‘Gosh! I
am
sorry. Well, I’m not
in
the play they’re doing at the moment, and I honestly didn’t think about you coming or anything.’
‘You are
with
the family, aren’t you?’
‘Oh, yes. They’re terribly kind to me. Michael’s mother used to go to parties with Diaghilev and people like that. She says she must have seen you dance.’
‘Really? Well, I hope you are not being a nuisance. And having a nice time.’ she added doubtfully, as though the two things were unlikely to go together.
‘Lovely. I’ve got to go back to Stow on Monday. Will you be able to come to my next play?’
‘I doubt it. Your father hardly ever gets a weekend off. Ring me up when you get back. Please don’t forget to do that.’
She said she wouldn’t. She asked after her grandmother, and was told that she was not very well. It was a relief when Villy said she must ring off now as it was a long-distance call. It
had not felt like a very friendly conversation.
She discovered on Saturday that it was the last day, as Michael had to report back at noon on the Monday. His mother was coming up to London with him to spend his last evening with him there.
‘You do understand, don’t you?’ he said. ‘She wants to have me to herself because the Lord knows when I’ll get any more leave.’
‘Of course I do,’ she answered mechanically, not thinking about it very much. He took her face in his hands and kissed her. This time he pressed his mouth to her lips, a warm and
soothing kiss. ‘Oh, Louise,’ he said, ‘sometimes I selfishly wish that you were a little older.’
‘Now what are you going to do?’ he asked later in the morning. She hadn’t thought. Trains were looked up and it was found that she could not get to Devon on a Sunday –
she would have to spend the Sunday evening in London. She rang up Stella, whose mother answered, saying that Stella was in Oxford with friends until Monday evening. She was afraid to ask whether
she might stay at the Roses’ without Stella, so she said it didn’t matter, she would write to her. Then she remembered that Lansdowne Road, though more or less shut up, was still used
by her parents for the odd night. She rang home, and asked whether she might go there, and how she could procure a key. Her mother went away to ask her father, and then he came on the telephone and
said what a lovely idea, but he wouldn’t dream of her spending a night in London on her own, would come up and meet her at Paddington and take her out to dinner, what time was she arriving?
This conversation took place in front of Michael who could hear her father’s loud and cheerful voice, and he instantly gave her the time, which, in a daze, she repeated. ‘Good-oh. See
you then,’ her father said, and rang off.
‘That’s wonderful,’ Michael said. ‘Now I shan’t worry about you.’
She said nothing. It wasn’t wonderful; she realised that she was actually dreading it, but she could see no way out.
She had avoided being alone with her father for so long now that the reasons for doing so had become faded and blurred. Her skilful wariness had been successful and therefore the terror had
resolved into a kind of distaste; it was like not thinking of something that made her feel sick – she could will herself never to think about it. Now she felt trapped and fear started to
simmer inside her and could not be quenched.
The day went. At tea-time, his mother demanded that he bring down his drawings of Louise ‘so that we can see which is the best. And how you want them framed, darling.’
There were four drawings, two in pencil, and two in ink, one sepia and one black. The best was to go into his next show that his mother was organising for him. The compliments, the pleasure at
being the centre of attention, was now alloyed; still she wanted to cling to them, to hold the day up for ever, to tell them to keep her safely, indulgently with them . . .
‘I
think
the black ink,’ his mother was saying consideringly.
‘They’re none of them quite right. I’ll do better next time,’ Michael said.
‘When will the next time be?’ she cried suddenly, and they all looked at her, and she realised from his mother’s face that she had said the wrong thing.
‘Not long, I expect,’ Michael said easily, and she realised that he was speaking to his mother.
The last evening – just the four of them for dinner – was a special meal with all Michael’s favourite dishes. ‘It’s like going back to school!’ he exclaimed
when the treacle tart appeared, and his mother said, ‘Oh, darling! I wish you were!’ and for the first time Louise understood that she was afraid of Michael being killed which seemed to
her both a horrible and an impossible idea, for did not this family live a charmed life where nothing bad happened? Afterwards, they sat in the library and there were coffee and Charbonnel and
Walker chocolates, and he bit into one and said, ‘Oh no! Marzipan!’ and his mother said, ‘Give it to me then.’ They asked her to do Juliet and Ophelia for them once more,
and she did and her own Ophelia made her weep which they seemed to think made it even better.
When they went upstairs to bed, Michael said very quietly, ‘May I come and say good night to you?’ and she nodded. She undressed, and wondered whether she ought to put on
Ernestine’s nightdress, but when she looked at it, it seemed worse than ever, so she changed back into her old Viyella. She cleaned her teeth and brushed her hair and then sat on her bed and
waited, beginning to feel nervous. But when he came, and sat on the bed beside her, he simply put his arms round her for a long time without saying anything. Then he held her a little away from
him. ‘You’re so young, you stop me in my tracks.’
She stared back at him, disagreeing with this and wondering what was going to happen.
‘I just wanted to say goodbye to you. Tomorrow my mother and your father will be there. I should like to
kiss
you goodbye.’
She gave a little nod and he put his arms round her again and kissed her – this time trying to open her mouth and, not liking that but wanting to please him, she did not resist.
After what seemed quite a long time, he gave a little groan and let her go. ‘I must leave you,’ he said. ‘This is getting a bit dangerous. Sleep well. Write to me. Thank you
for making it such a lovely leave.’
Lying awake in the dark, she felt deeply confused. Being in love seemed to involve rituals that she did not in the least understand; the very little that she had gleaned had been so obliquely
and implicitly collected – mostly, she supposed, from her mother, and had been largely composed of what one should
not
do or say. The only injunction that came to her mind now was
her mother telling her that she must not ‘be a strain on men’ – this had been on the beach at home, when she had taken off her shirt and sat in her bra in the sun for a few
minutes. It had been incomprehensible to her at the time; she had only recognised her mother’s hostility and even there she had not been sure whether it had been directed at her particularly,
or towards men in general. The implication, though, was that men felt differently from women, but there was also something else that was more frightening, because although she was certain that it
existed, she did not know what it was. If people never talked about sex – women, at least – it must be because there was something pretty awful about it (little snatches of conversation
between her mother and Aunt Jessica recurred, and the general message was that one’s body was rather disgusting and the less said about it the better). Perhaps being in love with someone
simply meant that you were so fond of them that you could bear what they did to you. She had begun to think that she loved Michael, but now she felt that this couldn’t be true because she had
started to mind his tongue the moment it came into her mouth . . . she had begun to feel frightened which must be wrong. There must be something wrong with
me
, she thought. Perhaps I am
just what Stella said – vain and keen on being admired, which has nothing to do with loving someone. It must be my fault. This made her feel very sad.
The next day, Margaret packing for her, signing the visitor’s book (on the same page as Myra Hess and Anthony Eden) and, after lunch, Peter tucking Zee into the back of the car with a fur
rug with Michael beside her, she was put in front with the chauffeur; the first-class carriage to Paddington, and there, at the end of the platform, she could see her father waiting. His greeting
her and her introducing
her
friends, and her father taking off his hat to Zee and saying, ‘I do hope my daughter has been behaving herself,’ and Zee answering, ‘Quite
beautifully,’ and tucking her arm in his she led him down the platform, talking to him as though he was an old friend, which left her and Michael to follow together. ‘Darling
Mummy,’ he said, ‘the epitome of tact.’
Her father offered to give them a lift, but Zee said she and Michael were happy to take a taxi. She watched them get into one and be whirled away, with Michael waving to her from the open
window. She felt a moment’s anguish, followed at once by desolation, a terrible flatness: she was going to her own home with her father, but this felt familiar without being reassuring.
Her father tucked her arm in his and walked her to his car.
‘Well, my sweetie, it’s a very long time indeed since I had you to myself. Did you have a lovely time?’
‘Lovely.’
‘What a charming woman Lady Zinnia is!’ he exclaimed, as he put her luggage in the boot. ‘I must say she doesn’t look as though she could have a son as old as
that.’
‘Michael is thirty-two.’
‘That’s what I mean.’
‘Now,’ he said, ‘it being Sunday night, there’s not much we can do in the way of amusement. So I thought I’d take you out to a slap-up dinner. I’ve booked a
table at the Savoy Grill for eight o’clock. Mummy said I wasn’t to keep you up too late because of your train tomorrow. But you’ve plenty of time to get changed.’
The dinner went all right. She got through it by asking news of everyone in the family she could think of. Mummy was very tired, because she felt she should visit Grania rather a lot as she was
so miserable and, on top of that, Aunt Syb was not really recovered, so she had to look after Wills as well as Roly quite a lot. What about Ellen? Ellen was getting very rheumaticky, and with
Zoë’s baby there was a hell of a lot of laundry, all of which she did. And what about him?
He
was all right, longing to get back to the RAF, but Uncle Hugh had taken Syb away
for a holiday in Scotland – damn cold in this weather, he should have thought, but she wanted to go there – so he had the business on his shoulders, and what with organising the
fire-watching at the wharves, he didn’t get home for many weekends. Teddy had won the squash tournament at his school, and was learning to box. His report otherwise had not been too good.
Neville had run away from school but, luckily, he had told an old lady on the London train he had taken that he was an orphan on his way to Ireland and she had smelled a rat. His luggage had
consisted of two pairs of socks, a bag of bull’s eyes and a white mouse that he had stolen from another boy. Anyway, the old lady had invited him to tea in her house in London, and had most
intelligently looked up his surname in the London telephone directory. ‘I got a call at the office,’ her father said, ‘and went and fetched the little beggar, and Rach took him
back to Home Place.’
‘Why do you think he ran away?’
‘He said he was bored with school, and he didn’t think anyone would mind. Clary was furious with him. Now, what about an ice for your pud?’
On the way home, he said, ‘You’re not, you know, too taken with that bloke, are you?’
‘He’s just a friend. Why?’
‘Dunno. You’re still a bit young for that sort of thing.’ He put a hand on her knee, and squeezed it. ‘Don’t want to lose you yet.’
The sirens went just as they got back to the house, which had felt very odd when they’d first gone there: shrouded, quiet, cold, and not very clean. She said she was very tired, and
thought she would go straight to bed. All right, he replied, though he seemed disappointed. ‘I’ll just have a nightcap, and then I’ll join you.’
What did he
mean
? she thought, as she undressed as quickly as possible (her room was
freezing
) and pulled the Viyella nightdress over her head. What
did
he mean? Then
she thought, Don’t be idiotic, he meant he was going to go to bed too. She looked through her old chest of drawers to see if she could find any socks; there were planes overhead and
anti-aircraft guns began firing. Her drawers were full of old things – clothes she had outgrown, and objects that she no longer liked: a black china dog, and her gymkhana cups, and old,
greasy, twisted hair ribbons.
She did not hear him coming upstairs, because bombs were dropping, and their distant but shattering sound excluded smaller noises. He opened the door without knocking, a glass of whisky in his
hand.
‘Just came in in case you were frightened,’ he said. ‘Get into bed, you look cold.’
‘I’m not frightened in the least.’
‘Good for you. Get in, and I’ll tuck you up.’
He sat on the bed and put his whisky on the table beside it.
‘I know you’re growing up,’ he said. ‘I can hardly believe it. It seems only yesterday that you were my little girl. And look at you now!’ He began to pull the
sheets round her, and then slipped his hand under them, bending over her as he took hold of her breast. His breath smelled of whisky – a horrible, hot, rubbery smell.
‘Very grown up,’ he said and suddenly put his mouth on hers, his tongue, like a horrible hard worm trying to squirm in.
Terror – like a sudden high tide – travelled up her body at an unearthly speed; if it reached her throat she would be engulfed and paralysed, but she would not be so drowned . . .
The moment she could recognise choice, rage rescued her. She drew up her knees, put her hands on his neck and pushed him, with a jolt, away from her. In the sudden second of silence, before either
of them could move or speak, a bomb fell very much nearer, the house seemed to shiver, and some glass fell, with a seeming reluctance, from her bedroom window.