Part of the Furniture (4 page)

Later she would be filled with shame, aghast at her selfishness, would question whether he had really yet been dead. Could she not have held a mirror to his nose? Had she had a mirror handy in her bag? Had she even felt for his pulse? She had done none of these things.

Yet it would have been the height of folly, when she visited her Aunt Violet, to inform her of Evelyn Copplestone’s plight. He was past answering for himself and she, Juno, would have been bombarded with awkward questions. The truth would have been abstracted, the situation relished, the police called, an endless delay enforced and her life messed totally up. Callous though her lack of action had been, it had served towards her survival. Now, walking in her damp, wretchedly uncomfortable, high-heeled shoes, she looked forward to reaching the cottage which had been home for the major part of her life. Though since her mother’s departure to Canada, of course, it no longer was.

So, stepping out as best she could along a road slippery with snow, and only fitfully lit by a moon which, unlike the night before, dodged constantly behind clouds, Juno’s thoughts, those she could spare from Jonty and Francis, concentrated on the thick shoes, warm socks and dry clothes waiting in a suitcase left in the scullery cupboard at the cottage.

The cottage would be empty but warm; she would change her clothes. If the water was hot, as perhaps it might be, she could have a bath. Perhaps she could sleep? Then, tomorrow, she would return to Reading, surrender her ticket to Canada at the travel agent, be given a refund, and with this be in a position to decide what to do next.

Yet as she walked the cold was so intense, and her physical state so miserable, that at moments she regretted the cavalier refusal of her aunt’s offer of help. She must find a job, the refund would not last long; her mother, expecting her in Canada, had left her with the minimum of money. She must support herself. Her aunt was her only relation; had her refusal been too hasty? There were other jobs than those in the forces, she had heard of them. Then what about her mother’s friends, Jonty’s and Francis’s parents? Would Susan Johnson and Margery Murray not help? Were they not old family friends, had they not always been kind? There were several families in the neighbourhood with daughters doing war work, girls whose parents were friends of the Murrays and Johnsons and in some cases of her mother, girls working in munitions or in jobs they called ‘hush-hush’, girls whose fathers were retired military men and in one case a judge. True, her own father having been a conscientious objector was of little help, but he was dead, need not be mentioned. She could try.

As she slid and slithered along, she decided to go and see Jonty’s and Francis’s parents and enlist their help. They might even, she told herself optimistically, ask her to stay the night, give her a meal if the cottage had grown cold, help her bypass Aunt Violet. With this in mind, Juno quickened her step and, reaching the cottage, circled round to the back. Fumbling under the boot-scraper for the key to the back door, she felt it lie familiar in her hand.

With the key in the lock she pushed and the door creaked as it always had, a loud teeth-on-edge creak. It was said that her father, years ago, had tried to cure the creak and failed. The local carpenter was equally unsuccessful and her mother, growing used to it, either ignored it or suggested the noise would deter burglars, alert her to their entry should such unlikely persons invade a house with so little to steal. To Juno the creak was customary and welcoming; almost she expected her mother to call out, ‘Is that you, Juno?’ She stepped inside and felt for the light switch.

There was an alien smell of Jeyes Fluid and Mansion Polish. Her mother never used either, insisting that Mrs Haley from the village use beeswax and, if necessary, tear-jerking Scrubbs Ammonia for the drains. Juno sniffed and, remembering that the house was empty and that the curtains might not be drawn, forbore to press the light switch.

There was no familiar scent of wood smoke. The house felt cold. She detected a whiff of soot and remembered that Jonty’s mother had ordered the sweep. Outside the wind was rising, whooshing through the Scots pines behind the cottage. The house sighed and creaked, cooling, unoccupied. She heard a faint rumble of water in the pipes leading to the tank in the attic; the bath water would be cold.

There was the sudden noise of the front door being opened, a crack of light under the kitchen door, voices and the door slammed shut. She slipped off her shoes, crossed the scullery in stockinged feet and shut herself in the broom cupboard with her waiting suitcase.

Margery Murray and Susan Johnson were twin sisters; their voices, loud, confident, uninhibited, could carry in a force ten gale. Juno’s mother had once explained this phenomenon as having to do with large families; if you did not shout, you were not heard. From the enclosed space of the broom cupboard Juno could hear every syllable.

‘It all looks clean and cosy. D’you think they will be happy?’

‘Of course they will.’

‘When do they arrive?’

‘The Cooksons?’

‘Yes.’

‘They said before dark. They may have been held up, but I suppose we should expect them any time—’

She could hear both women breathe. They were no more than a couple of yards away; if she emerged from the broom cupboard, what would they say? What explanation could she give? Better not.

Jonty’s mother said, ‘James said, if they have not arrived by now to turn off the electricity.’

‘It’s pretty late. Why is James fussing?’

‘He is afraid that, not knowing the house, they might shine a light, splinter the blackout. We’d better do what he says.’

‘The house is blacked out, isn’t it?’

‘Of course it is, but you know James and what he’s like since he became head of ARP. The Cooksons are new. The Marlowes were habituated.’

‘I wonder how she is getting on in Canada?’

Francis’s mother moved away.

‘Haven’t heard yet. I shall miss her.’

‘So shall I. Did the child go?’

‘Juno? Hardly a child—’

‘What?’ Francis’s mother was back close to the cupboard.

‘Not a child, but not grown-up either. Where’s this mains’ switch?’

James said under the scullery sink.’ The sisters’ footsteps slapped across the floor. They were wearing gumboots.

‘What an inconvenient place.’ Juno could hear Jonty’s mother shuffling to her knees and muffled a laugh. She was a large woman.

‘Can you reach it?’ Susan Johnson asked. ‘Want me to try?’

‘No, I’ve got it. Switch on the torch, Margery, while I turn this off.’

The light under the cupboard door turned from yellow to blue.

‘Gosh, we look comical in this light,’ the sisters chortled.

‘What happened to Juno? I thought she had gone with her mother?’ Susan Johnson breathed hard from her efforts.

‘I’m a bit vague. Staying with her aunt? Following on in the next ship? There was some difficulty about getting a passage. The war makes everything so complicated.’

‘D’you think Jack Sonntag will cope with her?’

‘He struck me as an able sort of man.’

‘But Juno—’

‘Oh, he will manage—’

Margery and Susan stood for a moment, then Margery said, ‘She was always under the boys’ feet.’

‘Tagging along like a puppy, poor child.’

‘All very well when they were younger, but they need girls of their own age now.’

‘They were both so kind and patient with her. She must have got in the way—’

‘Her mother being such a friend, one couldn’t say anything. I must admit her departure eases things.’

‘Eases things.’ The sisters had a trick of repeating what the other had said.

‘We must organize lots of pretty girl visitors for their leaves.’

‘… their leaves. What they’ll need most is girls and fun.’

‘… and fun. It’s called sex,’ said Francis’s mother, Margery.

‘What do our darlings know about sex?’ Susan was amused. ‘Sex is called love at their age.’

‘Oh, Susan, it’s still sex.’ Margery laughed outright. ‘And I hope it will be with girls we like, girls who will make suitable daughters-in-law, girls with a bit of money.’

‘A bit of money.’ Susan laughed too. ‘How awful we are, there’s time enough. Did I tell you that I told Jonty to tell that child they were going off on such secret missions they would probably never come back?’

‘Wasn’t that a bit much?’ Margery sounded surprised.

‘I thought it would stop her hanging around. I thought she was capable of not going to Canada—’

‘A bright idea, but was it kind?’

‘What about being cruel to be—’

‘Even so. Oh well, done now, I suppose.’

In her cupboard Juno could hear the agreement in Francis’s mother’s tone.

‘You said yourself,’ said Susan Johnson, ‘that you were afraid if she did not go to Canada, you would be asked to keep an eye on her.’

‘An eye. One could not have refused, and it would have been a chore,’ her sister murmured.

‘Exactly, and she would still be hanging around.’

‘Hanging around.’ Margery sighed. ‘So she would, you’re right there.’

Their feet slapped across the scullery floor and into the hall. The front door opened and slammed shut, the light from their torch flickered down the path, their voices diminished. The pain from the surprise they had provided did not.

E
MERGING FROM THE CUPBOARD
, such a charge of rage pulsed through Juno’s body that she felt quite hot. Fumbling in the dark, she stripped off her clothes and dressed again in the clothes from the suitcase; viyella shirt, woollen sweater, corduroy trousers, wool socks and heavy walking-shoes. Then, feeling about in the case, she found handkerchiefs and, taking one, blew her nose.

‘Bloody women, bloody women.’

She folded her London clothes and, with the ruined high-heeled shoes, slammed them into the case, banging it shut, thumping the case as though she were blacking the eyes of her lovers’ parents.

‘How could they? How could they? All those years? So smarmy, so kind, so charming, so bloody patronizing.’

She did not cry; the humiliation was beyond tears. She washed her face and hands at the sink. The water was cold and bracing. What if she turned up on one of their doorsteps?

‘Oh, Juno, my dear, how lovely to see you. Have you forgotten something? Did you come back for it? Is there anything we can do? Are you hungry? D’you need a bath? A bed? A meal? Come along in, my dear, don’t stand there in the cold.’

She could hear their voices, visualize their smiles. Both sisters were famous for their hospitality, prided themselves on keeping open house in spite of the war, stretching their rations.

Juno shook with anger, felt warm and energetic, forgot the soreness and discomfort, the bruised ache between her legs engendered by her first sexual encounter.

Though she had on occasion seen little boys naked, and once or twice, when they undressed when they went swimming, caught brief glimpses of their parts, she had thought little of it. No-one, least of all her mother, had thought to tell her that those dangly bits of Jonty and Francis could expand telescopically into something quite else, something which could force an entry, and hurt.

Had they tossed up as to who should go first? Had she exclaimed, ‘That’s never going to get inside me!’ Had they heard? Had they listened? Was it Francis or Jonty? They had said several times that they loved her and she, while experiencing no pleasure, had cried out that she loved them, and laughing, for it had been better to laugh than to cry, had caused one of them to grunt, ‘Don’t laugh, I haven’t finished.’

Afterwards she had been happy when they petted and kissed her, nuzzling her neck, smoothing her hair, closing her eyes with their tongues, tracing fingers over her mouth, saying, ‘You are lovely,’ ‘A sweetie,’ ‘We didn’t hurt you,’ ‘We did not mean to,’ ‘We have never done it before,’ murmuring as they fell asleep and she, not sleeping, had lain between them listening to their sated breathing.

Standing in the cottage scullery, shaking with anger, Juno forgot all that. Later she would remember the texture of their skin, the hardness of muscle, the life in their hair, their lips and exploring tongues, the strange smell of semen, but now she detested their mothers with her whole being.

Should she set fire to one of their houses? Where were the matches? Why not set fire to both houses?

She felt her way to the kitchen and, reaching up to the shelf where the matches were habitually kept, found no matches; the bitches had tidied them away. They had lied, Francis and Jonty. They would come back. No, it was their mothers who had lied, their mothers who would invite girls to stay, more sophisticated, older girls than herself, girls with money, suitable girls, girls who, even though they might not practise it, would know about sex, worldly girls who would not get under the boys’ feet or tag behind them like puppies.

There was no point, really, in setting fire to their houses; no matches, anyway.

The wind was dying in the trees behind the house. A plane droned overhead; the siren wailed in far-away Reading. Juno picked up her suitcase, opened the cottage door, locked it and threw the key far into the dark.

T
HERE NOW AROSE THE
immediate question of an overcoat.

The inside of the cottage had been pretty chilly; outside it was freezing with a knife-like wind and, thanks to her own perversity, she had no coat.

There had been an argument with her mother. There was the warm and lovely houndstooth tweed with satin lining which had used up all her clothes’ coupons, and the serviceable old overcoat worn every day in holidays and to school.

‘There is wear in it yet,’ she could hear her mother say. ‘This new one I shall pack so that in Canada, where you will really need it, you can start afresh.’

Starting afresh played a major part in her mother’s thoughts.

‘I shall want you to look your lovely best when beginning your new life.’

She had grumpily watched her parent fold the hounds-tooth tweed, lay it in the trunk, close the lid and lock it. She could have protested more vehemently had she not just uttered a slighting and derogatory remark about Jack Sonntag, a reference to thinning hair coupled somehow with his occupation, which was that of an arms manufacturer.