The Dreaming Suburb

by R. F Delderfield

  In general Judy found this to be the case, but her new occupation did much more for her than heal a bruised heart. It provided her with a passport to a new world, that seemed a thousand miles from the suburb, a warm, hearty, open-air world, of sun, rain, and wind, of thrilling gallops across open country, and gentle jog-trots into the sunset, with every muscle aching, but pleasantly so, and the feeling of a day well spent in good company. Then, as darkness came, there was the prospect of boiled eggs, and an open hearth, and the comforting sound of tired horses, champing away in their loose-boxes across the yard.

  On nights such as these, when she climbed the uncarpeted stairs to her little room, Judith sometimes did think of Esme, but she was able to smile at the solemn child of Number Twenty, whose life had been centred in the boy next door, yet who had, it seemed, cheerfully survived a broken heart.

  She discovered too that Manor Wood was not the only wood where campion and cow-parsley grew, and where it was possible to smell the resin in the pines on lazy summer afternoons, or where the larches whispered like gossips in the evening breeze. Before her chance encounter with Maud Somerton, Judy had never been more than a few miles outside the suburb, but now she had travelled over wide stretches of English countryside, the Cotswolds, Cornwall, the West Midlands, and almost every part of Devon and Somerset.

  She did not make friends easily, but she came to love the craggy, hoarse-voiced Miss Somerton. Maud Somerton loved her in return, and took pleasure in teaching her everything she knew, until there came a time, some five years after their association had begun, when the riding instructress led out a huge chestnut that she had bought (much to Judy's surprise) the previous day at the horse fair.

  “There you are, me gel! See what you can make of this joker! He's all yours!”

  “Mine?” exlaimed Judy, with wildly beating heart, “you mean... my own?”

  “I always promised you something worth riding when you were good enough, didn't I?” Miss Somerton had replied, speaking even more harshly than usual, in order to conceal her emotion. “Well, you're as good now as I can ever make you, and you've worked harder than any gel I ever took in hand, so take him, and try him, and don't let me hear another word about it!”

  Judy had to use the block to mount but, once up there, it was like sitting astride a warm, golden statue.

  “What's he called?” called Judy breathlessly, as Miss Somerton released the bridle, and stood back against the wall.

  “Jason,” Miss Somerton shouted, “but if you don't like it change it. Take him across the Common, and I'll follow on, as soon as I've mucked out.”

  The chestnut moved beautifully, responding to the slightest movement of calf and finger, and once on the open common she gave him his head, and raced into the wind on huge, even strides, so that Judy felt she was flying, and would have ridden Jason to John-o'-Groats and back without drawing rein.

  It was a glorious gallop, a glorious world, a glorious day. It was the day she was introduced to Jason, and the day she introduced herself to Tim.

  Tim Ascham was a thin, lanky young man, with unruly, copper-coloured hair, a mass of freckles, and laughing eyes. That afternoon he was sitting on a low bank at the edge of Hayes Wood, and his horse, a fat, slow-munching skewbald, was cropping the long shoots a few yards away.

  The young man stood up as Judy thundered into the mouth of the sunken lane, and called “Hi there!” as she sat back and wheeled, slowing to a trot, and bringing the chestnut smartly up alongside him.

  “My, but you've got a beauty there,” he said, reaching out to stroke Jason's sleek nose.

  “It's my first time out on him,” said Judy, smiling down. “Isn't it a wonderful day?”

  “Any day would be wonderful from where you're sitting,” he said. “Does he belong to the riding stables over at The Dene?”

  “No,” said Judy, unable to keep pride out of her voice, “he belongs to me! I'm Miss Somerton's assistant, and she's just given him to me.”

  The young man whistled. “Some boss!” he said, and then, “I'm staying with the Applegates. I'm a sort of cousin to them.”

  Judy knew the Applegates, a rowdy, horsey family, who had recently moved south from the staghunting country round Dunkery Beacon. She looked at the young man with interest.

  “Weren't you out with the hounds on Tuesday?” she asked.

  “Yes, I was,” he admitted ruefully, “but I got left behind, soon after you found. You killed over at Twelve Beeches, didn't you?”

  “I believe so, but I was left behind too. I had someone on the leading rein. That's usually my trouble!”

  They chatted about horses and hunting for a few minutes. Then Judy said:

  “Aren't you going to ride?”

  “Good Lord no,” said Tim, jerking his head towards the skewbald, “nobody rides ‘George’. He was at Waterloo, or. Balaclava anyway! I'm just taking him for a quiet walk. Come on, George, old chap, we can't face this sort of competition,” and he freed George's reins from the stirrup leathers, and pointed up the lane. “Show me what he can do.”

  She waved her goodbye, and cantered away between the high banks. A day or two later she met him again in the same place, but this time he was riding a young mare, and they circled the wood together.

  After that, effortlessly, they drifted together, and he told her he was “killing time” until the New Year, unable to make up his mind whether to sit for Army Entrance, or emigrate to Kenya, and farm. He was inclined to the latter course, for he liked the prospect of an open-air life in a new country, but his father, a retired lieutenant-colonel, was trying to bully him into making a career of the army. He explained that the army was a tradition in the Ascham family. He already had two brothers in the Royal Engineers, and another in the Artillery.

  “Our place at home looks like the Imperial War Museum,” he told her, laughing. “Everywhere you look scarred old warriors scowl down from the walls, and all the spaces between their portraits are filled with loot, from Asian battlefields, and the implements we used to slaughter our wretched victims! I went for it in a big way when I was a kid, but now I'm not so sure; I mean, army life isn't like it used to be is it, you know, all lance pennants, and point-to-pointing, and ‘Floreat Etona’, and broken squares? Most of the time you seem to be sitting for exams, or wangling for a Staff job in town.”

  She liked his sense of fun, his lack of snobbery, and his unexacting companionship. She liked his loose, easy seat on a horse, and the way his snub and freckled nose wrinkled when he laughed, which he did every few moments. Falling in love with him was rather like catching up with a gay fellow-traveller on a lonely road, and agreeing to complete the remainder of the journey in his company. There were few kisses, and hardly any avowals, between the day she first saw him, sitting on Hayes Bank, and the day he suddenly said to her:

  “Well, Judy, I've finally decided to sidestep the army, and try Kenya.” And before she could exclaim, “On one condition tho'—that you come with me! Does that appeal to you at all, Judy?”

  It appealed very strongly. He seemed to her the most gentle, engaging, and undemanding male she had ever met, and there was something about his quiet strength, and unhurried enthusiasm for open-air life, that told her he would make a first-class farmer, in Kenya, or anywhere else.

  “I think I'd like that better than anything I can imagine, Tim,” she told him quietly, and they kissed very softly, more like brother and sister than lovers, and then rode silently back to The Dene, to talk it over with Maud Somerton.

  5

  The twins, Boxer and Berni, did not waste their time in any recruiting queues.

  As far back as the autumn of 1938 they had smelled noise and speed, and jolly companionship from afar, and had come speeding down from the Midlands, where they were testing for a firm of motor-cycle manufacturers, to join a London anti-aircraft unit as transport-drivers.

  They need not have travelled south to enlist as Territorials, but they wanted to soldier with all their old Speedway
mob, who had enlisted in a body. Within a fortnight of the Prime Minister's sombre challenge of “those evil things”, they were lumbering along French roads, one behind the other, towing brand-new Bofors guns, and shouting “Allez à la bloody trot-whah!” to smiling civilians, whose plodding progress along the centre of the pavé caused them to apply brakes.

  The twins took to France, and the French took to the twins. Whenever they had an off-duty spell they could be found in the nearest estaminet, tossing off beakers of rough, local wine, and roaring lewd songs into an admiring circle of villagers.

  The patron of the estaminet took to them, the mountainous Madame Drouet, with whom they were billeted, took to them, and all the girls who moved in and out the depot, in short woollen stockings, and plain, serge skirts, took to them. By the New Year, when they were due for their first leave, they were known, and readily recognised, in a whole string of shabby villages and hamlets along several main roads that led to Lille, and Madame Drouet shook with emotion when they told her they were going home for nine days, and she implored them to accept a roll of Lille lace, as a gift for their mother, who must, she declared, be very desolate to be robbed of two such fine sons for the duration.

  Boxer grinned his clownish grin, and nudged Berni, who said:

  “Nous avons no mère, Madame! Elle mort, a long time ago!”

  And then, improving somewhat: “Après le Quartorze guerre!”

  This news reduced Madame Drouet to a flood of tears and she reached out, enfolding Bernard in a bolster-like embrace, so that Boxer, with the object of rescuing his twin, added:

  “We've got a sister, Madame, and shell jump at it!”

  He disentangled the red-faced Bernard from Madame, and stuffed the lace into his haversack, and they climbed into their lorries, and drove off up the road towards the base.

  Back in the Avenue, Jim showed more interest in them than he had ever done when they were small, sitting over the living-room fire long after Jack and Louise had gone up to bed, and asking them question after question about their life and conditions, and the general prospects of the B.E.F. He was comforted a little by their confident outlook, which did not seem to justify old Goreham's gloomy prophecies.

  “You think then that we'll hold them if they do try and break through, son?” he asked earnestly, after Boxer, with loud guffaws, had described how unerringly their unit had shot down a French aircraft in error.

  “I only hope they try,” Boxer chuckled and then, as ever, “Whatd'ysay, Berni, whad'ysay?”

  Berni threw his cigarette butt into the fire.

  “I reckon we'll see 'em off, Pop,” he said enigmatically.

  CHAPTER XXXI

  Heroics Strictly Rationed

  1

  HEROICS were strictly rationed at two of the houses along the Avenue during that first, wartime winter.

  At Number Forty-Five, headquarters of the “Hartnell Eight”, Margy and Ted had their first quarrel, and the cause of it was the discovery, deep in the cyncopating bosom of the bandleader, of a totally unexpected vein of patriotism. This seam had been laid bare by a refugee accordionist, who had joined the orchestra after a hairbreadth escape from Berlin, the previous Spring.

  In the last few years Ted and Margy had progressed a long way towards realising the dream they shared. The “Hartnell Eight” had not only broadcast on a number of occasions, but was booked almost every night in the season, and had toured extensively throughout successive summers.

  It had never multiplied itself into a Hartnell Dozen, or a Hartnell Fourteen, remaining compact and self-contained, for it was Margy's theory that a well-paid eight played better than a moderately-paid twelve. In this way it attracted good musicians, and maintained its reputation for good taste and high-quality rhythm.

  Of the original team only the tall, bespectacled violinist, who had inadvertently witnessed the final exit of Al Swinger, remained with them, and by now he was practically one of the family.

  The outbreak of war did not result in the anticipated falling-off of business. On the contrary, the blackout increased the demands made upon them, for the theatres were closed that autumn, and there were a large number of local dances organised by clubs, on behalf of war charities.

  Margy therefore decided to ignore the war. Ted was over military age anyway, and most of their musicians were unlikely military material. The years had slipped by smoothly and prosperously. They now had a comfortable bank balance and a cosy home, with a daily woman coming in to cook and clean, and could enjoy long, lazy mornings in bed, after late-night sessions.

  They had plenty of friends, whom they provided with vast quantities of gin and vermouth (although they hardly touched liquor themselves), and they were in the habit of giving little parties on their rare free nights. On these occasions they filled the little house with Margy's sisters and brothers-in-law, and Edith Clegg, her sister Becky, and the artist lodger, Jean Mclnroy, were often asked over from Number Four to swell the uproar that these convivial gatherings inspired.

  In short they were content, and just the tiniest big smug.

  Then Nikki, the German accordionist, had to upset Ted with his terrible stories of the concentration camps in which his father and brothers had perished, and from which he had only just escaped through the courage and presence of mind of the music professor with whom he was staying, when the Storm Troopers had called for him in the middle of the night.

  Now Ted was troubled, and seemed to have lost interest in what they were to play at the Chamber of Commerce dance. He appeared to Margy to do little but mooch about the house, chain-smoking, or sitting hunched. over the radio, listening, not to a swing session if you please, but to boring news-bulletin about leaflets, and fuel wastage, and digging for victory!

  Finally Margy decided that something drastic must be done about it, and being a very practical woman she hit on something calculated to take her husband's mind right off the inmates of concentration camps and Storm Troopers who called in the night.

  She tried reasoning first: “What can you do about it anyway? You're over forty, and they won't take you in the army, you silly great gawk!”

  “There's the ‘Pioneers’,” he mumbled, “they'd have me in the ‘Pioneers’, wouldn't they?”

  “What?” Mary was outraged. “Spend your time digging latrines, in some awful camp miles and miles from anywhere? Not if I know it, Ted Hartnell! You've got me to think of, as well as the band.”

  He looked at her obstinately. “Aw, you'd be okay, Margy. We've got money saved up, and you could run the band on your own, you know you could, and what's more, so do the boys!”

  “I could, but I wouldn't want to,” she said flatly, and then, in despair, “Oh, Ted, Ted, skip it, and let things take their course, can't you?”

  But reasoning was no use. For years he had always listened to her, but now she did not seem to be able to get through to him at all. He continued to mooch, and mutter about the terrible things Nikki had told him, things that went on in places called Dachau and Sachenhausen. “They gas people,” he told her, “and then make maps out of their skins! How do you like that? Maps out of people's skins! Then they take out their teeth, just to get at the gold fillings for more tanks and 'planes! You wouldn't think people could carry on like that, not nowadays!”

  “I don't believe it,” snapped Margy; “it's just a lot of propaganda to get more recruits!”

  “Well, I do believe it,” he growled, very ill-humouredly for him. “You talk to Nikki. He isn't the kind of chap to make things up like that, and he's lent me books about it.”

  “But what can you do about it?” wailed Margy wretchedly, “can you fly over there and wring Hitler's neck?”

  “No,” said Ted seriously, “I don't reckon I could do that, but I could do something to stop 'em, and I damn well will, the minute I figure out what, and nothing you can say is going to stop me, Margy! Nothing, you understand!”

  But Margy did say something to stop him, at all events for an interval
.

  “Ted,” she said one morning, a week or so after their last argument on the subject, “you're going to be a father.”

  He dropped the Spanish guitar he was tuning, and it crashed to the floor with a clang.

  “What you say?” he muttered. “What you say, Margy?”

  “I said I'm going to have a baby,” said Margy, “and it's going to be born in June, or maybe a week or two before.”

  He instantly forgot Nikki and Dachau, and threw his arms around her, just like a husband in a Hollywood film, and then he released her and went leaping about the room uttering squeaks of delight, and she watched him tolerantly, as a mother might watch a small son showing off.

  “It's about time,” she said at length, when he had calmed a little, “another year or so and it might have been too late. Now call up our Oscar, Teddy, and tell him the rehearsal is at twelve sharp, and don't forget to stop into Murchison's before they close and order those extra parts of There'll Always he an England like I said. I tell you what, Teddy,” she went on, as her mind switched from certainties to possibilities, “we might even have another later on. I don't like the idea of an only child. There were nine of us at home, and we always had a peck of fun together.”

  He picked up the guitar and twanged it, triumphantly.

  “Margy,” he said, “Margy, you're wonderful!”

  Margy Hartnell was not all that wonderful, for her idea was not original. After all, she lived next door to the newly-weds, Esme and Elaine, and in the last summer of peace there had been unmistakable evidence that something had gone sadly awry with Elaine's autumnal resolutions.