The Nightingales Are Singing

by Monica Dickens

  She had told him to meet her in the bar of a hotel near the shop, and he was there waiting for her with two Martinis and more potato chips and salted nuts than anyone else on the little round table before him.

  He jumped up and fussed over settling her coat on the back of the chair. As they sat down, Christine wondered why she had worried about not hearing from him for more than two weeks. He had not enough substance for a man, and his face, in spite of the heavy black eyebrows, was inconsequent, with its short, incurious nose and small chin. His eyes were unusual, however: dark when he looked away, but seeming light when he looked at you, staring, as he often did.

  He stared at her now as they drank their cocktails, and made a flattering comment on her dress. Christine thought

  that was just his polite American habit, and brushed it aside.

  'Why don't English women know how to take compliments?" he said. "If you tell an American girl you like her dress, she'll say: Thank you/ and look pleased, but an English woman just mumbles: 'Oh, this old rag? It isn't really.' " His attempt at an English accent was so funny that Christine laughed, and he laughed too and spoke some more English, and they began to have a good time together.

  They waited in the crowded foyer of the cinema to see the royal family arrive. Christine was excited to see a few English film-stars, the women making the most of small bosoms in strapless dresses, and the men smaller than heroes should be, with bad complexions. She pointed them out to the American, but he had not heard of them. He was intent on trying to stay near the door, so that he could get a good view of royalty.

  Several other people were intent on the same thing; and when the uniformed ushers and the thin officious men in tailcoats began to push them back to clear a lane through the centre, the scented, well-dressed crowd jostled and battled almost as violently as the street crowd outside battled behind the arms of the amiable policemen.

  A cheer began to murmur down the street, swelled to a growing roar, and became a clamour of distinguishable shouts and cries as the royal car slid up to the end of the red carpet. Peering over the furred shoulders of the woman in front of them, who smelled of exotic boudoirs, Christine and Vinson saw the Queen cross the pavement and step into the foyer in a lilac-coloured crinoline, with a pleased smile for the photographers.

  After her, into the sucked-in murmur of: "Isn't she lovely?" stepped Princess Margaret in white with a white fur, looking as if she felt as attractive as she looked.

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  'The Princess!" breathed Vinson Gaegler, visibly moved. "My, she's a honey. I wish I had my camera."

  Christine was glad he had not, although flash-bulbs were popping all round.

  "Is that the King?" he asked, as a tall man with a white carnation in his tail-coat followed the Princess and her mother into the cinema.

  "Of course not, silly. That's just someone who's with them, same as that other girl in black. She's a lady-in-waiting."

  "Well, who are they?" he persisted, wanting to miss nothing of the show. He was surprised that she did not know the names of all the British aristocracy in the royal entourage. The Queen and Princess stayed a few minutes, shaking hands with the line of film personages who were waiting to be introduced, and he stood on tiptoe and stared intently, with his throat working.

  "Gosh," he said, sinking back on his heels with a sigh as the royal party disappeared. "That's a thing I shan't forget. Those two lovely women, and all the dignity and homage. It's the finest thing your country has to show a foreigner."

  "I'm -glad you like the royal family," Christine said, as they moved slowly with the crowd to find their seats. "Some people pretend they think it's silly to make such a fuss of them, although they probably read everything about them avidly in secret."

  "I like it fine," he said. "For your country, of course. It wouldn't do for ours."

  When they were in their seats, waiting for the lights to dim, Christine said: "Why wouldn't a monarchy do for the States? Americans always get so excited about the King and Queen. Why wouldn't they like to have a pair of their own?"

  "Americans," he said seriously, "swear allegiance to the

  ;, not to any one person. We admire your royal family as

  — loo —

  emblems of the old world, but they would have no part in ours. When people talk about a closer tie between the two countries — absorbing Britain right into the United States — they forget that there's one major reason why it could never work. We wouldn't accept your monarchy, and you wouldn't relinquish it."

  Before Christine could digest the idea of Britain being absorbed into the United States, a roll of drums brought everyone to their feet as the orchestra laid down the first challenging notes, and the Queen came smiling to the front of the royal box to accept the swelling anthem of "God Save the King."

  When the film was over and the royal party had left, they had to wait in the foyer while the police settled a minor riot outside, in which a male film-star lost his tie and coat buttons to the shrieking crowd. There would be pictures of it in the papers tomorrow, and Christine would be able to talk about it at work and say she had been there.

  At last they managed to push their way out onto the disorderly pavement, where a host of women who should have had something better to do were still milling about in and out of the gutter, exchanging badinage with the policemen.

  Coming out of the cinema, Christine hoped they would think she was somebody, but all the film-stars had gone now, and the crowd was not interested in the people coming out. They were just interested in being a crowd, which would not be moved on before it felt like it.

  Vinson took Christine to dinner in an underground restaurant with a dance floor. He had not booked a table, and they were stowed away at a tiny table in a corner, where they did not get good service, but Vinson thought the waiters were just being English, and did not seem to mind.

  — 101 —

  He danced well, holding her lightly, and his steps were easy to follow. It was the year of scarcity of good new tunes, and the band, like bands at Broadcasting House and all over the country, were playing old tunes from the thirties. When they played "Love Is the Sweetest Thing," he sang it softly in her ear as if he meant it, but when the music stopped and they stood apart, he looked round the room at the other dancers and seemed to have forgotten her.

  When they were dancing after dinner he laid the side of his head against her cheek, and the short hair above his ears felt bristly, and his skin smelled nice, but it did not mean anything. It was just his way of dancing.

  When it was time to go and he had paid the bill, with a large enough tip, Christine was glad to see, because foreigners sometimes did not work it out right in a strange currency, he put both hands on the table and said, staring at her: "Did you like the flowers I sent?"

  "Rowers? You sent — ? Did you? I'm afraid — "

  "Roses," he said, "to go with your cheeks. And a plant for your aunt." The rhyme sounded funny, like ants in your pants.

  "My goodness," said Christine, "were those from you? We thought they were from Geoffrey."

  "Oh, I see. Well, why not?"

  "There was no card with them."

  "No," he said, getting up. "I thought perhaps you'd guess."

  He was silent on the drive home, and Christine thought that she had hurt him, but it was his own fault. How could she guess?

  When he stopped the car outside her gate he switched off the engine, got out and opened the door for her. He took her hand, and they stood for a moment by the car, looking at each other without speaking.

  — 102 —

  "Christine/' he said, 'I'm going to pay you a compliment. Fm not going to kiss you. I like you too much, and respect you for what you are."

  This was not as flattering as he meant it to be. Christine said: "Oh," and turned towards the gate, and he squeezed her fingers and said: "Good night, Christine," and let her hand drop.

  After that he took her out quite often. They went to the theatre, and he
took her to dinner at the Air Force Club again, and one Saturday she took him out to Luton Hoo, where he insisted on looking at nearly every one of the hundreds of treasures, which exhausted her.

  He had boundless energy. He was never tired, and when they were out together he was always looking at his watch to see if they could fit in one more thing than they had planned. When they went sightseeing in London it was not enough for him to see just the Tower and Westminster Abbey, which to Christine was a day's work, but he insisted on stopping off at St. Paul's, and then dragging her up the hundreds of steps of the Monument in Billingsgate. He went up in front of her, swinging his neat little bottom up the spiral stone steps and flattening himself politely against the grubby walls, where despairing climbers had scrawled their names, when he met anyone coming down. When Christine reached the top he was already studying the map on the parapet and trying to identify every church spire.

  She leaned against the parapet, looking out over the sooty view with a singing head and watery legs.

  "Come and look at the map," he said, staring out into space like a captain on the bridge, his clipped hair unruffled by the wind. "It makes it much more interesting."

  "I can't. I'm out of breath. I'm too fat for such a climb."

  "You're not fat/* he said, without looking at her. "I like your shape. And when you climb up all those steps it makes your cheeks glow. Your complexion is beautiful. I like that too."

  "Do you?" She looked at him, wishiifg he would look at her.

  "Oh, sure. It's odd, there's a domed church over there I can't seem to identify." He dismissed the subject he had started, as he often did if you took him up on a personal note.

  Although he would seldom talk intimately, she was seeing him often enough to learn quite a lot about him. He talked to her about his early life in Kaloomis, Illinois, and about how fine it had been at Annapolis, where he was a Star Man, and he told her about his career in the navy, of which he was proud. He was always saying: "Look, I'm a professional naval officer," to qualify an opinion about the American Navy, or the war, or the navy of any other country.

  He knew that the American Navy was the finest in the world. Christine knew that the British Navy was the finest in the world, but she did not argue about it. She was learning to avoid Anglo-American arguments, which were frustrating and got you nowhere. He was American. She was English. Nothing could alter that, and so, if you wanted to be friends, you had to accept the differences of opinion caused by an accident of birth.

  With this growing realisation that they must always be different in so many ways, she did not worry so much about who was right and who was wrong. He used his knife and fork in one way, she in another. He pronounced certain words differently, and said things like "hospitalisation," but who was she to criticise? He might just as well have criticised her for saying "going to hospital." As she began to like him increasingly and to feel a friendliness in his company, she began to be just slightly shaken in her ingrained belief that because whatever you did or said was English it must be right.

  — 104 —

  He came to lunch at Roselawn one Sunday, bringing another parcel of food and chocolate, and got into an argument with Roger about Marshall Aid, which made the meal boring for everyone else. They were both opinionated, but Roger, being a Cope, took the argument in his stride, while Vinson took it seriously and wanted to go on with it after Roger had tired of the subject and everyone was talking about something else.

  Roger had said boorishly: "You Yanks think you're the only people who know how to live, but really you're the only country in the world which hasn't begun to know what life's about/' Christine knew that Vinson was hurt by this, but she could not rouse herself to his defence. The Copes always banded together against outsiders, and it took more than her courage to champion the wrong side, because the family would have said to themselves: "Here, here, what's all this? She is interested in this chap."

  None of the family except Aunt Josephine seemed to like Vinson very much, but Christine went on asking him home, because she knew he liked it. He was envious of her family life. He wanted to be part of it. He liked her best when she was at home, moving about with trays, or sitting quietly with some sewing in the drawing-room, while the men talked. Although he came from the New World, he was old-fashioned in many ways, and he liked to think that she was old-fashioned too.

  He gave courteous attention to her father, but even when he talked to him about his writing, Mr. Cope was still suspicious of him as a foreigner and would not react properly.

  Vinson also tried very hard with the dogs and cats, which were such a centre of interest and conversation in the house. Christine's dog would go to anyone, but the cats were wary of him and would not go to him to be petted. This was the

  -105-

  only thing that caused any doubt to Aunt Josephine. She set great store by the opinions of her cats.

  Christine continued to see Vinson Gaegler quite often, and it was not long before the family were referring to him as "Christine's boy friend/* and making insinuating remarks which they thought were funny. If she had told them that he had never kissed her they would not have believed it.

  There came quite suddenly a very warm day, when spring was summer before its time. All day, moving about the book department, Christine had seen the sun flooding the pavement beyond the glass doors, and had looked with jealousy at the women who came in from outside, caught unawares by the sudden heat, wearing last summer's dresses.

  Mr. Parker, shut in his stuffy little office, did not know whether it was Christmas or Easter, but all his assistants were restless, and longed to get out for their lunch hour.

  Christine had told Vinson that on the next sunny day she would walk up to Grosvenor Square and sit with him on the bench where they had first met. She was in the cloakroom getting ready to go out when Margaret Drew came down and found her by the grubby washbasins.

  "I changed my lunchtime," Margaret said. "Old Burman wanted me to go with her to that awful teashop that smells of fish, and I just couldn't bear it. Let's buy sandwiches and go and sit in the Park. I never see anything of you these days. You never come to supper any more. You're always out with that little American with the funny name."

  Margaret knew about Vinson Gaegler by now. Everyone in the book department knew about him, because he sometimes came to fetch Christine at the shop, where he was known as "Miss Cope's American/' as established as he was at home as "Christine's boy friend."

  — 106 —

  Because Margaret had said: "You're always going out with that little American with the funny name/* Christine could not tell her that she was planning to meet Vinson now, so she put him out of her mind and went up the stone steps into the sunshine with Margaret.

  They bought twice as many sandwiches as they needed, because ever since the war sandwiches had one side that was just plain bread, so you had to throw away the dry-bread side and put two spread sides together to make them edible. They walked down Piccadilly to Green Park and found two empty chairs among the crowd of lunchtime workers who had come to open out like crocuses to the sun.

  Margaret ate her sandwiches quickly and wished they had brought more.

  "It must be wonderful to be able to eat as much as you want without worrying about getting fat, because you know you're going to get fat soon, anyway," Christine said. "What's it feel like, having a baby?"

  "Queer," Margaret said. "You get breathless if you talk too much. And it's not so much fun being able to eat a lot, because there are so many things you can't face. Laurie always wants to have salami and liver sausage, and I can hardly sit at the table with it."

  "Why don't you tell him? He wouldn't eat it. He's always so sweet and considerate."

  "I don't want to make any more fuss than I have to. It's bad enough for him as it is."

  "Bad? I should think it was marvellous for him having a baby after all this time."

  "That's the trouble. By this time we've got organised into being able to ma
nage fairly comfortably, just the three of us, and keep Bobby at the school the Drews have always gone to, and not have to give up that silly old big house, which Laurie

  adores. But now there'll be all this expense with the baby. Laurie insists on me having a private room. He says no wife of his is going into a public ward, though it's silly when I've been paying five shillings a week all this time to let the Government have my baby for me."

  "I'd like a public ward/' said Christine, "except for the communal bed-pans. I'd like to lie on my side and discuss symptoms with the woman in the next bed."

  "So would I, but you know what Laurie is. And then there'll be all the clothes to get. I gave away all Bobby's things years ago. And after this one is born I shan't be able to work, because of looking after it, and I just don't see how we're going to manage. I tell you what it is, Chris. We just can't afford to have a baby."

  "Oh, Maggie, don't. No one says that."

  "Well, I don't, but Laurie does. He sat looking at me the other night, at the spot where I can't do up the button on that yellow housecoat any more, and he said, with a face as long as a boot: 'We can't really afford to have this baby.' "

  "He said that to you? Oh, poor Maggie — "

  "Well, why shouldn't he?" Margaret shrugged her shoulders. "It's true."

  "But one just doesn't say those things to a wife."

  "My dear Chris, when you've been married twelve years you say the truth to each other. After all that time you're like one person, so if it doesn't hurt you, you don't think it will hurt the other."

  Christine was shocked, not only at Laurie's remark, but by Margaret's cool acceptance of the dreadful thing he had said. How little one knew about one's married friends — the happily married ones who did not quarrel in public and seemed to have made a natural circumstance of the fusing of two lives. One knew nothing really about their marriage, because it was only

  - 108-