Fallen Skies

  “That’s all, Sally,” she said graciously. “Thank you.”

  Sally nodded and went out of the door, closing it carefully behind her. Lily waited until she heard the girl going downstairs before she let herself grin. Then she ate her eggs and her toast and drank her tea. It tasted infinitely better than anything she had ever made for herself. It tasted infinitely better than anything she had ever paid for.

  She was ready for Stephen promptly at eleven, wearing a summer dress of wild silk in a rich pink-peach colour. The silk was slightly rough to the touch, the surface marked with little bobbles of thread. Lily had pointed them out in the shop. “That’s not right,” she had said. “Silk ought to be smooth.”

  The shop assistant had shaken her beautifully marcelled head. “This is wild silk, Madam,” she had said. “Very exclusive. This is the proper texture of wild silk.”

  Lily had nodded, committing two words to memory—“wild” silk and “exclusive.” They had altered the dress so that it fitted perfectly. It was cut square across the neckline with two broad straps over the shoulders. It came with a little jacket with broad shoulders and neat square lapels. Lily glowed in it like a peach herself.

  “By jove, Lily, you are a lovely thing,” Stephen said as he met her in the hall. “Got a hat? It’s quite a scorcher.”

  Lily had a sun hat of woven white straw.

  “And I’ve ordered a picnic,” Stephen said. He was wearing white flannel trousers and a white shirt with a cravat at his neck. Lily looked at him with approval. He looked younger when he was not wearing his dark office suits. “Something rather special,” Stephen said, indicating the hamper. “Cook has done us proud.”

  Lily suddenly remembered the doorstep sandwiches and shared bottle of lemonade on the picnic with Charlie. Stephen’s treats were always planned ahead, he was like an adult planning excursions and amusements for a child. Charlie and she had been like two children, run away for the day together. Even Stephen’s play was constrained. At his most easy he was always formal.

  Lily beamed at him. He was her husband and Charlie was far away. “Divine!” she said firmly. “Too, too divine.”

  Coventry was waiting at the car. He came up the steps and took the hamper from Stephen. He loaded it into the boot and then shut the passenger door on Stephen and Lily.

  “Take us down the Chichester road,” Stephen said. “Keep an eye open for somewhere nice to stop. If you don’t see anywhere, take us to Bosham. It’s a pretty little village,” he said to Lily. “Right on the water’s edge. When there’s a high tide they get sea water in their sitting rooms! Ever been there?”

  Lily shook her head, enjoying the sunlight and the bright colours of Southsea Common rolling past the car window. “It sounds lovely.”

  “And then we’ll go on to Chichester and have a look round the cathedral. Maybe get a cup of tea before we come home.”

  Lily nodded.

  Stephen put his hand confidently on her knee. Lily did not move. She had a private certainty that his hand was damp and would mark the delicate silk, or crush it and take the desirable new stiffness from it. She remained silent for as long as she could, but then she could bear it no longer. “Mind my skirt,” she said, lifting his hand a little.

  With a slow challenging look Stephen lifted the fabric of the skirt up out of the way, and then put his hand back on her knee, moist and warm against her stocking. Lily flushed scarlet and glanced towards Coventry in front of them, his eyes on the road.

  “All right,” Stephen said pleasantly. “I’ll mind the skirt.”

  17

  LILY AND STEPHEN LOOKED AROUND Chichester cathedral for a little while until Stephen grew gloomy over the memorial stones.

  “Such a fuss,” he said irritably. “Such a fuss about death.”

  “Tea!” Lily declared. “I am longing for tea!” She was learning to manage him. More importantly, she was learning that she must manage him to secure her own comfort.

  Stephen’s face cleared. “I know the very place!”

  They left the cathedral by the main west door. It opened on to a little green edged with large trees. Beyond them was the street, the shops and hotel of the little market town. Lily liked the way that the cathedral was part of the buildings of the town, as if you might purchase or pray depending on which door you entered. She was learning to like cathedrals and museums and art galleries. Before her marriage she had never so much as inspected the outside of a public building. She had been amazed in London at how much arduous sightseeing they had done. She was beginning to learn that the problem for Stephen’s class was how to fill their empty leisure time. They had no labour to exhaust them, they had no education left incomplete. They had to take up sports, and drive aimlessly around. They had to change for different times of the day, several times a day, and make a fuss about the timing of different meals and different drinks. There was nothing else for them to do.

  In Lily’s childhood everyone she knew had worked so hard that when they had days off, they rested. It was a rare family that even bothered to take the short bus ride to the sea. Only children had the energy for play, the adults were in a permanent state of weariness. It was strange for Lily suddenly to be within a class where getting tired was the purpose of half of their activities.

  “Here we are,” Stephen said.

  The Dolphin and Anchor hotel faced the cathedral, and was painted white on the outside, dark and cool inside. Stephen and Lily sank into deep leather armchairs in the hotel foyer and Stephen ordered tea, sandwiches and cakes.

  Lily waited until he had eaten and she had poured him a second cup. Only then did she open the subject that had been on her mind since she had woken in smiling confidence in the morning. “I’ve had a letter from my friend in the Midsummer Madness company, Madge Sweet.”

  “I saw you had a letter. What did she want?”

  “Nothing. Only to tell me that there is a show being put together at the Kings, Southsea. She thought I could try for a part.”

  Stephen’s eyebrows snapped together. “Why?”

  Lily looked at him inquiringly. “Because it would be a good show . . .”

  Stephen’s moustache moved with his smile but his eyes were stern. “I hardly think my wife need hop about the stage for a pittance of a wage.”

  Lily replaced her tea cup in the saucer. “I know I don’t need to. But I never thought that I would stop work just because I was married.”

  “You’d better think it now then. I have no intention of seeing my wife high-kicking in the chorus line on stage.”

  There was a silence. Lily was measuring Stephen’s determination.

  “It wouldn’t be the chorus line, it would be a solo. I am a soloist.”

  “Makes no difference.”

  Lily fell silent again. “I didn’t know you felt like this,” she started. “I had thought that I would go back to work as soon as we came home.”

  Stephen shook his head.

  “My ma was very proud of me,” Lily said. There was a slight quaver in her voice. “She thought that I would be a star. The Midsummer Madness tour was just the start. And she was right. I’ve had a letter from the Kings offering me an audition.”

  “No,” Stephen said shortly.

  “Wait!” Lily said. She could feel her rising irritation. “You don’t even know what kind of show it is, or what kind of part I could get. I wouldn’t be a chorus girl, I’d be a singer. There are many married women who are singers. I wouldn’t necessarily go on tour even. And I thought you liked my singing?”

  “I do like your singing. But my wife does not give public performances, Lily. It’s simply not on.”

  Lily gritted her teeth. “It’s a wonderful chance for me, Stephen. If I don’t take it I might never get another.”

  Stephen smiled. “You’re right on both counts. You won’t take this and you won’t take another. You are my wife now, Lily, not a chorus girl. The two roles are entirely separate. You cannot do both.”

  “Y
ou don’t understand—you keep saying chorus girl. But I wouldn’t be a chorus girl. I wouldn’t be in the chorus. What we should do is let me try for it, and, if I get it, you can see what I would be doing, and see if you like it.”

  “No.”

  “Stephen . . .”

  “No.”

  Lily picked up her tea cup, her hands shaking with anger, her face blazing. “You are ruining my career,” she said angrily.

  “You have no career. You are my wife.”

  “What d’you want me to do? Stay at home all day? Knit?”

  Stephen shrugged. “I expect you will find pastimes suitable for your position.”

  “I am a singer,” Lily said, her voice shaking with tears and anger. “That is my career.”

  Stephen shook his head. He was outwardly calm but he could feel his anger building inside him. The taste of anger in his mouth made him sick. It tasted like blood. It smelled like the sweet dangerous smell of violets, of gas. “For the last time, Lily, you will not go back to the stage. That is my final decision.”

  There was a silence. A waitress came to clear the tea things and wondered at the two of them sitting woodenly opposite each other, Lily flushed and trembling, Stephen icy white.

  “Those two are having a row,” she whispered to the other waitress. “A scorcher.”

  “I thought you would look after me,” Lily eventually whispered. “Not ruin my life!”

  “You over-dramatize everything. You are hysterical. I am not ruining your life. I am ensuring that you behave in the way you ought. You are my wife. You owe a certain behaviour to my position.”

  Lily said nothing. She thought of telling him that she would leave him. She thought of sweeping from the tea room and never coming back. But though Lily was young and angry, she was realistic. She had nowhere else to go and she had no money of her own.

  “Let’s go home,” Stephen said. “You’ve spoiled the whole day anyway.”

  Coventry watched them in his wing mirror on the drive back to Portsmouth. He saw Lily’s head turned determinedly away from Stephen, looking out over the fields. Once or twice she put her gloved hand up to her cheek and blotted a tear with her fingertip. Stephen was leaning back with his eyes half-closed. Coventry knew the signs of his anger—the flexing of the muscles in his jaw and the skin white around his mouth. Coventry pursed his lips in a silent whistle, following tunes in his head. He drove a little quicker to get them home sooner.

  The quarrel was not resolved over dinner. Stephen sat one end of the table and Muriel the other. Lily bent her head over her plate between them. Muriel inquired after their day and received polite but monosyllabic replies from each of them. She launched into a detailed description of her own day which took them from the first course past the steak pie and on to dessert, which was fruit salad and thin cream. Neither of them spoke.

  “Will you be going out for the day tomorrow?” Muriel inquired of Stephen.

  “No,” Stephen said shortly. “I shall go to the office.”

  So the honeymoon was over, Muriel thought. Please God the rest of the marriage goes better than this first week. Home early from London, home early from a day trip. If he cannot get on with her, then why did he marry her in the first place? Muriel shot a look at Lily’s downcast profile. A girl so very beautiful ought to be blissfully happy in her first weeks of marriage. Blissful, Muriel repeated to herself. Stephen married for love, the girl of his choice. Why could the two not get on?

  Lily excused herself when they took their coffee in the drawing room. “I have a headache. I think I’ll have an early night.”

  “Oh, poor dear!” Muriel said. “D’you have everything you need? Aspirin?”

  “Yes,” Lily said. “I have everything. Good night.”

  Muriel said “good night.” Stephen nodded. He watched the door close behind her, saying nothing.

  Muriel hesitated. It would be most natural to ask Stephen what was wrong with Lily. What was there between the two of them that was souring these early days? But the habit of silence between her and her son was very heavy. Muriel could not break it unaided. She glanced towards Stephen and he smiled at her. His face was quite impassive.

  “More coffee, Mother?”

  Muriel sighed. “No thank you, dear.”

  “I think I’ll take mine upstairs and drink it with the old man.”

  Muriel nodded. It was not her place to suggest that Stephen would do better to climb the next flight and try to settle matters with his young wife.

  Stephen went heavily up the stairs. Muriel heard the door of Rory’s bedroom open, and then the quick exchange of words as the nurse went out.

  Stephen shut the door behind her. “Hello, Father,” he said.

  The figure on the bed lay as still as ever.

  “Rum sort of day,” Stephen said. “Hot as ever. The garden wants rain.” He sat beside his father’s bed and put his coffee cup down on the bedside table. His father’s dark eyes watched him.

  “We took the car over to Chichester for the day,” Stephen said. “Had a look around the town. I showed Lily the cathedral. We had tea at the Dolphin and Anchor hotel.”

  There was a silence in the room. Rory’s loud breathing rasped as he inhaled and then breathed out again.

  “We had a bit of a spat,” Stephen volunteered. “Silly really.”

  Rory’s face never changed. Stephen shrugged his shoulders. “She’s young,” he said. “And highly strung. She gets overwrought very easily. She doesn’t understand how we live yet. The kind of family she’s married into. Mother will have to show her the ropes, show her the way around. She’ll learn. She’ll pick it up. She’s young enough to break in, after all!”

  He gave a little laugh, and reached for his coffee cup.

  His father lay in silence.

  “Oh, I know,” Stephen said disagreeably. “You’re thinking that if Christopher had lived he would have married a baronet’s daughter at the very least.”

  He put his coffee cup down with a rattle of cup on saucer. “Well, he didn’t live. He’s gone. All you have left is me. And all I could fancy was Lily. However she is, however she behaves, she’s still better than those damned harpies which were all that Mother could find for me.”

  He broke off and went to the window, twitched back the curtain and looked out. It was a clear star-filled night. The moon stretched a silver path out over the sea. The waves moved like gleaming muscles on the body of the water.

  “Bright,” Stephen said anxiously. “Bright as day out there.”

  He dropped the curtain and turned back into the room. “She’s so clean,” he said. “Even now. Even now we’re married I look at her and she’s like a girl that you might dream about. She’s like the girls were before they learned to be modern and smoke. Even in the short skirts she wears she’s not like a modern girl. She’s young and she’s clean and it’s as if none of the war ever happened when I’m near her.”

  He sat back beside the bed again and took his father’s limp cold hand. “They’re all whores,” he said confidentially. “Every single one of them. All of them, except for Lily. You can tell just by looking at her. She’s not like the rest of them. She’s clean and she’s young. We might have a bit of difficulty—well, everyone has a bit of difficulty in the early days of a marriage. But she is the only English girl I ever met that I could look at and know for sure that she’s not like the rest of them. She’s not a whore.”

  He patted his father’s hand and laid it to rest on the counterpane. Rory stared at him as if he could hear, as if he had something to say in reply to his son.

  “There was a girl in Belgium like her,” Stephen said softly. “A farmer’s daughter, a country girl. A real old-fashioned girl.” He smiled for a moment, his whole face softening at the memory. “Good night,” he said abruptly, and went quietly from the room.

  Upstairs he found Lily lying in bed with the light out. He undressed in the bathroom to avoid disturbing her and then he slid into the bed beside
her.

  The tide was high, he could hear the sound of waves on the shingle beach. It was full moon; the yellow curtains glowed in the darkness of the room. Stephen knew from Lily’s careful stillness that she was awake.

  He smiled to himself. She was young, she would learn. It was funny that he had mentioned that Belgian girl Juliette Perot to his father. She would have been even younger than Lily if she had lived, but they both had that same purity. She had been taught by the nuns at Ypres convent, and then come home to help her mother and father on the farm when her brothers were called up to fight. Juliette would have made a good nun, Stephen thought. When she brought eggs or meat or cheeses to sell she carried herself with that serene confidence. She drove a little pony and cart—he smiled suddenly at the memory of the little pony and cart. Along those little lanes, behind the lines of the trenches, far enough away, so that people could pretend that life was still normal, Juliette trotted her pony delivering her father’s produce to the little cafés.

  Every day they heard guns like thunder and saw the lines of reserves marching northward. Every day they saw the commandeered buses and wagons and stretcher carriers slogging south with loads of dying men. But Juliette would trot her little pony about her business as if the world had not gone to war on her doorstep.

  Stephen nodded. That was where she resembled Lily. That same gritty determination not to acknowledge the war. The refusal to see it, to be touched by it, which was so infinitely better than either sympathy or enthusiasm.

  He reached out a hand to touch Lily on the shoulder. It occurred to him for the first time that she might be distressed. He had banned her from her work and from her friends, she had eaten virtually nothing at supper and complained of a headache. Her mother was dead and she had no friends. She might have been weeping. The poor little thing was kicking against the traces, but she would have to be broken in.

  His hand brushed the warmth of her skin. Tenderness swelled in Stephen, he was ready to make up.

  “If you lay one finger on me,” Lily said clearly and icily, “I will scream the house down.”