The Jewel Box (12 page)

I shall get through this, she told herself, as she narrowly but deliberately evaded Nancy’s hurled bouquet. Tomorrow morning will be dreadful but I don’t have to think about that now. And, after today, it can only get easier.

But it didn’t. The newlyweds stayed on with the Rutherfords over Christmas. It was George who stood carving the goose, and who took Mr. Rutherford’s old seat at the table. George was the new, resonant tenor when it came to carol singing around the piano. He fixed the wireless. He set the fires every evening. He fought his way, on those crutches, through the neglected, bramble-infested garden with clippers and shears, restoring all to rights. Nancy watched him with adoration in her eyes, then turned those eyes on her sister and mother. See? they clearly said. See what a prize he is? See how lucky we are to have him?

Grace searched for signs of resentment in her mother, as, little by little, George moved further into her father’s old territory. But Mrs. Rutherford was relentlessly cheerful, and Grace was unable to catch her eye. Increasingly, her unexpressed anger was directed at the stoic widow. She wanted to grab her mother by the shoulders and shout: They have turned us into guests in our own home! She’s flaunting her happiness like a
new dress! Doesn’t it bother you that they’ve made your firstborn into an untouchable spinster at twenty?

Worst of all were the nights. Mrs. Rutherford had surrendered the master bedroom, herself taking her younger daughter’s tiny room. This meant there was only a thin, interior wall between Grace and the frisky newlyweds.

By Boxing Day, Grace’s nerves were in tatters, and when George and Nancy had left the breakfast table to go for a walk, she felt compelled to say something.

“I’ve been thinking, Mummy. You must be terribly cramped in Nancy’s room.”

“I’m absolutely fine. The youngsters need the space much more than I do. More tea, dear?” Mrs. Rutherford was busying herself with the pot, and, as usual, Grace couldn’t catch her eye.

“Why don’t you swap with me?” she tried. “You’d be so much more comfortable in my room.”

“As I said, I’m fine. Please don’t trouble yourself about this, Grace.”

“But it isn’t right that you should be so inconvenienced. Not with Daddy…Not after the difficult time you’ve had. Nancy ought to be ashamed of herself, putting you out of your own bedroom.”

A steely glare. “She has done no such thing. It was my idea entirely. And as I’ve already said, I’m fine. Now do let it alone.”

“Of course. Whatever you say.” Grace sat gripping the edge of the table, trying to calm herself. Focusing all her energy on not saying what she wanted to say.

Late in the evening, on George’s last night, Grace found herself alone with him before the fire. Mother had turned in at
her usual ten o’clock. Nancy had then become overwrought about his imminent departure and had gone up for a calming bath. The two were left in an uneasy silence, staring into the still-lively flames, drinking brandy.

“There’s something I wanted to ask you, Grace.” George swirled the golden liquid around his glass.

“Yes, of course I’ll look after Nancy while you’re away.” Grace had finished her drink and was fighting the urge for another. “She’s my sister.”

“Thanks…but that wasn’t it.” His voice was uncharacteristically hesitant. Grace darted a look at him.

“What, then?”

“I just…” He raked a hand through the auburn hair. “Are you angry?”

“Why on
earth
should I be
angry
with you?” This was spoken in a kind of snarl.

“Yes, I thought as much.” He looked up at her and smiled nervously. “You’re not much good at hiding it.”

“Light me a cigarette, would you?” She tried to calm herself. An opportunity had arisen unexpectedly, and she had to work out how to grasp it. If they were ever to talk openly with each other about what had happened between them—about what it all meant—then it had to be now. This might be the last time they would ever be alone together, after all. Oh,
God
. She mustn’t allow herself to believe this could be the last time!

He had gotten up—no need for those crutches now—and was reaching for the packet that was tucked behind the clock on the mantelpiece. He was saying something about the difficulty of their all being here under one roof. He was mumbling halfheartedly, and she found she wasn’t listening. Instead, she was working out what she wanted to say to him. She was looking at his long back. His neck.

“You’ve changed,” she said, cutting across his vagaries.

“Of course I have.” He handed the lit cigarette over and she set it in her holder. He’d lit one for himself, too. “How could it be otherwise?”

“You’re not the old George anymore. All polite and proper and nice. Funnily enough, there’s more of Steven in you now. It’s as if the two of you have become one person—all rolled up in your body.”

“What rot.” It was spoken lightly but there was a visible tensing around his mouth and in his neck. He was sitting on the very edge of the chair.

Grace realized something. “
You’re
angry with
me
.”

“No, I’m not. But would you blame me if I was? That was a pretty offensive thing you just said.” He dragged hard on his cigarette.

“You saw us, didn’t you? Steven and me.”

“What?” But he was clearly playing for time.

The heat from the fire was oppressive and the room airless. She was dizzy with it all.

“You saw me with your brother that night. And it made you so angry that you went back into the house and proposed to my sister. You did it just to spite me! Of all the stupid things…”

A forced-sounding chuckle. “You have incredible vanity, Grace.”

“Oh, really?”

“I love Nancy.”

She blew out a smoke ring. “I hope that’s true.” This was turning into a battle of sorts, albeit a subtle kind. “You’ve certainly been very honorable. To her, I mean. You’ve done the right thing.”

The fire made a strange, slow, squeaking noise. It was as if
there was something alive in there—something that was having the life squeezed out of it.

“Nancy wants Mother to have one of those smart little gas fires installed in here,” said Grace absently. “The new sort, like the one in her bedroom. Sorry—
your
bedroom. She says it’ll be nice and clean and easy.”

“I married your sister because that was what we both wanted.
Both
of us.”

A loud pop from the fire. A fizz. She tried not to notice the way George flinched at the noise.

“Over my dead body, I told Mother. A real fire is something alive. I love all the smuts and the dirt. I don’t like things to be too nice and clean and easy.”

“Things never are, are they?” He got to his feet and threw his cigarette into the fire.

“Poor Nancy.”

“Save your sympathy. We’re perfectly happy.”

“You’re finding this as difficult as I am. Aren’t you?” Her voice was softer now.

He took up the poker and prodded the logs to encourage the flames to die down. Carefully put the fire guard in place. “It was a world ago, Grace. That day on the Heath. Everything has changed since then.
Everything
. You have no idea what
difficult
is.”

“I’m sorry.” She was embarrassed. Humbled in the face of his grandly unknowable experiences. “You’re right, of course. What could I possibly know?”

He closed his eyes.

“I wish I
did
know, George. I wish you’d talk to me about it all.”

George sighed and opened his eyes. “When Steven and I first arrived in France, we were sent to Harfleur for technical
instruction before going up the line. It was something they did with the new fellows. We were supposed to be there for a couple of weeks or so. It was all drilling, musketry, lectures about gas and bombs…One day, when we were waiting for an instructor to come and talk to us about bombs, a sergeant decided to give a little unofficial talk, sort of a preliminary session. Well, this sergeant was giving us a caution on what
not
to do with a percussion grenade, and he went and knocked the thing against the table to demonstrate his point. Damn thing went off, killing him and two others and wounding a further ten.”

“Oh, my God.”

“Grace…”

She knew what he was about to say even before he said it.

“Steven was one of the two. He never even made it to the trenches.”

She heard herself protesting. “I saw the letter from the colonel. It said Steven died a gallant death—that he was hit by a shell during an offensive and died on the way back to base. Died of wounds, that’s what it said.”

“That was a form letter. The colonel sent out hundreds of those things.”

She looked at his eyes—they had a dullness to them, a dead quality. And she knew it was true. “That’s monstrous.”

“It’s all monstrous. Keep it to yourself, will you? I don’t want my parents knowing just how pointless and arbitrary my brother’s death was. Or Nancy—she’d worry about me even more than she already does.” He got up and headed for the door. “Good night.”

“I still want to know more. I still want you to talk to me about it all. If you should ever want to.” The offer sounded pathetic, even to her.

“Good night, Grace.” And then, a seeming afterthought, his hand on the doorknob: “You might send me a letter now and again. If you’d like to, that is. I don’t suppose Nancy would mind.”

His feet on the stairs. The creak of the floorboards. The sound of their voices somewhere above—his and Nancy’s.

I am not a Good Girl. This is patently clear to all regular readers of this column. I stay out late. I like the company of men. I’m vain. I wear too much makeup. I’m economical with the truth when it suits me. I never refuse a cocktail. I’m not demure…Well, until recently, that is.

Standing in the rain at the end of a long night, I was asked a question by a splendidly handsome man of my acquaintance, and I said no when I wanted to say yes. I did it because I believed it to be the correct tactic. You say no and it drives the gentleman mad and he comes running after you like a boy chasing a kite when the wind has yanked the string from his hand. At least, that’s what he’s supposed to do. Not this time, readers. This gentleman appears not to understand the rules of the game. Perhaps he’s mistaken me for a Good Girl, the sort of girl who says no because she really
means
no. Perhaps he’s playing
a different game entirely. This has not been a good week.

You’ll perhaps want to know about some restaurants and dance clubs. Well, what can I tell you in my present mood? If you’re forced by circumstances beyond your control to go to Morelli on Brewer Street, do not, I beg you, order the fish. Or the pork. Or the spaghetti. Or any of the puddings. Or the starters. If your pigheaded companion of the evening strong-arms you to drop in at Little Venice on Lower Regent Street, take a table as far away from the dance floor as you possibly can, as the place is more crowded than a football match and anyone within half a mile of the capering couples will be trodden on, kicked about the shins or worse. (If your week is as bad as mine, a large bald gentleman might actually fall right across your table as you sit with your drink and your
pommes frites,
and then have the audacity to complain that
you
had got yourself in
his
way.) Finally, if extraordinary circumstances beyond your control contrive that you should arrive, one night, at Marchesa’s nightclub on Charing Cross Road…But no—surely
nothing
would drag any sane person into that earsplittingly awful shoe box of sweat, watered-down cocktails and the Badly Dressed.

Also this week’s letters are laden with complaint. Miss Gertrude Summerhouse of Peck-ham berates me for declaring Dexter O’Connell to be untrustworthy and has instructed me to publicize that, “Analysis of Mr. O’Connell’s handwriting, astrological chart and fingerprints reveal him to be a true and honorable person, someone who can be absolutely relied upon.” Miss Elizabeth Jones of Hammersmith is yet more emphatic: “How dare you talk that way about Dexter O’Connell? Call yourself a writer? You’re not fit to lick his boots.” Methinks these ladies and their fair companions in my postbag may be dancing a Charleston with the green-eyed monster.

So what do I do about my unruly gentleman? Answers
to the usual address, please. Obviously the correct tactic is to do nothing and wait, but I fear I’ll wait forever. I could go and find that Devil and make sure he understands what a rare and precious thing a Diamond is. But that’s what Bad Girls do, isn’t it? And it never ends well for Bad Girls. I share my dilemma with you, dear readers, in a spirit of camaraderie. You might not understand or agree with me, but if you simply disapprove, then you are not a part of the modern world I’m writing for, and you shouldn’t bother reading my columns.

Oh yes, a correction: I’m assured by a reliable source that “The good proprietress of the Morning Glory patisserie on Baker Street does not have a mustache. It must have been a shadow.”

Five o’clock shadow, possibly.

Diamond Sharp

It
started as a whisper that grew louder. Grace heard it late one night at the Salamander, and then again the following night at the Lido. On the third morning she had a telephone call from Dickie. The rumor ran that Dexter O’Connell was to give a reading at nine o’clock that evening, at Ciro’s of all places. Dickie’s call to the manager of Ciro’s had produced an odd response: He would neither confirm nor deny the rumor. This of course added fuel to the fire.

Dickie said, “You’d better get along there, Grace.”

Grace said, “I’d rather not, if it’s all the same to you.”

“He’s reading from the new novel. You should be the one to cover it.”

“Dickie, there
is
no new novel.”

“That’s not what you said in the interview. Now just stop complaining and make sure you’re there.”