Marking Time (36 page)

By the time she had found an envelope and addressed it, read the letter to him and packed it up, a nurse arrived with a tray on which there was a plate of sandwiches and two cups of tea.
‘Matron said you were giving him his tea. There’s a straw for his drink,’ she said. ‘Are you quite comfortable?’

‘I’m fine, Nurse. How are you?’

‘Mustn’t complain,’ she answered. She had put the tray on his bedside cabinet and attended to his pillows, the ones behind his head, and one which supported his left arm.
‘No more dressings?’ he said, and Zoë caught a note of barely concealed apprehension.

‘Not tonight,’ she said. ‘We’re letting you off tonight. I’ll be back for the tray. Call if you want anything.’

She would have to feed him, Zoë thought, and began to feel anxious about how it should be done. She put the straw in his tea cup.

‘It’ll be too hot,’ he said. ‘I can’t drink it hot.’

The sandwiches were quite thin with the crusts cut off. She drew up her chair nearer the bed, picked one up and held it to his mouth. He tried to take a bite, but she realised that he could
hardly open his mouth and that it hurt him, so she broke off a small piece and pushed it in. ‘Bit of a crock, aren’t I?’ he said.

‘An awful crock.’

‘When you smile you remind me of someone. A film actress.’ He seemed just to have held the food in his mouth, but now he swallowed – she saw the movement in his smooth bony
throat. ‘Live near here, do you?’

‘Yes. Just up the road.’

‘I see you’re married.’

‘Yes.’ There was a pause, then she said, ‘He was in the Navy.’

A heavy splinted arm came clumsily down against hers. ‘Rough luck,’ he said, and she could see the left side of his face blushing. ‘ ’Fraid I can’t lift my
arm,’ he said. She put down the sandwich and lifted it carefully back onto its pillow. While she fed him the rest of the sandwich, she told him about Juliet, and he was courteous, but not
really interested. She asked him if he had brothers and sisters, and he said, no, he was the only one. He’d had a younger brother, but he’d died of diphtheria when he was eight. He
asked her to eat some of the sandwiches because he wasn’t up to more than one and they kept on at him about eating. She gave him his tea, holding the cup while he sucked from the straw.
‘I like a nice cup of tea,’ he said.

When he’d finished, she said, ‘I suppose you can’t read with your arms like that.’

‘I couldn’t, anyway. My eye’s not much cop for reading.’

‘I could bring you a book and read it, if you like?’

‘I would,’ he said. ‘Something light.’

‘It’s very kind of you,’ he said stiffly when it was time for her to go. He said it almost grudgingly and as though he did not like her. But when she was at the door and
smiling in farewell, he said, ‘Vivien Leigh! That’s who you remind me of! You know.
Waterloo Bridge
. I saw it three times. Could you ask the nurse to come, please?’

Gradually, after that first time, she learned more about him, but chiefly from Matron. He’d got his plane back on one engine, but there’d been a fire in the cockpit and he’d
broken his leg getting out. ‘He got a DFC for it,’ she said: he’d shot down three planes that day. He had terrible nightmares. He was twenty and he’d only been flying a
month apart from his training. When she asked whether they would be able to patch up his face any more, Matron had said that they probably would, but his arms and especially his hands were so
terribly burned that they weren’t sure what was going to happen about them. Then she had looked at Zoë and said, ‘He’s not the worst. He’s not even the worst here. And
we don’t
get
the
very
worst cases. They keep them at Godalming.’ She had given Zoë a quick little pat on the shoulder, and said, ‘You’re doing a good
job with him. Just remember he’s still in shock. Apart from his crash, the shock element from burns is one of the worst things he has to contend with. How’s the baby?’ She always
asked after Juliet, and one afternoon, when it was Ellen’s day off, Zoë took her down to Mill Farm to show to Matron and the nurses, and a lot of very satisfactory baby worship went on,
with everybody wanting to hold her and saying how lovely she was. But when they suggested she take Juliet up to show her to Pilot-Officer Bateson she said she didn’t think it would be a good
idea and they did not press her, although what she actually did turned out to be worse. She left Juliet with Matron, who said she was writing reports and could easily keep an eye on her, while she
went to say hallo to Roddy. She had been reading Sherlock Holmes stories – having tried P. G. Wodehouse which he said made him laugh and laughing hurt too much. She told him that she could
only stay ten minutes. This upset him, and when she explained that it was because she had the baby with her he closed up completely. She offered to start a story, and he said he wasn’t
feeling like one and an awkward silence ensued. ‘You can’t read much in ten minutes,’ he said after a bit. She said she was sorry, but it was the nanny’s day off. He had
turned his face away from her so that only the burned side showed. ‘I’m tired anyhow,’ he said. ‘I’m sick and tired of the whole thing.’

She got up from the chair and said she would come tomorrow.

‘Please yourself,’ he answered. When she was at the door, he said, ‘Bit posh having a nanny, isn’t it?’

‘I don’t really. She just helps me sometimes which means I can come and see you.’ She felt quite angry when she said it, and afterwards was afraid that it had showed.

But a couple of days later there was a small parcel on her chair. ‘Open it,’ he said. He looked more animated than usual. ‘Go on!’

It was a toy: a small white monkey with pink felt ears and a tail. ‘It’s for your baby,’ he said. ‘I got one of the nurses to choose it. She said it was the best she
could find.’

‘It’s lovely. She’ll love it. Thank you, Roddy, it really is kind of you.’ On impulse, she went over and kissed him, very lightly, on the crimson, glistening skin. He
drew a deep, gasping sigh and she was afraid she had hurt him, but after a moment he said huskily, ‘You’re the first person to kiss me – since—’ and tears began to
slide out of his eye, slowly at first and then more and more. She found her handkerchief and mopped him up, held it for him to try to blow his nose. That was when he told her about Ruth – his
girl; they hadn’t known each other very long – met in a dance hall; she was a lovely dancer and had hair like Ginger Rogers. They met twice a week, once for the cinema, and once to go
dancing. ‘Used to,’ he said wearily. She had written him a letter saying she wanted to come and see him when he was at Godalming, but he hadn’t answered it. ‘I don’t
want her to see me,’ he said. And Zoë, who had learned some things during these weeks, had not argued with him, just listened to the lot.

Then she went back to her chair, picking up the monkey, and said very casually that Matron had said they thought they would do more to his face. ‘And anyway,’ she finished,
‘people don’t love people just for their faces – or at least it’s awful if they do.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘I’ve been that sort of person. It makes you feel rotten in the end. You know. Like being loved just because you’ve got a lot of money.’

He thought about it. ‘All the same,’ he said, ‘that’s how it starts, isn’t it? You like the look of someone.’

‘And then you like other things about them. If there are things to like.’

‘A lot of men are after Ruth, though,’ he said. ‘She loves a good time – dancing and that. She’s only eighteen – much younger than me.’ After that,
Zoë spent at least as much time talking to him as reading aloud, which she recognised had been more a way of her dealing with their mutual shyness and embarrassment than anything else . .
.

Juliet was finished. She had fallen asleep on the second breast; it seemed a shame to wake her, but she had to be winded and then held over her pot, but as Ellen was not there she decided to
spare Juliet the pot.

Outside, she could hear car doors slamming, and went to see who had arrived. Two cars, one with Villy and one with her sister. Since going down to Mill Farm she had been getting on better with
Villy, but Sybil was really her favourite, and she thought then that when she came home, she would help look after her. There was a knock on the door, and Clary came in to borrow a skirt.

‘The thing is I seem to have got ink on that dress you made me. My beastly fountain pen which has leaked.’

‘I’ll just put Juliet down.’

‘Why don’t you call her Jules? You know – like Juliet’s nurse. “Thou wilt fall backwards when thou hast more wit,” although why falling back should be witty I
can’t think. I think Jules is a lovely name.
Jules
,’ she said lovingly, bending over the cot. The baby opened her eyes and gave her a fleeting smile. ‘You see?
She
likes it. Where did you get that sweet little monkey?’

‘One of the patients at Mill Farm got a nurse to buy it and gave it to me for her.’

‘Gosh! He must love you. Look at your monkey, Jules!’

‘She’s nearly asleep, Clary – better leave her. Let’s see what I can find you.’

Clary had grown a great deal in the last year and had pitifully few clothes. I ought to do what Sybil did for Polly, she thought, as she rummaged through her wardrobe. Meanwhile, she had several
things she could no longer get into – her waist was a good two inches larger. She pulled out a dark grey hopsack skirt cut in six gores that had used to fit round her hips like a glove.

‘Try that on.’

Clary got out of her shorts – they were torn, Zoë noticed, were pinned together at the waist with a safety pin – and stood in her faded yellow Aertex shirt and dark blue
knickers. ‘Better take my sandals off,’ she said. ‘One of them’s got a bit of tar on it that won’t come off except onto things.’

The skirt fitted her perfectly, although it was rather long. ‘I’ll take up the hem for you,’ she said, but Clary cried, ‘Oh no! I like it long.’

‘You need a nice shirt to go with it.’

‘This’ll do, won’t it?’

‘I don’t want it just to do, Clary, I want you to look beautiful.’

And Clary smiled, but she answered, ‘I’m afraid it’s rather an uphill wish.’

However, by the time Zoë had found a scarlet shirt, and brushed Clary’s hair and held it back from her forehead with two combs – she was still growing out her fringe – she
really looked striking, ‘like a photograph of a grown-up,’ she said, unexpectedly and unusually delighted with her appearance.

‘My shoes won’t fit you. What have you got?’

‘Only sandshoes, and lace-ups and these sandals. And wellingtons, of course. Couldn’t I just be in bare feet – like a romantic oil painting?’

‘You know the Duchy wouldn’t let you. It’ll have to be your sandals. But I promise you we’ll go shopping soon and get you some nice shoes. Look – you’d better
have these skirts as well. They’re exactly the same pattern and I can’t get into any of them.’

‘But you will when you’ve stopped feeding Jules, won’t you? You’ll get thin again all over, won’t you? I really think you should, Zoë. Thinness suited you. You
could do what Aunt Villy calls banting whatever that may mean.’

‘I don’t know if I want to bother. Why does it matter to you, anyway?’

‘It doesn’t exactly matter to
me
,’ Clary began, and then stopped: they had reached that brink beyond which Rupert lay dead – or alive – and both retreated
from it.

‘Polly plucked my eyebrows,’ Clary said quickly. ‘It hurt awfully, I must say.’

When Clary had gone, having gathered up her old and new clothes, thanking her more effusively than suited her natural manner, Zoë looked critically at herself in the mirror for the first
time since Juliet’s birth. She had clearly, as her mother would have said, ‘let herself go’. Not only her waist and hips had spread, but her stomach – she could feel it with
her hands – was still like chamois leather. She stepped nearer the mirror to examine her face. She still had her creamy skin, but the lower half had filled out so that she could see –
almost – the beginnings of a double chin. She was twenty-five, an age that, until she reached it, had seemed over the top; she must start doing exercises and stop eating snacks between meals.
Vivien Leigh, Roddy had said, but Zoë wore clothes that concealed her shape, and, anyway, she was sure he had meant her face. When he had said that he went dancing with his girl once a week,
and how she loved a good time and had a lot of men after her, she had fleetingly remembered how much she had used to love dancing and men wanting her, how it had all seemed like the most delicious
game where she chose what happened, she dispensed the favours, she accepted the sexual homage . . . Until Philip, when it had suddenly stopped being a game at all. And then the baby that was not
Rupert’s and had not lived. But even its death had not diminished her guilt, since that fed upon the continuous deception – chiefly with Rupert but also with the whole family –
that she was unhappy because their child had died and she was the only one who knew that this was a black lie. And then, last autumn, after the war had begun, when they were in London packing up
her mother’s flat in Earl’s Court (she had been invited to lodge with her friend in the Isle of Wight for the duration of the war), she had not wanted Rupert to help her, but he had
insisted (‘It’s too much for you on your own’). He had ordered tea chests into which they put the smaller objects that it was thought her mother would want to keep – the
furniture was to go into store, and the things to be thrown out or sold were piled on the sitting-room floor. The flat, as places do that have been deserted for some time, had the air of being only
one resentful step from actual squalor: the net curtains that hung at all the windows were so dirty that it looked as though there was a fog outside. Rupert tied some of them back to admit more
light, but this only disclosed the shabbiness of the fumed oak furniture and pink damask upholstered sofa, the indeterminate, shadowy stains on the pink fitted carpets, the broken elements in the
gas fires, the gnarled, discoloured parchment shades to the sconces, the dust that lay evenly on every surface – upon every photograph frame and ornament. She had packed her mother’s
clothes into cases that could be dispatched to her while Rupert dealt with the kitchen. He had to keep asking her whether things were to be kept or not – battered old aluminium saucepans, an
attenuated set of Susie Cooper china, fish knives with yellowing bone handles, a teapot in the shape of a thatched cottage and an embroidered linen bag that was full of crocheted egg cosies and
paper cutlet frills. ‘Extraordinary mixture!’ he had remarked while he was still trying to be cheerful. When he said things like that, she had snubbed him, had defended her mother:
there was nowhere for her to keep things – that sort of defence – until he had said, ‘Darling, I’m not getting at your poor mum: I mean – going through
anybody’s
things must be a bit like this.’