Holding On (36 page)

‘And to think that this was the girl who wanted to strip off with the cast when we went to see
Hair
,' mourned Kit. ‘Get a grip before you're completely indoctrinated. Try to remember that you were once a member of that glorious band who didn't think Woodstock was a village just outside Oxford.'

‘Andrew's so good about it,' said Sin dreamily, toying with a withered apple in the fruit bowl. ‘He just loves sharing it all. He says it's as if he's seeing them again for the first time through my eyes. I think Margaret must be mad. Stuck down in Wiltshire in the mud, all amongst the donkeys, when she could be here with him, going to the opera and having delicious little suppers afterwards and discussing the performance.'

Kit looked at her thoughtfully. ‘I suppose she knows all about your latest craze?' she asked casually. ‘That Andrew has begun taking you along on his opera evenings?'

‘He's told her that he's educating my mind.' Sin beamed at her. ‘She doesn't seem the least bit interested.'

‘Of course, she doesn't know you well enough to share in the general amazement that he's discovered that you've actually got one,' said Kit tartly. ‘ “Educating your mind.” I can't believe Andrew would be so patronising.'

‘He isn't,' Sin assured her. ‘We simply decided that it was the best thing to tell her. She simply can't take me seriously so she's quite ready to believe it, which means Andrew doesn't have to lie or make excuses. Naturally he doesn't want to hurt her in any way and he seems quite incapable of lying.' She frowned regretfully at this inconvenient deficiency in his character.

‘Well, he could certainly take your correspondence course on that one,' murmured Kit, inspecting a piece of elderly cheese. ‘But I do agree that he's almost pathologically honest. Frightening really. Ah. Do I hear someone knocking?'

She watched with a mixture of amusement and anxiety as Sin leaped up and rushed out into the hall. There was a murmur of voices and Andrew, distinguished in his dinner jacket, appeared in the doorway and waved cheerfully at her.

‘Ready for another evening of debauchery?' she asked genially. ‘What is it this time?
Tristan und Isolde?
Oh, good grief, did nobody ever write a real side-splittingly funny opera? No, I suppose not. Well, I hope your pockets are full of handkerchiefs, Andrew.'

He smiled, indicating that he was well prepared, and turned as Sin came in behind him. ‘All ready?'

She nodded, picking up her short fur jacket and giving Kit a private grin. ‘Enjoy your egg, dear, and go to bed early.'

Kit waved aside this persiflage. ‘I shall be living it up with some rather special Spanish Rioja and my
Saturday Night Fever
tape.
You
might not consider that the Bee Gees are in the same league as Verdi—'

‘Oh, shut up,' said Sin. ‘Come on, Andrew, She's having one of her moods.'

‘I certainly am not,' said Kit indignantly. ‘Never forget that once, when I was young and innocent, I sat through the entire Ring Cycle and, let me tell you, I was absolutely sober throughout the entire ordeal. Anyone who has endured twenty hours of Wagner without the numbing benefit of alcohol is entitled to an opinion on opera.'

Sin drew breath to point out that Kit had suffered simply in order to impress her escort with whom she had imagined herself in love – and suddenly decided to remain silent. Kit raised her eyebrows irritatingly in a silent question and Sin glared at her.

‘Well,' said Andrew, unaware of any by-play, ‘opera does seem to be something one either loves or hates. It's certainly not everybody's passion. Margaret can't stand it. I'm just delighted that Sin is enjoying it. The thing about a passion – whatever it is – is that it's really such a joy to share it.'

‘You couldn't speak a truer word,' murmured Kit provocatively, making big eyes at Andrew who began to laugh.

‘Hopeless woman,' he said, helping Sin into her jacket. ‘Are you ever serious?'

‘Don't wait up,' hissed Sin as Andrew led the way into the hall, Kit trailing behind, and Kit shut the front door behind them with rather more force than was absolutely necessary.

She wandered back into the kitchen and stood looking at the solitary egg which had been unearthed earlier during an excavation of the fridge. It was not the first time that she had forgotten to do the weekend shopping, nor would it be the last, and a mood of dejection took possession of her. Sin's evenings out with Andrew were becoming a regular event and for the first time in her life Kit was beginning to imagine what it might be like to live alone.

‘Who loves ya, baby?' she asked moodily of the egg and, taking a glass from the draining board she poured herself some wine. Andrew was nothing like many of the married men that she and Sin had fielded in recent years and she had the horrid feeling that when he woke up to the fact that he was falling in love with Sin there would be all sorts of ructions. As for Sin . . . Kit scowled at the unfortunate egg and glanced about her for the bread. It was quite possible that Sin was enjoying her evenings at the opera but it was also clear to anyone who knew her that she was becoming deeply attached to Andrew; and once they both woke up to their other passion, what then?

Kit was very fond of Andrew and would have been delighted to see him rescued from his wife, who clearly had very little time for him, but it would be very odd to lose Sin. Kit sighed as she unwrapped the bread, which had seen happier days. She was pleased that Sin seemed to have at last recovered from her love for Mole. Since he'd been posted to
Osiris
as First Lieutenant, almost a year ago, he had not been to London. True, the submarine was based at Devonport and had been at sea most of the time since he'd joined her, but there seemed to be a tacit understanding between them that he was taking this opportunity to make the break. Even before his posting to Devonport his visits had grown less frequent and Kit knew that Sin was trying to accustom herself to the idea that he no longer needed her.

‘It's no good blaming him,' she'd said once. ‘I never let him think it was serious. I had too much pride. I couldn't have borne it if one day he'd fallen in love with a girl much younger than me.'

Kit had done what she could to cheer and comfort Sin as Mole's visits grew further and further apart and they had joked about their joint foolishness where men were concerned; Sin about Mole and Kit about Jake . . .

Unable to give her mind to her supper, Kit pushed the bread aside, drank some more wine and fingered the locket at her throat. Jake had spoiled her for anyone who'd followed afterwards. She could get along fine up to a point but then the structure which she'd been carefully attempting to build would fall apart. He'd been everything, she could see that clearly now that it was too late: friend, lover, confidant. The trouble was, now that she was past the age when hormones and mother nature were cunningly persuading women that they wanted nothing more desperately than to play their part in the reproduction of the species, marriage didn't seem important any more. Perhaps she'd lived alone too long, become too selfish to be ready to give up her way of life for any man who was unable to sweep her absolutely off her feet. He would have to be someone very special indeed to make the sacrifices worth it. You only had to look at Hal and Maria or Fliss and Miles to see that marriage was no easy option; on the other hand, of course, Susanna and Gus were blissfully happy, which did something to restore the balance . . .

There was a loud hammering at the door accompanied by deep, throaty barking and Kit ran out into the hall, hope rising, her depression evaporating.

‘Clarrie.' She flung the door open and he came in, rosy with cold, preceded by Fozzy. ‘I didn't know you were back. I thought you weren't due home till Wednesday. How was the old school chum? Didn't it work out now he's married again?'

‘Couldn't bear it another moment, could we, old man?' He followed her into the kitchen, struggling out of his shabby British Warm, and subsided on to a chair, unwinding a scarlet woollen muffler from about his neck. His tweed jacket was comfortably worn, patched with leather and carried the familiar scent of tobacco and coffee. ‘Poor old Basil. Another good man gone west, that's all I can say. Wretched old haybag nagging him morning, noon and night. It was more than flesh and blood could stand. He'd said I could bring Fozzy and then the wretched woman wouldn't have him in the house. Fozzy, I mean, not Basil. Terribly embarrassing for everyone, especially Basil. I
told
him he was too old to go through it again but he wouldn't have it. Happy first time round, you see, so he thought it was going to be the same all over again. Dear, oh dear, oh dear.' He pursed his lips and blew gustily into his short white moustache.

‘How ghastly.' Kit poured wine into another glass. ‘Did you get any time alone together?'

‘Hardly any.' He raised his glass appreciatively. ‘Took him to the pub but he had one eye on the clock the whole time. She didn't want to hear any of the old stories, naturally not, since he didn't know her then. Sort of woman who can't bear for a man to have a past. Took against me from the word go.'

‘Did you wind her up?' Kit encouraged Fozzy on to the old sofa and sat beside him. ‘Bet you did.'

‘Me?' Clarrie opened his eyes innocently. ‘I might have made the odd remark but the poor old chap was so distraught that I hadn't the heart. Cat on a hot tin roof the whole time.'

‘I think it's terrifying.' Kit shuddered, clasping the obliging Fozzy to her breast. ‘It's such a terrible risk, isn't it? I was just thinking that when you arrived. Sin and Andrew are out again,
Tristan und Isolde
this time, and I'm beginning to think that there might be trouble ahead. I've had this terrible presentiment here . . .' She pressed her hand to her heart dramatically.

‘Not surprised,' said Clarrie, looking with revulsion at the solitary egg and the heel of aged bread. ‘Indigestion, I shouldn't wonder. I can't believe you've never learned to cook properly. You're the most hopeless pair of females I've ever chanced upon in a long and ill-spent life. Look, I've got nothing in yet so what d'you say we go out and forage? Have some supper at the pub?'

Kit kissed the top of Fozzy's rough head. ‘I love him,' she told him soulfully. ‘And there was I thinking that I should never love again.'

Fozzy sighed, glad of affection after three days banished to a strange, unfriendly garden shed. He regarded Kit, who lay about with him in chairs or on the floor, as a kind of honorary dog and was very ready to tolerate her more unfortunate human habits.

‘Poor old fellow,' said Clarrie, ignoring Kit's protestations of affection. ‘It's been hell for him. Frightful female squawked every time he put a paw inside the door and she insisted that he was fed outside in the rain. Didn't care that poor old Basil was being shown up and humiliated. Even worse than the memsahib, and I never thought I'd hear myself say that, I can tell you.'

‘Poor Fozzy,' murmured Kit, and he sighed even more deeply, rolling a grateful eye, as he stretched out luxuriously across her lap.

‘Got his own back,' said Clarrie with a grin of satisfaction. ‘Squeezed out of the shed and dug a hole on the lawn. Ye Gods! Could that woman shriek. Sounded like all the furies of hell. Told Basil she could have made her fortune in the war doubling for the all-clear. Lost his sense of humour, poor chap, so I thought it was time to make tracks and we came home. Just in time by the look of it.' He gave Kit's prospective supper another appalled glance and heaved himself out of his chair. ‘I'll give him a tin of something while you get yourself ready. Come on, old chap . . .'

‘I
do
love him,' Kit told the egg. ‘I wonder if my father would've been like Clarrie? Perhaps he and Ma ought to get together. She's really lonely these days . . .'

She murmured on whilst she tidied up a little and finished her wine but presently, finding the egg an indifferent conversationalist, Kit threw the bread in the bin, picked up her bag and went to fetch her coat.

‘I wish we lived near a beach,' said Jamie, ‘and then we could do it properly but we'll just have to make do. We can pretend that the field is the fjord so that we'll see the Germans landing from the lane. Then we can spy on them and when we see they're coming ashore we have to get on our bikes and dash back to our HQ.'

‘Is that when we find out that one of our resistance members is a traitor?' asked Bess, pushing her arms into a camouflage jacket – part of an outfit which she'd had for her birthday.

‘A quisling.' Jamie rolled the word around his tongue.

Bess thought: It's as if he's tasting it, like something nice to eat.

Jamie was enjoying this new game. It was funny that he liked watching the old war films better than things like
Dr Who
or
The Six Million Dollar Man
. Somehow the films weren't so frightening and he wondered if it might be because they weren't in colour. Daddy loved the new colour television but it made things terribly real sometimes. The black-and-white films were like old photographs; they belonged to another, long-past world where everything was that strange browny-grey colour. The Daleks with their grating, shouting voices terrified him and he knew that Bess didn't like them either. Daddy laughed at them and called them babies so it was good to be able to sit with him to watch the films and not be frightened. Daddy would explain things to him and then he felt grown up; strong and brave. When he grew up he was going into the Army and he wished that he could go away with Daddy on expeds. He was away this weekend in the Brecon Beacons with a group of the men. Because he was the CO he didn't have to go but he thought it was important every now and again. Jamie said that he'd go every time if he were the CO but Daddy said it wouldn't be right because the men would think you didn't trust them.