Memories of the Storm (18 page)

He shakes his head obediently – the last thing he
wants to do is upset Lucy – and they go out
together. He hurries downstairs with the suitcases
and some clothes and medication for Edward,
whilst Eleanor goes to fetch Lucy.

'Come on,' she says. 'Daddy's waiting for us.'

Lucy follows her out on to the landing and down
the stairs, shivering and frightened, though she is
still hoping that Eleanor is wrong and that her
father will come and tell her that this has all been
some kind of nightmare. The moment she sees
his strained, tense face, however, and his crushed
almost subservient attitude, her heart beats fast with
a different kind of fear. Her adored father looks
beaten and frightened, and now she believes everything
that Eleanor has said. She allows herself to be
rushed out into the dark, wild night and packed
into the car with the luggage. They drive out over
the little bridge, and away towards London, and it is
much later that she remembers that Hester has not
come to say goodbye to her.

It is much later that Hester remembers that she has
not said goodbye to Lucy. Her overwhelming instinct
has been to get Eleanor and Michael away
before any more damage is done and, though it will
be a shock to Lucy, at least she will be out of harm's
way. Hester cannot think beyond this yet. She has
given Edward the sedative that Michael has passed
in through the half-open door, along with some dry
clothes, and he is now asleep where she first put
him, in the chair beside the kitchen range. She sits
at the kitchen table watching him. The river has
washed away all the blood from his nose, though his
face and arms are badly scratched, and he looks
white and exhausted. No doubt the bruising will
show up later. At least nothing is broken. He was
too weak to fight Michael, as they half carried and
half dragged him across the lawn to the house, but
he screamed violent imprecations and struggled all
the way.

As soon as the sedative began to take effect,
Hester was able to get him into his dry clothes,
and now he sleeps heavily whilst she watches him
anxiously. Fear and horror keep her upright at the
table, her hands in a continual wringing motion,
whilst her brain begins to circle in one desperate
groove of thought: what shall I do, oh, what shall I
do? How will he be when he wakes?

When she knows that he is deeply asleep, she
stands up and pushes the kettle onto the range. She
has already made them some tea, though Edward
resisted it to begin with, and now she goes through
the familiar, comforting routine again. When she
sits down she begins to think about her family, how
it has been depleted in such a short time – even
Michael is lost to her now – and she feels as if she
has been utterly abandoned. She remembers those
happy holidays when her mother and father were
still alive, and the boys playing their silly practical
jokes, and her heart aches with loneliness.

Help me! she cries to them silently. Help me! and
tears rise in her eyes and run down the back of her
throat. She drinks her tea, swallowing it down with
her tears, and presently, overcome with fatigue, she
puts her head down on her folded arms and sleeps.
It might be a minute later, or an hour, when she
hears the telephone ringing. Glancing anxiously at
Edward she sees that the bell does not disturb
his drug-induced sleep and she slips out into the
hall, keeping her voice low as she speaks into
the receiver.

'Is that you, Hester? It's Blaise. How are you? You
sound very faint.'

'Blaise.' She can barely speak his name, so
relieved is she to hear him. 'Blaise, where are you?'

'I'm in London. Did you get my letter? I was sent
out to Germany from Bletchley Park and then on to
America but it's over at last. I'm a free man, Hester.
I didn't pick up your last letter until I got back
here yesterday. What's been happening down
there? How's Edward?'

Quite suddenly she begins to cry, gripping the
receiver, trying to explain whilst gulping down
the tears, and Blaise is asking questions, his voice
very different now, sharp and quick.

'I'll come down,' he says at last. 'Don't worry,
Hes. I know someone who'll lend me a car. This is
an emergency. I'll be with you as soon as I can.'

She goes back to the kitchen, her legs shaking,
and sits down again. Edward is mumbling and
stirring in his sleep but she no longer feels fearful:
Blaise is coming.

When she first sees him she feels a sense of shock.
He seems smaller than the tall young man she
remembers: the older cousin, the one who kept the
boys in order and had long discussions with her
father. Yet his presence is much more commanding
and, quite suddenly, she feels weak with reaction.
She puts her arms round Blaise, burying her face in
his Aran jersey, which smells of cigarettes and
coffee, and she inhales luxuriously because this
reminds her of her father.

Blaise holds her tightly murmuring, 'Poor little
Hes. Poor darling,' and gives her plenty of time to
recover herself. She smiles up at him and suddenly
realizes that it is not he who has shrunk but she who
has grown. Just for a moment she is struck by the
sharp planes of his cheekbones, the dark slategrey
colour of his eyes, and her heart gives an odd
lurch.

'How is he?' Blaise is asking. 'I couldn't quite
grasp what you were saying. Did Michael and
Edward really fight? It seems so unlikely.'

He follows her into the kitchen where Edward
sleeps, still asking questions, but when he sets eyes
upon the recumbent figure his expression changes
into a kind of compassionate horror.

'Poor old boy,' he says at last. 'Poor old Edward.
Just for a moment I thought it was your father lying
there, Hes. Though he never was so thin.'

He crouches beside the chair and takes the limp
hand in his but Edward barely stirs and presently
Blaise stands up again and looks at Hester. Now he
studies her properly, smiling.

'You've grown up,' he says, as if making a
discovery. 'How odd for us to be meeting again like
this after all this time. I'm so sorry that you've had
such a terrible war.'

'Everyone has,' she says, taking refuge from her
confused emotions by beginning to make more tea.

'Oh, I've done well enough,' he answers lightly,
'hidden away in my cell at Bletchley Park. I haven't
had a bad war.'

She glances at him quickly, detecting an almost
bitter tone in his voice, but he smiles again: a smile
of sheer affection and pleasure.

'I can't tell you how good it is to be here again,
Hes, even in these circumstances. It's like a homecoming.'

They sit down at the table, the pot of tea between
them, and Hester wonders how to explain exactly
what has happened and where she should start.
Blaise senses her difficulty and begins to ask
questions that gradually lead her from the point
when her mother died to the fight between Michael
and Edward. Slowly, filling in the details as she
goes, Hester tells him the whole story.

And when Edward wakes and sees Blaise sitting at
the table he is at first puzzled and then delighted.
He struggles to his feet, casting off his blanket, and
the two men embrace each other whilst Hester
looks on in relief and delight. After a while Edward
frowns, clearly beginning to remember the events
of the previous evening, and she waits, holding her
breath. When he asks where Michael is, it is Blaise
who answers him.

'He's gone, old chap,' he tells him calmly but
very firmly. 'They've all gone. It's just you and me
and Hester now. I've decided to take a very long
sabbatical while I decide what I'm going to do now
the war is over and Hester has agreed to let me stay.
We're going to get you fit and well again.'

Blaise stands above him, smiling down at him,
and it is as if he is imposing some sort of discipline
on Edward whilst offering him a challenge: this is a
new life, he seems to be saying, take it or leave it.
And suddenly Edward nods his head, as if he is
accepting the new order and is prepared to make
the best of it.

So it is that Hester does not discover the Midsummer
Cushion until the morning, when she goes
upstairs to wash and put on clean clothes. She
crosses the floor, murmuring, 'Oh, no. Oh no,' as if
some new terrible calamity has taken place, and
carefully picks the tapestry out of the wreckage of
smashed glass to see if it is much damaged. The
frame is broken, the wood splintered and, turning
it, she notices that the frayed string has worn right
through and snapped in two. She can see that the
tapestry has not always been kept behind glass and
away from sunlight, and that it is worn in places and
rather faded. She shakes the canvas loose, folds it
very gently in a scarf and puts it away in a drawer.

She stares at the splintered glass and quite
suddenly sits down on the edge of her bed and
bursts into tears. It is as if the Midsummer Cushion
is a symbol of everything she has known and loved:
her happy family life is smashed to pieces, broken
and spoiled. The bright future she once envisaged
amongst her own people is destroyed. As she weeps
she thinks suddenly of Lucy and wonders how she
will cope with the new rupture in her small life; and
she is glad that Lucy has not witnessed the breaking
of the Midsummer Cushion. She loved it so much it
would have upset her terribly.

Presently the storm of weeping passes and she
feels indescribably tired but calm. She tells herself
that this reaction is simply shock and her heavy
heart lifts at the thought of Blaise, sitting downstairs
with Edward. Quickly she strips off her damp,
muddy clothes, pours water from the big flowered
ewer into its matching bowl and sluices it over her
face. As soon as they've had some breakfast she will
bring up the dustpan and sweep up the glass – and
one day, she promises herself, she will reframe the
Midsummer Cushion. Meanwhile she is not alone.
Blaise has come home.

The next few months are the happiest of Hester's
life. With Blaise, Edward is rarely wild or uncontrolled,
and slowly she learns to relax. Edward
grows a little stronger and on fine winter days
they are able to take short walks on the hills and
by the river. The fight and his struggle in the
water has had its effect on his weakened frame,
though: Edward suffers from an increased shortness
of breath and a nagging little cough. Without
the irritant of Eleanor's presence he becomes
calmer; the need to be watchful and alert is no
longer necessary.

He finds that he can tell Blaise a little about the
camp but he knows that Blaise will never be able to
understand the truth of it. Only those who have
suffered the isolation of being utterly abandoned,
locked in a bitter minute-to-minute struggle for
basic survival, humiliated and degraded at every
opportunity, could ever really understand. Even
Blaise, who has a great capacity for entering into
someone else's suffering, can only partly connect
here.

'When the Americans rescued us,' Edward says,
'they were so appalled by what they found that
they wanted to wreak terrible retribution. They
couldn't understand that, after three years of being
subjected to the most brutal violence and callous,
inhuman indifference, we were far beyond the
ordinary, honest, straightforward hatred that can
find relief in simple revenge. Our hatred was woven
into the very stuff of ourselves; it was pure, and
theirs seemed childish by comparison.'

Blaise listens, and sometimes Edward finds relief
in talking, but generally he is content in letting the
past be. He cannot forget, never that, but he can
concentrate on other things. It is the same with
Eleanor's defection: he is coming to terms with it in
his own way. He and Blaise have talked about
Michael, Blaise carefully explaining Michael's
particular loss and loneliness without condoning
his behaviour, and Edward is slowly attempting to
exonerate his old friend. He cannot blot him out of
his memory, Michael is too bound up in his whole
past and in his happiest memories, so Edward must
somehow learn to contain him without descending
into madness at the thought of that final betrayal.

He can accept that Eleanor would have been the
moving spirit in the affair – he remembers her ways
of old – and he knows that their marriage would
never have worked; yet this knowledge brings a
different kind of despair. It seems odd, now, that
she'd remained such a powerful force through
those endless years in prison; something for which
to survive. He'd lived for her – and when he'd got
home he'd seen at once that she no longer wanted
him; that he horrified and disgusted her.

Now he has nothing, he sometimes tells himself
drearily. As soon as he thinks this, however, he
reminds himself that it isn't true. He has Hester
and Blaise, and the three of them are creating a
small, safe world at Bridge House whilst the winter
slowly passes.

Just before Christmas, Patricia and Nanny and the
boys come for the day bringing presents. Patricia is
shocked by Edward's appearance; so shocked that
Hester realizes how hardened she has become to it.
Patricia can barely keep the tears from brimming
over each time she looks at her brother; Nanny is
seized with rage at the treatment he has suffered
and both of them are furious with Eleanor and
Michael. Hester finds it difficult to deal with
their reactions. She has managed to set aside these
tragedies, to accept them as far as she is able,
and she fears that their distress will simply upset
Edward.

Blaise shields Edward from their shock and pity,
joking with Nanny, sympathizing with Patricia in
private, and playing with the boys. Watching him,
Hester knows that she is in love with him and a tiny
part of her is glad now that she was able to connect
with Eleanor, however briefly or inadequately. She
has begun to feel the terrible pangs of love: 'More
like fangs,' she tells herself rather painfully, trying
to laugh, wondering if there is any chance that he
might feel the same way about her. Proximity has
brought them close but he still behaves like the
older cousin, or a very close, beloved friend, and
there is nothing romantic in his approach to her.

'Thank God you've got Blaise,' Patricia says to
her as they prepare the lunch together. 'But how
will you manage when he's gone? Rob says that you
must both come to us. It would be a squeeze but
we'd cope somehow. We could sell this house and
buy a bigger one. Oh, Hester, the poor darling.
Isn't it terrible?' and she begins to weep again
whilst Hester pats her on the back and mutters
helplessly.

'Where did Lucy go?' Jack asks Hester when
they are alone. He has been told that he mustn't
mention her or Michael or Eleanor in front of
Edward, and that she won't be coming back.

'She's with her father,' Hester tells him, 'in
London,' and then wonders if this is true.

'I've got a Christmas card for her,' says Jack.
'Only Mummy doesn't know where to send it. Will
you send it for me?'

'I'll try,' promises Hester. 'I don't quite know
where they are living just at the moment but I'll
find out if I can. Do you want to leave it with me?'

'As long as you send it,' says Jack belligerently.
He misses Lucy and is genuinely upset that he
doesn't know where she is. 'I promised I'd come
back to see her, you see. I
promised
. Her doll's pram
is still in the shed.'

'Oh, darling, I know it is. It wouldn't go in the
car, you see. I promise I'll find out where she is,'
Hester tells him, giving him a hug. She puts the
card on the dresser and the next day she puts it into
a larger envelope, along with her own cards and a
letter to Lucy and another to Michael, which ends
'Please let me know how you all are', and posts it to
Michael's London address having printed 'PLEASE
FORWARD' on the envelope.

A few days after the visit she receives a brief note
from Eleanor; it has no address.

Dear Hes,

I have some bad news. Mike was killed last
week, blown up by one of those bloody UXBs.
I can hardly take it in and I feel in some way
we've been punished for what we did to Edward.
Anyway, I thought you ought to know. Lucy has
been with Mike's old aunt down in Chichester
ever since we left you and as far as I know she's
fine. Mike's CO went down to see them, which
was very decent of him. I didn't think they'd
appreciate a visit from me!!!

My news is that I'm off to America with a girl I
was at school with. Her father is an American,
mother English, and she's decided to go home
for a while. I'm going with her as a kind of
paid companion, anything to get away from this
dreary country. My parents have rather written
me off, they can't really cope with me at all, but
you could reach me through them if you need to.
I hope Edward has recovered and I'm sorry, Hes,
I really am. I don't suppose you'll want to hear
from me again so I suppose I ought to tell you
that I tell everyone that I'm a war widow. I move
in different circles since Edward and I were
together so it answers all the problems. Leila and
her brother are being very kind and I'm looking
forward to a new life 'Stateside'.

Good luck, Hes,
Eleanor

Hester's first thought is for Lucy: now she has lost
everything. She wonders what she can do – if
anything – and decides that it might unsettle Lucy
if she should write to her. Perhaps she is trying to
forget the unhappy memories that can only be
revived if she, Hester, should get in touch again.
Perhaps she should wait and see if Lucy responds in
some way to the letter and the Christmas cards; no
doubt her Aunt Mary will help her to decide what
she should do. Poor, poor little Lucy, how she must
miss her father.

Hester sits for some time in silence, mourning
Michael and regretting him, and thinking of
Eleanor with a kind of admiration. She can't help
wondering how much Leila's brother is involved in
the move to America. When Blaise finds her still
sitting holding the letter, he sits down beside her
and takes her hand.

'The thing is,' she tells him, turning the letter
over and over, 'I have the feeling that we lost
Michael on that awful evening. He looked . . .' She
hesitates, searching for a word. 'He looked utterly
wretched, rather like Edward looked when he first
came home. As if he was in some foreign place
where nobody understood him any longer and
where he'd utterly lost his bearings. Edward was
astounded by the amount of food we had, even
though we're still rationed, and the fact that he
had clean clothes and sheets. Things like that.
Those three years in the camp had completely
disorientated him. Well, Michael looked like that
on the last night. I shall never forget the way he
went rushing out over the bridge to get help and,
when we brought him back, it was as if something
had broken.'

Blaise holds her hand tightly. 'It would be the
worst kind of thing for someone of Michael's
temperament. To be deceiving his closest friend. I
can imagine how easy it would be to believe that
Edward was dead, and submit to the temptation of
making love to his widow, but when Edward came
back it must have been hell on earth for a man
like Mike. To be torn between two people or two
different kinds of love. Poor devil.'

'Shall we tell Edward?'

Blaise thinks about this and then shakes his head.
'I think not. He seems to have put them out of his
mind. Let's not reopen old wounds. If he asks about
him then we shall have to tell him the truth, of
course, but he's got quite enough to handle with his
memories of what he's been through.'

Hester knows that Edward talks to Blaise about
the camp, though he always falls silent when she
comes in, but she catches odd fragments that allow
her a tiny glimpse of the hell he has survived: the
beatings and the torture and the starvation.

'Men bartered food in exchange for tobacco,' he
says one afternoon when he and Blaise are having
an after-lunch smoke. 'They knew they would die of
starvation but the habit had such a hold that they
didn't care. When we got tobacco the problem was
what to roll it in. We started to use the leaves out of
books and we got to the stage where men were
wanting to using their bibles. It made a good smoke
because the paper was so thin and fine. The padre
agreed that bibles could be used so long as each
man read the page he was about to smoke.' Hester
hears him chuckle. 'It gave a very fragmented
picture of the good book. I remember Habakkuk
and Micah. He was an amazing man, the padre. He
used to refuse to allow those who were sick to be
forced out to work. The guards would knock him
senseless and then drag the poor devils out anyway.
He never gave in, though. He fought for us and was
beaten up for us and showed what Christianity
really meant by living it. He kept our faith alive
even in the most degrading circumstances when it
seemed impossible to believe in anything except
evil.'

When she comes back with the coffee they are
talking about religion more generally.

'I think the only true, honest revolution is the
one that takes place within a man's soul,' Blaise is
saying. 'Any other kind simply means the destruction
of one set of people by another so as to set up
a new regime, which in time produces exactly the
same kind of misuse of power and privilege. But if
a man dies to himself so that Christ begins to live in
him that can only be good, surely?'

Later that evening, sitting by the fire, Hester tells
him that she and Edward have been reading John
Clare's poetry again and Blaise talks to them about
their father's work at Cambridge.

'Have you thought about going to Cambridge?'
Blaise asks Hester. 'It's what your father would have
wanted for you. Edward and I could prepare you
for the entrance exam, couldn't we, Edward?'

Edward agrees at once, delighted by the idea,
and they immediately set about drawing up a reading
programme, joking about how hard she'll have
to work. Hester goes along with it readily, though
she can't imagine how Edward would cope without
her and clearly Blaise can't remain with them for
ever. The thought of his leaving them fills her with
an unfamiliar misery.

For now, though, Hester is happy: she has Blaise.
She accepts that she is in love with him and, to
begin with, the joy of having him here at Bridge
House is enough. Each morning, when she wakes,
her heart beats with excitement rather than with
dread. As the spring approaches, however, Hester
notices another change in Edward.

'Edward is so much better,' she tells Blaise. 'He
doesn't seem mad any more. But have you noticed
that there's a kind of resignation about him?'

Blaise looks at her, an odd look. 'The poor
fellow. The trouble with these things, Hes, is that
you can't have it both ways. From what he's told me
I know that it was the thought of Eleanor that kept
him going through those appalling times. Coming
home to her was what gave him the will to survive.
And what happens? He finds her again and then
discovers that she doesn't want him any more.
Worse, she's in love with his closest friend. Eleanor
was the wire in his blood that first of all kept him
alive and then drove him mad. He's accepted that
he's lost her but he's also lost the thing that made
life worth living. Now he's simply existing.'

Hester is horrified. 'Is he really so unhappy?'

'That's the whole point. He doesn't feel unhappy
because he doesn't feel anything much. In the camp
the prisoners were systematically humiliated and
degraded. One of the things that sustained them
was the thought of someone somewhere to whom
they were important and it was for their sakes they
endured and survived when it might have been
easier to give up. Edward came back to rejection
and betrayal and it's knocked the stuffing out of
him.'

'He's got us,' says Hester sadly. 'But I can see that
it isn't the same.'

'Not quite.' Blaise smiles at her. 'But it's ever so
much better than nothing. That's why this idea of
getting you ready for Cambridge is a good one. It
gives him a goal to work for; something worth
doing.'

Hester looks at him directly. 'But how could
I leave him? You won't stay for ever, will you,
Blaise, and then what does Edward do while I'm at
Cambridge?'

'We have to think about it. To tell you the truth,
Hes, I'm thinking of taking Holy Orders. Oh, I
know,' he grins at her expression, 'it is pretty
amazing, isn't it? But I feel very strongly drawn
to it. This is giving me time to discern; to see if I
really have a vocation. Perhaps we might all go to
Cambridge and get a house together there. Oh, I
don't know! Let's just give ourselves time to think
and work and get Edward properly fit.'

And she is too grateful to know that he will be
with them for a while longer to make any kind of
protest.

Hester's coaching programme continues and
Edward chooses
Twelfth Night
as part of her studies.
To help her, they read it aloud at night around
the fire, discussing the structure and the plot and
Shakespeare's characters. They share out the parts,
Hester playing Viola to Blaise's Duke Orsino, and
although he doesn't suspect it, Edward's choice
of play is particularly and poignantly apt for, all
through the cold, blowy, green and golden days of
early spring, Blaise and Hester are falling in love.