Camomile Lawn (20 page)

Not understanding a word Calypso watched the two men. The newcomer was large, well dressed and expensive, his shiny hair brushed back in wings. He smelled of cigars, wore a heavy gold watch. Listening, she heard and understood odd words—America—concert—dollars. Monika’s name was mentioned. Max was shaking his head, speaking rapidly, gesturing with his hands. His expression lost the look she rather despised of wishing to please and assumed one of pride. He finished what he had to say in English: ‘No, I cannot and I will not.’

The stranger turned to Calypso. ‘Forgive me, please, Max did not introduce us.’ He looked at Max, who stared back, making no effort to do the polite conventional thing. ‘I am trying to make Max accept a wonderful offer.’

‘And what’s that?’ Calypso was not taken by the stranger, whom she found too opulent.

‘I offer him a contract in the States, a passage to America for himself and Monika and he refuses. In America they will be safe and make lots of money. There is no necessity for them to stay where they are in danger. In America Jews are safe.’

‘Safe here, too,’ said Calypso.

‘Only until the Germans come, then they are in terrible danger.’

Calypso opened her mouth but Max laid a hand on hers and said: ‘I must speak for myself, Calypso. This man was German. Now he is American, you understand. He is trying to make me run away and I will not. I have run far enough. Here I can work.’

‘For less money,’ put in the stranger.

‘Ja,
for less money maybe but I work for people who shelter us. I will try to repay their kindness with my music.’

‘I’ve not been particularly kind,’ said Calypso.

‘Your country has and for that I will pay in the only way I can, with music.’ Max sounded pompous, Calypso thought, but his air of pride carried it off. She looked from one man to the other, sizing them up, liking Max.

‘Oliver would say you are paying with an idea.’

‘Ideas are his speciality.’ Max relaxed and laughed.

‘Who is this Oliver?’ asked the stranger suspiciously. ‘A conductor, perhaps? Amateur?’

‘A young man who fights the Nazis, fights for the Jews. So do the twins and the other boy Walter.’

‘Who are these people? An orchestra?’

‘Nothing you would understand. They also have ideals.’

‘Do they play the violin?’

‘They play with death.’

The prosperous stranger laughed, settling his broad bottom on the chair. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘England is losing the war. Soon Rommel will be in Egypt. The British Army is retreating. Hitler invades this country after a bit more bombing and then it is goodbye to your talent, goodbye to Jewish refugees. I am here at great risk to find you and others and bring you to the United States. Be sensible, think of your art, your talent, do not waste it. It is no use your listening to this Churchill, who I admit makes good propaganda, but England will starve very shortly. I know you eat a good lunch today but for how long? Do you know what the U-boats are doing, do you hear of the millions of tons which are being sunk? In a matter of months it is all over in Europe, whereas in America I offer you a future. Even to bring your mistress.’

Calypso, watching the two men, became conscious of a Max she did not know. Helena’s lover, charming, talented, lighthearted, fairly good in bed, changed into a steely creature who made her shiver. She had seen anger, she had seen rage, everyday emotions compared to what Max was experiencing. He began to speak in a low hard voice in German, staring into the eyes of his enemy, for she guessed that if the stranger had not been an enemy before he was one now. He spoke with bitterness. The stout man tried to interrupt with sneering remarks. Max suddenly spoke in English.

‘Now will you go? Get out, leave this country where you are not even worthy to shit, get back to your safe America. I hope the U-boats you so admire will sink you on the way. Get out, get out, you
Dung—’

The stranger pushed back his chair and went away. People at neighbouring tables, who had overheard, stared after him then back at Max. Calypso stared back at their disconcerted faces. They looked away. She took Max’s hand.

‘Have a brandy? Who was that creep?’ She signalled to the waiter. ‘Brandy, please.’

‘A German producer. American now. He makes and breaks in the music world.’

‘Well, he didn’t frighten you, did he? Here’s your brandy, sip it slow.’

‘I hate that man. Have I been vulgar, as vulgar as saying “Ta”?’

‘As I don’t understand German I can’t say, but you sounded good and rude.’

‘Good.’ Max’s colour was creeping back. He squeezed Calypso’s hand. ‘Friends?’

‘I feel,’ she said, ‘that I have grown up several years. I was beginning to grow up this morning. Will this scene upset your music, spoil your concert tonight?’

‘I shall play better than ever, for me anger works better than an orgasm.’

Calypso laughed, stood up to leave. Max found her a taxi. As she travelled through the streets made shabby by war she mulled a thought, new for her, that she had no need to go to bed with Max because now she was his friend. She wondered whether she could put this into words in her letter to Hector and decided it was too difficult. As she stood on the pavement outside her house paying her taxi, Max drove up in pursuit.

‘You forgot your poor Fling. You left him tied up in the ladies’ cloakroom.’

‘People like me are not fit to have a dog.’ She took Fling from him and watched him drive away. ‘And as for being fit to have a child, God only knows,’ she said to the forgiving dog. She went into the house, where her bicycle was propped against the wall in the hall. How long could she go on riding it without harming the baby? She sat down at her desk and began her letter: ‘Darling Hector—’

E
NDURING SCHOOL, SOPHY DEPENDED
on Richard’s weekly letters, a factual account of life in Cornwall. News of the dog, the cow, the hens was far more important than history or mathematics. Every Monday Richard’s plump white envelope brought the news which would enable her to survive the week. He wrote about the Home Guard and what the village thought of it, he wrote that the General was bossy. He wrote about the Rectory evacuees returning to London when there was a lull in the air raids, only to hurry back when the raids started up again. He wrote about the wrangle as to whether a mounted Home Guard was feasible in Cornwall, the jealousy of Home Guards who were said to be mounted on Exmoor. He wrote about the Belgian fishing fleet in Newlyn and of how the Cornish fishermen were called up into the Merchant Navy. He wrote of the harvests, the flowers on the General’s farm. He told Sophy when Monika made jam and how she saved up the sugar. He wrote about bartering Monika’s butter for meat and swapping eggs for fish. He told her which boy had been called up from the village to which regiment, and who was fortunate to be in a reserved occupation. He wrote that Monika and Mildred were shocked that it was possible to buy clothing coupons under the counter from the village shop. He told her which hen was destined for the pot. He wrote about rabbit pie and blackberries, the weather, rain, fog, wind, sun, all recorded in faithful detail, his new leg and Calypso’s visit, the gun and the firing of it. He wrote that the pits made by the stick of bombs would become useful ponds; wild duck would come to them.

Sophy put the letters in the locker by her bed to re-read during the week. Every night, homesick and wakeful, she visualized Richard and Monika sitting by the fire, Richard writing his letter, Monika sewing or knitting. She dreamed of summer days when Polly, Walter, Calypso and Oliver had lolled on the camomile lawn, laughing and joking. She treasured the evening she had spent with Oliver in London. Whenever she was cold she remembered the icy streets by St Paul’s. She remembered Oliver weeping and her holding his hand when something terrible to do with Calypso had happened. He had let her hold his hand for several minutes before dropping it to blow his nose. Every night before she slept she wished herself back in her bedroom; from there she could climb out along the branch of the Ilex above the camomile lawn and sniff its scent, mixed with the salt smell of the sea. With pain she remembered Oliver loping down the hill to the war.

Once a week she wrote to Richard of her school life, what she was learning, how she hated the cold and the games, what they were allowed to listen to on the radio, the News,
ITMA
and
The Brains’ Trust.
Occasionally, if Richard wrote asking permission for her, she was allowed to listen to one of Max’s concerts. She longed for the holidays. She never wrote of her unease with Mrs Penrose, nor could she mention Richard’s habit of putting his hand up her skirt, which when she was small had not bothered her but now was distasteful, though small cost to keep in touch with the only home she knew. She would find a way round these troubles without causing embarrassment to Richard, who was her only link with Oliver. For Richard would sometimes, among the minutiae of his daily life, write that there had been news of the others. He wrote when Polly and Walter’s parents were killed, ‘Can’t have known anything about it, nice way to go.’ He wrote that Sarah had heard from Oliver now fighting in the Desert, ‘Jolly good show’. He wrote that Hector, old though he was, forty-four, might also get in on the action, another jolly good show as there was ‘No real need for him to take risks’. For Walter on the North Atlantic run he had no praise, ‘Foolish fellow not to get over his seasickness, look at Nelson.’ He occasionally noted that the Rector and Mildred had heard from the twins, ‘Now separated, which only makes sense’. He wrote praising Mr Churchill and criticizing the generals, he wrote that like it or not one had to agree that ‘this Hun General Rommel is the best general in the war, he would get defeated though it was hard to imagine how’ and that, awkward chap though he seemed to be, ‘This General de Gaulle fellow is the only Frog to stand up and be counted.’ In those days Sophy grew almost to love him. She forgot in her loneliness the revulsion she felt for his dismemberment, her horror of his smelly breath, the disgust she felt when he touched her, patting her thigh as he had patted stinking old Farticus, now long dead. He did not pat Ducks but fondled his ears, muttering, ‘Only good thing to come out of enemy territory.’ She wove round Richard’s weekly reports the substance which kept her heart alive. She was too young to find it ironic that Richard, whom she had never liked, and who had never liked her, should be the only person to bother to keep her in touch with base.

But when the holidays fell due Sophy travelled to London with her school to be met by whoever Polly persuaded to meet her, spend the night and catch the train to Penzance. By the time Monika met her at the station a metamorphosis would have taken place. She would arrive at the house on the cliff as shy and reticent as ever, finding it possible to talk to Monika and the Floyers but impossible to communicate with Richard. For his part Richard seemed to find this natural and would wait till she was back at school to resume the intimate terms they arrived at on paper.

At the end of an Easter term it was Tony who met her train.

‘Hullo, Sophy. Polly is away, she asked me to meet you.’

‘Where has she gone?’

‘I don’t know, somewhere to do with her job. Walter is in London on leave, he’s very fed up at missing her. He was still asleep when I looked in before coming to the station. How is school?’

‘Horrible. I shall be glad to see Walter. How is he?’

‘Tired and fed up. Not only is Polly away but Calypso’s gone tripping up to Scotland, so he can’t see her either.’

‘Whatever for? She hates Scotland.’

‘She had all her windows blown in so she went up there while the workmen put them back. Said she had a job to do, something to do with Hector.’

‘She’d never put herself out for Hector.’

‘You know a lot for your age.’ Tony spoke reprovingly. Criticism of Calypso from this child, however apt, was galling. Arriving outside Polly’s house he put her suitcase on the doorstep and rang the bell. ‘You all right if I leave you? I have to be at my fire station in a few minutes.’

‘Yes, thank you.’ Sophy watched him go, feeling ungrateful. Walter opened the door.

‘I was just going to get breakfast. Are you hungry?’ He kissed her heartily.

‘I had mine before leaving school.’

‘You could do with another. Did he tell you the girls are both away?’

‘Yes.’

‘Terrible. I get the first leave for ages and no sister, no cousin.’ He led the way down to the kitchen. ‘Like fried potatoes?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘And a spot of bacon? Right, you sit down out of the way while I cook. D’you think they’d mind in Cornwall if I came down? There’s nothing for me here.’

‘They’d love it. I would, anyway. Monika will be pleased and Uncle Richard.’

‘Really think so? I don’t want to impose. Where is Aunt Helena, somewhere with Max, or don’t you know about them?’

‘Of course I know. I’m not a baby any more.’

‘No,’ said Walter, ‘you’re not, you seem quite a bit bigger. Right then, we’ll catch the night train. I haven’t been down since those last summer hols.’ He dished out fried potatoes and bacon. ‘You get stuck into that and then you can bring me up to date with all the changes down there.’

The night train was unbearably crowded. They squeezed into a carriage full of sailors travelling to Plymouth, who filled the carriage with cigarette smoke and drank from beer bottles. Walter pushed Sophy into a corner and squeezed in beside her. The blacked-out train chugged steadily, stopping at dimly-lit stations where the guard shouted the names of the towns. Walter dozed while Sophy sat wakeful, watching the sailors and listening to their talk. She was too uncomfortable to sleep and there was not enough light to read. When she prised a chink in the blind she could see the moon with clouds racing across it. At Taunton more people crowded in, standing in the corridor, smoking, muttering, shifting from foot to foot. Posters in the dim light said, ‘Be Like Dad Keep Mum’. Walter fought his way out of the carriage to find a buffet. The train went on again and Sophy became anxious, fearing he had been unable to get on again. Her anxiety was reaching fever pitch when there was a jostling in the corridor and he appeared, elbowing his way, carrying a cup of tea in each hand, stepping over the legs of their fellow occupants.