Shute, Nevil (6 page)

Towards lunch-time he was startled and pleasantly surprised to hear the telephone-bell ring. He went to the switchboard himself and answered it. It was Gordon, speaking from the hospital.

He said: ‘Is that you, Corbett? It’s Gordon this end. Thank God this thing’s working again. You got that prescription all right? Fine. Look here. I want you to see that every drop of anything your family have to drink has been boiled. Yes-boiled. We’re getting posters out about it in the town this afternoon, but I wanted to ring you and tell you personally. It’s really important. Tell Joan as soon as you can. She’ll have to boil all milk, and especially all water, before she uses it. And try to keep her off raw vegetables and fruit.’

‘I’ll tell her. But what’s it all about?’

‘I can’t tell you over the telephone. And, anyway, we’re not quite certain yet ourselves. But there’s a lot of sickness in the Northam district that’s come up quite suddenly, and we’re a bit worried about it. You’d better tell your staff about boiling the water. Don’t make it alarmist.’

‘I won’t do that.’

‘Good man. It’s probably nothing at all-just a scare, you know. Doctors who’ve been out East get funny notions, sometimes. But tell Joan to boil everything she can.’

He rang off, and Corbett tried to settle to his work again. He found he could not concentrate. Presently he went back to the switchboard and tried to ring his house.

He heard the ringing tone, showing that the line was sound, but there was no reply; there was no one in the house. He went back to his desk and the consideration of his partnership agreement.

Joan called for him before lunch. He told her about Gordon and his message. She wrinkled up her brows.

‘It’s diphtheria, I suppose,’ she said. “That’s what you get when drains go wrong, isn’t it?’

He shook his head. ‘I couldn’t tell you. If it was diphtheria, I don’t see why he should have been so mysterious about it.’

She smiled. ‘Everybody’s been a bit rattled, Peter. You can’t blame them. Do you know, quite a number of people left the city yesterday and went out into the country for the night. The Cummings did that, and the Howards. I met Mrs. Howard this morning. She said they just drove out into the country and parked by the side of the road, and sat in the car all night. They didn’t sleep a bit well, and when they woke up and found there hadn’t been a raid at all they felt awfully sold.’

She paused. ‘They asked us to go in for a sherry tomorrow night.’

‘Good. I’d like to go.’

They went out of the office to the car, full of parcels and children. As they drove through the town he noticed a great outbreak of recruiting posters on the hoardings, roughly printed and looking very new. And as they drove by one hoarding they saw a man finishing the posting of a placard, in large red block capitals:

Underneath there was some sort of explanatory text.

‘They’ve not been long with that,’ he said.

He went back to the office after lunch, and worked all afternoon. In the middle of the afternoon the weather clouded over, and it began to rain a little. His office faced north and grew dark early; mechanically he reached up and switched on the reading-lamp above his desk. To his surprise and gratification, it lit at once. The electricity was functioning.

He was so pleased about it that he went and rang up Joan. ‘The lights are working here,’ he said. ‘Are they with you?’

‘I don’t know. Wait a minute while I try.’ He waited. Presently she came back to the telephone and said: ‘It’s all on now. I tried the lights and the cooker, too. It’s all working. We’ll be able to have a proper dinner tonight.’

He said: ‘I give the Corporation full marks for that. They must have worked like niggers.’

She sighed. ‘It is good. We’ll be able to listen to the wireless now, and find out what’s been going on.’

She hesitated for a moment. ‘Peter, I was just thinking. Didn’t you tell me that the Littlejohns cook on gas?’

‘I think they do.’

‘The gas isn’t on, is it?’

‘I don’t suppose so for a minute.’ ‘Would you like it if I asked them in for supper? I mean, if our cooker’s working and theirs isn’t? He’s done such a lot for us, the last few days.’

‘I think that’s a very good idea. Have you ever met her?’

‘No. I’ve seen her about once or twice. Sort of mousy.’

‘Ask them round by all means. I’d like to have them.’

In the house the girl laid down the telephone and stood for a moment in thought. Then she -went out of the front door and round to the next house. She rang the bell, waited for a time, and rang again.

Presently there were steps inside; the door was opened by a pale, faded little woman that Joan had seen in the next garden once or twice, from her bedroom window. She wore a coarse apron over her black dress; she had her sleeves rolled up, and her hands were red and swollen.

‘It’s Mrs. Corbett, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘This is nice, I’m sure.’ ‘

Joan said: ‘Good afternoon. I just came round to ask if Mr. Littlejohn and you would like to come to supper with us tonight. Our cooker’s just started working again-we cook on electricity. You use gas, don’t you?’

The little woman was flustered. ‘Ted wanted me to have one of them electric things when we came here first,’ she said. ‘But we didn’t seem able to make it work right. We had the man in to see to it, but he couldn’t make it any different. Sometimes I’d put the kettle on for a cup o’ tea and come back in ten minutes, and it wasn’t on at all. Other times, it’ld be burning away and wasting all the afternoon, and nobody would ever know. I told Ted it was a fair worry to me, and he had it taken out and put in gas.’

‘The gas isn’t on yet, is it?’

‘No, my dear. Isn’t it a trial? I was just washing out the net curtains from the sitting-room, because they had to come down, you see, because of the windows. And every drop of water to be boiled on the dining-room fire.’

Joan commiserated. ‘It does make things difficult, Mrs. Littlejohn. But our cooker’s working again now, and I thought it would be so nice if you could come round with your husband, and we’d have a proper hot supper tonight.’ She paused, and added with inspiration: ‘We could cook it together.’

The mousy little face displayed some animation. ‘Oh, my dear, that was a nice thought, I’m sure. I hadn’t nothing but a little tin of salmon to give Ted tonight, and I was that worried. Because he likes to have his supper hot, with his bottle of Guinness and his bit of cheese, dear.’ She became suddenly flustered again. ‘Won’t you come inside, Mrs. Corbett? You mustn’t mind-the house is all up-side down, with the windows and that. But come in and sit down, Mrs. Corbett, and let me make a cup of tea.’

Joan declined. ‘I want to go down to the shops, and see if I can get a joint. I believe I know where I could get a leg of lamb,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘There’d be time to cook that, wouldn’t there? I wonder, would you mind keeping an eye on the baby for me, Mrs. Littlejohn, and I’ll go down and see what I can get. I won’t be very long.’

The little woman said: ‘It would be real nice to have the baby, Mrs. Corbett. I seen your family over the wall so many times. It must be lovely to have children like you’ve got.’ She sighed faintly. ‘Three of them, and all.’ She raised her eyes to Joan. ‘I had a little baby once, but she died.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

Mrs. Littlejohn said: ‘In the war it was, my dear. I was in service in a place at Hove, and Ted was in camp at Shoreham. In 1916 that was, my dear, after he’d been out and come back wounded.’ She hesitated for a minute, and then said: ‘He was that masterful, you wouldn’t think. And he had to go back to France before I really knew about the baby, but he got three days’ leave again, and we were married in Brighton. But the baby wasn’t like yours, my dear. She never put on any weight, and then she died. And they told me that I couldn’t have another, ever.’

‘I’m terribly sorry,’ said Joan. It would not hurt to let a dammed stream run for a few minutes.

The work-worn hands pleated a fold in the apron. ‘It don’t do to complain,’ she said, ‘only I do think you’re ever so lucky to have such a lovely family, Mrs, Corbett. But I’ve been lucky, too. You wouldn’t know what a good husband I’ve got, and Ted’s got on so well in the building trade, you wouldn’t think. And now we’ve got this lovely house to live in, and the garden with the flowers, and all. And he wanted me to have servants, too, and we did have them once, but I like doing things my own way. So now the girl comes in mornings just to give me a help out, doing the scrubbing up and that.’

Joan put a sluice-gate gently back into the stream. ‘Come along in and see the baby,’ she said ‘Then I’ll leave her with you while I go down and get the meat.’

They went and fetched the baby in its basket cot, and put it on the kitchen table by Mrs. Littlejohn’s wash-tub. ‘My,’ said the little woman, ‘hasn’t she got a pretty colour? She’s ever so like you.’

Joan left them together, and drove down into the town. From every hoarding now the red placards exhorted her to boil her water. ‘That’s all very well,’ she muttered to herself rebelliously. ‘The electricity’s on now, so one can do it. But when you’ve got no electricity or gas, and precious little paraffin, it’s not so easy to go boiling everything over the dining-room fire.’

In the dusk she called in at her husband’s office. ‘I came to see if you’d come home with me,’ she said. ‘I’ve just been down to get a joint to cook for dinner. Mrs. Littlejohn’s going to help me.’

He eyed her quizzically. ‘What’s she like?’

‘Like Amy, that old maid we had just after we got married. I like her-she’s a dear.’

He looked out of the window. ‘What’s the weather like?’

‘It’s starting to rain a bit. We’d better put the car away.’

‘Are we going to put it over the trench again tonight?’

‘I hadn’t thought of that, what do you think?’ He got up from his desk, and tidied up his papers for the night. ‘If you ask me what I think,’ he said, a little wearily, ‘I think that bloody trench ought to be deeper.’

‘But do you think we’ll have another raid tonight?’

‘I don’t know. They came before when it was raining.’ They went out of the office to the car. Over their heads the clouds hung low, in grey, wet wreaths. A solitary aeroplane flew over them at about two hundred feet, immediately beneath the clouds; there was no other aviation.

‘The petrol’s a bit low,’ he said as they got into the car. We’d better stop and get some more.’ But at three filling-stations that they tried there was no petrol to be had.

‘We were cleaned right out yesterday dinner-time,’ one garage hand told them. ‘The tank wagon’s coming, but it hasn’t come. There’s been a proper run on it.’

Corbett asked: ‘Why is that?’

‘People going out into the country for the night, I suppose. Everybody seemed to want a fill up yesterday.’ Corbett drove back thoughtfully to his house. It was raining in earnest by the time they got there; in spite of that he changed into old clothes and went and dug in his trench. At the end of an hour he had got down to six feet, which he judged deep enough; the bottom of it was a sticky mess of mud and water. Finally he drove the car over it again and went back to the house, hoping very much that he would not have to use it in the night.

Mr. Littlejohn arrived as he was finishing. ‘Coming on real dirty again,’ he remarked, looking at the weather. ‘You’d say they wouldn’t come tonight. But then, it seems all topsy-turvy. Last night I thought that they’d have come, and they never.’

He mused a little. ‘Not so many aeroplanes about tonight.’

‘ It’s early yet,’ said Corbett. ‘And it’s a filthy night for flying.’

The builder grunted. ‘That may put our chaps off,’ he said, a little sourly. ‘It didn’t seem to stop them bombers.’

They went into the house. ‘I was talking to. the Deputy City Engineer to-day,’ said Mr. Littlejohn. ‘They reckon over two hundred bombs fell in the roads. They haven’t half had a job.’

‘They’ve done very well,’ said Corbett.

‘Aye,’ said the builder. ‘Wonderfully well, they’ve done. Over two hundred holes to be filled, and mains repaired, and that.’ He was silent for a minute. ‘Still, come to think of it, it’s what you might expect. In poor parts where the houses stand up close without much garden, if you take me, nearly thirty per cent of the surface must be roads. So with a thousand bombs dropped all over, it’s only what they had a right to expect.’

Corbett laughed shortly. ‘I bet they didn’t expect a thousand bombs,’ he said.

They sat down to a supper of roast lamb, tinned vegetables, and Guinness which Mr. Littlejohn brought from his house. ‘Mrs. Corbett doesn’t never have no trouble with her electric cooker, Ted,’ the little woman said wistfully. ‘It cooked the joint a fair treat.’

‘Like to change back again?’ he asked.

She shook her head. ‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘ It’s ever so clean and nice, but I like something you can see.’

They talked about the holidays that they were going to take that summer. ‘We always go on the boat,’ said Joan. ‘This year, we thought of having a change. We’ve been thinking of taking a tent with us in the car, and going to Scotland.’

‘Brighton,’ said Mr. Littlejohn comfortably- ‘That’s where we go. First fortnight in August, every year the same.’ :

Joan turned to his wife. ‘It must be fun, that,’ she said sympathetically.

‘It’s ever so lovely, Mrs, Corbett,’ she replied. ‘It’s where I met Ted in the war-I was telling you. We’ve been every year since then, nearly. You can sit on the pier ‘ and there’s such a lot to see-the people all enjoying themselves, and the band, and the pierrots, and that. The time passes so quick, you’d never think. You’ve hardly got there before it’s time to come away again. It’s ever such a lovely place.’

Corbett nodded. ‘It’s good fun, a holiday like that, if you just want a lazy time,’ he said. Nothing would have induced him to do it himself.

‘That’s right,’ said Mr. Littlejohn. ‘You and Mrs. Corbett-you like doing things when you’re on holiday. We like to sit quiet in a motor-coach, and watch other people doing things.’

Mrs. Littlejohn said: ‘You can go lovely drives from Brighton… .’