Blasted Things

by Lesley Glaister

  ‘Want Eddie,’ the child insisted.

  ‘I’ll run up and see if he’s awake.’ Clem hurried upstairs and opened the nursery door. The curtains were drawn and the sun shone pinkly through; it was stiflingly dim and hot.

  ‘Oh, ma’am, he’s still asleep.’ Dinah rose from a chair where she, perhaps, had also been napping. ‘I could wake him, but there’d be ructions,’ she warned.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Clem. ‘I’ll take some toys down for the twins. The Noah’s Ark, perhaps.’ It was on the floor and she crouched to scoop the animals inside.

  Dinah knelt down to help.

  ‘Look,’ said Clem. ‘Perhaps I should explain the queer situation with Mr Harris.’

  ‘No need,’ Dinah said stiffly.

  ‘Well, yes, I rather think there is.’

  Dinah reached for a giraffe. There was a faint skim of perspiration on her face and a sweaty smell; it really was unbearably close in the room.

  ‘Is the window open?’ Clem asked.

  ‘Yes, only there’s not a breath of a breeze.’ Dinah hesitated. ‘I did think it queer, if you don’t mind me saying.’

  ‘Mr Harris is certainly a curious fellow,’ Clem said. ‘I knew him in the war, you see, the field hospital in France. I ran into him by chance and he’s become fixed on some ridiculous notion that I might help him – financially. Actually, he’s been making rather a nuisance of himself.’

  ‘Is that why he’s been after me?’ Dinah said indignantly. ‘He did keep asking about you, come to think of it.’

  ‘I expect so.’

  ‘Ruddy cheek!’ Dinah’s voice had risen, and she flinched and glanced at the cot where Edgar was beginning to stir. ‘Begging your pardon, ma’am.’

  ‘And you see there’s a third person, someone we both knew in France,’ Clem went on. ‘A lady – an invalid – and he, Mr Fortune that is, came yesterday to ask me to visit her. A lady called Mrs Gray, Ada, rather a sad case.’

  Dinah’s brow furrowed. She was pairing the animals – two elephants, two ostriches, two snakes – before dropping them in the ark. ‘And he took you? Not on his motorbike?’

  Clem nodded.

  ‘What was it like?’

  ‘Well, Ada was—’

  ‘No. I mean the ride, ma’am?’

  Clem allowed a conspiratorial smile. ‘Actually, it was rather thrilling.’

  Dinah’s eyes widened and they both laughed. ‘You’d never catch me on one of them,’ she said. ‘It’s not natural, the speed they go!’

  Edgar gave a sudden yell and Dinah jumped up. ‘All right, little man.’ She lifted him from his cot. ‘All right, duckie, all right. Well, at any rate I won’t be seeing Mr Harris again,’ she said. ‘Just let him show his face and I’ll give him what for.’ Edgar was writhing in her arms, rubbing his eyes, curls standing out like black bubbles around his head.

  ‘No need to mention this to anyone else,’ said Clem.

  ‘Understood, ma’am.’ Dinah hitched Edgar higher on her hip. ‘I’ll get his lordship changed and bring him down directly.’

  ‘Thank you, Dinah.’ Clem picked up the Noah’s Ark and bore it back downstairs.

  On the trolley beside the teapot and the fingers of bread and butter was smooth white cake. Dennis came up from the surgery and, scooping a twin under each arm, kissed their cheeks. ‘Is this Claris, and this Phyllis?’ he asked, deliberately getting it wrong and making them giggle.

  ‘Bugger me!’ He did a double take over Harri’s hair.

  ‘Dennis!’ Clem nodded towards the children. ‘But doesn’t it look marvellous?’ Smiling, she handed him a cup of tea.

  ‘What’s wrong with hair all of a sudden? It’s a woman’s—’

  ‘If you say crowning glory,’ said Harri, ‘I’ll scream.’

  He pursed his lips.

  Harri snorted. ‘So, what time are you going out?’

  ‘Can’t wait to see the back of me?’

  ‘That’s about the size of it.’

  ‘Harri!’ Clem laughed, suddenly full of affection for her family, her home.

  ‘Directly after late surgery. I ask you, hounded out of my own house!’ He pulled a long-suffering face. ‘Monstrous regiment of women,’ he muttered.

  ‘Simply monstrous.’ Harri stuck out her tongue and crossed her eyes.

  ‘Oh, you two,’ Clem said. ‘Anyway, we’re hardly a regiment!’ She caught a conspiratorial look flicking between them. ‘What?’

  ‘Surprise.’ Harri tapped her nose.

  With a sudden dip of the heart Clem guessed. ‘I bet it’s Gwen,’ she said. ‘Is it?’

  ‘Oh, you wretch!’

  ‘Clever girl,’ said Dennis.

  ‘Well, now you’ve guessed,’ said Harri, ‘I might as well tell all. We’re to have a dinner, just us ladies – Mrs Hale’s pushing the boat out. I chose the menu, I hope it’s all right. Oysters, plaice, jellied capon with Russian salad, lemon soufflé, and Dennis has got some terrifically special Champagne.’

  ‘Two bottles,’ Dennis confirmed. ‘But do leave some for me. Sorry I won’t be there.’

  ‘Well, you’d be a sore thumb at a ladies’ dinner,’ Harri pointed out. ‘Oh, Clem! Now it’s out in the open, why don’t you invite Ada?’

  ‘Ada?’ said Dennis.

  ‘Clem’s mysterious pal.’

  ‘Far too short notice,’ said Clem, ‘and in any case she’s not . . . she really wouldn’t . . . no.’ The bright brown eyes of her husband and sister-in-law were searchlights on her face. Heat flooded her face as she crouched down to help Phyllis open the doors of the ark and tip all the animals out.

  ‘Ada?’ Dennis asked again.

  ‘Just someone I used to know,’ Clem mumbled. ‘Elephant! Giraffe! What does a giraffe say?’

  Phyllis looked at her nonplussed.

  ‘What does it say?’ Clem appealed to Dennis.

  ‘Haven’t the foggiest,’ he said, frowning.

  In the hall the telephone rang and Mrs Hale duly put her head round the door. ‘Doctor, you’re wanted.’

  Dinah came in with a grizzling Edgar dressed in a sailor suit, hair wet from an attempted flattening. ‘Back tooth,’ she said.

  Sighing, Dennis ruffled Edgar’s hair and followed Mrs Hale and Dinah out.

  ‘Well, fortunately,’ said Harri, ‘I have my magic necklace.’ She lifted the amber beads over her head and handed them to Edgar who began to gnaw.

  31

  HARRI SPRAWLED in an armchair smoking a black Sobranie. Despite open windows, the room was oppressive, thick with smoke and the scent of roses and Harri’s queer woody perfume. Clem wore her loosest primrose-yellow frock, arms bare, new pearls warm against the skin of her throat.

  ‘So pretty,’ Harri had said earlier, fingering them. ‘He’s got a good eye, you have to give him that.’

  She’d rescued her amber beads from Edgar and wore them with an outfit fashioned from oriental scarves. With black kohl round her eyes she looked distinctly Bohemian and, perhaps, just the slightest bit cracked. Dennis had teased her on his way out, calling her an Egyptian, calling her affected. In return, she blew him an exuberant raspberry.

  Clem regarded her now with a surge of fondness. ‘I’m so glad you’re here, Harri.’

  ‘Goodness! Well, réciproqué, of course.’ Harri kissed the tips of her fingers and blew. ‘It is good to be back in the bosom, so to speak. Oh!’ She jumped up as the roar of an engine and the spit of gravel heralded Gwen’s arrival. Clem’s stomach clenched. But it was only Gwen, good old Gwen. It would be all right. As long as there was no talk of before, it would be all right.

  Gwen strode into the sitting room, dressed in jodhpur breeches, unwinding a long white scarf. Harri flung herself at Gwen in an embrace so enthusiastic it made Captain, who’d loped in behind her, growl and bare his teeth.

  ‘It’s all right, Cap.’ Gwen patted Harri as if she herself were a dog.

  ‘What a surprise,’ Clem tried but Harri giggled as Clem put up
her face for a kiss.

  ‘She’d already guessed, the Hun!’

  Gwen divested herself of a jacket, took from her bag a flat wrapped gift that could only be a record, and they went back into the sitting room.

  ‘Half an hour, Halesy?’ Harri called over her shoulder. ‘We’ll have some of your Melba toast with our sherry – or shall we start with the fizz, Clem? Oh, do let’s.’

  Captain flopped down in a lozenge of sunshine and Gwen sat on the sofa, stretching out her long legs. In her loose white silk shirt, she looked fresh and rather dashing.

  ‘No gippy tummies this time?’ She quirked her eyebrows at Clem.

  ‘What’s that?’ said Harri.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Gwen.

  ‘No Avis?’ Clem said, pleading with her eyes for Gwen not to give her away.

  ‘Gone, said Gwen, firmly enough to close the matter. ‘And many happy returns,’ she added, presenting the gift.

  ‘You shouldn’t have!’ Clem peeled off the paper and read: ‘ABC Original Dixieland Jazz Band. I don’t believe I’ve heard of them.’

  Harri snatched the record and set it on the gramophone. They listened for a moment to the jaunty ragtime. ‘It simply forces one to dance, don’t you think?’ said Harri, and began to do so, causing Captain to growl warningly.

  Mrs Hale came in with the Champagne and glasses and a stack of toasts, thin and crisp as autumn leaves, and set them down. ‘Quite the party already!’ she said.

  ‘Come on, Halesy!’ Harri grabbed her and tried to make her dance, which made Captain bark so loudly that Gwen had to grab his collar and sink to her knees to restrain him, and that coupled with watching Mrs Hale’s stout body trying to keep up the pace and her face its dignity, made Clem laugh till the tears came.

  Eventually Mrs Hale extricated herself and escaped, shaking her head, as the record wound down.

  ‘After dinner, let’s push back the furniture,’ said Harri. ‘Oh, we could really have done with a fourth, couldn’t we? Two couples, well, so-called couples. I wanted to ask Ada – oh, I suppose you’ll know her?’ She looked, apparently guilelessly, at Gwen. ‘Clem’s friend from France – Red Cross, wasn’t she?’

  Clem turned her back to pour the Champagne. ‘I don’t believe Gwen ever had the pleasure.’

  ‘When was this?’ Gwen asked.

  ‘Come on now,’ Clem said, turning back to them with a painfully artificial heartiness. ‘It’s my birthday. No raking over old coals, if you don’t mind.’

  Gwen raised her glass, and they chinked and sipped and crunched toast and the subject was bypassed and the topic of conversation remained light and general. It was going to be all right. Clem began to relax as she swallowed the prickly Champagne too fast and felt it go, deliciously, directly to her head.

  Throughout the iced oysters with brown bread and butter, the stuffed rolled plaice and the capon in aspic, Harri quizzed Gwen about her suffragist activities, fascinated by her escapades on Felixstowe golf course – stories Clem had often heard. On several occasions Gwen and her comrades had raided the links, replacing the flags with purple ones, even using vitriol to burn the words Votes for Women and Justice Before Sport into the turf of the greens. On her wrist Gwen had a small raised scar, the result of an acid burn, which she displayed with some pride. On the final attack on the course, they’d been arrested, taken before a magistrate and sentenced to a week in prison.

  ‘Heavenly!’ exclaimed Harri.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ said Clem.

  ‘What’s it like in there?’ Harri asked.

  Gwen snorted. ‘Well, heavenly’s hardly the word I’d choose! Of course, it was an ordeal,’ she added modestly. She was feeding titbits to Captain, who sat under the table with his head in her lap.

  ‘How brave,’ Harri said. ‘Did you go on hunger strike?’

  Gwen leaned forward to fill Harri’s glass and her own. Clem’s was still brimming. She was beginning to feel rather excluded from what seemed to be a mutual fascination between Harri and Gwen – or, at least, fascination on Harri’s part and a rather nauseating gratification on Gwen’s – and, come to think of it, she was feeling slightly queasy. A headache coming on, too much Champers too quickly. Uncharitable thoughts churned through her head though she smiled and nodded agreeably. Of course Gwen was admirable, heroic even, but heavens above, hadn’t one heard enough about the antics of the suffragettes?

  Mrs Hale came in to clear the plates. ‘I’m sorry, madam, but little Edgar’s beside himself and Dinah’s run ragged up there what with the three of them. Linda’s off and I’m up to my eyes.’

  ‘Oh blast,’ said Harri. ‘I really should have brought Mildred, shouldn’t I? I’ll go up.’

  ‘No,’ said Clem. ‘I’ll go.’

  ‘But it’s your birthday,’ Harri objected.

  ‘I insist.’ Clem stood and folded her napkin. ‘Serve the pudding, Mrs Hale. I can catch up.’ Clem went up the stairs, which seemed to go on for ever. Her head was woozy, legs soggy – she could hear Edgar wailing. She was glad to be away from the table, but would sooner lie on her cool bed in the quiet than tackle a struggling infant. Still, she went into the nursery to help and was able to give Edgar his bottle while Dinah tried to settle the twins head to toe in a camp bed. Dinah seemed quite natural, with no lingering awkwardness after this morning’s conversation. Edgar, having calmed down, lay across Clem’s lap sucking sporadically at his empty bottle, eyes glazed, twisting a finger in his curls.

  ‘Good boy,’ she murmured. Her eyes closed as Dinah sang, over and over, ‘Wink and blink, and nod one night,’ and she felt herself beginning to drift. She woke to feel the weight being lifted from her lap.

  ‘I’ll put him down, ma’am,’ whispered Dinah.

  ‘You’re doing a sterling job,’ Clem said as she crept out. She went into the bathroom to wash her face in cool water, and carried a glass into the bedroom to mix some powders for her head. From below she could hear Harri and Gwen moving through into the sitting room, the clink of plates as Mrs Hale cleared.

  On her way down, she could not help but be drawn to the landing window. The sky was flushed, and though it was not dark there was a star already showing above the branches. Below the trees she glimpsed a figure – male, tall, slim – and clutched at the thick velvet curtain to steady herself.

  Music pounded from below. Down the stairs she crept – a howl of laughter from the sitting room – and when she caught sight of herself in the hall mirror, her face was flushed, the new pearls gleaming as if wet against her skin. Silently she opened the door and stepped out into the cooler air.

  Gwen’s motorcycle and sidecar were parked by the steps. Clem went down and towards the tree, the gravel sharp through the soles of her silk slippers. Out on the road she heard an engine snarling away. There was no one there now, only the sound of the receding engine. Had there been someone there? In the dappling shadows one could easily be mistaken.

  A blackbird sang from high up in the branches and there was the shifting in the leaves of some creature, bird or squirrel. She stood beneath the tree, breathing in its deep green scent, and then pressed her brow against its cool bark.

  ‘Hello? Hello?’ Hale came crunching towards her. ‘Oh, it’s you, ma’am. What are you doing out here? The missus saw the open door and—’

  ‘It’s perfectly all right, thank you,’ said Clem. ‘Just enjoying a breath of air. So muggy, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s close all right,’ he said. ‘What we want’s a good old storm.’

  ‘Quite.’

  When she entered the sitting room she was not at first noticed. The music had changed now, to something slower, and the women were dancing; Harri’s dark head against the breast of Gwen’s white shirt, Gwen’s hand low on Harri’s back. Gwen’s eyes were closed and the look on her face, serene and blissful, sent a fright through Clem.

  ‘Now,’ she said loudly. ‘Shall we play a game?’

  The two jumped apart.

  ‘A game?’ Harr
i’s eyes were starry.

  Something blared through Clem like a trumpet. Not jealousy?

  Gwen gave her a lazy smile. ‘I always like a game. What do you suggest?’

  Gwen had left and both Dinah and Clem gone up to bed by the time Dennis returned. Clem, who’d been creaming her face, climbed into bed and waited nervously. One more thing, and it was over. All over. He was tipsy, she could tell, the way he was bumping about.

  ‘Oh, good show, still awake . . .’ he said, coming through the door. ‘I thought you’d still be at it, thought I’d be coming home to an orgy of sapphists and suffragettes and Bolshies!’

  ‘That would have made a good party!’ she said.

  He laughed and shook his finger at her. ‘Just you wait, little girl.’

  She took a deep breath. First must come the confession.

  He launched himself at the bed, reached for her. ‘I’ve got a bone to pick with you,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You were supposed to leave me some Champers,’ he said. ‘That cost me nearly a guinea.’

  ‘Sounds like you’ve had quite sufficient.’

  ‘Pretty.’ He fingered the pearls, kissed the side of her neck, bristles tickling. ‘Come on, lie down.’

  She took a deep breath. ‘No, please wait,’ she said. ‘There’s something I must say.’

  ‘Nothing to do with that Gwen, I hope!’ He lifted himself on one elbow. ‘Have you been naughty?’ His fingers walked up her thigh and she caught and stopped them.

  ‘Not naughty so much as . . . careless. I’m afraid you’re going to be frightfully cross.’

  ‘Never.’ He fought his fingers free, pushed up her nightdress.

  ‘Wait!’ she said sharply. ‘Please!’

  ‘Can’t I be frightfully cross later?’ he groaned before hauling himself up to sit beside her. ‘Go on then.’

  ‘The money you gave me . . .’

  ‘The fifty pounds. What of it?’ An ominous timbre had entered his voice.

  She took a deep breath and there was a genuine tremble in her own. ‘I’m so sorry but it got lost.’