Forbidden Places

by Penny Vincenzi

  She said much the same thing to her mother, who was appalled when Grace told her her plan: ‘I think it’s a dreadful idea, Grace, it will be very hard on poor Mrs – on Muriel. I must say I think it’s most insensitive of you, I can’t imagine how you can even consider it.’

  ‘I can consider it,’ said Grace, ‘because I’m very fond of him.’

  ‘I can’t think why. And what do you imagine Charles would have to say about it? Your father agrees with me, it’s very wrong of you.’

  ‘Charles is not here,’ said Grace, losing her temper, ‘and as for humiliating Muriel, she’s done a fair bit to humiliate me over the years. I did think, Mother, that perhaps you were going to express just a little concern for me, to say that it might be rather a lot for me to take on. That would be more to the point, I’d have thought, than all this nonsense about Charles and Muriel.’

  Clifford was deeply resistant to the idea when she suggested it to him; he said he wasn’t coming, he wouldn’t dream of it, he would bea burden on her, an embarrassment to everybody, he would far rather just be snuffed out quietly one night by a passing bomb.

  ‘Yes, but Clifford, you aren’t going to be snuffed out quietly, you’re going to cause everyone a lot of worry and trouble rather noisily, especially poor Mrs Turner Andrews, and there aren’t any passing bombs any more. Besides,’ she added, striking well below the belt, she knew, ‘I’m terribly lonely and I need the company. So you’re coming and that’s all there is to it. And you are not to worry about Muriel,’ she added, ‘you won’t have to see her, she never comes to the Mill House anyway, and as for all her friends, and Charles’s for that matter, I never see them either.’

  Clifford was silent for a while, then he said, ‘It’s their loss, Grace. Their loss entirely.’

  ‘Well,’ said Robert, ‘I’m pretty tired, darling. Shall we go up?’

  His eyes on her were thoughtful now. Florence tried to smile, while fear and – what? – revulsion, she supposed, clutched at her.

  ‘I – might wait a bit longer,’ she said, ‘but you go, you must be exhausted. Imogen has to have a last feed, and—’

  ‘Well, do that,’ he said, ‘I’ll wait. I’d like to be with you both then.’

  ‘All right,’ said Florence. She went out to the kitchen to warm up the bottle; she felt violently sick again at the thought of what lay ahead.

  Sitting opposite Robert, the baby on her knee, looking determinedly at the small head, the little mouth working at the teat, she thought not for the first time that day that she might run away; it had been a nightmare, as she had sat with him, or near him, watching in a combination of fascination and fear as he held, cuddled, studied Imogen, terrified of what lay behind his gentleness, his apparent devotion, his delight in her, his frequent pronouncements that she looked just like him, unable to decide whether he was speaking truthfully, or leading her with his practised skill into a deadly trap. And if he was, what would it consist of? Florence could never remember being so frightened. She wouldn’t even leave Imogen with him while she went to the lavatory, or fetched Robert a drink. ‘I’ll take her,’ she said each time he protested, ‘she’s so naughty, so quick, she pulls things over in a trice, you have to move like lightning. I’m used to her and so is Mother. Honestly, Robert, it’s better that way—’

  She could hear her voice too fast, too high in pitch, knew he was noticing it, prayed he would put it down to nervousness, to the strangeness of their situation.

  ‘How long have you got at home?’ she asked suddenly, anxious to know, desperate to relieve the tension.

  ‘Seven days,’ he said, ‘but I haven’t told you, I have to go up to the War Office during that time. There’s a possibility I may be based up in Scotland, as a training officer. I rather distinguished myself in that direction in Gib, and there’s a shortage of good people. Wouldn’t that be marvellous, darling, then I could see you occasionally.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Florence. The word came out in a hoarse, strange whisper. But for some reason she was not surprised; she had always known deep within herself that he would manage to beat every thing, fate, the army, the whole conduct of the war, and stay near her. He was so clever; so powerfully, dangerously clever.

  They went upstairs; Imogen’s small cot stood in the corner of their room.

  ‘Oh,’ he said, quite lightly, ‘I didn’t realize we had a – companion.’

  ‘Well of course, Robert. She can’t sleep alone.’

  ‘I don’t see why not,’ he said.

  ‘Because she’s a baby.’

  ‘Florence, when my sister had a baby, it was in a room on its own from the beginning. I really do think that would be better.’

  ‘Robert, it wouldn’t be better. Not for me, I’d worry and—’

  ‘It would be better for me,’ he said, and there was an echo suddenly, albeit faint, of the old underlying menace in his voice. ‘I want you to myself, Florence. Please put her back in her own room. In the nursery, next door. I’m sure she’ll be perfectly all right.’

  Florence took Imogen next door.

  She stood at the bedside looking at him, her robe pulled tightly round her, still desperately warding off the moment when she would have to get in beside him. He was naked; she felt stiff, and icy cold in spite of the warmth of the evening.

  ‘Darling Florence,’ he said, reaching out for her hand, ‘I’ve missed you so.’

  She tried to smile, hoping, praying he could not sense her withdrawal from him, the sense of total horror. How am I going to get through this, she thought, this next hour, how will I stand it? Slowly, carefully, she slithered out of the robe, climbed into bed beside him; he reached out, put his hand on her arm, turned her face to kiss it. She gave him her mouth, hoping he would not sense the brackish bitterness in it; his tongue probed it, his hand moved down towards her breast.

  ‘Take your nightdress off,’ he whispered. ‘I want you so, Florence, I’ve longed for this for so long.’

  She sat up abruptly, pulled away from him so that she could get the nightdress off; the reprieve, however brief, was an intense relief. Then she lay down again. He turned the light off, turned her towards him, began to kiss her again; she could feel him against her now, feel his penis jutting hard against her. His hands were on her breasts, feeling them, stroking them, working at her nipples; she was grateful he was kissing her, otherwise she would have screamed. Even so a moan escaped her; he mistook it for passion, kissed her harder.

  ‘Sweet,’ he whispered, ‘sweet, sweet Florence.’

  He began to kiss her breasts; Florence threw back her head, concentrating desperately, frantically on other things, on the trees waving outside the window, on the shapes of the furniture in the room, started saying the alphabet backwards inside her head.

  ‘I love you,’ he said, ‘I love you so much. You and – our baby.’

  Did she imagine it, that pause, or had he put it in carefully, to warn her, to let her know that he knew, that she had much to fear? She shuddered, trembled. ‘Don’t,’ he said quietly, ‘don’t, Florence. It will be all right. All right.’

  And then he was on top of her, and his penis was pushing at her, into her, hard, determined, in endless, too-fast thrusts; she could feel her vagina shrinking from it, pulling back into herself, she was dry, she knew, dry and tender, and he must, he must surely feel it.

  ‘Relax,’ he whispered, ‘relax, my darling. Let me in, let me love you.’

  And then quite suddenly she did relax, it was the only thing to do; she yielded to him absolutely, in an utter collapse of body and will. She felt him in her, deeply now, felt his heavy body grinding into hers; his breath was coming faster and faster, he was holding her buttocks, pulling them against him – and then horribly, appallingly, it happened. Against her will, against every effort she could make, she began to come, began to feel herself gathering, climbing towards her climax, and she actually fought it, knowing that in it, in that great tumbling tumult that he would so surely feel, that she so
wanted to hold back, to deny him, was the worst danger of all, of capitulation, submission, and that it would put her back totally and dreadfully in his thrall.

  Chapter 17

  Winter 1941–1942

  ‘I feel like absolute shit,’ said Clarissa.

  ‘You look it,’ said May.

  ‘Thanks.’

  They were walking round the large courtyard it pleased the Royal Navy to call the quarter-deck (saluting it as they passed it) on their way to commence the day’s duties; Clarissa had a hangover of considerable proportions.

  ‘What’s it matter anyway,’ said May, ‘What you look like? Not off to some poncey cocktail party, are you?’

  ‘No, unfortunately, and I suppose it doesn’t,’ said Clarissa wearily, ‘although I don’t think our revered first officer would agree with you, crème de la crème remember, May, and all that. I know my shoes need polishing, I know my hair needs cutting. But it does matter what I feel like. I’ve got to drive some chaps all the way up to bloody Greenwich and I don’t know how I’m going to keep awake.’

  ‘Why you so tired then?’ asked May, looking at her sharply. ‘You wasn’t out last night, was you?’

  ‘Were you,’ said Clarissa automatically.

  ‘Oh piss off. Bleedin’ know-all. Was you? Out last night?’

  ‘We – ell,’ said Clarissa carefully, ‘a bit.’

  ‘Oh come on, Duchess, you can’t be a bit out. Either you was or you wasn’t.’

  ‘Yes, well I was. At a – well, a party.’

  ‘What, in the officers’ mess?’

  ‘No of course not. With me only a leading Wren! No, we – well, we went to a party at a house somewhere. A few of us. Quite a few of us,’ she added firmly.

  ‘Oh yeah? And then?’

  ‘Then nothing,’ said Clarissa irritably. ‘Honestly, May.’

  ‘OK,’ said May, ‘’ave it yer own way. I think you like that commander of yours. That new one.’

  ‘Well of course I like him. He’s charming and fun and—’

  ‘And really good-looking. Come on, Compton Brown, I know what a pushover you are when it comes to looks.’

  ‘May,’ said Clarissa with great dignity, ‘I am a happily – very happily – married woman. Just because someone’s good-looking doesn’t mean I’m going to start having an affair with them.’

  ‘No,’ said May, ‘but it’s more likely. Anyway, where is the squadron leader at the moment?’

  ‘He’s up in Scotland, poor angel. It’s what is known as a rest period. Bored to sobs – I mean terribly fed up. They keep promising him action, but it never seems to happen.’

  ‘Blimey,’ said May, ‘you’d think he’d be grateful. Some people are never satisfied.’

  Clarissa was thinking fairly wistfully of some action herself as she walked towards the car depot. There was certainly not a great deal of novelty in what she was doing at the moment. She was now a driver, had been promoted to Leading Wren, and spent her days either driving provisions and equipment about the countryside or, more usually, officers and visiting dignitaries. She had actually preferred the early days on the bike, in spite of the physical discomfort; at least there had been constant drama and excitement and she had felt she had been doing something important. Driving VIPs about in large American cars (apart from the undoubted bonus of some of the passengers being handsome and charming men) she felt little better than a taxi driver. She missed Jack desperately, but their meetings still weren’t working. He was bored and irritable, chafing at his lack of action, and talking, chatting to him was a lot less easy; he resented her life bitterly in a way she found it hard to believe.

  ‘You’re no better than Charles,’ she had said once, driven to overt irritation. ‘Worse actually, he refuses to let Grace do anything. You said it would be fine and now you don’t back me up. It’s not fair.’

  ‘Well, maybe you should have married him after all,’ said Jack shortly, and then lapsed into a morose silence which she was unable to tease him from.

  She regretted it later, speaking out; told herself she should remember more often what he had endured during the Battle of Britain, how he too had become a different person and in a much harder school. But it wasn’t easy. And she went back, as always, to her working life with intense relief.

  But just at the moment she seemed to be at a very low ebb. There was a great deal of fun to be had as a Wren, there was no doubt about it, and the navy was certainly very good at getting hold of what May called the Grog Ration Plus; on the other hand the growing restrictions and shortages of the war, the lack of clothes, the dreary food were becoming irksome. And she missed her home terribly, her pretty house, was worried constantly that it would be bombed; she was sick to death of sleeping on a hard bunk, and even sick of wearing uniform, however charmed she had been with it and its glamour at first. You were never allowed to take it off, you had to travel in it, because of the travel warrants, and in any case it was growing shabby, the skirt shiny with endless sitting, and the jacket which she had had tailored to fit her properly was now too big for her; she had lost half a stone since joining the Wrens. And yet, beneath it all, the hardship, the shortages, the boredom, she knew she was oddly content, more properly satisfied with life than she could ever remember.

  The drive to London, in one of the American Hudson cars which she hated, was actually a nightmare; it was foggy, and Clarissa, disorientated both by that and lack of sleep, kept veering too far towards the middle of the road. Twice she only avoided crashing by seconds; the first time her passengers, engrossed in conversation, didn’t notice, but the second time, as she braked violently and skidded to a noisy halt, a voice barked, ‘Anything wrong, Leading Wren?’

  ‘No, sir. Nothing wrong. Just the weather, sir. It’s very foggy, sir.’

  ‘We had noticed. Taking a long time this journey. We have to be there by thirteen hundred hours. Can you press on a bit?’

  ‘I’ll try, sir.’

  Stupid bastard, thought Clarissa; serve them right if we end up in a ditch. She half hoped they would.

  They didn’t; she pulled into the great forecourt at Greenwich just before one o’clock, got out, opened the door, saluted.

  ‘Thank you, Leading Wren. Be here at five.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Sometimes she even had fantasies about running away.

  The return journey was worse; they didn’t leave Greenwich till six, and she arrived back at Portsmouth, almost weeping with weariness, at ten, too tired to eat, even to think. She was lying on her bunk, half asleep, when May came in.

  ‘Come on, Duchess. I’ve been sent to find you. Popular request. We’re going into the town.’

  ‘Oh May, I can’t,’ wailed Clarissa. ‘I’m absolutely done for.’

  ‘Course you’re not. Get a couple of drinks inside you, you’ll be fine. Come on, what use are you to anyone lying here? Loads of chaps, all needing comfort and cheer.’

  ‘It’s me that needs comfort and cheer,’ said Clarissa.

  ‘I’m sure that can be arranged. Oh, and there’s a letter for you.’

  ‘Oh May! Why didn’t you say so before? It’ll be from Jack.’

  ‘Doesn’t look like it’s from Jack. Looks official.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ said Clarissa, snatching it. ‘Oh my God, May. Hold my hand.’

  She ripped open the envelope; the contents swam so much before her eyes she could scarcely take in the words. What it didn’t seem to be was a telegram, not bad news, there was nothing of a regret-to-inform-you nature about it; just an oddly formal few lines of letters – adding up to words – adding up to sentences – adding up to – ‘Oh my God, May,’ said Clarissa in an awed whisper, ‘they’ve asked me to apply for a commission. Go to Greenwich for a selection board – next week.’ She giggled suddenly. ‘Listen, May, it says, “Your hard work and good bearing has brought you this advancement.”’

  ‘Oh my God,’ said May, ‘now there’ll be no ’olding you. And what am I going to
do without you? I hope you’re going to turn it down.’

  ‘What’ll I do without you more likely. But – oh Lord, May, this is terrible.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘It’s the week of my leave. With Jack. Oh God, I hope he’ll be able to change it.’

  ‘What about you changing yours?’ said May

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, May,’ said Clarissa, realizing with some thing of a shock that she wouldn’t even consider such a thing. ‘This is important. Of course I can’t change it. There is a war on, you know.’

  ‘Never!’ said May.

  ‘Well, if he can’t, he can’t. I’m sure he’ll understand. Golly, May. Me an officer!’

  ‘Fuck me!’ said May. ‘It’s gone to the girl’s head already. Come on, Compton Brown, for God’s sake, let’s get some gin into you.’

  Ben had written to Grace, a long letter from North Africa, reporting living conditions that sounded hellish, hot and fly-ridden: ‘They arrive soon after first light,’ he wrote, ‘and settle wherever they can find moisture, which includes of course eyes, ears and nostrils. I won’t enlarge on this!’

  He thanked her again for what she had done for him and the boys, and told her to tell them to be good, and finished by saying that the physical discomfort had brought about ‘a numbness which is a good cure for grieving’. It was signed, rather formally, ‘Yours, Ben Lucas’.

  Grace stared at the letter through a blur of tears; the courage, the raw pain in it touched her horribly, made her ashamed of complaining of her own boredom and loneliness. She wrote back straight away, telling him everything she could possibly think of: that David was less wretched (she almost wrote happier, but that sounded callous) and had begun his piano lessons again, that Daniel was doing better at school, that Flossie had got out one day, had a romance with the billy goat down the road and was now, they all hoped, an expectant mother, that Daniel had rescued a baby rabbit from Charlotte and was now raising it in a hutch he and Clifford had made together. She told him about Clifford’s arrival in the household, that both boys liked Clifford very much and that his arrival seemed to have helped David. (‘They started calling him “sir” and then he told them to call him Clifford, Daniel misunderstood and started calling him Sir Clifford, which has stuck; Clifford is delighted, he says he’s always wanted a title!’)