INDIFFERENT HEROES

by MARY HOCKING

  Daphne wore a close-fitting sheath in buttercup yellow and a wide-brimmed navy hat and navy gloves. The outfit seemed tailor- made for the occasion, although in fact a counterpane had provided the dress, while hat and gloves had been retrieved from an old clothes trunk and dyed.

  Louise, her resources already exhausted in providing for the children, wore the navy linen which had proved so serviceable over the years. It now fitted her well as she had lost weight. In the restaurant in Shepherd’s Market where they had lunch, Mrs Drummond said to her, ‘You’re thinner, surely, Louise?’

  Ivor’s eyes flashed from the speaker to Louise. She felt herself blushing as she replied, ‘I walk a lot.’

  ‘As long as you eat enough.’

  Mrs Drummond, Louise noticed, was eating well. Louise was surprised by the change in the woman, whom she had recalled as a genteel, faded lady, always ill. She still looked genteel in a flimsy dress with a rose buttoned at the breast, her face shaded by a gauzy concoction which must have spent long years in a hat box. Ill, she most certainly was not. Her skin, though still pale, had a glow as though blood was beginning to flow again; the brightness in her eyes as she talked about her husband betokened alertness, not hysteria. ‘We did try to persuade Jumbo to come. He is paralysed from the waist down – you knew that, of course? I am sure we could have managed to get the wheel chair here – or we could have had the reception at home. But he wouldn’t even discuss it.’

  ‘It must be terrible for him,’ Louise said, shocked.

  ‘And for you.’ Ivor’s interjection was not entirely tactful; he was watching Mrs Drummond with interest.

  ‘Yes, indeed.’ She acknowledged his sympathy complacently, as she slid the fish knife expertly beneath the bone, levering it up gently so that little of the flesh would be wasted. ‘He was always so active. I am afraid he does find it difficult to be completely dependent on other people.’

  ‘You must have found it hard to leave him behind today.’

  Louise looked uneasily at Ivor. He was not always a comfortable person to be with on social occasions. His mind was too quick for his own good and his tongue too ready. He saw other people with clarity unsoftened by charity.

  Fortunately, Mrs Drummond appeared in no need of charity. She said, ‘Cecily is with him. She can manage for an hour or so. But most of the time, I have to be there, of course. There are some things he would not want anyone else to do for him.’ She sipped wine delicately and looked about her with interest. It might have been she who was recovering from a disabling illness. She gave the impression that all experience – food, drink, the fashionable restaurant and its clientèle – breathed new life into her.

  Daphne was angry. The tensions of the Drummond household were inescapable, even at the wedding feast. Louise heard Peter say to her, ‘Well, you wanted this, my dear.’

  But, if he could not resist making his point, he did then proceed to redeem the situation effectively. Although he was not by nature a talker, when the need arose he could be entertaining. ‘I believe your husband is in Italy?’ he said to Louise. ‘If so, I envy him.’ He had once walked from the toe of Italy to Tuscany. The circumstances had been different from those in which Guy now found himself. Kelleher had been alone and had lived rough. He seemed to have a natural affinity with more primitive peoples and spoke of them with respect untinged by sentimentality or condescension. There was a coldness about him which repelled Louise; but nevertheless, listening to him, she could understand that Daphne might find him attractive. Kelleher had little to say about Rome and Florence. Culture meant nothing to him; the more a particular civilization overlaid the landscape, the less he cared for it. Something harsh and rocky, fierce but not barren, emerged from his talk, and Louise involuntarily wondered how Guy was faring.

  While coffee was being negotiated, Mrs Drummond whispered to Louise, ‘Do tell me, what do you make of this man of Daphne’s?’

  ‘I hardly know him.’

  ‘He isn’t a man who wants to be known.’ Mrs Drummond took the point at once. ‘Oh well, I don’t suppose we shall see much of them in future.’

  After what passed for coffee, she said, ‘I must be getting home to Jumbo. He can’t be left for too long.’ She explained this as though she was speaking of a child. Daphne looked at her with stony hatred.

  ‘Your mother seems to be taking things very well,’ Louise said to Daphne when they were in the cloakroom together.

  ‘She is relishing every minute of it.’

  Louise had always thought that Alice exaggerated the situation in the Drummond household. She now saw that this was not so.

  ‘You’ll be glad to get away from home,’ she said.

  Daphne looked at herself in the mirror. ‘I am the happiest woman in the world,’ she said, in a tone of surprise.

  Louise felt weak with jealousy.

  It was late afternoon when they left the restaurant. Louise and Ivor walked together through Green Park into St James’s Park. Ivor said, ‘Peter has done better than me!’

  Louise answered sharply, ‘The bomb knocked you on top of the wrong girl!’

  He took her hand. ‘Never think that! Whatever happens, you mustn’t think that.’ The intensity of his feeling brought tears to her eyes.

  Guy’s slow, charming incomprehension had touched her; she had been moved by his way of looking at her as if she was a revelation to him. Ivor pounced. He was in among her thoughts before she herself had formulated them. And not only her thoughts. Now, hand in hand, a longing was transmitted between them which could never have found adequate expression in words.

  ‘It’s not that I don’t love you,’ she said. ‘It’s because . . .’

  ‘You are the last person I would have expected . . .’ He broke off, exasperated.

  ‘Did you expect an easy lay?’

  ‘I didn’t have it in mind to wait over a year!’

  They walked, holding on to each other, unaware of the people around them, imagining their passion to be something generated by themselves. It was much more than that. They were in the grip of a force as strong as that which Louise’s grandfather, Joseph Tippet, had seen blow suddenly out of a calm sea. And nothing to be done about it, save heave to, until it had abated its fury.

  ‘It’s been agony for me, Ivor.’

  ‘Then why – in Heaven’s name, why!’

  It was agony because she knew that once she gave herself to him there would be no going back to Guy. Had it been Jacov, she could have maintained her belief that Guy could not be harmed by sexual infidelity. She would never love Jacov as she had loved Guy. But it would be different with Ivor. Even now, her whole being seemed to be involved with him. No part of her mind wandered idly, wondering were the children all right, had she remembered to hide the precious tin of syrup; no single part of her body drew attention to itself with some small irritation. She was consumed by him. Yet, were she to cry out, he would respond by drawing still more from her. Guy had left a residue of passion in her, unexplored, growing in mischief. Ivor would ask more than she had ever expected to be demanded of her.

  It was a crisp, cold day; there would be frost tonight. Already a bluish film was forming on the dead leaves. When he spoke, she could see his breath. ‘Now,’ he said.

  ‘Give me time.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ve been niggardly of time.’

  ‘You’ve been away a lot.’ Her resentment burned, thinking how long Guy, too, had been away. ‘It’s all right for you men – you go away and enjoy playing at being soldiers . . .’

  ‘I don’t enjoy one single moment when I’m not with you.’

  ‘Not one moment! Ivor Ritchie, you’re not the man I think you are if that’s true!’

  He laughed, as if she had won her point; although in fact it was nearer the truth than he cared to admit.

  He stood warming her hand in his as they halted on the bridge looking towards the Admiralty. The water had been drained from the lake and the islands harboured no birds now. The late after
noon light was pale and cold. The sun was furred in the mist. He felt unsure of her because he sensed that reason would play little part in her judgement of a situation; she would make up her mind in an instant, and then nothing would change her purpose. It seemed to him a matter of chance which way the decision would go. She was wilful and highly unpredictable, passionate, yet on occasions capable of a surprisingly puritanical severity. He felt helpless.

  Later, as they turned back towards the dimly lighted streets, he said, ‘I’ve brought presents for the children.’

  ‘I don’t want you to give them presents.’

  ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘Because Guy isn’t here to give them presents.’

  He flinched and his face went white as salt. If she had hurt Guy like this, she would not have known; he would have crept away, holding it to himself. But now she felt Ivor’s pain as she had felt it lying in the wreckage. Only this time, she was responsible. They were on dangerous ground here.

  ‘I have to be fair to Guy,’ she whispered.

  He said stiffly, ‘I’m sorry. I should have thought of that.’

  If he had pressed his advantage, he might well have won her; but because he was so unsure of her, he played safe. They walked slowly to the underground station, more in love than ever, and less able to make sense of their feelings.

  At home, when she had put the children to bed and was doing the ironing, Louise tried to think of Guy and not of Ivor. But his voice did not reach out to her across the distance which separated them.

  Years in the suffocating house in Shepherd’s Bush had given Guy an air of quiet placidity. His strongest feelings lay in the deep well of his being, scarcely ever stirred by visitations from the daylight region in which most of his life was passed. On the rare occasions when he remembered a disturbing dream, he recounted it with distaste as though it emanated from someone other than himself. Even Louise was deceived into thinking him more phlegmatic than most people.

  Ivor was prepared to live far more dangerously. She was in no doubt of that. He would not go out of the room whenever tempers became frayed, returning when he hoped the emotional temperature had dropped. Had she married Ivor, her children would have had a turbulent atmosphere in which to grow up. She did not take this further, wondering how much it would have hurt them, asking how sheltered children should be. The children were Guy’s. She must not involve them in her love for Ivor.

  Later, she prayed, first for Guy and the children; and then for herself and Ivor. She believed implicitly that God was on her side. It would be blasphemy to imagine that what she so clearly perceived. He could not. She did not, however, try to manipulate Him. Where she had doubts (about her own affairs, her doubts were never theological) she allowed that it might be He who had sown the seed.

  She had loved Guy, and she had made her vows before God. Her God tended to be the God of the Old Testament, who looked upon men who sometimes did wicked things with a forbearing eye. This God, however, was also the Covenant God, who, having made His covenant with His people expected them to keep to its terms. Louise had promised to care for Guy in sickness and in health, for better or for worse. And this, at the time, she had intended to do. She had foreseen his sickness, perhaps even that he might turn out badly, and had known she must abide by him. What she had not foreseen was that she might cease to love him, might one day love another. This, surely, was a different matter altogether? Another love allowed a fresh start. Love, after all, could not be forced, cultivated, learnt. Once it ceased – it ceased.

  Unfortunately, she heard at this moment, not the voice of God, but of Granny Tippet, saying to her as they stood in the kitchen at Falmouth, ‘You won’t always think he’s wonderful. That will be the time to talk about loving him.’

  Granny Tippet. Married all those years to a sailor in the Merchant Navy, who seldom set foot on land save to beget children, and then was off again – leaving her with seven children to rear on her own. No time for discontented whining about ‘what might have been’, only time for making the best of what was. How well she compared with Grandmother Fairley, who had had a much easier life and now spent her time bemoaning the past and looking forward to being taken into glory. Louise had always been proud to come of Granny Tippet’s stock.

  Grandmother Fairley had another severe stroke and died early in December, The funeral service was held at the Methodist Chapel in Holland Park which she had attended during the long years of waiting to be taken into Glory. There was a good congregation, more in honour of Aunt May and Louise than of the old lady, who had made few friends.

  Neither Judith nor Louise had ever liked Grandmother Fairley. They were both honest women who found it hard to dissimulate. The occasion was made more difficult for them by the fact that Guy’s parents, who also attended the chapel, must be included among the mourners. It seemed to Judith that all the good things of family life were gone, while its defects remained.

  Fortunately, at the last minute, the party was augmented by Judith’s youngest brother, Silas, who was on embarkation leave in London; and by Claire and a boy friend who had hitch-hiked from Oxford. Claire cried sufficiently to make up for any lack of tears on the part of other members of the family. She had not been close to her grandmother, but was reminded of her father’s funeral. Alice, who alone had had an affection for the old woman, was on her way home; and, unaware of her death, was even now writing a letter to her grandmother.

  The minister had called on Grandmother Fairley as a matter of duty; but she had never accepted him because he was a pacifist. It had grieved her that he should set foot in the house – ‘all smiles and pleased with himself’ – while Alice and Louise’s husband were away fighting for their country. Aware of her dislike, and its cause, he made a rather faltering business of his address.

  While he spoke. Aunt May wondered desperately what was to become of her now that her mother and Stanley were both dead. Judith and Louise stared at their clasped hands and Silas at his cap badge. Mr and Mrs Immingham gazed at the minister with the appropriate expression of muted grief which those least concerned are readily able to assume.

  The most notable of the mourners was definitely Claire’s young man, who patently had no idea how to behave in chapel, let alone at a funeral. He was in turns embarrassed, alarmed by Death, affronted by the idea of God, and deeply anxious to please Claire. This complex of conflicting emotions produced in him an uneasiness so profound as to divert the attention of his nearest neighbours from what was due to Grandmother Fairley. He wore huge horn¬ rimmed glasses which constantly signalled a peak of distress by misting up. He would then take them off and polish them with all the desperate application of a Lady Macbeth before replacing them. His face, the while, was so white and moist that Louise thought he would be sick.

  It was only on leaving the chapel that they became aware of the ultimate misfortune. Meg had felt she must attend her mother’s funeral, while dissociating herself from Judith and her children. She had, therefore, arrived late and had sat in the front row of the gallery, where her presence was conspicuous. On leaving the chapel, she refused to speak to Judith, but remained on the pavement talking to a distracted Aunt May and delaying the departure to the cemetery – thus giving cause for much speculation to members of the congregation.

  ‘At least she has asked me to go and stay with them,’ Aunt May said tearfully when she joined Judith and Louise in the first car.

  ‘I shouldn’t if I were you,’ Judith said. ‘It’s a very uncomfortable house. Why don’t you go down to my mother in Falmouth? She would make a great fuss of you and you would enjoy seeing all the grandchildren.’ As she said this, she realized that she, too, would gain much from this. Her joy in Silas’s unexpected arrival was a reminder that she had cut herself off for too long from her own roots. It was arranged between them that she and May would go to Falmouth together.

  In the other car, Claire was saying to her young man, ‘That’s the aunt I was telling you about – the one who was so beas
tly to me.’ He put a protective arm around her shoulders. Mrs Immingham savoured the incident with Meg as yet another indication that the Fairleys were a bad family. Indeed, more than that, that family ramifications were themselves bad.

  After the burial service, they returned to Louise’s house. This had been the home of Grandmother Fairley for most of her life since the death of her husband. Mrs Immingham said to Louise, ‘You must often think of her sitting here.’

  ‘She didn’t sit here,’ Louise said. ‘She had the rooms upstairs as her sitting-room and dining-room.’

  The neighbour who had been looking after the children delivered her charges, whose advent Mrs Immingham greeted with, ‘Here come the little darlings!’ This phrase had delighted them as toddlers and she expected it to serve until puberty changed them irremediably. Mr Immingham’s face glowed with a quieter pleasure. But the children were concerned only with Silas, whom they greeted rapturously. The Cornish side of the family was particularly important to them, since it provided so many holiday playmates of their own age – to say nothing of notably tolerant elders.