The Novel in the Viola (29 page)

I went to bed early on New Year’s Eve. Mr Rivers was obliged to attend a party held at Lulcombe Dower House by Lady Vernon, and while he’d insisted that I would be most welcome, we both knew this to be a polite lie. I remained at Tyneford, listening to the wireless in the library and eating candied figs in front of the fire, slipping away before Mr Wrexham could worry about whether or not to invite me to join the remaining servants for their glass of midnight sherry in the butler’s parlour.

I kept off all the lights on the landing as well as those in my bedroom, and peeled back the blackout curtains and opened the window. It took my eyes a minute to adjust to the absolute darkness. It used to be that the odd light from the village glimmered in the night, or else the larger lights from distant Weymouth and Portland cast a yellow haze on the horizon. Now the darkness oozed about me. I curled up in an armchair and breathed the freezing air, so cold that my teeth tingled. It must have been nearly midnight but I couldn’t see my wristwatch, and the church bells were silent – the law dictated that they were only to be rung in order to signal an invasion. All I could hear was the boom of the sea. By now it was an echo as familiar to me as the patter of my own thoughts. On the rare occasions when I had to venture into Dorchester or Wareham, I was struck by the quiet. The streets bustled and teemed but beneath the noise was a steady silence. I knew I could never live without the sea again; that was my music. At last I understood how Anna and Margot felt on the odd days when they could neither play nor listen to music.

Raising my whisky glass, I toasted my family and then Kit, knowing with happy certainty that wherever his ship sailed, he was thinking of me. Every few weeks, I received letters from him. (I kept them all these years and by now each one has grown worn around the folds from being endlessly re-read. They are filled with earnest nonsense, the sort of things that a boy writes to his sweetheart, but which somehow, when they are meant for you, never feel tired or clichéd or anything other than absolutely tender and true.)

I sat in the gloom and took out my bundle of letters and since it was too dark to read, recited them by heart.

Darling Elise,

King Alfred’s is the name of the training ship. Though she isn’t a ship at all, she’s a converted school or something, but we’re to pretend she’s a ship. The front is the bow; we have a roll call to ensure we’re all ‘aboard’ before lessons. I have lodgings in town but when we leave each evening we’re off ‘to sling our hammocks’. It’s the naval way, rather odd at first but one does get used to it, and it has a haphazard poetry to it. When all this is over, we’ll go down to Durdle Door one summer’s evening and sling a hammock for two beneath the cliffs, and lie together and wait for a mermaid to come and comb her hair and flick her tail. Or else, we’ll just drink sherry and get very drunk and I shall kiss you all the way from your toes to your knees and then the gap between your stockings and your smooth white thighs . . . I must tell you, my salute is very fine and I do look splendid in blue . . . I’m glad Burt taught me knots and the rules of the sea, makes one or two things easier, but I can’t wait to actually get out on the water. Discipline and drill isn’t too bad, rather reminds me of Eton, like being a schoolboy again only with the responsibility of other men’s lives . . . Every night I dream of Tyneford and of you and you’re dressed as a boy again and it might be wicked but I hold you and kiss you and this time no one stops me and I unfasten your bow tie and I lick that charming little hollow at the base of your throat . . . Ran exercises at sea today but it turned out to be nothing but an exercise in seasickness. Yes. It seems I get seasick. Never happened before on the fishing-boats or yachting but something about the larger vessels and the way they toss on the waves – oh God, I feel quite ill even thinking about it . . . We ‘pass out’ tomorrow and I don’t feel in the least prepared . . . I had hoped for a destroyer but it wasn’t to be. The corvette doesn’t sound too bad. I wish I could tell you where I’m going but I don’t know myself. I can tell you that I am terrified but so are all the chaps. Don’t know what the regular crews are going to make of us wavy navy sods. Ah well, suppose it’s a bit late to join the RAF now . . . Well, still seasick. I was ill all the way to
but so were all the RNVR officers – green in every sense. But the regular navy chaps were jolly good about it; apparently sailors never make fun of seasickness, everyone’s suffered at some point. The petty officer told me he still gets sick for the first two or three days aboard. I hope I shall find my sea legs before then. Especially if we’re to go to
. . . Oh the Northern Lights! I wish you could have seen them, Elise. They were so bright, for a moment I thought they were a great battleship’s flare – the entire horizon glowed with a greenish glare like a terrible dawn . . . We shall take a trip to
, you and I, and then sail a sedate launch around the
. I’ll be the captain, and we’ll have no one else. Perhaps for our honeymoon. What do you think? I think it will be splendid. We shall have boiled eggs and anchovies on toast (for you know quite well that I can cook nothing else) and dangle our feet in the ocean and swim naked and at night we will lie on deck and wait for the gleam of the Northern Lights . . . Oh God, can’t write. So seasick, I could die. Why the navy? . . . Good chaps on board, I must say. Bit of a scare last night

. . . I wish I could be at Tyneford. I expect you’re all freezing in this cold weather with the fuel rationing. Do you remember last winter when I brought in that chunk of oak and burnt it in the hall fireplace? I was in love with you but hadn’t told you yet. I watched you dance with Wrexham, and I was actually jealous of the old man. I’m jealous of everyone who’s near you at the moment when I’m not. I’m jealous of my father for he gets to see you every day and say ‘please pass the marmalade’ and see you every morning when you’re flushed from your bath and only half awake – oh how one misses such precious banalities when away from home. We heard today that the destroyer

. . . When I’m back in Tyneford, I’m going to keep you to myself for a whole week. No one else may speak to you or go near you or touch you. If we were married, I should insist on you being naked the entire time but since we’re not, I suppose I must make do with kissing you and perhaps I shall unfasten . . . It’s a tradition in the navy to toast our wives and mistresses at midnight on New Year, so darling, know that wherever I am, I will be drinking to you . . .

love Kit

On New Year’s Day, I walked across the cliffs to the Tilly Whim caves. I had helped Mrs Ellsworth prepare the Beef Wellington for dinner (a final treat before rationing commenced), peeled endless potatoes, sieved a quart of sloe gin, and after the heat of the kitchen I craved some fresh air. The sky was iron grey, and the dark sea writhed and crashed, white waves cresting before they reached the shore. Sleet began to fall, pockmarking the stone and seeping into my mackintosh, but I didn’t mind. I’d learnt to relish the wind and cold slapping my cheeks, turning them bright as holly berries. I stalked along the cliff top path, passing above the sandy smear of Brandy Bay, and onto the limestone shelf at Tilly Whim. In the distance I could see the black shadows of the warships at anchor in Portland. I wondered if I were looking at a ship like Kit’s. I wore a ruby cashmere scarf, a Christmas present from Mr Rivers, and took pleasure in its luxuriant brightness against the dull winter world. It was an item of such glamour that I could hardly believe it was mine. It was the sort of thing that Anna or Margot wore. I had not been expecting a gift, so gave Mr Rivers a book of Goethe’s poetry that I had discovered in a second-hand bookshop in Dorchester and had intended to give to Kit. The gift was probably more suited to Mr Rivers anyway. Kit only really liked poetry that was either rude or made him laugh and preferably both at once.