Nine Lessons

by Nicola Upson

  Marta shook her head. ‘Not really. It’s rented rooms on either side and I haven’t met the landladies. I think one of them offers digs for the theatre, though, so that might be interesting.’

  ‘Surrounded by nurses and chorus girls, and you’re having doubts about the house?’

  ‘Stupid of me, I know. But it makes a change in this town—there aren’t many places where the women outnumber the men. It was one of the things I found most isolating about living here last time. Every day seemed to revolve around men and their routines, even the things I loved like evensong and the museums. Then along came the war, and it was as if the town had died. Those glorious buildings, all in darkness. The streets were so empty that the women had no choice but to notice each other.’

  Josephine listened, trying to imagine Marta here as a young wife and mother, living in the shadow of an unhappy marriage to a man who abused her, making decisions that would affect her for the rest of her life. The past had brought them together but they rarely talked now of their earlier lives, preferring to concentrate on the present, and she wondered if being in a town which seemed hell-bent on fusing the two would change that. ‘Inverness was just the opposite,’ she said, remembering the sudden influx of thousands of soldiers sent to the Highlands for training. ‘I can still see all those young men marching across Bell’s Park.’

  ‘Very romantic.’

  ‘Far too romantic. A part of me will always love that music and that spectacle, and a part of me will always hate it.’

  ‘Hate it? Why?’

  ‘Because it made it all too easy. It was so glamorous and so patriotic, and off they all went like lambs to the slaughter. I’d have gone myself if they’d let me. It’s a trick I can never quite forgive them for. Your empty streets were much more honest.’

  ‘Yes, they were certainly that.’

  They turned into St John’s Street, and Josephine stopped outside a tiny newsagent and tobacconist. ‘You go ahead and get us a table. I want to see if the new Film Weekly is in yet.’ Marta gave one of her most infuriating smiles. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Checking for an early review of your film?’

  Josephine glared at her. Alfred Hitchcock had recently finished filming one of her novels, a project which Marta had worked on, and she knew enough about the director and his disdain for any original source material to dread the results. ‘I’m doing nothing of the sort,’ she said, more defensively than she had intended. ‘There’s an interview with Joan Crawford that I want to read. I saw it advertised in last week’s issue.’

  Marta laughed at the look of indignation on Josephine’s face. ‘You shouldn’t be so uptight about the film,’ she said. ‘It’s really very good. It might not have much to do with—’

  Josephine held up her hands. ‘I don’t want to hear another word until I’ve suffered the humiliation of watching it.’

  ‘All right, but it still doesn’t seem right that I’m off to America to talk about your film while you have nothing to do with it.’

  ‘Trust me—you have my blessing. Now go and order the tea. I won’t be a minute.’

  The shop specialised in pipe tobacco and smelt faintly of vanilla. It made the most of its tiny floor space, supplementing shelf displays with boxes of biscuits and precariously piled lecture lists, and Josephine was pleased to see an unusually wide range of magazines. She soon found the one she wanted, and flicked idly through its pages while waiting at the counter to pay. Joan Crawford was in typically ebullient mood, she noticed, but she had only got a couple of paragraphs into the article when she found herself distracted by the conversation between the newsagent and the girl in front of her, who was filling out a postcard for the window. ‘The sooner you find yourself someone to share that house with, the better,’ he said, shaking his head in concern. ‘I wouldn’t want a daughter of mine living all on her own, not with what’s going on at the moment. I’ve never known anything like it.’

  ‘Oh, I’m not on my own,’ the girl said. ‘There are people in the flats upstairs, but my friend’s just got a bar job in London and she’s left me high and dry with the rent on our two rooms. I could kill her, really, but I’d have done the same in her position.’

  ‘Even so, you’ve got to be careful—that’s what I tell all the young ladies who come in here now.’ He tapped a bundle of papers on the counter, the early evening edition of the Cambridge Daily News, still tied with string, and Josephine tried to read the headlines. ‘That’s the third attack in a month, and he’ll only get braver—you mark my words.’ The girl handed him the card and he checked the details before placing it with a block of similar notices in the window. ‘It’s sixpence a week, but I don’t think you’ll need any longer. Places like that soon go.’

  She thanked him and handed over the money, and he watched her as she walked out into the street. ‘There’s no telling them at that age, is there?’ he sighed, as Josephine took her place at the counter.

  ‘What’s happened?’ she asked.

  ‘Another girl’s been hurt—bad enough to put her in hospital this time.’ He cut the string on the newspapers and pushed one across to her. The item in question was a small piece, tucked away in the corner of the front page. ‘They’re not saying it’s the same bloke but it stands to reason, doesn’t it?’

  Josephine nodded. Marta had told her about an attack on a young woman when she first arrived, but the inference was that a burglary had gone wrong; now it seemed that something far more disturbing was to blame. ‘Can I take this?’ she asked, adding the paper to her magazine and a bar of Marta’s favourite chocolate.

  ‘Of course you can.’

  ‘And a packet of Benson and Hedges, please.’ She paid for her goods and carried on to the cafe, deep in thought. The day had grown dull now, and by the time she passed the handsome towered gateway of St John’s, lamps had begun to glow in the buildings on either side, filling the irregular leaded windows with a warm yellow ochre. Josephine looked up as she walked, intrigued by what might be going on inside. She had never yearned after learning for learning’s sake, rejecting university in favour of a more practical career, but something about those softly lit rooms—so visible and yet so inaccessible—made her wonder what she might have missed.

  College buildings were less dominant close to the market square, and Cambridge took on the air of a country town. She had loved the harmonious jumble of Trinity Street from the moment she first saw it—graceful Georgian facades rubbing shoulders with pretty art-nouveau-Gothic and sedate Victorian shop fronts. Matthew’s, the cafe which she and Marta had adopted as a retreat from unpacking, occupied the most striking building of all—an Elizabethan timber-framed and plastered house, much restored over the years and now—if you were to believe the cafe’s advertisements—‘a place of quiet refinement’. Marta was seated at a table upstairs by the window. ‘I think I might have over-ordered,’ she said. ‘I suddenly realised how hungry I was and the waitress took advantage of my weakness.’

  ‘What are we having?’

  ‘Poached eggs on toast, Welsh rarebit and a selection of cakes.’

  Josephine smiled and sat down opposite her. She looked round the room, which had been decorated with old-fashioned lamps and pewter pots to emphasise the building’s original period features, and noticed that all but one of the tables were taken. Without exception, the clientele consisted of genteel ladies in pairs or small groups. ‘Nell Gwynn meets Mapp and Lucia,’ she muttered under her breath. ‘Listen—you know that assault you told me about? Apparently there’s been another one, but this time the girl’s in hospital.’

  ‘So I gather. I overheard the waitresses talking about it. Where was it?’

  Josephine glanced at the front page. ‘A cottage in St Peter’s Street. Is that nearby?’

  ‘It’s further up Castle Hill, on the way out of town.’ Marta took the paper from her and read through the report. ‘God, this is terrible—well, it is if you read between the lines. It makes me so angry
the way they report these things. “Ravished”—what sort of a word is that? We all know they mean raped, so why don’t they say so instead of making it sound like something faintly desirable from a bad romantic novel?’

  The women on the next table turned in unison to stare at them, one of them looking so shocked that Josephine half-expected her to reach for the smelling salts. ‘I think that’s just answered your question,’ she said. ‘Or it could be to protect the girl, of course. The injuries can be treated, but the shame of what’s happened to her will be much harder to heal.’

  ‘What’s she got to be ashamed about? She didn’t ask someone to break into her house and rape her.’

  Josephine sighed, loving Marta for her fiercely held principles but wishing sometimes that the real world welcomed her more often. ‘Of course she shouldn’t be ashamed, but she will be. That’s who she is from now on—the girl who was attacked, the news item. At least they’ve had the sense not to name her, but her neighbours will know, and the police, and the nurses who treat her in hospital, and the people in court—if it ever gets that far. She won’t be a person to them. She’ll be a victim. And with all the intrusion, “ravished” might be a word she’s more than happy to hide behind.’ She paused for a moment while the food was brought to their table. ‘What else does it say?’

  ‘Not much, really. There’s a vague description of the man—short and stocky, with a local accent. That hardly narrows it down.’

  ‘Nothing more specific?’

  ‘No, she didn’t see his face. The lights went out first—that’s how she knew that something was wrong.’

  ‘She must have been terrified,’ Josephine said, imagining how she would feel at the sudden realisation that a man was in her house and she was powerless to do anything about it. ‘That’s the worst part for me, somehow. The attack taking place in your home.’ She, too, was using euphemisms, she noticed, instinctively reluctant to acknowledge the most intimate and lasting damage. ‘It’s the one place you ought to feel safe.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about that,’ Marta said, with a sarcastic edge to her voice. ‘There’s some handy advice here about locking your doors and windows. So that’s all right, then.’

  She put the paper down and they ate their meal in silence, each of them angered and unsettled by the fate of a girl they would never know. That was the unique thing about this particular crime, Josephine thought; unlike murder or robbery or fraud, it felt personal, no matter how distanced you were from the victim. ‘The trouble is, no girl thinks it can happen to her,’ Marta continued when their empty plates had been replaced by a two-tiered cake stand, complete with doilies. ‘Those waitresses were huddled together in the corner, talking about this as though it were the most exciting thing that’s happened in Cambridge for years. That’s another reason for honest reporting—it might encourage people to be more cautious.’ She gave the newspaper a disdainful prod, and finished the last piece of gingerbread. ‘You will take care while I’m away, won’t you?’

  ‘Of course I will.’

  ‘With a bit of luck the bastard will be behind bars before too long.’

  Josephine smiled apologetically to their neighbours and signalled to the waitress for the bill. They walked out into the street and she turned back the way she had come, but Marta caught her arm. ‘Let’s walk for a bit. The boxes will wait and I love Cambridge at dusk. Do you mind?’

  ‘Of course not.’ They crossed the road and took a narrow lane which led down between two colleges to the river. Marta was quiet, and Josephine wondered if she was still thinking about the rape or if something else was on her mind. Once or twice over the last few days, she had caught Marta staring into space, oblivious to anything she had said. Marta had brushed aside her concern, blaming any distractions on the forthcoming trip, but Josephine didn’t entirely believe her. She took Marta’s arm, sensing that whatever remained unspoken between them was the true reason for the walk. ‘There’s something you’re not telling me,’ she said in an even tone, hoping that by sounding unconcerned she could make it trivial. ‘What is it?’

  Marta looked at her sharply, but didn’t try to deny it. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I should have talked to you long before now, but I wasn’t sure how to. Actually, that’s not strictly true—I didn’t know if I’d need to.’

  They stopped on a bridge and Josephine stared out along the river. Marta was right: the town was beautiful at dusk, with the outline of towers and chimneys etched clearly against an indigo sky and the first faint suggestion of stars, but just now she would gladly have been anywhere else in the world. She had forced the issue, but she longed suddenly to stop the words tumbling from Marta’s mouth, and the vague unease which she had been nursing since Marta first mentioned her trip to America took a form as tangible as the rough, cold stone beneath her hand: it was common knowledge that the Hitchcocks planned to move to Hollywood as soon as he had fulfilled his contract in England, and they made no secret of wanting to take their most trusted employees with them. Her fear must have shown in her face because Marta tried to reassure her. ‘Don’t look so worried. It’s not about us—at least I hope it won’t have to become about us.’

  ‘Then what is it about?’

  ‘Archie.’

  ‘Archie?’ Josephine stared at her in surprise.

  ‘Yes. I saw him last week, just before I moved here. He was in Holly Place, investigating the murder of Stephen Laxborough. You know—the pianist?’

  ‘Of course, I read about it in the paper. But what’s that got to do with anything? Archie’s all right, isn’t he?’

  ‘He’s fine, as far as I know. It’s just that we were talking about Cambridge and I invited him to come and see us when he had time. I did it without thinking, and then I realised what a mess it could all turn into.’

  ‘Why would that be a mess? Marta, you’re not making any sense. Just tell me what you mean.’

  ‘All right—sorry.’ She paused to think and Josephine waited impatiently, listening to the dull thud of punts knocking against each other in the river below. ‘You remember when I came here in the summer, just to look round and see how I felt about moving back up? Well, I bumped into Bridget at the railway station.’

  ‘Yes, you told me.’

  ‘But I didn’t tell you everything. She wasn’t on her own.’

  It took Josephine a moment or two to understand the significance of what she had heard. ‘Bridget was with another man?’ she asked in disbelief. ‘She’s seeing someone here, behind Archie’s back?’

  ‘No, although that was my first thought, too. She was sitting on her own in the buffet, but there were two cups on the table and she’d obviously come to see someone off. She was so on edge when she saw me—hostile, even. I knew she was trying to hide something and I jumped to the obvious conclusion, but it was even worse than I’d imagined. She wasn’t with another man. She was with her daughter. Her daughter, and Archie’s.’

  ‘Archie’s daughter?’

  Marta nodded. ‘That’s right. Her name’s Phyllis, and at a guess she’s around twenty. I only met her briefly, but she has Archie’s smile. I can see that now. And his charm. She was lovely.’ Josephine listened, too stunned to say anything. ‘He’d gone back to war by the time Bridget found out she was pregnant, and she never told him. Archie has no idea that Phyllis even exists. That’s why I couldn’t look him in the eye. There I was, inviting him to Cambridge, where the woman he loves has brought up his daughter, and . . .’

  ‘You’ve known this for months and you didn’t think to mention it?’ Josephine stared at Marta, the revelation eclipsed briefly by a more personal sense of betrayal. ‘How can you stand there and say this isn’t about us?’

  ‘She made me promise—’

  ‘You don’t owe promises to Bridget. You owe promises to me.’ The tears came from nowhere, part shock and part fury, but she brushed them away before Marta could comfort her. ‘And to Archie, too, for God’s sake. What the hell were you thinking of? Did yo
u persuade yourself that another few months wouldn’t matter when he’s been in the dark for years? Or were you just timing it carefully so you could swan off to America and leave me to calm down? If that’s the case, I wouldn’t come back in a hurry.’

  ‘I knew you’d react like this, but Bridget put me in an impossible position—can’t you see that? She begged me to give her a chance to tell Archie first. She knows what she’s done is wrong, but she also knows that if they’re to stand any chance at all, he has to hear about Phyllis from her, not from anyone else, and certainly not from you in some sort of frenzy of injustice on his behalf.’

  ‘And you didn’t trust me to understand that?’

  ‘No. If you want me to be honest, I didn’t. Was I wrong?’ A couple walking arm in arm stared at them as they approached the bridge, and Josephine paused to let them pass. ‘Bridget is terrified of what will happen when Archie finds out,’ Marta said, taking advantage of her silence. ‘She loves him, and she loves her daughter, but she knows she might lose them both by being honest.’

  ‘Surely the time to think about that was twenty years ago.’

  ‘Yes, but that’s easy to say now. In some ways, I can understand why she did it. It was a wartime romance and she didn’t want to be tied down. She didn’t even know if he’d come back.’

  ‘Are you defending her?’

  ‘No, but perhaps I understand better than you what it’s like to be trapped in a marriage.’

  ‘How can you possibly compare your husband to Archie? He did unspeakable things to you, things that Archie would never be capable of.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not comparing them as men. I’m just saying that for some women being with any man is a sacrifice they’re not prepared to make, no matter how nice or how liberated he is.’

  ‘I can’t believe you’re making decency sound like a character fault, simply to justify siding with Bridget. Don’t make Archie a scapegoat for your bad decisions.’