Motherland (30 page)

‘Almost two weeks ago now.’

‘What about your trip?’

‘There wasn’t any trip. Don’t keep asking me questions, darling. It’s been beastly, but I just tell myself it’s over now.’

‘You poor, poor sweetheart. And there I’ve been, making it all worse. You should have told me.’

‘Well, I’ve told you now.’

They retreat to the bed, not for sex, but for mutual comfort. They lie there, curled in each other’s arms, like babes in the wood. The child that existed for so short a time seems to lie in their arms with them like a ghost, uniting them.

‘We can have another,’ says Larry, whispering.

‘Do you want to?’

‘Of course I want to,’ he says. ‘Don’t you?’

‘I’m not sure I’m ready yet,’ she says. ‘Do you mind?’

‘No, I don’t mind.’

She’s wiser than him. When he talks of another baby it’s no more than his way of consoling her, and showing her he loves her. For him ‘another baby’ is an idea, not a reality. But she is the one whose body will carry the child. For her it’s more than an emotional gesture.

‘I want you so much to be free,’ she tells him.

It amazes him how instinctively she understands his workings. Of course the baby placed him under a certain obligation. Hadn’t he asked her to marry him? But she knew better than him that this was not a free choice. Now she gives him back his freedom. Her truthfulness and her generosity humble him.

Then he remembers the way she reached across the table at the Savoy Grill to stroke Peter Beaumont’s hand, and confusion overtakes him once more. He feels he’s being manipulated, but has no idea to what end.

‘Sometimes I don’t understand what’s happening to us,’ he says to her.

‘It doesn’t need to be understood,’ she says. ‘People either love each other or they don’t.’

‘I do love you, Nell. I’m sure of that.’

In this moment, lying with her in his arms, released by her promise of freedom, he can say the simple words.

‘And I do love you, darling,’ she replies.

For a while they stay like this, warmed by each other, silent. The immensity of the information they have exchanged has exhausted them. Then Nell pulls herself up into a sitting position and straightens her clothes.

‘I’m going to go now,’ she says.

‘When will I see you again?’

She gets up off the bed and stretches like a cat. Then she turns to him with a smile.

‘Darling Lawrence,’ she says. ‘You can see me any time you want. But do you know what I think? You’re not to be cross with me. I think what you need to do now is have a real, truthful talk with your friend Kitty. Tell her whatever it is you’ve got to tell her, and hear what she has to say to you. Because until you’ve done that, I don’t think you’re really going to be able to love anyone else, not with all of your heart.’

‘That’s not true,’ protests Larry, going pink. ‘No, that’s wrong. That’s not how it is at all. And anyway, even if it was, what’s the point? She’s married to Ed.’

‘Is she happy with Ed?’

Larry stares at Nell in consternation. It’s like hearing his own secret thoughts out loud.

‘I can’t do that, Nell.’

‘You’re quite a one for not doing things, aren’t you, Lawrence? But if you want something, you have to do something about it. It’s no good just waiting for it to fall in your lap. If you want Kitty, tell her so, and see what happens. And if it doesn’t work out, and you decide it’s me you want after all, tell me so, and see what happens.’

She gives him a soft lingering kiss on the mouth before she leaves.

‘Don’t be such a scaredy-cat, darling. Those that don’t ask don’t get.’

Towards the end of January 1947 snow begins to fall over southeast England, and it continues to fall until the land is thickly blanketed. Within two days the roads and railways have become impassable. Larry, visiting River Farm for the weekend, finds himself obliged to stay longer than he intended.

On that first weekend they go out sledging. Heavily wrapped in warm clothes, they cross the silent main road and climb the long diagonal track to the top of Mount Caburn. Ed carries the sledge. Larry holds Pamela’s hand, so that he can swing her up out of the deep drifts. Kitty follows behind, only her nose and eyes visible in the bundle of scarves and woolly hats.

The sky is clear as ice. From the top of the ridge they look out over a white world. Their breath makes clouds as they stand, panting from the climb through shin-deep snow, marvelling at the view.

‘It’s like the whole world is starting again,’ says Kitty. ‘All young and unwrinkled.’

‘Are we to go right to the top?’ says Ed. ‘I have a tremendous urge to ride the sledge down the front of Caburn.’

‘You’ll do no such thing,’ says Kitty.

The south face of Caburn drops steeply down to the valley, too steep for the shepherds and their sheep to climb. The tracks are all up the gentler sides of the Down.

‘Want to sledge!’ cries Pammy. ‘Want to sledge!’

Even here the slope is of some concern.

‘It’ll be all right if we run sideways,’ says Ed, volunteering to test the ground.

He lays the sledge on the snow and sits on it. He rocks his upper body back and forth, and away he goes. For a few minutes he proceeds sedately across the hillside. Then the sledge tips on a snow-covered ridge and he topples off to one side. The onlookers cheer.

Ed comes trudging back, caked with snow, dragging the sledge. Kitty brushes snow off his hair and eyebrows.

‘Why aren’t you wearing a hat, you foolish man?’

‘Me, me, me!’ cries Pammy.

The little girl has her turn, squealing with excitement, Ed loping along beside the sledge on the downhill side, holding the rope. When she in her turn tumbles off he scoops her up out of the snow and sits her back on the sledge and tows it up to the others. The collar of her coat is thick with snow, and there’s snow all down her neck, but she’s jumping with the excitement of it.

‘Your turn, Larry,’ says Ed, giving him the rope.

‘Me, me, me!’ cries Pammy.

‘I’ll share,’ says Larry.

He sits on the sledge, and Pammy sits between his knees, little arms gripping his thighs. Ed gives them a push off. All the way down Pammy carols with joy, and Larry tries with outstretched
gloved hands to control their direction and speed. The cold wind on his face stings his cheeks and makes his eyes water. The eager child wriggles and shouts between his legs. The sledge lurches and sways, steadily gathering speed. There are no brakes, no way of stopping, other than tumbling off into the snow.

Then Pammy isn’t shouting any more and he realises they’re going too fast. The sledge is plunging directly down the slope. The speed is thrilling and frightening. The child’s arms cling ever tighter to his thighs. The hill stretches far below, to the snow-covered roofs of the village of Glynde and the carpet of farmland beyond. Larry knows he must bring the sledge ride to a stop, but he lets them ride on for a few moments longer, captivated by the sensation of being out of control. Pammy twists her head round then and he sees the same look in her bright eyes: her first taste of the addictive drug that is danger.

Then he holds her thin body in his arms and tips them both off to one side, to tumble over and over in the deep snow. They come to a stop, dazed and snow-covered but unhurt. He brushes her face clear, and she does the same to him. The sledge too has turned over onto its side and lies just below them.

‘You all right, Pammy?’

‘More!’ she says. ‘More!’

He fetches the sledge and they climb back up the hill.

‘Don’t do that again, Larry,’ says Kitty, brushing snow off Pamela. ‘You scared me half to death.’

‘No, no!’ cries the child. ‘I want more!’

‘You wild man,’ says Ed to Larry.

Pamela is allowed to go on the sledge again, but this time with her mother, very slowly, and escorted by Ed and Larry.

‘Faster!’ she cries. ‘I want to go faster!’

This time there’s no tumbling off. Descending in a series of hairpin bends they make their way back down to the valley. Once on the road again they walk, and Ed tows the sledge behind him.

Larry walks with Pamela, holding hands.

‘Mummy is married to Daddy,’ says Pamela. ‘So I can be married to you.’

‘All right,’ says Larry.

‘So we can do more fast sledging,’ says Pamela.

‘Of course.’

‘An excellent basis for marriage,’ says Ed from behind them.

That night the temperature drops again, and more snow falls. The next day Larry and Ed take shovels and dig a path from the house to the road, hard labour which takes them the whole morning. A tractor has been down the Newhaven road driving a snowplough, but there are no cars or lorries to be seen.

‘If this goes on we’re going to have to stock up with coal,’ says Ed.

The hours shovelling snow warm them and give them an appetite. They head back down the path they’ve cleared, the shovels shouldered.

‘So how’s Nell?’ says Ed. ‘Is she still on the scene?’

‘In a way,’ says Larry. ‘It’s been a bit up and down lately. I was supposed to be seeing her when I got back today.’

‘This weather’s messed up everyone’s plans.’

‘The annoying thing is she’s not on the phone. I suppose I could always ring the gallery.’

‘I shouldn’t worry. Everything’s in chaos. She’ll understand.’

‘I wish I did,’ says Larry.

‘Oh,’ says Ed with a smile. ‘It’s like that?’

‘Not so long ago I was asking her to marry me. Now I’m not even sure if I’m ever going to see her again.’

‘Why wouldn’t you see her again?’

‘I hardly even know myself,’ says Larry. ‘She’s not like anyone else I’ve ever known. She lives entirely by her own truth. And that’s what she wants me to do.’

‘Whatever that means,’ says Ed.

‘It should be so simple. Say only what you mean. Do only what you want. No games, no pretence, no polite little lies. But what if you don’t know what you want?’

‘You can’t tell people the truth,’ says Ed. ‘Being civilised is all about covering that stuff up.’

‘Do you really think that?’ says Larry.

‘Don’t you?’

‘I suppose I think that if you really love someone, and they really love you, you can tell them everything.’

‘That’s because deep down you believe that people are good.’

‘And you believe people are bad.’

‘Not exactly,’ says Ed. ‘I believe we’re alone.’

He gives a laugh, and punches Larry on the arm.

‘Here you are, my oldest friend, and I’m telling you I’m alone. What an ungrateful dog of a fellow I must be.’

‘You may be right even so,’ says Larry quietly.

‘Your Nell sounds to me like she’s a bit of a handful.’

‘But Ed,’ says Larry, pursuing his own thoughts, ‘you don’t feel alone with Kitty, do you?’

‘Now there’s a question.’

‘Sorry. Forget I said it.’

‘No,’ says Ed. ‘It’s a fair question. She’s my wife, and I love her.’

He thinks it over as they come to a stop in the snowy farmyard.

‘There are moments when I’m with Kitty, when I’m holding her in my arms, or when I’m watching her sleeping, when I go quiet. Very still moments. I don’t feel alone then.’

Larry kicks the snow, making furrows in the virgin whiteness.

‘But they don’t last.’

‘No. They don’t last.’

‘You shouldn’t be away so much, Ed. It’s hard on Kitty. And on Pammy.’

‘I know.’ He speaks humbly, accepting the rebuke. ‘Unlikely as it may seem, I do my best.’

‘Well,’ says Larry, ‘there’ll be no trips to France in this.’

They go into the house, stamping the snow off their boots. Kitty and Pamela are making lunch.

‘Daddy’s back,’ says Kitty. ‘We can eat.’

‘And Larry,’ says Pamela. ‘He’s back too.’

*

The early excitement of the snow soon wears off, as the bitter cold grips the land. The electricity cuts out for hours at a time, without warning, plunging the house into a blackout as complete as any in wartime. For three nights running they eat their supper and go to bed by candlelight. Then the water pipes freeze, and it’s no longer possible to wash, or go to the lavatory. They take to using potties, which Ed removes and empties in some secret place onto the hard snow. The wireless news tells them of the crisis that has overtaken the nation. Railway wagons can’t move. Ships can’t bring in supplies. Food rations are cut lower even than the worst years of the war. In early February the government
announces there will be five hours of planned electricity cuts a day, three in the morning and two in the afternoon.

When the farmhouse supply of both coal and firewood runs out, Kitty turns for help to Louisa. Ed and Larry plot various ways of moving loads of fuel across the village, but in the end come up with a simpler solution. They move themselves. Edenfield Place is well stocked with coal, and by shutting up two-thirds of the house George reckons they can last a good six weeks. This terrible weather can’t possibly go on to the end of March.

So Ed and Kitty return to the room in Edenfield Place in which they began their married life, and Pamela to her little bed in the adjoining dressing room, and Larry to the guest room down the corridor. Fires are kept burning in the Oak Room and the morning room, while the far larger drawing room and library are left to the winter cold. The butler’s pantry, the domain of Mr Lott the butler, and the kitchen, the domain of his wife, Mrs Lott the cook, are also kept warm. Three of the four great boilers are switched off. Oil lamps stand in readiness for the hours when the electricity cuts out.

Due to the more modern heating system of the house, the water pipes are still running in the family quarters, and three lavatories are usable. Ed’s potty-emptying duties are suspended.

‘I’m rather sorry, really,’ he says. ‘I was looking forward to the day the snow melts, and all round the houses there’d be revealed the waste matter of the mid-twentieth century.’

The hard winter locks them all in the big house on top of one another, and Larry finds no opportunity to talk to Kitty alone. He originally expected to visit for a weekend only, and so has not brought his paints and brushes. Now as his stay enters
its third week and there’s no sign of a thaw, he passes much of his time huddled by the Oak Room fire, rereading
War and Peace
. When he finishes the first volume, Kitty picks it up, and begins to read behind him. This reignites their old conversation about good characters in books, and whether they can ever be attractive. The character in question is Pierre Bezukhov.