‘I’m grand. Mind, I had good nursin’ – I’m havin’ it still, come to that. Guess who’s come to help keep house while I’m poorly, boy? Ah, here she is!’
Mal turned his head.
Standing behind him, smiling sweetly, with her pinky-fawn hair piled up on top of her head and a big white apron hiding her dress, was Coffee Allinson.
Ten
War
IT WAS A
Sunday morning in late September and Tess was stringing beans in the kitchen and thinking about going upstairs to get ready for morning service when the telephone rang. She waited for a moment, but the bell continued to sound steadily,
tring tring, tring tring
, so she slid off the stool on which she was perched and went, knife still in hand, across the kitchen and through the hall to the foot of the stairs. The telephone was on the little table to one side of the banister and Tess snatched the receiver off its hook rather crossly. Why did Marianne never answer the telephone when there was the remotest chance that someone else would do it for her? Why did Cherie never dash into the hall to grab it, as she had done when she was younger? For that matter, why did Peter, lying in the garden reading the Sunday papers, not hurry in, because it was usually for him? But no, each of them assumed that Tess would answer it, even though it was her turn to prepare Sunday lunch – and she had, of course.
‘Hello!’ Tess snapped into the receiver, not bothering to give her number. She felt like telling the caller pretty tartly that there was a war on and he – or she – should be restricting calls to essential ones only. And there was no such thing as an essential call on a Sunday morning, not when one member of the family was an accountant and the only other working person, Tess herself, was on the staff of the Castle Museum.
Tess had been working at the museum for two years now and loved the job, but she did think that Marianne might make Cherie pull her weight a bit more. She was twelve now, quite old enough to lend a hand so that she, Tess, might have a day off from time to time.
‘Tess? Is that you? My word, you sound in a bate! Who’s knocked you off your donkey, then?’
The voice was young, male, teasing. Tess scowled at the banister. She did so hate people who assumed you would know their voice – she hadn’t a clue who the caller was.
‘Who’s speaking?’ she said sharply, not allowing her tone to mellow at all. ‘I’m afraid I don’t . . .’
‘Of course you do!’ The voice sounded offended now, disproportionately so. ‘How many fellows know you well enough to ring you first thing on a Sunday morning? It’s me – Ashley!’
‘Good Lord, Ash! It’s been years . . . what do you want?’
‘How bloody uncouth you are,’ Ashley said crossly. ‘Years, indeed! Well, it might be a year or two, I suppose . . . and come to think of it, after our last encounter it’s a miracle I’m ringing you at all. I should still be offended. Well, I am, actually, but I’ve decided to forgive you, because . . . because I have. Now. I’m home on leave. When can we meet?’
Tess gasped. The cheek of the fellow! They had quarrelled bitterly over his negligence as skipper of his Yare and Bure One Design, after he had forgotten to shout ‘gybe ho!’ when he was going about with the result that his crew – Tess – had suddenly found herself whacked across the head by the boom and knocked straight into the water.
He hadn’t apologised; he was Ashley Knox, the superior, and when he reached overboard and scooped her out of the water he had been laughing, saying she’d have a black eye in the morning, that she should have guessed he intended to go about, God knew she’d been crewing for him long enough to be able to anticipate most of his moves by now!
And as if that wasn’t bad enough, when they got back to the clubhouse and everyone asked how she had ended up in the drink Ashley had told them unconcernedly that he’d forgotten to shout because he was watching the little blonde with the big tits who had been crewing for Charlie Jackson.
‘If you want to watch her, get her to crew for you,’ Tess had said coldly. ‘I’m sure she’ll be delighted. Especially when she’s chucked into the water by a careless, selfish skipper.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ Ashley said. He had looped an arm round her waist and tugged her close, maddening her once again by his easy assumption that he could charm his way out of any situation. ‘You know it’s you I love, sweetie-pie. I dare say you don’t have tremendous ti . . .’
‘Let go of me!’ Tess knew her face was red, knew that half the clubhouse – the male half – was watching the disagreement with prurient interest. The men, ever hopeful, always assumed that if a girl crewed for a fellow then she did other things for him, too. Several of them had hung round her, intimating that if she ever grew tired of Ashley Knox there were others who would be delighted to sail with her. And Tess was quite bright enough to know, too, that the women, who had been openly astonished by Ashley’s preference, would be hugging themselves with glee at this sign of a rift in the lute. Ashley might be boastful and big-headed – well, he was – but he was a first-rate yachtsman and a very eligible
parti
.
‘Honey-lamb, I’m sorry, your tits are just . . .’
By now, Tess had been blazing, both with humiliation and with rage. She knew, dammit, that her slight breasts couldn’t compete with Miss Big Tits, but she also knew that Ashley was now playing to the gallery and it was too bad of him. He pretended to love her, he pretended that he never looked at other women, but he never really considered her at all. It was self, self, self all the way with Ashley. So she faced him across the club room and spoke with chilly distinctness.
‘Ashley I’m going. I won’t ask you to take me home, I’d sooner walk. And don’t come bothering me again, please. Find another crew.’
He had pursued her, pleaded with her, ordered her . . . and finally had tried to manhandle her into his car. She had slapped his face – it had been a wonderful, liberating sensation – and stalked off, ringing Peter from the nearest telephone box, almost incoherent with tears and temper, to beg a lift home.
And that hadn’t been the end of it, either. Ashley had turned up outside her place of work, inside it, at the bus stop. Tess was working as assistant to the curator of the Castle Museum and loving every minute of the job but she couldn’t shake Ashley off entirely. At the time of the big break-up he had been down from University, working in his father’s law firm as a junior, no doubt being as much of a nuisance to Mr Knox as he was to Tess. So naturally whenever he had time off he turned up in Deeping Lane, on the Broad, in the city – wherever Tess was, in fact.
‘Tess? You are a very odd girl – you don’t sound at all pleased to hear from me after all this while.’
‘How very perceptive of you,’ Tess said appreciatively. You had to admire his cheek if nothing else, but she remembered Ashley well enough to realise that she had best put a stop to this once and for all. ‘I was just thinking, Ash, how relieved I was when you went off and joined the Air Force. At least you stopped making a nuisance of yourself – I mean I could go outside the door without seeing you hovering somewhere. Indeed, ever since your departure I’ve had a very pleasant social life. Hasn’t Freddy told you? I’ve got another boyfriend and I’m sure you’ve got another girl, as well.’
It should have been a sufficient snub to have Ashley getting off the phone as fast as he decently could, but his skin could be thick as elephant hide at times.
‘You’ve got around a bit, Freddy did tell me that, and I’ve done the same, of course,’ Ashley said equably. ‘Nothing picks up bits of fluff quicker than an Air Force uniform.’
‘Good. Then why should we want to meet?’
This caused Ashley to heave a deep, impatient sigh. ‘For God’s sweet sake, Tess, as if you didn’t know! We’re made for each other, you and I, why try to deny what’s so patently obvious? Of
course
you’ve been out with other fellows when I’m not within reach, of
course
I’ve been out with other girls for the same reason. But now I’m home. What about this afternoon? I’ve got a car, I could pick you up after lunch.’
Tess looked through the kitchen doorway. Outside, the sun still shone, the breeze was gentle. She had no real plans for the afternoon – she had meant to go for a stroll around, pick Janet up, discuss with her friend what they should do if their respective places of work were closed down for the duration. If she could only consider Ash as a friend! But she couldn’t. He wouldn’t let her. Everything had to be done his way and he wanted a girlfriend, someone to cuddle in the back of a car, to canoodle with in the flicks, to boast about back at his Air Force station. Friendship, so far as Ashley was concerned, was a non-relationship, between her and him at any rate. So it had really better be a firm ‘No, thank you’.
‘Or before lunch, if you’re free,’ Ashley said whilst Tess was still considering how to turn him down nicely. ‘Or this evening? Tomorrow? Do stop playing hard to get!’
‘I’m not, I’m thinking,’ Tess said truthfully. ‘The trouble with you. Ash, is that if we meet you’ll start trying to back me into a corner again. I know you, remember.’
‘I shan’t,’ Ashley protested. ‘I’ve changed. Honest.’
Tess snorted. ‘Fat chance! Look, I tell you what, why don’t you bring Freddy and we’ll make up a foursome. We could go down to the seaside if you like – Sea Palling, I love Sea Palling.’
‘A foursome? Who’s the other fellow, then? Freddy’s rather keen on Malty – George Maltson, you know. He’s all right I suppose, but he’s a brown job so we don’t have a lot in common. And I don’t think he’s around at the moment . . . but I could ask, I suppose, if you’re set on it. If you don’t trust yourself alone with me.’
‘I trust myself totally, it’s you I don’t trust,’ Tess said acidly. ‘And I wasn’t thinking of Malty, I was thinking of a chap called Ted Bovis. He and I have been seeing quite a bit of each other . . .’
She got no further. An explosion caused her to snatch the receiver away from her ear and hold it at arm’s length whilst Ashley told her what he thought of
that
idea. It wasn’t much.
‘All right, all right,’ she conceded, her voice trembling with laughter, when the shouts had died away to mutters. ‘Better to leave it for now, then, Ash. Perhaps we’ll meet in the city, some time. Bye!’
She put the receiver down on his furious yelp and walked away from the instrument, which promptly began to ring. And continued to do so whilst Tess sat in the kitchen and strung the rest of the beans. Marianne came to the head of the stairs and called down to Tess to ‘Answer that wretched thing or I shall go mad!’ and Peter came reluctantly in from the garden, very pink and puffy from too much sun, and tried to pick up the receiver, only Tess shouted to him to leave it.
‘It’s a fault on the line, the exchange will deal with it,’ she called. ‘I’ve scraped the potatoes, Daddy, d’you think I’ve done enough?’
Peter came and peered into the big saucepan and presently the telephone stopped ringing and Tess heaved a huge sigh of relief and continued with her preparations.
‘Aren’t you coming to church?’ Marianne said presently, appearing in the kitchen doorway looking mint-cool in a pale-green shantung suit and matching hat with delicate white strap-sandals on her feet. ‘You should change if you mean to accompany us.’
But Tess assured Marianne that she had not yet made the Yorkshire pudding, and that they had run out of horseradish, so she would miss morning service and go to the evening one, instead.
‘I’ll dig a root of horseradish and grate it,’ she said. ‘Daddy adores horseradish with beef, don’t you, Daddy? And then I’ll do the table and so on. All you’ll have to do when you get back from church is sit down and eat.’
Afterwards, she wondered why she hadn’t gone with the family, because she must have realised there would only be one reason for Ashley no longer trying to ring her. Sometimes she wondered about herself – could Ashley be right? Did she really love him, want him? It seemed unlikely, but on the other hand, why hadn’t she gone to church? She should have realised he would get into his car and come over to Barton if she continued to ignore the telephone.
Ashley slammed the phone down and thought about the roast chicken his mother had promised him, and the crunchy roast potatoes, cooked just as he liked them, and the peas and beans, the rich chicken gravy, the chocolate pudding to follow. Or he could grab a sandwich and go and visit Tess.
He stared at the telephone, then picked up the receiver and tried once more to reach the Old House. No reply. Had they gone to church? But it was too early, they didn’t have to leave yet, unless they were walking, which seemed unlikely. She’s sitting by the telephone, Ashley thought balefully, deliberately not answering, deliberately keeping me on tenterhooks. What’s the matter with the wretched girl? Why can’t she simply admit that she’s as crazy about me as I am about her, and then we could both be happy?
But for some reason she seemed obtuse on this one issue. And indeed, after the break-up, he had decided that she didn’t deserve him. Stupid girl, to make an issue out of being knocked into the water once – just once – because he’d not been concentrating. It was almost unbelievable, but she’d gone on refusing to see him even after he’d rung and told her he wouldn’t be in Norfolk long.
‘I’ve joined the Air Force,’ he said. ‘And they’re sending me to a training centre abroad somewhere. Come on, let’s have a coffee together before I go.’
‘No, thanks,’ she had said. No thanks! You’d have thought she’d have wanted to forget their differences, to part friends, but not Tess! You had to admire her in a way, though, because she did stick to her guns. She had decided that they needed time apart and she was sticking to it.
So he had gone abroad, and he’d had a damned good time and increased his experience of women tenfold. Well, it would be truer to say he had
got
some experience of women, because apart from Tess – and she thought kissing dangerous – he hadn’t had many girlfriends before he joined the Air Force. He had gone to Rhodesia though and undergone training, first on fighters and then on the big, unwieldy bombers, and he had been sent back as soon as war was declared, flying one of the aircraft he would presently fly in anger, against the Nazis.