by Tim Jeal
‘And what might you be expected to do then?’
‘I can’t possibly tell you that.’
Since Andrea had already been told by Sally that all the naval people present were serving in coastal forces, she guessed that this man’s duties were confined to rescuing ditched airmen and looking for submarines in places where he was most unlikely to find them. Soon after accompanying him to the buffet table, she tried to give him the slip by visiting the ladies, but he was waiting for her outside, and asked her sneeringly why America was ‘still sitting on its fanny’. She was tempted to say, ‘Because Englishmen like you aren’t worth getting excited about’, but instead murmured something about President Roosevelt’s problems, before walking away.
During the next hour, two other officers – one in the RAF and one in the army – talked to her in a sociable, ordinary way, making her feel that the club was not just a place for sexual assignations as she had started to suspect.
Next to approach her was a sandy-haired naval officer called Tony Cassilis, who had been talking intently to James and Sally as if he knew them well. Because Tony showed no inclination to flirt and had a reassuringly diffident manner, Andrea felt safe to ask him why he thought a complete stranger should have been more eager to make advances as soon as he’d learned she had a husband.
Tony gazed at her sagely. ‘Officers prefer their affairs to be with other men’s wives simply because they won’t be asked to marry them or father a child. And most of these wives are delighted their lovers never get serious.’
‘Wives never run off with their lovers?’ she asked with a raised brow.
‘The balloon goes up now and then,’ he conceded.
Andrea frowned. ‘What would happen to Sally if her balloon went up?’
‘God knows. Her old man’s a damned cold fish. Maybe he knows already. Don’t get me wrong though. I think he’s a terrific doctor. I’d rather go to him than to our naval MO.’
Someone put a record on the radiogram, and several couples began dancing to the song ‘Heaven’. A tall man came in from the hall wearing a shabby duffel coat over a white rollneck sweater. There was a sudden turning of heads in his direction and the very young officer with the patches on his lapels hurried over to greet the new arrival with sycophantic enthusiasm. But he remained motionless, listening to the music, his memorable face conveying neither disapproval nor pleasure. Andrea was struck by some inner quality that she could not quite grasp. His interest in the room and its occupants seemed only a matter of form, as if his mind were wholly occupied elsewhere.
Above the words of the song, Andrea heard the man in the white sweater demand, ‘Where’s my Jimmy?’
‘Oh God,’ groaned Tony.
‘Who is his Jimmy?’ Andrea asked.
‘I’m his sodding Jimmy,’ groaned Cassilis.
‘But you’re called Tony.’
‘“Jimmy the One” is naval slang for the first lieutenant of a ship.’ He ran a hand through his hair as if involuntarily preparing himself for something. ‘Over here, skip,’ he called out, waving eagerly despite his earlier irritation.
‘Skip’s’ dark hair looked as if it had been blown back by a stiff breeze, which was strange since Andrea could not remember any wind to speak of when she had arrived. Perhaps he had brushed it back, just before entering.
Tony said, ‘Mrs Pauling, I’d like you to meet Lieutenant Commander Harrington.’
As Andrea shook hands with Harrington, his fingers felt surprisingly cold. This poised, weary looking man glanced at her briefly as he was told her name, and then murmured to Cassilis, ‘I’m sorry, Tony, I must have a word alone with you.’
Even while telling herself she didn’t care, Andrea felt vexed. To be talking to the two most interesting looking men in the room one moment and the next to see them eager to get away was not a cheering experience.
‘Maybe we’ll meet again,’ said Cassilis, draining his glass and thumping it down on a table.
‘Maybe we will,’ said Andrea, puzzled by his gloomy tone. True to form, Harrington said not a word to her before hurrying to the door.
Sally had spotted the two men abandoning Andrea and joined her immediately after their departure. James was no longer in tow.
Sally asked, ‘What did you make of Tony?’
‘I liked him.’
‘Elspeth worships the ground he treads on.’
‘Does he repay the compliment?’
‘You bet.’ Sally moved closer. ‘What was your impression of mournful Mike Harrington?’ To Andrea’s surprise she rolled her eyes like the swooning heroine of a silent film.
‘He’s handsome. Maybe a bit pleased with himself. But I only saw him for a few seconds.
‘If you’d seen him for a few hours it wouldn’t have helped.’
‘I don’t care about him, Sally.’
‘Just as well. He’s still in love with his wife.’
‘Good for him.’
‘You think so? She ditched him a year ago. Plenty of gals have made eyes at him, without a dicky bird of interest for their pains.’ Sally took a pensive drag at her cigarette.
Behind her, through the window, Andrea heard the sound of an engine starting up. She turned, and, lifting the edge of the blackout, saw Mike Harrington, with Tony crouched behind, speeding away on a motorbike. So that was why Harrington’s hair had been windswept and his hands so cold. She was aware of Sally standing right beside her, also watching, but with a glumness and anxiety that astonished her. Could James be second best to one of these men? Having seen Sally look at her airman so dotingly, Andrea could not believe this.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.
‘I was thinking of James, and what he’ll be doing later tonight.’
‘Tell me,’ murmured Andrea.
‘U-boats surface after dark to charge their batteries, so James and his mates go up with searchlights and bombard them with R/Ps, whatever they are.’ Andrea felt dumb not to have realised till now that Sally’s brashness was a defence against anxiety.
‘What will Mike and Tony be doing tonight?’ she asked, trying to sound casual.
‘Nothing dangerous. Searching foreign looking trawlers in case they’re carrying spies. That sort of thing.’ Sally took Andrea’s arm and said firmly, ‘Come on, let’s play billiards and forget the lousy war.’
Andrea disengaged herself. ‘They are in coastal forces, aren’t they?’
‘Of course they are, lucky devils.’
Walking to the billiard table, Andrea saw Elspeth emerging from a room marked ‘Private’. She had been crying. Could Elspeth have thought that Tony had spent too much time talking to her, wondered Andrea. But when she mentioned this possibility to Sally, she shook her head dismissively.
After being told the rules of billiards, Andrea remarked, tongue in cheek, that all her previous knowledge of the game had been gleaned from a few remarks in The Cherry Orchard. From this it had soon emerged that she was a teacher of literature. ‘And piano, too,’ she admitted.
‘Well, I’ll be jiggered,’ muttered Sally, ‘I’d never have guessed you were a schoolmistress.’
Since Sally had plainly thought her a kindred spirit before knowing what she did for a living, Andrea wondered whether this revelation would change everything. She guessed it wouldn’t. But after a very onesided game of billiards, Sally suggested leaving.
During the journey home, Sally seemed depressed. ‘I shouldn’t have brought you,’ she muttered, accelerating out of the drive.
‘Because I’m a schoolmistress?’
‘You probably think I’m a slut.’
‘Of course I don’t.’
‘Most people do who know about James. The Cornish are low church moralists. Even the local pillars are hypocrites.’
‘The war must have opened their eyes.’
‘If it has, most don’t let on. You’d be amazed how often I’m told that Ferndene’s a sink of iniquity. There’s a creepy mural in the church, called “Souls in P
urgatory”. I know for a fact that the vicar’s bitchy wife thinks I should be roasting there.’ She laughed mirthlessly as they sped along between black hedgerows, guided by the pencil thin beams of her masked headlamps. ‘I’ll tell you what is sinful: being forced to go on living with a man you’re sick of.’ The wind poured through the open windows making Sally’s hair fly. ‘Jesus, was I glad when the war came along, with loads of new excuses for getting out of the house: Red Cross, evacuees, entertaining pilots. Blimey, they were sad when they arrived. Most had lost friends, and were scared stupid on their own account. So I cheered them up with the odd peck on the cheek.’ She changed gear for a corner. ‘Some wanted more than that, so I thought what the hell. They might be dead tomorrow. And that was incredibly arousing: the thought that every fuck might be the last. Then I met James and fell head over heels, so I stopped seeing all the rest. And now I’m terrified all the bloody time in case he’s killed.’
‘Does your husband know about him?’
‘He suspects. But he’s got his work, and he’s got our son. They’re all he really cares about.’
‘Where is your son?’
‘Staying with a school friend till next week. Mark’s sixteen and wonderful in spite of it.’
‘Don’t you miss him when he’s away at school?’
‘I did when he was little. But now I’m thankful he’s not around to cramp my style.’ She turned to Andrea and grinned in the darkness. ‘Aren’t you sometimes secretly pleased your lad’s miles away?’
Andrea looked out at the passing trees. ‘Never. I often wish I could care a lot less.’
Sally touched her arm. ‘I love the way you don’t get prim with me even when you don’t see eye to eye. If only more people were like you down here. I could cope with a scandal myself, but Mark would hate it. As the doctor’s wife I’m meant to set an example to the lower orders. The irony is that Mark’ll soon be grown up and gone, and I’ll probably lose James by not going off with him now.’
Andrea felt a lurch of panic. She’d thought herself quite different from ‘good time’ Sally – in some ways she didn’t even like her – but their situations were disturbingly similar: both having husbands whose work mattered more to them than anything except their sons. Fellow-feeling swamped Andrea as they sped towards the river.
The water was black as ink as they crossed the bridge over Polwherne Creek. Across it, the road sloped upwards and the trees thinned to reveal a panoramic view of the estuary. Sally stopped the car and they gazed in silence at the bar of moonlight stretching across the sea.
At first all they could hear was the tick-tick of the cooling engine and the gentle whispering of oak leaves overhead. Faintly at first, a new sound became audible: a low droning that grew louder. Instinctively, Andrea reached for Sally’s hand. Two fighters dipped down out of the darkness and swept seawards, leaving the estuary behind.
*
Leo woke with a start. Someone was speaking to him.
‘I’m off now.’
Justin’s face loomed darkly in front of him. Leo glanced at his luminous watch. The hands pointed to quarter past one.
‘Can’t you forget about going?’ he faltered.
‘Course not, espèce d’idiot, fou.’ French was Justin’s best subject.
‘You’re the one who’s fou,’ muttered Leo. ‘I’ll tell my mother if you’re not back by four. I ought to tell her now.’
‘Stop moaning and come too.’
‘No thanks. What’ll you say if mum catches you pushing a bike through the hall?’
‘That I’m sleepwalking.’
‘Ha, ha.’
‘Anyway it won’t happen. She went to bed half an hour ago. Ta-ta for now.’
Leo watched Justin tiptoe down the garden path with his bicycle and then disappear from view into the lane. He felt relieved and ashamed at the same time, and wished he had Justin’s courage; but he sensed that, if he did, he might also suffer from Justin’s moods. He lay down and tried to sleep but whenever he closed his eyes he imagined Justin swimming and getting cramp. Instead, he forced himself to visualise Justin walking back over the rocks on the shore where they had first seen the naval ships. Again and again he told himself that his friend’s swim was over and that he was coming home. But though Leo’s waking dream was remarkably real in every detail, he wasn’t fooled by it.
Being realistic, Leo knew there was little chance that his friend would be back until four or four-thirty. So when he looked out at the garden, where the leaves of a large tree were moving like a shoal of grey-green fish in the moonlight, he did not really imagine he would see Justin creeping through the gate. After all he had only been gone an hour, but fear was already tightening its grip on his mind, making him long to look out every minute or two. A desire to defecate sent him hurrying to the lavatory. ‘I’ll be blamed,’ he thought, imagining the worst as he sat on the lavatory. ‘I said nothing when a few words to mum could have saved Justin’s life and now he’s drowned and nothing can bring him back.’ Soon after Leo returned to bed, his heart leapt at the sound of the latch on the garden gate. He raced to the window. Justin was pushing his bike up the path.
‘Tell me everything,’ begged Leo, dragging Justin into his room.
‘There’s nothing to tell.’ Justin sat on the edge of Leo’s bed and smiled to himself as if enjoying a private joke. ‘The gunboat wasn’t there. Only the minesweeper and the MTB. No sign of the, small boats either.’
‘Maybe they’re anchored somewhere else.’
‘Why would they be?’ Justin sounded put out.
Leo said reasonably, ‘Their engines might need repairing in a yard.’
‘Not three at a time.’
Justin’s certainty irritated Leo. ‘Oh, I forgot. They were away on a secret mission.’
‘I won’t give up, whatever you think.’
Leo said flatly, ‘You’ll go out night after night, and sleep in the day?’
‘That’s right.’
When Justin was up in his attic, Leo could hear him moving about the room, taking off his shoes, and finally getting into bed. Leo had hoped that the whole mad adventure would be over in a day or two, and that then they would be able to enjoy a normal holiday; but now it was obvious it wasn’t going to stop. At least not until Justin could manage to climb aboard a vessel and see for himself. Till then, there would be more sleepless nights and hours of waiting.
CHAPTER 4
Andrea had been wondering what account of her evening to give to Leo and was relieved, in the event, not to be asked to give any. At breakfast, both boys seemed preoccupied with their boiled eggs – rare delicacies at the best of times – but they became more animated on being told that they could go sailing later that morning.
‘I’ll take you in the car,’ offered Andrea.
‘Can’t we go by bike? It’s all downhill,’ said Leo.
Andrea couldn’t tell whether her son’s coldness of the previous evening had lasted through the night. She said, ‘You must both wear life jackets.’
‘Aye aye, cap’n,’ giggled Leo, unexpectedly kissing his mother.
Suddenly both boys were laughing helplessly, for no reason she could fathom. When they had gone, Andrea contemplated driving to the hill behind the club to see how they were doing. But the idea of spying on them was repugnant: having hired the dinghy, she would trust them.
While Rose was piling the breakfast things onto a tray, she hummed quietly to herself, taking occasional glances at Andrea. ‘Where did ’ee go weth doctor’s wife, ma’am?’
‘An officers’ club.’ The girl picked up the tray smartly. ‘What’s wrong, Rose?’
‘I cudden say, reelly.’
In view of Sally Lowther’s warning about local prejudices, Andrea let Rose leave the room without pressing her to elaborate. To avoid being the subject of local tittle-tattle, she would have to be careful. Recalling Sally’s remarks about the vicar’s wife, Andrea decided with time on her hands to look at the purgatorial fresc
o. Though an agnostic, she enjoyed churches, especially for oddities like lepers’ squints and misericords. Why not for a vision of hell?
On entering St Peter’s, she walked past the Boy Scouts’ banners and the neat piles of prayer books. A monument near the font caught her eye. ‘Here lyeth interred the body of Mary relict of Henry de Roos, Gent. A lady who gave constant heed to her husband through ten years of his patient affliction, and uncomplainingly returned to God ten of her twelve children, and was yet an example in virtue and piety …’ Mary was surely the creation of a professional writer of epitaphs.
The Judgement Day mural extended in patchy fragments above two arches in the nave. A line of men and women was being poked and prodded into a fire by a posse of pitchfork-wielding devils. The sinners’ naked bodies were white and bulbous, as if the women were pregnant.
To the right of the chancel arch stood a piano, presumably for use when the organ was out of commission. Andrea tried some notes and found that it was not badly out of tune. She was playing the opening bars of a Beethoven sonata when a woman emerged from a door to the right of the altar. Andrea stopped in mid-phrase.
‘So beautiful. I hope you don’t mind my asking whether you’re a professional?’ The woman was carrying a brass flower vase and a jug containing water. She wore a baggy green housecoat over her clothes.
‘I’m a teacher.’
‘We rarely hear good music down here. Are you visiting or staying longer?’
Andrea told her she would be returning to Oxford at the end of the month. The woman moved closer. She had a clever face with inquisitive eyes. ‘My dear, if it’s any interest to you, the local school has a piano, paid for by an appeal – it’s much better than this poor creature. I’m sure the headmistress would be delighted if you would play to the children. They break up next week, like all the state schools.’
‘I can’t promise, but I’ll try.’
‘Splendid. Just tell her Mrs Jefferies suggested it. My husband’s the chairman of the governors, ex officio. He’s the vicar you see. And your name …?’