The Safest Place in London (26 page)

A double-barrelled shotgun was aimed squarely at him. Holding the shotgun was a squat, stocky, red-faced and
pugnacious farmer in soiled boots, tattered overalls and a worn hat, eyes narrowed against the sleet. The man's clothes, his face, the hands that gripped the shotgun had the same weather-beaten aspect as the sheep, as the ancient buildings, as the hillside itself, as though he had withstood endless winters out in the open with little or no shelter.

‘I'm looking for my wife,' replied Gerald mildly, though he felt a blinding rage surge inside him at this fresh delay. ‘Perhaps you know her? Mrs Meadows? She has a small child with her. And, I say, perhaps you wouldn't mind pointing that shotgun elsewhere?'

The shotgun wavered and after a moment was partially lowered. ‘Aye, I know the lass,' the man admitted. ‘Rented my cottage to her last week.' And he nodded towards the squat stone building. ‘She never said nowt to me about no husband, though.'

‘That's because she believed me to be abroad with my regiment. But as you see, I am returned and anxious to be reunited.'

‘Show us yer papers then,' the man demanded, waving the shotgun's barrel towards the place on Gerald's person where he clearly imagined such papers to be.

‘If you were a sentry or a policeman I would certainly show you my papers, but as you are neither I shall do no such thing.'

Gerald picked up his case and set off towards the cottage. He had just noticed a thin stream of black smoke coming from its chimney.

‘How do I know you're not a Fifth Columnist, then?' the man called out after him, his voice louder but at the same time becoming doubtful.

‘How do I know
you're
not?' Gerald countered.

At this the man blustered, ‘Because I'm Inghamthorpe of Inghamthorpe's Farm, that's why! Been farming this land since George the Third were on't throne.'

‘Really? You hardly look old enough,' Gerald replied. ‘Now may we please get out of this filthy weather? I, for one, am heartily sick of it.' And he turned once more towards the house. The fellow could shoot him; it was the only way he was going to be prevented from knocking on that door.

But the man, Inghamthorpe, was not to be outdone: ‘AHOY THERE, MRS MEADOWS!' he called out in a voice loud enough to send the nearest sheep scattering in panic, and Gerald saw a movement at the window, the twitch of a curtain.

A moment later a bolt was drawn back and the rough-hewn timber front door creaked open.

Diana stood in the doorway.

No one spoke. She did not run and throw her arms around him. She did not exclaim. She did none of the things a wife might be expected to do in such circumstances, merely stood there dumbly and into the silence a crow, very high up in the sky, cawed loudly over and over.

She was thinner and worn, her face wan with an odd, almost corpse-like pallor. She was wrapped inside a large winter coat, the collar pulled up and her arms hugging herself, and from within the folds of her coat her eyes searched his face, eyes he barely recognised. They were black, startled. But it was more than that; it was shock, the kind of shock he had seen many times etched on the faces of men trapped for hours under enemy fire. Now she moved, her mouth falling open. Her head went back, her eyes blinking. She shook her head as though disbelieving his presence
here in the doorway and Gerald wondered, bizarrely, if his wife had thought him dead, if there had been some awful ministry cock-up and he had been reported missing, a casualty, for only that, surely, could account for her reaction.

‘Ahoy, Mrs Meadows! This fella claims to be your husband. That right? Can you vouch for him? Else I'll be off t'police station this minute and have him delivered t'authorities!'

Diana turned, gazing at the farmer with his shotgun standing insistently and proprietarily a little way up the track, and it seemed to take her an extraordinarily long time to understand who he was and what he wanted.

‘Yes, it's quite alright, Mr Inghamthorpe. This is Mr Meadows. This is my husband.'

Her voice was strained, the words forced, unnatural. But it was a long time since she had last said, ‘This is my husband.' Years, in fact.

‘Right you are, then,' called the man, who even now seemed reluctant to depart. ‘I'll leave you to it then, Mrs Meadows. You know where I am should you be wanting assistance.'

They watched the man lumber away.

And now, at last, it was just the two of them.

‘Gerald!' she said, stepping outside to place her hands in his and squeezing them. ‘How marvellous! I cannot quite believe you are here.' Her eyes had a sort of wild intensity, her words a frantic cheerfulness.

How marvellous
?
I cannot quite believe you are here
? They were like lines uttered by a second-rate actor in a third-rate play. Had he been away so long that she no longer knew him, no longer knew how to talk to him?

‘Diana.' And he offered the same frantic smile but inside him something cried out in protest.

‘Well, come in, come in, out of this perishing cold!' she said, pulling him into the cottage and closing the door.

She led him along a short passage into a surprisingly large room at the rear of the house, part kitchen, part sitting room, where a wood fire roared in a massive stone hearth and an equally massive range gently smoked. Rough, handmade furniture, worn smooth from years of usage, filled the space, the stone-flagged floor covered haphazardly with homemade rugs. A rickety wooden staircase in the corner of the room led to a loft that he had not seen from the outside. It was warm, almost too warm, yet Diana stood, hugging her winter coat about her, the collar turned up. Her fingers when she had squeezed his hands a moment earlier had been frozen. If he touched her face that would be frozen too. She looked at him with that same bright, brittle smile, then turned about in a circle like a tour guide, offering him the house, the contents of the rooms.

‘This is us. It's quite cosy, as you see. But you must be cold. Here, sit by the fire. There's water boiling. I shall make us a nice cup of tea.' And she went to the range and began to make the tea.

Gerald stood in the middle of the room. The crackle of the fire, the warmth of the room, the comforting sound of the firewood splitting and falling and crackling was like a dreamed-of image of England, of home, but he was cold to his bones.

‘Where's Abigail?'

She did not reply and the sudden hiss of the kettle rattling on the hob rising rapidly to a shrill shriek took up all her concentration and perhaps she had not heard him. He watched as she
busied herself with the teapot and the cups and saucers, retrieving from the scullery a milk jug covered with a muslin cloth—real milk, he noticed, here in the country.

He placed his kitbag on the floor and slowly pulled out one of the wooden chairs at the kitchen table, sat down on it, aware as he did so that his movements were measured, almost deliberate. He felt as though he was watching himself from far away.

‘Here we are!' she said, coming over with a tray with the tea things on. ‘Real milk!' she said, sitting down. ‘No sugar, of course. I haven't had time yet to register with any of the local shops. I brought the tea with me. I didn't know what they would have up here in the north.' As though they were in some wild and uncharted land and not twelve miles from Leeds.

She lifted the lid of the teapot and peered inside. He had forgotten that, how she always lifted the lid and peered at the tea before pouring it. Satisfied, she poured some into his cup and handed it to him, and that was something else she always did, handed the cup and saucer rather than slide it across the table, and he had always imagined that someone must once have told her that it was vulgar to slide it. It wasn't vulgar so far as he was aware but she apparently firmly believed it.

There were signs of her recent arrival: an empty packing case on the floor, books piled on the dresser as there appeared to be no bookcase, a pair of shoes still wrapped in tissue paper over by the steps. But how had she got here and got all her things here? Who had helped her? The farmer, Inghamthorpe? Or had she managed somehow on her own? And how had she found this cottage? And
why
? Why was she here?

And where was Abigail?

‘When did you get back?' Diana enquired, as though she had gone out to the shops and come home to find him returned early from a day at the office.

‘A day or so ago. They flew us back in a de Havilland, over Portugal.' He supposed that that was not careless talk, that he could hardly be censured for telling her that. ‘I only got the news I was coming home the night before. There was no time to write. I tried to ring from Exeter but there were no lines.'

He felt as though he were explaining himself, as though he needed to explain his presence to her, when surely it should be the other way around?

‘No, the telephone is somewhat hit and miss. How did you track me down? Did Mrs Probart tell you where I was?'

‘Yes and—I was a little confused. To get home and find you not there . . .'

He heard himself say that but it sounded absurd, even to his own ears.
I was a little confused
! They were like strangers. He thought about the men in his unit, many of whom went home on leave and met and married some utterly unsuitable girl about whom they knew absolutely nothing and when they returned home a year, two years later, found they had nothing in common with the girl and the marriage had all been a ghastly mistake. But that hardly applied here—he and Diana had been married ten years before he had left for the war. And yet she was nervous, making small talk, avoiding meeting his eyes, fiddling with the teapot, starting at every sound. For the first time he wondered if there had been another man. The thought crept in, skirting just out of reach, and the air around him dropped a degree or two.

‘But why have you come up here, Diana?' He saw her start as though he had banged the table. ‘And why didn't you tell me?'

‘But I did. I wrote to you as soon as I arranged it—though I see now that you didn't get the letter before you set off. And I left my details with Mrs Probart, just in case. But really, I had no reason to expect you back, you gave no indication . . .'

As I said ‘I only found out I was going the night before. Someone got sick and there was a spot on the aircraft. You sound almost as if you wish I hadn't come home.' And he laughed, though the laugh was like a heavy object falling.

‘Darling, that's absurd! How silly you are.' She reached across and touched his arm.

The touch made him recoil. He did not believe her.

‘You still haven't told me why you've come all the way up here.'

‘I'd have thought it was obvious, darling. It's safe here. There are no bombs. No air raids.'

‘But there were no air raids at home! In London, yes, but not in Bucks, surely?'

She stood up, cradling her cup in her hand though she had not touched the tea. ‘I was in London and I got caught in a raid. It was all rather beastly. I'm afraid I rather lost my nerve a bit after that.' She sat down again, made herself look at him. ‘Darling, it's awful to have to admit it after what you must have endured, and I know other people have to put up with it night after night, but I couldn't do it. I just—the truth is, after that I no longer felt safe. Even in our home. It felt too close to London. And so I looked in the newspaper and I saw an advertisement and I wrote to Mr Inghamthorpe and here we are. I know it is cowardly of me, but surely you can understand?'

And this, finally, did sound like the truth, for Gerald could see how very frightened she was, had been in fact since she had opened the door to him. She had been caught in a raid. Well, tougher soldiers than her had lost their nerve after a night of shelling; Lord knows he had lost it himself, on occasion, though he had got adept at hiding the fact. She did not need to hide it, not from him. Of course he understood! And he felt an enormous relief overcome him and he leaned over the table and grasped both her hands in his.

‘Diana, I do understand, of course I do. And there is no shame in it, none whatsoever. A lot of people have left London, I do realise that. Your safety is the most important thing, and if you feel safer up here then so be it.'

This ought to have reassured her and yet the smile she gave him was the smile he had seen on the faces of young men the night before battle, the smile on the faces of the young sappers stepping into a minefield with only a bayonet and some marker flags. So he got up and came around the table and kneeled on the floor before her, still holding her hands and searching her face.

‘It really is alright, Diana, I promise. The war won't go on too much longer, and in the meantime you and Abigail will stay up here where it's safe and I'll stay with you as long as I can, and when I go away I shall sleep sounder knowing you are both safe.'

He reached up and touched her cheek, seeing all over again the girl from Pinner, anxious and out of her depth, whom he had met at a tennis party in Ruislip so many years before. He had fallen for that girl, had wanted to shield her from the world so that she never needed to feel anxious or out of her depth again, but he had failed. Failed her by his absence, failed her by his
inability to grasp her fears. Gently he pulled her to her feet and enfolded her in his arms. He had failed her but, if he could, he would make it up to her.

But she was quite rigid in his arms. Neither of them spoke and, after a long moment, and finding the embrace somehow awkward, he let her go.

‘But where is Abigail? I want to see her.'

Diana spun away from him then, wrenching herself free and colliding with the edge of the table. She steadied herself and reached for the teapot. ‘She's upstairs. But, darling, she's sleeping. Don't disturb her. We must have more tea. Can't waste it, can we?' And she waved the teapot at him with that same frantic smile.

‘But I don't care if she's asleep! It's not every day her daddy comes home from the war, is it?'