by MARY HOCKING
‘What is he going to find to resist in Norfolk, I wonder?’ Ben said acidly.
‘And Mummy . . .’ She paused, crumbling a scone.
‘Don’t tell me she is getting married!’ He did not for a moment imagine this could be so.
‘Yes. I can’t talk about it.’
He looked as dumbfounded as she herself had been; but all he said was, ‘You’re not married, I take it?’
She did not like his ‘taking it’. ‘There was someone. But he was killed.’ This did not seem to be the moment to tell Ben that Gordon had been married, so she said defensively, ‘We had so much in common. He was a marvellous person.’
‘Oh, they all were!’ Ben was savage. ‘Every mother’s son of them. Not a bad penny among the gallant dead.’
‘You shouldn’t speak ill of them.’ Alice tried to sound good- humoured. It was now apparent to her that he was far from himself.
‘I very nearly joined them. And if there is one thing I know, it’s that I wouldn’t have wanted people drooling over my memory.’ He was speaking loudly, his eyes protruding. The people at the next table were regarding him uneasily. ‘After all, Alice,’ he stabbed a pastry knife at her, ‘if a man gets run over crossing a road, his folk remember him as he was. But get killed in a war and the state takes you over – provided you weren’t in Burma.’
‘I think people genuinely . . .’ Alice lowered her voice and tried to sound calming.
‘Alice,’ his voice became the louder, ‘the fallen of two world wars are going to be a pain in the arse to your children.’ He collected the bill; he could not escape from this noisy, enclosed space soon enough. Alice followed him. ‘You want proof?’ he continued the argument on the pavement. ‘Meet me here in fifteen years’ time.’ It was obviously a mistake to get into any kind of discussion with him. Alice said, ‘I fully intend to meet you before then, Ben.’ Tears came into his eyes and he turned away abruptly. She pretended not to notice and suggested they should walk in Green Park.
They walked in silence. Ben exaggerated the difficulty of negotiating a passage between the people on the crowded pavements. Once pointed in a particular direction, he seemed incapable of calculating the small adjustments of pace and thrust necessary to avoid collision. When they reached the park, he relaxed a little, and said, with an awkward attempt at sympathy, ‘I’m sorry about your mother. Perhaps it won’t be as bad as you think.’
‘It couldn’t not be.’
‘You don’t like him?’
‘Oh, he’s all right. In fact, he’s quite interesting. He’s a publisher.’
‘What is the trouble, then?’
‘We shall never be able to talk about Daddy together as a family, because it would exclude . . . this stranger. It makes me feel I’ve lost my father twice.’
It was this that hurt as much as anything: the need to be watchful, the curb to the tongue, the loss of that spontaneity which, though it could be abrasive, had been so precious a part of family exchanges. She had thought it would be a relief to tell Ben about this. But as he listened, with little to offer in the way of consolation, she realized that there could be no relief, only acceptance. My mother will take another name, she thought; and by doing this she will seal up a part of the past, not only her past, but mine as well.
And yet – the park was beautiful, its trees already bare, furred by autumn mist. Hope was hard to resist.
Before Ben left her, she managed to get his address. Although he gave it with bad grace, he insisted on writing it down because ‘you’ll only forget otherwise.’
‘I’ll be away for a little while,’ he said.
‘Are you going to Cornwall?’
‘No. There is a family I have to see in Herefordshire. Then, I’m going for a walk. Along Offa’s Dyke.’
‘Wouldn’t it be better to wait for summer?’
He turned away without replying.
She watched him go into Green Park station, moving with the awkward gait of a person unsure of his footing. She did not think he was fit enough to tackle Offa’s Dyke.
She decided to walk back to Louise’s house through the parks. People were sitting on the grass; it was warm for the time of year and one could almost imagine the summer flowers. The scene had the mannered elegance of a painting, static, tranquil; yet, by its very formality, invested with a sense of impending danger. The rush of traffic, though muted, never ceased, running like a river on all sides of the park.
She wondered what lay ahead of them all. She had joined up with an urgent sense that this was an experience she must not miss. Yet somehow, the reality had eluded her. And now that it was over, she still had the feeling of waiting for something to begin.
I would like to acknowledge Kate Caffrey’s Out in the Midday Sun and Ray Parkin’s Into the Smother: A Journal of the Burma-Siam Railway. Also, help received from Dr Serge Hackel, arch-priest of the Russian Orthodox Church, and Reader in Russian Studies at the University of Sussex.
Mary Hocking
Born in London in 1921, Mary was educated at Haberdashers’ Aske’s Girls School, Acton. During the Second World War she served in the Women’s Royal Naval Service (Wrens) attached to the Fleet Air Arm Meteorology branch and then briefly with the Signal Section in Plymouth.
Writing was in her blood. Juggling her work as a local government officer in Middlesex Education Department with writing, at first short stories for magazines and pieces for The Times Educational Supplement, she then had her first book, The Winter City, published in 1961.
The book was a success and enabled Mary to relinquish her full time occupation to devote her time to writing. Long before family sagas had become cult viewing, she had embarked upon the `Fairley Family’ trilogy – Good Daughters, Indifferent Heroes, and Welcome Strangers – books which give her readers a faithful, realistic and uncompromising portrayal of ordinary people caught up in extraordinary times, between the years of 1933 and 1946.
For many years she was an active member of the `Monday Lit’, a Lewes-based group which brought in current writers and poets to speak about their work, an enthusiastic supporter of Lewes Little Theatre, and worshipped at the town’s St Pancras RC Church.
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First published in Great Britain by Chatto & Windus Ltd 1985
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