No More Meadows (19 page)

She found a woman to come and clean in the mornings, but she made a noise banging her brush against the stairs when Mr Cope was working, and he fired her before Christine came home. She found another woman with a long wet nose and weak ankles, who brought with her a misshapen four-year-old daughter, who ate all the cakes and biscuits and broke a valuable vase. Christine forgave this, and the woman and child disappeared one day with the last of Vinson's American hams,
a bottle of sherry and the orphanage box full of pennies, and were never heard of again. Christine did not have the time or energy to look for anyone else. She struggled on alone.

She went to bed exhausted, and woke still tired. For the first time in her career she began to make mistakes at work. Alice, catching her out in a muddle over the cash register, said: ‘You must be in love, Miss Cope. That's what it is.'

In love! If only she was … When she had been in love with Jerry she had been vague and unpractical, living only for the weekends when she could get up to Oxford, but it had not mattered. When you were in love the world conspired to help you, to take the boring practicalities of life off your hands so that you could get on with the charming business of being in love. Loving glorified you and gave you an unfair advantage over other people.

Rhona was in love again, with a Hungarian film director, with whom she was occupying herself while her husband was in Brazil. She came down to see Christine and was horrified by the mess and drudgery in which she found her. She took a duster and sat down at the kitchen table to help Christine with the silver, but she soon pushed her chair away from the table and forgot about the silver while she talked about the Hungarian.

She was fond of Christine and warmly sorry for her, but at the moment she was more interested in the Hungarian.

‘It's really love this time,' she mooned. ‘I know now that it was never the real thing before.'

‘Oh, you always say that, Ro. It's always the one and only real thing – until the next time.'

‘Don't be horrid. You wouldn't say that if you knew Lajos. You must meet him.' Rhona tipped her chair back against the dresser. ‘He's wonderful. I tell you he's made a different woman of me.' All Rhona's new men made a different woman of her.

‘He's so brilliant. He's much cleverer than me, which is such a relief. I'm sick of men who pretend to think I'm cleverer than them, and sit around waiting for me to say something witty. With Lajos, you know, I sort of – sort of feel almost like a peasant girl.' She laughed, looking less like a peasant girl than it was possible to imagine.

‘He dominates me, you see, and it's wonderful. It's exciting. You know, Chris, I believe that's how women really want to be treated.'

‘You might try it with Dan some day,' Christine said, thinking of Rhona's husband, who was a ball of fire in the business world, but a trained seal in his own home.

‘Oh, Dan!' Rhona said. ‘That's different. Don't let's talk about him, or I might start feeling guilty. Let's talk about Lajos. Let's have an evening together soon and you'll see what I mean about him. You bring someone and we'll go dancing.'

‘Oh, Ro, I don't think I can go out. Daddy doesn't really like being alone in the evening, and, anyway, I've got too much to do here.'

‘Nonsense,' said Rhona, ‘you're getting warped. We'll have a party. Who'll you bring? Why don't you bring that American you took to the film? What about him, by the way? How's that coming along?'

‘It isn't,' Christine said. ‘It didn't work.'

‘Oh well, too bad,' Rhona lost interest, because she had looked at her watch and seen that it was time to go and meet the Hungarian. ‘I'll find you someone else, Chris darling. When I'm in love I always want everyone else to be in love too, and you can't go on playing at being a Victorian daughter for ever. You look ten years older already.'

‘Thanks. That's a big help.' Christine kissed her at the door and Rhona drove away, taking her light and excitement with her.

Christine went back to the kitchen table and the pile of heavy old silver, which made her its slave instead of being a slave for her use. It was Saturday afternoon. Her father had announced at lunch that he had invited a friend for dinner, and presently Christine would have to go out with her shopping basket and find something for them to eat.

After dinner her father and Mr Wilson, who dropped cigarette ash on his waistcoat and constantly cleared his throat, would sit and talk about the Labour Government, and Christine would wash the dishes and darn her father's socks. It would go on like this for years and years, and she would grow to look as drab as she felt now, and people would say what a good
daughter she was, and call her That poor Miss Cope, who never married.

She wanted to cry, but what was the use of crying if you had no one to be upset that you were upset enough to cry? If Rhona cried she would have the Hungarian to comfort her. There would be some point for her in crying, because it would stimulate the Hungarian to emotion too, and they could have quite a scene together. But you could not make a scene all by yourself.

When Vinson came in at the back door she was still sitting with her hands among the silver, doing nothing.

‘Hullo,' she said. ‘I look awful.' Usually, you only said this to a man when you knew that you did not. Christine knew that she looked awful now in a sweater that had shrunk in the wash, with her hair straight because she had been too tired to set it last night; but Vinson was out of her life, and it did not matter.

‘That's O.K.,' he said, not denying it. He was in civilian clothes, with a striped tie that no Englishman would have worn unless it was his Old School colours, and he looked more at home in the kitchen than he did when he was in uniform. He sat down opposite her at the table, picked up a spoon and began to polish it carefully, as if that were his only interest in the world.

‘I told you not to come here again,' Christine murmured, feeling that she ought to say that, although she was glad that he had come.

‘Oh, sure,' he said, starting on another spoon. ‘I only came to see if you had the monkey-wrench from the car. I can't find it.'

‘Oh yes. We used it when we were trying to unstop the waste-pipe in the bathroom. Aunt Jo must have put it in our toolbox. I'm sorry. I'll get it.' She got up. Nowadays, when she got up from a chair, she had to push herself up with her hands, and he noticed it.

‘Don't bother now,' he said. ‘It can wait. Let's you and me have a drink together first, what do you say?'

‘A drink?' She looked at the kitchen clock, made like a frying-pan, which she had bought for Aunt Josephine last Christmas. ‘It's not five o'clock yet.'
‘So what? You British never raise a thirst before six o'clock because the law says you mustn't, but an American can raise a thirst any time. Can I go fix one for us?'

‘All right. You know where everything is. My father's out walking his dog.' They both knew that Mr Cope would disapprove of the cocktail cupboard being unlatched at this hour.

Vinson took out some ice, and when he had gone through to the drawing-room Christine hastily went to her bag and powdered her nose, put on lipstick and combed her hair. He caught her at the mirror when he came back with two strong whiskies on a tray. He always carried drinks and food as neatly as if he were a trained parlourmaid.

‘That's better,' he said. ‘You're so pretty, Christine, you mustn't let yourself go. You've got thinner,' he said, as she came over to the table, where he had cleared aside the silver and put the glasses down.

‘Have I? That's a good thing then. I was too fat before.'

He did not answer this. He did not seem inclined to talk much. He sat there sipping his drink and smoking, and left it to her to make the conversation. She did not know what she should say.

‘I can't stay very long,' she told him. ‘I've got to go out and get some food. Daddy has asked a friend for supper.'

‘You've got too much to do,' Vinson said.

It was the first time anyone had said this to her since Aunt Josephine died. She had drunk half her glass of whisky, and it made her unable to resist saying: ‘Oh yes, Vin, I have. It's awful. I can't get anyone to help, and I just can't cope, and Daddy doesn't want to leave this house and get a flat, and I just don't know how I'm ever going to get straight. I can't see it ever getting any better.'

‘You're pretty unhappy, aren't you, Christine?' he said, looking at his glass.

She paused, and then she said on a sigh: ‘Oh, Vin, I am.' She knew she should not say this to him; but although he was there in the kitchen with her he was out of her life, and so perhaps she could admit it.

‘It's awful. I miss Aunt Jo so much, and I'm so tired, and it's
so dreary because Daddy and I – well, he never wants to hear about the shop or anything. He doesn't like it if I go out, and I don't really want to, but I've got nobody to talk to. I've got nothing.'

She held herself from making the noises or the facial expressions of crying, but tears began to run down the side of her nose and into her mouth, and she kept her head down as she said: ‘Aunt Jo was always here, and she was my friend. But it's all so different now. I've got nothing.'

‘You've got me,' Vinson said quietly. It sounded like a line from a play, facile and just right, but when she looked up at him she saw that he meant it.

‘You've still got me,' he said, and a warm flux of comfort began to flow through her as she let herself drift for a while on the tide of all the things he began to say to her in a quickened voice. He leaned across the table, twisting his empty glass round in his narrow hands, and told her that she was the sort of girl he had been looking for all his life and never found, and how his friends would be jealous of him, and how he would make her happy. He told her about America and the home they would have there together, and how wonderful it was, and how she would get to love it more than England… .

‘No,' she interrupted. ‘I could never do that.' But she was only speaking theoretically, because she knew she could not go to America with him.

She did not tell him that, because she did not want to abandon just yet the illusion of relief and escape which he was offering her. To be looked after … to have someone who cared about what you felt and did … She shook herself out of the dream and stood up.

‘Don't go on, Vin,' she said. ‘I must go out now and get some food before the shops close.'

‘To hell with the shops,' he said, getting up and coming round the table to her.' Forget it. I'll take you out to dinner.'

‘I can't. There's Daddy and Mr Wilson –'

‘We'll take them out too. Give them a bang-up meal. Take them to the club if you like, and buy them a steak. I've got to get in right with your father.'

‘Why?'

‘Because I'm going to marry you.'

She smiled. She thought that he would kiss her then, but he just patted her shoulder and turned to the table to pick up the glasses. ‘I'll go get us another drink,' he said.

Telling Roger and Sylvia was the hardest part. Her father had been quite easy. So that he could not make a fuss, Vinson had told him in front of Mr Wilson, who sat at the table in the Air Force club gorged with food, with his eyes popping out. Mr Cope was more concerned at the time with worrying about whether he was going to be able to digest the food he had eaten than with worrying about Christine going away to marry in America; but when he and Christine talked about it alone at home afterwards he realized that she meant it, and he began to say:

‘What will happen to me? And what is going to happen to me?'

‘You knew I might get married some time.' Christine steeled herself against feeling too sorry for him. ‘You must have thought of that. It happens to nearly all fathers. It's just because I've been at home so long that you … But you'll be all right,' she said briskly, determined not to be held back by pity. ‘You'll be fine. You know that Roger and Sylvia will be glad to have you, and you'll have a lovely home with them. You know you like Farnborough, and it will be wonderful for Bruce. There'll be hundreds of places you can take him for walks.'

She was trying to persuade herself as much as him. She still had to persuade Roger and Sylvia.

When Mr Cope's dog was mentioned they seized on that and made it a point of issue. They could not very well say that they did not want Mr Cope, but they could hint at it by quibbling about his dog. They held up the more important plans by objecting to details, and they were like that all through the talk which Christine had with them when she took a Saturday morning off and drove down to Farnborough to tell them that she was going to marry Vinson.

They did not like it. In common decency, they could not object to the larger aspects of the case. Christine had a right to get married, and her father had a right to expect that his son and
daughter-in-law would give him a home. Whatever they were thinking, they could not deny that in so many words, and so they tried to unsettle Christine by cavilling at details.

It was a horrid interview. It ought to be so wonderful to go to your family and say: ‘I'm going to be married', and to be kissed and wished happiness. Sylvia did kiss her, with her nose cold and wet against Christine's cheek, but all she could wish her in the way of happiness was: ‘I hope you're not making a mistake, Christine. No doubt you know what you want.'

It was made more difficult for her because Vinson had been recalled to Washington. If he were there Roger and Sylvia would not have been able to talk as they did, but Christine had seen him off from the airport two days ago, and now she was alone, and the confidence she felt with him was ebbing.

They had lunch, a dull, overcooked lunch served laboriously by a slow maid. When the maid had gone out of the room, Roger began again to try and undermine Christine's assurance.