Marking Time (40 page)

‘We really should have lemonade,’ she said. ‘Such a pity there are no lemons.’

‘Wills and Roly and Juliet won’t know what a lemon is, will they?’ Lydia remarked; she very much enjoyed not being in the youngest echelon. ‘“The answer is a
lemon” won’t mean anything to them, will it?’

‘It will mean more,’ Neville said. ‘Because it will mean nothing.’ There were cucumber sandwiches and flapjacks for tea; Simon counted the flapjacks and worked out that
he’d be lucky if he got two. At the appropriate moment, he started going round asking people very gently if they were going to want their flapjack. This paid off, because Zoë
didn’t want hers; on the other hand, his aunt had given a piece to Wills, who having tried it, was now busily burying it in a flower bed – a ghastly waste. Babies were so stupid
sometimes that he was ashamed of ever having been one, although he was sure he’d never been as idiotic as that. Polly lay on the lawn beside her father. ‘What
are
piles?’
she was asking. ‘They’re things Ellen keeps on saying you have to be careful not to get, but she won’t say what they are.’

‘They’re rude – that’s why,’ Neville said at once. When nobody denied this, he improvised, ‘They’re little pointed lumps you get on your bottom so that
when you sit down they dig into you. They
may
have ants inside them. Yes. Kind of ant heaps in people.’ He turned to Lydia. ‘You know all about bottoms. Tell them.’

‘I don’t.’ Lydia wriggled uncomfortably.

‘You do. I told you.’

There was a short silence. Then Lydia, unable to resist being appealed to for information, said, ‘B U G G E R. You mean that?’

‘I don’t think we want to hear anything about that, Lydia,’ Villy said as severely as she could manage. She resolved to discover what went on in the blue room in the evenings:
perhaps Neville was getting a bit old to share a room with a girl.

Another match finished. ‘Your backhand’s got much better, Teddy,’ his father said, and Teddy glowed and looked casual.

‘Has it?’ he said, as though this had happened unknown to him.

‘White chrysanths,’ the Duchy said, ‘a lovely early variety. I do adore them.’

‘They smell of bonfires, foreign bonfires,’ Clary said after sniffing them.

‘I think they smell of frightened mice,’ Neville said to crush her.

‘He’s missing his father,’ Villy murmured to Jessica.

The air-raid warning sounded, but nobody took much notice. The players just coming off the court wanted tea, and there was no hot water left.

‘Come on, Poll,’ Hugh said, getting to his feet. ‘Let’s you and I go and get it.’

Almost before they reached the house, they heard the droning of planes – it sounded like a great many of them.

Polly said, ‘I expect they’re ours?’ but her father did not seem to have heard her. Coming out of the house again with the jugs of hot water, they saw the planes, wave upon
wave of them, flying very high, and glinting in the sun, all heading purposefully in the same direction. Polly, watching her father watch them, said, ‘Are they Germans?’

And Hugh, without taking his eyes off them, said: ‘Bombers.’

‘Well, they’re not going to bomb
us
, are they?’

‘No, not here.’

The noise had increased – the whole sky seemed to be vibrating – but the planes were so high that it was a distant, rather than a deafening sound.

Hugh said, ‘You take the water, Poll,’ and went into the house.

She met Uncle Edward on her way back to the terrace.

‘Where’s your father?’

‘He went back into the house.’

When she reached the others she heard Teddy saying, ‘Well, if they
are
heading for London, I should think they’ll flatten the whole place – there must be thousands of
them.’

‘Not thousands, Teddy.’

‘Oh, well, Mum, you know what I mean. There’s still more coming over. A wizard number. Where’s Dad gone? He’s got the list of who’s to play next.’

Villy said a trifle wearily, ‘He’s probably gone to telephone Hendon to see if they want him back.’

He had, of course, but they said, no, no need, it didn’t look as though they were the target. But Hugh, desperately trying to reach the hospital, simply could not get through.

The day had been an extraordinary mixture – certainly a day of the kind that neither of them had ever spent before. It had begun with an affectionate quarrel about Sid
using her entire bacon ration for their breakfast – two rashers each – but she won, and they had tomatoes and fried bread as well.

‘I should have brought my ration book,’ Rachel said as they lit their first cigarettes of the day.

‘Nonsense! I mostly eat at the canteen anyway. I’d never be bothered to do bacon for myself.’ She felt her tiredness from lack of sleep dissolving from the pure happiness at
the prospect of their day together. ‘The great question. What would you like to do?’

‘National Gallery concert?’

‘I’m afraid they don’t have them on Saturdays.’

‘Well, I have to do some shopping. I need a warm suit – tweed or something. And I wanted to buy you your birthday shirt. And I ought to go and see Sybil. She doesn’t have Hugh
at weekends.’

That was the first – then – very small cloud. She said, ‘I don’t have you in the week
or
at weekends. This is our time, isn’t it?’

‘Yes. Let’s go out to lunch somewhere posh after shopping and it is going to be
my
lunch after eating all your bacon. Then we can see what we feel like.’

Unsure whether this meant that the visit to Sybil was off, or at the least, unlikely, she dropped the subject.

Ordinarily she hated shopping, but not with Rachel. The pleasure of helping her choose, of sitting on a small gilt chair at Debenham and Freebody while Rachel paraded in various suits was
intense. Eventually with a blue-grey Donegal tweed long jacket and box-pleated skirt packed in a beautiful box, they returned to the car and drove to Jermyn Street and Rachel chose her shirt to
give Sid – brown and coffee-coloured striped silk – and then Rachel found the perfect tobacco silk tie to go with it.

‘Darling, it’s a very expensive place. I don’t think you should give me a tie as well.’

‘Of course I shall. The Brig gives me such a generous dress allowance, and I haven’t spent any money for ages.’

The thought that it was the Brig who was indirectly responsible for these things was faintly depressing. Ideas like ‘They pay her to stay at home. They’ve made her utterly
dependent’ occurred. She dismissed them quickly as unfair and nonsense. Of
course
Rachel had to have some money: nobody could exist without any at all; she was unreasonable to have
such a qualm. ‘Let’s buy you things now,’ she said. But getting Rachel to spend money on herself, beyond the most extreme necessities, proved almost impossible. Rachel refused to
buy herself a shirt: she really did not need one, she said. She agreed to get a jumper to go with the suit, and they walked up Burlington Arcade for that. Then she would not buy a cashmere,
‘Oh, no, darling, I’ve never had one of those – they’re fearfully expensive,’ and chose instead a lambswool twin-set, jumper and cardigan, in a clear forget-me-not
blue. ‘Do you think it will go with my suit?’

‘Sure to.’ It matched her eyes, Sid thought.

Rachel also wanted some new bedroom slippers: ‘My old ones are exactly the shape of very old broad beans.’

When it came to lunch, Rachel said that one of Edward’s favourite places was Bentley’s, which was within walking distance, and they both liked fish, so they went there. Rachel made
Sid have lobster as she knew it was her favourite thing and she had a plain grilled sole; they drank half a bottle of hock and were utterly happy. Sid had to help Rachel about tipping, and it was
then that she realised that Rachel had never taken anyone out to a restaurant meal before in her life. ‘I’m awfully bad at sums,’ she said, ‘so although it must be very bad
form, I shall have to tell you the bill.’ They were the only two women lunching; there were the usual pairs of people, and men on their own, but no other ones or twos of women, and Sid
noticed that people looked at them – talked about them – smiled to each other, and then studiously
avoided
looking at them, but she did not think that Rachel noticed this at
all. Her attention was so happily fixed upon Sid that she did not even finish her sole, ‘It was enormous’, and once, when Sid said how much she was enjoying the treat, Rachel reached
out and took her hand (it was then that Sid became uncomfortably aware of people eyeing them), but she would not reject any gesture of affection from her love and clasped the hand held out to her
with conscious bravado. It was another small cloud, but she kept it to herself.

The trouble began when, walking back to the car, Rachel asked Sid to drop her at Sybil’s hospital. ‘And if we see a flower shop, I’ll just nip in and buy something to
take.’

‘What will you do then?’

‘Oh, I’ll get a bus and join you at home.’

‘I’ll wait for you.’

‘Don’t. It’ll worry me thinking of you hanging about.’

‘Have you told her you’re coming?’

‘No. I wasn’t sure whether I could.’

‘And now you are?’

‘Well, there’s no reason not to. We haven’t anything special to do.’

‘Couldn’t you go tomorrow? Early evening – before you catch your train? I have to be on duty at six.’

‘No, I promised them I’d catch an afternoon train and be back in time to read to the Brig before dinner.’

‘You never told me that.’

‘I’m sure I did. I said I had to get back on Sunday.’

She simply did not understand, Sid thought. No, she did not. Listen to her now.

‘Poor Syb has had such an awful time. It is a very small thing to pay her a visit. It would be horribly selfish not to. Surely you can see that?’

‘And it would also be selfish
not
to read to the Brig for once – just once, in order that we could have more time together?’

Rachel looked at her, her forehead puckering. ‘Of course it would.’

Sid burst out, ‘Well, I wish to God it would be unselfish to see
me
. But I suppose it will never be that until your parents are dead!’

There was a dead silence. Then Rachel, her voice distant and trembling, said, ‘What a really awful thing to say.’

Resisting wildly the desire to apologise, to sweep it all away with remorse, Sid said, ‘But you only want to do things that you feel you ought to do – for other people. You never do
anything for yourself.’

Still distant, Rachel answered, ‘Why should I? I have a wonderful life. And I happen to love my parents very much.’

They did not speak after that – all the way up Regent Street to Portland Place and thence down New Cavendish Street to the hospital. There was a small flower stall outside the main door.
Rachel got out. ‘I’ll be back about five,’ she said.

Sid watched her choose a bunch of roses and walk through the large entrance. She drove a few yards further on, and then she stopped the car, turned off the engine and wept.

It was nearly two hours before Rachel emerged. During that time Sid had finished crying, had smoked eight cigarettes, had told herself that she had been quite right, that she was able to
confront things and that Rachel was the coward – the dependant – the one who would risk nothing. She told herself that Rachel was
naturally
loving and unselfish. She told
herself that it was
she
who was spoiling their short time together – by jealousy, by being possessive, by getting at poor Rachel about what she clearly conceived to be her duty . . .
She remembered Rachel saying, ‘I always enjoy everything I do with you.’ It was not that Rachel did not love her: ‘I’d rather be with you than with anyone in the
world,’ she had once said, an old bone that Sid kept safely buried, but could always dig up for comfort. It was she who failed abysmally to make the best of what she had got; she was greedy
and bad-tempered and possessive. By the time Rachel reappeared, she was entirely the villain of the piece.

‘You shouldn’t have waited!’

‘I wanted to. Forgive me for being such a beast.’

‘You weren’t a beast. It’s all right, really.’

She took Rachel’s hand and kissed it. ‘I’m so sorry. It’s wonderful to have you at all.’

And Rachel smiled, and screwed up her eyes and leaned over and kissed her, and said, ‘Sorry I sulked.’

‘No, no – it was
all
me. All of it.’

‘I was thinking. Why don’t we go to a theatre tonight?’

‘Lovely idea. We’ll get an
Evening Standard
at Baker Street.’

Then they talked about Sybil, about whom she asked with all the concern that she would, in any other circumstances, always have displayed.

‘She’s still very weak, poor darling, and
longing
to come home. But she doesn’t want to be a nuisance. And she thinks Hugh wants her to stay in the hospital longer,
but is trying to get her out because he thinks she wants to.’

‘It does sound complicated.’

‘I know. But married people always have their jungle paths.
They
know them, but they always sound funny to outsiders.’