by Tim Jeal
A gust of wind set the halyards of the boats slapping frenetically against their masts. On the far bank, a heron raised a lazy wing to the squall and let itself be lifted upwards.
*
Entering the house, Andrea imagined Leo and Justin applauding her good news. The only voice that greeted her was Peter’s.
‘The boys are out.’
Andrea was surprised to see him on a sofa with both feet on the ground. ‘Why aren’t you resting your leg?’
‘They rang from the dockyard.’ Peter’s voice was theatrically doom laden. ‘The wave tests have thrown up a new problem.’
‘They want you down there, don’t they?’
‘If I’d ever thought this might happen, I wouldn’t have promised you anything. You understand that, don’t you, Andrea?’
‘Did you tell them you can’t walk?’ She found it hard to keep her voice steady.
‘They’ve got wheelchairs down there.’
‘And morphine shots?’ She moved closer. ‘Why should you go? They don’t give a damn about your health.’
‘I’ll be fine.’
‘When are you leaving?’
‘About an hour.’
‘Jesus! That’s really considerate of them.’
‘It’s pretty urgent, Andrea.’
‘If I had to choose between a successful commando raid and you not wrecking your leg, I’d save your leg for sure.’
He said gently, ‘There’s a whole team of people waiting for me down there.’
‘How long will they need you?’
‘As long as it takes to find a way to stop lorries swinging when it’s rough.’
‘I really thought it would be different this time.’
‘Me too.’ Peter was looking at her with sincere regret.
She touched his hand for a moment. ‘You have to do it, Peter.’
‘At least I’ll be coming home alive.’
Through the window behind Peter’s head, Andrea saw a strange looking girl enter the garden. She had long frizzy hair and stood rubbing one foot against the other, as if too nervous to approach any further. In one hand she held a small cardboard suitcase. It took Andrea several seconds to relate this untidy person to the woman in the spotless cottage. But who else could the girl be but her daughter. Andrea hurried from the room in order to keep to herself the existence of this new arrival until Peter had departed.
*
Several minutes after Peter’s shiny faced Wren driver had helped him into the car, Andrea headed for the kitchen, meaning to tell Rose that she could leave the room now. But just then the telephone rang.
‘Is that Mrs Pauling?’
‘Yes.’
‘Sally Lowther here. I was wondering if you were at a loose end?’
‘Ends don’t come looser.’
‘Want to go somewhere jolly?’
‘I have to stay home with my son and his friend.’
‘Your husband won’t be out, surely?’
Before realising it, Andrea had made up her mind. ‘He is already, but I have a maid. Will you come by for me?’
‘About seven-thirty?’
‘Fine.’
Only when Andrea had hung up did she realise that she had not asked where they would be going. Luckily, she had a dark green dress, which was fine for cocktail parties, and in the country would do for a smarter occasion. Deciding not to put the bathroom geyser to the test at short notice, Andrea went to see Rose and asked her to heat some water on the stove and bring a jug to her bedroom.
Watching the girl walk with slow deliberation to the washstand and pour the steaming water into the china bowl, Andrea was relieved to see such care and method.
A slight breeze came in from the garden, making Andrea’s skin tingle pleasantly as she washed her face and arms. Rose was watching closely as Andrea bent over the basin in her brassiere and slip. At just the right moment, the girl squeezed water over her employer’s neck and shoulders with a sponge. When Andrea reached behind her for a towel, Rose was ready to press it into her hands.
Andrea patted her face with the towel. ‘That’s better.’ She shook out her hair, and then slipped into her elegant little cocktail dress. As Rose continued watching her, Andrea was disconcerted to notice that the girl’s clothes were inexpertly home-made.
‘Zip me up, please.’ Andrea smiled at Rose. ‘You might think it silly of me to ask, but can you follow a printed recipe?’
Rose nodded eagerly. ‘I can do that, an’ I can make bread, an’ pasties.’
Rose’s skills extended from cookery to caring for her sister’s three sons. Andrea was in front of the mirror putting on lipstick when she saw Leo enter the room behind her.
‘Dad’s not in his bedroom.’ The boy sounded both scared and accusing, almost as if he suspected that she might be to blame for his father’s disappearance.
‘He’s at the dockyard.’
‘He can hardly walk, mum. Why didn’t you stop him?’
‘You know he’s impossible to stop.’
Leo suddenly seemed to take in that his mother was dressing for some social occasion. ‘You’re going out.’
Andrea felt herself blush. ‘You didn’t miss me all day, so why be upset now?’
‘Because dad’s going to hurt his leg really badly.’ Andrea feared he might cry.
‘He’s the one who’s decided, so you mustn’t feel bad, sweetheart. Rose will get your supper.’
‘I haven’t even met her.’
‘You’ll like her.’ Andrea noticed that Leo’s socks and sandals were soaking wet.
‘Why not go change out of your wet things?’ she said cheerily, determined not to let him make her feel bad about going out.
He left the room and returned a few minutes later, wearing dry shoes and flourishing a sheet of paper.
‘Dad left this on my bed. He says he had to go.’
‘Does he say anything else?’
‘He’s going to make something special with Justin and me next week.’ His lips began to tremble.
‘What’s wrong, Leo?’
‘I’m the only one who cares about his inventions.’
‘The navy cares.’
Whenever Leo enthused about his father’s inventions – recently his new totalisator for Sandown Park, and a gadget enabling laundries to price washing by volume rather than weight – Andrea longed to tell Leo they were nonsense. But they were fiendishly ingenious. I suppose I can’t love Peter, she told herself, trying to deny the thought, even as it formed.
Leo was looking tragic. ‘Do they have doctors at the docks?’
‘Lots. He’ll be fine.’
Leo came across to the dressing table and glanced at his mother’s dress as if he hated it. ‘Where are you going, mum?’
‘Out some place. With a doctor’s wife, actually.’ Leo was still looking at her with hostility. Was it possible he disapproved of her going out alone? She grinned at him. ‘Hey, darling. I have a really nice surprise for you.’
‘You’ve found a boat?’ He clutched her hand.
‘A sailing one. Quite small.’ Incredible that his irritation could vanish so quickly.
‘Gaff-rigged or Bermudan?’
‘Would I know stuff like that?’
‘Can I go out in her tomorrow?’
‘Of course you can.’
He danced around her and then sped up to Justin’s room to break the news.
*
The two boys were in Justin’s attic when Andrea called up to them to say that she was leaving. They looked down from the dormer as a woman in a short camel-hair coat and a shimmery dress opened the passenger door of a green Sunbeam-Talbot. Then she said something inaudible that made Andrea laugh.
Justin looked at Leo in the steady unblinking way that meant he was thinking up something scathing to say. He looked down at the departing car.
‘I’d say that female in the sandy coat looked rather tarty.’
Leo had not noticed anything special about her, a
nd was unsure what ‘tarty’ was exactly. ‘Why did she look tarty?’
‘Her face. My mother does hers the same, and nobody can say she isn’t tarty.’ Justin’s dark eyes were probing again. ‘Do you reckon your parents still do it?’
Leo felt his heart thumping hard. ‘It’s none of your beeswax.’
‘Do they sleep in one bed at home?’
‘Yes.’
‘Mine, too, but it didn’t mean much.’
‘But my parents love each other,’ said Leo, hearing his voice go quavery and breathless.
‘Don’t get your knickers in a twist. They may do it lots for all I know. Your dad’s leg is what made me wonder. That’s all.’
Leo’s face felt very hot. He both wanted to hit Justin and to ask what he meant. But he knew he couldn’t ask questions without seeming childish. The father of a boy called Wilkes had lost a leg in the Great War and had managed to have three children after that; so why, wondered Leo, had Justin hinted that his father’s bad leg was stopping him ‘doing it’. A woman who loved a man already would love him more if he became lame. Two years ago, when Leo had been ten, his mother had asked him if he would like to know where babies came from, but he had said he knew. A friend had told him the man put his seed in the woman’s mouth and the baby came out of her navel months later. But Justin had said this was rot. In fact the man’s seed came out of his cock when he put it in the woman’s hairy bottom. There had been a joke going around Leo’s old school about a little girl asking her father about the funny thing between his legs. ‘What is it, daddy?’ And daddy had been embarrassed. ‘It’s a carrot.’ Then she had asked her mother about the hairy thing inside her pants. ‘It’s a garden, dear.’ The little girl had returned to her father and asked whether he would like to plant his carrot in ‘mummy’s garden’. There had been another joke, which Leo had not found funny, about a man and a woman getting stuck together and being prized apart in hospital. But both jokes told him that, as usual, Justin was probably right.
Justin flopped back on his bed and grinned to himself. ‘Guess what I’m doing tonight?’
‘What?’
‘I’m going to find out if anyone guards those boats at night.’
Leo could hear some kind of bird chirping in the garden. He felt slightly sick. ‘If there are no guards, what will you do?’
‘Swim out and get on board.’
‘What if you’re spotted?’
‘I’ll climb on from the side that isn’t facing the shore.’ He sat up. ‘I’ve planned it all. Every detail. Are you coming?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Yellow-belly.’
‘The current may be too strong for you.’
‘I’ll swim back if it is.’
‘You may be swept away.’
‘You’re scared,’ sneered Justin.
Leo recognised the stubborn look which usually heralded one of Justin’s crazy ventures. ‘I’m not a good swimmer. You know that,’ said Leo.
Justin examined a scab on his knee, testing the edges to see if it would lift. ‘Make up your mind later.’
They went down to the dining room and sat facing one another across the round table. As Rose came in with the soup, Justin sniggered without being able to stop. When she had returned to the kitchen, Leo whispered fiercely, ‘She’ll leave if you’re not careful.’
‘Her hair,’ gasped Justin, ‘it’s just like Struwwelpeter’s.’ He took a sip of soup. ‘Mmm, not bad.’ He bit into his bread. ‘Want to know something really tasty? Country girls show their bottoms for money.’
Leo’s mouth was full of soup, most of which spurted onto the table. ‘They’re religious here,’ he spluttered.
‘How do you know?’
‘Mum told me.’
While Rose was removing their soup plates, Justin turned to her casually, ‘Do you go to church?’
‘Round ’ere we go to chapel. Would ’ee like to come with me Sunday?’
Justin looked around, as if eager to escape. Leo kicked him under the table. Rose was still waiting for an answer, her eyes wide and eager.
‘All right, I’ll come,’ muttered Justin, staring at the table.
‘Ha, ha, ha, clever dick,’ Leo flung at Justin as soon as Rose had gone out again. ‘I bet she was making a fool of you and doesn’t really go to chapel.’
‘We’ll see.’
*
They had gone first to a thatched pub beside a creek and Andrea had drunk gin and Sally whisky. There had been old-fashioned brass ships’ navigation lamps on the walls and photographs of Edwardian lifeboatmen standing beside their antiquated sailing lifeboats, and the ceiling had been stained a deep nicotine brown.
Leaving for their next port of call, Sally said, ‘Being an American, I expect you just lurved the Fisherman’s Rest. Pub snobs adore it.’
‘Pub snobs can keep it.’
‘I’ll have you know they play a very special kind of cribbage there with ancient shark’s teeth counters.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘Listen, lady, I’m the native round here, and you’re the visitor. You like my American accent?’
‘It stinks.’
Andrea could not work out whether it was the double gin she had just tossed back or Sally’s peculiar influence that accounted for her failure, until now, to ask where they were going. She certainly did not often carry on wisecracking conversations with women she hardly knew; but, for some reason – possibly the absence of Peter and Leo – an irresponsible lightheartedness kept bubbling up inside her. Why shouldn’t she enjoy herself?
Back in the Sunbeam-Talbot, she decided to take a grip on the evening. ‘You haven’t told me where we’re going.’
‘You didn’t ask,’ said Sally, despatching another tight bend with steely competence. ‘But since you’ve asked now, we’re going to Elspeth’s.’
‘A restaurant?’
‘A club owned by a gem of a widow. Her husband went down with his ship, so she bought Ferndene Park as his memorial. It’s really for naval officers, but pilots can join. Even brown jobs.’
‘Farmers?’
‘Soldiers. You must know that. Light me a ciggy, will you?’ Sally rummaged around until Andrea snatched her bag away from her for safety’s sake and extracted a silver case and gold lighter.
‘Thanks,’ said Sally, exhaling twin tusks of smoke as Andrea lit her cigarette.
‘Why do you like Elspeth’s?’ asked Andrea, wondering how much Sally had drunk before collecting her.
‘It’s great because the top brass don’t go there, and all the service people are young.’ Without warning, Sally swung the car into a narrow driveway.
Tall rhododendrons brushed the sides of the car until the drive opened out into a wide carriage sweep. The house was late Victorian baronial and covered in Virginia creeper. Suddenly, Andrea felt as nervous as she had, years ago, when taken to country clubs by her father’s rich patients.
‘What’s this club for?’ she murmured.
‘To give officers a relaxing time.’
Inside, there was a lot of dark panelling and plenty of chintz-covered sofas and armchairs. A brass telescope on a stand and several marine paintings contributed a vaguely nautical feel, although there were also a number of flower prints and an oil of ballet dancers. About a dozen officers were sitting around chatting to about half that number of women, most of whom appeared to be in their late thirties or early forties.
‘Come and meet the girls,’ said Sally, just as one of ‘the girls’ was homing in on Andrea.
‘Three cheers, a new face! And who are you, dear?’
‘She’s my new pal,’ cried Sally. ‘Andrea, say “how do” to Elspeth.’
Elspeth was wearing a black satin bow in her hair and a lace collar that hid her throat. Andrea guessed that her real age was forty-five, though she looked considerably younger. The youngest of the men appeared to be under twenty and was wearing a naval uniform with magenta patches on his lapels. Andrea w
as taken round and introduced to everyone, though several minutes later she could not connect more than one or two names with their owners. Most of ‘the girls’, she learned, lived within a radius of fifteen miles and were either widows, spinsters, or had husbands serving at sea. Andrea supposed that the virtual absence of young females was because most would inevitably be in the services and stationed far away from rural backwaters.
Sally returned from the bar with a gin for Andrea. ‘Come with me,’ she commanded, ‘and meet James the Divine.’ Andrea allowed herself to be led across the room towards a young man in RAF uniform standing by the window. She had sensed, despite the jocular introduction – and even before Sally had slipped an arm through his – that she was in love with this man, who looked incredibly young, with his dark curly hair, peachlike skin and long lashes. He blushed when Sally murmured, ‘James flies Hurricanes and is terribly brave.’
‘Darling, I wish you wouldn’t say things like that,’ he muttered.
‘Why not?’
‘Because you know I’m like all the rest.’
‘What are they like?’ asked Andrea softly.
He twisted the stem of his wine glass between finger and thumb. ‘Scared witless but making out they’re not.’
Sally’s exalted eyebrow shot up further. ‘Jamie, that definitely won’t impress my chum.’
Andrea found it disconcerting that Sally was clearly so confident that she would not disapprove of her for having a young lover. Never having met Sally’s husband, she couldn’t feel sorry for him, except in an abstract way; but it crossed her mind that some of the people present would be his patients. As a doctor’s daughter, Andrea found this possibility depressing.
A sallow, fine-featured naval officer came up. ‘Sallikins, you can’t go on hogging this gorgeous redhead.’
Sally made the introduction and Andrea exchanged stilted small talk with the officer, answering questions such as, why was she in the area, was she married, and did she have children? And her replies did not even slightly dampen the man’s interest in her. ‘Aren’t you going to ask about me?’ he murmured, soon volunteering that he was a bachelor, and then, drawling like a matinée idol, ‘I’m serving in a very fast and menacing ship, Mrs Pauling. I might have to put to sea at any moment.’