Motherland (6 page)

‘I’m grateful for the war,’ says Larry. ‘It’s saved me from a life in bananas.’

That makes them laugh.

‘It’s not over yet,’ says Ed. ‘The bananas may get you yet.’

Kitty wants to know about the bananas. Larry tells her how his grandfather, the Lawrence Cornford after whom he’s named, built up Elders & Fyffes, and invented the blue label stuck on bananas, and was the first to advertise fruit, and was known as the ‘banana king’.

‘When the Great War came along we had sixteen ships, and my grandfather was called in by the First Sea Lord to help with the war effort. He said, “My fleet is at the disposal of my country.” The First Sea Lord was Prince Louis of Battenberg, Mountbatten’s father. Which is why I’m in Combined Ops now.’

‘The long arm of the banana,’ says Ed.

‘I think it sounds like a wonderful business,’ says Kitty.

‘Well, everyone laughs when you say it’s bananas,’ says Larry, ‘but actually places like Jamaica depend on the banana trade. And this blue label thing really was quite revolutionary in its day. No one believed you could brand fruit until my grandfather did it. It was a tremendous struggle finding the right sort of gum, and persuading the packers to stick the labels on. But my grandfather said, “Our bananas are the best, and when people realise that, they’ll look for the blue label.” And they did.’

‘Now his dad runs the company,’ says Ed. ‘Guess who’s next.’

‘Unfortunately I’m a bit of a disappointment to my father,’ says Larry.

‘Isn’t there a banana called Cavendish?’ says Louisa.

‘Absolutely,’ says Larry. ‘The Duke of Devonshire grew it in Paxton’s conservatory at Chatsworth.’

‘I’m a sort of cousin,’ says Louisa.

‘Then you should be very proud. My grandfather began the business shipping Cavendishes from the Canaries.’

‘Why are you a disappointment to your father, Larry?’ Kitty asks.

‘Oh, because I want to be an artist. Dad was rather hoping I’d follow him into the firm. But mostly he’s just afraid I won’t be able to make a living.’

‘Larry’s good,’ says Ed.

‘You haven’t seen anything of mine since school.’

‘So? You were good then. I say follow your dream.’

‘Impulse and glory, eh, Ed?’

‘Strike hard, strike deep.’

His words hang lazily in the air above them, softened by the laconic tone.

Because Ed has been kind about his art, and because he’s his
best friend, and because it’s going to happen anyway, Larry decides to be a good sport. Anything to put a stop to this ridiculous hankering feeling.

‘Why don’t you show Kitty Mount Caburn, Ed? Me and Louisa can stay here and talk about Cavendishes.’

‘I’ve seen Mount Caburn,’ says Kitty.

‘You have to climb up to the top,’ says Larry. ‘Then you’ll see a whole lot more.’

Ed gets up.

‘Come on, then,’ he says to Kitty. ‘Ours not to reason why.’

Kitty gets up obediently.

‘Well, all right,’ she says. ‘If I must.’

They set off together across the rising flank of the Downs.

‘What was that all about?’ says Louisa when they’re out of earshot.

‘Ed’s stuck on her,’ says Larry. ‘He needs a shot at her on his own.’

‘So kind Uncle Larry arranges it for him.’

Larry can tell from Louisa’s voice that she understands precisely what he’s done and why.

‘I’d rather be kind Uncle Larry than sulk in a corner,’ he says.

‘Good for you,’ says Louisa. ‘I hope he realises.’

Larry sighs.

‘Yes. He knows.’

They lie in silence for a while. Then Louisa sits up and wraps her arms round her knees and looks down at Larry.

‘You seem a good sort,’ she says.

‘I am,’ says Larry. ‘Worse luck.’

‘So I suppose you’re in love with Kitty too.’

‘Should I be?’

‘It’s just that everyone else is. I don’t see why you should be any different.’

‘Well, then.’

‘She’s a good sort too, actually. It’s not as if she can help it. She told me she’s had seven proposals. Seven!’

‘And she still hasn’t said yes.’

‘Not so far.’

‘I wonder what she’s waiting for.’

‘God knows. If you ask me she wants someone to make up her mind for her. You could just carry her off.’

Larry laughs at that.

‘Ed would kill me,’ he says. ‘He did see her first.’

‘Oh God, so what? All’s fair and so on. But let’s not talk about Kitty. She gets so much attention sometimes it makes me feel quite ill. And anyway, I’ve got a question to ask you.’

‘Ask away.’

‘How can I get George Holland to marry me?’

Larry bursts into laughter.

‘Have you tried just asking him?’

‘Girls can’t do that.’

‘Do you think he’d say yes if you did?’

‘Put it this way. I think I’d make a jolly good wife for him, and he should be jolly grateful. But I don’t think he knows it yet.’

‘Well,’ says Larry after a moment’s thought, ‘you could pretend to think he’s proposed to you. Then you could accept. And by the time you’ve done accepting he’ll think he must have proposed.’

Louisa gazes at Larry with a new respect.

‘That,’ she says, ‘is brilliant advice.’

‘Not my idea,’ says Larry. ‘Tolstoy’s, in
War and Peace
.’

*

Kitty follows Ed up the long grassy slope, picking her way through the piles of sheep droppings. He strides ahead of her, not looking back, leaving her to follow at her own pace. She doesn’t mind. Watching his lean powerful body climb the hill, she understands that his single-mindedness is in his nature, and nothing to do with her. He sees a hill to be climbed and he climbs it. This leaves her free, unburdened by her habitual impulse to please.

When he reaches the long flat approach to the top he stops and waits for her. Ahead the circular ridges of the old Iron Age fort ring the summit.

‘Bit of a scramble here,’ he says. ‘You might need some help.’

He holds her hand as they descend into the wide grassy ditch, and supports her on the steep climb up the other side. His hand is warm and dry and very strong. As they reach the shallow dome of the summit he lets go of her and spreads his arms at the view.

‘There!’ he says, as if the view is his gift to her.

That makes her laugh.

Southward below them the river winds past the sprawling village of Edenfield to the distant sea. Kitty gazes down as if from an aeroplane. She sees the Canadian Army camp drawn up in its ranked rows in the park, and the shine of the lake, and the spikes and towers of Edenfield Place. Seen from this distance her little world seems to dwindle into nothingness. There’s a wind up here on the top of the Downs, it flurries her hair and makes her eyes water.

‘You see over there,’ says Ed, ‘where the river meets the sea. That’s a haven.’

‘Newhaven,’ says Kitty.

She gazes at the harbour of the little port, and the long embracing arm of its pier.

‘I like the idea of a haven,’ says Ed. ‘The river always running, running. And then at last it meets the sea, and can rest.’

‘I’ve never thought of the sea as restful,’ says Kitty. She’s touched by his words. ‘But haven does rather sound like heaven, doesn’t it?’

She looks up. The sky above is big and bare and frightening.

‘Heaven’s too far away,’ he says.

‘It makes me feel like I don’t matter at all,’ she says.

She looks down again. He’s gazing at her with that perpetual half-smile.

‘You don’t matter. None of us matter. So what?’

‘I don’t know.’ His smile confuses her. ‘You want to feel you’re some use, don’t you?’

He doesn’t answer this. Instead he reaches out one hand and gently pushes the hair away from her face.

‘You’re a lovely angel, Kitty,’ he says.

‘Am I?’

‘I’m not what you think I am.’

‘What do I think you are?’

‘Single-minded. Ruthless.’

She’s flattered that he’s remembered her words. At the time he seemed hardly to hear.

‘So it’s all just an act, is it?’

‘No,’ he says. ‘It’s true enough. It’s just not everything.’

‘So what else are you?’

‘Restless,’ he says. ‘Alone.’

Kitty has a sensation of falling. She wants to reach out to him. She’s overwhelmed by the simple desire to hold him in her arms.

‘Stupid thing to say,’ he says. ‘I don’t know why I said it.’

‘It’s a terrible thing to say.’

‘Yes, it is terrible. There are times when I feel terror. Doesn’t everyone?’

‘I expect so,’ says Kitty.

‘But we don’t talk about it, do we?’

‘No,’ she says.

‘In case it wins.’

‘Yes.’

‘Will you kiss me?’

He means, if you kiss me the terror won’t win. If you kiss me, we won’t be alone any more.

‘If you want,’ she says.

He draws her into his arms and they kiss, wind-blown on the top of Mount Caburn, beneath the infinite emptiness of the sky.

Opposite Downing Street, across Whitehall, a short but grand street named Richmond Terrace runs down to the river. The entrance to 1A Richmond Terrace, a handsome doorway into a ponderous stone building, is neither identified nor guarded. This is the headquarters of Combined Operations, a warren of overcrowded offices that are always bustling with activity. Officers from all three services stride purposefully down basement corridors, past unmarked doors where unnamed teams are at work on secret schemes to win the war. Combined Operations was formed to develop amphibious assaults, bringing together sections of Army, Navy and Air Force. The ethos is non-hierarchical. The head of Intelligence, a one-time racing driver, was until recently managing the Curzon Cinema in Mayfair. Organisations have a way of reflecting the personality of their leaders, and this is supremely so in this case. Its chief, appointed by Churchill personally, is Vice-Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, known to all as Dickie. When Churchill offered him the job, Mountbatten initially declined, wishing to stay in the navy. ‘Have you no sense of glory?’ Churchill thundered.

Dickie Mountbatten has a sense of glory. Direct in all his dealings, handsome, charming, with a strong streak of the maverick, he has set about building an organisation that is free-thinking, innovative, and above all, informal. He has brought in friends, and friends of friends, who are known collectively as the Dickie Birds. Staff numbers have grown from twenty-three on his appointment to over four hundred.

A chance encounter between Lord Mountbatten and William Cornford at a club led to an invitation to Larry to present himself at Richmond Terrace in early March. There, as is the way of these things, Larry was greeted by someone who had been in his house at school, in the year above him: a beak-nosed, prematurely balding young man called Rupert Blundell.

‘Cornford, isn’t it? You thinking of joining us?’

‘That seems to be the general idea.’

‘You know what they call this place? HMS Wimbledon. All rackets and balls. But don’t let that put you off.’

The interview with Lord Mountbatten, which Larry supposed would explore his own very limited war record, was entirely taken up with memories of his grandfather.

‘Lawrence Cornford was a fine man,’ said Mountbatten. ‘My father thought highly of him. My father was First Sea Lord at the time, but when the war came, the Great War, they pushed him out because he had a German name. Disgraceful business. Even the King had to scuttle about and bodge himself up an English name. If my father was German, so was the entire royal family. It was Asquith behind it, he was a total shit. Though Winston comes out of it pretty poorly, too. He was at the Admiralty back then, he could have stopped that nonsense. I was a naval cadet at Osborne when it happened, fourteen years old.
It was quite a blow, I can tell you. But anyway, your grandfather, the banana king, wrote a letter to
The Times
deploring the decision. “Have we so many great men,” he wrote, “that we can afford to lose one because his name is not Smith or Jones? If Great Britain is to remain great, we need leaders of the stature of Prince Louis of Battenberg.” My father appreciated that very much. So you’re looking for a change of scenery, are you? Well, we’re an odd bunch. The only lunatic asylum in the world run by its own inmates. But if I’ve got anything to do with it we should have some fun.’

This was the extent of it. Larry learned he was seconded to Combined Ops, and duly reported to Richmond Terrace. Rupert Blundell took him under his wing.

‘Any idea what you’re supposed to be doing?’

‘None whatever,’ said Larry.

‘Something’ll come up,’ said Rupert. ‘Inertia, crisis, panic, exhaustion. The four phases of military planning.’

He carried Larry off to a dungeon-like basement room which was fitted out as a canteen. Here over mugs of tea they swapped memories of schooldays.

‘Of course I hated every minute of it,’ said Rupert, the steam from his mug of tea misting his glasses. ‘But as far as I can tell that’s the point of school.’

‘I rather liked it,’ said Larry. ‘It was more fun than life at home, I can tell you.’

‘Fun?’ Rupert shook his head, bemused. ‘I expect it’s me that’s the problem. I’ve never been much of a one for fun.’

‘You were a brainbox,’ said Larry. ‘We were all in awe of you.’

He could picture Rupert Blundell from those long-ago schooldays, moving rapidly down the long corridors, keeping close to
the wall, books under one arm, murmuring to himself. Spindly, bespectacled, alone.

He found himself wondering what Rupert was doing in Combined Ops. He couldn’t imagine this unworldly figure leading an amphibious assault.

‘Oh, we’re all cranks and Communists in COHQ,’ Rupert told him. ‘Solly Zuckerman roped me in to do what he calls thinking the unthinkable. I’m supposed to come up with wacky ideas that challenge the conventional military approach. Could it be done other ways? Is the price worth the cost? Keeping an eye on the bigger picture, and so forth.’

Larry’s period of idleness did not last long. General Eisenhower arrived in London charged with planning the invasion of Europe, and began by calling for a probe of Nazi Europe’s defences. No full-scale invasion could function without a port. A raid was planned that was designed to discover whether a major French port could be captured in working order.