by MARY HOCKING
Kerren did not comment and he looked across at her, standing sentinel by the teapot.
`Don’t you feel well?’
`I feel ashamed.’
`Ashamed?’
`I like to have respect for my officers.’ She sounded prim, but looked very fierce. She picked up the kettle and poured recklessly. Adam said lightly:
`It’s the uniform you have to respect. The man inside you treat with the tolerant good humour that is the hallmark of the good Wren.’
`I am sure that this will sound very funny to you,’ she said in a tone that defied him to laugh, `But I am young and I have illusions.’
He came across to pour out his own tea. She looked at him reproachfully. He said:
`You shouldn’t talk to me in this way about Hunter. But as I don’t set a very good example I can hardly blame you. Perhaps it would be more to the point if I explained that he was on the “Glorious” when she was sunk off Norway. He spent a long time in an open boat and an even longer time in hospital. He finds it difficult to cope . . .’
`But he doesn’t have to cope with much here!’
`The weather, always unpredictable, and officers who do not give him the right kind of support. You should make allowances for all this.’
`I’m not good at making allowances.’
He put the cup down. `You’re not good at making tea, either, Nolan. I’ve been meaning to mention it. The water should be brought to the boil before it is poured over the tea leaves.’
They passed the rest of the morning in silence. In the afternoon they were much too busy to talk.
`Two minor prangs, a teleprinter breakdown, and a visit from F to tell us that he didn’t think much of our forecast,’ Kerren told Robin who relieved her at six o’clock.
`That explains Hunter,’ Robin said. `I passed him walking with laboured steps and slow towards the wardroom; he gave me one of his wild looks, sagging jaw and eyes popping out like organ stops.’
She took off her cap and ran a comb through her hair. She was in a very good mood. Kerren was surprised. She had failed to come to Robin’s aid in the affray in the cabin and she had not expected Robin to be so forgiving about it. She looked at her friend. The sun had caught her face and the skin seemed to glow; the eyes were very clear and bright.
`Open-air girl!’ Kerren remarked.
`Yes, indeed! The country is beautiful at this time of the year, is it not? One should take up botany. I do hope you’ve emptied the teapot?’
`I’ve had enough nagging on that subject.’
Robin was not interested in Kerren’s grievances, so Kerren went out and pedalled fiercely to B camp. Naomi and several of the others were grouped round the stove when she came into the cabin. They looked up expectantly.
`You look like the chorus from The Trojan Women waiting for a prompt,’ she informed them.
Hazel said: `Who’s Robin’s boy-friend, Kerren?’
`I thought it was fairly clear last night that she didn’t have one.’
`She hitch-hiked into Yeovil this morning and repaired that omission,’ Naomi said. `Not that she confided in us. But you can always tell when Robin has a man; it gives her a kind of zip she doesn’t have at other times.’
`She was really excited,’ Cath said more kindly. `I’ve never seen Robin like that before. I was watching her getting ready to go on duty; she kept smiling to herself and going off into a dream. He must be extra special.’
`A brass hat, at least,’ Naomi said.
`Doesn’t anyone ever think of anything but men?’ Kerren inquired.
Hazel, least guilty, rose to the bait. `When I tried to tell you what Michael would be studying at Cambridge you weren’t interested.’
`Michael has the war to win first,’ Kerren retorted. `Don’t you ever worry in case he doesn’t get to Cambridge?’ She knew she was being cruel, but the impulse to pass on her own disquiet was irresistible. Hazel’s lips folded together. God, her expression made it clear, would not touch Michael Peake: Michael Peake was being saved for Cambridge.
`All leave has been cancelled,’ Naomi said. She had been waiting for the right moment to make this announcement and this seemed as good a time as any. No one doubted her. Naomi’s pronouncements always had a godlike quality: also, she was a coder which meant that she had a direct line to the gods.
Kerren went down to the mess for supper. Then she set out to meet Peter, thinking as she walked towards Holly Green about Naomi’s news. Peter would be drafted, she decided, probably tomorrow and probably to China Bay. They had had so little time together: what would they write about once their small store of memories was exhausted? The cool wind of evening soughed over the cornfields, stirred the long grass in the graveyard, rippled the ivy on an old Georgian house so that the whole wall seemed to be in motion. Wind and grass and ivy, stone and brick and the damp smell of evening from the fields. Her spirits spiralled down.
She turned into the village square and began to cross to The Sycamore Tree where Peter would be waiting for her. The door of the public bar swung open and two sailors came out. The bar would be full of service personnel, making a noise to keep the darkness at bay. It would be even worse in there than it was out here in this twilight desolation; the loud bravado, the endless jokes and snatches of song, the exchange of partners, the spurts of jealousy sparking a few flames that would fizzle out on the long, damp trail back to camp through the elm-darkened lanes. Peter, coming to meet her, said, `You’re in one of your black moods.’
`All leave has been cancelled.’
`Why worry? You’re not due for leave.’
She turned away from him, hurt that he did not share her distress.
`I’m going home anyway. I hate England.’
He put an arm round her waist.
`I hate Englishmen, too!’
He bent down and kissed her hard on the mouth; his breath smelt of gin. She said angrily, `And most of all I hate drunken men.’
`Wait until the end of the evening. You may have cause for complaint.’
They turned the corner of the street. She saw a grey staff car parked outside the entrance to the saloon bar, an air force officer and a girl in the front, heads close together.
`An Australian. Grand chap,’ Peter said. `He’s taking us to The Armour Bearer at Stalbridge.’
He opened the rear door of the car. The girl drew away from the man and turned to Kerren. `We’re going to have a madly exciting evening – so they keep telling me!’ It was the nurse. Daphne Palmer; dark hair swept back from marble brow, red lips unsmudged, eyes expressionless as ever. If she had any fears about the future, they didn’t show. The Australian had a rough-hewn face and very bright eyes that knew what they wanted and meant to get it. Kerren and Peter climbed in the back of the car. The Australian said, `Make yourselves at home, folks.’
Kerren looked at the pale grey upholstery. `You joined the wrong service, Peter! Look what they hand out to Flight Lieutenants in the R.A.F.’ The Australian laughed. `I stole it!’ They all laughed. The car leapt forward. They were out of the village in one stride, fields on either side falling away into the hollow of night. Peter was very close to Kerren, his arm round her waist. She turned her head against his shoulder and looked up at him; his features seemed to have coarsened, the mouth was more sensual, the jaw thicker than she had realized. Lately she had thought she was getting the measure of him: tonight he eluded her.
`Will you be drafted?’ she whispered.
He bent and kissed her eyelids, her lips, her throat.
`I expect so.’
`Operational?’
`I expect so.’
His fingers pressed hard against her hip, moving slowly along her thigh, trying to discover something about the very essence of her being by this exploration of bone and flesh.
`Where will you go?’ she asked.
`Who cares? That’s for tomorrow. Tonight is all you have to worry about.’
She was conscious of his whole body, of its tension, hung
er and pain. The demand was urgent, brutal. Antagonized, she pushed him away.
`Not when you’ve been drinking.’
The car swerved to avoid a farm labourer on a bike. Daphne screamed. The Australian turned his head to speak to Peter.
`How you making out, pal?’
Daphne said, `Look where you’re going! Old Uncle Tom Cobleigh back there ended up in the ditch.’
`That’s where I shall end up at this rate.’ Peter sounded sulky.
The Australian said, `We must do something about that!’ The car took a double bend at speed and then stopped suddenly at a crossroads. The Australian got out and opened the rear door.
`You need a drink,’ he said to Kerren.
There was a pub at the road’s edge, a low, unkempt building not much bigger than a cottage. The people in the bar resented their intrusion. Daphne stared at the farm labourers who returned her gaze with eyes as blank as her own. `Unbelievably bovine!’ she commented.
`You shouldn’t sneer at them,’ Kerren reproached. `They are the people of England and they have not spoken yet.’
`What’s that supposed to mean?’ the Australian asked warily.
`It’s poetry,’ Daphne explained. `And it means that the drink is having its effect.’
At a pub on the outskirts of Templedene where they stopped ten minutes later, Kerren was reciting:
` “How did they pass the Union?
By perjury and fraud,
By slaves who sold their land for gold
As Judas sold his God. . . .” ’
The Australian said to Peter, `I thought you’d picked a dull little girl, but now . . .’ he shook his head respectfully. Kerren chanted fiercely:
` “By all the savage acts that yet
Have followed England’s track –
The pitch cap and the bayonet,
The gibbet and the rack.” ’
Daphne said, `Sounds terribly like treason.’
`I owe no allegiance,’ Kerren enunciated carefully, `to the crown of England.’
`We’ll drink to that!’ The Australian downed his gin and ordered again.
`You came a long way to make that statement!’ Peter commented.
`If the air force hadn’t got me, the cops would have done. I made a bad bargain; if I’d stayed behind I’d have served my time by now.’
Daphne said, `Talking of time . . .’
When they reached The Armour Bearer it was closed. An impossible end to the evening. They stood round the car, excited, feeling they had a long way to go. The wind sang in the wires, the stars were bright between the branches of the trees, the night was young. Daphne said that she knew some people near by who did a bit of entertaining. She was speaking with great deliberation now and every utterance was preceded by a long gestation. They were half-way there before she said, `These people are very formal.’
`You mean we ought to write them a letter to say we’re coming?’ the Australian asked.
`It depends whether you’re well-connected.’
`Kerren is connected with some very important people,’ Peter said as the car turned between tall stone pillars on either side of a wide gateway.
`My mother,’ Kerren said, `knew Yeats and Synge and all the great people. . . .’
The Australian was out of the car hammering on the door. `So vulgar to bang away like that,’ Daphne complained, negotiating the steps to the porch. `Regency is such a majestic period.’ The door opened. As they surged through the lofty hall, Kerren felt as though she was on the crest of a gigantic wave, an impression which seemed to be shared by the glassy-eyed man in a worn smoking-jacket who backed away into a dimly-lit lounge. A woman fluttered up from a chair by the fireplace; sparse wisps of hair framed a face as startled as a plucked chicken. Daphne advanced towards her, hand regally outstretched. `It’s been so long! I felt I must not leave it any longer!’ Kerren admired this aristocratic assurance, she felt that at this moment Daphne had risen to the heights. The woman took Daphne’s hand and looked at it in a bewildered way; she had taken off her shoes and her feet scuffed about furtively searching for them. Daphne began to talk about hunt balls; there was a glorious rosy glow in her cheeks and she looked as though she had just returned from the hunt. The Australian was pouring out his host’s whisky. Kerren could see him and Peter in the oval mirror above the mantelpiece. The mirror was speckled with age and the gilt was tarnished, but it still looked good, she thought. It belonged in the room which had been conceived in a lustier and more violent age. Peter and the Australian belonged there, too; the room welcomed them. Not so the glassy-eyed man. His incredulous expression told her that a tremendous breach had been made in the wall of convention. She felt exalted, as though she had crossed a frontier. Unfortunately, she could not think of anything spectacular to do with her new-found freedom, so she sat on the couch and took off her shoes. She was just about to stretch out when her hostess came and sat beside her. She had not found her shoes and Kerren noticed corn plasters beneath the stockings stretched tight across her swollen feet.
`I don’t think we’ve been introduced.’ The woman made the statement as though pronouncing an exorcism.
`My mother,’ Kerren said mechanically, `was an O’Shea. One of the O’Sheas.’
She felt depressed by the corn plasters. The Australian had pulled Daphne down on his knee, one hand moved against her breast. It was wrong for Daphne to be treated like that, it made her seem much less romantic. Peter was sitting alone, staring sombrely into his glass. The woman was saying:
`I don’t quite understand where Mr. De Valera comes into this.’
`Neither do I,’ Kerren said. `I was very young at the time.’
The glassy-eyed man was examining the whisky decanter; he looked a little hurt. The Australian was unbuttoning Daphne’s shirt. Things were going to get dreary, Kerren thought. Then, quite suddenly, there was a subterranean rumble that set up an unpleasant pressure on the eardrums and jarred the glass vases on the mantelpiece. Peter was singing. He sang `Up in a balloon, boys’, very slowly. Then he sang it again, slower and louder. Louder and louder and louder. His neck muscles stood out, sweat filmed his brow, the agonized eyes closed while the distorted face flushed deeper and deeper crimson. Daphne and the Australian looked as though they had turned to stone; the glassy-eyed man was holding his breath; beside Kerren, the woman clutched the edge of the couch. `There’s something awful jolly,’ Peter was reaching the climax, `to be up in a . . .’ he put his head back and thundered the last terrible notes. All the glasses in the heavy chandelier shivered and dust fell on the carpet. The woman said, `Get them out of here, Hugh! Get them out! Get them out!’
Daphne disengaged herself from the Australian. `I think we should go now.’ She went out, holding herself very upright. Her shirt was open and her breasts were exposed; Kerren could not make up her mind whether this added to or detracted from the regal splendour of her exit.
When they were in the car, Daphne said in an uninterested voice, `They’ll be ‘phoning the police now.’
Kerren looked at her watch: half past eleven.
`The Jaunty will be waiting for us!’
`To hell with the Jaunty!’ Peter opened the window and leant out. He began to sing, `She’ll be comin’ round the mountain,’ hurling the words against the rush of air. Kerren looked at him, at the snarling lips, the hair blown in the wind. She thought he was magnificent, wild and strange as a legendary Irish king.
`Do you sing like that when you’re flying?’ she asked.
He did not answer; he only sang louder and more fiercely, as though he was defying something out there in the darkness.
The lanes lurched between the swaying fields, trees leapt up before them and side-stepped miraculously at the last moment. The Australian was utterly relaxed, his hands barely touching the wheel. They came to a fork, turned left. Daphne screamed, `You fool! It’s someone’s drive!’ The house rushed to meet them and heeled over as the car wheeled round the gravel forecourt. The fro
nt door opened, figures appeared in dressing-gowns. The car tore across a lawn, churned through a flower-bed, bumped down a rockery. Someone ran into the drive gesticulating. Kerren leant out of the window and waved as the car hurtled back on to the road.
There was a good straight stretch ahead, trees standing together at the far end. Kerren crouched forward, urging the car faster, faster, faster as the trees grew taller and taller and then parted just at the last moment to allow the passage of a thin, winding path. They were out of the wood. A steep hill rose ahead of them; sloping fields climbed to the skyline and the narrowing lines of hedges were continued in the ribs of cloud. Over the crest of the hill, the valley came up to meet them; half-way down, between the surging fields. Daphne began to scream. There was a hump-backed bridge at the bottom of the hill. The Australian braked, but there wasn’t much time. The car rose in the air and the world cartwheeled over and over and over.
It was very peaceful when Kerren came to. She could hear a sound like running water; she stretched out a hand and felt stone, then water, very cold. She edged forward and put her face into the water. Someone stumbled beside her. Peter. Very sick. She turned her head away. The view on the other side was not much better. Daphne Palmer was lying on her back staring unblinkingly at the stars; there was a lump the size of a duck’s egg on her forehead. A voice behind Kerren said:
`Do you think she’s dead?’
`Is she breathing?’
The Australian laid his hand beneath Daphne’s breast. `Yes.’ Kerren sat up. The world spun round, so she lay down again quickly. In the moment before everything went out of focus she thought she saw some strange, twisted creature with a vast snub nose staring down from the bridge. She waved a hand and said:
`There’s a gigantic frog up there, watching us.’
`The car,’ the Australian said.
`Did you really steal it?’ she asked.
`Yes.’
`What are you going to do now?’
`There’s a railway line over there. I’ll jump a truck, go up to the smoke.’
`What about us?’ Peter sounded very sober now. `We shall have a hell of a lot of explaining to do.’
`You don’t have to explain anything. Say I gave you a lift, that you didn’t know anything about me.’