Recovery and the Return of Ethan Hart (8 page)

This time it doesn't work so well.

“Having everything bought for me: T-shirts, socks, shorts. Even having to take pocket money, for God's sake! Couldn't I find a job someplace; someplace I wouldn't need a permit? Get myself a room?”

“If that's what you want. It's not what I want.”

“I don't know.” I'm spooning coffee into the filter.

“What don't you know?”

“Your friend said amnesia could sometimes last for years.”

“He thought it more likely to last a week.”

“But
you
don't, do you? Otherwise you wouldn't be working so hard to try to trace this woman? And supposing you're right and he's wrong? If I had a job I could at least be starting to pay you back.”

“Ranjit said you needed rest. Not that I think your shopping—cleaning—cooking—are really what he had in mind. Frankly, I'm not all that worried about your paying me back. The thing that does worry me…”

“What?”

“You sound so negative.”

“Negative? Because I feel you're wasting your time looking for some woman who…well, even if she turns out still to be alive…?”

“Yes?”

“I don't see the point, that's all. Because, in this instance, I'm inclined to side with the experts. If medical opinion truly leans towards a week…”

He looks at the two pieces of cheesecake he's now transferring from their box. I expect some comment on my change of tune. I reckon I should have known better.

“When you put it that way I'm not honestly sure I see the point myself.”

Possibly I now wear a slightly sheepish look. I shrug. “I guess you want to make me feel we're making progress.”

“No. I think you'll have to put it down to more than that. Let's call it instinct.”

“Instinct?”

“Gut feeling. Something that's hounding me on. I just believe we've got to find this woman.”

10

And then the lights come on!

The lights come on! And some of London's most historic buildings are seen floodlit for the first time since the coronation.

St Paul's…

Two sections of the A.T.S have brought their mobile searchlights, have turned their beams on the cathedral. A third picks out the dome and its surmounting cross from a bombsite lower down the hill.

In the precincts, people either sit on the protective coverings to the cellars or—like us—they stand in groups around the searchlights, watching the girls in charge.

One of the girls talks to Matt and me. She's blonde and pretty and wears a lot of shiny scarlet lipstick. “They never could get it, could they? Don't you think that's sort of symbolic?”

Sort of miraculous, too. This splendid old structure stands triumphant in the midst of devastation, having watched over London through all the fires and explosions of many hundreds of air raids. Inspirational in its isolation. Surely as imposing now as it must have been at the time of its completed resurrection.

Plenty of other buildings are adding to the glow that hangs above the city. From the top of the hill we can see the brightly lit newspaper offices in Fleet Street, also the lofty tower of the Shell-Mex edifice, illuminated by flares which are constantly changing colour. All this is the more impressive since we've again been without any form of street lighting for a week (it wasn't restored to us for very long!) and shall have to be without it for a further ten; it's only for tonight and tomorrow—such beneficence.

Walking back along the Strand we pass dozens of men and women sitting on the kerb, raising tankards and toasting the victory. (All the pubs tonight are open until twelve.) We have to stand aside for sailors marching six abreast with linked arms and singing ‘Tipperary'—a song more of the last war than of this. However, it makes a change from the equally dated ‘Over There', which even Matt, good American though he is, feels we've had quite enough of for the time being. Anyway, me, I much prefer ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy' to either of them. That's another song we're hearing pretty frequently.

We get back to Buckingham Palace just before ten-thirty, and at precisely the appointed minute all the floodlights and lamps above the gates are switched on to bathe the great grey building in pools of soft white light. As this happens, cheer upon cheer bursts from the delighted crowd. Word goes round that the two princesses, escorted by Guards' officers, are now walking amongst us. We hope to catch a glimpse of them close to, until a quarter of an hour later they once again appear with their parents on the balcony; after that we reckon it's time to see Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, while we still have the chance. People say the lighting will go off at twelve.

But we get detained in Whitehall. The Grenadier Guards are playing ‘Land of Hope and Glory' to a crowd which is uncannily hushed until, little by little, the people themselves start to sing the words. Tears mist my eyes. Then we have a further view of Mr Churchill—this time in his siren suit and black homburg—taking over as conductor.

We'd like to stay in Whitehall but there's still something we've been told we shouldn't miss. The view from Waterloo Bridge is panoramic. St Paul's in one direction; Parliament in the other. Ever-shifting searchlights making tracks into the sky. Many of the wharves lit up. Lamps shining on the bridges and Embankment. The magnificence of County Hall. Trains moving slowly in or out of Charing Cross. All mirrored in the water. Magical. Even when we pull ourselves away we have to keep stopping to look back. Matt bemoans the fact we haven't got a camera. I ask him why. You can't encapsulate enchantment.

Afterwards, we make again for Piccadilly Circus, the true vulgar heart of the West End, the place which always calls you back. (Whereas we find we couldn't now return to Waterloo Bridge, for fear of disappointment.) A floodlight plays across the site of Eros, although Eros himself is hidden behind tiers of seating. But when the floodlight gets turned off a universal groan bursts out. It isn't even midnight.

However, searchlight beams soon swing across the sky. A column of men and women forms at once—each person with both hands upon the shoulders of the reveller in front—and goes marching off down Coventry Street with a drummer beating a tin box.

Then the floodlight is switched on again. The crowd had earlier shown signs of dispersing but now it begins to be drawn back.

The underground's still open. Police are marshalling people in and out. Near one exit a woman faints. The night's grown sultry; we've seen ambulance after ambulance. Despite their clanging bells these appear to make progress only with bobbies walking in front or riding on their running-boards. A U.S. military police van, slowly forcing its way across the Circus, is brought to a prolonged standstill. Before it finally disappears, along Piccadilly, about six men are sitting on its roof. I agree with a fellow in a dinner jacket, and an older woman in a veiled and wispy hat, this certainly shows a fair degree of insouciance.

So, perhaps, does a small family party inching its way from the opposite direction in a flag-bedecked governess cart. But what about the pony? A bonfire is already blazing—complete with effigy of Hitler—airmen are letting off fireworks. (Not that the pony seems in any way disturbed.) Little groups gyrate around the flames or else form into crazy, jigging circles. Crocodiles of dancing civilians—many with masks and streamers and wearing grotesque fancy dress—keep pushing their way through. Flashes of news photographers. Shouting, singing, laughter. Din of rattles, bells, whistles, bangers, rockets. Trumpets, too. Champagne corks. (Champagne flows; we see dozens drinking straight from the bottle—nearest us, a little party of Norwegian airmen and sailors flourishing a huge Norwegian flag.) It's a night of noise and brilliance. Suddenly we turn to one another…and know we've had enough.

“Maybe we're hungry,” says Matt.

It isn't something I've thought about, yet now I realize it's true. The restaurants and hotels fronting on the Circus have closed their doors (and Swan & Edgar's and other shops have barred all their windows) but anyway I suddenly remember the nearby Trocadero, which years ago I used to think so smart. In fact it goes with its location—it's a bit vulgar: lots of elaborate decoration and variegated marble in the neo-classical style. But it's large and there's only a short queue waiting for tables and people do seem to be leaving.

Here, too, the champagne flows. There appears to be no rationing of it whatsoever, unless the fact they're charging six pounds a bottle can be seen as rationing. (And obviously it can't. “Rosalind, it's only money and that looks like nectar they're giving in exchange. So please. Quit worrying.” I do…to the extent we eventually work our way through two bottles. It's been a thirst-making kind of night—as we now, rather belatedly, realize.)

Matt also orders scrambled egg, which goes surprisingly well with the champagne, considering it's made with powder and sits so solidly upon the toast. It resembles a moist yellow cake—fun to cut slices from.

We then have castle puddings with jam sauce: a far cry from the
crêpes suzettes
I'd eaten here before the war, with a young man I had thought the very acme of sophistication. But I feel tonight I wouldn't change dried egg and castle puddings for any amount of roast duck or sophistication or balanced menu planning.

At the Troc, moreover, I find a nice lavatory—not such an easy undertaking in London at the moment—and a nice telephone, not only working but actually unqueued-for, on which I ring my mother. Matt then pays our bill, leaves an extraordinary tip for the waiter (it must be a good night for waiters, porters and the like) and we return, feeling fortified, to face the hubbub.

Before two-thirty, however, we are back in Northumberland Avenue and by this time the crowds have definitely diminished. Matt has little trouble in getting to Baker Street, and from then on our way is clear. We should arrive in Chesham by four.

“We might just beat the milkman! Are you sure your mother's going to greet us with such squeals of joy?”

“Of course I am. She said she'd put the key under the mat and make up our beds and leave us out a snack. If she's awake she may get up and say hello; if not she'll meet you in the morning.”

“To which she's looking forward.”

“To which she's looking forward.”

“I think you must be drunk. You've already told me all of this.”

“Well, if I must be drunk you must be drunk. Which is by far the more dangerous. In my opinion.” And I put my hand on his, to offer him assistance with the steering.

“No. Women have a lower tolerance to alcohol.” He smiles at me, smugly.

“Are you sure?”

“Completely.”

“Life isn't fair. Why do men have all the fun? What nice hands you have.”

“Thank you. You have nice hands as well.”

“One of the first things I noticed. So strong. And nice. And…nice.” I caress the hand with my forefinger, stroking the hairs on his wrist and causing them to stand up.

“That's nice too,” he says.

“Everything's nice. It's a nice night. It's a nice drive. It'll be nice to introduce you to my mother.”

But in fact I don't introduce them. They meet the following morning (no, the same morning, of course, just further along in it) when she knocks on his bedroom door and takes him in a pot of tea. Amazingly hangover-free, I am by then wallowing in my (once again!) unashamedly deep bath and have told her he'll enjoy being pampered. Apparently she means only to extend a simple word of welcome but finishes by staying while he drinks three cups of tea, for he, too, is remarkably clearheaded. She hears a lot about his life at home.

And yet she doesn't hear about Marjorie. I discover this while the pair of us are preparing a very late breakfast, and the omission strikes me as significant. I know I mustn't get my hopes up. But I can't help wondering why he hasn't made even one passing reference.

I surmise he learned comparatively little about my mother, not because he isn't a sympathetic listener—which, heaven knows, he is—but rather because her life now is basically so awful she doesn't like to talk about it, not even to me. She was a widow for four years; remarried when I was sixteen. And how my stepfather changed! Though I'd always thought the generous and attentive suitor very suspect, even I was unprepared for the mean, lazy, tyrannical brute he turned into. And the sheer rapidity of the transformation made one question one's own sanity almost as much as his. I wanted her to divorce. She spoke about the need to honour your commitments, whatever the enormity of your mistake. Later on I could have added to her knowledge of that enormity. On a night three years ago, while she was at a meeting of the Women's Institute, he tried to rape me. Stupidly I wasn't able to tell her and he made out that my avoidance of him, yet more assiduous after this, was solely due to jealousy.

If I hadn't known that he was currently in hospital I could never have contemplated even this short visit. I see my mother very rarely—mainly on snatched meetings in London. It's a wretched situation.

Though Matt has heard all this from me (except, that is, for the final cause of my departure, which I'd attributed entirely to the fact I wanted to feel more involved in the war effort—up till then I had been working in a canteen) the man hasn't been mentioned by the time we start on breakfast. We're given eggs and bacon. Shell-eggs and two rashers of bacon! I have no scruples about knowing we are doing the husband out of his but I wish my mother wasn't making such a sacrifice, especially since Matt and I—he at his air base, I on my farm—in general do quite well. She says she finds fatty things slightly rich at the moment. Fresh eggs make her liverish; people just aren't used to them.

The time goes by too quickly.

“I suppose, though, you two have to get to your appointment and I must go and see your father in the hospital.” She had spent most of the preceding day there, which seems to Matt and me—although of course we don't tell her this—a wholly criminal waste of what Mr Churchill has called ‘the greatest day in all our long history'. But she assures us the nurses did everything they could to bring an air of celebration into the wards and that she listened to the wireless a good deal, which was all extremely moving. I gaze at her and think, Oh God, just forty-seven and your life is over.