The Golden Virgin (20 page)

“I hated it! I remember you now! You wore a boy’s jersey and button boots too big for you. And you called me Grandma!”

They crossed over Randiswell Road, and passing the Fire Station, came to the shadowed wall of St. Mary’s churchyard, with its trees behind. There she drew apart from him.

“Thanks for the arm. Keechey hangs about there sometimes, hoping for a chance to pinch me for soliciting.”

“I see, I picked you up first!”

“Well, you asked me, didn’t you? No, I didn’t mean it sarcastic. You are very kind, just like you were when a boy.”

“I was a cowardly little rotter.”

“You a coward? I shall never forget one day when you stuck up for Jack o’ Rags against four boys in the High Street. Later when they found you on the Hillies one Saturday morning they set about you, and you never ran away. Your friend Peter Wallace, what was killed with his two brothers early on in the war, he came to your rescue, and trimmed them up. But before that you squared up to them, and they got you down, they were the bullies, not you, Phillip. You don’t mind me calling you Phillip, do you?”

“It’s better than Grandma, anyway!”

They passed by the front of the church, with its broad stone steps, and came to the darker shadows of the yews which lined
the flagstone path lying, between thin iron railings, through the old graveyard. Here, out of the diminished rays of a gas-light in its glass case, they stopped. Memories of the bulky dark figures waiting by the rustic bridges of the river and the hoarse wheedling words,
Want
a
sweetheart,
dearie?
made him ready for what might be suggested next. From the vestry of St. Mary’s Church came the sound of boys’ voices. It was Choir Practice night.

“Oh, don’t you love music? I love singing. I go to St. Saviour’s to listen to the singing. I would like to be a Catholic, if they’d have me. Are you a Catholic? Your friend is, he told me.”

In the darkness came the faint pure voice of a boy, through stone wall and oaken door, penetrating the blackness of the yews to where they stood just beyond the wan downcast circle of the small war-time gas-light.

“Oh, I love a boy’s voice so!”

He thought of the last time he had heard the words and tune, sung by one of the survivors of the attack on 19th December, 1914, coming down on the corduroy paths through the wood. Part of him brooded desperately on the scene, longing to be back in the wood: a feeling no one would ever understand, who had not been out. Where life and death waited side by side, to be wed by bomb and bullet. If only he could write about it, as Julian Grenfell had done.

“Do you know Julian Grenfell’s poem,
Into
Battle
?
In Flanders, just before he was killed, he wrote about the stars he remembered from his boyhood at Taplow, by the Thames,

“Oh, I never,” she said, clinging to his arm.

When he had finished, the lamp-lit lakes of Alice’s eyes were running over. “So he was killed, was he. D’you know, I think he knew he was going to die, and did not mind very much. I feel like that sometimes when I’m in St. Saviour’s, listening to the chants. I feel all the hundreds of years ago and all the hundreds of years to come are the same thing, so what does death matter. I suppose you think I’m silly?”

He felt shaken. There was somebody else in the world who felt as he did. He said, “I feel that, too.”

“You do? You really do? Then you don’t think I’m silly?”

“No, of course not. It’s like something coming into your life, from beyond yourself.”

“Father Aloysius, him who has gone away now, said that that was the feeling of God.”

“How very strange. I know Father Aloysius. I met him quite by chance in Essex, last winter. And now you, Lily. It does seem strange. Did you talk to Father Aloysius?”

“Oh yes. I wasn’t a Catholic, but he never minded me talking to him.”

“Why should he mind?”

“For what I once done.”

To his alarm he saw she was crying. “I’ve been very wicked, you see.”

“We’ve all been wicked, I know I have. And still am! Anyway, don’t let’s worry.”

“I only told one other person what I done.”

“Is it about Keechey?”

“Who told you?”

“Oh, I heard somewhere that you used to be rather thick with him—that at one time you walked out with him.”

“Did they say anything more.”

“No. Why should they?”

“If I tell you, promise you won’t give me away?”

“Of course I won’t,” he replied, pleased to be trusted.

She sighed, blew her nose, and said almost inaudibly. “I was going to have a kid by Keechey, and done away with it.”

Boyhood’s horror about whores’ babies being suffocated, tied up in brown paper parcels, and dropped into the Randisbourne, came to him. “Keechey told me to get rid of it. He said he’d get me five years if I told anyone who the father was.”

“He looks like that.”

“I was only fourteen, and a little skivvy, when he did it to me. He was a policeman then. He asked me to go for a walk with him on my afternoon off, and when it was dark he took me on the seat around the willow where they play football, d’you know it? He told me he’d cut my throat if I screamed.”

“Do forgive my asking, but did you kill your baby?”

“I had to have an illegal operation. I wanted my baby, truly I did, only I couldn’t, as I was in service.”

“And you were only fourteen?”

She nodded.

“Well, do take care of yourself now, won’t you? I promise to keep your secret.”

He was still puzzled why she went in pubs to get off with men, apparently. He wanted to ask her, but shrunk from appearing inquisitive.

“I knew you were a real gentleman,” she said admiringly. “You were always different from the other boys on the Hillies.”

“Then you are the only one who has ever thought so!”

“Oh no, you’ve forgotten Horace Cranmer! You remember him, in your Boy Scout’s Patrol? He used to go to work at Hern’s the Grocer’s. You were his hero, didn’t you know that? He was killed too, wasn’t he?”

The last of his reserved feelings about Lily dissolved.

“You know, I can’t think why a girl like you, so pretty and kind, doesn’t have a—well, someone who—likes you.”

“Men only want one thing, usually. They know I am bad, so they try to interfere with me. Though someone I know likes me, but he is old and funny. He likes to kneel down before me and kiss my feet. But he never wants to interfere with me, only kiss my feet and my bosom. He looked after me when I’d had the illegal operation, for nothing. You know him. Promise you won’t tell if I say who?”

“I promise.”

“It was Doctor Dashwood. But he didn’t do the illegal operation, he didn’t know about it, until I told him. He’s ever so nice. He said he would have looked after me, despite what people would say, and would have adopted my baby. He wishes I was his daughter, he said once. He never charged me anything for what he done for me. If people say I go after his money, it isn’t true.”

“Don’t you hate Keechey?”

“I’m sorry for him. He says he loves me, now I won’t have any more to do with him. Isn’t it funny? But men are jealous like little children, when you know them. All they want is to be looked after.”

With her eyes upon him shining in the dimness, he felt himself beginning to be small, and resisted the feeling.

“Would you say that about my friend, also?” he asked, a little timidly.

“All men are like that, when you know them. But Desmond is more so, I think. That’s because his father died when he was young, I suppose.”

“But his father is still alive, Lily!”

“Then he made it up, I wonder why. Perhaps he’s ashamed that he left his mother.”

“Yes, you may be right. It never occurred to me.”

“He admires you a lot. He says you are the only one who has been kind to him.”

“He’s my great friend. Or was, until he met you. And that’s the truth!”

“You think I’m not good enough for him, don’t you?”

“Well, you see, we’ve always been rather thick, until you came along.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t come between you.”

“But do you love him, Lily? I don’t want to come between you and him, if you do. Also, I didn’t know you, then, as I do now.”

“You love a girl, don’t you? I’ve seen her, she nurses at the Hospital.”

“She doesn’t love me, anyway.”

“How do you know? Have you tried her?”

“She loved my cousin, who was killed.”

“Yes, I heard. She looked ever so sad. But any woman could love you, I think. You are so kind.”

*

The eyes of Desmond standing in the porch looked at Phillip steadily when Phillip opened the door to his ring.

“Come in, Desmond. I’m very glad to see you. Gene and I are going to dine up West tomorrow, and we want you to come, too—as in the old days. It’s my birthday, but I don’t want any presents. Will you join us?”

“I want to speak to you privately, first.”

They went into the front room. While Phillip closed the door, Desmond stood still. Then he looked across the table sternly, unhappily.

“What’s the matter now, Des?”

“You know as well as I do.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“You know very well that you saw Lily last Wednesday. I suspected that when I noticed her changed manner when I met her last night. You went behind my back, after I had told you she was my girl. And why did you tell her that my father was not dead?”

“I didn’t realize you’d told her he was dead, before I spoke.”

“But what right have you to take her for a walk?”

“I only wanted to find out what sort of a girl she was, that was all. How did you know I had seen her?”

“Ching told me first, then I went round to her home, and she told me herself.”

“But it was all above board, Desmond.”

“That isn’t the point. The point is that you have deliberately betrayed me.”

The face was set and pale; this was no joke, Phillip thought, suppressing a feeling to treat the matter lightly.

“How have I betrayed you? We hardly spoke about you.”

“That in itself is an admission. I want your promise that you will not see her again. I want it before I leave this room.”

“What do you think happened between us, then? We only talked.”

“You’ve changed her towards me. You’ve wormed your way into her thoughts, that is obvious. If your friendship for me means anything, you will tell me what you said to her. And what she told you about me.”

“We hardly discussed you. I wanted to find out what she was like, for your sake, if you want to know.”

“Well, what did you find out?”

“I thought she was really a very good person.”

“Then your object has been achieved, and you won’t need to see her again?”

“Not unless she wants to see me. I can’t cut her suddenly; be reasonable. I have told you there is nothing between us.”

“Why should she want to see you again?”

“I don’t know. But she might.”

“What did you say to her, that she might want to see you again?”

“I spoke about music and poetry, and she told me about her experiences of some time ago, and reminded me that I was called Grandma when we used to play cricket on the Hill. That was before I knew you, Desmond.”

“I shall ask her if that is true.”

“You can ask her what you like! And I don’t care for your manner of interrogating me like this! If you don’t believe me, you can lump it! I tell you it was merely a friendly chat, and we both wanted to get away from that hanger-on, Ching, who was with her in the Bull when I went in there to find you, if you want to know.”

“In that case, there can be no reason why you shouldn’t give the promise I ask for.”

“Just a moment, someone may be listening.” He went to the Polyphone, and put on
Over
the
Waves.
The door opened and Mavis came into the room.

“How long are you two going to be in here, eh? Mother and I are waiting to come in.”

“What for?”

“Mind your own biz!”

“Must you use that vulgar expression? I’ve asked you not to, before.”

“Look who’s talking! What about you in the Gild Hall, eh?”

“Anyway, you might at least say how d’you do when you come into a room. And this is a private talk, if you don’t mind.”