“Another month, I hope. Thanks.”
I have switched on the light and we are no longer three voices but three compact bodies who enjoy the comfort of leisure and the dry tang of an iced drink. I have a sudden feeling that we are very consciously civilized.
Gyp builds up the fire and Michael says:
“Oh lord, I must go. I promised mother to be back before six-thirty. See you at the Cock and Pheasant tomorrow?”
“I shouldn’t be surprised.” Gyp shows him out and I am left to draw the curtains. The room is so friendly, I want it to be like this all the time.
Gyp comes back and we refill our glasses.
“I like Michael,” he says.
“So do I.”
“It would do him good to get away from mother all the same.”
“But she’s awfully nice, Gyp. Not a bit possessive like old man Watson is with Laura.”
“Hum . . . I wonder.”
We drift into one of those silences which are becoming noticeable when we are alone now. Is it that we have nothing more to say to one another or that we have too much which cannot be spoken of? These are moments of unease when they should be ones of understanding.
“Tell me—” Gyp begins and stops suddenly.
“What, darling?”
“Nothing.”
From the wing-backed chair I watch him frowning down at the fire. I wish he would relax.
He turns and looks at me.
“Helen. . . . It’s no good pretending, is it?”
All this is something which has happened to me before. The words and the setting are a repetition: Gyp by the mantelpiece with one hand in his coat pocket and the other twiddling a cocktail glass; firelight splaying across the hearthrug and the picture opposite not quite straight above the writing desk. I know what we are going to say and the words we shall use.
“Pretending what, Gyp?”
“That things are the same. I know you don’t love me—at least not as before. Don’t try to hide it up too much.”
He can smile as he speaks whilst I feel nothing but panic in my mind.
“Gyp, it isn’t true. I do love you. You know that.”
“Put it another way, if you like,” he talks calmly as if I were one of his patients, “we’re—I mean you’re not in love with me any more. You used to be and now it’s over. You’re not, are you?”
I can’t lie to Gyp.
“No, I’m not in love with you, Gyp. But I love you.”
He turns suddenly away from me, leaning his elbows on the mantelpiece and cupping his face with his hands.
“You remind me of something,” he says.
“What?”
“You remember I broke my return journey in Egypt. I came back from there on a boat carrying several thousand chaps from the Middle East. ‘Python’ men returning at the end of their overseas tour. There was the strangest atmosphere on board; none of the rejoicing at getting home again which had been evident on the Far East repatriation ship I’d done the first half of my journey on. Instead there was a feeling of unease, a dulled acceptance of the inevitable. I found out why. Most of the men had left a heart in the Middle East, and here they were on the way back to the heart they’d left at home. Tricky work, you know.”
There is nothing I can find to say.
“Helen,” Gyp continues softly, “have you left a heart somewhere. I’d rather know, you know. Have you?”
Again I cannot lie and I need not lie. I know now that Brian never had my heart.
“No, Gyp. I haven’t.”
“Then why, why in God’s name, must you be so bloody kind to me?” He turns on me and his face is distorted with emotion. I am too startled to answer and we can only stare at each other in misery.
There is the sound of the front door being opened and the voices of Angela Worthing and Peter Gurney asking for us.
“Gyp, Gyp . . .” I whisper, but he has gained control again.
“Put out more glasses,” he declaims as Jenny opens the door for them, “we’ll soon be rivalling the Cock and Pheasant for customers!”
* * * *
Behind and above the taproom at the Cock and Pheasant sprawled the Cobb home. The windows were small, the ceilings low and there were few modern amenities. Maggie Cobb cooked, and the family ate, in the long kitchen downstairs, above the cellars and next to the public bar. Upstairs there were bedrooms, the parlour and the room that used to be Maggie’s mother’s and had now become a general living room with John Cobb’s big desk at one end where he kept the books. This room had dark curtains and was overburdened with pictures in heavy, black frames: pink hunting scenes with hounds, an interior with two red-faced men toasting an old fashioned, lacy barmaid and a reproduction of ‘Bubbles.’ Above the mantel was an enlarged photograph of Maggie and John on their wedding day. Above that again, dangling from a kitchen airer fixed to the ceiling, Tommy’s smalls.
Lily Cobb and her sister-in-law sat in wicker armchairs on either side of the fireplace. It was Lil’s night off from the bars.
“In the W.A.A.F. they made us sew bits of coloured stuff on the black-out curtains,” she said, tacking a tiny patch on to a pair of diminutive pants.
“Whatever for?” Elsie asked looking up from her knitting.
“To make the barrack rooms look more like home.” They laughed together at this and Elsie, in whom the discomfort of pregnancy was again beginning to make itself felt, shifted her weight slightly and the wicker chair squeaked and rustled at the movement.
“Drat this chair,” Elsie said, “it’s like the one in my kitchen; looks all right till you try sitting in it.”
“In the last mess I was in we had a little dumpy chair they called the Nursing Mother. It was ever so comfortable; supported you right up your back. Nobody ever knew how we came by it. They scrounged it for the officers’ mess in the end.”
“You still miss it, don’t you Lil?”
“What, the Nursing Mother?” Lily smiled across at her sister-in-law.
“No, silly. The W.A.A.F. and being with the R.A.F.”
“Not really, but I think about it a lot. More now than I did at first. I keep remembering all the little things like being on night shift and dishing up early breakfasts for the chaps coming in. And what a toffee nose the sergeant was till she was busted. Getting pegged for wearing silk stockings. Oh, all the sort of unimportant things that went on every day. I’d like to have stayed on after Charlie was killed; I’d like to have gone overseas, India or some place; but I was expecting by then.”
Elsie looked curiously at the thin young face opposite her. She and Lil had only become friends quite recently. Before that, they hadn’t really known one another. Lil had been away in the services when Elsie married Dick and when Stevie was born. It was only since she’d been pregnant again that Elsie had taken to coming round of an evening to talk to Lil and Lil had got into the way of running across to Elsie’s and Dick’s cottage when she wasn’t working.
Elsie said:
“They didn’t keep you in after the third month, did they?”
“Not supposed to, but we had a girl who had her baby in her sleeping quarters. Nobody knew nothing about it until the Flight Officer went round on inspection at about half past eleven that morning and there was the A.C.W.1 and the baby both crying.”
“You’d have thought they’d have noticed, wouldn’t you?”
“She was a big girl and always looked a bundle in her uniform. Besides it wasn’t difficult to dodge medical inspection. I was five months before I told them.”
“Were you frightened, Lil?”
“No, I wasn’t frightened ’cos Charlie and I were getting married anyhow and then, when he didn’t come back, I wasn’t frightened ’cos I wanted to have the baby. I was just unhappy about Mum and Dad.”
“What did Charlie think?”
“Charlie?” Lil looked strangely across at Elsie. “Charlie didn’t know, Elsie.”
There seemed suddenly a very big gulf betwe
en the two girls sitting by the fire and Lil, the younger, appeared somehow to be of greater stature and of infinite maturity.
“You mean you didn’t even tell Charlie?” Elsie asked.
“No. I wasn’t sure myself for a long time. I’m funny that way. And then he was on ops. and they wouldn’t have let him have leave from the station he was on just at that time. He’d only have worried. A pilot has plenty enough to think about as it is. Besides we were getting married next leave. I wish now I hadn’t let the Flight Officer persuade me to write to Mum and Dad about it. I’d rather have had Tommy on my own.”
“But where?”
“In a home. They tell you all about it in the services if you can’t go to your own people. I’d have done better in many ways to have gone to London and then got a job there—something I could have taken Tommy to with me, cooking probably, like I did in the W.A.A.F.”
“I don’t see why you’d have been better off in London than here, Lil.” Elsie shifted her weight again and took a deep breath.
“Too many nosey parkers in the country, Elsie. Kirton’s a terrible place for curiosity. You’d be surprised if you knew the questions I got asked. They still think Tommy’s father was a Yank. What about a cup of tea?”
“I could do with one if it isn’t too early.”
“It’s never too early for tea. You should have seen the pots we used to brew in the W.A.A.F.” She went to a cupboard in the corner and brought out cups, saucers and a teapot. The kettle on the grid by the open fire was bubbling softly. As she made the tea, she said: “D’you remember Mrs. Pilcher, Elsie? No, you wouldn’t; she left the village before you and Dick were married. She used to live along the other end of High Street. Well, she came back to stay with her sister, Mrs. Metcalf, last month, and I saw her coming down Pilferer’s Lane one afternoon with her eyes popping out of her head for a look at our back yard. So just as she got there, I picked Tommy up in my arms and held him out to her and before she could say anything I said:
“Hello, Mrs. Pilcher, d’you like my baby? That’s what I mean about the country, Elsie.”
“Oh you shouldn’t let it worry you, Lil. It isn’t everyone’s like that.”
“Oh, I don’t worry. But Mum don’t like it much; it sort of gets under her skin at times. Besides there are other reasons why it would have been better to have had Tommy in London or some big town: Health centres, child clinics, day nurseries and things. You don’t get them down here. Not that Dr. Townsend isn’t all right and we’re on his panel, but in a town you get all the advantages of the best poshed up attention a child can need. I learned all about that in the W.A.A.F. when I took a mothercraft course. You’d have laughed at me, Else.”
“Why, Lil?”
“I didn’t see it was funny then, but I do now. Me with my corporal’s stripes and nearly five months gone, taking a lot of A.C.W.1’s to a mothercraft course in the town nearby, being run at one of those Polytechnics. I bet I learned more at that course than any of the other girls. I had reason to.”
Elsie laughed, a little self-consciously. She felt very secure in her pregnancy. Lily went on:
“I’d like Tommy to go to school when he’s three; you know, nursery school or whatever it is. He ought to mix with a lot of kids ’cos there aren’t any others in this house. But what chance do I get here of sending him to school? Oh, the village school’s better than it was, I know, but they’re still short staffed and the children don’t learn nothing. In any case Tommy can’t go there till he’s five or six. I can tell you, Else, I’m thinking very seriously of packing up here and taking Tommy to London.”
“Oh, Lil, you couldn’t. What about your mum and dad?”
“That’s just it. I couldn’t go until they got some help here. But it’s not so difficult now to get people. Mind you, I don’t think Dad would make the fuss. He’s a Londoner himself; he’d understand.”
“I don’t like to hear you talking like that, Lil. It don’t seem right somehow. Besides, what would you do?”
“Same trade as this. It’s easy in London and the pay’s good.” Lily put aside her mending and leaned forward in her chair, her face cupped between her hands, staring into the fire. Against the worn green chair cover and the sombre papered wall she appeared almost luminous. The firelight flowed over her face, softening the curves until she looked like a kid of ten with untidy dark curls falling over her fingers. Or so Elsie thought, watching the changing expressions on her sister-in-law’s face.
“And where would you live in London?” Elsie asked firmly, bringing Lily’s ideas back to the practicalities of life.
Lily got up and went to the door where her overcoat was hanging. She felt in the pocket and came back to the fire with a letter in her hands.
“You wouldn’t tell anybody, would you, Else?”
“Not if you didn’t want me to,” Elsie replied and her full blue eyes were round with curiosity.
“Not even Dick?” Lily asked.
“Not if it’s anything crazy. He’s got enough silly ideas in his head as it is.” Elsie spoke with feeling.
“Dick got silly ideas? What sort?” Lily was for a second deflected from her own interests. Dick had always been her favourite brother.
“Well you know what he is, Lil. All them politics and things. He’s gone and joined the Dimstone branch of the Communist Party.”
“Why, that’s ten miles away.”
“Maybe, but he cycles there just the same. There isn’t a C.P. branch any nearer. Mind you, I’m not sure he isn’t right in some ways. I’ve always been Labour myself, but Dick says the C.P. will get more done.”
Lily dismissed the subject with a quick smile.
“Well, what I’m going to show you hasn’t anything to do with politics. It’s a letter from Charlie’s sister.”
“I didn’t know you kept up with his family,” Elsie said.
“I don’t. Not with his parents. But Joan and I always got along all right; she’s married and on her own in London. I wrote to her about six weeks ago and I heard from her yesterday. You can read it if you like.” She handed the letter across to Elsie who held it sideways so that the light from the centre of the room fell across the pencilled lines. She read:
‘Dear Lil,
Well dear it was nice to hear from you again dear. Jim and I were only talking about you the other day and wondering how you and little Tommy were getting on. Well dear it’s funny to think of you with a baby and the photograph was lovely. Jim and I have been here for nearly a year now. The Vigilantes put us here first and it is very nice. A bit difficult to clean but it is very nice. So dear if you and Tommy come to London there is a room you can have. Well dear so long and keep your chin up. Jim sends his love to you dear and Tommy. Lots of love from
Joan.
x x x x x These are for Tommy.’
Elsie handed the letter back to Lil.
“So what?” she asked, trying not to feel jealous that Lil had kept her plans so secret.
“It wouldn’t be difficult,” Lily said pensively, poking at the fire and adding a log from the wicker basket near her chair. “I could put Tommy in a day nursery for a bob a day while I went out to work.”
“Not if you were in your dad’s trade, Lil. The hours wouldn’t fit.”
“Well maybe I’d work in a shop instead. What’s it matter? There’d be a job somewhere and Tommy could have the best there is to give him, right on his doorstep so to speak. London—think of it Else—London with all it could give us and no curious eyes, no busybodies wondering every day what you’re going to do next.” Lily got up quickly and went to stare out of the window. Then she drew the curtains and switched on the light. She turned with her back against the door and her arms pressed back to her sides. “Think what it means to me, Else. London, and safety from nosey parkers. Wouldn’t you do it?”
“Me?” Elsie twisted heavily in her chair. “Fat chance I have to do anything.” She spoke bitterly and Lily stopped half-way across the room.
“Why, what’s the matter, Else?” she asked.
“Matter? Well I’m not a country girl am I? Maybe I wasn’t born in London but Nottingham’s a town, isn’t it?”
“But Elsie, you don’t want to leave Kirton do you?” Lily looked in amazement at her sister-in-law.
“I never said I did, did I?” Elsie spoke fiercely.
“I don’t understand, Else. . . .”
“Understand what?”
“What you’re getting so worked up about then; sort of angry about.”
“I’m not getting worked up or sort of angry. I’m just thinking. See?” Quite suddenly the tears were in her eyes, and her shoulders shook.
Lily was on her knees beside Elsie’s chair. “Don’t, please don’t. What’s the matter, Else? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Elsie found a handkerchief and blew her nose self-consciously.
“But it must be something. You can tell me, Else. I won’t say anything. Was it something I said?”
Elsie looked at her sister-in-law silently. Then the tears flowed again and this time she was unable to check her sobs. After a moment she whispered:
“It’s the war, Lil, that’s done it to us. What can I do with one baby and another on the way and a husband that’s all knocked to pieces? Even if I wanted something I couldn’t get it. That’s what the war’s done, Lil. I’m all turned up and I don’t suppose it’ll ever be the same again.” She was blowing her nose once more, finding a dry corner to the twisted handkerchief.
Lily said:
“But Else, you’re married and you’ve got Dick and little Stevie, and soon you’ll have another baby. You’re safe.”
“Safe?” Elsie snorted into the handkerchief.
“Well, you’re married and you love Dick, don’t you?”
Elsie had got herself under control again.
“Oh yes, I love Dick all right. There’s nothing phoney about that. And I love Stevie and the baby that’s coming, but that doesn’t mean safety, Lil.”
Wine of Honour Page 9