The Fancy (18 page)

Dick Bennett was in a quandary. As a part-time Air Raid Warden, even off duty, it was up to him to do something about the searchlight which preceded them down Ar,” she said. “ blyhthur Road ; as treasurer of the Collis Park Domestic Rabbit Club, it was up to him to keep in with Mr. Bell. He struggled with himself. Edward, who was annoyed, had begun to hum. To cover his embarrassment, Dick said heavily : “That’s a very fine torch.”

“I believe you,” said Mr. Bell. “You wouldn’t find one like it in the shops, I can tell you. You have to know where to go for these
things. But I’m not telling. No names, no pack drill, as they say. By the way Edwards, you won’t forget to let me have a look at that form the B.R.C. sent you, before you send it in? You want to be careful how you fill up a thing like that, you know. I might be able to put you right on one or two things. When it’s a question of allocation of rations, you want to know how to deal with these people. Tell you what, I’ll just pop along to your house with you, if you’re only in Church Avenue, and pick it up. Perhaps I could have a look at your stock.”

Edward let them into the hall of his house, and switched on the spectral blue light. Mr. Bell pretended to have fallen over the umbrella stand and switched on his torch, spot-lighting Connie, who had come out of the kitchen beyond the stairs, to tell Edward and Dick that they were very late and must not be surprised if the fish was spoiled.

“This is Mr. Bell, dear,” said Edward. “Mr. Dexter Bell.”

“How d’you do, Mrs. Edwards? “said Mr. Bell. “Forgive the intrusion, but I’m a fellow-fancier of your husband’s. We’ve been making great plans, Mrs. Edwards, great plans.”

“How do you do?” said Connie. “The name is Ledward. Won’t you take off your coat?” Another of these dreadful rabbit men. Edward might tell her when he was bringing in strangers. Here she was, caught out in her stringy old green jumper. She never bothered to change for Dick Bennett.

“Mr. Bell’s only just looked in to fetch a paper and have a squint at the rabbits,” said Edward quickly, before she could think that he had brought him to supper. “Let’s go out to them, shall we? You’d better bring that torch. I hope you don’t mind going through the kitchen.” Dick and Mr. Bell in his teddy-bear coat took up a lot of room in the narrow hall, and Connie had to step inside the living-room doorway to let them go by.

“Hullo, Dick,” she said without enthusiasm. She distinctly smelt whisky in the air.

Mr. Bell distinctly smelt fish in the kitchen. He stopped short, while Edward was unbolting the back door, and sniffed, “My,” he said, “something smells good. What is it?” I will
not
ask you to supper, said Edward to himself, pretending not to hear and going out into the back garden. “Come along,” he said, “we’re showing a light if I don’t shut the door.” They stood in the cold, quiet darkness for a moment until Mr. Bell’s torch violated the blackout once more. He flashed it on the first hutch and its occupant, the nervous little grey doe who was like Wendy Holt, shrank against the back wall, blinking.

“All right, little thing,” said Mr. Bell shading the torch, as he crouched down to look at her. “They don’t like a bright light, you know,” he said to Edward, who had just been going to tell him that. They both squatted in front of the doe, with Mr. Bell going : “Hm …
hm …” as he considered her points. “I thought you said you were going all out for size?” he said.

“Yes, I am, really” said Edward. “I like her though. I don ‘t want to get rid of her.” He knew he should have done so long ago, when he began to concentrate on the Ledward strain. She had never been anything but a loss, because even when her litters were not sickly, she was so nervous that she frequently killed them within the first day or two. She was almost impossible to get into kindle too, as the train journey upset her so much that she would resist the Buck like an out-raged spinster. But although she was not really worth food or hutch space, he refused to part with her. He had recently changed her name to Wendy. Since he had become so fond of the girls on his bench at Canning Kyles, he had named rabbits after all of them. Three of Queenie’s latest litter were called Paddy, Madeleine and Sheila, and the great bouncing young doe, who challenged cats through the wire netting and came back from her honeymoons with a rollicking eye and a tremendous appetite had long ago been changed from Princess to Dinah.

Mr. Bell got up and moved on to the next cage. “You’re absolutely wrong,” he said, “with a small collection like yours, you must, you simply must cut out the dead heads. If you’re going for size, chuck out anything that doesn’t promise to be big. If it’s coat you’re after same thing applies. Chuck out anything shabby. It’s the only way to get results. That’s just the difference between the amateur and the professional, you see. The amateur so seldom has the courage of his convictions.”

“Oh, but I do,” said Edward, “it’s only just that particular doe——” He followed Mr. Bell down the line of hutches, trying to justify himself, while Dick Bennett followed behind them, breathing heavily in the darkness.

“Now this is a good buck!” exclaimed Mr. Bell in surprise, as if Edward didn’t know. He shone the torch full on to the great blinking Masterman, the pride of Edward’s stock. He was only young yet, but he was going to keep him as a stud buck. He had all the qualities necessary for a founder of the Ledward strain.

“Yes, sir,” said Mr. Bell, and lowered himself on to his fat haunches to have a closer look. Edward couldn’t help being gratified by his admiration, because after all, he did know something about rabbits. Dick Bennett was impressed too. He squatted behind them like a great bear, whistling softly through his teeth. “You haven’t told me about this one, Ted,” he said enviously. “You sly old devil, I’d no idea you’d been keeping something like this up your sleeve.”

“It’s Masterman. Dick,” said Edward, “you’ve seen him ever so often.”

“Have I? Surely not. He’s never been as big as this. He must have grown at a tremendous rate then.”

“He has,” said Edward happily. “I’ve been trying him on a new diet and it seems to be working. As a matter of fact, I’ve written a letter about it for
Backyard Breeding.
I’m hoping they’ll put it in this week.”

“
Backyard Breeding?
” said Mr. Bell, getting up, and yawning to disguise the noise of his bones cracking, “sound paper that. Apropos of what I was saying about chucking out, Edwards, you ought to read my friend Allan Colley ; he’s very hot on selective breeding.”

“I know,” said Edward. My
friend
Allan Colley? “Do you know him, then?”

“Know him? Why, bless your hearI believe youan alongt, we’re like
that
” said Mr. Bell, crossing two fingers in the beam of his torch. “Known him for ages, met him at shows all over the country. Oh, he’s a great lad is the old collie dog. He’s forgotten more about Flemishes than you or
I
will ever know. Grand chap!”

“He must be,” said Edward. “I’ve always wanted to meet him.”

“Well, no reason why you shouldn’t. He might be interested in out little venture. He likes to encourage new enterprise. I might bring him along some day. He lives quite near here as a matter of fact—Raynes Park. He’s got a fine place ; house in its own grounds, and his wife——” he blew a kiss into the air, “what a peach! They entertain a lot.”

“I’d love to meet him,” said Edward, thrilled to the core and suddenly back in the second eleven, watching the Captain of the school bearing down on him across the field at half-time to congratulate him on a lucky goal. He viewed Mr. Bell in a completely new light.

“Well, let’s just have a quick dekko at the others while I’m here,” said E. Dexter, “and then I must be off, or my sister will be thinking I’ve gone under a bus.” His sister? Was she the U of “Uanmee”? Come to think of it, he had never spoken of a wife in all his conversation about himself.

“There aren’t any more,” said Edward. “That’s the lot.”

“Oh, “he said and turned to go indoors, falling over a dustbin on the way and conveying by his oaths that at “Uanmee” you didn’t have to go past dustbins to get to the rabbits.

In the kitchen, he began to sniff again, and even opened the oven door to look inside. “I thought so,” he said, smacking his lips. “I know a herring when I smell one. My favourite fruit. Why d’you have Rp to state tha

*

There were no placards but only, as Dinah had foretold, a lot of looks and remarks about circles under the eyes, when Kitty came back from her honeymoon, looking faintly surprised but otherwise no different.

Why should she? thought Dinah. It would take more than three days with Leonard Bright to make anyone look different. One week a year was the maximum Leave allowed to Service wives, and Kitty and Len had decided to save four days of it in case he suddenly got Embarkation Leave later on.

Edward felt sorry for her. There she had been on Wednesday, with her pipes
en fête
, blushing and giggling among the ribbons, radiantly excited ; and on Monday, almost before they had had time to notice she was gone, there she was back again, perching childishly on her stool and being called
Mrs. Bright
, with emphatic wit. And that was marriage. To Edward, she symbolised the pathos of every wartime bride. Feeling sentimental about her, he tried to think of ways in which he could lessen what must be the burden of that first day. He inspected some draintaps for her while she was doing the pipes, and she was grateful, unaware that the A.I.D. would be back with them
tomorrow with sarcastic enquiries about Mod. 202. All day he kept coming up and asking her if she wanted any help, and once, after she had booked three oil pipes missing on her report, he came
trotting
back from the dismantling shop where he had taken them to clean, and she had to rub everything out.

She had expected it to feel queer to come back and work there after three days of being married, but by the end of the day she
found
it almost impossible to believe that, she had ever been away. The day had been so exactly like other days, no more or less tedious. She had gone through all the usual phases : cold and depressed at first and inclined to wish that whoever it was had never invented the internal combustion engine, softening towards him after tea and a margarine roll at half-past nine had brought her fingers alive at last, bearing up until at about eleven-thirty it became evident that lunch time would never come. quite lively after the hour’s break, but falling away after an early tea into the state that made her shake her watch unbelievingly at half-past four and at intervals afterwards, until at half-past five she struck an interesting patch of work and looked up suddenly to see that it was five to six and she would have to fly for the toilet if she wanted to be out when the bell rang.

She felt no different. She had to keep telling herself that she was married and looking down at her ring, because she didn’t feel married at all. Going listlessly through an unexcitingly perfect set of pipes, she thought again of the week-end behind her that had made the bad smell in the Redundant Storesining onnher into a married woman, with an Air Force allowance book and a new identity card, and tried to make it seem real. Long before she met Len, she had always visualised her honeymoon as the peak of her life—Paradise at the time and living in beautiful memory for years afterwards, with some fading photographs and a pressed flower, perhaps, and a menu card. Well, she had got the hotel bill, which her mother had described as highway robbery, but as for living through the years, the memory of her week-end honeymoon was already growing faint after one day. The factory and the girls, and even Edward in that familiar maroon tie, seemed much more real. The other was just an interlude : impossible to believe that it could have any effect on the course of her life.

It had been over almost before she knew it had begun. On the Thursday she had been to the hairdressers and then come home to soak her nails and write a few laboured letters to aunts and to Mr. Sommers at her father’s firm, thanking them for presents that would remain packed away until she and Len got their own home after the War. Then she had stood fidgeting for hours with her mother kneeling at her feet, talking through a mouthful of pins while she adjusted the hem of her wedding dress, In the evening, Len bad turned up for supper, but Mrs. Ferguson had sent him laughingly away, saying that it was bad luck. He had told Kitty afterwards that he had rounded up some pals for a drink, but she didn’t think he had had any supper.

After their own meal, which she had chosen—sausages and chips and jam fritters—Kitty had gone out to the telephone box on the corner and rung
up
Len’s aunt, with whom he was staying. It seemed very important to speak to him, as if in that last minute she could find out what he was really like, but he was not in. She had gone home and had a bath, and her mother had made her drink hot milk in bed, although she was still full of jam fritters. Her father had corns up to kiss her goodnight, which was unusual for him, as Ms sciatica didn’t take him up and down stairs very easily. She had fallen asleep to the burr of his treadle fretsaw coming up through the floor under her bed.

All the part in the church and afterwards at the buffet lunch at home, where everyone had declared they didn’t know how Mrs. Ferguson did it and they had never seen such a spread in Wartime, had seemed unreal even at the time. When she and Len were in the taxi on the way to the station, they had suddenly looked at each other, awe-stricken, and then begun to giggle. They seemed to have giggled a lot in the next few days : in the train, when the woman in the W.V.S. uniform and the man with the drop on the end of his pose had a row about opening the window ; at the hotel at Banbury, when the sweet was called
Crême
Montecarlo
and turned out to be cold rice shape with raisins in it ; and again in the train coming home, when they had to stand in the corridor and the man next to Len had kept falling forward and bumping his nose on the window. What had they done all the time in between?

They had got up late—that had made the morning go quickly. Then there was lunch in the big crumby dining-room, which took a long time as there was only one waitress. Afterwards they had sat in the lounge looking at the papers and each begged the other to say what they wanted to do, fortunately discovering at last that they both wanted to take the bus into Oxford and go to the cinema. On Sunday they had gone for a walk in the rain, and Kitty had discovered that her new shoes let water. Lunch had been roast beef that day, followed by hot jam roll, which Len enjoyed. It was nice to find something he did enjoy, because he was fussy about his food as a rule, but the waitress would not allow him a second helping. Now that sheNever mind, blyh thought about it, Kitty had really been hungry all the time they were there, in spite of the buns which they had bought in Oxford and eaten afterwards in the bedroom. When they were packing on Sunday, they had found a bun left over and after some discussion had thrown it out of the window in case the maid, finding it in the wastepaper basket, should think it odd.