Not That Sort of Girl (17 page)

‘Emily,’ she shouted up the stairwell.

‘Yes?’ Emily, half dry, leaned over the banisters. ‘What is it?’

‘Clean the bath before you go, strip the bed and put the used sheets in the laundry basket.’ To suggest disinfectant would be overdoing it.

‘Oh,’ said Emily, ‘the famous Slepe hospitality!’ But she went obediently back, and Rose heard her splash water in the bath and use a disagreeable tone to Nicholas.

Rose put the kettle to boil and laid out two cups and saucers; she would not join Nicholas and Emily to drink tea. She was amused to find herself as fiercely possessive of Ned’s Slepe as though it were her own.

Mrs Farthing came in from outside. ‘Glad to see you back. They invited themselves, said Mr Peel had …’ her nostrils twitched, ‘and that you said …’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Rose, ‘they are on their way.’

‘H-m-m-m.’

‘I’d rather Ned were not told.’

Mrs Farthing relaxed a few folds round her mouth into a smile. ‘Shall I get the cake out?’

‘Certainly not.’

‘Honeycomb?’

‘For you and me later.’

‘Hah!’

‘And we’ll make that bed up fresh. Ned may come home; he might bring someone with him.’

‘Worried, are you? About the war?’

‘I think the war is hotting up. Yes, I
am.’

‘They do say,’ said Mrs Farthing, dodging away from Rose’s anxiety, ‘that vicars are given to having funny children, maybe bishops is more so.’

A car hooted in the drive. Rose ran out to find Uncle Archibald stepping backwards out of the station taxi. At the sight of his reassuring back, Rose gave a shout of joy. ‘Oh, Uncle Archie.’ She had never called him uncle before.

Archie enfolded her in his tweedy arms. He smelt of heather and whisky. He hugged her close and patted her back. ‘Flora suggested I should come and see you before I go back north; she’s gone ahead.’

‘Kind, kind. Come in and have tea.’ Joyfully Rose hugged the old man. ‘Oh, I am glad to see you.’

Renewing his hug, holding Rose with one arm while he fumbled in his trouser pocket for change to pay the taxi, Uncle Archie watched Nicholas and Emily slink out of the house, get into their M G and drive away.

‘Got visitors?’ he asked.

‘Some neighbours who came for a bath; their pipes burst in the freeze-up; they have only just got the plumber.’

Leading Ned’s uncle into the house, Rose put the Thornbys out of her mind. ‘Come in. Mrs Farthing is making tea, and we have one of Farthing’s honeycombs. You will stay, won’t you?’

‘Glad to, just for the night.’ He liked the way Rose led him into the house, holding his hand. The girl had changed, he thought, grown up, matured; she must be in love with Ned; good show.

Rose was interested by the way she led Ned’s uncle indoors, that she made much of him for her own sake, not Ned’s. I am turning into Ned’s wife, she thought. ‘Tell me what you have heard about the war,’ she said. ‘I’m sure you know more about what’s going on than what’s on the radio or in the papers.’

‘Ah,’ said Uncle Archie sitting down to his tea. ‘Yes. France. Can’t say I know more than you, my dear.’

Rose sighed. Quite irrationally she had hoped he would have news not necessarily of Ned, but of Mylo.

‘I only half trust the French,’ said Uncle Archie.

Mylo is half French, thought Rose forlornly.

‘Flora wondered,’ said Archibald Loftus, accepting his cup, ‘whether you might not be lonely with Ned away and your father just dead and so on. Wondered whether you would come back with us and stay for a few weeks?’

‘Oh, I can’t go so far. It’s terribly kind; I’m not lonely. I have to wait. I don’t think I’d better go further than London—my mother and so on—I’m waiting for news.’

‘He writes, of course?’

‘No. Yes, I mean yes. Of course he writes.’

‘But can’t give news? Censors are over-zealous. Yes, please, I’d like some of that.’ He helped himself to honey, stirred his tea, drank, wiping his moustache with a silk handkerchief. She’s not worrying about Ned in the way one would expect, he thought. Is it her father’s death that’s bothering her? She wasn’t close, from what one’s heard. Boring sort of fellow, not our type at all. ‘This war jangles people up,’ he said. ‘People will feel better when it’s really started. They’re all feeling a bit disappointed at the lack of action; when it comes they’ll perk up no end; it’s like waiting to have a baby.’

Rose laughed. ‘I wouldn’t know about that.’

So she’s not pregnant; about time she was. ‘He will be back soon,’ he said. Better do his stuff then, he thought, I could drop him a hint.

‘Could someone just disappear?’

‘No, my dear, oh, no, don’t start getting fanciful ideas. The Army’s got its head screwed on, it’s good at its paperwork, Ned won’t disappear.’

But Mylo
has,
thought Rose, not a word since that last telephone call when he was so cross, and he’s not in the Army.

Uncle Archibald started telling Rose what friends at his club had told him about the Norwegian campaign. ‘Most unfortunate, but a great deal of gallantry. Lucky Ned wasn’t there. If he had been, there really would have been cause for worry.’ As he munched his bread and honey, moved on to Mrs Farthing’s cake, Archibald Loftus thought, This Rose of Ned’s is a dark horse; it’s a waste of breath wondering what’s going on in her head; what could she mean ‘disappear’? People like Ned don’t, far too solid and mundane. He resigned himself to enjoying what he knew of her and his tea.

‘What you need, my dear,’ he said, ‘if you won’t come up to us in Scotland, is some fun; try and combine some fun with visits to your mother.’

‘I shall take your advice,’ said Rose, ‘if opportunity arises. Meanwhile stay here with me for a night or two, come and look round the garden.’

‘I’d like to listen to the news first.’

‘Very well …’

L
ISTENING TO THE NEWS,
Archibald Loftus became seriously worried. (Why was bad news worse in beautiful surroundings?) The Slepe garden was awash with spring, the smell of Farthing’s wallflowers pervasive. Archibald did not, as Rose did, study the flora; he fretted. The news was not so much serious as potentially disastrous. Rose strolled peacefully, sniffing at flowers, picking little bits off herbs, bruising them with her fingers, adding her quota of scent to the evening. She kept Archie silent company, made no attempt at conversation, leading him away from the house out of reach of the radio.

Archibald appreciated silence in a woman; he was married to a chatterbox. But tonight he wished this girl of Ned’s was not quite so reserved. This surely showed some pent-up emotion and fret? How was it that he got the impression that whatever was bothering her was not bother on behalf of Ned? He broke the silence: ‘I don’t think you should stay here on your own.’

‘Why ever not?’

‘Things look very black over there.’ He jerked his chin in the direction of France.

‘It’s difficult for me to make out what’s going on,’ she said.

‘There is every likelihood that our armies will be defeated. I distrust the French,’ he said, as he had said before.

‘Ah.’ She was not paying attention; she was listening to a blackbird singing its heart out on the branch of a flowering cherry.

‘The Germans may invade,’ said Archibald bluntly, ‘it’s more than a probability.’

‘That’s what Ned suggested,’ she agreed.

‘Then he is cleverer than I thought.’

Rose felt tempted to mention Ned’s hoard of petrol but thought better not, he’s a magistrate or something up in Scotland, and Ned said to keep it secret. She thought with amusement of her husband and his secret hoard supposedly unknown to the Farthings.

‘You are not listening,’ said Ned’s uncle.

‘Yes, I am.’

‘What did I say last?’

Rose laughed.

‘I was saying, Rose, that if and when the Germans invade you would be better off up north with Flora and me. Please be sensible and come.’

‘I must look after Slepe, Germans or no Germans. Besides, Ned will get back. I have to be here when he arrives.’

‘Let us pray he does.’ Archibald could not shake off his gloom.

‘Of course he will.’ Of course. People like Ned don’t get lost, but Mylo, what of Mylo?

‘Come up to London with me,’ said Archibald urgently. If I can get her as far as London, I can persuade her on to Argyll, he thought.

I wonder what he would look like without a moustache? Rose was thinking. I have never kissed a man with a moustache, except for that scuffle under the mistletoe. I have not kissed many men. It must be like kissing a doormat. ‘I must stay here.’ She looked at Ned’s nice uncle (I hope Ned is as attractive as that when he’s old). ‘I would like to, but I can’t, thank you. It’s very kind of you and,’ she added, ‘Aunt Flora.’ (I wonder what she would say if I was suddenly planted on her?)

Archibald Loftus, admitting defeat, grunted.

The following day he left. On his journey north he sat in the train watching the fields rush by and thought that it would be nice to be young again and seduce Ned’s wife, that she was just the sort of girl he could have left Flora for, that perhaps it was as well she had not been born when he met and married Flora, they had been pretty happily married. He had never had a mistress like his Viennese uncles (missed something there, no doubt), there had never been enough temptation. All the same, he thought—does Ned realise? Does he treat her properly? Does he? I am jealous of Ned, he thought with amusement, jealous! He left his seat and walked up the train to the restaurant car and ordered a large whisky. As he drank he let his mind dwell on Rose and speculated on whether she would be one of those rare women who are as attractive in age as they are in youth. And would she know it, and profit by it? He felt the prick of desire as the train rushed north, and watching the speeding fields he noted that he was not done for yet if a girl like Rose could make him feel like this and although it was in a way uncomfortable, it was also pleasurable. Then he thought of his dear wife Flora, grown thick-set and bristly in her tweeds and brogues. Desire evaporating, he ordered another drink.

Alone once more Rose wandered about the garden, played with the cats, came restlessly in and listened to the news. While Uncle Archibald travelled north to Scotland, the collapse of France already under way was admitted. There was congestion on the roads, the Belgians asked for an armistice, the French and British were encircled as they retreated towards Dunkirk, and the evacuation began as lovely day followed lovely day and the birds sang.

Mrs Freeling telephoned to say that she was taking a gamble (Mrs Freeling!) and buying the leases of two flats, not one. If one was to get bombed, she would move to the other.

‘And if neither gets bombed?’

‘I shall rent one to the Germans and take lodgers in the other.’

‘Oh.’ Mother making jokes! What next!

‘As everybody who can is getting out of London, I am getting the two flats dirt cheap. There will never be such a chance again.’

‘I had not realised you had such a—a—perspicacious business sense.’ Rose was amused.

‘Nor had I. Isn’t it fun?’

‘Fun?’ Rose was amazed at this new version of her mother. ‘Aren’t you afraid of air-raids? Of getting killed?’ she enquired.

‘Of course I am, but I can’t let that stop me. I have been dammed up too long.’

‘Where are these flats?’

‘One in Chelsea, the other is in Regent’s Park. I had thought of Hampstead, but then someone said there are a lot of Jews there and the raids may be directed at them. If I can sell the house in the country, well, I might try and find one in the Holland Park area. It shouldn’t be difficult.’

‘A
third
flat?’

‘Why not? Nothing ventured …’

‘I wish you luck,’ said Rose respectfully. So that’s what she’s been, dammed up. Well I never, thought Rose, and went again into the garden where now the syringa was mingling with the wallflowers and a mistlethrush sang with heart-rending sweetness. Will my spirit be dammed by Ned as hers was by Father? She pondered the prospect as she paced the stone path. When the telephone rang at last, she ran.

‘Hullo?’

‘Rose?’ A man’s hoarse voice.

‘Yes?’

‘It’s me, Ned. I’m at some bloody place in Kent but getting a miraculous lift home.’

He arrived hours later exhausted, sunburned from his wait on the beaches, still damp from wading through the sea to the rescuing boats, in high spirits.

‘Weren’t you frightened?’ she asked tentatively.

‘Terrified by the bombing. It was really scary because my tin hat was full of gooseberries I had picked in an abandoned garden. I wanted to bring you some but the chaps ate them on the ship.’

A new mother, a new Ned.

‘What is it? What are you thinking?’ He was pulling off his uniform sticky with salt. ‘Oh, I know. No, it’s all right,’ he said, ‘I am not afraid any more. Once it begins, there’s no time and when there is time it is never anything like what I expected or imagined. Piece of cake, really.’

‘I’m glad.’

‘Run a bath for me. Luckily I haven’t much imagination, I think I’ve spent what I had these last weeks.’

She brought him a drink as he lay in the bath. ‘Mrs Farthing is keeping food hot for you.’

‘What I need is sleep.’

‘Eat first.’

She watched him eat, thankful to see him whole. Fond of him, rather proud, liking him in a comradely way, not at all jealous for Mylo. (All this is separate.)

Ned slept for fifteen hours. Then kissed her goodbye, hurried to rejoin his scattered regiment like a boy to a football game.

Rose went back to listening to the news. France collapsed. Paris fell. Mr Churchill flew to and fro. The evacuation of half a million men continued from Cherbourg and St Malo. Mr Churchill made his blood and beaches speech. Rose’s mother furnished her flats, moved out of the flat her husband had died in (what a waste of money all that cancer treatment, had he ever had it?) and sold the house in the country at profiteer profit. Oranges vanished from the shops. Evacuee children streamed out of London and the big cities for the second time. Mrs Farthing joined the Women’s Voluntary Service. Ned’s regiment was sent to re-form near Catterick. Farthing joined the Home Guard. Nicholas and Emily rang up to say that their plumbing was all right now, would Rose like to come to lunch? Rose said, ‘No, thank you.’ Nicholas said, ‘Too bad, we have both got jobs with the Ministry of Agriculture locally. Nice and safe. We can go on living at home and get a good allowance of petrol.’ He sounded extremely chipper. By midsummer England faced the long hostile coastline of Europe and Rose would have felt, along with the rest of the population, rather exhilarated if only she could have heard from Mylo.