Marking Time (21 page)

Dad had come back for a week at Christmas, but Uncle Edward only got two days. Louise went and spent a week with Nora and her mother at Frensham, but she said she was glad
to be home when she got back. The house was full of musicians, she said, and that made Uncle Raymond very sarcastic and Nora was going to work in Aunt Rach’s Babies’ Hotel until she was
eighteen and could start training to be a nurse. Nora had come back to Home Place for a few nights with Louise, and Clary had overheard them having a
most
interesting conversation about
Aunt Jessica and somebody called either Laurence or Lorenzo who was one of the musicians. Louise seemed to think that Aunt Jessica was in love with him, which Nora said was ridiculous.

‘Villy, however, is clearly infatuated.’

This was so fascinating, that Clary got into a more comfortable listening position and really paid attention.

‘Infatuated? With Laurence? How could she be? It’s out of the question!’

‘Why on earth?’

There was a pause, and then Louise said distantly, ‘He’s got greasy hair and enormous blackheads on his nose.’

‘
That
wouldn’t matter. He simply
oozes
charm.’ She said it as though charm was the worst thing you could ooze with. ‘Naturally, he doesn’t attract
me
in the least.’

‘But he’s married as well as them.’

‘I don’t think that makes the slightest difference to that sort of man. Villy was always asking him to give her a piano lesson.’

‘And Jessica was always getting him to play the accompaniments to Grandfa’s songs – the ones she could sing, I mean.’ Another silence, while Clary thought how grownup it
sounded to use their parents’ Christian names.

‘Perhaps it’s just that they both like music awfully,’ but Louise said this so feebly, that Clary could tell she didn’t mean it.

‘Well, I think you should tackle your mother about it.’

‘Really, Nora, that’s a ghastly idea. There’s nothing to go on, it’s nothing to do with me – and anyway, if that’s how you feel, why don’t you tackle
your
mother?’

‘A, because it’s your mother that is infatuated, B, because your father is away fighting the war, so it isn’t fair on him, poor thing, and C, things
do
go on –
your mother wore lipstick
every
day at Frensham, and if you ask me frightfully unsuitable clothes considering there’s a war on, and it was she who thought of calling him Lorenzo
which is obviously affected and—’ she paused before what she clearly considered her trump card, ‘it was obvious that his wife hated her even more than Mummy. Wives always know,
you know—’

‘Oh, do stop saying everything is obvious! Laurence, or whatever he’s called, is married, Mercedes is a Catholic
(she
calls him Lorenzo, by the way, so it wasn’t
Mummy’s idea) and
your
mother stopped doing her hair in that funny bun and made masses of puddings with Carnation milk because she knows he loves sweet things. It’s six of one
and half a dozen of the other, so there’s nothing to stop you tackling your mother . . .’

‘All right, supposing they’re
both
in love with him. He looks quite foreign and unscrupulous enough to encourage that. Mummy said he was miserable with his wife because she
was perpetually jealous of everybody. I’ve noticed they were pretty sharp with each other.’

‘Who?’

‘Jessica and Villy. I bet they’re jealous of each other. I mean really, Louise, you must see that it can lead to no good.’

‘Whatever I can see doesn’t seem to be my business. And it seems to me utterly unfair that just when I’m trying to start my own life, I have to start worrying about them. And
in a much
worse way
,’ she added.

‘How do you mean,
worse?’

‘Well, they’ve spent years simply worrying about things like have we cleaned our teeth, or done our homework, or stopped reading in bed when they’ve told us to. Now, according
to you, we’ve got to worry about whether our mothers are flirting with someone who’s married. Or worse. In some cases, much worse.’

‘What cases?’

‘Nothing.’

‘You mean like them having an affair? Twerpy Lorenzo kissing them and things like that? You don’t actually mean . . .’

But here, Nora’s voice was lowered to such an extent that Clary could not hear what she said, and no longer being able to hear made her feel slightly guilty about what she
had
heard. But if one wanted to be a novelist, it was essential to grasp any opportunity to know what might be going on. Two sisters being in love with the same man was certainly a pretty strong idea,
particularly if everyone concerned was already married. What baffled her was the way people’s lives never seemed to reach any conclusion at
all
; after all, if these aunts, at their
advanced stage in life, were going about falling in love with an unsuitable person (and come to that, who
could
be suitable? It was the general idea that was embarrassing, rather than
who
they might fall in love with), when could one ever say, well,
that
person has got their life arranged and all they have to do is go on with it. It made the whole idea of
heroines being young and all that rather silly. Supposing her dad fell in love with someone else while he was away? According to all that she had just heard, this was perfectly possible. The next
thing she ought to do was to fall in love with someone, so that she would have a better idea of what it felt like. The trouble was that she didn’t meet anyone, and the idea of mooning about
being in love with Teddy or Christopher, the only boys remotely old enough, seemed hopeless: she didn’t even like Teddy much, as he talked nowadays about nothing but aeroplanes and different
kinds of gun and beating people at games. A much older man might be a better bet. She considered the older men that she knew, but either they were related, which she knew from dogs was bad for
breeding, or – Tonbridge, Wren, McAlpine and Mr York each appeared to her, like ‘Wanted’ photographs in a police station – definitely not wanted by
her
, and that
seemed to be that. Perhaps one could
practise
on a relative. But when she thought about the uncles, apart from them being too ordinary and well known to her for any serious romance, they
weren’t about enough any more. Dad was the only one who seemed to her worth it and she needed him as a father. The thought of Dad made her feel instantly homesick for him, and she decided to
write to him instead of struggling on with Zoë’s portrait.

Now, what shall I do? she thought. She decided on a prowl about to see if she could find anyone doing something that she would want to do with them. It was pretty hopeless. Aunt Rach – the
best bet – was in London with the Brig and wouldn’t be back until six. She
could
do her homework – an essay on Queen Elizabeth’s attitude towards religious
toleration plus some algebra which she simply loathed – or she could do her weeding stint for the week – two hours spent however the Duchy or McAlpine dictated – or go to
Watlington with Polly to get more khaki wool for the mufflers they were knitting (everybody was knitting; Zoë for her baby who now had millions too many clothes, Clary thought, and even Miss
Milliment was struggling with a scarf but she was simply hopeless – it was full of holes from dropped stitches and not even straight at the sides, but she didn’t seem to notice).

The prowl didn’t yield much. Zoë was lying down, Ellen was ironing, the Duchy was in the greenhouse potting up tomato plants, and Wren was on a ladder outside whitewashing the panes
in the roof and making the whistling sound between his teeth as though he was grooming a horse. You couldn’t do anything with
him
: he talked all the time until anyone was there when
he stopped saying a single word. The panes were all streaky because it wasn’t his job. She wandered to the kitchen as lunch – macaroni cheese and stewed prunes – had been ages ago
and she was hungry. Tonbridge was in the pantry cleaning out a decanter with shot and Mrs Cripps seemed to be helping him. A plate of flapjacks lay on the draining board looking completely
delicious. She asked if she could possibly have one. Mrs Cripps pushed the plate towards her and then told her to run along. She went and sat on the stairs in the hall to eat it – very slowly
– as though it would be her last meal on earth. War is boring, she thought, even Polly must be getting bored with it, which reminded her that she hadn’t seen Polly since lunch.

In the end, she found her in the day nursery playing with Wills, patiently building card houses which he knocked down with one careless swipe. The nursery had their old gramophone in it and it
was playing ‘The Teddy Bears’ Picnic’. Lydia, who was holding Roland under his arms in an effort to make him stand, said ‘Look at Roly walking!’ while his legs, clad
in knitted boots, helplessly brushed the ground and he smiled with benign appreciation at every card crash. One side of his face was tomato-coloured, the other pale rose, and a heavy swag of
dribble swung to and fro as he turned his head. Clary watched hopelessly. Soon Zoë would have one of these and she would be expected to love it.

‘It’s extraordinary how awful and unattractive they are,’ she said to Polly after they had managed to escape on the lying grounds that they had to do something for the Duchy.
Lydia, who had wanted to come with them as usual, had been placated by Ellen who promised to let her push the pram.

‘I mean, puppies, and kittens, and foals, and even new little birds don’t look so disgusting. I don’t know why people have to start so fat and swampy. If I had one, I’d
want to send it to kennels or a hospital or something until it got human. And they really only seem to like smashing things up, so it isn’t even as though they have nice natures.’