Marking Time (56 page)

Villy, although she had not said so, had no intention of going straight back to Sussex, and since, at such short notice, she had been unable to get in touch with Lorenzo, she had decided to pay
a visit to Jessica in St John’s Wood. There she would at least get news of him, as ringing his home simply meant a tense, uncomfortable conversation with Mercedes, who never seemed to be out
and picked up the telephone on the second ring. She had only seen him once since that heavenly train journey, although he did occasionally write to her. But, oddly, she did not understand why her
romantic devotion seemed to flourish with absence: she felt that she knew him better and loved him more for his separation. In fact, she was easily able to enlarge upon and embroider their
conversation in the train; she felt she
knew
how he would feel and what he would say,
how
he would listen to her confidences and what his responses to them would be. Sometimes, of
course, she did just sorely miss him, but this was simply a part of their fate: the tragedy of previous indissoluble attachments. These conversations that they had took place when she was alone in
her bedroom at night. Sometimes he would come even before she had undressed, and she would feel shy about taking off her clothes in front of him. Also, she knew that he must want her dreadfully,
and it was not fair on him to make this worse. Sometimes, he waited until she was in bed, and then he would sit on the side of it, holding – kissing – her hand and gazing at her with
joy. They would discuss the hopelessness of their situation, and although he at first had been unsure, in the end he had agreed that it was worse for her than it could be for him. His wife’s
jealousy and general unreason would give him sympathy from the world, whereas it could not be expected to have a grain of sympathy for her. Edward was acknowledged to be a very handsome, charming
and generous husband, who had given her four children, two of whom were still very young. In any case, there was nothing to be done. Senses of nobility, self-sacrifice would see to that. So then it
would be suggested that they should enjoy the little time that they had, and this would result in delicious mutual confidences and admiration. The evening would end with a reprise of its beginning:
nobody else in the world could be expected to put up with Mercedes, and Edward would be devastated if he had the slightest idea of her feelings for another man. What they each had to endure in
terms of jealous scenes – with, of course, no foundation – and physical intimacy, which Villy had to regard as part of her marital responsibility, meant that compassion now played a
large part: they were so desperately sorry for one another and their powerlessness to provide aid or respite only made them suffer more for each other. In the end, she would become exhausted with
emotion, something he was wonderfully quick to perceive, as with one last kiss – on her forehead rather daringly – he would vanish. She would fall asleep, tired, but exquisitely
peaceful . . .

The taxi had stopped. She paid the ancient driver and got out. The little gothic house was where darling Daddy had died, where she had afterwards spent innumerable afternoons infested with the
boredom that only her mother, it seemed, had ever generated. The dining-room shutters were closed – perhaps Jessica was away? A nuisance if she was as the cab had gone creaking off. Someone
was in – she heard feet on the stairs – but whoever it was didn’t come to the door. Annoyed, Villy rang again; some instinct made her look up, and she saw Jessica at the bedroom
window, but before she could call or wave she’d gone. After what seemed like
ages
, there was only one flight of stairs, Jessica opened the door.

‘Villy!’ she cried – much too loudly, Villy thought; it sounded like a stage welcome – ‘What a lovely surprise! I had no idea you were in town!’ She was
wearing a kind of smock or overall and her feet were bare and her hair, done these days usually in a small bun on the top of the back of her head, was loose. She looked startled and extraordinarily
young
, Villy thought – her eyes, usually so tired and dreamy – were glittering . . .

‘I’ve been tidying poor Mummy’s papers and stuff,’ she said. ‘I was just going to have a bath.’

‘What a funny time to have a
bath
, darling!’

By now they were in the hall, but Jessica did not seem to want them to stay there. She put her arm around Villy and propelled her into the drawing room. ‘I
do
have baths at funny
times. Any time except in the evening. My nightmare is being caught in the bath with an air raid starting.’ She shut the drawing-room door and led Villy to the far end of the room. ‘We
could almost sit in the garden,’ she said.

They both looked out at the small square garden whose lawn, too long, was spattered by livid yellow lime leaves, at the rustic bird table standing at a drunken angle as a result of a nearby
bomb, at the black walls and the mildewed Michaelmas daisies and neither of them wished to do anything of the kind.

‘I’m not much of a gardener, I’m afraid. And, anyway, I never seem to have time. Sit down, darling, and have a fag, and tell me what brings you to London. You might have let me
know and I’d have given you lunch.’

In the brief silence while Jessica lit her cigarette for her, Villy thought she heard the sound of a door shutting . . . the front door.

‘Who’s that?’

‘Nobody. Probably someone putting something in the letter box.’

‘Oh. Well, I came up to have lunch with Edward. Then it seemed rather feeble just to go straight back. So I came for a gossip.’

‘Well, we can’t gossip without tea. I’ll pop down and make a pot.’

The kitchen in the basement was large and dark with huge, businesslike pieces of furniture: a vast dresser with drawers as unwieldy as boulders in a dry-stone wall, and willow-patterned platters
for family joints on the shelves, a big range and an enormous scrubbed kitchen table on which lay a tray with two coffee cups, a toast rack and two soup plates that had clearly contained baked
beans.

Jessica said, ‘Don’t say it – I
am
a slut,’ and quickly moved the tray onto the draining board by the sink.

‘I’ve been so worried about Angela,’ she said. ‘I simply don’t know what is going
on
. . .’

While she made the tea, she enlarged upon this. Angela had become extremely difficult to get
hold
of – one had to leave messages at the BBC and God knew if she ever got them as
she hardly
ever
responded. There was no telephone at her flat and the only times Jessica had ever been there, she had been out, her flatmate said. ‘I offered to take her away for a
few days after she had – after the D and C, but she wouldn’t come. She’s become so
hard
and unresponsive!’ Jessica complained. ‘And, of course, falling in
love with a married man, as we all know, is madness!’

There was silence, while Villy sipped her tea and they both had (rather different) thoughts about the madness.

‘Of course, she’s stopped seeing him—’ Villy ventured.

‘My dear, she can’t! She works in the same department. Of course, she ought to ask for a transfer or join the Wrens or something . . .’

When they had said all that there was to be said – by them – about Angela, they went on to Raymond, Louise and Christopher, who, Jessica said, sounded very miserable.
‘He’s spent months now levelling ground for a runway near Nuneaton, which is pretty hard, dull work, and the people he does it with only want to go to pubs in the evenings and chase
girls.’

‘Couldn’t he do something else? I mean, he’s put in a good stint.’

‘Raymond made him. And he knows that Raymond expects him to volunteer for one of the Services; I think making him do this is some kind of punishment. He’d be much happier as a
farmer, but Raymond would think that
infra dig
. I do wish he wasn’t so frightened of his father. It would serve Raymond bloody well right if he went off with a barmaid.’

There was a short silence. Villy knew that she ought to go if she was to catch the train that Tonbridge met every day, and said so. ‘Have you seen Laurence at all?’ she asked as they
walked up the basement stairs.

‘From time to time I do.’

‘I thought as you live so near one anoth—’

‘Ah, yes, but so does Mercedes! She doesn’t exactly encourage one to pop in. Poor Laurence! I don’t know how he stands it! She has the most fearful temper and she suspects
every woman in the world of trying to carry him off. To work as hard as he does and then have to go home to a woman who screams like a parrot and smashes things – and if you saw her
you’d never imagine she’d be like that—’

‘I have met her,’ Villy said rather coldly, ‘at Frensham, with you.’

‘Of course you have. Anyway, I think he’s a saint. I often tell him that it would serve her right if he
did
go off with one of those luscious sopranos he rehearses
with.’

‘I thought you didn’t see him much!’

‘I told you, from time to time. Darling, do you want me to call you a cab? There might be one on the rank.’

But Villy said she’d rather walk.

‘I’ll give him your love, shall I?’

‘Yes. Yes, do. Thanks for the tea. And do put some more clothes on, darling, or you’ll catch your death.’ She had noticed when Jessica leaned towards her to light her
cigarette, that she hadn’t been wearing a bra, and she thought now, as she descended the steps to the street, that this was most unseemly in someone of Jessica’s age. She felt the visit
had not been rewarding, and she found Jessica’s attitude towards Lorenzo irritating: she behaved quite as though he was
her
friend and as though she, Villy, hardly knew him. But then
she reflected that secrecy was another part of the price people like she and Lorenzo had to pay; therefore it was natural that Jessica should be entirely in the dark; after all, there was no harm
in
her
showing off about her comparatively shallow intimacy – her generally open behaviour about him simply implied her innocence and his discretion. She picked up a cab, deciding
that the next invitation for the Clutterworths to stay need not include Jessica on the grounds that the house would be too full.

Lydia and Neville had put their offer to mind the younger children in the afternoon to good use, as they had long wanted to run a hospital and had been deterred largely from
lack of patients. Now they had Wills, Roly and Juliet, who lay in a nervous row on damp camp beds left over from the evacuation of the Babies’ Hotel. They had chosen the squash court because
it was out of earshot and, as they had expected the game to be a long one, the chances of someone crying were quite high. Neville was a doctor, and Lydia the nurse. On two other beds lay
Lydia’s favourite old bear and Golly Amazement. They were both awaiting operations.

‘It’s a pity I can’t operate on a real person,’ Neville said, ‘but I think it would be unwise.’

‘It would be horrible as well,’ Lydia said anxiously.

‘I don’t think it would. People are simply made of skin and blood and bones and things. But we haven’t got any anaesthetic so we can’t.’ The bear and Golly
Amazement were to be given doses of the Brig’s brandy, and tied to bedposts, which is what Neville had read people did in the old days. Immobilising the others had not been difficult: they
had both attended so many first-aid classes as patients for people to practise on that they were adept with splints and bandages, and all three now had an arm and a leg so dealt with. There had
been some initial protest, but Lydia had cleverly quietened them down with medicine made up by herself of gripe water, two aspirin ground up, brandy pinched from the Brig’s study, and quite a
lot of Crimson Lake from her paintbox to make it look like medicine. Wills had simply loved it, and kept saying, ‘More,’ until he had fallen into a stertorous slumber; most of the
medicine she had given Juliet had trickled down her chin and elsewhere, but she loved Lydia and Neville, and as long as they talked to her sometimes and gave her things to play with, she lay
obediently with one stiff leg stretched out. Roly was the trouble. He had hated having his arm put in a sling, and splinting both his legs had made matters worse. In the end, they had to undo the
sling and give him a stick of barley sugar which he was now resentfully sucking. The bear, who was to be operated on first, had had his stout, furry legs secured, and Lydia gave him pretend
teaspoonsful of brandy before Neville, kneeling by the bed, made a steady sawing cut across his stomach with the bread knife. There were weak crackling sounds, and some straw and sawdust fell out.
Neville plunged his hand into the hole and then – a conjuring trick learned at school – drew out a small sheet of paper. ‘He’ll be better without this, Nurse,’ he
said.

‘What is it?’

‘His appendix. It’s something that is often taken out of people.’

Lydia took the piece of paper. ‘Apendix’ it said at the top of the page, followed by some rather boring writing about history, she thought.

‘Sew him up, Nurse,’ Neville commanded. ‘Don’t want him bleeding to death.’