Coming Home (107 page)

‘Away you go.’

She took it from him, but still hesitated. ‘Tell Diana I'll be back. Give her my love. Explain.’

‘Of course.’

‘Don't go away again without coming to say goodbye to me.’

‘I won't. And, another time, we'll swim.’

For some reason, this caused her eyes to fill with tears. ‘Oh, Jeremy, why did it have to be Edward?’

‘I don't know. Don't ask me.’

So she didn't say any more. Just got on her bicycle and pedalled slowly away, and he watched until she was out of sight; gone down the curve of the drive, disappeared into the tunnel of trees.

Why did it have to be Edward?

After a bit, he turned and went up the steps and through the door, back into the house.

Afterwards, Judith had little recollection of that journey from Nancherrow to The Dower House. Her legs, as though they had developed volition of their own, pumped the bicycle pedals, working automatically as pistons, set on driving the machine along. She didn't think about anything very much. Her brain felt as numb as a limb that has suffered some terrible blow. Later, it would start to hurt, and then become agony. For the moment, her only idea was to get home, as though she were a wounded animal headed for its lair, burrow, den, cave, holt, whatever one wanted to call it.

She reached, at last, the gates of Nancherrow, and was out once more, in the sunshine, then was spinning down the hill into the deep valley of Rosemullion. At the bottom, she turned into the village, and cycled along the road beside the little river. A woman, hanging out her washing, called her name.
Hello! Lovely day!
But Judith scarcely heard and never turned her head.

She cycled on, up the hill until the steepness of the slope defeated her and she had to get off the bicycle and push it the rest of the way. At the gates of The Dower House she was forced to pause for a moment, to get her breath, and then went on, wheeling the bicycle over the pebbles. By the door, she dropped it and let it lie, abandoned, the front wheel still turning slowly, the handlebars askew.

The house waited for her, drowsy in the afternoon light. She went to lay her hands on the wall of the porch, and the old stone was still warm from the sun which had lain upon it all morning. Like a person, she thought. A human being. Living, and with a heartbeat.

After a bit, she went indoors, through the porch, and so into the flagged hall, where the only sound was the slow tick tock of the grandfather clock. She paused, and listened.

‘Biddy.’ And then, again, ‘Biddy!’

Silence. Biddy, clearly, had not yet returned.

‘Phyllis!’

But nor did Phyllis answer.

She went to the end of the hall and opened the glass door that led out onto the veranda. Beyond this lay the garden, and there she saw Phyllis, sitting on a rug on the grass with Anna and Morag, and a few toys for Anna to play with. The rubber ball that Judith had bought the child, and a dolls' tea-set, made of tin, unearthed when Biddy had cleared the attic.

She went across the veranda and out onto the lawn. Morag, hearing her footstep, sat up and woofed in a fairly useless manner, and Phyllis looked around to find out who, or what, had caused her to bark.

‘Judith! We weren't expecting you back so soon. Didn't you go swimming?’

‘No.’ Reaching Phyllis's side, Judith sank down on the rug beside her. The thick tartan wool felt comfortingly warm in the sun, like a heavy sweater pulled on after an icy swim.

‘Why ever not? It's such a…’

‘Phyllis, I have to ask you something.’

Phyllis frowned at the intensity of Judith's voice. ‘Are you all right?’

‘If I go away…if I have to go away, will you stay here and take care of Aunt Biddy for me?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘The thing is, I haven't spoken to her, but I think she'll probably want to stay on, at The Dower House, with you. Not go back to Devon, I mean. But you see, you mustn't leave her. She mustn't be left alone. She gets terribly lonely, thinks about Ned, and she starts drinking whisky to cheer herself up. I mean, really drinking so that she gets drunk. It happened before, when I left her in Devon, and Mrs Dagg told me about it all. It's one of the reasons I brought her to Cornwall with me. I have to say this now, because Biddy isn't here, so this is just between you and me, but you wouldn't ever leave her, would you, Phyllis?’

Phyllis, quite naturally, was mystified. ‘But, Judith, what’s all this
about?

‘You knew I was going. Sometime. To join up. I can't stay here forever.’

‘Yes, but…’

‘I'm going tomorrow, to Plymouth. To Devonport. I'll catch a train. I'll sign on there, in the Women's Royal Naval Service. But of course, I'll come home again. I shouldn't get my orders for at least two weeks. And then I'll go for good. But you won't
ever
leave Biddy, will you, Phyllis? Promise me. If you and Anna have to go away, perhaps you could arrange for someone to come and live here, and be with her…’

She was, Phyllis realised, working herself up into a high old state, and why? So tense and so urgent, gabbling away, scarcely making sense at all. Phyllis was both bewildered and concerned. She laid a hand on Judith's shoulder, and was reminded of the time she had tried to calm and reassure a nervous young horse.

‘Now…’ Deliberately, she spoke slowly and quietly. ‘Stop getting so upset. Of course I shan't leave her. Why should I leave her? We all know Mrs Somerville. Know she likes her little drink of an evening.’

‘But it's not just a little drink,’ Judith almost shouted at her. ‘You don't
understand
…’

‘I do. And I've given my word. Now, ease down.’

It worked. The sudden spurt of annoyance was quenched. Judith bit her lip, said no more. ‘That's better,’ said Phyllis encouragingly. ‘Now, let's talk quietly. About you. I know you've been thinking for months about joining up. But why all at once? So sudden. Going off to Devonport tomorrow. When did you decide all this? What made up your mind?’

‘I don't know. It made itself up.’

‘Has something happened?’

‘Yes.’

‘Just now?’

‘Yes.’

‘Tell Phyllis, then.’

And she sounded just the way she used to sound, in the old days at Riverview, when Judith hung about the kitchen, miserably worrying about exam results, or the fact that she hadn't been asked to some birthday party or other.

Tell Phyllis.
She took a deep breath, and said it. ‘Edward Carey-Lewis has been killed. His fighter was shot down over Dover.’

‘Oh, God.’

‘Jeremy just told me. That's why we didn't swim. I came home. I just wanted to be home. I wanted you so badly.’ Suddenly, her face crumpled, like a child's, and Phyllis reached out and pulled her roughly into her arms, and kissed her head, and rocked her as though she had been a baby. ‘I don't think I can bear it, Phyllis. I don't want him to be dead. He was always
somewhere,
and I can't bear the thought of him not being somewhere. He's not anywhere now. He's just not anything…’

‘Shh…’

Still rocking Judith in her arms, all at once, Phyllis understood. It was all as clear as glass. Edward Carey-Lewis had been the one for Judith. Not Jeremy Wells. Phyllis, for all her certainty and high hopes, had been barking up the wrong tree. It was young Carey-Lewis to whom Judith had given her heart, and now he was dead.

‘Shh…there now…’

‘Oh, Phyllis…’

‘Just cry.’

Life was so cruel, thought Phyllis, and war was worse. But what was the point in being brave, and holding feelings tight close? Better to give way, to go with the tide; let nature take its healing course, sweeping all before it, in a dam-burst of weeping.

Three days had passed before Judith returned to Nancherrow. The first day of August, and it was raining; a soft, drenching Cornish rain that fell on grateful gardens and fields and refreshed the air. The swollen river gurgled under the bridge, drowning the kingcups which grew on its green banks; there were puddles in the roads, and great drops of water descended in showers from overhead branches.

In the rain, wearing a black oilskin, but with her head bare, Judith cycled. From the village, she pushed the bicycle up the hill, and then mounted it again at the Nancherrow gates, and went on, down the winding, aqueous tunnel of the drive. Everything glistened and dripped, and the heads of the hydrangeas hung, heavy with moisture.

Reaching the house, she propped the bicycle by the front door, and went in, through the door. And there stopped, diverted by the sight of the old Nancherrow perambulator, strap-slung and classic as a Rolls-Royce. It had been parked in the outer hall, until such time as the rain ceased and Clementina could be wheeled out into the garden for her necessary fresh air. Judith unbuttoned her oilskin and laid it over a carved wooden chair, where it dripped onto the flagstones. Then she went to peer into the pram, to feast her eyes on the lovely sight that was Clementina. Fast asleep, with fat peach-pink cheeks and her dark silky hair on the frilled lawn pillowcase. She had been bundled into a gossamer Shetland shawl, but somehow had fought one arm free, and her starfish hand, with its chubby, braceleted fist, lay, like an offering, upturned, on the little pink blanket. There was something timeless about her peaceful slumber, untouched by any terrible thing that had happened, or perhaps was about to happen. It occurred to Judith that this was what innocence was all about. She touched Clementina's hand, and saw the tiny, perfect fingernails, and smelt the sweet fragrance of the baby, compounded of cleanliness and wool and Johnson's talc. Just looking at her was the most comforting, reassuring thing she had done for days.

After a bit, she left the baby sleeping and went on, into the inner hall. The house was quiet, but there were flowers on the round table which stood at the foot of the staircase, and the usual pile of stamped letters, waiting for some person to post them. She paused for a moment, and then, when nobody appeared, started down the passage to the door of the small sitting-room. This stood open, and across the room, in the bay window, she saw Diana, sitting at her desk. The desk that used to live in the drawing-room, but had been moved in here when the drawing-room was closed up for the war.

The desk was littered with all the usual accoutrements for correspondence, but Diana had dropped her pen and was simply doing nothing, but gaze out of the window at the dripping rain.

Judith said her name. Diana turned, and for an instant her lovely eyes stayed blank and unfocused; then cleared in recognition.

‘Judith.’ She held out an arm. ‘Darling. You've come.’

Judith went through the door and closed it behind her, and swiftly crossed the room, and stooped to embrace Diana and to kiss her.

‘So lovely to see you.’ She looked thin and pale and unbearably worn, but was elegant and beautifully turned out as ever, wearing a pleated linen skirt and a sky-blue silk shirt with a matching cashmere cardigan slung across her shoulders. As well, her pearls, her earrings, lipstick, eye-shadow, scent. And Judith was filled with enormous admiration, and gratitude too, because to have found Diana dishevelled, untidy, ill dressed would have made everything seem frightening and hopeless as the end of the world. But she understood, too, that the way Diana looked was her own personal armour, and that the time and the trouble that she had clearly spent upon herself was her own private contribution of courage. She had always been a joy to behold. For her family's sake; for the Nettlebeds and Mary, she was staying that way. Maintaining standards. Keeping up appearances.

‘…I thought you were never coming.’

‘Oh, Diana. I'm so sorry.’

‘Darling, you mustn't say things like that, otherwise I go to pieces. You've just got to talk ordinarily to me. What a ghastly day. Did you bike over? You must have got drenched. Sit down for a moment and chat.’

‘I'm not disturbing you?’

‘Yes, you are, but I want to be disturbed. Writing letters was never my strong point, and so many people have written and I simply have to try to answer them. It's so funny, I've always written letters to people, when people die, because it's what was
done.
Good manners. I never realised how much they meant. I read them over and over, even the most banal of condolences, and they fill me with pride and comfort. And you know, the extraordinary thing is that all of them say something different about Edward, as though dozens of people were writing about dozens of different Edwards. Some say how kind he was, or remember a certain amusing incident, or a time when he was particularly thoughtful, or funny, or just devastatingly attractive. And Edgar received the most touching letter from his commanding officer. Poor man, imagine having to write to all those bereaved parents, trying to think of something to say.’