The Distant Hours (20 page)

Telling Percy would be the hardest part; she wasn’t going to be pleased, and as to what would become of her, marching the corridors alone, mending walls and chopping wood, forgetting to bathe or launder or bake – well, it didn’t bear thought. This letter, though, this offer of employment Saffy held in her hand, was her chance and she wasn’t about to let a bad habit of sentiment stop her from taking it. Like Adele, in her novel, she was going to ‘seize life by the throat and force it to meet her eyes’ – Saffy was very proud of that line.

She closed the pantry door quietly behind her and noticed immediately that the oven was steaming. In all the excitement she’d almost forgotten the pie! What a thing! She’d be lucky if the pastry weren’t burnt to a cinder.

Saffy slid on her oven mitts and squinted inside, breathing a great sigh of relief when she saw that the pie’s top, though golden, was not yet brown. She shifted it into the bottom oven, where the temperature was lower and it could sit without spoiling, then stood to leave.

And that’s when she saw that Percy’s stained uniform trousers had joined her own pinafore on the kitchen table. Why, they must have been deposited when Saffy was in the pantry. What luck that Percy hadn’t discovered her reading the letter.

Saffy gave the trousers a shake. Monday was her official washing day, but it was just as well to leave the clothes to steep a while, especially where Percy’s uniform was concerned; the number and variety of stains Percy managed to collect would’ve been impressive if they weren’t so jolly difficult to remove. Still, Saffy enjoyed a challenge. She stuck her hand into first one pocket, then the other, in search of forgotten odds and sods that would spoil her load. And it was just as well she did.

Saffy pulled out the pieces of paper – goodness, such a number! – and laid them beside her on the work top. She shook her head wearily; she’d lost count of how many times she’d tried to train Percy to clear her pockets before putting clothes out for laundering.

But how strange – Saffy shifted the shreds about with her finger, located one with a stamp. It was, or had been once, a letter, torn now into pieces.

But why would Percy do such a thing? And who was the letter from?

A slamming noise above and Saffy’s gaze swung to the ceiling. Footsteps, another slam.

The front door! Juniper had arrived. Or was it him, the fellow from London?

Saffy glanced again at the tattered pieces of paper, chewed the inside of her cheek. Here was a mystery, and one she needed to resolve. But not now; there simply wasn’t time. She needed to be upstairs, to see Juniper and to greet their guest; Lord only knew what Percy’s state was now. Perhaps the torn letter would shed some light on her sister’s foul mood of late.

With a short nod of decision, Saffy concealed her own secret letter carefully beneath her bodice and stashed the pieces she’d pulled from Percy’s pocket under a saucepan lid. She would investigate properly later.

And, with a last check of the rabbit pie, she straightened her dress about the bust, discouraged it from clinging quite so closely to her middle, and started upstairs.

Perhaps Percy only imagined the rotting odour? It had been an unfortunate phantom lately; it turned out there were some things, once smelled, that could never be escaped. They hadn’t been in the good parlour for over six months, not since Daddy’s funeral, and despite her sister’s best efforts a musty edge still clung. The table had been pulled into the centre of the room, right atop the Bessarabian rug, then laid with Grandmother’s finest dinner service, four glasses apiece, and a carefully printed menu at each place. Percy picked one up for closer inspection, noted that parlour games were scheduled and put it down again.

A jolt of memory took her back to a shelter she’d found herself in during the first weeks of the Blitz, when a planned visit to Daddy’s solicitor in Folkestone had been scotched by Hitler’s fighters. The forced gaiety, the songs, the horrid, acrid smell of fear . . .

Percy shut her eyes then and saw him. The figure dressed all in black, who’d appeared midway through the bombing and leaned, unnoticed, against the wall, speaking to no one. Head deeply bowed beneath his dark, dark hat. Percy had watched him, fascinated by the way he stood somehow outside the others. He’d looked up only once, just before he gathered his coat around him and walked out into the blazing night. His eyes had met her own, briefly, and she’d seen nothing inside them. No compassion, no fear, no determination; just a cold emptiness. She’d known then that he was Death and she’d thought of him plenty since. When she was working a shift, climbing into bomb craters, pulling bodies from within, she’d remember the ghastly, otherworldly calm he’d carried wrapped around him as he strode from the shelter out into the chaos. She’d signed up with the ambulances soon after their encounter, but it wasn’t bravery that drove her, it wasn’t that at all: it was simply easier to take one’s chances with Death on the flaming surface than to remain trapped beneath the shaking, moaning earth with nothing but desperate cheer and helpless fear for company . . .

There was an inch or so of amber liquid in the bottom of the decanter and Percy wondered vaguely when it had been put there. Years ago, certainly – they used the bottles in the yellow parlour for themselves these days – but it hardly mattered, liquor was the better for ageing. With a glance over her shoulder, Percy dropped a shot into a glass, then doubled it. Rattled the crystal stopper back into place as she took a swig. And another. Something in the middle of her chest burned and she welcomed the ache. It was vivid and real and she was standing here right now feeling it.

Footsteps. High-heeled. Distant but ticking rapidly along the stones towards her. Saffy.

Months of anxiety balled up like a leaden weight in Percy’s gut. She needed to take herself in hand. There was nothing to be gained by ruining Saffy’s evening – Lord knew, her twin had little enough opportunity to exercise her zest for entertaining. Oh, but Percy felt giddy at the ease with which she might. A sensation similar to that when a person stands right on the precipice overlooking a great height, when the knowledge that one must not jump is so strong that an odd compulsion almost overtakes one, whispering that to jump is the very thing that must be done.

God she was a hopeless case. There was something fundamentally broken at the heart of Percy Blythe, something queer and defective and utterly unlikable. That she should contemplate, even for a second, the ease with which she might deprive her sister, her infuriating, beloved twin, of happiness. Had she always been so mired in perversity? Percy sighed deeply. She was ill, clearly, and it wasn’t a recent condition. Throughout their lives it had been thus: the more enthusiasm Saffy showed for a person or an object or an idea, the less Percy was able to give. It was as if they were one being, split into two, and there was a limit to the amount of combined feeling they could exhibit at any one time. And at some point, for some reason, Percy had appointed herself the balance keeper: if Saffy were anguished, Percy opted for glib merriment; if Saffy were excited, Percy did her best to douse it with sarcasm. How bloody cheerless she was.

The gramophone had been opened and cleaned and a pile of records stacked beside it. Percy picked one up, a new album sent by Juniper from London. Obtained God knew where and by what means; Juniper, it might be guessed, had her ways. Music would surely help. She dropped the needle and Billie Holiday started to croon. Percy exhaled, whisky warm. That was better: contemporary music without previous associations. Many years ago, decades before, during one of the Blythe Family Evenings, Daddy had given the word ‘nostalgia’ in a challenge. He’d read out the definition, ‘an acute homesickness for the past’, and Percy had thought, with the gauche certainty of the young, what a very strange concept it was. She couldn’t imagine why anyone would seek to re-inhabit the past when the future was where all the mystery lay.

Percy drained her glass, tilted it idly this way and that, watching the remaining droplets congeal into a single entity. It was the meeting with Lucy that had her nerves prickling, she knew that, but a pall had spread across all the day’s events and Percy found her thoughts drawn back again to Mrs Potts in the post office. Her suspicions, her insistence almost, that Juniper was engaged to be married. Gossip attached itself to Juniper, but it was Percy’s experience that where rumour nested there was always a shred of truth. Though not in this case, surely.

Behind her, the door sighed as it was opened and a cooler gust crept in from the passage.

‘Well?’ came her sister’s breathless voice. ‘Where is she? I heard the door.’

If Juniper were to speak of private matters it would be to Saffy. Percy tapped the rim of her glass thoughtfully.

‘Is she upstairs already?’ Saffy’s voice dropped to a whisper as she said, ‘Or was it him? What’s he like? Where is he?’

Percy straightened her shoulders. If she expected any cooperation from Saffy she needed to offer an unreserved mea culpa. ‘They’re not here yet,’ she said, turning to her twin and smiling – she hoped – guilelessly.

‘They’re late.’

‘Only a little.’

Saffy had that look, the transparent, nervy face she used to wear when they were children putting on plays for Daddy’s friends and no one had yet arrived to fill out the chairs for the audience. ‘Are you sure?’ she said. ‘I could have sworn I heard the door—’

‘Check under the chairs if you like,’ said Percy lightly. ‘There’s no one else here. It was just the shutter you heard, the one on the window over there. It came loose in the storm, but I fixed it.’ She nodded at the wrench on the sill.

Saffy’s eyes widened as she took in the wet marks on the front of Percy’s dress. ‘It’s a special dinner, Perce. Juniper will—’

‘Neither notice nor care,’ Percy finished. ‘Come on now. Forget about my dress. You look good enough for both of us. Sit down, won’t you? I’ll make us a drink while we wait.’

Given that neither Juniper nor her gentleman friend had arrived, what Saffy really wanted to do was scurry back downstairs, put the pieces of torn letter back together, and learn Percy’s secret. To find her twin in such placatory spirits, though, was an unexpected boon and one she couldn’t afford to squander. Not tonight, not with Juniper and the special guest expected any minute. On that note, it was as well to remain as close as possible to the front door, all the better to catch Juniper alone when she finally arrived. ‘Thank you,’ she said, accepting the proffered glass, taking a healthy sip to signal goodwill.

‘So,’ said Percy, returning to perch on the edge of the gramophone table, ‘how was your day?’

Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice might have said. Percy, as a rule, did not peddle in small talk. Saffy hid behind another sip of her drink and decided it was wise to proceed with extreme caution. She fluttered her hand and said, ‘Oh, fine. Although I did fall over putting on my underwear.’

‘You didn’t,’ said Percy, with a genuine crack of laughter.

‘I most certainly did; I’ve got the bruise to prove it. I’ll see every colour of the rainbow before it’s gone.’ Saffy prodded her bottom delicately, shifting her weight as she sat on the end of the chaise longue. ‘I suppose that means I’m getting old.’

‘Impossible.’

‘Oh?’ Saffy perked up slightly, despite herself. ‘Do tell?’

‘Simple. I was born first; technically I’ll always be older than you are.’

‘Yes, I know, but I don’t see—’

‘And I can assure you I’ve never so much as teetered when getting dressed. Even during a raid.’

‘Hmm . . .’ Saffy frowned, considering. ‘I see your point. Shall we ascribe my misadventure to a momentary lapse then, unrelated to age?’

‘I expect we must; to do otherwise would be to script our own demise.’ It had been one of Daddy’s favourite expressions, uttered in the face of many and varied obstacles, and they both smiled. ‘I’m sorry,’ Percy continued. ‘About before, on the stairs.’ She struck a match and lit her cigarette. ‘I didn’t mean to quarrel.’

‘Let’s blame the war, shall we?’ Saffy said, twisting to avoid the oncoming smoke. ‘Everybody else does. Tell me, what’s new in the big, wide world?’

‘Not a lot. Lord Beaverbrook’s talking about tanks for the Russians; there’s no fish to be had in the village; and it appears that Mrs Caraway’s daughter is expecting.’

Saffy inhaled greedily. ‘No!’

‘Yes.’

‘But she’d be what, fifteen?’

‘Fourteen.’

Saffy leaned closer. ‘A soldier was it?’

‘Pilot.’

‘Well, well.’ She shook her head dazedly. ‘And Mrs Caraway such a pillar. How terrible.’ It didn’t pass beneath Saffy’s notice that Percy was smirking around her cigarette, almost as if she suspected her twin of enjoying Mrs Caraway’s misfortune. Which she was, a little, but only because the woman was an eternal bossy-breeches who picked fault with everybody and everything including, word had made its way to the castle, Saffy’s very own stitching. ‘What?’ she said, flushing. ‘It
is
terrible.’

‘But not surprising though,’ said Percy, tapping away ash. ‘Girls these days and their missing morals.’

‘Things are different since the war,’ Saffy agreed. ‘I’ve seen it in the letters to the editor. Girls playing up while their husbands are away, having babies out of wedlock. It seems they barely have to know a fellow and they’re walking down the aisle.’