‘I’m afraid I do.’
‘Of course you do, because at this dance I saw a girl. She was the loveliest thing I’d ever seen – not the most beautiful, better than beautiful – fresh and shiny and sweet as an apple. A girl with a flower in her hair.’
The noise in the bar seemed to recede, to stand at a distance like a hedge of thorns.
‘Shall I tell you about her? About how she made me feel?’
Barbara swallowed, ‘There’s no need.’
‘But I’m going to, because I want you to hear it. I wasn’t a guest at the party. I was a waiter, so I was invisible. I could gaze at this girl all I liked, because she would never notice. I was standing in the dark, while she danced and played and laughed in the light.’
Barbara remembered the party, the one where the girl’s shoe fell into the fountain. A noisy, hectic party which now she could see through his eyes – eyes which were bright and fierce, never leaving her face.
‘I’m going to say something which may sound rude. Everyone else at that party seemed to be silly and spoiled. I despised them, but I was jealous too. Jealous because they could be with this girl, talk to her, dance with her – did I mention she was a wonderful dancer? While I might as well have been on the moon.’
‘I’m sorry.’ She felt the need to apologise, but she didn’t know why. For seeming foolish and carefree and callous when she hadn’t even known he was there? Yet his understanding mattered to her, terribly.
‘Don’t be sorry. To be smitten is a heavenly thing; I was in paradise – isn’t that where the sinners hang around waiting to be admitted?’
‘So I’ve heard.’
‘I didn’t just adore this girl; I wanted to carry her off. I hadn’t ever been that young, that fresh and unmarked and full of life. I couldn’t take my eyes off her and I can’t now.’
‘Johnny—’
‘Ssh. The strange thing was, that wasn’t the end of it. I spent all that night trying to stay where I could see her, but of course it was impossible. I had a job to do and she was surrounded by silly boys, who didn’t prize her the way I did.’
‘You don’t need to tell me any more,’ she whispered.
‘Oh but I do. A little – there isn’t that much. I kept you in my mind for months, taking out the memory and burnishing it like a kid with a shiny brooch, keeping it shiny, treasuring it. And then, towards the end of that summer, when I was in that horrible pokey cottage pretending to paint and doing dirty work for those people with the orchard, I was walking back from the town one day and I noticed the brigadier’s car in the drive. It crossed my mind that he might have some work for me, cleaning the car or helping the old boy in the garden. But when I reached the gate, what do you know, there you were again. You were inside the house, looking out. Not bright and blooming and laughing this time, but very solemn and still behind the window.’
She recalled that moment, vividly. The shock of finding she was being watched. She whispered, ‘You didn’t say.’
‘Would you have liked me to?’
‘I don’t know … No.’
‘Then what would have been the point?’
‘You had the advantage of me.’ Why had she used that stiff, old-fashioned phrase?
‘But I didn’t take it, did I?’
‘I suppose not.’
‘And then,’ he went on, raising his hands showman-style, ‘lo and behold you appear again, that bloody awful weekend at the Gorringes’. There you were like a good deed in a naughty world, dancing and in demand – what happened to the brigadier, by the way?’
‘He rejoined his regiment.’
‘Aah … Naturally. As befits an officer and a gentleman. Was he hopelessly in love with you?’
‘No!’ She almost laughed at the idea, but then added, ‘not hopelessly, anyway.’
He’d noticed her hesitation. ‘You gave him hope?’
‘If I did, I didn’t mean to.’
‘Poor fellow. And now, God help us, there’s me.’ Johnny sat back, shaking his head at the sadness of it all.
She frowned. ‘You talk as if I’m some sort of femme fatale.’
‘Surely not.’ He looked genuinely puzzled. ‘I apologise, I never meant to. You’re the opposite of that. You have no idea who you are or what power you have – our recognition of that is, I imagine, the only thing the brigadier and I have in common.’
‘In that case, you recognise something I don’t.’
‘Exactly! Barbara.’ Suddenly, he had taken her hand in both of his. In this hot, stuffy place she noticed his calloused hands were cool, almost cold. ‘Never change.’
But she was, she thought. She was changing even as she sat there with her captured hand and hammering heart.
‘Everyone changes. They can’t help it.’
‘No.’ His voice dropped to an urgent whisper. ‘No, they can’t.’ The waiter hovered and he waved him away. ‘Will you do something for me?’
She couldn’t so much as bring herself to ask what this favour might be. She was hypnotised. She nodded.
He said, ‘I want you to believe in me.’
‘I do!’
‘No.’ He shook his head impatiently. ‘You don’t, not yet, and I don’t blame you. I’m the cove who had the advantage over you, remember, the one who pretended to be an artist, the one the brigadier sent packing. But for you, Barbara, I could be different. If you believed in me.’
It was a simple enough request and yet an enormous one, like being asked to have faith. Could one accede to that to by an act of will? People talked of a ‘leap’ of faith, when you had to jump off the cliff into the unknown. But if it didn’t work, there would be no reward and it would be too late.
‘So,’ he said, fervently. ‘Will you?’
She pushed her anxiety aside. ‘Yes.’
Johnny sighed and bowed his head, lifting her hand to his brow as he did so, so that his hair fell on to her wrist. He stayed liked that for a long moment. Then lifted his head again, releasing her hand and his lips brushed the back of it as he did so.
‘Thank you …’
She wanted to ask ‘And what will you do?’, because surely she’d entered into some kind of contract. The small, dwindling part of her that could still think clearly was telling her she should ask, but the spell was too strong for her. Her hand was like a bird that had crossed oceans, worlds and was now back in its nest.
‘You have no idea,’ he said, ‘what this means to me.’
Shortly after that, they left. On the way out, they passed the pair at the bar. Barbara now saw them differently, as a happy, cheerful married couple enjoying a night out.
In the foyer, a supremely elegant woman sat by herself. She glanced up at them without interest and Barbara saw that the elegance was armour; the woman was not beautiful but hard-faced and dull-eyed.
A bitter wind scurried down the Strand and Johnny hailed a taxi. He put his arm round her as it drew alongside.
‘I shall see you again very soon.’
She didn’t think to ask why, or where, or how. She had imagined he would get into the cab with her, but he opened the door and handed her in.
‘Goodnight, my darling Barbara.’
By the time the cabbie had asked her ‘Where to, miss?’ for the second time Johnny was already gone.
As they pulled away from the kerb, she leaned back and closed her eyes. Feelings new, sweet and powerful bloomed inside her, like flowers in a hothouse.
Eleven
Through the rest of that hard winter, into a fresh, watery spring and a changeable summer, Barbara had believed. Oh, how she believed! In Johnny, in love, in herself. In fact, if belief were all, she would have had nothing whatsoever to worry about.
Her altered state and awakened heart were obvious. She wore them on her sleeve, in her smile, her voice and her step. Other people noticed and were drawn to her. They wanted to bask in the warmth and light she gave off. But when people asked and commented on this – her mother, Daphne at the offic
e, even the unromantic and uncurious Cecily said she was looking awfully well – Barbara remained silent. Without quite knowing or examining why, she kept her feelings for Johnny a secret. It was their secret.
He was secretive about where he lived – Barbara inferred that it changed, often – and Cecily was rarely out, so they had nowhere private to retreat to. By tacit mutual consent, they did nothing that cost money. He rarely had any (the new suit at the Ritz was a mystery, now losing its shine with everyday use) and she was sensitive to his feelings. They walked, they took bus rides, they lingered in museums, galleries, cafés and even churches; they wanted only to be in each other’s company. She was distracted with love for him. His touch – tender, exploratory – brought her heart into her throat. He would kiss her neck, her brow or kiss his fingers to her mouth. Not yet her lips, though she wanted him to. Feeling so much but knowing so little, she told herself that this was a dance which she had yet to learn. She would abandon herself to it and take his lead. She was now the one in Paradise.
When they talked, it was mainly about her. He was voracious for information about her childhood, her schooling, her friends and family and animals, as if her background – which in his company was a slight embarrassment to her – was an exotic jungle of strange, wild experiences. To her, his fascination was as baffling as it was flattering.
‘Until I met you,’ she confessed, ‘my life was the dullest and most conventional imaginable.’
‘Conventional, maybe, but not dull. Never dull. Not to me. Anyway, now look at you.’ He did so, making her blush. ‘A working woman. Going places.’
Driven in by the cold and finding themselves nearby, they’d taken refuge in her Sussex Court flat. Cecily (who Barbara intuited would not have cared for any liaison, let alone this one) had declared that she was ‘just popping out’. Her bright look served notice that she would not be long.
They were sitting in front of the tiny blue and orange honeycomb of the gas fire, Barbara on the sagging chair and Johnny on the rag rug beside her. His arm was draped over her lap, with his fingers stroking her calf. With every stroke she felt softer, more pliant. She laid her hand on his head and he caught it and pushed his face into it; she closed her eyes, the better to feel the heat of his mouth.
‘Johnny …’
He didn’t answer. His tongue was warm and wet in her palm.
‘Please …’
When she opened her eyes he was looking at her, her own hand covering the lower part of his face like a highwayman’s mask so she couldn’t read his expression. She slid awkwardly from the lopsided chair, which slid backwards. Now she was off balance, but he caught her and put her arms around his neck. They were kneeling and he put his own arms right around her, so they were pressed together completely, but unsteadily. We are going to fall, she thought, I am going to fall. Oh, let us fall …!
‘Hello, you two, ready for some tea?’
Cecily’s voice came from the hall (she had that much tact at least). Johnny moved with the speed of a magician, dragging the chair forward and sitting them side by side in front of it. When Cecily came in, she found the two of them blamelessly gazing at the pale fire. Barbara thought she must be able to hear their galloping hearts, to see her chest heaving and the imprint on the air of what had happened – of what, surely, was about to happen.
‘Hello there! That needs coins – don’t worry, there are some in the jar. I’ll get the kettle on, shall I?’ Cecily stumped across to the ‘kitchenette’, which consisted of two gas rings on a rickety cupboard and a tiny sink in the corner.
Once they’d recovered, it might almost have seemed funny, but there was no time for that. Johnny was on his feet at once and by the front door, fists in pockets, forehead against the wall. Barbara gave his arm a gentle tug, but instead of a face creased with suppressed laughter, he turned on her a face white and pinched with fury. She had never seen him angry and the intensity of this rage frightened her. Hastily, she pulled the living-room door shut between them and the brisk rattle of mugs and kettle.
‘Oh Johnny, I’m so sorry—’ she whispered.
‘Bloody, bloody woman!’ His whisper was the spitting of a snake. ‘Stupid bitch!’
‘She doesn’t mean anything. It’s just how things are.’
He pushed his face into hers, staring but not seeing. All gentleness gone. No comfort.
‘I don’t like how things are!’
‘I don’t either, but what can we do?’ She was starting to weep, she couldn’t bear it.
Cecily’s voice called. ‘Kettle’s boiled, you coming …?’
‘I’ll be there in a tick!’ Barbara called back.
‘Damn and to hell!’ He was fumbling blindly with the door. She released the latch and turned the handle, grabbing his sleeve before he could go.
‘Johnny—’
‘What? It’s hopeless, Barbara!’
Without thinking – unable to think – she put her hands on either side of his cold, comfortless face, pressed her lips to his and felt, for a split second, his own lips part and a flutter of warm, vital breath pass between them. The kiss of life, she thought. The door of the living room opened and he sprang away and was off down the stairs, one hand raised briefly in farewell.
‘Has your young man left, then?’
‘He had to, yes.’
‘Late for something?’
‘Yes.’
Gratefully, she drank Cecily’s strong sweet tea. The remedy, she remembered, for shock.
She expected things to be strained between them after that, but nothing with Johnny was ever as she expected. For three days she heard nothing from him and the next evening he was waiting for her in Maiden Lane. His hands were behind his back and as she approached he held them out, curled in fists and facing downward, like a child’s guessing game.
‘Which one?’
She laughed, ‘I don’t know … Left!’
‘Right!’ He turned his left hand up and opened it. ‘A tiny token of remorse.’
‘Johnny, there’s no—’
‘I behaved like a pig. I hope you like it.’
It was a lapel pin, no bigger than her thumbnail and plain grey metal in the shape of a fox’s mask with ears pricked and two slanting, holes for eyes.
‘It seemed appropriate. Here, let me.’ When he’d pinned it on he gave it a little tap and said, ‘Now you’re wearing my favour.’
That was his first present to her. The second was the kiss that followed, neither of them caring who was there.
She would have gone through fire for him. If a little waiting, for the right time and place, was required, well – that was nothing. At last, thought Barbara, she understood about love, what it was and what it meant: bliss. And she and Johnny were in it, up to their necks. Only when she asked him about his own past did his mouth tighten a little and his eyes slide away.
‘You don’t want to know.’ They were in the carpeted, side chapel of a tiny city church. There was no one else there, but they instinctively kept their voices down.
‘But I do!’
‘There’s nothing to say. I was what your parents would probably call a guttersnipe. My childhood was a grubby business and things haven’t been a lot better since.’
He had never enlarged on the ‘grubby business’, sidestepping her questions or adroitly changing the subject. Now he lay down on the pew, with his head on her lap. She adored him in this puppyish mood. She threaded her fingers in his hair, pushing it back off his forehead so he looked exposed and vulnerable.
‘Tell me about the war, then.’
‘I was in it for a couple of years. It sort of suited me. War’s always been good for misfits. The army can be a good home, even if it’s a rough one. And, when it comes to fighting, we don’t much care what happens to us and neither does anyone else.’
‘Don’t say that!’
‘Just being truthful.’ His voice softened and he reached up to touch her face. ‘Sweet girl.’
‘I can’t i
magine you as a soldier.’
‘You’d be surprised, I was pretty good. Remember, I’m a past master at pretending to be what I’m not. I can pretty well fool myself and, if you can do that, you can do anything.’
‘You must have been awfully young.’
‘I’m older than I look.’
‘Did you lie about your age?’
‘Lots did.’
So he wasn’t going to tell her.
‘Were you wounded?’
‘Let’s see …’ He patted his chest and stomach, as if checking. ‘No. My head was rather messed up by it, but whose wasn’t? Other than that, not a scratch. I was clever, you see, I ran between the bullets.’
She refused to return his smile. ‘You must have lost friends.’
‘I don’t make many friends. You’ll have noticed.’
‘What about Molly?’
The instant the words were out of her mouth she regretted them, but if he found them intrusive he didn’t show it.
‘Ah, that’s different.’
He sat up and fished out his cigarettes. Barbara resisted the urge to tell him not to smoke in a church. The snap of the match, the flare of the flame, the breath, the exhalation and the whiff of smoke … this was the punctuation of their conversations.
‘We’re more than friends, Molly and me. We’ve known each other for as long as either of us can remember.’
‘Isn’t that the same as friends?’
‘Not at all. At least I don’t think so. As I understand it you choose friends, you choose each other. I seem always to have known Molly.’
She thought of Ros and Lucia. ‘I think that counts as friendship.’
‘Maybe.’ For a moment he seemed to retreat into his head, considering. ‘Perhaps.’
Barbara’s mind’s eye flew back to the house party – that urgent, covert movement in the darkened porch. Johnny’s swiftly striding figure crossing the hall that she spied from the staircase. Had that just been the fruit of an innocent’s prurient imagination?
He leaned his elbows on the pew in front, the cigarette between his fingers, his eyes also gazing into the past. Was he looking at the same thing? She wasn’t going to ask, not now, not ever.
The Rose in Winter Page 10