PM_E_441 - Cold Snap

by Francis King

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry to hear about your father. Someone once told me that he’d been a hero in World War One. Isn’t that right? I must have missed his obit.’ The perfunctory tone indicated no real concern. Briskly she went on: ‘Anyway, as far as the university is concerned, you’ve nothing to worry about. There are all sorts of college and university funds for a scholar of your calibre. And with my recommendation … I like to think that after all these years I can exert a certain pull.’ She smiled. ‘ I honestly don’t think you need worry. In fact I’m on the committee of the Henschel Trust. You’re exactly the sort of person we help.’

  ‘Oh, that’s kind of you, I’m grateful. But – well …’ Christine’s voice trailed away with none of the relief and gratitude that Mrs Dunne had expected.

  ‘Christine, what is all this? Come on! Tell me! Do you still have a problem?’ Mrs Dunne was shrewd. There was clearly something amiss other than lack of money. She drew a cigarette out of the packet on her desk, lit it, and then squinted, small eyes narrowed, through the smoke exhaled. ‘Buck up! Nothing’s ever as bad as it seems. Particularly if one’s prepared to face up to things.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘There’s no need to apologise. Just tell me what’s the matter. What’s upset you?’ Christine did not answer. ‘ It’s not just your father’s death and financial problems? Is it?’

  Christine shook her head.

  ‘Then?’

  To hell with it! Why shouldn’t she hear the truth, if she was so eager to ferret it out? ‘I’m going to have a baby.’

  Mrs Dunne blew out some more smoke. She stared at Christine. ‘Married?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Going to get married?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I see. Mrs Dunne lumbered up from her chair, wincing as she did so, and crossed over to fetch an ashtray from the mantelpiece, even though there was already one on her desk. There was a silence as she stubbed out her half-smoked cigarette. ‘What a damned fool thing to allow to happen! Can’t you see that your career –?’

  ‘I don’t care about my career.’

  What an idiot of a girl, for all her intellect! Then she changed her mind. ‘Well, perhaps you’re right. Who knows?’ She slumped back into her chair and looked up at the ceiling. A thought came to her. ‘It’s not that – that –? Oh, it couldn’t be!’

  ‘Couldn’t be what?’

  ‘Just for a moment the crazy idea came to me that it might be that German – that prisoner – I saw you with last term.’ Christine lowered her head. ‘Is it?’ When, head still lowered, Christine did not answer, Mrs Dunne knew that she was right. She jumped to her feet. ‘Well, at least that shows guts! Real guts! I admire that.’ She strode across the room, stooped to a cupboard and extracted a bottle of whisky. ‘ How about some of this?’ She held up the bottle. ‘The best malt. My husband would love to get his greedy hands on it.’

  ‘No, thank you, Mrs Dunne.’

  ‘Oh, come on. Do you good. Do both of us good.’

  Forlornly, Christine shook her head. ‘ Thanks. She had not the heart to tell Mrs Dunne that she had loathed whisky ever since, still a small child, she had struggled to get away from her father as he had tried to enfold her in his whisky-sodden presence.

  ‘Well, perhaps you’re right. Too early in the day. My better half would certainly disapprove.’ As she poured out a glass of Kia-ora orange squash for Christine and some whisky for herself, she looked up. ‘You know, I can’t get over this news. I ought to disapprove, of course, but somehow … I always felt that one day you’d do something out of the ordinary. Well now you have, even if it’s not quite the sort of thing I hoped for and expected. You never seemed to be an ordinary sort of girl. Perhaps that’s why I took to you from the very beginning – not just because you’re so bright, which of course you are. But damn me – I never thought you’d do something like this.’ She handed Christine her glass, then raised her own. ‘Cheers!’

  ‘Cheers.’ Christine mumbled it. She felt far from cheerful.

  ‘So … how long will it be now?’

  ‘Seven months.’

  ‘No good for Schools.’

  ‘But I don’t want to take Schools.’

  ‘If it can be arranged, why on earth not? Look, I’m going to be frank with you.’ She drew up a chair to face Christine’s; their knees almost touched. ‘ It’s years and years – twelve to be precise – since I last had a pupil as good as you. I mean that. Of course these past few months you rather went to pieces – and now I understand why – but your work before that was outstanding – what every don hopes for and all too rarely gets. Yes, really, it was a joy. I’m not one to dish out undeserved – or only half deserved – praise, and I’d never have told you all this but for this bombshell of yours. Whatever else happens, you must keep up your Classics. You must!’

  Christine shook her head.

  ‘With a little thought and trouble, the whole thing can be arranged.’ She got up and began to pace the room as she talked. ‘Obviously you’ll have to leave College until you’ve pupped. No one must even guess what’s going on,’ – she smiled – ‘as much for my good name as for yours. You’ll have to go away and have the baby quietly. I’ve got it!’ She clicked her fingers. ‘ You can go and live in my Welsh cottage. Most of the time my husband and I are here in Oxford. Your aunt could go with you, couldn’t she? No one down there need know you’re not respectably married. We can think of some story to explain the missing husband. As for Oxford – we can tell people you’ve had a nervous breakdown.’ She smiled again. ‘Nowadays students are constantly having nervous breakdowns – as frequently as they once used to have boils.’ She was becoming increasingly excited as she elaborated a plot that struck Christine as more and more unsustainable. ‘Then, when the baby has arrived, we can find someone to take it over – adopting or fostering – and you can come back here as if nothing had happened.’ She slumped back in the chair opposite to Christine’s and, knees wide apart, leaned forward triumphantly. ‘ So?’

  ‘Well, you see …’

  ‘Well, what? What’s the matter?’

  ‘In the first place I want to keep my baby. No fostering. Certainly no adoption. I want to look after it – bring it up – by myself.’

  ‘But how can you? How can you possibly do that? You couldn’t come back to College with a baby!’

  ‘That’s what I mean.’

  ‘Are you telling me that you’re prepared to throw away your career just so that you can –?’

  ‘Yes. I’m afraid so.’

  ‘But that’s crazy! That would be the most ghastly mistake of your life! Personally the moral side of it doesn’t worry me a bit. But there’s still so much prejudice around – even among the most liberal of people. You must have realised that. Is it fair to expose the poor little creature to all that?’ She saw the look of anguish on Christine’s face and broke off. ‘I’m sorry. I’m not saying all this to upset you.’

  The two gazed at each other. Then, briskly, Mrs Dunne slapped her knees and jumped up. ‘Think about it anyway. There’s no need to make up your mind until the term starts. As I said, you can always have the cottage. Any time, rent-free. And if there’s anything else I can do, don’t hesitate to ask. I hope that you’ll think of me as more than just your tutor.’

  ‘You’re very kind.’

  Christine put out her hand and Mrs Dunne took it in both of hers, an intimacy rarely offered to a pupil.

  As Christine was still fumbling with the door handle, Mrs Dunne sat down with a sigh of relief at the desk spread out with notes and texts.

  Should she opt for ‘Good Husbandry?’ A terrific title for a novel but for a chapter in a work of serious scholarship? She stared out of the window and pondered.

  She hoped that there would be no more interruptions.

  Chapter Twenty One

  Michael’s first reaction to Christine’s news was one of irritation. She had made a mess of things and, as he often would say, he ha
ted messes. With care and forethought this particular mess could have been avoided. He decided that she had only herself to blame.

  ‘Good God! Oh, really, Christine, what a thing to let happen! Sometimes, dear girl, I just despair of you.’

  ‘You talk as if I’d deliberately decided to get myself pregnant.’

  ‘Well, not deliberately … But has Marie Stopes really lived in vain? Not very bright of you, if I may so.’

  ‘I didn’t come here to have you tell me that.’

  He laughed. ‘ Don’t be so touchy. After all, you can hardly pretend that you haven’t got a potential disaster on your hands – or, more accurately, down there’. He pointed. ‘And it’s even more of a potential disaster for poor Thomas than for you. There are pretty severe penalties for German prisoners who get English girls into what is popularly – or unpopularly – known as trouble. You realise that, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course I realise! Is it likely I’d shop him?’

  ‘No, but someone else might. These things have a way of getting out – particularly in this busy little beehive. Poor Thomas! Have you told him yet?’

  ‘I’m seeing him tomorrow afternoon. Somehow I’ll have to break it to him. Not easy.’

  ‘Why break it to him at all? You’ll only worry the poor sod to distraction. And he has enough to worry him already.’ She was about to say something but he over-rode her: ‘After all, what can he do about it? He’s married already. And German prisoners can’t marry English girls in any case.’

  ‘He’s got to know sooner or later.’

  ‘Got to know? Why? You’re going to take steps – oh, I love that genteel euphemism – aren’t you? Yes, I know, I know, an abortion sounds so horrid – and it is horrid when performed by some evil old Mrs Gamp in a dirty back bedroom in a slum and later reported in the News of the Underworld. But after all – let’s face it – in our neck of the woods it can usually be done in safety and comfort. June can let you have the name of a Harley Street quack – a well-known consultant in gynaecology, no less – who has his own nursing home in, I think, salubrious and highly respectable Harrow. He did her – financially, I fear, as well as medically – two or three years ago, when she had briefly taken up with an American colonel from Arkansas, who subsequently disappeared to a posting at the other end of the world. Poor dear, she’s such a worrier, though you wouldn’t think it. She was sure that she was going to die of a haemorrhage or septicaemia. But it was really no worse than having a wisdom tooth out, she told me after it was over.’

  Suddenly he noticed the look, part disgust and part horror, on Christine’s face. He leaped to his feet, knelt beside her chair, and put an arm around her. ‘Oh, my dear, I’m sorry, terribly sorry I suffer from flippancy as other people suffer from halitosis. I wish I could just gargle it away. I shouldn’t have talked like that. Please forgive me.’

  ‘Oh, it’s all right. By now I’m used to you. Your heart may be hard but it’s in the right place. I decided that ages ago.’ She sighed. ‘Oh, if only I could make a decision! I haven’t slept properly for nights now. And I can’t face those meals that poor Margaret cooks for me and then gobbles up herself to avoid any waste.’

  ‘Poor Christine! Don’t you realise that you’re supposed to be eating for two? Oh, I do so wish I could help you. At all events, I want you to know that if you need any money I have my chequebook at the ready. As much as you want. If you opt for that Harley Street man, then I’ll settle his bill – in guineas, no doubt. In any case,’ – the thought came to him only at that moment – ‘why don’t I settle something regular on you both? As a wedding present.’

  ‘A wedding present!’ She laughed.

  ‘One of those weddings made in heaven. And not, I’m sure, one of those weddings that are made in heaven but then soon turn into absolute hell.’

  ‘Oh, Michael, you’re such a dear! But I couldn’t possibly …’

  ‘Of course, you could. For the moment I’m rolling in it – thanks to that old Armenian art-dealer friend of mine, who recently went to his maker. It’s so embarrassing. Because he left me so much money, nasty people keep concluding that he and I were lovers. The mere thought of it! The poor dear suffered from psoriasis quite dreadfully.’

  ‘And Klaus. What about Klaus?’ she eventually asked. ‘That’s enough about myself.’

  ‘Oh, Klaus? He sighed. ‘Poor Klaus. I went to see him yesterday. What a trek! I got back only this morning, having had to sit up all night.’

  ‘Is he very ill?’

  ‘Both lungs. He sighed. ‘Will he recover? Who knows? One can never tell with the white plague.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She put her hand over his. ‘It’s wretched for you. You’re tired, I can see. I must be on my way, so that you can get some sleep.’

  ‘I wish I could sleep. I’m so worried about him.’

  ‘Oh, dear! As always, you’ve been such a help, and I just don’t know how to reciprocate. I’ll ring you tomorrow, not too early. Thank you so much.’

  He had moved to his desk and pulled out a drawer, as though to take something out of it, and had then pushed it back. His chequebook? No doubt he had decided that it would be more discreet to post a cheque later. ‘I’ve done nothing. I so much wish I could do more. But I’m a great believer in people making up their own minds. If things go wrong, then they can’t blame others. Anyway, I won’t forget about that cheque to tide you over for the moment – and, of course, that allowance. There at least I may be of some help.’

  Since, like most people, she hated to be a recipient of charity, she almost blurted out: ‘You think that every problem can be solved by throwing money at it.’ But, ashamed that her immediate response to his kindness should be so ungracious, she merely walked over to him and kissed him on both cheeks.

  He watched her begin to hurry down the spiral stairs until, never once looking back, she had all too soon vanished from sight. Then, with a sigh, he closed the door and wandered about the room. He envied her, how much he envied her! She was reckless, as he could never be. She grabbed what she wanted and to hell with the consequences, for her or for others. Yes, she was one of those people not afraid of getting themselves into messes – or pushing others into them. While he, with his dread of being conspicuous, talked about, ostracised … At such moments, of introspection, he despised and hated himself.

  He walked over to the sofa and sank down into its deep upholstery. He began, at first reluctantly and then with an aching longing, to think back to his visit to the bleak, bare sanatorium, perched high on a hill overlooking a small Scottish market town. Klaus’s bed had been wheeled out, with a number of others, on to a terrace that faced the parsimonious sunshine of the spring afternoon. Klaus was in a woolly, grey dressing gown under a heavy tartan blanket. In contrast, Michael could feel the icy wind claw at him through his cashmere overcoat.

  Except for a yellowish-brown encrustation at each side of his mouth, Klaus looked surprisingly well, his face tanned and his teeth flashing their usual smile of joyful welcome. Michael’s spirits had risen; he had not yet spoken to the doctor.

  ‘Better?’ he asked in German, when Klaus had released his hand from his crushing grasp.

  ‘Oh, yes!’ He beamed back. ‘Now they’ve operated, I’ll soon be well.’ Proudly he opened his pyjama jacket to display his rib resection. It was hard to believe that under that otherwise smooth skin furrowed by a long, purple scar, there lurked pain, rot, fever, and perhaps even death. Klaus smiled again. ‘It’s comfortable here. The grub’s very good. And yet,’ – he laughed – ‘I often wish I was back with the lads in the camp. What do you think of that?’

  ‘It’s better to be bored than to have to work in your state of health.’ Suddenly Michael noticed that Klaus’s fingernails, once so short that he used to wonder if he bit them, had now become talons badly in need of cutting.

  ‘Yesterday I had a letter from Thomas. The team has done very well. Did you know that? Perhaps he told you? I’m sorry to have missed the
match against Cowley Barracks. They beat us last year but this year we beat them.’

  They went on talking for the two hours that were all they would have together. Michael gave Klaus the food that he had brought and Klaus made a show of refusing to accept it. He was now sitting up in bed, cross-legged, although this was forbidden. The tartan blanket had slipped off it to the floor. He undid each package with the excited gasps and exclamations of a child unpacking a Christmas stocking. Among the gifts was a large box of chocolates brought back from the Swedish tour. Klaus held the box out to the grey-haired, grey-lipped man in the bed beside him. ‘Please, please!’ he urged in English. The man shook his head vigorously and then rolled away from them on to his other side, as though he could not bear having to continue to listen to their incomprehensible German or even to look at them.

  ‘Oh, Michael, you are so good to me!’ Klaus suddenly cried out. ‘My best friend. And for you there’s nothing, nothing I can do in return.’

  Michael wanted to say, ‘To sit here with you is ample return.’ But he shrank from coming out with something that, if said to himself, would make him inwardly squirm at its sentimentality.

  Soon, too soon, the time came for leaving. As Michael got up at the ringing of the bell, Klaus said: ‘ I forgot to ask you. How is your lady?’

  Your lady? Oh, he must mean Christine. It was too complicated and too late, when all the visitors were saying their goodbyes, to give him the latest news about Christine and Thomas. ‘Oh, she’s fine. She sent her love.’

  Klaus fumbled in a pocket of his dressing gown and produced a little package. ‘In our workroom I made this for her. Please give it to her.’ He held it out and Michael took it.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Look, please. Look.’ Klaus was smiling in anticipation of Michael’s reaction.

  Curiously the object was wrapped in a sheet of newspaper that, because of its yellow colour, could have come only from the Financial Times. Michael stared down at a little wooden model of a London bobby.