There was a little pause.
And then he said, ‘So that's it. Subject closed. Over and out?’
‘Better that way.’
‘Talk about something else. When do you go back to Trincomalee?’
‘Not for three weeks. I have to report for duty on the Monday morning. Bob's going to see if he can get me a lift up to Kandy, and then I'll go on from there.’
‘Why don't you fly?’
‘It would have to be an RAF plane, and it's not easy getting rides.’
‘Do you want to go back?’
‘Not particularly. The urgency's gone out of it all now. Since the war's finished I suppose it'll just be a case of winding everything down, people gradually being sent home. I think Adelaide — that's the submarine depot ship I've been working in — and the Fourth Flotilla will probably get sent to Australia. So I'll have to go to some shore-based job.’ She reached for her glass, took another mouthful of the delicious wine, and then laid the glass down again. ‘I've actually had enough of it all,’ she admitted. ‘What I would really like to do is to hop on a troop-ship and go home now. But that's unlikely to happen.’
‘And when it does happen? What will you do then?’
‘Go home.’ She had told him about Cornwall, and The Dower House, and Biddy Somerville and Phyllis, that day when they had sat on the beach at Mount Lavinia, and watched the un-swimmable-in breakers pounding up onto the sand. ‘And I shan't look for a job and I shan't do anything that I don't want to. I shall grow my hair until it reaches my waist, and go to bed when I want, and get up when I want, and stay out carousing until the small hours. I've lived with rules and regulations for the whole of my life. School; the war; the Wrens. And I'm twenty-four, Hugo. Don't you agree it's about time I sowed a wild oat or two?’
‘I certainly do. But everybody of your age has been hit by the war. A whole generation. What you have to realise is that for some others it had the very opposite effect. A sort of release. From conventional backgrounds, dead-end jobs, limited horizons.’ Judith thought of Cyril Eddy, seizing the opportunity to leave the tin-mine and realise, at last, his life's ambition of going to sea. ‘I know at least two women, well bred, and married in their early twenties simply because they couldn't think of anything else to do. Then the war, and, relieved of deadly husbands and with access to Free French, Free Poles, and Free Norwegians — to say nothing of the United States Army — they proceeded to have the time of their lives.’
‘Will they go back to their husbands?’
‘I expect so. Older and wiser women.’
Judith laughed. ‘Oh, well. Nobody's the same.’
‘And it would be a dull world if we were.’
She thought he was being very wise. ‘How old are you?’ she asked.
‘Thirty-four.’
‘Did you never want to get married?’
‘Dozens of times. But not in wartime. I never relished the prospect of being killed, but I would hate to die knowing that I was leaving behind a widow and a string of fatherless children.’
‘But now the war's over.’
‘True. But my future is still with the Navy. Unless I get passed over or made redundant, or put into moth-balls and a deadly shore job…’
The head-waiter returned then to take their order, which involved a bit of time because they hadn't even got around to scanning the menu. In the end, they both chose the same things, shellfish and chicken, and the waiter refilled their glasses and padded away once more.
For a moment they fell silent. Then Judith sighed.
‘What's that for?’ Hugo asked.
‘I don't know. The thought of having to return to Trincomalee, I suppose. A bit like going back to boarding-school.’
‘Don't think about it.’
She made up her mind. ‘No, I won't. And I don't know how we got onto this rather serious conversation.’
‘Probably my fault. So let's put an end to it now, and start being frivolous.’
‘I don't quite know how to begin.’
‘You could tell me a joke, or ask me a riddle.’
‘Pity we haven't got any paper hats.’
‘But that would make us conspicuous. If we make an exhibition of ourselves, I might get all my buttons cut off and be asked to leave. Think of the scandal. Drummed out of the Salamander. Moira Burridge would love it, give her something to talk about for months.’
‘She'd say, serves us right for telling lies and being unfriendly.’
‘I think we should make plans for the next three weeks, and not waste a moment. So that you return to Trincomalee with a light in your eye and a host of happy memories. I shall take you to Negombo, and show you the old Portuguese Fort. It's particularly beautiful. And we shall swim at Panadura, which is a beach straight out of The Blue Lagoon. And perhaps drive up to Ratanapura. In the rest-house there, old soup plates sit around on tables, filled with sapphires. I shall buy you one, to pin in your nostril. What else do you like doing? Sporting activities? We could play tennis.’
‘I haven't got my racquet.’
‘I shall borrow one for you.’
‘It depends. Are you frightfully good?’
‘Brilliant. The picture of manly grace as I leap the net to congratulate the winner.’
The band was playing again. Not South American music now, but an old smoochy tune, the melody carried by the tenor saxophone.
I can't give you anything but love, baby
That's the only thing I've plenty of, baby…
Abruptly, Hugo stood, ‘Come and dance.’
They stepped down onto the floor, and she turned into his arms. He danced, as she had suspected he would, with easy expertise, neither shifting from foot to foot, nor steering her around the floor like a vacuum cleaner, two hazards that Judith had learned, over the years, to deal with. He held her very close, his head bent so that their cheeks touched. And he didn't talk. And there was no need to say anything.
Gee, I'd like to see you looking swell, baby.
Diamond bracelets Woolworth's couldn't sell, baby.
Till that lucky day, you know darn well, baby,
I can't give you anything but love.
Over his shoulder she looked up into the face of the moon, and felt as though, for a moment, she was being touched by the very edge of happiness.
Half past two in the morning, and he drove her back to the Galle Road. The sentry opened the gates for them, and the car rolled through and around the curve of the driveway, to draw up in front of the portico of the main door. They got out. The air was scented with Temple flowers, and the moon so bright that garden shadows lay black as Indian ink. At the foot of the steps, Judith paused and turned to him. She said, ‘Thank you, Hugo. It was a lovely evening. All of it.’
‘Even Mrs Burridge?’
‘At least she gave us a laugh.’ She hesitated for an instant and then said, ‘Good night.’
He put his hands on her arms, and stooped to kiss her. It was a long time since she had been kissed so thoroughly. And even longer since she had so thoroughly enjoyed it. She put her arms around him, and responded with a sort of grateful passion.
The front door opened, and they were caught in a wedge of yellow electric light. They drew apart, amused and not in the least abashed, and saw Thomas standing at the head of the steps, his dark features betraying neither disapproval nor satisfaction. Then Hugo apologised for keeping him up so late, and Thomas smiled, the moonlight glinting on his gold teeth.
Judith said again, ‘Good night,’ and went up the steps and through the open door. Thomas followed, closing and bolting the heavy locks behind him.
After that, the days slipped past, flowing faster as each succeeded another, so that, in the manner of all pleasurable vacations, before one even had time to notice, the days had turned into a week, and then another week, and another. Now, it was the eighteenth of September. Three more days, and it would be time to start out on the long journey back to Trincomalee; to typing endless reports and
having to return to Quarters on time; to no shops and no sophisticated city bustle. No lovely, orderly house to come back to. No Thomas. No Bob. And no Hugo.
He had kept his word. We mustn't waste a moment, he had said. Even better, he had betrayed no regret at having promised in the first place. Never bored, he was never boring, and although patently delighted by her company and gratifyingly appreciative of the time Judith spent with him, Hugo had remained endearingly undemanding, so that she was able to feel safe and protected, and never for a moment besieged.
By now, they had become so close and so at ease, that they were even able to talk this through, lying on the deserted, blistering sands of Panadura, and letting the sun dry them off after a swim. ‘…it's not that I don't find you enchantingly attractive, and it's not that I don't want to make love to you. And I think that if I did, it could be deeply pleasurable for both of us. But this isn't the right time. You're too vulnerable. Like a convalescent, you need a bit of peace. Time to lick your wounds, get back on course again. The last thing you need is the trauma of a physical involvement. A thoughtless affair.’
‘It wouldn't be thoughtless, Hugo.’
‘But, perhaps, foolish. It's up to you.’
He was right. The thought of having to make any sort of a decision was a bit frightening. She just wanted to sail along on an even keel, drift with the tide. She said, ‘It's not that I'm a virgin, Hugo.’
‘Darling girl, I didn't for a moment imagine that you were.’
‘I've slept with two men. And both of them I loved very much. And both of them I lost. Since them, I've steered clear of loving. It hurt too much. It took too long to heal.’
‘I would try very hard not to hurt you. But I don't want to mess about with your emotions. Not right now. I've become too fond of you.’
‘If I could stay in Colombo…if I didn't have to go back to Trincomalee…if we had more time…’
‘What a lot of ifs. Would it make things so different?’
‘Oh, Hugo, I don't know.’
He lifted her hand and pressed a kiss into her palm. ‘I don't know either. So let's go and swim again.’
Azid turned the car in through the open gate, past the sentry and around the curve of the drive, to draw up at the front door. He switched off the engine, and before Judith could do it for herself, had leaped out and snatched her door open.
His attentions always made her feel a bit like Royalty.
‘Thank you, Azid.’
It was half past five in the evening. She made her way up the steps and through the front door, and across the cool hall and the empty drawing-room, and so out onto the flower-decked veranda. There she found — as she had known she would — both Bob Somerville and David Beatty, relaxed after a day's work, in long chairs and enjoying their moment of companionable quiet. Between their chairs stood a low table, set with all the traditional paraphernalia of afternoon tea.
David Beatty was deep in one of his enormous scholarly tomes, and Bob read the London Times, sent out each week by airmail. He was still in uniform. White shorts, shirt, long white stockings and white shoes. When he had read the paper, he would go and have a shower and shave and change. But first, he liked to pause for his afternoon tea, a daily ritual that he relished, it being a comforting reminder of the simple domestic pleasures of home, England, and a far-away wife.
He looked up, and dropped the paper. ‘There you are! I was wondering what had happened to you. Pull up a chair. Have a cup of tea. Thomas has conjured up some cucumber sandwiches.’
‘How very civilised. Good afternoon, David.’
David Beatty stirred and blinked, saw Judith, lowered his book, snatched off his spectacles and made as if to gather his lanky frame out of his chair and rise. It was a courteous pantomime that took place every time she caught him unawares, and she had become adept at saying, ‘Don't get up,’ just before his shoes hit the floor.
‘Sorry. Reading…didn't hear…’ He smiled, just to show there was no ill feeling, replaced his spectacles, dissolved back onto the cushions and returned to his book. Lost to the world. Idle conversation had never been his strong point.
Bob poured tea into the fine white cup, dropped in a slice of lemon, and handed it over.
‘You've been playing tennis,’ he observed.
‘How could you tell?’
‘My powers of observation and deduction plus the sporty white gear and the racquet.’
‘Brilliant.’
‘Where did you play?’
‘At the club. With Hugo and another couple. Serious stuff.’
‘Who won?’
‘We did, of course.’
‘Are you going out tonight?’
‘No. Hugo's got to go to some Guest Night at the Barracks. Men only.’
‘That means too much drink and dangerous after-dinner horseplay. When you see him next he'll probably have a broken leg. Before I forget, I've fixed that lift to Kandy for you. A car, next Saturday morning. They'll pick you up here, at eight o'clock.’
Judith received this information with mixed emotions. She screwed up her face like a child. ‘I don't want to go.’
‘Don't want you to go. I'll miss you like hell. But there it is. Stiff upper lip. Duty calls. And talking of duty, I have another message. From Chief Officer Wrens, no less. She rang me this afternoon. Asked if you'd be available tomorrow morning, and if so, if she could ask you to help.’
‘Help do what?’ Judith asked cautiously. She had been in the service long enough to know that one never volunteered for anything, until in possession of all the details. She took a cucumber sandwich and bit into its sweet crunchiness.
‘Go and be welcoming to a lot of chaps who deserve it.’
‘I don't understand.’
‘There's a ship, stopping off, en route for England. The Orion. A hospital ship. The first batch of prisoners of war from the Bangkok-Burma Railway. They've been in hospital in Rangoon. They're being allowed ashore here for a few hours, their first step back to civilisation. There's going to be some sort of a reception for them at the Fort. Tea and buns, I suppose. Chief Officer's rounding up a few Wrens to act as hostesses, chat the men up and make them feel at home.’
‘What did you say?’
‘Told her I'd have to discuss it with you. I explained that you'd only just been told that your father died in Changi, and perhaps meeting up with a lot of emaciated prisoners would be a bit close to home.’
Judith nodded. She had finished her sandwich, and now, absently, took another. Prisoners of war from the Burma Railway. At the end of the war, when the Army moved in with the medical services, the Red Cross (and Lady Mountbatten) hard on their heels, the railway camps had been opened and their horrors exposed. Reports and photographs in the newspapers had stirred waves of disbelief and revulsion only matched by the reaction of the Western world, a universal lowering of the human spirit, when the Allied Armies, moving east, had uncovered the camps at Auschwitz, Dachau, and Ravensbrück.
On the railway, thousands of men had died, those who survived labouring in the steaming jungle for as long as eighteen hours a day. Brutal guards had kept the sick working, despite weakness from hunger, exhaustion, malaria, and the dysentery brought about by the filthy conditions in which the prisoners had been housed.
But now, they were coming home.
She sighed. ‘I'll have to go. If I don't, I shan't be able to look myself in the eye for the rest of my life. It would be dreadfully feeble.’
‘You never know. It might make you feel better about things.’
‘After what they've endured, you'd wonder that any of them would be fit enough to even come ashore…’
‘They've had a little time in hospital being cared for, properly fed. And families alerted that they're alive and on their way back…’
‘What do I have to do?’
‘Climb into uniform, and muster at nine o'clock.’
‘Where?’
‘The Galle Road Wrennery. You'll get your ord
ers there.’
‘Right.’
‘You're a good girl. Have another cup of tea. And you'll be dining this evening with David and me? I'll tell Thomas that there will be three of us.’
That morning, having showered and wrapped herself in her thin robe, Judith had breakfasted on her own, because Bob and David Beatty had already left for work. Breakfast was a grapefruit and China tea. No more. For some reason she wasn't feeling particularly hungry. After breakfast, she went back to her room, and found that Thomas had laid out her clean uniform on the freshly made bed, with cap and shoes blancoed to blinding whiteness.
She dressed, and it felt a bit like that last day in Trincomalee when, loaded with apprehension, she had put on clean uniform and walked down the dusty road to keep her appointment with First Officer. Now, into battle again. She did up buttons, laced her shoes, combed her hair, put on her hat, lipstick, and scent. She thought about taking a bag, and then decided against it. No need. She would be home by midday. But, just in case of emergencies, took from her purse a bundle of rupee notes and stuffed them into the pocket of her skirt.
In the hall, she found Thomas, waiting for her by the open door.
‘You would like Azid to drive you?’
‘No, Thomas, thank you, I can walk. It's only a few hundred yards down the road.’
‘It is very good, what you are going to do. Brave men. Those Japanese, by God! I should like you to tell them they have been very brave.’
His dark face was suffused with anguish, and Judith felt much touched by his little outburst.
‘Yes. You're quite right. And I'll tell them.’
She walked out into the glare and the heat, through the gate and down the busy road. Presently the Wrens' Quarters loomed into view, a large Edwardian edifice, white and ornate as a wedding cake, double-storeyed and with a flat roof, crowned by an ornamental balustrade. Once it had been the home of a wealthy merchant, but now had lost a little of its lustre, and the gardens which surrounded it — extensive grounds with walks and lawns — had been built over with palm-thatch bandas, and ablution blocks.