Birmingham Friends (13 page)

‘Come on,’ I whispered in the garden. ‘Come with me. I’ll show you how to enjoy yourself.’ When I saw the look in his eyes my body was turning inside. I fancied I had a thick scent coming out from me like an orchid. I wanted scarlet silk wound about me.

He was so easy. I made him shudder trying to hold himself in.

‘Oh Olivia,’ he kept muttering in the stupid way they all do. ‘Oh God, Olivia.’

I had no intention of letting him enter me, oh no. I let him kiss me, and when I undid the top of my dress – his face! His eyes were almost bulging in his head. I spread my legs to let him imagine things, let him put his hand up my skirt.

I moved my hand over his pleaser, all hard and tight. If they hadn’t all come crashing in like that I would have unfastened him. Taken him in my hand – mouth even – made him lose control of himself.

Poor Daddy. His princess dethroned, if not deflowered. But he was a hypocrite locking me up like that. I couldn’t forgive him. And I told them about him. I let some of it out. I didn’t want to – to spoil things like I did. It was seeing them all there at the bottom of the steps – Kate and Angus all close and united of course – looking so shocked and righteous. I wanted to tear through that, to smash it all up. I’m a bad, bad woman.

But the days when he had me locked away up there, he came to me on his knees, weeping, begging me, ‘I love you. I worship you. Say you’ll never never ever . . .’ One day he knelt with his arms around my back, face pressed against my belly like a child, his tears wetting the light cloth of my nightdress. I stood stiff as a tree, not touching him, just looking at the dark curls on top of his head. In that moment I knew I could do anything.

*  *  *

Birmingham, 1939

‘Katie – darling!’ Olivia gave a discreet wave, arm half extended as I panted across the polished floor of the Ranelagh Room in Lewis’s department store.

‘It’s all right. Don’t rush. I haven’t been here long.’ She raised herself from the chair smiling broadly and leaned across to press her face against mine. Her lips brushed my cheek. ‘Oh, sorry – I’ve left lipstick on you. Where’s my hanky?’

‘Not to worry. I’ve got one.’ I wiped my cheek, handing my coat to the waiter, stowed my gas mask under my chair, then sat beaming at Olivia. ‘It’s so lovely to see you.’

For a moment we were silent, looking at each other as if unsure where to begin, and finally both burst into laughter at our awkwardness.

‘You’re all aglow,’ Livy said, once we’d settled into being with each other. ‘Still in love with nursing then?’

‘Absolutely.’ I pulled the comfortable chair in closer to the table. ‘Yes, it’s marvellous, especially now they’ve let us loose on the patients. The classroom part’s a real slog, but it’s worth it once you get out there on the wards.’ I had been nursing now for over a year and I knew I had made the right choice. I was being sucked into the rigours and rituals of the General Hospital which took us young and unformed and bent us to its demands, its disciplines.

‘I’m sure you’re terrific at it,’ Olivia said. It was typical of her to have such implicit faith in me.

‘I just can’t imagine wanting to do anything else.’ I smiled back at her, taking in her appearance. ‘I say, Livy – you look marvellous. So glamorous.’

She was wearing a perfectly tailored suit in royal blue and her hair was pinned stylishly, swept back from her forehead. Beside her on the table lay a wide-brimmed blue hat and leather gloves. She was made up, lips a rich scarlet, and she looked stunning.

Of the four of us she seemed suddenly the most grown up. William had taken to Oxford with apparent ease, his conversation when he came home full of rugger and student pranks. Angus was enjoying his training at Vittoria Street. But both of them seemed comparatively unchanged, except that they had moved on to something new. Whereas Olivia dressed now with sophistication, made her face up routinely in a way I never did and seemed suddenly adult.

‘You’ll have to take me in hand,’ I teased as we sipped our white wine. ‘There’s you looking like something out of
Harper’s
and me in my frumpy old uniform . . .’

Olivia grimaced and rolled her eyes to the ceiling. ‘There’ve got to be some compensations, I suppose.’ She picked up the menu and laid it in front of her but didn’t read it. The band was playing ‘Blue Moon’. A shaft of autumn sunlight fell into a warm rectangle across our table.

‘The job’s not getting any better then?’

‘I hate, hate, hate it!’ Suddenly she was storming at me. Olivia had not been given a choice. The Kemps decreed that she should do a year’s secretarial training, something useful, not these airy-fairy notions about study and music. She was to become versed in Pitman and commerce. As well as the proverbial ‘something to fall back on’ (which I’m sure in their hearts they never thought she’d need) it was to be her entrée to a suitable marriage. She would rise through a prominent company and marry well, preferably the boss. She had worked now for six weeks at Leggett and Martin, an insurance company which occupied prestigious offices in Colmore Row.

The smile had dropped from her lips. ‘It’s so tedious and arid. I can’t bear it.’ She looked into my eyes. ‘I know I may not be brilliant at music or anything else – ’

‘You’re exceptionally good, though,’ I interrupted fiercely. I felt frustrated on her behalf. It wasn’t as if the Kemps were short of money. They could have allowed her more freedom to choose.

‘It’s what I really wanted. Was that so wrong of me?’

I reached over and squeezed her hand. ‘Of course not. Look, they’re far too protective. They’re trying to run your whole life for you.’

I had spent much less time at the Kemps’ house over the months since Alec found William and Olivia together. That summer of 1938 had felt like the end of our childhood, changing all of us. Alec and Elizabeth were civil enough to me still – more than civil in Alec’s case. He was clearly very embarrassed and went out of his way to win me over. But I was on my guard now and couldn’t trust him as I had before. I avoided the Kemps as much as possible.

Although I’d tried to talk to Livy about what happened after it was over I couldn’t get her to open up on the subject. I knew she was aware of my stinging censure of her parents. When we met now it was nearly always somewhere away from either of our houses. It was sad. Both of us knew we had lost something.

The waiter approached our table and hovered discreetly. Olivia forced her attention to the menu. When he had taken our order and departed with dignity Olivia leaned closer and whispered across the sugar bowl, ‘I’ve got to get away. It’s suffocating me. I’ve got to do something.’ She seemed frantic.

‘Gracious, Livy – ’

‘I’ve thought about it over and over. I was going to try and find a job in London. But now with the war everything’s changed. It seems so trivial and selfish to think about it. After all, we could all soon be dead . . .’ She pressed one hand over her eyes, trying to hold back tears. Her nails were the same colour as the lipstick.

I reached out again and took her other cold hand across the table. ‘Livy, darling – don’t. I do wish there was something I could do for you. Can’t you ask your mother? No, I suppose she wouldn’t put her oar in for you.’

Wiping her face, Olivia said, ‘Don’t be too hard on Mummy. It’s not her fault. Not really.’

‘She said it wasn’t
his
fault,’ I said, more harshly than I’d intended.

Olivia looked me in the eyes. ‘I wish I could hate them. I wish it so much.’

‘Livy – can’t you tell me what’s so wrong at home? Is it – what you said that day – about your father?’

She rearranged her cutlery with nervous movements, half looking up at me, a fierce blush rising in her cheeks. ‘No. I can’t talk about it. I’m sorry, Katie.’ She tried to sound brisk. ‘I really shouldn’t have said anything that day. I must have given you quite the wrong impression. Please forget I said it. Mummy and Daddy are just a bit over-protective. That’s all.’

Our food was served: roast chicken and vegetables. Livy was treating me.

‘This is so nice,’ I said to her as the waiter spooned potatoes on to our plates. ‘Thank you for it – very much.’

‘Oh, I’m glad to.’ Her smile was warm again now. It was such a reflex with her, being able to rally herself and change the subject. ‘What are best friends for?’

We sat talking and laughing over our meal, and I enjoyed watching her pretty face across the table, thinking how the war was beginning to bring things like this into focus, things we had taken for granted.

‘How’s dear Angus?’ she asked.

She often called him ‘dear Angus’, with a shading of irony in her voice.

‘He’s thriving. Loving the training. Of course I don’t see very much of him – we’re both so busy. And now, who knows what’s going to happen?’ In those early days of the war we were all galvanized by the expectation of being bombed or invaded any moment. ‘Do you think it’s all going to be over soon? Daddy’s taking a very pessimistic line: Fascism is the dark force of evil in our time and won’t be easily overthrown, and so on.’ I imitated my father’s sober Scots voice and Olivia grinned. ‘Feels so normal sitting here like this though, doesn’t it?’

‘All these gas masks and shelters and everything certainly bring it home though, don’t they?’ She grew solemn again, reverting to her own frustrations. ‘Honestly Katie. The only way I can see to get out of this is to get married. And that’s not much of a motive for giving your life to someone, is it?’

In November Granny Munro lay dying. Another stroke felled her so that she couldn’t speak and could barely move. She lay in her room, inert as lard, one side of her pallid face the only real register of her feelings.

Angus and I were able to spend time with her together one evening. We sat leaning forward so she could see us, the room lit only by the low sidelight on her bedside table. I held hands with her, with Angus on my other side. My emotions were very mixed. Here I was with two of the people I loved best in the world, together in this strange, silent intimacy. Granny’s eyes moved over our faces. Her hair was white now and thinner. She was less considerable in size. I hadn’t seen Angus for some time and was acutely aware of the novelty of his presence beside me: the soft curve of skin I loved at the back of his neck where the hairline ended, his hand warm on mine, eyes serious and affectionate.

Coal burned with a hiss in the grate. We talked softly from time to time, both of us telling her about our different jobs: my patients, Angus’s hours cutting sheets of metal into fine shapes with a tiny fretsaw. We knew she liked to hear. Eventually her eyes closed.

‘We’ll be back soon,’ I said softly. I laid her hand on the bedcovers. ‘I’ll bring you up some soup later.’

Outside the door we stopped and put our arms round each other.

‘You smell of work.’

Angus laughed. ‘Not surprising. I came straight here.’ He looked at me sadly. ‘She’s very bad, isn’t she?’

‘She’s dying. There isn’t much can be done. We just have to keep her as comfy as we can.’

‘What if there’s an air raid? You can’t very easily lift her down to the cellar.’

‘I don’t know.’ The long looking-glass at the top of the stairs showed my face white with exhaustion. My legs felt weak and shaky. I’d just come from a long spell of duty on a women’s surgical ward. ‘We’ll have to think of something.’

We went to join the rest of the family for dinner. It was unusual to have everyone at home. William had asked for permission to leave Oxford to see Granny. The house felt sombre with swathes of blackout material at all the windows. The panes were criss-crossed with tape to shield against blast. There was talk of food being rationed within the next couple of months: bacon, sugar, butter. Even the light in the dining room felt thinner, as if they were diluting the electricity.

As we ate our boiled ham with carrots, potatoes and dried peas, I stopped feeling so low and tired. We sat under the high, coved ceiling with its ornate rose at the centre, all painted white, and the walls a paper pattern of buff and brown. My father was at one end of the table and William at the other, Angus and I sat opposite each other, Mummy next to Angus.

I glanced at each of my parents as we ate. Both of them looked very tired too. Daddy was mostly silent and preoccupied. The war was constantly in our minds, yet of course at that stage no one knew exactly what it would entail. Poland was overrun, the seas had become menacing, trawled by U-boats and malevolent ships, magnetic minds floating unseen just below the surface. It was as if the world had a pall over it. And of course Daddy felt involved in every detail, as well as that of the health care of the city of Birmingham. His eyes were focused far from those around him. If he had taken the trouble to adjust them so that he could see my mother, he should have noticed the pale, pinched look on her face, her tense angry movements, evident even in the way she was eating, stabbing at the ham with her fork like a hen after corn. I watched her uneasily.

‘How’s Oxford?’ Angus asked William, since no one was speaking, though I felt sure he must have asked him earlier. ‘Still doing well?’

‘I’m enjoying it enormously,’ William said. He was looking very well, thinner and alight with the stimulation of it. ‘I’ve got an absolutely first-rate tutor this term, and the chap I’m rooming with is very decent – we fit in a lot of sport together. All in all it’s exceeded expectation. Pity about the war, though. Even if it is only “Bore” War at the moment . . .’

Daddy cleared his throat. ‘I doubt if the Merchant Navy would see it that way.’

William gave a nervous laugh, embarrassed at expressing any uncertain emotion in front of his father. ‘Yes, well I suppose we all really know our days are numbered now. Waiting to be called up and all that. It’s all rather disturbing.’

‘Well, it’d be terrible if anything happened to disturb your little life, wouldn’t it?’ I said. I saw Angus look at me in surprise.

‘Kate, how can you say that?’ Mummy snapped. ‘Heaven only knows what your poor brother might have to go through. And Angus too, for that matter.’