Uncle Archibald started telling Rose what friends at his club had told him about the Norwegian campaign. ‘Most unfortunate, but a great deal of gallantry. Lucky Ned wasn’t there. If he had been, there really would have been cause for worry.’ As he munched his bread and honey, moved on to Mrs Farthing’s cake, Archibald Loftus thought, This Rose of Ned’s is a dark horse; it’s a waste of breath wondering what’s going on in her head; what could she mean ‘disappear’? People like Ned don’t, far too solid and mundane. He resigned himself to enjoying what he knew of her and his tea.
‘What you need, my dear,’ he said, ‘if you won’t come up to us in Scotland, is some fun; try and combine some fun with visits to your mother.’
‘I shall take your advice,’ said Rose, ‘if opportunity arises. Meanwhile stay here with me for a night or two, come and look round the garden.’
‘I’d like to listen to the news first.’
‘Very well …’
22
LISTENING TO THE NEWS, Archibald Loftus became seriously worried. (Why was bad news worse in beautiful surroundings?) The Slepe garden was awash with spring, the smell of Farthing’s wallflowers pervasive. Archibald did not, as Rose did, study the flora; he fretted. The news was not so much serious as potentially disastrous. Rose strolled peacefully, sniffing at flowers, picking little bits off herbs, bruising them with her fingers, adding her quota of scent to the evening. She kept Archie silent company, made no attempt at conversation, leading him away from the house out of reach of the radio.
Archibald appreciated silence in a woman; he was married to a chatterbox. But tonight he wished this girl of Ned’s was not quite so reserved. This surely showed some pent-up emotion and fret? How was it that he got the impression that whatever was bothering her was not bother on behalf of Ned? He broke the silence: ‘I don’t think you should stay here on your own.’
‘Why ever not?’
‘Things look very black over there.’ He jerked his chin in the direction of France.
‘It’s difficult for me to make out what’s going on,’ she said.
‘There is every likelihood that our armies will be defeated. I distrust the French,’ he said, as he had said before.
‘Ah.’ She was not paying attention; she was listening to a blackbird singing its heart out on the branch of a flowering cherry.
‘The Germans may invade,’ said Archibald bluntly, ‘it’s more than a probability.’
‘That’s what Ned suggested,’ she agreed.
‘Then he is cleverer than I thought.’
Rose felt tempted to mention Ned’s hoard of petrol but thought better not, he’s a magistrate or something up in Scotland, and Ned said to keep it secret. She thought with amusement of her husband and his secret hoard supposedly unknown to the Farthings.
‘You are not listening,’ said Ned’s uncle.
‘Yes, I am.’
‘What did I say last?’
Rose laughed.
‘I was saying, Rose, that if and when the Germans invade you would be better off up north with Flora and me. Please be sensible and come.’
‘I must look after Slepe, Germans or no Germans. Besides, Ned will get back. I have to be here when he arrives.’
‘Let us pray he does.’ Archibald could not shake off his gloom.
‘Of course he will.’ Of course. People like Ned don’t get lost, but Mylo, what of Mylo?
‘Come up to London with me,’ said Archibald urgently. If I can get her as far as London, I can persuade her on to Argyll, he thought.
I wonder what he would look like without a moustache? Rose was thinking. I have never kissed a man with a moustache, except for that scuffle under the mistletoe. I have not kissed many men. It must be like kissing a doormat. ‘I must stay here.’ She looked at Ned’s nice uncle (I hope Ned is as attractive as that when he’s old). ‘I would like to, but I can’t, thank you. It’s very kind of you and,’ she added, ‘Aunt Flora.’ (I wonder what she would say if I was suddenly planted on her?)
Archibald Loftus, admitting defeat, grunted.
The following day he left. On his journey north he sat in the train watching the fields rush by and thought that it would be nice to be young again and seduce Ned’s wife, that she was just the sort of girl he could have left Flora for, that perhaps it was as well she had not been born when he met and married Flora, they had been pretty happily married. He had never had a mistress like his Viennese uncles (missed something there, no doubt), there had never been enough temptation. All the same, he thought—does Ned realise? Does he treat her properly? Does he? I am jealous of Ned, he thought with amusement, jealous! He left his seat and walked up the train to the restaurant car and ordered a large whisky. As he drank he let his mind dwell on Rose and speculated on whether she would be one of those rare women who are as attractive in age as they are in youth. And would she know it, and profit by it? He felt the prick of desire as the train rushed north, and watching the speeding fields he noted that he was not done for yet if a girl like Rose could make him feel like this and although it was in a way uncomfortable, it was also pleasurable. Then he thought of his dear wife Flora, grown thick-set and bristly in her tweeds and brogues. Desire evaporating, he ordered another drink.
Alone once more Rose wandered about the garden, played with the cats, came restlessly in and listened to the news. While Uncle Archibald travelled north to Scotland, the collapse of France already under way was admitted. There was congestion on the roads, the Belgians asked for an armistice, the French and British were encircled as they retreated towards Dunkirk, and the evacuation began as lovely day followed lovely day and the birds sang.
Mrs Freeling telephoned to say that she was taking a gamble (Mrs Freeling!) and buying the leases of two flats, not one. If one was to get bombed, she would move to the other.
‘And if neither gets bombed?’
‘I shall rent one to the Germans and take lodgers in the other.’
‘Oh.’ Mother making jokes! What next!
‘As everybody who can is getting out of London, I am getting the two flats dirt cheap. There will never be such a chance again.’
‘I had not realised you had such a—a—perspicacious business sense.’ Rose was amused.
‘Nor had I. Isn’t it fun?’
‘Fun?’ Rose was amazed at this new version of her mother. ‘Aren’t you afraid of air-raids? Of getting killed?’ she enquired.
‘Of course I am, but I can’t let that stop me. I have been dammed up too long.’
‘Where are these flats?’
‘One in Chelsea, the other is in Regent’s Park. I had thought of Hampstead, but then someone said there are a lot of Jews there and the raids may be directed at them. If I can sell the house in the country, well, I might try and find one in the Holland Park area. It shouldn’t be difficult.’
‘A third flat?’
‘Why not? Nothing ventured …’
‘I wish you luck,’ said Rose respectfully. So that’s what she’s been, dammed up. Well I never, thought Rose, and went again into the garden where now the syringa was mingling with the wallflowers and a mistlethrush sang with heart-rending sweetness. Will my spirit be dammed by Ned as hers was by Father? She pondered the prospect as she paced the stone path. When the telephone rang at last, she ran.
‘Hullo?’
‘Rose?’ A man’s hoarse voice.
‘Yes?’
‘It’s me, Ned. I’m at some bloody place in Kent but getting a miraculous lift home.’
He arrived hours later exhausted, sunburned from his wait on the beaches, still damp from wading through the sea to the rescuing boats, in high spirits.
‘Weren’t you frightened?’ she asked tentatively.
‘Terrified by the bombing. It was really scary because my tin hat was full of gooseberries I had picked in an abandoned garden. I wanted to bring you some but the chaps ate them on the ship.’
A new mother, a new Ned.
‘What is it? What are
you thinking?’ He was pulling off his uniform sticky with salt. ‘Oh, I know. No, it’s all right,’ he said, ‘I am not afraid any more. Once it begins, there’s no time and when there is time it is never anything like what I expected or imagined. Piece of cake, really.’
‘I’m glad.’
‘Run a bath for me. Luckily I haven’t much imagination, I think I’ve spent what I had these last weeks.’
She brought him a drink as he lay in the bath. ‘Mrs Farthing is keeping food hot for you.’
‘What I need is sleep.’
‘Eat first.’
She watched him eat, thankful to see him whole. Fond of him, rather proud, liking him in a comradely way, not at all jealous for Mylo. (All this is separate.)
Ned slept for fifteen hours. Then kissed her goodbye, hurried to rejoin his scattered regiment like a boy to a football game.
Rose went back to listening to the news. France collapsed. Paris fell. Mr Churchill flew to and fro. The evacuation of half a million men continued from Cherbourg and St Malo. Mr Churchill made his blood and beaches speech. Rose’s mother furnished her flats, moved out of the flat her husband had died in (what a waste of money all that cancer treatment, had he ever had it?) and sold the house in the country at profiteer profit. Oranges vanished from the shops. Evacuee children streamed out of London and the big cities for the second time. Mrs Farthing joined the Women’s Voluntary Service. Ned’s regiment was sent to re-form near Catterick. Farthing joined the Home Guard. Nicholas and Emily rang up to say that their plumbing was all right now, would Rose like to come to lunch? Rose said, ‘No, thank you.’ Nicholas said, ‘Too bad, we have both got jobs with the Ministry of Agriculture locally. Nice and safe. We can go on living at home and get a good allowance of petrol.’ He sounded extremely chipper. By midsummer England faced the long hostile coastline of Europe and Rose would have felt, along with the rest of the population, rather exhilarated if only she could have heard from Mylo.
To stop her constant nagging anxiety she went to London for a few nights to help her mother and go out with Ned’s regimental friends, Harold Rhys and Ian Johnson. They took her to dinner at the Czardas in Soho and to dance at the Café de Paris. They told her how brave Ned had been in the fighting, that he would surely get decorated (they were right; not so long afterwards he was awarded the Military Cross). Their vicarious pleasure in Ned’s gallantry and courage mitigated the extreme boredom of their company. She felt like an adult listening to prattling children and gave them only half her attention while the unoccupied part of her mind mulled and digested the feelings she had for Ned since he confided his fear to her. She felt protective and was glad that he was brave. She tried to persuade herself that it would be sensible to forget Mylo and concentrate on her husband, that if she tried hard enough she would succeed.
Driving home through St James’s Park, she passed banks of tulips lifting their heads to the moon and was reminded of walking hand in hand with. Mylo the year before, of picnicking with him on a park bench, eating rolls, pâté and an apple between them, for they had not the money to go even into a pub, and her heart was wrenched back on course.
23
ROSE PAID THE TAXI and greeted the cats, lissom in adolescence. They twined in and out of her ankles, mewed, ran towards the kitchen, indicating that they were hungry, had not been fed. She followed. Two perfectly good cat dinners awaited their eating. They crouched down and ate, needing her company, needing an audience. And I need to be here, she thought, standing in the kitchen already grown familiar; it is after all easier to bear anxiety in my own environment. She admitted that Slepe was her home.
Farthing crossed the yard carrying a shotgun. He wore a Home Guard armband on the sleeve of his working jacket and his Sunday hat.
‘Look a lot less foolish when you gets your uniform,’ Mrs Farthing’s voice from the cottage borne on the still air. Farthing shouted back, ‘I shoot with the gun, love, not with uniform.’ He sounded stalwart and jocular. Rose heard him mount his bicycle and clatter across the cobbled yard to the accompaniment of shrilly shrieked goodbyes from the little evacuees. She cupped her hands and shouted from the kitchen window, ‘I’m back, Mrs Farthing.’
‘Good. I fed the cats. Want anything?’
‘Nothing, thanks, let you know when I do.’
‘I’m going to have a big wash tomorrow. I won’t be round for a day or two, if you can spare me.’
‘I can spare you.’ Enough to know the woman was there. From the back of the house she heard the Ministry of Information telephone pealing unanswered. The clerks kept office hours, they also kept to themselves, casting doubtful looks at Rose if they crossed her path, as though she had no right, did not belong. Ned had been irritated to find that they had fitted new locks on the communicating doors. He frowned when Rose said she neither minded nor cared. ‘They should have asked permission,’ he had grumbled. ‘It’s my house, dammit.’
What does it matter? thought Rose, amused by Ned’s prickly attitude.
She found bread and cheese in the larder, ate standing in the kitchen, drank a glass of milk, poured a saucerful for the cats and went out to the garden.
A combination of dust in the atmosphere and evening mist coloured the moon like a blood orange. She stood on the steps leading to the walled garden and watched. In the distance she could hear the rattle and creak of harness, the rumble of wheels, the snort of carthorses as the Hadleys lifted the last load of hay by moonlight. Their lives were not much affected, thought Rose. They would not change as the Malones would be changed by their evacuees, and Ned and his friends by the Army. Even Farthing would change in the Home Guard, she thought, and smiled as she contemplated the self-importance already worn by Air Raid Wardens in the village. London was full of men joining the Fire Service or Ambulance, girls too. Uncle Archie and his Flora, to hear him talk, would run Scotland single-handed. Even her mother had said that the moment her flats were complete she would join the Red Cross. Rose wondered at all the activity, the stern enjoyment.
I want nothing to do with the killing, she thought, as she wandered under the lilacs, watched the cats crouch, freeze, leap after moths, miss. Yet I must do something; looking after Slepe and being wife to absent Ned is not enough to prevent me thinking. I must fight despair.
‘The evacuation is over,’ she said out loud. ‘There will be no more news. It is over, over, over. I must do something to still my mind.’ She walked through the door in the wall to the vegetable garden.
I will help Farthing here. Grow food. Perhaps the Hadleys will let me help on the farm? I will tire myself to sleep, prevent myself thinking, teach myself to forget. When she went up to bed the moon had lost its rosy look, resumed its gold. She drew back the curtains, undressed by its light, looked out at the cats still cavorting in the garden, got lonely into bed, supposed she would lie sleepless, slept.
Jerking awake she listened for a repetition of the sound. A pebble winged in through the open window to land with a skitter on the polished boards.
Springing to the window, she leaned out. Dark in the moonlight stood a man and a dog. The man, his face in shadow, stared up. The dog wagged, gently expectant.
‘Rose?’
‘Aah—Mylo,’ she whispered. ‘Mylo!’
‘We will climb the magnolia,’ he said. ‘Come, Comrade, up you go.’ He set the dog to climb, steadying her from below as he followed. The dog scrambled, scrabbled, the magnolia leaves clattered, man and dog came in over the sill in a rush. ‘Are you glad?’ Mylo held Rose in his arms.
‘I had so nearly given you up.’
‘You knew I would come.’
‘I hoped, how I hoped—the telephone did not …’
‘France is cut off for the duration.’
The dog flopped down on the floor with a sigh. Mylo, his arms around Rose, his face in her hair, swayed with fatigue. ‘Get into bed,’ she said, helping him off with his clothes. ‘Are you hungry?’
‘Later, later. Come close, take off that nig
htdress thing, let me feel you close.’ She lay beside him, he put his arms around her, buried his face in her neck, fell suddenly asleep.
Overwhelmed by joy Rose gulped great draughts of air sweetened by new-mown hay, sweetened far better by Mylo’s sweat. While Mylo slept exhausted and the birds in the garden tuned up for the dawn chorus Rose knew the intense happiness of relief. Curled up beside him she catnapped, waking to the delight of feeling him with her. She listened to his breathing, laid her hand on his heart, feeling its beat under her palm. On the floor the dog whimpered in its sleep, scratched on the boards with dreaming paws.
As the mistlethrush led the birds in noisy crescendo Mylo woke, turned, held her close, kissed her eyes, found her mouth, made love tenderly with fluent passion, lay back laughing.
‘We managed it right this time.’
‘Exquisite.’
What had she done, so wifely with Ned, so friendly with George? Not this, nothing like this.
‘And again?’
‘And again and again.’
Beside the bed the dog sneezed politely, craving attention.
‘My poor Comrade. I brought her for you. I said if you must come with me, you will have to settle with Rose. She is probably hungry. We have travelled far.’
‘I will take her down and feed her, let her out. Where does she come from?’
‘France.’
‘How?’
‘She latched on to me. Followed my bicycle. I had a bicycle some of the way. She wouldn’t go home. Has no home. She followed me from Conches to Perros-Guirec, leapt for the boat, fell in the water. I fished her out, she sneaked ashore with me at Brixham unnoticed and we came on here. Will you keep her?’
‘Of course. I have been waiting for the right dog. I stocked up with tinned food. Ned would have liked me to have a labrador. What do you suppose she is? Or an alsatian.’
‘A French mongrel.’
‘I will feed her. What’s her name?’
‘I call her Comrade …’