Marking Time (58 page)

Edward woke early with the unnaturally bright feeling that meant, he knew, that he had a hangover. It was the hooch that he’d had to buy in the Coconut Grove. And then
when you had been made to buy a whole bottle, you drank more than you usually would because, dammit, you’d paid for the stuff in the first place. He’d taken Diana dancing, because the
poor girl got very little fun stuck away in the country with that po-faced sister-in-law and Jamie, now an exhausting three-year-old. But he’d been tired at the beginning of the evening: he
had just started back at the wharf and was confounded by the mess they were in there. In the best part of a
year
, Hugh hadn’t succeeded in getting the second sawmill working. It was
true that the Blitz had wreaked havoc, and one shed had been decimated, but all the same . . . Orders were pouring in for hardwoods, for which they were justly famous, but they had to be able to
cut the veneers. The machinery hadn’t been too badly damaged, but Hugh had made the terrible mistake of leaving everything exactly as the Blitz had left it so that the damage assessors could
see exactly what had happened. Which was no bloody good if you left expensive machinery without adequate protection from the winter elements. It was no good blaming the poor old boy; what with his
anxiety about Sybil, and the fact that he had none of the family to support him – except Rachel who, after all, knew nothing at all about the business, but was wonderful with the staff
– he had had far too much on his plate. He was obstinate at the best of times, but in the past he and the Old Man had been able to steamroller things when it was really necessary. But what
worried him now was that alongside the obstinacy, Hugh had become frighteningly indecisive – more like dear old Rupe. He kept saying he’d think about it when any decision had to be
made, and two days later nothing at all would have happened, and Edward found himself having to nag. The result was that everything was in a muddle: the accounts department was a shambles since
Stevens had been called up; their crane was always breaking down because Hugh hadn’t bullied the manufacturers for new parts – in horribly short supply, anyway. Their lorries were in a
bad way too. Several of them needed replacing, but there was a fat chance of that and, again, the chap who’d been so incredibly good at repairing the engines had been killed last autumn in
the Blitz. The fire-watching was a nightmare. It meant that, in succession, blokes who had worked all day got no sleep at night. The paperwork had trebled since ninety per cent of their business
was now Government orders. He’d almost wished at the end of yesterday that he
had
been driving down with Hugh for a nice quiet, undemanding evening. But he felt guilty about Diana,
whom he sensed was relying on him more and more. That husband of hers had become a paratrooper and had not had any leave for months.

As Diana’s flat had been bombed, they had gone in the end to Lansdowne Road – officially shut now, but still containing basic furniture. He knew she disliked going there, but a hotel
was a bit risky. Ever since that awful evening with Louise he had felt pretty windy about being seen in the wrong place at the wrong time with Diana. A night club was one thing – nearly
everyone he knew went to them and usually with somebody they weren’t married to since families were so separated by the war – but an hotel was another.

She was fast asleep beside him. Dinner had been fine. There had been oysters, a most welcome addition to their five-shilling meal, and they were given real butter with their bread. ‘I know
one chap’, he had said, ‘who asks for a roll, and scoops out all the middle of it and fills it with all the butter on the table and shuts it up again and takes it home for
breakfast.’

‘Isn’t it awfully embarrassing being watched doing it? By waiters and people?’

‘He doesn’t seem to care a damn.’

‘I must say,’ Diana had said, ‘Goering is the wrong
shape
to have made that remark about guns or butter. He does look as though he gets
all
the
butter—’

‘And we get all the guns. Darling! Were you very upset about your flat?’

‘Oh, well, in a way, you know. It was home. Although I never liked it much. It did have all my things in it. I feel as though I’ve been camping for years.’

‘Is Isla still as stiff as ever?’

‘Exactly as stiff. The archetypal sister-in-law. She feels that there must be something really juicy to disapprove of about me, but she hasn’t found out what.’

‘I can’t think how anyone could disapprove of you.’

‘She could, darling. And you’re the really juicy thing. Actually, I don’t know if I can stay there much longer.’

‘Does Angus want you to go to his parents, then?’

‘Oh, he always wants that. But I simply couldn’t
bear
it. Their ghastly Victorian sub-castle is freezing cold even in August, and now they’ve gone teetotal because of
the war.’

‘Good God!’ He was shocked. ‘What’s that supposed to do?’

‘They feel it’s patriotic.’ She shrugged. ‘Anyway, it’s a useful place for the older boys for holidays. I have to go up then, or I’d never see them. Isla, as
you know, hasn’t got room for all of us.’

That was the first mention she had made of not staying with Isla, but it hadn’t seemed particularly important. After dinner, they went to Regent Street, to the Coconut Grove. They were
early: it was only about eleven and they parked right outside.

‘Whisky or gin?’ he had said when they were presented with this choice.

‘Gin, I think.’

He ordered a bottle and several tonics, but the gin, when it came, tasted so foul that they decided to add some lime juice instead, and have soda instead of tonic. This took ages to arrive, so
they danced. Holding her was a pleasure, both familiar and exciting. She was wearing a violet-coloured dress that, although
he
had not noticed it, matched her eyes; the crêpe clung
to her splendid big-boned body and revealed just the right amount of her handsome breasts. They danced slowly to ‘All The Things You Are’. ‘My promised breath of
springtime,’ he hummed and smiled down into her eyes, and she glowed.

At the end of the dance, she took his hand, and said, ‘Oh, darling! I’m so happy.’

‘I’m always happy when I’m with you,’ he answered. Their soda water and lime had still not arrived, and he called a waiter to say this, but neither of them felt this
mattered as much as he had told the waiter it did. They sipped their gin and tonic; she made a face, and said, ‘It might just make us pass out.’

‘Simultaneously, two enormous ninepins,’ he said. ‘They wouldn’t like that at all.’

They smoked and watched the other dancers, and soon picked out a very young couple – a guardsman – and a tall, rather ungainly red-haired girl dressed in white. ‘A sort of
Queen Charlotte’s Ball dress,’ Diana said. But what made them watch, what was striking about them, was that they were so madly in love – could not take their eyes off each other,
were scarcely moving on the floor. They were misty-eyed, intoxicated with desire for one another; very occasionally, he bent his head and his lips brushed her white shoulder and she half closed her
eyes, and then they looked at each other again and he would hold her closer.

‘Very touching,’ Edward said; he
was
touched.

‘Poor darlings,’ Diana said. ‘I bet they have nowhere to go.’

‘Surely, if they really want to, he’ll find somewhere.’

She shook her head. ‘They’re too young. And too well brought up. I expect he’s asked her to marry him, and her parents have told them to wait until she’s older. Even
though he may be killed.’

‘Do you think we should ask them if they’d like to go back to Lansdowne Road?’

‘Of course not. I just feel sorry for them – that’s all.’ There was a pause, and then she said, ‘
We
’re not going back there, are we?’

‘ ’Fraid so. Darling, I know it’s not very comfortable, but it is private.’

‘You mean nobody except your wife might find us?’

‘I swear she’s in the country. I swear she won’t turn up.’

‘But I want to talk to you,’ she said with apparent inconsequence.

‘Talk away.’

‘Not here. It’s serious. I’ve got to come to some decision.’

When he simply looked at her enquiringly, she said, with the faintest impatience, ‘I have sort of told you already. I can’t stay much longer with Isla.’

He couldn’t see why this was something she couldn’t talk about there and then, but knew it would be unwise to say so.

‘Well, shall we consider going back?’

When they left, the young couple were still on the floor, entranced. They had not stopped dancing at all except on the brief occasion when the band had a short rest.

‘He can’t hold her in his arms if they are sitting at a table,’ Diana said, as they went out.

Lansdowne Road, although possible as a place to sleep, was definitely no longer a place to have an intimate talk. There was nowhere to be, really, except in bed in his dressing
room. The rest of the house had been shut up for so long that it seemed full of dust and cold, dead air.

‘Aren’t you living here in the week?’ Diana asked as he told her to wait in the hall while he turned on the electricity.

‘No, I’m with Hugh. It seemed stupid to keep two houses open, and the old boy is fearfully lonely. There.’

But the light only showed up the desolation. They went, without speaking, upstairs.

‘Oh, damn! I should have turned on the gas as well,’ he said.

By the time he had done that, had lit the gas fire and found some linen for the bed, which she made, there was a feeling of tension between them. She sat before the fire, huddled in her skunk
jacket.

‘Like a drink?’

‘No, thanks.’

‘Well, I think I’ll have one.’

He kept a flask of whisky in his overcoat pocket, in case of air raids and generally being stuck somewhere. The tooth glass had a rim of dried toothpaste; the last time he’d stayed here
had been weeks ago, that awful evening with Louise . . . he felt so ghastly when he thought about that, that most of the time he managed not to think about it at all. He rinsed the glass, poured
himself a tot and added water.

‘Wouldn’t we be comfier in bed?’ he said, and immediately sensed that that was quite the wrong thing to say. ‘What did you want to talk about, darling?’

‘I don’t know that I want to
talk
about it,’ she answered at once. ‘I just want to
tell
you, I suppose. I think I’m having a baby.’

‘Oh, Lord!’

‘In fact, I’m certain I am. So you see my problem.’

He didn’t at all. ‘Sorry, darling, I’m being rather dense.’

‘Isla will know it isn’t Angus’s.’ Then, as though she knew he would ask why, she said, ‘I haven’t set eyes on him since the beginning of the summer holidays.
He joined us at Duninald for a couple of days. And now we’re nearly into November. I’m between two and three months gone.’

‘My God! I
do
see. You can’t tell her you saw Angus in London – something like that?’

‘They write to each other
regularly
. She’d find out at once. If Angus found out, he’d divorce me like a shot.’

‘Is there anything you can
do
about it?’

‘You mean, have an abortion? Where? Don’t forget, I’ve been tucked away in the country, I’m completely out of touch,
I
don’t know anybody.’

‘I could try and – ask around – you know – there must be someone.’

‘I don’t want any little backstreet butcher mucking me up,’ she said bitterly. ‘They’re my insides, not yours.’

‘Darling, I’m only trying to help. We’re both married. I don’t see what else there is to do.’

‘Don’t you? I suppose there isn’t anything.’ She began to cry.

He put his arm round her and felt for his handkerchief. At the same time the scenario of her having the baby, getting divorced from Angus, and his telling Villy and getting a divorce from her
coursed through his mind and he shrank from it. It would take years and be terrible the whole time; he doubted whether they could survive it. At the same time,
not
doing any of that was
leaving Diana in the lurch. The thought of being married to her recurred. If only he’d met her years ago! He couldn’t start disrupting everything
now
, in the middle of a war,
and Roly only two, he really couldn’t. But he seemed to be in a position where there
wasn’t
a decent thing he could do. Comfort the poor girl, he could do that. He stroked her,
and murmured words of love, said he couldn’t bear to see her cry, made her drink some of his whisky, and she
did
stop crying – he could see she had made an effort to do that
– and it touched him. He undressed her; he wasn’t very good at it, clumsy with her bra hooks, but she helped him in the end. In bed, he made love to her as unselfishly as he knew how
and, funnily enough, this made him love her more. Afterwards they talked for hours and finished the whisky. In the end he got round to saying that he knew that Villy’s sister must have found
someone, as her daughter got in the family way not long ago, and it was dealt with. ‘And that chap’s bound to be all right or she wouldn’t have let Angela go to him,’ he
said.