Camomile Lawn

by Mary Wesley

  ‘You sure Polly wouldn’t like to come too? Take her mind off Walter. The Floyer boys are stationed somewhere near, it might be possible—’

  ‘They’ve been moved to another station now they are on ops again.’

  ‘Pity, we might have combined—seen them lately, have you?’

  ‘No,’ said Calypso obliquely, ‘no.’

  ‘They are known as the “High Floyers” in the village. Baptist minister having a dig at the Rector’s high churchmanship. Jolly good joke until they got shot down. Perhaps Sophy has some little friends who’d like a blow-out. That’s what children like when they are at school.’

  ‘She won’t be a child much longer.’ Helena eyed her husband thoughtfully.

  ‘All the more reason I should do a bit more than just pay the bills. I write, of course, and she writes back, but when she’s at home I sometimes wonder—’

  ‘Wonder what?’ Helena voiced anxiety.

  ‘Whether she’s quite normal. Not a tear when Walter was killed, left a note on the hall table and disappeared on some long walk, it was a shock for Monika and me. “Calypso phoned, Walter is killed.” Just like that, I ask you. It was cold of her.’

  ‘I expect she was glad it was not Oliver.’ Calypso looked thoughtfully at Helena. ‘She loves him.’

  ‘Rubbish, a child doesn’t know about love. What she’ll mind is if she discovers what she’s eating is Jane,’ said Richard sarcastically.

  ‘You dolt,’ said Helena viciously.

  Twenty-seven

  ‘WELL, ONE HOPES ONE gave some pleasure.’ Richard fumbled for the hinge of his leg through the material of his trousers. ‘Sophy’s little friends were a lot more forthcoming than she was. She was more interested in the grub than in us, if you ask me.’

  ‘She was glad to see us.’

  ‘You quite sure? I got more change out of her little friends, not that they gave me much information about Sophy.’

  ‘She says she hardly knows them. They aren’t in her form. She was sorry for them because nobody takes them out.’

  ‘Really? That shows a proper spirit. I was wrong about Jane. “Is this Jane?” the girl asks, biting into the drumstick, then, with her mouth full, “Can I have a bit of breast?” And then haggled as to who should pull the wishbone. I told you she was cold. Well, we’ve done our duty.’ Richard eased his leg into position and shook open the evening paper. The guard blew his whistle. The train started towards Liverpool Street with a clang.

  Calypso pulled down the blackout blind and, leaning back, closed her eyes. Thinking of Sophy’s ivory-coloured face, watchful eyes, full-lipped vulnerable mouth, she could not think of her as cold, nor was she unloving, Calypso thought, with a pang of envy.

  It had been a crisp blue and gold day and the Backs had looked their best. She and Sophy had walked slowly, following Richard ahead with the two guest girls, one redheaded, one fair. She had told Sophy about her impending child.

  ‘What will you do with it?’ Sophy had known instinctively that Calypso could not, would not cope.

  She found herself telling Sophy of her visit to Scotland and the plan she had made. Sophy perfectly understood that Hector’s castle would receive the baby with joy. She told Sophy about Catherine, the lame woman who would take charge of the infant and bring it up. Walking and talking with Sophy she described the Scottish environment objectively. Sophy needed no explanation or excuse as to why it was not an environment she could bear but would be perfect for Hector’s child.

  ‘I suppose Catherine loves Hector?’

  ‘I believe she does.’

  ‘Is it Hector’s fault that she is lame?’

  ‘He feels responsible but she says the accident was not his fault, would have happened anyway.’

  ‘Is that true?’ Sophy watched her uncle limping ahead. Now and again he touched one of the girls, putting a hand on arm or shoulder.

  ‘She doesn’t elaborate.’

  ‘He would feel guilty if he does not love her. What have you arranged?’

  Calypso explained that when the child was due Catherine would come. ‘I have booked a room in a nursing home in Wimpole Street.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Then she will take it up to Scotland and bring it up in Hector’s nursery. The place is full of Commandos but there’s a comfortable room in the nursery wing, above the kitchens.’

  ‘Won’t you have milk?’

  ‘Milk?’

  ‘Won’t you feed it? People do. I’ve learned about it, it’s called “breast-feeding”.’

  ‘I couldn’t bear to.’ Calypso shuddered, unconsciously raising her hands to her breasts. Sophy said nothing, watching the figures walking ahead. Then she said carelessly, ‘Of course not, they are private. What else?’

  Sophy broke into her rare laughter, laughing at Calypso who began to laugh too.

  ‘I haven’t told anybody. Hector left me to find out for myself. The bastard. His family are Catholic, all his people up there are Catholic. He’s in disgrace for divorcing Daphne, they don’t think of me as his proper wife.’

  ‘Will they think the baby is—’

  ‘Blood’s thicker than religion in its case, and while they can’t take to me they’ll love the child.’

  ‘You’ve never bothered about religion.’

  ‘Of course I haven’t, none of us does, look at the twins. Mr Floyer’s a parson but you’d never know from their behaviour. It appears Hector’s is one of those very old Scottish families who survived Henry VIII’s mob. It’s rather smart. I am mugging them up.’

  ‘I suppose he thought you might not marry him if you knew.’

  ‘Of course I would have. I married him because he’s rich, everyone knows that.’

  ‘I hope he’s not going to put his hand up their skirts,’ exclaimed Sophy suddenly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Uncle Richard. That’s what he used to do to me. He keeps patting Valerie and stroking Miranda.’

  ‘Then let’s walk faster and catch them up.’ Calypso increased her pace.

  ‘Didn’t he do it to you and Polly?’

  ‘I suppose he did, in a mild form. Oh Sophy, how awful, hurry.’

  ‘It’s not awful,’ said Sophy. ‘It’s just boring, but they wouldn’t understand. Uncle Richard!’ She let out a shout. ‘Wait for us.’ Ahead of them the two girls turned innocent faces alight with enquiry. ‘Calypso wants to see King’s Chapel, it’s the other way.’

  ‘Then we can have tea in a tea shop if we can find one,’ said Calypso to Miranda the redhead.

  ‘That would be nice,’ said Miranda. ‘Could we go to a lavatory before King’s Chapel?’

  ‘I’ll wait for you in the Chapel,’ said Richard. ‘Rest my leg.’

  Watching him asleep in the opposite corner Calypso felt affection. He had played his avuncular part. All those two girls had been interested in was gobbling the picnic lunch. Why should he not put his hand up their skirts? she thought indignantly. They wore elastic in their knickers. She had observed the blonde Valerie wrapping a fairy cake in her handkerchief and stuffing it up under her gym tunic.

  ‘Come to me sometimes on your way through London,’ she had said to Sophy.

  ‘May I? I would love that. Polly often gets very full up.’

  And what, Calypso thought, did Sophy mean by that? What did she know?

  ‘Not bad little friends, those two of Sophy’s.’ Richard woke suddenly. ‘Quite pretty and appetizing in their way. Pity Sophy’s growing up so fast.’

  ‘She’s going to be a beauty.’

  ‘D’you think so?’

  ‘Yes. Those eyes, like jet. Who was her father, Uncle Richard?’

  ‘Well may you ask! Better not to enquire, I never did. Wouldn’t have been much use if I’d wanted to. Her mother was dead by the time I reached her and I was left holding the baby, I ask you. Fortunately I had persuaded Helena to marry me, not that she has ever taken to the child. She is not a child lover.’

  ‘Nor am I.�
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  Richard laughed. ‘Find a wet nurse.’

  ‘I’ve found a nurse. It can have a bottle.’

  ‘Well then, there’s nothing to it.’

  ‘I still have to bear the thing.’

  ‘Strong girl like you.’ Richard Cuthbertson snapped his fingers. ‘Nothing to it. My poor sister was the runt of the family.’

  ‘Oh? I know nothing about her.’

  ‘Brains though, she had brains, and this mania for travelling, couldn’t be content with her own country, always off abroad somewhere. I couldn’t keep up with her travels.’

  ‘Did her husband?’

  ‘She didn’t have a husband, good Lord, no. Would have tied her down, stopped all that drifting round the world. She came back to base to have Sophy—a British passport matters even to people like my sister—just in time, she was practically born in the docks. She ran it fine.’

  ‘Where had she been?’

  ‘Your guess is as good as mine. By the time I got the letter the child was born and my sister dead.’

  ‘Oh. Was there—’

  ‘Nothing. Padre chap had given her the last rites and she died. If the stupid fellow had stopped to think he might have gleaned a shred of information, but he was high like Floyer, keen on spiritual matters, R.C. now I come to think of it. Supposed he was doing the right thing. Fellow said, “Your sister died in a state of grace.” How did he know? Said she gasped out “Tell my brother”, then kicked the bucket. I’ve been wondering ever since what the message was.’ Richard Cuthbertson lifted the blind and peered out into the darkness. ‘Getting into London by the look of it. Indo-China.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Looks as if she came from Indochina. Now what’s happened? Why are we stopping?’

  ‘Some delay.’

  The train sighed, hissed, then all was quiet. Calypso tried to catch the words from a conversation in the next carriage. There was a long pause.

  ‘Life isn’t easy, is it?’ Richard looked at his niece.

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘I saw you today. I can’t help liking little girls, they are so pretty.’

  ‘Uncle Richard, you needn’t—’

  ‘I never hurt them. Didn’t hurt you or Polly, did I? Now Sophy’s growing up, growing away. People say Ruskin was a stinker but I don’t suppose he could help himself, probably had only looked at pictures and statuary. “Art” was different in his day, poor fellow was a virgin like as not, then when he married he got the hell of a shock. Were you a virgin when you married?’

  ‘Of course I was.’

  ‘No of course. Bet you got a shock.’

  ‘Actually—’

  ‘Ah, the train’s starting. Unexploded bomb on the line, do you think?’

  ‘There haven’t been any raids for ages.’

  ‘Nor there have. Funny effect trains have, one finds oneself talking as though one were in limbo, voicing private, er, really private ideas. Just ideas, of course.’

  ‘Of course, Uncle Richard.’

  ‘That’s all right, then. The extraordinary thing is that I don’t mind it on Monika, actually like it, and she doesn’t shave her armpits like you girls.’

  ‘That’s Continental.’ Calypso began to laugh.

  ‘What are you laughing at?’

  ‘You, Uncle Richard, oh-oh-oh!’ Calypso wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘Ah-ah-ah oh!’ she moaned. ‘Oh!’

  ‘I wish I knew what’s so funny. You children make a mock of me. I’m just a one-legged misfit in this bloody war.’ Richard suddenly felt rage. ‘I go to my club and it’s full of every conceivable ass in uniform and I am totally useless. Helena has a lover, a well-known violinist, she’s sick of her boring one-legged husband. I’ve never ever been able to make love to her, I ask you. I never liked women until—’

  ‘Monika?’

  ‘Yes. Why am I talking such tommy rot, it’s being in a train, what’s the matter?’ Calypso had moved to sit beside him, putting an arm round his shoulders.

  ‘You’re brave, Uncle Richard, you are contributing so much. Look what you’ve done to my morale. I was depressed. You are wonderful.’ Calypso was between laughter and tears.

  ‘No, no.’ Richard looked embarrassed.

  ‘Yes, yes, awfully brave. We all love you, you know we do.’

  ‘Rubbish.’ Richard grew red in the face.

  ‘It’s true,’ cried Calypso, making it true for herself at least. ‘Without you all our lives would be different. Think how you rescued Max and Monika from internment—marvellous.’

  ‘We are getting into the station, let’s see if we can find a taxi.’ Richard was embarrassed.

  Calypso combed her hair and applied lipstick. When the train stopped she took Richard’s arm as he limped up the platform.

  ‘Will you be godfather to the baby, Uncle Richard?’

  ‘I don’t think I’d be much good. I’m not rich and don’t believe in God. Kind of you to ask, though.’

  ‘I mean it.’

  ‘In that case, thank you. I will think about it.’

  ‘Here’s a taxi, we’re in luck. Get in, quick.’

  Richard scrambled in, dragging his leg. The taxi wound its way through dark streets and Richard sat silent. Then said: ‘Wish I’d been in those raids, a fellow feels a bit left out.’

  ‘I expect there will be more. Will you drop me at the next corner? I’m practically home.’

  ‘Tell the driver. Thank you for coming with me.’

  ‘I enjoyed it. Goodnight, Uncle. This will do.’ Calypso opened the taxi door.

  ‘Goodbye, my dear. She did offer to shave her, er, you know—’

  ‘What? Who?’ Calypso was half out of the cab.

  ‘Monika, her pussy, but I said—well, take care of yourself. Enderby Street, driver.’

  There were two letters from Hector on the mat. Calypso shut the door and drew the curtains before sitting down to read. That he had not yet heard of the baby was clear. He wrote in his neat script of the people he knew now gathered in Cairo, an old school friend who drove a dog cart to save petrol, of swimming at the Gehzira club, tennis, visits to the pyramids, the ill-feeling emanating from King Farouk, the constant round of parties, the wives who had managed to join their husbands, his doubts as to whether it would be safe for her were she to wish to come. He wrote about the light and the smell and that some day he would love to bring her to Egypt. Then he wrote of his plans for peace and several paragraphs Calypso skipped, of his political views, how they were changing. Then rather stiltedly the letter ended, leaving Calypso wondering whether she missed this man, this political animal, a man as old as her father. At least, she thought, he is interested in women, not pining after little girls. Still in the second letter Hector had not heard of her pregnancy. She frowned. Hector wrote that he planned to buy land in England and plant trees.

  Seeing all this desert makes me crave for trees. There was once a forest along the shores of North Africa. The Romans felled the trees and never replanted, hence the soil erosion which caused the desert in which we fight. I write metaphorically. My part in the fighting so far is from an office desk. Perhaps I can remedy this. Back to my dream. I shall plant woods of oak, beech, chestnut and among them flowering cherries. I will plant the cherries in curves and circles so that when some future airman flies over them he will see the name Calypso spelled out in blossom. I was in hospital with a fever when I made this plan. I met your cousin Oliver in a bar yesterday, on leave. He has desert boils, disagreeable but not fatal, love, Hector.

  Calypso sat with the thin sheets of airmail paper in her lap. This was a Hector she did not know. There were few trees in Scotland. Pines, birches and rowans. It had been cold on their honeymoon, cold when she had travelled up to see Catherine. She had walked along the track by the river. Catherine, the ghillie’s daughter, had limped along, speaking in her lilting voice, stopping to point out the rock that Hector had bullied her into jumping from when he came home from school for the holida
ys, forcing her to leap so that he could catch her, boasting of his strength. ‘There,’ she had said, pointing with her sharp chin. ‘There we fell and my leg it was that broke.’

  ‘And left you lame,’ said Calypso, shocked.

  ‘Aye.’ Catherine smiled. ‘To remember him by.’

  They had stood looking at each other, the older woman’s clear blue eyes looking into Calypso’s heavily fringed, greenish blue in the Highland light. Then, laughing, the older woman had closed the episode. ‘Yon Daphne was no leaper such as you, and our Hamish will love the glens, do not worry. He will stride the hills.’

  Sitting alone in battered London Calypso thought not of Hector but of the mountains and rushing streams which were his background, the scudding clouds and driving rain which had turned to snow, of Catherine coming to stir the fire in her bedroom and put another eiderdown over her in Hector’s bed, where she felt an alien. She felt grateful that Catherine, like Hector, made no effort to make her love that savage beauty, accepting her as a Southerner, respecting her for not pretending like Daphne to acceptance by Hector’s people. By hints and casual references Hector’s people had made it clear that, though Daphne was still in God’s eyes Hector’s wife, in their hearts they regretted it.

  Calypso telephoned Polly.

  ‘What are desert boils?’

  ‘No idea. Why?’

  ‘Hector says Oliver has them.’

  ‘Poor Oliver. Ask Aunt Sarah, she is due in London soon. Are you coming round? The twins are here.’

  ‘Not tonight, I’m quite busy.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Nothing. It takes all my time.’

  ‘Are you all right all alone?’

  ‘I have Fling. I prefer to be alone.’

  ‘That’s not like you.’

  ‘Ah, well.’ She put down the receiver.

  ‘Pregnancy is making her unsociable,’ said Polly to David, who was peeling potatoes for their supper.

  ‘She was always a bit unpredictable,’ murmured the other twin. ‘A solo artist.’

  ‘Not like us,’ said his brother. ‘But we were fated, born as we were.’

  ‘After all these years I still don’t know which of you is the eldest.’ Polly paused in her task of laying the table.