The Distant Hours (48 page)

It made sense. Rita was always fussing with her hair and her prized collection of beauty aids. ‘Sounds good, Mum. Nice to have someone in the family who can set your hair for you.’ That didn’t seem to please her mum.

Percy Blythe took a cigarette from the silver case Saffy insisted she use in company and felt about in her pocket for matches.

Dad cleared his throat. ‘The thing is, Merry,’ he said, and his awkwardness was no consolation to Meredith for the terrible thing he said next ‘your Mum and me – we thought it might be time for you, too.’

And then Meredith understood. They wanted her to go home, to become a hairdresser, to leave Milderhurst. Deep inside her stomach panic formed a ball and started rolling back and forth. She blinked a couple of times, straightened her specs, then stammered, ‘But, but, I don’t want to be a hairdresser. Saffy says it’s important I finish my education. That I might even get a place at grammar school when the war is over.’

‘Your mum was just thinking of your future with the hairdressing; we can talk about something else if you like. An office girl maybe. One of the ministries?’

‘But it’s not safe in London,’ said Meredith suddenly. It was a stroke of genius: she wasn’t really remotely frightened of Hitler or his bombs, but perhaps this was a way to convince them.

Dad smiled and patted her shoulder. ‘There’s nothing to worry about, my girl. We’re all doing our bit to ruin Hitler’s party: Mum’s just started in a munitions factory and I’m working nights. There’s no bombs been dropped, no poison gas, the old neighbourhood looks just the same as always.’

Just the same as always
. Meredith pictured the grimy old streets and her grim place in them, and with a bolt of sickening clarity admitted then how desperate she was to stay on at Milderhurst. She turned towards the castle, knotting her fingers, wishing she could summon Juniper with nothing more than the intensity of her need; wishing that Saffy might appear and say the perfect thing, make Mum and Dad see that taking her home was the wrong thing to do, that they must let her stay.

Perhaps by some strange twin communication, Percy chose that moment to wade in. ‘Mr and Mrs Baker,’ she said, tapping the end of her cigarette on the silver case and looking like she’d rather be anywhere else, ‘I can understand that you’d very much like to have Meredith home with you, but if the invasion should—’

‘You’re coming with us this afternoon, young miss, and that’s final.’ Mum’s hackles had risen like a set of quills. She didn’t so much as glance at Percy, fixing Meredith with a look that promised fierce punishment later.

Meredith’s eyes watered behind her spectacles. ‘I’m not.’

Dad growled, ‘Don’t you talk back to your mother—’

‘Well,’ said Percy abruptly. She’d lifted the lid on the teapot and was scrutinizing its contents. ‘The pot’s empty; excuse me while I refill it, won’t you? We’re rather short on help at the moment. Wartime economies.’

They all three watched her retreat, then Mum hissed at Dad, ‘Rather short on help. You hear that?’

‘Come on, Annie.’ Confrontation was not something Dad enjoyed. He was the sort of man whose impressive bulk was enough of a deterrent that he rarely needed to come to blows. Mum, on the other hand . . .

‘That woman’s been looking down her nose at us since we arrived. Wartime economies indeed – in a place like this.’ She tossed her hand in the direction of the castle. ‘Probably thinks we ought to be in there fetching after her.’

‘She does not!’ said Meredith. ‘They’re not like that.’

‘Meredith.’ Dad was still staring at a fixed point on the ground, but his voice rose, almost pleading, and he shot a glance at her from beneath his knotted brow. Ordinarily, she knew, he relied on her to stand silently beside him when Mum and Rita started screaming. But not today, she couldn’t just stand by today.

‘But, Dad, look at the lovely tea they put on specially—’

‘That’s enough lip from you, Miss.’ Mum was on her feet now and she jerked Meredith up by the sleeve of her new dress, harder than she might otherwise have. ‘You get on inside and fetch your things. Your
real
clothes. The train’s leaving soon and we’re all going to be on it.’

‘I don’t want to go,’ said Meredith, turning urgently to her father. ‘Let me stay, Dad. Please don’t make me go. I’m learning—’

‘Pah!’ Mum swiped her hand dismissively. ‘I can see well enough what you’ve been learning here with your Lady Muck; learning to cheek your parents. I can see what you’re forgetting too: who you are and where you come from.’ She shook her finger at Dad. ‘I told you we were wrong to send them away. If we’d only kept them home like I wanted—’

‘Enough!’ Dad’s top had finally blown. ‘That’s enough, Annie. Sit down. There’s no need for all this; she’s coming home now.’

‘I’m not!’

‘Oh yes you are,’ said Mum, pulling back her flattened hand. ‘And there’s a good clip round the ear waiting for you when you get there.’

‘That’s enough!’ Dad was on his feet now, too; he grabbed hold of Mum’s wrist. ‘For Christ’s sake, that’s enough, Annie.’ His eyes searched hers and something passed between them; Meredith saw her mother’s wrist go limp. Dad nodded at her. ‘We’ve all become a bit hot and bothered, that’s all.’

‘Talk to your daughter . . . I can’t stand to look at her. I only hope she never knows what it is to lose a child.’ And she walked away, arms folded stubbornly across her body.

Dad looked tired suddenly, old. He ran a hand over his hair. It was thinning on top so that Meredith could see the marks that the comb had made that morning. ‘You mustn’t mind her. She’s fiery, you know how she gets. She’s been worried about you, we both have.’ He glanced again at the castle, looming above them. ‘Only we’ve heard stories. From Rita’s letters and from some of the kids who’ve come home, terrible stories about how they were treated.’

Was that all
? Meredith felt the bubbling delirium of relief; she knew there had been evacuees less fortunate than her, but if that was all they were worried about, then surely all she had to do was reassure her dad. ‘But there’s nothing to worry about, Dad. I told you in my letters: I’m happy here. Didn’t you read my letters?’

‘Course I did. We both did. Brightest spot in our day, your mum and me, getting a letter from you.’

The way he said it, Meredith knew that it was true and something inside her panged, imagining them at the table, poring over the things she’d written. ‘Well then,’ she said, unable to meet his eyes, ‘you know that everything’s all right.
Better
than all right.’

‘I know that’s what you said.’ He looked towards Mum, checking she was still a fair distance away. ‘That was part of the problem. Your letters were so . . . cheerful. And your mother heard from one of her friends that there were foster families changing the letters that the boys and girls were writing home. Stopping them from saying anything that might reflect badly. Making things seem better than they really were.’ He heaved a sigh. ‘That’s not how it is, though, is it, Merry? Not for you.’

‘No, Dad.’

‘You’re happy here; as happy your letters make out?’

‘Yes.’ Meredith could see that he was wavering. Possibility shot like fireworks through her limbs, and she spoke quickly. ‘Percy’s a bit stiff, but Saffy’s wonderful. You could meet her if you come inside; I could play you a song on the piano.’

He looked up at the tower, sunlight sweeping across his cheeks. Meredith watched as his pupils shrank; she waited, trying to read his wide, blank face. His lips moved as if he were taking measurements, memorizing figures, but it was impossible for her to see which way the sums might lead him. He glanced, then, at his wife, fuming by the fountain, and Meredith knew that it was now or never. ‘Please, Dad.’ She grabbed the fabric of his shirtsleeve. ‘Please don’t make me go back. I’m learning so much here, far more than I could learn in London. Please make Mum see that I’m better off here.’

A light sigh and he frowned at Mum’s back. As Meredith watched his face changed, fell along lines of tenderness so that Meredith’s heart turned a somersault. But he didn’t look down at her and he didn’t speak. Finally, she followed his sightline and noticed that Mum had twisted a bit, was standing now with one hand on her hip, the other fidgeting lightly by her side. The sun had crept up behind her and found glints of red in her brown hair, and she looked pretty and lost and unusually young. Her eyes were locked with Dad’s, and in a dull thudding moment, Meredith saw that the tenderness in his face was for Mum, and not for her at all.

‘I’m sorry, Merry,’ he said, covering her fingers, still clutching at his shirt, with his. ‘It’s for the best. Go and fetch your things. We’re going home.’

And that’s when Meredith did the very wicked thing, the betrayal for which her mother would never forgive her. Her only excuse that she was robbed entirely of choice; that she was a child and would be for years to come, and nobody cared what she wanted. She was tired of being treated like a parcel or a suitcase, shunted off here or there depending on what the adults thought was best. All she wanted was to belong somewhere.

She took her dad’s hand and said, ‘I’m sorry, too, Dad.’ And as bewilderment was still settling on his lovely face, she smiled apologetically, avoided her mum’s furious glare, and ran as fast as she could down the grassy lawn. Leaped across the verge and into the cool, dark safety of Cardarker Wood.

Percy found out about Saffy’s plans for London quite by chance. If she hadn’t absented herself from tea with Meredith’s parents, she might never have known. Not until it was too late. It was fortunate, she supposed, that the public airing of dirty laundry was something she found both embarrassing and drear, and that she’d made her excuses and gone inside, intending only to allow the requisite time to pass before returning to stilled waters. She’d expected to find Saffy crouched by the window, spying on proceedings from afar and demanding a report – What were the parents like? How did Meredith seem? Had they enjoyed the cakes? – so it had been somewhat surprising to find the kitchen empty.

Percy remembered she was still carrying the teapot and, following her rather feeble ruse, returned the kettle to the stove. Time passed slowly and her attention drifted away from the flames, and she started wondering instead what dreadful thing she’d done to deserve both a wedding and a tea engagement on the same day. And that’s when it came, a shrill clattering from the butler’s pantry. Telephone calls had become rare after the Post Office warned that social chatter over the networks could delay important war talks, so it took a moment for Percy to realize the cause of the indignant racket.

As a consequence, when she did finally lift the receiver, she succeeded in sounding both fearful and suspicious: ‘Milderhurst Castle. Hello?’

The caller identified himself at once as Archibald Wicks of Chelsea, and asked to speak to Miss Seraphina Blythe. Taken aback, Percy offered to jot down a message, and that’s when the gentleman told her he was Saffy’s employer, calling with revised advice regarding her accommodation in London as of the following week.

‘I’m sorry, Mr Wicks,’ said Percy, blood vessels dilating beneath her skin, ‘I’m afraid there must have been a misunderstanding.’

An airy hesitation. ‘A misunderstanding, did you say? The line – it’s rather difficult to hear.’

‘Seraphina – my sister – will be unable to take up a position in London.’

‘Oh.’ There was another pause, during which the line crackled across the distance and Percy couldn’t help picturing the telephone wires, strung from post to post, swaying in the wuthering breeze. ‘Oh, I see,’ he continued. ‘But that is odd, only I have her letter accepting the position right here in my hand. We’d corresponded quite reliably on the topic.’

That explained the frequency of post Percy had been carrying to and from the castle of late; Saffy’s determination to stay within reach of the telephone ‘in case an important call should come through regarding the war’. Percy cursed herself for having been distracted by her WVS duties, for not having paid closer attention. ‘I understand,’ she said. ‘And I’m certain that Seraphina had every intention of honouring her agreement. But the war, you see, and now our father has been taken ill. I’m afraid she’ll be needed at home for the duration.’

Though disappointed and understandably confused, Mr Wicks was mollified somewhat by Percy’s promise to send him a signed first edition of the
Mud Man
for his collection of rare books, and rang off in relatively good spirits. There would be no question, at least, of his suing them for breach of contract.

Saffy’s disappointment, Percy suspected, would not be so easily managed. A toilet flushed somewhere in the distance, then the pipes gurgled in the kitchen wall. Percy sat on the stool and waited. Within minutes, Saffy hurried in from upstairs.

‘Percy!’ She stopped still, glanced towards the open back door. ‘What are you doing here? Where’s Meredith? Her parents haven’t left already, surely? Is everything all right?’

‘I came to fetch more tea.’

‘Oh.’ Saffy’s face relaxed into a faltering smile. ‘Then let me help. You don’t want to be away from your guests too long.’ She fetched the jar of tea leaves and lifted the pot’s lid.

Percy considered obfuscation but the conversation with Mr Wicks had so surprised her that she drew a blank. In the end, she said simply, ‘There was a telephone call. While I was waiting for the kettle.’