England had appeared on the horizon when Miss Bilson bounded into the lounge next morning. I was ready to go ashore and obediently waiting with my dressing-case and handbag, while Joss dealt with our other luggage and tips. ‘How’s the invalid this morning? Miserable complaint, la grippe! Rather break a leg. Broke one last year on Kilimanjaro ‒ second time up, fortunately. Sleep well? Yes, indeed, thanks! Sleep like a top rocked in the cradle of the deep ‒ sleep like a top, anywhere, D.G.! Had a very pleasant bridge game with your young man last night ‒ plays a good hand ‒ said he didn’t care for dancing ‒ still, thought it very decent of him to make up a fourth with three old fogies ‒ and here he is and the good old U.K.!’ She wrecked my knuckles for the day. ‘Bon voyage, ashore! No, thank you, Mr Desmond, I’ll manage my own bags ‒ always travel light. Toodle pip, if I don’t see you on the train!’
Joss surprised me by saying we should have a self-drive hired car waiting and offering her a lift.
‘How kind! How very kind! But one of my Old Girls is meeting me in London and then I’m Devonshire-bound. Enjoy your drive, south-east. What time do you expect to be home?’
‘With luck, six to seven.’
I waited till we were alone. ‘Why didn’t you tell me the Alesunds had fixed this up?’
‘Assumed you knew. Sorry. Ready?’
‘Hang on a moment.’ I sat down. ‘There’ll be the usual queue at customs and immigration and there’s something I want to sort out.’ I looked up as he remained standing and watching me with his eyelids lowered and eyebrows up. ‘Joss, I haven’t asked your immediate plans as, well, none of my business, but, obviously, between us, the Alesunds and I’ve messed them up, good. When does your holiday end?’
‘Next Friday. I can still have a clear week in Scotland.’
‘But we’re two-thirds of the way up.’
‘And my car is in Asden. This set-up suits me fine. The Newcastle firm supplying today’s car have a reciprocal arrangement with the garage where I’ve left mine. We’ll change cars at Asden, I’ll drop you off at home and after a meal and a bath get back to London as I’ve a heavy date there tonight, but not until tennish so I should make it easily. Tomorrow I’ll drive north.’
It was absurd to feel so deflated. ‘Good thing you like driving.’
‘Isn’t it?’ He picked up my dressing case. ‘Come on.’ After he had signed for and we were in the waiting car, I said there was something else I had to say and thanked him for looking after me like a Dutch Uncle.
He smiled quietly. ‘Thanks, darling. Nice to be appreciated. Too bad these docks don’t run to a flower market or you could buy me a rose ‒ which reminds me! On the ’phone mother said if you don’t feel up to London on Saturday, ask Peter down as she and the old man’ll be delighted to meet him. He is off, isn’t he?’
‘Yes.’ I glanced at my dressing-case in the back. The rose was still in my sponge-bag. ‘He only had Monday as an extra for this interview.’
‘What interview?’
I explained as he drove off. He thought it a splendid idea. ‘Peter’ll enjoy being a G.P. and he should do a good job, though as your father would say, he won’t get much of a chance till he gets himself a wife. Oh ‒ Gawd!’ He sighed. ‘This traffic is bloody awful and I don’t know my Newcastle. Mind if the lad concentrates till we’re clear?’
‘Of course not. Sorry I forgot what hell driving is when one doesn’t know the roads.’
He slowed to glance at me. ‘Yep. Death would be a happy release. Sooner I get you home to dear old mum, the better. This unnerving docility is wrecking my vibrations. Much more, and I’ll have to start taking my own temperature.’
‘Sorry ‒ or is that the wrong thing to say?’
He smiled in answer. We did not talk again till we stopped for an early lunch in York.
He rang his home after our early tea in Cambridge. His mother had a W.I. and his father an Organ Fund meeting that evening but both hoped to be home by eight. We made such good time that we could only have missed their departure by a few minutes. The ground-floor hall light had been left on when he drew up in the vicarage drive. Momentarily, after switching off, he rested both arms on the wheel and his shoulders sagged. ‘What was that you said about my liking driving?’
‘Shoulders seized-up?’
‘Uh-huh. They’ll unseize in a bath. Let’s get in.’ He heaved himself out and unloaded the luggage from the boot of his own and smaller car. ‘Stiff?’
‘Bit.’ I felt more limp than my first day out of bed. I knew as surely as I knew my own name, this was the end of the road. We had been alone since noon yesterday. He had not even touched my hand, accidentally. Why should he? What normal man wanted to touch his sister s hand?
He unlocked the front door. ‘Supper’ll be eight-thirtyish. Mother said don’t wait up if you want to go straight to bed and anyway there’ll be tea and sandwiches waiting in the school-room.’
I trailed in behind him. ‘Your mother’s a remarkable woman. She thinks of everything.’
‘She does.’ He sorted the post on the hall table. ‘One for you.’
‘Me?’ I took the envelope curiously. ‘Peter! How does he know I’m here?’
He shoved his post unread in his pocket. ‘Naomi said she’d be writing to Stan. He’ll have told him.’
‘How did she know? Didn’t you say you wrote her on Saturday? This wasn’t fixed till Monday.’
‘No, dearie. But there is such a thing as the international telephone service.’ He picked up my bags. ‘Your usual room.’ He went on up with them.
I followed very slowly. There was nothing to hurry for now.
Chapter Thirteen
He waited in the school-room till the electric kettle boiled, made tea, called to me to help myself and went on to his room. I heard the bath running as I poured my cup. I took it and Peters unopened letter to one of the aged cane armchairs on either side of the heavily guarded electric convector in the hearth.
That room evoked such an attack of nostalgia that for some minutes I just sat, stared, and rode with the punch. The solid table at which, for years, Ruth and I had done our homework was covered with the old red baize cloth with a bobble fringe that went back to the years when this had been a communal nursery. The lower shelves of the white-painted bookcases were still jammed with Noddy, Big Ears, Mary Mouse; higher up the battered sagas of the March girls and Katy were crowded between William, Jennings, Jim Hawkins, rows of Percy F. Westerman, Black Beauty and the smug Swiss Robinsons. Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Mrs Gaskell and Charles Dickens shared the top shelves with science fiction, Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie and Ellery Queen. And the tatty grey carpet shared with the blue hearth-rug the same fading ink stains. The room as always smelt faintly of lead, Plasticine, carbolic soap, and for some reason we had never been able to trace, burnt toast.
I dragged myself back to the present, opened Peter’s letter without enthusiasm, but for once was relieved and not appalled by its length. Peter either communicated on paper with three words on a postcard, or not less than six closely written case-history sheets. He never used normal writing-paper, even for airmail.
The first two sheets concerned his interview. I read slowly, as it gave me something else to think about. Though convinced he had made a hideous impression, he thought it would have been much worse had Roxanne not decided to visit her father and hold his, Peter’s, hand. She had been very sweet, he wrote, and took him to tea with her father, but he wished I had warned him Mr Alder looked exactly like a middle-aged Hamlet. He wished I hadn’t got ’flu, as he wanted to talk to me about Roxanne. Mr Alder had suggested they both spend this coming weekend with him in Leeds. Roxanne seemed to think it a good idea. Peter thought it a good idea. Did I? And if so could I ring him before Saturday? Stan said I would be at the Desmonds. ‘Stan ‒’ but the sheets were in the wrong order. I searched smiling hugely for the correct follow-on. ‘‒ had a letter from our Naomi yesterday and is being hellish smug whilst the A.U. r
eels as Joss had tipped him off. Expect you know all from him now, but in case you don’t, get this!’
I had to read the next item three times before it got through.
Two weeks ago in Malta, Naomi Butler had married quietly a Benedict’s man called Ian MacDonald to whom she had previously been twice engaged. ‘Seems after the last great out-falling, she shook the dust of Benedict’s from her apron and crossed the river, and didn’t see him again till he visited her in Florence. (And why weren’t we told? Someone has blundered ‒ though Stan says he reckons folk never see what they don’t want to see.) Anyway, chap then followed her to Malta. Stan says sun either opened her eyes or blinded her, but she sounds dead chuffed and her new in-laws likewise. She said she’d waited to write until after she had met them as they weren’t at or warned about the wedding and she felt it would be incorrect to make it public before meeting them. I said what was wrong with a joyful cable? Stan says nothing unless you have a fixation for doing the correct thing the correct way and that’s the way that wins gold medals. I still think she slipped up when she opted for our A.U. to give herself time to think. Who has time to think in any A.U. ‒ or wants it? Get this next ‒’
I could not, for the moment. I put down the letter, drank some tea, and breathed very, very carefully. Joss knew and had known some time. Joss was driving to London tonight, Scotland tomorrow. The question was ‒ since her name wasn’t Naomi, what was it? Fiona? Catriona? How the hell could I know? I just knew Joss and young men in general. When one was determined, come what may to get from A to B, commonest things being the most common, the girl he most wanted was at B. I picked up the last page.
‘‒ this morning George, Dolly and I had to go out in a Crash Call ambulance. First time in months and I don’t fancy a repeat. Spot on the clearway just beyond the flyover. When we arrived, all we could see at first was twisted tin flung all round the road and a bloody great red pool in the middle. George stooped to pick up what we thought was some poor sod’s false teeth. Cath, they were not false. We found the chap who owned them in five separate pieces …’
‘God, no!’ I dropped the sheet and buried my face in my hands as my stomach contracted.
‘What the devil has that fool written to do this to you?’ Joss’s urgent voice was very close. I lowered my hands to find him bending over me.
‘Read this.’ The page shook as I held it out. ‘That last paragraph.’
He backed as if offered a ticking bomb. ‘Don’t be so bloody silly! I’m not reading another man’s letter to his girl!’
‘Don’t you be bloody silly!’ Even my voice was shaking. ‘Would I be handing it to you if it were ‒ I was ‒ oh hell ‒ you know what I mean! Read it!’
His X-ray glance couldn’t have been improved by Miss Mackenzie, but he did as I said. His face twisted. ‘Christ!’ he muttered. ‘The impact must’ve been around one hundred and forty.’
‘Joss, please ‒ skip it. I know it’s my job ‒ I’ll go back to it ‒ but just now I haven’t the guts to take it. Do something for me?’ He gave me another X-ray as he nodded. ‘See if there’s anything more then will I ring him about Leeds and love, as I can’t face the rest. Is that all?’
Again, he hesitated, then obliged. ‘Apart from saying Roxanne’ll ring you over the weekend.’ He folded the sheet. ‘She off on another telly commercial in foreign parts? And want this back?’
‘No, thanks.’ I pushed the other sheets into the envelope and handed it to him. ‘Shove it in there and then put it ‒ oh ‒ the back of that toy cupboard’ll do. The closed one. I’ll get around to shifting it some time, but I don’t want to think about it now.’
He said oddly, ‘Yes. You always used to sling things you wanted to forget in here.’ He closed the cupboard doors. ‘How did Leeds go?’
‘I think, very hopeful.’ With the letter hidden I was glad of a cheering subject. After telling him Peter’s personal news, I smiled slightly. With any luck, this is my swan-song as his favourite teddy bear. ‘Incidentally, you were right. Stan told him I’d be here and has heard from Naomi. In ‒ some detail.’
‘You mean she’s told him she’s finally had the sense to marry Ian MacDonald. If the Archangel Gabriel isn’t a Scot he should be, seeing that chap’s patience. God knows I wouldn’t have put up with what he has, though there’s a lot I like about Naomi.’ He refilled my cup and poured himself one. ‘I’m glad she’s written to Stan. He’s such a nice chap even she likes him ‒ and she never has taken kindly to the human race ‒ or not until she knows said race well. That takes her a good three years. Doesn’t mix easily. Some don’t.’
He had sounded as if talking in one language and thinking in another, but being preoccupied, it took me a little time to notice both that and his changed appearance. He had on his best dark suit, clean white shirt, Benedict’s tie and had had a shave. He looked incongruously smooth in this setting, disturbingly attractive, and, I realized belatedly, very angry.
That tie always had worried me. I had to test the untested ice. ‘Your date tonight at Benedict’s?’
‘Yep.’ He glanced at the closed toy cupboard. ‘You’re all for Roxanne taking Peter off your back?’
‘I’ll say! I’m very fond of old Pete, and he’s one of my best friends, but to be thoroughly corny, there comes a time when the best of friends must part and I think that time has come if only as life in the A.U. provides me with enough problems. Once I used to enjoy collecting all my friends. Not any more. Haven’t the energy. Maybe I’m getting old.’
‘Everyone feels that way after ’flu.’
‘This isn’t post-’flu. This has been coming on for some time, but I didn’t know how to break the habit without hurting his feelings. That I didn’t and wouldn’t want to do.’
‘A touchingly faithful teddy bear.’
I stiffened. ‘Why so superior? Isn’t this ‒ isn’t this very much the set-up between you and Naomi?’
‘Oh, no. Oh, no.’ He walked to the bookshelves and stood briefly with his back to me. ‘As a teddy bear, sweetie ‒’ he faced me slowly ‘‒ I’m not in your league. Far too immature. That’s my trouble.’
I stood up. ‘What do you mean ‒ in my league?’
He put his hands in his pockets and looked me over as that first morning in the A.U. ‘In my infantile league,’ he drawled, ‘the only teddy bears that get taken to bed have brown mock fur all over them and growl when you punch their stomachs.’
I blushed more with amusement than anything else. ‘You don’t seriously think ‒’
‘Serious thought on holiday, darling, is something I avoid like the plague!’ He looked at the table cover. ‘Strange to remember I once had to stop you from chewing off those bobbles. And how you’d then beat it under the table and glare at me accusingly as a puppy denied the privilege of eating the new rug.’ He looked back at me. ‘But those days are long gone. You do as you like, since that’s what you like to do ‒ and I do likewise. And that, as of now, is to get moving and see my old boss at Benedict’s tonight as he’s tentatively offered me a job when I finish with Hoadley and I want to clinch the deal before I join up with the cohorts of MacDonalds I’ve promised to look up across the Border. Once my holiday ends, the year and my contract’ll have ended before I next draw breath ‒ and that can’t be too bloody soon for me! I won’t hang on for the parents. I’ll stop by at the village hall and explain to mother. Why don’t you go to bed? You look terrible.’ He smiled sardonically. ‘Recently, I wouldn’t have said our mutual roots had many advantages, but at least it means I know I don’t now have to offer you a shoulder. Poor old Peter. I’m almost sorry for him. I hope he gets a better deal from Roxanne.’
‘Hold on, Joss!’ I spoke between my teeth and got between him and the door. ‘I don’t want to wreck your future, but there are some things up with which I’m not prepared to put! So who told you I’d been to bed with Peter?’
‘For God’s sake, don’t be tedious, darling! I’m not digging dirt in this suit.’
‘Then let me tell you something!’ I told him the truth. ‘Of course, if you’ve been fool enough to believe the grapevine, you won’t believe me.’
His eyebrows rose languidly. ‘Maybe that would impress me, had I only been put in the picture in strict confidence by no more than ten of your old chums the night before you turned up in the A.U. I’ll admit after that I lost count as well as interest. But ‒ er ‒ as you may remember ‒ more than once you kindly provided me with the type of evidence that does tend to lend an air of verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative. So stop pretending you’re an outraged Victorian maiden since we both know only one of those epithets is applicable.’
I leant against the door. ‘Are you talking about the night you brought Roxanne home from some ghastly party?’
‘That could be called the highlight, though it wasn’t the first or last time I’ve seen you in Peter’s arms.’ His colour had risen, too. ‘The first Monday morning’s reunion was touching beyond belief.’
‘Don’t be so moronic, Joss ‒ he was just pleased to see me! As for that night ‒ just bloody listen!’ Again I told him the truth and this time threw in my comments to Roxanne on that occasion. ‘This teddy bear doesn’t much mind being cuddled by her friends,’ I added, ‘but she minds very much being called a liar to her face.’
He walked in silence to the far side of the table and folded his arms. His colour had so drained even his lips were white. ‘Obviously I had my lines crossed. I’m sorry. I apologize.’
My anger evaporated. I had not seen him so white since the day my brother smashed his new watch and my mother ‒ unfairly, since Paul started the fight ‒ made Joss, the bigger and older boy, apologize first. The next time Paul started a fight, my father had been watching and had had to break it up. Back in our house, when mother complained of Joss’s savage temper, my father reminded her all boys were little savages under the skin, but he had never known Joss hit first. ‘Cet animal est trés méchant. Quand on l’attaque il se défend.’
Ring O' Roses Page 16