Camomile Lawn

by Mary Wesley

  Monika’s mouth twitched. ‘You are so beautiful the feet do not matter.’

  ‘You make me feel awful. I thought I was coming here to help, or, to be honest, Polly thought of it.’

  ‘You can help. The Floyers’ sons come tomorrow, you can help with them.’

  ‘Paul and David here?’

  ‘Ja. Frau Floyer is too full up with evacuee children, a new lot arrived last week. I said the boys should sleep here.’

  ‘Oh goody, how splendid, but a lot more work for you.’

  ‘They make your uncle happy.’

  ‘But you do that, Monika, he is thrilled with what you’ve done, the cow and everything.’

  ‘I make him comfortable like a good servant.’

  ‘Come and have a drink, Calypso,’ shouted Richard from the hall. ‘Isn’t it time you put the cow away, Monika? Take the dog with you when you go out, he needs a run.’

  Calypso accepted a glass of sherry. ‘Pretty filthy stuff, I’m afraid, South African, you heard the wine merchant got bombed? Absolute tragedy losing all that claret. Helena should have had it delivered here, silly woman. Had her mind on other things. We shall get bombed now we have that bloody gun. I ask you. What fool would do such a thing? In my day the War Office would have, oh well, they might have done something worse. Hi, Monika, you didn’t take the dog. Go on,’ he said, opening the door and shooing the dachshund out, ‘go on out. Now then, got your drink, good, good. See the look he gave me? Looks like Monika. Long Jewish nose, liquid eyes, reproachful. She looks like the cow too, it’s a Jersey.’

  ‘Jerseys don’t have—’ Calypso spluttered.

  ‘I know they don’t, but it’s the eyes, the liquid dark eyes. I don’t know what will happen when they fire the gun; antiaircraft’s pretty noisy. By the way, careful what you say. The General’s taken rather a shine to her, offered to have her with him, I ask you.’

  ‘The cow? Wouldn’t that solve—?’

  ‘No, no, Monika. I couldn’t possibly allow that. Between ourselves—I can say this now you are a married woman—the General’s rather a chap for the girls.’

  ‘An old lecher?’

  ‘So I’m told, only gossip of course, can’t stand gossip but can’t risk Monika. She worries about that boy in the camp, dead by now if you ask me, Hitler won’t be wanting useless mouths. Did you bring your ration book by the way? Give it to Monika if you did. Just thought I’d ask, though we grow so much ourselves nowadays we shall send you back to London laden. I’ll show you the gun after dinner and get you to bewitch the officer in charge.’

  ‘I hear the twins are coming.’

  ‘Yes, their mother has a horde of lousy children crammed in the Rectory, Monika goes over once a week to help the district nurse wash their heads. They are crawling, I ask you. Infesting the village. Now in the last war we had our heads shaved and my batman ironed my uniform when I came out of the front line.’

  ‘Ironed?’

  ‘Lice don’t like a hot iron, kills them double quick. I must tell that Pongo fellow, give him a tip or two, he seems pretty green, only a Territorial not the real thing.’

  ‘When shall I see him?’ Calypso sipped her sherry and looked round for a handy vase to tip it into.

  ‘If you don’t like it,’ said Richard, noticing, ‘tip it in the soup. Monika makes very good soup. The Pongo is coming to supper. Fellow called Brian Portmadoc.’

  ‘What a grand name.’

  ‘Called after the village where he was born, if you ask me. A Taffy. I’m depending on you to get that gun moved. Charm the fellow, take him to see the General’s flower fields, that should do the trick, romantic.’

  ‘Couldn’t the twins?’

  ‘No, no, no. Wrong service, wrong sex. There’s no love lost between the Air Force and the Army, you should know that. It takes a woman to do this sort of thing.’

  ‘What d’you do in real life?’ Walking down the valley to the General’s flower fields Calypso edged towards the subject of the gun, which crouched above the sea like an obscene animal covered with camouflage netting.

  ‘Insurance.’ Brian Portmadoc, hopelessly ensnared since he set eyes on Calypso, repeated the word sadly. ‘Insurance.’ Hardly a job to interest a creature of such beauty, married to a romantic-sounding and martial Member of Parliament. ‘Insurance,’ he said again, studying Calypso’s profile.

  ‘What about the windows?’ She let her beautiful eyes meet his. He was not bad-looking, rather stubby fingers and short legs but otherwise presentable, the Welsh lilt rather attractive.

  ‘The windows?’

  ‘When you fire your gun they will break. As an insurance man you should know. Cause a lot of ill feeling. Surely you can get it moved? It’s awful for Uncle Richard.’

  ‘I have my orders, I didn’t choose the spot.’ Calypso continued to gaze. ‘When it’s fired once we have to move it along the coast, so that the Germans think there are lots of guns,’ said Brian, embarrassed.

  ‘How silly. Shall we go and see if we can snitch some of the General’s violets? Follow me.’ Calypso spoke coldly. Brian felt the chill. ‘Here we are. I shall sit while you pick a bunch.’ Calypso sat on a rock and waved towards the violets planted in long rows. Obediently Brian picked, and as he picked he wondered how he could please this girl. The scent of wet violets roused his senses intolerably. Bending over the flowers he considered furiously how he could please her without getting himself court-martialled.

  Calypso, having planted the seed of an idea, was happy to leave it to blossom.

  The flower farm, a spread of tiny fields bounded by stone walls, was a delight for Calypso whose visits had always been in barren August. Presently they met the General bullying his work force of old men and boys. She asked to be taken on a tour. Brian fell in behind, listening sulkily to the General showing off his fields of violets, anemones, narcissi and daffodils.

  ‘Help yourself, my dear, any time, take as many as you please. A pity the Scilly Whites are not ready yet.’

  ‘Are you selling?’

  ‘Good gracious, yes, trade’s never been so good. We will be sending away trainloads in a few weeks.’

  ‘Doesn’t the war interfere?’

  ‘No, less to buy in the shops so people spend on flowers. The more they are bombed the better for trade. They buy them for funerals. From my point of view the war is a bonus. Air raids have their sunny side. I am averaging fivepence a bloom.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Calypso. ‘I shall think of your profits when I’m in a raid.’

  ‘A girl like you must get bunched the whole time.’ He put his arm round her waist but she moved away.

  The twins arrived in the evening complaining of the journey, the intolerable stops at every station, the crowded train. ‘People have become boorish.’ They had spent the previous night in London, gone to a show, had a bad meal in a restaurant.

  ‘Did you see Polly?’

  ‘Stayed with her. She sent you all her love.’ They put their suitcases in the guest room and went to spend the evening with their parents.

  Calypso called her puppy and the dachshund and strolled down to the cliff. Memories of holidays came to mind, summer days spent on the rocks and swimming in the cove. Down there in the dark was the place they all sun-bathed, where she had lain in the sun conscious of Oliver’s eyes on her. Here where she stood Oliver had said ‘I want to fuck you’. She remembered her feeling of fear and excitement. She stood in the dark, hugging her coat round her, remembering the Terror Run, the games, the laughter, Oliver scared of the drop to the sea. The dogs found a rabbit hole and Duck was frantically digging, lying on his side paddling at the earth with his absurd paws. She watched her puppy, ignorant but eager to join in. The breeze coming off the land brought the smell of ploughed earth and the sound of soldiers’ voices by the gun. The war seemed as far away as her childhood, so effectively swept away by Monika’s rearrangement of the house. Even the lawn has stopped smelling, she thought resentfully, blaming Monika for the time o
f year. ‘I know it doesn’t smell in winter,’ she muttered. ‘Sophy told us.’ She called the dogs, who ignored her. She went on her knees to reach into the hole and catch the dachshund, trying to get a grip on its tail. The dog went on digging, the puppy yapped. In the sky a familiar drone. Busy with the dogs, it took minutes to recognize the sound of a German bomber. Above her by the gun orders barked excitedly. The drone grew nearer. She looked up, chilled, listening to the faraway sound of sirens in the town. The plane flew closer and she heard the tearing sound as a stick of bombs dropped screaming. She grabbed the puppy and crouched low by the rabbit hole. The gun fired pom, pom, pom, pom and again, banging a futile threat. The sound of the plane receded and Calypso sat up holding the puppy. The dachshund was still digging, pounding the earth with its paws. She reached in, caught its tail, dragged it out. Carrying both dogs, she started up the cliff. She could hear shouts and see lights. She tried to run, her legs weak, heart pounding. In the house her uncle was shouting.

  ‘Bloody fool, look what he’s done! Monika, she’s gone. Right through the house, bust the windows, I told him it would happen, look at the mess, I ask you.’

  ‘Uncle, are you hurt? Did it hit the house?’

  ‘Of course it didn’t. They can’t aim straight. It’s that Pongo fellow. The gun frightened the cow, look what she’s done. Came bursting through the French windows, she’s broken the glass, torn the curtains and now there’s the telephone.’ He limped to answer the telephone shrilling in the hall. ‘Showing a light, am I? What of it? Bloody Boche, nothing better to do than frighten my cow. Of course I’m showing a light. The poor beast broke in through the blackout, broke the window, frightful mess. Nobody hurt, of course not. Turn out the light? Very well, if you insist. Oh, damn your regulations, have a heart. The plane’s miles away.’

  ‘Chased by our gallant few.’ David and Paul came hurrying in. ‘There’s a lovely row of craters across the plough. Anyone hurt, any damage?’

  ‘The cow took off through the house.’

  ‘She’s all right.’ Monika came quietly into the room. ‘She is in the kitchen. We must block up the windows; you are showing a light, Richard.’

  ‘God damn it, I know I am. How is my cow? Will this stop her milk?’

  ‘No, no, a little cut on her nose, a mess in the kitchen. I clean it up. I will put her in the garage with some hay. Yes.’

  Calypso watched Monika lead the cow out of the house, then helped the twins block up the French windows as best they could.

  ‘Hector is afraid of me staying in London,’ she said, steadying the steps as David nailed up the torn blackout curtains. ‘He wanted me to go to Scotland.’

  ‘They get random bombs there, too.’ Paul swept up the glass.

  ‘I shall tell him so when I write.’ Calypso suddenly missed Hector. ‘I feel sick,’ she said, sitting down on the sofa, ‘and sweaty.’

  ‘That’s fear, we all get it.’

  Calypso looked at the twins. ‘I didn’t realize. I thought it was just me.’ She felt admiration.

  ‘Sophy will be sorry to have missed this.’ Richard limped in to join them. ‘Monika says leave all this mess and come to the kitchen, she has some soup for us. Make a change to have some lively news for the child, my letters get a bit boring.’

  ‘There’s someone at the front door.’ Paul went and opened it. ‘Hullo, Mr Hoskings.’ An old man wearing an A.R.P. helmet came into the hall.

  ‘They was trying to bomb Coverack, thought you’d like to know, Major. Any damage here, then?’

  ‘Coverack’s thirty miles away, need their heads examined. As for you, young fellow’—Richard Cuthbertson suddenly noticed Brian Portmadoc standing sheepishly behind the air raid warden—‘hope you’re pleased with your night’s work.’

  ‘Very, very sorry, sir. We shall be moving on now, can’t fire it twice from the same place.’

  ‘And how’s Jerry to know that?’ asked the warden nastily. ‘You foreigners coming down here with guns, interfering, ach.’

  Calypso showed Brian Portmadoc out.

  ‘What does he mean, foreigner?’ Brian asked, aggrieved.

  ‘Anyone who isn’t Cornish.’

  ‘I suppose I shan’t see you again?’ The young man lingered, a prey to mixed feelings, proud to have fired his gun, angry with the air raid warden, infatuated with Calypso.

  ‘Come and see me in London,’ she said casually. ‘I’m in the book.’

  ‘May I really?’

  ‘Of course. Night, then.’ She closed the door and went to the downstairs lavatory and was sick.

  ‘I’m never scared in London,’ she said, rejoining the party in the kitchen, ‘I must have agoraphobia,’ but her uncle, Monika and the twins were not listening. They were gathered round the wireless to hear the news in German with Monika translating.

  Presently there was the sound of a car outside and the General came in.

  ‘Hear you had a spot of bother,’ he said, looking round the kitchen. ‘Nothing serious, I hope.’

  Richard regaled him with a list of damage and complaint. The General was wearing battledress with Home Guard insignia.

  ‘Thought if you were in trouble Monika might like to take shelter with me, and anyone else of course. How about you, Calypso?’

  ‘No,’ said Richard Cuthbertson, ‘let it not be said that the Hun chases my guests away, mustn’t allow any hint of defeat. Cow’s upset, of course. The only thing I want moved is that infernal gun. Stupid fellow in charge fired the damn thing, even I know it’s a million to one chance of his hitting anything in the dark. Just fired it for the hell of it, if you ask me.’

  ‘He did come to apologize,’ said Paul. ‘Fair’s fair, sir.’

  ‘Let’s go and see if he’s packing up.’ David signalled to Calypso, who was watching Monika edge away from the General as he put an arm round her waist.

  ‘Like to come, Monika?’ asked Paul. ‘Get a breath of fresh air before bed?’

  They took Monika round the house and stood on the lawn looking down at the gun. There was activity, sounds of talk of a grumbling nature, a hearty oath. Somebody started a lorry engine. Side lights were switched on, engines revved up and lorries drove away, bumping across the grass.

  ‘It would have amused Sophy.’ Calypso took Monika’s hand. ‘Are you all right, Monika? Hector says we aren’t as incompetent as we appear, he talks as though we shall win the war. What do you think of that, twins?’ She chuckled.

  ‘We do our best,’ they said gravely.

  Monika let out a long high cry which echoed down the cliffs, chilling their blood. A howl of anger, frustration, despair.

  Twenty-one

  BY THE TIME SOPHY came home for Christmas the saga of the gun had grown. Enemy planes, Sophy heard in the village, had attacked the Scillies, killed several people and sunk an M.T.B. Some said it was a destroyer but others said no. Lord Haw-Haw said an M.T.B. The planes had continued on their way to bomb Helena and Richard’s house and it was not the anti-aircraft gun but Mr and Mrs Erstweiler who had been the target. Had not the General said they were German spies? He was wrong—the village knew. Mrs Erstweiler was harmless, her son a prisoner of war. Not in a real prison camp but a concentration camp. What’s the difference? If Mrs Penrose worked for Mrs Erstweiler at the house on the cliff she couldn’t be a spy. Mrs Penrose also worked at the Rectory. All those London kids, disgusting, really. Mr Erstweiler’s a nice gentleman, pity one couldn’t understand his accent. The papers said he was a famous violinist, so there you are, no spy he, whatever the General said. Luckily the Floyer twins had run to the rescue when the bombs fell, nobody hurt bar the cow, funny Lord Haw-Haw made no mention. They’d swept on, those bombers, plucky really after being fired at, to bomb Penzance, did some damage there, Lord Haw-Haw mentioned that, then on to Plymouth. Getting bombed a lot, Plymouth.

  ‘I came through Plymouth, the station’s a mess,’ said Sophy.

  There, now, it just goes to show. Sophy listened at the post offi
ce, at the shop, got hot news at the garage and best of all the truth, she swore it was the truth, from Mrs Penrose who was entitled to know. Had not her husband fallen over the cliff, pushed by a German spy, just before the war began? Mrs Penrose had a fascination for Sophy, who watched her scrubbing floors on hands and knees, her large bottom high, refusing to use the squeezy mop which Helena had bought on her last visit. Sophy followed Mrs Penrose round the house, watching her dust and make beds and in the kitchen with Monika. While Monika worked silently Mrs Penrose talked, describing her life with Penrose, as she referred to her husband. Penrose had spent his early days at sea before joining the coastguards. Penrose did not like the station on the cliff, Penrose had been happy on the Longships cut off from the drink, for Penrose drank. Never on duty, but when he came off duty he reached for the bottle. Mrs Penrose, having her mid-morning tea, would reach for the teapot in illustration. ‘Penrose often went on duty half seas over. No wonder he couldn’t be a proper husband, poor soul.’

  ‘What’s a proper husband?’

  ‘Never you mind.’ Penrose’s superiors never knew of his weakness. ‘Why, he would walk along the cliff to work as straight and upright as you please. He would sit by the cliff path before going on duty and stare at the sea. He loved the sea, the sea and the drink. He should never have married, he couldn’t be a proper husband, could he? Penrose must have been drunk or he would have seen the spy who pushed him over.’

  ‘Did anyone see the spy?’

  Nobody, spies were sneaky people who worked unseen. Then thump, push, over he goes, and Mrs Penrose was a widow, not that he was ever a proper husband, otherwise—

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, I’d have kids, wouldn’t I? Not that I like kids, look at the worry they cause. You poor dear have all that worry. If Mr Erstweiler, well, if as I say he’d been like Penrose there wouldn’t be all this worry over your Pauli, would there? Now,’ Mrs Penrose would say, taking her cup to the sink, ‘you mustn’t keep me here talking. I must get on with my work,’ and Sophy and Monika would smile, both too careful to ask the other what she knew or thought she knew of Penrose.