‘I wasn't pudgy, but I was certainly pasty…’
He laughed. He said, ‘I'm glad you brought me here. It's a good place. I'd never have found it on my own.’
Toddy returned with their drinks, which were icy cold and extremely alcoholic. When these were finished, they had a quick swim, and after that, lunch in the dining-room with their hostess. Grilled fish, so fresh that the plump white flesh fell from the bone, and for dessert a fruit salad of mangoes and oranges and pineapple. And all the way through the meal, Toddy talked, regaling them with juicy gobbets of gossip, some of which had a fair chance of being true, for she had spent half her life in Ceylon and was on Christian-name terms with everyone, from the Vice-Admiral in Colombo down to the ex-tea-planter who now ran the Labour Camp in Trincomalee.
Toby Whitaker, listened politely, smiled bravely on, but it was clear to Judith that he was somewhat dismayed by such blatant scandal, and so, probably disapproving. Which prompted a certain irritation. He had no reason to be stuffy, and she found herself wanting to provoke him, and so egged Toddy on to even more outrageous indiscretions.
Because of all this chat, fuelled by a second gin and tonic (Sweetie, we must have the other half), lunch took quite a long time, and it was finally concluded by Toddy's stubbing out her cigarette, getting to her feet and announcing that she was going to her room, to get her head down and have a siesta.
‘But you'd like coffee? I'll tell Peter to bring it out onto the veranda for you. I'll probably surface about half past four. We'll have tea together. Meanwhile, enjoy yourselves.’
So they spent the next hour supine in long chairs in sybaritic fashion sipping iced coffee, and waiting until the lowering sun drew shadows on the sand, and it was time to swim again. Judith went off to change back into her bathing-suit, and when she emerged, saw that Toby was already in the water. She ran down the beach to join him, plunging into the clear green waves, and the coolness of the sea was like silk against sunburnt skin, and the water turned eyelashes to spikes and broke the light into rainbows.
The conditions were so perfect that an hour had slipped by before they finally turned inshore to make their way back to the beach. Until then, their swim had been both lazy and leisurely, but all at once Toby was visited by a violent spurt of energy, or perhaps some basic masculine impulse to show off. Whatever, ‘I'll race you,’ he announced, and without preamble, or even giving Judith a chance to collect herself, he sped ahead, sleeking through the water away from her in an enviable Australian crawl. Judith, left wallowing, was slightly put out, and decided to make no effort to compete, for what was the point of embarking on such a hopeless contest? And who would have thought a grown man could be so childish? She saw him reach the shore, stride up out of the surf, and stand triumphantly on the beach, arms akimbo, to watch her studiedly unhurried progress. There was a maddening grin upon his face.
‘Slowcoach,’ he taunted.
Judith refused to rise. The gentle waves propelled her forward. ‘You took a very unfair advantage,’ she told him severely.
Another wave, and the sand nudged her knees. She would walk the last few yards. She put down her feet, and stood up.
The stab of pain plunged deep into her left foot, so exquisite, so agonising, that she opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out. The unexpectedness, the spasm of shock caught her off-balance and she stumbled and fell forward and her open mouth was filled with sea-water. Choking, on the edge of panic, she felt the sand beneath her fingers, somehow got her face out of the water, and then, careless of dignity, started to crawl on hands and knees.
It had all happened in less than half a moment, but already Toby was there, beside her.
‘What the hell's happened?’
‘My foot. I trod on something. I can't stand. Don't try and make me stand.’
So he put his hands beneath her shoulders and heaved her, like some awful old beached whale, up onto the sand, where she lay, propped up on her elbows. Hair dripped all over her face, and sea-water was streaming down her nose. She put up a hand and knuckled it away.
‘All right?’
A ridiculous question. ‘No, I'm not all right,’ she snapped and instantly felt remorseful for snapping, for he was kneeling at her side, and the grin was wiped from his face, to be replaced by an expression of acute anxiety and concern.
‘Which foot?’
‘The left.’ Ridiculous tears threatened to flood her eyes, and she found herself clenching her jaw against the pain and the fright and the sheer apprehension of what she had done to herself.
Toby said, ‘Sit quietly.’ He took her left ankle in his hand, holding it in a firm grasp, and lifted her foot to inspect the damage. Judith closed her eyes because she didn't want to watch. She heard him say, ‘Oh, God, it's glass. Broken glass. Still there. I'm going to get it out. Grit your teeth…’
‘Toby, don't…!’ But it was done, and another spasm of excruciating torture leaped like fire into every nerve end of her body. She thought she would faint, but didn't. Then, gradually, reluctantly, the agony ebbed, and she was aware of the slow, sticky flow of blood, emptying out onto the sole of her foot.
‘It's okay. All finished.’ She opened her eyes. ‘Brave girl. Look.’
He held up a wicked-looking triangle of glass, honed into a knife-edge by the sea. The shard of some bottle, thrown overboard, shattered on rocks, washed ashore.
‘Is that all? It is all out?’
‘I think so. Just the one piece.’
‘My foot's bleeding.’
‘That,’ said Toby, ‘is the understatement of the year.’ He stowed the piece of glass carefully in the pocket of his shorts. ‘Now, put your arms around my neck and hang on.’ He lifted her, and she felt strangely weightless as he carried her up the length of the beach, and up onto the cool sanctuary of the veranda, where he laid her down on one of the long, cushioned chairs.
Judith said, ‘I can't…I mean, I'll bleed all over Toddy's cushions…’ but Toby had already gone indoors, to reappear almost at once with a white table-cloth, whisked from a table. This he bundled and folded into a pad and set it gently beneath her foot. In seconds it was, rather frighteningly, stained with red.
She heard him say, rather desperately, ‘We've got to do something.’
‘What's happening?’ It was one of the girls who had been sunbathing on the beach, come to investigate. Brown-faced and with sunbleached hair, she wore the top of her two-piece bathing suit, and had knotted a cotton scarf into a sarong.
‘A mishap,’ Toby told her shortly.
‘Look, I'm a nurse.’
His demeanour, at once, changed. ‘Thank God for that.’
‘From the naval hospital.’ She crouched to inspect the damage. ‘Hey, that's a really bad cut. What was it? Looks too deep for a shell.’
‘Broken glass.’ Toby produced the lethal shard from his pocket and displayed its jagged menace.
‘God, what a horrible thing to find in the sand! And the size of it! That must have gone in deep.’ She became practical. ‘Look, she's still bleeding like a pig. We need lint and wadding and bandages. There must be a first-aid box somewhere. Where's Mrs Todd-Harper?’
‘Having a siesta.’
‘I'll get her. You stay here, and try to stanch that bleeding.’
She went. With someone to take competent charge, and to give him direct instructions, Toby recovered his cool. He sat down on the end of the long chair and did his best to do as he had been told.
‘I'm so sorry,’ he kept saying.
She wished he would stop saying it. All in all, it was a great relief when the nurse returned, bearing the Red Cross box and with Toddy following up hard at her heels.
‘Sweetie.’ Toddy, torn from her siesta had dressed so swiftly that her shirt hung out of her trousers and the buttons were all in the wrong buttonholes. ‘My God, what a ghastly thing to happen. Are you all right? Pale as death, and no wonder.’ She turned an anxious face to the young nurse. ‘Is it very bad?’
‘Bad enough,’ she was told. ‘It's a very deep wound. It'll have to be stitched, I should think.’
She was, mercifully, not only competent, but gentle. In no time, Judith's injury had been cleaned, dressed with lint, bundled into a mound of cotton wool, and bandaged.
The young nurse fastened the end of the bandage neatly with a safety-pin. She looked at Toby. ‘I think you should take her to the Wrens' Sick-Bay or the hospital. They'll stitch her up there. Have you got transport?’
‘Yes. A Jeep.’
‘Good enough.’
Toddy by now had collapsed into a handy chair. ‘I feel quite shattered,’ she announced to the company in general. ‘And horrified as well. We've had every sort of minor crisis here: jelly-fish stings, sea-urchin spines, even shark scares, but never bits of broken glass. How can people be so careless? But how fortunate we were that you were here…’ She smiled gratefully at the nurse, now engaged in neatly packing all the equipment back into the first-aid box. ‘Clever girl. I can't thank you enough.’
‘No problem. If I can use your telephone, I'll see if I can get through to the Wrens' Sick-Bay. Tell Sister to expect a casualty…’
When she had gone, ‘If you'll excuse me,’ Toby said, ‘I think I'd better get some clothes on. I can scarcely drive back to Trincomalee in a pair of wet bathing-trunks.’
So he took himself off as well, and Judith and Toddy were left alone. They gazed at each other in disconsolate fashion. ‘What a bloody thing to happen.’ Toddy fumbled in her shirt pocket for a necessary cigarette, shook one from the packet and lit up. ‘I am so sorry. I feel all responsible. Is it agonisingly sore?’
‘Not very nice.’
‘And you were having such a good time. Never mind, there'll be other days. Other good days. And maybe I'll come and visit you in the Sick-Bay. Bring grapes and eat them all myself. Cheer up. We must think in positive fashion. A week maybe, no more, and you'll be up and about again. And just imagine, you'll be able to have a lovely rest. Lie in bed with nothing to do.’
But Judith could not be comforted. ‘I hate having nothing to do.’
But it transpired, rather surprisingly, that she did not find it irksome in the very least. She was put into a ward of four, and her bed was by the open doorway that led out onto a wide terrace, shaded by a roof of palm thatch. The posts which supported this were twined with bougainvillaea, and the floor of the terrace was scattered with fallen blossom, entailing much sweeping up by the junior houseboy. Beyond, simmering in the heat, lay the garden, sloping steeply down to the shore; and beyond again, the marvellously elevated view of the entire harbour.
Despite its purpose and the inevitable bustle of hospital life, the Sick-Bay was essentially a tranquil place, airy, white-painted and spotlessly clean; even luxurious, with proper plumbing, pictures on the walls (coloured prints of the Sussex Downs and the Lake District), and fine cotton curtains which billowed and ballooned in the constant breeze.
Judith's three companions were in varying stages of recovery. One had had dengue fever, another had broken her ankle, mistakenly jumping onto a rock during the course of a lively picnic. Only the third girl was really ill, suffering from a recurrent bout of amoebic dysentery, the persistent ailment that everybody dreaded. She lay depressed, pale and debilitated, and rumour amongst the nurses was that, when well enough, she would probably be sent home.
The real bonus was that none of these patients were avid conversationalists. They were perfectly pleasant and friendly, but once they had seen Judith installed, heard the details of her mishap, exchanged names and generally made her welcome, that was it. The girl with dengue fever had already recovered sufficiently to stitch diligently at her tapestry. The broken ankle was deep in a fat novel called Forever Amber. From time to time the girl with dysentery roused herself sufficiently to turn the pages of a magazine, but she clearly had the energy for little else.
At first this tacit non-communication, a total contrast to the perpetual bustle and chat of her banda in Quarters, took some getting used to. But gradually Judith allowed herself to become as self-absorbed as her companions, and, drifting along on her own thoughts, distancing herself, was a bit like setting off on a solitary walk. Something that she had not experienced for longer than she could remember.
At intervals, chatty nurses came and went, taking temperatures, administering pills, or serving lunch, but most of the time the only sound was the radio which burbled away gently to itself all through the day, tuned to a Forces Network that played continuous music, interspersed with short news bulletins. The music was all recorded and apparently chosen at random, a sort of lucky dip, so that The Andrews Sisters (‘Rum and Coca-Cola’) were sandwiched between a Verdi aria, and the waltz from Coppelia. Judith found it mildly diverting to try to guess what was coming next.
Which was about the limit of her capabilities. Sister (big-bosomed, starchy, and good-hearted as an old-fashioned nanny) had offered books from the Sick-Bay library, and when these were rejected, come up with a couple of back copies of Life magazine. But, for some reason, Judith found herself with neither the desire nor the concentration to read. It was easier and far more pleasant to turn her head on the pillow and gaze out across the terrace and the garden to the astonishing panorama of water and ships, the busy to-ing and fro-ing of boats, the subtly changing blues of the sky. It all looked very crisp and cheerful and business-like, but quite peaceful too, which was odd considering that the reasons for the Fleet being there in the first place were strictly warlike. She remembered the occasion, a few months back, when an Unidentified Object had slipped through the boom and entered the harbour, and there had been a terrific panic, because it was thought that it might be a Japanese miniature submarine, with intent to torpedo and blow the entire East Indies Fleet to Kingdom Come. The intruder, however, turned out to be a whale, seeking a quiet haven in which to produce a baby whale. When her monstrous accouchement was over, and mother and child deemed fit to travel, a frigate escorted them back to the open sea. It was a pleasant domestic event which had kept everybody amused and interested for days.
There was something else about the prospect that was vaguely familiar, but it took a good deal of thought before she finally pinned it down. It wasn't just the way it looked, but the way everything felt. She puzzled about this for a bit, trying to pin down exactly where and when she had seen it all before. And then realised that the sense of déjà vu was all part and parcel of memories of her very first visit to The Dower House, when, with the Carey-Lewises, she had gone for Sunday lunch with Aunt Lavinia Boscawen. That was it. She had looked from the drawing-room window, and seen the garden, sloping down the hill, and the blue Cornish horizon, drawn, straight as a ruler, above the topmost branches of the Monterey pines. It wasn't really the same, of course, but it was sort of the same. Being high on a hill, and the sunshine, and the sky and the sea visible over the tops of jungly trees.
The Dower House. She remembered that special day, and all the days that had followed on, culminating in the one when she and Biddy had moved in and taken possession. And it was not difficult to imagine that she was actually there. And alone. No Biddy, no Phyllis, no Anna. Just Judith. Moving from room to preciously familiar room, touching furniture, settling curtains, straightening the shade of a lamp. She could hear her own footsteps on the flagged floor of the kitchen passage, smell musty damp, freshly ironed laundry, the scent of daffodils. Now, she was climbing stairs, her hand trailing on the polished banister rail, crossing the landing to open the door that led into her own bedroom. She saw the brass-railed double bed, where once Aunt Lavinia had slept; photographs in silver frames; her own books; her Chinese box. She crossed the floor to throw wide the windows, and she felt the cool damp air touch her cheeks.
Like a benelovent spell, the images filled her with contentment and satisfaction. For five years it had been her own house, her home. And eighteen months had passed since she had last seen it, embarkation leave and a few days in which to say goodby
e to Biddy and Phyllis. Then it had looked dear as ever, but dreadfully shabby, run-down and in need of much attention, but nothing could be done because of the war's shortages and restrictions. By now, she decided wryly, it must just about be falling to pieces.
When…in a year's time? Two years? Longer, perhaps…the war was over and she was able to go home, she would celebrate by indulging herself in a veritable orgy of repair and refurbishment. The first priority would be central heating, to chase away the looming damp of countless wet Cornish winters. So, a new boiler, new pipes, radiators everywhere. With that safely accomplished and everything dry and toasty-warm, her thoughts moved on to other delightful projects. Fresh white paint. New wallpapers, perhaps. Loose covers. Curtains. In the drawing-room, the curtains were faded and shredded by the sun, they had hung for too many years, and by the time Judith and Biddy moved in, were already on their last legs. But choosing a chintz to replace them would not be an easy business, because Judith wanted the new curtains to look exactly the same as the old ones. Who would help her? And then, inspiration struck. Diana. Diana Carey-Lewis. Choosing chintzes was an occupation right up her street. So, Diana.
You know, darling, I'm sure Liberty's would have just the thing. Why don't we pop up to London, and have a heavenly morning in Liberty's.
She dozed. Waking thoughts slid into dreams. Still The Dower House. The drawing-room, filled with sunlight. But now others were there. Lavinia Boscawen, sitting in her chair by the window, and Jeremy Wells. He had come because Lavinia had lost a letter and he was emptying her desk, looking for it.
You've thrown it away, he kept telling her, but she said that she hadn't thrown it away, she'd sent it to the cleaners.
And Judith went out into the garden, and it was raining now, rain pouring down out of a granite-coloured sky, and when she tried to get back indoors, all the doors were locked and wouldn't open. So she rapped on the glass of the window, but Aunt Lavinia had gone, and Jeremy, looking demoniac and with a lot of teeth, was laughing at her.