Miss Carter's War (5 page)

‘Sorry, I didn’t realise there was anyone in here. I have a free period so I thought I’d explore.’

‘I’ve just finished morning gym sessions and I’ve got a break too. Let me finish my fag and I’ll give you a guided tour.’

Marguerite said, ‘Haven’t you read the latest scientific research? Smoking is almost definitely linked to lung cancer.’

‘Well, I like to live dangerously. D’you want one?’

‘Yes, please.’

‘Why don’t you sit down and join me for a chat. It’s a bit smelly but we won’t be disturbed till lunch break, when the monitors come to feed the beasts.’

He spread his hanky on the stone floor and she crouched down beside him. He took another cigarette from the packet, lit it from his, and put it between her lips.

‘Sorry about that nonsense with Lewin yesterday. She’s an offensive old cow, but she lost a fiancé at the Somme and spent this last lot in the ARP dragging bodies out of bomb sites, so she’s a bit touchy about wartime service.’

‘I wasn’t offended.’

‘You must get fed up with all that anti-French stuff. But you’re only half French, aren’t you? How strange. Which do you feel most, English or French?’

‘Well, let’s say I miss the smell of a Gauloises, but I am loving this Woodbine.’

‘Where were you during the war?’

‘I served as a nurse. The FANY. You?’

‘Merchant Navy. Dodging torpedoes, mainly successfully. Anyway enough of that. Muddy water under a ruined bridge. What about today? How did it go?’

‘Wonderful. I’ve only done one lesson so far. I was nervous but in the end I really enjoyed it. Some of the girls needed a bit of coaxing, and one I handled badly, but on the whole, I feel I have come home. This is what I was born to do.’

‘Wow. So you’re enjoying it so far then, Mrs Lincoln?’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘I just can’t understand what a pretty girl like you is doing teaching.’

‘Don’t patronise me.’

‘I thought I was paying you a compliment.’

‘Oh, not again.’

‘What? I’m lost here.’

Marguerite slowly blew out some smoke.

‘It’s something that happened in my final term at Cambridge. I was selected as the only woman of a group of five undergraduates invited to attend a seminar in America. I prepared my dissertation. Then, a week before we were due to depart, I was informed that I had been dropped, in favour of a male student. I went to see the lecturer in charge of the trip and asked him what I’d done wrong. I’d worked damned hard to prepare.’

Mr Stansfield held out a cupped hand for her to flick ash into.

‘What did he say?’

‘He smirked at me, with one eyebrow raised, and said, “You’ve done nothing wrong except be too damned attractive.” Then he winked and said, “One or two of the lads are worried you might be distracting, and to be honest I can’t guarantee I wouldn’t jump on you myself.” Ouch.’

Mr Stansfield took her glowing cigarette stub from her fingers and crushed it out on his plimsoll.

‘What did you say?’

‘I couldn’t believe it. I said, “Are you serious?” and he smirked even more and said, “Would you like me to be?” ’

Mr Stansfield stifled a laugh. Marguerite leapt to her feet.

‘It’s not bloody funny.’

‘I know. I’m sorry. What did you say to that?’

‘I said, “Do you know what I would like? I would like to smash my fist into your self-satisfied, flabby, stupid face, you drivelling idiot.” ’

Marguerite strode up and down the rabbit cages shaking her fist.

‘He must have been terrified.’

‘Not at all. He was astonished. He thought I would be flattered. Otherwise why did I “go to so much trouble with my lipstick and fetching clothes”. I threatened to report him and he just said, “You’re a very silly, hysterical girlie. I will merely say you are unsuitable for academic reasons. It’s my word against yours and I will win.” ’ 

Marguerite sat down beside Mr Stansfield and shrugged.

‘And of course he would have done.’

Mr Stansfield shook his head.

‘I see what you mean. It hadn’t occurred to me how disparaging my remark sounded. I apologise.’

Marguerite touched his hand.

‘Don’t worry, Mr Stansfield. I am an English teacher, so I am oversensitive to language.’

‘Tony, please.’

‘And I am Marguerite.’

They smiled at each other.

‘Right. Let’s go for a look round the grounds.’

He rose and put their cigarette butts in the back pocket of his shorts.

‘Get rid of the evidence.’

He offered her his hand, and pulled her to her feet. She noticed that his blue Aertex sports shirt exactly matched the colour of his eyes, and his slender well-shaped legs were golden brown.

She lands with a crash and the chute pulls her about 50 feet over the rough ground. She manages to detach it, sees beside her two muddy boots. Her eyes travel up the sturdy body to meet piercing eyes staring at her in the torchlight. The face is craggy, jaw sagging in surprise
.
‘Vous êtes une femme.’ He bends to yank her to her feet. His body is hard and smells of sweat. He is very definitely un homme.

Tony introduced her to the eight rabbits in the hutches.

‘My best friends here. They don’t answer back. Unlike the beastly girls.’

They then circled the allotments, tended by a couple of young girls wearing Young Farmers’ Club badges.

‘They’d run a mile at the sight of a cow. This was all playing fields, until the school had to dig for victory.’

He pointed out the remaining hockey pitch, and netball courts, hard and soft tennis courts, and cricket pitch.

‘Are the girls good at cricket?’ asked Marguerite.

‘My God, yes. They’re super at batting. Maybe because if they hit the ball hard enough it goes over the fence to the boys’ field next door, propelled by their rampant hormones.’

Marguerite stopped and looked him in the eye.

‘You don’t sound as though you like the girls or the school very much.’

He raised his eyebrows.

‘You’re a forthright little madam, aren’t you? Actually I do like both of them, but your indiscriminate enthusiasm brings out the cynic in me.’

‘Well, don’t let it. I don’t like it.’

‘Yes, miss. I’m sorry, miss.’

‘It makes you seem very flippant. Which I suspect you are not really. What about all that stuff in the staff room about Marx and reds. Are you a political animal?’

‘To some of the staff I am a raging Communist, whereas, in fact, I am just a member of the Labour Party.’

‘I was a member of the Socialist Club at university. It was one of the few clubs that allowed women to darken its doors.’

‘Is that the only reason you joined?’

‘No, of course not. I am totally behind all that this government is doing.’

‘Great. So if you want them to stay in power you need to get active. There is an election looming. And the Tories are desperate to get back in.’

‘They won’t, though, will they?’

‘They could very well. They are playing on the collective guilt about rejecting Churchill after the war. Times are hard, and he rescued them before. They are very persuasive. I tell you what, there is a Conservative campaign rally with the prospective candidate, and the deputy Party leader, Anthony Eden. Should be a good double act. Why don’t you come? Test the temperature. Have a bit of a heckle.’

Marguerite demurred. She had a lot on her plate. She doubted if her life could encompass more commitment.

Tony said, ‘What’s wrong with you? I am offering you a glamorous date. Dartford football ground with a lot of rabid Tories. What more could you want?’

‘Put like that, how can I resist?’

There was a convivial atmosphere as the crowd, wearing their Sunday best, poured into the football ground, to the sound of the Callender Company Works band. Tony greeted Marguerite at the turnstile, with obvious approval of her figure-hugging costume, and high heels, and especially her bouncing hair, released from its prim pleat.

‘I knew there was a woman beneath that grey school mouse. You look lovely. Very chic. Very French.’

The event started with community singing of patriotic songs, to which everyone knew the words, ‘Land Of Hope And Glory’, ‘Rule, Britannia!’ ‘There’ll Be Bluebirds Over The White Cliffs Of Dover’, ending with ‘There’ll Always Be An England’:

‘ “There’ll always be an England,

While there’s a country lane,

Wherever there’s a cottage small

Beside a field of grain.” ’

Tony hissed, ‘Or a terraced house, with no bath, and one outside lav between four houses, like the one my mum and dad live in. Thanks to you. You Tory bastards.’

If Tony was surprised by her off-duty appearance, Marguerite was even more taken aback by the change in him. He revealed a profound rage that took away all traces of his usual jocularity.

The crowd sang the heartfelt last chorus:

‘ “There’ll always be an England,

And England shall be free

If England means as much to you

As England means to me.” ’

To which Tony shouted loudly, ‘Yes, free of you lot.’

There were a few desultory cheers from other hecklers, and much shushing and disapproving looks from the Party faithful.

Marguerite roared with laughter.

‘I can’t believe this. You are actually growling. Going grrh and baring your teeth.’

Tony didn’t laugh,

‘Well, I hate them. Look at them. Up there. Pompous idiots.’

On the platform, at the top of the field, about twenty men in dark suits, some with Homburgs and some with bowler hats, and sporting mayoral chains or various service medals, were settling onto the benches. They rose and doffed their hats when the willowy, moustached Anthony Eden arrived, courteously ushering before him the only woman in the group of notables. She was a frumpy blonde, young with a middle-aged walk, dowdily dressed, head down, as if afraid that people would notice her sex and throw her off the stage. She was introduced by a nervous branch chairman as the prospective Conservative MP for Dartford, Miss Margaret Roberts. Sensing not wholehearted approval of this unmarried woman candidate, Eden started his speech by saying that he thought Miss Roberts would make a great name for herself. He then went on, with shouted interjections from Tony, to condemn the Labour government’s handling of the economy with its wholesale nationalisation, urging Party members to fight hard for Miss Roberts’ election. He worried that people were not aware of the dangers ahead.

‘The working man is not a bad chap, but he is easily led astray.’

Tony let out an exasperated yell.

‘What! How dare you patronise me. You supercilious Tory toff.’

To Marguerite’s delight Tony was now actually jumping up and down with fury.

‘We as a party are a barrier to Communism, we never toyed with that creed, we never sang “The Red Flag”.’

‘What’s he talking about?’ asked Marguerite.

‘The Labour Party members sang it on the first day in the Commons after their landslide victory. Those that knew the words, that is. Let’s give ’em a blast, shall we?’

There was no stopping Tony now. At the top of his voice he sang:

‘ “Then raise the scarlet standard high,

Within its shade we’ll live and die,

Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer,

We’ll keep the red flag flying here.” ’

Marguerite and a few brave souls in the crowd joined in, only to be drowned out by a counter-song sortie of ‘God save the King’.

When order was restored, Margaret Roberts sweetly, if slightly squeakily, thanked the shaken Anthony Eden.

‘Anthony Eden, our deputy leader, is a great man, great not only in our time, but great in all times.’

Marguerite made a mental note to discuss the misuse of hyperbole with her pupils.

There was then a more reverential rendering of the National Anthem, sung by the whole assembly, during which everyone on the platform stood, and all the men in the crowd took off their hats and caps, and many saluted, including, Marguerite noticed, a suddenly solemn Tony. As the crowd drifted away it began to rain. One or two people quietly congratulated Tony on his heckling. One man grasped his hand and shook it vigorously. ‘I don’t agree with your opinions, but my son died to give you the right to express them. Good luck, mate.’

Tony insisted on going on the bus with her to Wilmington. When they were huddled on the seat he opened up his coat.

‘Here, get inside. You’re all damp.’

Marguerite hesitated for a moment. Miss Fryer would not approve of such intimacy but damn it, she was cold. It was cosy nestling inside his duffel coat, against the warmth of his body. She had enjoyed herself. Tony was diverting company. He made her laugh a lot. It had stopped raining when they got off the bus. He walked her to her flat, or rather he danced along the road doing a reasonable impersonation of Fred Astaire, casting her and the odd lamp-post as Ginger Rogers. At the door, breathless, he pulled her close, stroked her hair, and planted a kiss on her forehead.