Now the War Is Over (29 page)

In the almost four years since Cissy’s marriage, Melly had only been over there a handful of times. Cissy, who was a lady of leisure, preferred to come back into Birmingham to see her
friends and family and have a good look round the shops. Rather to Melly’s surprise she never gave the least hint of being unhappy out in her Warwickshire lap of luxury.

‘I’ll come on the train,’ Melly said. ‘Would Teddy be able to . . . ?’ On previous visits, Teddy had either come to Coventry station in his sleek car, smelling
inside of leather and Teddy’s expensive cigarettes, or they had urged her to summon a taxi for which they would pay.

‘Teddy’ll be at the golf club,’ Cissy said. ‘But don’t you worry – you stay at Coventry station and I’ll come and pick you up. Teddy’s bought me a
little runabout.’

‘You’ve learned to drive?’ Melly said, finding this hard to imagine.

‘Yes.’ She heard Cissy’s infectious giggle down the phone. ‘I took the test four times – but now I’m safe to be let out on the road!’

Coventry railway station was a building site. Amid all the racket of banging and rumbling machinery, she waited for Cissy. When she saw a very shiny cream, open-topped sports
car come shooting towards her, driven by a woman with blonde-white hair tucked under a red-and-white floral scarf and scarlet lipstick, she was still looking for someone else. But the car braked
alongside her and the woman leaned over the passenger seat and flung open the passenger door.

‘Here we are – hop in!’

Only then did she recognize Cissy’s face.

‘God, Ciss!’ She hurried into the car, Cissy revving off as she shut the door. ‘I’d never’ve recognized you!’

Cissy grinned at her. She was wearing a crisp cotton frock in bright red and white candy-stripes, and on the foot pedals Melly could just make out white, very high-heeled shoes. Cissy seemed
plumper, her bare arms fleshy, creamier looking. There was a little wad of flesh under her chin. All in all she was looking mighty pleased with herself. Melly smiled back, with a rush of
fondness.

‘D’you like the look?’ Cissy said.

‘Oh, yes – you look like a film star!’ Melly said. And she did.

‘Well, I’d never get away with this lipstick with my real colour,’ Cissy said. She patted the silk scarf covering her hair. ‘And Teddy loves it.’

‘Gentlemen prefer blondes,’ Melly said and Cissy giggled. ‘And this car’s yours?’

‘Teddy bought it for me – early present for my twenty-first!’ Cissy shouted back. ‘It’s the new Daimler. Course, Teddy likes a go in it as well. But he’s got
his Jags.’

Melly nodded. Teddy seemed to her an old man of tweed and leather and smoke, while at the same time childish, a boy no older than Cissy.

‘So how’re you, littl’un?’ Cissy yelled as they roared out of Coventry.

‘All right,’ Melly said. She didn’t want to go into any detail while she was having to shout over the buffeting air as Cissy tore along. They were out of the city and in green
lanes between hedges and fields; cows swishing their tails back and forth.

Soon, Cissy turned into the drive of Rawson House, the white, four-square building with four acres of land stretching around it which, to everyone’s continuing astonishment, was her
marital home.

‘Teddy said he’s sorry not to see you,’ Cissy said as she braked at the front of the house. A twisting wisteria, all mauve bells of bloom, stretched itself across it.

‘Not to worry,’ Melly said. She didn’t mind not seeing Teddy, though he was affable enough. She had spent a long time at the beginning looking for something suspicious about
him, some dark motive in him for marrying a girl like Cissy, so many years his junior, who he had plucked out of the city. But she could not find one. Teddy just plain adored Cissy. In fact, he
seemed to be happy with his monied life, his bits of work in the firm here and there, his golf, his passion for model aeroplanes and good cigars – and a pretty wife on his arm. There was
really no more to him than that.

Melly had waited for Cissy to get bored with titivating the house and herself. Everyone had almost given up speculating about when they were going to have a baby. But Cissy did not seem bored.
She was just like Teddy, Melly realized. They were made for each other. It also made her see how much more she wanted herself – a life with more challenge and things to do.

Cissy climbed slowly out of the car. Melly, who had nipped out in her lithe way, thought, my, she’s turning into a middle-aged woman.

Cissy led her through the front door, into the capacious hallway, its parquet floor covered by modern rugs in bold blocks of reds and green, its mock-antique furniture. The panelled walls were
hung with paintings of ships and aeroplanes, all modern and in bright colours. Melly looked at them and thought, as she had thought every time she visited, well, I wouldn’t want them on
my
walls.

‘He’s got a new one, I see.’ She pointed at a picture high up, above another painting.

‘Oh, yes,’ Cissy said fondly. She pulled the scarf off, turned to a little ornate framed mirror on the wall and patted her blonde hair which curled up at the ends. ‘His
Spitfire. He loves it. Anyway – come and see the kitchen. Mrs Rogers isn’t here today, so I’ll make you some dinner. Soup all right?’

‘Yes,’ Melly smiled, knowing how hopeless Cissy was in the kitchen. She had never much liked cooking, or any work. Now that she had a housekeeper and several gardeners to tend to all
the land that Teddy owned, she could sink back happily and not bother.

Melly followed Cissy, with her white high heels clicking along the floor. She felt rather drab in her blue-and-white floral dress, compared with Cissy’s bright, striped one. But she had
always felt drab in comparison with Cissy. She minded a lot less now. She liked her own life.

‘Oh!’ she exclaimed as they went into the large kitchen. ‘Blimey, Ciss – this is different!’

The old-fashioned kitchen and range had been swept away. She had never seen a kitchen like this one! At home they had old handmade wooden cupboards and the white sideboard with the flap that
came down. Mom did have a refrigerator, though, which was quite something. The Morrisons had a lovely big kitchen in Moseley, but it was cosy and old-fashioned with a big scrubbed table and all
Dolly’s pans hanging from hooks. The only other kitchens she knew were the old house in Aston and the kitchen in the nurses’ home, with its tiled floor and big black range.

What she saw now was an array of cupboards fitted all around the walls, some high up and all with sugar-pink doors. The window curtains and even the cooker were pink. There was a small table in
the middle with a pink-and-white checked cloth and at one side, beneath a row of overhead cupboards, a strip of bright white surface, with two white plastic chairs on moulded stems, almost like
wine glasses, pushed underneath.

‘D’you like our breakfast bar?’ Cissy giggled, pointing. ‘It’s the new thing. We love it!’

‘It’s . . .’ Melly could hardly take it in. ‘It’s ever so modern, Ciss!’

‘But d’you
like
it?’ Cissy pressed her, her hands clasped together. ‘I said to Teddy that if it was going to be a colour it had to be pink.’

‘Yes – it’s lovely!’ Melly said, almost truthfully, though privately thinking it was a good thing Cissy had dyed her hair blonde instead of ginger. Her scarlet clothes
were an eye-aching enough clash.

Cissy rummaged in one of the cupboards and pulled out two tins of Campbell’s soup concentrate.

‘Here we are – chicken or mushroom?’

Melly was almost too hungry to care either way. She seemed to have an enormous appetite ever since she started nursing. ‘Mushroom, please,’ she said.

‘We can eat in the dining room,’ Cissy said, laughing in her good-natured way. ‘Sorry I haven’t got anything better. Mrs Rogers does so much I still haven’t learned
to cook.’

‘Never mind, Ciss,’ Melly said. ‘I s’pose we can’t all be beautiful
and
practical.’

The dining room, at the back of the large Edwardian house, had deep red flock-patterned wallpaper and glass doors opening out to the garden, its beds at present blooming with
flowers.

‘I’ll open the door,’ Cissy said, laying two places at the end of the long, mahogany dining table which would seat at least twenty guests. There was a silver candelabra in the
middle of the table and glass-fronted cabinets arranged at the edge of the room full of porcelain and china ornaments.

Goodness, Melly thought. I’d be afraid to move in here.

A quiet lay over the place, except for a banging every now and then, as if someone was knocking in a post somewhere in the distance. The faint buzz of bees and scent of flowers came in on the
breeze. Cissy left the room and Melly looked out at the carefully arranged beds of roses and other beautiful flowers which she could not name in white and pale mauve, pink and blue. What a lovely
place it was!

Cissy returned with half a loaf of bread, a pat of butter and a lump of what looked rather mousetrap sort of cheese.

‘I thought there was some better stuff but I can’t find anything,’ Cissy said. She sank down at the table as if exhausted. ‘Hop in and pour the soup for us, will you?
It’s bubbling.’

Melly brought the greyish soup in and set the bowls in their places on the white cloth Cissy had laid at their end of the table.

‘You all right, Ciss?’ she asked as she sat down. Cissy was looking rather pale suddenly.

‘I will be, when I’ve had a bit to eat,’ Cissy said. She looked up coyly at Melly. ‘I haven’t told you my news – and you haven’t even noticed.
Look!’

Pushing her chair back she stood up and smoothed the soft material of her dress close down over her belly. Only then, Melly noticed the round bulge of it. She looked at Cissy, who was beaming at
her.

‘I’m getting on for five months!’

‘Oh, Ciss – that’s lovely!’ To Melly’s surprise she found tears in her eyes. ‘Have you told Nanna Peggy?’

‘Not yet. I wanted to be really sure, you know . . .’

‘Well, I’m happy for you,’ Melly said. ‘You know, we all began to wonder, with Teddy being so much older and . . .’ She stopped, realizing how tactless she was
being.

‘These things can take time,’ Cissy said. She blushed, looking down into her soup.

‘Sorry, Ciss.’ Melly reached to touch her arm. ‘I didn’t mean to be nosey. The main thing is, the baby’s on the way! I’m so glad for you.’

‘I can’t wait!’ Cissy beamed, before taking a ravenous bite of bread, thickly buttered.

They both ate hungrily and talked about the baby and how Cissy and Teddy were having a room decorated and Cissy was buying clothes and a cot and everything new.

‘Gladys’ll be knitting for you as soon as she knows,’ Melly said. ‘Or finding all sorts of stuff for you off the market.’

‘Ah, yes,’ Cissy said, looking a bit pained. ‘I suppose she will. I’m not sure that . . .’

‘Don’t offend her,’ Melly said. ‘She loves babies and she’s known you since you were knee high. Just take what she gives you and say thanks – she won’t
know if you use it much, will she?’

‘Yes – course.’ Cissy smiled. ‘Dear old Auntie. How is she? How’s everyone?’

‘She’s all right, I think,’ Melly said, sawing off another slice of the soft white bread. ‘Says she’s stiff these days. She’s hanging on in Alma Street still
– they haven’t knocked the old place down yet, but it’s sure to happen. She’s putting a brave face on it all. She said Stanley Gittins’s got bad, though. Lil’s
barely managing. But I don’t see much of anyone at the moment.’

‘Of course!’ Cissy gasped. ‘You’re doing your . . . Being a nurse! Oh, what’s it like? Ooh, I could never do what they do.’

Melly, glad to be asked, was just launching into a description of her life in Selly Oak when, from the garden, a voice, moving closer, called out low and teasing:

‘Hello-o-o? Hello there – Miss Cissy. Where’s my little pumpkin got to then?’

It was a deep male voice, with a strong country accent.

Cissy dropped her spoon, splashing soup on the cloth, and dashed to the door.

Melly saw a tall, robust-looking man, dressed in working clothes and a rather crushed brown trilby hat, appear close to the doors. His face, so far as she could see, had a ruddy, healthy look to
it. Cissy, hurrying down the step to the garden, went over on one of the high heels and had to recover herself. The man caught her as she staggered forward.

‘Eh – careful with yourself, my lovely!’ he said. ‘Don’t want our little Petey coming a cropper, do we?’

‘For God’s
sake
,’ Melly heard Cissy hiss at him. Her lips moved closer to the man’s ear and she added something else that Melly could not hear. A second later
the two of them parted and Cissy came back in. She was making obvious attempts to look nonchalant, but her hair was rumpled by her tripping and she looked flushed and tense.

‘
Really
,’ she said crossly, sitting back down. With both hands she tried to settle her hair again. ‘Sometimes having staff is more trouble than not!’

‘Oh, dear,’ Melly said, not sure what else to say. She was not yet thinking very clearly, except that what she had just seen happen seemed mighty odd. She just looked at Cissy.

Instead of carrying on eating, Cissy put her hands in her lap and hung her head.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ she said.

‘Do you?’ Melly said. She wasn’t sure what she was thinking herself.

‘He’s . . .’ She looked up with a kind of desperate defiance. ‘He’s the same colouring as Teddy, almost exactly. Teddy’ll never know. He can’t, you see.
Can’t seem to give me a baby, and . . .’ She put her hand over her face for a moment, and then drew it away again. ‘But now he thinks he can. That it can just take that long.
He’s so
pleased
. It’s made him younger again just thinking of it.’

Melly stared at her, the pieces of this puzzle only just beginning to join up in her head.

Cissy leaned towards her in deep earnestness. ‘You won’t say anything, will you?
Please
, Melly.’

Melly was reeling with astonishment. She had still had so little to do with men that all this felt beyond her. This lie of Cissy’s – such a big, awful lie. And then she thought, what
would happen if Teddy knew, if everyone knew? Would it help, or make anything better? She looked at Cissy’s pleading face. What on earth other answer could she give? It wasn’t her
business to interfere.