‘They’re OK. It’s a bit of a funny set-up. May and Ann keeps open house to both families. Bonnie has grown up in two homes, but it’s OK. It wouldn’t be my way of going on – too much like the families in our old street, the kids belonging to everybody.’
‘But not us. We were different.’
He flicked a look at her, not sure how to take it. ‘Yes, we were. We were a cut above. It wasn’t easy keeping yourself to yourself… being respectable.’
‘I know.’
‘I wonder if you do. You have to have kids to bring up, then you know. I’ll tell you something, Lu, I’m not a natural-born countryman. I’m a townie. I know how to live down there, but not out here. It’s like I’m living in a foreign land, but I never come to live here for me, but so that Bonnie wouldn’t have to be brought up in a place like Lampeter Street.’
For Ray, that speech was an outpouring, a baring of his soul. There was nothing sensitive that Eve could say, so she turned her attention to the baby, who was nodding contentedly to the rhythm of her rocking. It was a quiet time of year for songbirds, but the aggressive twittering of sparrows carried clearly on the early-morning air. It was hard to believe that this was a country at war.
After a while, Eve said, ‘Is it any good saying I’m sorry, Ray?’
‘For what?’
‘You know what. I thought that you and Bar with the new baby and your new job…’
‘That I wouldn’t notice that you had just upped and left us?’
‘It wasn’t like that, Ray.’
‘It was from where I was standing. I’d been your father and mother, Lu, and you just took off and went where you was likely to get killed and I was worried sick.’
‘But I didn’t get killed, Ray.’
‘Might as well have, for all that’s left of your old self.’
‘And I went without ever saying what I should have said – that I was thankful for the way you had brought me up. God, I was a self-centred little bitch.’
‘You was that, Lu.’
For her, there had never been a worse moment between them.
‘You wasn’t thinking of coming back? I know May and Ted was hoping you would.’
She pointed to demonstrate what she was about to say. ‘Look at me, Ray, as posh a London lady as ever you’ll see. This is me, this is what I’ve become, this is how I intend being.’ She put a hand gently on his arm and felt him flinch. ‘Ray, try to understand. This person I’ve become is sort of built over the one with all the really decent things you taught me.
‘Dimitri bought me a wooden Russian doll. It’s actually a set of four of them, exactly the same, except smaller and smaller and they fit inside one another. He said the littlest one is Lu, the one that is inside all the others.’
Ray probably thought that Dimitri was as fanciful as herself, but it was the best that she could do.
‘So you reckon I’m giving you away to the right man?’
‘You will give me away then?’
‘Yes, of course I’m going to give you away.’ ‘Given away’ by one man to another? That was one of the things she had against church weddings. Given away and then bound by the badge of servitude – a wedding ring.
‘Of course he’s the right man. Dimitri is very special. He has ideals that are probably stronger than yours or mine. He’s not like anyone you’ll ever meet around here. You’d be better asking, am I the right woman for him.’
* * *
The morning progressed. Ray had gone off on his shift. The Barney family was about its own work and school. Bonnie was at kindergarten.
The house was quiet, work in the kitchen had been done, and May was just ready to go out to the fields, wearing the same old field-hat tied under her chin that Eve remembered from years before.
May had busied herself like always. But busied herself to the extent that she hadn’t taken a minute to sit down with Eve and talk. Perhaps that was still to come, except that Eve sensed that what she was seeing was not the reality of their lives now. It was almost as though they were acting, trying hard not to forget their lines. Dimitri was their prompt, filling in with his brand of jollity. He was good at it. The two of them hadn’t had a moment together alone. Eve wondered what he made of them and whether he saw them as she had described them so often – or as fragmented as they so clearly were.
Was it that Ted was dying, wasting away, as he so clearly was, and nobody must mention it?
Ken was seated at a corner of the kitchen table writing.
May said, to Eve, ‘Listen, love, why don’t you stroll down the lane with Baby? He likes going out in his pram. Take Ken with you.’
‘Where’s Dimitri?’
‘He’s off with Ted.’ May smiled. ‘My dear Lord, he’s no shirker. He’s gone to do a stint at the winter wood.’
‘Just his style, sleeves rolled up, swinging an axe.’
‘Ah, yes. I’ll bet he’s worth a look at when he’s working.’
‘He’ll get a handful of blisters, but that won’t daunt him. He’s a big show-off.’ Eve felt proud of the man she had brought home. If she imagined bringing David Hatton here, as at one time might have been on the cards, or the tangle and trouble that being here with Duke would have provoked, it was too awful to contemplate. Everywhere she and Dimitri had ever been, he fitted in. His enjoyment of life overflowed and warmed other people. He deserved to be loved. Fran Haddon would be perfect for him.
May said, ‘I rubbed his hands with spirits.’
‘I hope you’ve got plenty of wintergreen, or he’s going to church in a wheelbarrow.’
Ken looked up from his writing. ‘I was going to suggest a tractor and trailer for him.’
May laughed, her care-worn face transformed – the old May. ‘He is a size, all right, that broad and upright. What I call a real manly man.’
‘Ha… you should have seen him in his major’s uniform,’ Ken said, giving a mock salute.
A small thud of awkward silence. Eve and Ken exchanged brief glances.
Saying, ‘I’m glad I didn’t,’ May left the house. ‘Phew,’ Ken said, ‘that was a bit of an icy blast. She hates it that there are things that go on outside the family that she doesn’t know about. She sees herself as the matriarch.’
‘It’s what she is. Everything at Roman’s Fields revolves round her. And everybody likes it that way.’
‘Except me and you.’
‘I don’t not like it, I just don’t want to be drawn in. I can do without the comfort.’
‘Let me just finish writing this envelope, and I’ll be ready.’ He blotted the page and handed it to his sister. ‘Read it.’
‘What is it?’
‘Read it.’
The salutation stopped her in her tracks and she briefly looked up, not knowing whether she wanted to read on, but she did.
Dear Lieutenant Hatton,
Thank you for seeing me yesterday. I am pleased to confirm that I wish to apply for the training course you offer, and shall report to you in Portsmouth on Saturday, 26 April.
Yours faithfully, Kenneth Wilmott.
‘Ken!’
‘I know, surprising, isn’t it? Come on, let’s walk down to the post office – don’t say anything until we get away from the house.’
The walk into the village was both familiar and strange to Eve. The familiarity was the curves and bends in the road, lined by forest trees that had been there for generations. The strangeness was that she and Ken should be doing it at all, to say nothing of wheeling an old-fashioned perambulator.
The lane still showed signs of last year’s fall of mulberries. It was obvious that nobody had laid out sheets to catch the fruits.
‘Remember the smell of ripe mulberries? Happy memories, Ken.’
‘Ted’s wine? We never hardly knew wine existed until we came here that Christmas.’ He turned and gave her a smile. ‘Tasted a lot worse since then. God, some of that rough stuff out there… and some very nice stuff too, I have to give the Spaniards that.’
/> How different were their relationships now. When they all lived together in Portsmouth, Ray was the one Eve could tell anything to, Ken was always ‘off on the razzle’, interested only in having a good time. Spain had changed that.
Indicating the letter he was carrying, Eve asked, ‘How did this come about then?’
‘Out of the blue. I had been trying to sign on in one of the forces, but they wouldn’t take me on account of my frostbite. Then a letter came,’ he laughed, ‘which May’s been hinting at ever since. It was from him.’ He indicated the letter. ‘Said that he remembered meeting me, and would I be interested in seeing him to talk about how I might fit in to a new unit he was running? I was wondering if you had anything to do with it.’
‘Why would I?’
Ken raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders. ‘Because you know each other. He’s your senior officer.’ Again he laughed. ‘In charge of WRNS, is he? He even knows you are getting wed tomorrow because he said I should come after the wedding. He knows it’s special licence, and it’s Major Vladim. So he knows a lot he shouldn’t if you wasn’t part of this unit that he’s running. I know what the unit does and what it’s called – SOE.’
Eve didn’t know what to say. She seemed to remember having said something about Ken to David, but not to suggest him to SOE.
‘I know him, of course I do. You first met him through me. How did he get your name?’
‘He gets passed on to him the names of any Brigaders who try to join up. I was rejected because of that frostbite damage to my feet but they mark your card if you were a Brigader.’
‘That’s a waste of good soldiers. The training out there was as good as anywhere.’
Even now the walk back showed up Ken’s limp.
‘Are your feet still much of a problem?’
‘Nah, I got patched up well in that hospital. Actually, I feel almost proud of my queer toes.’ As she was about to open the side-gate, he stopped her. ‘I’ve got a kid out there, Lu.’
‘Oh, Ken.’
‘Yeah… don’t even know if it’s a boy or a girl.’
‘What about the mother?’
‘She was one of those women you just had to admire for their ideals. She was very political… taught me a lot, taught me the language. What she was doing was pretty much the same as Dimitri – going around reminding the troops what they were fighting for.’
‘Have you talked to Dimitri?’
‘A bit. He said he couldn’t stomach any more Russian propaganda. Remember that poster that was everywhere – ‘Madrid Will Be the Tomb of Fascism’? Well, it wasn’t, was it? He said he couldn’t go back to Russia knowing what he knew was going on there. Two and two together, I take it that he’s SOE as well.’
‘Changing the subject, what’s happened to Bar? She makes me afraid.’
‘She makes everybody afraid.’
‘She was so strange with me yesterday. One minute she was talking about drowning babies like kittens, the next she’s all high spirits and acting the fool with Bonnie.’
‘I don’t know the right of it. What I know is from Ted. It seems that when she was expecting this last baby, she refused to admit it. Even when it began to show she got that abusive. Our Ray didn’t know what to do… poor bugger, he still don’t. Anyway, one morning, she goes over to her mother’s place. Next thing, Ann comes over to Roman’s and says Ray’s got a son. And that’s how it’s been. Ray’s got his son. She won’t have anything to do with the baby – nor Ray for that matter.’
‘Ray’s good with him. Lucky he’s got three willing women to help.’
‘She behaves as though the baby don’t exist.’
‘She knows he exists all right, because that’s how she started being weird about the baby not being normal and drowning kittens.’
‘I know some women never take to their babies, but this… this is extreme. Do you reckon the baby’s safe?’
‘Oh yes, there’s always somebody taking care of him. He just doesn’t exist for her.’
‘Poor old Ray,’ Eve said. ‘He brought me up because Dad good as gave up on us. Now he’s got to be mother and father to another one.’
* * *
In the years since Eve was last there, the Barneys’ ‘encampment’ had become more of a conventional home: converted outhouses with a well-cultivated cottage garden, which, in the height of summer, would be filled with rows of ferny carrots and bulb fennel, onions with their tops bent over to stop the flowering, potatoes, parsnips and other root vegetables, plus many herbs and old-fashioned flowers, for distillation into tinctures which Ann would give freely to anyone in need. Marigold, bergamot, feverfew grew, all hover fly and bee attractors.
‘Ann?’ she called.
‘I see you coming, so I made you some of your sort of tea, seeing as you never did take to my infusions.’
‘I’ve grown to like Earl Grey.’
‘Bergamot and lemon, that is, but it an’t nowhere good as mine. So I’ll pick some bergamot and you can put it in if you like.’
They sat on wooden stools at a wooden table silver with weathering and age, glistening in the April light.
When Eve had been brought to May and Ted’s, it had been Ann and Bar who had taken care of her mental and spiritual health. Although Ann’s was not a Christian spirituality.
Ann Carter rubbed rough knuckles along Eve’s jawline as she searched her face with her soft eyes. ‘You’m still the girl of summer. I told Bar two years and more ago when she was frettin’ that you was gone to the war that you would return before three years was up. And you would come for the summer solstice and your birth date which is midsummer – except you’re a bit out.’ Ann had a way of expressing herself that was like no one Eve had ever met. She was always totally aware of and focused upon whoever it was she was speaking to. She cast the runes, and read lives in hands and tea leaves. Her voice itself was confident and comforting. Ann Carter knew things that no one else knew – except perhaps Bar.
She picked up Eve’s hand and casually turned it back and forth, then looked up sharply. ‘Still the two babes. It’s time they was here, Lu.’
‘We brought two orphans out of Spain.’
‘You know better than that. Only your own babes show on your hand.’
Eve sipped the aromatic black tea in which pinched leaves of bergamot floated.
‘Only your own,’ Ann repeated, still looking closely at the place below Eve’s little finger. ‘And there’s two.’
‘I had a miscarriage… in Australia.’
‘My dear child, that’s sad. It’s why the line is so small and faint.’
Eve withdrew her hand and looked closely at where she knew children were supposed to be foretold. There was a second crease, quite clear when she clenched her fist.
‘That one’s not.’ Ann ran her split and grubby fingernail along the little fold. ‘Are you carrying?’
‘No I’m not.’
Ann made a doubting grimace. ‘How many times has women and girls said that?’
‘I can’t be.’
‘Ah, if you rely on having your “flowers” to tell you that you an’t carrying then you’re on quaggy ground.’
It was true. With the miscarriage, she had been fooled by her menstrual cycle right up to the time when Jess Lavender had held a pail under Eve to catch the small foetus.
‘Is that why you’re going to marry the big fella?’
‘No. I’m marrying him so that we’ll be husband and wife.’
‘That don’t ring true. I bet Bar don’t believe that.’
‘Well, no, as a matter of fact she doesn’t, but I can’t help what you and Bar believe. He’s asked me to marry him, and I’m going to. Why is that so hard to believe? You’ve seen him, he’s a good, lovely man.’
The older woman came to stand behind Eve, gently smoothing her hair and cheeks. ‘Don’t take no notice of us, my darling. You know what queer ideas me and her gets. ’Tis true, he is a lovely man, and he will make you happy.�
� Ann grinned mischievously, and whined, ‘Buy a bit o’ luck from a gypsy, my dear. Cross the gypsy’s palm with silver.’
Eve laughed and pushed her away. ‘You’re a witch-woman, not a gypsy.’
The Barneys’ guard dog barked, disturbing Anthony, who let out a squawk. Eve pressed Ann’s loving hands closer and then got up from the stool and took the bottle of scalded milk from the pram. ‘I’m in charge of his next feed. Can you warm this?’
Ann shook drops onto her wrist. ‘It’s just right for him. Do you want to let me do it? I mostly do during the day when Ray’s not about. Sometimes May does.’
Eve watched as the baby suckled, his large eyes searching his grandmother’s face, occasionally releasing the teat for a moment and smiling up at her. Ann gave a deep sigh, tightened her lips and shook her head.
‘Is he a good baby?’
‘Oh yes. Good as gold, aren’t you, my little king?’
They sat in silence, watching the ever-absorbing picture of a baby suckling.
‘Something’s wrong, isn’t it.’ A statement, not a question.
‘What, is it you getting the gift of insight now?’
‘Ann, don’t you shut me out like the rest of them. What’s wrong between Ray and Bar? When I was with Ray this morning and he was feeding and changing Anthony, it seemed to me that he was being mother and father again, as he used to be with me, as though he had to make up to the baby for something, the way he used to make up for my father always being away. Am I right?’
‘Yes, you’re right. You can’t hide a thing like that. It’s Bar – she can’t take to this one. Right from the day he was born, she wouldn’t put him to the breast. Not like Bonnie – she kept her on for months. After that we all of us had a hand in bringing her up. Bar went back to the stables. The major put her in charge of everything, all his good horses. He told people as he’d got the best stable manager in the county. Eli says that’s right. Bar can make horses do anything she wants.’
‘She appeared… well… radiant when I saw her come in with Fairy yesterday. Then, as soon as we started speaking, she went… I don’t know… weird.’
The Face of Eve Page 32