Not That Sort of Girl (14 page)

Lying in Ned’s uxurious embrace Rose tried not to listen for the telephone. As the months passed she disciplined herself to listen less, not to run when it did ring, nor lose her breath as she snatched up the receiver.

The Finnish war began and sadly ended. Winter grew vicious. It snowed and froze, pipes burst when it relaxed temporarily before freezing harder. All over England plumbers who had not joined the forces became the kings of society.

Ned and his regiment were moved at short notice to France.

Rose was alone at Slepe, listening to the radio, gleaning news of a frozen Maginot Line, of ice-bound northern Europe. She brought two of Mrs Farthing’s kittens into the house and stocked up with hot-water bottles. Huddling in her bed with the cats and hot bottles she shivered as the wind howled round the house and whoofed down the chimneys. Still the telephone failed to deliver Mylo’s voice. Seeking comfort from the lithograph he had sent her, she staved off loneliness.

There were times waking in the night when she questioned whether he had sent the Bonnard. There had been no written word inside the parcel. Almost his last words, she remembered with desolation, had been, ‘I shall not bother you again.’

From time to time, mindful of soon-to-come petrol rationing, she drove to London to pay a duty visit to her parents who since her marriage remained permanently in town, her father concentrating on his cancer treatment. (It did not seem to be doing him much good, nor did he appear worse.) She drove into a London whose streets, parks and squares were deep in frozen slush, stained grey and brown with grime.

She brought her parents cream and butter from the farm and on occasion a fowl. (‘I fear,’ she warned them, once, ‘that this is the last time I shall come by car; it will be more difficult to bring you things by train.’ ‘Nonsense,’ said her mother, ‘you are a strong girl; your father needs a bit extra.’)

She stayed with them for as short a time as was decent. Visiting her parents confused her. Then she fled their probing eyes, their unspoken questions. When she reached the street she muttered her answers: ‘No, I am not pregnant, and no, I am not happy.’

After one such visit, walking down Sloane Street, she ran into Mrs Malone. The older woman was struck by Rose’s pinched appearance. She stopped, chatted, invited her to lunch near by. ‘The Cordon Bleu is still functioning.’

Rose was about to refuse, say that she had a full day’s shopping ahead, that she was not hungry. They were standing downwind from the Kenya Coffee Shop; a customer coming out brought into the icy street a waft of coffee. Rose’s mouth filled with saliva. ‘Thanks,’ she said, ‘I’d love to.’

They sat in the restaurant and ordered their food. Rose told Mrs Malone that she had been visiting her parents, so explaining her presence in London.

‘I hear that they have let their house,’ said Mrs Malone, ‘for the duration of the war, and might sell.’

‘They have not told me,’ said Rose, surprised.

‘Not wanting to bother you.’ Mrs Malone buttered her bread; she was hungry and could not wait for the waitress to bring the ordered dish. ‘Your mother,’ she said munching, ‘would rather live in London, she expects your father to die.’

Rose, who also expected this but had never voiced the eventuality to anyone other than Mylo, said nothing; she did not feel she knew Mrs Malone well enough to discuss death.

‘You should call me Edith,’ said Mrs Malone, ‘that’s the name I’m stuck with.’

‘Oh,’ said Rose. ‘Edith, thank you.’

The waitress brought their order. Edith Malone began to eat. ‘Go ahead, eat. It is easier,’ she said, ‘to talk about your father dying to a comparative stranger than to your mother.’

‘I suppose …’ Rose took a mouthful of food; it was good, its goodness made the topic of her father’s demise worse. ‘I suppose …’

‘Of course, your mother’s trouble is that your father is not dying, he has not got cancer.’

‘Oh.’

‘I know his physician. This situation is tough on your mother, she had hoped to become free …’ Mrs Malone munched on.

‘How do you …?’

‘I know, but I do not suppose your mother does.’ Edith masticated slowly. ‘If she does, she suppresses it. Your mother tries to be good, she had a Christian upbringing no doubt, is repressed, and is constipated.’

‘She is continually dosing herself.’ Rose could not help her laughter.

‘There you are. I wonder whether they have any profiteroles, so delicious, or has the war put a stop?’

‘A stop,’ said a passing waitress who seemed to know Mrs Malone.

‘Then, coffee for two,’ said Edith. ‘Black. Your mother now hopes that if they stay in London the God of War will oblige with a bomb and remove your father.’

‘There are no raids.’ Rose was convulsed with merriment.

‘There will be,’ Edith assured Rose, delighted to have made her laugh.

‘Then what does she do?’ Rose warmed to this new version of Edith Malone.

‘Oh, then she will start
living,’
said Edith, sipping her coffee, ‘but,’ she was suddenly sad, ‘she may find that life when lived resembles coffee in that the smell is more delicious than the liquid. You didn’t know I was so wise, did you?’

‘No.’ Rose grinned at her. ‘I didn’t.’

I wish, thought Edith, that stupid George or idiot Richard had snapped this girl up before letting Ned Peel get her. Why did I never notice her properly? I could have done something about it. ‘If you have nothing better to do,’ she said, ‘come with me to Harrods. I want to stock up with toys.’

‘Toys?’ Rose was mystified. ‘Why?’

‘There may be a shortage presently, bound to be. Already this morning I found there are no glass balls for the Christmas tree. All made in Germany by our
enemies!
Ridiculous, isn’t it, what brings home the reality of war.’

‘Yes,’ said Rose (the reality of war for me is no Mylo).

‘When this phoney war is over, there will be another wave of evacuee children. I plan to fill the house. I did not want them any more than anyone else. I am now rather ashamed. I am stocking up with toys and presents for them. Will you help me, give me your afternoon?’

‘I would love to.’

‘Good,’ said Edith, paying the bill. ‘We can house ten children; they can use the tennis court as their playroom.’

‘I didn’t know …’ began Rose.

‘Didn’t know a woman like me could have a social conscience? Don’t be fooled. I am going to enjoy those children just as much as your mother will enjoy her widowhood.’

Rose, shocked and pleased, asked, ‘What about Mr Malone? Does he know?’

‘He will enjoy them. I haven’t told him yet. He never had much time for George and Richard when they were small, too busy making money. It’s much easier to enjoy other people’s children, one isn’t ultimately responsible. Come along, we are wasting time. Have you a car?’

‘Yes, the bishop’s. Why?’

‘I can load you up with my parcels.’

‘Of course, but wouldn’t you rather have Harrods deliver?’

‘There might be a raid which would prevent them,’ said Edith hopefully. ‘Rather fun, is it not, not knowing from one moment to the next whether or not we are to be raided?’ Then, noting Rose’s puzzled expression she said, ‘Come, my dear, it’s no use being glum, it’s better to get the maximum enjoyment out of every situation—in this case, the war.’

‘I had not pictured things that way.’

‘Then do start. Enjoyment is good for morale. Good morale wins wars. By the way, did you say the bishop’s car? The Thornbys’?’

‘Yes. Ned bought it from them.’

Or they sold it him, thought Edith. ‘See a lot of those two? Nicholas and Emily?’

‘Not all that much.’

‘You’ll get a fresh insight into life there too, I gather. Something that boy we had to tutor George in French said about them rather interested me. An observant fellow, that.’

Rose looked away, biting back her longing to talk of Mylo to this new Edith Malone, but it was risky, she must not. She followed Edith into Harrods thinking that if Edith was able to present her with a novel view not only of herself but of her parents, she might well be capable of unveiling a new Mylo, but he is all mine, she thought, only I must discover him.

Presently, loading Rose’s car with her parcels of toys—she herself would be returning to the country by train a day later—Edith Malone thought it would not be wrong to suggest to George and Richard that they should take Rose out, enliven her grass widowhood. ‘Come over to supper one day,’ she said. ‘I will ring up and fix it. George and Richard will be on leave soon, they would like to see you.’

Rose rather doubted this. ‘I have not seen them for ages. What are they doing?’

‘George is soon to be posted abroad, and Richard has at last got himself into the Wavy Navy. You will come, won’t you?’

‘I’d love to,’ said Rose.

So life nibbled a little further, but reserved its fiercest nips for later.

R
OSE CAUGHT A BAD
cold towards the end of the winter. She would have shaken it off if she had, as Mrs Farthing suggested, stayed in bed or in one room in an even temperature; but this she would not do. She moved, sneezing, from the kitchen which was warm through icy passages to the library, which was too hot near the log fire but refrigerating if you moved six feet away from it. She tramped about the garden making plans with Farthing, although she knew he would only pay lip service to her and carry on in his own way. She visited the farm where she got in the Hadleys’ way. She needed to acquaint herself with Slepe as she saw it, not as Ned had shown it her; she was not used to the responsibility thrust on her, and would take time to bear it. In Mrs Farthing’s book she crowned her stupidity by going to London to meet Ned coming on leave from France, hanging about a draughty station waiting for his train. It was an hour late after a mine scare in the Channel.

Their journey home was slow, the train crowded and cold.

Ned wanted her with him every moment of his leave, whether in the house or tramping the estate. He was gloomy, depressed and unusually silent. The campaign in Norway was raging disastrously and he was convinced that when the weather broke there would be fighting in France. He was pessimistic about the war, derogatory about the government. He confided his fears to Rose, snuffling in his arms. He did not like the new mattress she had bought at Heals and did not hesitate to say so. He banished the kittens from the bedroom, refusing to let them in when they scratched temperately but persistently at the door in the watches of the night, causing Rose to screw up her toes with suppressed fury. He was afraid too of catching Rose’s cold. ‘I shall give it to everyone in the mess,’ he grumbled.

‘I am sorry, Ned. I can’t help having a cold. I didn’t plan it on purpose.’

‘You’ve no idea how cold it is in France. I shall probably develop pneumonia,’ Ned grumbled louder, shifting his position and snatching the bedclothes round his shoulders and away from his wife.

‘Then you can get invalided out of the war,’ she tried to cheer him as she pulled the sheet back.

‘I shan’t catch pneumonia until we are overrun by the Germans. Then it will be too late …’

‘Ned, do stop moaning, you haven’t caught my cold yet, you may be immune to my germs. What’s the matter with you? I’ve never known you like this, tell me for God’s sake.’

Instead of answering Ned rolled over her and made love, climaxing with a grunt and collapsing on top of her so that her face was squashed against his shoulder and with nasal passages blocked with mucus she nearly suffocated.

‘For heaven’s sake get off.’ She dug her nails into him.

Ned shifted a little. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘You are squashing me. I can’t breathe, move over. These acrobatics are supposed to be pleasurable and romantic. Oh, God, where is my handkerchief, where’s it got to?’ She found it and blew her nose violently.

‘Damn you, blast you, fuck you, bugger you and your cold,’ cried Ned and began to weep with great gulping sobs. ‘Oh, shit.’

‘Ned!’ She had never heard him swear. ‘What’s the matter? What is it? I’m sorry about my filthy cold.’ Nor had she ever known a man cry.

Ned went on crying.

Rose sat up and cradled his head against her chest. ‘Ned, tell me, what has happened to you?’

Ned’s sobs subsided; he circled her with his arms, pressing his face against her breast, his copious tears soaking her nightdress. Presently he fumbled for her handkerchief and ignoring her germs blew his nose. Then he lay back with his head on his arms drawing himself away from her. ‘The truth is,’ he said, ‘I am afraid. I am afraid of the war. I am scared. I lie awake in France imagining what it is going to be like, what it will be like to be wounded. What it will be like to die. I can’t discuss it with anyone. I wish I had not told you. You will now, I take it, want nothing more to do with a coward.’

Rose felt a rush of affection for Ned. ‘Ned, darling, I love you. I swore I would not leave you, don’t you remember?’ (I could let her off her promise, thought Ned, no, no, I couldn’t.) ‘I am sure you won’t get wounded, why should you? Everyone says this war is going to be quite different to nineteen fourteen, no casualties.’

‘That’s what they say …’

‘You won’t get killed. I’m sure of it. You are not a coward. We are all frightened, all of us, I am afraid all the time and especially at night, that’s why I have the cats for company.’ In speaking of fear she dredged up terrors as yet suppressed, she would share them with him, offer them to him.

‘You use your cats as hot-water bottles. How do you know I won’t get killed?’

‘I just know it.’ She sought to be robust.

‘I may be maimed. I may get my legs blown off. I may be blinded. I may be deafened. There’s a fellow who trod on a mine near the Maginot Line who had his legs blown off and is now both blind and deaf.’

‘How near are you to the Maginot Line?’

‘About a hundred miles.’

‘Oh, Ned …’

‘I am glad you are afraid, too. I thought it was just me. There’s no need for you to be afraid here at Slepe.’ Almost he was jealous of his fear, unwilling to share it.

‘We are all afraid. We wouldn’t be human else.’