They went to the theatre to see a Farjeon revue, to dinner nearby in Soho and then to a night club in Albemarle Street to dance. A haze of unreality still surrounded these evenings which they spent together. If they could meet more often and spend more days in each other’s company, this sense almost of illusion would be dissipated. As it was, James had to readjust each time to their changed relationship. He felt sure that it was the same for Nicole and that was why she maintained a significant distance between them despite the heady kissing and the panting breath, the straining clasp of each other’s arms.
At first sight of her after every parting he half-expected to see a bare-legged, bare-footed girl, probably in shorts or sailing slacks, with wind-tousled hair and the defiant and self-defensively contemptuous manner of young children and adolescents towards their coevals of the opposite sex. The reality of a chic and poised young woman held a lingering suggestion of fantasy, an impact which disconcerted him for a while. He supposed that his effect on her was much the same, that she could not accustom herself entirely, during his absences, to the fact that the childhood companion more remembered for teasing than for romance had, to a large extent, become a different person; probably rather more a stranger than a familiar.
Whatever reserve or incredulity either of them had, it had dissolved within an hour. For James, it was replaced in some measure by a different suspension of belief: that it was Nicole, whom he had for most of his life taken for granted and with whom he had had almost a family relationship, who inspired such enchantment, tenderness and passion. That it was Nicole who showed such provocative symptoms of reciprocating all these feelings.
He could not have been more surprised if he had found that, of a sudden, he could not make himself understood in French, which he had grown up to speak with almost the same facility as English: as if, for instance, although he retained his command of the grammar and a wide vocabulary, he could not summon the latest slang.
That was it, he thought, a good analogy. This was a new version of the same familiar Nicole and he was a new version of the old familiar James and for both of them there was a considerable adaptation to be made, with a need to be convinced that what they saw and felt was not illusory.
James felt that he had apportioned the evening skilfully - cunningly? - into segments. At the theatre they were frivolous. At dinner, they talked of serious concerns; until he guided the conversation back to discussion of the revue. At El Morocco, he hoped that no grim lurking thoughts would intrude on gaiety and romance.
In the restaurant - L’escargot Bienvenu – eating French food with a bottle of Beaune, it was less painful to talk about her family than if he had enquired about them in the first few minutes of their meeting. But it was she who introduced the subject. He had - he was sensitive to every delicate gradation of her mood - noticed a suppressed effervescence, a radiance. He had hopefully attributed it to his presence; and, more optimistically, to her plans for the conclusion of their evening. He was a trifle cast down when she revealed its true cause.
“I have had news of Maman and Papa.”
Her eyes shone as she looked at him across the rim of the glass from which she had just sipped. There was more than moisture to brighten her eyes. Although he saw the tears he saw also triumph and joy.
“That’s wonderful. When? How?”
They were seated side by side and able to talk almost in whispers.
“Someone whom I met through my work. She came from France only yesterday: with a letter.”
He knew vaguely that there was a scanty clandestine traffic between Britain and occupied Europe. He knew none of the details. The whole matter was a mystery to everyone except the very few who were involved. In an unaccountable way it disquieted him to hear that Nicole was in any way a part of all that.
“They’re well?”
“As well as possible with the Boches thick around them... the Gestapo and the S.S.”
“Do they have enough to eat? Have the Boches been persecuting them? What is your father doing? What work could there be for a marine architest in times like these, in enemy-held territory?”
“The Boches have not interfered too drastically. Papa has been allowed to continue with his work, but now the shipyards are under German control and so he hates his work because he feels he is indirectly helping the enemy. If he resisted openly, they would take reprisals against Maman as well as him. But there are other ways.”
“Sabotage?”
She answered him with a wholly Gallic shrug which encompassed a multitude of implications and possibilities.
“At least they are not starving and they have managed to keep reasonably warm this winter.”
“That’s some comfort. And Henri?”
“They have heard from him recently. He is in Oran with his ship. He cannot say anything about his real feelings: censorship is too dangerous. What can he do? I am sure... my parents are sure... that Henri would prefer... must be longing... to escape from Algeria and somehow get to England. Where can he go? Tunisia and Morocco are no easier to escape from than where he is now.”
“Yes, I understand. I feel for him. If only his ship had been in one of the Channel or Atlantic ports when...”
He stopped, tactfully. Nicole supplied the words he was reluctant to say.
“When France surrendered to the Boches.” She drank some of her wine as deeply as though it were a restorative. “Yes, he could... he would have come here.”
“It is hard on him.”
“It is hard on us all.”
“Perhaps he can get home on leave one day.”
She shrugged again, drank again and he refilled her glass.
“Can you get a letter to your parents?” He was hesitant to ask.
She did not reply at once and for a moment she shifted her eyes away from his; then she looked straight at him again.
“I intend to try.”
They were silent for a while. She looked up and contrived a brighter tone although he guessed that her thoughts still dwelt elsewhere.
“Poor Roger. But at least he will have an enforced rest now.”
“Daphne had just arrived at the hospital as we were leaving.”
He gave her a rueful look.
She laughed, her amusement unaffected. Here at least was a topic which could take her mind off her parents and her brother.
“She is persistent, that one. Did she see Roger?”
“The hospital authorities wouldn’t let her. If she had bullied them into it, we wouldn’t have let her. My uncle and aunt were in no condition for an encounter with Daphne, and of course Roger wasn’t conscious.”
“I suspect he has never been fully conscious whenever he has been in that one’s company!”
“I suspect you’re right. Perhaps the best time for them to be together is when he’s sound asleep.”
“To be fair,” Nicole spoke as if it were an effort to render fair judgment, “I am sure she is genuinely fond of him. I would even say she loves him. That is what I am afraid of!”
“I too. I think it is a classic example of the difference between loving and being in love.”
They both fell silent again. Roger noticed the faint flush that came and went quickly on Nicole’s cheek. He felt a tremor of expectation in himself. They had suddenly come to the verge of the area into which he had been wanting to lead her. His words, innocuous in the context of their conversation, had abruptly taken on a personal connotation.
It was ground, evidently, on which Nicole was not yet ready to tread.
Without looking at him, almost ostentatiously occupied with her knife and fork, she made a neat evasion.
“With Roger, it is no more than infatuation.”
“You are so sure, when you have seen them together only once? Nearly five months ago.”
“Roger is too kind-hearted for his own good.”
“I hope the past year and a half has hardened his heart somewhat.”
“Maybe. And maybe it has made him more susceptible. It m
ust have been quite a long journey for her?”
“It was. She was determined to stay and try again the next day, but we scooped her up and Christopher flew her back to Baxton on his way.”
“And how is Christopher?” She smiled. The whole family and all their close friends had a habit of smiling when they spoke of him. “He’s always been a little devil and I see no signs of any change.”
“Not so little. It would be a bad day if Christopher ever changed. He was disappointed at not getting onto fighters, but I think he’s ended up in the right place after all.”
She was grave for a moment. “It’s not much fun, the work he has to do. I hear about such things.”
“No, it’s not. And he’s looking a bit worn: as far as anything could wear Christopher down. But he makes up for it, no doubt. I suspect he’s bowling the girls over like skittles.”
Nicole giggled. “I’ve no doubt he is. What a precocious child he was. I’ve never told you this: the summer when he was eleven years old and I was twelve... and you were a very lofty and patronising fourteen. Christopher and I were shrimping one morning, and he arranged it so that we went among the rocks when nobody was around. The next thing I knew, he had pounced. Literally pounced, like some old roué who has lured a little chorus girl or midinette into the back seat of his limousine. He insisted on kissing me... not just once, either... and he was very strong for his age, as you know... as I found out! I remember being quite breathless when I ran away from those rocks, mon dieu! I took care after that to steer an equally precocious friend in dear Christopher’s direction...”
“Monique! Monique Stassard? I remember Monique.”
Nicole - was it the Beaune and reaction from her earlier mood? James wondered - began to bubble with laughter.
“Don’t tell me that you... and Monique...?”
“As you said, I was rather lofty and patronising at that age. No, I didn’t take advantage of Monique’s precocity.” He took Nicole’s hand. “It seems I could have learned something from my young brother’s initiative, if I had known.”
This time she did not avert her eyes and the colour that came into her cheeks was deeper than pink and did not recede as quickly.
“Your young brother, cher ami, is a delightful pal, but he is a trifler; et je ne suis pas une femme légère. I do not think I would feel the same as I do about you if you were as... enterprising?... as he is.”
“I’m not a hypocrite, Nicole. I won’t pretend to be any more serious than Christopher. I enjoy girls as much as he does.”
She raised her eyebrows, gave a brief twitch of her lips and made a small gesture with one hand, which, again, were entirely French and signified acceptance and understanding. She might have said that boys will be boys or young men have to sow their wild oats.
“And I don’t know how you feel about me,” James added.
“You will be twenty-two in May, non? Have you ever been seriously in love?”
“I’ve never even imagined it was serious, but I’ve been head over heels in love half a dozen times; for a week or two.”
“Who hasn’t! But the difference is, you see, that men can carry that kind of ‘being in love’ to a logical conclusion.”
“Yes, but one has to have a partner, after all.”
“The sort of girls who enter that kind of... partnership,” She smiled at him with mischief “are usually willing to have many... collaborators. There is a difference.”
“Vive la difference!”
“What?”
“Oh, nothing. I just had a thought that was complimentary to you... and consolatory to me.”
“In any case, a girl is not supposed to declare her feelings first.” She gave him the same smile.
“En tout cas, I don’t think this is quite the ideal setting for declarations.” He patted her hand. “Moreover, I don’t think these are the right times for anyone in my job to involve someone’s feeling in that way.”
She shook her head. “You don’t really think that, James. I can tell. It is something your sense of... right and wrong? Honour?... tells you you should think. But your behaviour is not convincing.” She put her hand on his and pressed it. “I am glad to say.”
They began to talk about the show they had seen and which one they should go to the next evening. There was no awkwardness or constraint between them. Nicole’s manner had been too honest to embarrass or offend him. What she had said was not as enigmatic as he had momentarily supposed. He thought about it while he listened to her.
His attitude to any attractive girl was to take her to bed if she were willing. There were many - all too many! - who were not. As Nicole had said, the complaisant minority was fairly promiscuous. If most young men had sexual adventures it was not because an equal number of young women shared them. It was because the comparatively few who went to bed did so with more than one lover; and were not necessarily single anyway: wives, widows and divorcees figured high in the statistics.
An inherent sense of fair play inhibited him from forming a deep mutual attachment with anyone while his life was at high risk: but, if his genuine feelings prompted it, he would not be able to prevent himself. Nicole knew very well from the way he treated her, from the ardour with which he embraced her, that he wanted her and would take her if she allowed him to. What he had come to acknowledge was that there was more than physical attraction and affection in his desire for her. She had made it plain that she recognised this. What she had not revealed was the extent to which she responded. Watching and listening to her talking animatedly about the theatre, he felt a growing excitement at the uncertainty that exceeded the easy certainty of complaisance which he had known with so many others.
It was only a little after midnight when he took her home. She had to be on duty at 8 a.m. but had arranged to be off for twenty-four hours from 1 p.m., which would take them almost to the time at which he had to catch his train.
The whole of the small block of flats had been taken over as a mess and living quarters for men and women of all three of the Free French Services. When he accompanied her into the entrance hall they heard the sounds of a party coming from the large ground-floor flat in which were the bar and ante-room, but she did not invite him to stay for a drink. Nor was he in the mood to. He had dismissed the taxi. There was no air raid that night. He would enjoy the long walk to his club. In Conduit Street, Bond Street, Dover Street, Shepherd Market and Piccadilly he was accosted several times. All the girls were pretty. Half of them were French. He declined them all politely. There were three obliging W.A.A.F. in the Operations Room at Nesborough whose favours he currently enjoyed. They, too, were pretty and his relationships with them were uncomplicated. A strikingly attractive A.T.S. lance-corporal had recently arrived as one of the Artillery Liaison Officers’ assistants. He had taken her out and made a promising start. Her khaki stockings were even less erotic than the W.A.A.F.’s grey lisle, but even they could not spoil the shape of her legs and no doubt the flesh they so unexcitingly concealed was as smooth and as soft as her lips.
No Mayfair tart had ever held any attraction for him.
And no makeshift W.A.A.F. or A.T.S. (There were two kinds of the latter, the joke went: cocked ‘ats and felt ‘ats.) could show legs which allured him more than Nicole’s, as shapely as the best and clad in black silk.
What was more, he loved her; and he was in love with her.
She? There was a need for haste, in these times. For haste in all matters, personal and military. But he was in no hurry, since their conversation this evening. He could afford to allow more time for their relationship to mature at the pace she dictated. His urgent and exigent needs would be assuaged by his three accommodating friends on camp and probably by a fourth.
All he had to do was live long enough.
*
A three-tonner waited at Nesborough railway station. It was three miles to camp and the train on which James had travelled always brought several people from leave and on posting. There were a few othe
r officers but James happened to be the most senior, so he sat in the cab with the driver.
“Anything been happening for the last couple of days?”
The driver grinned.
“Jerry was over last night, sir, about quarter past ten.”
“What was so funny about that?”
“It was only one kite, sir. Didn’t see it meself. They say it was a J. U. Eighty-eight. One of them nuisance raiders, like.”
“Well, where’s the joke?”
“The two Polish officers on your squadron, sir. They was parked in a field with a couple of local girls they’d taken to the ‘Crown’. They was... on the job, like, sir. One bomb fell quite near them and they caught the blast... it rocked their car right over onto its side, like. One of them’s got his arm in a sling, poor fuc... poor bloke...”
“Pilot Officer Brzk.”
“I believe that’s his name, sir. Well, he got stuck, sir. Seems he twisted his back when the car went over. Couldn’t move off the girl and she was yelling blue bloody murder. The other fuc... the other Pole... Polish officer, he had his trousers and underpants blown away. The blast broke the car windows and sucked the doors open... the ones on the side that was uppermost, like. He had to run back to camp, bollock-naked, in his shirt-tails... he didn’t have a greatcoat on, only his Irvine jacket... and upset the S.Ps in the Guard Room, like, as if a mad dog had rushed in. My mate was driving the ambulance. He had to take the squadron M.O. out to untangle the Polish fuc... officer... and the girl... and the other girl was ‘avin’ bleedin’ hysterics. Cor! Wish I’d seen it, an’ all.”
James felt that it was not in the best interests of discipline to show his mirth but he could not contain it. He rocked with laughter.
“Nesborough won’t forget its first air raid. Did any bombs fall on camp?”
“Three, sir.”
“Any damage?”
“One burst near the workship at 33 Squadron’s dispersals, sir. Killed four blokes and two others got hit by shrapnel, sir.”
James was instantly grave. But he asked himself whether with any other nation than the British the tragedy of the event would have taken second place to the Rabelaisian comedy. The driver, he decided, had got his priorities right. As long as the nation kept its sense of humour, what hope was there for the strutting, ranting Nazis, whom they saw primarily as objects of ridicule?
The Daedalus Quartet Box Set Page 29