Mad Joy

by Jane Bailey

  I resented being pushed out of the war. That may seem ungrateful, when so many people were being killed, but the alternative, waiting and knitting, felt so utterly pointless.

  I was cajoled into joining the WVS, and bottled jam and knitted and rescued old clothes. I sent packages of jumpers with heavily darned elbows, worn shoes and grey underwear to people who had lost their entire families under rubble. Sometimes we sent them jam. I often wondered what it felt like to be torn about by grief, and to open a parcel containing Woodside WVS damson preserve and a couple of old off-white vests and pants.

  In my frustration – though heavily pregnant – I decided to set up a farm. The house had an orchard and a field (which the Ministry of Agriculture already had its eye on). I bought farming manuals, enlisted the help of Mr Rollins and, later, a couple of officers who were billeted with us, and soon we had twenty chickens, a cow shed with one cow and half a field turned into a huge Victory Garden. We bought a horse for the other half: Howard resurrected an old cart and soon we had it up and running to save on petrol. If it hadn’t been so cold and damp it might’ve been quite romantic.

  In the meantime I had a baby boy in the April of 1941, and a girl in 1943. Both events filled me with what I can only describe as wild, unassailable joy. Holding each of them for the first time I felt an explosion of joy. I was a volcano firing off in all directions, an eruption of euphoria, and passion, and tenderness.

  Andrew and Jill spent their early years without their father, but the house was anything but empty. Like many in wartime, we were a cock-eyed sort of household. Mrs Bubb had her little grandson, Johnny, from Coventry staying, and later we had two evacuees from London: a brother and sister, Donald and Maggie. There were often a couple of soldiers billeted with us. Howard encouraged Gracie to hold the WI meetings there sometimes; the Mustoes were frequent visitors, and Mr Mustoe brought what was left of the brass band to play after church every other Sunday; Mo and Tilly visited whenever they were home on leave, and they knew me so well it was like being back with the girls on the airfield.

  I knew I was happy, and yet I felt a growing uneasiness. I used to think it was James being away. He had been posted further afield to the South of England, to ‘relieve’ pilots on constant missions. I knew this meant to ‘replace’, because the newspapers were full of pilots who hadn’t come back. Later, after Jill was conceived, he was posted to India, doing flight tests and flying reassembled planes to the front line in Burma. All our young men had gone to risk their lives in places with silly names: Sidi Birani, the Kithera Straits, Oesterbeck, Nijmegen. I used to find myself singing, ‘… before we send him to the Dardanelles’, one of my favourites as a child. The odds were stacked against us. I used to imagine what it would be like to be a widow, in order to prepare myself. I pictured the children growing up in that old house, the evacuees gone, Mrs Bubb retired and Gracie and Howard married perhaps, and living in her house, or passed away. I thought of our night in the woods under the stars, and though I thanked God we had had this, James and I, I wondered if that was all there was: our allocation of happiness.

  45

  Despite the hardships, things went pretty smoothly for a while. Picturing the worst from time to time did nothing to prepare me for what would happen in the spring of 1944. I could not possibly have imagined such a turn of events.

  Jill was barely a year old and at her most difficult. She could walk a few paces, but wanted to crawl everywhere. She could reach all sorts of dangers she hadn’t been able to reach before, and which hadn’t been around when Andrew was a toddler. Cigarette lighters, for instance, left constantly around on tabletops by our two latest billeted officers, Anthony and Douglas.

  Douglas was a quiet young man, given to mooching around the grounds and gazing at sunsets, reading and rereading letters from his fiancée. When he wasn’t outside he was in the room at the top of the house he shared with Anthony. Anthony was always teasing me about being Farmer One-Cow, and often his teasing was so persistent it was tantamount to flirting. With my arms full of Jill or my Wellingtons ankle-deep in dung, I found it hard to believe anyone would want to flirt with me. It was perhaps for this reason that he got away with it for so long. It was weeks after his arrival that Mrs Bubb warned me to ‘watch out for that one’. Still, I couldn’t imagine any harm coming from Anthony. They were involved in some intelligence work somewhere in Gloucestershire, and couldn’t tell us what they did after they left in the morning and before they came home at teatime.

  In any case, whatever Mrs Bubb said, Anthony was attentive to Andrew and Jill and the evacuees. Even if he left his lighter all over the place, he did make the children laugh, and often played games with Jill on his knee in which he told her very solemnly to sit still and then opened his legs so that she fell through. He was an extra pair of hands about the place, and he and Douglas mucked in at haymaking or whenever there were tasks that required a bit of muscle.

  Having established his niche in our household, Anthony began to take small liberties. He would make me cups of tea and prop my feet up by the fire, or he would adjust my headscarf to contain a stray piece of hair. Sometimes he would be up before Mrs Bubb and I would come down to breakfast to find a little wild flower beside my plate in an old meat-paste jar.

  ‘You’re going to have to speak to him,’ Mrs Bubb told me one day. I could tell from her tone that she might well have done so herself. ‘He’ll’ve left a few mementos in this war, I shouldn’t wonder. Seen his sort before. Give him an inch and he’ll take a yard, you mark my words. Oh yes!’ She closed her eyes as if remembering. ‘I’ve seen his sort!’ Mrs Bubb had always been an ally and I was afraid of her disapproval. She had often told me how good it was to have me around, how much happier the house felt with me and the children in it, how much easier I was to work for than either Celia or her mother. And she had always been respectful towards me. So this advice felt like a spike in my side. I was behaving improperly, or at least, I was not responding appropriately to improper behaviour. Whatever would she think of me when James came back? If I acted now, it would not be too late. Even so, I wished she had acknowledged the one thing that had prevented me from acting until now: it had been a long, long war, and my youth was floating past in pig-shit and raking and child-rearing and waiting and waiting. It was so exciting to be flirted with, so thrilling to be the focus of someone’s attention for reasons other than feeding.

  Reminding him that I was married seemed almost like a flirtation in itself, but anyway I did it one morning after a particularly daring attempt of his to touch my waist.

  ‘I know,’ he said, cocking his head at an angle, ‘but what does “married” mean these days?’

  I was astonished. I went to pull on my wellingtons in the back porch. I was so indignant at his easy dismissal of my marriage vows that it took me a moment to gather myself. ‘I love my husband. That’s what it means.’

  He folded his arms and leant against the porch wall, surrounded by ancient outdoor coats on hooks and the fusty smell of discarded boots.

  ‘He’s in India, isn’t he?’

  I straightened myself and gave a level, determined look by way of reply.

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘And you must know what happens out there!’

  I took my woollen work coat off its hook and started stuffing my arms into it.

  ‘Come on, Joy. Don’t be naïve. You know they provide women by the score. And I’ll tell you what,’ he lowered his voice as if he were offering top military intelligence, ‘what those girls can’t do, no one can!’ He chuckled, and it seemed like a sneer.

  I was foolishly hurt by what he said. I felt wounded and raw, and his enjoyment of my discomfort left me feeling stupid. ‘I don’t quite know why you’re telling me this.’

  He took my shoulder as I turned to go out, and said in a low but confident voice, so close I could smell the tea on his breath: ‘Oh, I think you do.’

  I pushed past him and into the bright morning. I wanted this man out of o
ur house. I felt cheapened by him. But I had no power to move him, and I knew then he would be there every morning and every night, confident of wearing me down, of getting what he wanted, one way or another.

  46

  In the days that followed Anthony stepped up his attentiveness towards the children, as if by making himself indispensable to their happiness he could force my hand through some sort of gratitude or sense of obligation. When that failed, he began to mention his family house in Sussex, his inheritance, the car he had bought just before the war. I suppose he imagined that, because I had married James and lived in this house, I must be the sort of girl attracted to wealth. He may have taken my indifference for coyness, because he developed this tack with offers of meals in restaurants, visits to important friends’ houses, a share in the privileged life of an officer.

  Sometimes I was almost charmed by his chirpiness with the children, but very occasionally I would see a glimpse of something more sinister: a sudden flaring of the nostrils when all did not go his way, a movement in the muscles of his cheek as he concealed a clenching of the teeth, a thin, determined set to the lips.

  And then again, just as I imagined he was off my trail, I would sense him watching me as I came out of the bathroom, see him skulking in an alcove and fixing his eyes on me with an intensely knowing look.

  This is when I should have said something to Howard, but I didn’t. I did ask if we were obliged to have the officers, and he explained that we were. When he asked if there were any problems, I said that there weren’t. I felt suddenly very foolish. What could I possibly have said? Nothing had happened. It would have seemed unpatriotic to want one of them to leave because I thought he was making eyes at me.

  In the early days of June 1944 – around four o’clock – something unexpected happened.

  I was collecting sheets from the beds ready for washing. I went to the officers’ room as I always did for their laundry, and felt suddenly curious. They were away all day and there was no risk of being caught – for another hour or so at least – so I began to look through their things. Douglas had very little: a photograph of his family, one of his girlfriend, and a small travelling alarm clock. He also kept a diary which I didn’t read – not because I was morally good, but because I wasn’t curious about him. Anthony had a small leather writing folder inside his underwear drawer. I unzipped it and inside were three photographs: one of his family, one of a girl, and one of himself standing beside a car. The girl was fairly plain, but clearly well-to-do. She wore a jewelled necklace, off the shoulder evening wear, and her nose was tilted in that slightly imperious way Celia had with her nose. On the back was written ‘Stella, Jan 1943’. I zipped everything up again and placed the folder back in the drawer. Further back, buried in the socks, was a magazine of naked women, and another of pornographic cartoons. I looked at this for some time, because I had never seen anything like it. Some of the things the men were doing to the women were unthinkable, and the obvious aggression in the pictures made me shudder.

  Returning to the landing with my arms full of sheets, I spotted someone through the window. There, on the gravel drive in front of the house, stood a young man in uniform. I hurried down the stairs to the front door.

  He stood quite still, his eyes looking around him earnestly, and when he saw me he smiled.

  ‘Can I help you?’ I asked.

  He continued smiling.

  ‘George! George – I didn’t recognize you! It is you, isn’t it?’

  He stepped forward coyly and let me embrace him. I invited him in and offered him tea, but he insisted he didn’t want to stop me doing whatever I was doing.

  ‘I was having a cup of tea,’ I said. ‘And then I’ll take the potato peelings out for the pigs.’

  I tossed the sheets into the scullery and then joined him in the kitchen. He hardly stopped smiling, and I found I was delighted to have him there. I told him he looked so grown-up in his uniform, but that was a lie. In fact I thought he looked painfully young and vulnerable, and I wanted him not to have to fight in this war at all.

  After we’d exchanged news, he accompanied me to the pigsty and chuckled at the pigs. I offered to show him round the little farm we’d created, and he agreed keenly. He smiled a lot, at everything, but all the while I felt he was hiding something.

  We went right the way round the grounds: through the Victory Garden, the field, the orchard and back across the lawn to the stable, near the yew trees which ran up to the wall and the entrance gate.

  ‘Is everything all right, George? Is there something worrying you?’

  He took a deep breath and let out a faint sigh. It was clear there was something, so I waited. He ran his hand down the nose of our horse, Ivan, and continued looking at him as he said, ‘The thing is, Joy, I only joined up because everyone else was. I didn’t really want to at all!’

  ‘There’s no shame in that. It makes no odds, does it?’

  He turned to look at me. ‘The thing is, I know I’m going to die. And I’m scared. That’s the truth of it: I’m scared.’

  He looked at me so anxiously that I put my arm on his sleeve. He puffed out a sigh again as if this confession had been a monumental effort.

  ‘I think everyone’s scared. I know James is. You wouldn’t be human if you weren’t afraid. It’s not anything to be ashamed of.’

  ‘I don’t know if I am ashamed of it. I’m not scared of dying, see. It’s not that I’m scared of. I know I’m going to die. I just know it. If you’d seen what I’ve seen … The thing is, I’m scared of …’ He trailed off and sighed again.

  ‘What is it, George?’

  He began to run his hand across the wood grain of the stable wall. ‘I’m scared … of not … of dying before I’ve even … lived.’ He looked at me desperately. ‘Joy, I haven’t kissed anyone. I haven’t made love to a woman. I’m eighteen and I haven’t even kissed anyone!’ His voice was beginning to shake a little, and I put my arms around him. He held on to me so tightly I felt tears prickling my nose and eyes.

  ‘Last time we were at Buckleigh House together you weed on me,’ I reminded him.

  He held me back from him so that he could see my face. ‘I promise I won’t wee on you this time.’

  Then before I could disentangle myself his lips were on mine, pressing into mine with such warmth I felt a flood of emotion. His left hand cupped the nape of my neck and I couldn’t believe the tenderness of it, or the relentless hunger of it, which matched my own for James – matched my own except this wasn’t James. But he was so much a part of my childhood, and so much a part of everything good and wonderful I remembered, that for a moment I was Buster Keaton and he was a sheepdog doctor. And suddenly his hand was on my breast, and the sparks shooting off hotly in all directions were so like the ones I felt with James, and it felt so good to be with James again, that suddenly he was James.

  No sooner had these thoughts begun to rush in than I caught him. I pulled his hand away and then I pulled back.

  ‘No! I’m sorry—’

  ‘I’m sorry, Joy. Forgive me.’ He was breathing heavily now, his lips wet and swollen with kissing. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have.’

  His contrition, his heavy sorrowful face in the midst of his lust somehow ennobled him. I wished I could have given in to him, shown him everything he wanted to know.

  ‘It’s okay.’ I said, straightening my blouse. ‘Please don’t worry, George.’ I held his hands to show him that I wasn’t offended. ‘But I don’t think you’re going to die. Not yet, anyway. I don’t think you’re going to miss out on any of it.’

  I led him out of the stable, and there was a new shock awaiting me. There, slouching against the stable door, with his eyebrows mockingly raised, was Anthony.

  47

  The sly curve of Anthony’s smile could not have been better calculated to make me feel my shame. He could not have better judged his appearance, lolling there as an obvious spectator, to renew my awareness of what I always knew myself to
be: bad. Rotten through and through. It was as if Gracie had spent a lifetime trying to convert me, trying to instil some goodness into me, but it had, after all, been nothing more than a clever cover-up. With his sneaky voyeurism he had caught me out being what he knew me to be: wicked and irredeemable. I had seen it mirrored in his eyes as he watched me try to pretend he hadn’t seen me. And when George had saluted him, he had saluted back, smirking. Such clever malevolence I had only seen in one other person in my entire life. He had been sent to punish me. Sent to remind me of my own wretchedness. I was wild, I was mad, I was evil, and no one had guessed. All these years and I had fooled everyone. But he knew. Anthony had known from the start.

  By this time Gracie had moved into Buckleigh House permanently. Sadly, the move had not heralded a union between herself and Howard, an idea I had cherished for so long. She didn’t seem unhappy though. Most days she helped with small chores and kept me company over a cup of tea. What she did on the other days I didn’t know, but if she visited her old house I had little time to visit it now. However, she often appeared only briefly at weekends for a quick cup of tea, looking as though she’d been out walking or digging her garden.

  On one such day, we sat in the orangery knitting. The beech trees on the far side of the road leading up from the village to the Buckleigh House gate were host to scores of rooks who were making a dreadful racket. I was distracted, because I wanted to tell Gracie about Anthony, and ask her advice, but I was afraid now either that she would tell Howard or that she or both of them would approach him and find out about the incident with George. I couldn’t bear the thought that it might get back to James. I lived in dread that I had ruined the most beautiful thing that had ever happened to me and, more horrifyingly still, it seemed obvious to me now that I had always been unworthy of happiness, and that its withdrawal from me was almost inevitable.