Marking Time (14 page)

Now, as they walked quietly up the stairs and along the gallery landing to their room, that brief, idyllic half-hour that had been – perhaps fortunately – interrupted by Peggy
knocking on the door and coming immediately into the room to turn down the bed, seemed like a dream, either only to have happened to him or not to have happened at all. Peggy had gasped and blushed
with embarrassment, but without her they would never have made dinner on time. They had both dressed with lightning speed, laughing – Zoë had bundled her hair, still faintly damp from
being washed, into a chignon and buttoned herself into the housecoat he’d bought her last Christmas. ‘Haven’t even time to do my face,’ she said. ‘Will I
do?’

‘You’re so—’ he began, then ‘I love you,’ he said, ‘that’s the long and short of it. You’ll do for
me
.’

But now, at the end of what had been rather a sticky evening
en famille
, he began to worry about having said earlier to her that they would talk about the future; his going into the
Navy (if he could), and how she felt about things, and he was afraid, because it would lead to an argument. She was no good at arguments, and her inability to understand things that she
didn’t want or like usually irritated him to the point where he accused her to himself of wilful incomprehension; aloud he would be aggressively patient and she would sulk. He dreaded ending
the day on such a note, and since they had made love, which until the last few months had been the resolution of such times, he felt the outcome might be a tense, sleepless night.

He was wrong. What happened was pretty much the same as before dinner, and this time, because he was not so startled by her light-hearted ardour, he realised how much more enjoyable it all was
when he wasn’t either feeling sorry for her because of the rotten time she’d had, or anxious that he was no longer able to give her pleasure. When they were lying quietly in what felt
to him the most blissfully companionable silence, she said, ‘Rupert, I’ve been thinking.’

His heart sank, then rallied. He was full of the most tender regard: he would be patient, and gentle, and somehow get her to understand that some things had to be outside and beyond their own
wishes. He settled her into the crook of his arm. ‘I’m listening,’ he said.

‘I’d like us to find a desk for Clary for her Christmas present. You know, one with a secret drawer, a beautiful old one that she can have for her writing. I thought we might try
that place in Hastings that Edward goes to –’

‘Cracknell.’

‘Yes, him. Don’t you think that’s a good idea?’

‘A marvellous idea,’ he said. Tears came to his eyes. ‘We’ll go next weekend.’

‘But it’s got to be a secret.’

‘Of course. You don’t think I’d
tell
her, do you?’ He was delighted to be outraged on this scale.

‘It’s a long time till Christmas.’ She wriggled free of him and sprang out of bed.

‘Where are you off to?’

‘Putting on some clothes for Peggy in the morning,’ she said, pulling her nightdress over her head.

It was odd, he thought, as he got into his pyjamas, opened the window to let in the cool, misty air, and went back to bed, odd that the piece of future they
had
talked about should be
simply the next weekend. And then, perversely, after he had kissed her and turned out the light, he wished that they
had
talked – seriously, but without fighting – about what
lay ahead, and then cursed himself for always wanting something more, or else, of her than he got.

‘You are. Well, you are to me, anyway.’

Edward and Villy had taken Jessica and Raymond back to the cottage by car as Raymond was so lame, and Sybil and Hugh had said no they would love the fresh air, and were walking back. Sybil had a
torch that she shone so carefully in front of Hugh that she stumbled and he put out his arm to steady her. ‘Come round the other side of me,’ he said, ‘and then I can hold your
hand.’

‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,’ she said, half laughing at herself for saying it.

‘I don’t think that’s true. Anyway, whatever I think you look like, and whatever
you
think you look like, I love you – always have – always will. Whatever
happens.’ It slipped out, that last bit. Why the hell did I say that?

There was a silence during which he began to hope that she hadn’t noticed. But then she said, ‘I could bear anything that happens if we could all be together. But with Simon miles
away at school and you in London by yourself – Hugh, it
would
make sense if we kept our house open. Wills and Polly can stay here and we could come down at weekends. Don’t you
see?’

‘I wouldn’t have a second’s peace all day worrying about you in the house alone and if anything like an air raid happened, I’d be too far from you to look after you.
It’s out of the question.’ He squeezed her hand. ‘I’ll be down at weekends, regular as clockwork.’

The retort that it was to be
she
who was not to have a second’s peace all week worrying about what might happen to
him
nearly escaped and was swallowed down in silence.
If one of them had to be anxious, it must be she. She could not bear the thought of him worrying. She shut up.

When they were in bed, he said, ‘But, you know, I think quite possibly it will all be over much sooner than we think. I don’t think that Hitler will find the Maginot Line much fun
– it won’t be like last time. And this time, the Americans may join us sooner. That would put the kybosh on it all.’

And wanting him to think that he had reassured her, she said, ‘I’m sure you’re right.’

January 1940

‘Ah! Louise! How nice to see you back. You’ll be our oldest inhabitant this term.’ Miss Rennishaw stood in the hall in one of her usual tweed suits that were
as full of large and regular incident as a ploughed field, apparently impervious to the icy blasts that accompanied every new arrival. The drive outside was choked with cars and chauffeurs lugging
heavy leather suitcases. Bracken soon appeared with hers – an extremely old one that had belonged to her father which had to have straps round it because the clasps were wonky. Miss
Rennishaw’s sister, her twin – most surprisingly since she must be a good two feet smaller than her imposing sister – now bustled out of their private sitting room, and murmured
something.

‘They’re in the top drawer of my desk, Lily. Don’t do too much.’

‘Thanks, Bracken.’

‘Very good, Miss.’ He touched his cap and disappeared into the dark. But I don’t mind any more, Louise thought, as she trudged up the stairs after Blake, the school’s
gardener, who was carrying her case. She was in the same room that she had had for the two previous terms, an attic room on the top floor with two little dormer windows. That first, awful term she
had shared with Nora and then, when Nora left because of the war, with boring Elizabeth Crofton-Hay, who went on and on about coming out, being a débutante, being presented, etc. Her only
other topic of conversation was Ivor Novello with whom she was madly in love; she had been to
The Dancing Years
fourteen times, but she had no real
artistic
interest in the
theatre at all. She had left, and this term it would be someone else but they hadn’t arrived, so she quickly chose the nicest bed by one of the windows. The room was exactly the same. Two
iron bedsteads with blue covers; two chests of drawers with a small square mirror hung on the wall behind them; two narrow wardrobes; and two cane-bottomed chairs. The floor was covered with dark
blue linoleum so polished by the inmates that the small woollen rug placed beside each bed slipped about the room at the slightest touch. She sat on her bed still in her coat: it was too cold even
to smell the furniture polish. She had only discovered that she had stopped minding – stopped feeling homesick – about half-way through last term. Before that, although sometimes she
had begun to recognise that she wasn’t, she had been afraid to think about it too much, in case she started feeling awful again. (This had happened a lot during the first term. She would be
putting suet crust into a pudding basin, or sitting in the dining room with everyone chattering away, and just as she thought that it wasn’t too bad being away from home, misery would engulf
her; she would have to stop whatever she was doing and rush up and lie on this bed and cry.) But then, she gradually realised that she was getting used to the whole thing. She had stopped breaking
china, and feeling sick; for hours, days sometimes, she didn’t think about home at all. She had wondered why this didn’t make her feel elated, but when she had talked to Polly at
Christmas (because, after all, Polly was in the same position: after years of worrying about there being a war, war was turning out to be much like ordinary life so far as frightening things were
concerned) Polly had said that not worrying so much about it hadn’t made her feel wonderful either. But she had added that she thought this was because she didn’t really believe that
the war would go on simply being a bit gloomy and tiresome, and Clary had interrupted by pointing out that if one was a Finn one would undoubtedly be frightened – she was quite without tact,
Louise thought. But really, it was more that she had other things to be frightened about: her audition, for instance. She had managed to persuade her parents that she should have one – to one
acting school, and if she failed to get in that was to be that. She would have to learn typing and do some boring job in an office. They had agreed, she thought, largely because her mother had been
so set on sending her to France to learn French with some family (clearly out of the question since the war had started) that they had not thought of any alternative, and at her age – she
would be seventeen in March – she was too young to join up or anything frightful like that. Thank God! It seemed awful to have had to spend years and years doing lessons and being treated as
a child and then to have one’s burning ambition set aside as selfish and frivolous. The Wrens or the ATS would be like some vast boarding school, she imagined. So,
if
she got in to
the acting school she was to be allowed a year, and anything could happen in a year. She was selfish, of course. The ‘holy’ term with Nora had showed her that. The Miss Rennishaws were
very High Church: church-going was practically compulsory, although you were not made to go to their church – had the choice of another one where they did not burn incense, and conduct
confessions, et cetera – but Nora had taken to all that with her usual ardour and more or less swept Louise along with her. Every week, all that term, Louise had knelt in the little box and
although initially she had found it hard to think of things to confess – had even, on one occasion, made a few things up – she found it got easier and easier – in fact, her
character worsened by the week. ‘I am very proud, revengeful and ambitious,’ was how she had started, but Father Fry had picked that up at once, and said Hamlet had only been
wishing
that that was what he was like and, in any case, the remarks were too general to constitute confession. So then she had had to get down to things like admitting that she
didn’t think she ought to have to clean lavatories or scrub floors – things that when they were doing their week as a housemaid at the school they were made to do – and they were
on to pride at once. When she had complained to Nora that it didn’t seem to be making her a better person but rather the reverse, Nora had replied that one could not evolve at all until one
recognised what a rotten weak character one was to start with, and she had tried to make Louise have sort of practice confessions with her every night. To be fair, Nora thought of endless faults
– or sins, she called them – about herself and every time she mentioned one, Louise realised that she did that too, and once or twice it got almost like a competition to see who was the
worst. Everyday life had become a minefield. A single moment’s inattention to one’s character and one sinned. ‘That’s what makes it so important and exciting!’ Nora
had cried, but privately Louise had felt that it stopped anything being fun. She had decided that although she did now believe in God, she certainly didn’t love him, she didn’t even
like
him very much, but this was clearly a sin on a scale that she felt would be too much for Nora, although Father Fry had been surprisingly calm about it, saying mildly that he had felt
much the same as she when he was her age, a remark that contrived to make her feel both comforted and snubbed.

But then Nora had left, to work in Aunt Rach’s Babies’ Hotel, which had moved back to London. Elizabeth Crofton-Hay had not been at all religious, although she had gone to church
every Sunday. To begin with she had enjoyed learning about make-up and finding out that Elizabeth washed her stockings in Lux every night, and wore a pearl necklace that was composed of single
pearls given her every birthday by her godparents, but the more interesting experiences of Elizabeth’s life – a term in Florence and a long weekend at Sandringham – seemed not to
have made her in the least exciting to talk to, and Louise quickly got bored with the rhapsodies about Ivor Novello. She went to the door to see who her new companion might be. The piece of paper
pinned to it said, ‘Louise Cazalet and Stella Rose’. For some reason this made her think of a pale blonde girl with straight hair streaming down her back, an illustration from the fairy
books – a heroine’s name. She decided to unpack and find a thicker jersey.