Gifts of War (43 page)

The following day, Sunday, after a late start, Sam and Will and I drove out again toward Middle Hill but stopped short of the village. We climbed out of the car and strolled along the canal. At first I thought it was a mistake. It was the same stretch of water where we
had walked that day in the pouring rain when I had first realized that Sam had a baby and she had confessed to me, in the shelter and darkness under the bridge, who Will’s father was. Did I really want to remind her of all that?

But all she said was “Remember that wonderful tea shop near here? Shall we see if it’s still open?”

It was.

The prices had gone up, there were more people at the tables, but the scones were still as good and, amazingly, they had managed to get some cream to go with the jam. No prizes for guessing who ate two scones, covered his cheeks in jam, then promptly fell asleep.

On the way back to the car, with me carrying Will, I told Sam about Izzy’s last letter, the one where she had discussed the difference in love between adults and between a parent and a child.

“Is that what you were reading last evening, by the fire in the hotel, while I was sleeping?”

“Yes. How did you know?”

“You were quiet last night at dinner.”

“Guilty.”

“Nothing for you to feel guilty about. But you’ve been quiet ever since you came back from Zurich. I assumed it was because of that… you know, the Romford business. It would be natural.”

“It did have an effect, Sam. It is still having an effect. But Izzy’s letter had its effect also.”

She stretched out her arm and wiped away some crumbs that were still on Will’s cheek. “I don’t have much experience, of course, but I can say that the love for a child is nothing like the love I felt for Wilhelm.” She stopped and turned to face me. We were on the edge of the canal. “That was like a bolt from the blue. I could do nothing to control it.”

She shook her head. “What is it that sparks love? In the winter months he always wore a scarf, loose about his neck and shoulders—
was that it? I thought it was stylish and… languid, that’s the word. He was a languid person in some ways—he didn’t rush me, and I liked that. He was always very gentle with me but firm about his aim in life, to go to America and work in something like wine growing or tobacco growing. I loved that mixture of languid easiness and self-confidence. I couldn’t help myself falling for him.”

She was fiddling with her Alice band. “Incidentally, that cigar you were smoking last night—what make was it?”

“Cuban, of course. Cohiba, I think. Why?”

But I knew. The sweat on my neck told me, the fist of solid stone in my stomach told me. I had made another mistake.

“It smelled like the cigars Wilhelm used to smoke, that’s all. You don’t smoke cigars normally, do you?”

Some sort of clever—but not too clever—reply was called for, and to be convincing, it had to be immediate. “I started smoking them when I was in Munich, but I gave up when my mother’s cough got really bad. I treated myself to a box when I was in Zurich. Do you like the smell? If you don’t, I won’t smoke them.”

She squeezed my arm. “I just thought you’d like to know … they remind me of Wilhelm, that’s all.”

I was still sweating but… I had got away with it again.

She returned to the conversation we were in the middle of. “I could do nothing to stop myself from falling for Wilhelm, and I can do nothing to control my love for Will, either, but it’s very different. He needs me, I’m helping to form him—just as you are.” She smiled. “Have you noticed how he’s even started to worry about his shoes being shiny? The whole color, the whole tone of my love for him is different.”

We walked on and, after a little while, she continued: “I can understand what Izzy’s lover’s wife did. I hope I’m never in the same situation—but yes, I can understand her feelings and her actions.”

We walked on a short distance more until she put her hand on my arm again and we stopped. She turned to face me. “There
is
a third sort of love, you know. I thought about it a lot while you were in Zurich. I
am
falling in love with you, Hal. It’s not a thunderbolt, I can’t say that—and I hope that doesn’t hurt you. It’s more … more like the gentle unfolding of a flower as spring warms into summer. Will, of course, he loves you like … oh, I don’t know, like … like he now loves a cricket ball!”

We both laughed so much that Will woke up.

That night as we put Will to bed, he asked for his “cocoa book.”

“Oh, Lord, I’ve forgotten it,” said Sam.

“What on earth is a ‘cocoa book’?”

“One of the things that happened while you were away in Switzerland. The
Times
produced a new dictionary for children—with a new printing technique that means they can do pictures in color. The book has a tin of cocoa on the cover and Will, as you know, loves his cocoa. Even more now that he has some sugar.”

I smiled. “I’m interested in color printing myself—the Swiss are quite advanced. I’d like to see this cocoa book. What else happened while I was away?”

“Apart from the zeppelin raids, you mean? Well, the king wants us all to drink less alcohol—especially at home; he thinks we’re all becoming closet alcoholics. Telegrams are now ninepence, not sixpence. I had my fortune told. Oh—and I went to a lecture, with Ellen, given by a psychiatrist, on how being in the trenches drives some people into shell shock, while it is the making of others.”

“Doesn’t sound like my idea of fun. No theater?”

She tucked Will up in his bedclothes.

“You’re wrong. The lecture was very interesting—the man who
gave the talk was from a hospital in Scotland. Some of the injured, the mentally injured, are really hard on their wives when they return. I hadn’t expected that.”

She kissed Will good night.

“As for theaters, you’re out of date. Since the zeppelin raids, the theaters have been closing down at night. The only performances for now are the matinees, and I can’t get away. Even then the theaters advise people to bring their knitting or something to read in case there’s a daylight raid in the middle of a performance.”

She took hold of my hand. “Now, since I’ve forgotten the cocoa book, you’ll have to help out.”

“Oh? What do you mean?”

“You’ve just been abroad, traveling. You can tell Will a story. Come to that, you can tell us
both
a story.”

On the Monday evening, when we returned to the flat, there was a surprise awaiting us, and a very pleasant surprise indeed. Instead of Lottie having received a dreadful telegram in our absence, who should have turned up but the man himself, Reg, as thin and as creepy-quiet as ever. He’d been given some leave, he said, but had had an eventful journey back from France. The train he’d been on had been shelled, the railway line itself knocked out of action for a few days, and then the Channel boat he was due to sail on had never arrived. It had been one fiasco after another and it would have been comical if so many people hadn’t been killed in the process and if it hadn’t taken so long for him to reach Lottie.

Still, Lottie was out of her mind with relief and Sam was delighted for her sister, who hadn’t had much joy in the men department. While we had been in Stratford, Lottie had seen Ruth and invited her oldest sister and her man, Greville, for a “party” on that Monday evening. So
the six of us shared some pasta and whisky, Reg told us stories about the Front, Lottie sang, and Ruth kept us amused with some stories from her factory, where something always seemed to be going wrong. Ruth and Greville stayed late, very late, and Sam and I made up the spare room. All the men went to bed, and the sisters stayed up, talking.

I reached our room feeling content. What Sam had said the previous day, by the canal, had warmed me inside.

I had just got into bed when Will came through. As sometimes happened, he couldn’t sleep and wanted company. I took him back to his room and read him a story, or I read as much of it as I needed to before he was fast asleep. I put down the book, tucked him in, savored the soap smell that always clung to him in bed, and went back to our room.

On the way, I could hear Sam and Lottie and Ruth still talking. I wasn’t eavesdropping exactly but as I went by the door to the living room, I couldn’t help but overhear the word “Wilhelm.”

I froze. I stopped breathing. I listened hard, letting my hearing adjust to where I was, to the faint sounds of their voices.

Ruth was speaking. She had a louder, more authoritative voice than her sisters. “… long time now. And what does Will think?”

“He thinks Hal’s his real father, of course.” I’d know Sam’s voice anywhere.

“How long can you keep that up?”

“I don’t know. The longer the war goes on, the harder it will be to tell him the truth. We were playing with his latest cocoa book the other day, and I showed him some pictures of uniforms … there were British uniforms, French uniforms, American uniforms—and German uniforms. Will took his crayon and scratched through the drawings of the German tunics.” She made a sound like a sigh. “It’s only natural, I suppose. But still…”

She paused, but then more than one person was speaking at the same time and I didn’t catch what she said next.

“… think Hal’s a lovely man.” This was Lottie.

“But Wilhelm really got under Sam’s skin.” Ruth said this more gently.

I could hear no reply. Was Sam nodding her agreement?

More talking all at once, then: “… I know you both think I’m foolish—to have fallen for Wilhelm, I mean, and to have slept with him… but I did, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Those weeks with him were so
intense
, I didn’t know life could be so
…vivid
. I thought my heart might stop at any moment when war broke out and I realized I might never hear from him again. I felt so sure he would find a way to let me know where he was and that he was safe. Hal came into my life too soon, really. I did a good job, I think, of not letting him see how inconsolable I was, how much I missed Wilhelm.”

“And now?” Lottie again.

“I don’t feel quite so overwhelmed by Wilhelm’s absence, as I did. Hal and I sleep together and it’s … it’s better than it has a right to be, in fact. Hal’s a considerate lover—he’s a considerate man—and when we are making love, I forget everything else. I never imagined I would need sex so much, but I do.”

“Lucky you,” growled Lottie.

“The funny thing is … I would be a lot fonder of Hal, but for Will.”

“How do you mean?”

“The older he gets, the more he resembles his father—”

“Isn’t that natural?”

“Yes, of course, but what’s also natural, but in a different way, is that he has adopted some of Hal’s mannerisms. He’s become— becom
ing—
a perfect mix of Wilhelm and Hal. He doesn’t realize he
is
a mix, of course, it’s all unconscious, but I can’t help but notice. Hal
can’t know just how much Will looks like his father, and I’m not going to rub it in, that would be unkind. But I have to face this mix every day and it cuts through me. What am I going to do?”

A pause.

“If I were you, I’d throw in my lot with Hal.”

“Lottie’s right,” said Ruth. “Even if Wilhelm makes it through the war without being killed, can you ever… a German husband… it wouldn’t be easy.”

I never heard Sam’s reply. Just then I heard a movement behind me. Will, his pajamas crumpled and awry, was standing in the corridor, watching me. How long had he been there, I wondered, what had he heard?

I lifted him up, took him back to bed, and read him the rest of the story.

“What’s wrong with you?” Those were the brigadier’s first words when he clapped eyes on me the next day.

“My sister-in-law’s fiancé came home from the Front, on leave. Family celebration.” It was just a white lie, about Lottie being engaged.

He nodded. “What regiment is he in?”

“The Yorkshire Fusiliers.”

“He’s lucky. They’re at the sharp end, just now, near Bertrix. I thought all leave had been canceled. Anyway, was your break worth it? Was I right about that?”

“Yes sir.”

“Good, now follow me.”

He got up, came round his desk, opened the side door to his office. Through the doorway was a small room with a desk, at which sat a woman of about thirty. She was dark-haired, slim, and wore spectacles. She was dressed in trousers and a white shirt.

“Hal, this is Nadia, your new assistant. Nadia, this is Hal, Colonel Montgomery.”

Surprised at this turn of events, Nadia and I shook hands.

“Now come through into your office.” He led the way to the other side of the room and opened a door.

Beyond was a space about twice the size of Nadia’s, with a desk, a window looking out onto the fabled lawn, and—I could not believe my eyes—on the desk stood
a telephone!
I was to have a job that needed a telephone.

I picked it up and put the earpiece to my ear.

“Oh, it works all right, don’t worry about that. You’ll be shown how all the kit works in due course. Now, put down your things and come back into my office. We have a lot to get through today.”

I did as I was told and trooped after Malahyde back into his room. He sat on the easy chair and beckoned me to the sofa. On the low table in front of him was a buff-colored folder.

“Before I get to the heart of the matter, Hal, let me just say one thing.”

“Yes sir.”

“Will Nadia be the first assistant you have ever had?”

“Yes sir.”

“In which case, please, don’t have an affair with her. It will make all our lives so much less complicated.”

“Yes sir, but—”

“I know nothing is further from your mind right now, and I don’t require you to respond at all, you’re an adult; just bear in mind what I say.

I nodded but said nothing.

“Right. Now here is your new responsibility.” He took out his expensive pen and played with it. “We are entering the final phase of the war. The Americans are in, and in the next year or so, the fighting
will end. When the end comes, almost certainly, there will be a peace conference—a peace conference to end all peace conferences, I should say. And the hardest wrangling will be over who should pay what to whom for starting the war in the first place, who should have to dig deepest for nearly bankrupting one country after another. I want you to be in charge of calculating and masterminding our arithmetic on what the war has cost us.”