Crooked Heart (24 page)

‘Someone gave me a Chinese burn.'

‘You should have clocked him one.'

‘He'd have beaten me senseless. Why didn't you clock Donald's fiancée one?'

Vee imagined the whirl of fists, teeth, nails.

‘Ditto,' she said.

A lorry rumbled past, canvas flapping at the back to reveal a double row of soldiers, swaying in their sleep.

‘So do I have to go somewhere else now?' asked Noel; there was no expression in his voice, but his face looked oddly stiff.

‘I told you,' said Vee, sharply, ‘that I was going to look after you. We're both going somewhere else.' She saw his face relax again.

‘I told you,' she repeated, more gently. ‘I wasn't lying.'

He nodded, diffidently. ‘So where are we going?'

‘How would you feel if we left St Albans?'

‘I'd cheer,' he said, instantly.

‘Good.'

‘I'd hang bunting. I'd hire a brass band. I'd get one of those sky-writing aeroplanes to leave a message.' He pictured the words GOODBYE AND GET STUFFED MADELEY
hanging in mile-high smoke above the city. ‘I'd commission a statue of me hawking out of the train window as we left.'

Laughter caught in Vee's throat; it was painful, like a swallowed bone.

‘What's the matter?' asked Noel.

‘Nothing,' she said, dabbing her eyes.

‘You can be in the statue too,' he said.

‘Doing what?'

‘Waving graciously with a handkerchief over your nose, like the queen when she's driven through a slum.'

‘You have to listen,' she said, trying to steady herself. ‘This is serious. I've had half an idea but I need your brains for the other half. We have to work out where we're going to live and . . . and some other things as well. Complicated things.'

Noel cocked his head, waiting.

‘It's not . . .' she picked a careful path through the words. ‘It's not the sort of plan that you'd want to end up explaining in court.'

Noel felt a stir of excitement. ‘You mean it's legally wrong but morally right?'

There was a short pause.

‘Yes,' said Vee, with just a touch of uncertainty. ‘Want to hear it?'

 

5th March 1941

Dear Mr Churchill I'm sorry not to have dropped you a line since before Christmas, though you couldn't really call it Christmas, we had mutton followed by a box of fruit jellies that my second husband went all the way to Watford to buy. He has been unwell with shingles which he caught when fire-watching at the Conservative Club, so for him to go all the way from Harpenden to Watford was very kind, and it wasn't his fault that the box was water-damaged and we couldn't eat them.

Our minister (Methodist) said it was a chance to return to the true meaning of Christmas, but I know for a fact that his wife won two oranges and a tinned turkey roll in a raffle.

I won't keep you long as I am very busy as I'm sure are you.

 

         
1. I have been told by an old neighbour from St Albans that all those saucepans that were collected for making Spitfires last year are still in a big pile in that scrap-metal yard I told you about because they were selling stolen spoons. We're told on the wireless to boil down pigs heads and make jam etc but how can anyone do that when the only pan left in their second husband's kitchen is a great heavy iron pot like their own grandmother used in the days before electricity. I don't have the strength in my arms to even lift it so will have to carry on buying jam in the shops if I can get any. And the railings are the same, my neighbour says there's a great heap of them next to the pans. I wrote to the Ministry of Supply about it but they said anything to do with metal was the Ministry of Works so I wrote to the Ministry of Works but I had no reply which is why I'm writing to you
.

 

         
2. My second husband says well done about Abyssinia, but he says you need to pull your socks up about Greece. He was in Greece in the last war and he says you should know that they're a tricky bunch with no loyalty, and also malaria.

 

That's all for now, except I think the lack of pans is bad for morale and since it is against the law to Undermine Morale I think it could be a police matter. Speaking of which, my daughter Vera has not been seen or heard of since November and neither has her evacuee. The constable at the station said there is no evidence of a crime so won't do anything about it which is just typical.

Yours faithfully

Flora Brunton (note married name)

D
uring raids, they sat in the cellar, wrapped in blankets, and the war was reduced to the odd muffled thump. By the light of a hurricane lamp, Noel read aloud from a succession of Agatha Christie novels and Vee pictured every scene as happening in their current house, guests dropping dead in the bamboo-papered drawing room, Hercule Poirot picking his way down the lane, spats dusted with sand.

The house was dreadfully cold. They carried a Chinese screen down from the first-floor back bathroom and curled it around the kitchen hearth. During the day, Noel sat as close to the grate as possible and worked at his lessons. He had refused to go to school, even if they could find one still open.

‘How will you learn if you don't go to school?'

‘You can set me essays and areas of study the way that Mattie used to. I can get books out of the library.'

‘What sort of essays?'

‘Ones with a question mark in the title. Like “What is Freedom?” or “Is the Child the Father of the Man?” Discuss.'

‘Discuss?'

‘Yes. That's what you have to do in essays.'

‘And how do I mark something like that?'

‘Mattie didn't give marks, she just wrote comments.'

‘Yes, but . . .' Vee tried to think of another argument, but the
truth was that she didn't mind having him around during the day. She was still trying to get used to being Margery Overs; it was like wearing an old-fashioned jacket tailored for someone of an entirely different shape.

‘I can't be noticeable,' she said. ‘I have to look like your guardian.'

‘You can't.'

‘You know what I mean. I can't risk anyone asking questions. I have to be—'

‘Unobtrusive.'

‘Yes.'

It meant not arguing in shops, it meant walking at a measured pace instead of hurtling from one task to another, it meant not fidgeting in queues, or jumping into others' conversation or letting out long, irritated sighs, or barking with fury when the greengrocer leaned on the scales so that she ended up paying for a pound and a half of carrots and part of his elbow. It meant keeping her voice low and reasonable. By the time she got home, she had indigestion from all the unsaid remarks.

‘Try this for an essay title,' she said to Noel. ‘“Who Profits Most from the War? Nazis or Shopkeepers?” Discuss.'

They'd been there a month when there was a rap at the door.

‘Only a man selling firewood,' said Vee, returning to the kitchen. ‘It gave me a fright, hearing the knocker. Thought it was our marching orders.'

Noel looked up, eyes vague, mind still on the page. ‘What do you mean?'

‘We can't stay for ever, can we? It was a good idea to start off here, but people are getting bombed out, the landlord could cram this place with lodgers; he's bound to turn up sooner or later.'

‘But there isn't a landlord,' said Noel, as if stating the obvious. ‘It belonged to Mattie.'

‘You mean she
owned
it?'

‘Yes.'

‘What, all of it?'

‘Yes. How could she only have owned
some
of it?'

‘If she had a mortgage, Mr Knife.'

‘Well, she didn't have a mortgage. She bought it for sixteen hundred pounds in 1922.'

‘So who does it belong to now?'

Noel boggled at her as if she'd just asked him how to spell the word ‘bun'.

‘It belongs to me, of course.'

‘You?'

He nodded. ‘I'm the sole beneficiary. I actually went along with Mattie when she signed her will. The solicitor's quite a nice man, he looks rather the way that I imagine Mr Wemmick would look. You know – Jaggers' clerk,' he added, when Vee stayed silent. ‘In
Great Expectations
.'

She had to drink half a cup of tea before she could speak again, although what she really wanted was a large gin.

‘I suppose there'll be papers and things to sort out,' she said, more to herself than to Noel. ‘No hurry, though.'

After the war would do, she thought. Sufficient unto the day was the evil thereof. And the good.

While Noel worked at his books, she cleaned the house, room by room, taking her time about it. What she couldn't get over was the number of cherishable objects: china eggs that a damp cloth restored to brilliance; antique mirrors that reflected a softened, grey-green world; paintings – actual paintings, not prints. Every room contained something that she wanted to stroke, or hold.

That's what money got you, she thought: things that you wanted to touch.

The kitchen was less cherishable, the stove a dangerous antique, the larder full of mould and mouse droppings.

‘What?' asked Noel, when she screamed.

‘A dead mouse, I think.' She'd reached into a bread-crock right at the back of the larder and her fingertips had touched something soft. She brought the crock out into the light and tipped it on to a newspaper. A heavy cloth-wrapped bundle dropped out.

‘Oh,' said Noel, standing up so fast that his pen bounced across the room. ‘I know what that is. I'd forgotten about it.'

She let him open it. The cloth was a silk scarf, patterned with peacock feathers; inside was a tangle of jewellery, brooch pins protruding like booby-traps, a long rope of seed pearls binding the whole clump immovably together. It took the rest of the afternoon to untangle; Noel gave up after half an hour and slid back to his books but Vee sat on beside the window, gently teasing the elements apart. There were handfuls of rings, a garnet choker, a jet mourning brooch, a necklace that glittered coldly and shouted money. And then there was a medal, the ribbon a twist of green and purple, the silver disc bearing two illegible words. She scratched at the tarnish with a thumbnail and read:

MATILDA SIMPKIN

‘Your godmother's,' she said, holding it up for Noel to see. ‘And there's one of those Holloway brooches as well, with the portcullis. And the safety pin with the chip of stone.'

She stood up to get the pleats out of her back, and then went to fill the kettle. When she returned, Noel had laid the suffragette medals out next to each other on the window seat, like a display in a museum case.

‘They're all blackened,' he said.

‘We can polish them with lemon juice. If we can get some.'

‘Mattie was very proud of them.'

‘I'm sure she was,' said Vee.

He waited for the barb that came stitched to every comment that Vee made about Mattie, and when it didn't come he felt a curious sensation, like a key turning in his chest. It was almost like happiness, and so unexpected that he wanted, in some obscure way, to thank her.

‘I know that Mattie didn't ever have to worry about working, or being able to pay for things,' he offered, awkwardly.

‘Even so,' said Vee, ‘I couldn't have done what she did. Do you know, I've just remembered that vinegar's good for cleaning silver, and we've got some of that.'

The pins came up nicely.

‘I can't remember the last time I had fish and chips,' said Vee.

‘I found out where Mrs Gifford is,' said Noel. ‘When you were in the hospital, I copied out a list of asylums at the library, and I went to a telephone box and rang every number until I found her.'

She'd long since ceased to be surprised at his competence. ‘So where is she?'

‘Doulton Grange.'

‘Near Hatton in Hertfordshire?'

‘Yes. Do you know it?'

She nodded. Oh yes, she knew it: Samuel Sedge lying mute on a bed while she sat beside him, chattering with bright desperation.

‘Could we go there?' asked Noel.

‘It wouldn't be very nice. They're not nice places.'

‘I'd like to go.'

‘She might not even be talking. I don't suppose she'll recognize you.'

‘I don't mind.'

‘And it's not as if we ever got her pins back for her, is it?'

‘No, I know. But now I could give her these instead.'

‘
These?
But don't you want to keep them?'

‘Yes, I do, but I'd rather give them to Mrs Gifford.'

He looked at her, his expression mulish, and she could tell that he'd made up his mind, and that if she refused to take him, he'd find a way to get there by himself – would walk, or thumb a lift, or commandeer a passing tank – and it occurred to her that their life together would likely contain many such moments, Noel being what he was.

She sighed. ‘All right then, if you must. But we'll have to find out the visiting hours.' Her memory shrank from those awful journeys, the bus crawling along country lanes, the long, dreary walk from the lodge gates up to the hospital, the dread she felt on the way there, the exhaustion on the way back.

‘I still have the asylum's number,' said Noel. ‘I can use the telephone box on Pond Street. I'll go now.' Vee watched him put on his shoes, and stirred herself.

‘I'll come with you. We need salt.'

There was a queue for the telephone. Noel occupied the time by mentally reciting ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade', and then watching a troupe of Girl Guides who were ambling past, carrying a banner that read

IS YOUR JOURNEY REALLY NECESSARY? WE'RE WALKING TO

SAVE FUEL!!!

Behind them, a taxi, two buses and an army lorry inched up the road, the taxi-driver shouting abuse out of the window.

Vee was watching as well, her eyes on the taxi; it was giving her an idea.

‘Two o'clock till three o'clock on the second and fourth Tuesdays of the month,' said Noel, emerging from the phone box.

‘I need to make a call too,' said Vee. She closed the door
firmly on him, so that he couldn't hear what she said to the operator; she was put through with surprising speed.

‘Fleckney's Garage.' In the background, someone was using a grinder.

‘Could I speak to Mr Pedder, please?'

‘Oh my God, you again? But I told you—'

‘Oh hello, Harry, this isn't a very good line – I didn't recognize your voice.'

‘I can't talk to you now. Or later.'

‘No, don't call off. I'll only try again tomorrow. I might accidentally get your wife next time.'

‘But—' He was practically spluttering with panic. ‘Wait.' There was a pause, and the sound of a door shutting. The snarl of the grinder disappeared and she could hear Harry's footsteps returning to the desk.

‘I told you that I didn't want to hear from you again.'

‘Yes, well, something's cropped up.'

‘Christ, I had to move bloody heaven and earth to get you that signature.'

‘I thought you just had to tell the magistrate you wouldn't give him any more black-market petrol.'

‘Don't say it.'

‘Unless he signed my new identity card.'

‘
Don't say it.
You don't know who's listening.'

‘All right. Anyway, it's nothing to do with the signature; that all went through very nicely, thank you. It's only a little thing this time.'

‘Please, Vee, just leave me alone.'

‘I will after this. I promise. It's only a small favour . . .'

She was smiling when she left the telephone box. Noel looked at her curiously.

‘Wait and see,' she said, before he could ask. ‘It's a surprise.'