We Five (17 page)

Michael Osborne did not give his daughter leave to finish. “Enough!” he roared. At the same time he flung the tempered steel excavator, which he'd been gripping tightly in his hand, down onto the table. It struck the porcelain top with a loud clack. “It's all tommyrot, if you ask me—this whole business of fathers being forced to give over their daughters to bleeding blokes with only one thing on their minds. Would that you were more like your friend Ruth, who chooses to have nothing to do with the opposite sex.”

“It isn't fair to compare me to Ruth.”

Osborne sat back down. He massaged his temples as if in doing so he might succeed in getting the veins protruding there to draw themselves back. He took a couple of deep breaths. “I'm curious. How did you get Ruth to agree to come along on this little escapade?”

Molly smiled. It was a sincere smile, though it had the ulterior purpose of calming and quieting her father after his outburst.

“It was really quite easy. The Hammersmith Palais tries to keep its guests well fed. And we all know how much Ruth loves to eat.”

“Take the rest of my Spam,” said Lucille Mobry. “I can't eat another bite.”

“Only if you're truly full,” said Ruth, whose fork was already making its way over to Lucille's plate to spear the last few bites of the battered meat.

“Did you know that when you first showed up on our doorstep like—oh Bert, who was it that walked for days and nights to his aunt's house in Dover—was it Oliver Twist or David Copperfield?”

“It was David Copperfield, I think. I'm picturing Freddie Bartholomew and that horsey-looking actress—Edna something.”

“Anyway,” Lucille resumed, “you were just skin and bones. Wasn't Ruth just skin and bones, Bert?”

“Skin and bones and a stomach that hasn't stopped borbarigging ever since.” Mr. Mobry winked at Ruth, who returned the wink, along with a smile.

Lucille continued: “Those old beldames you'd run away from had been starving you for certain. We should have had them arrested.”

“Well, everything worked out for the best,” said Ruth, reaching across the table to requisition one of Lucille's boiled potatoes as well. Lucille assented with a nod. “And look at me now, Auntie: I weigh eight hundred pounds. In truth, I
should
reduce. There's a chart that hangs in the cloakroom at the factory; it says how much a woman should weigh at such-and-such a height.”

“And how did you measure up to that ideal woman in the chart?”

Ruth shook her head with resignation. “I cannot say the two of us will ever be mistaken for one another.” Ruth laughed ruefully. “I suppose that's the only silver lining to this ghastly war; most of what's being rationed or is absolutely unavailable isn't good for the figure anyway. I have to get ready. We're all getting together tonight at Jane's to make plans for Saturday night.”

Herbert Mobry nodded and smiled. “It's good you're going out—good that Londoners as a whole aren't giving in to these damned raids.”

Lucille's hand flew to her mouth. “Dear brother, you just said a foul word.”

“
Raids
?”

“You know exactly the word I'm referring to.”

“First, Sister, my career as a minister is over, so I needn't watch my tongue as closely as I used to. Second: it was a perfectly appropriate use of the word. The Nazis and their air raids
are
to be damned.”

“
Still
—” Lucille returned her attention to Ruth. “I assume there's an A.R.P. shelter near the Palais, if one should be needed.”

“Of course there is, Auntie. And if the sirens sound tonight, I'll just follow all the others right down into it. You needn't worry.”

“It cannot be avoided,” Mobry contributed. “I must tell you, though, Ruth, that we do worry less—Sister and me—when you're close by and safe—well, as safe as any Londoner can be these days. But then again, it's good to have friends who understand you as Sister and I do.”

“
Do
you understand me, Uncle? I
am
rather a complication.”

“All of God's children are complications, child. We're entangled bundles of nerves and sinew and twisted-up brain matter. Who can probe
any
mind with success, let alone the mind of, say, an Adolf Hitler who each day conceives new horrors to unleash upon the world? Of course, invoking the Fuehrer doesn't make my point at all. I suspect he is the exception to the rule. There
are
exceptions to be found now and then—these men of diseased consciences and cankered souls. Our loving Lord and Savior implants a soul in each of His children, but sometimes that soul withers or festers. Hitler and the men who willingly serve him—men responsible for the kind of atrocities that stagger the mind—these men have a sickness that robs them of every ounce of their humanity.”

“Or perhaps they were defective to begin with,” offered Lucille. “Perhaps God dozed off a bit, and Hitler and Goering and Goebbels slipped off the assembly line ill-formed.”

“I would not dismiss that possibility,” said the former pastor, just finishing his postprandial spot of tea. “On the other hand, God—we have been taught—doesn't make mistakes. So it is a conundrum. But then again, there are a good many mysteries to this world that won't be solved until after we're gone on to our reward—and perhaps not even then.”

“Here's another mystery, Ruth,” said Lucille Mobry, pushing herself away from the table. “It was left on our doorstep this afternoon.” Lucille went to the sideboard to retrieve the parcel she'd placed there earlier. “Your name is on it, but nothing else. It feels like a book.”

“Thank you, Auntie,” said Ruth, taking it. She turned it over in her hand.

“Should we avert our eyes?” asked Mobry, with a grin. “Perhaps it's from a secret admirer who wishes to go on being ‘secret.'”

“I have no admirers,” shot back Ruth, “secret or otherwise.”

But Ruth knew that she did. And for this reason she went to her room to open the package in private.

Lucille had guessed correctly; it
was
a book. And one Ruth didn't have. It was a very special book, in fact, and had come all the way from the United States. Ruth knew this because she knew all about the novel's troubled history.
The Well of Loneliness
had come up in conversation between Ruth and her forewoman, Miss Colthurst, at the filling factory. The book had been ordered destroyed by the British courts several months after its publication in 1928. Copies occasionally made their way into the country from France, where it was still being published, and from the United States, where its American publisher was successful in winning a court ruling declaring that the book
wasn't
obscene, though it depicted an unambiguous romantic relationship between two women. The conversation between Ruth and Vivien Colthurst orbited round both the story and the curious name of its author, Radclyffe Hall. “She sounds rather like the name of a building, doesn't she?” asked Miss Colthurst, who put the question to Ruth with a look that indicated an intense interest in knowing just how much Ruth was enjoying their private chat.

Ruth could not believe that Vivien had obtained a copy of the American edition. She looked forward to thanking her friend for going to so much trouble (for surely it wasn't an easy thing to put one's hands on such a book). But she looked forward even more to the chance to actually read it.

As Lucille cleared away the tea dishes, Bert Mobry browsed through his copy of
Radio Times
in his easy chair. With his recent retirement from the pulpit, Mobry was indulging himself in all the radio programmes he'd missed over the last few years. During his many busy seasons in ministerial cassock there had only been time for the news broadcasts, but now he could listen to anything he pleased, although there was much that
dis
pleased him. He adamantly refused, for example, to twiddle the dial for the broadcasts of the German propagandist Lord Haw-Haw, who set many a Briton's teeth on edge, though his programmes were popular; with the continuing clamp-down of information on British air and sea misadventures, this was sometimes the fastest way for British citizens to learn the outcome of engagements that did not go so well.

Lucille came into the parlour and stood next to her brother's chair. “Would you like me to turn on the wireless?”

“If you don't mind. Once I'm settled into this upholstered marshmallow my poor old back doesn't allow me to get up without complaint.”

But Lucille remained for a moment longer just where she stood. “Do you think our Ruth might have herself a follower? Perhaps someone who loves to read as much as she does?”

Bert shrugged. “Ruth is an enigma. I cannot say.”

“I'm surprised that she's going dancing with her friends on Saturday night. But I'm happy for her.”

Bert turned his head to look up at his sister. “Your troubled expression tells me otherwise.”

Lucille fabricated a smile as if to contradict her brother. “I'm happy
and
I worry. Isn't that the way it is for everyone these days? Even our most pleasant moments are never without their dark edges of care and fear. It does make me sad to think of Ruth and those four special friends of hers. What a terrible time to be young and so full of life—only to have all the verve and spirit drained out of you by all the retched things men have shown themselves capable of doing to one another.”

“Do you mean men as representatives of mankind, Sister, or men as—well—
men
?”

“Both, I fancy.” Lucille sat down upon the fat arm of the chair and placed her hand lovingly upon its occupant's shoulder. “You spoke of men like Hitler earlier—those with a sickness that robs them of their humanity. Might there be men of similar infirmity—men right here in London of whom Ruth and her friends must take careful heed? I'm thinking of the girls in our congregation who found themselves—need I say it?”

“You needn't say it,” said Mr. Mobry, patting his sister on the hand. “I'm rather glad I've retired from the ministry. 'Tisn't a good time to be a shepherd among men. Far too many black sheep in the flock these days.”

“And what else is on the agenda for the evening?” asked Mrs. Hale. “I mean, besides approving which frocks you'll be wearing Saturday night—which, may I just say, makes absolutely no sense unless you're all hoping to go there looking like a colour-matched, fully-grown version of the Dionne quintuplets?”

“Mother, you're a panic,” said Carrie. Mother and Daughter were sitting on Daughter's bed amongst all the various pleated skirts and panelled skirts and straight skirts Carrie had been trying on. At present, Carrie was decked out in a pale green silk dress (her nicest one) for which the matching fabric-covered belt could not be found, and which, as it was, fitted much too tightly just below its sweetheart neckline. A long interval had passed since she'd last put it on, and during this time her breasts—which had already made Carrie the most mammarily blessed of We Five—had expanded to even greater proportions. “It's really the entire
package
which we want to carefully put forward, Mother, and clothes are only a part of it. This is what Jane says. She says we should be careful when we make our appearance at the ballroom not to appear as either Bow's Belles
or
Mayfair slummers. Jane would like us to stake out some spot in the cautious middle: girls without too terribly much money, but girls who are still capable of comporting themselves with taste and decorum. It's not an easy thing to put over, Mother, so we'll need to work at it.”

Carrie's mother clasped her hands together in a show of cheery confidence. “You'll be a credit to all those middling girls just like you. Why should only the very rich and the very poor have all the fun?”

“And you
do
want me to have fun, don't you, Mother? Even though you'll have to sit at home, rocking and knitting away with only the voices of the BBC for company?”

Sylvia Hale shook her head. “Do you fancy I'll be lucky enough to spend the entire evening so indulgently? More than likely it will be me and Mr. Whiskers in the staircase cupboard. And if I'm
very
lucky, I'll have Deloria Littlejohn crawling in beside me, so I'll be treated to her unkind opinions of all the neighbours until blessed ‘All Clear.'”

“Why doesn't she use her Anderson? I've seen the inside of it. It's very nice the way she's fixed it up.”

“Mrs. Littlejohn said she'd rather take rat poison than spend even an hour in such close quarters with
Mr.
Littlejohn. They don't get on, or didn't you know? At any rate, don't go fidgeting yourself over me. You said on Monday that you and I—that we may have got a bit dull, even in the midst of this terrible war. And I've thought about it, and I have come to fancy there
is
some truth to it. We go round like lifeless twin automatons until the bombs fall, when we run all about like frightened children. And then when the sirens shut off and those nasty Messerschmitts disappear for the night, we're back to tea and yawns and languid violin sonatas by Austrians, which we aren't even supposed to be playing since the Anschluss. I want you to be happy, Carrie. You're a beautiful girl and it's time you met a young man who will appreciate you for your beauty—but also one who'll be drawn to your cleverness and your winning personality.”

“You left out my various musical talents and my ability to stand on my head. You're being a dear, Mother, but you're being far too generous. Next you'll say you're troubled not in the least by the possibility that I may fall in love with a conscientious objector.”

“But it's true, pet! If you love the lad—who
ever
the lad may be—I intend to respect your choice, because I'm confident my daughter will choose wisely. And by the way, conscientious objectors stand a far better chance of surviving this war than their counterparts in the service; it's a simple fact. I'm being selfish, I know it, but I don't want a young war widow for a daughter. I remember the last war, dear. Almost a million of our young men killed. Why else do you think I was forced to settle on your horrid father? You go to that ballroom on Saturday, my darling, and you bedazzle every young man there, conchie or not, and you come home and tell me every little thing about it. I'll be your housebound girlfriend who lives vicariously through your breathless adventures.”