INDIFFERENT HEROES

by MARY HOCKING

  ‘He must be nearly twenty years younger than Judith,’ Mrs Immingham whispered to her husband.

  ‘She was one of seven.’

  Mrs Immingham flushed, disturbed by these living proofs of the grossness of Granny Tippet’s life. Both she and her husband were only children, although he had had a sister who was still-born.

  Claire was introducing her young man, whom she regarded as a rival – and superior – attraction to Silas. His name was Terence Straker. The purpose of her visit had been to draw him into the family. Now, he had attended the funeral, and as a result of this gesture of solidarity must henceforth be accepted as one of them. She spoke of him as a person long known to them; and she told the children he was Uncle Terence, as though reminding them of a much-loved figure in their past. Louise thought he was an awful weed, which was sad, as Claire wanted very much to impress her elder sister. Alice was the beloved companion, but Louise was the high-priestess of physical love.

  In spite of inevitable talk of the war and news of relatives who were fighting, this was essentially a family gathering. The presence of her brother, little though she had known him as a child, gave Judith a feeling of continuity, a wider sense of her own place in the pattern. The relationship between brother and sister was far less painful than other familial bonds. She had dreaded this reunion in the house of which Louise was mistress, but, buttressed by Silas, now found herself able to appreciate a place where she was honoured and had little responsibility.

  ‘Are all your people Methodists?’ Terence asked Claire, while the rest of the family was talking about Charlie’s boys, and Mrs Immingham was trying to attract her husband’s attention so that they could leave.

  ‘The whole clan.’

  ‘What do they imagine has happened to your grandmother?’ He had been deeply shocked by the burial service.

  ‘Grandma thinks she has gone to Glory.’ Claire was deliberately flippant.

  He pleated his lips.

  ‘I know it’s all nonsense,’ she said. ‘But we can’t go into that today.’ Her manner was at once propitiating and domineering; he was to understand that she respected his superior intellect, but did not expect him to give it an airing today.

  He blinked, wriggling his heavy glasses on the bridge of his nose. He was extremely uneasy when unable to control her thoughts; but he comforted himself with the promise of the long trip back to Oxford, during which time he would expound the religious fallacy. Meanwhile, he sat silent, having little gift for light conversation. He would like to have played with the children, but Silas monopolized their attention. The children apart, he did not much care for Claire’s relatives. Had they shared his views, it would have made little difference. These people had known Claire long before he discovered her; he felt threatened by them.

  In order to escape from this uncongenial atmosphere he offered to help when Louise collected the tea things together. She accepted because she thought this would give her mother an opportunity to talk to Claire without this glowering young man intervening.

  ‘What are you studying, or reading, or whatever you call it?’ she asked cheerfully, when he was installed at the sink.

  ‘Economics.’

  ‘Goodness, isn’t that frightfully dull?’

  ‘I would hardly be doing it if I thought it was dull.’ His glasses misted up with the steam from the water and he took them off; he looked young and rather helpless without them.

  Louise said kindly, ‘No, of course not. That was silly of me. I expect it’s the sort of thing that appeals to a man’s mind.’ In spite of her good intentions, she made it sound a masculine silliness, akin to playing with trains.

  ‘It explains a great deal which is wrong with society today,’ he said.

  Louise picked up a plate and wiped it. ‘Are you from London?’

  ‘Isleworth,’ he said bleakly, as though admitting a failure.

  ‘I had a drink at the London Apprentice last week . . . with a friend.’

  He peered into a milk jug. ‘Does this mark come off?’

  Later, when they were alone, Judith said to Louise, ‘Do you think Claire is serious about this young man?’

  ‘I don’t see who could take him seriously, other than himself.’

  Alice arrived in England in January.

  When she was packing in Alexandria, she had looked forward with longing to coming home; but with every stage of the journey, the prospect grew less attractive. Colourful remembrances changed imperceptibly into monochrome reality as the ship pursued its slow course. Almost unlimited opportunities had seemed to lie ahead of her when she went abroad; nothing, she had felt, would ever be the same again. Yet here she was returning, the same Alice Fairley, a couple of years older, having shed a few illusions and two stone, and with little else to show for her experiences. She felt a sense of failure. A friend had given her a copy of the banned Lady Chatterley’s Lover. When her fellow Wrens talked of sex, they made it seem trivial. Lawrence was a great awakening, lifting the subject to the realm of the sublime. As she read, Alice’s sense of personal failure increased.

  On her arrival, she learnt that her mother was staying in Falmouth. She had looked forward to a family reunion in London, and had already made plans to see Irene and Jacov. Jacov was acting in a play at the Q Theatre, and had promised to take her backstage. It was important to do interesting things, and see as many people as possible during her leave. Otherwise depression would be total. Although she was welcome to join her mother in Falmouth, she decided to stay with Louise in London.

  January was the worst possible month in which to return. England was grey and chilly. Louise’s house was not warm and Alice soon developed a streaming cold. For the first time, she realized how much the civilian population had to put up with. When she offered to do the shopping on the first day of her stay, she had anticipated getting it over with quickly, and then finding a congenial café in which to have coffee and take stock of London life. She spent most of the morning queueing and had little to show for it by the time she returned. There was a letter from Daphne waiting for her. Daphne was in Scotland. When she returned she would look Alice up ‘wherever you are, and we will talk and talk!’

  Meantime, Alice talked and talked about Egypt. Wherever Louise took her, she made invidious comparisons. For two days, Louise was forbearing. On the third, she announced at breakfast, ‘And I don’t want to hear that place mentioned once during the next twenty-four hours!’

  Irene was more patient. She had a first-class degree and was now working at the War Ministry. Alice nevertheless assumed her own experiences to be of greater interest. How could events at London University possibly compare with the wonders of Alexandria, Cairo, Suez, and an unhappy love affair? Irene listened; but she did not enter into Alice’s adventures as once she would have done. Alice felt that something had happened to Irene’s mind. She seemed more objective and analytical, examining thoughtfully statements which were not intended to bear the weight of scrutiny. She had accumulated a company of unseen academic witnesses on whom she could call to endorse her statements. Alice was not interested in what the great brains of London University – or indeed what Heidegger or Kant – had said, but only in what Irene herself thought. Alice let her own thoughts fly out indiscriminately. It seemed to her that no sooner had she embarked on an interesting subject than Irene put out a foot to trip her. True, she could sometimes hear herself speaking nonsense; but, in friendly conversation, this did not seem to her to matter. It was a way of venturing. Later, alone, she might examine more seriously what had been said and get it into some kind of order. Irene seemed intent on preserving order from the outset. The result was that Alice felt herself ill-considered and uncontrolled; while Irene was aware that, without meaning to do so, she was constantly dampening Alice’s enthusiasm. They were both disappointed in the reunion, having expected too much from it. In their times of loneliness and unhappiness, each had longed for the one friend who could really understand their feelings. Now, it proved im
possible to broach the matters nearest to their hearts. But their friendship had deep roots and neither one of them allowed herself to consider the possibility that it would dwindle. Irene thought that Alice would be less excitable and irrational once she settled down; and Alice thought that Irene would be able to let herself go more when they saw each other frequently.

  They went together to see Jacov at the little theatre by Kew Bridge. This was their most successful outing, as they both thought the play pretentious and Jacov unsuited to his part. When they met him afterwards, it was Irene who was most prepared to compromise her opinions.

  ‘Well, I do congratulate you!’ she said. ‘It would have been tedious without that great extrovert performance! You kept the whole thing alive.’

  His performance had certainly been wilfully extrovert. They had a drink at the Star and Garter. Irene and Jacov talked about the theatre. She was well-informed and able to express her views concisely and wittily. He was scurrilously amusing. Alice looked out of the window. The river was at its lowest ebb, dun-coloured water petering into mud.

  On the last day of her leave, she hitch-hiked to Oxford to see Claire. In a chill wind, they walked in seemingly endless quadrangles while Claire pointed out architectural features. It seemed to have escaped her notice that Alice had been abroad.

  At lunch in a British Restaurant, Alice was introduced to an owlish young man who was as unimpressed by her as she by him. While she was with them, Alice began to realize that there was more than absent-mindedness involved in their dismissal of her service abroad. Her presence in uniform was an affront to their susceptibilities.

  ‘How long have you been a pacifist?’ she asked Claire.

  ‘As long as I can remember. Certainly, as long as I was mature enough to think clearly.’

  In spite of this, when they were alone in the cloakroom of the restaurant, Claire said to Alice, ‘Daddy would be proud of you being recommended for a commission.’

  ‘He’d be proud of you, too, at Oxford.’

  They hugged each other before returning rather shamefacedly to the boy friend, who gave every indication of resenting even this brief separation from Claire.

  It was a relief to report to Plymouth, where she was to do her preliminary signals training. Alice was pleased to find herself quartered in a large Victorian house on the outskirts of the city. Here she discovered that Felicity Naismith, with whom she had shared that harrowing experience in Coventry, was on the same course. Felicity was away for the week-end, but had left a message to the effect that she was very much looking forward to seeing Alice again. This made Alice suspect that Felicity was finding life in Plymouth dull.

  In the services, one was seldom alone for long. No sooner had Alice installed herself in her cabin, than one of her new companions suggested they should have supper together.

  ‘We’ll go to The Magnet,’ the girl said. ‘They do lemon sole, believe it or not!’

  More astonishing than the lemon sole was the devastation of the centre of the town, which her companion now took for granted. The roads ran between heaps of rubble and the café was one of the few buildings left standing. Alice had never seen anything like it.

  She and Felicity met on duty in the Moat, that network of communications built into the rock face. Alice was standing over a machine which was supposed to decode messages and was at present sending out Jabberwocky. Felicity came up behind her and said, as if they had last met yesterday, ‘You’ve got the code for the day wrong. What day did you think it was, Alice?’

  ‘Tuesday.’

  ‘It’s Wednesday. Whatever happened to Tuesday? I hope it was worth such a grave error as this.’ She readjusted the coding and the machine began briskly to disgorge information of the whereabouts of ships.

  This was not a busy time and the other Wrens were playing a guessing game under the indulgent eye of a PO.

  Felicity said, ‘They are madly dull. I’m so glad you have come.’

  They picked up their friendship easily, as though no time had intervened. Alice said, ‘I don’t think I shall ever get my commission.’

  ‘My dear, it’s simple as can be. Otherwise they would never have put me forward for it.’

  ‘Do you care much about it?’

  ‘Passionately! I’ve been doing admin, recently. If I don’t change to cypher, I’m never going to get abroad and find myself a man.’

  Alice, who considered that she had matured, was amused to find Felicity still talking in this way. ‘It doesn’t always work – abroad and getting a man.’

  ‘Not in your case, perhaps. You never did seem to mind enough. I’m desperate.’

  ‘What is it about marriage that appeals to you?’ Alice asked, thinking that, after all, this was not a very sexy woman.

  ‘I’ve been bred for it,’ Felicity said glumly. ‘What would become of me if I didn’t marry? I should end up teaching games at a girls’ public school. You may laugh, but that actually happened to a cousin of mine.’

  During the next few days they were together often, both on and off duty. Although when they first met, Alice had thought that Felicity must be attractive to men, this assumption had been based largely on Felicity’s conversation. She could now see that the games mistress might well be Felicity’s fate. Her scattiness was of that order. In the two years since they last met, her long face had grown more horsy. The other girls were amused by her, but half the time they were laughing at her. The men, so much talked of, seldom materialized. Alice, contrarily, found herself liking Felicity more now that she appeared less successful.

  ‘You don’t need to worry,’ she consoled. ‘People who are single¬minded usually get what they want.’

  ‘Not if it’s in short supply, they don’t. The number of men who can keep up a country house with decent stabling is diminishing. I should know. My father had to go into the professions. English country life has been declining ever since the Industrial Revolution. All I’ve ever been able to do is look over the hedge at the gentry. My chances of finding a man to keep me in the style to which I am unaccustomed are not good.’

  ‘What about love?’

  ‘That is neither here nor there. It is marriage we are talking about. I don’t care about love. In fact, I don’t really care all that much for men.’

  Alice thought Felicity’s ideas on marriage pre-dated the decline of English country life.

  There were several girls whose company she preferred to Felicity’s, but she was too good-natured to make this apparent. She and Felicity spent much of their off-duty time together, bored and bickering. She had looked forward to working in the Moat, about which she had heard all sorts of rumours: the work was intensive, the atmosphere so unhealthy one was not allowed to spend more than six months there, it was ‘worse than the Tunnel at Rosyth’. This had created an impression of a place some way between a coal mine and Aladdin’s cave. In fact, once past the rather impressive entrance in the rock face, the place had about as much mystery as a fish tank. As in most large establishments, the atmosphere was impersonal and there was: more formality than she had been used to. Worst of all, there was a preponderance of women.

  When she moved to the signals section, however, she found herself working as hard as she had ever done and enjoying it. At the end of a watch, she had written so many messages that her arms were dyed purple to the elbows by carbon paper. Quantities of methylated spirits – no doubt intended for some more important purpose – were used to remove the stains.

  Once outside the Moat, it was all very depressing. Alice could not get over the devastation of Plymouth and Devonport. Reports of the air attacks by the Allies on the Ruhr did nothing to lift her spirits. She was home in England, but did not feel at home, and was not sure she was going to manage very well.

  Judith saw Alice briefly when she and Aunt May passed through Plymouth on their return from their holiday in Falmouth. She thought Alice looked the better for being thinner and noted that she had matured during her two years abroad. Aunt May thou
ght Alice was not well because she was ‘touchy’. She was too charitable to ascribe this to anything other than ill-health.

  Judith said, ‘Alice is the most obstinate of my children. It will take her a long time to accept my move to Sussex.’

  ‘But you haven’t moved, dear. You’ll be coming back when things settle down, surely? You must want to see more of your grandchildren.’

  Judith bit her lip, feeling the pressure on her and determined to resist it. May’s train arrived, and in the struggle to get her a seat the matter of Judith’s return to London was forgotten.

  Judith had an uncomfortable journey. The train was packed with service personnel, with kit bags, rifles, gas masks and other paraphernalia. She was glad she had decided to break the journey to stay with friends in Hampshire. As a result of this break, she arrived in Brighton in good fettle.

  The first person she encountered was Austin Marriott. He addressed her as though they had just emerged from their ordeal in the siding. ‘There is a bomb on the line. The Southern Railway is delighted to inform us that there are unlikely to be any trains to Lewes tonight.’ He looked at her thoughtfully, perhaps wondering whether it was her presence which exercised such a malign influence on the Southern Railway.

  ‘I suppose we can get a bus,’ she said.

  He looked at his watch. ‘A meal might be a better idea, I think, don’t you?’

  Judith could not remember the last time a man, other than her husband, had taken her out for a meal; and Stanley had done it seldom enough. She scarcely knew what to say. He took her silence for acceptance, picked up her suitcase and limped towards the street. She hurried after him, embarrassed by the case but suspecting he would be annoyed were she to suggest he should not carry it.

  ‘There’s a little place in a side street near here that provides reasonable food,’ he said as she joined him on the pavement. ‘Unless you would prefer a hotel? It will be further to walk, but we might get a taxi . . .’