Marking Time (68 page)

‘He’s a bit too old for her, isn’t he?’

‘She’s too young for him. She’s too young for anybody.’

‘I expect you’re right.’ Edward undid his sock suspenders and put them on his bedside table. Villy was taking out her teeth and scrubbing them with that powder stuff she used.
As they both had dentures, they had developed an unspoken ritual whereby whoever had their teeth out was not expected to do the talking. Now he said, ‘Nice bloke, though. Very keen on the
Navy. I should think he’ll go a long way. He told me he was to take command of a new gun-boat building at Cowes. He seemed really excited by the prospect – wasn’t at all your
usual arty type.’

‘In any case,’ she had put them back in now, ‘Louise should stop messing about trying to work in an overcrowded profession where everybody is more experienced than she is, and
get down to some sensible war work. I wish you’d speak to her about it.’

‘She’s got plenty of time, surely? They’re not calling girls up until they’re twenty.’

‘They’re not calling them
up
, but it would be better if she volunteered, and anyway, if she did a shorthand-typing course, she’s far more likely to get a good job. At
present she has absolutely no qualifications of any kind.’

She sounded so acid, that he looked across the room at her image in the mirror: her camisole lying over the flat but, even so, sagging breasts. From that distance with her short cropped hair,
her heavy eyebrows and face devoid of make-up, she looked like a sour little boy. The uneasy thought occurred to him that she actually didn’t
like
Louise, but he dismissed it as
nonsense. She was just tired; everybody was tired these days – there was too much work and anxiety and not enough fun. He wondered whether she would notice and mind if he didn’t make
love to her – he certainly didn’t feel like it.

‘I’m really fagged,’ he said, ‘let’s talk about it tomorrow.’

She was already putting on her pyjama jacket, had taken to sleeping in them in preference to nightgowns because of the cold, and now he got up and walked over to the basin so that he
wouldn’t see her without her camisole.

‘The Clutterworths are heavy going, aren’t they?’ he said wanting to get onto a neutral subject.

There was a slight pause, and then she said, ‘You were awfully good with her at dinner.’

He had taken out his teeth now, and didn’t reply. Villy went on, ‘She’s not at all easy, I know.’

When he had cleaned his teeth and put them back, he said, ‘Oh, she wasn’t
too
bad – rather dull, but perfectly amiable. It was him I couldn’t stand. Oily little
feller – looks like the Mad Hatter – he kept saying how wonderful everything was, whether it was or not.’

Villy was in bed now, had turned onto the side that would be away from him. ‘He’s a very good musician,’ she said, ‘and the Duchy has been longing to have him to
stay.’

‘Bless her heart. I’d put up with
anyone
for her.’

He opened a window, then got into bed and switched off the light.

‘Night, darling. Sleep well.’

‘And you.’

But in fact sleep eluded each of them for some time: she, because she found it impossible to conjure Lorenzo when he was sleeping a few yards away from her with another woman, and he because,
not given to either thought or anxiety once he was in bed, with or without a woman, found himself worrying about Louise, who still treated him to small, glassy smiles and avoided being touched by
him, about Diana, now husbandless and pregnant, and finally about poor old Hugh, who he loved as deeply as he loved anyone and for whom, now, he felt he could do nothing.

Louise had let herself out of the front door without making a sound. It was a quarter past one in the morning. All the evening they had been surrounded by the family, and
although she had initially been pleased and elated to see how well he got on with them, she longed to be alone with him. Eventually, after they had listened to Mr Clutterworth and the Duchy play
Bach on two pianos, she had suggested to Michael that they play a game of billiards.

‘I don’t really play,’ she said when they were safely in the large, rather dark room.

‘I did wonder,’ he said. ‘I don’t either, as a matter of fact.’

She looked round the room; the only place to sit was a rather hard bench. ‘I’m afraid it’s pretty cold in here.’

He took off his uniform jacket and draped it round her shoulders.

‘Won’t you be cold?’

‘Not after the North Atlantic. Anyway, I have my love . . . I have you, haven’t I?’

They sat on the bench, and he kissed her quite a lot and she liked it, and in between they talked. He hadn’t told his mother he had this leave, he said. It was so short that it would have
meant not seeing Louise if he had gone home. ‘So don’t, for heaven’s sake, ever tell her,’ he said, half laughing, but she felt he was serious. They heard people going to
bed, and he said, ‘I feel awful about your giving up your room for me. Won’t the squash court be frightfully cold?’

‘I don’t mind. Some of this house is probably quite like the North Atlantic.’

‘Couldn’t you come up to my/your room for a bit?’

‘We’d have to wait until everybody has really gone to bed.’

‘Let’s wait, then.’

‘I’m making up to you,’ he said during this time. ‘You know that, don’t you? You’re such a darling, amazing girl. I’m afraid I’m falling in love
with you.’ And he kissed her a great deal more.

It was half past eleven by the time the house was quiet and they crept up the dark stairs, she holding his hand, and along the gallery passage to her room.

They lay on the narrow little bed and he undid her blouse.

‘There’s a perfectly delightful bra,’ he said moments later, ‘that undoes in the front.’

‘Do you want me to take mine off?’

‘Well, it would be rather
nice
.’

They were speaking almost in whispers. Louise suggested turning off the light, but he said that he couldn’t bear not to see her. It was exciting to be loved and wanted, and very soon when
he asked her if she loved him – just a little – she said of course she did, she really loved him, ‘enormously,’ she said, and saying it made it seem real – and true.
It was lovely to be with someone who admired and approved of her so much, and although she didn’t feel that she felt exactly the same about him as he seemed to do about her, she imagined that
this was yet another of the mysterious differences that one did not discover until they happened. Men weren’t supposed to be beautiful – rugged, handsome, manly, all that sort of thing,
but not possessing faces that encouraged the sort of adjectives he used about hers. Eventually, he groaned, and said that she must go, he could not trust himself, she said, ‘Need
you?’

She was lying on her back, naked to the waist, and he had sat up. He looked at her, then he picked up her blouse, and said gently, ‘Put it on, there’s a good girl.’

She sat up then, and put it on. She didn’t bother with her bra.

‘I’ll see you to your squash court,’ he said.

‘No, don’t. You see, I know the way, and you might get lost coming back. I’m all right, honestly. I’ve got a torch . . . You’re not cross with me, are
you?’

‘I’m certainly not cross with you. I’m just trying to be responsible, which is not something I’m particularly good at in this context. Have you got a coat?’

‘I’ll get a jersey out of the cupboard.’ When she had put it on, she said, ‘Michael! If you wanted to – to sleep with me, I wouldn’t mind. That’s what I
meant just now. I can’t say I’d love it, because I don’t know what it’s like, but I
might
. Anyway,’ she felt a bit shy now, ‘I’d rather try it
with you than anyone else I know.’

‘That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.’ He put his hands on her shoulders and kissed her forehead. ‘You’d really better go.’

So here she was, in the utter darkness, walking very carefully, round the house, past the tennis court, through the little gate in the middle of the yew hedge into the kitchen garden. It was
very cold and there was a delicious misty stillness that went well with having an adventure. He had a wonderful voice, she thought, even when he was almost whispering – it charmed her. It was
amazing to have somebody of one’s
own
caring so much. She was beginning, she felt, to see the point of love.

‘Seventeen days to Christmas!’

‘Eighteen.’

‘Wrong, wrong, wrong. What’s the date, Ellen?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Ask Archie.’

They pounded upstairs.

‘Seventh,’ he said. ‘What difference does it make to you, anyway?’

‘Longer to wait,’ Lydia said.

‘Shorter for people to get presents,’ Neville said. He was quite worried about this. With Dad gone, and Zoë away, and the aunts hardly
ever
going to Hastings, he
couldn’t see how any decent presents would materialise. There probably wasn’t a single thing he would want to be got in Battle. He felt the outlook was grim.

They spent the morning collecting holly to make Christmas things for their shop. ‘But it doesn’t really want to be made into
anything
!’ Lydia said, as she licked the
blood off her pricked fingers.

Music went on the whole of Sunday morning, with Sybil and Hugh and Villy listening. Mrs Clutterworth sat crocheting a lace collar and keeping an eye on her husband. Edward took Michael rough
shooting, so Louise, rather reluctantly, went too. ‘Supposed only to shoot vermin on a Sunday, but luckily rabbits count as that and if you happen to encounter the odd pheasant or partridge,
they’re always useful for the pot,’ Edward said. He was duly impressed when Michael shot four rabbits, a brace of pheasants and the only partridge that rose from the stubble of one of
York’s fields.

‘Although what I am supposed to do with one partridge, I do not know,’ Mrs Cripps said when she received the morning’s bag. Miss Milliment read the paper to the Brig,
interrupted by the hourly news bulletins on the wireless to which he had become addicted. Rachel spent a patient two hours with Dolly, and then rang Sid, who didn’t answer, and she remembered
that Sid did Sunday duty at her ambulance station and felt sad. But she’ll come at Christmas, she thought. She, too, was counting the days.

Sunday lunch: the rabbit pies, followed by tarts made with bottled plums were consumed, after which Villy organised an expedition to Bodiam Castle for the benefit of the Clutterworths. The
younger children clamoured to go too and the expedition ended up, as they so often do, not being at all like their perpetrator had envisaged. Everybody else dispersed to read, to rest, to write
letters.

Clary and Polly had a row.

‘If I’d known you were going for a walk with Christopher, I’d have gone to Bodiam,’ Clary stormed.

‘You never said you wanted to go.’

‘I didn’t know you were going for a walk.’

‘You could come too.’

‘I loathe walks, you know I do. I wanted us to do our presents.’

‘We’ll do them after tea.’

‘Oh, Polly! You are maddening sometimes! I’ve got something else I want to do after tea.’

‘What?’

‘Shut up. This is a typical boring weekend. I’m going to wash my hair. That shows you how bored I am.’

By the time she got out of the house Polly saw Christopher disappearing down the drive with Oliver. For a moment she felt cross with him; then she thought that was silly, she could easily catch
up. It was a beautiful winter afternoon, with silvery sunlight and silent birds rustling through the piles of fallen oak leaves at the sides of the drive.

A taxi suddenly appeared round the bend, and she waited, because this was extremely unusual and interesting. It stopped at the house, and one of the smallest men she’d ever seen in her
life got out of it. He was wearing a naval cap and greatcoat that reached almost to his ankles. I suppose he’s a friend of Michael’s; oh dear, she thought: she knew Michael had gone off
somewhere with Louise. The small man paid the driver with some notes, and then turned to stare at the house. The driver was trying to give him some change, but he seemed not to notice.

Polly advanced. ‘He’s got some change for you,’ she said.