Goodbye Piccadilly

by Betty Burton

  She looked up at him and for a moment she thought that he was going to kiss her. It was a balmy night, they had eaten splendidly, laughed, danced, and been easy in one another’s company, and with the relaxed attitudes brought about by the war, it would not have been unthinkable to have exchanged kisses in the street.

  Holding her shoulders, he drew her closer. ‘Otis, you are the only one I can tell.’ He paused. ‘I have decided that I am not going back there.’

  For a moment she thought that he meant that he was not returning to his father’s house.

  ‘Back where?’

  ‘To France.’

  ‘What are you…?’

  The moment of silence seemed an age.

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I was thinking – of trying to get away. I have been thinking a lot about it, in the army one hears rumours all the time, tales about men who hopped on a ship and stowed away. Of course, one never hears the tales about those who are caught, but it ought not to be too difficult in the Port of London.’

  Otis was stunned. Had Max Hewetson said, that last Christmas, that he was going on the run, then she would not have been surprised. She knew that he had seen through the veneer of duty to a conviction that what he was doing was wrong. But he would die rather than have others believe him to be a coward or a traitor – which was what he did. But Jack? Jack the volunteer who had gone to war to avenge his sister’s tragedy? An hour ago, in the dining-room of the Cavendish, he had been the epitome of a young man enjoying the last days of home leave.

  ‘Why are you telling me, Jack?’

  ‘Before I last went up the line, I started a letter to you.’ They had walked twice around St James’s Square and were now walking along Regent Street towards Piccadilly. The evening that had begun so lightheartedly was dying. Her mind was frantically considering the problems for Jack if he went as a ‘runner’. So far she had been actively involved in the running of three men, and had been on the periphery in the organizing by Danny of several more. It was risky and fraught with distress. Men who did it were suddenly whisked out of the country with no farewell wave. A few took a wife or girlfriend to help in the subterfuge, but mostly the men left alone.

  ‘What was in the letter?’

  ‘A declaration of my love for you.’

  ‘You mustn’t, Jack.’

  ‘You cannot order my love away, Otis. You can say that you don’t feel the same for me, but there is nothing that you can do about what I feel for you.’

  ‘I know… I know.’

  ‘I do love you. I wish I hadn’t been such a fool over Victoria.’

  They had now reached Piccadilly, which was busy with late diners and theatre-goers. At a rank, Jack opened the door of a horse-drawn cab and handed her in.

  ‘Where? Greywell?’

  ‘No, to my own home.’

  ‘Islington, then,’ he told the cabbie.

  Inside, they were quiet for a few minutes, sitting with space between them; then Jack moved close and put one hand on her shoulder, urging her to face him. ‘I know that you have said that you intend following your career.’

  ‘And so I shall.’

  ‘Oh, modern women and their careers. There’s no doing with them, is there? I love you, Otis, does that mean anything to you?’

  ‘Of course it does. Of course. I simply don’t know how to respond.’

  ‘I had hoped that your response would be that you loved me.’

  When she had watched him lighting the cigar she had wondered whether his mouth would feel like his father’s, hard and insistent, but erotic and exciting. There was no doubt about it, she had enjoyed being kissed by George Moth and, when he had come within a breath of seducing her, she had liked the feel of his warm, heavy body.

  When she stood outside herself, she could see that by society’s standards she would be considered immoral. Her mother would be shocked beyond words and her father disillusioned, their friends shocked. A teacher! A woman who had young children in her charge to indulge her desires as though she were a man! A woman who had had all the advantages that birth into the wealthy, professional class could have, to admit to taking pleasure at the thought of being seduced by her friend’s father, and recently making love with a man who, if found out, might be put to death as a traitor for aiding and abetting deserters. Yet, in her affair with Danny Turner she did not see herself, as others would, as a woman of easy virtue. Her conscience was as untroubled as that of a pure but unsatisfied virgin.

  Otis’s body was young and healthy, she was a woman who could not be satisfied except by being made love to by a man. A man like Danny Turner who, like Otis, did not wish for any serious commitment from a lover. She believed that sexual desire was nature at work, and that rules which did not permit sexual fulfilment to a woman who taught children were asking to be broken. There seemed no logic in the rule that forbade married women to teach – one would have thought they would make the best teachers.

  Her casual affair with Danny was perfect. He was as discreet in his activities as her occasional lover as he was with his missions with the men he smuggled out of the country. When he and Otis went together to get one of the men safely aboard his ship, they expiated their days of anxiety with mutual passion. Beginning strong and fierce with one another, and later relaxed and giving.

  Now, complications. Jack Moth loved her. Had he, instead of saying ‘I love you’ said, ‘I want to make love with you’, she had already made up her mind to it. It would have been another kind of fulfilment. He had been her first awakening as a girl when she had seen him diving from the dinghy, lean and white-skinned, as pleased with his newfound virility as she had been of her burgeoning femininity. Had he said ‘I love you’ when she had seen him again that summer in Southsea, or at Mere, then she would have said, ‘And I love you.’ But now?

  He said, ‘I really did not intend to go any further than to let you know how I feel. One way or another I am about to go away, and I did not want to do so without at least letting you know how I feel about you – and now realize, how I have always felt.’

  ‘Dear Jack, thank you. I have never had a man declare love for me – I feel overwhelmed.’

  ‘Otis, I cannot believe that.’

  ‘It is true. Jack, listen to me. If you are not going back to your unit, you’ll need help.’

  ‘I’ll manage.’

  ‘I can put you in touch…’

  ‘I will not allow you to get involved.’

  ‘I am already involved.’ And she told him of her activities with the escapees.

  When the cab drew into the kerb, holding his face between her hands and guiding his mouth to hers in the dark of the cab, it was she who kissed him, her soft mouth parted. ‘Until tomorrow then, Jack.’

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘It will be safer for you to get out, with the help I can get you.’

  —

  VIEW FROM GUN CLIFF SEA WALL, LYME REGIS

  Father,

  A p.c. from Baby and me to say that we are enjoying the sea air of Lyme. Mere is looking most beautiful. Do bring Kitt and Effee to visit us quite soon, Esther

  ‘Walk nicely, Baby.’ Esther pulled on the safety-reins, halting the little girl who used the jingling breast strap to swing against, forcing Esther to lift her free of the cobbles of Lyme Regis’s Broad Street.

  ‘Swing-swing.’ Baby twisted and swung in mid-air.

  ‘Oh, Nancy, she should have been a boy, just look at the toes of her boots. Naughty Baby, if you don’t walk like a little lady then we shall not have our treat.’ Esther lowered the child gingerly so that her neat little white calf boots should not scrape the cobbles. Bribed by the reward of a cup of fruit juice and a biscuit taken in the open on the Marine Parade, little Stephanie walked sedately ahead of her mother and Nancy, who was guiding Baby’s wicker baby-carriage – for which she was really rather too old, but which Esther did not like to leave at home on its own when they went on these outings.

  ‘Per
haps you should let her run a bit, Mrs Blood, she can come to no harm once we are away from the roadways. I could take her down on to the sand.’

  ‘I don’t think so, Nancy. She’s only three years of age, and yet such a wild little thing already, don’t you think?’

  ‘No, not wild, just full of curiosity and energy.’

  ‘I should hate it if she became a hobbledehoy. The major loved femininity and daintiness.’

  They turned the corner on to the Marine Parade. The tide was almost out, revealing the bay with its tawny sand and shingle sculpted into a scalloped edge by worn wooden groynes. To their left a green rolling horizon, to their right the long bare shoreline into which The Cobb hooked like a loving stone arm protecting bobbing fishing boats and dinghies anchored in its lee. Although it was well into September, the air was warm, and a balmy breeze carrying seashore smells rustled the skirts and hat-ribbons of the two women.

  ‘Indian summer, Mrs Blood.’ .

  ‘It seems to me that it has always been summer here.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear you say that, miss.’

  Nancy, who had been trying to find the right moment, saw that it was now. ‘I thought that I’d stop out the rest of the summer, see you settled in…’

  ‘Nancy, you’re never going so soon.’

  ‘It’s not really “soon”, I’ve been with you a fair time. And you’re better, I can tell now that you’ve come home here.’

  ‘It isn’t my home, though. I’m really only my brother’s tenant.’

  ‘I can’t see Master Jack down here away from things.’

  ‘No, so he might not want to keep it on, in which case he’d want to sell up.’

  ‘It’s a lovely place. I quite fell for it.’

  ‘Then stay with me, Nancy.’

  ‘Oh miss, I’m no more the type for quiet coastal places than Master Jack.’

  ‘But Southsea…’

  ‘I belong in London, miss. Portsmouth and Southsea was only where I was born and where I worked my first years. Since I went to London it seems to be my true home.’

  ‘But what have you got to keep you there now…?’ They had reached the little cafe which they had taken to visiting in the afternoons, and seated themselves on some folding chairs at an ironwork table. Stephanie, afraid that this wonderful treat might be taken from her, sat stiff-legged, diverted only by the bells of her harness, like the perfect little girl her mother wished her to be.

  The relationship between the two women was no longer clear-cut. Walking together their demeanour and dress indicated that Nancy was in the pay of Esther, but their shared experience, of a loving man suddenly taken from them, had given them a kind of bond that often overstepped their social positions.

  ‘Now that Wally’s gone? I suppose you might say the same as brought you down here – London is where what’s left of Wally is.’

  ‘Wally’s best boots?’

  Nancy smiled. ‘Those are his mother’s. I don’t really need them to remember Wally, but I do want to live where he lived, and go back to work where we worked together.’

  ‘You would go back to working on the trams?’

  ‘The war has given women a chance to get a foot in the door of better jobs. I dare say they’ll try to oust us out, so we have to do what we can while we can. I joined the Independent Labour Party, and they’re all for getting women into the unions, so if I get back into the depot I’ll see if I can help out with the sort of work Wally was doing.’

  ‘Isn’t all that kind of thing men’s business? I’m not saying that women should not have the vote, but there are so many more suitable things that are more natural to women than what you propose. The way you have helped me has been wonderful – it is that kind of thing that women should do.’

  ‘I did that for you, Mrs Blood, because I knew you when you was a girl and I knew your ma, and I saw how you was with young Kitt when he was a baby. But what I really want to do is to go back to working for the unions and helping with the Family Planning campaign. We’re not far off the day when there will be proper clinics; all that’s needed is some funds.’

  Esther wrapped a large napkin around Stephanie’s twill silk smock and helped her to hold a cup daintily and be careful of biscuit crumbs. ‘Goodness, Nancy, how shall I ever manage to produce a graceful daughter from this little bundle of fidgets.’

  ‘Same way you got there yourself, miss: a bit of you, a bit of her, and a bit of give and take.’

  ‘I wish that you would stay here.’

  ‘Perhaps I could come down to see you from time to time.’

  ‘And talk common sense to me? Yes, that is if we are still here.’

  ‘Miss, can I suggest something?’

  ‘What then, have you got the answer to it all?’

  ‘I wish I had. I don’t know if it would even be feasible for you, but I just wondered if Master Jack ever thought of selling Mere Meldrum, that you should buy it from him.’

  Esther looked at Nancy with mild astonishment. ‘I could, couldn’t I? Why did that never occur to me? I could, couldn’t I? My mother’s legacy was not large, but I might come to some arrangement…’ She patted Nancy’s arm. ‘You are so clever, Nancy. Oh, I feel so excited, just think what an asset a place like Mere would be when Baby is a young woman, what a setting for weekends in the country for her friends.’

  Nancy unwrapped and wiped the face of the embryonic debutante of her mother’s imagination. ‘Ups-a-daisy, Miss Stephy. Now hold your mama’s hand nicely or you’ll find yourself in knickerbockers and black boots and your curls cut off.’

  The child did as she was bid by Nancy, knowing that when she came along here in the morning with Nancy and no Mama, Nancy would reward her with a race along the sand and a search for crawlies, perhaps even with her toes bare.

  ‘Baby will miss you, Nancy.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am, but she’s going to be fine, you see if I’m not right. Just let her have her head sometimes, let her be a little girl for as long as she can. Being a grown woman an’t no great shakes, is it?’

  —

  My Dearest Ess,

  Your suggestion is the perfect solution to Mere Meldrum. You could, of course, have had it for your home for as long as you wished, but if it suits you to become its owner, then I shall put it in hand at once. I shall make it over to you entirely for whatever sum you raise on the property Mother left you.

  If I may suggest, be guided by Hewetson. He has always looked to your interests very well and from what you have told me of his investment of the income from your property, it must have yielded very well indeed.

  I should prefer that the entire matter be handled by Hewetson, as I do not wish to involve my own practice. Mere will be costly to keep up, but as most of those portraits, vases, clocks and pieces of statuary you consigned to the attics are valuable, I suggest that you let him send them to Sotheby’s and invest the proceeds. Get him to go over the books with you and the agent: you will see that such bits of Mere as the dairy herd will bring in a fair contribution.

  Whatever you do, don’t let Mere become a burden. Ask Father for money if necessary, take in paying guests, open it as a hotel – anything, just so long as you make it your – and Stephanie’s – home. It is a beautiful house that deserves to be happy – as you do, my dearest sister.

  It may be some time before I see you, but I shall carry with me a picture of you there in Lyme creating a new Mere Meldrum.

  As ever, yours,

  Jack

  KATE

  Wife of Rev. Peter Warren

  Died 22 October, 1917

  R.I.P.

  Victoria stood in the October chill of the graveyard before the newly erected headstone, a twin to that of its close companion, to the Rev. Peter.

  Aunt Kate, unlike Grandmother who had wanted no marker for her old bones, had wanted a ‘piece of respectable marble like Peter’s’ which her successful children had seen to it that she had. Kate, who had not seen her sons for years, would have been
proud of them, silk-hatted at a village funeral. In their youth they had been given the same advice as had later been given to Victoria – ‘get on out in the world if you wants to make summit of yourself, you won’t never be nothing in this here place’, and so as Vic and Linty had gone, Victoria was now going.

  She had been to look at the weathered cross, carved ‘Louise Tylee 1862–88’ which, apart from Victoria herself, was the only thing of substance left to indicate that her mother had ever lived.

  Unsentimentally, Victoria knew that this was the end of that part of her life. Of the warm, strong environment of her childhood, where women living alone fended for themselves; where homeless children came and went, and some orphaned children came and stayed; and where destitute women, abandoned – as her grandmother had been abandoned – by men who had left them with children to feed and no means of providing for them, had received the unpatronizing charity of The Refuge, as the hospice was known.

  She still had relations in the village, but they were not so close that it would hurt Victoria never to see them again. And, much as she had loved her home as a child, she had outgrown it. Kate had taught her her first letters there, and her grandmother had shown her how to deliver a baby safely in sterile surroundings. It had been a home shared with a dozen other children and sometimes more, and several temporary aunts; its floors had gleamed with polish and its shelves and cupboards had reeked hygienically of the Old Lady’s disinfectant – Caroline’s Holy Water, as the Rev. Peter had once called it.

  The links that had attached Victoria to the village and The Refuge were now all broken – Uncle Peter and Aunt Kate side by side; her mother, whose cross had been erected when she was younger than Victoria was now; Grandmother, who had been mother, father, guide, conscience and mentor, had become a recently sunken mound where snowdrops, scillas and anemones were now as naturalized as the horse-daisies, buttercups and poppies that bloomed after them. The Refuge will continue, Uncle Vic and Uncle Linty, hard-nosed, soft-centred railway contractors, have agreed to become its trustees in Victoria’s stead.