But Bea can’t reply to this. Not even to tell him that it is September.
When Bea walks back into the hallway of Park Lane at six, Edward is already there. At least the shadow standing in the middle of the wide hall has the name of Edward, the same height, and resembles him as much as a shadow can resemble anyone. The circles under his eyes and his complexion match the black and white of the marble he is standing on bolt upright, looking brittle enough to fall with the touch of a forefinger. His voice, when it comes, is surprisingly full. A little too full, as though he is used to shouting to be heard.
‘Lit-tle sis!’
The old joke, from when he passed her in height as they grew.
She doesn’t rush up to him, fearing that she might crush him. So he walks towards her, puts his arms under her shoulders, lifts her up and, his neck taut, swings her round, her feet skimming the kit bag on the floor beside him.
‘We shall make merry, dear sis.’
Then he pulls her up to him and squeezes his cheek into hers. The stubble grates on her skin, but it is him, not her, who pulls away.
‘Sorry, forgot to shave this morning, damned rush for the boat, and a trench habit. They seem to have us down there more than on our horses, well, what horses are left. What do you think of the tash?’ He puts her down, takes a couple of paces back and poses on each side. ‘Pretty fine, eh?’
It must be that which is making him look so much older. But then he is hardly a boy any more. Sir Edward, even, since their father keeled over somewhere between roulette and vingt-et-un in the South of France.
‘Yes, pretty fine.’
‘A man needs a moustache at twenty-two, my dear, and in charge of his own merry crew.’
‘How long have they given you?’
‘Two joyous weeks. I shall dance until the early hours, and see every show in town. And you shall come with me.’ He takes her hands in his and starts to sway her round the room. ‘Will they spare you, all your patients?’
‘I don’t think … no, it’s not the moment. Edward, you need a bath.’
‘I’ll take that as it was meant. What are we up to tonight?’
‘Tonight? I thought—’
‘Fourteen days, Bea. Can’t afford to waste even one.’
‘There’s dinner with Mother, she’s coming up to town to see you. Clemmie will be up tomorrow.’
‘Mother’s here, I’ve seen her, and good it was. Near squeezed me to suffocation and I must have been dreaming it but I thought she was going to cry. Mother’s never cried in her life, I don’t think. Half expected her to appear with straw in her hair in her new farmer life but I suppose she’s holding sway over the hospital in the house too, and she looked as though she’d never left a drawing room. What about after dinner? Come on, sis, you can’t put a soldier early to bed.’
He looks half dead but there’s a desperate energy to her brother that is infectious. An hour ago, when she was still cleaning up at the
nursing home, the last thing she felt like doing was dancing. Now the look on Edward’s face makes her feel a jittery need to go out for the evening.
‘There’s one of George Moore’s—’
‘Dances of Death?’
‘If you must call it that.’
‘It’ll be the last show for some – and it’s not what it used to be.’
‘What?’
‘Death.’
Bea calls for a maid to help her dress. She misses Grace. Blast her for having vanished overnight last year. Bea needs help until her arm is better, at least with all the evening’s hooks and laces. The dress she’s had airing is far too plain for a dance, even in wartime; perhaps the emerald tunic instead. It is autumn after all, though everyone’s behaving as though the news of the latest surge forward means they’re skipping winter altogether this year. Oh, Beatrice, jolly well fix on what to wear so you can show your brother a good time. Bea settles on a dark peacock tunic but hesitates over her pantaloons. In fact, she always hesitates over her pantaloons. Bought with a flourish, and brought out almost every time she is deciding what to wear, they have all but once been put back. She bought them as soon as she was up and about after the accident; a statement that, even though she was out of the action, she could still do what the men were doing, in her own way. However, they don’t want that, the men, when they come home: they want women to be as pretty and feminine as possible. Moreover, Bea needs to make up for having a bad arm. She settles on a long chiffon skirt to wear underneath the tunic. Sarah hooks her in, and Bea goes downstairs to join Edward and Mother.
The Ritz dining room is full of young people. The three of them squeeze on to a table for two between the windows, as if emphasising
the awkwardness of having Mother with them in a place so full of youth. Edward pushes out jollities in between visits from other diners. It’s ripping, he says. Just you think, what an adventure I’m having. Never know what’s up from one day to the next. Just when you reckon you might be bored – though when we’re not in the Line we keep ourselves damn busy with all sorts of matches – we’re all turned around again to go back in. Tests every bit of my wits, keeps my head ticking over.
‘Well, it’s terrific,’ says Mother, ‘that you are out …’ Bea thinks she hears Mother’s voice falter, but surely she is imagining it for Mother is steaming on, ‘there. If I didn’t have a farm to run to feed the country, I’d be up to my knees in dirt, helping pull wounds together.’
They work their way through dinner and step back out on to Piccadilly, scarcely lit by the dim, blue-painted streetlamps. A couple of cars pass, looking lost in the width of the road. Then it is quiet again.
Summers is waiting patiently in the Rolls. Mother hesitates on the pavement. Where are you going, she asks? George Moore’s. Oh. For a moment Bea thinks Mother is going to declare that she would like to accompany them, and a dread of being thrust in front of single men by her rises in Bea.
‘Coming too?’ asks Edward.
‘Oh, no,’ Mother replies, ‘I, I …’
‘Where are you off to, Mother dearest?’ asks Edward. ‘Perhaps it is more exciting than where we are going.’
‘No,’ replies Mother, almost too quickly and firmly, then brusquely, ‘I’m just going home, Edward.’ She moves towards the Rolls, and Summers is out and holding the door open for her. She climbs in and Bea sees her tapping the rear of the passenger seat with her umbrella, and Summers steadily, but immediately, drives off.
‘She could have offered us a lift,’ says Edward. ‘She was awfully short just then, don’t you think?’
‘Perhaps she was late.’
‘To go home?’
Bea is silent. She doesn’t know whether to be amused or irritated by her brother’s naivety.
‘Not a taxi in sight,’ he continues.
‘Never is. Gold dust.’
As they turn off Piccadilly into the side streets, the streetlamps thin and it darkens further. The two of them fall into a contented silence as they walk, Bea keeping her eyes on the kerb. How long will it be, she wonders, before this all brightens up again?
‘By God.’ Edward suddenly breaks the quiet. ‘Isn’t this Celeste’s?’
Bea stops and looks up. Her mind must have been miles away. They are, indeed, opposite Celeste’s front door, and Bea’s by here almost once a fortnight, if only to see whether Mr Campbell has written to her. Slivers of light are peeking through the black-out curtains.
‘Haven’t seen the old girl in an age. Wonder what she’s up to?’ And before Bea can make any other suggestion, Edward is across the road and ringing the bell. Bea follows him, hoping to God that her aunt is not in. She wants Edward to herself until they reach the dance.
Celeste’s front door is answered not by a maid but by a clearly drunk young woman, cigarette holder in her hand. She looks them up and down, her eyes resting upon Edward. ‘Come in, darlings,’ she says. ‘Haven’t a clue who you are, but you are most invited to join the fun.’ And from upstairs, Celeste’s drawing room, comes the sound of dance music and guffaws. Bea’s heart sinks. Edward will want to go up there, and then they will be stuck. At least you can move around George Moore’s dances. And then it occurs to her that, quite possibly, Celeste might not be at home.
‘Is Celeste here?’ she asks.
‘Not yet, darlings, not yet, but she has absolutely prrromised to come later.’ The woman rolls her ‘r’s. ‘At least,’ she continues, ‘I suppose it’s her bed she’ll come back to.’ Then she shrieks with
laughter at her own joke. Bea, to her relief, sees Edward recoil. They make their excuses and back away into the dark calm of the streets.
Even though they walk, they arrive early and the band hasn’t started yet. They watch the other guests drift in fragments of familiar groups, more women than men, most of the latter either in uniform or clearly scarred. More than one is missing a limb. The tables are as usual covered in white lilies that could be a little less wreath-like; the talk is, however, upbeat. Well, it always is, for nobody can say the words they actually think. That is, if they can’t stop themselves thinking.
‘What ho. Why, if it isn’t Beatrice, Clemmie’s younger sister.’ The voice comes from over her shoulder and she turns. The skin on the right half of the man’s face looks as though it has been stewed and his nose is at an angle. She does not recognise him, something else she can’t say.
‘Hullo,’ she says.
He holds out a hand.
‘It’s Flipper Braithwaite. D’you remember? Down at Gowden and, well, about the place.’
He’s half the size he was. His remaining cheek is still as red, though, this time as if it has been burnt and then frozen that way.
‘Of course I remember you, Flipper. It’s good to see you.’ This she means, for it is good to see any of them; you can hardly think a man an oaf any more.
‘So how’s your sister?’ He pulls out a silver case, takes out a cigarette and offers Bea one. She shakes her head, for it will keep her there for as long as she takes to smoke it, and replies, ‘Oh, Clemmie’s fine. Turned one wing of Gowden into a Land Army base, and another into a hospital, sheets flapping from the windows. Spends a good deal of her time keeping the almost recovered patients and the girls apart.’
‘And Tom?’ Flipper taps his cigarette on the case.
‘Still going strong. How long are you here for?’
He looks down, and now rat-a-tats the cigarette on the box.
‘Been here the usual couple of weeks.’ As he moves the cigarette to his mouth, his hand is wobbling. ‘Back at the crack of dawn.’ He pulls, equally shakily, a lighter out of a pocket, lights the cigarette and takes a deep draw before exhaling and looking back up. ‘Of course it’ll be good to get back to the action. Now the Boche is on its rear foot, and with Americans on their way, it’ll be hard to get a look-in soon. Better make the most of it.’ He smiles at her, and Bea feels herself soften. She wonders how much it hurts his face to smile.
‘So, how’s your horse?’ he continues.
Bea laughs. She hadn’t thought of him as droll before, there’s hardly a horse left in the country. ‘Replaced by one of the donkeys not yet whisked away to France,’ she replies. Head tilted, he laughs at her joke. Bea feels a surge of confidence. ‘Come on,’ she says, nodding towards the ballroom, ‘the band’s going. Let’s have a turn before you flee.’ Maybe Clemmie was right all those years ago, Bea thinks, Tom’s friends weren’t so terrible. Although maybe it’s not that, it’s just that they are not so terrible now. Even so, she’s not sure she could ever bring herself to kiss what remains of Flipper’s face.
On the way back, and flushed from turkey-trotting, Bea passes Edward. He isn’t dancing. Nor is he flirting with the throngs of women. Instead he appears locked in conversation with a young officer in a corner of the room. A couple of girls hover nearby hopefully, which is not surprising for Edward’s friend is the spit of one of those muscular statues in the museum back at home. As, perhaps – and of course Bea would think this, and a little proudly – is Edward, even as the ghost he has become. However, it doesn’t look as if there’s going to be any gentle butting-in for the girls. The two men are fixed on each other, in some shared world of warfare, no doubt. Well, dammit, she’s going in, she’s his sister and he can’t spend his leave talking about being back there. Bea strides over and takes her brother by the arm.
‘I could ask politely but instead I think I’ll just insist you dance with me.’
The conversation stops suddenly. Bea turns to Edward’s friend. His eyes look at her, hard. Go away, he seems to be saying, you are not wanted here. Bea looks straight back at him. How dare you, she thinks. It is Edward who breaks the silence.
‘I’m sorry, old chap. Women nowadays. We only have to turn our backs for an instant and they transform into huntresses …’
‘Edward!’ She glares at him, but he is laughing.
‘Just kidding, sis. Beatrice, may I introduce my dear friend Captain Charles Finers to you? He’s been here a fortnight. Back over in a couple of days. Charles, this is my sister, Beatrice. And I’d keep a wide—’
Bea, quite deliberately, steps on Edward’s toe just as Captain Finers’ right hand reaches out for hers, taking it. His look has now softened, and he places his left on top.
‘Enchanted.’
‘We were saying,’ says Edward, ‘that even the wrong sort of chap is showing his mettle over there. Makes you feel a sight differently about those fellows.’
There’s something to this line of conversation that Bea finds sticks with her. It would be easier if she could, but she simply cannot bring herself just to nod along with it. She looks down at the floorboards.
‘Well, Bea?’
‘I don’t know what you mean by the “wrong sort of chap”. What exactly do you mean, Edward?’
‘You know exactly what I mean, Bea. Somebody you wouldn’t invite to the house. Except on their business, of course.’
‘So Mother has been filling her drawing rooms with the “wrong sort of chap”?’
‘Politics is their business, Bea.’
‘But it’s not always politics,’ she blurts out, and then wishes she could swallow the words back in, for Edward is looking at her a
little confused. ‘Sometimes,’ she rushes to continue, and not as confidently as she might like, ‘it’s just a good meal.’
Edward doesn’t flag. By two, Bea’s eyes are closing and she is counting the hours until she has to be up again, uniformed and at Dartmouth House. Really, she should take a break from it while Edward is home. Sister Adams, however, might simply replace her with one of the VADs who are near lining up around the block to work there, and Bea would be out of having anything to do at all.