The September Garden (9 page)

She remembered her mother telling her how she and Auntie Beth met their future husbands on the same night, at the same ball. The sisters had only just bobbed their hair and Mollie had daringly worn trousers for the first time ever only the week before. The war had been over just three years, and the shortage of men was astonishing. They thought they’d never find a suitable boyfriend, let alone ever be swept around a dance floor by one.

Uncle Claude, blustery and moustached, had just been seconded to Scotland Yard for a year, from the French 
gendarmerie. Marcus was to be decommissioned and was looking for an army desk job that would allow him more time to paint. Claude’s elegant accent contrasted with his stout, imposing figure. He danced very well, was surprisingly light on his feet, said Mollie, and told jokes, which made the girls giggle. Marcus was silent and sensitive. He made sure that their lemonade was topped up and fetched them each a tot of punch. When they danced, Mollie said, she felt like she was flying. She said she felt like a princess in his arms. The sisters made their choices: Auntie Beth to travel to the other side of the Channel to the village in Normandy; her mother to live as the wife of a captain in the Chilterns.

How attractive, how dashing her father had been in his officer’s uniform. Dashing, her mother had said, and yet underneath it all so very fragile.

He didn’t look fragile now, thought Nell as she helped herself to another glass of champagne and shuffled back deep into her armchair. She felt her toes tingle from the heat of the fire. Her eyelids fluttered heavily as the warm whirling room closed in on her. And all the time her father laughed and danced in the arms of Diana Blanford.

The cold valley lay in shadow; the trees were silhouetted against the horizon the colour of watery buttermilk. In the silence of the afternoon, Nell strained her ears for the sound of the Chess, sluggish within the wintry chill.

The red-brick and grey-flint walls of Pudifoot Cottage were bright amid the dull landscape as she turned the corner. A lamp was on in the kitchen. Diana had renamed the cottage in honour of its late tenant and Marcus had 
painted the sign for her; he’d even got out his hammer and nails and tacked it up above the door.

‘Here I am,’ Nell called, tapping on the door as she went in. ‘I come bearing gifts. Put another way, some of our household cast-offs.’

Diana looked up, beaming, her hair tied up in a turban. She wiped her blackened hands down an old apron of Mrs Bunting’s. There was a smudge of dirt on her nose.

‘I’d make you some tea if I could get this darn range going. Your father promised to look at it for me. Just needs a certain knack, he said. Obviously something I have not. How’s Sylvie? She seemed so down the other day. Am I right she has not heard from her parents this Christmas? Tell me to mind my own business if you like, but I do feel for her.’

‘Mother’s keeping her busy. She’s told her she has to take over from Mrs Bunting today and try her hand at rabbit pie. I just left her just now jointing the little fellow in the kitchen.’

‘So, you expect to eat dinner some time today, then?’ Diana smiled.

Nell handed her a bag, telling her that it contained the last of the sheets, and a couple of pillows that were a bit saggy but she thought they were all right. ‘Shall I pop them upstairs?’

Diana handed her a broom. ‘You wouldn’t give it a good going over for me would you, while you’re up there? I’m behind schedule already. I wanted this place shipshape by sunset, but I’m failing admirably.’

Upstairs, Nell opened the window to give the little bedroom a good airing. Diana had hung her clothes in the 
wardrobe and set out her hairbrushes on the shelf. But the room was a mess. There had been a fall of soot in the little cast-iron fireplace and black footprints proceeded across the lino. It would need more than a ‘going over’, Nell conceded. She tugged the corner of the metal-framed bed to move it a few feet before running the broom along the skirting. But how nice her mother’s old patched curtains looked at the window, she decided. And maybe a lick of paint would do the trick. Diana would be cosy here, in no time.

She heard the clatter of the range lid downstairs and Diana exclaim in delighted surprise. Then she heard her father’s voice.

‘How are we doing, poppet?’

Nell propped her broom up against the wall and went out onto the tiny postage stamp landing. The stairs went straight down into the kitchen, the banisters forming a neat little cage for them. She opened her mouth to call ‘Yoo-hoo’ but stopped in astonishment. Below her, just visible through the banisters, Diana was holding up two ribboned medals to the light.

‘Guess what,’ she said to Marcus, ‘I’ve found Mr Pudifoot’s Great War medals. They were here, right here at the back of the dresser drawer. Caught behind a wad of newspaper. What shall we do with them?’

‘Oh, let me see.’

Nell crouched down in the shadows of the landing, to peer through the banisters, intrigued by the medals. Mrs Bunting had been searching for them for ages; she was desperate for them. Nell’s father had his back to her.

‘My, my,’ he said softly, an edge of pain in his voice. ‘Good old Pudifoot.’ 

Nell saw Diana’s face clearly and it was full of her beautiful mischief.

‘Perhaps, Marcus,’ she said, ‘perhaps they should be melted down for the war effort. They’re always banging on about scrap metal.’

Marcus flinched suddenly and grabbed the back of Diana’s neck as if she was a naughty cat. In shock, Nell put her hand over her mouth. He spoke low and hard. ‘Why do you have to joke all the time? This is serious, serious stuff.’

But Diana was laughing, swaying her body in front of Nell’s father, still caught by the scruff of the neck. ‘Oh, you are so easy to tease, Marcus. So, so easy!’

Saturated with confusion, Nell’s heart rapped in her throat. Why did her father behave like this, always, always around Diana? Why did he never remain still and calm and
normal
?

‘I wish you’d shut up,’ he snapped, although he was smiling. ‘Do shut up, Diana.’

Diana put her hands on Marcus’s shoulders, and her face, tilted upwards, was radiant, in her own little world.

She has forgotten I am here, Nell thought with a seething anger. She thinks I don’t have eyes to see, or ears to hear them. She must think I don’t matter at all.

‘I’m pulling your leg, my love,’ Diana was whispering. ‘Give them to Mrs B. She loved him, didn’t she? She loved him very much.’

‘I told you to shut up.’ Her father’s voice was hard, strange, frightening.

‘Why are you being like this, Marcus?’ Diana’s whisper was almost inaudible. ‘Why are you so afraid of
love
?’

Nell moved her head for a clearer view. Why on earth 
were they speaking to each other like this? Diana looked soft, pliant and breathless. Her father seemed tall and powerful. Again, so unlike himself.

He grabbed Diana’s shoulders and held her, looking down on her. She is so short, thought Nell, when she is not wearing her heels. Disgust burnt her stomach. She kept her palm pressed to her mouth, her hot breath forced out through her nostrils.

‘Didn’t I tell you to shut up?’

Diana stretched herself up to retort, her neck long and pale, her chin tilting like a diamond. She half closed her eyes, mocking him, her lips pouting and twitching. Nell watched in dismay as her father leant in and kissed Diana Blanford deeply, so severely that their faces locked and their bodies twisted together, Diana’s flailing hand dropping the medals onto the floor.

From the first-floor office of the
Bucks Recorder
, Nell could see through the window and across the cobbled market square. The cloudy sky beyond red-tiled roofs was thick, like the skin forming on off milk. A poster outside the cinema was advertising
Gone with the Wind
. ‘The most spectacular film ever made!’ it shouted. ‘Coming soon!’

She watched the queue form at the bakery: housewives in headscarves and gloves, stamping their feet in the cold, clutching shopping baskets. Reluctant children trailed them, holding their hands or running in short bursts to the kerb and back to keep warm.

Her belly was full of beating wings. She sat up straight. She needed to make a good impression on Mr Flanagan who was seated behind his desk and whose large stomach pressed against the edge of it like a great yielding barrel. His tie was loose, shirtsleeves rolled up, cigarette stuck to
his lip. He was reading her letter of application, and his silence was excruciating.

Another group of women began to crowd at the door to the tailor’s. Could it be that some new fabric had arrived? From America? Nell looked down at her old school skirt. She’d let out the hem so many times, it looked poor and ragged. But it was her smartest skirt; it would do, her mother had said, for an interview that was likely to be a waste of time, anyway. She wore long boots, borrowed from Diana. They were old, but at least they were ladies’ boots, and helped make her look more grown-up. On her way through the lobby downstairs, Nell had caught sight of herself in the large mirror emblazoned with the newspaper’s masthead and felt a little closer to growing into a woman. Over Christmas, she had persuaded her mother that she should let her roll her hair and, now that Sylvie had left school, she wouldn’t be far behind.

There was something so repressive and redundant about the classroom. Nell longed to be out in the world where she could make a difference; she longed to be noticed. Here in the charged atmosphere of the newspaper office, a strange stew of confidence and fear inside her made her tilt her chin, take a breath and look Mr Flanagan, chief reporter, in the eye.

Mr Flanagan folded up her letter and tossed it onto a mess of papers and galley proofs on his desk. He barely glanced at her. Instead, he sucked hard on his cigarette. The smoke curled out of his ruddy nose. Nell stared at the tufts of hair protruding from his ears.

‘How old are you?’

She told him she was sixteen. 

‘What makes you think you can be a reporter?’

Nell’s mouth dried out; her thoughts tumbled. ‘Well, sir … I am proficient at English, as you can see from my school report, there.’ She nodded at another piece of paper he had discarded. ‘My teachers expect me to get good grades when I sit for my school certificate. I have good grammar and spelling.’ Nell thought, thank goodness for Miss Hull.

‘I leave the grammar and all that technical stuff to the subeditors out there,’ he snapped. ‘John Danty’s been called up. I want a reporter. Why should I employ you?’

Nell glanced through the glass partition at the main office where a large desk stood in the centre under a low lightshade. Two subeditors – men too old to go to war – sat there in shirtsleeves, wearing visors. They bent their heads to huge page proofs clipped to sloping stands, pens dashing and scratching in peculiar hieroglyphics. Beyond them, a secretary with glamorous red lips and an enormous hairdo of puffs and rolls was tapping at her typewriter; a reporter was on the telephone, writing in a notebook. Suddenly a door on the other side of the office was flung open and a tall suited man marched out brandishing a page proof. He stood over one of the subeditors, raging. Even though Nell could not hear through the glass, she felt his anger. The tall man became still for a second and then purposefully and calculatingly ripped the proof up, scattering paper over the desk.

Nell swallowed hard. ‘I observe,’ she said, thinking, no, really I’m an eavesdropper. ‘I notice everything. I miss nothing. You could say I am nosey.’

Mr Flanagan stubbed out his cigarette. ‘Historically, the 
Bucks Recorder
has a running battle with the council, with the government. That’s our job, to hold them accountable to every little battle; whether it’s the dustmen, the street lights, the local constabulary. But these days, that all goes out the window. We all have to stick together. We can’t criticise too much. Propaganda.’

He folded his arms and looked at her.

‘I understand,’ she said, forcing her new maturity forward in place of fear. ‘I see how things have to be adapted, when there’s a war on.’ She paused, feeling even braver. ‘But surely that man out there can’t get away with wasting paper like that.’

Mr Flanagan smirked. ‘That’s the editor. He gets away with whatever he likes. Are you sure you want a job here? You look terrified.’

Nell braced herself. ‘Of course I do. Yes, I want a job here.’

Mr Flanagan tapped another cigarette from the packet and struck a match. ‘Tell me the significance of Bovingdon Airfield for the Bucks community, Miss … er … Garland.’

Nell pulled herself upright, her eyes stinging in the fug of smoke.

‘Bovingdon?’ she said. ‘It’s the RAF station about fifteen miles from here. I understand it is a good position for an airfield as it is on a ridge, higher than Heathrow or Northolt and so can be used if those airfields are fogbound and …’ she warmed to the subject, ‘every day, at Lednor Bottom, we see the planes rumbling over. The Wellington bombers. I’ve seen the officers in the town, in the shops or coming out of the pubs. I can recognise the ranks from the stripes on their cuffs. That’s all I know, really.’ 

‘There’s a war on, of course that’s all you should know. But I see you are observant. You have something about you … You have an interest. You’re keen.’ Mr Flanagan sighed and scratched his head. ‘I don’t suppose the womenfolk of Aylesbury mind this invasion.’

Nell was sure that everyone welcomed the RAF.

Mr Flanagan grimaced. ‘That may be so. The things I hear about what goes on at the town hall hops, some make them more welcome than others.’ He inhaled deeply from his cigarette. ‘You seem shocked, miss. I could, of course, have used worse language than that, young lady. That’s something you will have to get used to in this office. You won’t be spared the bad language. When do you leave school?’

Nell felt her expectation soar as she told him this Easter.

‘You can start on April fifth,’ he said bluntly. ‘Oh-eight hundred hours, as they say. But don’t get any ideas about reporting. You will be making tea, filing, watering the plants. Helping Mrs Challinor, the secretary, out there. Sweeping up bits of torn paper.’

The coal fire in the tea room was too far away for Nell to feel its benefit, so she kept her coat on and crossed her ankles to the icy draught under the door while she waited for Sylvie.

‘What you having?’ asked the elderly waitress, hovering with impatience by the table.

Nell glanced at the chit of paper on which the short menu was handwritten.

‘Tea and a bun,’ she said. ‘For two.’

‘There’s no icing on the buns. Just to warn you.’ 

Through the window, Nell saw Sylvie strolling arm in arm with an airman, resplendent in his perky forage hat, across Aylesbury market square. Her cousin stopped, giggling, right in front of the window and kissed the man firmly on the lips. Nell watched her cousin’s slender hands pushing the man – a sergeant, Nell deduced, from the stripe on his cuff – away as he leant in for another. He gave Sylvie a humorous salute then, as she turned to the tea room door, landed a slap on her behind before about-turning and marching off across the square, turning the heads of the good people of Aylesbury as he went.

Sylvie burst in, sparkly eyed and breathless. ‘Oh Nell, the cheek of it! Did you see him?’ she cried, as she inched her way through the tightly packed tables, rotating her hips to fit past the backs of the chairs.

‘
Everyone
saw him,’ said Nell, lowering her voice and glancing around at the disapproving faces. She was embarrassed, but not surprised by her cousin’s behaviour.

‘Oh, it’s all a bit of fun. Don’t think for a moment that he’s getting anywhere with me. He’s not an officer.’

The waitress set down two teacups slopping with grey liquid and two rather hard-looking buns.

‘Forgot to mention,’ the waitress said, wiping her hands on her apron, ‘we have no currants either. But here’s some marg …’ She produced a saucer with two yellow curls of fat on it. ‘To make up for it.’

‘I can never get used to this English tea,’ said Sylvie, taking a tentative sip. ‘Why do you always go on about it?’

‘Well,
this
tea is not good,’ conceded Nell, wrinkling her nose over the cup. ‘Mrs Bunting makes the best tea, even if she is using yesterday’s leaves. And she always, always fills 
the kettle to the brim before she goes to bed, just in case a bomb falls and cuts off our water. At least, then, we can have …’ She paused and Sylvie joined her to say, ‘
A nice cup of tea
.’

Nell began to saw her bun in half, commenting that it was a bit robust.

Sylvie mused, ‘And there is Uncle Marcus worried about not being able to sell his paintings. Doesn’t he realise, these days, people haven’t even got buns with currants in them? They won’t want
paintings
.’

Nell swallowed the dry confection, not wanting to think of her father, his paintings or anything else about him, for that matter.

‘Oh, but enough of all the gloom,’ said Sylvie. ‘Tell me, tell me.’

Nell drew herself up with pride. She beamed, ‘Come Easter, Sylvie, I will be able to pay for these horrific buns with my first pay packet.’

‘Oh, well done, Nell. I knew you’d do it.’

‘Really? You did?’

Sylvie waved her manicured hand. ‘Of course, of course. Now listen to my news. I’ve had word from the landlord in Montague Street. The mews will be empty and ready for me to rent in the summer. Thanks to my allowance I can afford a modest place. And it’s a dear little place. Rather like a cottage in a cobbled lane but right in the centre of town. What fun that will be. And the other even more exciting bit …’

Nell sat back, giving in to the onslaught of Sylvie’s delight.

‘Miss Hull is a genius. Wrote me the most marvellous 
reference. I’ve just had the letter. The Foreign Office want me. I’m to be a translator.’ She dipped her head. ‘Of course, we really shouldn’t talk about it, should we? Not here.
Careless talk
, etcetera. But isn’t it wonderful?’ Sylvie gripped Nell’s arm with tight and eager fingers. ‘I’m moving to
London
!’

Later on, Nell was upstairs sorting through her wardrobe, wondering what might be suitable for her new job. Compared to Sylvie’s, her clothes were girlish and down at heel. What was the use of coupons if she couldn’t afford anything nice anyway? The money her parents gave her did not stretch far at all.

She heard the front door and recognised her father’s footsteps as he took the stairs, beating his usual path to his study. Excited to tell him her news, she rushed to open her door but then she remembered that her mother had come up earlier and was waiting for him in his study. Peering round her bedroom door and along the landing, she saw him stop at the threshold. His face fell.

Mollie’s voice rang out sweetly. ‘Darling. I was worried. I didn’t know where you were.’

Nell watched him vacillate, his hand on the doorknob.

‘Wasn’t it obvious?’ he replied, spots of colour on his pallid cheeks. ‘Diana needed me over at Pudifoot’s. There is something wrong with the bathroom tap,’ he added quickly. How thin her father’s handsome face was, Nell thought, etched with worry lines.

‘Oh? Oh yes, poor Diana.’ Her mother’s voice was all tenderness. ‘Come here.’

‘What do you mean?’ Her father still loitered in the doorway.  

‘Close the door and come over here.’

Her father walked in but left the door ajar.

Nell came out of her room and hovered on the landing. She was frantic to tell him about the job and half expected her mother to. Perhaps that was why she was waiting for him. Nell cocked her ear, listening for the good news to be imparted, so she could rush along and enjoy her father’s reaction.

‘Take off your coat,’ she heard her mother say. ‘I’ve lit the fire, look. Hasn’t been lit for ages. Isn’t it gloriously warm in here? Makes a change. I will pour us a whisky. Keep us even warmer.’

‘You’ve brought the decanter up?’ Nell’s father sounded incredulous.

‘Yes. Oops, not the usual routine, is it? What will Mrs B say? I thought we could have some privacy. Away from everyone and everything. There is bad news every time I open a newspaper, or switch on the wireless. And I’m beginning not to be able to stand it. I’m worrying for Beth and Claude so much, it’s too bloody grim for words. But we’re all right, aren’t we, Marcus? We can leave the war behind, can’t we, for an afternoon?’

Nell heard a rustling. A weak, false cough from her father. Her mother’s voice, low and soft: ‘Your coat seems to hold all of the chill of outside. Let me unbutton it. That’s right.’

Nell stepped forward now, rather bored of waiting. She reached the door of her father’s study and pushed gently on it.

As her mother unbuttoned her father’s coat, he tilted his chin away from her. It was as if her presence repelled 
him. Her fingers stopped near his collar and she appeared to hold her breath. And then she breathed in deeply. ‘How
is
Diana?’ she asked.

‘I told you,’ he said, his voice cracking with strain. ‘She’s fine.’

‘Not homesick? In need of comforting?’ asked Mollie.

Nell pressed her hand to the door to steady her dizzy nerves. Her eavesdropping was becoming a nasty habit.

‘Did she need you to hold her in your arms? To kiss her?’

Nell’s blood switched to cold water up her spine.

‘Now, look …’ Marcus drew himself back. His face twisting, the lines drawn deeper and deeper. ‘What’s all this about?’

Mollie began to laugh, the sound of it rising to the ceiling in hysterical waves. ‘Look at your face, Marcus. What a tease I am. Of course, at a time like this, we all need comfort, a friendly face, a shoulder to cry on.’ She went over to the decanter and poured two glasses of whisky. ‘And so do I.’