INDIFFERENT HEROES

by MARY HOCKING

  Madeleine said, ‘Alice, you must make the most of life now. By the time the war is over, we shall all be quite old. There will be some other little innocent to play the girl in the gingham gown.’

  Girls from the next dormitory drifted in. Alice received little vocal support. Several of the girls who agreed with her held back only for fear of having a baby.

  ‘I used to be like you, Alice,’ a fair-haired girl with the face of a Botticelli angel said. ‘It’s the way we’ve been brought up.’

  ‘I think that’s true,’ Alice conceded. ‘But we were brought up like that. It moulded us.’

  ‘For Heaven’s sake! Break the mould!’ Madeleine said crisply.

  ‘I think that might damage me more than not breaking it.’

  ‘I don’t feel all that damaged.’ The angel cast a sideways glance at the mirror. ‘My fellow is a psychiatrist. And he says it is impossible to really enjoy anything without sex – music, art, even food. You’re only part alive without it.’

  A heavy-eyed brunette said, ‘This idea that a man likes a girl to be a virgin is nonsense. You should hear the jokes they make.’

  Jeannie said, ‘I think you are all being squalid. Alice is a nice girl. And men do care about that.’ Jeannie made much of being the wholesome, girl-next-door type, while signalling sexual availability. It was a fiction which she maintained rigorously, never for one moment relaxing, even among her fellow Wrens, who were all well aware of her activities. Sometimes, it seemed as though she herself believed in her virginity.

  Alice said, ‘I’m not bothered about being a nice girl.’

  ‘That’s just as well,’ Madeleine said. ‘You’re still young enough to carry it off. But if you go on much longer, you’ll find yourself nursing a virtue no one is trying especially hard to take from you.’ The brunette said, ‘And the longer you wait, the more difficult you will find it.’

  Alice could see that a time might well come when she would be too afraid of being unsatisfactory to take the risk. ‘I’ll think about it,’ she promised.

  ‘This actor fellow would be better for you than Gordon,’ Madeleine told her. ‘With Gordon so knotted up, and you so inexperienced, the whole thing would probably have been a disaster.’

  ‘I loved Gordon, though.’

  ‘Alice! If you are going to wait for what you regard as true love, you’ll be too old to enjoy it when it happens – if it happens.’

  When the others had gone, Jeannie remained behind. ‘I don’t like to say this, Alice; but you want to beware of Madeleine. In my opinion, she is a very bad influence. She has led a lot of girls astray.’ She sat on the bunk and put an arm round Alice’s shoulders. Alice was uncomfortably aware of the vibrance of her tawny body. ‘I’ve always felt we had a lot in common. Madeleine is just a high-class tart and Gwenda isn’t any class at all. We come from the same sort of background.’

  Alice said, ‘Thanks very much, Jeannie,’ in a tone which she hoped was more valedictory than obliged.

  Jeannie squeezed Alice’s arm. ‘Don’t let them change you, Alice. I think you are sweet the way you are. You might do something with your hair, though, if you don’t mind my saying so. If you had it cut, and properly shaped, you might not look so old-fashioned. And if you should . . . well, don’t tell them. It’s a great mistake to tell.’

  ‘All right, Jeannie. Thanks.’

  Jeannie kissed her. ‘If you want to know anything at any time, Alice, you can always come and talk to me. I’m not crude, like the others.’

  When she had gone, Alice sat in front of the mirror staring at her image. I am a puritan, she thought sadly; but I can’t toss it aside because other people tell me I should.

  She felt very homesick. Although, in fact, the same discussion with her mother, Claire and Louise would not have yielded a unanimous verdict, it would have been conducted within a framework of shared values. There was something else, too. She strained to reach it, and felt it was almost within her grasp when the quarters PO flung open the door.

  ‘There’s two Aussie soldiers downstairs wanting to take a couple of Wrens to a dance. Can you come, Alice?’

  ‘Sorry. I’m on late duty.’

  ‘I don’t know how I’m going to get rid of them, short of getting Reverend Mother to exorcize them.’ She padded quietly down the corridor.

  Alice sat on her bunk, reconstructing her home within her mind, which was something she did when she had a quiet moment. It had been difficult at first, but gradually, as the shock waves of her father’s death died down, it was becoming easier. Soon, the house would be the reality, the heap of rubble the fantasy. It helped if she went far back into her childhood. Claire swore she could remember being in her push-chair; she said it had almost tipped over once outside Warren and Beck’s in Acton, and she had been terrified. Alice could not go back as far as this. One of her earliest memories was of the coming of Claire.

  The convent bell rang. The nuns would be making their way to the chapel. PO was probably still trying to convince the Aussies that she didn’t have any Wrens hidden away anywhere. Alice could remember Claire’s christening. They had gone back to the house afterwards for a tea party and had discovered that the dog. Badger, had licked the top off all the fairy cakes.

  The christening robe: the same christening robe for all three of them, and for Catherine and James. She herself, being godmother, had held Catherine in her arms wearing the robe. It had been the loving work of many hands; her great-grandmother had made it, some of the crochet work had been added by her Fairley grandmother, and carefully repaired by her own mother. There was a smell of lavender about it: the smell of being cherished that had been about her in infancy. The joy at Claire’s coming (she could remember that because she had been jealous) must have reflected her own coming.

  She had lost the house now. All she could bring to mind was the attic where they had gathered on the last occasion that they were all together, turning out their treasures. They had thrown away so much that she would like to have kept, and they hadn’t saved the house. But she realized now that, although the house had gone, its potentiality was within her.

  She wanted the christening robe for her child. She wanted the child to be born of loving parents who had waited, hoped, and prepared for it. She wanted joy and reverence for the making of the child. And so, she wanted that long walk up the aisle; the feeling of fear and awe at the commitment she was about to make, risking herself, not just for one mad moment, but for the whole of her future life. This giving of herself at the altar was, for her, the gesture she must make, in order to receive the gift of the baby.

  The convent was quiet. The nuns were at prayer and the Aussies had presumably been persuaded to leave. She experienced a few minutes of peace. Well, perhaps not as long as that – one and a half minutes?

  Oh, were that all, how well it would sound! But there were other things to be taken into account. She was so inexperienced. Was it this which held her back, the fear that she might not be good in bed? Or was the dread of having an unwanted baby paramount? She had seen how much that had upset her parents. Was it the thought of her mother’s pain, should it happen to her as well as Louise, which prevented her? The more she probed her motives, the more she wondered: is ‘goodness’ ever entirely good?

  She had admired Louise so much for going against the climate of her time. Yet now, only a few years later, the climate favoured Louise. Moral values, it seemed, were more constantly in a state of flux than she had suspected as a child. It was all a question of standing where it seemed right for oneself, and abiding by the consequences. But who was oneself?

  She had had another gift which had been handed down in another family. She remembered the brilliant shawl which Jacov had put round her shoulders one Christmas. It had seemed so alien, then, so unfitting. She seemed to have been reconciling herself to its silky rainbow splendour ever since. Now, the thought of it stirred her strangely.

  It was so confusing – the christening robe, the shawl, nights at ho
me when the frost cracked in one’s ears and the world had a diamond-hard clarity; the brilliance of this coming night, when everything would dissolve in warmth and scented turbulence. How could all this be bound together into one life?

  The evening breeze at last began to move the curtains, the first easing of the heat of the day. The sun was going down; she went to the window to watch the darkening of the brilliant crimson sky to violet. The whole world seemed to heave over into night and within her there was such yearning she cried aloud, ‘Oh, what am I to do?’

  If Jacov were here now . . .

  But it was a week before he returned. Apparently, he saw his role in her life as husband rather than seducer.

  ‘You asked me if I was a virgin,’ she said when he proposed again. ‘How many girls have you had?’

  He seemed to regard this as an unfair question.

  She said, ‘I’ve been in love with one man who kept part of his life secret from me. I’m not going to let it happen again. How much would you share with me, Jacov?’

  ‘Share?’

  ‘You don’t know what I am talking about, do you? I want a husband who is prepared to share himself without reservations.’ He looked puzzled. After a few moments, he said, ‘You don’t like it that I am an actor?’

  She wondered if he was being deliberately evasive; and then she realized that, intentionally or otherwise, he had come near to voicing her uncertainty about him.

  ‘That’s as good an answer as any. I should always want to know what went on inside you, once you walked through the stage door.’

  ‘You make me sad.’

  ‘We should both be sad if we got married.’

  She had expected him to accept this with relief and was surprised to see real sadness in his eyes. Had he wanted her so much? And why? She herself longed to be understood; but she had not thought it mattered about understanding Jacov, who, she had assumed, was deliberately misleading. Could she have been wrong?

  ‘I do love you,’ she assured him.

  He laughed and took her hand and raised it to his lips. They did not talk any more of marriage.

  It was only after he had left Egypt that Alice remembered to write to Ben. She decided to make her visit to Cairo the main topic. It was difficult writing to someone in captivity. Probably he would not want to hear about her enjoyment of the freedom of life in Alexandria; she would tell him how she had missed his company in Cairo. She made much of the antiquities of Cairo and of her disappointment at not seeing the Pyramids.

  Hers was one of the few letters which reached Ben. He read it crouched in the latrine. He was weak from dysentery and he wept as he read.

  Chapter Nine

  Winter 1942-Spring 1943

  It was pitch dark, Judith sat in the train with an uneasy feeling of being abandoned. There was no sound from the engine, not even an expiring sigh. Five minutes ago – or perhaps longer? – there had been some bumping and a sound which she had taken to be the coupling on of further coaches. Now, the unpleasant thought occurred to her that it might have been the uncoupling of the engine.

  She found the idea of the removal of the engine profoundly unnerving. True, she had not been entirely satisfied she was travelling in the right direction; but, since most of her life motion of some sort had seemed preferable to inactivity, she had accepted this as a necessary hazard of wartime journeying. Unconsciously, she had adopted the maxim: don’t worry where you are going as long as you are moving. She was not well-equipped to cope with stillness.

  A lot of people had got out at the last station; but there was at least one other person in the compartment. She could hear the tapping of fingers on the far window. She said, ‘Are there only the two of us?’

  A few moments’ silence, then a man’s voice answered, ‘It would seem so.’ He did not sound disposed to be companionable.

  Judith wound down the window and leant out. Little was achieved by this, other than making the compartment colder than ever. There was no gleam of light in earth or sky. It was as if the world had run its course. ‘What are we going to do about this?’ she said.

  ‘I suppose I could get out and see what is happening?’ He sounded irritable. Perhaps he thought she should have offered?

  To cement his resolve, she said, ‘Be careful. I don’t think we are at a station – there may be a long drop.’ Her own voice was as brusque as his, but she was unaware of that.

  He opened the door at his end of the compartment; some effortful breathing, accompanied by exasperated exclamations, ensued. She thought this not entirely necessary. The voice was not that of a young man, but it had a resonance which did not suggest old age and decrepitude. Eventually, he called from somewhere below, ‘We seem to be in a siding.’ She heard him moving laboriously over stones; he obviously intended to make heavy weather of this. As the sounds became more distant, it occurred to her that he might not come back. He did not give the impression of being a particularly chivalrous man.

  The blackness and the silence were dense. There was sweat on her forehead. A siding! Shunted off into a siding! It is all over, she thought in panic; my life is all over! She had refused to see what was happening to her; but now the bleakness of her situation, so heartlessly symbolized by the Southern Railway, was inescapable. Louise did not need her; she was a nuisance to Harry and Meg; Claire was at university; and Alice was enjoying herself abroad. She was alone. She looked out of the window again. Blackness pressed against her eyeballs.

  The man was returning. ‘There’s just two coaches,’ he said, accusingly, as though it was her fault. ‘I didn’t hear anyone make an announcement, did you?’

  ‘I heard an announcement, but it was incomprehensible – as usual.’

  He hauled himself back into the carriage and slammed the door. More heavy breathing.

  Where are we? Judith thought, trying to distract herself with a little local geography. Trains branched off at certain stages in the journey to Lewes – she was always afraid she might end up in Storrington or some other God-forsaken place. She had thought she recognized the words Haywards Heath in that announcement, but could not be sure. If that last station had been Haywards Heath, and supposing she was – or had been – on the right train, then the siding was probably somewhere near Plumpton. Were there any sidings near Plumpton?

  She said, ‘I think we may be near Plumpton. If only the moon was up, we could see the Downs.’

  Her companion was not prepared to speculate about Plumpton. A few minutes later, however, he said, ‘I have some spam sandwiches, if you would care . . .?’

  ‘Oh, I couldn’t deprive you . . .’

  ‘I really think you had better.’ He was more irritated than ever. ‘We don’t know how long we may be here. If you don’t eat, you may become faint.’ This would be too inconsiderate, his voice implied.

  She groped and received two spam sandwiches. ‘I’ve got a flask of tea,’ she said. ‘I didn’t bother about bringing food because I thought it was going to be a short journey.’

  ‘It is rather cold,’ he acknowledged. Taking this for acceptance, she poured tea into the cup of the flask. ‘I’ve got a mug for myself,’ she said, as they negotiated the exchange.

  They munched and drank in silence. The utter darkness robbed her of any sense of companionship. I am alone, she thought. Alone! She was one of seven children; she had married and had three children, and a demanding husband. What she had hitherto thought of as being alone was the luxury of having an afternoon to herself. The blackness was becoming suffocating.

  ‘Why is there no one about?’ she asked sharply.

  ‘I expect the entire railway staff has been put into a munitions factory.’

  ‘Wherever you go, everyone seems to be away doing useful things.’

  ‘The whole bloody world is actively employed!’ he responded vehemently. But she could tell that his feeling was of a different quality from her own: he was exasperated by the dislocation of his journey, in no way was he afraid.

  She a
te the second spam sandwich, which was warm and dry. The lack of activity was the worst thing of all. She was a practical person, life had formed her that way. There had always been so much to do. If you took the sewing machine, vacuum cleaner and cooker away from her, there wouldn’t be a person there at all. She felt full of rage against life.

  She said, ‘I have been staying with my daughter.’

  ‘Yes, so have I.’ The cause of his irritation was now apparent. He added, in a tone of almost sepulchral gloom, ‘and my grandchildren.’

  ‘It can be difficult, can’t it?’

  ‘My daughter is one of those implacable females.’ He became quite expansive. ‘It’s impossible to be of any help to her because she doesn’t listen, she knows everything. Absolutely no experience of the world, mind you, she just knows.’

  Judith, thinking of herself and Stanley, said wryly, ‘She must have got it from somebody.’

  ‘My wife, probably. She tended to live by Divine revelation.’

  Either his wife was long dead, or he was a very cold fish.

  What was she to say now? ‘I have been staying with my daughter . . .’ Was this to be her conversation over the coming years, the relating of details of her visits to Louise and Alice and Claire; and when she was not visiting, would she be anticipating their invitations, or hoping they would spare the time to come to her? And where would she be living? She could not stay forever on the farm with Meg and Harry Braddon. Oh, this awful blackness!

  ‘Children do tend to make use of one, don’t they?’ she said. ‘I suppose it’s our own fault, for wanting to be needed.’

  ‘But I don’t want to be needed!’

  You’re needed now, though, she thought savagely. I have to talk to someone.

  ‘You have only the one child?’

  ‘I had a son. He was killed at Dunkirk.’ The statement was made with a brevity which invited no comment. Nevertheless, she said, ‘My husband was killed in the blitz.’

  Such a stupid thing, she wanted to tell him; trying to open a door for a crazy woman who lived next door. It wasn’t as though he was ever any good at household jobs. She almost choked with rage.