“You see, Andrew,” Myra broke in, “there’s all the black-out and the place has been empty for over a year; there’s always a lot to do.”
Andrew pushed Park Lane aside as if it were something, imagined.
“Oh, that! You see, since Bertha and cook retired there’s absolutely nobody who knows how you arranged things except Miriam.”
“I never did arrange the house,” Myra protested. “Your mother did.”
“You shifted it round. It was you who made it look as it did. I wouldn’t ask you if my mother were alive, but who else is there?” He spoke a little faster and he stammered and his words fell over each other. “It doesn’t mean much. Just seeing them in and then keeping an eye on them. I suppose I’ll be sent to France; they can’t be left quite alone, can they?”
Myra looked at Joe.
“They can’t, can they?”
Joe remained calm.
“There must be somebody else but Myra. Haven’t you any sisters?”
“No. I had two brothers, they were killed in the last war.”
Myra was thinking of the children. She had not seen them lately. It would be marvellous, to get to know them in an intimate way, but Joe would need handling.
“I tell you what; I’ll see Miriam and perhaps go down to the new house with her just to plan where things are going.” She turned to Joe. “You could spare me for that, couldn’t you?”
Joe did not answer her. He was looking at Andrew and with his thumb indicated a chair.
“Won’t you have a drink?”
Myra was surprised; it was unlike Joe to be tactless. The suggestion got Andrew moving, for he became suddenly conscious that his request had perhaps been a little unusual.
“Oh, no, thanks.” He backed towards the exit. “I’ll tell Miriam she’ll be hearing from you, Myra. She’ll be no end glad to see you.”
Andrew had been gone a few minutes. Joe and Myra sat in silence.
“I ought to bloody well hate that fellow,” said Joe at last.
“I shouldn’t think it’s possible to hate Andrew. Anyway he’s what’s known as the injured party.”
“Calling you to and fro as if you were his cook or something. He should have divorced you.”
“I know, but there’s no reason why the children should suffer for Andrew’s crimes. You are being rather dog in the mangerish; it won’t make any difference to us if I just keep an eye on things.”
“Won’t it? I know you. You’ll start that half and half business again.”
Myra laughed.
“Order me another cocktail and don’t be silly. You know that I write to the children regularly, and I have them to the flat.”
“True, but then you’re as it were the good rather dashing aunt; the children don’t depend on you for a pill at bedtime or for breakfast, dinner, lunch and tea. They’re visitors and you are God knows what to them, but certainly not a mother; more like the fairy on the Christmas tree.”
“Well, I won’t be any different now.”
“Nonsense. We’ve been happy?” She did not answer but their smiles met across the table, happy was a little word for what they were to each other. “It’s not been easy. We’ve been thrown more together than most couples because of the scandal. I’ve known that I’ve torn you from your children and that the operation has not been a complete success, but whatever there is in two people that pick them out for each other was given to us. We’ve had five damn nearly perfect years. Not many can say that who’ve had all the advantages; that we can say it, and know it’s true, is a miracle.”
The waiter came and Joe ordered the drinks. They sat in silence waiting for them, and Joe’s words wrapped round Myra like a shawl. He did not often bother to cross his t’s; sometimes when she was tired she worried that he, who wanted a home and children, had got neither. They could have a home, of course, but settling anywhere presented difficulties, and children were impossible. That he could say and clearly mean it, that the last five years had been damn nearly perfect, was a little treasure to lay away and gloat over. When her drink came she leant across the table and held out a hand to him.
“You are a pet.”
He did not take her hand but laid his over it.
“The point I’m getting at is that I don’t want that thing we’ve got smashed. You’ve chosen me. Well, how about sticking to that? Messing about in two homes, which is what Andrew was driving at, will do nobody any good. I’ll be jealous . . .”
“Idiot!”
“It’s true. It took two journeys to the other end of everywhere to give you a chance to know what you wanted. You wouldn’t have come when you did if Andrew, with a most well-timed move, God bless him, had not burst in and played a hand for me. But don’t let’s go through that again. You know how I hate fuss and flap-doodle; well, when you try and get the best of two worlds, life’s all fuss and flap-doodle. I’ve seen you at it so I know.”
Myra lit a cigarette.
“Can I do what I suggested, go with Miriam and look at the house and make a few suggestions?”
“If that’s really all. But if it’s going to mean your popping off two or three days in every week—no.”
“It won’t. I swear it won’t.”
“All right. It’s a free world; I can’t stop you. But be careful, don’t go messing things up.”
“If we’re off to-morrow I’ll find the servants and tell them to get on with our packing. Thérèse will be in a foul temper; she thought she was at last getting my clothes out and sorted.”
“She’ll get all the time in the world in the flat. I shouldn’t wonder if Jacques had to go. He must be a reservist, I suppose; all Frenchmen are.”
“Goodness, I hope not; he knows about us and doesn’t mind, and he’s the only person who doesn’t listen to ‘impossible’ and ‘formidable’ said about my luggage.”
He finished his drink.
“If Jacques goes you’ll have to get used to suitcases. I should find it intolerable if I had to deal with that wardrobe trunk.”
Miriam was like Andrew, she simply did not believe Myra had gone away for good; she disregarded Joe. Even when Myra had to mention him, calling him for convenience “Mr Rock,” she did not apparently take Joe in.
“I can only come down here this once,” Myra exclaimed on the day she came to Pairing. “Mr. Rock can’t spare me longer.”
“We must all do what we can in this terrible war,” Miriam answered. “As I was telling the caretaker’s wife, you won’t be about much. There’s ambulance driving now.”
The three children had come down to assist. John was in the room; he waited until Miriam had gone off to measure something and then he grinned at Myra.
“It’s no good fighting. You are going to be one of England’s heroines and that’s why you won’t be here.”
Myra was always a little startled by John when, after each absence, they met again. He seemed to grow up so quickly. He was a boy last time she saw him. Now he seemed almost a man, and he had a way of talking that made her feel he was deliberately pushing her from him.
“Miriam is very respectable.”
“It wasn’t her idea for once. We were talking about the move and Jane said, ‘I wonder what our dear Mummy will be supposed to be doing this time. She can’t be travelling,’ so I said you were perhaps an air-raid warden, but Nella said a warden sounded so unglamorous for you and an ambulance driver would be better. Then Jane told a marvellous story that she said would come in nicely if ever London is bombed, to build up the ‘your dear mother’ act, of you driving through flames and smoke, rescuing the King and Queen and both Princesses and getting a V.C. or whatever female heroines get. Then Miriam said, ‘no need to make fun, Jane; doing a thing like that is just your mother all over.’ That broke the party up.”
Myra opened a built-in cupboard. She had not sorted h
er feelings but she knew she did not care for them. From John’s story it was as if she were a joke to the children, something amusing tossed from one to the other. Yet when she saw them it was not like that. Jane took Joe for a friend of her mother’s and discussed earnestly with them both her chances of being lacrosse captain or whatever it was. John had been rather aloof of recent years, but he had come to her with his wants. Nella was the biggest surprise. She was practising four hours a day, and when not practising she usually discussed music, quite aware apparently that too difficult music talk was above her mother’s head, but unable not to share some of her enthusiasm. Yet alone they joked about her. Her head in the cupboard Myra mentally clung to Joe. How right he was! She could not mess about with two worlds. However the children might appear to her she was less than nothing to them. She shut the cupboard.
“Well, England’s heroine must go and have a look at the kitchen.”
Those next months. The phoney war. Joe was always busy and she fed a lot of people in canteens who were standing by in cellars. Did Joe feel how completely she was his at last? Letters came from the children; John joined the Air Force; Jane broke a small bone in her ankle; Nella hated being at school and wrote that whatever they had promised she was not getting enough practice, and the woman who taught the violin was an idiot and, as they hadn’t bombed London, couldn’t she come back and get properly taught. Andrew was in France and they all said they heard from him. Miriam wrote as if Myra was away for the night, letters beginning, “Madam dear, you will be sorry to hear that cook won’t stay . . .” or “Madam dear, we shall have to change the butcher . . .” and never once was Myra even tempted to go in person to deal with any of them. It was a queer time for everybody, no real future, just fantastic threats. She and Joe lived each moment that they were together as if it were important; a blackness hung over the earth which might fall at any time and, if fearful things were going to happen, it was good that they at least had enjoyed such a lot of happiness.
Miriam’s telegram came out of a reasonably clear sky. The unending bombing of London had tired Myra; she was thin and nervous from lack of sleep. She knew that Andrew had come back wounded from Dunkirk; she was quite surprised to learn the news from John; it would have been like him to have said she was his next-of-kin. John wrote that Andrew was pretty bad; it was a head wound, but he wasn’t for the worms. Jane and Nella were at school and did not see their father until the Christmas holidays, and then Jane, thanking for a Christmas present, said: “I saw Daddy on Monday; he’s nuts, you know.” Nella wrote, “Daddy is in hospital at Oxford. Please go and see him.” The weather was the worst for years, and Myra was scared of leaving London even for five minutes for fear there should be an air raid and Joe be killed, and in any case her seeing Andrew seemed pointless; it was not until Easter that she got Miriam’s telegram. “Please madam do come. Miriam.”
Myra tried to get through to Palting on the telephone and, failing, packed things for one night. She left a note for Joe. She knew he would hate her fussing but she implored him to go to the shelter if there were a raid. “You know what a worry-cow I am,” and as well she said, “It’s a nuisance but I must go. Miriam would never send a wire like that for nothing.”
She got a taxi at Palting and drove out to the house. Nobody heard her arrive and she walked in. She saw a door ajar and looked in. Andrew was sitting in an armchair by the fire. She went over to him.
“Hallo!”
He looked up at her. He frowned and then, after a pause, suggested doubtfully.
“Myra?”
She sat down beside him and asked how he was but he did not answer. She asked after the children, and finally fell back on the weather. He seemed pleased to hear her voice, for he smiled in a dim way, rather as though the sun had fallen on him and he was enjoying it, but he did not say another word. It was clear he felt he had made his effort and that was enough.
Myra left him and went out to the kitchen. Miriam was at the stove; she turned and her face lit up.
“Oh, you have come, madam dear. Thank God!”
“I’ve seen him,” said Myra. “Is he always as bad as that?”
“Only came back a few days ago. They say it’s just a matter of time and they think being at home will do him good.”
Myra was so shaken she had to sit down.
“How ghastly!”
Miriam came over to her.
“I know, madam dear, but it’s all right for him. Nice hot fire on his legs and nice food and all that, and he’s quite happy. He’s not helpless anyway; he can do everything for himself.” Myra had to shudder. “Yes, I know, madam dear, how he seems first off, but you get used to seeing him.”
Jane, exceedingly gay-looking in a yellow jumper and slacks, came in with a basin. She stared at Myra, rather a hard stare.
“Hullo! This is an unexpected honour. Flat bombed?”
“Now, Jane,” Miriam expostulated, “’tisn’t only bombs that brings your mother down.”
Jane put her basin on the table.
“Can I have the chickens’ food?”
“Yes, dear.” Miriam took a large saucepan off the stove and ladled out a depressing damp mixture. “And when you’ve done do you think you could go and sit with your father; it brightens him.”
A look crossed Jane’s face which Myra read as if it were spoken words. Loathing of sadness being forced on her.
“Oh, all right, but Nella will have to do it this afternoon. It’s her turn. She can’t get out of everything on the excuse of practising.”
“She’s only thirteen. A child really and you know how seeing him upsets her.”
Jane’s voice was like iron.
“She may as well get used to it.” She turned to Myra. “I’m joining the Wrens as soon as I’m old enough,” and then added in a forced, pert voice, “no objection, I suppose?”
When she had gone out Myra’s eyes met Miriam’s.
“Terrible, isn’t it? And Nella’s difficult. She’s downright scared. She walked in her sleep last night. I found her in the garden, but she’s the one who’s worrying. Says she won’t go back to school, he mustn’t be left.”
“I can’t stay, Miriam. Something might happen to Mr. Rock. I’m sorry but I can’t.”
“They’re so young.”
“I know, but——”
“It needn’t be for long. He’ll get more himself; they said so.”
Myra was staring at her wardrobe trunk. Joe had ordered it to be sent after her because she would need some clothes. Thérèse brought it down. Thérèse was meant to stay with her, but one look at the house, the shortage of staff and at Andrew and she gave notice.
“No, madame, not even for one week. No.”
How quickly Myra became wedged into Palting. Small wedges but terribly gripping. Jane had flung her arms round her and said.
“It’s a bit of all right seeing your mug looking out of the window when one comes home.”
Nella had been different from the moment Myra unpacked her suitcase. She had burst into tears as she saw what she was doing.
“It’s all been so awful and now you’ve come it’s so perfect I can’t help crying.”
John, on a few days’ leave, remarked:
“I’d meant to stay in London but as you’re here what’s the point?”
She loved it that they wanted her but she loved nothing else. She hated the house, not in the superstitious way she had always disliked the house in Chelsea, but because it was uncouth and took a lot of looking after, and even she had to help. She frankly loathed being with Andrew. She despised herself for the feeling but there it was; in his present state she found him horrifying and depressing. But what really scared her was the accumulation of things which were trapping her and holding her from Joe. Almost every day she planned to return to London. Every evening she telephoned Joe. Most nights she said she was c
oming next week, or in a day or two. At first Joe seemed to believe her. “The girls go back to school next week. I can get away then.” “Andrew really is much more himself; I can soon leave him to Miriam.” She believed, or tried to believe, these things herself when she said them. Then one day Joe asked her to come up to town for a night and let’s have this out.
After Palting the flat was Heaven. There was an old but adequate staff and nobody even supposed that she knew how to make a bed. Joe had ordered her favourite roses and they were everywhere. He came in from work soon after six, mixed a shaker of cocktail and at once got down to the situation.
“Is it Andrew? or the children?”
Myra struggled to clear her own mind while talking to him.
“Of course, when I’m here it doesn’t seem so desperate, but when I’m there I’m fixed as if I’d fallen into a pot of treacle. First there’s Andrew.”
“Pity?”
“I suppose a little, but I’ve never been good at that sort of thing. No, it’s worse than that; I do him good. He was really hardly there at all when I first saw him, but now he is different; he says a few things without being asked to, and he walks better; he sort of shambled at first.”
“Is he only better with you?”
“He tried a bit with John when he had leave. Jane is hopeless. She’s hard, I think she would do more if I weren’t there. Anyway, of course, she’s at school now and she wants to leave in the autumn and join one of the Services. She’ll be seventeen and she’s got her school certificate and she’s just the type, I don’t think it’s any good counting on her.”
“What about Nella?”
“Nella’s angelic but she’s nervous and jumpy with Andrew and that makes him worse. Meals are agony. She glues her eyes on her father, watching for him to upset something, and then before he’s done whatever it is, or even likely to do it, she’s saying, ‘be careful, Daddy,’ or ‘look out, Daddy.’ Jane gets mad with her but I know Nella can’t help herself; it’s love for Andrew that makes her go on like that; she’s so terribly afraid of his showing himself in a bad light.”
Myra Carrol Page 27