No Angel (Spoils of Time 01) (24 page)

‘I know, I know, but of course, I will. Once he’s gone, isn’t so – worried about actually leaving, and isn’t going to make me promise to stop working, all that nonsense, I shall write and tell him, he’ll be happy then.’

‘Oh, Celia,’ said LM helplessly, ‘I don’t know what to do. I simply don’t.’

‘You have to tell him. You can’t make that sort of decision for him. It’s – well it’s wrong. It’s his child, as well as yours. He has a right to know about it.’

‘No,’ said LM after a long silence, considering this ‘I can’t tell him. Maybe afterwards, when the child is safely delivered and I’ve survived. If I do.’

‘Of course you’ll survive,’ said Celia briskly. ‘Childbirth is painful and uncomfortable but with proper care it’s not really very dangerous. I realise that Jago’s wife died in childbirth, but there were special reasons. And a good doctor would probably have identifed them, been able to deal with them.’

‘I am rather old, don’t you think,’ said LM, ‘to be having a first child?’

‘I don’t know. What are you – forty? Yes. But you’re very well and very strong. The way you hump those books about – you’ll have to stop that, you know. What does your doctor say?’

‘Exactly that. That I am well and strong.’

‘So – are you pleased at all? You must be.’

‘No,’ said LM, ‘not really. I’m not. I don’t want a child, my life isn’t geared to having a child, I don’t like children.’

‘You like my children.’

‘Only in small doses’ said LM, managing to smile. ‘I cannot imagine being with one twenty-four hours a day.’

‘Well you won’t have to be’, said Celia just slightly stiffly. ‘Obviously you’ll have a nanny.’ She found it difficult to hear that her children were less than adorable to anyone. ‘What – what do you think you are going to do? Afterwards, I mean.’

‘Heaven knows. I’ve tried not to think about it.’

‘Well I’m afraid you’ll have to think about it. It isn’t going to go away, your little baby.’

‘No,’ said LM, ‘Unfortunately, it’s not.’

The baby was about the size of a small puppy, the doctor had said. In spite of everything, of the shock the horror, the dread, she had found that strangely touching. The thought of it sitting there inside her, growing. She would feel it kick soon, the doctor had also said; this seemed less attractive. Something wriggling, moving about inside her. An invasion of her, of her body.

‘I am quite, quite sure of two things,’ said Celia standing up. There was the sound of voices on the stairs; Dr Perring had arrived, summoned from his Christmas dinner. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll tell the doctor, you don’t have to do it. You have to tell Jago. It amounts to – to theft, not doing so. And you will – you will love that baby. When it arrives. I promise you that. Ah, Dr Perring. How kind of you to come. Merry Christmas. If I could just have a quiet word . . .’

Leaving the house was terrible for Oliver. His departure had been delayed and he was allowed to stay a further day. He got dressed in his uniform.

‘Oh, you look so handsome’, said Celia, determinedly positive as always, ‘years younger and desperately dashing, like Jack. If you’re not careful I shall tear that off you again, and make you late for your train.’

They had agreed that she would say goodbye to him at the house; he would find that easier, he said. They had said their own personal private farewells the night before; he had made love to her more gently, more tenderly than she could ever remember, moving in her so slowly and carefully she could scarcely feel it. She knew why and said so.

‘You know you have to change now, don’t you? Become aggressive, harsh, inflict pain. This is your last chance to be the real Oliver. Isn’t that right?’

‘That is right’ he said, kissing her; she tasted salt, realised he was crying, and felt her own tears rise to join his. ‘It frightens me, Celia, how well you know me. How am I going to live without you? Am I going to change, so you don’t know me any more?’

‘Of course not,’ she said, ‘you won’t change for me. I know you won’t.’ But she lay awake for much of the night, staring at the window, dreading the dawn, and thinking that however perfectly she knew him, he could not read her one tenth as accurately. And that given her circumstances, given her secret baby, that was just as well.

‘Bye, Giles, old man. Look after Mummy for me,’ said Oliver.

He picked Giles up, noticing how thin he was, how frail he felt in his arms. Giles clung to him, burrowed his face into his chest.

‘I can’t,’ he said.

‘Why not? I need you to.’

‘I won’t be here,’ said Giles with childish logic. ‘I’ll be at school. I could come home again,’ he added, his voice light with hope. Oliver pulled back, looked at him. The small face was very intense, the large, dark eyes burning.

‘I don’t like it, Daddy,’ he whispered, ‘I don’t like it at school.’

‘You don’t? That’s not what you said the other day.’

‘I know, but—’ Giles hesitated, they looked at his mother. She smiled at him, but her eyes were hard. ‘I do really,’ he said finally.

‘Good,’ said Oliver, setting him down, ‘that’s fine, I don’t want to go away worrying about you. And anyway, you are the man of the family for now, you have to be very brave and strong.’

‘I – will,’ said Giles. ‘I promise.’

‘Barty, my darling, goodbye. Take care of yourself, work hard at school, and I shall expect a long story ready for me to publish when I get home.’

Barty had started writing stories; very short, a page at the most, but unusually for so young a child she gave them structure and a point. One about a robin that lost its wing, but found another bird to carry it on its back, another about a fairy whose wand didn’t work magic any more and had to take an exam at fairy school before she could have another. No one else had been allowed to see them; he had been touched by the honour and impressed by the stories themselves.

‘I will,’ she said, biting her lip, managing a smile, clearly determined not to cry. Her self-control was remarkable, he thought, for so young a child.

‘And as for you two—’ he said, scooping up the twins, one in each arm. No such considerations for them; carried away by the drama, by the chance for attention, unable to understand more than that he was going away for a while, they both buried their heads in his neck and bellowed, clinging to him with their small arms until they were prised off by Celia and Nanny.

‘They’re so tender-hearted, poor little things,’ said Celia.

Nanny said nothing.

Oliver bent and kissed Celia briefly, very briefly, he could not bear to do more, picked up his bag and walked to the gate; Truman was waiting by the car. Oliver looked back, at the small group, at Celia and Nanny holding the twins, with Barty and Giles in front of her, all waving the small Union Jacks Celia had bought them. Celia was smiling bravely, radiantly. He focused in on her, removed the children from the picture, saw only her lovely face, her brilliant eyes, her tall slender body, the body which gave him so much pleasure, and then focused in further, just to her mouth, her smiling, beautiful mouth. It moved, silently as he looked at it, one last lingering time. It was that picture and above all that mouth, telling him she loved him, that Oliver carried with him through the next four, dreadful years.

‘I have thought about what you said,’ said LM, ‘and I’ve decided you are right. I have written a letter. With my news.’

‘Well I’m very glad,’ said Celia, ‘very glad indeed. I just know he’ll be pleased. Anyone would be.’

LM wished she felt as sure.

She had actually been out three times to post the letter; had stood at the letterbox, dreading knowing that the news was irrevocably on its way, that it was no longer under her control. That she could not stop it. Twice she brought the letter back again; finally, sick with terror, on 3rd January, 1915, she let it drop, then stood there staring at the box, wondering if she waited, the postman would give the letter back to her when he came to empy it.

While Jago did not know, she was safe, their relationship was safe. She did not have to picture him filled with fear, or filled with distaste; not knowing what to say to her, how to react. Pretending he was glad, pretending he was happy. All kinds of morbid imaginings filled her: that he no longer loved her, that he had never loved her; that he had never loved her after Violet Brown; that he had actually continued with his relationship with Violet Brown, had been waiting to tell her. That he would picture her, not tenderly, not proudly, as she hoped in her more optimistic moments, but with pity, as someone old, too old for motherhood, a slightly ridiculous figure; that he would be horrified, repulsed, ashamed of her. That he would feel he would have to marry her, while not loving her, not wanting to; that he would look for excuses, even now, to end their relationship. And enduring all this, she waited.

She told herself that he would write quickly if he was pleased; that a long silence would indicate his distress. Letters went back and forward quickly; it was considered vital for the morale of the troops. She knew that she could get a reply to her letter within four days of its arrival; just over a week then from her posting. 11th or 12th or even 13th or 14th January should bring it; all those dates meant the message would be hopeful, happy. She was up at dawn each day, waiting restlessly for the postman; she saw him in the distance, down the street, watched from the window, waited until she could hear him on the path, counted his footsteps, heard the letterbox open, the letters drop. Or not drop. On the 11th there were none, the 12th just one, from a friend, the 13th, none; on the 14th, sick with terror, she saw a small pile on the floor. Surely one of them must be from Jago; it must be.

She knelt beside them, fumbling through them: a bill from the butcher, a letter from a rather depressed woman poet she had befriended, a note from another friend.

And – yes! A letter from France; in the military envelope with the military stamp. Her fingers shook so much, were so clumsy with fear that she literally could not get it open. She ran, half crying, into the kitchen for a knife, slid it under the flap of the envelope, pulled the letter out. And sat on the kitchen table, staring at it, hating it, hating the sender, hating what it said. Which was kindly, affectionate, wellintentioned ; but not in the right handwriting, not expressing the right emotions, in not the right words. And was not from the right person, not from Jago, saying how happy he was about their baby, but from Oliver, saying along with other such platitudes, how much he hoped she was better, and that life at the front was after all not so bad.

Despair overtook her; quiet, dreadful despair. January turned to February, and still no letter; she went to work, went home again, ate the suppers Mrs Bill had prepared for her, went to bed and tried to sleep. Nothing could lift her mood or distract her. It was in those weeks she said afterwards that she finally began to lose her faith in God. He provided her with no comfort, no strength. She cared about nothing and no one, and she developed a great hatred for the child she carried inside. It was kicking now, vigorous and uncomfortable; she loathed the sensation, the feeling that her body was not her own, that it was invaded by an alien, unwelcome presence which had destroyed Jago’s love for her. She was hostile and uncommunicative to Celia, who she blamed for persuading her to write to Jago, short-tempered with her staff, abrupt and cold to poor Mrs Bill, who deserved it least, and would have lain down her life for her. She looked back on the person she had been a year before, confident, in command of herself, in control of her life, with a man she loved and who loved her, and found it almost incredible that everything should have changed so dreadfully much.

‘Your dad’s gone,’ said Sylvia to Barty one Saturday.

‘Gone where?’ she asked.

‘To fight in the war, of course. Went on Tuesday, just like that. Said he couldn’t stand it no longer, that he had to do his bit. He thought they might turn him down, being a bit chesty and that, but they took him at once. He was really chuffed.’

‘Oh mum. Mum, I’m so sorry.’

‘Yes,’ said Sylvia, ‘yes, it’s quite hard.’

It was; Ted might have got a bit difficult over the last few years, but she still loved him; and after Christmas, when he had hurt her so much, he had signed the pledge, never touched another drop, and they had been really happy again, like the old days. Only worry had been falling again, but she’d escaped. And now he had gone; just when things were getting better.

‘It was that poster,’ he said to her, when she asked him why he’d finally decided to go.

‘What, Lord Kitchener?’

‘No,’ he said soberly, ‘worse than that. Picture of some bloke sitting in a chair, little girl on his knee, saying, “what did you do in the war, Daddy?” Made me realise, the kids want to be proud of their dad, want to know he did his bit.’

‘You’re such a good man, Ted Miller,’ she said kissing him. ‘I’m lucky to have had you.’

‘Don’t start talking in the past,’ he said smiling at her. ‘I’ll be all right. Lucky I am, always have been. I’ve had you for a start. I don’t deserve you, Sylvia, and that’s a fact. And when I come home, things’ll be better, I know they will. Now, you going to be all right without me? Should be, there’ll be the army pay, coming in regular, only twelve and six, but I’ll have it all sent to you.’

‘I’ll manage, Ted, course I will.’ She couldn’t think how, but nor could she say so. In fact, ‘You should keep a bit, for your tobacco and that,’ she said.

‘Oh we get that, Syl. With our rations.’

He wasn’t yet at the front, he was training somewhere in Kent, Sylvia said, but he’d be off in a few weeks. ‘I don’t think we’ll see him before he goes.’

‘Did he – did he say anything about saying goodbye to me?’ asked Barty in a small voice.

‘Of course he did,’ said Sylvia, ‘but he couldn’t, could he? He said to give you a kiss.’

She hoped Barty would believe this; in fact Ted hadn’t mentioned her. He had seen her very seldom over the past two years, disappearing whenever she was about to visit, probably Sylvia thought, because he was so ashamed of himself, afraid of what she might discern, perhaps report him to Celia.