Coming Home (71 page)

‘When did you get it? How on earth did you
manage?
’

In Phyllis's language, manage meant pay for. ‘I can't manage a new dress,’ one said, or ‘We can't manage a holiday this year.’

Judith hesitated. It seemed dreadfully unfair to sit in this mean little cottage, with Phyllis looking so worn, and to talk about money. Here there was clearly so little to spare. But it was one of the things that she was determined to get off her chest. Somehow, when it all happened, it had not been possible to write it down in a letter to Phyllis. Words simply made it all seem so materialistic and greedy. But in the old days at Riverview, Phyllis had become Judith's dearest friend, and most trusted of confidantes, and she didn't want this to change, which it would if untold secrets were left to lurk between them.

‘…it was Aunt Louise, Phyllis,’ she said at last. ‘I never wrote to you about it, because I wanted to be with you when I did tell you. You see, when she died, she left me all her money, and her house…and everything. In her Will.’

‘Oh!’ Phyllis's jaw gaped as she took in this astonishing piece of news. ‘I didn't think things like that happened to real people. I thought they were just like stories in
Peg's Paper.
’

‘I couldn't believe it either. It took me ages to get used to the very idea. Of course, it's not mine to spend until I'm twenty-one, but Mr Baines, the solicitor, and Uncle Bob Somerville are my trustees, and if I need something very badly, or they think I should have it, then I'm allowed.’

Phyllis had gone quite pink with excitement. ‘I'm that
pleased
for you…’

‘You're so dear. And I'm so lucky, I feel a bit ashamed…’

‘What's there to be ashamed about? Mrs Forrester wanted you to have it, why shouldn't you? Couldn't have happened to a sweeter person. And she'd have thought it all over, mark my words, she was no fool. Good-hearted lady, I always thought, even though she had a funny way with her. Downright, I suppose you'd call her…’ Phyllis shook her head, clearly bewildered. ‘Life's funny, isn't it. There you were, with sixpence a week pocket money, and now you've got your own car. Just imagine! And driving it too. Remember your mum, like a flustered chicken every time she had to get that little Austin started. Mind, she had reason to be nervy, when you think of Mrs Forrester ending up the way she did. Ghastly, that was. Great fire up on the moor. You could see it for miles. And it was
her.
Couldn't take it in, when I read the paper the next morning. Couldn't believe it. Mind, she was some dangerous driver. Every soul in West Penwith knew that. Didn't make it any easier, though.’

‘No,’ Judith agreed. ‘It didn't make it any easier.’

‘I worried about what would happen to you. At the time, I mean. And then I thought you'd probably make your home with the Somervilles. Haven't asked about them, have I? How is Mrs Somerville? I was some fond of her, always made me laugh, she did, with her funny ways. I used to look forward to the times when she came to stay at Riverview. No airs about her.’

‘As far as I know, they're all in splendid form. My grandparents died, you know, within months of each other, and though it was sad for Mummy and Aunt Biddy, I think it was a bit of a relief as well. Aunt Biddy spent so much time on the road, driving to the Vicarage to make sure they were all right and not starving to death or anything.’

‘It's a terrible thing, old age. My granny got like that. Living alone and couldn't be bothered to feed herself, or else forgot. I'd go up there sometimes and find not a scrap of food in the house, and her just sitting there with the cat on her knee. I can understand your Aunt Biddy, feeling relief.’

‘She's got a dear little house near Bovey Tracey. I've been to stay there two or three times. But mostly, of course, I'm with the Carey-Lewises at Nancherrow. I'm going back there tomorrow…’ Even as she said this, she could hear the pleasure in her own voice, and feel the smile on her face. Edward. Tomorrow she would see Edward again. She didn't think about him all the time; she didn't brood about him, nor long for him to be there. She was neither lovesick nor moonstruck, but nevertheless, when he sprang to mind, or his name was casually mentioned in conversation, it was impossible to ignore this leap of the heart, this sensation of dizzying happiness. And it occurred to her then, sitting in Phyllis's poor little house, that perhaps the distillation of happiness was being without a person, and yet knowing that very soon you were going to be with that person again. ‘…tomorrow morning.’

‘Lovely. By this time, it must feel like they're your own family. When you wrote and let me know you were going to stay with them, I stopped bothering about you. I reckoned you'd be all right. And then, that young man you met again there…’

Judith frowned. For a moment she couldn't think whom Phyllis was talking about. ‘Young man?’

‘You
know.
You wrote and told me. That young man you met on the train, the evening you all came back from Christmas in Plymouth. And there he was, at the Carey-Lewises…’

Realisation dawned. ‘Oh! You mean Jeremy Wells.’

‘That's right. The young doctor. Still around, is he?’

‘Yes, he's still around, but stop looking so coy. We scarcely see him now. When he left St Thomas's, he came back to Truro and went into practice with his father, so now he's a busy country doctor with little time for socialising. But sometimes he fills in for his father, if somebody's ill. I had the most dreadful flu last Easter, and he turned up and was terribly kind.’

‘Don't you fancy him any more? You were some taken with him on the train.’

‘That was
years
ago. Anyway, he's over thirty now. Miles too old for me.’

‘But…’ Phyllis, obviously, had no intention of being fobbed off with this and was intent on pursuing the subject of Judith's love life. But, even with Phyllis, Judith did not want to share the secret of Edward. Casting about for some way of steering the conversation into a more mundane direction, she was saved by the sight of Anna.

‘Phyllis. I think Anna's going to sleep.’

Phyllis looked down at her child. Anna, having drunk milk from a tin-mug and eaten her way through a plate of bread and butter, now had her thumb firmly plugged in her mouth. Her eyes drooped drowsily, long lashes drifting down over rosy cheeks.

‘So she is.’ Phyllis's voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Didn't sleep this morning. I'll put her in her pram. She can have a bit of a nap…’

She rose to her feet, gently cradling the child in her arms. ‘…there's my little love now. Mum'll put you in your pram.’ She opened the door at the back of the room, and stepped down into the wash-house. ‘…have a sleep and your dad will soon be home…’

Judith, alone, stayed where she was. The wind was getting up, piping across the moor from the cliffs, nudging at the ill-fitting window. Nursing her teacup between her hands, she looked about her and decided, sadly, that really it wasn't much of a place. Shabby, thin on the ground, everything she saw spoke of little money and hard times. All was clean as a bleached bone, of course, but just about as cheerful. The floor was laid with linoleum, cracked in places and so worn that its original pattern was all but gone. A washed-out rag-rug lay by the hearth and the single easy chair bulged horsehair from a hole in its faded velvet upholstery. She saw no wireless, no telephone, no pictures on the wall. Only a tradesman's garish calendar, hung from a drawing-pin. The polished brass knobs of the range and the sparkling brass fender were just about the only cheerful items to be seen. She remembered Phyllis crocheting doilies for her bottom drawer, and wondered what had happened to these treasures. There was certainly no sign of them here. Perhaps in her bedroom…

But Phyllis was returning. Judith turned as she closed the door. ‘Is she all right?’

‘Fast asleep, little soul.’ She picked up the teapot and refilled their cups. ‘Now’ — she settled herself back in her chair — ‘kept the best to the last. Tell me about your mum and Jess…’

Which took a bit of time. But Judith had brought with her the last letter from Singapore and a wallet of snapshots taken by her father. ‘…this is their house…and this is Jess with the Chinese gardener.’

‘Look at the size of her!’

‘And this is one taken at the Singapore Cricket Club for some party or other. Doesn't Mum look pretty? And here they are swimming. And here's Mum going to play some game of tennis. She's taken it up again, she plays in the evenings when it's cool.’

‘It must be a wonderful place…’ Phyllis leafed once more through the photographs.

‘Do you remember how she didn't want to go? And now she loves it! And there's so much going on. And parties on Naval ships and in the Army barracks. Of course, it's terribly hot, much hotter than Colombo because it's so damp and steamy, but she seems to, have got used to that. And everybody sleeps all afternoon.’

‘And now you've finished school, you'll be joining them! Just imagine that. When are you going?’

‘I've got a passage booked in October…’

‘That's no time. How long are you going to stay out there?’

‘A year. And then, with a bit of luck, University.’ She thought about this, and then sighed. ‘I don't know. Phyllis, I really don't know.’

‘What do you mean, you don't know?’

‘I don't know what I'll do if there's a war.’

‘That Hitler, you mean? He's no call to stop you being with your mum and dad and Jess.’

‘I suppose the shipping lines will go on functioning. Unless all the liners are turned into troop-ships, or hospital ships or something.’

‘Oh, they'll still sail. You've got to go. You've looked forward to it for so long.’ Phyllis fell silent, and after a bit, shook her head. ‘Terrible, isn't it? Everything so uncertain. So wrong. What's that Hitler got to be so greedy about? Why can't he leave people alone? And those poor Jews. What's so bad about being a Jew? No soul can help the way he was born. All God's creatures. I can't see no call to turn the world upside down, tear families apart…’

All at once, she sounded desolate and Judith tried to cheer her. ‘But
you'll
be all right, Phyllis. Mining's so important. It's bound to be a reserved occupation. Cyril won't have to go and be a soldier. He'll just go on working at Geevor.’

‘Some hope,’ Phyllis told her. ‘He'll go, all right. Made up his mind, he has. Reserved occupation or not, if war breaks out he's going to join the Navy.’

‘He's going to join the
Navy?
But why should he join the
Navy
if he doesn't have to?’

‘The truth is,’ Phyllis admitted, ‘he's fed up with tin-mining. His father was a miner, but Cyril never wanted to be one. He's wanted to go to sea ever since he was a little boy. Merchant Navy or something. But his father wouldn't hear of it, and living out here, there wasn't much else Cyril could do. Left school at fourteen, and that was it.’

Distressed as she was for Phyllis, Judith felt some grudging sympathy for Cyril. She couldn't think of anything worse than being forced underground if you didn't want to go. But, even so, he was a married man now, with responsibilities. ‘You mean, if war comes, then he's going to grab his chance?’

‘Something like that.’

‘But what about
you?
And the baby?’

‘I dunno. Suppose we'll manage.’

So now, a new anxiety. Questions leaped to mind, but one was more important than all the others.

‘Who owns this house?’

‘The Mine Company. They offered it to Cyril before we were married. If they hadn't, we'd still be courting. We hadn't even a stick of furniture, but our families helped. My mum gave us our bed, and Cyril's gran let us have this table and a few chairs.’

‘Do you have to pay rent?’

‘No. It's like a tied cottage.’

‘So…if Cyril goes to war, will you have to get out?’

‘They wouldn't allow me to stay here on my own. They'd need it for someone else.’

‘So what would happen?’

‘I'd go back to Mum's, I suppose.’

‘The house at St Just? Phyllis, there wouldn't be space for you all!’

‘There'd have to be.’

‘Oh, it's too cruel.’

‘I've tried persuading him, Judith. To see it my way. Cyril, I mean. But he's that stubborn. I told you, all he ever wanted was to go to sea.’ She sniffed. ‘Sometimes I think he's praying for the war to start.’

‘You mustn't even think of such things. I'm sure he's not. He can't have any idea of the dangers he'll face; not just the sea, but guns and torpedoes and submarines and bombs.’

‘I've told him all that. But you can't stop a man going off to fight for his country. You can't grudge a man the only thing he's ever wanted.’

‘Well, I think it's terribly unfair. What about what
you
want…?’

‘What
I
want? Do you know what I want? I think about it sometimes. Somewhere to live that's pretty, with flowers and a real bathroom. Proper spoilt I was, living with you all at Riverview. It was the first bathroom I'd ever seen, and the water always hot out of the tap, and the smell of your mother's soap. And the garden. Never forget that garden, sitting out on summer afternoons and having tea picnics, and all that. And flowers everywhere. I planted pansies out the front, but there's no sun there. Nothing but wind. And not a scrap of earth out in the yard at the back. I'm not complaining. It's a roof over our heads, I know, and probably the best place I'll ever get. But it doesn't cost nothing to dream, does it?’