by MARY HOCKING
The need to dramatize was awakened now. Claire told Heather about Harry and Meg.
Heather said, ‘The sod! So that is why you were so buttoned up when we met. And I thought you were in one of your mean moods!’
A mean mood, Claire might have accepted: ‘one of your mean moods’ she did not at all like. She said, ‘Harry’s not a sod. He loved me. I hadn’t realized what it is to be loved like that.’ She felt that Heather had not grasped the unique quality of this experience.
Heather said, ‘The dirty old man! You must have had an awful time and I haven’t been a bit sympathetic’ Repentant, she flung her arms around Claire. Her elbows dug into Claire’s ribs. She smelt of sweat.
Claire, looking up at the tilting sky, was not sure how she felt about this. There were people coming along the towpath; she could hear them exclaiming about the pussy willows.
‘I can’t breathe,’ she said touchily. ‘And anyway, you mustn’t speak in that way about Harry. He is my uncle.’ Heather’s family was common; it did not behove her to speak in this way of a Fairley connection, even though not one of the blood.
It was more than that, though. There was something so unselfconscious, so without guile or affectation, so unqualified – in fact, so unambiguous – about Heather’s friendship . . .
Heather was saying in a different voice, ‘But then, you’re all sods, randy old Uncle Harry and all.’ She was sitting looking away over the river, hands clasped round her knees.
Claire said, trying to be chirpy, ‘Who’s in a mean mood now?’
Heather put her head down on her knees and did not answer.
Claire said, ‘Well, if you’re going to sulk, I’m going for a walk.’
She began to walk along the towpath, looking back from time to time to see if Heather was following her. Heather was not. Claire was more put out than she had anticipated. She realized that her friendship with Heather was getting quite a hold on her. ‘I don’t think I have ever felt so unhappy,’ she thought. ‘And only a little while ago I had never felt so happy.’
Further along the towpath, she sat beneath the pussy willows, looking down at the river. A current chafed the smooth blue surface so that it looked like shirred silk. She had real trouble now. She had grown up in a world where the boundaries of loving were not blurred, and the lines of demarcation were armed frontiers. The air was very still, but the reflection of trees trembled slightly. Once look beyond those frontiers and all was over with you; the mirror cracked from side to side, and there was no way back.
Mummy was right, she told herself. I do need to be careful; Heather will just sweep me up otherwise. Tears came; tears that, for once, she did not particularly want but could not hold back. She remembered how she had burnt her stories of the Maitland family. There were other people – real people – one must also do without. She owed it to dear Harry to remember that.
By the time she met Heather at the YWCA she had herself well in hand.
Judith stayed another week with the minister and his wife, during which time she found rooms in a large house on the outskirts of Lewes. The owner of the house was away in North Africa. His wife was in the WVS, an activity which seemed to occupy her day and night. Although active in good works, she was not communicative on the purely social level, and was glad to find a lodger who kept herself to herself.
The memory of the railway siding stayed in Judith’s mind; but gradually, because she was not a poor-spirited woman, she ceased to blame life for her troubles and began to question her own attitudes. Perhaps she had chosen a road which led to a dead end? If so, it was now up to her to fight her way out.
Chapter Ten
Spring-Autumn 1943
By the spring of 1943, the tide of battle had turned; yet to the ordinary soldier there never seemed to have been a particular moment when he discovered it was flowing in his favour. Stalingrad was a world away from North Africa; the Coral Sea and Midway Island he had never even heard of. His horizons were limited by what he could see.
In July, Guy Immingham, who was now in Sicily, could see Italy across the Straits of Messina. He viewed it with mixed feelings. The desert had provided an ideal background for fighting. Sicily had brought him a stage nearer to places which were part of a known civilization which he associated with his own way of life. He liked the Italians, and did not look forward to wreaking havoc in a country which had formed the background to much of his classical studies in school. The crimes committed in Abyssinia had made little impression on him; he associated Italians with laughter and gaiety, Titian and Dante.
His companion had other thoughts in mind. ‘All those señoritas!’ he said, gazing avidly as though he saw voluptuousness in the contours of the coastline itself.
‘Signorinas, I believe,’ Guy corrected gently.
The other man rubbed his hands together. ‘Naples, that’ll be the place! Oh, boy – Naples!’
Guy wrote to Louise, ‘All that seems to concern some of these men is brothels – their availability or otherwise! You must not think I share these feelings. I am not tempted in this way. I have only to think of you . . .’
Louise ran into the hall and cried to the children, ‘We’re going for a walk.’
‘Again, Mummy.’
‘Yes, yes, James! We mustn’t miss a moment of this sunshine.’
‘You won’t walk so fast this time, will you?’
There were a few items of interest which Guy omitted from his letters to Louise. For one thing, he had hopes of further meetings with a WAAF officer whom he had met in Cairo. As he had done nothing of which he need be ashamed, he did not consider there was any need for him to tell Louise about this. Had she known his feelings, however, she would have felt a little less guilty. Guy did experience a certain pleasure in being with an attractive woman other than his wife: an undoubted sense of having put something over on ‘people’ whose identities he did not specify. He would have something to smile to himself about in future years, a secret. Until now, his emotions had been mortgaged to pay debts to others – his parents for his good home and schooling; Louise for loving him and bearing him children. This was something for himself, his very own.
Her name was Monica Ames. She was dark and slim and had a skin like a peach. But for all her undoubted beauty, most men found her company unsatisfactory. They said they were never sure if she was enjoying herself. Her eyes were rather lifeless. To Guy, wanting nothing more than a personable companion, her beauty was a bonus. She, for her part, was unconcerned by his lack of enterprise. For Monica Ames, the scented evening air, the coolness of a drink, were not preliminaries, but a part of sensual pleasure as authentic as the presence of a man. This was an unacceptable attitude to most men, who felt they must be at the centre of the mystery. Even Guy, had he understood her better, would have found a threat to his masculinity in the idea that Monica might experience a moment’s sensual pleasure unrelated to himself. When they were together, he assumed that every adornment was worn for his benefit; the dress chosen because he might find it attractive, not because the feel of it sent a delightful shiver through her finger tips. Happily unaware of the true state of things, he congratulated himself on finding a woman who seemed content with an arrested love affair. They made a handsome couple and were well-pleased with each other. Guy very much hoped she might find her way to Naples.
Louise walked up Hampstead High Street with the children. Shop windows reflected her flushed face and the too-bright eyes. On the Heath, the merciless impatience which had taken possession of her body drove her on. The children called after her, ‘Mummy, Mummy! You’re going too fast!’
At home, later, she was unable to sit still and must rush out to post a letter, buy an evening paper, weed the garden . . . She had prayed for Ivor to be posted. Now, he had had to go away for a week and she prayed for his return.
Alice wrote to Ben, ‘I am going home soon. Believe it or not, I have been recommended for a commission as a Signal Officer! As I’m a coder, I know quite a bit about
signals. But I shall have to do a few months at one of the big communications establishments in England before I go to OTC. I can’t say I have any great desire to wear a three-cornered hat; but it is nice to be going home. It has been a wonderful experience, of course; and I am terribly disappointed at not seeing the Pyramids. But I do long to see Mummy and my sisters. I expect I shall notice quite a difference in Catherine and James. Whatever will it be like for Guy? He has missed their childhood.’
How small my world is, she thought, looking at what she had written. She paused to wipe the sweat from her hands. I wonder what it will be like to feel cold again; and to have lots of grey days and rain. She dreaded the grey days, but could have waxed lyrical at the prospect of the smell of wet earth, the freshness of English fields.
The convent bell sounded. She would miss this, too, this strange sensation of a sustaining rhythm going on beneath the little activities of daily life; the feeling of being, however uncomprehendingly, a part of the cycle of the seasons of God.
She picked up her pen and wrote, ‘How tiresome all this must be to you, Ben. My war so different from yours. It sometimes seems to me as though the whole war will go by without my having made a moment’s sense of it.’
Now that she had it in writing, she realized what a daunting indictment it was. She had shed a few illusions. She had learnt a lot about people and something of herself. But what had she been doing all this time? She had seen men going to battle, had visited some of them in hospital; she had lost a man whom she had loved; she had heard the guns getting nearer, had slept in the desert. Yet, the one abiding image of war which she carried in her mind was of the woman with the cat in the smoking ruins of Coventry. She remembered her dream. Was that reality? That terrible rushing stream into which she had felt urged to jump? If so, she was still on the bank; and Ben it was who had jumped.
Irene had been writing to Alice but had put the letter aside for want of subject matter. She was at home with her parents, listening to the rain – soft, summer rain pattering on the leaves of the plane trees. There was already some blue in the sky. The sun would blink through soon. It was a Sunday afternoon; a precious time they spent quietly together, seldom disturbing one another. It seemed questionable, at these times, whether she loved Angus for himself, or because he shielded her from more demanding men who would have taken her out of this peaceful household. She opened the sash window gently, because her mother was dozing over Barchester Towers. The smell of rain-wet earth was pleasant – particularly pleasant to a Londoner whose small garden was of special importance. A country garden would be impossible, she thought; all those fields and woods waiting to take over. Here, one had only bricks and mortar over which to triumph. Further away, she could see a bombed site, bright with marigolds, lovingly planted. How tenacious is the will to make things grow! How tenacious, indeed, is the will to grow! Were the marigolds not there, the willow herb would have taken over.
Her father put down his paper. ‘So, it’s all over with Mussolini.’
‘Do you think the Italians will fight without him?’
‘Of course not. They’ll be out of the war in a matter of weeks. But it won’t save their country from being a battlefield. Ah well, I hope we shan’t behave like barbarians, whatever the Germans may do.’
‘You’re thinking of all those lovely old towns? But people are more important than buildings, surely?’
‘I suppose you may be right.’
She looked at him, cherishing him because he would never adopt the expected attitude. There was a certain excess of human feeling against which he must always stand.
‘We don’t own the treasures which have survived for thousands of years. After all, we are only here in the blink of an eyelid. Yet, we strut about as though the world was made for no other purpose than to answer our immediate needs.’
‘It is hard to equate the need to save human life with the requirement to be good stewards of the world’s treasures, isn’t it?’
‘Our masters don’t even do the equation. They are much too arrogant for that.’
Mrs Kimberley, who was not dozing, said, ‘My dear, and us? Our way of life . . . to be preserved or . . .? It’s what we are fighting for, I take it. But I have the feeling . . .’ She paused, not sure that she could commit herself to a feeling, then went on, ‘In terms of what you have been saying, is it important, the survival of our way of life?’
‘I don’t suppose so. Only to us.’
‘I find that very dispiriting.’
‘We’ve had a good run. I’m glad I’m not young, though.’ He took up his paper and Mrs Kimberley returned to Barchester Towers. Irene wondered idly whether her mother noticed that even in Barchester, the way of life seemed always to be under threat.
Angus Drummond was attending a briefing at a country house in Berkshire. It was all rather rushed because a number of British agents in France had disappeared recently. It must be assumed that they were permanently out of action. In one particular case, a replacement must be sent without delay – or so the French maintained, and at this moment it was important to play along with the French. So, for one reason or another, no delay. Angus was aware that, given different circumstances and more time, he would not have been the first choice for such an enterprise. Emergencies tend to make nonsense of selection procedures more often than is generally supposed: his main qualifications were availability and expendability. In addition, he had a quick mind, a cool, unruffled appearance, and a manner which hinted at inner reserves of something which his companions must hope was strength. He was a man on whose reliability it was permissible to gamble. Only one person present had serious doubts. It wasn’t that the almond eyes gave a certain obliqueness to the face, it was more the pointedness of the chin. There was something about these faces which taper away – fragile, handle with care . . . But it was too late for speculations of this kind. One could not expect the others to back down because the fellow had the wrong-shaped face. And, in any case, he was not convinced of the importance of the operation.
Angus was studying photographs of Jews being rounded up in a village. This was only a small part in a picture which Intelligence was building up of the activities of the German secret police and the organization of concentration camps. While his companions were talking statistics, he found it impossible to move his mind beyond this single image.
On his way to this briefing, he had called at the corner shop in the village near by. As soon as he entered he was aware of an unaccustomed restraint. The shop was usually full of people queueing and complaining. Mr Snaith was not the jovial, much¬loved store-owner, doing his best in trying circumstances. He was known to be doing rather well, having discovered a mysterious source of supply which enabled him, at a price, to dispense certain commodities, such as bacon, off the ration. He had his favourites. This had undoubtedly been his downfall. One of his least favoured customers had been to the police. The local police tended to be beneficiaries. The complaint had been made at a higher level. The two policemen who were talking to Mr Snaith were not local officers, and had all the virtue of men who have never seen an illicit side of bacon. Their manner, as sometimes happens with the disadvantaged, was not pleasant. Had Mr Snaith been found to be harbouring a German spy complete with secret radio in his attic, a greater sense of impending doom could scarcely have been conveyed. One could only imagine the firing squad to lie ahead of Mr Snaith. Mr Snaith stood, a policeman on either side of him, hitching his upper lip above his dentures in the same mirthless smile with which he was wont to announce his regret at being unable to oblige. The policemen were having none of this.
There were several people in the shop, behaving with all the discretion of extras in a film who have been told to hang around without letting their presence impinge upon the main characters. Although Mrs Snaith, quivering and tearful, was waiting to serve them, none appeared to be in a hurry to come to a decision as to their purchases. The newspaper stack was particularly favoured. In happier times, Mr Snaith
would have reminded them that this was not the reading room in the public library.
Mrs Snaith must have come hastily from her bed to take over while her husband acquainted the police with the intricacies of his stock books. Her hair had not been disturbed since the rollers were recently removed from it. She wore an overcoat from beneath which trailed a long, puce garment which was presumably a nightdress. Usually, she was meticulously groomed in the style of a Renoir barmaid. Her humiliation was such that no one in the shop felt it quite nice to say anything to her.
Angus, acutely embarrassed, grabbed a newspaper and held out a shilling to Mrs Snaith. Face to face, he found himself more afraid of her than the police. He did not dare do other than look her in the eye.
‘Oh, am I glad to see you Major, dear!’ Mrs Snaith’s tone was automatically arch, but the urgency of her situation now invested it with a compelling appeal. Angus was dismayed, fearing the police might imagine himself to have been the recipient of her favours. Mrs Snaith’s favours, though of a different order, were as well- known as her husband’s. He smiled nervously, waiting for his change. He had put himself in her power by not giving the correct money. If he walked away, she would shout after him that he had forgotten his change, thus drawing attention to his retreat.
‘You find out who your friends are at times like this,’ Mrs Snaith said, embracing Angus in a watery gaze.
‘Oh, really . . . I hadn’t realized . . .’
‘Well, I don’t usually stand here like this, dear, straight out of my bed. Where’s your eyes?’
One of the policemen looked up. Angus said, ‘And I’ll have ten penny stamps, please.’
‘The post office isn’t open, dear. I couldn’t cope with that now, could I?’ She seemed set to make further scathing comments on his deductive powers.
Fortunately, the question, as to whether legally the post office should be open now exercised the more aggressive of the two policemen. In the ensuing argument, Angus made his exit, leaving Mrs Snaith in possession of his shilling. A venerable old man, standing outside the shop, said to him, ‘Caught up with old Snaith, then, have they?’ He spat prodigiously.
