Octavia (12 page)

‘A holiday!’ Emmeline said longingly. ‘Do you think Ernest would allow it? I haven’t been away from home since I got married.’

‘Tell him it will be good for the children,’ Octavia said practically. ‘He might be glad to see the back of them for a week or two.’ And it would do them good to get away from
him
, poor little things.

So it was agreed and the impromptu holiday was booked. In fact Cyril wrote to their old landlady that very afternoon and posted the letter on his way home.

‘There you are,’ Tommy said to Octavia as he drove her back to South Park Hill. ‘Five weeks’ holiday together. What could be nicer?’

‘Five weeks’ holiday alone together,’ Octavia said. ‘We shall be ankle-deep in babies and nursemaids. We shan’t have a second to ourselves.’

‘Leave that to me,’ he said. ‘I’ve got plans.’

‘What sort of plans?’ she asked. He had the most devilish expression on his face.

‘You’ll see,’ he said.

So they all went on holiday: Em and the babies and the nursemaids by train, with Podge and Cyril to escort them and to lift the prams out of the guard’s van; and Tommy and Octavia following in his car with any bits of luggage that hadn’t been sent by ‘passengers’ luggage in advance’.

Emmeline said a five week holiday was such a luxury that she couldn’t believe it. The boarding house was smaller than they remembered it, so small in fact that when Tommy arrived he unpacked the bags, took one look at the room he’d been allocated and drove off at once to find a bigger room for
himself in a hotel, pointing out that Cyril always took up ninety per cent of the space in any room he occupied and that he’d got to leave some room for Podge. But apart from this unaccountable shrinkage, nothing else had changed at all. The donkeys were still there, standing in the same patient lines on the beach or stolidly plodding the same well-worn hundred yards of sand; the band played its usual afternoon medley in the bandstand; and the Punch and Judy man still set up his stall at the top of the beach, this time to squeals of delight from Dora and little Eddie. And the weather was superb. Even when there was a shower – as there was that first afternoon – the rain fell quickly and thickly and then passed on, and the sun was so strong that the promenade was dry again in minutes. All three babies took to their new seaside existence as though they’d been born underwater; their nursemaids were there to watch over them while their mama slept in a deckchair; Uncle Squirrel was much in demand for sandcastles and treats; and Uncle Podge, fourteen years old and blushingly diffident in his school boater and a new striped blazer, was a willing slave for piggybacks and paddling. Within that first day a pattern had been established that suited all of them. Or nearly all of them.

On the second afternoon, Tommy announced that he needed a nice brisk walk. ‘Can’t sit around all day,’ he said. ‘I need a bit of exercise or I shall get stout.’

‘Oh!’ Emmeline said, squinting up at him from her deckchair. ‘Do you want us all to come with you?’

‘Good lord no,’ he told her. ‘You stay where you are and have a rest. Cyril’ll look after the babies, won’t you, Cyril? Tavy’ll keep me company. We shan’t be gone long.’

They climbed to the top of Beachy Head, where a strong
breeze was blowing and they could see for miles along the coast. As soon as they were on their own and out of sight of the path, he put his arms round her waist, pulled her close and began to kiss her.

‘Sweet,’ he said, holding her ardent face between his hands. ‘Sweet! Sweet! Sweetheart!’

‘Am I?’ she asks, drowsed with the joy of being kissed again.

He stroked her lips with his mouth, languorously, enjoying the delicate touch as much as she was and delighted to see that he was making her tremble. ‘Of course.’

The breeze was so strong it pushed her old straw hat right off her head and pinned her new summer dress immodestly tight against her legs. But she didn’t care. It was a beautiful, richly coloured, dizzying, magical September day and she was so happy to be back in his arms that she wouldn’t have minded if she’d been swept off her feet. Which in one sense she was.

‘Oh, my darling Tommy,’ she said, when he lifted his head to look down at her. His eyes were dark with desire and so beautiful she had to shut her own eyes for a second to shield herself from their impact.

‘Good to have me home?’ he asked, knowing the answer.

‘Wonderful.’

‘Have you missed me?’

She was too caught up in sensation to tease or prevaricate. ‘Yes.’

The breeze threw a giggle of voices towards them. ‘There’s someone coming,’ she said, pulling away from him.

He smiled at her, pretending to be annoyed but still holding her round the waist. ‘Drat!’

‘No, hush!’ she said, removing his hands. Two bonnets were bobbing into view on the slope of the hill followed by a rather splendid striped boater. ‘We must be sensible.’

‘I don’t see why,’ he pretended to complain. ‘If we were in Paris on the boulevards we could kiss whenever we wanted to and nobody would raise the slightest objection.’

‘But we’re not in Paris,’ she said, pulling her hat onto her head again and walking on. She had to push against the wind and her dress flicked behind her like a sail.

‘More’s the pity,’ he said, walking beside her and doffing his hat to the newcomers. ‘Tell you what. How would it be if we went down to the Grand for an hour or two? We could be really private there. I’ve got a capital room.’

The suggestion made it difficult for her to breathe. ‘Do you mean – stay there with you?’ she asked. She couldn’t say what she was really thinking. She hadn’t got the vocabulary. But they both knew what he was proposing. This was what he’d meant when he’d told her he’d ‘got plans’.

‘Well, not overnight, naturally,’ he said, smiling down at her, enjoying her flushed cheeks and startled eyes. ‘That
would
put the cat among the pigeons. But we could go there in the afternoons, when we’re supposed to be out walking. Don’t worry, it’ll all be perfectly proper. You won’t get nasty looks or anything like that. They’re expecting my wife to join me. I told them as much when I booked.’ And when she gave him a quizzical look he explained, ‘Had to, old thing, or they’d have wondered why I wanted a double room. I said you were looking after your cousin – well, that bit’s true at any rate – and you’d join me when you could. It’s a nice room. You’ll like it. Just right for a Mr and Mrs. There’s a sea view and everything. I’ve got you a ring to wear so it’ll all be
perfectly proper.’

‘No it won’t,’ she told him seriously. ‘It’ll be a lie. I could put any number of rings on my fingers but it wouldn’t mean anything. We’re not married.’

‘No,’ he said equally and passionately serious. ‘We’re not. But if you come with me now, we’ll be something better. We’ll be lovers.’ And since the strollers had disappeared over the brow of the hill, he pulled her towards him and kissed her long and lovingly. ‘You will, won’t you, Tavy? Oh, my lovely, lovely Tavy, you will.’

It wasn’t sensible, or proper. The sensible thing to do would be to wait until they could get married and have a wedding with flowers and bridesmaids and interminable speeches like Em…(oh, for heaven’s sake, like Em!). This was foolish and dangerous and unconventional. Oh, wonderfully, exhilaratingly, temptingly unconventional. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I will.’

He held her so tightly he made her breathless all over again. ‘You won’t regret it,’ he said. ‘I promise you.’

The walk to the hotel was slow and amorous for they were arm in arm and stopped for kisses whenever the street was clear. And it was a very grand hotel indeed, with a uniformed doorman and a hall porter to give them their key and a curved flight of softly carpeted stairs to lead them the way.

‘Heavens!’ Octavia said, as they walked into the room. It too was thickly carpeted and very luxurious, with a pretty washstand, an enormous bed and beautifully curtained windows overlooking the sea – everything a visitor could possibly want or need. It was so richly decorated that at first glance, it looked more like a rose arbour than a room. There were roses everywhere, patterning the carpet and the curtains and the wallpaper, stencilled on the washstand, arranged in a
plump vase on the little round table by the window in all their natural beauty. ‘What luxury! It’s downright decadent.’

‘And so it should be,’ he said. ‘It’s our love nest.’

She took off her hat and threw herself backwards onto the bed, sinking into the softness of it. ‘Heavens!’ she said again. ‘It makes my bed at Mrs Norris’s feel like a plank.’

‘Sleep with me,’ he promised, removing his blazer, ‘and you shall have feather beds for the rest of your life.’

‘Have you seen the news this morning, Tavy?’ Cyril asked. He was sprawled in his usual deckchair in his usual place on the beach, basking in the last of the September sun, with his feet propped up on Dora’s tin bucket. ‘Right up your street.’

‘We don’t want to be bothered with news,’ Emmeline told him, handing the baby back to Mrs Greenacre. ‘We’re on holiday.’

Octavia held out her hand for the newspaper. She was languid with love, sprawled in her own deckchair and feeling as if she could sleep for a month, but something in his mocking expression told her that this was news she ought to know.

‘Suffragettes in Birmingham being force-fed,’
the headline said. She was instantly alarmed and read on, thinking, what do they mean ‘force-fed’? How can you force someone to feed? The article gave her more information but it didn’t answer her questions.
‘It was confirmed in the House of Commons today,’
it said,
‘that several of the nine suffragettes in prison in Winson Green in Birmingham have been
force-fed
. The announcement came in response to a question from 
Labour MP James Keir Hardy, who was told the Home Office authorised the action to prevent the women killing or harming themselves through self-starvation.’
Oh, what nonsense! As if they’d do a thing like that!

‘Was I right?’ Cyril said.

‘Yes,’ Octavia said shortly. ‘You were. I must write to Mrs Emsworth and find out what’s happening. It sounds terrible.’

He was grinning at her, almost as if he was gloating. ‘They’re treating ’em rough,’ he said, ‘and not before time. Serve ’em right. Now perhaps they’ll see sense and stop making a nuisance of themselves.’

‘They’re standing up for the right to vote,’ Octavia told him crossly. He really was very obtuse. ‘It’s a matter of principle and they’re being extremely brave.’

‘That, dear coz,’ he said, ‘is a matter of opinion. Some people would say they’re being extremely stupid and making a nuisance of themselves.’

‘Then some people would be wrong,’ Octavia said. ‘Oh, come on, Squirrel, be fair. Men have the vote so why shouldn’t we?’

‘Because you’re women, old thing,’ Cyril said. And yes, he
was
gloating.

‘Where’s Tommy this morning?’ Em said, intervening before this could develop into a row. It was much too pleasant out here on the beach for anyone to be quarrelling. ‘He
is
a slugabed. He’ll be late for lunch if he doesn’t come soon. The sun’s high already.’

‘He’s on the promenade, ma’am,’ Mrs Greenacre said. ‘Waving.’

As he was, and after a few long-legged strides he came crunching down the pebbles towards them.

‘Where have you been?’ Emmeline said. ‘We’ve been worrying about you.’

‘No you haven’t,’ Cyril corrected her, determined to make mischief one way or another. ‘You said he was a slugabed.’

‘Been to London, old thing,’ Tommy said. ‘Bought myself a flat.’

‘What, there and back?’ Emmeline said, blinking in disbelief. ‘All that way? This morning?’

‘Drove like the clappers,’ he told her. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me about the flat?’

So they asked him and he unfolded a deckchair, sat down in it and told them. It was in Kensington, no distance from the tube station, unfurnished, ‘so I shall have to look slippy and see to that before October,’ and not particularly well decorated, ‘so I suppose I’d better see to that too.’ But the views were top hole and there was a garage for the car and restaurants all over the place and Hyde Park just over the road and he could get to the West End and back in seconds, so all in all he thought he’d got a bargain.

‘I thought you were going back to Bucharest,’ Cyril said rather sourly. ‘I can’t see the point of a flat in London if you’re living in the embassy in Bucharest.’

‘Got to have somewhere to come home to, old thing,’ Tommy told him easily. ‘Place of my own and all that sort of thing. I shan’t stay in Bucharest when I’m on leave.’ And he turned his head to smile at Octavia.

The little movement wasn’t lost on Emmeline. So I’m right, she thought. They
are
walking out. She’d suspected it ever since that second afternoon and now she was sure. He’ll ask her to marry him and they’ll live in the embassy while he’s working and come home to the flat when he’s on leave.
Very sensible. ‘It all sounds splendid,’ she approved. ‘I shall expect to be invited to tea as soon as it’s ready for occupation.’

‘And so you shall be,’ Tommy promised.

Octavia didn’t comment. That could wait until they were alone together. She was glad to think he’d got a flat and that he intended to come home when he was on leave and live in it, but she didn’t think much of wasting their last few days together choosing furniture.

‘Tell you what,’ Tommy said, ‘let’s have fish and chips for lunch to celebrate.’

‘Chip!’ Dora said rapturously.

So that was settled, although Emmeline said she didn’t know what Ernest would say if he could see how they were all going on.

Later that afternoon, when Octavia and Tommy were lying relaxed and easy in their comfortable feather bed, she asked him if he was really going to spend time rushing about buying furniture. ‘We’ve very little time left now,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to waste a minute.’

‘No more do I, little Tikki Tavy,’ he said, kissing her hair. ‘And no more we shall. That was just a cover to fool your cousin. Once we’re all back in London I want them to think I’m fully occupied. Don’t worry. I’ve been to Waring & Gillows and picked what I wanted and they’re going to deal with it. And I’ve hired the decorators. It’s all taken care of.’

It sounded decidedly civilised – if a trifle devious. ‘Oh, Tommy,’ she said. ‘I do love you. And I shall miss you.’

‘Don’t let’s think about that now,’ he said. ‘Time enough when the time comes.’

But it was rushing down upon her like an express train, all unpleasant noise and obscuring steam and unnecessary speed. In four days their interlude in Eastbourne would be over and she would be back at home; in just over a fortnight he would be on the boat train and on his way back to Europe. There were moments even in those last few joyous days by the sea when she thought she couldn’t bear it.

In their last week, they spent as much time as they dared in his grand new flat, and when the final miserable day arrived she went to Victoria station to see him off and kissed him lovingly as he leant out of the window of the train. It was certainly improper and she was probably making a spectacle of herself but she was too anguished to care.

‘I’ll write to you,’ he called as the train creaked him away.

She ran along the platform, so that she could keep sight of him for as long as possible. ‘Every day!’ she called.

‘Promise,’ he called back. ‘See it wet, see it dry.’

His first letter arrived the very next morning, written in Calais and at length, telling her how much he loved her and how much he missed her and promising that he would cadge a few days leave as soon as he could.
‘I might not be able to get back to London,’
he wrote.
‘But I could wangle a day or two in Paris and you could meet me there, couldn’t you?’

Oh yes, she could. She would. And wrote back by return of post to tell him so. Then, and rather guiltily, she walked to the WSPU shop to find out what was happening to the prisoners in Winson Green. She’d never written that letter to Mrs Emsworth and now she felt ashamed of herself for such an oversight. It wasn’t like her to forget things.

What she heard was horrific. ‘They’d gone on hunger strike,’ Betty Transom reported, ‘and apparently the Home
Office decided they’d got to be fed whether they would or not, so this is what the authorities are doing. They tie them to a chair and push a rubber tube down their throats and pour the food down it.’

Octavia was appalled. It was disgusting, obscene. ‘What sort of food?’

‘Soup, I suppose,’ Betty said. ‘Mushy things. It would have to be, wouldn’t it, or they’d choke them.’

‘It’s barbaric,’ Octavia said. The mere thought of it was making her heave. ‘Bad enough to think of such things but to actually go ahead and do them. We’re supposed to be one of the most civilised countries in the world and we do this! Words fail me.’ But now that she’d started asking questions, she went on until she’d heard the whole story. ‘Why were they on hunger strike?’ she asked.

Mrs Emsworth knew the answer to that. ‘They’d been downgraded,’ she said, ‘from category A to category C, which means no books or writing paper, as you know, among other things. So they made a formal protest, pointing out that they were political prisoners and should be treated accordingly and when that was ignored, they refused to eat.’

‘And now they’re being tortured,’ Betty said. ‘Because that’s what it amounts to, doesn’t it? The group in Birmingham say they’re really ill.’

‘I’m sure they are,’ Octavia said. ‘We must write and tell them how much we support them and admire them.’

‘We write every other day,’ Mrs Emsworth said and there was rebuke in her tone. ‘We’ve done it ever since they were sentenced.’

‘Of course,’ Octavia said, and was ashamed of herself again, thinking, I was speaking out of turn. Naturally they’ve
written. As I would have done if I’d been here. ‘Do you know when they are likely to be released?’ she asked, trying to be helpfully practical. ‘Perhaps we should send a deputation to greet them. What do you think?’

They arrived holding flowers and wearing their most impressive clothes, neat and bright in the sooty darkness outside the prison gates. A pervasive rain was falling and the October sky was wintry.

‘I hope they’ll be on time,’ Betty Transom said. ‘My feet are like ice already.’

But the appointed hour arrived and passed and nothing happened. They were joined by two more groups of women and a quiet couple with a pale young man in tow, who arrived in a cab which was told to wait, and they all stood together on the cobbles, side by side for warmth, their breath pluming before them in the chill air.

‘Why are prisons so grim?’ Betty Transom said, looking at the blackened walls and that forbidding oak gate.

‘They’re designed that way,’ Octavia told her. ‘They’re supposed to deter us.’

And then suddenly a small door in the forbidding gate was inched open and there they were: four pale women, holding on to one another and advancing towards them, very, very slowly. They gave them a cheer and walked towards them equally slowly with their flowers outstretched and offered. The pale young man was the first to reach them and now Octavia saw that he had a notebook in his hand and realised that he was a reporter. ‘Mrs Ainsworth?’ he said. ‘Mrs Laura Ainsworth?’

One of the prisoners detached herself from her friends and
answered him. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I am she. I haven’t the energy to stand for long but if you would care to come home with me I will tell you all you need to know.’ She was trembling but impressively calm.

I hope I can behave like that when my turn comes, Octavia thought, because it would come, sooner or later. She couldn’t put it off forever. But the sight and smell of the prison was deterring her where she stood and she wasn’t at all sure how resolute she would manage to be when she was put to the test. Or how strong.

That night when she was back home after her two long journeys, she wrote a letter to Tommy describing everything she’d seen and analysing everything she’d felt. It was rather a disappointment when his answering letter hardly mentioned what she’d said. But she forgave him when she read the PS.

‘I shall be in Paris on Saturday week, for three days. I told you I’d swing it, didn’t I? Write and let me know what train you are catching and I’ll be at the station with bells on. Can’t wait to see you again. Txxxx’

To see him again, and so soon! It was wonderful news. Oh, wonderful! But it presented her with a problem. A trip to Paris had to be explained to her parents and she could hardly tell them she was going to visit Tommy, much less that they were going to stay in a hotel together. They were broadminded, but not that broadminded. She would have to think about what she told them and choose her words very carefully. But however she phrased it, the explanation was bound to be a lie. And oh, she did so hate the thought that she would have to tell lies. This is what comes of loving someone, she thought. It
makes you dishonest. Or perhaps I ought to say, this is what comes of loving someone in a society that won’t accept a loving couple unless they are married. If you ever heard of anything so illogical.

In the end she told them she wanted to go to France to meet up with a group of suffragettes who were staying in Paris. Her mother was most concerned.

‘All that way, Tavy,’ she queried, ‘on your own? Do you think that’s wise?’

‘I shall be met at the station,’ Octavia said. That much was true at any rate.

‘So you may be, but it’s a long journey. What do you think, J-J?’

Fortunately her father thought it was a capital idea. ‘Paris is no distance these days,’ he said. ‘You go, my dear, and enjoy yourself. Just don’t go getting arrested.’

‘No, Pa,’ she said, bowing her head in mock obedience. ‘It’s not that sort of meeting.’

‘No,’ he said, grinning at her. He had a really devilish grin sometimes. ‘I rather thought it wasn’t.’

So she travelled to Paris on her own and was met at the Gare du Nord by a beaming Tommy, who pulled her into his arms and kissed her, there and then, out in the street and nobody seemed to mind. He’d been right about that, she thought. But then he was right about so many things, her dear, dear Tommy. They spent the next three days visiting the city, arm in arm and stopping to kiss whenever the spirit moved them – as it often did – and the next four nights making luxurious love. By the time they parted again at the Gare du Nord, she felt as if she’d been with him for weeks.

‘When can we come here again?’ she asked, as she climbed into the train.

‘As soon as I can wangle it,’ he promised.

‘I do love you,’ she said.

‘Likewise,’ he told her.

I could have stayed here forever, she thought, as the train rattled her through the Parisian suburbs. But there was work to be done in London and she couldn’t and shouldn’t avoid it, much though she wanted to at that moment.