Heart of War (40 page)

Laurence found some suitable clothes in his wardrobe, laid them on the bed, and said, ‘I'll wait for you in the music room.'

‘Thank you. I won't be long. …'

Laurence waited, heavy of heart. As he had feared all along, there was no way round it: he had to go. He wished his father could have understood, and found some honourable way for him to serve England without going into the trenches, without putting on uniform, even. But his father had been preoccupied, since 1914 really, with the problems of the land, of the village, of taxes – it was certain that he'd have to sell one of the farms now – and recently, with Mrs
Kramer. Laurence liked what he had seen of the American lady, and wondered whether she was in Liverpool with his father. He thought that she understood him better than his father did. Once or twice she had said things that could be interpreted as guiding his father to see him in a different light. If they'd been married, perhaps she could have found a way out for him – but it was too late now.

Fletcher came in, and Laurence started; though it was barely half an hour since he'd left him, it was still difficult to accept him as Fletcher Gorse, with that big moustache, and now wearing a pair of tweed trousers a little too long for him and a hacking jacket with shirt, collar, and tie.

‘How's that?' Fletcher said, smiling.

‘It's wonderful,' Laurence said. ‘But … I've been thinking. Were you under orders for France when you ran away?'

Fletcher shook his head and said, ‘No, and I always meant to come back, once I'd sorted things out in my head a bit.'

Laurence said eagerly, ‘Then it's not desertion! You have to mean never to go back for it to be desertion.'

‘They're not going to throw me into no cells, nor send me to no Glasshouse. I want to get to France just as quick as I can, and that would just waste my time, wouldn't it?'

‘Then what …?'

‘You hardly recognized me just now, even though you'd seen me shaving. An' they won't at the barracks. I'm going to enlist – F. Whitman … I'd like to call myself Shakespeare, but I daren't. They'll never catch Private Gorse, because he'll be under their noses, as Private Whitman.'

Laurence began to laugh. Fletcher said, ‘They're too busy dealing with squads to look at people, up there. Everything's changing too fast – recruits arrive, drill sergeants come and go, teach ten different squads a day. They'll never catch on. Will you tell my granddad, when you can, please? They'll be watching his cottage, so I can't go there.'

‘We're in the same boat, sort of,' Laurence said. ‘Our mail's being opened here, because of Mummy – my mother. They hope she'll write to one of us one day and give away where she is.'

‘I'll be going now,' Fletcher said cheerfully. ‘I don't want anyone thinking you've been harbouring a deserter in the Manor. Goodbye, Mr Laurence. If you see me at the barracks, just remember I'm Private Whitman – though we
won't be able to say much, except I can say “Yes, sir,” “No, sir.”' He laughed, and, as Laurence opened the French windows, slipped out into the darkness.

The train rattled through a station and Cate looked out for the station sign board. He did not travel to and from London often enough to know them by heart, or sense just where he was by the passage of time … Otford, a row of oast houses looking like cowled monks in the slanting rain, and the engine whistling for a level crossing … only three or four stations to go, and he'd be home; well, at least in Hedlington, and someone would be there to meet him.

He returned to the paper: this sinking of the
Marina
would play some part in the election over there. The Germans seemed bent on antagonizing America, but … he'd talked about the whole American situation with Isabel, and she'd advised him to read the English newspapers with a grain of salt, if that was a viable metaphor. She said that they – the English papers – following the policy of the British Government, were doing everything possible to bring the United States into the war on the Allied side. Every accident or mishap to an American, or to American property, provided it was caused by the Germans, was played up to the hilt, and often actually exaggerated. The same news might not be published at all in American newspapers, or, if it were, might be played down because – as he must appreciate – a large part of the American public did not at all wish their country to become a combatant …

A station passed in a rocking blur – Borough Green: very close now. He closed his eyes briefly and saw her as they had parted at Euston, in a dark corner of the great bustling station, her lips warm on his, her eyes closed. The train slowed, steam hissing from the engine's safety valve and steam chest.

Alice thought Naomi looked so pretty in her evening uniform, with six inches of khaki silk stocking showing under her skirt, the mid-heel shoes instead of the boots and gaiters, her hair piled high instead of hidden under the felt hat. Her face, always a little stern, had seemed vulnerable since she had arrived, half an hour ago from High Staining, where she was spending her weekend's leave with her parents. During that half hour, while Alice finished dressing for the dance, she had thought the girl was unusually silent. She had tried to bring her out – asked questions about the other girls – the officers – her quarters – the work – was she enjoying herself, did she feel it was worthwhile? But Naomi's answers had been brief, and as though relayed through a telephone from a long way off; Naomi herself, the young woman, was somewhere else.

Now, as Naomi engaged gear in the big, old Rowland Ruby, she said abruptly – ‘I have fallen in love, Aunt Alice.'

Alice felt the throb in the girl's voice: tension, emotion … the Town Hall was barely ten minutes' drive; not nearly enough for her to get out what she obviously needed to. Alice said quietly, ‘Drive out on the London road for a bit, dear. We're in no hurry.'

Naomi turned the car at the next cross street and headed for the main London road. After a while, as the headlamps threw a faint light forward and onto the boles of trees marching alongside, Alice said, ‘Tell me about it. You must feel so …
good.'

Naomi said, ‘I wake up every morning full of a feeling … I can't tell you … the sun seems to be inside me, not outside, even if it's pouring cats and dogs. I can see his face, smiling, in the air … I can feel his arms round me …'

Oh dear, Alice thought. This war …!

Naomi went on – ‘At night I go to bed, hating myself,
despising myself … feeling like a traitress to everything I believe in.'

‘But, my dear, why?'

Naomi turned her head a moment to look her aunt in the eye. ‘He's married.'

‘Oh dear!' Alice said aloud. ‘My poor darling … How dreadful for you.'

She wondered whether they had … well, the word was adultery, since he was married: had they committed adultery? The thought stirred her. She knew she would have done whatever the petty officer needed, last October, if there had been a place, the opportunity. She was feeling something of the same sense of acquiescence now, wondering whether David Cowell would be at the dance.

She said gently, ‘Who is he?'

Naomi said, ‘A colonel … full colonel, in Intelligence at the War Office. I didn't like him at first … self-protection, I suppose. Then …' she drew a deep breath. ‘We spent the night together last month, for the first time.'

‘Oh dear,' Alice said.

‘I've been falling deeper and deeper every day … and feeling lower and lower. Our Deputy Superintendent likes to have her girls be seen with officers – the more senior the better. I've had opportunities to meet him. He can get a hotel room anywhere without trouble, just pretends he's on Intelligence work … but he has to lie to his wife. I've met her when I've picked him up at his house, on duty. She seems so nice …'

Alice said, ‘He may have done this sort of thing before. Some men do, you know.'

‘I suppose so … Yes, I think he has. But I don't care. I don't care, as long as he loves me, and wants me … Oh, Auntie, what am I to do?'

Alice said, ‘We've come far enough out now, Naomi. Let's turn back.'

As Naomi backed the car into a lane, and then headed back toward Hedlington, Alice tried to think clearly. Should she make Naomi promise never to see the man again? The man must be rather a cad, as the Governor would say, and probably wouldn't release his hold on her … She herself could write to him … at the War Office? To his home, once she had found out where it was? No, that would
hurt the wife. She'd have to go and see him in person.
What if she were pregnant?

She said, ‘You should go away, Naomi. Or you could ask to be posted to another Group, in Scotland.'

Naomi said, ‘It wouldn't be enough. I'd still see him. It couldn't be so often, but I'd get there somehow, and he to me, or we'd meet halfway … Don't you see, Auntie, I have no shame!'

Alice thought, it isn't just a question of distance, but of interest. Naomi had to have her spirit engaged as this man had engaged it.

‘The war!' she exclaimed. ‘You must join the F.A.N.Y.s.'

‘The First Aid Nursing Yeomanry!' Naomi said. ‘Would they take me?'

‘If you're a good enough driver and mechanic … and a lady, which you are.'

‘Not now,' Naomi muttered.

Alice said firmly, ‘My dear, I fear that ladies, real ladies, commit adultery at least as often as other women … in certain circles, such as those round the old King, a great deal more often … I know a senior lady of the F.A.N.Y. and your grandfather knows her husband even better. Before you leave High Staining tomorrow evening to return to your Group, you must write a letter to the address I shall give you, and bring it to me at Laburnum Lodge before you catch the train. Then I shall telephone the lady and tell her that you passionately wish to join the F.A.N.Y. and go to one of their units in France.'

They were passing down the dim streets now, pedestrians still dense on the pavements, many soldiers walking toward the Town Hall for the Soldiers and Sailors Dance. Naomi said, ‘I don't know.'

‘You must,' Alice said firmly. ‘You'll kill yourself with worry if you don't.'

‘I can't do it,' Naomi said. ‘I'll die if I don't see him again.'

Alice paused, then returned to the attack – ‘Are you afraid of going to France?' she snapped. ‘You think it won't be as comfortable as the nice, big house in London you have been telling me about? That you might get shelled … wounded … killed?'

Naomi said with some heat, ‘Of course I'm not afraid, Aunt Alice!'

‘You are! You're afraid you can't control yourself! Do what I say, join the F.A.N.Y. and go to France! … Are you pregnant?'

Naomi said, ‘No … I knew yesterday … I wished, I prayed that my period would
not
come … I know you're right, Auntie, but don't you see,
I'm in love, for the first time, totally
. I
can't
cut myself away from him. I just had to tell someone how …
awful
it is, as well as wonderful. But you don't understand.'

Perhaps I do, or soon will, Alice thought unhappily but said nothing.

They drew up in front of the Town Hall, where Naomi found a space at the pavement to leave the car. They got out, Naomi helping her aunt. A girl of medium height, in uniform, carrying herself well, walked past them, turning at the big main doors to glance round, then exclaiming, ‘Miss Rowland! Don't you remember me? Elizabeth Seddon.'

‘Of course! Niece of the Misses Frameley.'

‘I'm on leave from the F.A.N.Y. – Number Four Convoy. We run a Field Ambulance for the Belgians just outside Calais. The British Army wouldn't touch us in the beginning, but now there are rumours that an English Convoy will be formed soon, to serve with our own Army … about time, too!'