Not That Sort of Girl (26 page)

And Laura? Laura, looking exactly like Emily, had disappointed the curious who had laid bets, guessed at her paternity, run a sweepstake, naming all the men Emily was known to go about with, even including George Malone who at the time of her conception was in Moscow. Laura showed no likeness to anyone; her appearance gave no hint, nobody won the sweepstake. Christopher resembled Ned, there was no hint of Rose in his appearance; he had, as it were, rented her womb, taken nothing of his mother. I am quite prepared to accept that he is boring in bed, thought Rose dispassionately, as was Ned. If he slept with Laura so did Ned sleep with Emily, why he bothered to pretend he didn’t defeats me. There are still people who think Laura may be Ned’s child; somehow I have never thought so. Ned was quite fond of Nicholas. He was devoted to and proud of Christopher when he was small, maddened by him when he grew up.

Oh, the parental grumbles, thought Rose as she walked. She could hear in her mind Ned’s voice droning and snapping down the years. ‘Can’t you teach your son to shut doors? He messes my newspaper before I have touched it.’ (Ned, who never opened his
Times
until after lunch.) ‘Can’t you teach your son not to smoke? He stinks the house out with those filthy Gitanes.’ (Like many who have kicked the habit, Ned was hard on smokers.) ‘He’s left an enormous turd in my lavatory, and now he wants to borrow my car.’ What a fuss he had made when Christopher married Helen. ‘Who
is
this girl, do we know?’ What would he say if he knew she had taken charge of his ashes? Turned in the urn?

At times like that her promise to Ned sat like a lump of indigestible dough; she remembered Mylo crying, ‘You can’t bugger up our lives for a promise,’ and regretted her insistence that she could, she must.

Yet Ned was a kind man. Kind to animals, kind to neighbours, considerate to his cars, he paid his bills, did not fall about drunk, made a success of his wartime career, loved an Opel motor car he acquired in occupied Germany (or was it the driver he loved?), was successful in the City when he returned from the war, was a consistently good landlord. He blamed me for his discontent, thought Rose; he needed choice, everything in pairs: two bankers, two tailors, two women (there was always a second woman, not necessarily Emily; several had appeared at the funeral with their husbands), two houses, two cars. He never said, but made it clear by hints, attitudes and chance remarks that life would have been ‘all right’ if he had had two children.

I had managed to forget Ned for several days, thought Rose, was quite successful handing responsibility to Christopher and Helen. I must not start thinking ‘if only’ and ‘things would have been better or different’.

‘All that crap!’ she shouted out loud, startling a wheatear from a gorse bush. Ned was not all that kind; he was on occasion accusatory and cruel. His permanent absence will not be so very different from his absence at the war, his frequent absences on business trips.

Just nicer.

T
HE TELEPHONE WOKE ROSE.
‘Is that Mrs Cooper?’ asked a distant voice.

‘Who?’ Her head came up from the pillow with a jerk.

‘Rose Cooper? Am I speaking to Rose Cooper?’ The voice was faint, furtive, impossible to tell how far away.

‘I am Rose …’ Only minutes ago she had given Christopher his last feed, she struggled awake from heavy sleep. ‘What did you say, who?’ Her heart was pounding.

‘Your husband,’ droned the voice, ‘Mrs Cooper …’

‘My
what?’
She was waking fast.

‘… asked me to phone you. It strictly isn’t …’

‘Who—are—you?’

‘Well, now, that’s asking, let’s say Truro General Hospital.’ The man began to sound irritated, nervous. ‘I’m not allowed, not supposed …’

‘My husband?’

‘Look. He asked me to ring you; brought in last night …’ the line went dead, then the voice, reedy now, continued ‘… wounded.’ It said, ‘Nothing serious.’

‘Wounded? Badly.
Not
serious?’

A high nervous laugh. ‘You should have seen the others, they were dead.’

‘Who are you?’ shouted Rose, as if it mattered, but the line was dead now, blank. Half an hour later she got through to Truro General Hospital.

No, no information about new patients. Sorry. No, there was no doctor she could speak to, sorry, no matron, no sister, sorry. No, no, and again no. Quite polite but suspiciously guarded.

Why should they be guarded?

What were they hiding?

Mylo. Wounded. Mutilated. Dying?

‘Only one way to find put,’ said Rose to the sleeping baby. ‘We must go,’ she said to Comrade watching from her basket. ‘I can take you,’ she said to the dog, ‘but not your puppies or the cats.’

She ran to the bathroom and bathed her face, she was trembling and drenched with sweat. Her hands shook as she dressed. ‘Calm, calm, keep calm,’ she muttered, pulling on her clothes. ‘Must look respectable,’ she exclaimed, tearing off the slacks she had put on, ‘you never know who …’ She took a coat and skirt from the cupboard, a shirt and jersey, combed her hair back, pulled on her last pair of silk stockings and best shoes, viewed herself looking respectable in the cheval glass. ‘Right.’ She had stubbed her toe pushing right foot into left shoe, the pain made her face look drawn.

She gathered the baby’s things, stuffing spare nappies, clothes and shawls around him. Anchoring him in the deep basket, she carried him downstairs. ‘Stay with him,’ she said to the dog, ‘stay.’

She ran round the house, her respectable heels clattering on the stone terrace. Reaching the Farthings’ cottage she knocked, shook the door handle, shook some more, ‘Oh, wake up, please …’

‘Who is it?’ Farthing, gruff.

‘Me, it’s me,’ she shouted.

‘Coming.’

Then Farthing was opening the door, as he buttoned his flies, the toes of his bare feet were widely separate, agile. ‘What’s up?’

‘I have to go—now—at once to—to a—a friend, can you—hospital?’

‘Want the car? Taking the baby?’

‘Yes, yes, and Comrade—I …’

‘Want it filled up, that it?’ He had put a sweater on, inside out and back to front.

‘Oh, yes, how did you …?’

‘Half a mo, just get me shoes on …’

‘But, do you know …?’ Her voice was a suppressed scream.

‘Where the petrol’s hidden? Course I do.’ Farthing laughed. ‘Watched “the master” hide it, didn’t we?’ (Oh poor Ned, parenthesised master, mocked and such a kind man.)

‘Want some help, love?’ Mrs Farthing descending the stairs in an extraordinary sexy nightdress, pink feathered mules on her feet.

‘It’s the cats and the puppies and …’

‘I’ll mind them, don’t worry.’ Mrs Farthing pulled a sensible overcoat over the nightdress. ‘Come in while Farthing …’

‘No, I must …’

‘Where shall I say you’ve gone?’

‘Oh, Mrs Farthing …’ Rose watched Farthing disappear around the house with a torch. If only he would run.

‘Got to have something to tell people when they ring up, and the Hadleys.’

‘Oh …’ She found it hard to think. There was Mylo dying, what the hell did anything else matter? ‘Oh, hurry …’

‘I’ll come and see you’ve got what’s needed for the baby; Farthing won’t be long.’

‘I have everything. I must hurry, I …’

‘I’ll just check.’ The woman was remorseless.

‘Oh.’ Rose clenched her fists.

‘And if you are going far, you’d better take sandwiches and a thermos. You never …’

‘Never?’ Rose snatched at the word.

‘… never know when you’ll want a meal or something hot.’ Mrs Farthing was walking Rose back to the house, her arm around her shoulders. ‘He might like something hot.’

‘He?’

‘Don’t be a muggins,’ they had reached the kitchen, ‘sit down while I get you a hot drink to set you on your way.’

‘I don’t want a …’

‘Won’t take a minute. Farthing hasn’t got the tank filled yet.’ Mrs Farthing poured milk into a pan. ‘Tea or coffee? I’ll give you chocolate for the thermoses.’

‘Anything.’ Rose’s teeth chattered.

‘Listen to your teeth chattering. Got enough money?’

‘I hope so.’

‘Hope.’ Mrs Farthing handed Rose a steaming mug. ‘Drink that up, all of it.’ She reached up to a jar above the stove, ‘Now, here’s fifty pounds, you won’t need it all, but you never know.’

‘I can’t take your …’ she was appalled, ‘savings.’

‘Yes, you can, Farthing and I will be happier if you will. Finished your drink? Good girl. Now take a few really deep breaths. That’s right. Better now?’ Rose nodded, she no longer felt clammy.

‘Filled her up?’ asked Mrs Farthing of her mate entering the kitchen.

‘Petrol tank’s full. I checked the oil, water and tyres, and put two jerry cans in the boot. You should be all right,’ Farthing grinned at Rose, ‘for a dire emergency.’

I wonder how much they listen to us, how much they guess. ‘Thank you,’ said Rose, ‘oh, thank you.’

‘We’ll tell the Hadleys and anyone who asks that you were called away to help Mrs Malone with one of her friends, she couldn’t manage on her own with all her evacuees, etcetera. That do?’

‘Mrs Farthing! The brilliance of your mind.’ Both Farthings smiled. They are my friends, she thought, they do not judge.

‘Take care of yourself and the baby, now.’

Rose put her arms around the older woman and hugged her. ‘Now, now,’ said Mrs Farthing.

Farthing said, ‘Shall I stow the baby in the car?’

While Farthing arranged the baby basket on the back seat, Mrs Farthing said, ‘I don’t really like being called Mrs Farthing by people I am fond of. My name’s Edwina. It’s not as if Farthing and I were married.’ (Rose swallowed the second statement to digest later, feeling she would cry if she thanked Mrs Farthing for liking her.)

What extraordinary people, she thought, driving away. They seem to enjoy—she said she liked—they must approve of me, nobody’s ever done that. She drove west along the roads of England passing the occasional Army truck and early farm cart.

When Christopher whimpered she stopped at the side of the road and fed him, changed his nappy and drank from the thermos. Fancy them not being married, she thought. I must remember to call her Edwina. What a privilege. She’s even remembered Comrade’s dinner. She put the dog’s dinner on the grass and watched her eat while she held Christopher against her shoulder, waiting for him to burp.

She made no plan. She prayed that when she arrived at the hospital she would know what to do. She prayed that when she arrived she would not find Mylo dead. What had the man said, had she heard aright?

She reached Truro in the early afternoon, found the hospital, parked the car and stared at the lugubrious building.

Mrs Malone would know what to do, how to behave in these circumstances, not that she was the sort of woman to have a lover, but supposing it were George or Richard who was in there?

My mother wouldn’t know, she never brought me up to deal with such a crisis. She was the cringing type, socially inferior, afraid of putting a foot wrong with authority; she’s changed now, of course, but she never taught me the necessary oomph. What, thought Rose, would Mrs Malone do?

Walk straight in as though it belonged to her, right?

Leaving Comrade in the car, Rose checked the straightness of the seams of her stockings, squared her shoulders and marched in, carrying Christopher.

‘I have come to see my husband,’ she said to a man at the desk.

‘What name?’ He did not look up, she could see no face, only a smooth, bald, pink skull.

‘Cooper.’

‘Cooper. Cooper.’ He ran a slow finger down a list. ‘He’d be in ward seven by now unless he was one of the RAF with the flu, oh, they are in seven. You try ward seven.’

She climbed stairs, walked corridors, passed wards full of women, another full of children. Wards one, two, three and on to six, where was seven? She did not want to ask the nurses squeaking along on their rubber-soled shoes, starched cotton aprons, clacking voices carrying clear enough to echo in the long institutional corridor. Ah, ward seven.

She stared through a glass panelled door into a long ward full of active young men in pyjamas and dressing gowns. Laughing, talking, wandering about, hugely restless, none of them looked ill or wounded. The noise was worse than the parrot house at the zoo. About to turn away, nerve herself to ask, she spied a still lump in a bed in the far corner. She pushed open the door and walked in.

As she walked between the double row of beds, the volume of noise decreased, the tempo of conversation changed. There were one or two whistles, quick exchanges between the men as they totted her up, following her with their eyes. She felt the blood rise traitorously to her neck and face. She held the baby as a shield, stiffened her back. She was afraid of the men who turned and stared, some of them stepping forward like curious cattle in a field. None of them looked ill or wounded.

Just as she felt her nerve might crack and her impersonation of Edith Malone desert her, she recognised Mylo.

Reaching the bed, she stood staring down at him.

‘Sister’s off duty.’ One of the men had followed her; he was bolder than the others, smoking a cigarette. He stared openly at her breasts, large with milk, straining at her blouse.

‘Thanks,’ said Rose. ‘Are you allowed to smoke in here?’ she asked coldly in the spirit of Mrs Malone. ‘Fetch me a chair.’

A chair was brought; she sat. The walking wounded retreated to resume a slightly muted brouhaha at the far end of the ward.

It was eight months since she had seen Mylo. They must have been rough months. He lay on his back, deep green smudges under his eyes, his cheeks thin, the colour of cheese. She could trace the curve of his jaw under the stubble of his beard, see the presage of lines running from nose to mouth. His brows were knit in pain, he had a large bruise on his temple, his lips moved as he muttered something. Rose bent close to listen.

‘I will shoot the …’ He was reaching a hand up under his pillow, gripping a hidden object.

‘Mylo,’ said Rose very quietly, ‘it’s me.’

Mylo’s eyes opened with a snap. ‘Rose?’

‘Yes.’

‘So you got here?’

‘Yes.’