He moves his body over hers and she parts her legs, making herself open for him, longing for him. She feels the push, the soft head nuzzling at her crotch, seeking the way in. She wriggles her hips and it finds its place, and rests there.
He lowers his face to hers to kiss her. As his lips touch hers, he gives a little push, and it’s in. Just the tip, but it’s begun.
Kitty feels her heart pounding, scrambling all rational thought. Somewhere far away there are things she should be concerned about, but she doesn’t want to know. She wants to possess him. She wants all of him in all of her.
He moves again, and penetrates a little deeper. She can tell from his breathing that he’s excited. Then she feels a spasm of pain, and makes a sound. He stops. For a brief moment of terror she thinks, He can’t do it. I’m too small for him. But all the time she can feel herself opening up. And now he’s moving again, and it hurts but she doesn’t make a sound, and he’s deeper in.
This is his desire. His desire is hot and hard. The deeper into me he goes, the more he wants me.
Now he’s all the way in. She can feel the weight of his body on hers. He lies still, letting her grow accustomed to the sensation. For Kitty this is the time, when he’s inside her but neither of them are moving, this is the time she remembers for the rest of her life. Their haven of love.
He’s mine. We’ll never be parted now.
‘Darling,’ she whispers. ‘Darling.’
He starts to move, drawing almost all the way out, then pushing back all the way in. Kitty feels the pain again.
‘Slowly,’ she whispers.
He moves slowly after that, and when he’s all the way in he pauses. Then out, then in. The sweet pause.
‘Oh, God!’ he cries.
‘What is it?’
A shudder goes through his body. His hips convulse in a series of sharp jerks. She feels him twitch inside her. Then he lies still.
So it’s happened. She thinks she can feel it, a liquid warmth, but maybe she imagines it. This is what they do it for. This is the prize.
‘Was it good?’ she whispers.
He grunts. She realises that whatever it is he has just experienced, it has half-stunned him. All his limbs have gone slack. His weight is heavy on her. She doesn’t mind, she wraps her arms round him, holds him tight. His moment of helplessness touches her deeply. Then all at once she has the strangest thought.
He has died for me.
She pushes the thought away, ashamed to compare what they’ve just done to the real death that waits in this real war. But the two are tangled up, even so. Had she not stood on the quay at Newhaven and thought of him dying in France, would she be naked in his arms now?
He’s shrinking inside her. She feels a cool trickle between her thighs. He gives a long groaning sigh. Then he rolls off her, and lying beside her, takes her in his arms.
For a while they lie together in the dark room in silence. She thinks he might be sleeping, but she can’t tell. He has become infinitely precious to her, she doesn’t want to disturb him, doesn’t need to disturb him. What they have just done together changes everything. They’re together now.
Kitty wonders at this, wonders that her girlfriends have so much to say about the act and so little about the closeness. Perhaps it’s just too ordinary. It happens to all couples. Except it’s extraordinary, it’s beyond anything she believed possible, that two people can lie together and become one.
‘Kitty?’
His soft voice interrupts her thoughts. He’s looking at her, smiling.
‘Will you marry me?’
‘Yes.’
She feels no sense of surprise. Of course she’ll marry him. They’re married already. But the way he asks, with a slight hesitation in his voice, floods her with a tender joy. She draws him close, kissing him.
‘Of course I’ll marry you, Eddy darling.’
‘We seem to have done things the wrong way round.’
‘What difference does it make?’
‘And I’m sorry …’
She understands he feels bad because it was all over so quickly, but doesn’t know how to say so.
‘It was wonderful, Eddy. It was perfect.’
‘No,’ he says. ‘But it will be.’
He gazes at her and there’s no mockery any more. No distance.
‘I do love you, Kitty,’ he says. ‘I’ll do my best for you.’
8
The library at Wakehurst Place is packed with officers assembled for the operational briefing by General Harry Crerar, commander of the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division. Larry Cornford stands near the back, his hands clasped behind his back, his gaze roaming the room. The Elizabethan library has an embossed ceiling and an elaborately carved fireplace. As he listens to the general’s steady tones, he finds himself studying the figures in the niches on either side of the fireplace. A curiously shaped female, naked from the waist up, holds a large naked child horizontally across her midriff, like a roll of carpet. The child reaches one hand up to tweak her left nipple, and with the other hand pats the head of a second smaller child at its mother’s knee; if mother it is. What can it all signify?
‘The forces chosen for Operation Jubilee are as follows. The RHLI, the Essex Scottish, the South Saskatchewans, the Camerons, the Royals, and the Fusiliers Mont-Royal. The 14th Armored, the Calgary regiment, will be in action for the first time with the new Churchill tanks. Number 3 Commando, Number 4 Commando, and 40 Royal Marine Commando will carry out designated tasks, as will a small unit of US Rangers, and Free French forces. Operation Jubilee will be a reconnaissance in force. Its object is to seize and hold a seaport for twenty-four hours, and then to withdraw. It is not an invasion. It is not the opening of a second front. I can’t tell you our destination, or our planned date. But I can tell you that it will be very soon now.’
A murmur of satisfaction runs round the room.
‘This is pretty much a Canadian show, boys,’ says the general. ‘Ham Roberts will be in overall charge. I’m very proud that we’re being given the first real smack at the Hun on his own ground. I know you won’t let me down.’
There’s nothing in the general’s briefing that hasn’t been rumoured for weeks now, but the official confirmation creates a buzz of excitement. As the meeting breaks up, Larry sees Brigadier Wills go into a huddle with Crerar and Roberts. A trolley of tea and coffee is wheeled clanking into the room by two members of the kitchen staff. Officers crowd round, jostling each other to be first in line. Dick Lowell, Larry’s Canadian opposite number, joins him by the doorway.
‘Bigger show than I expected,’ he says. ‘But my God, are they ready for it! What do you reckon? Boulogne? I say Le Touquet.’
Larry, who has known the target port for weeks, says nothing to this. He looks out through the high windows to the handsome grounds beyond.
‘Quite a place, isn’t it?’
‘Famous, too,’ says Dick Lowell. ‘Culpeper the herbalist lived here.’
‘Do you think I’ve got time for a wander round the grounds?’
‘Christ, we’ll be here all morning. There’s still the supply and logistic meetings to go.’
‘Do me a favour, Dick? If Woody comes looking for me, give me a shout.’
Larry leaves the library, and passes down the wood-panelled corridor and out through the south-east door to the gravelled forecourt. Here the rows of staff cars are pulled up, waiting to convey the top brass back to their bases. Beyond the line of cars, in a bend of the drive, stand two tall sequoia trees. The staff drivers have gathered in the shade of the trees to gossip, or just to doze.
Larry shields his eyes from the glare and scans the shadowed figures. He locates Kitty at last, sitting a little apart from the rest, reading a book.
He goes to her.
‘Still on Middlemarch?’
She looks up with a pleased smile.
‘Almost at the end now. Poor, poor Lydgate.’
‘I’ve got another book for you.’ He takes
a book out of his shoulder bag. ‘You may have read it already.’
It’s The Warden by Trollope.
‘No, I haven’t,’ she says. ‘How sweet of you.’
‘There are so few good men in books,’ says Larry. ‘In good books, I mean. All the best characters are bad. But there’s one in The Warden. It’s the story of a good man.’
‘That’s just what I need,’ says Kitty.
‘Care for a walk in the park?’
She jumps up, slipping the books into her long-strap handbag.
‘What if they come out?’
‘We won’t go far.’
They go round the house and down a path that runs south between unkempt lawns. The once-grand gardens are suffering from neglect. Yet another casualty of war.
‘I think you must be a good man, Larry,’ says Kitty.
‘Why do you say that?’
‘I don’t know. Just a feeling I get.’
‘Not half good enough,’ says Larry. ‘Sometimes I look at myself in the mirror and all I see is idleness and selfishness.’
‘Oh, we all think that about ourselves. Me most of all.’
‘So what’s to be done?’
‘We shall get better,’ says Kitty.
‘You’re right. We shall get better.’
‘I think loving people makes you a better person,’ says Kitty. ‘Don’t you?’
‘Yes, I do,’ says Larry.
‘But it has to not be selfish love. It has to be selfless love. And that’s so hard.’
‘That’s because it’s your self that does the loving,’ says Larry.
‘You love them for them, and then they love you back, and that makes you happy. So maybe it’s all selfishness in the end.’
The path leads to a circular terrace with a small stone monument at its centre. Round the stone base is a brass plaque on which lines of poetry are engraved.
Give fools their gold and knaves their power
Let fortune’s bubbles rise and fall
Who sows a field or trains a flower
Or plants a tree is more than all.
‘Do you think that’s true?’ says Kitty.
‘Well, I’ve never sown a field,’ says Larry. ‘Or trained a flower, or planted a tree.’
‘Nor have I.’
‘So I think it’s tosh.’
‘I think it’s tosh too.’
They stand by the curving stone balustrade and look down into an overgrown pond, and return to talk of love.
‘The thing is,’ says Kitty, ‘I can only love with all of myself. And if that makes me happy, well, I just have to lump it, don’t I?’
‘There is another side to it, you know? You have to accept love as well as give it.’
‘Yes, but that’s not up to me. That’s up to the other person.’
‘Well, you do have to let yourself be loved.’
‘What an odd notion,’ says Kitty. ‘Let myself be loved? I don’t understand that at all. That’s like saying let myself be warmed by the sun. The sun shines and it warms me, whether I choose to let it or not.’
‘You could go into the shade.’
‘Oh, well, yes.’
She frowns, becoming confused.
‘What I mean,’ says Larry, ‘is that some people don’t let themselves be loved. Maybe they’re frightened. Maybe they don’t feel worthy.’
‘Oh, I see. But you don’t feel that, do you?’
‘Sometimes. A little. You can call it shyness, if you like. People can be afraid to ask for love, even though they may want it very much.’
‘Yes, I can see that.’
‘After all, not everyone feels they’re bound to be lovable. Most of us wonder why anyone would ever be remotely interested.’
Kitty is silent for a moment.
‘It’s funny about people loving people,’ she says. ‘I don’t really know what it is makes you love one person and not another. I know it’s supposed to be about looks, but I don’t think it is at all.’
‘So what is it?’ says Larry.
‘It’s something that gets inside you,’ she says. ‘Suddenly it’s inside you, and you know it can’t ever be taken out. Not without tearing you apart.’
‘What makes that something get inside you?’ says Larry.
Kitty gives him a quick frowning look, and for a moment her sweet face is filled with sadness.
‘Standing on the quay at Newhaven harbour,’ she says, ‘and knowing he’s going to die.’
Larry looks back towards the house. He feels far away from everyone and everything. He nods slowly, wanting to show he’s heard her, not trusting himself to speak.
‘We’re going to get married,’ Kitty says. ‘Do you think I’m a terrible fool?’
‘No,’ he says. ‘Of course not. That’s wonderful news.’
He forces lightness into his voice.
‘Congratulations, and so on. Lucky old Ed.’
‘I do love him, Larry. I love him so much it hurts.’
They walk back down the path. Larry is filled with an aching emptiness. Following some instinct of self-preservation he says all the good things he can think of about Ed.
‘He was my best friend at school. I know him better than anyone. He’s incredibly intelligent, and ruthlessly honest. And though he likes to make out he sees through everything, it’s not true. He cares too much, really. That’s where the sadness comes from.’
‘The sadness,’ she says. ‘I think that’s almost what makes me love him the most.’
‘He’ll make a fine husband,’ says Larry. ‘If Ed says he’ll do a thing, he does it. But look here’ – he suddenly remembers the morning’s briefing – ‘you’d better get a move on if you’re to get married. He could be posted overseas any day now.’
Kitty takes his hand and squeezes it.
‘What’s that for?’
‘For being a darling.’
They return in silence to the side of the house where the cars and drivers wait.
‘I’ll see how much longer they’re going to be,’ says Larry.
He goes into the house. In the central hallway, by the dark oak staircase, he meets Brigadier Wills coming out of his meeting with General Roberts.
‘All done,’ says the brigadier. ‘Let’s get on the road.’
Larry walks back through the house with the brigadier.
‘This op, sir,’ he says. ‘I know it’s a Canadian show. But I was wondering if you could find a berth for me.’
‘It won’t be a picnic, Lieutenant.’
‘My war too, sir.’
‘So it is, so it is.’
They come out onto the forecourt. The drivers are now all standing by their cars, waiting for their officers.
‘I can use you, Lieutenant. But you’ll have to clear it with Combined Ops.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
The brigadier finds his car. Kitty opens the passenger door for him.
‘Back to base, Corporal.’
Larry watches the Humber drive away past the giant trees and out of sight. Then he makes his way slowly across to the stable block, where he has left his motorbike. He stands for a long time, motionless, his helmet held in his hands, before at last he raises it to his head.
*
In the car driving south the brigadier says to Kitty, ‘You know Lieutenant Cornford, don’t you?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘He just asked me if he can ride along when we go into action.’
He shakes his head as he thinks about it.
‘That’s war for you. A man leaves his home and his loved ones and puts himself in the line of fire, all of his own free will. Don’t tell me he does that because he wants to free the world from tyranny. Don’t tell me he does that for his country. He does it for his buddies. That’s what war’s about. If your buddies are fighting and dying, you want to fight and die alongside them.’
‘Yes, sir,’ says Kitty.
*
Larry knows by now how the system
works. Rather than putting his request through the official channels, he goes to Joyce Wedderburn.
‘I just need two minutes,’ he says.
‘He’s not here right now,’ says Joyce. ‘But if you don’t mind waiting.’
‘Of course not.’
‘They also serve who only stand and wait,’ she says, smiling.
‘Bet you don’t know where that comes from,’ says Larry.
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘Milton. His poem on his blindness. “Who best bears his mild yoke, they serve him best.” Meaning God, of course.’
‘How clever of you to know that.’
Larry sighs as he settles down to wait.
‘Over-educated and under-employed,’ he says.
Mountbatten shows up fifteen minutes or so later, striding along in a great hurry with Harold Wernher at his side. He sees Larry waiting and stops at his office door.
‘You want me?’
‘A very quick request, sir.’
In the office, Mountbatten hears him out, and turns to Wernher.
‘This is why we’re going to win the war,’ he says. Then to Larry, ‘Your father won’t thank me if I say yes.’
‘My father will be proud of me, sir,’ says Larry, ‘if you tell him I’ve done my duty.’
Mountbatten smacks his hands together.
‘By George, that’s right!’ he says. ‘I wish to God I could do the same. But surely, you’ve not been trained for this sort of command?’
‘Not a command, sir. I’ll go in the ranks.’
Mountbatten gazes at him, evidently moved.
‘Bless you, my boy,’ he says. ‘If that’s what you want, I’ll not stand in your way.’
9
The cellars at Edenfield Place are kept locked these days, and George Holland has the only key. He unlocks the cellar door and leads Larry down the steep steps, bending his head as he goes.
‘Watch out here. Low arch.’
Light filters into the cool vaults through dusty cobwebbed slots. Bay after bay is filled with bottles.
‘Mostly from my father’s time,’ says George.
‘Seriously, you don’t have to do this,’ says Larry.
‘Someone has to drink it,’ says George. ‘You’re his friend, aren’t you?’
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