The House of Vandekar (18 page)

‘The nearest I could find to it,' she agreed.

They'd got hold of some champagne, God knew how, and toasts were drunk to her and to the staff at Ashton and to Ashton itself.

‘We'll always think of it as home,' one man said to her. ‘Don't ever let it go, will you?'

‘Never,' Alice promised. ‘You'll all have to come and see us after the war!'

There was another cheer. She drank two glasses of champagne very quickly and began to feel better. She was flushed and very animated; they were jostling to get near and talk to her. Then there was a call for silence. It wasn't the group captain who made the little speech. It was a rear gunner who had survived third-degree burns to his hands and chest. He was going back to civvy street, as he called it.

‘We want to say thanks for everything,' he announced. ‘We'll never forget you, and because we're a conceited shower, as you probably realize,' there was a rippled laugh which died immediately, ‘we don't want you to forget us. So we'd like you to accept this.'

The gift was tied up with ribbon and she tore the wrapper open. There was a group photograph in a handsome silver frame. It was engraved: ‘To Mrs Vandekar. From her boys. July 1942.' Twenty men in two ranks, all smiling at her. Twenty names written by each one at the sides of the photograph. She looked at it and then at them.

‘This goes on my desk,' she said, ‘where I'll see it every morning. That means I'll think of you every morning. You've given me something I'll treasure. God bless you.'

It was a moment captured in time for many of them; the sight of Alice in her blue dress at the foot of the great staircase would remain when other memories had faded. And she made it permanent by turning and running upstairs with the photograph clasped in both hands, as if she couldn't trust her smile to stay in place.

Lily was waiting for her upstairs. She didn't waste time. ‘He telephoned,' she said. ‘He's coming back tomorrow morning.'

‘Oh.' Alice sat down on the bed. She was still holding the photograph. For a few moments she had forgotten him. A few moments. It was eight o'clock. For all that time she had actually lived independently of where he was and what he was doing. A different kind of love had enveloped her. The kind where sadness was bearable and the spirits didn't flag. ‘Look what they gave me,' she held out the photograph to Lily. ‘It's inscribed and they've all signed it. Wasn't that the sweetest thing to do? They had champagne and poor Gerry Pitman made a little speech at the end. I had to run or I was going to cry, Lily.'

‘Just as well you didn't,' was the retort. ‘You'd have had half of them wiping their eyes, I expect. I told you, the flight lieutenant's coming back tomorrow.'

‘Yes, you did,' Alice said. ‘Did he sound all right?' Banks had said he had been cleared three days ago – why hadn't he come home then? Or telephoned? Suddenly she felt weary. Weary and low-spirited.

‘You know he's going back to duty,' she said.

Lily nodded. ‘He'll manage, don't you worry. It'll be better for him.'

‘It won't be better for me,' Alice said.

‘This lot are going, but there'll be a new lot coming in. You'll have plenty to do, madam.'

Alice reached up and took the blue flower out of her hair.

She didn't mean to say it. It was unpremeditated. Perhaps it was the champagne. Or the highly charged emotion of that farewell party. She looked up at Lily and said, ‘I'm having a baby.' She waited for the surprise, the reproach for not being told.

Instead, Lily's rather severe expression softened. ‘I know you are, madam.'

‘For God's sake! How did you know?'

‘Because I know you,' was the answer. ‘I knew you looked different – in the face, I mean. There was something the matter and then I just thought, of course, that's it. You weren't sick, but you had the same look with Miss Fern. I hope you're pleased about it this time, madam. Mr Hugo will be, I'm sure.'

‘It isn't Mr Hugo's,' Alice said flatly. ‘And you bloody well know it isn't.'

Lily began hanging up her dress and laying the nightdress across her chair with her dressing gown and the white satin mules underneath it.

‘You must write and tell Mr Hugo. It'll cheer him up, wherever he is,' she said.

‘Lily!' Alice exploded. ‘Didn't you hear what I said?'

The other woman turned round and straightened up. ‘No, I didn't,' she answered firmly. ‘I never heard anything. Shall I run a bath for you before you go to bed? Helps you sleep, they say.'

Alice didn't say anything. She sat and watched Lily finish tidying up and then go into the bathroom and turn on the taps. She smelt bath essence being poured into the steaming water. ‘I hate that stuff,' she shouted, ‘you know I do!'

‘It makes the water soft,' Lily called back. ‘I've only put a few drops. You've got to keep your skin supple, you know, or you'll get those marks …'

‘Oh, shut up,' Alice called out. ‘Come here and listen to me!'

Lily came out. ‘I've laid your towels out and the water's just right,' she announced. ‘And I'm not staying to listen to a lot of nonsense, madam. I've got things to do for myself before I go to bed. I'll come back and see if you need anything before I do.' She nodded and walked briskly out of the room.

When she did come back Alice was reading. She looked very young with her hair hanging loose. She answered Lily's knock. ‘Come in. Oh, Lily, thanks, I was just going to put the light out.'

‘I've brought you a little glass of hot milk,' Lily said. ‘I begged it off the night sister. We're getting low in the kitchen.'

‘Thanks,' Alice said again. She sipped the milk, then closed the book and put it on the bedside table. ‘I was talking nonsense,' she said. ‘You're quite right.'

‘I know I'm right,' Lily said quietly. ‘And don't you fret about Armstrong going. I'll take care of you till the baby's born, like I did last time.'

‘Good night, Lily,' Alice said. She let the use of his surname pass unrebuked. The moment of weakness had passed. She'd confessed and the confession had been turned aside.

Lily Parker had shown her what she must do. She switched the light out. Nick would be back tomorrow. ‘I'll be happy,' she said aloud, ‘I'll make the most of the time we've got left. After that, who knows what may happen.'

She fell asleep and woke refreshed and oddly light in heart. She wasn't bearing the burden any more, because Lily knew. But she was never, ever going to admit it.

Nick had a week's leave. A whole week together, he said, as if they hadn't been inseparable for months. ‘Why don't we go off somewhere?' he suggested. ‘Spend a few days in a pub on our own. I'd like to take you away, Alice. I don't want to share you with anyone.'

With her head on his shoulder Alice said, ‘I'd love that. Just to spend all day with you, not to have to think of anything or anyone else.'

‘Then we'll do it,' he declared. ‘I know a little place down in the West Country. I used to go there when I was on leave. With the odd girlfriend, I have to admit that.' He smiled down at her. ‘But not Janine, if that's what you're thinking.'

‘I'm not thinking anything,' she protested. ‘I don't care who was there before me. I want to be there with you now.'

‘I'll ring them,' he said. ‘I got to know the landlord and his wife very well. They were marvellous people. They'll squeeze us in. And, my darling, I've got a petrol ration that'll take us there and back and round the countryside if we want to see a bit of it. It's beautiful down there.'

‘Down where?' Alice teased him. ‘The West Country covers a big area.'

‘Poole, in Dorset. Just outside Poole. It's a picture-book pub, with old beams and horse brasses. Americans love it!' He mocked her in turn.

She laughed. ‘I know the kind of place. It's called the Scalp Inn. Every time you stand upright, you take the top off your head! Go and ring up, Nick. See if we can go tomorrow.'

He kissed her. ‘It's not very luxurious,' he warned. ‘No running hot and cold Lilys around.'

‘So long as you don't tell her, that's OK by me,' Alice said. She thought lazily how happy she felt. The parting seemed unreal, as if they would make the week last and last, and the day he was to drive away would never come. He was so happy too, light-hearted and tender with her. He's making the most of what we've got, she realized. Just as I am. And I'm not looking after him any more. Now I feel he's looking after me. I wish I could tell him about the baby. I'd feel better about it, but that wouldn't be fair. It would spoil our happiness. He doesn't want responsibility and I don't either. I want to go away with him for a few days and pretend that there's nothing behind us or ahead.

‘Are you sure I shouldn't come with you?' Lily repeated. ‘Who's going to look after you?'

‘I'm going to look after myself,' Alice said firmly, ‘I'm not a damned imbecile, you know. I can turn on my own bath taps and dress myself, thank you. I'm a big grown-up girl, in case you haven't noticed!'

‘I doubt there'll be a bath,' was the retort. ‘Or any hot water in a place like that.'

‘Then we'll go dirty,' Alice countered. ‘Lily, for God's sake stop spoiling it for me. I want to go away, I want a break from home. And it's not very long, after all.'

No, Lily decided, it wasn't. She'd be all right. She was so much brighter, less tense since he'd come back. They were like a couple of silly kids, laughing and holding hands, and springing apart when anyone came in. But not quick enough for that creepy child. She'd come down for something and found them side by side on the sofa by the fire, and given them one of her old-fashioned looks. Her mother had laughed it off, but Lily knew better. Good thing if they did go off together for the last few days. She managed a smile and said, ‘I'm sorry, madam. I didn't mean to be a spoilsport, but with the baby and everything I didn't want you to rough it. You aren't used to it, you know.'

‘Then it's about time I learned,' Alice countered. ‘And it's hardly roughing it to be without a personal maid for a few days. What would you say if I was going up to London, for instance, with the air-raids every night?'

‘I'll put some things out for you.' Lily refused to be drawn. ‘You say what you want me to pack.'

It was a cloudless day when they drove down to Dorset. The pub was just as Nick described it – small and low-browed and cosy as an oak-lined womb inside.

It was another world, and they spent five whole glorious days living in it. Alice laughed when she saw the little bath with the regulation 18-inch line for maximum water painted round it and the tepid trickle that seeped out of the old taps. That was the only time she thought of Lily or Ashton or anything of her real life. She willed the child not to move and remind her and she gave herself to him as often as he wanted. It makes him happy, she insisted, and that's all that counts. I'm not revolted or afraid because I love him, and I can stay outside it, outside my own body, and just give it as a gift.

They explored the countryside. He had a passion for old churches and Alice made fun of him for wandering round reading the inscriptions on the tombstones. ‘I never knew you were so morbid! Who wants to read about some old guy departing this life in 1780 or whatever? Come on, let's go and see if there's a pub in the village. I feel like a glass of that disgusting flat English beer!'

‘Just because there wasn't anyone in America in 1780, you're jealous,' he grinned.

‘There was too,' Alice declared. ‘And it wasn't long before we beat the pants off you!'

And on their last evening, spent in the pub with a makeshift supper in the corner of the bar, Nick said suddenly, ‘You know what I feel when I think of people living and dying in one village all their lives?'

‘Morbid?' Alice repeated and giggled. The beer was flat, but she actually liked the taste.

‘No, not morbid at all. I feel a sense of permanence. A sort of security in the lifecycle. No matter what happens to us, there will still be people living and working and spending their lives in places like this. So long as England lasts.'

She looked at him. He was quite serious. ‘It will last,' she said quickly. ‘We're going to win.'

‘Yes.' He took her hand and held it. ‘We are. We must, mustn't we? Alice, how would you like to live somewhere like this?'

‘How do you mean?'

‘Would you find it very dreary after Ashton?'

She put the glass down. ‘What are you saying, Nick?'

‘I'm asking you to leave Hugo and marry me after the war's over.'

Two people came into the bar. They were elderly men, regulars who had been drinking an evening pint in the same place for most of their lives.

‘It would be very different for you,' he went on. ‘I haven't any money – and I mean that. I'd have to get a job and we'd have to make do as best we could to start with. There wouldn't be Lily or anything you've been used to for so long.'

Alice said quietly, ‘I wouldn't care. I've been happier here with you these last few days than any time in my whole life. I didn't have any money either. I married it, that's the truth.'

‘Think about it, will you?' he asked her. ‘No promises, no obligations, darling. Just keep it in the back of your mind.'

‘I will,' Alice said. When the war was over. When the child was born and she was free to choose. When Hugo came home and the world stopped turning upside down for them all.

Nick gave her an envelope the next morning. It was sealed down tightly.

‘What is it?' she asked him.

There was no laughter in either of them. The idyll was over. Their bags were in the back of the car and he was dropping her back at Ashton and going on to London.