Sensible Life (38 page)

“You’d do better in the tube,” said the driver, “but I’m going that way; might as well be paid for it. But don’t blame me if you miss your train.”

Flora pulled the window down. “I must say thank you. He invited me to the Ritz. Thank you, thank you,” she shouted into the fog. “You’ve been very kind, thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” said Roger’s disembodied voice.

Cosmo pulled her in and shut the window. “Getting yourself picked up by GIs,” he said.

“He was a captain. I counted his pips.”

“What has he done to your knees? You’re bleeding.”

“I fell, tripped on the kerb—”

“That’ll teach you to rush off without me.” Cosmo held her close, hugging her. “Oh God,” he said, “this is wonderful. Ten long years.”

“Why are you crying?” asked Flora.

“Shock. Don’t speak for a moment.” Cosmo gulped, sniffed and blew his nose. “Could one ask why you are crying too?”

“I hurt my knees. I am so glad to see you and—”

The driver slid the glass partition open. “What time is your train, sir?”

“Oh, any time. It doesn’t matter.”

The driver closed the partition.

“And what’s the third reason?” asked Cosmo.

“I can’t talk about it. I have not been able to cry, it is
so awful
.”

“One of those? Something really bad?”

“Yes.”

It had been the most terrible thing. She had heard it on the radio and later read it in
The Times.
Infuriated by the Dutch resistance the Germans had taken hostages. Two mayors, a well known banker, some prominent people. One of the hostages had been Felix. The hostages had been shot. She had heard the news on an exquisite autumn morning of clear skies and early frost. The beauty of the day made the news worse. Her grief bunched in her stomach and froze in her brain. She had been stunned.

“Ah,” said Cosmo, “I can guess. Felix.”

She said, “Yes,” and the tears came. Felix had seemed so slight, so afraid. Had he not talked of his fear? She had felt doubtful about him, found him dull as a lover, resented his taking all the bath water. How could I have been so petty? she thought. I should have been able to comfort him and give him love. I only thought of myself when I watched him go. I was disappointed. I cannot tell Cosmo that I saw him; I cannot tell him that we spent the night together. “He didn’t expect to be a hero,” she said, weeping.

Watching the tears make points of her eyelashes before they tipped onto her cheeks, Cosmo’s mind went back to Madame Tarasova’s room above the horse butcher in the Rue de Rance. They had been sitting on the floor; he had plucked an eyelash and measured it. Felix had come in and told them that it had stopped raining. He said, “He was a very brave man. I bet he made the Germans who shot him feel funny.” Flora choked. Cosmo said, “D’you remember when he came and told us that the rain had stopped? We had the picnic next day.”

“Yes.” And he had waltzed with her on the sand.

Cosmo said, “We are fortunate to have known him.”

It was private sitting in the taxi with Cosmo’s arm round her, cocooned in the fog, the taxi’s engine chugging as it inched along.

“The fog is khaki,” she said, still weeping, “not pea.”

Cosmo said, “I could not cry when my father died.”

“Not your father? I did not see it in
The Times.
Oh, Cosmo, when?”

“Six months ago. Heart attack.”

“He was such fun at the picnic, he had a flask—and kind; he gave me lunch at Quaglinos. I’d never been to a restaurant like that. And afterwards we shopped for your mother at Fortnum’s and Floris. I ran into him in the street.”

“My mother thought the worst—”

“Not? Oh, no! Oh—” Flora began to laugh. “Oh, with your father?”

Cosmo noted that she had stopped crying, or rather that she was laughing too. “Mixed emotions,” he said. “Are you pleased to see me? D’you observe that I wept for joy?”

She said, “Yes, very pleased,” and “Tell me about your father. Was he in a rage?”

“It wasn’t rage. There’s a girls’ school in the house for the duration. Mother and Father moved into the flat above the stables. He was too old to get back into the Army but he was overdoing it: Civil Defence, A.R.P., Min. of Ag., everything local. Everyone came to him all the time. It was the way he died which upset Mother. She was shattered anyway, of course; funny old things, they were in love. No, it was the way he died,” Cosmo paused.

“What way was that?” The shy little girl would not have asked. Cosmo studied the adult’s face; the eyes were the same but the cheeks were slightly hollowed, the mouth grown more sensual. Where had she been these ten years? What doing,
who with
? “Tell me,” she said.

“He’d had a drink or two, I gather—”

“Go on.”

“The headmistress of the school came to make a complaint. Father was jollying her along, she was a bit of a stick, and he’d got to the stage when he would begin telling stories. You wouldn’t remember—”

“Yes, I do.”

“Apparently he got to his favourite—”

“Ces belles choses?”

“You remember? Oh Lord! The woman was not amused when Father finished with his comme ci comme ça etcetera; he looked at her, Mother says, and said: “She wouldn’t understand, would she, Milly? She’s as flat as a plank, not like you, darling.” And he pouted out his moustache in that way he had, gave a sort of cough, and died.”

“But that’s a lovely way to die, making a joke.”

“Mother thought it undignified.”

Cosmo, mirrored in the glass partition, had begun to weep. She hoped the driver would not choose this moment to open the partition, look back and launch some cockney quip.

The noise of the traffic altered; they were moving faster. She thought she could see trees loom out of the fog. They must be in Hyde Park. The last time she had seen Cosmo mirrored, he had been drunk; there had been no runnels for the tears from nose to mouth.

Presently he fumbled for a handkerchief, blew his nose and said, “That’s better. Thank you.”

Flora said, “What’s this uniform you’ve got on? Where are you going?”

“R.A.F., as you can see, and I’m going to North Africa.”

“To fight?”

“No. Intelligence is what they call it. I am out of the fighting, too old. I was a rear gunner for a while.”

“Then you are lucky to be alive,” she said crisply. (Thank God I did not know.)

“I gather I am.”

“And Blanco—Hubert?”

“In the Wavy Navy. He’s attached now to the Free French, aide to one of the squabbling Admirals.”

“Mabs and Tashie?”

“Sharing a house in Wiltshire with a friend who has children the same age as theirs. They do all sorts of war work and get batches of Italian P.O.W.s to work in the garden.”

“Nigel and Henry?”

“Treasury and Ministry of Information.”

“And Joyce?” She looked out at the fog, remembering Joyce.

“Joyce is in London. She actually enjoys air-raids, hasn’t missed one. She’s very popular with our Yank allies, indeed with all our allies. As you may remember, she’s full of bounce. She extracts the maximum of pleasure out of everything she does.”

“I don’t know,” Flora snapped.

“Perhaps you wouldn’t.” Cosmo was amused. “Her elder brother was killed in the Dieppe raid.”

“I loathe and detest this war. I want nothing to do with it,” said Flora violently.

“And how do you manage that?” Cosmo teased. “Were you not called up?”

“I don’t manage. I am in the Land Army, it’s the least of the evils.”

“So you make hay, commune with cows.” She found his tone mocking.

“And pigs and geese,” Flora shouted. “Yes.”

“Nearly there,” said the driver, pushing open the partition. “This is Sussex Gardens.”

“Jolly Good.” Cosmo looked at his watch. “I shall be in time for my train. But don’t think,” he said to Flora, “that this is the last you will see of me. I am taking you with me to where I catch my flight. You have yet to tell me why you ran away from Pengappah and where you have been since. You can tell me on the train.”

“Why should I?” asked Flora disagreeably.

“You owe it to me.”

“I owe you nothing. You are as arrogant and pleased with yourself as ever; you haven’t changed in ten years,” Flora exclaimed. She felt a resurgence of the rage which had assailed her, standing over them slumped and drunk in front of the fire at Pengappah. “I bet you have grown as bossy as Hubert,” she cried. “As selfish as he is, as—”

The taxi had come to a stop. A porter opened the door and snatched Flora’s case. “Which train, sir?” he said to Cosmo.

“I’ll take that.” Flora reached for the case.

“No.” Cosmo caught her wrist. “Stand still a minute, darling. How much do I owe you?” he asked the driver. “I have all my gear in the left luggage,” he told the porter as he fumbled for change with one hand. “We need the Cornish train. Eleven o’clock.”

“Number one platform,” said the porter. “Very crowded today.”

“Always is,” said Cosmo. “Stand still,” he said to Flora.

Flora said, “Let go,” and kicked his shin.

“I won’t,” said Cosmo, handing money to the driver. “Thank you very much. Ouch,” as Flora bit his hand. “Bitch!”

“What a pair of love-birds,” said the taxi driver. “You should be ashamed,” he said to Flora, “him going off to war. He might get killed and be remembering your last words as he died,” he said, using the intimacy engendered by the fog.

“Oh, shut up,” said Flora. “Please give me my case,” she said to the porter.

Cosmo, still holding her wrist, said: “Darling, please—”

Flora said: “All right, but let go of me, you are hurting.” She did not add that she was destined for the same train. She had her return ticket in her bag.

Cosmo looked at his watch. “We have just time to find a First Aid place and do something about your knees,” he said, “and my bite. You’ve drawn blood.”

Flora said, “I’m sorry,” but did not look it.

S
QUASHED IN THE CORNER
of an overcrowded carriage, Flora was disgruntled and annoyed for letting herself be beholden to Cosmo who, travelling first-class as an officer, had insisted on paying the difference on her third-class ticket.

The compartment was full of officers poisoning the atmosphere with tobacco smoke which, making her feel sick, added to her disadvantaged feelings. “Perhaps we could have a window open,” she suggested to the palpable horror of a Frenchman on the seat opposite.

“Et le brouillard?” he protested, with an outraged sniff.

Flora said, “Please,” in the voice Cosmo’s mother used when she would brook no No. A Royal Marine Major in mid-carriage stepped across the Frenchman’s legs and pulled the window open. Flora said, “Thank you very much,” warmly.

The French officer, appraising Flora’s ankles, let his eyes rise to and rest at her sticking-plastered knees. Flora pulled her skirt down. The train began to move from the shadowy platform into fog.

“Well, now,” said Cosmo, more briskly than he felt, “we have a lot of catching up to do.”

“We can’t talk here,” said Flora, looking round at their audience.

“Darling, there’s nowhere else.”

“Catching up on what?”

“On what you have been up to these ten years.” Cosmo kept his voice low. “Are you married, for instance?”

“No. Are you?”

“No, and nor is Hubert. Not that that—where did you vanish to when you ran away from Pengappah? You were gone when we woke up. We were in despair. We searched the woods and cliffs, yelled ourselves hoarse and imagined you drowned, until we realised your case was gone. Your trail went cold at the station.”

“You looked like rag dolls lolling there,” said Flora. “You discussed me. Dissected me. I was furious, livid. I heard every word from the kitchen,” she hissed. Then, leaning forward, she said, “N’ecoutez pas, monsieur; c’est une conversation privée.”

“Et qui manque d’intérêt,” said the French officer, closing his eyes, turning aside and hunching his shoulders at the draught.

Flora repeated in Cosmo’s ear: “I heard every word. You discussed me.”

“Most lovingly,” said Cosmo, remembering the conversation. (Oh dear.) “What did we say?”

“If you’ve forgotten, I shall not remind you. I am still furious.”

“Darling, we were plastered. I remember the hangover; it was a humdinger.”

“I wish you would not keep calling me darling.”

“You did not object in the taxi.”

“I had forgotten how angry I was—am.”

Cosmo looked out at the fog and glanced round the carriage. Several people besides the Frenchman were trying to sleep, the rest deep in newspapers. “What’s this about reading
The Times
?” he asked.

“At Coppermalt Nigel advised me to read
The Times.
I think he was shocked by my ignorance; he said I could follow what happens to people, deaths, weddings and so on, and get a grasp of what’s going on in the world. It was my last evening, the time that Mabs and Tashie, oh and Joyce, dressed me in black and your mother—Well, anyway, I thought about it and took his tip. I’ve been reading the papers regularly ever since.”

“I see.”

“I’ve read some of your cases in the law reports.”

“Really?” Cosmo was pleased to hear this.

“And Hubert’s articles and despatches during the build-up to the war. He made me aware of a lot of things the politicians didn’t seem to want us to know. I learnt to distrust politicians and hate war. It’s filthy.”

“It’s going on, we are all involved—”

“As little as possible, me. I don’t want to kill anyone, it doesn’t help, or for anyone I love to die.” I don’t want you to die, she thought, or Hubert. “Look what’s happened to Felix,” she said, “a neutral murdered in a neutral country. What’s going on over there in Europe? I never really knew Felix and now I never shall.” (I loved but did not know him.)

“And you would have liked to?”

“Of course I should. And you, how well did you know him?” (She felt a fierce nostalgic hunger for the Felix of her childhood.)

“He came to stay once or twice. Mabs was keen on him. What was there to know? He was the kind of person people talk about. That charm and good looks breed gossip, engender jealousy. At various times I heard it suggested that he was (a) a womaniser or (b) a homosexual. It was even hinted that he was illegitimate. My father said that was rubbish, that although he did not look like old Jef, as Pa called him, he was in manner exactly like him. Pa sometimes made his old friend sound rather a bore, I admit. Felix was a good man, that’s all, and that’s enough, but above all he was bloody brave. Not many people choose to get themselves shot to shield some person or persons they don’t know. In theory yes, but in actual cold-blooded practice, that takes guts.”