A Solitary War (32 page)

“Is anything the matter? Then why did you come?”

Anxiety. Pale face. Hairs on chin. “Well, why don’t you answer?”

“To see you, Elizabeth. How are you?”

Grey hair, cheeks fatter. The brown eyes, once so limpid, shrunken. Nose longer, mouth without lipstick. Poor faded
sister, quick jerky manner, the queried surprise holding a
suggestion
of his being if not unwelcome at least not welcome—

“Oh, I thought I’d drop in to see how you are getting on.
Perhaps
you will come out to lunch with me?”

“What, now? Out of the question! I don’t go until
twelve-thirty
.”

“I’m afraid I’ve t-taken you rather by surprise. May I call back at half-past twelve then? Or meet you outside?”

“Just as you like. But I warn you, there’s only one place to go to round here, and it’s an awful rush! Awful!”

“Then we’ll get a taxi and go elsewhere, shall we?”

She shook her head decisively. “No good. No, I have only half an hour. We’re understaffed you see. Yes. Men away in the services. We have to do their work for them. Longer hours, often long past the black-out. Then the rush home. No, I can’t be late.”

“I know a place near Liverpool Street Station where one can get a plate of crab, or lobster, or oysters, quickly.”

“Shell fish? No fear! What about ptomaine poisoning? I can’t afford to get ill.”

“Well, shall we go to your place then? I’ll be outside at
half-past
twelve. That’s fine.”

Just like Poluski. That’s fine.

He left the building to curious upglancings of faces at mahogany desks. He smiled at the porter, and got a smile in return. T. S. Eliot in a bank: no wonder
The
Waste
Land
was the poem of the second quarter of the century. Grim with iron and coal, bitumen and carbon monoxide, narrow street of business and banking. I sentence you to death by accountancy. He walked aimlessly down the sparrowless street, seldom a sun shaft penetrating glassed cliffs of stone.

An hour to waste. He cut across Gracechurch Street to
Leadenhall
Market; not visited since beardless 1914. Gone the
white-coated
poulterers in straw boaters and waxed moustaches, gone the shop where he used to buy a penny roll of cheese or salmon, then a penny cheesecake. Gone the pet shop, where Father had bought Timmy Rat. So thin and wan the feeling, I dare not go to Fenchurch Street, to Wine Vaults Lane. I am not yet man enough, I am only a jerky superstructure with no real existence.

A cellar, a dive below a street near her office, queue on the
steps of unspeaking men and women. He and she two of them, moving down several steps at a time. Waiting. Unspeaking men and girls squeezed upon narrow stairs with shiny iron treads. Little tables in the cellar, smell of steam, tobacco smoke. Rolls of
reinforced
white flour scarcely more nourishing than cotton wool. Insipid food, slight portions, clatter of piled plates, small glasses of undrunk water, thin half-cooked pastry and a tiny spoonful of hot jam.

“Coffee, old girl?”

“I daren’t! It gives me indigestion!” Her life a series of ejaculators, her face a dark stare beyond anguish; existence a slow petrofaction.

“Why don’t you keep house for Father? He can afford it. He lives alone.”

“Oh, no, no! Never think of it, Phillip! The doctor told me I must never live anywhere near Father! Or my attacks might return.”

A euphemism, as the Magister at school would say, for epileptic fits.

“Where do you live?”

“With two old people in Sydenham. An awful life! They won’t let me hear Beethoven or even Tschaikovsky on my wireless set. They
hate
music. I can’t afford a fire in my bedroom, anyway, they’re frightened of fire. It’s awful!”

“Forgive my asking, but what do you get, what salary, I mean?”

“Three pounds ten a week.”

“Is that
all
?
After—how many years is it?—eighteen years? You left home a year after I did, didn’t you?”

“Yes, when Father turned me out. He turned you out, too, didn’t he?”

“I deserved it, what’s more, it was the finest thing he ever did.”

“You’re different. You’re a man. He killed mother, you know.”

“Well—maybe cancer is psychological.”

“Of course it is! It’s increasing in leaps and bounds. Look at the lives we have to lead! Nobody I know is really happy. Are you? Of course you’re not. How can you be? How can anyone be, in this sort of world? And now it’s all come down to that man Hitler.”

“Yes, it’s come to that, as you say. He’s trying to raise from the dead a world too far gone for saints. At least, that’s only my opinion.”

“You’re very polite nowadays, aren’t you? I can see through
you, you know. You always did pretend. Anyway, don’t blame me this time. I told you it would be awful down here. Now you know!” She gave a brittle laugh.

The hustled waitress, collecting coppers for herself at small table after table, stood by them and flicked out a bill. The front of one thigh was pressed against his shoulder. She gave him an aching look, drawn by the deep blue of eyes in a brown face, as he turned to go up the stairs.

“Well, au revoir, Elizabeth.” He gave her a light kiss on the cheek, against his will.

“Aren’t you sentimental. Well, good-bye.”

Stone and mahogany and glass received her wraith again. He walked up the street to find a chemist’s to buy soda-mints.

*

Liverpool Street Station, 2 p.m. Dirty sooted glass roof of peace-time now painted black. He stood by the Arrivals board. She had changed her mind, after discussing it with Penelope. She would not be coming. The train rolled hissing into the cavern. She would not be coming. He watched. She was not there. He was moving away from the Arrivals board when Melissa’s voice said, “I had a feeling you would be here.”

“Francis Thompson led me along the Embankment to you.”

“I was thinking of his ‘Sister Songs’ in the train.”

“I knew we were telepathic!”

“I tried to telephone your club this morning, but the line was always engaged. Priorities, I suppose, after Churchill’s speech last night, urging the neutrals to join in the war against Hitler.”

“Yes, he wants to get the war started.”

The tea room was crowded with service men. No coffee. She kept two chairs while he joined the queue. When he returned he saw she had made-up her face. The tea was rank and sweet, but hot.

“Did you enjoy your stay with Penelope?”

“Very much. Are you going to be in London for long?”

“Only a day, then I must go to the Gartenfeste to write my film synopsis. I’ll be there for about ten days.”

“Won’t it be awfully damp?”

“One inside wall below is entirely stacked with split
beech-logs.
”

“I hope you’ll feed yourself properly.”

“There’s a store of tins in the field. Also I’ve got a basket at the club, with some of the farm bacon I hid, and some eggs.”

“That sounds better. I hope you won’t find the Gartenfeste broken into by troops. Aunt Flo says they scrounge anything and everything they can find. When are you leaving?”

“I did think the day after tomorrow. I’ve got the car. Keep it to yourself, but I’m not supposed to use my petrol coupons for other than agricultural purposes.”

“Your film is about agriculture, so you won’t be wasting petrol. I’m awfully sorry, but I mustn’t stay any longer. I’m meeting mummy at her club, we’re going to a matinée. Well, if I don’t see you before you leave, good luck to the film story.”

He saw her to the taxi queue, hating himself for his diffidence, and when he had shut her cab door he gave her a wave of the hand and walked out into a khaki world of sulphurous smoke and engine screech.

*

The next morning Phillip, having made up his mind to
telephone,
went down the broad stairs, past the bronze heads of dead members on pedestals—one still smoking, apparently, since a joker had stuck a cigarette stub in its mouth—to the hall porter’s box.

“Will you get me the Ladies Marlborough Club, please.”

The porter was saying, “Will you take it in Box Four, sir,” when the buzzer inside his box made him lift the receiver. “Hold on, miss. Mr. Maddison is just here. Box Four, sir!”

He felt no emotion as he heard himself saying, “I had just asked the hall porter to telephone your number, when you rang me!”

“How did you know I was here?”

“I thought you’d be at your mother’s club.”

“I’m in Dolly’s flat, off the Fulham Road. You may remember, you met her when we dined with John Chettwood at the Café Royal. Am I forgiven for my self-destructive mood this morning? I miss you.”

“I miss you, too.”

“Oh darling, I didn’t mean to be unkind to you. I’ve got a sado-masochistic streak, I’m afraid. But I had an idea you might be going with Felicity to Malandine.”

“I haven’t seen her for ages. She’s looking after her mother, who’s had a major operation. The thing my mother died of.”

“Poor Felicity. Still, she’s got Edward. Where’s her father?”

“Brother Laurence is with a Field Ambulance Unit in France. How is Dolly? Is she still going to marry John?”

“They’re quite happy as they are, I think.”

“I suppose I can’t see you?”

“Do you still want to?”

“Of course I do!”

“I’d better warn you what I said in a letter I’ve just posted to you. I invited myself to the Gartenfeste for a week, to cook for you while you’re writing your synopsis. I can’t stay longer, as my leave will be up then. It’s embarkation leave, I’m being posted—well—it’s hush-hush, so I can’t say over the telephone. If you can stand me, that is, for a few days.”

“I did think of you. Only I felt I was a sort of Flying Dutchman in your life.”

“Darling Phillip, I shall always be your bemused and dreaming girl. And I’m here if you want to warp your ship on my
water-front
. Well, that sounds a bit off, doesn’t it? It’s the gin I’ve been drinking, all by myself, see what you’ve reduced me to. I needed Dutch courage before I dared to telephone. The address is Number Four, Mopus Mews, Kensington. South, not West. Repeat, South Kensington.”

“I’ll be down right away.”

*

A half-bottle of gin stood among brushes and tubes of paint on the table with two glasses and bottles of tonic water.

“Oh Phillip,” she said, and hid her face on his jacket, while he held her. Tenderness gave him mastery, with this sense of mastery he was no longer afraid.

They sat on the sofa. He was holding her, while gently stroking her hair, when she drew away and getting up, went to the gramophone.

“I thought you would like my new record,” she said, when she had put it on the turn-table.

“Nights from the Gardens of Spain.” Then turning a white face to him she said, “I’m awfully sorry, but I think I’m going to be sick.”

He got up, and after softening the music, led her to the kitchen sink.

“I’m so ashamed.”

“I’ve been like it hundreds of times. Don’t worry, my sweet.”

He supported the vulnerable little skull under the fair hair. She was a child. “There now, that’s better. Don’t worry.”

When she was purged he carried her to bed, having taken off her shoes and jacket, bathed her forehead and covered her with a rug. She fell asleep. Removing shoes and jacket, he got under the blanket and lay beside her.

“I’m sorry, I think I’m going to be sick again.”

He was ready with the basin.

“You are so kind to me,” she said floating through mists of nausea.

“Don’t worry, Melissa.”

His hands so gentle on her forehead.

“Oh, Phillip, I do love you so.”

When she was asleep, he sat in a chair, and was writing in his journal when Dolly, Chettwood’s girl, came up the stairs. She was tired, he could see, and psepared to leave. She insisted on making some coffee, after which he said good-night and returned to his club.

Gear-box making its euphonious hum, oil-pressure constant, dynamo charging at 10 amps, rev. counter 3,000. Upright in cockpit, elbows tucked into sides, holding wheel at twenty to four, the driver sang as the hedges streamed away behind. Melissa was coming down after three days. By then the story would be in shape. Before then, she said, she would be in the way of the story, also she must be with her mother.

Wearing heavy leather flying coat, helmet, fur-lined gloves, he was now approaching the downland country of his first farming venture. He began to feel he was entering another world: for the landscape as he had known it was entirely altered, as though to a vast film-set for a scene of ultimate chaos. The queerest things seemed to have happened, an entire countryside was estranged. All standing natural objects appeared to have crashed upon the earth.

As far as the eye could see telegraph poles along the road were lying snapped and splintered. Loops of wire were like monstrous glassy gossamers upon the hedges. Great oaks in the fields stood gaunt bereft of all limbs. Torn off boughs lay around their bases. Other trees had collapsed upon their own branches. Cattle byres were flattened. Mile upon mile revealed the effects of some mysterious pressure upon all things that once were standing upon the earth.

All weather news being censored, neither newspaper nor B.B.C. broadcast had forecast the phenomenon. It must have had to do with the prolonged freeze-up: but what had caused
upright
telegraph poles to crash so completely? And not a tree standing in miles? A tornado? But no branch of oak or beech had been carried away so much as a yard. All lay directly below the parent trunks. He left the car to walk around an area of collapse, puzzled, amazed—and alarmed. A German ray—soon to be used upon towns?

Upon the West Country had come, during the darkness of one winter night, a strange precipitation of the elements, revealing by the light of day a startling transformation in the landscape. This was the effect of a fine rain or mist drifting on leaf and twig and branch, on sleeping bird and thistle stalk, oak-apple and
ash-bud
, wire of fence and telephone: a fine rain freezing as it came to rest on all objects until they were encased in ice; and as the drift of moisture continued, so the ice was enlayered the more until copper telegraph wires became thick as ropes, thicker like a ship’s cables, becoming heavier and heavier until finally they dragged down their posts already encased ovally to many times their wooden diameter. Oak trees, massively crystallised, groaned and then shrieked as branch after branch went down. Some had fallen with reports almost of 18-pounder field-guns. Sheep on the downs became tinkling cymbals, then armadilloes of glass
recumbent
with lambent eyes, crystallised amidst the snow.

The unthawed grasses of the northern fringe of a stack of meadow hay, where he stopped to eat bread, cheese, and pickled shallots, made in the wind a faint crying, so that for a thudding moment he wondered if, at last, sirens in distant towns were wailing at the coming of the German bombers. So far no bombs had fallen upon England.

At Salisbury he had a little more than fifty miles to go before the black-out. He had delayed too long on the way. The road to Dorchester was empty. He was alone in a wide and undulating white landscape. No other car was to be seen. Plovers were flying in flocks across the north-west sky, seeking rest for the night.

He had tea in Queensbridge, and was glad of it when he came to his field to see in the last of the light that the windows of the Gartenfeste had been broken, the door forced. Blankets and
bedding
within were strewn about. Pictures and books thrown on the floor. Upstairs in the loft the two beds had been fouled. On the walls swastikas were scrawled, and the word
Traitor.
He returned to Queensbridge, and put up at an hotel.

There he tried to telephone Melissa at the flat. There was delay. He tried again after supper, meaning to ask her to bring her own blankets when she came by train. There was further delay of two hours. He passed the time in the bar talking to farmers, then tried once more; the line was clear but he heard only the
burr-burr
of no reply. He tried her mother’s club, it was now past
eleven-o’clock.

“Her Ladyship left the club this morning, sir.”

In the morning he burned the old bedding, and having scrubbed the floors with carbolic soap set about distempering the walls. The damage was not so bad as he dreaded. Could he get a glazier from Queensbridge? The sun shone. Afar in the Channel waves had white caps. He saw the policeman in the village and told him what had happened. The policeman said there had been many
complaints
about soldiers at the camp four miles away. He saw the village carpenter, and was greatly relieved to hear that he would replace the broken panes.

The next thing was to get milk, bread, and emergency rations with the coupons on his card. Then to collect driftwood above Malandine sands. Having packed it in the back of the car he returned to the Gartenfeste. His store had been burnt by the hooligans. Thank God they hadn’t found his iron rations under a flagstone in a corner of the living room, where tinned butter and other foods were kept.

He had brought some lengths of black-out cloth with him, and these, draped over curtains, would serve to enclose all light after dark, Would he be watched? The Gartenfeste looked directly over the Channel.

The sun shone, the wind was easterly, a little bleak. Before the winter he had been in the habit of having a cold tub every
morning
throughout the year. Dare he start again? It was coming on to evening when he finished the downstairs distempering, and the carpenter had gone home on his bicycle. Now was the time to go down to the sands! The tide was high, he crept in and bobbed under, met the shock of icy water, leapt about, went under again and hurried out, exhilarated and glowing, to feel clear and bodyless.

Physical work had warmed the blood, but muscles were weary after work. A sense of well-being filled him as he sat by the fire, after eggs and bacon, drinking a mug of tea. Tomorrow, surely, there would be a letter from Melissa.

*

The oil-lamp glowed with an orange light. The bowl or
container
had been fashioned by a copper-smith just before he had married Lucy. It was the shape of a kettle with a handle like that of a tea-pot, and held half a gallon of paraffin. The burner had been taken from a lamp modern in the ’twenties and fitted to the copper container. A brass label stamped with his initials had been soldered on. It was an old friend, nearly as valuable as the dark lantern he had brought down with him.

This object, with it’s bull’s-eye magnifying lens, stood on a window seat. The wick was turned low. The flame burning there in solitude was a symbol. Within its gentle wavering hovered the Virgilian ‘tears of things’. This lantern had been to his father a symbol of dream, which was hope. Father was the effect of the family ruin. The spirit of this must be transmuted into his
film-story
. From their ghosts, from ‘a full look at the worst’, would come a rebirth of the consciousness of duty to the land. The film would end in triumph.

Even so, optimistic feelings began to decline as thoughts of the farm rose darkly in him, with the image of Melissa, a saving presence of all warmth and light.

Hope hovered against darkness, then withdrew, leaving only the gleam of the dark lantern. Poor Father, he had always been alone. Should he visit him when he returned to London?

Hope returned with compassion. He lay in the armchair, slipper’d feet to the fire, staring at soft yellow sodium flames green-fringed with copper, and the lilac flutterings of
potassium
. He saw suddenly how the story should run, and began to write.

In the morning he walked down to the post office, telling
himself
on the way that there would be no letter from her. Nothing for him; nor on the following morning. He wrote away the rest of the daylight. And on the third day he determined to
telephone
; but at the box dare not risk rebuff, so put back the receiver, to walk away with hands clenched against yielding to her image.

There was no more wood for the fire. Only the small yellow flame of the dark lantern was friendly. He walked up and down, ranting at himself. All his life had been of the same pattern: the diffident inner core of his nature had risen up, a puppet on wires, to deny his true self, his intuition. Without spiritual love, sex was selfish, a matter of shame, and consequent guilt followed by irritation.

Enough of self-pity. He set himself to write his story for the film and kept on until 3 a.m. when he wrapped himself in anything he could find and went to sleep on the sofa. But sleep held off. Perhaps her letters were being detained for investigation,
censorship
?

The next evening, a Saturday, he walked into the Ring o’Bells. Soldiers and a few fishermen were in the bar. There was silence when he entered, after the landlord, whom he knew well, had
said, “’Evening, zur. You’m a proper stranger, Captain, zur. Good news tonight, isn’t it?”

“I haven’t heard.”

“Churchill sent the Navy to rescue our sailors in a prison ship, the
Altmark
.”

“I’m glad for our chaps, of course, but it means Churchill is trying to provoke Hitler to extend the war to Norway. In my opinion, as an old soldier, the war should be stopped.”

One of the soldiers was looking at him intently. He spoke in a North Country accent, about runnin’ his bayonet into any bluddy Nazi he come across. Phillip left his beer and went to the telephone box below the church, forcing himself to ask for the Flaxman number, waiting with silver and copper coins in hand, ready for insertion.

“You’re through now, caller. Go ahead, please.”

A far-away voice said, “Hullo”.

“Is that you, Melissa?”

“Hullo.”

“Press button A, caller——”

“Hullo, are you still there? Phillip speaking—is that you, Melissa?”

The far-away voice said, “Did you get my letter? Oh. Well, it explained why I shan’t be able to come.” Pause. “Are you still there?”

“I’ve done the story synopsis.” Pause. “The sea’s wonderful for bathing, once you’ve crawled under the concertina barbed wire.’

“I’ve had my orders for overseas, with forty-eight hours’ leave. I can’t tell you over the telephone, but I’ll write when I get there. Meanwhile, I am with you, always, always, always.”

“Time is up, caller. If you wish to continue, please put one shilling and sixpence in the box.”

“Good-bye,” he heard her voice beyond that of the switchboard operator.

He did not return to the pub but walked back to the Gartenfeste. The underground room was all he had had left now for his shell; but the objects within had a more intense life, guarded by the flame within the dark lantern shining faithfully on the window seat, behind the blackout curtain.

I am living only for my own feelings, I am putting them before my duty, I am thinking of Melissa and a new life with her. Lucy is not living only for her own feelings. Nor am I, perhaps, not altogether, my film will provide for the family. Melissa going overseas—urgently—then the attack
is
coming on the Western Front, Hitler provoked to rage at our violation of Norwegian neutrality—

Churchill’s provocation of Hitler has succeeded. Now ‘earth’s wheels run clogged with blood’. I must keep calm. Pack calmly, quieten my shaking hands. Boil an egg‚ spread butter on bread when I have packed. Steady now. No need to tremble. Plenty of time. One thing at a time. Books on farming in this pile. Manuscript there, with carbon copy. Typewriter in case. Now slowly, slowly, go limp, stop the race of the brain deprived of blood because I have not eaten anything all day.

*

It was a slow journey on the regulation lights allowed: one masked headlight; glass of side or parking lights dimmed by tissue paper. In the clear, starry sky a half-moon was hanging, a pale ghost of lost life.

*

The moon had gone down to its grave when, with engine switched off, the black open car, out of gear, ran down the slope of the cul-de-sac, and stopped outside No. 2, The Glade. It was a few minutes before ten o’clock. Hardly had he gone inside and sat down in the kitchen to await hot soup being made by Lucy, who had come down in her dressing-gown, when there was a double knock on the door. Two young men wearing police-reserve
uniforms stood there. They had watched his arrival from across the road, concealed among wayside trees.

“There are no lights on your motor-car.”

“But——”

“I shall report you. Your licence, please.”

They were workers in a factory making electric light bulbs. Their uniforms were new. His name and address were taken, driving licence and third-party insurance certificate inspected.

“Absolute asses,” declared Tim, in the voice of Pa, as he came downstairs into the kitchen wearing Pa’s old dressing-gown. “They work in the factory with me. Well, Phil, it is a pleasure to see you. You’ve brought some eggs, by Jove!”