The Summer House Party

by Caro Fraser

  ‘You actually saw this list?’ asked the brigadier.

  ‘Yes, sir. I have a copy.’ He reached into his pocket and produced the list, handing it to the brigadier.

  The brigadier unfolded the document and scanned it with keen eyes. ‘How long have you had this?’

  ‘A couple of months. Perhaps I should have brought it to your attention sooner, but I wanted to find out more information as to the reason why Paul Latimer’s name might have appeared on it. He’s a friend, and I didn’t want to create needless trouble for him. You see, he was – is – a keen racing driver, with a team car he used to race all over Europe before the war. He was in Germany a lot, and he had friends there. English friends who might, with hindsight, be seen as being sympathetic to the Nazi regime. I thought his name might be on that list for the wrong reasons – or innocuous ones, at any rate – and I wanted to be doubly sure before I spoke to anyone. So I wrote to Bill Shirer in the United States, thinking he might be able to shed some light, and this morning’ – Dan dipped into his breast pocket and produced Shirer’s letter – ‘I received his reply.’ He handed the letter to the brigadier, who unfolded and read it.

  ‘You did the right thing in coming to me. One could wish you had done it sooner, but I think I understand your reasons.’ The brigadier folded the letter up and returned it to Dan. Then he uncapped his pen and wrote a few notes. ‘Latimer’s name isn’t familiar to me, but you say you think he’s been engaged in government work since the beginning of the war?’

  ‘That’s my understanding, sir. Possibly before, for all I know. Naturally, he’s said nothing to anyone about what he does, but he’s away from his family for weeks at a time, and they assume that’s what he’s doing.’

  The brigadier tapped his thumb with his pen thoughtfully. ‘I’ll get on to this straight away.’ He stood up, and Dan rose, too. ‘You may hear from me about this – and then again, you may hear nothing at all.’ He flashed one of his quick smiles.

  Dan saluted and left the brigadier’s office. He went back to Belgravia. He could scarcely believe what he’d done. Perhaps he should have waited. Perhaps he should have put the accusation to Paul to see what he said. But that would have been ridiculously foolhardy, and might have led to more damage, possibly even lives being lost. No, he’d done what he had to. Now events must take their course.

  *

  It was late autumn before Meg managed to go to Belgravia. The silence in the house was profound. On the mat lay several letters. She leafed through them until she found one addressed to her, postmarked Scotland, from Dan. Then she noticed the envelope propped up next to the little vase, and went into the drawing room to read both. She read the most recent letter first. Dan gave no details of where he was and what he’d been doing, just that it had been ‘bloody cold’, but that thinking of her made it bearable, that he was well, and that he would have two weeks’ leave over Christmas. He would be home on the eighteenth. Could she get away to be with him? She stared at his handwriting for a long time, as though its very shape and form could bring him closer. Then she put it away and read the first letter, which was charged with the passion and intimacy of their time together, still fresh in his heart at the time of writing. She read it through twice. She was about to put the letters in her handbag, but hesitated. She wanted to have them with her, so that she could reread them whenever she wanted, but she knew, too, that she mustn’t allow the remotest possibility of anyone finding them. Reluctantly she opened the drawer of the hall table and slipped them inside.

  As she was about to leave, she noticed the dried-up stem of the rose spray in the silver vase, and the dead petals lying on the polished wood, and guessed he must have left it there. She remembered the wild roses he had given her the first time he had kissed her, the idle, spur-of-the-moment way he had plucked them, and the sad end they had come to – crushed to dust and flung away. How little she had known of life, or love. She locked the house and went away.

  *

  When December arrived, Meg racked her brains for a pretext to go to London to see Dan when he came home on leave. If she suggested a Christmas shopping expedition, either Diana or Helen or both would want to go with her. Then in the second week of December, Paul announced that he had to go for London for a fortnight. Meg decided that, although the hypocrisy was foul, she would use him as her excuse.

  A few days after he had left, and the day before Dan was due back, Meg remarked at breakfast, ‘Do you know, I think I’ll go up to town tomorrow to spend some time with Paul. It’s a chance to go out together, see the town. We haven’t done that in an age.’ The lies were glib, easy.

  ‘A romantic interlude. What a nice idea.’ Helen, who had detected that things were not entirely right between her daughter and son-in-law, was pleased that Meg was making an effort.

  ‘I might stay for a couple of days.’ On inspiration Meg added, ‘I can go to Hamleys and buy Max a Christmas present. In fact, if anyone wants me to pick anything up on the shopping front, just say.’

  ‘I need some Coty face powder, as it happens,’ said Helen. ‘And I’m sure there are one or two other things. I’ll go and make a list.’

  Diana raised her eyebrows at Meg. ‘Prepare to queue.’

  *

  Meg arrived at the house in Belgravia at lunchtime. She waited there all afternoon, afraid to go out in case Dan came. She had no idea when he might arrive. She had brought a haphazard bag of food from Hazelhurst so that they wouldn’t have to go out. The house was cold. Meg kept her fur coat on and roamed the rooms in search of electric heaters. She found three in the bedrooms upstairs, and brought them down to the kitchen and plugged them in. The heat was feeble, but better than nothing, and if she kept the door closed the room would grow warm eventually. When dusk fell she drew the blackout blinds and switched on the light in the kitchen, all the time listening, praying for the sound of a key in the front door and Dan’s footsteps in the hall. The hours slipped by. When it was almost nine o’clock she felt like crying. Something had happened. He couldn’t possibly come now. As she sat in the kitchen, wishing she had so much as a wireless to pass the time, she suddenly realised she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Food had been the last thing on her mind. It would give her something to do to prepare a meal, whether Dan arrived to eat it or not. She contemplated all that she had brought from Hazelhurst, and set about boiling a few small potatoes, which she would slice and fry in the butter – an extravagant waste, but she didn’t care – and whisking eggs to make omelettes. She cut and diced two slices of ham, then ransacked the cupboards and found salt and pepper. The idea that Dan would step through the door at any moment to eat the food she was making invigorated her, and she pushed to the back of her mind the likelihood that he would not come at this hour, that she might wake up tomorrow alone in his bed, with nothing ahead of her but the lonely journey home. She took off her coat, unbuttoned the cuffs of her blouse, and rolled up her sleeves.

  She was slicing the cooked potatoes, keeping an eye on the butter foaming in the frying pan, when suddenly she heard the front door open. The sound shook her with dizzying relief. She swithered, not sure whether to rush out and meet him, or tend the butter which was about to burn. Then a happy calm descended on her. He was here, he would see the light and know she was here, and no one needed to hurry anywhere. Smiling without realising it, she put the potatoes into the frying pan. They began to spit and fry. The seconds passed. Had she imagined the sound of the door? She was halfway across the kitchen when he came in, and in another second she was in his arms. His lips were cold at first, then warm, and she clung to the rough stuff of his greatcoat. They spoke in loving murmurs that were hardly words at all, kissing over and over. Meg remembered the potatoes. ‘I’m burning our supper!’ She tugged free and hurried back to the cooker.

  When she turned around again Dan had sunk into a chair in a posture of utter weariness, legs stretched out, head back, eyes closed. He hadn’t shaved. He opened his eyes and looked at Meg, and a smile tr
ansformed his face. He beckoned her to him and she went to sit on his lap, burying her face in the lapel of his coat. They said nothing. After a moment she raised her face. ‘I need to make the omelettes.’

  ‘Omelettes?’ said Dan. ‘Now there’s an unheard-of luxury. In the last few months I’ve had plenty of herring, but no omelettes.’ He gave an exhausted laugh. ‘Get off my knee, woman, and let me fetch some wine.’

  *

  ‘Did you say this is your mother’s honey?’ asked Dan the next morning at breakfast.

  ‘She takes the glory, but I think the bees deserve most of the credit.’

  ‘Damn good.’ Dan took a sip of tea. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Helen’s list. She wants face cream and powder, and some Vinolia soap that the village chemist doesn’t stock.’ She put the list down. ‘I’m sorry to have to condemn you to shopping. But I was foolish enough to ask people if they wanted anything from town. And I’d like to go to Hamleys to get some things for Max for Christmas.’

  A small fear touched her – Paul was somewhere in London. Was it really safe to go out with Dan? The chances of their being seen together were slim, but not impossible. No, even in that unlikely event, she told herself, she would have a perfectly good explanation – that she’d come up to town to do some Christmas shopping and bumped into Dan on leave. All entirely innocent. Then she thought of the story she had told her mother and Diana. She could see the lies all weaving into one another, tangling hopelessly, becoming her eventual undoing. But she could do nothing about any of it now.

  ‘I don’t mind in the least. I want to go to Trumper’s for some shaving soap. It’s the one luxury I allow myself in the blasted wastes of the Shetlands.’

  She put her chin in her hand and gazed at him. ‘Can’t you tell me the tiniest thing about what you’ve been doing? I promise I’m not a Nazi agent.’

  He shook his head. ‘It’s not terribly exciting, I promise you. You’d be hugely bored. Suffice to say that I’ve been blowing up a train, amongst other things.’

  Her eyes widened. ‘That’s hardly boring.’

  ‘It sounds more exciting than it was. I didn’t even get to see it explode.’ He screwed the lid on the honey jar. ‘Come on. Let’s go shopping.’

  To her surprise, Meg managed to get all the things on her mother’s list without much difficulty at Fenwicks, but when she and Dan reached Regent Street, they were dismayed to see the damage wrought by recent bombing.

  ‘I had no idea,’ said Meg. ‘I suppose Hamleys must be shut.’

  But as they got nearer to the store they saw Hamleys’ staff in tin hats outside the boarded-up shop, taking orders from people on the street, retrieving goods from inside the store, and carrying out the transactions on the pavements. There was quite a throng, and the mood was excited and cheerful.

  ‘How wonderful!’ laughed Meg.

  ‘What are you after?’ asked Dan.

  ‘A teddy bear’s the only thing I’d thought of. I was hoping I might get inspiration for something else in the shop.’

  ‘Wait here.’ Dan made his way into the crowd.

  Meg waited. She pulled the collar of her coat tight, glancing around, and froze. That was Paul, surely. Standing on the other side of the road. The pavement was busy, and people were in the way. Or was it just another anonymous Londoner in a raincoat and trilby? She didn’t want to look again, but she had to. The man had turned away and was walking down Regent Street. His height and the set of his shoulders were like Paul’s but it wasn’t him. She watched the man’s retreating figure. Her imagination was playing tricks on her, a foretaste of all the guilt and anxiety she would experience from now on every time she and Dan were together.

  Dan returned a few minutes later with a bear and wooden toy train. ‘I had one of these when I was a kid, and it was my favourite thing,’ he said. He refused her proffered money. ‘We can settle up later. Let’s go and find tea somewhere.’

  Meg hesitated. ‘Perhaps it’s best if you don’t take my arm, darling. It’s absurd, but just knowing Paul might be here in London makes me jittery.’

  ‘Paranoia of the worst kind. But as you wish.’ He dropped her arm. ‘Come on. It looks like it’s going to rain.’

  *

  The next morning, after breakfast, while Meg was getting ready to leave, Dan heard the post arrive. He went to the hall and found a letter marked ‘Private and Confidential’, and bearing all the signs of officialdom, lying on the mat. He tore it open and read the brief contents. It was from Brigadier Gubbins’ private secretary, asking him to contact the War Office as soon as possible. His throat tightened; he imagined he was about to find out the truth about Paul at last.

  At that moment Meg came downstairs. ‘You look rather grim.’ She glanced at the letter in his hands. ‘Bad news?’

  Dan folded up the letter. ‘No, just army stuff. Come on, I’ll make you some breakfast.’

  When they stood in the hall half an hour later, about to say goodbye, Meg felt as though there was a dead hollow where her heart should be.

  ‘How will I know when you’re next on leave?’ she asked. ‘You can’t ring the house – it’s taking too much of a chance. And I need to save my excuses for coming to town for when you’re actually here.’ She thought for a moment. ‘I know – why don’t you write to me care of the post office in Alderworth? Use some made-up name. Or my maiden name – that will do. I can go down every week and check for letters.’

  ‘All right. I’ll do that.’ Dan kissed her. The thought of what lay ahead, what he might hear about Paul this very day, lay on his soul like a weight. He was almost tempted to tell Meg, to beg her to leave Paul before the worst happened. But he couldn’t. He might be utterly wrong, after all. He forced a smile. ‘I’ll write and tell you when I’m going to be in London next. It might be months, though.’

  ‘I don’t care. I can wait.’

  When Meg had gone, Dan rang the number given in the letter. He was put through to the brigadier’s office, and was told that he would see him straight away.

  The brigadier was on the telephone when Dan arrived in his office, and Dan waited until he had finished his call, then saluted smartly.

  Brigadier Gubbins flicked a quick salute in return. ‘Sit down, Lance Corporal.’ He planted his elbows on the desk and folded his hands. It was a moment before he spoke. ‘About your friend, Latimer. I’m afraid that national security prevents me from telling you what my enquiries have uncovered regarding his activities. The reason I called you here is to instruct you to forget everything you think you know, and all you have seen. You are to say nothing to anyone about your apprehensions, or about the list, and if you are approached by the person who showed you the list, you must avoid having any discussion about it. No matter what they say, or what further information they offer to provide, you must close the subject down – but not in such a way as to excite any suspicion or interest. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Dan hesitated. ‘But…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Sir, can I at least know—’

  ‘There is nothing for you to know, Lance Corporal. I am sorry if it causes you difficulties, given that Latimer is your friend, but,’ he flashed one of his rare smiles, ‘as Aeschylus said, in war, truth is the first casualty.’ He nodded in dismissal. ‘That will be all.’

  Dan snapped to attention, saluted, and left the room. To have been ordered to say nothing and forget everything meant that there was some truth somewhere – but he hadn’t a clue what it could be. And unless and until Paul was arrested and imprisoned, it would remain a mystery.

  *

  When she got back to Hazelhurst, Meg distributed various parcels to Helen and Diana.

  ‘You got everything? How wonderful,’ said Helen.

  ‘Did you and Paul have a lovely time?’ asked Diana.

  ‘Yes.’ Meg hoped she wouldn’t have to deal with too many questions.

  ‘Which hotel did you stay at?’

  ‘Oh, some litt
le place not far from Paul’s club. I forget the name. Now, I must go and hide Max’s presents before he sees them.’

  She hurried upstairs, hoping that when Paul got home, no one would think to mention her visit. That would be fatal. She was beginning to understand the hideously unstoppable way in which one lie spawned the necessity for another.

  When Paul came home, however, no one mentioned her trip to London. But the day after, when Meg and Diana were going through dress patterns in the drawing room, Paul sauntered in with a smile.

  ‘I’ve just come across a rather magnificent bear and a train set at the back of the cupboard in our room. I assume they’re for Max’s Christmas – unless of course they’re meant for me. When did you pick them up?’

  The telephone began to ring in the hallway. Meg heard someone pick it up, then Helen put her head round the door. ‘Diana, dear, it’s for you.’

  Relief swept through Meg as Diana left the room. She answered quickly, ‘I got them at Hamleys. I went on a shopping trip a week or so ago.’

  ‘You should have told me you were in town. We could have had lunch.’

  ‘Oh, it was rather a smash-and-grab affair. Helen wanted some cosmetics as well.’ Meg bent her head over the pattern book.

  ‘See any friends while you were up there?’

  ‘No. As I said, it was just a spur-of-the-moment thing.’ She prayed Diana wouldn’t return before the conversation ended.

  ‘Well, I’m sure Max will love them. Well done.’

  Paul went out, leaving Meg shaken. If Diana had been there when that conversation had taken place, the entire edifice of lies would have come tumbling down. She was going to have to be more careful in future.

  Part 5

  1942–5

  1

  IN MAY THE following year, Diana’s baby girl was born, and was named Morven in honour of Roddy’s maternal grandmother. Roddy had been given a six-month break from flying enemy missions to train cadets, and with Diana’s anxieties temporarily soothed, and with the delight of a new baby in the household, Hazelhurst felt to its inhabitants like an island of tranquillity in the midst of the sea of war.