Deep Water (6 page)

Leo’s mouth was full of soup, most of which spurted onto the table. ‘They’re religious here,’ he spluttered.

‘How do you know?’

‘Mum told me.’

While Rose was removing their soup plates, Justin turned to her casually, ‘Do you go to church?’

‘Round ’ere we go to chapel. Would ’ee like to come with me Sunday?’

Justin looked around, as if eager to escape. Leo kicked him under the table. Rose was still waiting for an answer, her eyes wide and eager.

‘All right, I’ll come,’ muttered Justin, staring at the table.

‘Ha, ha, ha, clever dick,’ Leo flung at Justin as soon as Rose had gone out again. ‘I bet she was
making
a fool of you and doesn’t really go to chapel.’

‘We’ll see.’

*

They had gone first to a thatched pub beside a creek and Andrea had drunk gin and Sally whisky. There had been old-fashioned brass ships’ navigation lamps on the walls and photographs of Edwardian lifeboatmen standing beside their antiquated sailing lifeboats, and the ceiling had been stained a deep nicotine brown.

Leaving for their next port of call, Sally said, ‘Being an American, I expect you just lurved the Fisherman’s Rest. Pub snobs adore it.’

‘Pub snobs can keep it.’

‘I’ll have you know they play a very special kind of cribbage there with ancient shark’s teeth counters.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘Listen, lady, I’m the native round here, and you’re the visitor. You like my American accent?’

‘It stinks.’

Andrea could not work out whether it was the double gin she had just tossed back or Sally’s peculiar influence that accounted for her failure, until now, to ask where they were going. She certainly did not often carry on wisecracking conversations with women she hardly knew; but, for some reason – possibly the absence of Peter and Leo – an
irresponsible
lightheartedness kept bubbling up inside her. Why shouldn’t she enjoy herself?

Back in the Sunbeam-Talbot, she decided to take a grip on the evening. ‘You haven’t told me where we’re going.’

‘You didn’t ask,’ said Sally, despatching another tight bend with steely competence. ‘But since you’ve asked now, we’re going to Elspeth’s.’

‘A restaurant?’

‘A club owned by a gem of a widow. Her husband went down with his ship, so she bought Ferndene Park as his memorial. It’s really for naval officers, but pilots can join. Even brown jobs.’

‘Farmers?’

‘Soldiers. You must know that. Light me a ciggy, will you?’ Sally rummaged around until Andrea snatched her bag away from her for safety’s sake and extracted a silver case and gold lighter.

‘Thanks,’ said Sally, exhaling twin tusks of smoke as Andrea lit her cigarette.

‘Why do you like Elspeth’s?’ asked Andrea, wondering how much Sally had drunk before collecting her.

‘It’s great because the top brass don’t go there, and
all the service people are young.’ Without warning, Sally swung the car into a narrow driveway.

Tall rhododendrons brushed the sides of the car until the drive opened out into a wide carriage sweep. The house was late Victorian baronial and covered in Virginia creeper. Suddenly, Andrea felt as nervous as she had, years ago, when taken to country clubs by her father’s rich patients.

‘What’s this club for?’ she murmured.

‘To give officers a relaxing time.’

Inside, there was a lot of dark panelling and plenty of chintz-covered sofas and armchairs. A brass telescope on a stand and several marine
paintings
contributed a vaguely nautical feel, although there were also a number of flower prints and an oil of ballet dancers. About a dozen officers were sitting around chatting to about half that number of women, most of whom appeared to be in their late thirties or early forties.

‘Come and meet the girls,’ said Sally, just as one of ‘the girls’ was homing in on Andrea.

‘Three cheers, a new face! And who are
you
, dear?’

‘She’s my new pal,’ cried Sally. ‘Andrea, say “how do” to Elspeth.’

Elspeth was wearing a black satin bow in her hair and a lace collar that hid her throat. Andrea guessed that her real age was forty-five, though she looked considerably younger. The youngest of the men appeared to be under twenty and was wearing a naval uniform with magenta patches on his lapels. Andrea was taken round and introduced
to everyone, though several minutes later she could not connect more than one or two names with their owners. Most of ‘the girls’, she learned, lived within a radius of fifteen miles and were either widows, spinsters, or had husbands serving at sea. Andrea supposed that the virtual absence of young females was because most would inevitably be in the services and stationed far away from rural
backwaters
.

Sally returned from the bar with a gin for Andrea. ‘Come with me,’ she commanded, ‘and meet James the Divine.’ Andrea allowed herself to be led across the room towards a young man in
RAF
uniform standing by the window. She had sensed, despite the jocular introduction – and even before Sally had slipped an arm through his – that she was in love with this man, who looked incredibly young, with his dark curly hair, peachlike skin and long lashes. He blushed when Sally murmured, ‘James flies Hurricanes and is terribly brave.’

‘Darling, I wish you wouldn’t say things like that,’ he muttered.

‘Why not?’

‘Because you know I’m like all the rest.’

‘What are
they
like?’ asked Andrea softly.

He twisted the stem of his wine glass between finger and thumb. ‘Scared witless but making out they’re not.’

Sally’s exalted eyebrow shot up further. ‘Jamie, that definitely won’t impress my chum.’

Andrea found it disconcerting that Sally was clearly so confident that she would not disapprove
of her for having a young lover. Never having met Sally’s husband, she couldn’t feel sorry for him, except in an abstract way; but it crossed her mind that some of the people present would be his patients. As a doctor’s daughter, Andrea found this possibility depressing.

A sallow, fine-featured naval officer came up. ‘Sallikins, you can’t go on hogging this gorgeous redhead.’

Sally made the introduction and Andrea exchanged stilted small talk with the officer, answering
questions
such as, why was she in the area, was she married, and did she have children? And her replies did not even slightly dampen the man’s interest in her. ‘Aren’t you going to ask about me?’ he
murmured
, soon volunteering that he was a bachelor, and then, drawling like a matinée idol, ‘I’m serving in a very fast and menacing ship, Mrs Pauling. I might have to put to sea at any moment.’

‘And what might you be expected to do then?’

‘I can’t possibly tell you that.’

Since Andrea had already been told by Sally that all the naval people present were serving in coastal forces, she guessed that this man’s duties were
confined
to rescuing ditched airmen and looking for submarines in places where he was most unlikely to find them. Soon after accompanying him to the buffet table, she tried to give him the slip by visiting the ladies, but he was waiting for her outside, and asked her sneeringly why America was ‘still sitting on its fanny’. She was tempted to say, ‘Because Englishmen like you aren’t worth getting excited
about’, but instead murmured something about President Roosevelt’s problems, before walking away.

During the next hour, two other officers – one in the
RAF
and one in the army – talked to her in a sociable, ordinary way, making her feel that the club was not just a place for sexual assignations as she had started to suspect.

Next to approach her was a sandy-haired naval officer called Tony Cassilis, who had been talking intently to James and Sally as if he knew them well. Because Tony showed no inclination to flirt and had a reassuringly diffident manner, Andrea felt safe to ask him why he thought a complete stranger should have been more eager to make advances as soon as he’d learned she had a husband.

Tony gazed at her sagely. ‘Officers prefer their affairs to be with other men’s wives simply because they won’t be asked to marry them or father a child. And most of these wives are delighted their lovers never get serious.’

‘Wives never run off with their lovers?’ she asked with a raised brow.

‘The balloon goes up now and then,’ he
conceded
.

Andrea frowned. ‘What would happen to Sally if her balloon went up?’

‘God knows. Her old man’s a damned cold fish. Maybe he knows already. Don’t get me wrong though. I think he’s a terrific doctor. I’d rather go to him than to our naval
MO
.’

Someone put a record on the radiogram, and
several couples began dancing to the song ‘Heaven’. A tall man came in from the hall wearing a shabby duffel coat over a white rollneck sweater. There was a sudden turning of heads in his direction and the very young officer with the patches on his lapels hurried over to greet the new arrival with
sycophantic
enthusiasm. But he remained motionless, listening to the music, his memorable face conveying neither disapproval nor pleasure. Andrea was struck by some inner quality that she could not quite grasp. His interest in the room and its occupants seemed only a matter of form, as if his mind were wholly occupied elsewhere.

Above the words of the song, Andrea heard the man in the white sweater demand, ‘Where’s my Jimmy?’

‘Oh God,’ groaned Tony.

‘Who
is
his Jimmy?’ Andrea asked.

‘I’m his sodding Jimmy,’ groaned Cassilis.

‘But you’re called Tony.’

‘“Jimmy the One” is naval slang for the first lieutenant of a ship.’ He ran a hand through his hair as if involuntarily preparing himself for something. ‘Over here, skip,’ he called out, waving eagerly despite his earlier irritation.

‘Skip’s’ dark hair looked as if it had been blown back by a stiff breeze, which was strange since Andrea could not remember any wind to speak of when she had arrived. Perhaps he had brushed it back, just before entering.

Tony said, ‘Mrs Pauling, I’d like you to meet Lieutenant Commander Harrington.’

As Andrea shook hands with Harrington, his
fingers
felt surprisingly cold. This poised, weary
looking
man glanced at her briefly as he was told her name, and then murmured to Cassilis, ‘I’m sorry, Tony, I must have a word alone with you.’

Even while telling herself she didn’t care, Andrea felt vexed. To be talking to the two most interesting looking men in the room one moment and the next to see them eager to get away was not a cheering experience.

‘Maybe we’ll meet again,’ said Cassilis, draining his glass and thumping it down on a table.

‘Maybe we will,’ said Andrea, puzzled by his gloomy tone. True to form, Harrington said not a word to her before hurrying to the door.

Sally had spotted the two men abandoning Andrea and joined her immediately after their departure. James was no longer in tow.

Sally asked, ‘What did you make of Tony?’

‘I liked him.’

‘Elspeth worships the ground he treads on.’

‘Does he repay the compliment?’

‘You bet.’ Sally moved closer. ‘What was your impression of mournful Mike Harrington?’ To Andrea’s surprise she rolled her eyes like the
swooning
heroine of a silent film.

‘He’s handsome. Maybe a bit pleased with himself. But I only saw him for a few seconds.

‘If you’d seen him for a few hours it wouldn’t have helped.’

‘I don’t care about him, Sally.’

‘Just as well. He’s still in love with his wife.’

‘Good for him.’

‘You think so? She ditched him a year ago. Plenty of gals have made eyes at him, without a dicky bird of interest for their pains.’ Sally took a pensive drag at her cigarette.

Behind her, through the window, Andrea heard the sound of an engine starting up. She turned, and, lifting the edge of the blackout, saw Mike Harrington, with Tony crouched behind, speeding away on a motorbike. So
that
was why Harrington’s hair had been windswept and his hands so cold. She was aware of Sally standing right beside her, also watching, but with a glumness and anxiety that astonished her. Could James be second best to one of these men? Having seen Sally look at her airman so dotingly, Andrea could not believe this.

‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.

‘I was thinking of James, and what he’ll be doing later tonight.’

‘Tell me,’ murmured Andrea.

‘U-boats surface after dark to charge their
batteries
, so James and his mates go up with searchlights and bombard them with R/Ps, whatever they are.’ Andrea felt dumb not to have realised till now that Sally’s brashness was a defence against anxiety.

‘What will Mike and Tony be doing tonight?’ she asked, trying to sound casual.

‘Nothing dangerous. Searching foreign looking trawlers in case they’re carrying spies. That sort of thing.’ Sally took Andrea’s arm and said firmly, ‘Come on, let’s play billiards and forget the lousy war.’

Andrea disengaged herself. ‘They
are
in coastal forces, aren’t they?’

‘Of course they are, lucky devils.’

Walking to the billiard table, Andrea saw Elspeth emerging from a room marked ‘Private’. She had been crying. Could Elspeth have thought that Tony had spent too much time talking to her, wondered Andrea. But when she mentioned this possibility to Sally, she shook her head dismissively.

After being told the rules of billiards, Andrea remarked, tongue in cheek, that all her previous knowledge of the game had been gleaned from a few remarks in
The
Cherry
Orchard.
From this it had soon emerged that she was a teacher of literature. ‘And piano, too,’ she admitted.

‘Well, I’ll be jiggered,’ muttered Sally, ‘I’d never have guessed you were a schoolmistress.’

Since Sally had plainly thought her a kindred spirit before knowing what she did for a living, Andrea wondered whether this revelation would change everything. She guessed it wouldn’t. But after a very onesided game of billiards, Sally suggested leaving.