Camomile Lawn (18 page)

‘I came through Plymouth, the station’s a mess,’ said Sophy.

There, now, it just goes to show. Sophy listened at the post office, at the shop, got hot news at the garage and best of all the truth, she swore it was the truth, from Mrs Penrose who was entitled to know. Had not her husband fallen over the cliff, pushed by a German spy, just before the war began? Mrs Penrose had a fascination for Sophy, who watched her scrubbing floors on hands and knees, her large bottom high, refusing to use the squeezy mop which Helena had bought on her last visit. Sophy followed Mrs Penrose round the house, watching her dust and make beds and in the kitchen with Monika. While Monika worked silently Mrs Penrose talked, describing her life with Penrose, as she referred to her husband. Penrose had spent his early days at sea before joining the coastguards. Penrose did not like the station on the cliff, Penrose had been happy on the Longships cut off from the drink, for Penrose drank. Never on duty, but when he came off duty he reached for the bottle. Mrs Penrose, having her mid-morning tea, would reach for the teapot in illustration. ‘Penrose often went on duty half seas over. No wonder he couldn’t be a proper husband, poor soul.’

‘What’s a proper husband?’

‘Never you mind.’ Penrose’s superiors never knew of his weakness. ‘Why, he would walk along the cliff to work as straight and upright as you please. He would sit by the cliff path before going on duty and stare at the sea. He loved the sea, the sea and the drink. He should never have married, he couldn’t be a proper husband, could he? Penrose must have been drunk or he would have seen the spy who pushed him over.’

‘Did anyone see the spy?’

Nobody, spies were sneaky people who worked unseen. Then thump, push, over he goes, and Mrs Penrose was a widow, not that he was ever a proper husband, otherwise—

‘What?’

‘Well, I’d have kids, wouldn’t I? Not that I like kids, look at the worry they cause. You poor dear have all that worry. If Mr Erstweiler, well, if as I say he’d been like Penrose there wouldn’t be all this worry over your Pauli, would there? Now,’ Mrs Penrose would say, taking her cup to the sink, ‘you mustn’t keep me here talking. I must get on with my work,’ and Sophy and Monika would smile, both too careful to ask the other what she knew or thought she knew of Penrose.

‘Are there people like Mrs Penrose in Vienna?’

‘Cornwall is not like Vienna,’ Monika would answer, ‘but Mrs Penrose is a universal character.’

‘In the Middle East, will Oliver meet people like her?’

‘Surely.’ Monika frowned over a cookery book, striving to follow the recipe for Christmas pudding. ‘Do you write to him, Sophy? This pudding will be indigestible.’

‘No, I don’t. I think they are meant to be indigestible. It’s just so difficult to imagine them all now. Walter at sea. The twins flying Spitfires. Aunt Sarah told Polly Oliver’s in Egypt. I expect he is all right,’ said Sophy, who expected all the time to hear that Oliver had been killed and, if he was, whoever killed him would kill her too.

‘Child, you look sad, help me with these pies. Christmas is a happy time.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Sophy, looking at Monika. ‘I don’t think you do.’

‘You must be happy, your aunt arrives this evening.’

‘She is not my true aunt and she does not love me.’

‘Of course she does, we must make her welcome. And Max comes also, he will be tired after his concerts.’

‘A proper husband,’ said Sophy, mimicking Mrs Penrose. Monika laughed, thinking of her proper husband in Helena’s house in London, and that probably over Christmas he would wake in the night and ask her to accompany him on the piano, a chore which was impossible for Helena.

‘I wish they were not coming. It is much nicer here with just you and Uncle Richard.’

‘My child—’

‘I suppose it will be nice for you, having Max.’

‘Of course.’

‘Aunt Helena always stops things. You’d think she’d never enjoyed herself.’

‘Perhaps she has changed,’ said Monika drily.

‘Like Mrs Penrose, only the other way round?’

‘You are very observant.’

‘Do you think Mrs Penrose loved her husband, even though he was not proper?’ Monika wondered whether this sort of conversation was good for Sophy. ‘Are you able to love?’ Sophy pressed on.

‘Yes, I am able, and so are you.’ Monika sang a West Indian song one of the evacuees at the Rectory had brought from the East End.

‘It’s love and love alone

That caused King Edward to lose de trone.’

‘I am sorry you missed Calypso and the twins,’ she said.

‘I don’t mind,’ said Sophy, who preferred not to see Calypso so loved by Oliver. ‘None of them ever came in the winter before the war.’

Helena came down full of good resolutions, bearing gifts for Richard and Monika, books for the Floyers, a pretty dress for Sophy and a heavy package of gramophone records for Max, who pretended he did not know the contents of the package he carried.

They stepped off the train and stood waiting for a porter, surrounded by their suitcases. Max wore a black overcoat with an astrakhan collar and an Anthony Eden hat; he carried his violin case in his arms, protecting it from the jostling crowd of servicemen hurrying off the train. Helena wore a new fur coat and very high heels, which made her calves bulge. Her hair now waved softly round her face, she smelled expensive. She tendered a cheek to Monika.

‘Ah, Monika. Ah, Sophy, you have grown. Is Richard well?’

‘Just gone up the street to get some cigs.’ Sophy appraised this new Helena. ‘You look wonderful,’ she said.

‘Have to take trouble now our clothes are rationed, though lots of people seem to have no trouble over coupons. Don’t you think it’s very immoral, Monika?’

‘Morality is elastic.’ Monika kissed Max on both cheeks as he stood holding his violin case and the parcel of records.

‘Let me help,’ said Sophy, taking the package.

Max surrendered the records and put his free arm round his wife. ‘Ow goes it,
Mein Schatz?’

Schatz?
What is
Schatz?
thought Helena. He never calls me
Schatz.
‘Dear Richard,’ she exclaimed, seeing Richard limping down the platform, and broke into a trot to kiss him brightly.

‘Well, well,’ said Richard, surprised, wiping his tear. ‘What’s this transformation? Quite the Londoner these days.’ Helena took the remark in a kind spirit.

‘You are walking better,’ she said as they moved towards the car. ‘I always thought you made too much of your leg.’

‘Absence of. This one’s new.’

‘What?’ Helena stopped in her tracks. ‘What d’you mean, new?’

‘Monika got me fixed up. Took me to Exeter. Look, it’s got a hinge.’ He bent down and pulled up his trousers. ‘See? I press it and bingo, the knee bends. Shan’t be tripping so many people. It’s an easier job altogether. I use the old one to poke the fire. I go to bed in this, sometimes, just for the hell of it. Wonder what that Bader chap does at night, now he’s a prisoner of war.’

Helena said nothing; no use feeling furious, she’d left him alone with Max’s
‘Schatz’,
she’d asked for it.

‘D’you mind? You look bothered.’

‘Good heavens, no.’ She took Richard’s arm. ‘Why should I mind?’ They walked towards the car. ‘I should have thought of it myself, it makes me feel—’

‘She wrote to the spare part place, sort of St Dunstan’s for legs and arms. Imaginative girl, old Monika, thinks of everything, must come from years of looking after an artist. Just wait and see what she’s done to the house, we don’t even sleep in the same rooms. It’s all changed, quite a performance, you’ll never recognize it.’

‘Oh,’ said Helena, angered. ‘I can’t wait.’

They drove to the house, Richard sitting beside Monika, Helena and Max in the back with Sophy between them. Arrived, Monika said to Sophy, ‘Show your aunt her new room, darling.’

Helena cried out with genuine pleasure at the bowls of hyacinths on the hall table and in the drawing room, filling the air with bitter-sweet scent. ‘Monika, how gorgeous.’

‘I like them for Christmas.’ Monika smiled at her. ‘I have moved you into the red room, Helena, so that Max can have his piano with him.’ She indicated Helena’s old room. Where once her dressing table stood was now an upright piano.

‘You will be quieter and more peaceful where I have put you. As you probably know, Max likes to play at night.’

‘Not the piano.’ Helena came into the open. Monika ignored her.

‘He calls and I come to accompany him. He is at his best at night. The most inspired. I sleep next door in Richard’s old dressing room.’

‘Why did you interfere with Richard’s leg?’ Helena’s fury burst out like an angry terrier.

‘Are you jealous of something which irritates you profoundly?’

‘Yes,’ admitted Helena. ‘I am. I shall miss it.’

‘But he still has it for spare,’ said Monika, friendly and calm.

‘As Max has you—for spare—his
Schatz.’

‘He always calls me that, it is his pet name for me. Has he yet a pet name for you?’ Monika looked amused, ignoring Helena’s jibe of ‘spare’.

‘No.’ Wild horses would not make Helena confess to
Kleine Phlegm.
‘This will do very nicely. Thank you, Monika.’ She inspected the red room. ‘I like this room, it is one of the children’s favourites. Any news of Pauli?’

Monika knew Helena hoped to unbalance her. ‘No news whatever.’

‘Oh, curse this war!’ Helena put her arms round Monika. ‘Curse it, curse it! I am a horrible, selfish creature, Monika, please forgive me.’ She held the other woman’s shoulders, shaking her to and fro.

‘You do no harm.’ Monika kissed her lightly. ‘We are partners,
nicht?’

‘You are generous.’ Helena was briefly humble.

‘I try to survive. We shall make a nice Christmas, yes?’

‘What have you planned?’ Helena sat on the bed looking up at Monika, her eyes clear blue, her hair fair and fluffy, her pink complexion a total contrast to Monika’s olive skin and sleek dark hair, drawn back into a knot, accentuating her dark eyes and Semitic nose.

‘You are beautiful, Monika. You look like Nefertiti.’

‘I have a Jewish face even more so than Max.’

‘I never thought about Jews before the war.’ Helena looked down at her trim ankles as she kicked off her high-heeled shoes.

‘You did not have to.’

‘I thought they were just other people. Richard’s nephews and nieces told me about the Nazis and I became interested when I realized the war was coming. You have no idea how irritating Richard was, he believed everything that boring old General told him. He liked Nazis.’

‘He no longer does. The General is very keen on the war, he sends his young workmen to enlist. He is
der Patriot.’

‘I bet they don’t want to go,’ said Helena.

‘He tells them their jobs will be waiting when they come back—if they come back.’

‘Do you like him?’

‘He tries to be kind. He is useful.’ Monika shrugged. ‘He does no harm.’

‘Like me?’

‘Ah, Helena, you and I are friends, yes? We work in a team like the English are supposed to. You make Max happy.’

‘Don’t you
mind?
’ Helena stared at Monika in agitation.

‘No,’ Monika said lightly, ‘I do not mind, so I hope you do not either.’

‘Richard?’ Helena was puzzled. ‘Poor Richard.’

‘I make him less poor.’

Helena sat looking at her feet. Less poor, she thought, less poor meant richer … a caring woman, a new leg, of course he was less poor. She found it hard not to feel resentful. ‘What about Christmas plans?’ She changed the subject.

‘A party in the village hall for the London children. The village children they do not mix, but perhaps Christmas will help? Church. The Rector asks if Max will play his violin if I play the organ. Sophy has helped me make a pudding. The General sent a turkey, he asks us all to go and sing songs on Boxing Day at his house, everybody to choose their favourite tune and for us to sing together.’

‘I hope there will be plenty to drink,’ said Helena, linking her arm in Monika’s and leading her downstairs. ‘I never used to drink but since the war I’ve taken to it. I believe it’s the threat of shortage which makes me want it. Tomorrow we die.’

‘Of course,’ said Helena, all those years later, ‘we didn’t die. Here we are driving to Max’s funeral. Some of us are dead but not me. That was a priceless party!’

‘What party?’ Hamish lent an ear. Helena’s voice was sometimes creaky with age.

‘A sing-song at the General’s. He had a stroke which did for him in 1948. He made a fortune out of flowers but didn’t live to enjoy it.’

‘What happened at the party?’ Old people wander, thought Hamish.

‘Had his stroke in a public lavatory. He wouldn’t have planned that. He planned the party so that each of us hummed our favourite tune and the rest of us sang the words if we knew them.’

‘Sounds quite a harmless idea.’ Helena’s laugh made him turn round and look at her. ‘What went wrong?’ Hamish had a theory that old people liked recalling disasters.

‘The General hummed a marching song he’d picked up at the Nuremberg Rally in 1938.’

‘The Horst Wessel?’

‘Yes. As you can imagine Max and Monika were not pleased, especially as only they knew the words.’

‘Did that finish the party?’

‘It was Sophy’s choice which put the kibosh on it.’

‘What did she choose?’

‘The Internationale. She sang it from beginning to end. She said Oliver had taught it her. I thought the General would have a seizure. She made things worse by saying, “The Russians are our allies and yesterday was Christ’s birthday, he was the first Communist.” She was at a difficult age. I found out later Max had been giving her drinks. As parties go,’ said Helena, enjoying her reminiscences, ‘it was a flop, though I remember the evening ended well.’

‘That must have taken some doing. How could anyone be so naïve as your General? It’s unbelievable.’

‘There was quite a strong minority like the General, Conservative people who admired Mussolini for his trains. They didn’t want to hear about Abyssinians being thrown out of aeroplanes. Max found it hard to believe the General was really honourable and patriotic. Richard gave us all a nightcap when we got home and we went to bed. It was so funny!’ Helena, sitting beside Hamish as he drove down the motorway, chuckled delightedly, tiny tears squeezing out among the wrinkles. ‘I shouldn’t really tell you.’