Running to Paradise (9 page)

Garden
Court, Kensington — 19th January 1914

I
lost my collection money in church this morning. It rolled right down the pew. When I crawled under to try and get it back the lady behind banged me on my head with her prayer book. I stuck out my tongue. I think it was her who stole my money.

Polly
and Tom came to tea. Cook made flapjacks. We played pelmanism. I won three times. Tom is a sissy and a cry baby. He was afraid of Mr Flinders cos he jumped up at him. He says dogs are smelly and spread disease. Polly and I hid his cap and he blubbed. Aunt Beth said we are naughty and unkind but I should not be a stupid cry baby if someone stole my hat. I like Polly. She is my very best friend.

Garden
Court, Kensington — 22nd January 1914

Went
skating at Queens with Polly and her big brother. He is called Edward and is on leave from his regiment. His regiment is the Irish Guards. Uncle H, Gilles and Edward are my three favourite men. Edward put his arm round me and guided me round the ice rink. The band played ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band’. It was such fun. Polly fell down on the ice six times.

Garden
Court, Kensington — 23rd January 1914

Nothing
happened today.

*

No more from Char. She obviously lost interest in the diary. Some interesting stuff from Gilles, though, and a few more pages from Aunt Beth before 1914 runs out.

Renton House, Renton, Beds

24th
January 1914

Dear
Miss Char,

I
am in receipt of yours of 18th Jan. Am glad you like the cards, they are a good set, I think. All well here, Miss Char. Old Warrior is missing his sugar lumps. The Guvnor came off him on Sat. jumping that gate out of Bagland Wood. No harm done but he let fly with some choice language I can tell you! No time for more now Miss Char. Hope this finds you as it leaves me, in the pink.

Yrs
rspctfly

P.
E. Gilles

*

Garden Court, Kensington — 6th March 1914

Hubert
Stokes called today and took Char out for the afternoon; to a museum, he said. How could I say no? I cannot approve of the young man: he’s clever, one has to admit, but has such modern views. Dick says he’s a ‘damned Socialist’. He’s a gentleman, of course: his father, Colonel Stokes, fought at Omdurman and the boy went to Rugby. But why, oh why, does he have to interest himself in Char? The child is so impressionable and, of course, adores him. Isn’t it enough, the trouble he’s causing between Con and Dick?

I
told him firmly they must be home by six o’clock: by seven o’clock, I ready to ring the police and Roo in tears, in they burst as cool as you please. ‘We’ve had such a ripping time, Aunt Beth. Uncle Hubert’s taken me to Whitechapel to see how the poor people live, and we went to such a lovely market. Look what we’ve bought for you.’ Out of her pocket the child produces a tiny, white kitten! We have called him ‘Bow Bells’. Half starved, of course, and riddled with fleas. Mr Flinders is not pleased. He registered his protest this morning by lifting a leg against Roo’s piano!

Tried
to remonstrate with Hubert about taking Char to such places. ‘Think of the risk of disease,’ I said.

‘
She should know how some people have to live,’ he said. ‘It ought to be part of every pampered brat’s education.’ I cannot argue with him, I’m simply not clever enough. But if he is so sure he is right, why did he lie to me and say they were going to a museum? Oh, how I wish he would go away somewhere, he disrupts us all.

Garden
Court, Kensington — 15th March 1914

Char
has been corresponding with the groom at Renton! The child is so precocious, it’s hard to know what to do for the best. When I taxed her on the subject, she merely said: ‘Gilles is a great friend of mine, he sends me cigarette cards.’ I know I should put an end to it — writing to servants in that way can only lead to trouble — but how? The exchanging of cigarette cards is, after all, a harmless pastime and Dick speaks well of the young man. Should I tell Con?

Bow,
the kitten, is quite killing now. I found him (or her) asleep in Roo’s best hat!

A
bunch of the reddest, biggest (rather vulgar) roses from Hubert. ‘To dear, long-suffering Aunt Beth. Your devoted admirer — Hubert Stokes.’

What
to think? Dick to dine tomorrow. I mustn’t tell him who sent the roses, or the feathers will certainly fly! Char tells me when she grows up she is going to help ‘the poor people’.
Nous
verrons
.

*

Renton House, Renton, Beds

6th
June 1914

Dear
Miss Char

Am
in receipt of yours of the 1st. All well here I am glad to report. We’ve a new stable lad. He’s a lazy young devil, if you’ll pardon my language, and not half as good at cleaning tack as you, Miss Char.

Fancy
playing tennis at school! All we learned in our playground was how to punch each other’s heads in (ha ha). Yes, I expect it’s hot in dirty old London this weather. You should get those school teachers of yours to take you out for a day at the seaside. We had Renton village Cricket Match last Sat. Phew, it was hot! Yours truly made forty runs before your Guvnor caught him out! Mr Mills at the Feathers says there’s going to be a war. Think I’ll enlist — might see a bit more of the world that way. Mr Mills says they’ll need trained horsemen.

Must
dash now Miss Char. All the best.

Yrs
resptfly — P. E. Gilles

*

Garden Court, Kensington — 24th June 1914

Dear
Char’s twelfth birthday yesterday. How fast she grows. She’s started her periods — so difficult to explain.

Phyllis
Pratt is staying: Con’s niece and daughter of Don. Such a jolly girl and so good with Char. We had a picnic in Richmond Park for the birthday tea — strawberries and cream and flies in the sandwiches and oh, so hot. But we were a merry party for all that, and the birthday girl enjoyed herself. Young Edward Everett, Polly’s elder brother, came with Polly and Tom. He and Phyllis were so good organising games for the little ones. Such a nice boy. He’s in the Irish Guards stationed at Wellington Barracks. I asked him what about all this war talk: he says no, but he wishes there would be! Char said suddenly: ‘Uncle Hubert says war is wrong and is only waged for capitalist arms dealers to get fat on the profits.’ That child! Edward looked quite stunned, indeed we all did, then dear, sensible Phyllis burst out laughing and all was well. Of course, the child has no idea what she is talking about; just copies everything her adored Uncle Hubert says like a parrot.

Dick
to France for a short bicycling holiday. He needs one, poor old boy. He’s looked quite wretched of late.

*

Renton House, Renton, Beds

1st
July 1914

Dear
Miss Char,

Yours
arrived by yesterday’s second post. Sounds as though you and your pal have been having a high old time — right pair of gadabouts you are!

All
well down here. No rain — old Smith’s proper worried over his Veg, says he’s never seen the well so empty. They are rationing water down in the village, the brook’s dried up, and yours truly can only take a bath once a week!

Managed
to get the motor up to 30 m.p.h. (miles per hour to the green’uns!) yesterday. Your Ma wasn’t half pleased. ‘Gilles,’ she says, ‘we’ll have you racing her yet.’ Engine boiled again, though, going up Leather Bottle Hill. Mr Mills at the Feathers is telling everyone he were right about war coming. He says that old Arch Duke whatsisname being bumped off will be the start of it. I’m blessed if I see how. We need that Mr Stokes to come back from Germany and put us right.

Tata
for now Miss Char, you’ll be home now in two shakes.

Yrs
rspectfly

P.
E. Gilles

Garden Court, Kensington — 6th July 1914

How
stifling it is. I long to get away from smoky old London. Only another fortnight and Char will be off home for the holidays and Roo and I depart for Lucerne, what a splendid thought.

I
do believe dear Phyllis and young Edward Everett have ‘clicked’. Such a vulgar way of describing falling in love, but so expressive. Before she left us she asked the young man to stay at her people’s for some tennis. He showed every sign of delight — such a suitable match. Char a little put out, I thought. ‘He’s
my
friend, not Phyll’s,’ she said at tea. A short respite from Hubert S, such a relief! He, it seems, has gone to Hamburg to supervise rehearsals of one of his extraordinary plays. If I can’t understand a word of them, I’m sure the Germans won’t. Con writes he’s a genius, but born before his time. I’m sure she’s right (she always is), but I, for one, heartily wish he’d been born in his right time, whenever that may be. Char corresponds with him, what about one dares not think. She also writes regularly to that wretched groom — such a contrast one would have thought. The groom, she tells me with pride, is learning to drive the motor Dick and Con have bought — such an extravagance. Especially as one hears the wretched, smelly machine is continually breaking down. Dick says they spend more time underneath it than in it!

Must
try to sleep. So difficult, there’s no air.

*

And after that, maddeningly, Aunt Beth’s diary simply peters out, apart from a scrawled entry in October on the subject of Belgian refugees. There are no more letters either from P. E. Gilles. The year 1914 draws to its close without further comment. I looked at my watch. Christ! It was nearly two a.m.; I’d got a finance meeting at nine thirty. Sophia had left around eleven p.m. ‘It’s such miles from you to Hampstead, Guy, and I want to be at the office by eight thirty. Promise you won’t read any more till we meet again on Thursday.’ I’d promised, but after she’d gone I couldn’t sleep, so made myself a hot drink and went on reading. In a way I preferred to do it on my own. Somehow I was beginning to feel the contents of the green trunk were a sort of private message from Char to me: as though she were trying in some way to explain something about herself. Perhaps this was fanciful, I don’t know, but it was what I believed. Under these circumstances anyone, even Sophia, would inevitably constitute an intrusion.

Next
day Sophia rang postponing our date. A business dinner she couldn’t get out of and after that she was away for a week. ‘You’ll have to carry on without me,’ she said, ‘but somehow I don’t think you’ll mind.’

I
felt guilty then; a woman as perceptive as Sophia can be rather unnerving. ‘Don’t be silly,’ I said, feeling my voice lacked conviction, ‘but when you come back, can we go and see your Aunty Phyll? You said she’s on the ball and she might be able to fill in some gaps.’

‘
Good thinking,’ she said. ‘I owe her a visit and she’d love to see a man for a change. I’ll be in touch, then. And Guy...’

‘
Yes?’

‘
Take care...’

6

P. E. Gilles did turn up again; in quite another context: he had to, I suppose, he was one of those sorts of people.

The
incident occurred a month or so after Sophia’s and my visit to Aunty Phyll when we were staying with, of all people, George and his new wife, Bronwen. We had both been asked independently of each other and both, with a string of flimsy excuses, managed to postpone a visit which neither of us wished to make. Then George began to get miffed; to fob him off again might create a complete rift and I didn’t wish for this, not yet at any rate. Sophia, even more loth to go than I was, suggested we brave it together and this proving acceptable to George, we did.

It
was on the Saturday afternoon, rain cascading against the sitting-room windows, George sleeping the sleep of the just and overfed before his enormous television set and Bronwen doing something in the kitchen — she was always ‘doing something’ in the kitchen — that for want of anything better to do I picked up the local rag and glanced idly through it. I turned a page and a name jumped out at me. ‘Mons Veteran’s ninety-third Birthday. Mr Peter Edgar Gilles celebrates his birthday with his usual pint of bitter in the bar of the Crown and Anchor public house.’ The accompanying photograph showed a small, gnome-like individual, pint mug in hand, smiling toothily into the camera, backed by a sea of smiling faces. ‘Mr Gilles, a twinkling nonagenarian, seen here with his great-grandson Kevin and friends, says...

‘
Sophia,’ I whispered, ‘Sophia, look.’

She
looked. ‘It couldn’t be,’ she said, ‘could it?’

‘
The right age,’ I said. ‘And it says he ran a garage until he retired in 1960. P. E. Gilles was into cars.’

‘
Let’s ring,’ said Sophia. ‘It gives his address.’ George snored gustily as we crept away to the telephone. Somehow neither of us wished to involve him; Char’s name had not been mentioned over the weekend.

‘
Pop in for a cup of tea tomorrow then. Grandad loves a bit of company,’ said P. E. Gilles’ granddaughter.

A
smart bungalow, two cars in the garage, a boat on the lawn and a general air of prosperity. A stout, blonde lady in pink trousers opened the front door. ‘Grandad’s in the lounge,’ she said. ‘I’ll get a cup of tea.’ P. E. Gilles was seated in a smart, tweed-covered armchair, hands on knees, hair carefully brushed. A flight of china ducks pursued one anothet across the bamboo-patterned wallpaper behind his head; by his side a small table, on which was placed a cardboard box.

He
grinned jauntily at us and waved a yellowing sheet of paper. ‘This what you come to see, then?’ It was an extremely bad drawing of a large, black horse; underneath in writing unmistakably that of the twelve-year-old Char, was the caption, ‘Warrior, July 1914’ .

‘
Mr Gilles, this is such a surprise.’ Sophia sounded quite breathless with excitement. ‘I, that is Mr Horton and I, thought you were killed in the First World War, you see.’

‘
Damn near was, my dear, several times over.’ Mr Gilles’ small frame shook with laughter. ‘Lucky for me I copped a blighty one in ’17 and was invalided out of the Army. No more fighting for me — spent the next lot in the Home Guard.’

‘
Now, don’t get excited Grandad, or we’ll have you up all night.’ The blonde lady was back carrying a neatly laid tea tray. P. E. Gilles ignored her and patted a chair.

‘
Come and sit down here, Ma’am,’ he said to Sophia. ‘You’re Miss Char’s daughter or I’m much mistaken. You’ve got her look.’

Sophia
obeyed. ‘My mother died last year,’ she said. ‘We found your letters, you see.’

‘
I’m sorry to hear that,’ he said. ‘She was a fine one, your Ma. Never met anyone quite like her, even though she were only a nipper at the time I knew her.’

We
talked for over an hour, the blonde lady appearing at intervals to replenish the tea pot. The old man’s memory was remarkable. Reticent at first about the domestic dramas that appeared to have taken place during his time in service with the Osborns at Renton, he soon warmed to his subject.

‘
My Uncle George, he got me the job there as groom,’ he told us. ‘And I was that pleased to get it. Six hunters they had in the stables in those days, besides the pony for Miss Char. Then Mr Osborn, that would be your grandpa, Ma’am; he were still a young man then and what an eye for the girls — Oh my! Anyway, your grandpa came home early one day when Mrs O — your grandma — were in the stable with me looking at Warrior’s near fore. It were a bit swollen like and your grandma were better than any veterinary. “Con,” says Mr O putting his head round the door — he always called Mrs O Con. “I’ve bought a motor; had it made specially. Now what d’you think of that?” ’

Sophia
choked over her biscuit. Mr Gilles was obviously a first-rate mimic as well as everything else.

‘
“I think it’s a damned stupid thing to have done,” says Mrs O. “And whoever made it can take it back. We can’t afford a motor, we don’t want a motor, and if we had one, you’d be incapable of driving it. You know what you’re like with anything mechanical.”

‘
“But Gilles here,” he says all crestfallen. “He can learn to drive it. You’d like that, Gilles, wouldn’t you?”

‘
“Yes Sir,” I said prompt and meant it.

‘
“Gilles has quite enough to do as it is and who, may one ask, is going to pay for it?”

‘
“
Pas
devant
les
domestiques
,” he says in French. The gentry used to talk like that in those days; they thought we wouldn’t understand, but of course we did. I’d kept company at my last place with a Frog lady’s maid and she taught me quite a lot of the lingo — helped me later in France, I can tell you. After that they went for each other hammer and tongs. I just busied myself with the horse, but they were like that, those two. Mr O won though: we had the motor. I learned to drive it down at the garage in the village — it were the first garage they ever had in those parts. Two of the hunters had to go and when the War came, Mr O gave two more to the army.’

‘
Do you remember someone called Hubert Stokes?’ I asked.

‘
Bless me, I remember Mr Stokes alright, poor devil. He was always there; he and Mrs O they were, well they—’

‘
Were lovers,’ Sophia prompted gently.

Mr
Gilles shook once again with laughter. ‘I don’t know about lovers, Ma’am, but I well remember coming back one night; quite late it was. I’d had a few, I don’t mind telling you, but not enough not to know what’s what. Well, I took a short cut across the rose garden to the stables, where I had my room. Usually I’d never walk past the front of the house, I’d have lost my place if I’d been seen, but it was late and I was a bit “how’s your father”. Well, I was halfway across the garden and suddenly, there they were.’ He paused dramatically.

‘
Naked as the day they were born — Mrs O and Mr Stokes, playing leapfrog round the sundial! I just took to me heels and ran and lucky for me they were too busy to see me. The gentry didn’t half get up to some larks in those days, you’d never believe. Talk about permissive society — my eye!

‘
He were a good bloke, Mr Stokes, all the same, though I don’t hold with canoodling with someone else’s missus, never have. Many’s the time he’d climb the ladder to my room for a chat. “Gilles,” he’d say, “I’ve come to hear some sense talked. Get the glasses, will you?” And he’d bring out a bottle of brandy and light up his old pipe and there we’d sit jawing away till gone midnight sometimes. He was all for the working man and a lot of what he said made sense to me then and still does now. It was him that put me on the right road.’ He paused again.

‘
How was that?’ I asked softly. I didn’t want to break his train of thought. ‘Well, he made me understand there was more to life than just being a servant, I suppose. And when I came out of the Army in 1918 I told myself I’d never be one again, no matter what, and I never was. Got a job in a garage, learned the trade, and in 1925, when the missus and I were married, I’d saved enough to buy a garage and have my own business. Had plenty of ups and downs mind you, but I never regretted it. Then in 1960 I sold out for a tidy sum and the missus never wanted for anything till the end of her days.’ He was silent again, his blue eyes staring into space, then: ‘Ay, it were your Ma, Ma’am, and Mr Stokes, they started me on the right road...’

‘
My mother, Mr Gilles?’

P.
E. Gilles’ gaze focused on a rather vivid view of a Cornish fishing village hanging on the wall opposite, as though seeking inspiration. ‘It were different then, you see. My dad had been a strapper in Lord Hanton’s stables; my mum were in service and it were the natural thing like for me to go into service myself. I wanted to better myself, of course, but it were always them and us. You’d never speak to gentry — never think of it — they spoke to you; told you what to do. They might ask you how you were getting on, or how your family were, that kind of thing, but you’d never
talk
to them.

‘
Then along comes Miss Char, and she don’t seem to understand all that. I remember as though it were yesterday, when I first saw her. I’d only been at the job a week or so. I was in my harness room, cleaning tack like and this head comes round the door. “Can you help me with Rags, Mr Gilles, he’s got a thorn in his foot and he won’t let me get it out.” In she comes, carrying the dog in her arms. Tiny little thing she were, freckles all over her nose, mud on her cheek and a red knitted beret on her head. Well, I managed to get the thorn out and somehow we got chatting.’

He
stopped, trying to put into words how he had felt. ‘It was like talking to one of my own,’ he said simply. ‘No side, just interested in everything I had to say. After that, she’d come most days when she were at home. It was Miss Char who brought Mr Stokes round — introduced us all proper like. Of course, her Pa didn’t like it. “Gilles,” he’d say, “don’t let that imp of mine waste your time.”

‘
“Very good Sir,” I’d say, but it wouldn’t make no difference, she’d still come round. Cor, I’ll never forget the day she told her Pa he didn’t pay me high enough wages. Oh Lor! “Uncle Hubert says every man in England should earn enough to live in dignity,” she says, bold as brass. She were standing on the mounting block in the stable yard. Her Pa were up on that big chestnut gelding he had then. I thought hee were going to hit her. He were a kind man, but he’d got a temper alright.’

‘
Did he?’ Sophia asked. ‘Hit her, I mean.’

No,
he just kicked his heels vicious like into the horse and galloped out of the yard. Then they sent her away to London to school. She were too much of a handful, I reckon. She used to write to me, you know.’

‘
That’s how we knew about you,’ I said. ‘You see, she kept your letters.’

‘
She never! She never did — all those years — just fancy keeping them all those years.’ Suddenly P. E. Gilles looked his age; he lapsed into muttering, one hand stroking the drawing of Warrior. It was as though he were caressing it.

‘
Time for your pills, Grandad.’ The blonde lady had returned; our time was up. ‘He gets tired, you see,’ she said.

‘
Don’t fuss,’ said P. E. Gilles, pulling himself together with a visible effort. ‘I’ll see a hundred, and it ain’t every day I meet Miss Char’s daughter.’

Sophia
rose to her feet. ‘We’ll come again,’ she said, ‘if we may. Your granddaughter’s quite right, we mustn’t tire you.’ The blonde lady saw us out: I had the impression she did not wholly approve of her grandfather’s reminiscences of his days in service.

‘
Oh, wasn’t he lovely?’ Sophia said as we climbed back into the car. ‘No wonder Mum liked him; we must see him again.’

But
it was not to be. Only a few weeks after our visit a letter arrived from his granddaughter to say she thought we’d like to know that P. E. Gilles had died peacefully in his sleep. He had backed the winner of the Ascot Gold Cup the day before, and it was thought the excitement had proved too much for him.