The Hardie Inheritance (27 page)

‘Hello, Max. I'm looking forward to seeing you this evening.'

‘Well, that's what I'm phoning about. I've only just got home from school and Father's phoned to say that I'm to be ready to leave in an hour. I know it's not your fault, but it's beastly unfair of him making me go tonight, when he knows how important tomorrow is. Nobody else is running away from the doodlebugs and I can look after myself perfectly well and it isn't because I don't like coming to Greystones because you know I do but he's doing it on purpose just to be horrid and I won't go.'

‘Steady on, Max. I don't know what you're talking about. Start again at the beginning and take it one step at a time.'

There was a gulp at the other end of the line as the eleven-year-old struggled to accept his instructions.

‘Father says I'm to come back to Greystones because of these flying bombs and because Mummy's had to go to hospital.'

‘Yes. He phoned me a couple of hours ago. We're always delighted to see you here; you know that.'

‘Yes, well, I like coming as well, but I could come tomorrow evening instead so that I could take the exam first. I mean, he's not even letting me have proper time to pack or anything. He's rushing me off specially so that I won't be able to take it. And I've worked for it all year and –'

‘Slowly, slowly. What exam are you talking about?'

‘My dance grade. You remember, you fixed for me to go on having lessons when I came back to Greystones in January, so that I could keep up.'

‘Yes.' Grace was beginning to get his drift. It was she who had realized soon after Max first arrived at Greystones in 1940 that her nephew was a natural gymnast and she had made use of this talent to combat the six-year-old's homesickness, searching out a Saturday-morning class in which he could receive training and providing a variety of ropes and bars in the grounds of Greystones for him to practise his exercises.

The therapy proved successful. One of Grace's strongest beliefs was that everyone needed to enjoy an overwhelming enthusiasm for something, and she had congratulated herself on hitting the target for Max with her first shot.

Trish had been given the duty of escorting him to his class, and had formed the habit of taking Dan and Boxer to a children's film show in a nearby cinema instead of waiting in the hall. Because the matinée lasted longer than the class, it was Max who was kept waiting, and he soon became interested in the ballet class which came next on the timetable of the community hall. Grace never knew how many weeks elapsed before he asked whether he could join in, because during that first term no request was made for the payment of a fee. Little boys who actually wanted to learn ballet were apparently as rare as gold dust, and one enthusiast could be used to persuade others that at least they would not be alone; so the teacher preferred not to risk parental discouragement by asking for Max to be officially enrolled. Only when Grace was invited to the end-of-term concert did she realize that her nephew, from the unlikeliest of backgrounds, had recognized his own true talent and enthusiasm.

It had caused trouble, of course. When he returned to London his indulgent mother was willing to let him do anything he wanted. But David, whose instinct was always to say No to his youngest child, was predictably horrified at the thought of
any son of his prancing about on a stage in tights. Grace could well believe that David was seizing a plausible opportunity to act spitefully and disappoint his son.

‘This exam is an important one,' said Max, impatient with the length of silence. ‘Miss Berry thinks I might get distinction. But if I'm not even allowed to take it … It's at ten o'clock. I only need the morning. Oh, he's here! Please do something, Aunt Grace.'

The line went dead. Unauthorized telephone calls were doubtless yet another source of argument in the David Hardie household. Grace hardly hesitated for a moment before making a return call to her brother's number.

‘David? Grace here. Thank goodness I've caught you before you leave. Look, David, can you put it off for a day – bringing Max over, I mean. We're in a state of complete chaos here and I need a little time to sort myself out.'

‘What's happening?' David's voice was cool but not suspicious.

‘Three things all at once. It's Trish's birthday, and I forgot … I didn't arrange … Well, I've got to do something urgently about that. And then Kenneth's son has just turned up without warning to stay.'

‘From Australia!'

‘Yes. To join up. But the real thing is, Mother's had an accident.'

‘Mother? Is it serious? If she's ill, that's all the more reason why I ought to come at once.'

‘No, not now. There'd be no point. She's got to have an operation and she won't be allowed visitors at once. I'll phone you at the office tomorrow, David, and let you know. I'll be glad to help you out by taking Max tomorrow, but I simply can't cope this evening. I'm sorry.'

In the five years since Dan and Boxer first arrived on the scene, Grace had discovered that she was perfectly well able to cope with any kind of domestic flurry; but the lack of sympathy between her brother and herself meant that he would
take her words at face value without suspecting a conspiracy. It would be up to Max to make good use of his reprieve. Grace smiled to herself as she put down the telephone.

Trish, meanwhile, was obeying Grace's orders to make herself look pretty. In the matter of clothes rationing, as with food, the inhabitants of Greystones hardly knew that there was a war on. Mrs Hardie seemed never to have thrown any of her clothes away, and had willingly cut them up and used the material to keep up with the pace at which Trish had outgrown everything she owned over the past four years.

It was amazing what a difference the change of clothing made. In her severe blue uniform dress, with its white collar and cuffs, she had been merely a schoolgirl. Now, when she looked in the mirror, she saw an attractive young woman. Her breasts were small and her hips narrow, but by pulling the belt of her dress tight she was able to add curves to her figure. The need to revise had so far this summer kept her out of the sun, so that her oval face and long, slim arms were pale, without any of the stripes which in normal years indicated what length of sleeve she had worn for working in the garden.

Last of all Trish pulled off the ribbon which tied her long hair neatly at the back of her neck, as school regulations demanded. Her hair was very straight, which was bad, but very blonde, which was good. She brushed it vigorously and then spun round like a dancer, so that both hair and skirt swirled high before settling back into place. Even on a day of guilt and tragedy, she found it hard to remain subdued for long.

Tea had already started, although the strawberries were being kept for her arrival. The new visitor leapt to his feet as she came into the room and stared at her appreciatively.

‘Transformation scene!' he exclaimed. ‘I always thought we
had the prettiest girls in the world in Australia, but now I'm not so sure. Hey, I'm sorry to hear that my grandmother's crock.'

‘Crock?' asked Trish, puzzled; but Grace interrupted to change the subject.

‘I've been waiting until Trish arrived to ask you, Gordon, how you come to be here.'

‘Worked my passage. Don't know that I'd have been so keen if I'd known how many U-boats were lurking in the Atlantic, but we came through OK. I wanted to enlist in the Old Country, ‘stead of at home. Sort of making up for Dad, see?'

‘Did he approve of that – of you enlisting at all, I mean?' asked Grace.

‘Yeh. He explained it to me, as much as it could be explained, what happened before. There was something about him and his brother killing a cat, when they were only kids.' He looked across the table at Grace. ‘
Your
cat.'

Grace nodded but added no further information.

‘Set up a sort of block, he said, so that he couldn't bear the thought of killing anyone else at all. Wasn't specially that he disapproved of war. That was the problem, I gather, when he asked for exemption. If he'd been a Quaker or something like that, he might have got away with it. But being a cat-murderer wasn't a recognized category. Mind you, I reckon he has his doubts, looking back, on whether the last war was worth fighting. But this one's different, he says, and I think so too. A fight against wickedness. So he was all for me joining up. It was my idea to do it here.'

‘You'll stay at Greystones, I hope,' said Grace. ‘Treat it as your home while you're in England.'

‘Thanks a lot.' He made no pretence that he had not expected the invitation. Instead, he turned his attention from Grace to Trish. ‘There's a dance on in Oxford tonight,' he told her. ‘To celebrate midsummer, the notice outside the station said. How about it?'

‘Well, I don't know.' Although it was easy to see that Grace
wanted her to accept, Trish was taken aback. She and the rest of the sixth form had organized dancing lessons for themselves after school, but had never used their new skill for anything more adventurous than the dances which were arranged once a term with a nearby boys' school. The embarrassment of these occasions, when the girls huddled shyly at one end of a hall and waited to be picked out by a boy from the other end, had not filled her with much enthusiasm for the activity. And was it right that she should enjoy herself on this day of family disaster?

‘Aw, come on,' pressed Gordon. ‘It's my birthday. Got to have someone to celebrate with.'

‘Your birthday?' Trish's eyes brightened with interest. ‘It's mine, too. I'm eighteen. How old are you?'

‘Seventeen and eleven-twelfths,' he told her, and before she finished laughing she had agreed to go.

Oxford was almost a foreign city to her. School in Headington and the house on the hill were enough to fill the whole of her ordinary life and she made the journey down into the city only to go shopping or to the cinema or to take Max to his classes. As they cycled across Magdalen Bridge and along the High, with Gordon wobbling uncertainly on his borrowed bicycle, she pointed out the family shop, with the name of Hardie above it in gold Gothic letters, but was ashamed of her inability to answer his questions about the colleges they passed.

‘You reckoning to study here yourself now you've finished with school?' he asked as they dismounted.

‘Not at the university; heavens no. I'm not nearly bright enough for that. I want to go to art school. It would have been in London if things had been normal, but as it happens the college has been evacuated to Oxford. So I'll go on living at home.'

‘You don't have to join the army?'

‘I have a choice. I can start a course if I want to, but if the war goes on I'd have to cut it short and join up. Everyone thinks now, though, that the war will be over soon.' She
watched as he studied the unfamiliar currency in his wallet and bought their tickets at the Town Hall.

To her relief, she quickly discovered that she was a better dancer than Gordon. At least she knew the steps – although this proved to be a mixed blessing, since he made no attempt to follow the rules, but merely jigged energetically on the beat.

‘Look,' he said at last. ‘I know I'm no good at this, but you have to follow me. Otherwise we'll spend the evening saying sorry to each other. Come in closer and go wherever I go.'

He tightened his grip. Trish had never been held so close before and was stiff at first. But once she was able to relax the movement became fun. They swept round the floor, laughing at the couples who more staidly and correctly concentrated on their slow, slow, quick-quick slow.

‘You got a boy?' asked Gordon as the evening approached its end. ‘I mean, pretty girl like you, you'll have a lot of boys noticing you, but is there a special one?'

‘I don't know.' The answer sounded silly, but was true. ‘They're all fighting, you see.' But even when they came home, would any of them – Rupert or Jean-Paul or Terry – think of her as their special girl? Rupert in particular was so much older. Trish herself might be grown-up at last, but Rupert must be thirty. He would have other girls, women; of course he would. She herself could never hope to be more to him than some kind of relation: a kid cousin.

‘All older than you, then?' said Gordon astutely.

‘Yes. Yes, they are.'

‘What you need's a chap your own age. Well, a month younger's neither here nor there. Agree?' And suddenly, in the middle of the dance floor, he was kissing her.

‘Gordon! People will see!' she exclaimed, twisting away from him.

‘That's the idea. The male as hunter. Establishing territory. Telling the rest of the world to keep its hands off.'

‘I may not want the rest of the world to keep its hands off,'
she said indignantly. ‘For heaven's sake, I've only known you about six hours.'

‘Sorry, ma'am. What's the waiting period for a first kiss? Remembering that some of us have got a war to fight and can't hang about. Shall we say six hours and five minutes?' They were walking back to their chairs by now; he stopped and kissed her again.

‘You can't expect stuffy Pom manners from a brash Aussie,' he said. ‘I just want you to know that I like you.'

‘It's time we went home,' said Trish.

‘Another hour yet.'

‘I've had quite a day,' she said. It was true: she felt emotionally drained. ‘Birthday, and exams, and Grandmother's accident.'

‘And now a strange young man rushing you. Sorry. But you don't really mind, do you?'

She turned her head to stare at him, thinking how odd it was that he should be so obviously not English in spite of the fact that he came of English stock. There was a looseness about his limbs, making him seem at once strong and relaxed. His grin was wider and his gaze more direct than any other boy she knew – as though, like Trish herself, he believed in having fun: not waiting for it to be offered to him, but setting out to make it happen.