Coming Home (6 page)

The fact that she had little in common with her sister, and scarcely knew the two girls, had rendered her not too hopeful as to the outcome of the arrangement. But it had all been a surprising success. Molly, it was true, had wilted from time to time, defeated by the pace of Biddy's social whirl, and had retired to her bed to put her feet up; and Jess, it had to be admitted, was a spoilt and babied brat, dreadfully indulged and petted every time she cried.

But Judith had proved a real eye-opener, the sort of girl Biddy would have liked as a daughter of her own, if ever she had had one. Entertaining herself if necessary, never chipping into adult conversations, and enthusiastic about, and grateful for, any ploy suggested for her diversion. She was also, Biddy thought, extraordinarily pretty…or, at least, she would be in a few years. The fact that there was no one of her own age around the place had not fazed her in the very least, and at Biddy's parties she had made herself useful, handing round nuts and biscuits, and responding to anybody who paused to talk to her. The rapport she had struck up with Bob was an extra bonus, because it was obvious that she had given him as much pleasure as he had bestowed upon her. He liked her for old-fashioned reasons, for her good manners, and the way she spoke up and looked you in the eye; but as well, for both of them, there was a natural attraction and stimulation of being with a member of the opposite sex, a father–daughter relationship that both of them, one way or another, had missed out on.

Perhaps they should have had daughters. Perhaps they should have had a string of children. But there was only Ned, packed off to prep school when he was eight, and then to Dartmouth. The years flew by so fast, and it felt almost no time had passed since he was small, and precious, with baby cheeks and flaxen hair, and dirty knees and rough, warm little hands. Now he was sixteen and nearly as tall as his father. Before you could say Jack Robinson, he'd be done with his studies and sent to sea. Be grown up. Get married. Produce a family of his own. Biddy's imagination flew ahead. She sighed. Being a grandmother did not appeal to her. She was young. She
felt
young. Middle age must be kept, at all costs, at bay.

The door opened, and Hobbs trod creakily into the room, bearing the morning mail and a fresh pot of black coffee. He put this on the hotplate on the sideboard, and then came to lay the letters down on the table by her side. She wished that he would do something about his squeaking boots.

‘Bitter cold this morning,’ he observed with relish. ‘All the gutters thick with ice. I've salted the front-door step.’

But Biddy only said, ‘Thank you, Hobbs,’ because if she responded to his observation he might stand and chat forever. Frustrated by her lengthening silence, Hobbs sucked his teeth in a morose sort of way, straightened a fork on the table in order to justify his presence, but finally, defeated, took himself off. Bob continued to read his paper. Biddy leafed through her mail. Not so much as a postcard from Ned, but a letter from her mother, probably thanking for the knitted knee-rug that Biddy had sent her for Christmas. She took up a knife to slit the envelope open. As she did this, Bob lowered his paper, folded it, and slapped it down on the table with some force.

Biddy looked up. ‘What's wrong?’

‘Disarmament. The League of Nations. And I don't like the smell of what's happening in Germany.’

‘Oh dear.’ She hated him to be depressed or concerned. Herself, she only read cheerful news, and hastily turned the page if the headlines looked black.

He looked at his watch. ‘Time I was off.’ He pushed back his heavy chair and stood up, a tall and squarely built man, his bulk made yet more impressive by the dark, double-breasted, gold-buttoned jacket. His face, clean-shaven and craggy, was shadowed by a pair of bushy eyebrows, and his thick hair, iron-grey, lay smooth on his head, relentlessly barbered and firmly controlled by Royal Yacht hair oil and a pair of bristly brushes.

‘Have a good day,’ Biddy told him.

He looked at the empty table. ‘Where is everybody?’

‘Not down, yet.’

‘What time is their train?’

‘This afternoon. The
Riviera.
’

‘I don't think I can make it. Will you be able to take them?’

‘Of course.’

‘You'll say goodbye for me. Say goodbye to Judith.’

‘You'll miss her.’

‘I…’ An unemotional man — or, more accurately, a man who did not show his emotions — he searched for words. ‘I don't like to think of her being abandoned. Left on her own.’

‘She won't be on her own. Louise is there.’

‘She needs more than Louise is able to offer.’

‘I know. I've always thought the Dunbars were just about the dullest crew in the world. But there it is. Molly married into the family, and seems to have become absorbed by them. Not very much you and I can do about it.’

He thought about this, standing gazing out of the window at the bleak, dark morning, and rattling the change in his trouser pocket.

‘You could always ask her here for a few days. Judith, I mean. During the holidays. Or would that be an awful bore for you?’

‘No, not at all. But I doubt if Molly would agree. She'd make some excuse about not wanting to offend Louise. She's dreadfully under Louise's thumb, you know. Louise treats her like a nitwit, but she never says boo.’

‘Well, let's be honest, she is a bit of a nitwit. But have a try, anyway.’

‘I'll suggest it.’

He came to drop a kiss on the top of her unruly head. ‘See you this evening, then.’ He never came home in the middle of the day, preferring to lunch in the Ward room.

‘'Bye, darling.’

He went. She was alone. She finished her coffee and went to pour another cup, then returned to the table to read her mother's letter. The writing was spidery and uncertain and looked like the hand of a very old lady.

My dear Biddy,

Just a line to thank you for the rug. Just the thing for cold evenings, and with this spell of weather my rheumatism has been playing up again. We had a quiet Christmas. Small congregations, and the organist had 'flu, so Mrs Fell had to fill in, and as you know, she's not very good. Father had a horrid skid in his car coming up the Woolscombe Road. The car is dented and he knocked his forehead on the windscreen. A nasty bruise. I had a card from poor Edith, her mother is failing
…

Mother

Too early in the day for such gloom. She laid the letter down and returned to her coffee, sitting with her elbows on the table and her long fingers wrapped around the welcome warmth of the cup. She thought of that sad old pair who were her parents and found time to marvel anew at the fact that they had actually performed unimaginable acts of sexual passion, so producing their two daughters, Biddy and Molly. But even more miraculous was the fact that these daughters somehow or other had managed to escape the Vicarage, to find men to marry, and to be shed forever of the stifling dullness and genteel poverty in which they had been brought up.

For neither had been prepared for life. Neither had trained as a nurse, nor gone to University, nor learned how to type. Molly had longed for the stage, to be a dancer, a ballerina. At school, she had always been the star of the dancing class, and yearned to follow in the footsteps of Irina Baronova and Alicia Markova. But from the very beginning her feeble ambitions were thwarted by parental disapproval, by lack of money, and the Reverend Evans's unspoken conviction that going on the stage was tantamount to becoming a harlot. If Molly hadn't been invited to that tennis party with the Luscombes, and there met Bruce Dunbar, home on his first long leave from Colombo and searching desperately for a wife, heaven alone knew what might have happened of the poor girl. A lifetime of spinsterhood, probably, helping Mother with the church flowers.

Biddy was different. She always knew what she wanted, and went out and got it. From an early age Biddy saw clearly that if she was going to have any sort of life, she was going to have to take care of herself. With this resolved, she became astute, and made friends only with the girls at school who she reckoned would, in the fullness of time, help her to achieve her ambitions. The friend who became her
best
friend was the daughter of a Naval Commander, living in a large house near Dartmouth. As well, she had brothers. Biddy decided that this was fertile ground, and after a few casual hints, managed to wangle an invitation to stay for the weekend. She was, as she had every intention of being, a social success. She was attractive, with long legs and bright, dark eyes, and a mop of curly brown hair, and young enough for it not to matter that she didn't have many of the right sort of clothes. As well, she had a sure instinct as to what was expected of her; when to be polite, and when to be charming, and how to flirt with the older men, who thought her a baggage and slapped her bottom. But the brothers were the best; the brothers had friends and these friends had friends. Biddy's circle of acquaintances expanded with marvellous ease, and before long she had become an accepted member of this surrogate family, spending more time with them than she did at home, and taking less and less notice of her anxious parents' admonitions and dire warnings.

Her careless life-style earned her something of a reputation, but she did not care. At nineteen she enjoyed the dubious fame of being engaged to two young sub-lieutenants at the same time, swapping their rings over as their different ships came into port, but at the end of the day, when she was twenty-one, she had married serious Bob Somerville, and had never lived to regret the decision. For Bob was not only her husband, the father of Ned, but her friend, turning a blind eye to a string of flighty associates, but always on hand when she needed him beside her.

They had had good times, for she loved to travel, and she was never unwilling to up sticks and pack and join Bob wherever he was sent. Two years in Malta had been the best, but none of it had been bad. No, there was no doubt. She had been very fortunate.

The clock on the dining-room mantelpiece struck the half hour. Half past eight, and still Molly had not appeared. Biddy by now was feeling slightly less hung over and decided that she was ready for her first cigarette. She went to get one from the silver box on the sideboard, and on her way back to the table scooped up Bob's newspaper to open it and scan the headlines. It did not make cheerful reading, and she understood why Bob had appeared so uncharacteristically blue. Spain seemed headed for a blood-stained civil war, Herr Hitler was making noisy speeches about the remilitarisation of the Rhineland, and in Italy Mussolini boasted of his growing naval strength in the Mediterranean. No wonder Bob was grinding his teeth. He could not stand Mussolini, whom he referred to as the Fat Fascist, and had no doubt that all that was needed to silence his bombast was a couple of salvoes from the foredeck of some British battleship.

It was all a bit frightening. She dropped the newspaper onto the floor and tried not to think about Ned, sixteen years old, committed to the Royal Navy, and ripe as a sweet fruit for combat. The door opened and Molly came into the dining-room.

Biddy did not dress for breakfast. She had a useful garment called a housecoat which, every morning, she pulled on over her night-gown. And so Molly's appearance, neatly turned out and shod, and with her hair carefully fluffed out, and a little discreet make-up on her face, engendered a sisterly dart of irritation.

‘I'm sorry I'm late.’

‘Not late at all. No matter, anyway. Did you sleep in?’