Saplings

  ‘And a nicer example you couldn’t wish.’

  ‘Couldn’t we all go out before the sermon as it’s a holiday?’ Laurel suggested. ‘I just hate sermons, I get pins and needles all over trying to look interested.’

  She was sitting on Alex’s left. He gave one of her pig-tails an affectionate pull.

  ‘My poor daughter, what a tragic picture!’

  ‘It’s true though,’ Laurel persisted. ‘And it makes me simply hate going to church, which I wouldn’t except for sermons.’

  Tony, seated on Alex’s other side, raised a puzzled face to his father’s.

  ‘Does it make you like going to church being made to go all the time you’re a child?’

  Alex, enjoying his lunch, was unwilling for serious conversation, especially, in front of Lena, this particular conversation, but he always gave the children straight answers to direct questions.

  ‘No. In fact it might put you off. But you’ll be a nuisance to yourself when you grow up if you’ve not learnt self-discipline.’

  Tony scowled, as he was apt to do when he was out of his depth.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Sitting still when you’ve pins and needles is an example. It goes much further than that, of course, but it’s one of the things.’

  Ruth took a swift look at Lena. Was she listening? What was she thinking? She was disciplined in her own way presumably, otherwise how had she acquired her unshakable poise? But of the self-discipline Alex believed in she probably hadn’t an inkling. For all her perfection you couldn’t help feeling that Lena was more blown together than built on a foundation.

  Kim, bored with talk of discipline, had gone off on a trail of his own.

  ‘The sea, when I saw it from the raft, was blue like bluebells when they are new.’

  Lena had Kim next to her. He really was a most ornamental child, both in looks and in the way he said things. She saw that with charmed smiles the next table was listening. She led Kim on.

  ‘Or like the butterflies on the downs.’

  Kim thought of chalk-blue butterflies. He raised his eyes to the ceiling. He looked like a Hollywood choir boy rounding off a film in which the hero or heroine’s soul in the last reel flies heavenwards.

  Nannie, Ruth, Laurel and Tony knew he was not at that moment showing off but considering chalk-blue butterflies in relation to the sea. Alex, disgustedly aware of the next table, opened his mouth. He, Laurel and Tony spoke at once.

  ‘Eat your ice, Kim. You look like a half-wit mooning at the ceiling.’

  ‘The sea looked blue all right,’ said Tony, ‘but it was pretty filthy really. That horse did number two in it.’

  Laurel stammered because she had nothing to say and was afraid of looking a fool.

  ‘Blue butterflies and bluebells are the same colour anyway.’

  Nannie was squashing Tuesday’s ice in the belief it would take the chill off it.

  ‘Number two’s not a thing you mention at table, as well you know, Tony.’

  ‘When it’s a horse you can. It’s manure then.’

  Kim saw an opening to clown.

  ‘Or a monkey’s, or a bear’s, or a hippopotamus’s, only then it’s such a lot I should think. . . .’

  Lena laid a hand on Kim and shook her head at Tony. These were not the well-brought-up children she expected to exhibit.

  ‘I shall give a prize to whoever catches the most prawns this afternoon.’

  There was excitement. What prize? Laurel wanted it to be a new bathing cap with special ear bits, like the man who dived off the pier wore. Tony thought a fountain pen. Kim wanted pounds and pounds of chocolates which could be eaten whenever you liked. Tuesday, all her wants supplied by those she loved being at the table, could make no suggestion, but when given hints by the other children accepted that a balloon would be nice.

  ‘What’ll you give Dad if he wins?’ Tony asked.

  Lena smiled at Alex.

  ‘Whatever he wants.’

  Ruth glued her eyes to her plate. She hoped the corners of her lips weren’t twitching. What a woman! Did her thoughts ever leave beds?

  ‘I’ll have a hundred cigarettes,’ said Alex.

  Lena was still too pleased with herself for the pleasure she had given Laurel, and too conscious of the charming effect created by the family party to let Alex’s being tiresome disturb her. He was, of course, being deliberately annoying. All that self-conscious nonsense about the children growing up and what they would think. Quite time enough to worry about that when they were old enough to know there was anything to think about. All the same, she never allowed Alex to get away with anything, that was the beginning of the end. If he was once permitted not to answer smile for smile, and covert look for covert look, he would be one shade nearer that dreary he wanted to be, the perfect father, the family man. She leant forward and blew him a kiss, and smiled intimately as though at an exchanged thought.

  Ruth, though her eyes appeared to be on her plate, registered and admired this performance. It was queer how she had learnt to read Lena. When she had first come to the family she had seen nothing but Lena’s poised, lovely exterior, which had made her clumsy and tongue-tied and convinced that she herself looked as though she had slept in her clothes.

  Tony regretfully laid down his spoon.

  ‘That nurse I had when I was in quarantine told me that there were illnesses you could have where eating ices was ordered by the doctor.’

  Laurel gasped at so enchanting a picture.

  ‘Just imagine lying in bed and every sort of ice-cream coming, and people wanting you to eat them!’

  ‘Greedy little pig!’ Alex spoke so firmly that the children glanced up to see if he was cross. He gave them reassuring grins, but he changed the subject. ‘Hope we can hire those metal fronted nets, those are the fellows for catching the prawns.’

  Ruth was glad for the over-sensitive Laurel that Alex had shown he was teasing. Not that the relationship between Laurel and her father could be out of gear for long, but the child was so happy it was a pity to upset her even momentarily. Alex had probably known he had spoken sharply and regretted it. He was still annoyed about that nurse. If there was a way to ruffle his even temper it was coddling the children and making them health-conscious. For once Ruth had been on Lena’s side. Lena used ill-health as if it were a feminine charm and, if given a chance, she fussed about the children, for none of which, as a rule, Ruth had any use; but when she got hysterical about Tony, Ruth could sympathise. There was not, of course, any purpose in letting her imagination run riot as it had, jumping from the one case of infantile paralysis at Tony’s school to, first Tony in an iron lung and then in his coffin, but she had sympathised over having him home and had been thankful to know he was under the roof. She could not quite see how so fond a father as Alex could have endured the anxiety of leaving him at school; and if he was home, segregated in the spare-room, somebody had to look after him, and that nice sensible young nurse had been perfect for the job. She had her wits about her and her well-trained eyes would have detected the first sign of anything wrong, but as Tony remained his usual radiant self, she had been as pleased as he was to visit the Zoo and other outdoor amusements. Of course the truth was it was Kim that Alex was afraid for. A hundred hospital nurses attending on him day and night could not make Tony a malade imaginaire, but Kim had so much of his mother in him, he relished and used delicacy almost in the way she did, and it upset his father to see it. All the same, having got Tony home it was Alex who decided on this holiday. How queer that was. Of course the news was bad but it was unlike him to let Tony miss school. Somebody must have said something about the future which had made him think off his usual lines. She was so accustomed to his behaving and thinking exactly as she expected that she was still surprised to find herself at Eastbourne. It was so unlike him to allow the quiet pattern of nursery and schoolroom life to be disturbed. ‘You are going to Eastbourne for a month and my wife and I will come for the last fortnight.
I want the children to have so good a time that they’ll never forget it. I know you won’t spoil them, but for this one month I want them within reason to have all they want.’

  Nannie was watching to see Tuesday did not scrape her plate. Tony, Laurel and Alex were still happily engrossed with the subject of prawning. Lena and Kim felt as if the sun were behind a cloud. The moments were passing and being wasted. Lena opened her bag and took out her glass. Was Alex not looking at her because her face was out of order?

  Kim gazed soulfully at the waiter who had come to clear and bring cheese.

  ‘Have you ever met the Holy Ghost?’

  Laurel paused half-way through a sentence, crimson with mortification. This was Kim at his very worst, saying things for effect and pretending it was just a little boy not knowing he was saying anything odd.

  Tony was exasperated. What made Kim such a blithering idiot? He’d give him a good punch afterwards.

  Ruth raised her head. Poor little beast, there he went again and Alex would snub him. Not that this time there was much else to do; the people at the next table were repeating Kim’s remark to each other; the waiter was grinning; but snubbing was the worst way to treat Kim, each snub buried itself under his need for self-expression and would erupt in further showings off.

  Nannie undid Tuesday’s feeder.

  ‘Say your grace, dear, and we’ll go up and get ready, and you too, Kim.’

  Kim leant against his mother.

  ‘Can’t I wait for Mum?’

  ‘No, you can’t,’ said Alex. ‘She’s going to have coffee. Go along and don’t argue.’

  Kim’s eyes brimmed with tears. Lena put her arm round him and kissed him. It hurt her to see him unhappy but she was glad to get rid of the children.

  ‘Run along, all of you. Dad and I will meet you outside in quarter of an hour.’

  III

  Tony and Alex turned over their combined catch. Tony picked up a shrimp.

  ‘It’s a pity not to keep them but they better go, they aren’t prawns.’

  Alex jerked his head at Laurel’s tense, absorbed figure behind them.

  ‘Not much good our chucking ours out, she’s sure to have a lot.’

  ‘And so’ll Kim if he’s caught any at all.’

  ‘Seeing the tide’s wrong we can’t afford to be proud.’ Alex looked up the beach to where Lena lay sun bathing. ‘I wonder if Mum’s getting bored.’

  Tony stared with experienced eyes at the distant patch of pink which was Lena.

  ‘She isn’t in a fuss yet or she’d be sitting up.’

  The sun burned warm on Alex’s back. It was pleasant wading beside Tony. Likely enough, as Lena had changed into a sun-bathing rig-out and oiled herself, she would be all right for another half-hour. When she sun bathed she did it as a beauty treatment and gave herself to it, as to any type of beauty treatment, seriously. He swung the bag of prawns over his shoulder.

  ‘All right then, let’s see if we can catch some real big prawns.’

  Tony did not move.

  ‘Dad, even if the Germans are going to fight us must you go up to London?’

  ‘Yes. Come on, push along beside me and I’ll explain.’ He marshalled his thoughts. ‘You know the sort of stuff we make.’

  ‘I know it’s electrical but I thought it was lighting, mostly for things like exhibitions.’

  ‘Not only exhibitions, just happens I tell you about those. If there should be a war we swap over at once to make other things.’

  ‘What sort of things?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that, it’s secret. I fixed this holiday because I’m very much afraid there will be a war, and if there is it may be some time before we could manage another holiday all together.’

  ‘Don’t people have holidays in wars?’

  ‘If it comes I’ve got to send you all out of London. I fixed up to do the same thing when we thought it was coming that time last year when we went for our gas-masks.’

  ‘Where shall we go?’

  ‘You’ll go to school, of course, so will Laurel. Your mother, Kim and Tuesday will go to the grandparents, and that’s where you’ll go in the holidays. But mind you, not a word to anyone. I’m taking you into my confidence.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to tell Laurel?’

  ‘You mean because she’s the eldest? There is that but it’s a pretty good disturbance for her. You see, you know your school, and when the holidays start you’ll just go to Grandfather and Gran instead of London, it won’t change things for you all that much.’

  ‘I should think it just would change things. I’ve got all my tools at home and my film projector and....’

  ‘If things look like going on for long I dare say we can get the things you all want sent up to the grandparents, there’s plenty of room there.’

  ‘And I shouldn’t think it holidays at all if you’re in London and I’m at Gran’s and Grandfather’s.’

  ‘Oh, cheer up! I dare say I’ll manage to get away to see you, but, you see, Laurel won’t have only the holidays to think of but going to a boarding school as well.’

  ‘What’ll happen to Miss Glover?’

  ‘She’ll go with Mum to teach Kim, and I suppose Tuesday will soon be starting lessons.’

  ‘Will Nannie go?’

  ‘Of course.’

  They stopped to examine their nets. Shaking out the greyish sand and sorting the mass of seaweed, starfish, pebbles and prawns left behind. Tony gave a gasp.

  ‘Oh, my goodness, Dad, look at this one! Isn’t he enormous! And this other one’s better than the others we’ve caught.’ Alex having admired the catch and held open the prawn bag to receive it, they pushed on. Tony churned the future over in his mind, unable to imagine life without his home. He felt that his father had not fully seen all the disadvantages. ‘I shouldn’t think Mum would like living with Gran and Grandfather.’

  Alex said nothing for a moment because he wanted to snap out a lying contradiction. What a horrible flair children had for putting into the boldest words thoughts that you yourself were succeeding in smothering.

  ‘I’m afraid she’ll have to put up with it. As you know, Mum’s-Mum’s in California.’

  ‘That’s an awfully good thing. If we’ve got not to live at home it will be better with Gran and Grandfather. Just suppose we’d had to live with Mum’s-Mum. I shouldn’t think there could be anything worse happen to anybody.’

  ‘You’re an ungrateful little beast, she’s a wonderful grandmother.’

  ‘All those little dogs, and that paint on her face, and scent everywhere, and asking everybody if her hat suits her. And I simply hate the way she calls Mum “precious”, as if it was her name.’

  ‘Your mother’s her only child.’

  ‘Thank goodness I’m not an only one if being an only one makes people slop like that.’

  ‘Thank goodness you’re not an only one from every angle. I like a family.’

  Tony was still considering his maternal grandmother.

  ‘Dad, can I ask you something?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘It was a nice wedding and all that, but do people usually marry grandmothers?’

  ‘It’s quite often done. She isn’t old as grandmothers go.’

  Tony stopped to clear his net.

  ‘Well, it’s very queer, and I’m glad he wanted to live in America.’

  Alex looked at his watch.

  ‘Perhaps we’d better push the other way, then we’ll join up with Laurel.’

  Tony turned.

  ‘You said you liked a family. Would you like there to be lots and lots of us? Ten or something like that?’

  ‘I’m quite pleased with what I’ve got. Two boys and two girls is fine. Being an only boy has made me keen to have a better divided family.’

  Tony jumped at the opening to get his father on to talking of his childhood. That his father had been a little boy, and even Gran had been a little girl, that in those old days they had the same sort of
things happening to them which happened to him today, gave him a wonderful feeling of permanence. He liked, without knowing it, to believe in things going on as they had always done.

  ‘Weren’t the aunts nice to you?’

  ‘Aunt Dot was always clever, and she was a good deal older. She used to help me with my home work when I was at a day school.’ He smiled. ‘And she wanted to coach me in the holidays.’

  ‘I bet you wouldn’t let her.’

  ‘No. You know about your Aunt Lindsey, I’ve always told you how we fought.’

  ‘How she banged your head on a door.’

  ‘The tough stuff wasn’t all on her side.’

  ‘I like Uncle John best of the uncles.’

  ‘He spoils you children. He and your Aunt Lindsey ought to have had some of their own.’

  ‘I expect they haven’t time to look after any. Aunt Lindsey couldn’t write her books if she had children, could she?’

  ‘No, I dare say the books would have suffered.’

  ‘But it was you and Aunt Sylvia who were the same ages. Dad’s-Nan said when you were little, people thought you were twins. You wore a sailor suit with long trousers and she wore a sailor collar on a frock.’

  ‘Your Aunt Sylvia’s a darling.’

  ‘If only she hadn’t married Uncle Andrew. I’m so glad you aren’t a clergyman.’

  ‘He’s a very good man, you know.’

  Tony stopped to examine his net.

  ‘I don’t like people just because they’re good, do you, Dad?’

  Alex thought of his impractical, rather helpless brother-in-law clutching at his belief in God as if it were a rope dangling from heaven. Good, he undoubtedly was, but hanging on to his rope his feet barely brushed the ground. Many were the occasions when Alex had straightened the affairs of his brother-in-law, and always he had come away wondering whether true saintliness was not best shown by living as a good citizen of this world. He changed the subject.

  ‘You like Aunt Selina.’

  ‘But I simply hate the cousins.’

  Alex laughed.

  ‘I’m certain they return the compliment. Intolerant little beasts the lot of you.’

  ‘I like that, Dad, you must own they’re the most disgusting show-offs. Laurel and I go all over gooseflesh waiting and waiting, knowing Fiona’s going to dance and Bertie play the piano.’