‘He gave me ever such a fright,’ Eileen said holding her side to show she meant it. ‘I went in, because I thought I’d left my dusters in there, and there he was, without a stitch on, doing the Lambeth Walk on the billiard table with Mr Hugh’s golf club. I don’t know,’ she finished, as she took the restorative cup of tea proffered by Mrs Cripps. ‘All the curtains drawn as well, and the table lights on – it gave me ever such a turn. I couldn’t find Ellen, so I had to get Miss Rachel. He didn’t ought to take his clothes off – a big boy like that.’
‘Whatever next, I wonder?’ Mrs Cripps had returned to sieving breadcrumbs. ‘Of course he misses his father, poor little mite.’ There was a hush in the kitchen, and Edie, who stopped washing up out of respect, dropped a pie-dish on the floor where it broke – it came to pieces in her hand, she wept as Mrs Cripps scolded her.
‘It was really so killing, I had the greatest difficulty in not laughing,’ Rachel said to the Duchy. ‘He hadn’t cut or damaged the cloth, thank goodness. But what makes him think of such things?’
‘He wants attention,’ the Duchy said calmly. ‘He misses his father. Zoë has never been much use to him, and Clary is too old in some ways and too young in others to comfort him about that.’
They looked at each other with many of much the same thoughts. ‘A little treat on his own?’ Rachel ventured.
‘Certainly, but not today. He mustn’t think that dancing on billiard tables reaps a reward. In fact I think Hugh had better give him a good talking to this evening when he gets home.’
Zoë could hear Juliet crying as she walked up the drive, and by the time the house came in sight, she was running. This quickly made her out of breath. She had known at Mill Farm she was late, because her breasts had begun to feel too heavy and full, but it had been impossible to leave the poor chap she had been reading to until the nurse came to relieve her. Supposing Ellen was not with Juliet; suppose she had fallen out of her basket and hurt herself: she caught her cardigan on the latch of the garden gate in her hurry and turning impatiently to free it, she tore the pocket. In the hall, she almost collided with Eileen carrying a tray with the silver to lay the dinner. By the time she had got to the top of the stairs she had a stitch in her side but she still ran along the passage to her room. Ellen was walking up and down with Juliet who was scarlet and pumping out little regular screams of rage. ‘She’s only hungry,’ Ellen said. ‘She’s a regular little madam when she wants her food.’
Zoë sat in the high-backed nursing chair, unbuttoned her shirt and unhooked her bra, removing the sodden pads. Ellen handed her the baby who was stiff and sweating with rage, settled her in the crook of her arm. The baby made a few apparently random, almost blind movements of her head and found the breast whereupon her body instantly softened; and on her face an expression of (stern) rapture instantly occurred. ‘Don’t let her have it too fast,’ Ellen advised, but she said it with a proper adoration and Zoë could tear her eyes for a moment from her baby to smile.
‘I won’t.’ Ellen handed her a Harrington square for her other breast which leaked in sympathy and limped from the room – she had rheumatism that had made her painfully lame.
Zoë stroked the damp wisps of hair with her fingers and the baby’s eyes, fixed upon hers now with that look of considering trust that she never tired of, flickered at the interruption, then returned to their steady gaze. Her complexion was now a delicious rose colour; her tiny bare feet curling with pleasure made Zoë want to seize one and kiss it – an interruption that she knew would not be popular. ‘You have a widow’s peak,’ she said, going through her inventory of perfections which were so many. The silky, touchingly defined eyebrows, the amazing wide-apart eyes, still the colour of wet slate but likely, she had been told, to change, the dear little nose and the charming mouth the colour of red cherry skin, and her head with the reddish gold hair, such a perfect shape – like a hazelnut she thought … It was time to wind her. She lifted her up and placed Juliet over her shoulder, stroking the small of her back. The baby made a few small creaking sounds and then burped – she was the perfect baby.
It was the Duchy who had suggested that she should go and help at the nursing home at Mill Farm in the afternoons, and almost frightened by the completeness of her absorption in Juliet, she had agreed. The Duchy had been unfailingly kind to her and Zoë cared very much for her good opinion. It had been the Duchy who had told her about Rupert – not until two days after Juliet was born and her milk had come in. She had cried – easy, weak tears but the news had a kind of unreality, a distance about it that made her unable to feel what clearly they all expected her to feel – anguish, hope at first, now ebbing away as the weeks went by. She could not absorb the idea that he might be dead and she would never see him again – would not or could not think of it. The Duchy, whether she realised this or not, had never pressed her for responses. She had told her the truth and then left her to refer to it if she had wanted to. But she hadn’t. There had been one time with Clary, when there had been a second’s awful, unimaginable reality, but she had fled from it, retreated into the existence, the possession of Juliet. ‘I can’t,’ she had said to Clary: ‘I can’t think about it now. I can’t.’ And Clary had said, ‘That’s all right. Just don’t think he’s dead because he isn’t.’ And she never talked about it again. For nearly three months now her whole existence had been Juliet: feeding her, bathing her, changing her nappies, playing with her, taking her for walks in the old Cazalet family pram. At night, she slept dreamlessly, but in some magic way, she always woke a minute or two before Juliet for her early-morning feed – her favourite time when there seemed to be nobody in the world but the two of them. The war receded for her: she did not listen to the news on the wireless, nor read newspapers. She spent hours making intricate, pretty dresses for Juliet to wear when she was a little older, fine lawn dresses, with pin tucks and drawn threadwork and edged sometimes with a narrow handmade lace that the Duchy gave her. Sybil had become her friend in an amiable, undemanding way: she had a proper admiration for Juliet and was quite happy to talk about babies in a knowledgeable and reassuring manner, and she had crocheted three matinée jackets, had shown her how to cut Juliet’s nails to stop her scratching her face. But two weeks ago the Duchy had suggested that she might like to help at Mill Farm which contained a number of young airmen who had suffered frightful wounds – mostly burns – and were rested up there between operations. ‘They need visiting,’ she had said. ‘I’ve talked to Matron, and they are a long way from their families who can’t see them often, and I think you should get out more.’ It had not been exactly a command, but Zoë had known that she was meant to comply. So it was arranged that she should go three afternoons a week. It was Villy who had warned her that ‘burns could make people look very strange’, but even then she had been unprepared for what she found at Mill Farm.
‘It is very good of you to come and help us, Mrs Cazalet,’ Matron had said the first time she went. ‘We’re such a small unit, but they all need a lot of nursing and I’m kept short of staff – only four nurses, and one of them on nights.’
‘I don’t know anything about nursing,’ Zoë had said, alarmed.
‘Oh, we shan’t be expecting that of you. No, no, it’s company they need – a new face, some of them like to be read to. I thought I’d start you off with Roddy – he wants a letter written for him, and then you can give him his tea.’ She was leading Zoë along the passage to the small room that one of the children had had when Villy had been there, which was now filled by the high hospital bed, a bedside cabinet with a drawer and cupboard below, and a chair for visitors. ‘Here’s Mrs Cazalet come to see you, Pilot-Officer Bateson,’ Matron said, her tone both cheerful and quiet, ‘and there’s plenty of time for her to write your letter before tea. Dear me, those pillows do slip, don’t they? I’ll give you something to rest your feet against,’ and she went away.
Pilot-Officer Bateson, who was propped upright, turned his head slowly towards Zoë, and s
he saw that the right-hand side of his face was covered by intolerably taut, glistening mulberry-coloured skin that dragged up the side of his mouth into a lopsided smile. He had no eye on that side of his face, and the other side of it was not smiling. His arms were in splints to the elbow and heavily bandaged. They lay on two pillows each side of him.
‘Hallo,’ Zoë said, and then could think of no more to say.
‘There’s a chair there,’ he said. She sat down. The silence was broken by Matron’s return with a bolster. She lifted his sheet and blanket up from the bottom of the bed and Zoë saw that one leg was in a splint. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said, seeing Zoë looking at the splint, ‘Pilot-Officer Bateson has really been in the wars.’
‘One was enough, Matron.’ He looked at Zoë and she thought he was trying to wink.
‘Now then,’ Matron was saying, as though he hadn’t spoken, ‘you can push your good leg against that, and it will help to keep you in your place.’
‘I don’t think there’s much chance of me getting out of it, Matron.’
She finished arranging his bedclothes and straightened up. ‘I wouldn’t put it past you,’ she said; she managed to sound matter-of-fact and affectionate. ‘His writing-pad’s in the drawer, Mrs Cazalet,’ and she went away again. Her absence induced panic in Zoë: she did not know whether to look at him or not look at him, but he solved that for her by telling her, ‘Bit of a sight, aren’t I?’
She looked at him then and said, ‘I can see you’ve had a bad time,’ and felt him relax against his pillows. She got up and took the pad of paper, which lay beside a fountain pen, out of his drawer. ‘Shall we do your letter?’
‘OK. It’s to my mum. I’m not much of a one for letters, I’m afraid.’
‘Dear Mum.’ There was a long pause, and then the sight of her with the pen poised drove him on. ‘Well, how are you? It is a nice place here. I’ll be staying a few weeks until they send me back to Godalming for the next op. They say I am doing very well. The food is good and they look after us very well.’ There was a long silence, and then he said rapidly, ‘I hope Dad is enjoying the Home Guard and your work in the canteen isn’t too tiring for your back. Please thank Millie for her card.’
‘Hang on,’ Zoë said, ‘you’re going too fast for me.’
‘Sorry.’
‘It’s all right. I’ve just got to Aunt Millie.’
‘She’s not my aunt, she’s the dog,’ he said. Then he said, ‘Do you think that’s enough? I can’t think of any more.’
‘It isn’t quite a page.’
‘Oh. Oh, yes. Please would you ring Ruth and tell her not to come. You could tell her we’re not allowed visitors only I don’t want her to come. Well, I hope this finds you—’ He stopped. ‘That won’t do, will it?’ She realised that he was trying to smile and felt her eyes prick with tears. ‘Just put, your loving son Roddy,’ he said.
By the time she had found an envelope and addressed it, read the letter to him and packed it up, a nurse arrived with a tray on which there was a plate of sandwiches and two cups of tea. ‘Matron said you were giving him his tea. There’s a straw for his drink,’ she said. ‘Are you quite comfortable?’
‘I’m fine, Nurse. How are you?’
‘Mustn’t complain,’ she answered. She had put the tray on his bedside cabinet and attended to his pillows, the ones behind his head, and one which supported his left arm. ‘No more dressings?’ he said, and Zoë caught a note of barely concealed apprehension.
‘Not tonight,’ she said. ‘We’re letting you off tonight. I’ll be back for the tray. Call if you want anything.’
She would have to feed him, Zoë thought, and began to feel anxious about how it should be done. She put the straw in his tea cup.
‘It’ll be too hot,’ he said. ‘I can’t drink it hot.’
The sandwiches were quite thin with the crusts cut off. She drew up her chair nearer the bed, picked one up and held it to his mouth. He tried to take a bite, but she realised that he could hardly open his mouth and that it hurt him, so she broke off a small piece and pushed it in. ‘Bit of a crock, aren’t I?’ he said.
‘An awful crock.’
‘When you smile you remind me of someone. A film actress.’ He seemed just to have held the food in his mouth, but now he swallowed – she saw the movement in his smooth bony throat. ‘Live near here, do you?’
‘Yes. Just up the road.’
‘I see you’re married.’
‘Yes.’ There was a pause, then she said, ‘He was in the Navy.’
A heavy splinted arm came clumsily down against hers. ‘Rough luck,’ he said, and she could see the left side of his face blushing. “Fraid I can’t lift my arm,’ he said. She put down the sandwich and lifted it carefully back onto its pillow. While she fed him the rest of the sandwich, she told him about Juliet, and he was courteous, but not really interested. She asked him if he had brothers and sisters, and he said, no, he was the only one. He’d had a younger brother, but he’d died of diphtheria when he was eight. He asked her to eat some of the sandwiches because he wasn’t up to more than one and they kept on at him about eating. She gave him his tea, holding the cup while he sucked from the straw. ‘I like a nice cup of tea,’ he said.
When he’d finished, she said, ‘I suppose you can’t read with your arms like that.’
‘I couldn’t, anyway. My eye’s not much cop for reading.’
‘I could bring you a book and read it, if you like?’
‘I would,’ he said. ‘Something light.’
‘It’s very kind of you,’ he said stiffly when it was time for her to go. He said it almost grudgingly and as though he did not like her. But when she was at the door and smiling in farewell, he said, ‘Vivien Leigh! That’s who you remind me of! You know. Waterloo Bridge. I saw it three times. Could you ask the nurse to come, please?’
Gradually, after that first time, she learned more about him, but chiefly from Matron. He’d got his plane back on one engine, but there’d been a fire in the cockpit and he’d broken his leg getting out. ‘He got a DFC for it,’ she said, he’d shot down three planes that day. He had terrible nightmares. He was twenty and he’d only been flying a month apart from his training. When she asked whether they would be able to patch up his face any more, Matron had said that they probably would, but his arms and especially his hands were so terribly burned that they weren’t sure what was going to happen about them. Then she had looked at Zoë and said, ‘He’s not the worst. He’s not even the worst here. And we don’t get the very worst cases. They keep them at Godalming.’ She had given Zoë a quick little pat on the shoulder, and said, ‘You’re doing a good job with him. Just remember he’s still in shock. Apart from his crash, the shock element from burns is one of the worst things he has to contend with. How’s the baby?’ She always asked after Juliet, and one afternoon, when it was Ellen’s day off, Zoë took her down to Mill Farm to show to Matron and the nurses, and a lot of very satisfactory baby worship went on, with everybody wanting to hold her and saying how lovely she was. But when they suggested she take Juliet up to show her to Pilot-Officer Bateson she said she didn’t think it would be a good idea and they did not press her, although what she actually did turned out to be worse. She left Juliet with Matron, who said she was writing reports and could easily keep an eye on her, while she went to say hallo to Roddy. She had been reading Sherlock Holmes stories – having tried P. G. Wodehouse which he said made him laugh and laughing hurt too much. She told him that she could only stay ten minutes. This upset him, and when she explained that it was because she had the baby with her he closed up completely. She offered to start a story, and he said he wasn’t feeling like one and an awkward silence ensued. ‘You can’t read much in ten minutes,’ he said after a bit. She said she was sorry, but it was the nanny’s day off. He had turned his face away from her so that only the burned side showed. ‘I’m tired anyhow,’ he said. ‘I’m sick and tired of the whole thing.’
She got up from th
e chair and said she would come tomorrow.
‘Please yourself,’ he answered. When she was at the door, he said, ‘Bit posh having a nanny, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t really. She just helps me sometimes which means I can come and see you.’ She felt quite angry when she said it, and afterwards was afraid that it had showed.
But a couple of days later there was a small parcel on her chair. ‘Open it,’ he said. He looked more animated than usual. ‘Go on!’
It was a toy: a small white monkey with pink felt ears and a tail. ‘It’s for your baby,’ he said. ‘I got one of the nurses to choose it. She said it was the best she could find.’
‘It’s lovely. She’ll love it. Thank you, Roddy, it really is kind of you.’ On impulse, she went over and kissed him, very lightly, on the crimson, glistening skin. He drew a deep gasping sigh and she was afraid she had hurt him, but after a moment he said huskily, ‘You’re the first person to kiss me – since—’ and tears began to slide out of his eye, slowly at first and then more and more. She found her handkerchief and mopped him up, held it for him to try to blow his nose. That was when he told her about Ruth – his girl – they hadn’t known each other very long – met in a dance hall – she was a lovely dancer and had hair like Ginger Rogers. They met twice a week, once for the cinema, and once to go dancing. ‘Used to,’ he said wearily. She had written him a letter saying she wanted to come and see him when he was at Godalming, but he hadn’t answered it. ‘I don’t want her to see me,’ he said. And Zoë, who had learned some things during these weeks, had not argued with him, just listened to the lot.
Then she went back to her chair, picking up the monkey, and said very casually that Matron had said they thought they would do more to his face. ‘And anyway,’ she finished, ‘people don’t love people just for their faces – or at least it’s awful if they do.’
The Cazalet Chronicles Collection Page 77