘How is the new school, Lizzie?’
‘The maths is hard. I’m in the bottom set. But I’m in the top set for English.’
‘Good for you.’
Lizzie looked bashful and added, ‘I’m going to be Mustardseed, Miss, in the school play. I did the audition for our English teacher, and we start rehearsals next term.’
‘That’s terrific, Lizzie. Do you remember we talked about that when you and Sam were feeding the donkeys? I was Bottom when I was at school.’
‘Janine Gates is being him. Her mum makes puppets so she’s doing the donkey’s head. Will you come and see it, Miss?’
‘It’s still “Sylvia”, Lizzie, and yes, I should love to come and see you. I’ll bring Sam.’
‘He won’t want to come.’
Freshly attuned to the sensibilities of the lovelorn, Sylvia said, ‘I’m sure he will. You must come round and see us over the holidays. He’d like to see you.’
‘We could practise for his 11+ together, like you did with me.’
‘We could,’ Sylvia agreed, privately guessing that this would be beneath Sam’s dignity. Sam was expected to sail through the exam.
Mrs Bird came back from harassing Ned and began to shoo Lizzie into her coat. ‘Hurry up or your grandad’ll be back from the pub and expecting his roast on the table.’
‘Fancy something stronger,’ Ned asked, once they had left, ‘now I’ve got Auntie Thelma out of my hair?’
This seemed a good idea. ‘Thank you. I’d love one. She’s your aunt, Mrs Bird?’
‘Great-aunt. Her husband, Uncle Jim, and my dad’s dad are brothers, but she likes “auntie”, and what Thelma wants, she gets, as my mum used to say.’
‘Your mum …?’
‘She died of the flu. Complications.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Auntie Thelma helped Dad out with us lot. He wouldn’t have managed without her so I let her go on at me. It doesn’t hurt.’
Sylvia, not knowing what to say, said, ‘She seems very kind.’
Ned laughed. He had a rather lumpen face but it lit up when he laughed. ‘Not if you get on her wrong side, she isn’t. A right termagant, she can be. Mum didn’t get on with her too well, to be honest. What’ll you have? I’ve Scotch, gin and tonic, sherry, beer?’
‘A G and T would be grand.’ Hugh had offered her that the previous evening. ‘You’re well stocked up.’
‘I get myself one or two treats in for Christmas. It’s snug here with a few drinks and the wireless.’
‘You don’t get lonely?’
‘I like my own company. Here you are. Cheers.’
Sylvia sipped the sparkling drink, feeling grown up and excited. The sun glittered on the tracery of frost etching the windowpanes and refracted on the dancing bubbles in the glass.
‘You’re the new librarian,’ Ned said. ‘I like books, myself.’
‘What do you like to read?’
‘Most things. Crime, history. I’m reading this at the moment.’ He held up The Guns of Navarone. ‘I’d have served in the Navy if I’d been old enough.’
‘My father was in the RAF,’ Sylvia said, her mind reverting to Hugh. Four years in a prisoner-of-war camp. And then coming home to a marriage he had grown tired of.
‘I wouldn’t have minded that either,’ Ned said. ‘I’d have given anything to have served.’
‘I still remember the relief when it was all over, finally.’ Those awful night raids, her head under the bedclothes, worrying that her father might be killed. ‘And rationing. Wasn’t it extraordinary, those first bananas?’
‘I do remember my first banana being a red-letter day.’
Her new friend seemed pleased for her to stay sharing recollections of the war. He had been to London, he told her, and had been horrified at seeing the devastation of the bomb sites. ‘You had it hard, you Londoners, with the Blitz.’
‘We lived more in a suburb,’ Sylvia said. ‘But it was near enough. You could hear the planes overhead at night.’
He was the only person of her own age she had met to talk to in East Mole – even Gwen was her senior by some years. There was a comfort in it. As if she could, if need be, confide in Ned Bird.
18
Sylvia had not known what to do about the shoes and clothes she had lost somewhere in Salisbury. She had tried ringing the George and Dragon from a phone box but a foreign-sounding woman answered and she couldn’t make her understand. She was on tenterhooks in the hope of hearing from Hugh, but it was not until the day of the drinks party that she saw him again.
He arrived just before the library’s closing time. Dee was still busily tidying the shelves so their conversation was oblique.
‘I’m returning these books for Marigold. She’s much better but wheezy so she’s still confined to barracks.’
‘I’m sorry to
hear that.’ The words sounded inane.
‘I’m bidden to choose some books for her. She didn’t, in the end, read this. I’m afraid my enthusiasm put her off.’ He passed her I Capture the Castle, fixing her with a stare. ‘You mentioned wanting to reread it yourself.’
Dee said, ‘Just nipping to get some cards from the stationery cupboard and then we can pack up.’
When she had gone Sylvia whispered, fearful Dee should come back suddenly, ‘Is it all right for me to come tonight?’
‘You bet. That’s why I came, to make sure.’ He squeezed her hand. ‘I’d better get back or I’ll be in the doghouse.’
‘Hugh’ – it still felt odd saying his name aloud – ‘I’m sorry to ask but, stupidly, I left some of my clothes and my shoes in Salisbury – maybe in the pub. If you are going to see your friend again, could you maybe ask there for me?’
‘I’m glad I went to your head enough to make you leave your clothes behind.’
When he had gone Sylvia opened I Capture the Castle. There was a note inside, written on the surgery paper.
She was reading it when Dee came back through the swing doors. ‘You all right? You look a bit flushed.’
‘It’s hot in here with the radiators on. Shall we lock up now?’
On the way out Dee remarked, ‘You need stouter footwear than those in this weather.’
The problem of her shoes had occupied Sylvia. The pumps she had bought were hardly suitable for cycling or the wet and slushy towpath so she had stuck to wellingtons and changed into the pumps for work.
‘My other shoes have sprung a leak,’ Sylvia improvised. ‘But I’ve got wellies for to and from work.’
‘What size are you? Must be about the same as me. If you want to come back to mine, I’ve plenty I can spare.’
Sylvia went back to Dee’s house and tried on shoes and found a pair that fitted. Dee pressed her to stay for lunch and over cauliflower cheese Sylvia mentioned the Bells’ drinks party.
‘I haven’t been invited. Jeanette Bell wouldn’t ask the likes of me. Not the right class.’
‘I’m sure it isn’t that, Dee.’
‘Damn right it is. Himself’s been invited. Not that I care.’
The Librarian Page 13
