First Friends

by Marcia Willett

  ‘Here we are.’ The General bustled in carrying three glasses and a bottle of champagne. ‘Where’s that brother of yours? Give him a shout. That’s it! Here she comes! Quick! Ready with that glass! There. Now. Here’s to you, Kate. Let’s hope that your stay here is a very happy one!’

  IT WAS. UNLIKE CASS, Kate was perfectly happy to have a break from Service life and pottered around the bungalow, playing with the twins, working in the garden and pushing Guy and Giles up on the moor in a double pushchair that she found in a second-hand shop in Tavistock.

  She did not analyse the sense of relief she experienced when Mark went to sea, the freedom from the strain of his presence. A feeling of holiday pervaded the bungalow and Kate merely congratulated herself on being of a temperament that could endure these separations so contentedly. She attributed a great deal of this to the moor which she was growing to love with a great passion and which the General was encouraging her to know.

  On sunny days, he would appear in his car with Mrs Hampton who was only too happy to look after the twins and make up for Kate’s somewhat dilatory and slapdash housekeeping whilst the General bore Kate off for trips over the moor and lunches in country pubs.

  ‘I feel so guilty!’ she said to Cass during one of their lengthy telephone calls. ‘He never lets me pay for anything and when we get back Mrs Hampton won’t let me pay either. And she’s usually cleaned up and then, when they’re gone, I come across all sorts of goodies in the larder.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake stop fussing,’ said Cass. ‘Daddy’s absolutely loving it and he’ll see that Hammy’s OK, never fear! And she’ll be loving it too. She’s just the same with Charlotte. She misses her son dreadfully now he’s out in Hong Kong so you’re doing her a favour. And Daddy loves to have women around him, you know that, ’specially young pretty ones.’

  ‘Honestly, Cass!’

  ‘It’s true. Try to see that you’re doing him a favour.’

  Kate tried but found it difficult. She invited him around to supper when the boat was in so that he could renew his brief acquaintance with Mark. The evening went very well. Mark could be very charming to older people, even if he did often spoil the effect for Kate afterwards by saying things like, ‘Thank God that’s over, boring old buffer!’ or ‘Daft old bat, what on earth made you ask her?’ and she was amazed at his ability to deceive people into thinking that he was a charming, intelligent, young man.

  On this occasion, he and the General reviewed several subjects, ranging from the general election that had taken place earlier in the year to the World Cup. The most recent topic on everyone’s lips at that time, however, was the Aberfan disaster in which a hundred and sixteen children had lost their lives when the spoil and waste from the coal mines slid down a Welsh hillside and collapsed on to the small mining village in the valley below.

  When she heard of the disaster, Kate had sat for a long while on her sofa, a twin in each arm, and had imagined the nightmare agony for the parents of those children who had choked, struggled and suffocated to death in the coal dust. She had sat, staring straight ahead, hugging the twins tightly, seeing their smooth limbs and blonde heads covered and crushed by the inexorable black waste.

  ‘Won’t go into that,’ said the General, glancing at Kate. He’d popped in a few days before to find her listening to the news of the rising casualty numbers and shedding tears over the tragedy. ‘Terrible thing! Mustn’t upset Kate.’

  She smiled at him gratefully and stood up to collect the plates.

  ‘Oh, Kate always takes the troubles of the world on her shoulders,’ she heard Mark say as she went into the kitchen to make coffee. ‘Totally pointless. Got enough of our own problems without worrying about other people’s. They never thank you for it.’

  Only a few submarines ran out of Devonport and Mark and Kate were in much the same situation as Tom and Cass. The Captain and the First Lieutenant had both bought houses in Alverstoke and neither of their wives had moved down. Since neither of the other officers was married, there was no social life and they knew no one. The boat spent most of its time at sea and Kate was left with her own little round of children, garden, the General, and, all around her and dominating her world, the moor.

  Through the following year she watched it change: the new bracken pushing up through the black, peaty soil in a tightly curled fist, growing to be waist-high in summer, the bright enamel yellow flowers of the gorse coming into bloom. She saw the cloud shadows darken the purple heather that covered the hills as the clouds raced before the wind and she caught her breath when the low late-autumn sun turned the dying bracken to fire.

  She loved to see the rain clouds bellying blackly in the west and, when the storm had passed, to see the golden gleams of sunshine that followed behind.

  Even when the rain poured relentlessly down, filling the great sponge of the moor to saturation so that dry watercourses became streams and small issues gushed with water, when the overspill thundered over the dam at Burrator and the rivers raced and foamed over the rocks, even then she loved it.

  She saw the thorn and the rowan berries ripen and the beech leaves turn and knew that when the time came to leave it would be one of the saddest days of her life.

  Five

  Kate and Mark went to Cornwall for Christmas and to the Websters’ for the New Year.

  ‘Never again,’ said Kate to the General when they were back in Dousland and Mark had gone to sea again. ‘Everyone was as helpful as they could be about transport but it’s impossible with two small children. And I was so disappointed to miss Cass and Tom.’

  ‘It was lovely to have them. Now where’s that husband of yours gone this time?’

  ‘Out to the Med. The boat’s spending a week in Gibraltar. He’ll be gone about five weeks. Two of the wives are going out when they get to Gib. In fact, the First Lieutenant’s wife telephoned me to see if I was too.’ She made a face and then laughed. ‘It was a bit embarrassing, actually. At that stage I didn’t even know where they were going and she seemed a bit surprised. Mark was cross when I told him. He felt I’d dropped him in it.’

  ‘And are you going?’

  ‘No. Mark’s not very keen on the idea. He always says these visits are hell. The others seem to enjoy them . . . ’ She paused and then shrugged. ‘Oh, well. I’m sure he’s right. And anyway, we probably couldn’t afford it. The Navy doesn’t pay for the wives. Some husbands squeeze them on to their subsistence allowance. They don’t live on the boat when they’re in harbour, you see. They get a set rate so they can stay at an hotel but if you don’t mind a bed and breakfast place, the allowance more or less covers two of you. The Navy doesn’t care. If you choose to live less luxuriously and have your wife with you, it’s up to you. The wives can hitch cheap flights out with the RAF but they have to wait for one that fits in and then, Mark says, if the boat’s ETA is delayed all sorts of muddles happen. So . . . ’ She smiled at the General. ‘Anyway, I bet Gib’s not as nice as Devon. Now tell me all about Cass and Tom. And how was Charlotte? Cass sent me some photographs and she looks an absolute sweetie.’

  The General drove home thoughtfully. More and more lately he was seeing service life from a different angle, through the eyes of Cass and Kate as they struggled to come to terms with its problems. He longed to help them, to protect them, but he knew that his role could only be a peripheral one. He must not interfere or give advice, all he could do was to be at hand. He was full of admiration for the way they dealt with the crises, the loneliness, the anxieties, and found himself thinking of Caroline, his shy, silly wife who, unable to cope with a husband twice as old as she was, had turned to a boy of her own age and finished up crushed and mangled with him in his little car.

  ‘He had his arm round her.’

  Funny how that still had the power to twist his gut. The policeman had told him that afterwards and he had in that moment imagined quite clearly the two of them, wrapped up in their romantic ideal, fleeing into the night. The boy had been a subaltern an
d had seen himself, no doubt, as rescuing her from an intolerable marriage with a man old enough to be her father and an insensitive womaniser to boot. And Caroline, her head full of poetry and dreams, had encouraged him, seeing herself as the wronged heroine in one of those endless romances that she was always reading.

  The General gave a small exclamation of self-disgust and struck the steering wheel lightly with the flat of his hand. Even now, more than twenty years on, his instinct was to belittle her. The fault had been his. Wrapped up in a brilliant career and then fully occupied by war, he had decided to take a wife at a time when he was established, experienced and absolutely in control of his life. He should have chosen from amongst his own circle, a woman of his own age, a widow—there were plenty at that stage of the war—or a divorcee. But he hadn’t wanted another man’s leavings; at least, not as his wife. He wanted a young girl who would give him children and blend willingly and gracefully into his well-established way of life. Caroline had seemed the perfect choice: barely out of the schoolroom, dazzled by the dashing, handsome Colonel who knew so well how to charm and flatter.

  She had bored him quite quickly and he had left her to her own devices. There was still so much to be done just after the war and he had neither the time nor the inclination to realise that she was lonely and bewildered. His friends petted and patronised and then ignored her. Whispers of his reputation reached her ears, although since his marriage he had been perfectly correct, and she became even more lacking in confidence. When her baby was born, Nanny was installed and even Caroline’s pretty child was gently but inexorably removed from her inexpert care. No wonder then that she should turn to young Hurley who saw her as a damsel in distress, used and humiliated by his wicked Colonel who was not always as tender of his young officers’ feelings as he might have been.

  Afterwards, the sympathy had all been for him. Even her parents—thrilled at her brilliant marriage—had been mortified by her behaviour and let him know that no blame could be attached to him. He had never been able to decide whether it had been an accident due to dangerous driving or a deliberate act.

  ‘He had his arm round her.’

  Now, as he watched Cass and Kate grappling with the difficulties of service life, he could see, here and there, the pattern repeating itself although in different ways and for different reasons. Sometimes it seemed as if he were being giving a second chance, an opportunity to redress the balance. Perhaps his support, a word of advice, may prevent these children from making the mistakes that he had made and in so doing he could find some measure of atonement. Forgive me Father for I have sinned. And what of Caroline and young Hurley, wiped out, extinguished between one breath and the next? What could atone for that? Had she been afraid?

  ‘He had his arm round her.’

  The General drove round to his garage, put his car away and went indoors.

  IT WAS SPRING BEFORE Cass visited her father again. Tom was, at last, on the long awaited course and she drove the long distance from Kent—avoiding London—on a blowy March day. She glanced in the driving mirror at Charlotte who sat sucking her thumb and gazing stolidly at the passing countryside. She was such an easy child, so good-tempered and adaptable, and Cass felt a great wave of affection for her daughter, who looked so like easy, good-tempered and adaptable Tom. She loved them both dearly but, nevertheless, it was lovely to be free and independent and to be within a few miles of her father and her dearest friend. She had every intention of thoroughly enjoying her little holiday.

  KATE WANDERED ROUND THE garden, eagerly waiting for the telephone call from the General to tell her that Cass had arrived. She had already had a call from her mother, who had just returned to Cornwall after one of her fairly regular visits and could talk of nothing but the Torrey Canyon, the oil tanker that had gone aground off the Isles of Scilly spilling a hundred and twenty thousand tons of crude oil into the sea. It was all too close for comfort, she had said.

  ‘All the poor birds!’ she kept crying. ‘All the wildlife destroyed. It’s terrible!’

  Kate strolled on, the twins gambolling around her. She loved the garden. It was all mainly to the front of the bungalow: a long, long lawn edged with rhododendron bushes stretching down to the road. At present the lawn was massed with daffodils and she walked on the drive which passed up the side of the lawn and round to the garage at the back of the bungalow.

  In the border beneath the wooden fence primulas bloomed and the starry flowers of the forsythia shivered a little in the cold wind. Although most people welcome the spring and find the autumn a melancholy time, Kate’s experience was quite to the contrary. The great westerly gales of autumn, the blazing vibrant colours, the scent of wood fires and the silver and blue of crisp, frosty mornings seemed to make the blood sparkle in her veins and a sense of excitement, the thought of Christmas close on its heels, bubbled within her. But the spring, ah, the spring was different. Its promise was veiled in an uncertainty that was encapsulated in the vulnerability of a clump of pale early primroses in a wet hedgerow and the cruel sharp shower of hail descending suddenly out of a clear pale blue sky. The long light evenings made her restless, no longer content to huddle round the fire, yet it was too cold to be out of doors listening to the blackbird’s evocative call and the thin, high, plaintive bleating of the lambs. The stillness of a spring evening was unlike the stillness of late-autumn or winter. Theirs was a stillness of fulfilment, of a deserved peace, of things drawing in and down into the quiet earth. The stillness of spring was a breathless stillness, anticipatory, waiting. There was a hopeful expectancy which might never be fulfilled: a promise of such magnitude that it must surely fail. It was this promise that encouraged the delicate blooms and tender shoots to unfurl in its gentle warmth only to be beaten down by heavy rains or withered by a late frost.

  Kate turned back to the bungalow, thankful that she had the twins to save her from her melancholy. She was slowly and not always consciously coming to terms with the knowledge that Mark needed to keep his career and his family quite separate. She had been more hurt than she was prepared to admit, even to herself, that he hadn’t wanted her in Gibraltar. It was necessary to reason with herself, to remember that he was not a social man, that he took his job very seriously. It was rather a desolate outlook for her but she still looked upon her role in the light of a job, as a support, and if that was what was demanded of her she must find her happiness with the twins and when Mark was at home. The trouble here was that he didn’t seem to find pleasure in having the twins around and leaves had become rather stressful affairs. He was happiest when the twins were in bed or left with Mrs Hampton, and Kate, knowing that it was only for a fortnight and that he looked upon these times as holidays, felt that he must be humoured. She had not yet let herself dwell upon the unreality of a marriage developed along these lines. The whole point was that it was different to most marriages, that there were unusual strains and requirements. When he got a shore job there would be time to adjust.

  She swung round at the sound of a fanfare at the gate: there was Cass, in her little car, waving furiously. Kate broke into a run to open the five-bar gate—always kept shut because of the twins. Cass drove in and Kate, having shut the gate behind her, dashed round to the driver’s door.

  ‘Thought I’d just pop in for two minutes,’ Cass was saying as they hugged and hugged. ‘It’s been such an age. Oh, look at them. Aren’t they sweet!’ And she was on her knees before the twins who stood, round-eyed, watching this display of emotion. ‘This one sucks his thumb just like Charlotte. Which is which?’

  ‘That’s Giles. Oh, Cass! How marvellous to see you. But you mustn’t stay. Your father and Mrs Hampton have the most unbelievable tea ready for you.’ Kate went to the car and looked in through the window. On the back seat, strapped into a little chair, was Charlotte, a sturdy, serious-looking child, dark-haired and brown-eyed. She stared solemnly at Kate. ‘Goodness, Cass. She’s so like Tom.’

  ‘Isn’t she? Must get her out for a moment. She
’s been as good as gold. Get the kettle on, Kate. There’s time for a quickie. I won’t eat anything, I promise. But I’m dying for a pee and, if I know my old pa, he’ll know full well that I wouldn’t be able to drive straight past your door when I haven’t seen you for nine months.’

  ‘THERE NOW, MY LOVER.’ Mrs Hampton put Charlotte’s plastic beaker on her high-chair tray and beamed at her. ‘What about some porridge?’

  She’d got into the habit of popping in every morning, once she’d seen Jack off to the big house, to get the General’s breakfast, tidy up a little bit and see to it that he had some lunch organised. She knew that you couldn’t trust a man to look after himself properly. The General, who had been looked after by orderlies or by his batman for most of his life, took it all in his stride and knew how lucky he was.

  Charlotte nodded and looked round as the General came in.

  ‘Good morning, my darling.’ He dropped a kiss on Charlotte’s head. ‘ ’Morning, Mrs Hampton. That daughter of mine still in bed, I suppose? Well, she didn’t get back from Kate’s ‘til late. Porridge? Excellent.’

  ‘ ’Tis lovely to see ’em together.’

  ‘They’ve been like sisters since they were children and now we’ve got the next generation coming along, growing up together. You’re very fond of Giles and Guy, aren’t you, my darling?’

  ‘Chiles,’ repeated Charlotte. He was definitely her favourite, ‘Like Chiles.’ She drank deeply from her mug.

  ‘ ’Tis a pity Kate’s ‘usband’s not ‘ome more, like Cass’s Tom.’ Mrs Hampton finished stirring the porridge and ladled it into two bowls. ‘ ’Tisn’t natural for a young girl to be on ’er own so much. An’ with two babies t’deal with, too. Real tired ’er looks sometimes.’

  ‘Service life, Mrs Hampton! It’s very tough on these young wives, always has been. On the positive side, it can keep the romance going much longer. Lots of honeymoons.’