Confusion: Cazalet Chronicles Book 3 (9 page)

But all through the morning Archie seemed to be in both our minds, because we kept referring to him – or rather, I think it was mostly Poll: she kept saying things like how did he have dinner every night as he didn’t have a cook, and what did he do at weekends when he didn’t come down to our house, and wondering what he did when he went to the Admiralty. All things she could have asked him herself, as I pointed out to her. She didn’t answer.

The shopping wasn’t a success. Galeries Lafayette didn’t have anything we wanted; a shop called Huppert at the bottom of Regent’s Street had a very pretty pink silk blouse that Polly longed for, but it was six pounds, ‘an astronomical sum for something that would only dress half of you!’ she said sadly. I offered to lend her half the money, but she said better not, better to save the money for when we were living in London. We decided to walk to Uncle Hugh’s club which faced Green Park. It was an interesting walk – past a bombed church and a very grand-looking bookshop and then Fortnum and Mason. There was ragwort and loosestrife growing out of bits of the church as well as on the ground. We were rather early for lunch so Poll said why didn’t we go and sit in the park opposite and we could decide how to tackle her father at lunch about us living in London. But I said I wanted to go into the Ritz because it was the poshest hotel and I’d never been inside it. ‘I’ll just go to the lav,’ I said, ‘and if they don’t seem to like me just doing that, I might have a gin and lime.’

Poll was simply terrified by the idea and it made her angry. ‘It’s stupid,’ she said. ‘People don’t just walk into hotels—’

‘Yes, they do! It’s what they’re for!’

‘
Unless
they are going to stay in them.
Please
don’t. I beg you not to.’

So I didn’t. Instead, we went and sat in Green Park and, after a bit of not talking, talked about how we could get our house. I said I thought it might be a good idea if Polly said she wanted to go to an art school, as the very word school seems to have a reassuring influence on the nervy grown-ups. Polly said the worst hurdle was if Uncle Hugh wanted us to live in his house with him and Uncle Edward.

Oh, well. We had a delicious lunch – crab salads and a wine called Leebfrowmilk, German, so of course I can’t spell it; Uncle Hugh said it was a hock, whatever that may mean. He was very nice and treated us in a totally grown-up way
until
it came to us having a house whereupon he became all slippery and we’ll-seeish, which in both our vast experience of this behaviour usually means no. He did say how lovely it would be for him if we lived in his house, and I could see Polly weakening which weakened me, because after all he
is
her father, and if Dad made the same proposition to me, of course I’d live with him. Of course I would. Only it wouldn’t be the same, of course, because there would be Zoë. Perhaps she would stay in the country with Jules, and then it could be just Dad and me. And then Archie could come and live with us . . .

But for me to stay (with Polly) in Uncle Hugh’s house will not be like that, and will certainly curtail our freedom, as I pointed out to Polly going back in the train. She said we’d have to see – a thoroughly Middle-Aged Remark – lamb talking mutton, I said to her, and she had to agree. But she said we could lobby some of the others although I haven’t much hope of that producing the desired result: Aunt Villy is rather
snappy
these days, and Aunt Rach doesn’t ever seem to think things should be done because they might be
fun
, and Zoë has no real influence over anyone excepting Jules and that poor RAF man who is in love with her, if you ask me. And the Duchy – she can’t help being old-fashioned as she is so old – thinks we don’t need to go anywhere or do anything.

I don’t plan to have any children, but if by some chance I do, there are some resolutions I shall make. No M.A.R.s like ‘we’ll see’, ‘it depends’ or ‘all in good time’. And
no
subjects that can’t be talked about, and I shall
encourage
them to have adventures.

She read over what she had written to see whether it was right to put into the journal she was writing for Dad. Most of it was. She left out some of the bits about her and Polly and Archie, and the bit about living with him in his house, but Zoë being also there. Instead, she put in bits about the family, so that he would know as much as possible what had happened to them.

Ellen [she wrote] is getting pretty old. I suppose rheumatism makes people seem older than their years, and I don’t know what Ellen’s years are because she says it is none of my business, but she is very creaky and all the yellowish bits of her hair have gone, and it is now a sort of foggish white. Also, she has specs that Aunt Villy took her into Hastings to get, but she does not like wearing them except for sewing. She does look after Wills and Roly and Jules a lot of the time but Eileen helps her with the ironing because her legs won’t stand it, she says. On her day off, she tends to put her feet up – not a very day-offish sort of thing to do. It must be fearful getting really old; it’s extraordinary to think that we’re doing that all the time without actually noticing. I wonder how much I have changed in two years since you last saw me, Dad. I mean, except for getting taller – I am half an inch at least taller than Zoë – I don’t feel to myself to have changed much. I did have my hair permed last week, because Polly was having hers done and she thought it might make mine more interesting. It hasn’t, at all. Instead of being straight as well as an extremely boring dark brown colour, it turned into sort of ghastly wiry waves that ended in fainting corkscrews, and every time I washed it, I had to wind those awful curlers that are made of something like lead encased in dark brown stocking stuff that hurt and dig into your head whichever way you lie in bed. So I got the hairdressing lady in Battle to cut it all off. She had to cut it quite short all over my head so now I look a bit like a golliwog as it sticks up everywhere. I don’t seem to suit the ladylike things. Make-up, for instance. Polly, who is
immensely
pretty, now looks terrifically glamorous if she puts on eyeshadow and mascara and lipstick and stuff. I look idiotic. The mascara goes straight into my eyes and then they water and it runs down my face and the eyeshadow gets into that crease of my eyelid and I can’t keep lipstick on for a second. Polly says you open your mouth and sort of pop the food in like a letterbox, but I forget. And powder seems to make my nose shinier in a luminous way. I think I’ll just have to be like Aunt Rach and not wear any. So, Dad, in spite of that loony remark you made about me being beautiful – that day when we were getting water from the spring – I’m afraid I’m not turning out like that. I’m not like Polly. I was just about to write that she seems to be getting over her mother’s death, but it seems a meaningless phrase to me. I don’t think people ever
get over
something as terrible as that; it just slowly stops being the only or main thing in their mind, but when they remember it, they
feel
the same. Of course, what it amounts to is that I don’t know what she is feeling because of not being her. But this is what makes people so interesting, don’t you think, Dad? Most of the time one hasn’t the slightest idea what other people are feeling, and sometimes one has the slightest idea, and I suppose, occasionally, one actually knows. Miss Milliment, with whom I have discussed this point, says that morality, or principles of one kind or another, are what is supposed to hold us all together, but they don’t, do they? There was a huge air raid on a German city called Cologne last month (we are bombing the Germans all the time now, but this was an especially large raid with a thousand bombers and people were quite pleased and bloodthirsty about it). But either killing people is wrong or it isn’t. I don’t see how you can start making exceptions to that sort of rule – you might as well say that it isn’t wrong, after all. I do find it terribly confusing. I do talk to Archie about this sort of thing when I am alone with him, but, of course, when we went to London and stayed with him, I never was. Polly
hates
talking about the war, she gets upset and keeps going off the track – like pointing out all the people we know who
wouldn’t
kill people. When Archie came down for a weekend in the Easter holidays there had been a raid on a place in France called St Nazaire – not so far from where
you
were, Dad, when you wrote me your love – and I felt he was very sad about something, and in the end he told me. They rammed this destroyer against the lock gates and so, of course, they couldn’t get away from the Germans and they had mined the ship so that it would blow up at a certain time, and they invited many German officers on board for a drink before they were to be taken prisoner (the English, I mean – goodness! writing can be tricky) and so of course dozens of the Germans got blown up with the English. Archie knew one of them. Hardly anyone got away. Think of them all pouring out gins and being jolly and counting the minutes till they knew there would be the explosion. Archie said it was a kind of courage that made him feel very small. He says the Germans are just as brave – there’s no difference, really. I can believe that because I’ve been reading a very good, awful book called
All Quiet on the Western Front
which is about the First World War from the Germans’ point of view. You would have thought, wouldn’t you, that after so many people
knew
how awful and revolting and frightening war is that they’d agree not to have any more, but I suppose only a minority read books like that and the others get old and people don’t believe them. Don’t you think there is something quite wrong about our life span? If we lived for 150 years and didn’t get too old for the first hundred, then there would be time for people to get sensible before they got like Lady Rydal or just too set in their bad, old ways.

Oh, Dad, I can’t help wishing you could say things back to me. Sometimes I feel that. Naturally I would rather you were at home and going to the office and coming down on Fridays and making jokes. The latter are rather few and far between these days. That’s because you were always the funniest.
Are
. . .

This was getting out of hand, she thought. If Dad reads this when he comes back, I don’t want him to feel I’m
anguished
or anything.

Here she stopped altogether, because she found she was crying.

THE FAMILY

Late Summer–Autumn 1942

‘Good Lord! Bit young, isn’t she?’

‘She’s nineteen.’

‘He’s a lot older, though, isn’t he?’

‘Thirty-three. Old enough to keep her on an even keel.’

‘Do you like him?’

‘Hardly
know
him. I’m going down to Portsmouth tonight to discuss things. Sorry I can’t dine with you, old boy, but he’s going to sea again tomorrow and it’s the only chance for us to meet.’

‘That’s all right. Of course I understand. Good luck. Will you be back in time for the meeting with the Board of Trade? Because I’d quite like it if—’

‘I’ll be back. Two thirty, isn’t it? I’ll be back in time to have a bite with you first.’

‘Fine. Come to my club. Then we can walk to the meeting.’

‘Darling, how too too thrilling! Of course you must let me make the dress. She’d look divine in lace and luckily one doesn’t need coupons for it. When is it to be?’

‘Rather soon. In four weeks, actually. He has some leave then, so it seemed sensible. Could I stay a night with you? I’ve got to meet the in-laws to make some plans and I’m slightly dreading it.’

‘Are they not pleased?’

‘They
seem
pleased. I said I thought she was a bit young, but Lady Zinnia seemed to think that was a good thing.’

‘She must be in favour, darling, I’m sure of that.’

‘Why?’

‘It wouldn’t be happening if she wasn’t.’

‘Oh.’

‘She utterly adores Michael.
He’s
angelic – you’ll love him.’

‘Well, of course I’ve
met
him. He’s been down to stay once or twice.’

‘No, I mean the Judge, Peter Storey. Her husband. I used to know him years ago. He’s a charmer. When do you want to come?’

‘As soon as you can have me. There’s going to be so much to do.’

‘You are happy about it, aren’t you? I can’t help feeling a bit responsible as I introduced them.’