Winter 1942-Spring 1943
It was pitch dark, Judith sat in the train with an uneasy feeling of being abandoned. There was no sound from the engine, not even an expiring sigh. Five minutes ago – or perhaps longer? – there had been some bumping and a sound which she had taken to be the coupling on of further coaches. Now, the unpleasant thought occurred to her that it might have been the uncoupling of the engine.
She found the idea of the removal of the engine profoundly unnerving. True, she had not been entirely satisfied she was travelling in the right direction; but, since most of her life motion of some sort had seemed preferable to inactivity, she had accepted this as a necessary hazard of wartime journeying. Unconsciously, she had adopted the maxim: don’t worry where you are going as long as you are moving. She was not well-equipped to cope with stillness.
A lot of people had got out at the last station; but there was at least one other person in the compartment. She could hear the tapping of fingers on the far window. She said, ‘Are there only the two of us?’
A few moments’ silence, then a man’s voice answered, ‘It would seem so.’ He did not sound disposed to be companionable.
Judith wound down the window and leant out. Little was achieved by this, other than making the compartment colder than ever. There was no gleam of light in earth or sky. It was as if the world had run its course. ‘What are we going to do about this?’ she said.
‘I suppose I could get out and see what is happening?’ He sounded irritable. Perhaps he thought she should have offered?
To cement his resolve, she said, ‘Be careful. I don’t think we are at a station – there may be a long drop.’ Her own voice was as brusque as his, but she was unaware of that.
He opened the door at his end of the compartment; some effortful breathing, accompanied by exasperated exclamations, ensued. She thought this not entirely necessary. The voice was not that of a young man, but it had a resonance which did not suggest old age and decrepitude. Eventually, he called from somewhere below, ‘We seem to be in a siding.’ She heard him moving laboriously over stones; he obviously intended to make heavy weather of this. As the sounds became more distant, it occurred to her that he might not come back. He did not give the impression of being a particularly chivalrous man.
The blackness and the silence were dense. There was sweat on her forehead. A siding! Shunted off into a siding! It is all over, she thought in panic; my life is all over! She had refused to see what was happening to her; but now the bleakness of her situation, so heartlessly symbolized by the Southern Railway, was inescapable. Louise did not need her; she was a nuisance to Harry and Meg; Claire was at university; and Alice was enjoying herself abroad. She was alone. She looked out of the window again. Blackness pressed against her eyeballs.
The man was returning. ‘There’s just two coaches,’ he said, accusingly, as though it was her fault. ‘I didn’t hear anyone make an announcement, did you?’
‘I heard an announcement, but it was incomprehensible – as usual.’
He hauled himself back into the carriage and slammed the door. More heavy breathing.
Where are we? Judith thought, trying to distract herself with a little local geography. Trains branched off at certain stages in the journey to Lewes – she was always afraid she might end up in Storrington or some other God-forsaken place. She had thought she recognized the words Haywards Heath in that announcement, but could not be sure. If that last station had been Haywards Heath, and supposing she was – or had been – on the right train, then the siding was probably somewhere near Plumpton. Were there any sidings near Plumpton?
She said, ‘I think we may be near Plumpton. If only the moon was up, we could see the Downs.’
Her companion was not prepared to speculate about Plumpton. A few minutes later, however, he said, ‘I have some spam sandwiches, if you would care . . .?’
‘Oh, I couldn’t deprive you . . .’
‘I really think you had better.’ He was more irritated than ever. ‘We don’t know how long we may be here. If you don’t eat, you may become faint.’ This would be too inconsiderate, his voice implied.
She groped and received two spam sandwiches. ‘I’ve got a flask of tea,’ she said. ‘I didn’t bother about bringing food because I thought it was going to be a short journey.’
‘It is rather cold,’ he acknowledged. Taking this for acceptance, she poured tea into the cup of the flask. ‘I’ve got a mug for myself,’ she said, as they negotiated the exchange.
They munched and drank in silence. The utter darkness robbed her of any sense of companionship. I am alone, she thought. Alone! She was one of seven children; she had married and had three children, and a demanding husband. What she had hitherto thought of as being alone was the luxury of having an afternoon to herself. The blackness was becoming suffocating.
‘Why is there no one about?’ she asked sharply.
‘I expect the entire railway staff has been put into a munitions factory.’
‘Wherever you go, everyone seems to be away doing useful things.’
‘The whole bloody world is actively employed!’ he responded vehemently. But she could tell that his feeling was of a different quality from her own: he was exasperated by the dislocation of his journey, in no way was he afraid.
She ate the second spam sandwich, which was warm and dry. The lack of activity was the worst thing of all. She was a practical person, life had formed her that way. There had always been so much to do. If you took the sewing machine, vacuum cleaner and cooker away from her, there wouldn’t be a person there at all. She felt full of rage against life.
She said, ‘I have been staying with my daughter.’
‘Yes, so have I.’ The cause of his irritation was now apparent. He added, in a tone of almost sepulchral gloom, ‘and my grandchildren.’
‘It can be difficult, can’t it?’
‘My daughter is one of those implacable females.’ He became quite expansive. ‘It’s impossible to be of any help to her because she doesn’t listen, she knows everything. Absolutely no experience of the world, mind you, she just knows.’
Judith, thinking of herself and Stanley, said wryly, ‘She must have got it from somebody.’
‘My wife, probably. She tended to live by Divine revelation.’
Either his wife was long dead, or he was a very cold fish.
What was she to say now? ‘I have been staying with my daughter . . .’ Was this to be her conversation over the coming years, the relating of details of her visits to Louise and Alice and Claire; and when she was not visiting, would she be anticipating their invitations, or hoping they would spare the time to come to her? And where would she be living? She could not stay forever on the farm with Meg and Harry Braddon. Oh, this awful blackness!
‘Children do tend to make use of one, don’t they?’ she said. ‘I suppose it’s our own fault, for wanting to be needed.’
‘But I don’t want to be needed!’
You’re needed now, though, she thought savagely. I have to talk to someone.
‘You have only the one child?’
‘I had a son. He was killed at Dunkirk.’ The statement was made with a brevity which invited no comment. Nevertheless, she said, ‘My husband was killed in the blitz.’
Such a stupid thing, she wanted to tell him; trying to open a door for a crazy woman who lived next door. It wasn’t as though he was ever any good at household jobs. She almost choked with rage.
The man said, ‘Your visit to your daughter wasn’t entirely successful?’ His voice sounded different, not exactly sympathetic, but as though they had arrived on common ground.
‘Her husband is in North Africa. I’m afraid something is not right there . . .’
‘At home, I take it – not in North Africa, where everything seems to be proceeding so splendidly?’
‘Yes, at home.’
‘A man?’
‘I suspect so. She didn’t say anything, of course – but she didn’t need to.’
‘Ah! “The fig tree putteth forth her green figs and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell . . .”?’
‘Yes.’ She gave a long sigh. Yes, she thought: I am jealous of Louise! It takes a stranger to tell one these things. After a few moments’ silence, she said, ‘Her husband has been away since 1939 – she hasn’t seen him since Dunkirk, and then only briefly. It’s a long time, when you’re young.’
‘It’s a long time at any age, damn it!’
Judith leant back in her corner and closed her eyes to examine her own inner darkness. I am jealous and angry, she repeated to herself. I am in my late forties, and I still have desires; but everyone assumes that is over for me. For the rest of my life, I shall be expected to sit in a corner, knitting for my grandchildren and being careful not to make a nuisance of myself – but always being on hand when they need me. She repeated to herself, I am jealous, jealous . . . She still felt angry, but not so afraid.
There was the sound of movement dislodging stones. Judith looked out of the window. A dim blue light was swinging towards the coaches. The man had become authoritative. ‘Let me!’ He leant out of the window and shouted, ‘Ahoy!’
An aggrieved voice answered, ‘What you doing in there?’
‘We could well ask you that!’
‘Didn’t you hear what they said about the last two coaches?’
‘Not one single word, I assure you.’
‘You’d better come along of me, then.’
The man said to Judith, ‘We are indeed fortunate. This must be the last porter in England. Cherish him!’
As they followed their guide down the track, they learnt that a passenger had reported that two people had remained in the compartment. ‘ “I suppose that is all right?” ’ he said. Bloody twit! Whyn’t he tell you, instead of the ticket collector, and save all this.’
‘The Englishman’s unwillingness to interfere!’
Judith sensed that her companion was relishing this. Her own feelings fell somewhat short of enjoyment. ‘Just where are we?’ she demanded.
‘Haywards Heath. Where do you think you are?’
‘But we left Haywards Heath. I remember that.’
‘You left it so we could shunt you in ’ere.’
They had been walking past a high hoarding which separated the shunting area from the main station. When they rounded it, dim lights immediately became visible. Judith had a glimpse of her companion – a tall, broad man, probably in his early fifties. She noted, with compunction, that he walked with a limp.
A train came creeping in almost as soon as they arrived on the platform. A desperate struggle ensued as soon as the doors opened. The porter led them to the guard’s van.
‘No room!’ The guard said.
‘You’ve got to take them, mate. They got shunted orf.’
Wedged into the guard’s van were two calves, several soldiers with kit bags and rifles, three naval officers, and a handful of civilians, one of whom was a young woman whose children had been disposed at random among the service personnel. A corporal was patting an infant with phlegmatic professionalism, while a less experienced naval officer was attempting to change a nappy. The young woman, who had a pronounced Irish accent, was explaining to a disapproving elderly woman, ‘I bear them and me mother breeds them.’ As if by magic, she produced a spare infant and deposited it on the chest of Judith’s companion. Judith liked the fact that, although he did not make a fuss, he made no attempt to pretend he was pleased by the arrangement. Neither did the infant. The two seemed to have something in common – they had not learnt to dissemble.
At Lewes, when they had extricated themselves from the train, Judith’s companion asked, civilly, but without being pressing, ‘How will you manage from here?’
Judith could see Harry advancing towards her. ‘My brother-in-law is meeting me, thank you.’
She said to Harry, ‘It was good of you to wait.’ But it transpired he had not waited, he had mistaken the time of her train.
‘You travelled with one of our local celebrities,’ he said, as Judith’s companion limped past them to another waiting car. ‘Austin Marriott.’
‘You know him?’
‘Only by sight. He is not our sort of person – he’s a publisher.’
‘Why do you say that?’ Judith was tired and disposed to be fractious. ‘What sort of books does he publish?’
‘I have no idea. But they are a rather rackety lot, publishers.’
‘Shouldn’t you assume the best until you know the worst, Harry?’
He made no reply, either because he was having so much trouble starting the car, or because he was annoyed. Judith wondered how much longer they were going to be able to tolerate each other.
In the spring vacation, Claire came down to stay on the farm. The train in which she travelled did not shunt coaches into a siding, but it did have an unscheduled stop at a nameless country station. It seemed to Claire, as she looked out of the window, to epitomize all the country stations of her childhood. Beyond the deserted platform was a low bridge where one or two children stared unmoving at the train. In a field near by cows were contemplating a move which might – or might not – be made in the remote future. Far in the distance came the sound of sheep bells; a sound which seemed, to Claire, to be the echo of all the tranquil moments of her life. If only Alice were here! There were a lot of school children in the train. Claire, so lately escaped from school, had felt acutely their giggling silliness; but now, this ceased to irritate, and becam a part of the timeless peace of a country railway station on a warm spring afternoon. Why did I have to grow up? she thought, envying the schoolgirls the joys she imagined to be theirs.
A guard had now got out of the train and was gesticulating wildly, presumably to the engine driver. Beyond the bridge, Claire saw a bird, coming in low and arrow straight. She remained at the window, transfixed, as something spurted from the bird. There was a deafening rattle of noise and dust fizzed up from the platform. Someone dragged her down on to the floor. Children were screaming. Hands grasped the seats and pulled them over their bodies. Afterwards, Claire was never sure which had been worse – being machine gunned, or the appalling discovery of what lay beneath the seats of Southern Railway trains.
The plane did not return. After a time, the train went on. Some of the children laughed and others cried. Claire, who was extremely fastidious, was nearly hysterical with distress at the filthy condition in which she now found herself.
She was late arriving at Lewes station, and no one was waiting for her. There was, however, an army utilicon which picked up a few soldiers; and the driver agreed to go a mile out of his way to leave Claire at the gate of the farm. The soldiers were concerned, but had nothing practical to offer in the way of comfort. One of them carried her case as far as the yard. ‘I’ll be all right here,’ she said, feeling that his presence would inhibit the exhibition which she intended to put on to shame her relatives for their desertion.
In fact, she had no need of histrionics. When she burst into the kitchen and found Harry there, in the act of taking off his boots, all her tumultuous emotion gushed forth spontaneously.
He looked at her aghast. In the dim light, thickly coated with grime and clotted with the putrefying remains of discarded food, she had all the appearance of one risen from the grave. ‘Oh, my darling, my darling!’ he cried. ‘My little Claire, what have they done to you?’ He took her in his arms, grappling to rid her of the ‘they’ who had done this wicked thing. As they clung tighter and tighter to each other, it was difficult to tell which of them was the more transported.
Meg, coming into the kitchen to investigate all this sound and fury, was immediately aware of feeling which went far beyond the requirements of comforting a distressed young woman.
‘What a disgusting noise you are making, Claire!’
‘My dear . . . Surely you can see . . . something dreadful . . .’ As he had no idea what in fact had happened, and was, moreover, ravaged by lust, Harry was hampered in going further.
‘I can see very well.’ Meg spoke in the tone of one to whom explanation would henceforth be superfluous.
Claire became hysterical, and Meg slapped her face with an application which suggested she had been waiting just such an opportunity. ‘Now, go upstairs and get yourself clean!’
There was much that each had been waiting to say to the other, but it would have taken a poet to render their emotions into suitably elevated language; and, being rather ordinary people, they had to make do with commonplace phrases.
Claire screamed, ‘You vile woman!’
Meg replied, ‘And you can leave this house tomorrow.’
Harry tried to intervene, and Meg told him he was a whited sepulchre.
By the time Judith returned, having waited on the wrong platform for Claire, the situation was beyond retrieving.
‘We are at the mercy of terrible forces!’ Harry said. This, it transpired, was not a simple acknowledgement of desire, but a reference to some more exalted state. His eyes strained from his white, hatchet face. Judith could see that pushed a little further, he might well take to mysticism in order to justify himself to himself. She did not think he was much concerned with anyone else.
It was impossible to reason with Meg. Judith, whose sympathies were with her sister-in-law, was sorry about this. After years with Harry, she supposed that resorting to reason would be a negation of the whole of their life together.
Claire, while proclaiming her intention of killing herself, had discovered that her overriding need was to get clean. She was standing naked in her bedroom, sponging herself while she wept. She still had the slenderness of a child. Judith noted with a pang how appealing she was and how vulnerable. Her body did not as yet seem ready to cope with the responses it aroused.
Claire said, ‘I want to die. Mummy.’
Judith unpacked her suitcase and put out fresh clothes. ‘We’ll go into Lewes when you have dressed and find somewhere to eat. Do you want me to wash your hair?’
‘I want to die.’
But while Judith was washing her hair, she said weakly, ‘Anyway, how can we get into Lewes?’
‘I shall take Harry’s car, with or without his permission.’
‘The train was machine-gunned. Mummy.’
‘Yes, I know, darling. They told me at the station.’
They had a meal in a hotel near Lewes. Afterwards, they sat in the car in a country lane overshadowed by the Downs, watching the last of the light fading.
Claire said, ‘How was I to know? I shall never be able to be natural with a man again.’
‘Don’t be silly, Claire.’
‘This has probably ruined my life.’
‘You are just like your father. You dramatize everything.’
‘What about Aunt Meg, then?’
‘You were partly to blame for the way she behaved. You have been making rather too much of Uncle Harry lately.’
‘But he’s my uncle.’
‘He is also a man. Men aren’t sensible about this kind of thing.’
‘I hate men!’
Judith, a little worried about her daughter, said, trying to choose her words more carefully than was usual with her, ‘Claire, you are older now. You must try to be responsible for the way you behave with other people.’
‘Why aren’t I responsible?’
‘You tend to work on people’s feelings without knowing what your own feelings are. You used to do this with friends at school. You asked a lot of them, more than you were prepared to give yourself.’
‘I loved my friends.’
‘You wanted them to love you. Once they did, you sometimes stopped being interested.’
Claire began to cry. ‘You love Alice and Louise more than me. You always did.’
‘That’s not true. You saw to that!’ Judith gave her a little hug. ‘I’m sorry, pet. You’ve had a dreadful day. I shouldn’t have said so much.’
The next day they left the farm. Judith went to see the minister of the chapel which she attended near Lewes. His wife offered accommodation for the week of Claire’s stay. Judith hoped that during this time she would be able to find more permanent accommodation for herself. She was determined not to return to London, and it was certain she could not remain at the farm.
Claire, enjoying the luxury of having her mother to herself, behaved entrancingly throughout the week. The minister’s wife said it was like having an angel round the house. Claire was now at Oxford, and the minister had been at Balliol. They had long talks about Anglo-Saxon history. Claire read them The Dream of the Rood. She read it in Anglo-Saxon, which only she and the minister understood. To have read it in English would have been easier for all concerned, but then anyone could have read it in English. The minister told Judith that Claire would go far.
When they parted, Claire said to Judith, ‘I shall remember what you said to me.’ By this time, her mother’s words had been translated into acceptable form. Claire was adept at extracting from advice that small particle which she could assimilate without difficulty and with profit to herself. She now interpreted her mother’s words as a warning that other people might try to manipulate her, not that she was herself the manipulator. Claire had long ago cast herself in the role of the victim of others’ treachery; and it would have taken a radical revision of her nature to alter this view of herself.
She was to spend a few days at the YWCA near Marlow with Heather. She was the first to arrive and, having deposited her suitcase at the hostel, she went for a walk along the towpath. It was a beautiful spring day. As she walked, she looked forward to telling Heather of all that had befallen her. In a field on the far side of the river there was a group of Free French soldiers. They called to her and she waved in reply. One of them began to sing a catchy French tune in the manner of Maurice Chevalier. She tossed her head, so that her curly red hair floated around her face; her lips parted slightly; she walked as in a dream, noting how utterly, utterly lost she was in the wonder of this glorious day. The Frenchmen also noted this. Further on, there were GIs picnicking with some very silly girls. She did not want to be disturbed by people. So she turned and walked back again. The Frenchmen cheered and waved. What a beautiful race they were! She must improve her French.
In the distance, she saw Heather coming towards her. Her heart lifted at the sight of her beloved friend; she skipped and waved, so that the whole of her small form was animated by excitement. Heather was an ambulance driver. Uniform suited her long, raw-boned frame; but she was now wearing a summer frock, which had all the femininity of a sack draped round a lamp-post. Claire allowed the golden goodness of her love to pour like a benediction over poor, ugly Heather. Heather, delighted, ran to her, scooped her up and swung her round and round. The Frenchmen wailed outrage.
Claire, unprepared for Heather’s joy to leap beyond her own, wavered. She was aware of the French soldiers indulging in mimes unworthy of such a beautiful race. She felt embarrassed and stood back from her friend, breathless, pushing her hair from her face. A slight flush made Heather’s sunburn even redder. She said, with a cheerfulness that was not without effort, ‘My, but it’s good to see you again!’
Claire said brightly, ‘Aren’t we lucky it’s such a lovely day?’
Heather took her arm. ‘Let’s get out of range of the Frogs, shall we?’
They walked the way Claire had already been, passing the GIs and their girls, now a distasteful tangle of arms and legs. Further on, they came to an unfrequented meadow where they could lie and talk, still having a view of the river. The sun was hot for the time of year. It had brought out the freckles on Claire’s face and arms. Heather teased her, and said it wouldn’t be possible to get a pin between them. Then she stretched out, and sighed, ‘Oh, I have been looking forward to this!’
Claire stretched out beside her, calmer now. ‘Yes,’ she thought, ‘I have been looking forward to it, too.’ As she listened to the droning of insects in the long grass, a feeling of sheer goodness quieted her spirit, and made her very nearly forgetful of herself. ‘I am happy,’ she thought, which was strange because she was always telling herself she was happy (or desolate), so why should she feel so surprised by this happiness? Somewhere, deep inside her, there was a cool delight, quite unlike her usual nervy rapturousness. This delight made her think of the first concealed sparkle of water in a cleft of rock; water that would run down into a hidden stream; and then become the river, running broad and free between green banks.
‘I’d like to swim,’ she said.
Heather said, ‘Why don’t we?’
‘I haven’t got a costume. Besides, no one else is.’
‘My old Claire!’ Heather mocked. ‘Do you suppose there is a notice up somewhere telling us it is forbidden?’ She took hold of the hem of her dress, pretending to be about to raise it. ‘I will if you will!’
‘Heather, don’t!’
Heather lay back, laughing her gusty laugh. ‘All right. I didn’t think you would.’
‘Would you have done?’
‘Probably not. It would be icy cold.’
They lay in silence, half-dreaming in the warmth of the sun. Then Heather said, ‘Well, come on! Tell me about yourself. Are there any young men at Oxford?’
‘Just a few.’
‘The halt and maimed?’
‘There’s one who is quite passable. He’s got bad eyesight.’
‘I see. So that’s all, is it? One passable bloke with bad eyesight?’
The need to dramatize was awakened now. Claire told Heather about Harry and Meg.
Heather said, ‘The sod! So that is why you were so buttoned up when we met. And I thought you were in one of your mean moods!’
A mean mood, Claire might have accepted: ‘one of your mean moods’ she did not at all like. She said, ‘Harry’s not a sod. He loved me. I hadn’t realized what it is to be loved like that.’ She felt that Heather had not grasped the unique quality of this experience.
Heather said, ‘The dirty old man! You must have had an awful time and I haven’t been a bit sympathetic’ Repentant, she flung her arms around Claire. Her elbows dug into Claire’s ribs. She smelt of sweat.
Claire, looking up at the tilting sky, was not sure how she felt about this. There were people coming along the towpath; she could hear them exclaiming about the pussy willows.
‘I can’t breathe,’ she said touchily. ‘And anyway, you mustn’t speak in that way about Harry. He is my uncle.’ Heather’s family was common; it did not behove her to speak in this way of a Fairley connection, even though not one of the blood.
It was more than that, though. There was something so unselfconscious, so without guile or affectation, so unqualified – in fact, so unambiguous – about Heather’s friendship . . .
Heather was saying in a different voice, ‘But then, you’re all sods, randy old Uncle Harry and all.’ She was sitting looking away over the river, hands clasped round her knees.
Claire said, trying to be chirpy, ‘Who’s in a mean mood now?’
Heather put her head down on her knees and did not answer.
Claire said, ‘Well, if you’re going to sulk, I’m going for a walk.’
She began to walk along the towpath, looking back from time to time to see if Heather was following her. Heather was not. Claire was more put out than she had anticipated. She realized that her friendship with Heather was getting quite a hold on her. ‘I don’t think I have ever felt so unhappy,’ she thought. ‘And only a little while ago I had never felt so happy.’
Further along the towpath, she sat beneath the pussy willows, looking down at the river. A current chafed the smooth blue surface so that it looked like shirred silk. She had real trouble now. She had grown up in a world where the boundaries of loving were not blurred, and the lines of demarcation were armed frontiers. The air was very still, but the reflection of trees trembled slightly. Once look beyond those frontiers and all was over with you; the mirror cracked from side to side, and there was no way back.
Mummy was right, she told herself. I do need to be careful; Heather will just sweep me up otherwise. Tears came; tears that, for once, she did not particularly want but could not hold back. She remembered how she had burnt her stories of the Maitland family. There were other people – real people – one must also do without. She owed it to dear Harry to remember that.
By the time she met Heather at the YWCA she had herself well in hand.
Judith stayed another week with the minister and his wife, during which time she found rooms in a large house on the outskirts of Lewes. The owner of the house was away in North Africa. His wife was in the WVS, an activity which seemed to occupy her day and night. Although active in good works, she was not communicative on the purely social level, and was glad to find a lodger who kept herself to herself.
The memory of the railway siding stayed in Judith’s mind; but gradually, because she was not a poor-spirited woman, she ceased to blame life for her troubles and began to question her own attitudes. Perhaps she had chosen a road which led to a dead end? If so, it was now up to her to fight her way out.