Marking Time (67 page)

There was a knock on the door and it was a child telling her it was lunch-time. The child was Lydia.

‘Thank you, Louise dear,’ she said.

‘She ought to
know
I’m not Louise, because I don’t wear lipstick,’ Lydia said to herself, as, there being no one looking, she slid down the banisters to the
hall.

Edward and Hugh drove down together. Diana, rather to Edward’s relief, had gone to Scotland to spend a lugubrious Christmas with her parents-in-law. She had, of course,
taken Jamie, and the older boys would be joining her when they broke up. It did simplify things – temporarily.

‘I suppose this will be just the weekend when Goering will arrange another nice little blitz.’

‘I know, that’s why I thought we’d better take the car. One of us can get back if need be. Unlikely, though. I think they’ve got their hands full. They’re not doing
so well on the Russian front, are they? Do you remember how bloody cold it was in the trenches? A Russian winter must be twice as bad. And a lot of the time we weren’t even trying to
advance.’

‘It always seems amazing to me,’ Hugh said, ‘that Napoleon got as far as he did. How the hell did they even feed the horses – let alone the men?’

‘Dunno, old boy. I should think they ate the horses.’

‘I must say, though, I preferred being frozen to the awful thaw and all that mud – and stench.’

‘At Hendon,’ Edward said, ‘I never told you, but they brought a crashed German bomber, and when I went into it, the smell was exactly the same as when one went into a German
trench. The same sweet smell – entirely different from ours – my God, it took me back.’

‘I remember that. Sausage, garlic, cigarettes, latrines . . .’

‘I suppose we smelled just as different to them.’

They had crossed the river and were threading their way through streets of terraced houses, gaps in them where there were heaps of rubble and parts of walls with torn wallpaper, and sometimes
lavatory cisterns and fireplaces still intact.

‘London’s getting pretty shabby,’ Edward remarked. ‘It’s funny to think that there are cities lit up with all the buildings untouched. I’ve always wanted to
go to New York.’

‘I don’t. I just want London back like it was. But if the Americans go to war with Japan—’

‘You think they will?’

‘I think Japan is determined that they should. God knows why.’

‘If they do, it means we’ll have the Americans on our side.’

‘Roosevelt doesn’t want war with Japan.’

‘Surely
we
don’t want war with Japan? We’ve got enough on our plate as it is.’

‘But it would be a help to have the Americans sharing the plate with us,’ Hugh said. Some time later he asked, ‘Do you still want to go back into the RAF?’

‘Well, yes, but I don’t think it’s practicable. The firm really needs the two of us. Managing the Old Man is a half-time job. The older he gets, the more he seems to want to
interfere in everything.’

‘He
is
going to be eighty-one any minute. And we wouldn’t have the best stock of hardwoods in the country if it wasn’t for him. Remember how we used to argue about him
buying too much?’

‘I do. I just wish he’d make a proper job of retiring, bless his heart.’

‘Well, he won’t. I’ll be glad if you don’t go back. I need you.’

Edward, glancing sideways, thought how very much older his brother had got in the last year.

‘It’s marvellous that Sybil is getting better,’ he said.

Hugh was silent. He didn’t hear, Edward thought, and then he thought, of course he did. He looked quickly at Hugh again. He was fumbling with his cigarettes – balancing the packet
against his stump, so that he could pull one out.

‘No – she’s in remission,’ he said flatly. ‘Her doctor told me it often happens.’

‘Dear old boy! Does she know?’

‘I don’t think so. No,’ he repeated, ‘I’m pretty sure she doesn’t.’

Edward found he couldn’t speak. He took a hand from the steering wheel and touched Hugh’s rigid shoulder. They did not talk at all for a long time after that.

‘Well,’ said Clary as they trudged with their torches, some time after dinner, in the dark to the squash court. ‘What did you think?’

‘About what?’

‘The guests, stupid. I thought Mrs Clutterworth looked as though everything that she didn’t like had happened to her.’

‘She did look rather broody. Of course, not being English, it’s hard to tell. She might be just homesick for her native land, wherever that may be.’

‘She’s Spanish.’

‘She didn’t
look
Spanish. But actually,’ Polly added truthfully, ‘I don’t know what Spanish people look like – except in pretty old paintings. She
liked Uncle Edward.’

‘But she kept on watching Lorenzo. Laurence he’s really called. I noticed Aunt Villy called him that. Lorenzo must be a secret joke between her and Aunt Jessica. What did you think
of him?’

‘I simply can’t imagine
anyone
being in love with him.’ Then she remembered them on the train. ‘But I suppose some people have to be in love with the unlikely
ones. But his teeth stick out, and his hair’s all greasy and he has a red mark between his eyes when he takes off his spectacles.’

‘The Duchy liked him,’ Clary remarked.

‘The Duchy likes talking about music. Anyway, let’s get on to the other one.’

‘The famous Michael Hadleigh?’

They had reached the squash court, Polly unlocked the door and they were assailed by the odour of warm rubber balls and tennis shoes. They climbed up the stairs to the gallery where their beds
had been placed by Christopher that afternoon. They still had to use their torches because the blackout wasn’t much good.

‘Well,’ Polly said, ‘he wasn’t one thing or another, was he? I mean, he wasn’t quite one of
them
, and he certainly wasn’t one of us.’

‘Wasn’t he sort of in between – like Louise?’

‘Not quite. Louise was acting frightfully grown up, and he was treating her as though she was a terribly clever child.’

‘Patronising her!’ Clary snorted. ‘Catch me being in love with anyone who did that!’

‘She got bored when he talked about the war. Which he did, rather a lot, I thought. But then he went off with Louise after dinner.’

‘She took him to see Archie.’

‘Well, I bet that was only partly what they did. I bet she found some nice dark corner so that he could kiss her.’

‘Do you really?’

‘She took him to see our room.’

‘She did that before dinner.’

‘Well, she took him afterwards as well. I must say,’ Clary said pensively, ‘this would be a ghastly house to be in love in. There’s nowhere to be with the person at
all.’

‘And I suppose one needs to be.’

‘Of course. It’s because people in love say such idiotic things to each other that they’d be afraid of other people laughing.’

‘How on earth do you know that?’

‘Think of Gerald du Maurier in
Punch
. “Darling!” “Yes, darling.” “Nothing, darling. Only darling, darling!”’

‘I honestly don’t think people go on like that nowadays!’

‘The modern equivalent. Listen! Is that her?’

They listened, but there was no sound of Louise, due to join them at some point.

‘Do you think he wants to marry her?’

‘She wouldn’t be allowed: she’s too young.’

‘If she did, we could be bridesmaids.’

‘I don’t want to be a bridesmaid!’ Clary said with vigour.

‘Well, I do.’

‘Oh, well, you’d look nice and everything. You know how silly I look in tidy clothes. After the war I shall go abroad because I’ve never been. Archie said I could stay with
him.’ She fell silent suddenly, and Polly knew that she was thinking about her father.

‘I want to say something to you, Clary,’ she said. ‘I know
you
know that the family all think he’s dead. I’m afraid I think that as well. What I wanted to
say was I do
admire
your faith about it. Whatever happens, I shall always admire it. It’s the most faithful thing I’ve ever known.’

After a silence, Clary said, ‘How did you know I was thinking about him?’

‘I think I always know.’

‘I do – every day. And in the evenings as well. But I’ve stopped talking about it, because everybody else has run out of things to say. Even Archie.’

‘Yes.’

‘Good night, Poll. Thanks for what you said.’

Much later, and long after they were asleep, Louise joined them.

‘I still do not understand why we are
here.’

‘They asked us, darling.’

‘And who is they?’

‘Viola. Edward’s wife. They have asked us before, you remember.’

‘I remember with perfect clearness. I still do not know why.’

There was a pause while she unclipped her painful earrings and began to unpin her hair. ‘Viola is that woman Jessica’s sister, is she not?’

‘Mercy darling, you
know
that. I thought you would like a little social life. It was an excellent dinner, didn’t you think?’

‘It was certainly good,’ she conceded. ‘And Mr – Edward – was a very nice man.’

‘Mercy!’ He ruffled her hair with an attempt at lightness. ‘I expect he was charmed by you. But I must warn you, he is in love with his wife.’

‘Is that so?’

‘It is so. As I am in love with mine.’ He put everything he could into that, and watched her dark eyes soften at the idea. ‘To bed! To bed!’ he cried, with all the
fervour he could muster.

‘You know,’ she began, ‘that I would not dream of looking at another man. I am not made in that way.’

‘Of course I know.’ He had heard it all before – a thousand times. The thing was to get her to bed before she started to compare her nature with his – to his serious
disadvantage. ‘I do not wish to wait,’ he said.

‘You would not come here if you were serious about
her?’

‘My darling, I haven’t the least idea who you mean, and I told you, her husband is in love with her. I am hardly the type to wish a duel.’

‘Oh ho! So it is both of them that is on your list? I am not to be deceived.’ She was away – and twenty minutes later, he was out of love with Jessica, with Villy, and more
dangerously, with her. It took hours for her to vent her jealousy, forgive him, and then persuade him to make love to her. He liked the attention, so in the end he was able to do so.