The Summer House Party

by Caro Fraser

  ‘Thank you for staying here.’

  He smiled uncertainly. ‘Here’s my home. Not rightly sure where else I’d be.’

  ‘I can hardly call it home any more,’ said Meg sadly. They both glanced at the devastated house.

  Dixon took off his cap and scratched his head. ‘I’ll stay on here for the time being, if I may, look after the horses, and that.’

  ‘Of course, Dixon. We’ll keep paying your wages, don’t worry.’ Meg glanced up at the flat above the workshop. ‘Is your place all right? Any damage?’

  ‘None to speak of. Bits and pieces on the floor, a few things broke, but nothing that can’t be put right.’

  ‘Well, that’s good news. I’ll be back to tell you what arrangements we’re making, when we’ve worked something out. We have to find somewhere to live.’

  ‘Right enough.’ He hesitated. ‘I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs Latimer. It were a lovely house.’

  ‘Maybe we can rebuild it. I don’t know. I’ve never been bombed before.’

  She bade Dixon goodbye, retrieved her bag of clothes, and set off back to Alderworth Hall with Anna. There she rang the number Paul had left, and after what seemed like endless delay she was put through and was able to tell him what had happened. She had become so convinced over the last year that she no longer loved him that she hardly expected the familiar sound of his voice to reduce her to tears. But it did.

  He listened, asked questions, and did his best to soothe her distress. ‘The important thing is you’re all safe and well. I’m sad about the house, but let’s see what can be done. I’ll be on the first train up this afternoon.’

  As Meg put the phone down, Helen came downstairs, still in her bedroom slippers, but in one of the dresses salvaged by Meg, freshly ironed.

  ‘I called Sonia while you were out and told her what happened. She asked if you would telephone back as soon as you could.’ She gave a little shiver. ‘My nerves are still in pieces.’

  Meg telephoned Woodbourne House.

  ‘My dear, I cannot tell you how sorry I am,’ said Sonia. ‘You poor thing. I’m just glad that none of you was hurt. How are you? Helen said you’ve been up to the house.’

  ‘Yes, I had to see how bad the damage was by daylight. It couldn’t be worse. Half the house has gone, and the rest looks as if it could fall down any minute. I managed to salvage some clothes. Paul’s in town, but he’s getting the train up this afternoon. Anna has been wonderful, looking after all of us. When I think of people who get bombed out and have simply nowhere to go, I suppose we’ve been lucky.’

  ‘Well, I have a proposal to put to you. Unless you have some other plan, I suggest that all of you come and live here for the time being. Sidney and Colin are going back to London when school starts, and we have plenty of space. You’d all be most welcome. Will you think about it?’

  ‘I certainly shall. But are you sure? You have enough going on without a toddler and a baby and four more grown-ups.’

  ‘Nonsense. I love nothing better than having the house full of people. You know that. Besides, a few more pairs of hands will be most welcome, as will the extra coupons. It will be just like having paying guests – only you won’t pay a thing.’

  ‘We certainly shall, Aunt Sonia – I refuse to come otherwise. Although the government have told Anna they’re requisitioning Alderworth Hall, and a load of American soldiers will be billeted here soon so she can’t possibly have us for more than a couple of days.’

  ‘Then that’s settled. We shall organise a removals van, and you can be here by the weekend.’

  Meg gave a sad laugh. ‘I hardly think a van will be necessary. We’ve nothing except the clothes we stand up in. I should think I could just about put all we own in the dog cart and bring it over myself. Anyway, let me talk it over with Paul when he comes, and I’ll let you know later. And thank you for being so kind.’

  Paul arrived three hours later. Meg caught sight of him from the nursery window coming up the gravel driveway. His strong, familiar figure was so reassuring that she felt a pang of affectionate longing, and a sense of remorse. She hurried out to meet him. He accepted her hug, but she could detect reserve in his manner. In her fragile emotional state she needed his affection, and that it wasn’t forthcoming made her feel frightened.

  His first thought, once he had greeted Anna and thanked her, was for Max. He spent a good fifteen minutes in the nursery with the little boy, listening to his excited account of the air raid first, then talking to him gently about the house, and what would happen now.

  Meg, not liking to intrude, hung about just outside the door, listening.

  ‘As long as you have Mummy and me, you have a home. Houses are just places, you know, and we’ll find another one just as nice. Or maybe we can rebuild the old one.’

  ‘It’s all in pieces, Daddy.’

  ‘I know, old fellow, but it was just a load of bricks before they built it. It can be done again. I’m going up to take a look at it in a moment, to see what can be done.’

  ‘Can I come with you? I need to look for Henry Rabbit. I left him behind when the siren went and we all had to run to the shelter.’

  ‘Not today. Maybe another time. Now, you need to look after Mummy. She’s had a dreadful shock. We men have to be strong, don’t we?’

  Meg, peeping through the doorway, saw her five-year-old son nod uncertainly. Paul straightened up, and Meg moved away from the door and went downstairs.

  Paul came down a moment later. ‘I’m going to take a walk up.’

  ‘Would you like me to come with you?’

  ‘No, I’d rather go alone. Besides, you’ve been once today. I shouldn’t think you’d want to see it again.’

  ‘As you like.’ His words suggested he was sparing her, but she sensed she was being rebuffed. ‘Dixon’s up there. He’s staying on to tend the horses. His flat wasn’t damaged. Neither was the workshop. So your car’s safe.’

  ‘I don’t care about the car,’ said Paul shortly. ‘I’ll be back later.’

  Meg walked to the door with him in silence, and watched as he strode off down the driveway, following his figure as far as the road, until he disappeared from sight. She went through to the empty morning room and sat on the window seat. Something was very wrong. Perhaps the shock of the house being bombed had affected him. But she sensed it was more than that. There was a complete estrangement. Well, of course there was – she’d brought it about herself, carrying on with another man, thinking she could keep the protective shell of her marriage intact for as long as it suited her. She had created a gulf between them, and she shouldn’t be surprised that he felt and reacted to it. He had always responded gratefully to her affection in the past. Not today. Yet she knew that, whatever he felt, he would look after her. That was the kind of man he was. That was the kind of man she was in the process of destroying.

  Paul returned an hour later, when everyone was in the drawing room having tea. The French windows stood open to the summer air, and the maid came and went in her neat uniform with plates of sandwiches and cakes.

  ‘Come and have a cup of tea,’ Anna said. ‘You look as though you could do with one.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Paul sat down, his face grim. ‘Well, they’ve certainly made a mess of it.’

  ‘It’s only half the house,’ ventured Meg. ‘The left-hand side—’

  ‘The whole lot will have to come down. There’s no question of rebuilding.’

  There was a brief silence, broken only by the tinkle of Helen’s spoon as she stirred her tea, then Meg said, ‘Sonia has invited us to go and live with her for the time being.’

  Paul sighed. ‘That might be for the best. I can’t think how else we’ll manage.’ He drained his tea and took his pipe from his pocket. ‘Excuse me, everyone. I’m going outside for a smoke. I don’t feel like eating anything right now.’

  ‘Poor Paul,’ said Anna, when he had left. ‘Your lovely home. You both worked so hard to make it what it was. He’s obviously wretc
hed about it.’

  Meg rose. ‘I’m going to go and talk to him. He bottles things up. It isn’t good for him.’

  She stepped through the French windows and saw Paul pacing the lawn next to the driveway. She walked over and sat down on a nearby stone balustrade.

  ‘Paul, darling, what’s wrong?’ She was conscious that she hadn’t used the endearment much lately. ‘It’s more than the house. I can tell.’

  Paul sat down next to her. ‘As if the house wasn’t enough.’ He paused. ‘Everything we worked for has gone, hasn’t it? At least it wasn’t something that had been in the family for centuries, like this place. Imagine a whole heritage being destroyed. I hope to God Alderworth Hall will still be standing when James comes back.’

  ‘I suppose every house is precious to its owners.’

  He nodded. ‘That’s very true. Hazelhurst was precious to us for a while, wasn’t it?’

  ‘What do you mean – for a while?’

  ‘Until it was bombed.’

  But Meg didn’t believe that was what he meant at all. ‘Paul, what else is the matter?’

  ‘Oh, any number of things, really. Can’t put them all into words.’ His gaze roamed the gardens for a moment, and she felt fear in the pit of her stomach as she waited for what he might say. ‘The fact is, Meg, I’ve had enough.’

  ‘Enough?’ Her mouth felt dry.

  ‘Enough of what I’m doing. It’s a vitally important job – I wouldn’t be doing it otherwise – but there are men risking their lives every day to defend this country, men like Roddy, and the sons and husbands of everyone we know, and I should be part of that.’ Meg felt a tightness in her chest loosening. ‘I’ve put in for an RAF commission. I can fly a plane, which is more than most chaps who sign up, so I don’t think it’ll be long before I’m in uniform.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘In fact, given the turnover rate, it should be any day now.’

  ‘Are you sure about this, Paul?’

  ‘As sure as I’ve ever been about anything.’

  ‘Well, of course, I’ll support you whatever you decide to do.’

  ‘I have to deal with what’s left of our home first. I’ll be making arrangements to have the car put into storage. And we’ll have to sell the horses. I told Dixon, and he recognises the situation. He says it won’t be hard to find other work, given the shortage of labour hereabouts. I offered to pay him a month’s wages.’ He sighed. ‘It’ll all work out. You and Max will be at Woodbourne House, and I’ll come down whenever I’m on leave. And when the war’s over, maybe we can start again.’ His eyes searched her face, but she looked away.

  ‘Yes.’ She stood up. ‘I’d better go and tell the others about moving to Sonia’s.’

  ‘Fine. I’ll stay out here for a bit, and have a smoke.’

  *

  ‘I suppose it’s the logical thing to do,’ said Diana. ‘I don’t think Morven and I would manage very well on our own in Kensington. It’s awfully good of Sonia to volunteer to have us all.’

  ‘Oh, she’ll simply adore it,’ said Helen. ‘She’ll be like a mother hen. Though it’s a pity we can’t stay on here.’ She glanced appreciatively around Anna’s drawing room. It had been a refreshing change to have tea served properly by a maid in cap, cuffs and apron, instead of higgledy-piggledy at Meg’s kitchen table. ‘One forgets what it’s like to have servants. The Kentleighs are lucky to have kept so many staff. I suppose it will be every man for himself at Woodbourne House.’

  ‘I’m sure we’ll get by very well,’ said Meg. ‘In the meantime, we have to think about practicalities. You all need shoes, including the children. I’ll go down to the clothing depot in the village and see what I can find. There’s no point in buying new things until we get to Woodbourne.’

  ‘How are we to get there?’ asked Diana.

  ‘Bus, I suppose, since we can’t drive.’ Meg thought for a moment. ‘I was joking when I told Sonia I would jog over in the dog cart, but I don’t see why some of us can’t. Sonia might find the dog cart useful, and it would mean not having to sell Grisette.’

  ‘I refuse to go all the way to Woodbourne House in a horse and cart,’ said Helen firmly.

  ‘I don’t mind,’ said Diana. ‘If you think the weather will hold.’

  ‘Good. I’ll go and tell Anna we’ll be out of her hair by tomorrow.’

  4

  DAN WOKE WITH a start, his heart racing, convinced for a moment that he was back at the top of the glacier with Black and Tenby and the other commandoes. He’d been having a terrifying dream in which he was swinging across a fathomless chasm, downwards, ever downwards, in stomach-lifting loops, with dark walls of water – which he knew would carry him to certain death – cascading on either side of him.

  His body was damp with sweat. He drew his hand across his face and lay waiting for the thudding of his heart to slacken, gradually taking in the realisation that he wasn’t in a sleeping bag in the biting chill of the Arctic morning, but in his bedroom in Belgravia – albeit fully clad and still with his boots on.

  He wasn’t sure which were worse – the nightmares or the flashbacks. At least the flashbacks were real memories – Captain Tenby knocking the ashes from his pipe as they prepared to begin the ascent of the glacier; the clatter of Reinertsen’s pistol falling into a ravine when he almost lost his footing; that moment when he had frozen with fear halfway, convinced he could go neither backward nor forward, until Tenby’s calm voice had willed him on; the terror of inching his way beneath the massive water pipes of the hydroelectric dam to strap on the explosives; the explosion itself rocking the valley. Those he could cope with, though they came without warning, knocking him momentarily for six.

  The nightmares, on the other hand, were ghastly distortions of reality. In one of them he was wedged beneath the pipes, unable to escape, horribly aware as the seconds ticked by that he was about to be blown to smithereens in a torrent of water and metal and rubble, only to wake sweating and shouting. In another he and Brendan were within sight of the Swedish border, when the grassy meadow through which they were tramping dissolved into sticky mud, and they were struggling in vain to move their legs as behind them the German patrols roared closer and closer.

  The nightmares might be bad, but at least he woke from those. The flashbacks were relentless, inescapable.

  As the details of the hellish dream receded from his brain like a tide from a rock, he became conscious that he was hung-over. As badly hung-over as he’d ever been. He retraced the events of the previous day – the train journey down from Scotland, the debriefing at the War Office, that chap Mountbatten congratulating them on the success of the mission, and giving them a month’s leave and offering them the use of his staff car to take them wherever they were going. They had gone instead to the pub. His last clear memory was of pulling Brendan out of a Soho bar, where he had been trying to start a fight with two fusiliers.

  Brendan. What had happened to him? Dan got gingerly out of bed and made his way along the landing. To his relief he found him, also still in uniform, sprawled untidily on the bed in a spare room, fast asleep. Dan went to the bathroom and splashed his face with cold water, then went downstairs. In the cellar he tipped the last of the anthracite into the boiler and lit it. He would have to remember to order some more. The luxury of twenty-eight days in which to attend to such minor domestic chores stretched ahead of him. Above all, he would, with luck, be able to see Meg.

  After a bath, Dan took his duty ration book to the shops and bought what food he could for breakfast. When he got back Brendan was up and about, albeit in a fragile condition.

  ‘That was a night, that was,’ said Brendan. ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘Fragile.’ Dan badly wanted to know whether Brendan was suffering the same mental repercussions from the mission as he was, but during the past ten days, from the morning they had crawled over the fence to the Swedish border until the afternoon when they had left the British Embassy in Stockholm for the flight home, he had never talked abo
ut it. Now was not the time to begin. He slipped four rashers of bacon into the frying pan. ‘Good news,’ he told Brendan. ‘We have an egg apiece.’

  *

  ‘How are you going to spend your month’s leave?’ asked Dan, when breakfast was finished.

  ‘I’m going to my sister in Balham for a couple of days, see my nephews, then head for Liverpool and get the Dublin ferry, see my folks. You?’

  ‘I don’t honestly know. Take it easy, I suppose.’ He could think of no therapy which would heal his shattered nerves, beyond a few quiet days at Woodbourne House.

  After Brendan had left, Dan washed up the dishes and then sat down to go through the mail that had accumulated during his weeks of absence. There was a letter from Harry, now a private stationed in Huddersfield, grumbling with witty invective about the tedium of army life and the constant cleaning of kit, and a letter from Sonia dated three weeks earlier.

  Great changes here – poor Meg and Paul lost their house, hit by a bomb in August. No one was hurt, which is a mercy. Everyone who was at Hazelhurst is now living here at Woodbourne, so we are a motley crew. Laura is very glad to have Max as a playmate.

  Dan digested this news. Hazelhurst had symbolised everything Meg had hoped for from her marriage. Perhaps now it was gone, it would be easier to persuade her to leave Paul. With this unworthy thought, he carried on reading through the rest of Sonia’s letter, which concluded:

  I hope this finds you safe and well, and that if you have some leave soon you will pay us a visit. You know how I love to see you, and a bed is always waiting.

  Dan folded up the letter. After the horrors of the past weeks a visit to Surrey would be a balm to his soul, particularly since Meg was there. He would go down this weekend.

  *

  As Dan made his way up the path towards Woodbourne House, past the barn and through the orchard, the tawny, pleasantly decaying scent of autumn was just beginning to creep into the air. The apple trees were laden with a late crop of apples, and against the brick wall of the kitchen garden the quinces and medlars were ripe and ready to be picked. The kitchen garden itself was almost twice the size it had been before the war, a patchwork of beds of autumn vegetables. Laura was playing by the fountain with Star, holding up a length of dead raspberry cane at which the little dog kept leaping.