“She’s bearing up very well. And the children are too small to be affected for long.”
She looked down at her knitting. “That’s terribly sad.”
Her husband changed the subject smoothly. “Have you heard from Nicole lately?”
“I saw her about three weeks ago. She’d heard from her parents... although perhaps that’s careless talk!”
Stephen smiled. “I don’t think we need fear that these walls have ears.”
For a while they talked about Nicole and her family.
Once, after her sister had telephoned about Roger’s arrival, Sheila gave James a musing look which, as long as he could remember, was the precursor of a mild inquisition; which was as near as his good-natured mother ever came to sternness when he was a child or probing in more recent years. It had always given him qualms because each time it made him wonder if there were any cranny of his or Christopher’s minds - or their father’s - which her intuition or perceptiveness could not penetrate.
“We don’t seem to have heard much of late about that girl you two used to tease poor old Roger about. A very pretty girl, I gathered?”
James felt his cheeks growing warm and a culpability which he told himself was absurd at his age.
“I rather think that’s fizzled out, Mummy.”
“Neither of you was exactly keen, I rather felt.”
“Square pegs and round holes, rather.”
“Don’t be Freudian, dear.”
James laughed, relieved to be rid of the embarrassment, however mild. They had not been exactly helpful, it was true.
“Roger deserves better. Even the Titanic came off second best when it ran into an iceberg.”
Sheila raised her eyebrows. “As bad as that?”
“We thought so. Roger was wearing rose-coloured specs, the silly old chump.”
Stephen said “You wouldn’t care to start again and sort out your metaphors, would you, old boy?”
“Touché. But I think you follow, Dad.”
“Iceberg seems to be the operative word.”
“Christopher and I could feel the chill. And, of course, one sees only one-ninth above the surface.”
“Point taken. Does Roger suspect that you and your brother headed her off?”
James did his best to look the offended innocent. “I didn’t say that.”
His parents exchanged a smile.
Stephen said “Perhaps I oughtn’t to let you in on this even now. But you two together are - always have been - pretty formidable in... er... defence. Taken one at a time, you’re... let’s say, less impenetrable. Don’t forget this is the first time you’ve managed to get leave at the same time, but you’ve been home separately, and...” He ended with a gesture which he had certainly, thought James, acquired from long years of association with Monsieur Girard.
“And you and Mummy have pumped us without our being aware of it.” James said it for him ruefully. “I shall have to tip Christopher off.”
Their mother looked complacently down at her knitting. James felt a small flutter in his tummy as he wondered how much of all the much more serious things he and his brother sought to conceal from them their parents perceived with crystal clarity.
*
Half-way through their leave, Sheila Fenton came back into the drawing-room one evening when the Halloweses were over to dinner and said “That was Nicole.”
Her eyes were on James when she made the announcement. He was sure she had not failed to notice his reaction: a spark had seemed to ignite in him.
“She asked if she could come down tomorrow evening and stay for a couple of nights.”
“What train is she coming on?”
“The six-thirty.”
“We’ll meet her.”
“Christopher and I won’t want to cramp your style, old boy. You meet her on your own.” Roger gave Christopher a grin which James crossly classified as fatuous.
In the event all three of them went to Havant station in Christopher’s car, which was the biggest. In the dim lighting it was difficult to read Nicole’s expression but James was convinced she had fleetingly betrayed disappointment that he was not alone, before she switched on a radiant smile.
She kissed them all: first Christopher and Roger on both cheeks; then James on the lips. She whispered to him “Est-ce-que je suis indiscrete?”
He shook his head. “My lynx-eyed family would perceive the truth, even if we shook hands.”
The truth of what? he asked himself. She was still an enigma to him.
Nicole behaved that evening with a vivacity which bothered James. By nature she was lively, but her gaiety seemed forced, even feverish. From the looks his parents gave her, he could tell that they were similarly troubled. Christopher betrayed no sign that he had noticed anything strained about her gaiety. Roger had gone to his own home after accompanying them to the Fenton’s; and he did not know her quite as well as they, anyway.
She had talked and laughed in the car as though she were excited, but he had put that down to the fact that she was among old friends: who were, also, a reminder of her family; thinking about them was bound to make her feel over-wrought, he reasoned. One could not avoid mentioning her mother, father and brother. His parents were gentle and tactful, they did not reveal that they knew she had heard from them, and she quickly closed the subject. It seemed to James that there was a particular uneasiness about her during those few moments, a disturbance caused by much more than nostalgia, love and anxiety. He could not identify it and it perturbed him because he could tell that she was going through a crisis of some kind, that something had happened since he last saw her which had thrown her badly off balance.
Christopher, always ebullient and irrepressible, had begun to realise that something was wrong, James thought. He was doing his best to divert her.
“Come clean, Nicole: how many Englishmen’s hearts have you broken in the last six months?”
“Come clean?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t understand: don’t you ever go to American films?”
“It’s an Americanism?”
“Such innocence! It means ‘be frank’. As if you didn’t know.”
“I am not aware of having broken any hearts.”
“Your English has improved a thousand per cent. Don’t tell me you haven’t acquired it from the queue of officers and gentlemen who must be at your door.”
It was true that when she arrived her English, although competent, had many flaws.
“You think the only way to perfect a language is by having many beaux?”
“It’s the way I’d choose if the situation were reversed. What’s the feminine equivalent: belles?”
“You don’t need to tell me, cher ami!”
Everyone laughed at Christopher’s expense.
“You haven’t answered my question.”
“If my English is so much better - and thank you for the compliment - it’s because of my work. We are four French officers and eight British, in my section. Everyone is bilingual, but we mostly speak English and everything is written in English.”
Again she led them quickly to another topic and James mused that he would dearly like to know about the work she did. He had his suspicions, but they were not founded on any concrete evidence. He reasoned that her taut behaviour that evening was probably attributable to something that had occurred in the course of her job and perhaps it was even to try to expunge it from her mind that she had asked at such short notice to visit them.
Or because she wanted to be with him? Then why the nerves?
They all went up to bed before eleven-o’clock. The rambling Edwardian house was on three floors, solidly built, there were no creaking floorboards and the internal walls were thick. It was a house which afforded privacy to each of its occupants. The only sound James heard as he lay in bed reading was water running down the drainpipes from his parents’ bathroom and the one he shared with his brother and guests. The males of the family liked to start
the day with a bath; Sheila Fenton, and, evidently, Nicole, preferred to bathe at night. With his eyes on a page of “Scoop” - Evelyn Waugh was a writer he could reread many times - his mind idly formed a picture of Nicole naked. He had ample data on which to base it: he had seen her in swimming costumes every summer from the time she was five until she was seventeen. She had, as the expression went, filled out since he last remembered her thus. It was agreeable to conjecture how she would look now.
He did not hear his bedroom door open. He was first aware of her presence by the fragrance of soap and talcum powder. His head jerked up as she quietly closed the door. She came smiling towards him, her silk dressing gown belted tightly and defining her figure, her feet silent on the carpet in mules.
James sat up and began to get out of bed, reaching for the dressing gown on a chair beside it.
“Don’t move, Chéri. I’ll come and sit on your bed.”
She had never used the endearment to him before. There was a different meaning in “mon cher” in the way she had always said it. She spoke in a low voice and there was a questioning, a wary look in her eyes. Her smile was not entirely sure of itself.
James settled back against the headboard. She seated herself facing him and he reached for her hand. She was trembling.
“What is it, Nicole... darling?” He spoke very quietly.
She did not reply at once. They sat looking at each other, then she put out her free hand and brushed the hair back from his forehead, smoothed his cheek, then gripped his other hand.
“Do you love me, James?”
“I’ve always loved you... at least, I’ve loved you for a long time...”
She smiled, teasing. “Like a sister?”
“At first. It started to become something different the last time I saw you in France.” He hesitated over the last two words, knowing they would stir hurtful memories. She nodded. “Now, I’m in love with you.”
She threw her arms around his neck, taking him by surprise. She pressed her cheek against his, the weight and warmth of her body against his chest.
“Love me, James. Love me properly. I love you so much... and I’m in love, too, my darling.”
He held her close, incredulous at what he thought she meant, bewildered. He eased her away so that he could see her face. She had been shaking so much that he expected to see tears, but she was dry-eyed and her smile, now that she had committed herself, was no longer hesitant, her eyes held no uncertainty.
When they had kissed, she twisted in his arms and said “Let me get out of this,” as she began to unfasten the girdle of her dressing gown.
“Now wait a minute, darling...”
“What’s the matter? Don’t you love me?”
“Too much to let you do anything you might regret. Besides... supposing... ?”
“Supposing I have a baby? Don’t worry, I won’t.” She saw the expression on his face. “Oh, darling, it’s not like that... James, there has never been anyone else... but I don’t want a baby any more than you do... not as we are... as everything is...” She giggled from nervous tension. “I went boldly to a chemist’s in Charing Cross Road and... I got what I needed... Oh darling, let’s not talk about the mechanics of lovemaking, it’s so sordid... what is it the W.A.A.F. say about their issue knickers? Passion-bafflers.”
“But tell me one thing, darling: why now?”
“Because I want the first time to be somewhere... permanent... that’s a part of both of us... to give me a feeling of security and a feeling that it’s not just an escapade, that it has real meaning.”
“It’s no escapade, Chérie: I love you.”
“That’s why I didn’t want it to be in the flat or in a hotel room, James. I wanted it to be here. Afterwards... when you come to London, of course you’ll stay with me at the flat... but this time...”
“I understand. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? You’re keeping something back. You’ve been... in a bit of a state, all evening. Something’s wrong. Tell me what it is.”
She clung to him again, pressing her face to his. “Darling James, just love me and don’t worry about me.”
“Then,” he said firmly, “I’ll do it properly.”
He thrust the bedclothes away, helped her out of the dressing gown and slid the straps of her nightie off her shoulders and down to her feet.
“You’re lovely, Nicole... you’re beautiful...”
He began to undress and she slid into the bed, looking up at him, waiting, in the soft light of the bedside lamp.
*
One of the pleasures of being on leave was to sleep late. It was after three in the morning when Nicole went to her own room and James did not wake until ten. He lay partly bemused for a while, examining his feelings, and concluded that he felt a joy such as he had never known before. With that resolved, he got up, brushed his teeth, put on dressing gown and slippers and went downstairs. The house was still. Daisy, the middle-aged maid, who occupied a large attic room, and Mrs. Bryant, the char, were in the kitchen. He joined them for a cup of tea, and the war seemed far away. They had known him most of his life and he was as comfortable in their company as with his parents or in the mess.
“Where is everybody, Daisy?”
“Master Christopher’s taken your mother and Miss Nicole to Havant, shopping, Master James. Madam said they’d have their elevenses out... at The Copper Kettle, I expect.”
“Am I the only lazy one?”
“Nobody else had a lie-in. Well, Master Christopher didn’t get up till nine, I took him a cup of tea. Miss Nicole, she was up, bright as a button, at eight. She had breakfast with Mr and Mrs Fenton.”
There was still the awkward moment of seeing Nicole to come, then. He wandered off to bathe, shave and dress, then strolled to the Hallowes’ house, a hundred yards away, to see his aunt and Roger.
His cousin was on his own. “Mother’s gone with Aunty and the other two. I say, Nicole’s turned into an absolute peach, hasn’t she.”
“Yes, hasn’t she just.” James hoped his tone and his expression were not betraying him.
“I thought she seemed a bit on edge. Probably been working too hard.”
“You noticed that too, did you?”
“A couple of days’ sea air will buck her up. She’ll go back to London a different girl.”
She’d be going back to London a different girl, right enough, James reflected.
“And you’ve got another couple of weeks of it, lucky chap.”
Roger looked glum, shot him a worried look and said “I hope my leg will be all right when they take the plaster off. I don’t want to be grounded... or taken permanently off ops.”
“Of course it will be. There was no damage to the knee, was there?”
“No, but I haven’t bent it for so long, with this plaster right up to my thigh, that I’m beginning to wonder if it’ll work properly.”
“Cushy for you if it doesn’t, old boy.” James tried to sound hearty. “You’d make a good Staff officer, or an Ops controller. I don’t know what it’s like in Bomber, but in Fighter Command we like controllers who flew in the last show or who’ve been flying ops in this one: we get quite a few who’ve been shot up a bit or put on rest. They understand the pilot’s viewpoint. I mean, I’ve had a controller try to vector me into ten-tenths cloud on an interception. One of us would never do that.”
“I don’t want any ground job.”
“Naturally not. And I don’t suppose you’re in any danger of getting one.”
They heard a car stop outside the house.
“Here they are,” said Roger.
James felt a seismic disturbance in his organs. But when Nicole came in they were able to greet each other without any self-consciousness. Perhaps the surprise helped: he had not expected to see her until he went home. While they sat around drinking gin or beer he forced himself not to avoid her eyes, to behave naturally. She, he thought, was noticeably calmer than on the evening before.
He was unable
to contrive a moment alone with her all day and when she came to him that night he asked “How did we do today?”
She snuggled against him. “Very well, I think. I’m sure we gave nothing away. But I don’t think I’d dare risk it much longer. It’s just as well we have to go back tomorrow. Your mother has very sensitive antennae, James; bless her. I’m sure she’d... twig.”
He kissed her. “Oh, very colloquial.” He remembered Big asking “What is twik meanink?” and told her about it, and they laughed together.
“James, how much do you love me?”
“How much do you want me to love you?”
“Enough to ask for one more day’s leave so that we can spend a whole night together in London?”
He thought about it briefly. “It’s an irresistible idea. I’ll telephone tomorrow morning.”
“When you eventually wake up. Perhaps I’d better not stay so long with you tonight.” Her smile denied the threat.
*
James telephoned to Dallingfield after breakfast: he had made it by nine-o’clock, although still in pyjamas and dressing gown.
“Squadron Leader Hall, please.”
But he recognised the squadron adjutant’s voice answering when the operator put him through.
“Hello, Adj, I want to ask the C.O. if I can have twelve hours’ extention of my leave. In fact I could be back sooner, say by about ten tomorrow morning.”
“Hang on a moment James. I think the station commander would like a word with you on that.”
“Just a sec, Adj, what’s the great fuss? Why the Group Captain? Where’s Henry Hall?”
“Hold on, James, don’t hang up and I’ll make sure you’re not cut off.”
“What’s up, Adj?”
“Hold on, please, James.”
There was some clicking and buzzing and presently Group Captain Runcey’s voice came down the line. “Fenton?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’d like you back here, James, as soon as your leave’s up. Make it midnight by all means, if you want to, but I’m afraid I can’t give you an extension.”
“I understand, sir. I’m sorry you’ve been bothered with this: I was trying to get hold of my C.O.”
The Daedalus Quartet Box Set Page 33