As a matter of fact she had several times tried to imagine what it would be like and got … not nowhere – but rather, to a whole lot of different places that did not fit with each other. People being burned at the stake, little boys being sent up chimneys, like they were in Victorian times, Trafalgar Square being absolutely crammed with Germans in their tureen-shaped helmets, being a slave, sent to prison, Hitler living at Home Place with all of them washing his shirts and cooking and doing his housework, being spat at and made to learn German, living on black bread and water – these and many other random notions crammed her mind, sounding ghastly, of course, but sounding silly and pointless as well …
‘What do you think?’ she said.
‘I find it so difficult to think about it at all. I suppose they could murder us all, and then send a lot of Germans to live here, and if they didn’t actually kill us, I expect they would be very horrible to us, but it doesn’t seem at all real to me. I mean, I can’t see what they would get out of it.’
‘Well – England and all the things in it – some of them pretty costly, like pictures in the National Gallery and the Crown jewels, and thousands of houses to live in – oh, yes, and lots of beaches – they’re pretty short of seaside resorts.’
‘Not now they’ve got Holland and France and Norway and Belgium.’
‘Well, I suppose, ruling the world. They’d get the whole Empire as well – it wouldn’t just be England. I mean, that’s what dictators want, isn’t it? Napoleon and all that.’
Polly sighed. ‘I must say, I begin to see the point of being a conscientious objector, like Christopher was last year.’
‘I don’t. There’s no point in that unless everybody was one, and it’s obvious that that will never happen.’
‘You know perfectly well that that is a stupid argument. All reforms are made by a few people who everybody laughs at, or martyrs.’
‘Anyway,’ Clary was stung by being called stupid, ‘we have right on our side. Mr Churchill said that Hitler and all he stood for was evil.’
‘Yes, but that’s one of the things about good leaders: they always manage to make their side feel they’re right. Hitler does that, you bet. And considering that nobody seems to know what’s going on, let alone why, that’s essential.’
Clary couldn’t argue with that; it was what she had been discovering all day. Unless – ‘You don’t think that the uncles and so on do know, but they don’t think they ought to tell us?’
‘I asked Dad that last weekend. He said, “Polly, if I knew anything for certain, I’d tell you. You have as much right to know as anyone else.”’
‘But what does he think?’
Polly shrugged, but she looked uneasy. ‘He just wouldn’t say.’
They looked at each other; Clary had got into her nightdress – Polly was naked, and hunting for hers under her pillow. When she had found it and pulled it over her head, she said, ‘Well, whatever happens, let’s you and me stay together. You’re my best friend. Clary, anything would be better with you. And anything would be worse without you.’
Tears rushed to Clary’s eyes, and she was dumb, giddy, as joy like a rocket exploded in her heart and then subsided gracefully in separate stars of comfort and affection, when she was able to say, ‘I feel just the same.’
Sunday, 2 June
Darling Dad,
I am writing again so soon because for once there is quite a lot to tell you. First of all: Uncle Edward has actually been to Dunkirk! He got two days’ leave and went off in a yacht belonging to one of his friends at his club, and they sailed over and got to the beach, and then they had to anchor the yacht because it had a deep keel and Uncle Edward got the dinghy and rowed into the shore until it was shallow enough for people to get into the boat. He made three trips because the dinghy would only just hold four people including Uncle Edward. He got nine men on board, and then he went a fourth time and got one wounded person in but the dinghy got hit and capsized and he had to swim back to the boat holding up the wounded person which took him a long time, and then the yacht was so full that they thought they’d better just come back to England as quite a lot of bombs were dropping and German planes were trying to machine-gun them, but Uncle Edward said our air force was trying to stop that. Actually, Uncle Edward didn’t tell me all this, he told Uncle Hugh on the telephone who told the rest of us. He said Uncle Edward got some shrapnel in his left shoulder, but he was OK all the same. The worst thing was that they didn’t have enough to drink on the yacht – only one small tank of water and a bottle of brandy and tins of condensed milk but no tin opener, they had to break them open with a screwdriver. They made tea in a saucepan with the milk in it and Uncle Edward said it was horrible, so he nobly said he didn’t want any. They ran out of petrol. By then they could see England, but there was very little wind so it took them ages to sail the last part. They sang songs; ‘Roll Out The Barrel’, and ‘We’re Going To Hang Out The Washing On The Siegfried Line’, and ‘Run Rabbit Run’, and then ‘It’s A Long Way To Tipperary’, to please Uncle Edward. Some of them had gone to sleep, Uncle Edward said, and one of them was seasick seven times even though the water was so calm. Good thing he didn’t join the Navy, Dad, don’t you think? Oh, I forgot, Uncle Hugh said that Uncle Edward went up onto the beach to fetch the man who couldn’t walk, and carried him to the dinghy, so it was specially bad luck it got hit then. Uncle Hugh said it was a splendid show and Uncle Edward deserved a medal and the whole family were most excited and we drank his health at dinner and he rang and had a conversation with Aunt Villy. Apparently he can’t do it again, because his CO has told him to get back to the aerodrome pronto. That’s a good word, isn’t it, Dad, it sounds like the name for a rather sporting dog. Polly told me that she thought her father was a bit envious of Uncle Edward, but I suppose it would be more difficult to rescue people with one hand. He asked about you, Dad, but we couldn’t tell him anything.
The next news isn’t particularly good because it’s about Neville. He was not allowed home this weekend because guess what? Well, he has a garden with another boy – they all have gardens, and there was going to be a Judgement Day of them, and Neville put weed killer on all the other people’s gardens so that he would win, but it was the kind of weed killer where everything grows up awfully well to begin with and that’s what was happening on the Judgement Day, and he and Farquhar – the other boy – had moved all their plants round so much that they were all wilting and they came bottom and somebody sneaked anyway and they got found out, so it was snubs to him altogether. But the whole thing casts a rather bad light on Neville’s character which has always been his weak point. The next step will be him giving weed killer to anyone who he thinks might be top in exams, in which case I should think he’ll end up in prison as soon as he’s old enough. Do you think people are capable of change, Dad? I think they must be, but only if they want to and, the trouble with Neville is that he doesn’t seemto realise his bad points, which considering how many there are is quite astonishing. However, I know we have to assume the best.
She read the bit about Neville again, as she had an uncomfortable feeling that Dad would say she was being too hard on him, but she decided that she had been perfectly truthful, and what more could he expect?
The third piece of news – that that morning, Zoë seemed to have started having her baby – was something that she felt uneasy about writing. It had been going on for hours now, with Aunt Villy and Aunt Rach helping Dr Carr and the nurse; the nurse had arrived after lunch, and Dr Carr had called three times to see how things were progressing, but each time he had said it was too soon for him to stay. She would awfully have liked to watch as she had never seen a baby being born; but they had all said that of course she couldn’t, and please keep away from that part of the house, but she and Polly had hung about outside Zoë’s window and once they heard a muffled shriek which had intrigued and horrified them.
‘Do you think it hurts a great deal?’ she had asked Polly.
‘I have a feeling it does – otherwise they wouldn’t all be so sort of jolly and dismissive about it.’
‘Very badly planned if it does, considering how many people have to do it to keep the human race going.’
‘When Miss Boot’s cat had her kittens they just seemed to pop out or come out quite smoothly like toothpaste from a tube. It didn’t seem to hurt her in the least.’ Polly had had the good fortune to see this at Easter, and Clary had missed it.
‘You can’t expect people to be like cats. Kittens have dear little squashy bodies – babies are much more difficult with their ears at the sides and toes and fingers and things sticking out.’
Neither of them was quite sure what actually happened, so they talked about it in a special rather offhand manner which each recognised as equating with alarm and ignorance, but they did not mention this.
‘Besides,’ Polly added, ‘if it was as easy as kittens, people would have a nice lot at the same time to save trouble.’
Privately, Clary couldn’t help wondering whether Zoë would die – after all her mother had, and she imagined that Dad must therefore be more anxious than most fathers. Better not write that news until more was known.
So, darling Dad, I don’t think there is anything else to tell you this evening. We had rabbit for lunch, because Mr McAlpine’s ferrets caught four yesterday. Rabbit doesn’t count as meat from the rationing point of view. Oh, yes – Aunt Sybil went to Tunbridge Wells to see if she had an ulcer and she had a barium meal and she had. Zoë has made me a very pretty dress and has cut out another. Aunt Syb is making two for Polly. Aunt Villy bought a cardigan for Miss Milliment but it wasn’t big enough for her which was rather embarrassing. It would have been nice because her other cardigan smells quite a bit of warm cheese, which is funny because with rationing we hardly ever have cheese unless it’s mixed with cauliflower – my bottom meal – which we have once a week. Aunt Villy said she would get another one when she goes to London next week because they have Outsize there which is actually what Miss Milliment is. I am reading a frightening story called The Turn of the Screw by Henry James. I haven’t mentioned this to Miss Milliment, because it has a governess in it who is, I think, rather wicked and it might hurt her feelings. She can do The Times crossword in twenty minutes. She has agreed to teach us French as there is nobody else to do it. She is frightfully good, although her accent is nothing like as good as yours, Dad. Lucky you, being a student in France. I don’t suppose Polly or I will ever get there until we are too old to learn languages if ever. Anyway – je t’aime. You can say that to a father, but if I was saying it to, say, Mr Tonbridge, I’d have to say je vous aime, but naturally I never would. He always looks as though he’s meant to be quite a different shape but somebody shrunk him or something. He’s nice, but I’d never aime him. I do you, though. I’m hugging you in my mind. Clary.
It was nearly suppertime which was what the Duchy called dinner on Sunday evenings. When she had addressed her letter, she realised that again she hadn’t got a stamp, and decided to pinch one out of the Brig’s study and pay him back on Monday. Dr Carr’s car was in the drive, and on the stairs she met Dottie carrying a pail of hot water. Perhaps the baby was nearly born, but she was keener on getting her stamp. She stood still: in the hall, she could hear that the news was on in the drawing room, which meant that most, or all of the grownups would be listening to it. The glass dome had sky the colour of wild violets: the front door was open, making a dark frame for the piece of garden revealed: a bed of white tulips flushed to ivory, the coppery wallflowers by which they were surrounded enhanced until they were like the back of bees by the evening sun. Shafts of their delicious scent arrived and were gone and came again. She had a moment of such pure, perfect happiness, that she felt besieged by it – unable to move. Imperceptibly, the moment was gone, had slipped into the past and she was back to the dull familiarity of anticipation: she was simply going to the study to get the stamp.
The study was always darker than any other room, chiefly because the Brig insisted upon his large pots of geraniums on the window sills, and they obliterated much of the light. The room smelled of cigar smoke, wood samples, the Lebanon cedar with which the many, often open, drawers of his desk were lined and Bessie’s basket – she was an aged dog with the marshy odours of one who plunged frequently into dark silent ponds. Clary sat in the vast mahogany desk chair with its scratchy, horsehair seat and wondered where to look. Now she was actually doing it, pinching a stamp seemed rather more verging on petty crime than she had meant. Borrowing it, she reminded herself, but asking for it would mean getting caught up in some interminable story of the Brig’s and, anyway, she would have to wait until the end of the news, and if she simply took one now, she could take her letter down the road and post it before supper and it would get to Dad sooner. She could buy another stamp tomorrow and simply put it back and not say anything, so no crime at all, really. She began rummaging in the drawers, and had just found a huge sheet of halfpenny stamps, when the telephone rang. It was the only telephone in the house and she knew if she didn’t answer it someone would come and then they would find her. She pulled the telephone towards her, picked up the receiver and put it to her ear. An operator’s voice said, ‘Is that Watlington two one?’ and she said yes, it was. I have Commander Pearson on the telephone for you,’ the voice said, and then there was rather a lot of crackling, and then an unknown, but very tired-sounding man’s voice said, ‘Mrs Cazalet? Is that Mrs Rupert Cazalet?’ and something made her say, ‘Yes, Mrs Cazalet speaking.’
‘Look here,’ he said: ‘I’m Rupert’s CO. I don’t know whether you have a telegram yet, but I just wanted to say how frightfully sorry I am. We were all so fond of Rupert – I say, are you there?’
She must have said yes, because he went on, ‘But what I chiefly wanted to say to you was that you mustn’t give up hope. He was on this shore party, you see, and helping to organise the shipment of the best part of a thousand men, but by the time it got light we had to push off. He did a spectacular job, and the chances are he’ll turn up a prisoner. Rotten for you, I do know, but not the worst. But I didn’t want you simply to get the telegram, because that will just say he is missing. I’m desperately sorry, Mrs Cazalet. I know it’s a ghastly shock, but I sort of felt I must tell you myself and not just leave it to the telegram. We’ll be sending his gear back to you, of course. I say – it’s a terrible line – are you there?’
She managed to say she was, and thank you for telling me.
‘I’m really sorry to have to tell you this. But don’t lose heart. It may be a little while before you hear if he’s a prisoner, but I should bet on that if I was you. We’ll all keep our fingers crossed.’
She thanked him for that. She felt him searching for something else to say and then he said, ‘Desperately sorry. Well – goodbye to you now,’ and rang off.
She had pressed the receiver so hard against her ear that it ached when she hung up. She was so shocked that she felt quite calm – indeed, the trivial niggling thought came that if she had not pretended to be Zoë, the conversation might never have happened – that it was simply a kind of nursery justice meted out: she’d told a lie and serve her right. This was nonsense, but the other was not. Dad was … tears began to pour down her face. Dad was – might be – no – he could not be – but she, to whom the unthinkable, unbearable loss had already once occurred, could not disbelieve it happening again. Its awfulness made no difference at all.
She was still sitting in the chair, her tears as steady as rain when, much later, Aunt Rach came to fetch something from the study. She was able, however, to recall everything that had been said – saying also merely that Commander Pearson had thought she was Zoë and by the time she could have told him that she wasn’t, it was too late. Others arrived; the study filled up with people who tried to comfort her and she stared at each one in turn as though she could neither hear nor understand them. Eventually, she got stiffly off the chair to go and find Poll
y.
Zoë’s baby – a daughter – was born later that evening, and the next morning the telegram did arrive, but they did not tell Zoë until she had recovered from the long labour. There was no further news when they told her.
POLLY
July, 1940
The sky was a perfect blue with no cloud at all, but it was not empty.
‘I can count seven,’ Christopher said, and as he said that she could too: seven small pearly bubbles drifting down from the weight of the tiny rigid figures beneath them. Higher in the sky, apparently from nowhere, five bombers, black against the sun, occurred and above them, as frenetic as feeding swallows, the fighters wheeled and dived, banked sharply and climbed to regain height, inscribing the sky with thread-like tracks of white vapour, their wingtips glinting tinny in the strong light. It was impossible not to watch. A fighter, zooming down to attack a bomber, was hit by another fighter above and behind it: it changed direction, attempted to climb with the attacker on its tail when it was hit again, and discharging black smoke it went suddenly into a deadly vertical dive until it was out of sight. Before they could even feel, or think that they heard, its explosion, another fighter had reached the foremost bomber: for a second it looked as though there was to be a head-on collision; then the fighter veered away at the last moment, but the bomber was hit, and began rapidly to lose height. By now they could hear the uneven droning of its engines, and see that it, too, was emitting black smoke.
The Cazalet Chronicles Collection Page 70