Part of the Furniture (15 page)

‘What they had was short, but as good as you’ll ever get. They were the happiest of young creatures—’

‘But she died when Evelyn was born—’

‘Soon after. They had a lot of love and a lot of laughter. She was old for her age.’

‘Perhaps being in love is ageing?’

Ann said, ‘I wouldn’t know. They were only seventeen.’

Juno said, ‘I am seventeen.’

‘And Evelyn was seventeen when he lied about his age to get into the war. Sir was already in it. Evelyn did not want to be left out—such a bitter waste.’

And it’s happening again, Juno thought, and as bitter as ever. ‘Did Bert go to the war, too?’

‘He got no further than Catterick, never was anywhere dangerous. It was Evelyn who was gassed, the filthy stuff, shredded his lungs. Bert came back healthier than when he left, and Sir wasn’t wounded.’

‘Poor Evelyn.’ Ann had loved him, known him from little baby to wheezy man. ‘I did not know him well,’ Juno said cautiously, ‘not really.’

‘Few people did, love. Now try this on, I didn’t know it was still here. Look, it will fit you, a bit loose but it’s a good fisherman’s jersey. They never wear out. It will be useful for work.’ Ann popped the jersey over Juno’s head, saying, ‘Good, it fits.’

Juno adjusted the jersey, watching herself in the glass. It was baggy but comfortable. ‘Did Sir, did Robert not want to marry again?’

Ann laughed. ‘Not so you’d notice, though there’s a few who tried to catch him.’

‘And Evelyn?’

‘Said it wouldn’t be fair on any girl to marry a man with rotting lungs. Did he not tell you?’ Ann looked sharply at Juno. ‘Still worried about your waist?’ For Juno was checking her waist with the tape, holding it up under the jersey. ‘It’s twenty-one, as I told you, must be our country air.’

But Juno was not listening. They had all been in the Murray’s house playing ridiculous games. It had been Christmas; there had been a prize for the smallest waist. Her mother’s had been twenty-four. She must write to her mother, get that letter off, explain that she was doing war work on a farm, give her the address, tell her not to worry, not to be anxious, explain why she would not come to Canada, how she wanted to stay in England. She would make it clear that it did not mean lack of love, impress that she was old enough to make up her own mind, quote Aunt Violet on war work—her mother disliked Aunt Violet—hope that she would be happy with Mr Sonntag, happy in Canada. Mr Sonntag’s waist had been huge, and so had Jonty’s and Francis’s fathers’. Juno remembered the laughter. Jonty and Francis had held their breath, tucked in their stomachs, pulled the tape tight; they were slender young men but neither could compare with hers. Their mothers, Susan and Margery, had declined to compete; their waists had thickened as her mother’s had not. Remembering their voices, Juno was suddenly consumed with rage. ‘She is only a child, she is not yet grown, she doesn’t count.’ Juno tasted bile. She had never counted, they were determined she should not; to them she was an incubus.

Ann said, ‘What’s the matter? Did I say something?’ Juno, recovering herself, said, ‘No, no, of course not, it’s nothing, I just thought, I just remembered something.’

Ann, looking quizzical, said they had done enough for the moment, and to come down to the kitchen for tea, then would Juno feed the hens and shut them in for the night against the foxes? And to keep the jersey on. And Juno said of course, and that she was happy that Bert was now teaching her how to separate cream and make butter and that while she was out she would fill the horses’ hay-bags and that the jersey was lovely and splendidly warm, while inside she was screaming, I am sick of being reminded. When shall I stop remembering? When shall I forget?

‘C
OME UP THE HILL
with me,’ Robert called, ‘we can see what’s going on from the top.’ He stood in the hall, humping himself into a coat. ‘Put your coat on, it will be bitter up there.’ He helped Juno into her coat, watched her pull on the woollen cap, then led the way out of the house and headed up the hill. ‘Even though there is nothing we can do—’ Robert left his sentence unfinished, then went on. ‘It’s impossible to sleep if one goes to bed with the war so near.’

For nights after the bombs had dropped near the farm, the raids on Plymouth had raged relentlessly.

In the kitchen Ann listened to the news on the wireless, turned the sound up for Lord Haw-Haw and jeered. From the hilltop Robert and Juno would see the sky glow red from the burning city, hear the anti-aircraft guns, watch the searchlights finger the sky.

Juno walked behind Robert up the steep path. He, knowing the way in the dark, zigzagged through the trees, ducking instinctively to avoid the hanging branches he had known all his life, and Juno aped his movements.

‘This hill was Emma’s and mine.’ Robert’s voice was angry. ‘Our sky was full of stars. Look at it now, streaked with death.’ His thoughts reverted to that magical summer when he and Emma shed their childhood, learned to kiss, to touch, make love.

Juno said, ‘Tell me about Emma.’ She hurried behind Robert, ducking when he ducked. ‘Tell me,’ she said, keeping pace.

The texture of Emma’s skin, the taste of her spit, the flavour of sex; Robert thought back to a period of such transcendent happiness that every joy and sorrow that came later was paid for in advance. Could he possibly tell this strange girl? Perhaps, if he tried, she would speak of Evelyn?

‘We were happy,’ he said. ‘We were in love. We made Evelyn.’ He had his back to the girl; what he said sounded inadequate. She did not respond.

They reached the top and stood above the tree line; there was a view for miles. Robert thought, she is so young, but we were too. How can I tell what she has learned? How can I get her to speak? Should I even try? He noticed that she was out of breath. He had walked fast. He looked east towards Plymouth. At the foot of the cliff the sea heaved and sighed against the rocks; there was no wind.

Robert said, ‘Look at it, Juno,’ and pointed towards the city many miles away. ‘Even destruction is beautiful in its way. Isn’t the sky a formidable colour?’ He remembered that Evelyn had written, ‘There was a strangely beautiful glow over dockland.’ What else had his son written? He said, ‘Did you, too, see beauty in the raids in London? Tell me what you saw.’

Juno said, ‘I saw the moon, the cracks in the pavement, a streak of light from an opening door.’ She forebore to mention that she had been consumed with love and grief, for Robert could not know love as she knew love. He could remember his Emma, but would he sniff the air as she did, half-hoping to catch a remembered whiff of Francis’s hair or Jonty’s sweat as they kissed and petted her after that unheeding violence, or hear their voices exclaiming that they had not meant to hurt? Had Robert, she wondered, hurt Emma? And what had Emma had to say?

As she stared horrified at the distant city being destroyed, she was in half a mind to ask Robert about this, but he had grabbed her arm and was shouting, ‘Here’s another lot, here they come again. Look, Juno, you can see the black cross.’

Indeed she could see the cross as a German bomber, divagating from its course over Plymouth, or more likely on its way back to base having dropped its load, zoomed low down the valley chased by a Beaufighter with its guns spitting fire.

Robert was shouting, ‘My God, my God,’ and Juno heard herself yell, ‘Look out! Look out! Oh God, it’s
hit
!’ as the plane lurched sideways, appeared to pause, then slid sideways into the sea. Then she was on her knees, vomiting, with Robert holding her head, his arm round her waist, saying, ‘What a fantastic sight, the poor devil looked like a mallard shot over the marsh,’ while the Beaufighter circled in triumph before flying off. Robert pulled Juno to her feet and she leaned against his chest, hearing the thump of his heart and his rumbling voice, ‘Poor devils, poor devils, there will be no survivors. I must get back and telephone, but there will be no-one to save.’

As they ran downhill Robert held her hand and Juno cried out, ‘What if we had known someone in that plane?’

Robert answered, ‘I know, I know.’

She shouted, ‘And you find the sky beautiful.’

He answered, ‘But it is, it is beautiful.’

As they trotted down the path through the trees, she was again minded to ask whether he had hurt Emma when they made Evelyn, but it was hardly the right moment when his mind was full of the shot-down bomber and its crew, burning Plymouth and the horror of war. But as they got close to the house, she blurted, ‘What did you do when Emma died?’

Robert answered simply, ‘I went to university and tried to grow up, tried to forget.’

She said, ‘And did you?’

Robert, opening the door, standing aside to let her go in first, answered, ‘Of course not.’ Then, as they reached the kitchen, he began telling Ann about the German plane and that Juno had been sick and would she mind her while he went to telephone, report the crash?

Ann, drawing Juno close to the fire, helping her off with her coat, said, ‘Well, that’s one good job done by our lot which Lord Haw-Haw won’t be boasting about, something cheering to put in your letter to your mother,’ and was quite huffed when Juno shouted, ‘It was a terrible thing, it was in no way good. I agree with my father.’

R
IDING DOWN THE HILL
to the village on errands for Ann, Juno considered the letter so long overdue which she must write to her mother. It would not be enough to say that she had a job on a farm, that she was living in a house called Copplestone, working for a man of the same name who owned the farm and the land roundabout. Her mother would want to know how this situation had come about and why she had not boarded the ship as her parent had planned. It belatedly struck Juno that her mother, meeting the ship and discovering her missing, would be alarmed, to say the least. She groaned. ‘Oh my God, why have I not thought of this before?’ She kicked the pony into a trot as she racked her brain for some cogent reason for the change of plan and, too, for not having had the courage to make it clear that she had never wanted to go to Canada and a new life with Mr Sonntag. That she needed to stay in England, desperately needed to stay where her heart lay.

‘I should have been a more rebellious child,’ Juno said to the pony. ‘Get on with it, Millicent.’ She kicked the animal, who had halted to snuffle over a gate at a carthorse, ‘That’s no suitable friend for you.’ She shook the reins and Millicent broke into a reluctant trot, while the carthorse kicked up its heels and galloped clumsily, keeping parallel on its side of the fence. ‘You should set your sights higher,’ she told the pony. ‘An Arabian barb would suit you,’ she said and her mind reverted to her mother’s aspirations for herself, clean-cut Canadians with prospects and private means magically produced by Mr Sonntag. She began to laugh out loud, for she was enjoying the ride and it was a beautiful day.

Trotting into the village, she was met by a procession of army lorries loaded with soldiers in commando uniform who, seeing Juno, whistled and waved, in high spirits returning to camp after an arduous day. Reining Millicent to the side of the road, Juno waved back. Her eyes searched the faces driving by and her heart beat in spite of common sense which told her that what she hoped to see was not there, that she was a fool to pin hopes on such slight resemblances as the set of an ear, the colour of an eye, that she did not know whether Jonty and Francis were in the commandos, for they had never told her what element of the amorphous mass engaged in the war was theirs. Had she not, a few nights earlier, imagined them in the plane which had shot down the bomber?

Dismounting at the Post Office and tying the pony to a rail, she found that the woman she had seen driving her car down the hill from Copplestone with a large dog running behind was standing beside her, holding out a hand, saying, ‘I am Priscilla Villiers, a friend of Robert’s, and you are Juno Marlowe.’

Juno shook hands, said, ‘That’s right. Stand still, Millicent.’ She soothed the pony.

‘Such an absurd name for a pony.’ Priscilla patted the animal’s neck. ‘But that’s Robert. He named a goose after another girl he had an affair with, whoever heard of a goose called Barbara? And Millicent’s father so disapproved of Robert.’

Juno said, ‘Oh,’ digesting this titbit, wondering too whether there might possibly be a hen or turkey called Priscilla?

Priscilla, grinning, said, ‘No, there are no Priscillas in Robert’s farmyard,’ and when Juno flushed, added, ‘no such luck, but you may have noticed a sow called Eleanor, and that a lot of the cows have names.’ Then she said, ‘I gather from the grapevine that you were with him when he saw the bomber shot down?’

Juno said, ‘It was horrible. I was sick.’

Priscilla persisted, ‘The coastguards say there was nothing next day but a patch of oil.’

Juno repeated, ‘Horrible.’

Priscilla said, ‘I know. It doesn’t bear thinking of, but at least it was quick and they had been bombing Plymouth.’

Juno said, ‘That makes it no better.’

And Priscilla said gently, ‘So you take after your father, a brave fellow, I’ve always thought. I know who you are. I knew your family. I was at school with your Aunt Violet. How is she?’

Juno said, ‘Belligerent, working for the Red Cross.’

Priscilla said, ‘But presumably approves of what you are doing? I suppose she got you the job with Robert as a friend of Evelyn’s. Evelyn knew all sorts, didn’t he? I bet he found Violet rather comical, at least I would imagine so. I hope you don’t mind my saying this—’

Juno said, ‘Oh. I—’ At a loss as assumptions were made, she said, ‘She wanted, she tried to get me to—’

‘Join up? Fight for your country? That’s Violet all over. She should have been the man in your family. Your father, by all accounts, was a gentle fellow. I hardly knew him but know of him, courageous, stuck to his convictions. I dare say Violet is ashamed of him.’

Juno said, ‘She is.’

‘Silly old thing. He was quite a friend of my husband’s at one time, that’s the connection. Nice man.’

Juno said, ‘Oh,’ feeling pleased.

‘And what does your mother think?’ Priscilla was smiling, friendly.