Good Enough For Nelson

by John Winton

  In some ways, the College was a social minefield, and for her guests that morning Julia had simply taken the first eight or nine names of the officers who had signed the visitors’ book in the entrance porch and had written a postcard to their wives, using the addresses in the Baby List. In her carefully worded invitations and in her subsequent telephone conversations, Julia had made it clear that priority in the visitors’ book had been the only criterion for selection, and no other considerations of rank or seniority.

  As she watched Purvis tramping round, putting out the coffee cups, setting out trays of biscuits, moving tables around, and connecting up the percolator near a hot plate, Julia was suddenly gripped by an appalling bout of stage fright. She began literally to shake with nervousness. She could see them all, all her guests, in her mind’s eye, speeding purposefully towards her in their little motor cars, closing rapidly in upon her. She remembered some of the terrifying senior officers’ wives of the past, whom she herself had trembled to approach. Most terrifying of all was probably Rosy O’Grady, Flag Officer Gibraltar’s wife in the forties, or even Lady Monson, Flag Officer Second-in-Command, Far Eastern Fleet, in the fifties. Betty Monson had been so overpowering that even The Bodger, very seldom abashed, once deluged his lettuce with salad cream and then ate it up every mouthful, declaring that it was delicious, although he had discovered at the first taste that the salad cream was actually custard. Betty Monson’s stewards had mixed up the jugs. But, as The Bodger freely admitted ever afterwards, with Lady Monson’s glittering saurian eye fixed upon him, he simply had not had the courage to say a word. And anyway, he always used to conclude the story triumphantly, neither had any of the other fourteen admirals, captains and commanders and their wives at the same dinner party. They had all waited for their hostess to notice the mistake but she, it transpired, never ate salad cream and sat glaring at them all until they had all eaten up their greens, every bit.

  Julia wondered whether Betty Monson or any of the others had ever trembled in their shoes when beginning a new appointment with their husbands. At Dartmouth probably not, because they would never have got the chance. It was only in comparatively recent years, as The Bodger had loftily told her, that wives had been allowed anywhere near the College. Previously they were always regarded as unsettling influences, distracting officers and cadets from their proper duties, and it was forbidden for them to live closer than thirty miles from the College. But now, as everybody said, staff officers came up the Dart like salmon to breed.

  Julia was wearing a tweed skirt. The others all wore trouser suits. So that was wrong. They all came, everybody who had been invited, except Ruth O’Malley, the PMO’s wife. One of her children had woken up with suspected German measles. Hilda, Jerry Braithwaite’s wife, made Ruth’s apologies.

  ‘We have illnesses in the family,’ she said, ‘but poor Ruth has an epidemic. When we all have flu, Ruth has something like the Black Death. Do you know, I’ve never been in this room before, would you believe?’

  Somebody else said, ‘I’ve never been in the Captain’s House before.’

  ‘That’s probably because Jimmy had nobody to entertain for him,’ Julia said defensively. ‘It was such a pity he and Meryll separated.’

  ‘Oh?’ said Hilda, with interest, ‘so he did have a wife once then?’

  Julia was conscious that she had unwittingly released a cherished piece of information. She could see Hilda assimilating this new fact, carefully placing it in its missing position in the jigsaw.

  The introductions, where Julia had not already met, were made by Hilda, who also provided additional material, in piercing asides delivered in a shearing whisper, such as ‘She sexes kittens’ or ‘She writes short stories’.

  While Purvis stumped about serving the coffee and biscuits, they all talked about children and boarding schools and au pair girls and lawnmowers in a desultory way for a few minutes, like wrestlers searching for hand-holds. Julia began slowly to relax her clenched fingers. Perhaps it was going to be all right, after all. Julia mentally reproached herself; surely she ought to be able to handle a few wives for coffee.

  ‘Have you got any children, Julia?’ asked June, unsuspectingly finding the first hand-hold. She was the wife of an Instructor Lieutenant Commander and, like every other Schoolie’s wife in the Navy, wrote short stories for women’s magazines, or at least she wrote short stories and sent them off to women’s magazines. But June was unusual, indeed almost unique, in having just had one of her stories accepted for the first time, and paid for. Her family and herself were quite stunned by this event. Unused to such fame, and quite non-plussed by the alteration in her family’s attitude to her writing, June was not sure whether to act the part of the celebrity or not.

  ‘No, we never had any children,’ Julia said, shortly; she had said that so often she had long since stopped being defensive about it.

  ‘When you were in Scotland,’ said Maria, who could sex kittens, and was the wife of one of the College history lecturers, ‘did you know the MacLarens?’ Before anyone could stop her, or even realise what she was about, Maria had begun to put Julia through a catechism of her social acquaintance. Julia always attributed this tactic to insecurity or a boring mind, the female equivalent of men who talked obsessively about motor cars or golf. Maria’s inquisitions dealt with Homeric clarity about family relationships and backgrounds and when Julia saw that she was about to go through the Navy List, ship by ship and port by port, she abruptly changed the subject, to enquire about the social events of that term.

  ‘I think that the main thing is that we wives ought to Do Something For Charity,’ said Hilda, in audible capital letters. ‘At Whaley, we always used to run a charity bazaar in the summer term.’

  Charity bazaar. The flat, bleak syllables sent a chill down Julia’s spine. It was a libel that wives tended to look like their husbands, and the ‘Naval Wife’ was a fiction of novelists’ fertile imaginations, but even Hilda’s best friend could not have denied that there was a distinctly martial air about her trouser suit, as though her bulging blue hips only lacked a belt above, and gaiters below. Julia was about to point out, as politely as she could, that this was not at Whale Island, when June said, unexpectedly.

  ‘We used to have a bazaar every year until last year. Moira McAllester used to run it. She was brilliant at it. She and Prof. had been here so many years they knew absolutely everybody and Moira knew exactly how to do it. But now...’ June paused, ‘I don’t think it would be quite the thing... I don’t think it would be quite the same ...’

  ‘I’m sure it wouldn’t be,’ Julia said firmly. ‘To have a bazaar, as you say, you really do need somebody who’s really good at running it. So perhaps we can shelve the bazaar until next year, say?’

  She was relieved by their relief. She could sense a general feeling of ‘Amen, for God’s sake.’

  ‘The trouble with a bazaar is that it all works up to one day and you may not be able to gear your life to that day. You may not even be able to turn up on that day. I’ve got an idea, it is just an idea, for something we can do whenever it suits us. We can use our own taste and take our own time. What about a recipe book?’

  The others all looked blankly at each other.

  ‘What I mean is a book with all our favourite personal recipes in it, or we can even put complete menus in it. We can have it duplicated quite cheaply, bound or stapled up, and then sell the copies for charity. We can give everybody a free hand to contribute what they like. If you’ve got a useful dodge for suddenly producing a meal for twenty people when your husband has been out with his department and brings them all back at midnight. Sort of loaves and fishes touch. Or it could be a big elaborate dish, your own specialité de la maison, for when Mrs Captain comes to dinner...’ Julia stopped and coughed; she had forgotten that she was Mrs Captain. ‘We can all put our names to our own recipes. It could be special sandwiches to take on picnics. Or baby foods done in a special way to take on a long motor trip. Or food for peop
le who’ve got a job and have not much time for cooking. Or your husbands may have something they like to cook, whenever they get a chance. Anything in the food or drink line. I’m sure everybody has their own recipes for Christmas punch or something. Who’s the best cook?’

  ‘Debby, you’re cordon bleu, aren’t you?’

  The others all looked at a very pretty girl, the Hon. John’s wife, whose face tugged at Julia’s memory. Julia had already asked her had they met before and the girl had said no, but Julia knew yes.

  ‘I used to be a cook, before I was married,’ Debby said, reluctantly. ‘I used to run one of those cookery businesses with a friend. We used to cook meals for dinner parties, weddings, suppers, anything you like. People used to ring us up and tell us what they wanted, and when, and for how many, and we used to do it all. It was great fun,’ said Debby, wistfully. ‘We used to make money at it, too.’

  ‘Well,’ said Julia, ‘would you like to be our editor?’

  Debby was about to reply, when she caught Hilda’s eye. ‘I’m more of the cook than the organiser. I vote Hilda’s editor.’

  All at once, they all knew that Debby had said exactly the right thing. Hilda was a born organiser, chivvier of reluctant suppliers, extracter of blood from unwilling stones, mover of immovable objects and resister of irresistible forces. Julia could see that beneath that somewhat overpowering and formidable exterior, Hilda needed reassurance like everybody else. But once Hilda took something on, she could be relied upon to carry it through. To any committee, with any purpose, people like Hilda were worth their weight in diamonds any day of the week.

  A look in Debby’s face, a trick of speaking, suddenly awoke Julia’s memory, as though the girl’s face had come into sharp focus. ‘Debby,’ she said, ‘you’re not Betty Monson’s daughter, are you? Lady Monson, was she your mother?’

  ‘Yes, she was,’ said Debby, shortly.

  ‘I knew your mother in Hong Kong. There’s a lot of her in you.’

  ‘Oh Lord.’

  ‘You were home at school then, so I never met you.’

  ‘I came out later. John was Daddy’s flag lieutenant.’ She should have made that sound attractive and romantic, but her voice and her turned-down mouth gave it away. It sounded more like a penal sentence. Julia said no more. That glint in Debby’s eye warned her. Any daughter of Betty Monson’s was bound to have been through the fire. She would be case- hardened, at the very least. It all reminded Julia that she was considerably the oldest woman in the room. Like The Bodger, she was the only one entitled to wear medals.

  ‘Thank you all very much,’ Hilda was saying. ‘I shall be very glad to be editor. I’ll try and make it as broad a selection as possible. I’ll ask all the staff officers’ wives and the OUT’s wives, too.’

  ‘I suppose everybody on the staff is married,’ said Julia. ‘Everybody always is, these days. You never seem to get any of those bachelor lieutenant-commanders you used to get in wardrooms. Robert always says they used to run the Navy.’

  ‘Ikey Smith isn’t married,’ said Hilda, significantly.

  ‘Isn’t he?’ The others mulled over this statement for a few moments. ‘No, of course he’s not.’

  Finally, June said ‘He may be ...’

  ‘Queer, do you mean,’ hooted Hilda. ‘Absolutely not. He’s just not met the right gel yet ...’

  ‘No,’ said June, ‘I was merely going to say, he may not be married, but he might well be engaged...’

  ‘Not that I know of,’ said Hilda relentlessly, so that the others knew that whatever else he might be, Isaiah Nine Smith was not engaged.

  ‘Perhaps he could meet somebody this summer...’

  ‘Like one of your rattling good love yarns. With one bound he was by her side. He could smell her lavender water, she could smell his ... ‘

  ‘Oh do drop it, Hilda.’

  ‘We must try and fix him up with somebody.’

  ‘Don’t be so clinical, Hilda. You make it sound like a fitting!’ All the same, Julia could see that without being able to stop themselves everybody had mentally closed their eyes and begun to run through their list of unattached female friends and relations, all their sisters and their cousins and their aunts and, as so often, none of them could think of anybody suitable just at this moment. Still, Julia sensed that something in the atmosphere of that morning had changed; a gauge of some kind had been thrown down, unfinished business of some nature proposed.

  Slowly, the coffee morning improved and began to prosper. The conversational note rose, strengthened, and held. They no longer all stopped talking and looked at her whenever Julia began to say something. They no longer watched Purvis so closely, following him with their eyes as he marched round the room. When June convulsively thrust out one foot and toppled over a table with an ashtray and a small glass vase with a rose in it, the incident was somehow shuffled over, even though Purvis marched in with a large red cloth, murmuring over and over again, ‘These things will ‘appen, ma’am, these things will ‘appen, ma’am, these things will ‘appen, ma’am.’

  The only persistently uncomfortable note was struck by a rather plain girl with washed-out looking light brown hair, called Joyce Soames. She was, Julia discovered, married to one of the ex-petty officers now on their Yardmen’s Officer course. It was a measure of her husband’s ambitions that he had bothered to sign the visitors’ book, but Joyce evidently did not share his aspirations, did not like the College, and was suspicious of the Service. Julia wondered whether it had been wise for her to follow her husband to Dartmouth. If there was one stage in his naval career when he would have to neglect his family, it was now, when he was training to become an officer. His day would be full, from early morning to late at night, and he would be subjected to the additional strains of his Service background; Dartmouth was difficult for everybody and doubly difficult for a sailor because it was officer country which, to many men on the lower deck, would be as hostile as Indian country. Joyce seemed to make no allowances, not even suggesting her favourite recipe. ‘Fish and chips,’ she said, ‘when we can get them.’ Julia was amazed that Soames had ever got on an officers’ course, with such disparagement to face at home.

  Joyce’s attitude cut no ice with Hilda. ‘Well, cheer up, Joyce,’ she boomed. ‘At least he doesn’t beat you! Does he?’

  Joyce’s answering look crackled across Julia’s living room like a blazing bolt from a flame thrower.

  So be it, Julia decided. No more coffee mornings. Her decision was as firm and final as The Bodger’s. Be the cause never so good, the argument never so persuasive, the panic never so great, Julia would not have another coffee morning. A bas les café-matins.

  ‘How did your coffee morning go?’ The Bodger asked, when he came in before lunch.

  ‘Never again,’ said Julia.

  ‘Me too,’ said The Bodger.

  CHAPTER VI

  ‘This bloke The Bodger, what’s he got?’

  ‘A row of medals, for a start.’ McAllester’s voice, powerful and clear though it was, hardly carried over the discotheque music.

  ‘A what?’

  ‘Medals! Bloody great row of them. From the war.’

  ‘To which one could fairly reply, which war? True, he has some medals, but what else has he got? Why are we, by the very implication of being here, required to admire this man?’

  ‘Tell me, Dai Bach,’ said McAllester, ‘and I really would like to know, how did they ever come to let you pass the Admiralty Interview Board?’

  ‘Celtic eloquence, boyo, and a total lack of any connection whatsoever with Her Britannic Majesty’s Navy.’

  ‘Did they ask you that?’

  ‘Oh yes. Got any naval connections, boyo, they asked me, got any naval family? And I said no sir, but I said, I did once collect some pictures of warships from our local garage. One week they were giving away glasses and dishmats, then it was football club badges, and then it was warships. For one blissful week you could either have trading stamps or a life
on the ocean wave.’

  ‘So you had no naval background at all?’

  ‘Naval background! You’ve got to be joking, man. Look, I was born and brought up in a town called Llanfihangel Wells. It’s a small town in the very centre of Wales. You can’t get any further from the sea than that anywhere in Wales. It is a very fine place, in its way, and I’m not knocking it, but it is as likely to produce a naval officer as a President of the United States. They don’t know what the sea is, man. Water is the stuff that runs off the chapel roof every Sunday. My brother is in local government. Got a job with the county council. For the Welsh, that’s like joining the aristocracy. Much better, in fact, because the Welsh aristocracy is mostly English. When my brother passed his exams and got his job, people used to come up in the street and shake my father and mother by the hand. The local Rotary gave my father a special lunch. He is the chief librarian in the town. My mother’s Merched Y Wawr ...’

  ‘Mucky a what what what?’

  ‘Daughters of the dawn, women of the dawn, it means. Sort of Welsh equivalent of the Daughters of the Revolution, I suppose. They all had a special knees-up, sewing bee and bring your own bara brith evening, on the strength of my brother’s new job. But when I joined the Navy, man, a great roar of silence went up. Nobody said anything at all. They weren’t even sorry. They would have been more sympathetic if I’d broken my leg. It was only one step better than going for a soldier, or on the stage.’

  ‘So what entry did you come in by?’

  ‘Modified special YF. One term here. One term in the training ship. Six weeks marine technical acquaint course, a fortnight at Manadon acquaint course, off to university, then back here. Now it’s the back here bit.’