The Soldier's Wife (8 page)

Chapter 12

M
Y MOTHER DIED
when I was three. I remember how we were taken into her bedroom to say good-bye—me and Iris, my big sister. The room smelled wrong. Her bedroom had always had a scent of the rosewater she wore, but now it held the harsh, sore-throat smell of disinfectant. And my mother looked strange, somehow blurred, as though her face was made of wax and had started to melt. I was a little frightened of her. I wanted to leave the room, to be anywhere else but there. She gripped my hand too tightly, and she was crying, and I didn't like that.

I don't remember much from the weeks and months that followed, except that for the funeral I had to wear a stiff black dress that was made of some itchy fabric, and people told me off for scratching. After my mother's death I was mute for a while, simply refusing to speak at all—or so I've been told. I don't remember much at all from those times. Except for the music box that was mine to keep, which I would play for hours, the music perfumed with memories of her. And there are little images in my head of the house where we lived, off Clapham Common, at
11
Evington Road—a tall, thin, rambling house that was never quite asleep, that would go on settling and creaking all through the night; and the hidden, enclosed garden with whispery, overhanging trees and the leaves of years piled up under them; and the aunts who looked after us, Auntie Maud and Auntie Aggie, who were kind but weren't my mother, so when they combed my hair it hurt. I always remember that—how they pulled too hard at the tangles, not gently easing out the knots as my mother had done.

I was a nervous, frightened child, frightened of so many things: thunderstorms, and the edges of railway platforms; spiders, even the tiny ones that ran all over the terrace at the back of the house, and, crushed, left a smear like a blood stain; afraid above all of the dark. I was always afraid of the dark. Once Iris and I were playing teacher and pupil. I was five, just a little older than Millie is now, and Iris was the teacher. She was very strict and stern, and she decided I'd been bad and locked me in the coal shed. It was a concrete shed, no windows, the door close-fitting to keep the coal dry—not even a thread of light from under the door. I remember the darkness, sudden and absolute, the fear that broke over me like nausea, the rapid panicky skittering of my heart. It was so dark I thought at first I had my eyes shut—that they'd been stuck shut somehow—and I put up my hand and found my eyes were open; I could feel the bristly fluttering of my eyelashes. I learned in that moment that there are different darknesses. That there is ordinary darkness, like the night in the countryside, where, even on a night with no moon, as you stare things loom, take form; and there is another darkness, a dark so profound you cannot begin to imagine it, cannot conjure it up in your mind. A darkness that blots out all you remember or hope for. A darkness that teaches that all that consoles you is false.

I don't think I was in there for long. Auntie Aggie realized what had happened, scolded Iris, came and unlocked the door. But I don't remember that clearly at all—the moment when she let me out into the cheerful day again. It's the darkness I remember.

HOW MUCH DID
that loss of my mother shape the course of my life? Hugely, I can see that now, though it's taken me years to learn this. Now I even wonder if that was why I married the very first man I went out with—whether my decision had something to do with that loss. Wanting to have something settled, longing for safety, wanting to keep things the same—so frightened of change and uncertainty.

I was nineteen when I met Eugene, and still living in the house in Evington Road. I was working as a secretary in an insurance firm in Clapham. I met Eugene at a church social; he was a bank clerk, living in digs in Streatham that always smelled of broccoli. He'd been excited to move to London, but had hoped for something from it that it had somehow failed to give. He was already longing to go back to Guernsey when I met him. There was a faint mothball scent of disappointment that hung about him, though at first I wasn't aware of it. He was a good-looking man—clear eyes, symmetrical features, sleeked-down hair, a clean-cut face that made him seem much younger than his years. Our daughters have that face as well, that open, candid look. And he was always very well turned out—his business suits pressed with a razor-sharp edge, his shoes as shiny as mirror glass. “He's so
handsome,
” everyone said. “He looks just like Jack Pickford. Well, haven't you done well for yourself?” There was something reassuring about his effortless, practiced courtship of me—the yellow roses, the boxes of New Berry Fruits—a feeling that I could leave it to him, that he would take control, make the decisions. What did he see in me? I wonder. I don't know, can't imagine now—though he would always be very flattering about my looks, my clothes. He knows how to flatter a woman. Maybe my rather French-sounding name reassured him in some way, suggested I would fit in on his island. That may sound rather fanciful, yet people will often let themselves be guided by such things, making a weighty decision because some small hand beckons. I've seen this. Whatever the reason, he couldn't wait to gather me up and bring me back to Guernsey.

But from our very first night together, it wasn't as I'd imagined. I didn't feel the way I knew I was meant to feel. I thought it must be my fault, that there was something wrong with me, something missing. Or, to put it more precisely, something
misplaced
. Because I knew I
could
feel these things—just not in bed with Eugene. I'd see a man—a stranger—loosen his tie, unbutton his cuffs, push up the sleeves of his shirt, and my stomach would tighten, I'd feel the thrill go through me. Or I'd dream a dream in which a man who stood behind me was brushing my hair, and I'd lean against him and feel the warmth of him pressing into my back, and I'd wake in a haze of longing.

Maybe he felt something similar—that sense of something missing. Because we made love only rarely, and, once I was pregnant with Millie, never again. We never talked about it—well, how could you possibly talk about such a thing? Slowly, insidiously, with a little shake of the heart, I became aware that there were rumors. Eugene loved amateur dramatics, and he joined a society that rehearsed in St. Peter Port. He had a pleasant, eloquent voice; he loved to play a role. There was a woman there—Monica Charles—who sometimes played opposite him. Red hair, abundant cleavage, pointy lacquered nails, and the plush velvet scent of Shalimar, which she always wore. She was rather outspoken, the sort of woman who seems to use up all the air in the room. She always made me feel somehow small and faded. Gwen said once—carefully, with a slight anxious frown, not quite looking at me—“Does it worry you, Eugene being so friendly with Monica Charles?” My heart lurched. “No. Why should it?” “I just wondered,” she said. “He loves the theater, he's passionate about it,” I said. Putting the words down with such care, like little stones, between us. “It's good that he has something to do that he enjoys so much.” “You're very strong—I admire you,” said Gwen, and moved the conversation on. I closed my mind to what she'd said, careful never to touch on that conversation again, as though her words were sharp things that could cut me.

There was an evening when I took the girls to see him backstage. He'd been starring in
Private Lives
opposite Monica Charles. Millie was two; she was tired out after the performance, and heavy and warm in my arms. I knocked, he didn't answer, I pushed at the door. The scent of Shalimar brushed against me, darkly velvet, insidious. Eugene was there with Monica Charles. She was standing with one foot on a chair, her skirt bunched up around her thighs; he was easing down her stocking, very slowly. There was a sensuousness in the caressing movement of his hand that was entirely unfamiliar to me. They looked up, saw me, moved apart. I saw the shock, then all the excuses forming, hardening, in his eyes. I didn't stay to hear them. Blanche was behind me, Millie was dozing. “He isn't here,” I said. “We must have missed him.” I bundled the girls away; I don't think they saw anything.

We never talked about it, just carried on as we were. But something closed in me then, irrevocable as the sound of the dressing-room door that I'd slammed shut behind me. Something was over for me.

Sometimes I've wondered about it—this thing that was so lacking in my marriage, this part of me that it seemed could never be expressed, yet could be stirred up so suddenly, randomly almost, by a dream or a glance at a stranger, or a stranger glancing at me.

I remember a moment from long before, from when I first knew Eugene, when I was still in London. There was a man who looked at me as I walked along the Embankment by the Thames, who turned around to look at me. It wasn't long before the wedding—I was on my way to meet Iris at the Lyons Corner House in Tottenham Court Road. She was going to be the maid of honor at my wedding, and I wanted to show her some fabric samples for her dress. I was wearing a neat navy suit, my high-heeled strappy suede shoes, my best silk stockings, the seams exact, a hat in dusty-pink felt with a petersham ribbon around it. I was a little late for our meeting—probably off in a dream as usual, perhaps with a line of poetry running through my mind—and I must have been flushed from walking in the chill autumn air. The man was older than me, and tall, with a rather worn, lived-in face. He had a serious look, no smile—a look that required something of me, a look beyond approbation or flattery. His glance felt as real to me as the touch of a hand. I felt the heat go through me, the bright thread of sensation passing down through my body, and all around the brown leaves fluttering, falling, the shining river surging—everything fluid, dancing.

I still sometimes think of that moment. If he'd have asked, I'd have gone with him.

Chapter 13

T
HURSDAY. I GO
up the hill to see Angie. I'm wearing one of my two best dresses; the everyday dress that I'd normally wear isn't fit to be seen. It's the one I wore on the day of the bombing, and I've soaked it again and again, but I still can't get the bloodstains out.

This morning there's no sign of the Germans at Les Vinaires; they must have gone to their work already. Though I can't imagine what occupies them. It can't be very strenuous, keeping our island under control. The weather lifts my spirits a little. It's a bright, breezy day, the summer wind smelling of salt and earth and flowers. The hedgebanks are gorgeous with foxgloves and purple woundwort, and the stream that runs beside the lane is overgrown with green—hart's-tongue fern, little cresses, mother-of-thousands. The thread of water that runs through the ferns squirms in the light like a live thing. Just for a moment I can dream that all is as it always was, that the Occupation hasn't happened.

I've brought Angie a cake, and some blackberry jelly left from last year's batch. Though I wonder if I'm bringing these gifts for myself as much as for her—feeling helpless, needing to feel I'm doing something for her. But she's grateful.

“Oh, Vivienne, you're always so thoughtful. . . . And don't you look lovely today? You're a sight for sore eyes in that dress,” she says.

“Oh. Thanks, Angie.”

I smooth down the skirt. As she says, it's pretty; the cotton has a pattern of flowers of many colors, yellow and cream and forget-me-not blue, like a blowing wildflower meadow. I don't tell her why I'm wearing it.

She makes tea for us, in her big brown pottery teapot. Chickens scratch and bustle outside the open door.

“So, have you seen much of them?” she asks me.

I know she means the Germans.

“They've requisitioned Connie's place next door. There are four of them living there now,” I tell her.

Angie snorts.

“Requisitioned? They use all these fancy words, just to confuse us,” she says. “
Stole,
is what they really mean. . . . But that's rather close, isn't it, Vivienne? You'll be living in one another's pockets. I wouldn't like that at all.”

“Well, at least they didn't take our house.”

It's her wash day. Her kitchen has a wholesome smell of laundry soap and damp linen. She's nearly come to the end of her wash; she's putting her clothes through the mangle before she hangs them out on the line. I see that she's washing some shirts of Frank's.

“You wouldn't mind if I just finished this off, Vivienne?” she asks me.

“No, of course not.”

She sees me noticing the shirts.

“I thought I'd clear out his clothes,” she says. “There's plenty of wear left in them. I'm going to give them to Jack, my brother. He's always grateful for hand-me-downs. They're a bit hard-pressed, him and Mabel, with all those children to feed.”

I sip my tea and watch as she moves the heavy arm of the mangle. Water flurries into the tray that catches the drips, in little spurts that fall in time with the rhythm of her movement.

“So, Angie, are you . . .” The words are solid things in my mouth. “I mean, how is everything?”

She fixes me with her sad steady gaze.

“Not so good, to be honest, Vivienne,” she tells me, very matter-of-fact. “But I know I shouldn't complain. So many people have lost someone.”

“That doesn't make it any easier, though,” I say.

We are silent for a moment. From outside, you can hear the bubbling sound of chickens and the bright whistle of a blackbird in the elder tree by her door.

Her appearance troubles me. Her face has an eroded look, as though years have passed since Frank died, as though those years like a river have washed over her and started to wear her away.

“You must say if there's anything I can do,” I tell her, rather helplessly. “Just anything at all. I could bring you some meals, or something. . . .”

She looks up at me. She pushes her hand through her hair, which is a wiry dark mass around her head. She hasn't bothered with her curlers.

“You've got a kind heart, Vivienne. And—seeing as you've offered—well, there
is
something,” she says. She flushes, a little embarrassed, and I wonder why. “I need to choose some hymns. For his funeral tomorrow. The thing is, I don't have much book learning.”

She's telling me she can't read; it surprises me that I never knew this before.

“Just tell me what to do,” I say.

“There's a hymn book in the cabinet in the parlor,” she says. “I wonder if you could bring it for me? Just while I finish my wash.”

I go to her parlor across the passage. When her house was built hundreds of years ago, this room would have served as the byre—people and animals all sleeping under one roof. It doesn't feel homely, like her kitchen. There's a lumbering three-piece suite that's shrouded in dust sheets, and the air is stale, with a thick sweet scent of lavender polish and damp; you can tell she doesn't often open the windows in here. I find the hymnbook, take it to her.

“Is there a list of hymns in the book?” she asks me.

I turn to the front, to the contents list.

“Could you read through the first lines for me?” she asks. “Just to remind me, so I can choose my favorites?”

I read the first lines of the hymns, with a little pause after each, while she considers it, all the time turning the handle, so the water from the mangled clothes splutters down into the tray. She listens scrupulously, with an intent expression.

At last we come to one that she likes.

“There. Stop there, Vivienne.
Rocked in the cradle of the deep
.” She rolls the phrase around her mouth, as though it is succulent, like some sun-warmed fruit. “I've always been fond of that one,” she says.

“Yes. Me too. Would Frank have liked it?” I say.

She considers this.

“Frank didn't think all that much of religion, to be honest,” she says. “He didn't have much time for religious folk at all. God-botherers, he called them. Bible-thumpers. What he always said was, they're just as bad as the rest of us. . . . But I like a bit of religion myself. I think it helps you through.”

“Yes, it can,” I say.

“Are you a believer, Vivienne?”

The direct question unnerves me. I think how, right through my life, I've always liked going to church: how I love the stained glass and the singing, how I can still find comfort in the familiar resonant words, how I still pray sometimes. But I'm not sure how much I believe now.

“Well, I suppose so,” I say.

The drip of the water seems too loud in the stillness of Angie's kitchen, louder than her voice, which is confiding, nicotine-stained.

“When I was a child, my mother taught me a prayer,” she says. “The prayer of the Breton fishermen, she said it was. It was the only prayer you ever needed, she said.
Oh Lord, help me, for your ocean is so great, and my boat is so small
. That's a good prayer, isn't it? Do you like that prayer, Vivienne?”

I think of waiting at the harbor. Of the little boat that I couldn't trust, wouldn't go in. Of the perilous, shining, unguessable immensity of the sea.

“Yes, I like it,” I say.

She nods.

“I always thought that was a good prayer.” A little rueful smile. “Except He didn't help me, really, did He? He didn't help me at all. Not this time.”

I leave her wringing out her dead husband's clothes.