Camomile Lawn

by Mary Wesley

  ‘Nor do we know,’ said Paul. ‘Our parents took the attitude that the first shall be last and the last first. Father living up to his churchy principles and Mother with her idea of fair play.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Rather like you, darling. Will these be enough potatoes?’

  Polly blushed, looking from one brother to another. ‘I think they are right,’ she said. ‘You give me a seed of hope.’

  ‘Will you go and see them when we are gone?’

  ‘Gone where?’

  ‘Overseas, darling. The way things are going we are bound to be posted. All the action is in North Africa now. One or both of us may find ourselves in Malta.’

  ‘Oh God, no!’ Polly burst into tears.

  ‘As bad as that, is it? We rather guessed.’ They faced Polly, who stood in her kitchen apron, an oven glove in her hand, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  ‘Don’t cry, sweetheart, think how good the sun will be for us.’

  ‘We can’t leave it all to the Pongos. Hector and Oliver have been out there for ages. Nothing has happened to them.’

  ‘Oliver’s got boils, Calypso told me.’ Polly’s tears seemed limitless.

  ‘And Hector has an office job, I know.’ Gently they held her, patting her, wiping her tears, stroking her brown hair away from her face. ‘There,’ they said, ‘there. Better now.’

  Polly gulped strangled words against David’s shoulder, laying her head against him, reaching a hand for Paul.

  ‘It’s Walter.’

  ‘That was months and months ago.’

  ‘I know, but it’s still—’

  The brothers exchanged smiles across her tangled hair.

  ‘Come, blow your nose. You may not have to weep for us.’

  ‘When are you likely to go?’

  ‘We have guesswork, that’s all. You probably hear more in your office.’

  ‘Hence the tears.’ Polly dried her eyes, trying to subdue her fear.

  Twenty-eight

  LEFT ON HER OWN in Cornwall Monika increased the production of food. To hens she added ducks, letting them stray round the flower garden to eat slugs. She bought two rabbits and put them on the tennis court where, wired in, they lolloped, oblivious of the fate in store. The General came and examined the pretty creatures.

  ‘You realize, Monika, my dear, that you have two bucks. You have been sold a pup.’

  ‘I do not understand.’

  ‘You will never get young with two bucks. You must kill one of these and get a doe.’

  The upshot was a rabbit stew such as the General had not imagined possible. He invited himself to come again, to the delight of the villagers who followed his every movement, as reported by Mrs Penrose. Bets were laid as to whether the General would entice Monika into his bachelor household before Richard returned from London or Max visited again. At the Rectory Mildred Floyer remarked to her husband that village gossip might have some foundation and that Monika was strangely naïve.

  ‘She is tormented by fear for her son. Anything that takes her mind off him is a good thing,’ said the Rector. ‘The W.I. should have gone in for rabbits. They should not wait for Monika to set an example.’

  ‘She is not a member.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because she is a foreigner, not even of the English variety. Her delicatessens infuriate them.’

  ‘Dear God! Women!’ The Rector felt safe to protest to God in his own kitchen.

  ‘She will,’ said Mildred, laughing, ‘go too far. They are shocked by the fungi, disgusted by the garlic, furious that without a trace of black market she produces so much. They hope she will come to grief.’

  ‘Has she not enough grief?’

  ‘They hope that she will alienate the men as well.’

  ‘You are usually right,’ said the Rector. ‘Poor woman. We, at least, know more or less what our High Flyers are up to.’

  ‘More or less,’ said Mildred. ‘Though sometimes it seems to me they perch rather often in Polly’s house.’

  ‘They have known Polly all their lives. It was Calypso who struck me as a potential menace before she settled down.’

  ‘And how settled is that, one wonders.’

  The Rector did not reply but went to struggle with his sermon, to preach peace which he believed in yet give comfort to the parishioners who had sons at war.

  Sophy, home for the holidays, borrowed Mrs Penrose’s bicycle to go to Newlyn harbour where, although entrance to the quays was forbidden to anyone without a pass, she had found that a blind eye was turned to a child, especially if the child brought eggs to barter for fish.

  Sitting on an upturned lobster pot above a Belgian trawler tied to the quay, having swopped her eggs for a langouste, she listened to the fishermen talking with savage glee of the night’s trawl in incomprehensible Flemish. Men drifted in twos and threes to join the group and slap backs, every now and then breaking into laughter. Willy Penrose, a second cousin of Mrs Penrose, came and sat on a bollard.

  ‘What’s going on, Willy?’

  Willy glanced around, then said: ‘They made a funny catch last evening.’

  ‘Oh, what?’

  ‘Not for me to say. Ain’t you getting a bit big to be coming into the harbour?’

  ‘What happened, Willy?’

  ‘Cross your heart?’ He squinted at her.

  ‘Cross my heart, Willy.’

  Willy bent forward, putting a cigarette in his mouth, cupping his hands round the match.

  ‘Jerry plane came down between Land’s End and Scillies. Jerry pilot bales out. Belgian picks him out of the drink, ties a rope round his feet then trawls ’im behind. The Belgians ain’t fond of Jerries.’

  ‘Oh, Willy!’ Sophy stared aghast.

  ‘Crossed your heart, didn’t you? No need to believe what I say, plenty don’t.’

  ‘Oh, Willy.’

  ‘You stop coming into the harbour where you don’t belong to be then. Take your lobster home and don’t come again. You’re a big girl now, too big to creep in.’

  Sophy found her bicycle, put the langouste in the basket and half an hour later, obsessed by the picture of the pilot’s body trawling through the sea, skidded on a patch of cow dung and crashed, barking both knees. She was sitting in the road examining her wounds when voices from a nearby cottage drifted through the air. She limped to the cottage and knocked. When a woman opened the door she mutely pointed to her knees. She was led in, sat in a chair, had her wounds painfully bathed, was given a cup of tea and told she would be taken home as soon as Dad came with his car.

  ‘The bicycle.’ Sophy shivered from shock.

  ‘Our Tom, go and fetch it.’

  A mutinous looking boy went out and clattered the bicycle, propping it against the gate.

  ‘Mrs Penrose’s bike, ain’t it?’

  ‘Yes, she lent it to me. Is it hurt?’

  ‘Nay.’ The boy sat angrily at the kitchen table, putting both hands protectively over a cardboard box.

  His mother glanced at him and, continuing the argument Sophy had interrupted, said: ‘You take them straight back to that John.’

  ‘Can’t. He won’t give me back my knife.’

  ‘Do as I tell ’ee.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘What you can’t is keep those things here.’ She looked at Sophy sipping her tea. ‘Tom’s swapped his knife for guinea pigs, proper pests. I’ll throw them out.’

  ‘Do then. I don’t want them.’ The boy thrust the box towards his mother and slammed out of the house.

  ‘He brings animals home and lets them die,’ said his mother.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Pups, kittens, birds, they all die, as though our lads getting killed weren’t enough.’

  ‘Have you got a son in the forces?’

  ‘No, but this war aggravates me. You from Cuthbertsons’ up on cliff?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Lost your cousin. Drowned, I suppose.’

  ‘Yes.’


  ‘You have the guinea pigs then. Tom’s dad gets angry with all he brings home. ’Tisn’t as though the child cared.’

  Presently Tom’s Dad dropped Sophy, the bicycle and the guinea pigs at the house and Monika put them in with the rabbits. That evening the General called, bringing a bottle of cheap sherry.

  ‘If you don’t like it you can use it for cooking.’

  ‘Of course I shall like it. Come and see what Sophy was given today.’ Monika led the way to the tennis court.

  ‘There,’ she said, pointing proudly.

  ‘By Jove, takes one back, used to keep guinea pigs as a boy. Trouble is they breed faster than rabbits, used to drive my mother mad.’ Putting his arm round Monika’s waist the General gave it a squeeze.

  ‘Reminds me of Peru,’ said Monika, moving away. ‘Max did a concert tour of South America and from Lima we went up into the mountains to see the villages.’

  ‘Women wear bowler hats, I hear. Heard about the German plane? Limping home, lucky shot by some ack ack in Bristol I daresay, ditched off Land’s End, Belgian trawler picked up the pilot, dead when they got him to Newlyn.’

  ‘How dreadful.’ Monika looked at the General in distress.

  ‘Germans, Monika, they were Germans. It was an enemy plane, nothing dreadful about that.’

  Monika frowned and went into the house.

  ‘If one didn’t know she was worrying about her son one would think she was pro-German,’ the General said to Sophy in disgust.

  ‘She doesn’t like anyone getting killed.’

  ‘Womanish rubbish. Don’t you start. Can’t have a war without killing, wouldn’t do at all.’

  ‘She didn’t want a war.’

  ‘Can’t understand her attitude, such a pretty woman, such a good cook.’

  Upstairs, face down on her bed, Monika lay wishing Max would come to her for a few days, speak to her in their native tongue, relax for her the constant strain of being an alien in a land at war with her country. She had let them believe her fear of air-raids kept her from London. It was convenient, while Helena created an establishment where Max could invite fellow musicians and get into the English scene, easier for him with Helena. Once acclimatized she knew Helena’s ascendancy would weaken. Monika lay listening to the waves breaking against the cliffs. She feared the sea and at times she loathed the English, with their obstinate courage, their patronizing kindness. Her heart ached for Viennese jokes, for the smell of hot chocolate and Continental cigarettes. Max had told her of the bribe to get them to America, a country she liked even less than England. She was thankful he had refused. She opened the drawer of her bedside table and allowed herself to look at a snapshot of Pauli. He frowned in sulky reproach, filling her with guilt.

  ‘Is that your son?’ She had not heard Sophy come in. ‘I did knock.’

  ‘I was a long way away. Yes, that is Pauli if,’ she added, ‘he is still alive.’ Monika put the photograph back in the drawer.

  ‘The General left. Said he’d come back another day.’ She exchanged glances with Monika. ‘He has a shine on you.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘He’s falling in love with you, like Uncle Richard.’ They laughed. ‘Are you very unhappy?’

  ‘An attack of homesickness, that’s all.’

  ‘That’s enough,’ exclaimed Sophy. ‘I have it all the time at school. Do you hate it here very much?’

  ‘Only sometimes. What I miss is my mother tongue.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Max says that we must always speak English, learn to think in English, sometimes I rebel. I was thinking just now of the smells of home. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, I do. At school I think of the smell of the camomile lawn. What did Pauli smell like? I hope I shall meet him. You won’t rush straight back, will you? Will you go and find him, or will he find you?’

  ‘We will never go back. Jews move on.’

  ‘Then he will come here and I will meet him. I wish,’ said Sophy, looking out at the scudding clouds, ‘I wish they’d all come home. Walter won’t. Oh Monika.’ She threw herself into Monika’s arms, told of the Belgian trawler and what Willy Penrose had said.

  Presently comforted in Monika’s arms she said, ‘Don’t let’s tell anybody.’

  ‘It would be no use. Only the other side commits atrocities,’ said Monika drily.

  ‘But—’

  ‘You think Oliver would not, nor Hector nor the twins?’ Monika spoke bitterly. ‘They will be given medals. Gongs, as they call them.’

  ‘It’s not the same,’ Sophy sobbed. ‘The fishermen weren’t English.’

  ‘But the man who told you was pleased, nicht? He approved, nicht? He was English.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose—well, Cornish.’

  ‘Then what is the difference? The Nazis are not the only ones.’

  ‘They started it.’

  ‘By the time this is finished none of us will care who started it.’ Monika smoothed Sophy’s hair. ‘Come,’ she said, ‘help me pack the hampers for our brave family in London.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Will you take some eggs to Mrs Floyer for me, and some butter for Herr Floyer? He does not eat enough.’

  Sophy propped the bicycle against the porch and walked into the Rectory without knocking. From the kitchen area she heard Mildred Floyer’s voice, ‘Not so loud,’ almost drowned by the sound of children singing a breathless version of Fred Astaire’s ‘Putting on my top hat’, as they tap danced round the big iron boiler of uncertain age and horrible temperament which heated the bath water.

  ‘Monika sent you these eggs and the butter is for Herr Floyer.’ Sophy handed over her basket.

  ‘She behaves as though I starve him. He has always been thin, he eats like a horse. Oh, children,’ she raised her voice. ‘Not quite so much noise, please.’ The racket subsided slightly. ‘Come into the kitchen, darling. The Herr Floyer will be most grateful, he will probably pass it on to someone he thinks more worthy. Don’t tell Monika.’

  ‘Of course not. Your evacuees seem to be flourishing. How are the nits?’

  ‘We have them under control.’

  ‘They all seem very settled.’

  ‘Yes. Some went home, but if the raids start again they will be back.’

  ‘None for ages. Have you heard from Paul and David?’

  ‘Yes, coming on leave, both of them.’

  ‘How lovely.’

  ‘Not lovely, it’s embarkation leave.’ Mildred Floyer looked anxious.

  ‘Oh, where?’

  ‘I don’t know. Why is it worse to have them overseas? They are in danger, anyway. It’s their second or third tour, I’m losing count.’

  ‘No telephone. A long time for letters. Not being able to imagine the place, I suppose. I try and—’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I try and imagine Hector when I see Calypso and Oliver, of course, when I see Aunt Sarah.’ And, Sophy thought, at all other times. ‘Perhaps they will all meet out there and think of home.’

  Mildred stood by the kitchen table holding Monika’s basket. ‘It’s so difficult to realize what’s going on. There is so little sign of war. People training, of course, those Commandos round St Ives and now the Americans, but we never actually see anything happening.’

  In her mind’s eye Sophy saw the body towed behind the Belgian trawler. ‘Monika says both sides commit atrocities.’

  ‘What a funny thing to say. She’s foreign, of course.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Poor Monika. Her son. There seems no way for people like Monika to find out. You’d think the Red Cross—’

  ‘She says the Red Cross have no access to concentration camps.’

  ‘I think, I hope Monika exaggerates. It really is hard to believe that even Hitler—surely our propaganda—I mean that exaggerates too. I am sure when the war is over she will find her Pauli is quite all right and has been doing something useful all the time.’ Mildred clutched at her Christian e
thics.

  ‘I think he is probably dead.’

  ‘Sophy, what an awful thing to say.’

  ‘Why? He wouldn’t be suffering as he is now.’

  ‘Not if he’s in a good job.’

  ‘He is a pianist.’

  ‘Well, then, he is probably entertaining the troops. They can’t be all that different from us.’

  ‘But he’s a Jew, not allowed to work.’

  ‘Oh.’ Mildred put the eggs away. ‘None of us knows anything and now the boys are off overseas I don’t know what to think. We listen to the news but it doesn’t really tell us anything, does it? All those names …’

  ‘Tobruk, Cairo, El Alamein, Malta,’ said Sophy.

  ‘Don’t say Malta. I think if they are sent there I shall go mad.’ She put the butter on a plate and moved to the larder. ‘I can’t afford to go mad,’ she added. ‘I have too much to do, all these children. Tell Monika that I will have the boys here this time. I’d like them to be under their own roof as it’s the—’ Hopelessly Mildred began to cry. ‘Sorry to be so silly.’

  ‘It won’t be the last time,’ said Sophy stoutly. ‘Don’t cry, Mrs Floyer.’ She handed Mildred a handkerchief.

  ‘I think it’s that tune,’ said Mildred, ‘those children have been singing it non-stop for six weeks. It’s on my nerves.’

  ‘It’s the best one to tap dance to.’ Sophy found herself singing the tune as she pedalled home along the track through the fields. At the top she looked out across the sea, flecked with white horses. Below her the cliff path was overgrown by bracken and brambles. Were it not for the barbed wire there would be no trace of the Terror Run. ‘Putting on my top hat,’ sang Sophy, pedalling into the wind. ‘Tra-la-la my tails.’ Her eyes stung in the cold wind, which snatched her voice, to drown it among the gulls lower down the cliff.

  Twenty-nine

  ARRIVING EARLY AND LEAVING late, Polly immersed herself in her work. She forced herself to listen, to write, to talk of nothing but her work. She surprised the people she worked with by joining them for cups of tea, or lunch, and accepting offers of drinks or meals which normally she would refuse. Once home she turned on the radio or telephoned friends, catching up with people she had let drop. She widened her circle but avoided people close to her, busy filling her life with trivia so that she did not know what might be happening to Helena, Calypso or Sophy. None of this prevented her from waking in that dead hour when it is too early to get up and too late to sleep again, from hearing over and over again the falsely cheerful inanities David and Paul had shouted on the telephone from the air station from which they had flown to North Africa. Both had been drunk and both frightened. They were to be piloted by an American. They were averse to anyone but themselves being at the controls. If Polly had asked herself which she had spoken to last, David or Paul, she would not have been sure, any more than she had been sure of which she had made love with first. To her they were one man, multiplied by one, her lovers. She wanted them both.