Camomile Lawn (21 page)

‘Thought this might keep us alive.’ Sophy took the cup gratefully. ‘Afraid a lot’s slopped.’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ she said.

‘Filthy stuff, really.’ He squeezed beside her. ‘It’ll be funny to be there without the cousins. We always came together.’

‘I’m your cousin.’

‘So you are.’ Walter put his empty cup under the seat. ‘You’ve always seemed too little to be a cousin.’

‘I’m larger now.’

‘Much.’ He put his arm round her. ‘That comfortable? It won’t be the same, no Oliver to boss us, no Calypso, no twins. Lovely times, weren’t they? Do you remember those last holidays before this began, d’you remember the Terror Run? Weren’t you bitten by a snake or something and crying in Calypso’s arms?’ He remembered Calypso’s expression of anxiety and exasperation. The reflected light from the sea had made her eyes quite a new colour. ‘What did you say?’

‘I said I wasn’t bitten, it was something else.’

‘And that other game we were going to play, we drew lots. What was it? To kill somebody, something like that, one of Oliver’s barmiest ideas.’

‘He said all of us were capable of killing, but he cancelled it.’

‘Well, as things turned out we are at war and doing our best.’ Walter with his arm round Sophy felt dozy. Their companions in the carriage were snoring, mouths open, sprawling. Sophy gave a loud sob. ‘Hey, what’s the matter? Tell old Walter. ’Ere, ’ere, have a handkerchief.’

‘I tried to tell Polly but she didn’t take it in. I told her in an air raid, we were under the kitchen table. I don’t even know if she heard.’

‘Tell me, then, I’m all ears.’ Walter gave a colossal yawn, nearly dislocating his jaw. ‘I nearly dislocated my jaw. What did you say?’

‘I pushed him over.’

‘Pushed who? Pushed over what?’

‘The coastguard. He used to hide behind a bush on the cliff path. He had a pink thing—it looked like a snake—in his pocket.’

‘Oh.’ Walter was waking slowly. ‘A flasher.’

‘What’s a flasher?’

‘Never mind, go on, ears flapping. I’m awake, tell. Stop crying, do, you snuffle so I can’t hear. Jumped out from behind a bush, did he?’ Walter held her quietly, his eyes roving over the sleeping sailors.

‘He didn’t exactly jump, he just appeared from behind the bushes. You know where they are, near the rocks?’

‘Yes, go on.’

‘Well, that’s what frightened me when we did the Terror Run, and made me scream.’

‘I remember.’ He remembered Sophy hysterical, Oliver slapping her face.

‘When it happened again I tried to push past him and he went over.’ Sophy’s voice was almost inaudible. ‘He was found in the sea, I was ill and the police came and took Monika and Max off to be interned.’

‘What had they got to do with it?’

‘Nothing, nothing. Oh, Walter, what shall I do? D’you believe me?’

Walter said nothing, holding her close while the train chugged slowly, the sailors slept and in the corridor a party of soldiers began singing mournfully but in tune.

‘They must be Welsh, they are singing in tune.’ He rocked her gently, his chin touching the top of her head. What silky hair. Polly said Chinese. He felt the tension slip out of her body and knew she slept. He wondered whether to say anything. The subject is beyond me, he thought.

‘You do believe me, don’t you?’ Sophy spoke sleepily.

‘Yes, yes,’ he said quietly. ‘Yes, yes.’

‘Polly didn’t.’ She slid back to sleep. Walter sat holding her as the train drew into Plymouth. The sailors woke, gathered their luggage and lurched off the train, their places taken by newcomers.

The train carried on, stopping at every station through Cornwall, and still Sophy slept, until at last he heard the cry, ‘St Erth change for St Ives’, let up the blind and it was early morning. ‘Wake up, Sophy, nearly there.’ The sun sparkled on Mount’s Bay and St Michael’s Mount rose from the waves. ‘Wake up, wake up, you are home. Gosh, I’m looking forward to this leave.’

‘Isn’t the sea lovely? I hope Monika’s there to meet us.’ Sophy combed her hair, tightened the laces of her shoes, looked out at the sea with her oriental eyes. ‘I could eat a horse,’ she exclaimed.

‘Some people pull legs better than others,’ Walter muttered to himself as he lifted their suitcases off the rack. ‘A word with Polly is what I need.’

‘What was so dreadful,’ said Polly to Iris and James, driving to Max’s funeral all those years later, ‘was that I was in Portugal when Walter had his last leave. I never saw him again. If I’d known I’d have got out of it somehow and seen him.’

‘But you wouldn’t have known he was going to be killed,’ said Iris, who had heard her mother say the same thing so often she knew it by heart. ‘You couldn’t have had last words or anything, as you didn’t know.’

‘It taught me to treat everybody’s leave as perhaps the last. He might have wanted to tell me something. They said he had something on his mind. We only had each other, our parents had been killed by a bomb.’

‘I know,’ Iris had often heard this too, ‘and Helena and Max arrived with a taxi full of flowers from Covent Garden.’

‘I bore you as Uncle Richard bored us.’ Polly was resentful.

‘Oh no, Ma, you don’t, it’s just—’

But drowning in the North Atlantic three weeks after his leave, Walter had a vivid recollection of Sophy weeping in the train. He opened his mouth to shout for Polly and drowned that much quicker.

I
T WAS CALYPSO AND
Brian Portmadoc who were the first to hear about Walter. They had dined together. Instead of inviting him back to her house, as he had hoped, Calypso said she must go and tell Polly what she had been doing in Scotland.

‘Won’t it wait?’ Brian longed for Calypso’s bed with Calypso in it.

‘No, I have to see her.’

They took a bus which crawled through the blackout. Calypso rang the bell and waited impatiently. ‘I must get her to give me a key, everyone else seems to have one.’

The door was opened by a slight dark girl with curly hair.

‘Who are you?’ Calypso stepped inside, pulling Brian after her.

‘Elizabeth. I’m a friend of Walter’s. You must be Calypso.’ The girl was shy and awkward. ‘He gave me a key, he said Polly wouldn’t mind.’

‘Is she here?’

‘She’s away somewhere. Walter said—’

‘And where is he?’

‘He’s gone back. He was on leave a few weeks ago but I—’

‘You a girl friend?’

‘Well, I was, I—’

‘What are you doing here if you’re a “was”?’

‘We made it up. We talked on the telephone, he said to come here to Polly. Anyway, what business—’

‘Oh, it’s no business of mine, I just want to see Polly.’

‘Oh.’ The girl called Elizabeth looked discomfited by Calypso’s hard tone.

‘Any clue as to when she’ll be back?’ Calypso began looking through a pile of letters addressed to Polly on the hall table. ‘What’s this telegram?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Might be urgent.’ Calypso opened the telegram and read it. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘Oh,’ and looked at Brian and the girl called Elizabeth. ‘He’s been killed,’ she said. ‘Why him? Why not somebody nasty? Did you love him?’ she asked the girl, who gave a moan, turned and ran upstairs. Calypso watched her go.

‘Let’s find a drink.’ Calypso started down to the kitchen. Brian searched, she stood by the table.

‘Weren’t their parents killed?’

‘Yes. Buck up with that drink.’

‘So Polly’s alone?’ He found some whisky.

‘Not exactly alone but no family now. Thanks.’ She took a gulp of whisky. ‘How bloody, how absolutely bloody.’

‘That poor girl.’

‘She’ll find someone else. What’s her name, anyway?’

‘Elizabeth.’

‘Elizabeth what?’

Above them feet pattered through the hall, the front door opened and slammed shut. They heard high heels clatter away in the dark.

‘We shan’t know now.’ Calypso swallowed whisky in a gulp.

‘Was Walter? Did you—’

‘No, I didn’t. Wish I had. Can’t now. Oh, bloody, bloody hell, why him? He never hurt a fly. I think you’d better go, Brian, I’ll stay here, she might get back any moment. Awful for her to be alone.’

‘Can’t I—’

‘No. Listen, if I give you my key will you fetch Fling for me? Bring him here. There’s a dear. Then I’ll be here if she gets back.’

‘But I hoped I—’

‘I know you did, but I wasn’t going to anyway. I meant to tell you but you were so nice at dinner. Please, Brian, just fetch my dog.’

‘Clothes?’ He swallowed, trying to conceal his disappointment.

‘I’ll manage with Polly’s.’

‘I’ve got to go away on a course tomorrow.’

‘I know, you told me. Not much luck tonight for either of us.’

When he had gone Calypso re-read the telegram from the Admiralty. She noted it was dated four days earlier. ‘How bleak,’ she murmured, ‘how bleak. Already four days.’ She sifted through the letters and found a sheet of paper with a note in Walter’s handwriting. ‘I’ve given a key to a girl called Elizabeth, be kind to her for a night or two. Have been in Cornwall, remind me to tell you about Sophy. See you next leave.’ Near the letters the girl had left her key. Calypso put it in her bag. She wondered how many girls had loved Walter. He had been secretive about love affairs. She thought of him in Able Seaman’s uniform at her wedding, going off with Oliver, drunk. Where now was Oliver and what doing and for that matter Hector, what was he up to?

When Brian came back she thanked him for bringing Fling.

‘Can’t I come in?’

‘Brian, no! Can’t you see I want to be alone?’

‘But you weren’t in love with him.’

‘He’s part of my life, my cousin. I feel robbed.’

‘But you weren’t in love, it’s not the same. That poor girl who ran off was.’

‘I don’t know what love is. Just go, Brian. Please. Leave me with Fling.’

When he was gone she fetched some blankets, lit the fire in the drawing room and settled herself with Fling on the sofa. By the light of a table lamp the room looked dusty, deserted by her aunt and uncle snatched by a wanton bomb. In this room there had been parties, children’s parties with games, impromptu dances, the rugs rolled up, dancing in Walter or Oliver’s arms to the gramophone. She remembered laughter and cries of pain when the boys trod on her feet, cocktail parties as they grew older, windows open on hot summer evenings. Now it was dead and dusty. She would wait for Polly.

Drawing the blankets round her, holding the dog close, she found herself wishing that Hector was there. He could help Polly, he would do it much better than she. She was surprised at her thoughts, and began to think back to the week she had just spent in Scotland and the friend she had made, of some of the things she had been told about Hector, aspects of his life he had been at pains to conceal. She had meant to spend the evening talking to Polly about herself, and was irritated that instead she must stand by for Polly’s grief, put her own needs aside. Sleepy, she tried to keep awake, wondering if it would have been better if Hector had been killed or Oliver or the twins. Oliver loved her, she enjoyed his adoration. Hector? She would have his money whether he lived or died. The twins seemed since the war to have lapsed in their adoration and Walter, too. She tried to think of Oliver dead instead of Walter and smiled sleepily, remembering him saying of Hector, ‘I hope he gets killed.’ She thought she could do without them all. Cuddling Fling close she laid her head back and closed her eyes.

Polly was at her feet when she woke, holding the telegram. Their eyes met.

‘I stayed to be here when you got back.’ She sat up.

‘Thank you.’ Polly was very still.

‘Where have you been? You are all sunburned.’

‘Portugal. Lisbon. It was lovely and hot.’

‘Your job?’

‘Yes. It won’t happen again. It seemed an opportunity. My boss needed me. I’m not supposed to talk about it.’

‘Polly, there was a girl here—’

‘Elizabeth. He left a note. Elizabeth who? Did she say?’

‘No, she ran off crying.’

‘In love with him, I suppose. Several girls were, I shall have to tell them.’

‘Why him? Why Walter? Why not Hector or Oliver or the twins?’

‘Not the twins.’ Polly gave a gasp, glancing at Calypso. ‘Why are you here, anyway?’

‘I came to see you. I wanted to talk to you. Then I saw the telegram and read it and thought I’d wait. You’d be all alone—’

‘Kind of you. What did you want to see me about?’

‘I’m having a baby. I wanted to tell you.’

‘Hector’s?’

‘Of
course!’

‘That’s all right, then. I guessed you had morning sickness not food poisoning, didn’t I?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you told him? He’ll be terribly pleased, won’t he?’

‘I’ve written. He should know by now. He wants an heir. I’ve got one of his people to be its nurse. I’ve been up in Scotland. Hector said if I had a child Catherine must look after it. She’s small, lame, plain and reliable. I went up there to see her. She will come when I’m ready, she can look after it.’

Polly listened to Calypso, holding the telegram in her sunburned fingers.

‘Perhaps it will make you happy.’

‘But I am happy.’

‘That’s not happiness that’s money.’ Polly’s voice was bitterly nasty. She recovered herself quickly. ‘Sorry, Calypso. I must have a bath. D’you think you could ring them up in Cornwall, and Helena and Aunt Sarah?’ She put the telegram on the table by Calypso. ‘I don’t think I can do it, so will you?’

‘Of course.’ Calypso shook herself free of the blankets. ‘I’ll just give Fling a run. You go and have your bath.’

Standing on the doorstep watching her dog trot to and fro in the early morning street, Calypso found herself weeping, tears splashing on to the pavement. In the house Polly would be lying in the bath, her sobs drowned by the sound of the water taps. Presently she would appear puff-eyed and grim, refusing to discuss her loss, insist that she was all right and go off to work and snap at anybody who showed her sympathy. Calypso went in to telephone.

‘Aunt Helena, it’s Calypso. Aunt Helena, Walter’s dead. Yes, a telegram. Yes, quite sure. Yes, she knows. No, she’s in the bath—well, you know Polly. Yes, I was here. Actually I opened the telegram. What? Not open people’s telegrams? Let her read it herself. She did read it herself. I fell asleep and she came home and found it. What has Uncle Richard got to do with it? Oh, your first husband—sorry. It helped to open the telegram yourself? Really? Well, it’s too late now. Yes, I’ll tell her, she’s in the bath. Aunt Helena, I must go now, I have to ring Aunt Sarah. Yes, yes, I will, of course I will. Yes, I’m sure she will. Yes. Goodbye.’