Coming Home (85 page)

She sighed and met Biddy's eyes. Biddy was really family, not just pretend. Being here, and being with her felt a bit like slipping into an old pair of shoes after a day spent in painfully uncomfortable high-heeled sling-backs. She put down the teacup and said, ‘It's just that I've made the most awful fool of myself.’

‘How?’

Judith told her just about everything, starting at the beginning, when Edward came to pick her up from school for those first summer holidays, and ending yesterday, when it had all ended, because she thought Edward loved her as much as she loved him, and had told him so, only to suffer the terrible shock and humiliation of his rejection.

She told Biddy just about everything. She did not, however, mention Billy Fawcett. This, obscurely, had something to do with a certain loyalty for dear, dead Aunt Louise. Nor did she admit to Biddy that she had actually slept with Edward; allowed him to seduce her; and happily surrendered her virginity. Biddy was not easily shocked, but with grown-ups one could never be sure; being made love to by Edward had been an experience of such dizzying delight that Judith did not want, in any way, to be made to feel ashamed nor remorseful.

‘…the worst was that there were so many people at Nancherrow…all the family, and friends. A real house-party. I couldn't bear the thought of them all watching me…watching us…and not letting them guess what had happened. It was Mary Millyway who suggested that I came to you. She said since I was anyway, I might as well come a few days earlier. And it seemed just about the only thing to do.’

‘What about Mrs Carey-Lewis?’

‘Diana? She's taken to her bed. Some upset or other. But even if she hadn't been ill, I couldn't have confided in her. She's terribly sweet, but somehow not that sort of person. And it being Edward made it all the more impossible. He's her only son, and she dotes on him.’

‘Did you tell her you were coming to me?’

‘Yes.’

‘What excuse did you give? What reason?’

‘I told a dreadful fib and said that you had 'flu and were all alone and had to be nursed.’

‘Heavens,’ Biddy murmured faintly.

‘Luckily, she seemed to believe it. I went to say goodbye to her. I didn't say goodbye to any of the others because they'd all gone down to the cliffs to swim. Edward too. I didn't even say goodbye to him.’

‘Perhaps just as well.’

‘Yes. Perhaps.’

‘And how long are you going to stay with us?’

Judith bit her lip. ‘Just for a bit. Till I've had time to pull myself together. Is that all right?’

‘I hope it takes ages, because I love to have you here. Now, do you know what I think? Shall I tell you what I think?’ And she told Judith what she thought, and she said things that Judith had heard a thousand times before. Clichés, maybe, but then they had become clichés because all had been proved true, over and over again. A first love is always the love that hurts the most. There's better fish in the sea than ever came out of it. You won't forget Edward, ever, but life doesn't end at eighteen, because it's only just beginning. And finally, time is the great healer. All this will pass. However painful the heart-break, you will recover.

By the time she came to the end of all this, Judith was nearly smiling. ‘What's so funny?’ asked Biddy, looking a bit hurt.

‘Nothing. It's just that you sound like one of those tracts people used to embroider in cross-stitch and hang in some other person's bedroom.’

‘You mean, “East or West, Hame is Best?”’

‘Not
exactly.
’

‘How about,

The Kiss of the Sun for Pardon

The Song of the Birds for Mirth

You Are Nearer God's Heart in a Garden

Than Anywhere Else on Earth.

‘My mother used to have that one hanging in the Vicarage loo. That was all there was to read except the small print on the Bronco packet.’

‘That's a poem, not a proverb. Or a motto. You know, like “There's Many a Slip 'Twixt Cup and Lip”.’

‘I've just thought of a wonderful one. “It's at the Corners of Life That the Wind Blows the Sharpest.” It sounds awfully uplifting but it doesn't actually mean a thing.’

Suddenly they were both laughing. ‘Oh, Biddy…’ Judith leaned forward and put her arms around Biddy and was hugged and patted, and rocked gently to and fro, like a baby with wind. ‘…you are a star. I'm really sorry about everything.’

‘You can't help loving. And don't feel you have to be cheerful all the time. A little mope won't get me down provided I know what it's all about. The great thing is to keep busy. I've got all the black-out curtains to cut out and sew, and a great list of stuff that Bob says we've got to lay in, like paraffin, in case the war starts and there's an instant shortage. So, lots of shopping. Why don't you have a bath and get dressed? Mrs Lapford's in the kitchen, frying bacon for you. She'll be frightfully hurt if you don't come and eat it.’

Biddy was right. Occupation, preferably fairly mindless, was all-important. The worst was over, it had all been said, and did not need to be mentioned again. Biddy understood.

After a bath, and a few clean clothes out of her bag, she went downstairs, and was warmly greeted by Mrs Lapford and Mrs Dagg, who both said how lovely she was looking and how nice it was to have a bit of company again. Then she ate breakfast, and after that she and Biddy sat at the kitchen table and made shopping lists. Paraffin and candles and electric light bulbs. Petrol for the motor mower. Tins of soup. Sewing-machine needles and spools of black thread for making black-out curtains, and screws for fixing the wires to the windows. Then, everyday items. Food for Morag, and butter and macaroni, and a fresh chicken and potatoes, and biscuits and bread. Two bottles of gin, and two bottles of whisky, a soda siphon, tonic water, and three lemons.

‘Sounds as though you're planning a party.’

‘No. Just regular supplies. We'll maybe ask a few people in at the weekend, when Bob's home again. Now, put down crisps and chocolate biscuits…’

The list, when completed, was very long. Biddy gathered up purse and basket and they went out, got into her car, and drove down the hill into the little town.

That afternoon, after they had eaten the lunch that Mrs Lapford had left for them (lamb cutlets and rice pudding), they took Morag for a walk, and then, returning, started in on the black-out curtains. While Judith set up the old sewing machine on the dining-room table, filled spools and fitted a new needle, Aunt Biddy measured the windows and, kneeling on the sitting-room floor, cut the varied lengths. The cotton was black and dense and smelt faintly of Indian ink. ‘I've never cut out anything so boring in my life,’ Biddy observed. ‘I'm just glad I haven't got a huge house with dozens of windows.’ She handed over the first two lengths, which were for the dining-room. They had to be sewn together (with a French seam for strength) and then a heading stitched, with a casing, and a deep hem, to give them a bit of weight. As soon as the first one was finished, they hung it, threading the wire through the casing, and screwing the little hooks to the window frame, so that the curtain would hang close to the glass.

Completed, it looked horrible, too bulky to be drawn out of sight. They stood back, and surveyed, with little pleasure, the result of all their labour. Biddy sighed. ‘I've never made anything so unattractive, or so disagreeable. I just hope they work.’

‘We'll experiment tonight, after dark,’ Judith told her. ‘We'll pull it across, and then the proper curtains, and I'll go out into the garden and see if any light shows.’

‘If there's so much as a chink, we'll be put into prison, or fined. And it's nearly tea-time, and we've only made
one.
The whole house is going to take us forever.’

‘Well, just be grateful you don't live at Nancherrow. There must be about a hundred and forty-three windows there.’

‘Who's going to make their curtains?’

‘I don't know. Mary Millyway, I suppose.’

‘Bad luck on her, that's all I can say.’ Biddy lit a cigarette. ‘Let's stop now. I'll go and put the kettle on.’

So they dumped all the yards of black cotton onto the dining-room table with the sewing machine, closed the door and abandoned their task until the next day.

After tea, Judith and Morag went out into the garden and did some weeding, and then Judith picked a bowl of raspberries for supper, and later Uncle Bob rang up, and when Biddy had finished talking, Judith had a bit of a chat with him.

‘See you on Saturday,’ he finished. ‘Tell Bids I'll be home sometime.’

‘He says he'll be home on Saturday.’

Biddy was sitting at the open window engaged upon stitching, half-heartedly, at a rather knobbly-looking tapestry. ‘I've been at it for months,’ she told Judith. ‘I don't know why I bother. It's going to look awful on a chair-seat. Perhaps I should take up knitting again. Darling, you're not waiting for the telephone to ring and for it to be Edward, are you?’

Judith said, ‘No.’

‘Oh, good. I just thought. That's the worst agony in the world, waiting for a telephone call. But if you want to call him, you know you can.’

‘You're sweet, but I don't want to. You see, there wouldn't be anything to say.’

Presently Biddy, bored with her stitchery, pierced the needle into the canvas and tossed it aside. She looked at the clock, announced with satisfaction that the sun was over the yardarm, and went to pour herself her first whisky and soda of the evening. Then, taking it with her, she went upstairs to have her bath. Judith read the newspaper, and when Biddy reappeared, in her jewel-blue velvet housecoat, they tried out the new black-out curtains. ‘It's no good making any more until we're certain that this one works,’ Judith pointed out, and she went out into the garden while Biddy dealt with the black-out, then drew the thick padded curtains and turned on the light.

‘Can you see anything?’ she called, raising her voice in order to be heard through all this muffling.

‘Nothing at all. Not a glimmer. Really successful.’ She went back indoors, and they congratulated themselves on their brilliance, and then Biddy had another drink, and Judith went into the kitchen to heat up Mrs Lapford's macaroni cheese and make a salad, and because the dining-room table was still piled with the detritus of their sewing, laid supper in the kitchen.

Over supper and a glass of white wine, they talked about Molly and Jess and going to Singapore.

‘It's October, isn't it, that you sail? We haven't got all that much time. We mustn't keep putting off going to London to shop. We must try to make a firm date. We can stay at my club, and maybe go to a theatre or something. Next week, or the week after. Liberty's always have lovely thin cottons and summery cruise clothes, even in the middle of winter. I must say I can't help envying you, getting away from all this dreariness. I'd settle for the boat trip alone, drifting down the Suez Canal and out into the Indian Ocean. You must promise to send me a fez from Aden.’

After supper they washed up the dishes, and then went back into the sitting-room, and soon it was time for the nine-o'clock news. Air-raid shelters and sandbags in London; Nazi troops on the march; Anthony Eden flying somewhere or other with a fresh missive from the British Government; mobilisation of reservists imminent. Biddy, clearly unable to bear all this gloom for another moment, reached out and turned the knob of the wireless to Radio Luxembourg, and all at once the room, softly lighted by lamps and with the windows open onto the scented, dusky garden, was filled with the voice of Richard Tauber.

Girls were made to love and kiss

And who am I to disagree with this

And Judith was back with Edward, and it was last Christmas, the day he had returned from Switzerland and come to find her, and they had run together, laden with packages, through the grey rain-washed streets, and drunk champagne in the lounge of The Mitre Hotel. So piercingly vivid was the memory that she heard the screaming gulls overhead, being tossed by the storm, and saw lights from shop windows streaming out over the drenched pavements, and smelt tangerines and spruce branches, the very essence of Christmas. And she knew that it was always going to be like this. However hard she tried, Edward was always going to be there. I've survived one day, she told herself. One day without him. It felt like the first step of a thousand-mile journey.