The Golden Lion

by Pamela Haines

  Christmas approached. Randall, recovered, came to visit also. But by February he had a romance of his own, and other things to do with his time.

  In January the happy news had come from England – Aunt Eleanor to be married. And to that same doctor, who three years ago had shattered his life. Now when he heard, he was simply happy for her. Amazed, but happy. They were to live in Scotland as soon as the war was over. Since there could be no children, she was not worried by his being a non-Catholic. They were very well suited, she said. ‘If only you could come to our wedding! We shall be married in the spring.’

  Spring 1944. He wondered afterwards that he did not see what was happening. To him – if not to Laura.

  He was with her in the library when the raid began. It was very sudden. There had been a short one during an earlier visit, when he had been able to get them into the shelter. It had taken time to get her mother down. He had had to carry her.

  Now there was no time. This fearful rattling, booming, thunderous shaking. He had his arms about Laura. She felt, not soft and yielding, but hard with terror. He put his hands over her hair, drew her head to him. It was buried in his chest. He pushed both of them against the wall. The noise was deafening. We are in battle again, he thought. In battle. But here he could do nothing. He thought suddenly, a blindingly beautiful thought: We shall die together. We shall die in each other’s arms.

  They were covered in a thick white dust. The building rocked. The world rocked. Kissing her, passionately, again and again, longest of dusty kisses, their juices mixing. Her mouth was not cool. As they clung together: We are alive, he thought. And shall remain so.

  E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle.

  And thence we came out to see the stars again.

  He tried late that night to write to Sheila. He hadn’t done it the evening before when he should have. His letter had all the excitement of a school exercise. He saw that it read like one. There was no account in it of a raid. Earlier, he had had an account of the eruption of Vesuvius to give her. Tonight it seemed he had nothing. He could only write the truth, or rubbish.

  He looked at her photograph. I can only hurt her. He felt pain at the pain he was about to inflict. Yet how could he know there was no turning back? He could have hoped this new love was only a passing passion, a flirtation even.

  However strong, may it only be passing. (Randall did not take his seriously – and he had no girl back in England.) Oh Sh sh Sheila. Where in this world, this new world, do you belong?

  10

  Dick, in the winter of ‘44. It was getting no better. He sometimes thought it never would be.

  The face that stared back at him in the mornings – if he could have avoided that. To shave blind. But not possible. Looking at himself: the drawn, gaunt face, the eyeballs tinged yellow, the skin dull. The whole topped by white hair becoming sparse now. And yet before he had not been even tinged with grey. It had appeared if not overnight, then in those first weeks after the funeral. Just as the blood seemed to have left his body, so had the black seeped from his hair.

  Lately the face in the glass had begun to frighten him. Once shaved, he would think: I don’t have to see it again today. I can forget about it. Until the next morning.

  Everyday life must go on. The foundry – no trouble there. Busy with wartime orders. He could still put in a good day’s work and no one be any the wiser – so long as he could drink.

  Drink. Drink made the little he must accomplish, possible. Not tolerable, but possible. He wished only that he and drink were not so securely wedded. Other people knew, of course. He didn’t deceive himself. But as long as work went well, what did it matter that his life was that of an automaton? Get up, wash, shave, force down breakfast to give himself the right to the first, life-saving tot of whisky. Throughout the day, fuelling himself. Always sober, serious. So reliable that even Stanley Taylor could not fault him. He moved like clockwork – and with as much life in him.

  There was no trouble now with the rest of the Board. Maria was accepted. Had that been his doing? He scarcely remembered. Only the dull memory of the pain of that meeting, when they had fought Dad’s wishes, mocked Maria, and he had defended her. Now it was different. She had surprised them not only by her active interest, sitting in on every meeting, but in following up matters. As if she hadn’t enough with her busy life in Thackton.

  Drink. How he’d once despised those who couldn’t live without. It had been different in his flying days. Hard drinking the norm (who amongst them hadn’t felt the need? It seemed to have made little difference to their chances). Once he had feared the Orange Death. Now he feared life.

  He despised the shambling figures: glazed eyes, trembling hands (he saw with wonder and detachment, his own hand, steady still – unless he waited too long for the next dose), the dribbling, the incontinent, the sick. Vomiting. Perhaps DT. Some terrible end. But an end.

  He could wish to slip into death. I haven’t even the courage, he thought, to do it for myself. Was he to let drink do it for him?

  He didn’t want to hear how much he had to live for. He wanted only to live for Gwen.

  He should wish to live for Betty and Jan. Betty was a married woman now. Wife of a French Canadian army officer, Jean-Fernand. Her future after the war would be in Montreal, but in the meantime she was blissfully happy, appearing to boss Jean-Fernand about, which he accepted – only to do exactly as he pleased. ‘He really is a wild man – I live in fear of my life,’ she said happily. He had wanted her to be happy. But – Betty happy, and no Gwen there to see it. His thoughts, stuck in a groove, ran the same way always.

  Jan, the nurse – how Gwen would have loved that too. Working in a naval hospital at Southampton. Betty and Jan cared, of course. Their care shamed him and drove him to deceit. He would have hated either of them, home on leave, to see the empty bottles, or any evidence of his dependence. But they had not noticed. No one, thank God, had noticed.

  Maria on the ‘phone. ‘You’re coming then, Dick? Christmas Eve – you’ll need to arrive fiveish. Helen has some sort of surprise planned. Eleanor won’t be there. She’s celebrating being Mrs McIntosh alone with her Ian … Dick, you will come? Fiveish, Friday? Be there.’

  He was.

  Thackton, so much loved Thackton. Dark icy road from the station, the dripping hedgerow, the long dark line of moorland, gaunt dim shapes of the houses with their blacked-out windows like shut eyes. Knowing every inch of the way to Moorgarth: the nettle-covered hollow before the gate, the trickling of the cattle trough, the exact creak of the gate.

  Moorgarth. Mine, he thought sadly as he limped into the courtyard. Hand on the farmhouse latch. Once he had thought: Gwen and I, Darby and Joan, this is where we’ll retire.

  Helen threw her arms about him. ‘We’ve been waiting for you. Look what I’ve cooked.’

  It was a strange dish. Pasta. Helen’s friend’s mother, brought up in Italy, had made it. ‘After all, flour isn’t rationed. She makes all these lovely shapes and squares. This is cannelloni. We got her the chicken to put in – she’s made it for all of us for Christmas. Maria only helped with the sauce.’

  Maria said, ‘I never learned anything. We just chased whatever tastes I remember … the best one can do without olive oil. Bottled tomatoes from our stores. Basil from Mrs Outhwaite’s herb garden. See what you can do?’

  See what you can do, he thought.

  Christmas, and in spite of the armies bogged down in the Ardennes, almost certainly the last one of the War. Sprigs of holly, evergreens, Dad’s photo decorated by Helen. Red polyanthus in a vase. Jasmine. Pink and blue hyacinths.

  ‘Heard from Jenny?’

  ‘And Sybil. Jenny sent some photographs. Jim expects to be sent to Europe any day now. Gordon’s a dab hand at chemistry still and says he wants to be a surgeon … Sybil’s fine and says young Peter’s become a very keen boxer.’

  With the meal, a toast to Eddie. ‘May he be with us, next Christmas.’

  They sat ar
ound the wireless, Dick fortified by whisky. The King’s speech. He spoke of prisoners of war and the separation of families as one of the great trials of war. ‘Eddie,’ Helen said in a proprietary whisper, taking Maria’s hand, squeezing it.

  ‘You’re the man of the house today, Uncle Dick,’ she said.

  Good food, warmth, affection.

  ‘The reason the mince pies are so bursting with mince is Jenny. She and Sybil sent lots of dried fruit. Hardly any carrots needed this year …’

  ‘What news of Guy?’

  ‘Still in Naples, of course. He seems to be in love with it. That’s the impression Eleanor has from his letters.’

  ‘I wrote to Guy, twice,’ Helen said in an injured tone, ‘but he never answered.’

  He would stay only one more day. The weather was bright but with a frost – the flagstones and the tops of the gates shimmered with it. He went for a walk by himself at midday, whisky flask tucked in his greatcoat. The sun had melted the frost. After lunch, Helen went over to Park Villa where Eleanor was giving a tea-party. ‘You’re going to rest that leg, Uncle Dick,’ she said before she left.

  Maria said, ‘She fussed like that over Eric. It was good.’

  ‘You’re all right, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘I always mean to ask. You have Helen, and a busy wartime life …’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so. At least I’m not the Virgin Mary any more.’

  ‘You’re all right. I do see that.’

  ‘You aren’t,’ she said suddenly, severely. Sitting down the other side of the fire.

  He didn’t answer.

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘I get along –’

  ‘You’re drinking – you drink, don’t you?’

  ‘I like a drink, yes. I suppose I rely on it a bit.’ He felt uncomfortably hot. The logs from the fire seemed to move towards him.

  ‘You don’t rely on it, Dick – you bloody depend on it.’

  ‘I depend on it,’ he said. He spoke like a child. He waited then till she should say something else. He felt at once both cornered, and immensely relieved.

  ‘And you think no one’s noticed?’

  ‘A few,’ he said. ‘Maybe. “Old Grainger’s hitting the bottle a bit,” that sort of thing.’ He cleared his throat. ‘My work’s all right. Bloody dependent, you say. Bloody difficult to get the stuff – But it’s the same dose. Doesn’t go up …’

  ‘It can’t be doing your liver any good.’

  ‘Does that matter so much?’

  ‘A great deal – to all of us here. But especially Betty and Jan … Pushing yourself into infirm old age or expensive illness, I don’t know what. Selfish, stupid idiot. Whatever in heaven’s name would Gwen think?’

  Her voice was harsh. He was appalled. In the silence that followed, without warning tears coursed down his cheeks. Salt tears, running now into his mouth. When had he last wept?

  ‘Forgive me,’ she said.

  ‘Why should I? You’re right. I don’t want to hear it, but you’re right.’

  ‘Forgive me then –’

  ‘What have you done, ever, that I – or any of our family –should need to forgive you?’

  He looked up. She threw a log on to the fire, kicked it. The welt of her jumper had ridden up, and she pulled it down. ‘You know well enough. You know the old history. I ask you just to forgive my frankness. What I’ve just told you needed saying.’

  He reached for and lit a cigarette, offering her one first. He drew on his hungrily. Feeling the salt tears dry.

  ‘I’m going to make us some tea,’ she said. She disappeared into the kitchen. While she was gone, he reached for the whisky flask secreted in his briefcase. Warm soothing fire. Travelling down his throat. Cleansing, numbing fire.

  When she came back she said at once, pouring out his tea, ‘Do you want to put whisky in?’ He shook his head. ‘You haven’t got over Gwen at all, have you?’ she said.

  ‘No. But people expect … Others –’

  ‘Some things you never get over, Dick. Sure, that sounds depressing. It is. But it’s better than your load of guilt just because you can’t.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, stubbing out his cigarette. Lighting another.

  She paused. ‘I’m going to tell you something. It’s a bad time to come out with it, it won’t cheer you, I don’t even see what good it can do, except – the Grainger family – haven’t there been too many secrets?’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘It’s about Peter, and me … Peter didn’t seduce me, he raped me.’

  ‘My God,’ he said.

  ‘I’m not asking if you believe me. I know you do. I wish to God I’d spoken then … I ought to have protested. To have fought. But my background … I think now … it seemed natural to suffer then.’

  ‘Peter. Getting away scot free. My God, how you must hate us …’

  ‘No … I hated him for a long while. But – he didn’t get away scot free. You can’t say that of someone who died as he did. That death was very horrible. And Sybil, what she’s suffered.’

  ‘I wish you’d fought back. I’d –’

  ‘If I’d pointed a finger at him, protested my innocence – My word against his … Who’s to say I’d have been believed?’ ‘I’d have believed you, if I’d been asked … All I got was … I was just told what was happening – the secret, that I was to be part of.’

  ‘The wrong he did – I don’t know which was the greater, the rape or the lies afterwards. The lies were just my reputation, the other was myself, my heart – all that loving and losing a child. I lost Guy … And when I wanted him to know the truth, I couldn’t tell him myself. I had to get it done for me … And now I think he hates me. There were some terrible words spoken. They haven’t really been unspoken since. If he’d died, been killed…’

  He didn’t want to interrupt. She went on: ‘I don’t know why I tell you, except that – You’ve always thought Peter better than you. Handsomer, cleverer – I don’t know. Isn’t that so? Peter wasn’t the best, Dick. You were – Dear, dear Dick. Don’t misunderstand me when I say I love you … I love you for qualities I can’t put a name to. And don’t misunderstand this either – but in some other world, if things had been different, we could have loved each other.’

  All the might-have-been revealed itself, hid itself again, in those few moments of filling a teacup, laying another log, lighting a cigarette.

  ‘And so you’re going to get Eddie back?’ he said, in an ordinary tone, almost normal. ‘It can’t be long now.’

  ‘They’ll probably intern him over here first. I don’t know the plans. But it’ll be difficult enough, God knows. His career. Adjustments to ordinary life. What he makes of Helen … Where we’ll go, what we’ll do. That all lies ahead.’

  ‘You love him a lot, don’t you?’

  ‘More than I need, more than I want to. He’s in my blood, Dick.’

  ‘What’s bad about that?’

  ‘What’s bad? Dear Dick. If loving him was enough. Eddie isn’t your slippers by the fire husband. His eye has always roved. And I’ve always known it. He’s inside every pretty girl who’s willing … Forgive the crudity –’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. A tide of sadness washed over him.

  She had busied herself with the teacups, pushing them on to the tray. Out of the silence came the roaring of planes overhead. The heavy sound of bombers passing over.

  ‘You’re going to let me help you, aren’t you?’ she said, her voice firm, businesslike. ‘Whatever needs to be done. We can work together. Not at once. I’ll let you get home first. We’ll sort something out. I’m nothing if not practical these days.’ Her voice was lighter: ‘Getting someone off the bottle, it can’t be worse than juggling with the Voluntary Car Pool.’

  He wanted to answer lightly too. But no words came. When at last they did, they were from the Bible, from Genesis.

  ‘ “I will not let thee go, except thou bless me,”’ he said.

  11

  ‘I’m
always chasing rainbows …’

  ‘You’ll tire her,’ Maria said. ‘Or discourage her or something.’

  ‘I could go on all day,’ Helen said. ‘I don’t get tired when I’m singing – ever.’

  ‘It’s meant to be fun – not work … But he won’t stop, won’t settle for less than perfection … Oh Eddie. Enough.’

  She’d heard the sound of the gramophone and both their voices through the open window as she’d lifted the latch of the farmhouse gate. Now when Helen left the room, taking Maria’s shopping through to the kitchen, he went back to the same song… Why have I always been a failure, What can the reason be?’

  She said cruelly, without thinking, ‘Why pass your problems on to a child?’

  ‘God’s sake. It’s only a song, Minnie.’ ‘Don’t call me Minnie.’

  ‘Oh shucks,’ he said. ‘Anyway, she loves it, you can see that. And I need it. It gives me something to do. Stranded in the back of nowhere … The Yorkshire moors. Flamin’ Mamie. Worse than down under.’

  He had one hand on the electric pick-up, hovering over the record. ‘Too slow for her, this one. Perry Como sings it like a dirge. I speed it up a bit and it’s just grand … It’s a good little voice, darling. We’ve just got to get the squeak out of it. She’s a natural otherwise.’

  ‘OK,’ Maria said. ‘It’s just you’re too tough with her. You don’t treat it like the game it is. You treat it as if it were her career – or part of yours.’

  ‘You don’t like to see me happy again –’

  ‘Don’t start that.’ Her voice was sharp. ‘Helen’s a child. My child. The child you never gave me.’ (Oh, unworthy.)

  He said jauntily, lifting the pile of records. ‘My child too. I wasn’t asked about the adoption but now she’s mine too … I thought… I’ll maybe go back to London, after all. There’s my piano there. The contacts. Something good might turn up. I don’t need a farmhouse holiday any more …’