Not That Sort of Girl (24 page)

‘Au revoir, je vous quitte.’
Chantal tripped away; he heard her heels click and fade on the pavement outside, looked at his watch, reached for the telephone, asked when a voice answered for Victoria.

‘Tell your boss I did what he asked. There is nothing to report. The answer is nix.’

‘Write in …’

‘You joking? It was
unofficial.’

‘Margaret said you had a good time.’

‘She reported in?’

‘Two hours ago. Never mind, I’ll tell him.’

‘Can one still get American pick-me-ups at that chemist in Piccadilly?’

‘Like that, is it?’ A genial girl, Victoria.

‘Don’t tell me they’ve been bombed, too?’

‘Heppells? No, they’re still there. Did you sleep with the Free French Navy cousin?’

‘What does
she
say?’

‘She hasn’t reported; we aren’t on those terms with the French.’

In the unease of his hangover, Mylo was not sure whether Victoria was joking. Collecting his clothes, searching unsuccessfully for a razor (doesn’t the girl even shave her legs?), he set off for his lodgings to soak in a hot bath, soap himself with sandalwood soap, forget about Chantal and Broadway, the trickiness of intelligence and dream of Rose, soon to be in his arms, back where they left off, a joyful reunion.

S
TANDING IN HEPPELLS, WATCHING
the white-coated chemist mix the concoction known as an American pick-me-up, Mylo was filled with self-disgust. What had possessed him to try and sleep with Picot’s cousin? She had yawned during his description of Rose, shown herself an unenthusiastic bedfellow, clearly only requiring his company to still her fears of the air raid.

Mylo took the nauseous brew handed to him in a tiny medicinal glass and gulped it down. As the liquid hit his stomach his system registered a revivifying shock which brought tears to his eyes; he remembered with humiliation that he had been too drunk to come, had fallen asleep, probably snored. He fumbled for money, paid the man behind the counter and stepped out into the street.

The sun shone as he walked along Piccadilly; he belched violently, startling a passer-by. The pick-me-up was working. His spirits began to rise, he was on leave, free to do whatever he liked, what he liked was Rose, but first to settle his mind as well as his stomach he went back to the office in Broadway to deal with his de-briefer of the previous days.

‘I want to see your bastard of a boss.’

‘He’s busy. Will you wait?’ said Victoria. ‘His name is Major Pye, Peregrine Pye.’

‘I know his name, find out if he’ll see me, there’s a dear.’

Victoria went away, came back. ‘In about ten minutes,’ she said non-committally.

‘For a genetically trustworthy girl, you are rather nice.’

‘A what girl?’

‘Uncorruptible, bred full of patriotism, a colonel’s daughter.’

‘Brigadier, actually.’

‘Genetically safe.’

‘Oh.’ Victoria latched on. ‘I see.’ She smiled. ‘It does help with the Official Secrets Act. Did you go to Heppells?’

‘Yes.’

‘Feeling better?’

‘Yes, thank you.’

‘So glad.’ Victoria picked up a folder, opened it and began to read.

‘I got stinking drunk in the restaurant last night, then I sang and danced in the street.’

‘Do you get drunk often?’

‘It would be suicidal in my present occupation.’

‘I imagine it would,’ said Victoria.

‘That’s to say, I feel a bit foolish this morning.’

‘Reaction to the strain in France? I’d say that’s what it was—if I was asked.’ Victoria had beautiful hazel eyes in an otherwise unremarkable face.

‘What a sensible girl you are,’ said Mylo. ‘Do you ever get drunk? How do you know about pick-me-ups?’

‘I have a brother and a fiancé in submarines. People have to let off steam.’ Victoria stood up. ‘Major Pye will see you now.’

‘Hullo, Cooper. What’s the trouble? What can I do for you this morning?’ This morning Major Pye was genial. Mylo wondered why he had feared him during the previous days; he was ordinary, even nondescript in his blue pinstripe suit, gunner tie, horn-rimmed spectacles.

‘Can it be quite clear that I do
not
spy on the people I bring across? That I am
not
interested in politics? That I am simply and plainly a guide?’

‘My dear fellow …’

‘Can it …?’

‘Rather an odd request, but I suppose so, yes, can’t see why not if you insist.’

‘Thanks. That’s all I wanted to know, just to have it clear.’

‘Right, right. I’ll circulate the news. You extract the people or persons, and have no interest after delivery. Can do. Happy now?’

‘Thanks.’

‘You are on leave now and will report in during the week?’

‘Yes, I’ll telephone.’

‘Fine, fine. Goodbye.’

They shook hands. Mylo left Major Pye’s office, went down in the lift and out into the sunshine.

Major Pye looked down into the street from his office window and watched Mylo cross the street and dodge into St James’s Park Underground. ‘I wish we had more like him,’ he said to Victoria. ‘Bit of an oddball.’

‘Half French,’ said Victoria. ‘I’ve been reading his file. His mother was Jewish.’

‘Both parents dead. Do we know where he spends his leave? Did he tell you? Did you ask?’

‘No, sir.’

‘You think it’s not our business, do you? I wish you wouldn’t call me sir, Victoria.’

‘It distances me from the dirty tricks.’

‘We can’t all abjure politics like your friend.’

‘Just an acquaintance, sir.’

‘A good acquaintance?’ pried Major Pye.

‘You split hairs, sir.’ (If Peregrine didn’t pry so hard I would tell him Mylo Cooper tutored the Malone boys.)

‘I thought I detected a soupçon of protectiveness.’

‘I would imagine he’s well able to mind his own back, Peregrine,’ Victoria relented.

Jolting along in the Underground, Mylo gleefully counted the days of his leave, seven whole days with Rose, seven nights. Half a day wasted at Heppells and fixing Major Pye was no waste but a precautionary measure, and every minute now was bringing him closer to Rose. He would not, if he caught a train now, arrive to find her asleep as he had planned; no matter, arriving in daylight there would be the garden where they had strolled in scented twilight, the river, the woods, the fields; soon he would hear her voice, touch her, smell her, feel her.

At Paddington he jostled through the crowds to the ticket office, enquired the time of the trains, kicked his heels for an impatient hour before at last the crowded train pulled away from the platform and, gathering speed, carried him away from bombed London through undamaged suburbs into the Thames Valley. From the corridor he watched the ploughed fields, the copper and sulphur woods of autumn. The train stopped at every station, passengers crowded on and off, soldiers en route to Salisbury Plain, sailors to Plymouth, airmen to widely scattered airfields. Mylo watched, comparing them to the population of France with its expression of the watched and the watching; none of these Englishmen gave the impression of watching anything further than their noses, and why should they, Mylo thought in admiration, they had no need to. As the flat valley country changed to rolling chalk downland and again to brown plough and steeper hills Mylo’s spirits soared. He arrived at his destination, left the train and boarded a country bus which carried him along familiar lanes to Rose’s village; here, shouldering his pack, he set off to cover the last mile on foot.

As he walked he pictured Rose unaware of his imminent arrival, yet waiting for him. Comrade (until this moment he had forgotten Comrade) would recognise his step, bark with joy and alert Rose, who would hurl herself into his arms and then the hugs and kisses, cries of joy. Mylo walked faster, hurrying through the late autumn afternoon; it was clouding up, going to rain, he had left his mackintosh in London. Approaching the house from the back he felt uneasy, he was watched from a window by a woman with iron grey hair and suspicious eyes; he had forgotten the Ministry of Information. He waved a casual hand; the woman stood up to stare, a man came to stand beside her; Mylo could see their lips move. He waved again. They followed him with their eyes. Slightly disconcerted, wishing he had not taken a short cut but come the longer way up the drive, Mylo skirted the kitchen garden and arrived at the side door usually used by Rose. He opened the door, stepped into the stone-flagged passage, listened. Hearing voices in the kitchen he tiptoed forward, stopped in shadow to peer in unseen. There was a loud burst of feminine laughter.

With her back to him Rose sat at the kitchen table, at her feet Comrade in a basket suckling two puppies, across the table Emily Thornby laughing loudly at something Rose had just said, her head thrown back, eyes half closed, in her hand a cigarette. As she laughed she ejected little jets of smoke from her nose.

Rose was laughing, too. She did not see Mylo, spring into his arms with cries of joy, nor did Comrade like Argus recognise him with glad barks.

Since Emily was about the last person Mylo had hoped to see, he sidled quickly past the kitchen door across the hall to the library where he sat down on a sofa in a fury of disappointed rage.

It was forty minutes before a car drove up to the front door and Nicholas came running up the steps calling, ‘Emily, I’m here, sorry I’m late. Rose, are you there? I’ve come to collect Em. Rose?’

‘Here, we’re in the kitchen; d’you want some tea?’

Mylo ground his teeth.

‘No, no.’ Mylo hated Nicholas’s blithe voice. ‘We must go. Come on, Emily, buck up.’ Another ten minutes and a lot of laughter before Rose waved Nicholas and Emily goodbye and turning saw in the gloom of the hall a man. She sucked in her breath. ‘Oh!’

‘Rose?’

Rose stepped backwards. ‘Who?’

‘It’s me, you idiot, Mylo.’

‘How long have you been here?’

‘Nearly an hour, I didn’t think you’d like the Thornbys to see us together.’

‘Mylo,’ Rose whispered. ‘Mylo.’

‘You don’t seem very pleased to see me,’ said Mylo disagreeably. ‘Perhaps you are not. Perhaps I’d better go. I seem to be labouring under a delusion.’ His disappointment was whipping him into a childish rage. ‘I thought, I … I thought we … What the bloody hell was all that laughter about?’

They were standing yards apart, both white-faced, now staring, shocked.

‘We were laughing about the father of Emily’s baby, a sort of guessing game, she’s pregnant, she pretends not to know the father.’

‘…’

‘And so am I.’

‘You? Pregnant? Who is the father?’

‘Ned, of course.’

‘…’

Rose drew herself up defensively, then whispered, ‘Oh, darling.’

He did not hear her, just stood looking at her. She, growing aware of his fatigue, harsh disappointment, jealousy, anger, became afraid, dared not speak.

Comrade, disengaging herself from her puppies, came pattering into the hall to join Rose. She pricked her ears at the sight of Mylo’s back, went up to him, sniffed his ankles, threw back her head with a warbling yowl, stood on hind legs to paw him, thrashed her tail, ululated with joy, making little upward ineffectual jumps.

Still Mylo stared at Rose. ‘I wish it was mine, oh, God, I wish it was mine.’ His voice bitter.

‘I was so angry with you. So lost when you sneaked off without saying anything, so lonely, I thought …’

‘And Comrade?’ He stroked the dog’s head.

‘She must have been in pup when you brought her here.’

‘So we don’t know the father of the puppies, and Emily doesn’t know the parent of her …’

‘Nicholas says he knows, teases her.’

‘Nicholas would.’

Rose put out a hand. ‘Mylo, why are we standing here like strangers? Mylo, please.’

‘Rose.’

They were laughing, crying, kissing, hugging while Comrade danced around them barking. ‘I thought,’ said Mylo between kisses, ‘I thought I’d come in the night and begin where we left off, climb into your bed. Oh,’ a kiss, ‘my love,’ a kiss, ‘it would have been pretty funny if I’d climbed in with Ned.’

‘He’s in Egypt.’

‘Then I can …’

‘Of course! Come in, let’s shut the door, it’s icy. This is the coldest house …’

‘I didn’t want the Thornbys to see me.’

‘I should hope not. You, we, are secret.’

‘And the baby?’ He held her away to look at her. ‘Are you well? Shouldn’t you be careful? Are you all right?’

‘It’s not an illness.’

‘I wish it was mine. I wish …’

‘I’ll have yours next.’ She was laughing, half serious. ‘Come and get warm, your hands are freezing.’

‘Darling, I was so excited at getting back, I got drunk last night, I …’

‘Are you on leave?’

‘Yes. A week.’

‘A precious week.’

‘I shall have to ring up, but yes, I have a week.’

‘And then?’

‘I shall go back.’

‘To France?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh, Christ. Must you?’

‘There are people there I have to help. It’s what I can do. It isn’t killing people, it’s not political.’

‘Curse this bloody war,’ Rose cried with passion.

‘Oh, Rose, I do so want you.’ He held her.

‘Mylo, your tummy rumbled.’

‘Sorry, I’m bloody hungry. I haven’t eaten today, I had this hangover.’

‘Come along, then. I’ll get you a meal, then we’ll go to bed.’

‘Should you? Won’t it hurt the little …?’

‘No, it won’t. A baby isn’t measles, it’s not dangerous, it’s normal, lots of women do it.’

‘Are you certain?’

‘Yes, yes, yes. Come and eat.’

‘Then I can pretend I arrived as I dreamed I would and we’ll carry on where we left off?’

‘Is that what you thought?’

‘Yes, stupid of me. What was all that laughter I overheard in the kitchen? You and Emily …’ (Suspicion creeping back.)

‘Are you jealous?’

‘I suppose so. Yes, I am. I felt so left out.’

‘There is no need,’ said Rose, leading him to the kitchen, making him sit down while she found him food. ‘Neither of us should ever be jealous.’

There is no need to tell her about that bitch Chantal last night, she might not understand. I was, after all, drunk, thought Mylo. ‘Of course, you are right. Oh darling, this looks delicious,’ he said as Rose gave him a plate of food.