What Was Rescued

by Jane Bailey

  ‘That’s three whole days!’

  ‘But they’re coming from London. And they haven’t seen the house yet.’

  ‘Well, that’s your problem. Why didn’t you invite them when you moved in? Then that little Welsh girl could’ve cooked them pie and mash every day.’

  ‘We’ll find a way of . . . I’ll sort out the meals, somehow. You won’t have to cook. Perhaps just the first day? It would be nice to welcome them with a meal.’

  She clenched her jaw and glared at me. I swallowed hard.

  ‘They’re my parents. They only want to see where we live, how well I’ve done for myself.’

  ‘How well you’ve done for yourself!’ she sneered, repeating each word as if she were holding it up for ridicule. ‘Well that won’t take them three days!’

  ‘Why don’t we invite your mother to stay soon as well?’

  ‘Well, there’s a treat!’

  ‘Pippa, I promise I’ll make this as easy as possible, and I’ll make it up to you.’ I had a sudden inspiration. We hadn’t had a proper honeymoon – just a weekend in Bath – as I’d been unable to take the time off work at such short notice. ‘Why don’t we plan a holiday for ourselves? Where would you like to go?’

  She exhaled slowly, as if containing her patience.

  ‘Please don’t tell me you want me to get my bucket and spade and go to Weston-super-Mare with you?’

  As a matter of fact, I had pictured us walking along the sands at Weston together, but I tried to think on my feet. I could see I’d aroused her interest, though, because she put her head to one side.

  ‘Well, if I’d married Jeremy, he was going to take me on the Grand Tour.’

  I didn’t know what the ‘Grand Tour’ referred to, but I imagined it was abroad. I knew I couldn’t afford anything like that, but I tried to be as glamorous as possible. I knew an island would tempt her.

  ‘I was thinking maybe . . . the Isle of Wight?’

  ‘The Isle of Wight? Can’t we go to Austria? I have friends in Austria. Or France? I’d love to go to Monte Carlo again.’

  When I said it would cripple us to embark on a foreign holiday and that very long trips now would tire her out, she began to cry. She sobbed that her life was pointless and joyless and that all she had to look forward to was getting fatter and cooking spam and eggs for my parents. I began to think it was unreasonable of me to invite my parents. I started to make rash claims that I would do everything myself, that she would barely have to lift a finger, that I would make some excuse to shorten their visit to two days, because after all she was pregnant and tired.

  They arrived on the twelve o’clock train from Paddington and I brought them to the house in a taxi. They swept into the hallway behind me, Bill and Elsie, bringing gifts and smiles for Pippa and cries of astonishment and pleasure for me. My mother was so pleased for us both that her eyes were buried in her smiling and only emerged to pop open wide at some new delight: the toaster, the new radio, the carpet on the stairs, the fitted bathroom.

  ‘You look radiant!’ said my mother, squeezing Pippa’s hands. ‘Radiant – doesn’t she, Bill?’

  ‘She looks smashing.’

  Pippa did not offer to take their coats, but I did, and I hung them by the door as she showed them into the front room.

  ‘He’s a lucky man, our son. Ah, here he is . . . I was just saying . . .’

  I put my arm around my wife and she smiled for them, before saying that she had to go and see to the lunch. My mother followed her to the kitchen carrying her basket with an enormous apple pie in it, ‘To save you making dessert – or to keep till later – I don’t want to replace anything you’ve prepared.’

  I sat down with my father and we chatted about the upcoming football season, doing our best to make contact through the safety of the Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur. I had put the ship in the bottle back on the mantelpiece. I knew Dad would be pleased to see it in pride of place. I wanted to say, ‘Dad, have I made a mistake? And if I have, please tell me what to do – what would you do?’ But even as I strained to convey this to him from behind my screen of normality, I knew exactly what my father would have done in my shoes. For a start, he wouldn’t have weakened before wedlock, and even if he had, he would have done the honourable thing, exactly as I had done, and lived with the consequences, for better, for worse. Even if I could have bared my soul to him, he would have counselled me to do no differently. And before they left, I think they both saw my soul stripped naked, without my having to share a single thought.

  ‘All right, Elsie?’ he said, as my mother came back into the front room.

  ‘Yes!’ Her stricken face lit up with another smile, and I could only sit and wonder what had happened in the kitchen.

  Lunch was a strained affair, with both of my parents and myself trying to keep the conversation going. My mother, a past master at filling gaps, would not allow a second to go by without a syllable in it. This gave the exchange a dislocated, sometimes quirky thread, but I was grateful to her for coming up with words when the rest of us were stumped, and for changing route when some hurdle was put in her way.

  ‘So you were in the same boat as Arthur? Boat Nine?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What a coincidence! I bet your parents were relieved when they heard the news of the rescue.’

  ‘I doubt my father even noticed. And I think my mother was disappointed that someone else wasn’t going to take me off her hands after all.’

  Mum found this one hard to take in in one gulp, so Dad came to her rescue.

  ‘Do you have any brothers and sisters?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge. Only daughter meets only son, I’m afraid.’

  There was a short silence, which my father curtailed.

  ‘It’s a pity you never met Philip. Arthur had a little brother called Philip. Well, perhaps you did meet him, of course?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I did meet him.’

  Mum put down her knife. ‘You knew him? You knew Philip?’

  ‘Only a little.’

  ‘He was . . . lost at sea.’ Mum looked lost at sea too.

  ‘I heard. How absolutely dreadful for you.’ I was pleased that Pippa was managing some empathy. ‘How awful! I can’t imagine what that must have been like. That poor, poor boy. I was so fond of him.’

  ‘Were you?’

  ‘Oh, he was adorable. Just adorable. Friends with that odd little Welsh girl, though. Don’t think she was a very good influence. What was her name? . . . Dora.’

  Dad’s radar kicked in fast.

  ‘This is a wonderful shoulder of lamb, Pippa. How good of you to go to all this trouble. We really weren’t expecting anything like this.’

  ‘It is a tasty bit of lamb, all right,’ said Mum, reluctantly leaving her favourite subject, but making a mental note to revisit it at her leisure. ‘You not having any more than that yourself? You’ll waste away, Pippa.’

  ‘I’m fat. I don’t want to get any fatter.’

  ‘Nonsense. You look a picture.’

  ‘Yes, but a picture of what? A Botticelli cherub, perhaps – or a beached whale.’

  ‘A botty . . . ? Elsie’s right. You look a picture.’

  ‘And you’ve got the gravy just right, Pippa.’

  ‘Yes, I like a thick bit of gravy. Elsie’ll tell you, I don’t like it too runny, do I, Else?’

  ‘No, he doesn’t like it runny.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake!’

  I thought she was going to get up and leave the room, but she didn’t. She just sat there, with Elsie and Bill not knowing where to look and gazing earnestly down at their lamb and beans for a clue. Maybe there was some mileage in the firmness of carrot?

  Pippa carried on as if nothing had happened. She chewed silently on some food and then enquired about their journey, which Bill jumped on eagerly and which had been, it seemed, wonderful. Mum continued to fill the gaps to ensure that none of us felt uncomfortable, but from then on I noticed her hands shaking a fraction,
and her smile faltered a little from time to time.

  In the afternoon we all went for a walk on the Downs and looked at the view from the Clifton Suspension Bridge. More gasps of delight and wonderment. More scathing silence from Pippa. When we reached home, I made us all a cup of tea – with my mother desperately trying to help. Once alone in the kitchen with me, she tapped my hand, whispering excuses for Pippa’s behaviour and telling me not to worry. My parents’ sympathy for my wife’s tiredness was overwhelming, and Pippa’s response to their kindness was to sit without saying a word, occasionally closing her eyes on some comment they made, then wearily opening them again.

  ‘Oh God!’ she said suddenly, ‘What’s that piece of trash doing back on the mantelpiece?’

  On Sunday morning they remembered that they had promised to feed a neighbour’s cat on the bank holiday Monday, so would not be able to stay another night. Pippa’s sarcasm as she said ‘Oh, what a shame!’ lacked any of the subtlety she may have supposed it to have amidst people like my parents.

  God. When I remember them smiling that day, it breaks my heart.

  26

  DORA

  It was the third week in July, I think, and I was beginning to find the heat overwhelming. My hair had grown long and unruly and Patsy said she had a sister-in-law in Nyons who was a hairdresser and who would cut it for free. So on the next market day, she got out Bee’s old Renault and took Claudine and me to the little town of Nyons.

  There are so many, many smells that bring that place flooding back to me. It’s a dangerous thing to have a smell association. There’s no controlling it. Smell bypasses all the normal routes in your memory and makes its own magical way direct to your core. The lavender harvest was over and the oil was being extracted in the lavender factory. Nyons was full of the smell of it: so sweet and invasive it was hard to ignore. The intensity of it filled me with a kind of joy. And when, passing the different market stalls, more fragrances filled my head – of freshly baked bread, of garlic, salami, rosemary, honey, cheese, olives, pizza or coffee – I felt I was discovering my sense of smell for the first time. The awnings of the market stalls cast cooling shadows, and the morning sun had not yet heated the pavements. If I close my eyes, I can still bring it all back. And if I smell any one of those things . . .

  Anyway, Patsy led us through the market to a little hairdresser’s shop, where her sister-in-law was just holding a mirror up to the back of her client’s head. Loud exclamations of joy followed, with multiple kissings on each cheek. The client paid and departed, and more delight followed. Maryse, the sister-in-law, looked at me with glee. She held my hair as if it were an injured bird and stroked it behind my ears, putting her head on one side. Then she showed me to the newly vacated chair. I tuned out the loud chatter between the women and allowed myself to enjoy the feel of her hands running through my hair and combing it and parting it, lifting and stroking, all the time smiling at me and talking to Patsy and Claudine, asking me questions which they answered for me. I was taken to a small sink where my hair was gently washed, then I was seated again at the chair, a cover was swung over me, and a glass of iced tea was placed in my hands. I felt like a child, devoid of responsibility, and I was happy to let the women take control. Never in my life had I been to a hairdresser’s: Our Mam had always trimmed it for me with the kitchen scissors. Now I sat and let something more creative happen to my head. I gazed in the mirror and saw a bronzed young woman, slimmer than I remembered myself to be, and more confident. As the little snips let hair drop to the ground, I felt more alert, more alive.

  When Maryse brushed the back of my neck I felt my spine tingle, and as she held up the mirror for me to look, I could hardly believe it was my head she was showing me. The women cooed and hooted with approval. I was made to stand up, brushed down and instructed to turn around.

  ‘Tourne-toi! Tourne-toi! Qu’elle est belle!’

  I could barely look at myself; I felt more fashionable than I had a right to. Maryse had given me a beautifully styled bob, the long top layers showing off my newly sun-bleached hair and the short bottom layers like velvet at my neck. I swung my head from side to side and did a mock fashion twirl at which they all laughed. I went back into the market with them, feeling like a model.

  There was an aroma of warm bread and salami as we entered the kitchen. The men had heated up the morning’s baguettes, unable to wait any longer for lunch. Sylvain, who had his feet up on the table, swung them down and whistled. ‘Tourne-toi! T’es magnifique!’

  Ralph looked up from the salami he was cutting as I spun around. His face froze.

  ‘What have you done?’

  ‘I’ve had my hair cut. Do you like it?’

  He put the knife down. He looked furious. ‘It’s horrible! What have you done to yourself?’

  Patsy and Claudine protested, and Claudine said she was going to have hers done like that next week, and it looked lovely. I felt stupid. I didn’t know where to put my hands and fumbled for the hair that I normally twirled when embarrassed, but I found nothing to hold on to and held on to my shoulders instead. Ralph stood up and went to the oven, his jaw clenched.

  ‘Well,’ said Sylvain, ‘me, I find it very . . . chic.’

  ‘It goes you well,’ said Denis.

  ‘He means it suits you.’ Claudine, unable to contain her excitement, added, ‘Don’t worry about Ralph. He has no idea about fashion. Look at his trousers!’

  People laughed, grateful for the opportunity to diffuse things, but Ralph did not raise a smile. The women unloaded the market produce on to the table, and we used the enthusiasm for the cheeses and the fruit and the olives to cover up the sourness of Ralph’s unexpected mood.

  Ralph didn’t speak to me for the rest of the day, but instead of keeping up his mood in public, he carefully hid it from the others by becoming jocular with them. He found reasons to make jokes with Denis and Sylvain, teased Claudine about a boy he knew she liked and praised Patsy’s mayonnaise, grabbing her round the waist and doing a little waltz with her round the room. No one noticed that he did not so much as look at me, or address a single word to me. At bedtime he did not come to my room, and I did not go to his. I can’t remember how long he kept up this sulk. Perhaps it was only a day or two; in my memory it may have grown. It seemed to last forever. I remember going to his room during a siesta and sitting on his bed.

  ‘What have I done? Is it really because you just don’t like my hair?’

  He remained motionless for some time, staring at the dusty light fitting hanging from the ceiling as if it held the answer to my question. Then he propped himself up on one elbow. He took a deep breath in and exhaled slowly, giving him a slightly exasperated air. ‘I’m just concerned about you, that’s all. I don’t think you realize how you come across.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean that you have absolutely no idea how men here look at young women like you – young English women especially.’

  ‘I’m Welsh.’

  He smiled then, and reached out to stroke my hand. ‘Dear Dora, you’re so innocent and lovely. It just hurts to see you corrupted in any way. And that haircut . . . it looks so . . . it makes you look . . . well, I don’t like to say.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  He stroked my hand some more and extended his caress to my arm. I suppose I was so grateful that he was speaking to me again that I was relieved. ‘You look like a woman who’s asking for it.’ I pulled my arm away and looked at him in horror. ‘Of course I don’t mean you are. I mean here, where we are in this part of the world, you can’t just swan about on your own looking like that.’

  ‘It’s a haircut!’

  ‘Oh, Dora, my sweet little Dora! You saw the way Denis and Sylvain reacted. And they’re friends. I can only guess at what would happen if you walked alone through a street looking like that. And that dress you wore to market . . . it leaves nothing to the imagination.’

  I looked at his face. It was deadly serious. My dress had bee
n an ordinary summer one, sleeveless, with a modest neckline and a dirndl skirt. True, I had worn a bra that enhanced my bosom, but that was the fashion, and frankly, the bodice of the dress didn’t fit without it. He was smiling at me in a slightly avuncular way. I had never understood him less.

  I sat for some time, stroking the coverlet, which had a lozenge pattern repeated in different colours. ‘Do you like the way I look? My hair . . . and my dress?’

  He sat right up on the bed then and pushed me back on to it. ‘I like the way you look with no adornments.’ He began to unbutton my blouse. ‘I like your simplicity.’ He pulled off my bra and tossed it aside with mild disgust. I thought about hitting him. He ran his hands over my breasts and up the inside of my thighs, and my building anger and panic dissolved almost instantly. ‘I like my sweet little Welsh girl, who was innocent until I touched her, and is innocent for everyone except me.’

  I remember that August as a haze of music, sunshine and dancing on the warm terrace. We must have done other things with our time, but those are the most vivid memories. I did ask Ralph about his book and remind him that I was supposed to be his research assistant, but he simply said irritably that he was still at the planning stage. After that, though, he disappeared to his ‘study’ each morning for an hour or so after breakfast. This was an upstairs library overlooking the terrace, and sometimes, if I stayed on chatting over coffee in the shade with Patsy or Claudine or Sylvain, I would look up and catch him watching me before he quickly looked down at his ‘work’.

  Patsy and her daughter Claudine became my firm friends. Patsy introduced me to coffee and enjoyed gossiping over it – especially about the men. Claudine, for all her eight years, had us all worked out. I liked her company especially because she could diffuse any situation. Once, when we could hear Sylvain and Ralph arguing loudly in French, she came out on to the terrace rolling her eyes.

  ‘What’s happening in there?’ I asked.