by Mary Wesley
‘No,’ said Rose, watching her neighbours’ (she did not at that moment look on them as friends) faces. This is some trick on somebody’s part, she thought, but I shall not delight them by letting on and rising to their bait. ‘I see you have acquired your slice of vulgarity,’ she said, gathering her nonchalance about her, managing to ignore Emily’s double entendre. ‘I trust you have filled the tank with petrol, topped up the battery, checked the tyres? Have you brought its insurance papers and so on?’ she asked coolly. ‘Or did you give them to Ned?’
She walked round patting the bishop’s car as though she was pleased with it. ‘Dear old thing,’ she said, ‘it reminds me of the Malones’ winter tennis where I first met Ned’ (and my darling Mylo) ‘and we fell in love. If you didn’t know Ned as well as I do, you would not credit him with sentimentality, would you?’ Rose looked smiling at Nicholas and Emily standing now by their red sports car. She began to laugh, forcing herself. ‘Sorry I can’t ask you in,’ she said, ‘I was only waiting for you to bring it to be off to London. Let’s see you drive away in your new-found vulgarity—oh, I must not be unfair to the car. I have a whole day’s shopping and I’m late already. We were expecting you earlier, but Ned couldn’t wait.’ (How am I doing?)
Nicholas and Emily’s eyes met.
They were not expecting that, thought Rose, they now don’t know whether I knew what Ned had done or not. Maybe I shall like the bishop’s car, he is a rather nice old man. Later I may be able to work out whether Ned tricked me, or they tricked Ned.
‘Are those its papers? Thanks, Nicholas.’ She took the car papers from Nicholas.
The way Ned smacked Emily’s bottom has something to do with this, she thought, but it doesn’t matter, it is not as though I were in love with Ned, none of them know how safe I feel.
Rose stood contemplating Nicholas and Emily, who growing uneasy under her amused scrutiny now wished to be away. What had seemed a splendid jape had in some peculiar way backfired. It was not Rose who stood surprised, disappointed and cut down to size, but themselves.
From the open window of the library, the telephone pealed. ‘I must answer that, it will be Ned,’ Rose exclaimed. ‘Goodbye, thanks, see you soon.’ She leapt up the front steps into the house and shut the door, leaving them in the drive.
‘Oh, God, let it be Mylo,’ she prayed as she ran, but God was not answering prayers that day; it was Ned.
‘Rose, I should have told you about the car.’
‘Should you?’
‘It occurred to me as I drove that I should have explained to you that I had bought the Thornbys’ car.’
‘Did it?’
‘Yes. I thought you might …’
‘Might what?’
‘Might have expected something better, I …’
‘Oh?’
‘It’s in frightfully good nick. The bishop …’
‘And ultra respectable.’
‘What?’
‘Everyone will expect me to wear gaiters.’
‘What?’
‘What?’
‘Are you disappointed? I rather wondered as I drove along whether you were expecting something better.’
‘Oh, no, Ned. Why do you repeat yourself?’
‘They had set their hearts on …’
‘I know, Ned.’
‘So you don’t?’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘Well then, I …’
‘Where are you, Ned?’
‘Half way to Aldershot, why?’
‘Then go the whole way. I am going to London to buy a mattress and swop a few wedding presents.’
‘Oh, Rose, which? We didn’t discuss …’
‘Nicholas and Emily’s, for a start; they charged that lamp to Mrs Malone’s account.’
‘I can’t believe …’
‘I can.’
‘Your time is up,’ said the operator, bored. ‘Oh, Rose!’
And did they charge the MG to your account at the garage? Rose replaced the receiver.
18
LIFE WHICH HAD BEEN as it were nibbling at Rose’s edges took off. During the first six to eight months of the war she grew up.
The tide of evacuee children from London which engulfed the neighbourhood at the outset of war ebbed and retreated as the expected mass bombing and poison gassing of major cities failed to materialise. Of the first exodus, only two waif-like children remained to lodge with the Farthings and grow, by 1945, as countrified and robust as any local child.
Ned, who his neighbours had been inclined to vilify for his selfishness (and foresight) in making over the major part of his house to the Ministry of Information, was now envied for his perspicacity in avoiding the problem of giving houseroom to children who might have infested heads or wet their beds. That nobody had actually had experience of such children was neither here nor there. The whole country was rife with horror stories of evacuees, just as later it would be with personal bomb experiences. During the lull known as the phoney war householders with spare rooms filled them with old aunts or maiden cousins who would join the Red Cross or WVS and make themselves useful to their hosts, as domestic servants vanished.
Rose, new to her role in the neighbourhood, was barely aware of the discussion and general upset, accompanied by self-justification, that went on; she was occupied learning to run a house as large and inconvenient as Slepe, catering for Ned’s friends when he brought them on leave clamouring for drinks, hot meals, hot baths, warm beds. At night Ned would expect what he called his ‘roll in the hay’, regimental life having the effect of making him much randier than had been his pre-war mode.
Lying in Ned’s uxurious embrace Rose tried not to listen for the telephone. As the months passed she disciplined herself to listen less, not to run when it did ring, nor lose her breath as she snatched up the receiver.
The Finnish war began and sadly ended. Winter grew vicious. It snowed and froze, pipes burst when it relaxed temporarily before freezing harder. All over England plumbers who had not joined the forces became the kings of society.
Ned and his regiment were moved at short notice to France.
Rose was alone at Slepe, listening to the radio, gleaning news of a frozen Maginot Line, of ice-bound northern Europe. She brought two of Mrs Farthing’s kittens into the house and stocked up with hot-water bottles. Huddling in her bed with the cats and hot bottles she shivered as the wind howled round the house and whoofed down the chimneys. Still the telephone failed to deliver Mylo’s voice. Seeking comfort from the lithograph he had sent her, she staved off loneliness.
There were times waking in the night when she questioned whether he had sent the Bonnard. There had been no written word inside the parcel. Almost his last words, she remembered with desolation, had been, ‘I shall not bother you again.’
From time to time, mindful of soon-to-come petrol rationing, she drove to London to pay a duty visit to her parents who since her marriage remained permanently in town, her father concentrating on his cancer treatment. (It did not seem to be doing him much good, nor did he appear worse.) She drove into a London whose streets, parks and squares were deep in frozen slush, stained grey and brown with grime.
She brought her parents cream and butter from the farm and on occasion a fowl. (‘I fear,’ she warned them, once, ‘that this is the last time I shall come by car; it will be more difficult to bring you things by train.’ ‘Nonsense,’ said her mother, ‘you are a strong girl; your father needs a bit extra.’)
She stayed with them for as short a time as was decent. Visiting her parents confused her. Then she fled their probing eyes, their unspoken questions. When she reached the street she muttered her answers: ‘No, I am not pregnant, and no, I am not happy.’
After one such visit, walking down Sloane Street, she ran into Mrs Malone. The older woman was struck by Rose’s pinched appearance. She stopped, chatted, invited her to lunch near by. ‘The Cordon Bleu is still functioning.’
Rose was about to refuse, s
ay that she had a full day’s shopping ahead, that she was not hungry. They were standing downwind from the Kenya Coffee Shop; a customer coming out brought into the icy street a waft of coffee. Rose’s mouth filled with saliva. ‘Thanks,’ she said, ‘I’d love to.’
They sat in the restaurant and ordered their food. Rose told Mrs Malone that she had been visiting her parents, so explaining her presence in London.
‘I hear that they have let their house,’ said Mrs Malone, ‘for the duration of the war, and might sell.’
‘They have not told me,’ said Rose, surprised.
‘Not wanting to bother you.’ Mrs Malone buttered her bread; she was hungry and could not wait for the waitress to bring the ordered dish. ‘Your mother,’ she said munching, ‘would rather live in London, she expects your father to die.’
Rose, who also expected this but had never voiced the eventuality to anyone other than Mylo, said nothing; she did not feel she knew Mrs Malone well enough to discuss death.
‘You should call me Edith,’ said Mrs Malone, ‘that’s the name I’m stuck with.’
‘Oh,’ said Rose. ‘Edith, thank you.’
The waitress brought their order. Edith Malone began to eat. ‘Go ahead, eat. It is easier,’ she said, ‘to talk about your father dying to a comparative stranger than to your mother.’
‘I suppose …’ Rose took a mouthful of food; it was good, its goodness made the topic of her father’s demise worse. ‘I suppose …’
‘Of course, your mother’s trouble is that your father is not dying, he has not got cancer.’
‘Oh.’
‘I know his physician. This situation is tough on your mother, she had hoped to become free …’ Mrs Malone munched on.
‘How do you …?’
‘I know, but I do not suppose your mother does.’ Edith masticated slowly. ‘If she does, she suppresses it. Your mother tries to be good, she had a Christian upbringing no doubt, is repressed, and is constipated.’
‘She is continually dosing herself.’ Rose could not help her laughter.
‘There you are. I wonder whether they have any profiteroles, so delicious, or has the war put a stop?’
‘A stop,’ said a passing waitress who seemed to know Mrs Malone.
‘Then, coffee for two,’ said Edith. ‘Black. Your mother now hopes that if they stay in London the God of War will oblige with a bomb and remove your father.’
‘There are no raids.’ Rose was convulsed with merriment.
‘There will be,’ Edith assured Rose, delighted to have made her laugh.
‘Then what does she do?’ Rose warmed to this new version of Edith Malone.
‘Oh, then she will start living,’ said Edith, sipping her coffee, ‘but,’ she was suddenly sad, ‘she may find that life when lived resembles coffee in that the smell is more delicious than the liquid. You didn’t know I was so wise, did you?’
‘No.’ Rose grinned at her. ‘I didn’t.’
I wish, thought Edith, that stupid George or idiot Richard had snapped this girl up before letting Ned Peel get her. Why did I never notice her properly? I could have done something about it. ‘If you have nothing better to do,’ she said, ‘come with me to Harrods. I want to stock up with toys.’
‘Toys?’ Rose was mystified. ‘Why?’
‘There may be a shortage presently, bound to be. Already this morning I found there are no glass balls for the Christmas tree. All made in Germany by our enemies! Ridiculous, isn’t it, what brings home the reality of war.’
‘Yes,’ said Rose (the reality of war for me is no Mylo).
‘When this phoney war is over, there will be another wave of evacuee children. I plan to fill the house. I did not want them any more than anyone else. I am now rather ashamed. I am stocking up with toys and presents for them. Will you help me, give me your afternoon?’
‘I would love to.’
‘Good,’ said Edith, paying the bill. ‘We can house ten children; they can use the tennis court as their playroom.’
‘I didn’t know …’ began Rose.
‘Didn’t know a woman like me could have a social conscience? Don’t be fooled. I am going to enjoy those children just as much as your mother will enjoy her widowhood.’
Rose, shocked and pleased, asked, ‘What about Mr Malone? Does he know?’
‘He will enjoy them. I haven’t told him yet. He never had much time for George and Richard when they were small, too busy making money. It’s much easier to enjoy other people’s children, one isn’t ultimately responsible. Come along, we are wasting time. Have you a car?’
‘Yes, the bishop’s. Why?’
‘I can load you up with my parcels.’
‘Of course, but wouldn’t you rather have Harrods deliver?’
‘There might be a raid which would prevent them,’ said Edith hopefully. ‘Rather fun, is it not, not knowing from one moment to the next whether or not we are to be raided?’ Then, noting Rose’s puzzled expression she said, ‘Come, my dear, it’s no use being glum, it’s better to get the maximum enjoyment out of every situation—in this case, the war.’
‘I had not pictured things that way.’
‘Then do start. Enjoyment is good for morale. Good morale wins wars. By the way, did you say the bishop’s car? The Thornbys’?’
‘Yes. Ned bought it from them.’
Or they sold it him, thought Edith. ‘See a lot of those two? Nicholas and Emily?’
‘Not all that much.’
‘You’ll get a fresh insight into life there too, I gather. Something that boy we had to tutor George in French said about them rather interested me. An observant fellow, that.’
Rose looked away, biting back her longing to talk of Mylo to this new Edith Malone, but it was risky, she must not. She followed Edith into Harrods thinking that if Edith was able to present her with a novel view not only of herself but of her parents, she might well be capable of unveiling a new Mylo, but he is all mine, she thought, only I must discover him.
Presently, loading Rose’s car with her parcels of toys—she herself would be returning to the country by train a day later—Edith Malone thought it would not be wrong to suggest to George and Richard that they should take Rose out, enliven her grass widowhood. ‘Come over to supper one day,’ she said. ‘I will ring up and fix it. George and Richard will be on leave soon, they would like to see you.’
Rose rather doubted this. ‘I have not seen them for ages. What are they doing?’
‘George is soon to be posted abroad, and Richard has at last got himself into the Wavy Navy. You will come, won’t you?’
‘I’d love to,’ said Rose.
So life nibbled a little further, but reserved its fiercest nips for later.
19
ROSE CAUGHT A BAD cold towards the end of the winter. She would have shaken it off if she had, as Mrs Farthing suggested, stayed in bed or in one room in an even temperature; but this she would not do. She moved, sneezing, from the kitchen which was warm through icy passages to the library, which was too hot near the log fire but refrigerating if you moved six feet away from it. She tramped about the garden making plans with Farthing, although she knew he would only pay lip service to her and carry on in his own way. She visited the farm where she got in the Hadleys’ way. She needed to acquaint herself with Slepe as she saw it, not as Ned had shown it her; she was not used to the responsibility thrust on her, and would take time to bear it. In Mrs Farthing’s book she crowned her stupidity by going to London to meet Ned coming on leave from France, hanging about a draughty station waiting for his train. It was an hour late after a mine scare in the Channel.
Their journey home was slow, the train crowded and cold.
Ned wanted her with him every moment of his leave, whether in the house or tramping the estate. He was gloomy, depressed and unusually silent. The campaign in Norway was raging disastrously and he was convinced that when the weather broke there would be fighting in France. He was pessimistic about the war, de
rogatory about the government. He confided his fears to Rose, snuffling in his arms. He did not like the new mattress she had bought at Heals and did not hesitate to say so. He banished the kittens from the bedroom, refusing to let them in when they scratched temperately but persistently at the door in the watches of the night, causing Rose to screw up her toes with suppressed fury. He was afraid too of catching Rose’s cold. ‘I shall give it to everyone in the mess,’ he grumbled.
‘I am sorry, Ned. I can’t help having a cold. I didn’t plan it on purpose.’
‘You’ve no idea how cold it is in France. I shall probably develop pneumonia,’ Ned grumbled louder, shifting his position and snatching the bedclothes round his shoulders and away from his wife.
‘Then you can get invalided out of the war,’ she tried to cheer him as she pulled the sheet back.
‘I shan’t catch pneumonia until we are overrun by the Germans. Then it will be too late …’
‘Ned, do stop moaning, you haven’t caught my cold yet, you may be immune to my germs. What’s the matter with you? I’ve never known you like this, tell me for God’s sake.’
Instead of answering Ned rolled over her and made love, climaxing with a grunt and collapsing on top of her so that her face was squashed against his shoulder and with nasal passages blocked with mucus she nearly suffocated.
‘For heaven’s sake get off.’ She dug her nails into him.
Ned shifted a little. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘You are squashing me. I can’t breathe, move over. These acrobatics are supposed to be pleasurable and romantic. Oh, God, where is my handkerchief, where’s it got to?’ She found it and blew her nose violently.
‘Damn you, blast you, fuck you, bugger you and your cold,’ cried Ned and began to weep with great gulping sobs. ‘Oh, shit.’
‘Ned!’ She had never heard him swear. ‘What’s the matter? What is it? I’m sorry about my filthy cold.’ Nor had she ever known a man cry.
Ned went on crying.
Rose sat up and cradled his head against her chest. ‘Ned, tell me, what has happened to you?’