When am I going to see you, when am I going to see you, when, when, when …
She had become indispensable at the shop, or rather in the office. Norina couldn’t praise her enough. Harry Goldman called still, but now only to approve. He patted her on the head, rumpled her bobbed hair. They involved her more and more not just in the selling and the paperwork, but in the decisions too. When Miss Gina left to get married in October, Maria took her place as second in command.
Autumn turning into winter, and she was meeting Eddie again. Why not, after all? Visits to his flat, Sunday outings sometimes. And every day deeper in love. She thought she’d lived to dance, now she lived to see Eddie, to be kissed by Eddie, fondled by Eddie. But not to be happy. She said no always to his pleadings. No, no, no.
She burned so. She read once of persons who spontaneously burst into flames. She could imagine sometimes that she walked in flames, burning herself out, dry to ashes with longing, longing, desire desire desire for Eddie.
He tried. How he tried.
‘I love you so much. You love me a little bit, don’t you? You do, you do … so why not? Why not, Maria? Such a lovely name. Maria, Maria, Maria … You want to come home and meet my family? Why don’t you? They’ll like you. They don’t mind, they know I have to see some girls some time … Maria, come and hear me sing – this dance at the Fascist Club. Maria, Maria, Maria …’
No, Eddie. No, no, no.
In the spring Sybil went up to Yorkshire for the wedding of her widowed sister, Molly. She was to be one of the six bridesmaids. Ida, at thirty-two, was another. It was to be a very big affair. The Graingers were of course invited and that included Maria. But she did not want to go, and made the presentation of a new collection at the shop an excuse.
Sybil said she would make a small holiday of it. ‘At least ten days, darling.’ She would be back, though, in time for an engagement dinner-dance for friends of Clive and Dodie’s.
But after almost a fortnight there was no news of her, except for a newspaper cutting of the wedding. The day before the party, irritated rather than worried, Maria thought of telephoning, but did not. Late that night a wire arrived.
SORRY NOT BACK STOP SOMETHINGS HAPPENED STOP ALL WELL LOVE SYB
Next day she had just got in from the shop when the last post brought a letter. The fat envelope in Sybil’s generous writing fell onto the mat.
Dearest dearest Maria,
Aren’t I terrible, not coming back like I promised? I hope you got the wire and weren’t too extraordinarily puzzled. I thought afterwards “Something’s happened” might be rather frightening but – well, it’s not like that. Wait for it, dearest Minnie. You’re not the only person in love, you know.
I’m in love, in love, in love! Absolutely head over heels, upside down, inside out, can’t tell my right from my left, can’t see straight, can’t anything – the pen just slips about on the paper. Can you read a word, darling? Darling Minnie. ‘I’m just wild about Peter, and he’s just wild about me –’ Isn’t that how the song goes? Darling, isn’t it just too marvellous, wonderful, all anyone ever could have dreamed of? And you and I are going to be sort of sisters. Because yes, Peter and I are not just terribly in love, we’re actually engaged! You’d never think anything could happen so quickly. Mummy and Daddy don’t know what’s hit them – they say they don’t know what’s hit us either! And as for the Grainger parents, they’re stunned as well. (Hardly anyone’s been told except the families concerned – and you, darling. So keep it under your hat. Just for now.) We plan to be married very soon, though. I think it could even be this summer …
Three days later she became Eddie’s mistress.
13
‘You’re a dago,’ Miller said. ‘You’re a dago, so, Dennison.’ He gave Guy a jab in the stomach with his fist. ‘Dago Dennison.’
Guy lashed out with his foot, kicking Miller first on the knee, then a second time higher up, near the hip bone. Miller screamed, ‘He’ll kill me. Get Dennison off me.’
Akester, one of the prefects, came behind Guy, pinning his arms to his body. ‘Steady. You’ll do him an injury.’
Guy wriggling, cried, ‘I want to kill him –’
Akester tried to calm him while Miller continued to scream like a stuck pig. Two boys went in search of authority and found Brother Damian working not far away in the rose-garden.
Miller said between sobs, ‘Please, Brother, I only asked Dennison about some homework and did a bit of play boxing – and he upped and kicked me here …’ He clutched his privates.
Brother Damian wrenched Guy away from Akester. ‘I’ll deal with this little lad.’ He tweaked Guy’s ear roughly. ‘Here. Just wait till I tell what you were up to. And you with your uncle a Jesuit. Glory be to God.’
Held up by his collar, dragging his feet, Guy struggled still. ‘No you don’t, young fellow-me-lad.’
‘I want to go home,’ Guy yelled, ‘I’ll make them send me, I want to go back to Yorkshire, I don’t like Derbyshire, I don’t like any of you, I hate Miller, I hate –’
‘It isn’t one devil you have, it’s five hundred,’ Brother Damian said, puffing and panting. Delivering him to the Headmaster’s door.
Guy Thomas Dennison of Park Villa, Thackton-le-Moors, North Riding, Yorkshire, England, The World. Age eight years and one month. Adopted (I know I’m adopted, because I’m Italian and Aunt Eleanor isn’t married). I was all right until they sent me here. I never wanted to go to school but when I told Amy I was going to run away, she burst into tears. She made me promise I wouldn’t. So I shan’t.
*
He wore black shiny wellingtons which were new and gave him blisters. He swung on the barred gate of Park Villa, watching the world go by. He had always done that, promising not to go down to the village without permission.
It was leaning over the gate, he first saw a drunken man. One of the Irishmen over for the haymaking: he came past Park Villa dancing, lurching from one side of the road to the other, singing Take me home again, Kathleen, loudly. Guy was so impressed he gave an imitation when he went indoors. Grandma Dennison said it was disgusting. Aunt Eleanor wasn’t cross but she took him aside and explained about getting drunk. Amy thought it the funniest thing ever. ‘That’s Paddy Burns,’ she said, laughing till the tears ran, ‘Paddy’s over every year. It’s hay money he’ll have been supping …’
Sometimes Guy went along the road to Moorgarth with his bowling hoop, to see Uncle Dick and Aunt Gwen. The hoop was a very fine one and had belonged to Uncle Dick.
Both the night and day nursery had bars at the window. In the daytime he could watch the road outside but on summer evenings, in bed far too early, he could gaze down the long narrow garden and out at the fields beyond, and then the moorland stretching up to the long flat top of Thackton Rigg. The railway line came in between. He watched the smoke curl up as the train left Thackton, chuffing past the window on its way to Whitby. If he pulled back the curtains after dark, he could pick out the lights of the station.
In winter he fell asleep watching the shadows from the fireguard. When he had earache, Amy brought up a cotton bag full of warm salt to lay on it. For a cough there was hot syrup from elderberries he’d helped pick that very autumn. There was always a lamp turned down low: Aunt Eleanor said she knew what it was to be frightened at night.
Aunt Eleanor had rescued him when his real parents died. He loved her. And Amy. And sometimes Grandma Dennison (he liked to watch her frizz the front of her hair with curling tongs, and the smell of singeing paper as the tongs were laid down). He loved some of the Graingers. Uncle Dick for instance (I call him Uncle though he’s no relation) and Aunt Ida who laughed a lot. Uncle Peter couldn’t be bothered with him, and wasn’t there often anyway. Old Mr Grainger ragged him and was very jolly.
And then there was Uncle Basil. When he visited, Guy sat on his knee which was not very comfortable and recited answers to catechism questions. But when he asked his own questions (‘What does covet mean, is it hitting somebody’s
wife? What is adultery?’) the answer was always: ‘We shall see, in a little.’
‘If Heaven’s in the sky,’ he asked, ‘when you go down and down why isn’t Hell in Australia? Is Hell in Australia?’
In summer when the bluebells came out in the woods he picked a bunch for Amy and put them in a bloater paste jar. They went to the seaside. Long afternoons on Whitby sands. They made him wear squelchy rubber paddling shoes that he managed to lose on an outing to Robin Hood’s Bay. He kept sea anemones from the rock pools in a bucket.
Uncle Dick and Aunt Gwen took him on picnics. As well as toys from his own childhood, Uncle Dick brought him books. There was the story of the Golden Lion. Guy wanted to know where you could buy a lion like that, a magic lion who was friendly. Not long after that he’d found Leo under the Christmas tree: tawny, very soft, with a furry coat and whiskers. He had been six then and still needed the night lamp. He grew much braver after he had Leo to protect him. He never went anywhere without him. Amy and Aunt Eleanor had packed up Leo to go to St Boniface’s with him.
The year he got Leo was the same one he asked for a puppy. But his birthday and then Christmas had been and gone, and still no puppy. Aunt Eleanor explained that although he lived at home and had lessons from a tutor, one day he would have to go away. And then how would the dog manage? ‘Better not, darling.’
But one day just before the next Christmas, Amy took him as usual to see her family. There were black lurcher puppies at the farm. When he saw them, he picked one out and wouldn’t let it go. Amy protested, ‘I don’t know whatever they’ll say,’ but he only clasped the puppy tighter. The farmer’s wife said, ‘Let him, now, we’re looking for good homes.’
That was how he’d got Greta. He missed her terribly now. She’d never grown very big and was a little bow-legged, but she trotted around after him, black and impudent with short smooth ears. She had been eleven months old when he went away to St Boniface’s.
He got two black marks for the episode with Miller. It was his own fault, for boasting about being Italian. He’d wanted to have something those first few miserable days, when everyone seemed to have rich and clever fathers and beautiful mothers. ‘Anyway, I’m Italian,’ he’d said when asked for the umpteenth time what his father did (and why his skin looked as if he’d been in the sun all winter). ‘And I’m adopted,’ he boasted. After that they wouldn’t let him alone. ‘This is a school for English people,’ Utley told him, ‘unless you’re Scotch or Irish.’ Packard-Smith asked if his father sold ice-cream. ‘Does your pater have an ice-cream cart?’
Father Dominic made it worse by telling the Catechism class, ‘Dennison is the nephew of Father Basil Dennison SJ, the prominent apologist. We’re very privileged. Hands up anyone who knows what an apologist is?’ Packard-Smith told Guy after, ‘You’re an apologist too – ‘cos you’re going to have to apologize for being Italian …’ Straightway, he had had a fight with Packard-Smith and bloodied his nose. That meant four black marks.
‘What shall we do with you?’ Father Clement asked sadly. ‘You fight for the sake of fighting.’
It was true. He seemed to have been fighting ever since he’d arrived. St Boniface’s. A good Catholic prep school. He would have to be here five years until he was old enough to go to a Jesuit school, which Uncle Basil would arrange.
From the first day it was terrible. He’d never seen a dormitory before – there were four of them for the fifty boys. He was in the largest. Matron was quite kind but brisk and hurried. She had unpacked Leo and then his clothes for the night: blue striped pyjamas and fawn wool dressing-gown from Daniel Neal’s, bought on an expedition to London, his first (the Zoo, the Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, tea at Rumpelmeyer’s).
Then one of the boys had noticed Leo. No one else had a soft toy. It had been too late then to hide him. Besides, he wanted him most terribly. The fur of Leo’s coat was soft, although there were scratchy places where Guy had spilt Ovaltine and it had dried and spoilt the fabric. The second-year boys mocked. ‘It’s got mange, your lion,’ one of them said. The others joined in: ‘And bad breath and runny eyes and a snotty nose.’ A tall boy called Pilkington snatched up Leo and sniffed him. ‘Phew, he’s farted. Pouf … don’t get near, chaps.’
The school lavatories were inside a courtyard. They queued up before breakfast, and again at break. Brother John Bosco kept a register: ‘Were your bowels open today?’ As each boy said yes, he ticked his name. The third day Guy wasn’t able. No amount of straining. And the same next morning. ‘Please, Brother, I couldn’t …’ Seeing a cross beside his name. No one else had crosses, every other boy had bowels that opened and shut to order. Brother John Bosco told Guy, ‘Won’t we have to do something about that?’
‘Something’ was a grey powder mixed up with jam. It worked very quickly. Then all through Greek class it wanted to work again. He was doubled with cramp and had to rush out. When he crept back to his desk, he heard the dry voice of Father Laurence.
‘Back with us, Dennison? I’m edified to see the ablative affected you so strongly … The past participle for ferre now, please.’
Next time he had a grey powder he was late for two lessons (bent double in the lavatories), and got a tardus. It was a month before he discovered that the other boys lied.
His homesickness was worst in the mornings, choking him through the breakfast of mushy tomatoes and curled-up bacon. The over-boiled sulphurous egg, the strong tea. At break there was milk from the home farm, thick cream above, watery blue below.
By the end of the first month he was in trouble again, the seat of his short grey trousers split – he didn’t know how or why. But Matron was angry with him. And even angrier when she saw that he had worn down already the backs of his elastic-sided black shoes. ‘The other boys don’t …’
The weather grew colder. The bread at break, thinly spread with rancid butter, was stale. A few of the boys prised open the circular coal fire in the recreation hall and tried to toast their bread. Some older boys made Guy do theirs. The excitement and sizzling and mess brought over Brother John Bosco – Guy got into trouble. Another bad mark. (One more and the headmaster would send for him again.)
After the midday meal each day there was a precious half-hour when they could read in the library, or make models, or just sit. There were three easy chairs near the fire and there was always a rush for these, but Guy preferred to lie on the floor. Sometimes he imagined that Greta lay beside him, and his arm would go out and round her neck. Then, feeling a fool, he would hastily put it back. Lying on his stomach, he read Sapper and forgot for half an hour that he was unhappy. And Italian.
*
Eleanor had known she would miss Guy, but not how much. She tried to make provision with good works, and art interests. She spent as much time as possible with Dulcie, tied up these days with a home for the deaf and dumb not far from Middlesbrough.
She could talk to Dulcie about missing Guy. Dulcie knew what it was to be an unacknowledged mother (so alas, must Maria, but she must not think of that – cruel to be kind, cruel to be kind). They spoke sometimes of the reaction of the village to his adoption. Dulcie said:
‘They think us, and you too, rather odd still. Yet their hearts are big enough – those Belgians in the next village, a whole community of them in the Great War.’ But two families adopting an Italian child (even though one was almost American), and that the two should never meet – ‘Miss Maria, she’s never this way, not since she went to London. She’d be pleased and all, to see a little boy from Italy.’ Someone even said, ‘You can see he’s Italian – he’s that like Miss Maria.’
Dulcie never thought it odd if Eleanor talked endlessly of Guy, what he was and would be. ‘He’ll surely be somebody, surely.’
Dulcie, laughing, said, ‘Of course he’s wonderful. In spite of being half a Grainger.’
‘But that’s why he’s so wonderful.’ She said it so casually Dulcie could have thought nothing. But she knew yet again that it was the Eric in hi
m, the fourth part of Eric, that she loved.
It was an excuse, with Guy gone, for Mother to make barbs yet again about a missed vocation. Basil the Jesuit, successful. Eleanor whom no man would look at, who would like to have been a nun.
Eleanor ignored it all. Nor was she put out by the inevitable awkward questions. When, before Guy left for St Boniface’s, Mother asked, ‘Who is to pay for all this? His upbringing, Eleanor, his education?’ she had been able to reply proudly, ‘It has all been seen to – it has been taken care of by Basil. And the Jesuits.’ Yes, that was it. The Jesuits. For she and Basil had thought of all the answers, approved of later by Eric. United with her brother over this, she found herself beginning even to like him.
The Jesuits. She left Mother to exclaim at their generosity:
‘Perhaps Guy will have a vocation,’ she said.
Eleanor went over twice to Middlesbrough to stay with Dulcie. Although to be so near Eric, living in the same house, would not do – it was too rich. She marvelled at how Dulcie did it. They seemed to her almost like brother and sister. She knew that he slept separately from Maimie and had done for years now, but he and Dulcie? She had been afraid of her fantasies, although Dulcie, while they were in Paris with the baby, had told her in a burst of candour:
‘We never did – after Jenny. It had all been too terrible, you see. And yet I stay on. You must think that odd. But we both wanted it. And it is not so bad …’
I could never, Eleanor thought, imagining the joy and the pain of seeing each day the beloved at the breakfast table, of sleeping under the same roof. And I am here only a week … Each night of her stay just before she fell asleep, her spirit (no, not her body, not her body) went wandering in search of his room. She had seen that room, and the dressing-room with its scents of Hungary Water and hair pomade and leather. In fantasy, she hovered above him and around him, blessed him, protected him. Each night she tried to send her hungry body to sleep before her soul. My soul, my body – those two distinct halves.
The Golden Lion Page 22