Marking Time (35 page)

‘He gave me ever such a fright,’ Eileen said, holding her side to show she meant it. ‘I went in, because I thought I’d left my dusters in there, and
there he was, without a stitch on, doing the Lambeth Walk on the billiard table with Mr Hugh’s golf club.
I
don’t know,’ she finished, as she took the restorative cup of
tea proffered by Mrs Cripps. ‘All the curtains drawn as well, and the table lights on – it gave me ever such a turn. I couldn’t find Ellen, so I had to get Miss Rachel. He
didn’t ought to take his clothes off – a big boy like that.’

‘Whatever next, I wonder?’ Mrs Cripps had returned to sieving breadcrumbs. ‘Of course he misses his father, poor little mite.’ There was a hush in the kitchen, and Edie,
who stopped washing up out of respect, dropped a pie dish on the floor where it broke – it came to pieces in her hand; she wept as Mrs Cripps scolded her.

‘It was really so killing, I had the greatest difficulty in not laughing,’ Rachel said to the Duchy. ‘He hadn’t cut or damaged the cloth, thank goodness.
But what makes him
think
of such things?’

‘He wants attention,’ the Duchy said calmly. ‘He misses his father. Zoë has never been much use to him, and Clary is too old in some ways and too young in others to
comfort him about that.’

They looked at each other with many of much the same thoughts. ‘A little treat on his own?’ Rachel ventured.

‘Certainly, but not today. He mustn’t think that dancing on billiard tables reaps a reward. In fact, I think Hugh had better give him a good talking-to this evening when he gets
home.’

Zoë could hear Juliet crying as she walked up the drive, and by the time the house came in sight, she was running. This quickly made her out of breath. She had known at
Mill Farm she was late, because her breasts had begun to feel too heavy and full, but it had been impossible to leave the poor chap she had been reading to until the nurse came to relieve her.
Supposing Ellen was not with Juliet; suppose she had fallen out of her basket and hurt herself; she caught her cardigan on the latch of the garden gate in her hurry, and turning impatiently to free
it, she tore the pocket. In the hall, she almost collided with Eileen carrying a tray with the silver to lay the dinner. By the time she had got to the top of the stairs she had a stitch in her
side but she still ran along the passage to her room. Ellen was walking up and down with Juliet who was scarlet and pumping out little regular screams of rage. ‘She’s only
hungry,’ Ellen said. ‘She’s a regular little madam when she wants her food.’

Zoë sat in the high-backed nursing chair, unbuttoned her shirt and unhooked her bra, removing the sodden pads. Ellen handed her the baby who was stiff and sweating with rage, settled her in
the crook of her arm. The baby made a few apparently random, almost blind movements of her head and found the breast, whereupon her body instantly softened, and on her face an expression of (stern)
rapture instantly occurred. ‘Don’t let her have it too fast,’ Ellen advised, but she said it with a proper adoration and Zoë could tear her eyes for a moment from her baby to
smile.

‘I won’t.’ Ellen handed her a Harrington square for her other breast which leaked in sympathy and limped from the room – she had rheumatism that had made her painfully
lame.

Zoë stroked the damp wisps of hair with her fingers and the baby’s eyes, fixed upon hers now with that look of considering trust that she never tired of, flickered at the
interruption, then returned to their steady gaze. Her complexion was now a delicious rose colour; her tiny bare feet curling with pleasure made Zoë want to seize one and kiss it – an
interruption that she knew would not be popular. ‘You have a widow’s peak,’ she said, going through her inventory of perfections which were so many. The silky, touchingly defined
eyebrows, the amazing wide-apart eyes, still the colour of wet slate but likely, she had been told, to change, the dear little nose and the charming mouth the colour of red cherry skin, and her
head with the reddish gold hair, such a perfect shape – like a hazelnut, she thought . . . It was time to wind her. She lifted her up and placed Juliet over her shoulder, stroking the small
of her back. The baby made a few small creaking sounds and then burped – she was the perfect baby.

It was the Duchy who had suggested that she should go and help at the nursing home at Mill Farm in the afternoons, and almost frightened by the completeness of her absorption in Juliet, she had
agreed. The Duchy had been unfailingly kind to her and Zoë cared very much for her good opinion. It had been the Duchy who had told her about Rupert – not until two days after Juliet was
born and her milk had come in. She had cried – easy, weak tears – but the news had a kind of unreality, a distance about it that made her unable to feel what clearly they all expected
her to feel – anguish, hope at first, now ebbing away as the weeks went by. She could not
absorb
the idea that he might be dead and she would never see him again – would not or
could not think of it. The Duchy, whether she realised this or not, had never pressed her for responses. She had told her the truth and then left her to refer to it if she had wanted to. But she
hadn’t. There had been one time with Clary, when there had been a second’s awful, unimaginable reality, but she had fled from it, retreated into the existence, the possession of Juliet.
‘I can’t,’ she had said to Clary. ‘I can’t think about it now. I can’t.’ And Clary had said, ‘That’s all right. Just don’t think
he’s dead because he
isn’t
.’ And she never talked about it again. For nearly three months now her whole existence had been Juliet: feeding her, bathing her, changing her
nappies, playing with her, taking her for walks in the old Cazalet family pram. At night, she slept dreamlessly, but in some magic way, she always woke a minute or two before Juliet for her early
morning feed – her favourite time when there seemed to be nobody in the world but the two of them. The war receded for her: she did not listen to the news on the wireless, nor read
newspapers. She spent hours making intricate, pretty dresses for Juliet to wear when she was a little older, fine lawn dresses, with pin tucks and drawn threadwork and edged sometimes with a narrow
handmade lace that the Duchy gave her. Sybil had become her friend in an amiable, undemanding way: she had a proper admiration for Juliet and was quite happy to talk about babies in a knowledgeable
and reassuring manner, and she had crocheted three matinée jackets, had shown her how to cut Juliet’s nails to stop her scratching her face. But two weeks ago the Duchy had suggested
that she might like to help at Mill Farm which contained a number of young airmen who had suffered frightful wounds – mostly burns – and were rested up there between operations.
‘They need visiting,’ she had said. ‘I’ve talked to Matron, and they are a long way from their families who can’t see them often, and I think you should get out
more.’ It had not been exactly a command, but Zoë had known that she was meant to comply. So it was arranged that she should go three afternoons a week. It was Villy who had warned her
that ‘burns can make people look very strange’, but even then she had been unprepared for what she found at Mill Farm.

‘It is very good of you to come and help us, Mrs Cazalet,’ Matron had said the first time she went. ‘We’re such a small unit, but they all need a lot of nursing and
I’m kept short of staff – only four nurses, and one of them on nights.’

‘I don’t know anything about nursing,’ Zoë had said, alarmed.

‘Oh, we shan’t be expecting
that
of you. No, no, it’s company they need – a new face; some of them like to be read to. I thought I’d start you off with
Roddy – he wants a letter written for him, and then you can give him his tea.’ She was leading Zoë along the passage to the small room that one of the children had had when Villy
had been there, which was now filled by the high hospital bed, a bedside cabinet with a drawer and cupboard below, and a chair for visitors. ‘Here’s Mrs Cazalet come to see you,
Pilot-Officer Bateson,’ Matron said, her tone both cheerful and quiet, ‘and there’s plenty of time for her to write your letter before tea. Dear me, those pillows do slip,
don’t they? I’ll give you something to rest your feet against,’ and she went away.

Pilot-Officer Bateson, who was propped upright, turned his head slowly towards Zoë, and she saw that the right-hand side of his face was covered by intolerably taut, glistening
mulberry-coloured skin that dragged up the side of his mouth into a lopsided smile. He had no eye on that side of his face, and the other side of it was not smiling. His arms were in splints to the
elbow and heavily bandaged. They lay on two pillows each side of him.

‘Hallo,’ Zoë said, and then could think of no more to say.

‘There’s a chair there,’ he said. She sat down. The silence was broken by Matron’s return with a bolster. She lifted his sheet and blanket up from the bottom of the bed
and Zoë saw that one leg was in a splint. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said, seeing Zoë looking at the splint, ‘Pilot-Officer Bateson has really been in the wars.’

‘One was enough, Matron.’ He looked at Zoë and she thought he was trying to wink.

‘Now then,’ Matron was saying, as though he hadn’t spoken, ‘you can push your good leg against that, and it will help to keep you in your place.’

‘I don’t think there’s much chance of me getting out of it, Matron.’

She finished arranging his bedclothes and straightened up. ‘I wouldn’t put it past you,’ she said; she managed to sound matter-of-fact and affectionate. ‘His
writing-pad’s in the drawer, Mrs Cazalet,’ and she went away again. Her absence induced panic in Zoë: she did not know whether to look at him or not look at him, but he solved that
for her by telling her, ‘Bit of a sight, aren’t I?’

She looked at him then and said, ‘I can see you’ve had a bad time,’ and felt him relax against his pillows. She got up and took the pad of paper, which lay beside a fountain
pen, out of his drawer. ‘Shall we do your letter?’

‘OK. It’s to my mum. I’m not much of a one for letters, I’m afraid.’

‘Dear Mum.’ There was a long pause, and then the sight of her with the pen poised drove him on. ‘Well, how are you? It is a nice place here. I’ll be staying a few weeks
until they send me back to Godalming for the next op. They say I am doing very well. The food is good and they look after us very well.’ There was a long silence, and then he said rapidly,
‘I hope Dad is enjoying the Home Guard and your work in the canteen isn’t too tiring for your back. Please thank Millie for her card.’

‘Hang on,’ Zoë said, ‘you’re going too fast for me.’

‘Sorry.’

‘It’s all right. I’ve just got to Aunt Millie.’

‘She’s not my aunt, she’s the dog,’ he said. Then he said, ‘Do you think that’s enough? I can’t think of any more.’

‘It isn’t quite a page.’

‘Oh. Oh, yes. Please would you ring Ruth and tell her not to come. You could tell her we’re not allowed visitors only I don’t want her to come. Well, I hope this finds
you—’ He stopped. ‘That won’t do, will it?’ She realised that he was trying to smile and felt her eyes prick with tears. ‘Just put, your loving son Roddy,’
he said.