Marking Time (44 page)

‘I can see him as if he was in front of me,’ Stella scoffed.

‘He has a lovely voice. I think that’s possibly the most outstanding thing about him.’

There was a silence. Then Louise said defensively, ‘You think I mind far too much about appearances, don’t you?’

‘No. Everybody ought to mind about what they see. It’s
what
you see that matters. Tell me about the parents.’

Louise was on her mettle now. She related her first impressions of the fragile creature on the sofa, and how they proved to be more and more wrong during the weekend. ‘She’s actually
very powerful, I think. She designs and makes jewellery, but she’s done lots of other things. She used to make pots, and plates, but Michael said since her heart trouble she’d had to
stop that. She
adores
Michael. I had the feeling that he was the most important person in her life . . .’

‘What about her husband?’

‘She was perfectly
nice
to him, and he obviously adores
her
, but he was working most of the weekend; I only saw him at meals. He was extremely kind to me. He’s the
sort of person who finds out what you are interested in, and then talks about it, and, of course, he
knew
all about everything. And it wasn’t just with me. When a whole lot of people
came to dinner, he took a lot of trouble about two of the girls who were pretty frightened of Zee.’

‘What?’

‘That’s what she’s called. But all the young men simply loved her: she had them all round her.’

‘It sounds as though she doesn’t like women,’ Stella remarked.

‘Oh. No, no, I don’t think she does.’

‘In which case, watch out.’

‘She asked me to come again.’

‘That’s probably because Michael wants you to. It doesn’t mean she
likes
you.’

‘I don’t suppose she does.’ She sounded so disconsolate that Stella laughed and threw an arm round her shoulder. ‘Cheer up! None of all that is anything like as important
as being a world-famous actress, is it?’

‘Shut up! I’m not even going to be allowed to be that! They’ll make me do some dreary typing job until it’ll be too late! I feel as though I’ve been marking time
all my life, and now, just when it might
begin
, this beastly war will spoil it all.’

‘Most people can’t do what they like in a war.’

‘I bet they do. My father
loved
organising the defence of an aerodrome. He didn’t at all want to go back to sorting out the mess at our wharves after the bombing. And I bet
that there are lots of people who
like
fighting. I know you think I’m selfish and I agree with you. All I mean is that so are a lot of other people, but it doesn’t show so much
because they happen to want to do the things that are popular.’

The more she talked like this, the worse she felt. In a minute, she knew, Stella would point out to her that the thousands of people who’d been bombed out of their homes could hardly be
said to be liking it, so she added quickly, ‘Of course I know I’m very lucky compared to most people, but I don’t find that that makes one feel much better, just rather guilty for
feeling awful at all.’

‘All right,’ Stella said equably. ‘Let’s go back to Mozart.’

‘Only the slow movement, then. You know I can’t manage the other ones.’

They had spent a morning playing two pianos. Neither of them performed very well, but they enjoyed it. Stella was a better sight reader than Louise, and was prepared to tackle works she had not
practised, and Louise had not practised anything for months now, but they forgave each other, stopped and started again until even they got too cold to continue – the log fire in the drawing
room smouldered all day and sent its serious heat up the chimney (the Duchy always played in mittens).

Stella loved staying
chez
Cazalet. She said it was like living in a village instead of a box, which was how she rather unfairly described her parents’ flat. What she really
enjoyed was the lack of curiosity displayed by the family about what each other was doing and thinking. There were no cross-examinations, no post-mortems of the kind that she and Peter had to
endure about almost everything they could be seen or sometimes imagined to have done. She longed to have a flat of her own and had pointed out to Louise that if she joined her at Pitman’s,
they might be allowed to share a place, and might then go on to get jobs in the same institution: the Ministry of Information, the BBC or the like. But Louise clung to the idea of having one year
in which to make it as an actress, in the same way that Stella had been implored to do her first year at university which she had refused; she did not want, she had said again and again, to be cut
off in that kind of way from what was really going on. ‘I want to be
in
the war,’ she had said. Her father had finally given in – not because she was right, he had said,
but because she had to start learning from her own mistakes. She had told Louise about all this, and Louise had said that all parents were difficult the moment one had a mind of one’s own.
‘Considering what opposite things we want, it’s a pity we can’t swap parents,’ she said, and this had had the unexpected (to her) result of Stella’s eyes filling with
tears and being given a hug of unusually emotional proportion. Having Stella to stay was one of the best things in her life, she thought, because, although she had thought she would miss Michael,
her time with him had very quickly started to feel unreal so that she could hardly believe her own memory of it.

‘Actually, I went to stay out of pure vanity,’ she confided that night when she and Stella were in their beds.

‘I knew that. It sometimes worries me that you are so unsure of yourself.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well, you seem to need other people to tell you what you are like.’

‘Do
you
know what you are like without other people telling you?’

‘I can’t answer that, because in our family everyone talks all the time about the others, admiring, discussing, criticising . . .’

‘My family
criticise
me. That’s about all they do do.’

‘You mean your mother. It didn’t look to me as though your father ever would.’ She had met him once when he had given them both lunch in his club in London. ‘He obviously
adores you. Let’s get back to your vanity,’ she added, when she had got no response.

‘
You
get back to it if you want,’ Louise said sulkily. ‘All I meant was I went because he was the first person who has really admired me.’

‘What about me? I’ve admired you.’

‘OK. The first
man
who has ever admired me.’

‘Well, at least you’re honest about it,’ Stella said. ‘Just don’t let it all go too far.’

‘What “all” do you mean?’

‘There are plenty of cases of young women marrying much too young and then getting bored with frightful consequences. Think of Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary.’

‘Honestly, Stella. A, I’m not thinking of marrying anybody for years and years, and B, Michael is not in the least like Karenina or Monsieur Bovary.’

‘He doesn’t sound much like Heathcliff or Romeo either,’ Stella retorted. ‘In fact, he sounds as though he might turn out to be quite dull.’

It was getting very near to being a quarrel. ‘I’m going to sleep,’ Louise said with offhand dignity. ‘I don’t want to discuss the matter any more.’

The next day, Stella apologised, ‘Not because I think the things I said were wrong, but because I don’t say them in the right way,’ which didn’t feel much like an apology
to Louise. All the same, it was duller than ever at Home Place when Stella went, and she was overjoyed when a letter finally arrived addressed to her mother from Mr Mulloney (one of the teachers
from the acting school) saying that he had now found a theatre in Devonshire and a large house three miles away where the students could live, and he had also procured a Mrs Noel Carstairs to be
Matron of the establishment. Louise was to be offered a scholarship which meant that she would only have to pay two pounds ten a week for her keep. After much persuasion her mother said she might
go.

There were a few more minor rows about her packing, as Louise insisted on taking every single garment that she possessed on the grounds that if they did modern plays they would be expected to
dress themselves. Polly and Clary were suitably envious. ‘I do hope we will be allowed to come and see you performing,’ Polly said. ‘You are so lucky knowing what you want to
do.’

‘And stopping being educated so young,’ Clary added.

Aunt Rach took her to Tunbridge Wells and bought her a warm dressing gown. The Brig gave her five shillings. Her mother gave her two months of her allowance – seven pounds, plus money for
her railway ticket – and said she was to ring up when she arrived. Aunt Syb had knitted her a warm jersey, ‘It was to be for your Christmas present, but I expect you’ll need it
before that,’ and Aunt Zoë gave her a pot of Elizabeth Arden Eight Hour Cream. ‘Put it on your mouth at night,’ she said. ‘It’s wonderful for stopping chapped
lips.’ Lydia gave her a diary that turned out to be last year’s, but she said it didn’t make any difference. ‘You simply move on a day, and you can choose whether you want
it to be the right date or the right day of the week,’ she said. ‘I worked it out before I gave it to you.’ She had put ‘For my sister Louise from her loving sister
Lydia’ in red ink on two pages at the beginning. ‘We’ve had those days, so it doesn’t matter,’ she said.

Louise thanked her and felt touched. Everybody was being far nicer to her now that she was going away, and on her last evening she did fleetingly wonder whether it would all prove so frightening
and awful that she would want to come home, but quenched the idea as quickly as possible.

Stella met her at Charing Cross as a surprise, and went with her to Paddington station where they bought very horrible sandwiches – a choice of meat paste or beetroot; they got one of
each.

‘Where can we eat them?’

The station was crowded and there was nowhere to sit.

‘On the platform,’ Stella said. ‘I’ll get a platform ticket.’

They sat on Louise’s suitcases, which they’d lugged from the taxi to the platform to save a porter so that Louise could buy a packet of de Reszke Minors.

‘I’m going to miss you awfully.’

‘I you as well.’

‘But not so much. You’re going
to
something.’

‘Yes, I know. I really
shall
miss you. Mind you write.’

A lot of the glass had fallen out of the station roof and water dripped on them.

‘Aunt Anna made you these. I nearly forgot.’ She rummaged in her shoulder bag and produced a little cardboard box. ‘Her special cinnamon cakes. She cooks and cooks because
she’s so unhappy.’

‘Oh, thank you! Thank her.’

‘
Write
and thank her. She never gets any letters any more.’

‘I will. Oh! I
do wish
you were coming too.’

Then they couldn’t think of anything much to say, and both were relieved when the long, drab train came slowly into the station.

‘Right. Let’s find you a good seat. Would you like the rest of my sandwich? I don’t really want it.’

‘No, thanks.’

They lugged the suitcases onto the train, and found Louise a corner seat.

‘I’m going to go now,’ Stella said. ‘I’m not very good at seeing people off.’

‘OK.’

They hugged, and then she went. Louise watched her through the open window, but she didn’t turn back. She pretended for a bit that she had just said a final farewell to the only man whom
she could ever love, and from whom she was being separated because she had to go back to Devon to nurse a brother who was dying slowly of some incurable disease. Tears were soon running down her
face at the sadness of this heroic sacrifice, quelled only by the appearance of an elderly couple. She quickly sneezed a lot and blew her nose, and the couple looked at each other, and then took
their cases off the rack and left the compartment. Just as she was imagining telling the others in the company how to keep people out of your compartment in a train, two middle-aged ladies arrived;
she started sneezing to see if it really worked, but it didn’t. They looked at her with distaste, but settled down in the seats furthest from her. Now she wondered whether she would have to
keep up the sneezing for the whole journey. She decided that she wouldn’t, and if they asked her, she’d say that it was the station air that had given her hay fever.

The train started. It was not a fast train and stopped a lot, at stations and sometimes outside them. By four o’clock it was dark, and the blinds on the windows were drawn by an old guard
and Louise began to worry that she wouldn’t know which was her station, as all the names were blacked out, but the guard said that they called out the names of the stations when the train
stopped at them, and that she was due at Stow Halt at ten to six. The middle-aged ladies had eaten an enormous picnic which ended with tea out of a Thermos, the sight of which made her feel very
thirsty. She opened Aunt Anna’s box of cinnamon cakes and tried to eat them very slowly while she read her Stanislavsky
An Actor Prepares
, slightly hoping that one of the ladies
would ask her if she was interested in the theatre, so that she could talk about it. At one station a large number of sailors boarded the train. They filled up the carriage, and a lot of them stood
in the corridors, smoking. Their uniforms looked so new that it was almost as though they were wearing fancy dress; their boots, which made their feet look enormous, and their large canvas bags
made going to the lavatory very difficult. She was aware of a surge of muttered jokes as she edged her way through them. When she got back to her seat, she gave up Stanislavsky and read
The
House of the Arrow
instead, which was exciting with a rather conceited detective called Hanaud in it. The sailors all got off at Exeter, and by the time she reached her station she was alone,
and struggled to pull the window down behind the blackout blind in order that she could open the door. It was pitch dark, and very cold. She stood, shivering, a suitcase each side of her. They were
too heavy for her to carry both of them at once. Then a man with a torch came towards her saying, ‘Are you for Stow House?’