Grace put the phone down again immediately, her heart thundering. Now what did she do? What on earth was Florence doing there? She and Clifford had been totally estranged since his departure, she had said some very hard things to him, Muriel had reported with some satisfaction, and had refused to see him since. Hiding, Grace supposed, with a rush of disdain and distaste, hiding from Robert, afraid to confront him. Poor Robert, sad, gentle Robert who had been kinder to her than anyone she could remember for a long time. Whom she had promised to help. Well, she would. She had sat on the fence for quite long enough. She owed it to him to repay his kindness to her and, besides, she wanted to. Florence deserved everything she got. Everything.
The phone in Robert’s house was picked up instantly; not by him, but by the maid.
No, Major Grieg wasn’t there, he was out for supper with some friends, but he would be back at nine, and had said specifically that he would return any calls then. Could she ask who was calling?
‘Mrs Bennett,’ said Grace firmly, ‘Mrs Charles Bennett. He has my number.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Bennett.’
Charles phoned about half an hour later.
‘Darling, how are you?’
‘I’m fine, thank you,’ said Grace. Wishing, wishing so desperately she could tell him she wasn’t, tell him why.
‘I’ve been missing you so much.’
‘I’ve missed you too.’
‘I’ve got my posting. That is to say we’ve got our posting.’
‘Oh,’ said Grace, feeling bleaker than ever.
‘We’re off to North Africa. In a week. Can’t tell you more than that.’
‘Oh. Oh Charles, no—’
‘Now, darling, you’ve got to be brave. We’ve all got to be brave. Anyway, I’ve got a thirty-six-hour leave. Look, I can’t get down there, no time, no petrol allowance, nothing. I want you to come and meet me in London. Can you manage that, do you think?’
‘Yes of course I can,’ said Grace, feeling slightly affronted. This was after all, the woman who had driven all the way from Thorpe St Andrews to Thorpe Magna and back again.
‘Good girl. We can’t go to the flat of course because my father’s there, but we could stay in a hotel for the night. The Basil Street, I thought. Awfully nice. Give ourselves a bit of a treat. It is the last time for a while, after all.’
‘How lovely,’ said Grace, struggling to sound enthusiastic.
‘I’m longing to see you, darling. Really longing.’
Captain Robert Grieg reached home at eight forty-five. The maid gave him the only message. ‘Mrs Bennett phoned, sir. She said you knew the number.’
‘Indeed I do. Thank you, Clarkson. I’ll go to my study.’
He thumbed through his address book looking for Grace’s number. There it was. He reached out his hand to pick up the phone: it beat him to it, rang sharply, harshly.
‘Robert?’
‘Yes. Yes, Mother.’
‘Dear, I just wanted to say goodbye. I know you’re going back to Yorkshire in the morning. Take care of yourself, dear, and do try to write. Have you got a proper posting yet?’
‘Hoping for Gib.’
‘Please let me know when you have. Will it be soon?’
‘Yes, I imagine so, Mother. When I get back, probably.’
‘Well, all the very best, my dear. And Robert, do please try and write to your grandmother as well. She worries about you so.’
‘Yes, Mother, very well. Look, I—’
‘And there’s one more thing, Robert. I sent you some socks and a jersey and some books. Did you ever get them? Because I didn’t hear anything—’
‘Yes, Mother, I did and I’m so sorry. It’s pretty hectic up there, you know.’
‘I’m sure it is, dear. And we’re so proud of you. Is Florence all right? I do wish she’d come and stay with us here, out of London. It must be so dangerous.’
‘It’s all right at the moment, Mother. Thank you. But I’ll tell her. And yes, she’s fine.’
‘Good. Well, goodbye, dear. Do try and keep us posted. And take great care of yourself. Won’t you?’
‘Yes, Mother, I will. Of course. Thank you. And goodbye. Don’t worry about me.’
‘I’ll try not to, darling. Goodbye.’
‘Goodbye, Mother.’
He put the phone down thankfully. Now for Grace.
‘Grace? Grace, this is Clifford. How are you, my dear?’
‘I’m fine, Clifford, thank you.’
‘Good, good. Now listen. I have Florence here.’
‘Yes, I know. I spoke to her.’
‘Grace, she is in serious trouble.’
‘Oh really?’ said Grace.
‘Yes, she really is. Very serious. Robert is – well, let us just say that Robert is not all that he seems. I had suspected it for some time.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Grace.
‘Well – oh dear, this is very difficult. He has been – violent towards her. Quite violent. Beaten her several times.’
‘Oh Clifford! Clifford, surely not, I can’t believe that.’
‘Grace, it’s true. You must believe me. Anyway, Florence is here, and it is crucial that he doesn’t know. He has to go back to his regiment tomorrow and then she will be safe. So if by any chance he tries to contact you, asks you if you know where she is, would you—’
‘You want me to lie to him?’ said Grace. Her voice sounded hard even to her.
There was a silence. Then Clifford said, ‘Yes. I suppose I do. I really cannot have him finding her here. It would be very dangerous for her. Please respect my wishes in this, Grace. Please.’
Grace hesitated. If anyone, anyone else in the world had made that request she would have refused. She could not refuse Clifford. She loved him too much, owed him too much.
‘All right, Clifford,’ she said, ‘I won’t. Goodbye.’
‘Goodbye, my dear. And thank you.’
The phone rang again almost at once. It was Robert.
‘Grace! How are you? Feeling better?’
‘Yes. Yes, thank you, Robert.’
So gentle, so sweet he was; it couldn’t be true, that he was violent, had beaten Florence, it was unimaginable—
‘Good,’ he was saying, ‘and remember, there’s always next time.’
‘Yes. Of course.’
‘I enjoyed our little interlude. It was lovely.’
‘Yes, I did too. And thank you again for all you did.’
‘My pleasure. Anyway, you rang?’
‘Yes. Yes, I did.’
‘Any particular reason?’
A long silence. Grace felt torn still, longing to help him, longing to keep her promise. But she had made a more recent, more binding one to Clifford. She couldn’t do it.
‘No,’ she said finally, ‘no. Only to wish you good luck. And to say goodbye. Send me a postcard.’
‘How sweet of you.’ There was another silence, then: ‘That was really all, was it, Grace?’
‘Yes. Yes, it really was.’
‘No news from Florence?’
‘No. No, I’m afraid not.’
‘Well, never mind. I’m here till the morning, then I have to get the milk train. Back on duty at mid-day. So it’s still not too late. I’m so worried about her, so afraid something might have happened to her, I can’t sleep for worry. I love her so much, Grace, so much—’
‘Robert—’
‘Yes, Grace?’
Out in the hall Charlotte was yelping furiously; she had slipped on the polished floor and hurt her leg. Grace told Robert to hang on, put the phone down, went to pick her up, to comfort her. Trying to buy herself time to think. And knew she must not, could not do it, betray Clifford. She didn’t believe a word of this violence nonsense. Robert might have threatened Florence, with good reason if he had discovered what was going on; but he would not, could not have hit her. It just wasn’t in him. He was too good, too gentle, he loved her too much. Florence had just made it up, to mak
e herself look less blameworthy, to excuse her behaviour. Grace would never, ever believe anything else. But – she had promised Clifford. Whom she loved more than any of them.
She went back to the phone and picked it up. ‘Sorry, Robert. One hurt puppy.’
‘How is she? Sweet little thing.’
‘She’s fine. Thank you. Look, that’s all, Robert. Take care of yourself. And come and see me next time you’re home. I’m sure Florence is fine. Don’t worry about her.’
‘All right, Grace. I’ll try not to. Goodbye. God bless.’
‘Darling, darling, darling. Oh, God, thank God! Where are you, what are you doing?’
Clarissa stood in the hall of her house in London and tried to digest what Jack was doing: going up alone in his tiny plane, day after day, again and again, coming down, refuelling, going up again into the skies filled with noise and fire and death, pitting himself and his plane against the enemy aircraft – ‘And once you’re up there, you do feel you’re alone, all alone in that hellfire of a sky.’ Daytime was better, he said, at least you could see what you were doing; ‘And they always seem to be above us, I don’t know why. But it’s fine, I’m fine, I keep coming through. Worst thing is the tiredness. So that isn’t very serious. I tell you what, though. I’ve started to pray.’
‘Keep praying. Loudly. Aren’t you scared?’
‘Yes, I’m scared. Shit-scared. Our squadron leader says anyone who says he isn’t is a bloody liar. But only before, and after. When you’re up there, you don’t have time, time for anything, time to think even. You just keep going.’
‘Oh Jack, darling, take care of yourself. Stay safe.’
‘I will, Clarissa. Honestly, I’m fine. Charmed life. Don’t worry. We’re keeping Jerry away. We really are the superior force. Load of tram drivers they are in those planes. Not like us.’
‘Oh darling, I hope so.’
‘I know so. Look, I’ve been promised some leave in August. You’re not in the Wrens yet?’
‘No, but I soon will be. But don’t worry, I’ll desert to be with you.’
‘Christ, I’ve got to go. Scramble. Bye, darling, I love you.’
‘I love you too.’
Charles’s leave was not a success. Grace had a nightmare journey to London, and found a very different situation from the eerie peace of her last visit. There was still no immediate danger, no bombing, but there was a sense of urgency that had not been there before, an atmosphere of toughness, signs everywhere to shelters, shops empty of goods. Shop and office windows were boarded up, sand bags piled in readiness in doorways; children played in the side streets, their schools closed. The only thing that seemed to have been reversed was the exodus from London. Offices were filling up again, long stretches of houses no longer for sale; it was as if people had decided to get back to real life, to stop trying to take it with them.
She and Charles ate dinner in a slightly strained silence; it was a very good dinner, giving the lie to the reports of various shortages that were supposed to be absolutely across the board, but she couldn’t think of anything to say to him. She had no news, had seen no one; his mother was a dangerous area, and so was Florence, his father was not to be mentioned, she could not discuss her plans. She tried to encourage him to talk, which he did, but the stories were endlessly tedious, about exercises and training and the comparative merits of his men, and he was undoubtedly also nervous as well as excited about the next day, conscious of how momentous a parting it was to be.
‘Well, that was a lovely dinner,’ said Charles, over the coffee. ‘Brandy, darling? You look terribly tired.’
‘I’m fine,’ said Grace, forcing a quick smile. ‘Really. You must be exhausted though.’
‘Not too bad. As I said, we’ve mostly been defending the south coast which in effect has meant putting up bloody great rolls of barbed wire on the beaches and watching the dogfights overhead. The little planes, you know? Jack’s up there somewhere. I hope to God he’s all right. Bloody brave, those chaps.’
‘Yes,’ said Grace.
‘Darling, are you all right? You seem awfully blue.’
‘Yes, I’m all right. Honestly. Sorry.’
Quite suddenly he said, ‘My mother seems to think you’re in contact with my father.’
‘Oh really?’ said Grace, wondering, fiercely angry, how Muriel might have known, why she had told Charles, not mentioned it to her. ‘Yes, it’s true.’
‘Why is that?’
‘He rings me sometimes. To keep in touch. To see how I am,’ she added. ‘Not many people do that. And how you are. He worries about you so much.’
‘That,’ he said briefly, ‘is disgraceful. Oh I don’t blame you. At least not to any real extent. But he has no business to try and keep in touch with the family via you. I know you were rather a pet of his. He’s playing on your good nature, Grace, and you must not allow it.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘You are not to speak to him if he rings you again, to have anything to do with him in future. Is that clear?’
‘I’m not sure, Charles. Actually.’
‘I can’t imagine why not. I repeat, I don’t want you to have anything to do with my father. Anything at all. It would be the most gross disloyalty to my mother and to me, and to Florence for that matter, if you did.’
‘You mean you’re forbidding me?’
‘Yes. Yes, I suppose I am. If it comes to it. But surely that will not be necessary. I cannot imagine you would wish to see him.’
Grace was silent; she could see a full-scale row blowing up and she simply couldn’t face it. It really didn’t matter; it might have mattered if Charles was going to be at home, but he wasn’t.
There was a long, awkward silence, then Charles said, ‘Shall we listen to the news? I noticed there was a set in our room.’
After the news, which was predictable and bleak and told of the continuing bombardment of the coast, of German warplanes sighted just about everywhere, of the bombing of a destroyer just off Dover, Charles turned it off and said, ‘Well, that’s it. Bed, darling?’
‘Yes,’ said Grace, trying to smile, wincing within herself at the thought. ‘Yes, bed.’
She lay there hating it, almost hating him, hating herself. When it was over, Charles turned away from her in silence and fell straight to sleep.
She tried to talk to him the next day, to explain how lonely she felt, how useless her life seemed, but it was a pointless exercise. She said again that she would like to join one of the services (carefully not mentioning the Land Army); he sat and looked at her, his face a careful blank.
‘You know my views on all this,’ was all he said. ‘I don’t know why you are still pursuing it. I may be away, Grace, but you are still my wife. It will make things a great deal harder for me if I feel you are going against my wishes.’
‘But Charles, why can’t I be your wife and be useful, and do something – something to help?’
‘Grace darling,’ he said, ‘your duty is to help me. By being at home, where I want you to be. It seems to me a little loneliness is a small price for you to pay.’
Grace gave up.
She went to see him off on the Sunday evening, at Victoria. He tried to dissuade her, but she was adamant. The station was teeming with soldiers, sweethearts and wives clinging to them; Grace watched almost in tears as a young RAF man held his wife in his arms, gazing at her with a terrible intentness as if trying to memorize every feature, every inch of her face, every hair, every eyelash. And when he left she stood staring after him, as if she would never move again.
Charles kissed Grace tenderly, held her close. ‘Take care of yourself, darling. I’ll write lots. And maybe next time I see you the war will be over, and we can be together, properly together. Start a family.’
‘Oh Charles, I – yes. Maybe. Let’s hope it is. Over I mean. Take care of yourself, Charles. I love you.’
At that moment, in spite of everything, she did.
His train was delay
ed. He told her to go, that he couldn’t bear the thought of her hanging around, maybe for hours. ‘I’ll sit here, have a cup of tea, probably find one or two of the chaps. You go, darling. I’d rather.’
Grace left. She felt quite numb: not even properly unhappy. She wondered what could be the matter with her.
In the morning, on the endless journey across London by bus, she read newspaper placards that said ‘Croydon Airport bombed’. It all seemed to be getting terribly close. Perhaps, Grace thought, it was just as well she wasn’t having a baby. This was a terrible world to bring a child into.
As the bus trundled towards Waterloo, she saw a soldier, an officer, sitting in Sloane Square, his head buried in his arms, the epitome of dejection and despair. He seemed to her to capture the mood of the day, her own mood indeed. He also looked, what could be seen of him, rather like Charles. Which made it doubly poignant.
‘Christ, it’s begun!’ said Linda. ‘Hasn’t it?’
The sirens went off, mid-afternoon; she and Nan and the boys went down into the Anderson shelter Ben had dug in the garden. She remembered his words as he had toiled: ‘It’s the end of my vegetables,’ he said, ‘but never mind. Worth it. For you.’
They were all fairly frightened. It was Saturday; a beautiful day it had been. She and Nan had been sitting just outside the back door and she had been waiting for the right moment to tell her she was going out that night with Janice when the sirens had gone off. The German aircraft had been coming up the Thames, so many of them, the warden told them afterwards, the sky had been black, hundreds of them in their square block formation, the RAF firing on them relentlessly as they came. The target was the docks; far from Acton, from where they were, but they could hear the noise easily, the endless roar of the planes and then the dreadful sound of the bombing, carried through the still, clear air.
They sat in the shelter for a long time; the noise stopped briefly at dusk, then started again. Daniel started to cry, said he wanted the toilet, and she ran into the house to fetch the chamber pot; later on Nan used it too. On and on it went for hours, stopping briefly at dusk. Linda went into the house, gazing awestruck at a great mushroom of smoke in the distance across London. She fetched some more blankets, made a thermos of tea, relieved her own throbbing bladder, then, as it started again, clambered back into the shelter. All night they sat there, dipping occasionally into sleep. Later the sound crescendoed, bombs dropping nearer as the attack reached out from the docks and the first shelling of the West End began. ‘The whole bloody world’s on fire,’ said Linda to Nan quietly over the boys’ heads; Nan gripped her hand, met her eyes in a surprisingly cheerful smile. Old bag’s not all bad, thought Linda, smiling back. Nan’s courage throughout the night fuelled her own. The all clear went off as dawn broke, and they climbed out, cold and stiff, thankful for some fresh air, gazing across at the great red terrifying glow of the sky on the other side of London. This time it was over; but it was going to happen again and again. And again.
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