‘We’ll always be friends, you and me, Rachel.’
‘And we could still see each other sometimes, couldn’t we?’
‘Well, I don’t know I’d like you bein’ a perm’nent absence in me life,’ said Sammy, ‘it might be a bit ’urtful.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t want you ever to feel ’urtful about me,’ said Rachel. ‘I won’t be a perm’nent absence, honest. Sammy, could I ’ave a penny one now?’
‘What, ’ere on the tram, Rachel?’
‘But there’s no-one up ’ere with us.’
‘All right, Rachel, a penny one, then.’
A penny changed hands, and Rachel did a little bit of a swoon as Sammy gave her a really lovely kiss, and then another.
‘Sammy,’ she breathed, when she’d recovered, ‘you gave me two.’
‘Did I? What, two for the price of one? That’s only a ha’penny each. Blow me, Rachel, I’m sorry, but I can’t lower me prices.’
‘No, course you can’t, Sammy, it’s only right you shouldn’t, and I’ll give you another penny.’
‘No, it’s all right, Rachel. I don’t mind givin’ you one for free now and again.’
‘Oh, thanks. Sammy, you remember you once give me a baker’s ’alf-dozen?’
‘So I did, Rachel, for a tanner. And I remember it didn’t ’alf take a long time.’
‘Oh, I didn’t mind a bit, Sammy. Only what’s a baker’s dozen?’ she asked, as if she didn’t know.
‘Usually, thirteen for a shilling. Sometimes, mind, a gen’rous baker’ll make it fourteen. That’s a baker’s dozen and a bit, yer know.’
‘Oh, my life, is it really? D’you think, then, that when me birthday comes round, I could give you a shilling and you could give me a baker’s dozen?’
‘Well, it’s a lot and might take me quite a time,’ said Sammy.
‘Oh, I won’t mind, honest.’
‘You sure?’
‘Honest, I won’t mind how long you take,’ said Rachel. ‘I mean, you can only do one kiss at a time, can’t you?’
‘In that case, if time don’t matter,’ said Sammy, ‘I’ll give you a baker’s dozen and a bit.’
‘Sammy, fourteen? Fourteen kisses?’
‘Just for yer birthday,’ said Sammy, ‘and if the war’s over by then, I’ll give yer one more for luck.’
‘Oh, Sammy, ain’t you kind to a girl?’
PART TWO
THE RECKONING
Chapter One
It was in mid-July, 1934, that Boots dreamt for the first time for many years of France, Flanders and the sound of the guns. He dreamt of Ypres, of Loos, of dead men and drowning ones. He dreamt of the Somme and the storming of Trones Wood, of the German strongpoint and its machine-gun, and the fall at last of his hitherto indestructible company commander, Major Harris. Then the images of battle vanished in a flash of blinding light, following which he fell headlong into a pit of darkness.
He jerked awake, perspiration damp on his forehead. Beside him, Emily lay asleep, breathing evenly. Emily, the family’s godsend all through the war, and his own help and strength all through his four years of blindness. If he had good reason to be thankful for Emily’s part in his life, there was no reason at all why he should have dreamt again of Trones Wood. That was long past, for he’d seen eighteen years go by since the Somme offensive.
He lay back again, thinking of the weeks before the battle, when his battalion, the 7th West Kents, was resting close to the French town of Albert, his company of four hundred men billeted on a farm. Memories flooded back, including an image of a young French war widow, the mettlesome daughter of a farmer. What was her name now? It took him a while to remember. Cecile. Cecile Lacoste. Just as it was many years since he had dreamt of the Somme, so it was many years since he had thought of Cecile. Well, his brief time with her had ended when his company left its billet on the farm to go up the line to the trenches with the rest of the battalion. The action in Trones Wood had brought the war to an end for him, and when it eventually ended for everyone else in 1918 and he recovered his sight two years later, he determined to put it all behind him and to live his life in the knowledge that survival had been his most precious gift. Live in thanks and without any song and dance, he decided, for no setback, however critical, could ever possibly disturb him as much as the sight, sounds and slaughter of the Great War.
He was wide awake now, damn it. He slipped silently from the bed. Emily turned over, but slept on. He put on his dressing-gown and went down to the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea. He had not awoken Emily, no, but his movements over the landing brought someone else out of her sleep.
He was standing by the kitchen cooker when Rosie entered.
‘Daddy?’
He turned. There she was, his adopted daughter, just down from university, from Somerville College, for the summer vacation. In her blue silk dressing-gown, her fair hair unbound, her blue eyes wondering about him, all the advantages of being young were very apparent at three o’clock in the morning. At her age, nineteen, that ungodly hour wasn’t in the least unkind to her.
‘Rosie, what’s got you up?’ he asked.
‘You,’ said Rosie, ‘I heard you on the landing.’
‘I was as quiet as a mouse.’
‘With squeaky shoes on its feet,’ said Rosie. She closed the kitchen door. ‘How about you, what got you up?’
‘I was awake, Rosie, and thought I’d come down and make some tea.’
‘Yes, but what brought you awake?’ asked Rosie.
‘Oh, this and that, poppet.’
Rosie smiled. He had always called her that. Poppet. She supposed he still would even when she was middle-aged.
‘What was this and that?’ she asked, and came to stand with him at the cooker, on the top of which the kettle was beginning to steam.
‘Bits and pieces,’ said Boots.
‘You terror,’ said Rosie. ‘Nana’s quite right. You’ve always got answers that don’t tell us anything. You didn’t have a nightmare, did you, at your age?’
‘My age?’ said Boots.
‘You’re lucky,’ said Rosie. ‘Men your age are always at their best. They can knock for six any female from the age of twelve upwards. Daddy, come on, tell me what brought you out of bed and down here.’
‘I had an argument with the war, Rosie.’
‘You mean you dreamt of the war after all these years?’
‘Yes. Silly, of course.’
‘Oh, dear,’ said Rosie. ‘Never mind, sit down and I’ll make tea for both of us.’
‘I can manage. You go back to bed.’
‘No, I’m wide awake myself now. Go on, Daddy, sit down.’
Boots sat down at the kitchen table, Rosie made the tea and sat down opposite him. She filled two cups with the hot golden tea.
‘Well, bless you, Rosie.’
‘Bless you too, Daddy,’ she said, regarding him in undisguised affection. He was her favourite person, the one she loved more than any other. He never seemed to look any different, he always had such a relaxed air, his smile quick to arrive. If Uncle Tommy was a handsome man and Uncle Sammy electric, her adoptive father was simply a man of instant masculine appeal. In a room full of people, good people, interesting people and ordinary people, he always stood out.
‘Was it a bad dream?’ she asked.
‘Violent,’ said Boots.
‘Oh, poor old Daddy. Never mind, it’s just you and me now, and I won’t do anything violent. Are you really going to take me to the firm’s Oxford Street shop on Saturday afternoon and let me loose on all the fabulous fashions? Oh, do you remember the story you’ve told about Mummy dragging you into ladies’ underwear in Gamages before the war?’
‘I should have kept that to myself,’ said Boots, ‘it was a young man’s most disastrous first encounter with ladies’ corsets. I didn’t know where to look, but wherever I looked there was always one more poking me in the eye.’
‘I think that’s where you picked up
the best part of your sense of humour, Daddy, in Gamages ladies’ underwear.’
‘What I picked up there, Rosie, was a sense of imagination.’
Rosie laughed, softly.
‘Mummy said she was so nervous herself that she’d have run out if you hadn’t been with her.’
‘Believe me, poppet, I’d have beaten her to the exit. Tell me more about Somerville.’
‘Oh, it’s terribly educational and seriously devoted to making all its students very learned young ladies,’ said Rosie.
‘Good grief,’ said Boots, ‘how’s this family going to cope with a very learned young lady?’
‘You’re the one who’ll have to work that out,’ said Rosie, ‘it was you who made me go there.’
‘Did I do that, poppet, make you go?’
‘No, not really,’ said Rosie, ‘but you did say it was the chance of a lifetime for me. Oh, by the way, a young man might call one day.’
‘A young man?’ said Boots. ‘A student?’
‘No, he works in one of Oxford’s bookshops. If he calls and tells you his name’s Alexis Armstrong, that’ll be him.’
‘Alexis?’
‘Yes, posh, isn’t it?’ smiled Rosie. ‘He’ll be on holiday from his bookshop any moment. He’s got digs in Oxford, but he’ll be staying with his parents in Mitcham for a week. That’s when he might call on me.’
‘I see,’ said Boots. Well, it had to come, the inevitable development that might lead to losing Rosie, the bright light of the family. He would miss her. He had missed her during her first terms at Somerville. But bright lights could not shine forever in family homes. They left to illuminate homes of their own. ‘What’s he like?’
‘Talkative,’ said Rosie.
‘What else?’
‘Political,’ said Rosie. ‘I’m not sure if you’ll find him boring or stimulating.’
‘How do you find him?’ asked Boots.
‘I find it best not to take him seriously,’ said Rosie.
‘Should I look forward to meeting him, then?’ asked Boots.
‘With luck, you might escape it,’ smiled Rosie.
They drank tea and they talked, Rosie and her adoptive father, two people who were always in harmony with each other, and it was gone four before they went back to their beds, where they both fell instantly to sleep.
If Boots had had no real reason to dream about the war, Polly did. With her school having broken up for the summer holidays, she was free as a teacher to go to France for the funeral of Lucy Carpentier, formerly Lucy Chalmers, a long-standing friend who’d been at college with her and gone to France as a Red Cross officer. At the end of the war, she’d married a French officer from Amiens. She and Polly kept in regular touch, and Polly, during holiday visits to France, had visited her and her husband, a charming Frenchman. Lucy, vivacious and energetic, had done a splendid job for the Red Cross, and emerged in apparently fine fettle from the war. But it had taken its toll, and it was a heart attack that killed her before she was forty. The war had left many men physically maimed, and other people with scars that weren’t visible. Polly felt a sadness, a touching remembrance of women like Lucy and of the wartime atmosphere of comradeship so prevalent in France and Flanders. She would go and see Lucy buried.
Because of Lucy’s death, it was less surprising for Polly to dream about the war than for Boots. Hers was just as vivid. Ambulances, mud, wounded men, casualty clearing stations, estaminets, cursing Tommies, boisterous Tommies, and Alice and her Northumbrian sergeant. Alice, happily married now, and with children.
Polly, too, dreamt of the weeks before that first great battle of the Somme. She, too, crashed awake when the dream became a nightmare and she was driving her ambulance through a river of blood in which dead Tommies floated. Heart beating violently, she sat up in her bed, thinking of the Somme and the slaughter, and the fact that of all men, Boots had been there and come out blinded.
She could never help herself in her feelings for him, nor rid her mind of the conviction that if she had met him somewhere, anywhere, in France or Flanders, she would never have allowed any woman to have him except herself. The feelings never changed, even though he had always refused to make love to her. He remained the only man she had ever really wanted. And she was simply unable to understand what he had ever seen in Emily, a thin and plain woman. She conceded Emily had character, and an air of energy similar to Sammy’s, but how she had come to win a man as distinctive as Boots for a husband was a teeth-grinding and frustrating mystery to Polly.
Polly, however, knew very little of Emily’s steadfast devotion and loyalty to the Adams family during the war, something which Boots fully recognized and appreciated, and which he repaid with deep affection.
While he sat talking with Rosie, Polly’s thoughts were reaching out to her time in Albert and why she’d been denied the chance then of running into him. She’d seen men of his battalion in the town, but never him. He had remained quite unknown to her until after the war.
She was nearly thirty-eight now. Perhaps that was a help, because at that age one did not fantasize quite so much about mad and abandoned weekends behind locked bedroom doors in South Coast hotels. ‘Do Not Disturb.’ One was almost mellow enough to settle for what one’s father recommended. Boots, her father had said, is a man who, when he becomes your friend, will make that friendship last all his life. He’ll always be there. Settle for that, Polly.
She was doing her best to, although Emily, of course, always had an eye on her. Strangely, Boots’s incurably Victorian mother always gave the impression of being understanding and sympathetic. Polly didn’t actually respond too well to sympathy. From an early age she had never wanted anyone to feel sorry for her.
With thoughts of those weeks in Albert still crowding her mind, she felt again, perhaps for the hundredth time, an urge to chuck bricks at a fate that had kept her from running into Boots. And she felt too the frustration of her relationship with him. What did a woman have to do to fall out of love with a man? Husbands and wives fell out of love. At least, they lost the heady flush of love and passion after a while, and settled for being companionable. One could meet another man, she supposed, and make a lover of him. She had no desire to marry. The only man she had ever wanted as a husband was Boots.
‘Hello?’ said Boots, picking up his office phone at mid-morning the following day.
‘Hello, stinker.’
‘Who’s that?’
‘You know who it is.’
‘The switchboard girl told me a Miss Loveworthy wanted to speak to me about our Oxford Street shop,’ said Boots. ‘Is it a complaint you have, Miss Loveworthy?’
‘I’ve got a hundred complaints,’ said Polly.
‘Have you seen a doctor?’
‘No, you old po-face, I haven’t. All my complaints are about you.’
‘Well, Miss Loveworthy,’ said Boots, ‘since I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting you, I fail to—’
‘Don’t get too funny,’ said Polly, ‘or I’ll come and blow you up. D’you like my nom de plume, “Loveworthy”? Jolly appropriate, don’t you think? Well, nobody’s love is more worthy of a reward than mine.’
‘Hold on,’ said Boots, ‘you’re not a Miss Loveworthy?’
‘Shut up, you idiot,’ said Polly. ‘Come and treat me to lunch today. Meet me at Romano’s at twelve-thirty.’
‘I think I’m talking to Polly Simms,’ said Boots. ‘Well, much as I’d like—’
‘No excuses,’ said Polly, ‘take me to lunch or I’ll ruin your life.’
‘How would you do that, Polly?’
‘I’ll think of something,’ said Polly. ‘But I can at least give you a good reason for meeting me. My dear stepmamma is prepared to give Adams Enterprises a large order for new orphanage uniforms and athletic outfits.’ Her stepmother was the chief patron and administrator of two orphanages. ‘Boots, both orphanages now have the use of a sports field, by kind permission of the local council. I’ve got all the details a
nd I’m to discuss them with you.’
‘That’s Sammy’s province,’ said Boots.
‘Sammy’s not available.’
‘He will be for Lady Simms. Your stepmother’s original business relationship with Sammy helped him enormously.’
‘He’s not available, not today he isn’t, you stinker, if you can strain yourself to get my meaning. So meet me at Romano’s. My time’s my own and you can spare me some of yours. Boots, are you listening?’
‘Fair do’s, Polly, I’ll meet you.’
‘Listen, darling, you do understand, don’t you, that sometimes I just have to have you to myself?’
‘Sometimes, Polly, some feelings are mutual.’
‘Well, dear old sport, it’s quite elevating to have you say something nice to me once in a while.’
‘It’s no effort, Polly,’ said Boots, and spoke to Emily a few minutes later.
‘What?’ said Emily, secretary of the company and comfortably accommodated in her own little office. ‘Why can’t Sammy meet her?’
‘Prior lunch appointment,’ said Boots.
‘Oh, very convenient, I don’t think,’ said Emily, green eyes snapping a bit. ‘Why can’t she come to the office?’
‘She’s in town for the day.’
‘Why can’t she come in tomorrow?’
‘Good question, Em.’
‘So what’s the answer?’ asked Emily.
‘Ask me another,’ said Boots.
‘Listen, my lad,’ said Emily, ‘is that woman goin’ to spend all her life tryin’ to get you into bed with her?’
‘Well, we shan’t know that, Em, until she’s at the pearly gates,’ said Boots.
‘Ha, ha, very funny,’ said Emily. ‘Crikey, you and Sammy! I feel for Chinese Lady sometimes. I don’t know any mother who’s got two like you two when it comes to a gift of the gab.’
‘I probably got mine from you, Em,’ said Boots.
‘Me? That’s a laugh,’ said Emily. ‘Nothing comes out of my mouth that makes people scratch their ’eads or go cross-eyed.’
‘Well, you’ve got your own kind of gifts,’ said Boots.
‘What gifts?’ asked Emily.
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