Marking Time (55 page)

But on Friday, when her parents returned, she was shocked by her mother’s appearance. She looked completely worn out – her face had an unusual yellowish tinge, and she had shadowy
circles under her eyes. Dad looked grey as well, although they both greeted everyone with a kind of determined cheerfulness before her mother said she thought she would have a little rest before
dinner. Polly went up with her to see whether she wanted her case unpacked, or would like a cup of tea, but she said no, she didn’t want anything; she was scrabbling in her handbag and
produced a very small bottle of pills.

‘Oh, Mummy, you’re not taking more aspirin? You know Dr Carr said—’

‘These aren’t aspirin. My back aches from sitting in the car for so long.’ She shook two out onto the palm of her hand and crammed them into her mouth.

‘Don’t you want some water with them?’

‘No – I don’t need that.’ She was sitting on the side of the bed kicking off her shoes. Now she looked up suddenly, and said in a funny half-pleading, half-jocular
manner, ‘But you won’t say a word to Dad about my taking these, will you? He’ll only fuss, and I really couldn’t cope with a fuss. Promise?’

She promised, but she felt uneasy about it. When her mother was on the bed, she put an eiderdown over her, kissed her hot, damp forehead, and left.

She hovered at the top of the back stairs, wondering whether to go and find Dad – not to tell him about the pills, of course, she’d promised not to, but to see if she could find out
why her mother was so awfully tired – they’d probably gone out to theatres and dinners every night . . .

Then she heard voices, coming from the morning room whose door must be open.

‘. . . absolute madness, but I had to pretend it was all right, of course.’

There was the sound of a soda syphon being squirted. Then her father’s voice continued, ‘Thanks, Villy. Do I need this!’

Aunt Villy said, ‘Hugh, darling, I’m so sorry. What can I do?

‘It’s sweet of you, but I can’t think of anything.’

‘Are you sure she has no idea?’

‘She has none. I tested that out this week and drew a merciful blank. She has no idea at all.’

‘She’s going to need nursing, you know. I mean, I can do all that’s needed now – but—’

She heard steps coming towards the door and shrank back against the banisters. But the door was simply shut and then she could only hear a murmur, but not what the voices said.

Autumn–Winter 1941

‘Potato pie? How very amusing!’

‘Amusing?
Potato pie?
I must say, Dolly, you have the strangest sense of humour. Try as I will, I can see nothing to laugh at in a potato.’

‘But then, dear, you have never been known for your sense of humour.’

Fifteen all, Villy thought, as she sat at the morning-room desk paying bills for the Duchy. The great-aunts always spent the morning in that room, so named because it did not get morning sun
which their generation deemed bad for the complexion, not that the aunts’ complexions were in a state worthy of preservation: Aunt Dolly’s ponderous cheeks, like a spaniel’s ears,
were a damp mauve that reminded her of mountains in amateur water colours of Scotland, and Aunt Flo’s resembled, as one of the children had remarked, a dog biscuit peppered with flourishing
blackheads – due, as Dolly frequently observed, to her penchant for washing her face in cold water without soap. Flo was crocheting a blanket made from odds and ends of wool, and Dolly was
mending a winter vest. Villy had managed to stop them appealing to her over their disagreements on the grounds that she was adding things up which had reduced them for a few minutes to a respectful
silence. They spent every morning sewing and quarrelling gently, usually, these days, about food. They always knew the menus for the day, having
happened
to overhear or
happened
to see the paper on which the Duchy wrote the results of her morning interview with Mrs Cripps.

‘
I
do faintly wonder what a potato pie is made with,’ Dolly said, not very much later.

‘There must be a distinct possibility that it is made with potato.’

‘I do wish, sometimes, that you wouldn’t try to be sarcastic – it really doesn’t suit you. I meant, if it is a
pie
, will it be the sort with pastry, or will it
be like shepherd’s pie with mashed potato on top?’

‘I should have thought it was fairly obvious that it would have pastry. You couldn’t have mashed potatoes above ordinary ones. I mean, why have a pie at all, if that’s what
you’re going to do?’

She said this so accusingly that Dolly retorted, ‘It wasn’t
my
idea. It was Kitty’s. After she read that Mr Churchill has made potatoes one penny a pound to encourage
us to eat more, she has been trying to think of new ways to use them.’

Everything that happened was done by Mr Churchill, Villy noticed. Everything good, that is. Everything bad, of course, was done by Hitler. You would think they were conducting a personal war
with everybody else on the receiving end.

‘Of course, there might be some cheese in it. Just a little, grated, for flavour.’

‘I very much doubt it. We had cauliflower cheese
again
yesterday, and macaroni cheese is usually on Sunday nights. You must remember that cheese is rationed.’

Of
course
Dolly knew that, of
course
she did; she really wondered sometimes whether Flo thought she was
mad
.

They bickered on through the classic routine of umbrage, severe umbrage (just reached), to peace-making nostalgia about pre-war food, and back to ruminations about the meals in immediate
prospect. Really, Villy thought, they behaved in most respects as though there wasn’t a war at all: they would probably have talked about food wherever they were in time or space; they sewed
all morning with a longish break for Bovril and biscuits, rested after luncheon, went – if the weather was fine – for a little stroll in the garden before tea, sewed again until the six
o’clock news whose contents they were never able to agree upon afterwards, had a little rest before changing out of their jersey suits into woollen dresses and rather painful-looking pointed
shoes with marcasite buckles for dinner, and retired punctually at ten o’clock to the bedroom they shared. The Duchy was kind to her sisters because they had never married, and she was of the
generation that regarded the single state as a minor tragedy. She also had been heard to say that they had been extraordinarily good to their father when he had become frenetically senile. The Brig
regarded them as part of the fixtures of family life and occasionally, when he could find no other audience, told them one of his duller stories.

But then, Villy considered that
her
life was much as it had been. At the beginning of the war, she had imagined herself doing some useful and interesting war work – perhaps
training for some job in the War Office or in a large hospital. But it hadn’t turned out like that at all. First there had been Roly, the unexpected baby, well over two now but still, she
felt, requiring her presence. Even without him, there had been the fact that the household at Home Place had so enlarged that it was unfair to expect the Duchy to run it single-handed, and Rachel,
who might have taken over a great deal of it, had been seconded to the family firm where she now worked four days a week. Neither Sybil nor Zoë was up to the sort of chronic, often exhausting
maintenance that was needed. Things that would have been replaced now had to be mended; the coke and coal rations meant that more wood was burned and Villy, with Heather to help, spent about two
afternoons a week with the big saw, cutting logs dragged from the woods by Wren and the old pony. Drinking water had to be collected from the well and the bottles brought up the hill on a
wheelbarrow since their petrol ration was all used for the station and weekly shopping trips to Battle. There was a massive amount of laundry, and getting clothes dry in winter was a nightmare, as
there was no central heating – regarded by the Duchy as extremely unhealthy. Villy had devised a line in the boiler room which had been cleaned out by Tonbridge – he had proved useless
at sawing wood – and this was always full of steaming clothes. The preserving of fruit and vegetables at this time of the year was also a full-time job. Here Zoë and the girls helped Mrs
Cripps. Villy ran the local first-aid classes one night a week and did two nights at the nursing home, as Matron was constantly short of good staff. And now there was Sybil needing help, which was
more difficult since so much tact was needed in giving it. She could not, would not, face the fact that she was not able to look after Wills on her own for more than very brief periods, so somebody
had to be on hand to relieve her of him under the pretext of his tea, or a walk with Roly or some game the children had devised for him. She was indomitable; the only time she had really confided
in Villy had been after the week she had spent in London with Hugh. The house, mostly shut up since Hugh used only the kitchen and their bedroom, had been dirty and thoroughly ill kept: the char
she had employed to come three mornings a week was clearly doing nothing but clean the bath and make Hugh’s bed plus a little washing-up. She had spent the first day shopping for food and
trying to open up the drawing room, with the consequence that she was dead beat by the time Hugh arrived home from work and had burned the careful stew she had made by forgetting it. Hugh had taken
her out, but she had been too tired to eat. After that, he had taken her out every night to supper, but the days, spent buying her presents for Christmas, ‘It seemed the last chance I would
have for that’, and trying to clean the house, had exhausted her, and Villy suspected that the strain of trying
not
to seem so tired in front of Hugh must have made it much worse.
She told Villy that she had, unknown to Hugh, paid a visit to Dr Ballater, who, she said, had been extremely kind and had prescribed some pills ‘that make a wonderful difference’. Only
she hadn’t been able to take them much in London with Hugh because they often made her feel quite woozy and she was afraid he would notice. ‘Only I must say,’ she had said to
Villy on that occasion, ‘I do sometimes wonder when it is all going to stop.’ Then, before Villy could reply, or even think how to reply, she had said, ‘The thing is, I
don’t want to worry poor darling Hugh till I – have to. Would you help me about that? You’re the only person I can ask.’ And she, feeling unable to break her promise to
Hugh, found herself making a second promise to Sybil.

Since then, she had once tried suggesting to Hugh that perhaps Sybil did recognise that she was rather ill and he had instantly agreed, but said that none the less
she
thought she was
going to get better and must not on any account be disabused. He knew he was right, he said. Look at the situation: he had to be in London all of every week when all he wanted was to be with Sybil.
But Villy knew that weekends were a fearful strain for both of them. In the end, she had telephoned Edward at Hendon and asked him to meet her for lunch in London and he had arranged it for the
very next day.

‘Anything up?’ he had asked after they had kissed. ‘You sounded rather serious on the telephone.’

‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’

They were in his club and he signalled the waiter and ordered two large gins and Frenches. ‘It sounds as though we may need them,’ he said; he seemed uncharacteristically
nervous.

‘It’s Hugh and Sybil,’ she began and, to her surprise, saw his face clear before it assumed a different concern.

She explained. That Sybil had cancer – what they had all feared when she had had the first operation. That
she
knew and Hugh knew, but that they would not tell each other.
‘It all seems so sad, and absurd and unnecessary,’ she finished. ‘But he does want to be with her and, of course, he can’t—’

‘The Old Man rang me up,’ Edward interrupted, ‘not about that, as a matter of fact. He simply said that the business was getting too much for Hugh on his own. We’re
getting a hell of a lot of Government orders, and with the sawmills still in chaos from the Blitz – only one is working properly – and the shortage of staff, Hugh is having a hell of a
time. He asked me to apply for leave to come and sort things out. I’m waiting to hear about that, but the CO seems to think it will come through. God! Poor old boy! It must be utter hell for
him.’

‘Could
you
talk to him? About talking to Sybil – clearing things between them?’

‘I could try, but he’s as obstinate as the devil. I’ve never been able to get him to change his mind about anything. Do the others know?’

‘I think they must suspect, but it isn’t mentioned. And after Sybil making me promise not to say a word to Hugh, it seemed difficult to talk to anyone else. But I do worry about the
older children, though, Polly and Simon, I mean. I don’t think it should come to them as a frightful shock. Of course, Polly adores her father which should be a comfort to them
both.’

‘Lucky Hugh.’

Knowing that Louise was rude and unpleasant to him – yet another reason for being displeased with her – Villy said quickly, ‘Lydia adores
you
. You should take her out
for a treat – she’d simply love it. She’s got a birthday quite soon. Ten! She’s growing up, you know.’

‘She’s a dear little thing,’ he said absently. When they were finishing lunch, he said, ‘Have you heard from Louise?’

‘One letter from Northampton. Entirely filled with her theatre doings. She’s completely wrapped up in herself – too utterly selfish for words. She behaves as though there
simply wasn’t a war. But after this year, she really must buckle down to a sensible job. I’m relying on you to read the Riot Act to her.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t be any earthly use at that,’ he said. ‘Shall we have our coffee in the other room? Then we can smoke.’

After lunch he said he must get back to Hendon, saw her into a cab – although he’d offered to drop her off at Charing Cross – and then repaired to an anonymous and dreary
little flat in Sloane Avenue where he had arranged to meet Diana.