Letters to the Lost (21 page)

Her voice seemed to come from a hundred miles away. She sipped the tea Ada had brought her and looked out of the hall window onto the field where the children were assembling for the fancy dress parade. There was no sign of Nancy; she must have gone in to see the fortune-teller. She should have saved her money, Stella thought with a flash of anger. The shameless old fraud – she must have seen Charles get out of the taxi while she was having her cigarette at the back of the tent, and come up with all that claptrap about passion and romance being imminent. If she’d had any genuine psychic ability—

‘I’m afraid there’s another surprise in store, but I hope this one won’t have quite the same effect. Who should I just happen to bump into at Victoria, but Peter? Got a few days’ leave too, and no specific plans for it, so I told him to come back here with me. He’s gone to the Vicarage, to wash off the travel grime. I hope you don’t mind?’

‘Peter? Peter Underwood? No, no of course not.’

In truth the news was curiously unsurprising, and came as a relief. Having Peter in the house meant that she wouldn’t be alone with Charles.

‘That’s very good of you, darling.’ Charles put down his cup and saucer and looked around. He was jiggling his knee in an excess of nervous energy, making the table vibrate and rattling the china, though he didn’t seem to notice. ‘I must say it’s quite a scene to come home to. Tranquil old England. The “green and pleasant land” of fetes and cake and afternoon tea.’

He said it almost like a criticism. There was a square of gingerbread cake on the plate in front of him from which he’d taken one mouthful and crumbled the remainder into dust. She wanted to remind him that it wasn’t always like this, and that the teeth of rationing seemed to bite deeper every week, but she reminded herself of where he’d come from and kept silent. Marjorie Walsh came over to take away their empty cups.

‘It’s marvellous to see you, Vicar, and looking so well! I’ll tell Gerald you’re home. Bearing up all right out there, are you?’

‘God is taking care of me, thank you Marjorie, but it’s good to be back and to see how well you ladies are keeping things going in my absence. The fete looks splendid – though I confess I’m disappointed there are none of your famous scones this year. They’re the only reason I came home!’

‘Thank you, Vicar. I wanted to make them, but there were those who decided otherwise. Have you finished with that? I’ll take it away, shall I?’

She picked up the plate of gingery crumbs and shot Stella a superior look as she bore it back to the kitchen.

Ada appeared in the hall doorway.

‘Sorry to drag you lovebirds away from your reunion, but they’re ready for you to judge the fancy dress now, Mrs T.’

On the platform a parade of ragged flower fairies, storybook characters and a League of Nations display of Dutch girls, Spanish dancers and Chinese ladies fluttered and shuffled, while the mini-Führer scowled and stared straight ahead, one arm raised. ‘My goodness,’ Charles exclaimed uneasily.

‘Standard’s not what it has been,’ Ada remarked. ‘Every spare scrap goes into making proper clothes these days, there’s nothing left over for fancy dress. Still, the Chinese girl’s very clever, with the dressing gown and the knitting needles in her hair . . .’

‘Really, Hitler is the best,’ Stella said. ‘Such a simple outfit, but brilliantly done.’

‘Poor taste,’ Charles said briskly. ‘No, Ada’s right. The Chinese girl.’ He clapped his hands and said loudly and heartily, ‘Well done everyone – splendid effort all round, but this year’s prize goes to our lovely Oriental lady!’

There was a ripple of desultory applause. The Chinese girl simpered and the Führer’s military bearing dissolved, his despotic scowl melting into a little boy’s expression of naked disappointment. Stella turned away, anger quickening her blood. Across the grass Nancy was just emerging from the fortune-teller’s tent.

‘Here, Mrs T. – you can present the prize,’ Ada said, holding out the inevitable tin of peaches.

She shook her head, already moving away. ‘Charles decided. He ought to do it.’

‘Foreign travel!’ Nancy called as she came towards her. ‘I says to ’er – I hope that means I marry a Yank and go back to the States, not join the bleeding Wrens. She says, could be. There was an oyster in my tealeaves which means passion, apparently. So –’ she dropped her voice as she came level with Stella, ‘how’s that for a shock? What you going to do about your American?’

‘I don’t know.’ Dan’s face came sharply into focus in Stella’s mind and she was suddenly afraid she might cry. ‘Obviously I can’t go now, but I don’t even know where he’s staying to get a message to him. He’ll be waiting for me, and he won’t know why I haven’t come.’

‘Where were you supposed to meet him?’

Stella repeated the message she’d read on the clipboard.

‘Hmm – the Trocadero, very nice, I must say.’ Nancy snapped open her handbag and took out a little square mirror. ‘Well, don’t worry; just leave it to your Auntie Nancy,’ she said, checking her make-up. ‘Does he know you’re married?’

‘Yes, of course. Oh Nancy, would you really do that? Thank you, thank you. Tell him I’m sorry and that I’ll write as soon as I can . . .’

‘Shh – that’s enough now. Here comes the vicar.’ Looking past Stella she smiled her pussycat smile. ‘Hello Reverend Thorne – fancy seeing you here.’

‘Nancy.’ Charles’s voice was as stiff as his smile. ‘Nice to see you.’

‘Likewise, looking tanned and handsome with all that African sun.’ She dropped the mirror back into her bag. ‘I’d love to stay and talk but I’m afraid I’ll have to love you and leave you. Important date to get ready for this evening.’ She winked at Stella.

‘Come for tea tomorrow,’ Stella suggested slightly wildly. ‘You can tell me all about it!’

‘I wouldn’t want to be in the way—’

‘You wouldn’t at all. Charles’s friend Peter is staying, and Reverend Stokes will be there, so the more the merrier. Isn’t that right, Charles?’

‘Quite,’ he said, but without bothering to make it sound like he meant it.

He was her husband, and yet he was still a stranger. She knew that it must be difficult for him, adjusting to being home again after the things he had seen and experienced in the desert, but with Peter staying there was no opportunity for her to talk to him and find out what those things were, and she had the feeling that he despised her slightly for not knowing. Not understanding. Absence had not made his heart grow fonder. Rather, it had hardened the spaces between them into something impenetrable.

I am a bad person
, she told herself, coming back from church alone while he stayed to talk to his parishioners.
My husband has come home and I am not glad to see him. In fact, I resent him for being here.
She closed the door behind her and leaned against the wall in the chill of the scullery, where Dan had kissed her.
I am irritated by the way he treats me like a child and assumes I can’t do anything properly, and most of all I resent him for keeping me from the man I want to be with.

It was a relief to put it into those stark words. Laid out like that in her head she could see how selfish she was being, how unreasonable. Faithless and weak-willed, like the worst kind of stereotype of a wife left behind while her husband did his bit for King and Country. Ashamed and sobered, she collected the cauliflower (slightly battered) from the scullery shelf and took it into the kitchen.

Through the window she saw Peter Underwood, sitting on the old bench beneath the apple tree. He was reading a book, his dark head bent, legs crossed in that very precise, particular way he had, as if somehow trying to make as little of himself as possible come into contact with the mossy, peeling paintwork. It was like that when Charles touched her, she’d noticed. Although he was good at saying the right things and going through the motions of courtesy she could feel him shrinking away, as if she was contaminated.

Peter hadn’t come with them to church. When she’d expressed surprise to Charles he’d been tight-lipped, as if it were a grown-up matter that she wouldn’t understand. Peter had been asking some questions about his faith, he said tersely; that was why they’d stayed up so late talking last night. Charles was hoping to help him through the crisis, but until then Peter didn’t feel able to pray in church and needed peace and space to think. His tone made it clear that the subject was closed.

Except of course, it was still very much
there
. At lunchtime, as the cauliflower cheese cooled and congealed Charles said an extra-long Grace, thanking God not only for the food, but also for friendship, loved ones, the gift of days spent together. Throughout Peter stared out of the French windows, where leaden clouds had taken up residence in yesterday’s delphinium skies. Glancing at him surreptitiously Stella saw the expression of elaborate resignation on his thin, sardonic face, and when Charles had finished he said, ‘Nice try, old chap.’

Reverend Stokes broke the tension by picking up his fork and prodding the cauliflower cheese.

‘Sunday lunch isn’t what it used to be.’

‘No,’ Charles agreed testily, ‘it isn’t.’

Conversation over lunch was stilted and sporadic, the atmosphere curiously tense. Peter Underwood pushed his cauliflower cheese around his plate with barely contained distaste and laid his fork down with half of it still uneaten. Reverend Stokes brightened visibly when Stella brought out the rice pudding, but Peter looked at it, then laid his napkin on the table and quietly asked if they would excuse him. Charles watched him leave the dining room then, after a few seconds, stood up and followed him, redness blossoming on his cheeks as if he’d been slapped. Reverend Stokes looked up from his pudding in mild surprise.

‘Underwood chap not feeling well? Pity for him, but all the more for us.’

After lunch Reverend Stokes retired to the sitting room with the newspaper and the wireless. Stella was washing up in the kitchen when Charles came in and announced he and Peter were going for a walk. It had begun to rain now, a steady summer downpour. He looked so fraught that she felt sorry for him.

‘You poor thing. It hasn’t been a very restful homecoming for you,’ she said, drying her lobster-pink hands. ‘You’re supposed to be on leave from other people’s spiritual problems.’

‘Being a minister is hardly a job with conventional hours,’ he replied, as if spelling out something very obvious to a simpleton. The little flame of sympathy was snuffed out. She only just managed to stop herself sticking her tongue out at his departing back.

Mercifully, Nancy arrived early. Stella was rolling out pastry to make jam tarts with the last of Marjorie Walsh’s rhubarb and carrot jam when she heard the front doorbell over the din of the Home Service coming from the sitting room. She ran to let Nancy in with floury hands, and ushered her down the gloomy passage to the kitchen, where she shut the door and gave her a swift, fierce hug.

‘Well?’

‘Nice to see you too, I’m sure.’

‘Sorry – it’s always wonderful to see you, you know that, but I’ve been on pins all day. I’m dying to know how it went last night – did you see him? Was he cross that I didn’t come?’

‘One question at a time would be good. And put the kettle on – I couldn’t half do with a cuppa.’

She should have known better than to try and rush her; Nancy’s stubborn streak meant she only ever did things in her own time and on her own terms. As her nerves screamed with impatience Stella filled the kettle and waited while Nancy went over to the stove, flapped her wet skirt and proceeded to narrate the story of how she’d been planning to walk, until the rain began to come down in stair-rods, so she’d caught the bus. Eventually, when she’d got that off her chest, she perilously lit a cigarette from the gas ring and settled herself down at the table. ‘So – quite the charmer, isn’t he, your Yank?’

‘You found him all right?’ Stella’s knuckles were white on the rolling pin. She was caught between dread and excitement.

‘Oh yes. Recognized him straight away, didn’t I? He was the handsome one sitting at the bar with his eyes fixed on the door and a sort of hungry look on his face, like a dog outside the butcher’s.’ She giggled. ‘Poor love. Mind you, he didn’t have to look so disappointed when I told him you wasn’t coming and he’d have to put up with me instead. I almost cut my losses at that point; left him to drink on his own.’

‘You didn’t though, did you?’

‘Nah, course not. Wasn’t going to pass up the chance for a free drink. Or several, as it turned out. Not mean with his money, is he?’ Nancy flicked ash into a saucer. ‘I like that in a man.’

‘So what did he say? I mean, what did you talk about?’

‘This and that. You mostly.’

Happiness rose inside her, like a fat, pink sun and she laughed. ‘Not the most exciting evening out you’ve ever had, then.’

Nancy picked up the spoon Stella had just put down and ran her finger over it, sucking off the precious jam. ‘Course, he wanted to know all about the vicar, too.’ She dropped her voice and cast a furtive glance towards the door. ‘He’d had a bit to drink by then. Kept asking if he loves you.’

Quite suddenly the laughter had evaporated, like the sun going behind a dark cloud. ‘It’s all right, he’s out. If Charles loves me, you mean? What did you say?’

‘Well, I didn’t know what to say, did I? So I decided to tell it like it is.’ Nancy’s gaze held an edge of defiance as she slid her finger into the bowl of the spoon so that jam oozed over it like blood. ‘I said I wasn’t sure. I mean, it should be obvious, shouldn’t it? He should be going round with a grin a mile wide on his face to have landed a wife like you.’ She shrugged. ‘I might be speaking out of turn here, but I’m not sure he even notices you, never mind loves you, and that’s the God’s honest truth.’

Stella turned away, stricken, opening the oven door and slipping the tray of jam tarts into it. Hearing someone else, even if it was only Nancy, say out loud the secret that had been haunting her for months was shocking. Instantly a dozen responses bobbed to the surface of her mind:
He’s just not the kind of person who shows his emotions . . . His faith makes it hard for him . . . The war has made it impossible to have a normal marriage . . .
but she didn’t want to say them aloud and expose them to Nancy’s inevitable scorn.