“And what do you both want to do?”
She looked at Polly who said at once, “You go first, Clary.”
Not for the first time that evening, she wished that she had Archie to herself, because she didn’t feel that Polly wanted the same things. However, she did her best.
“What I want is to get a huge lot of experience. I’m just running out of any at home, you see. I mean, anything new I learn is nearly always from books, which is interesting but it isn’t the same, because if those things happened to me I don’t know if I would have agreed that that’s how it was. Polly says she doesn’t know what she’s here for, and I’m coming round to agreeing with her. About me, I mean. We’re not like Louise, you see. She’s always wanted to be an actress.”
“You could be a writer,” Polly reminded her. “You used to say that was what you wanted to be.”
“Well, I’m not so sure now. I have the uneasy feeling that people have already written everything. I do write, of course, but Louise does that too. She’s always writing plays, but it’s not her main thing. So I feel extremely muddled about it all. But not knowing doesn’t mean I want to be frog-marched into some boring enterprise that they think would be good for me. What they mean is that it would be safe and dull and wouldn’t actually be bad. I’m not very interested in safety.”
“One thing we thought,” Polly said, “would be for Clary and me to have a little house in London where we could live on our own.”
“What would you live on?” Archie enquired.
“Oh, easy! We both have allowances now. Forty-two pounds a year each. If we didn’t buy clothes and things, we could easily pay for food and electric light and all that sort of thing. And if it wasn’t enough,” she added seeing Archie’s face, “we could get jobs in a shop.”
“Or, you said,” Polly reminded her, “that bus conductors get two pounds ten a week and with the war going on like this they would probably take women to be them.”
“And Poll says she wants to go to parties because we never have much since we were children.”
“Well, you want to go to them too.”
“Only to meet people in more walks of life,” she said.
Afterwards, she thought that Archie had been a very good listener. He never interrupted, or pooh-poohed anything. He made them go through the cons of each idea that had been presented: “You’ve only told me the pros,” he said, “and they might be because you haven’t noticed the cons.”
So they went through it all. It was agreed that they didn’t want to stay at home, but learning French would be a good thing wherever they were. They agreed that it might be useful to learn how to cook, but it wasn’t only cooking, it was learning how to interview servants and ironing ghastly complicated clothes they would never have. “Anyway, Polly doesn’t want servants in her house when she has one, and I may easily become a socialist because they are keener on being fair to people, and we can always eat out of tins or make sandwiches which we both adore.” They could neither of them see much of a pro in the domestic science school. When it came to learning shorthand and typing they were on weaker ground. Archie pointed out that when they were called up, having some skill like that would almost certainly give them a better chance of an interesting job. “Although,” she had said, “I don’t think women are allowed to do any really interesting jobs. They’re allowed to get killed in a war, but not to do any of the killing back. Another injustice for you.”
“You know perfectly well, Clary, that you would absolutely loathe to kill anyone.”
“That’s not the point. The point is that if women had an equal responsibility about wars, we probably wouldn’t have them. That’s my view.”
“She half wants to be a pacifist—like Christopher—and I agree with that in a way,” Polly said. “But she also wants to be able to fly aeroplanes and be in command of a submarine, which, you must agree, Archie, isn’t very logical.”
“All the same, I do sort of see what she means,” Archie replied.
Clary glowed: the most understanding person she had ever met. “One can have contingency wishes,” she said; she was trying to lick her fingers in an unnoticeable manner, but she saw them both watching her. “Isn’t it extraordinary how Grand Marnier gets on the outside of the glass? It’s surprising there’s any left inside at all.”
Archie said that leaving aside how they would like life to be, they had to consider what it was, and perhaps, given the status quo, they might consider a secretarial course useful. The university idea was ruled out. “We haven’t even passed School Cert,” she said, “and I have the feeling that for years and years we’ve been learning all the wrong things to get us to pass that.”
“It’s just poor Miss Milliment wanting us to have what she wanted,” Polly said. “She’s far brainier than us. She has taught us things,” she added, “it’s just that mostly they aren’t of the kind that would pass exams.”
“Where are we going now?” she asked as they walked down the dark narrow street from the restaurant.
“Home, I thought. Did you have any other ideas?”
“I slightly—only faintly—hoped we might be going to a night club.”
“I’m afraid we aren’t tonight. I don’t belong to one, you see. But if you’re very keen, I’ll join one and take you at a later date.”
“I’m not all that keen. Only Louise went on and on about it, and she went once after going to the Late Joys. I suppose you couldn’t take two women to one, anyway.”
“Why not? I should think it would be twice as much fun.”
“It would be very awkward for the person you weren’t dancing with,” Polly said. “They might get kidnapped.”
“That would be me,” she said at once. “I’m rotten at dancing. I can’t really see the point of it.”
“We didn’t go to a night club,” she wrote in her diary. “Just as well, really, as they are reputed to be extremely boring places—only much good for people who want to drink a lot and be in love.”
She looked at this for some time wondering what either of these things would be exactly like. It seemed to her that you could do either or both anywhere, you didn’t have to go to a night club for them, so there must be something else about NCs that wasn’t mentioned. Oh, well. It was probably all part of the general conspiracy—a club as well, really—that neither she nor Polly seemed able to get into, and probably never would get into until they’d had some of the mysterious experiences that were never talked about, except with each other. It couldn’t be simply connected (as they had once thought) with age: they were both seventeen and if that wasn’t grown up, what on earth was?
Archie’s flat is very nice [she wrote]. We spent the night there. He kindly gave Polly and me his bed, and he slept on the sofa in his sitting room, which wasn’t long enough for him, poor Archie, and he said his neck felt like a coat hook at breakfast. I knew that Polly and I should have had separate evenings with him, and then one of us could have had the sofa and he could have stuck to his bed. But although it is quite small, and it was a furnished flat, he has somehow made it nice and like he is. He showed us a cupboard in the passage in the hall crammed with the bits of furnishing he couldn’t bear. There was an awful lampshade with ships in full sail on it, all dark parchment and coffee-bean coloured ships, and a boxful of china rabbits all pale blue and getting larger and larger but otherwise the same, and a carpet with what Archie calls post-Picasso zig-zags all over it in fruit juice colours—things like that. But Archie has put red baize tablecloths over the worst tables and he bought an amazing picture by a painter called Matthew Smith—terrific reds and deep blues of a rather fat person asleep which he’s hung over the fireplace and he painted the walls white himself which makes it all much lighter. The bathroom has a salmon and black bath which apparently was once fashionable. He says the only thing to do is to laugh at it, but there was rose geranium Morny soap and the water was far hotter than at home. For breakfast we had toast and potted meat and tea. Then Arc
hie had to go to his office which is in the Admiralty. So Polly and I washed up breakfast and tidied everything up and then we went shopping and prowling until it was time to have lunch with Uncle Hugh at his club. Clubs again. His is called the In and Out because of it having two openings to the drive in front of the main door. Although there aren’t being any raids on London at the moment, it does look very dusty and tired. We decided to go to Piccadilly Circus and see if Galeries Lafayette had anything nice we could afford—Poll bought her lemon dress there for five shillings so it can be a good place. On our way there, we sort of talked about Archie but only in a very superficial manner. For instance, I said I wondered how he ever did any shopping if naval officers aren’t allowed to carry parcels, and Polly said they must change into their civilian clothes, or get their girl friends to do the shopping for them. I said I didn’t think that Archie had a girl friend and Polly said how did I know, had he told me? He hadn’t actually mentioned the subject, but of course if he had there would have been signs. Poll instantly said what sort of signs and I couldn’t think of them, except pots of cold cream in the bathroom. Anyway, I said, people always talk about the person they’re in love with—look at the way Louise goes on and on about boring Michael Hadleigh, and for all we knew Archie might be too old to have affairs. “He’s not too old!” Polly cried. “He’s actually, anyway, extremely young for his age.”
But all through the morning Archie seemed to be in both our minds, because we kept referring to him—or rather, I think it was mostly Poll: she kept saying things like how did he have dinner every night as he didn’t have a cook, and what did he do at weekends when he didn’t come down to our house, and wondering what he did when he went to the Admiralty. All things she could have asked him herself, as I pointed out to her. She didn’t answer.
The shopping wasn’t a success. Galeries Lafayette didn’t have anything we wanted; a shop called Huppert at the bottom of Regent’s Street had a very pretty pink silk blouse that Polly longed for, but it was six pounds, “an astronomical sum for something that would only dress half of you!” she said sadly. I offered to lend her half the money, but she said better not, better to save the money for when we were living in London. We decided to walk to Uncle Hugh’s club which faced Green Park. It was an interesting walk—past Fortnum and Mason and a very grand-looking bookshop and then a bombed church. There was ragwort and loosestrife growing out of bits of it as well as on the ground. We were rather early for lunch so Poll said why didn’t we go and sit in the park opposite and we could decide how to tackle her father at lunch about us living in London. But I said I wanted to go into the Ritz because it was the poshest hotel and I’d never been inside it. “I’ll just go to the lav,” I said, “and if they don’t seem to like me just doing that, I might have a gin and lime.”
Poll was simply terrified by the idea and it made her angry. “It’s stupid,” she said. “People don’t just walk into hotels—”
“Yes, they do! It’s what they’re for!”
“Unless they are going to stay in them. Please don’t. I beg you not to.”
So I didn’t. Instead, we went and sat in Green Park and, after a bit of not talking, talked about how we could get our house. I said I thought it might be a good idea if Polly said she wanted to go to an art school, as the very word school seems to have a reassuring influence on the nervy grown-ups. Polly said the worst hurdle was if Uncle Hugh wanted us to live in his house with him and Uncle Edward.
Oh, well. We had a delicious lunch—crab salads and a wine called Leebfrowmilk, German, so of course I can’t spell it; Uncle Hugh said it was a hock, whatever that may mean. He was very nice and treated us in a totally grown-up way until it came to us having a house whereupon he became all slippery and we’ll-seeish, which in both our vast experience of this behaviour usually means no. He did say how lovely it would be for him if we lived in his house, and I could see Polly weakening which weakened me, because after all he is her father, and if Dad made the same proposition to me, of course I’d live with him. Of course I would. Only it wouldn’t be the same, of course, because there would be Zoë. Perhaps she would stay in the country with Jules, and then it could be just Dad and me. And then Archie could come and live with us …
But for me to stay (with Polly) in Uncle Hugh’s house will not be like that, and will certainly curtail our freedom, as I pointed out to Polly going back in the train. She said we’d have to see—a thoroughly Middle-Aged Remark—mutton talking lamb, I said to her, and she had to agree. But she said we could lobby some of the others although I haven’t much hope of that producing the desired result: Aunt Villy is rather snappy these days, and Aunt Rach doesn’t ever seem to think things should be done because they might be fun, and Zoë has no real influence over anyone excepting Jules and that poor RAF man who is in love with her, if you ask me. And the Duchy—she can’t help being old-fashioned as she is so old—thinks we don’t need to go anywhere or do anything.
I don’t plan to have any children, but if by some chance I do, there are some resolutions I shall make. No MARs like “we’ll see,” “it depends” or “all in good time”. And no subjects that can’t be talked about, and I shall encourage them to have adventures.
She read over what she had written to see whether it was right to put into the journal she was writing for Dad. Most of it was. She left out some of the bits about her and Polly and Archie, and the bit about living with him in his house, but Zoë being also there. Instead, she put in bits about the family, so that he would know as much as possible what had happened to them.
Ellen [she wrote] is getting pretty old. I suppose rheumatism makes people seem older than their years, and I don’t know what Ellen’s years are because she says it is none of my business, but she is very creaky and all the yellowish bits of her hair have gone, and it is now a sort of foggish white. Also, she has specs that Aunt Villy took her into Hastings to get, but she does not like wearing them except for sewing. She does look after Wills and Roly and Jules a lot of the time but Eileen helps her with the ironing because her legs won’t stand it, she says. On her day off, she tends to put her feet up—not a very day-offish sort of thing to do. It must be fearful getting really old: it’s extraordinary to think that we’re doing that all the time without actually noticing. I wonder how much I have changed in two years since you last saw me, Dad. I mean, except for getting taller—I am half an inch at least taller than Zoë—I don’t feel to myself to have changed much. I did have my hair permed last week, because Polly was having hers done and she thought it might make mine more interesting. It hasn’t, at all. Instead of being straight as well as an extremely boring dark brown colour, it turned into sort of ghastly wiry waves that ended in fainting corkscrews, and every time I washed it, I had to wind those awful curlers that are made of something like lead encased in dark brown stocking stuff that hurt and dig into your head whichever way you lie in bed. So I got the hairdressing lady in Battle to cut it all off. She had to cut it quite short all over my head so now I look a bit like a golliwog as it sticks up everywhere. I don’t seem to suit the ladylike things. Make-up, for instance. Polly, who is immensely pretty, now looks terrifically glamorous if she puts on eye-shadow and mascara and lipstick and stuff. I look idiotic. The mascara goes straight into my eyes and then they water and it runs down my face and the eye-shadow gets into that crease of my eyelid and I can’t keep lipstick on for a second. Polly says you open your mouth and sort of pop the food in like a letterbox, but I forget. And powder seems to make my nose shinier in a luminous way. I think I’ll just have to be like Aunt Rach and not wear any. So, Dad, in spite of that loony remark you made about me being beautiful—that day when we were getting water from the spring—I’m afraid I’m not turning out like that. I’m not like Polly. I was just about to write that she seems to be getting over her mother’s death, but it seems a meaningless phrase to me. I don’t think people ever get over something as terrible as that; it just slowly stops being the only or main thing in thei
r mind, but when they remember it, they feel the same. Of course, what it amounts to is that I don’t know what she is feeling because of not being her. But this is what makes people so interesting, don’t you think, Dad? Most of the time one hasn’t the slightest idea what other people are feeling, and sometimes one has the slightest idea, and I suppose, occasionally, one actually knows. Miss Milliment, with whom I have discussed this point, says that morality, or principles of one kind or another, are what is supposed to hold us all together, but they don’t, do they? There was a huge air raid on a German city called Cologne last month (we are bombing the Germans all the time now, but this was an especially large raid with 1000 bombers and people were quite pleased and bloodthirsty about it). But either killing people is wrong or it isn’t. I don’t see how you can start making exceptions to that sort of rule; you might as well say that it isn’t wrong, after all. I do find it terribly confusing. I do talk to Archie about this sort of thing when I am alone with him, but, of course, when we went to London and stayed with him, I never was. Polly hates talking about the war, she gets upset and keeps going off the track—like pointing out all the people we know who wouldn’t kill people. When Archie came down for a weekend in the Easter holidays there had been a raid on a place in France called St. Nazaire—not so far from where you were, Dad, when you wrote me your love, and I felt he was very sad about something, and in the end he told me. They rammed this destroyer against the lock gates and so, of course, they couldn’t get away from the Germans and they had mined the ship so that it would blow up at a certain time, and they invited many German officers on board for a drink before they were to be taken prisoner (the English, I mean—goodness! writing can be tricky) and so of course dozens of the Germans got blown up with the English. Archie knew one of them. Hardly anyone got away. Think of them all pouring out gins and being jolly and counting the minutes till they knew there would be the explosion. Archie said it was a kind of courage that made him feel very small. He says the Germans are just as brave—there’s no difference, really. I can believe that because I’ve been reading a very good awful book called All Quiet on the Western Front which is about the First World War from the Germans’ point of view. You would have thought, wouldn’t you, that after so many people knew how awful and revolting and frightening war is that they’d agree not to have any more, but I suppose only a minority read books like that and the others get old and people don’t believe them. Don’t you think there is something quite wrong about our life span? If we lived for 150 years and didn’t get too old for the first hundred, then there would be time for people to get sensible before they got like Lady Rydal or just too set in their bad old ways.
The Cazalet Chronicles Collection Page 110