Casting Off (2 page)

‘Seddons would be better than the Commers, sir, if we have any choice, the price of petrol being what it is.’

‘Yes – right. Good point.’

Cartwright said well he’d be off then, but showed no signs of doing so. It turned out that he had a nephew due to be demobbed in the near future – his wife’s brother’s son, he explained. The family lived in Gosport and he wondered whether there might be a job going at the new wharf in Southampton. Hugh said that he would ask his brother and Cartwright said thank you very much sir he’d be obliged. Then he did go.

The twinge of irritation and anxiety that Hugh always felt whenever Southampton was mentioned occurred, setting off at the same time a larger and more immediate twinge of the same about Miss Pearson leaving. He did not feel at all like breaking in a new secretary after all these years. ‘You don’t like changing
anything
, my darling,’ Sybil had said, when he had exclaimed at her altering the parting of her hair. My God, he wouldn’t mind
what
she did with her hair, if only she was still alive! It was three years now – three years and four months – since she had died and it seemed to him that all that had happened in that time was that he had got horribly
used
to missing her. This was described by other people as getting over it.

At this point he resorted as usual to telling himself that at least she was out of pain – he could never have wanted, could not have
borne
any more of that for her. It was better that she should die and leave him than continue to be so racked.

He finished reading and signing the letters that Miss Pearson had brought in when she gave her notice. She would collect and pack them into their envelopes while he was at lunch. He buzzed her to call a taxi for him and to say that he might be late returning.

He was lunching with Rachel – at least it was not going to be one of those alcoholic business lunches that he always found particularly trying after his headaches. He found that he was constantly reassuring himself with small mercies of this kind.

He was meeting her at a small Italian restaurant in Greek Street – chosen because it was quiet and likely to proffer food that Rachel would accept. Like the Duchy, who absolutely never ate out of her own house, Rachel had a profound distrust for ‘bought food’ – it was either too rich, or too elaborate, or else menacing in some other way. But on this occasion it had been she who had suggested lunch – she was going to be in London for the night anyway as she was going to a concert with Sid. ‘I simply must talk to you about Home Place and Chester Terrace and all that,’ she had said. ‘They each keep talking to me about it and saying what they want to do, but they don’t want the same things. It’s hopeless trying to talk at weekends – we’re bound to be interrupted.’

But when he arrived at the restaurant he was greeted by Edda, the elderly proprietress, who said that the ladies were upstairs, and when he reached the table there was Rachel – with Sid.

‘Darling, I do hope you don’t mind. Sid and I had sort of arranged to spend the day and I’d forgotten about our lunch when I made the plan with her.’

‘Of course not. Lovely to see you,’ he said heartily. Privately, he thought Sid a bit odd: in her rather bulky tweed suit that she seemed to wear all the year round with a shirt and tie, her unfashionably short hair and her face with the complexion of a nut, she looked like a little old boy, but she was darling Rachel’s best, if not her oldest and only friend and therefore merited his good will. ‘I always think of you as practically one of the family,’ he added, and was rewarded by the faint colour that came and went on his sister’s anxious face. ‘I told you,’ she was saying to Sid. ‘I had to persuade her to come,’ she was now saying to him.

‘I know you have family matters to discuss – didn’t want to be in the way, you know. I promise I’ll sit as quiet as a mouse. I won’t say a word.’

This turned out to be quite untrue. They did not get down to things at first: food had to be chosen. Rachel, having perused the menu, eventually asked whether she could simply have a plain omelette – just a small one? This was after he and Sid had decided upon minestrone and braised liver and he and Sid were drinking Martinis that Rachel had refused.

They smoked while they were waiting for their food: he had bought a packet of Passing Clouds for Rachel, which he knew she liked best after her Egyptian ones that were hardly ever to be found.

‘Oh, darling, thank you! But Sid has magicked my old brand from somewhere – I don’t know how she does it.’

‘There’s just one place that sometimes has them,’ Sid said offhandedly, as one for whom small triumphs made up for their lack of size by their frequency.

‘Well, keep them anyway – as a reserve,’ he said.

‘I feel very much spoiled.’ Rachel put them in her bag.

When the minestrone arrived, he suggested that she start on the parents’ problems. The Brig wanted to move back to Chester Terrace so that he would be nearer the office, ‘although the poor old boy can’t do much when he gets there’, but the Duchy, who had always hated the house, describing it as gaunt and dark and too large for them anyway, wanted to stay in Home Place. ‘She doesn’t really like London at all, poor darling, she wants her rock garden and her roses. And she thinks it would be bad for the grandchildren if they didn’t have the house for holidays. But
he
gets so restless there, now that he can’t ride or shoot or do any more building . . . And they keep telling
me
what they want, but they don’t talk to each other about it. So you
do
see . . .’

‘Couldn’t they just go back to what they did before the war? Keep both houses and then the Duchy could be in the country as much as she liked.’

‘No, I don’t think they could. Eileen really wouldn’t be up to the stairs in London any more, and the Brig has promised the cottage over the garage to Mrs Cripps and Tonbridge when they’re married – it seems unfair to move them. Chester Terrace would need at least three servants, and I’m told that it’s almost impossible to get anyone reliable. The agencies say that girls simply aren’t going into service any more.’ She stopped and then said, ‘Oh dear! I do hope I’m not spoiling your soup – it looks so delicious.’

‘Like to try it?’ Sid held out a spoonful.

‘Oh, no, thank you, darling. If I have any soup, I wouldn’t have room for anything else.’

‘What would
you
like to do?’

‘Good question,’ Sid said at once.

Rachel looked nonplussed. ‘I hadn’t thought. Whatever would make them happiest, I suppose.’

‘He wasn’t asking you that. He was asking you what
you
would like.’

‘Wouldn’t you like to be in London?’

‘Well, in some ways it would be rather nice.’

While the soup plates were being removed and the main course brought and served Rachel explained that it would be easier for her to do a third day in the office if she was in London. She could not really keep up with the work in the two days she was now working. By the time she had listened to everybody’s troubles . . . and she was off with the latest hard luck story: Wilson, whose wife had to go into hospital – no grandparents to look after the children, and they’d been bombed out, lived in two damp basement rooms, and his sister, who might have taken the children, was being divorced, her husband, shortly to come out of the Navy, wanted to marry a girl he’d met in Malta, anyway, she was so upset that she was in no state to look after anyone . . .

Her omelette was congealing on the plate.

‘Oh dear,’ she said, taking a tiny mouthful, ‘I’m boring you both with my silly office troubles . . .’

But they
weren’t
her troubles, he thought, they were other people’s. He wondered, for a moment, what on earth the staff had done before she joined the firm. Officially, her job had been to deal with salaries, insurances and holiday dates for the staff, together with petty-cash accounts and office supplies. In fact, she had become the person to whom everyone went with their problems – either in the office or out – and she now knew far more about everyone who worked for the Cazalets than he or his brothers had ever done. Sid said, ‘But none of this has anything to do with what
you
would like to do.’ There was an edge to her voice, Hugh thought; she sounded almost accusing.

‘Well, of course it would be nice in other ways, but one can’t make this sort of decision for purely selfish reasons.’

‘Why not?’ There was a short, charged silence and then Sid repeated: ‘Why on earth not? Why are everybody’s feelings more important than yours?’

It was almost as though she was talking about
her
feelings, he thought – he was beginning to feel out of his depth somehow, and certainly rather uncomfortable. Poor Rach! She simply wanted everything to be right for everyone; it wasn’t fair to bully her about it. She had gone rather pale, he noticed, and had given up even a pretence of eating her omelette.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘it seems to me that Chester Terrace
should
go. It’s far too big, and it would be better to sell the lease while there’s a reasonable amount of it left, and then they won’t be liable for the repairs. So what about keeping Home Place and getting a flat for you and the Brig when he wants to be in London? Then the Duchy could stay in the country. You’d only need one servant and a daily to run a flat, wouldn’t you?’

‘A flat. I don’t know whether either of them would consider a
flat.
The Brig would think it was poky, and the Duchy would think it was
fast.
She thinks flats are for bachelors until they get married.’

‘Nonsense,’ Sid said. ‘Hundreds of people will be taking to flats in the same way that they will have to learn to cook.’

‘But not at the Duchy’s age! You can’t expect someone of seventy-eight to start learning to cook!’ There was an uncomfortable silence, and then she said, ‘No. If anyone has to learn to cook, it should be me.’

Sid, looking contrite, put out her hand to touch Rachel’s arm.
‘Touche!
But it’s your life we’re talking about, isn’t it?’

Hugh felt obscurely irritated at her trying to include him. In spite of what she had said about not saying a word, she was interfering in what he felt was none of her business. He signalled the waiter to get a menu, and said – to Rachel, ‘Don’t worry, darling. I’ll have a word with the Brig about an alternative to Chester Terrace and you and I can hunt for a suitable place. If the worst comes to the worst, you could always move in with me as an interim. Now, who would like an ice or fruit salad or both?’

When Rachel, who immediately said that she couldn’t possibly eat any more, had been persuaded to have some fruit salad and he and Sid had settled for a bit of both and he’d ordered coffee for everyone, he raised his glass and said, ‘What shall we drink to? Peace?’

Rachel said, ‘I think we should drink to poor Mr Churchill as we seem to be letting him down so badly. Doesn’t it seem extraordinary that they should want to chuck him out the moment the war’s over?’

‘The war isn’t completely over. There’s another good two years’ fighting in Japan, I should think. I suppose one has to say that at least the other lot are used to government – at Cabinet level anyway.’

Sid said, ‘I’m rather in favour of the other lot. It’s time we had a change.’

Hugh said: ‘I think what most people want is to get back to normal as soon as possible.’

‘I don’t think we shall be going
back
to anything,’ Rachel said. ‘I think it’s all going to be different.’

‘You mean the Welfare State and a brave new world?’

He saw her face puckering in a little flurry of frowns and remembered suddenly how he and Edward had called her Monkey when they wanted to tease her.

‘No, what I meant is that I think the war has changed people, they’ve got kinder to one another.’ She turned to

Sid. ‘
You
think that, don’t you? I mean people have shared things more – particularly the awful ones, like being bombed and separated and all the rationing and men getting killed—’

‘I think there isn’t the same kind of arrogant indifference,’ Sid said, ‘but if we don’t have a Labour government there jolly soon will be.’

‘I’m absolutely no good at politics, as you well know, but surely both sides are saying the same things, aren’t they? Better housing, longer education, equal pay for equal work . . .’

‘They always say that sort of thing.’

‘We’re
not
saying the same thing. We aren’t going to nationalize the railways and the coal mines et cetera.’ He glared at Sid. ‘That’s going to cause chaos. And, from our point of view, it means that we shall be faced with only one customer instead of a comforting number.’

The waiter brought their coffee – just as well, he thought: he really didn’t want to have a political argument with Sid – he was afraid he might be rude to her and that would upset Rachel.

Now she was saying, ‘What are you going to do? About your house, I mean. Are you going to stay in it? Edward and Villy are selling theirs and looking for somewhere smaller, which seems sensible.’

So that he can afford a second place to put that woman in, he thought. He said, ‘I don’t know. I’m fond of it. Sybil said she never wanted to leave it.’

There was a short silence. Then Sid said she would join them in a minute.

‘Miss Pearson is leaving me,’ he said, to deflect their thoughts.

‘Oh dear. I was afraid she might. Her mother’s become such an invalid. She told me she got back last week and found the old lady on the floor. She’d fallen trying to get out of her chair, and she couldn’t get up.’

‘I shall miss her.’

‘I’m sure you will. It’s pretty awful for her because she won’t get her full pension. I was going to talk to you about that. I’m afraid she’s going to be rather hard up.’

‘She must have saved a bit – she’s been working for us for at least twenty years.’

‘Twenty-three, actually. But her mother’s only got a very small widow’s pension that dies with her. Except for the house, Muriel won’t get left anything, and I should think that by the time her mother dies she’ll be too old to get another job. Don’t you think, in the circumstances, that perhaps we ought to see that she gets her full pension?’