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‘I can’t eat,’ I said.
‘My dear, you must. In times like this, one must keep strong – and you have a long way to go yet.’
‘I wish I was dead,’ I said.
After Angela had gone downstairs, I lay for a long time, thinking of Barney. I had always had a great affection for him, hot-tempered and ruthless as he often was; when we were younger, I had imagined that he preferred Angela to me as he had taken her out frequently, but it was to me that he proposed during the last Christmas he had spent at home. I had been so happy; it seemed as if the war could not possibly last much longer, and we planned to be married as soon as Barney was demobbed. He had survived the invasion of France safely and had enjoyed one more leave when his badly mauled regiment was brought home to be reformed. He had been tired and morose during that last leave, as if he had a premonition of what was to come, but after he was rested he became more cheerful and we spent two or three happy days together before he went back to his barracks.
I had begun to collect linen and china for the small flat we hoped to find. I wanted Barney to enjoy all the comforts I could scrounge for him in a tightly rationed country. I had bought sheets on the blackmarket, made pillowcases out of bleached flour bags, begged old curtains from Mother, and had bought from auction sales pieces of painted china and prewar silverware. Even now, on the bedside table, lay a half-finished tablecloth, which I was contriving by faggoting together tiny pieces of linen left over from the manufacture of aeroplane wings.
In a paroxysm of rage, I sat up and flung the tablecloth and the coloured embroidery silks across the room. Unfortunately, I flung the water glass as well; but the explosion it made when it crashed released the tension in me, and when Mother came running into the room, I was crying with steady, hopeless sobs.
Mother picked up the cloth and folded it carefully. It was to be a long time before I would spread it on a table, and if some, self-appointed prophet had told me where the table would be, he would not have been believed.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_9b028baf-1b7a-5495-9bbb-602a45514719)
When I was seven, my father, Thomas Delaney, came to Wetherport to work in the Income Tax Offices. In order to be near his work, he bought a Victorian house not far from the middle of the city. It had a walled back garden, in which my father managed to grow the daffodils for which he was famous locally. In spite of the heavy fall of soot and the fact that the surrounding houses had long since deteriorated into apartments or boarding houses, the family was very fond of its home and we refused to be dislodged from it, even during the heaviest bombing; and when we surveyed it on Victory Day, five weeks after Barney’s death, we were happy to find that it was in as good condition as when we first entered it.
From this house, I had gone out to school and later to the University; and now when my long day’s work was done, it was the place to which I thankfully returned each night.
About half a mile from home there was a very old part of the city, which bordered upon the docks, and it was in this area that, after taking a degree, I took up social work amongst unwanted and neglected children. A scar on my lung kept me out of the Forces during the war, and I was left undisturbed by the Ministry of Labour and National Service to continue my work. Most of the prostitutes of Wetherport lived in my district, and the place swarmed with troops and sailors of every nationality. Many of the residents were coloured – part West African Negro, part Arab and part Chinese, with a few Indians scattered amongst them. Their poverty was great and was intensified by the bombing which they bravely endured. They knew me as ‘the lady from the Welfare’ and I was classed with ‘the man from the parish’, that is, the Relieving Officer, as someone to whom the front door could be opened without hesitation. The war brought work to those who were dock labourers and seamen, and the young men were called into the Army, so that their fighting cocks tended to languish in their backyards, but games of fan-tan and crown and anchor flourished, and betting and drinking carried away much that was earned; the poverty and filth of their homes remained.
As the war progressed, illegitimate children seemed to be born faster than I could cope with them and my work was always far behind. I therefore returned to the office a week after James’s visit, still feeling shaky from the effects of the influenza.
The elderly voluntary workers, who were my staff, were horribly kind. They had seen Barney’s name in the ‘Killed in Action’ column of the Wetherport Telegram, and they handled me as if I was a delicate ornament, liable to breakage. They tiptoed in and out of my room, brought me specially made cups of tea, and murmured that I was looking better or looking worse. I felt like screaming at them to stop, to be normal, to make some vulgar joke, so that the automaton that was me could try and laugh.
One day James rang me up and asked me to join his walking club – it was surprising how far his lame leg could carry him over rough country. By the end of the summer, I had become, at his instigation, an unprotesting member of a music club and an opera society. He kept me in circulation firmly; every time I showed signs of slinking back to the family fireplace to weep he hauled me out again.
Very few of our friends came home from the war, and, in the topsy-turvy world in which we found ourselves, Angela also seemed glad of James’s company, and she frequently came with us on our outings. She was witty and she often made James laugh; he had the same throaty chuckle as Barney – and it hurt me to hear him. I love to hear merriment, but a dead man’s laugh is saddening, especially when you still love him.
Occasionally it was very like torture to have James striding along beside me, looking just as Barney always did, and then to catch his eye and see a different soul, a strange mind, peering out at me; but he was an old friend and I did not have to make a special effort to be pleasant in his company, so I clung to him, and for nearly three years saw him from time to time, either at the various clubs to which he had introduced me or at his mother’s home, which I visited occasionally. His mother welcomed my visits and, presumably, hoped that I would marry him. This solution had not occurred to me and James gave no hint that it had occurred to him; he continued to behave in his usual silently courteous manner and asked nothing except my company. He had other women friends, with some of whom I was also acquainted, but he never showed any particular preference for one of them.
I gradually picked up the fragments of my life and stuck them together again as best I could. The sickening reaction from the effort entailed by the war had, however, set in, and like many others I felt low and dispirited. I had been the only young woman left in our organisation at a time when our work was increasing; the war itself had brought many problems which were not the concern of any particular authority and I often found myself doing work far removed from the care of children. Many were the days when there was no time to eat and many the nights I spent on an old sofa in the office rather than waste time by going home. Once the Japanese war had been brought to a horrifying finish by the atom bomb, however, new social workers were recruited and my hours of work became normal. I should have been grateful for a life once more returned to a peaceful routine, but I found myself intolerably bored and very tired of solving other people’s problems.
In the autumn of 1948, however, James’s love of chocolate caused a sharp change in my life. We were attending a first night at the Royal Theatre, and I had elected to wait in the foyer, while James carried on a delicate negotiation with the girl in the sweet shop next door, for the purchase of a box of rare, handmade chocolates, for which he had not enough ration coupons. I stood idly watching the people arriving for the show. Every tram that stopped outside unloaded a fresh mass of shabby humanity; a few small private cars added their quota of patrons. Dressed in old sweaters, tweeds and raincoats, the women hatless like myself, they poured into the theatre. They certainly did not care much about outward appearances, but I knew they would form an attentive and critical audience.
I had just seen a Duchess slip quietly into the auditorium, chivvied from behind by two students who were afraid of being late, when a voice behind me gushed: ‘My deah, where have you been all these years?’
The voice was familiar, and I turned round quickly, to face a middle-aged woman who was extending a black-gloved hand to me.
‘Bessie,’ I cried, overjoyed at meeting someone I had known before the war. The last time I had seen Bessie she had been in khaki uniform – a sort of female brass hat – but there was nothing of that about her now. Her black suit and frilly, red hat made her completely feminine.
‘My deah, you are just the woman for whom I’ve been looking. Can you dance?’
‘Yes,’ I said blankly.
James came up to us, triumphantly bearing his box of chocolates, and was introduced. The foyer bell rang, and Bessie said hastily: ‘Come and see me, my deah, tomorrow evening at 42 Belfrey Street – the McShane Club. Come at seven.’ She looked about anxiously. ‘Please excuse me – I must find my party.’
She waved one plump hand vaguely in the direction of the front door and tripped across the hall, her high heels clicking merrily on the marble floor, and to my amazement, joined a party of Negroes. She greeted them gaily and vanished with them into the auditorium.
James’s eyebrows lifted, as he asked: ‘Who are they?’
‘No idea,’ I said.
‘Have a chocolate,’ said James, tearing off wrappings.
James had invited a young married couple to join us, and as soon as they arrived we went in to see the play. It was a good play about the escape of a prisoner of war from a German stalag – but my mind was on Bessie.
Bessie Forbes used to live in a flat near to us. Her husband had been a lieutenant in the Regular Army and had been at Wetherport Barracks for nearly a year before the war broke out. He had been sent to Norway and had been posted as Missing. Bessie waited for further news but none came, and, as she had no children, she enlisted in the Army Territorial Service. I knew she had done very well in the Service, but presumably she had now taken her discharge. I wondered if she had married again. And what was she doing in the company of Negroes? Negroes were an everyday part of my working life – but that was unusual. It was not reasonable to suppose that a woman of Bessie’s station in society would be well acquainted with any – the colour bar still functioned in England quite effectively in respect of Negroes.
At the end of the second interval, as the audience was surging back to its seats, I was tossed against Bessie, and she smiled at me.
‘Who are you with?’ I whispered, nearly dead with curiosity.
‘Nigerian chieftains,’ she said. ‘See you tomorrow,’ and she was swept away from me.
The mystery was beyond me, so I ate James’s chocolates and tried to concentrate on the play.
James and I walked leisurely home together. The night was clear and there was a sweet smell of rotting leaves in the park. We did not talk much on the way, knowing each other well enough not to have to make conversation. He lingered at our gate and I asked him in.
‘No, I – I won’t come in tonight,’ he said.
He made no move to depart, however, and leaned awkwardly against the gate pillar, his fingers drumming on its dirty, granite sides.
He said abruptly: ‘Peggie, will you marry me?’
My mind was on Nigerian chieftains, but the answer came without hesitation, and I surprised myself with the certainty of it.
‘No, Jamie,’ I said gently, ‘I can’t.’
James stopped drumming on the gate pillar and gripped it hard.
‘Why not, Peggie? Ah love thee.’
‘I know, dear, and I’m sorry.’ I paused, and looked at him in the light of the street lamp. ‘You are so like Barney, Jamie, that I would love you because of the likeness and not because you are you. It would not be fair to you.’
He stood there, silently biting his lower lip, just as Barney used to when puzzled.
‘Ah might’ve guessed it,’ he said at length. ‘Are you sure, Pegs?’ The light-blue eyes gleamed suddenly in the poor light and there was pain in them.
My resolve faltered; James would make a good husband, I knew. He had a depth of character which Barney had lacked. I looked up at him again. The light was playing tricks with him and it seemed as if Barney was standing there, instead of James; like a tormenting dream, I thought bitterly.
‘I can’t, Jamie. You’re the finest man I know – but I can’t marry you – I just can’t.’
‘Dawn’t fret yourself, luv. Ah do understand.’ He lifted my chin with one hand, so that the lamplight fell upon my face. His lips were curved with pity. ‘Just remember, that ah’m always around if you want me,’ he said softly. His arm dropped to his side and he turned to go. ‘Good night, Peggie, luv.’
‘Good night, Jamie – I’m truly sorry.’
He looked back at me as I stood by the gate: ‘Ah told thee – dawn’t fret,’ he called as he limped into the darkness.
I knew I had hurt badly someone who loved me very much, and as I climbed the front steps I reproached myself mercilessly for being so foolish as to see so much of him when I had no intention of marrying him.
I let myself in. Everybody was in bed, and only the tick of the grandfather clock broke the quietness. On the bottom step of the staircase lay Tomkins, our cat, and I sat down by him and scratched his ears. He stood up, stretched, and leaped up on to my shoulder, to rub himself against my neck. The house seemed so peaceful, so normal, just as it had been since I was a little girl. Only the little girl had grown and changed into a disheartened woman.
I burst into tears, and Tomkins fled up the stairs.
A door opened and Angela leaned over the banisters.
‘What’s the matter, Peg?’
‘Nothing much,’ I whispered, ‘I am all right,’ and I picked up my handbag and went slowly up the stairs.
Angela was standing in a shaft of light from her bedroom, fairylike in a nylon nightgown, her fair hair tumbling about her shoulders. She looked tired, however, as if she had not slept well for a long time.
I smiled wanly at her and she followed me into my bedroom.
‘You look tired,’ I said.
‘Me? Oh, I am blooming. I never did sleep much.’
‘Go to bed now – there’s nothing the matter with me – I’m just grizzling – it was nice of you to come, though.’ I caught her by the shoulders and kissed her impulsively. ‘You’re a darling, Angela,’ I said.
‘Am I?’ Her lips were tight across her teeth in a wry smile.
‘Of course you are. Now go to bed and don’t worry about me.’
A look of weariness crossed her face. She seemed suddenly much older.
‘Sure you’re all right? No more tears?’
‘No.’
‘I’ll go then. Nighty-night.’ And she trailed across the passage to her own room and quietly shut the door.
I switched on the electric fire, undressed in front of it and then went to the dressing-table to take the pins from my hair. Although I was shivering a little from the clammy coldness of the big room, I paused to look at the shadowy reflection in the mirror.
My hair fell thick and brown to my waist. I lacked the courage to bleach it golden as Angela did. Large hazel eyes peered anxiously between the tousled locks.
‘You are abominably average,’ I addressed myself. ‘Stock size figure and long legs included.’ I peered closer. ‘What on earth can a man see in that?’
Tomkins meowed at my feet and I bent to stroke him.
‘Tomkins,’ I said, ‘if I was half as beautiful as Angela, I would have married a king – and he would not have had to be killed,’ I added sharply.
Why, I wondered idly, as I got into bed, had Angela not married? She must meet many scientists in the course of her work – but science is not a lucrative profession, I reminded myself, and Angela is distinctively expensive-looking.
Tomkins heaved himself on to the bed and settled down in the curve of my knees.
‘Tomkins,’ I said, ‘you’d better have some kittens to keep Angela and me company when we grow old – because it doesn’t look as if either of us is destined for matrimony.’
I turned over and Tomkins meowed protestingly, as if to say that he would if he could.
‘Well, find yourself a pretty lady pussy,’ I said drowsily, and fell asleep.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_573a4239-fb93-525a-9a77-5536ee7ad5c7)
I was still puzzling about Bessie and the Negroes as I walked swiftly through the badly-lit streets, to keep my appointment at 42 Belfrey Street. I felt a subdued excitement at the thought of seeing her again – after all, Bessie belonged to that part of my life which had been sunlit and full of hope, when the war was still a long way off in places like Poland and Norway.
I had been unable to remember what kind of a club the McShane was, but the moment I walked through its swing doors and a gust of conversation swept round me, I wondered how I could have forgotten.
Angus McShane, a native of Wetherport and a great believer in the excellence of British culture, had at his death asked that his considerable fortune be used to build a club for the purpose of propagating British ideas amongst foreign visitors to Britain.
The City Council, faced with all the difficulties inherent in ruling a port full of foreigners of every nationality, had supported the idea, and the result was a suite of pleasantly furnished rooms in the middle of the city, where foreign visitors and students could entertain their friends and also make friends with English people. Dances were held; English was taught; a canteen dispensed English food – and confirmed the opinion of its customers, that the British were the world’s worst cooks; a library held an assortment of donated books ranging from classics to the latest Ernest Hemingway and the newest magazines; and the lounge into which I walked that autumn evening seemed to contain a representative from every country in the world – and they were nearly all men.
Shyness swept over me and I hesitated, while the doors behind me made a steady plopping sound as they swung back and forth. Four men in American-cut suits stood near me. They were coffee-skinned, and I could feel their eyes looking me over. Their gaze was not insolent and they seemed to approve of me, for they sighed softly as I passed. Two Negroes sitting near bowed their heads self-consciously over a magazine as my skirt brushed the small table in front of them. They made me feel thoroughly womanly, and I enjoyed the change from being Miss Margaret Delaney, the lady from the Welfare.
A white-haired lady was sitting by one of the two fires that blazed in the room, and she was playing chess with a young Chinese. As I looked round, she cried, ‘Checkmate,’ triumphantly, and her opponent’s eyes vanished into slits as he laughed.
‘Excellent play, most excellent,’ he said.
The lady looked up and saw me and I went to her, and asked where Mrs Forbes could be found.
‘She is probably in her office on the floor above.’ The voice was quiet and cultured.
The Chinese bowed slightly: ‘Permit me to take the lady up,’ he said.
His opponent smiled graciously and said that Dr Wu would be pleased to direct me.
Dr Wu rose and bowed to me: ‘Come this way,’ he said.
He led me out of the lounge and up a flight of stairs to a series of offices.
‘This is your first visit here?’ he inquired, his eyes twinkling behind rimless spectacles and his hands making neat, small gestures to guide me along the passage.
‘Yes, it is.’
‘I trust that we may have the pleasure of seeing you here again,’ he said, as he knocked at the door. He bowed again and left me, as Bessie called, ‘Come in.’
‘My deah,’ said Bessie, ‘I’m delighted to see you. Sit down and have a cigarette.’
Bessie, out of uniform, had more charm than most women. That evening she was wearing a pink cardigan that gave colour to her naturally pale complexion. Her dark hair was brushed up in a Pompadour style. As she lit my cigarette I tried to imagine her drilling on a parade ground, but failed hopelessly. The determination and discipline which had lain under her uniform was still with her, however, as I was soon to find out.
‘Bessie, what are you doing here?’
‘I’m the Entertainment Secretary – it’s my job to see that visitors here enjoy themselves.’
I nodded. That explained the Nigerian chieftains at the theatre.
‘Do you like it?’
