‘Yes, thank you. I’ll just get rid of this lot, then I’ll drive you home,’ she had said.
‘Oh, yes, ah well, thank you.’
One supposes she had thought unkindly that he wants to have his say too, otherwise he could perfectly well have gone home with Edith; I shall not ask him to stay for tea.
He had settled himself beside her in the car; Comrade had leaned from the back seat to sniff and breathe on his neck. He had winced and Rose had not restrained the dog, taking petty pleasure in his annoyance. ‘You’re a cat lover, aren’t you?’ she had said pertly.
‘Would you stop in the village, I want to buy a Picture Post for you to take back for your visitors.’
‘That’s kind of you. They must not be allowed to get bored,’ she had said crisply.
‘Don’t be like that.’ He had shown a tinge of weakness and for a mile or two she thought he might withhold whatever he had that he wanted to say, but in the end he had circumnavigated his indecision: ‘I am not saying you are unwise, I am saying that you looked as though you might be, which amounts to the same thing.’
‘Yes, Uncle Archibald.’
‘Your friend Emily appears to have been a great deal more indiscreet than you (a touch of bad luck there, one assumes). Edith, an old old friend you know, Edith knows and I know you have done nothing reprehensible. Of course not, of course not! But it looked wrong.’
I wouldn’t call it reprehensible, Rose had thought, you silly old man; if you think I am an innocent ninny, think away. ‘Is that all, Uncle Archie?’ she had asked sweetly.
Uncle Archie had shot her a look which had she been older and more experienced she would have interpreted as an invitation to something very reprehensible indeed, but being only twenty at the time all she said was, ‘We can buy a Picture Post at the newsagent,’ and Archibald Loftus thanked her. Now at sixty-seven Rose chuckled in recollection. Uncle Archie was such a devious old man, he could not imagine her other than straight. He was funny that way. Or, she thought, frowning at the view, looking back along the years, was he even craftier than I thought? Did he guess I was tempted by security?
37
MYLO WOKE SWEATING. THE weight of the bedclothes oppressed his wounded leg. He was handicapped. Visions of police, Gestapo, suspicions of unreliable friends raced through his mind, then, fully awake, he remembered where he was. He lay back, perspiration cooling on his chest as the heart which had thundered in terror slowed its pace.
He looked at his watch. He had slept seven hours since Edwina Farthing undressed him, manoeuvred legs and arms into pyjamas and rolled him into bed. He lay listening to the silent house, then cautiously got out of bed, limped to the window. A full moon lit the garden; across the fields an owl hooted. Under this moon he had held Rose after the winter tennis, kissed her as they listened to the vixen screech.
Pricked by desire, he hobbled into the passage, listened again. A board creaked as the house cooled; from a neighbouring room the Australian snored; he remembered his arrival with Rose, her expression, mixed astonishment and irritation, as Mrs Farthing imparted her news, her eyes wild as Archibald Loftus helped him into the house, the old man’s grip firm, compelling, her expression changing to hopeless resignation as command of the situation was whipped from her. He had guessed that she was outmanoeuvred, was best left alone, but now—he made his way along the passage, opened Rose’s door and walked in.
She lay as he had left her that first time, her hair tousled, one arm flung across the side of the bed he had just left.
From her basket Comrade thumped her tail as she had when, departing, he had told her to ‘stay’. On the rug the twin cats curled entwined, emerald eyes watchful. It was the same, everything was all right, nothing was changed.
In his cot Christopher sighed, whimpering in his sleep.
Ah. That …
Mylo hesitated as the events of the last few days surged back. The fear, the chase, the pain, the grotesquely noisy hospital, the rescue by Rose.
‘Darling.’ She was awake. ‘Get in.’ She held out her arms. ‘Careful with your leg. Can you manage?’
‘I can manage.’ He struggled out of the pyjamas.
‘You manage pretty well,’ she said contentedly when they had made love. ‘Very well, I’d say. Shall we do it again?’ She kissed his throat, feeling his pulse under her tongue, while he breathed the scent of her hair. ‘Oh, my love, I have missed you so.’
‘If I were blind, I would know you by smell.’
‘If I were blind, I would know you by feel.’
‘Your voice.’
‘Your dear voice.’
Christopher waking, wet nappies cooling around his parts, raised an aggrieved yowl.
‘His voice! I have to feed him.’ She sat up.
‘At this hour?’
‘Yes.’
‘Tyrannical.’ He watched her get out of bed, snatch a wrapper around her shoulders, pick up the child, change it, bring it back to bed, sit propped by pillows, put it to her breast. Watching, Mylo felt a surge of jealousy, a murderous rage against Ned who thus in the guise of Christopher imposed himself, wedging him apart from Rose. ‘What does your husband think of his heir?’
‘He hasn’t met him yet.’
‘But he knew you were pregnant?’
‘Oh, yes. I wrote. Yes, I wrote and told him.’
‘Wasn’t he delighted?’
‘He had gone overseas when I wrote, so …’
‘So he was delighted?’ (Why do I insist?)
‘Not exactly,’ she answered carefully. ‘Pleased. Yes, I suppose he was pleased.’
‘You suppose?’ Mylo was puzzled. ‘He knew it was his.’
‘Of course. He would not have supposed otherwise.’
‘He trusts you.’ Mylo lay on his back, put his hands behind his head.
‘Of course.’
‘So he must have been enchanted, proud, delighted.’ (My wound is throbbing in time to the baby sucking.)
Rose glanced at Mylo over Christopher’s head, his dark eyes looking at the ceiling glinted in the moonlight. I can hardly tell him having a baby was my idea, my decision, not Ned’s, that Ned played no part, well, very little, was not consulted.
‘I wrote and told him,’ she repeated.
‘And what did the happy father say?’ Mylo hoped the jealousy did not sound in his voice, knew his choice of words was unfortunate, too late to retract them. ‘He must have been thrilled to bits,’ he amended.
‘He said, Let’s pray it’s not a girl.’ Rose kept her voice neutral.
‘Primogeniture?’ Shocked and appalled, Mylo sensed her pain.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘exactly.’
‘So, when he was born, what did he say then?’
‘Thank God it’s a boy. I trust it’s strong and doesn’t squint or anything.’
‘Anything?’
‘Some distant Peel was born with a harelip,’ she said.
‘He telegraphed this?’
‘He didn’t telegraph. He wrote.’
‘Bastard.’
‘He can’t help it,’ she defended absent Ned, ‘he’s a man of property, he’s a kind man.’
‘So you say.’
‘So they say.’
‘Look, he’s had enough, he’s falling asleep. Put him back in his cot, come back to me.’ (One should not dislike an innocent infant.) Propped on his elbow, Mylo watched Rose settle the child in his Moses basket, stoop to kiss the top of its head.
‘He can’t help his nature,’ she said.
Did she mean the child or its father? There was something in the tone of her voice which filled him with elation. ‘I believe,’ he said laughing, ‘that you are a survivor.’
‘I hope you are too,’ she said.
Rose back in his arms, he stroked her hair, pushing his fingers up her scalp, cupping her ears in his palms, bending to kiss her mouth. She heard the roar of the sea as one does when holding a conch to one’s ear and shivered close up to him, reminded of
the Channel which so recently separated them.
‘When I am about my business in France,’ he said, ‘on the rare occasions I allow myself to think of you, I see us as those two in the Bonnard.’ He raised himself to peer at the lithograph.
‘We have already grown older than those two,’ she murmured.
‘Not in our hearts, never that.’
‘Of course not,’ she agreed robustly.
‘She has no husband to come between them,’ he said enviously.
‘He has no job to take him away from her,’ whispered Rose. ‘Away, to get shot in the leg.’
‘All her attention is for him. She has no house to look after, no farm, no garden, no handsome Australian visitor to care for.’
‘Is he handsome?’
‘Stunning. I caught a glimpse as I was frog-marched to bed. She has no interfering in-laws and friends, no baby. If she had a baby it would be her lover’s.’
‘Oh,’ Rose turned away, ‘don’t. That hurts.’
‘My darling, I wouldn’t hurt you for the world. I only beef because I am so lucky to be here at all, I love you.’
‘And I love you, but I don’t suppose,’ she too looked at the lovers in the picture, ‘that they spent all their lives he naked, she in camiknickers.’
Perhaps what held me most strongly to Rose, Mylo would think in later life, was the laughter we shared. It was a stronger tie than promises of eternal love, more lasting than jealousy, more binding than lust.
38
ROSE WAS ANGRY WITH Ned’s Uncle Archibald and Edith Malone. She had not felt the interference of relations and friends so strongly since she had been manoeuvred into marriage. Now all her resentment came flooding back. Later she would learn to frustrate her elders’ benign force, recognise and mock their divine right to know what was best for her. She would learn much from the Thornbys who, thick-skinned and selfish, yet managed to appear compliant and agreeable should it suit them, while doing the opposite of what was suggested.
The imposition of an Australian visitor, which infuriated Rose at the time since it deprived her of her privacy with Mylo, was to lead via Edith’s scheme to other visitors, French, Dutch, Polish, Canadian, Belgian, American. For the rest of the war Slepe was seldom free of guests; Mylo faded from people’s minds, was lost in the crowd. If it was hinted that she might be having an affair with one of her visitors Rose would laugh, guessing that the suggestion came from Nicholas, put about as a smokescreen for his sister, for Emily soon latched on to the hospitality scheme, offered their spare rooms and was not above poaching the more attractive and sensual of Rose and other hostesses’ visitors, leaving the more boring and boorish for hostesses less spry than herself, so that by the end of the war it was general knowledge that Emily received more CARE parcels, was better stocked with cigarettes and nylons than anyone in the county, and that, in this the period of dried egg, spam and whale steak, she learned to cook from her polyglot guests (and other less tangible arts).
But all this was to come later. Coming in from her morning’s shopping, aglow with the beneficence of the night’s love-making, her mind busy with plots to get Mylo to herself during the day as well as at night, Rose was furious to find Emily, Nicholas and baby Laura making free with her tea ration in the kitchen, talking and laughing with the Australian pilot who dandled Laura on his knee while Nicholas drew a naked lady on his plaster cast. (‘This is my sister Emily at her best.’)
Rose was even more furious to find that without telling her Mylo had telephoned London and informed Major Pye of his whereabouts and was even now closeted in the library with Victoria. When Mylo introduced them she shook hands; meeting Victoria’s remarkable eyes in her plain bun face, she felt a premonition of doom.
‘Victoria is from my outfit, come to do a spot of de-briefing,’ said Mylo.
‘It’s very good of you to have Mr Cooper to stay, you rescued him for us before we could get around to it.’ Victoria’s smile was friendly, showed more than passable teeth. (Who does she think she is? Who are ‘us’ and ‘we’? He’s mine.) Victoria re-seated herself beside Mylo and looked up at Rose. (She expects me to leave them together. I am de trop.)
‘I have to brief Victoria with the results of my trip,’ said Mylo. He did not want her to stay, did not call her darling, was distant.
‘Then I’ll leave you to get on with it,’ said Rose, then forced herself to say, ‘I hope you can stay to lunch?’
‘I should love to, but I must get back to the office and I mustn’t impose on your rations.’ Victoria’s manners were as perfect as her eyes.
‘But you must stay, I insist,’ said Rose. ‘We have a broken-legged pilot who needs cheering up and we have masses to eat since we have a farm. Please stay.’ Perhaps, she thought wildly, this girl will succumb to the charms of the beautiful Australian.
In the event Victoria stayed and was amused by Nicholas and Emily who entertained the lunch party, telling them that their father, the bishop, refused to baptise Laura, making a good story of their parents doubting the validity of baptism when the child was of father unknown. ‘Isn’t it barbaric? Isn’t it a typical churchman’s attitude? He’s a bishop and yet so unchristian.’
‘He’s a nice old man and I bet he hasn’t refused to baptise Laura. You’ve invented the story to be snobbish and show off’ (What am I saying? I’m behaving like a child back in the nursery.) ‘that your father is a bishop.’
‘No, no, we haven’t invented. He makes all sorts of excuses. Emily doesn’t know who the father is, either. What would you do Down Under? You wouldn’t be beastly to a little Pom bastard, would you?’ Nicholas drew Rose’s guest into his net, enjoying signs of embarrassment. ‘Come on, Rose, you must help us.’
Rose backed away from what she suspected was a Thornby trap. ‘I never knew your father all that well,’ she excused herself.
‘Then can you lend us a gallon or two of petrol?’ Nicholas revealed the real reason for their visit.
‘No,’ said Rose, ‘certainly not.’
‘Oh, come on, Rose, I’m sure you can spare some. Our friendly blackmarketeer has dried up.’
‘What about your Min of Ag?’
‘They are being a little difficult.’
‘It’s still no.’
‘What must you think of us blackmarketeers with illegitimate babies?’ Nicholas turned to Victoria.
‘It happens,’ said Victoria calmly, then, ‘I must go, I’m afraid.’ She turned to Rose. ‘Many thanks for lunch.’ Mylo limped with her to her car while Rose followed. ‘Goodbye,’ said Victoria, shaking Rose’s hand, and, ‘I’ll have you fetched tomorrow,’ she said to Mylo as she got into her car. ‘Can you be ready by ten?’
‘Yes, of course.’ Mylo watched the car go down the drive. ‘Nice girl that,’ he said, ‘very capable.’
Rose felt a fierce pang of envy. ‘You can’t go tomorrow, your leg isn’t fit enough.’
‘I’ll get it checked in London.’
‘You can’t leave me, I’ve only just got you back!’
‘I must go …’
‘Why?’
‘You know why.’ He was not going to argue or explain his job, was forbidden to anyway. That night they had a row.
It began, as rows do, over a matter on which normally they would have agreed, Edith Malone. Rose, smarting at being jumped into hostessing a number of strangers for an indefinite period, complained when Mylo joined her in bed of Edith Malone and Archibald Loftus’ interference. There would be a constant interruption of precious privacy, a crowd of visitors with unknown needs. The imposition was outrageous.
During the day she had fuelled her annoyance, letting her mind run over the occasions, real or imaginary, that her life had been impinged on by her elders. Forgetting that, had it not been for her mother’s persistence, she would never have met Mylo at the winter tennis, she dwelt on the meeting with Ned. If it had not been for her mother and Mrs Malone she would never have met, never have been cajoled into marriage with Ned, wo
uld not now be trapped, lassoed into this hospitable role. She would like to be at peace, to be alone with Mylo, her love, her darling, to copulate. (This word, sometimes used with effect by Nicholas and recently added to her vocabulary, she tried now on Mylo who appeared unmoved by it.) Hurrying on, she said she would be bored and bothered by the uninvited guests, foresaw much irritation from Nicholas and Emily. ‘Look how they barged in on us today,’ she grumbled. ‘It is all Edith’s fault, our day ruined.’ She dared not voice her real fears, Mylo’s imminent departure. Where to? How long for? Would he be killed next time? Might she never see him again?
And Victoria.
Since the morning she had been devoured by a jealousy so intense it upset her milk, which in turn upset Christopher who now whinged with stomach ache, drew up his legs, clenched infant fists, and either could not or would not sleep as was his usually angelic mode. If Mylo was on these terms (she could not, of course, define what terms) with Victoria, who might there be in France to draw him back like a magnet? One girl in particular? Many girls? All that talk of boring French girls with expressions of his love for her, Rose, was obviously all my eye. So her thoughts and fears raged as for the umpteenth time she soothed Christopher, hopefully spooned gripe water into his mouth.
‘Edith Malone is an old busybody. Since Mother went to live in London, she has appointed herself watchdog over my morals. I wish to God she would mind her own business instead of poking her nose into mine and dragging Ned’s uncle along. Why can’t they leave us alone? How on earth did she guess about you and me, we’ve been so utterly secret?’
‘I don’t think she has the remotest idea about you and me,’ said Mylo equably. (If only Rose would get that baby to be quiet, we could cuddle up in bed and listen to the night.)
‘What do you mean by that?’ snapped Rose.
‘Mrs Malone is a snob, it would not occur to her that you would sleep with her son’s tutor.’