“I’ve got good muscles, you know,” she said, holding out a thin arm and drawing up her fist. “You feel.”
“Quite a bicep,” he said, amused at the idea of Polly wanting to be strong, like a boy. “Do you do much gym at school?”
“Yes, and also hockey and basket ball. And we play cricket, and have lots of swimming in the bath beside the river.”
“Good for you, Polly.” He felt warm towards her, her boyish ribs were slender, as she sat there, looking at him. He drew his hand over her shoulder and arm, and felt the bud of a rosette becoming hard. Then lying down, he put his head against her ribs and nipped a fold of her skin between his lips and held his face hidden, while his feet began to work, as though his thoughts were dissolving through his splaying toes. He breathed out a long sigh, and lay back, one arm round her ribs, while she leaned over and gave him a light kiss on his head.
“I wish I’d learned boxing, and played rugger at school. It makes you hard and daring. You’re quite brave, really, aren’t you? I always was a bit amazed at the way you stood up to Uncle Jim when he got angry with you. You never gave way, but faced him with your chin up. So did Doris, when Father attacked her for saying she would kill him if he made Mother cry. She was only about four, but she had the courage to defy him, saying she was going to kill him for making Mother cry. He gave her a beating, but Doris refused to cry.”
“Doris said Uncle Dick could be very angry, but he was always very nice to me.”
“I’ll tell you something awful about myself when I was a boy. I planned one night to get you to come for a walk with me, and meet Jack Hart, who was later expelled from school for taking out girls from the High School into the Rec. at night. I wanted you to meet him in the sheep-fold on the Hill. I had a sneaking fascination for him at that time, I was very small and thrilled by the fact that he had developed into a man.”
“I think lots of boys feel like that at times.”
“I’ll say one thing for you, Polly, you’re a jolly good sport.”
He turned and put his hands on her ribs. The small bones felt so delicate, she was only a little girl after all. He exulted as he leaned over her to blow at the candle, but he lost feeling in the darkness. He raised himself up to feel for the matches.
“I like looking at you.”
As the flame rose guiltily on the wick, he looked down at her neck, with a beginning of lust; at her eyes grey as smoke; at the ridges of her collar bones rising out of white flesh, the suggestion of blue veins on her breasts. He put his hands on her shoulder bones and held her, thinking himself to be Jack Hart, and seeing her teeth, her lashes, the way her hair grew off her brow, the curve of her cheeks, he began to enjoy the feeling that she was his victim, and he would pay her out for being a girl.
*
“Don’t forget the alarm, will you. I mustn’t get back late to Grantham.”
When she had gone he blew out the candle, pulled back the curtains and opened the window; and then, getting back into bed lay stretched out diagonally across it, and with a deep sigh of peace, as on the first night of coming out of flooded trenches for a rest, sank away into sleep.
Polly returned, dressed in her school gym-clothes, while it was still dark. He was awake at once, and alert. When he had got out to dress she went downstairs to fan the embers in the hearth until the dry sticks burst into flame; and soon she had slices of green sizzling bacon in the pan on the trivet. Then she went to find two eggs in the hen house.
Phillip washed under the pump in the scullery, and sat down at the table, to sip tea while the eggs were popping. He told her to take the heavy cast-iron pan off the fire, and let them sizzle in the heat of the iron.
It was half-past five when, trench coat buttoned to neck and flying helmet strapped under chin, he went out to the yard; and the first thing he saw was a flat back tyre.
“Damn Wetherley! I bet he didn’t feel inside the canvas for the flint which punctured the old tube! Or else I’ve picked up a new one, or a nail. My God, I haven’t any puncture outfit, either! I can’t get back in time for parade at nine o’clock. What, you haven’t got a puncture outfit either? Anyway, someone’s pinched my pump. What a fool I was, not to have looked when I got the bike back! I’ll have to wait and get it mended, and report sick when I get back, that’s all.”
They returned to the house. He felt tired. She suggested he should lie down on the sofa in the billiard room, while she made a fire. Afterwards there was a smudge on her cheek, and she looked such a neat little girl as she brushed up the fallen ashes of yesterday’s fire, to leave the grate tidy, that he told her to come to him, and when she came he put his arms round her and drew her upon the sofa beside him. She was warm and passive, but when she closed her eyes he thought of his holiday in Devon just before the war, of himself watching anemones in rock pools left by the tide, as they waved their tentacles to catch small shrimps, little fish, and other underwater creatures. When he had touched an anemone, its tentacles had clung a moment, as though to draw in the tip of his finger; then they had closed, and he had stroked their softness.
According to Darwin, all life began in the sea; the ancestors of man were fish-like creatures. Was that why he was now thinking of Polly as an anemone, and of himself as a little silvery fish being drawn to its doom in a sea-pool?
Chapter 9
A SPOT OF LEAVE
When he got back to camp in the afternoon Phillip went to the Medical Officer’s hut and said he did not feel very well.
“How are you sleeping?” he was asked, after his pulse had been counted.
“Not very much, doctor.”
“I see that you were invalided for dysentery in 1915. Any trouble now?”
“None, doctor.”
“Any cough?”
“Now and again, doctor.”
“Do you sweat at night?”
“Occasionally doctor.”
“Let’s look at your chest.” Knock-knock, knock-knock. “Turn round.” Knock-knock. “H’m, sounds like a dull patch on this lung. Anyway, don’t let it worry you. If it does not clear up, now the fine weather’s coming, we’ll send you to hospital for observation. You’re run down.” He plucked an eyelid. “I’m giving you seven days’ leave, meanwhile.” Phillip made his voice level as he said, “Shall I report to the Orderly Room, doctor?”
“No need for that. My returns for the day are just going in, I’ll add your name to them. Now take things easy. Don’t go gadding about too much.”
“No doctor. And many thanks.”
Jubilantly he returned to his quarters to pack a haversack with pyjamas, shaving kit, and gramophone records. He would miss the riding course, but there would be another. Would he miss going to France in time for the Big Push? No hurry; if it was to be anything like the last one, there would be another.
Gramophone tied on flapper bracket, he sped along the Great North Road, flying south in brightening spring weather to the steady beats of the exhaust, past fields of winter wheat whose plants were not yet tall enough to hide the clods left by November’s harrowing, and other fields where teams of horses with cultivators, rolls, harrows, and drill were putting in the spring oats and barleys. Down a hill into Stamford, with its sharp turning upon narrow bridge over a river with a glimpse of rushes and swans, and ninety-two miles to London. A whole week’s leave, on and on and on, no time for tea, onwards to Stilton and Buckden and Eaton Socon, a stop at Baldock for more petrol and oil, and London under forty miles away. He was beginning to remember names on the white-painted milestones, the names painted in black—Stevenage, Broadwater, Knebworth—past which the exhaust thudded sweetly and steadily. Green pastures and parks and great houses, southwards the road curving and stretching through villages and past coppices and woods where rooks were noisy at their ink-blot nests, onwards to Barnet, on the same road where had marched the Saxon army and later the barons with their men-at-arms, their bowmen and heavy Norman horses; down the cobbled hill from Barnet, with its drop on the other side
to the vast level place where Barnet Horse Fair was held. Would he be home by nightfall, or should he stop and get a tin of carbide? He would risk it; his O.H.M.S. plate would get him past any copper.
Onwards to Finchley and the trams, and so into the City of London, with its drays and taxicabs and bowler-hatted civvies; across the sett-stoned bridge over the Thames; past the grim stations and on down to the Elephant and Castle and the Old Kent Road; over Nunhill and down into the Wakenham Road; and dullness taking the place of former hope and enthusiasm; trepidation, a flash of hope, as he banged up Hillside Road.
“Well, Phillip, this is a surprise! A week’s leave, have you? Rather unexpected, isn’t it?”
“You never know where you are, in the Army, Father.”
“I’m afraid I’ve cleared away tea,” said Hetty, “but I will soon boil you an egg.”
“No thank you, Mother. I’m not really hungry. I’ll see you later.”
They heard the front door close quietly behind him.
“H’m,” said Richard, as he picked up his newspaper.
Five minutes later the strains of A Broken Doll, followed by O, that we Two were Maying, came from Mrs. Neville’s open window, while Phillip drank tea and ate buttered toast with bloater paste.
Afterwards, hearing that Desmond and Eugene were playing billiards in the Gild Hall, he went on down to the High Street, to surprise them; but the manager said they had left a few minutes before; so he returned through the foyer, with its goldfish pond and domino players, and crossed over to Freddy’s.
Opening slightly the door of the saloon bar, to peep in, he saw Desmond and Gene standing one on either side of a girl who was perched on a stool by the bar. He saw her back only until she turned to smile at Desmond, when he noticed her white even teeth and large china-blue eyes. Freddy saw him standing there, but kept an impassive face when Phillip put finger to lips, before slipping through the door, to creep towards the stained glass partition of the billiard room. As he went softly across the floor he noticed that the peep-hole was open, revealing a section of face with buck teeth and sunken expressionless eyes. He pretended not to have seen that Detective-sergeant Keechey and his column-dodging bowler-hatted umbrella-carrying nark were spying there, as they sipped large hot Irish whiskey at Freddy’s expense.
Turning his back to the unpleasant nearness of watching eyes, he saw the girl’s face turning in his direction. She wore a little dark blue straw hat, with a veil hanging from its brim. Behind the spotted net two large blue glistening eyes and a loose smiling mouth regarded him. He returned the limpid look with pleasure. Then Gene, turning to see what she was looking at, recognised him. A light of welcome came upon his sallow face.
Freddy now tipped his straw boater, and said with extreme politeness, “I think you know both these gentlemen, sir?” as he played his part in the comedy of surprise. Then, lest the subtlety of his action be missed, he explained, “I perceived that you wished to be incognito pro tem, in a manner of speaking, so I refrained from my customary welcome to a customer of this ’ouse. May I introduce you to this young lady? Miss Lily Cornford, this is Mr. Maddison.”
Desmond gave Phillip a sardonic, sharing look, as much as to say, Look what we’ve found! The girl, despite the sophistication of veil and rolled-gold chain with bangles on the white wrist of the hand she held out to Phillip, a little uncertainly, as though ready to withdraw it at a look of disapproval, seemed to be bashful—or a little timid. She was all blue eyes and lips loose with smile, and looked at him without speaking—could she be a little bit tiddly? The blue eyes behind the faint dark net were slightly alarming, so was the tall white neck and golden hair coiled under the straw hat with a spray of forget-me-nots circling its dark blue crown. Unspeaking, she let her hand remain in his; her gaze still a little unsteady, like her lips.
“How do you do,” he said, then turning to Desmond and Gene, one on either side of the figure on the stool, “so I see you know these two pals of mine, who are covering your flanks. How are you Des? By Jove, I’m glad to see you and Gene! I’ve got a week’s leave! Drinks all round, Freddy!”
Desmond, now shaking with ingroaning laughter, lifted his nose, to draw Phillip to one side, while Gene took advantage of this to lay an arm possessively upon the girl’s shoulder.
“I nearly burst out laughing when you said that Gene and I’d been covering her flanks. In a way you’re right! She’s a damned fine girl!”
“I’ve had some sport with Polly, too. Now I’ve wangled a week’s leave! How about you?”
“I’ve got four days. I’m in for a transfer. I’ve applied for a tunnelling company in France. I want to be in the Big Push before it’s all over.”
“In the Training Centre we reckon it will start in three months’ time, when the first hundred machine-gun companies are formed.”
“Our sappers are digging shafts for the mines now. I don’t want to miss anything.”
“I’m quite keen to get back, too, now I’m with mounted troops. Who is this bird?”
“Gene met her first, but now I’ve clicked with her. We’re going to the second house at the Hippo.”
“Oh, I see.”
Phillip felt dismayed. Although in their friendship so far he had been frank, or natural, with Desmond in most things, both youths had avoided the subject of girls; indeed, with the exception of the phantasmal Helena Rolls, none had come between them.
“Well, so long,” said Gene, raising his boater. “I’ve got two birds to see in the Gild Hall. Why don’t you come and meet them, Phil?”
Phillip lingered, hoping that Desmond would suggest that he join them for the Hippodrome; but when nothing was said, he bade them goodbye and crossed the road to the Gild Hall, which was now three-quarter filled with skittering groups of territorials of the local battalion of the London Regiment, locally known as the Gild Hall Brigade, and more pairs of flappers seated at tables.
Gene was lolling back in his chair, obviously fancying himself, too, as he tilted his closely-woven straw-hat partly over one eye, holding his silver-topped ebony stick in yellow-gloved hands, while talking to two young girls, who said they had changed out of uniform of the High School, and this was their second visit to the Hall. They were expectant and excited, and exchanged glances whenever Gene or Phillip spoke.
Gene explained that he had been in the Army, but had been discharged because his feet had given way under prolonged marching. “In my country, we ride horses. For ten generations my people have been soldiers, always on horseback. Only peons walk; we ride. So here I am, since the Cavalry is full up.”
Phillip began to feel embarrassed when Gene, fitting his eye-glass, began to talk of his flat in Town, and would the girls like to visit him and his friend there. Gene had an attic floor in Westbourne Terrace, a seedy row of houses drab with soot and flaking paint near Paddington Station, which he rented for fifteen shillings a week.
He wanted to get away from this man-about-town talk with two schoolgirls, one of whom had not yet started to develop.
“I’ll be back in a moment, I’ve got to see someone,” he said.
He crossed over the road and walked to Freddy’s, but Desmond was not there. Loneliness came to him, so for old time’s sake he had a large whiskey and stood Freddy a sixpenny drink from the landlord’s own special inverted bottle of water. Freddy, leaning over the bar, and moving his eyes only towards the stained-glass partition, said, “Your friend came back here after you left to ask me about what Keechey had on Lily, and then went out again. I thought you ought to know that Keechey has got his eye on her. She used to be one of his pieces, but she won’t have anything to do with him now. He’s got a down on her, and is trying to get evidence for a pinch for soliciting, also he says she’s not eighteen. I’m cleared against serving liquor to her, as I don’t know her age.”
Freddy stood upright and was again the landlord. “Well, your very good health, sir!”
He went away to serve a customer, and when he came back Phillip s
aid, “Tell me, Freddy, is Lily a tom?”
The landlord shook his head decisively. “Not within the meaning of the act. She works in Nett’s Laundry, on the lower side of Randiswell Bridge. Of course, I don’t say she doesn’t have a bit of fun at times, but that’s her business.”
“Quite. Does she often come in here?”
“Not often. Usually she goes into the Bull. It wants forty minutes to the second ’ouse at the Hippo, so you might catch them there.”
“Well, see you later, Freddy.”
“The pleasure will be mine, sir,” said Freddy, tipping his hat an eighth of an inch from behind.
He felt unhappy at Desmond’s apparent indifference, after he had come as fast as he dared all the way down the Great North Road. Desmond, his great friend, could forsake him almost at a moment’s notice, for someone he had met in a pub. But he must think with his head, as Father Aloysius had said, and not with his feelings. Very well.
Until that evening, Desmond had not seen him for some time. During that period Desmond had been living his own life, as he had been living his. Why then was he worrying? Because Desmond had said nothing about meeting him again? Yes; Desmond was all his true life: Helena Rolls was an Ideal, far above life.
He went into the Bull, and saw the girl sitting on a long padded seat beside Desmond. Hoping that they would invite him to sit with them, he stood by the bar, and ordered whiskey, while keeping his back to the two on the long seat by the wall. Beyond the row of bottles on shelves in front was a looking glass, and while he was drinking, he saw the two get up and go out through the door.
I see, he said to himself, I see. I am not wanted any more. It is not true, of course; I am pretending to myself, pretending that my best friend does want me, except when he cannot get anyone better.
He saw Lily’s eyes, blue as the water reflecting the summer sky in the Lake Woods; and remembered that Desmond had taken Gene there to fish the secret lakes, to which he had never taken anyone else except Desmond, although the permit was made out to Mr. Phillip Maddison and friend. Now my great friend has forsaken me because of a girl and when I go to find him to warn him that the unscrupulous and revengeful Keechey is waiting to find someone with whom to charge Lily with prostitution, he practically cuts me dead before I can even tell him why I came.
The Golden Virgin Page 16