Quite late one evening, Ursula Farr, answering her door bell, was surprised to discover Connie Hardy in the porch.
‘I’m sorry… it is so late, but I have no one else…’Her usual coolness was disturbed, her emotions were close to the surface.
‘It’s not late for me,’ Ursula said, and without fuss took her through to a large old-fashioned conservatory and poured them both generous gins.
Connie struggled to retain what remained of her composure. ‘This is delightful. It catches the evening sun. Such an atmosphere – oh, you have a datura – the perfume.’
‘I brought the plant home myself from my travels. But you did not call to admire my datura.’
‘I’m sorry. Yes. It is hopeless. I have to go away.’
‘Are things so bad for you?’
‘You don’t sound surprised.’
‘I find fewer and fewer things surprising – alas. It is perhaps a sign of age… of the state of society. But it is surprising that you use such a word as hopeless.’
‘It is how I feel. I must go away. I’m already on my way to drinking myself into an early grave.’ She downed the contents of her glass, but refused any more.
‘It is your marriage, I suppose.’
Connie gave a soft snort. ‘Isn’t it always that which drives women to drink?’
‘A good marriage is worth everything. But a bad one? It is certainly not worth being driven to drink for.’
‘And Eve. It seems to me the worst thing that a mother can do is to abandon her child.’
‘Eve is what, twenty-three, twenty-four? And why does it mean that you must abandon her? Because one relationship fails, it doesn’t mean that every other one involving you fails with it.’
‘But the house… oh, everything!’
For a moment, Ursula thought that Connie would break down. She would have comforted her as she herself would have felt comforted, by close contact and arms, but Connie tensed at Ursula’s gentle touch. A woman who had never learned how to deal with the contact of other women.
‘A house is nothing. Bricks and mortar only.’
‘But who will run it, if I go? I won’t leave Eve to do it.’
‘If the part you play in your house is as its custodian, then that isn’t a big enough part for any woman, a mere keeper of furniture and fittings. Is that what you are there?’
‘Yes. Except for trying to be something to Eve. I wish that I could have made a better job of it all-but you see… I had no idea… no idea at all. Perhaps Freddy would not have needed other women if I had been better at everything.’ She forced a cigarette into her holder and held it to the flame, drawing it into the tip; as she inhaled deeply her hand trembled.
Ursula felt both close to and distant from Connie Hardy, sensing that the younger woman might, at any moment, withdraw; so she merely nodded non-committally but said nothing.
Connie continued. ‘Freddy and I have always been poles apart. There was always that one thing… that was… was good between us. You understand? I hope that I don’t embarrass you.’
‘You don’t. Sex has never embarrassed me.’
‘I see now that our entire marriage was held together by brief moments of physical attraction. Then, about a year ago – it was during one of the night raids – as they say… the scales fell from my eyes and I was able to see us as we are. In the middle of the night, I was sheltering in the bowels of my house and searching for gin, whilst he was charming an ENSA girl. Eve… well, she was God knew where.’
‘If your marriage has failed, then it has failed you both… if you will only stop taking all the blame upon yourself…’
Connie stubbed out her cigarette and refilled her holder, using the action, Ursula suspected, to cover her emotions.
Eventually, she said quietly, ‘That’s right! I’m not entirely to blame. I have never been unfaithful.’
Soon after that she had left.
Having made the move to talk to Ursula that night, Connie Hardy was able to tell Eve something of how she felt. It was typical of Connie that she asked her daughter to meet her in the impersonal surroundings of a large, once-fashionable hotel out of town. They sat in its still-splendid restaurant talking quietly, as their training dictated, in controlled and unemotional tones.
‘It is now or never, darling. I have to go. I couldn’t bear the thought of the Markham gossips watching me slide downhill as people watched your grandmother. They probably say that I am a parasite and a social butterfly, and I may be; but I have my pride.’
‘Ma, don’t say such things, don’t put yourself down.’
‘I am down, Eve, but I do not intend to stay there.’
‘Have you told my father?’
‘No. I want to discuss it with you first.’
Eve looked at her mother. Why do we behave like this? If she were Dolly Partridge and I Dolly’s daughter, or Marie, we should be weeping or showing our anguish. Do I feel anything for her that I would not feel if any other woman sat there telling me that she was leaving her husband? Does she feel for me? Is this only a step away from the kindly way she dismisses servants – the informal interview in Madam’s sitting-room?
She remembered Trix, who used to work in the kitchens. ‘My Mum’s cleared off. I don’t blame her. D’you know what? She left the wash-boiler full on and cut the flies out of my Dad’s best trousers because he only wore them when he went off to see his floozie. He thought I was going to stop home and be skivvy. I told him (Christ! You could have heard us t’other end of town going hammer and tongs), I told him, Serves you right, you dirty old devil, don’t think I’m going to wait on you, if you was mine, I’d a cut off more than your flies. That’s when I cleared out and went to live with Pammy.’
And we sit on this expensive, neutral ground. If ever I have children, I shall touch them, hug them, shout and cry at them. There will be no holds barred when it comes to showing them I love them. Perhaps she doesn’t love me. Never has. Nanny Bryce was my surrogate mother from the day I was born.
‘What will happen… ? At home, I mean.’
‘That is what I wanted to discuss first – though your father may have other ideas once I have gone.’
‘He wouldn’t…’ Eve could not bring herself to articulate the thought.
‘Bring in his woman? Probably not, because if he did then she might be led to believe there was a commitment on his part. No, I rather thought that he might see you as hostess and Nanny Bryce or someone younger as housekeeper. I wanted to give you fair warning. He can be very persuasive… pressing, even, if he thinks that you owe him some due.’
Eve fiddled with her napkin. ‘I have been thinking about taking up nursing, or something more useful than driving the school meals van. Perhaps now I shall. I don’t think that I could live there.’ How to say it? ‘Actually… I shouldn’t like to live at home if… if you were not there. I should not think it was home.’ She blushed.
Connie twisted a new cigarette into her holder. How to deal with Eve being so emotional? ‘That’s sweet of you, Evie, but you must be practical… I mean about affording… We have both been used to not having to think about that. I have a little money still from your Uncle Douglas’s legacy.’
‘And I have never touched what he left me. You know, Mother, if you think about it, it has been Pa’s style of living that has made us expensive women. Georgia Kennedy never went skiing or sailing, she doesn’t give cocktail parties – so she needs none of the clothes or equipment. If I lived more simply, I should not need his allowance.’
‘I will not influence you. You are a grown woman, and must do whatever you decide to do. I am sorry that my actions will put you in the position of having to make any decision at all.’
‘I think Georgia Kennedy would be glad of someone to live with her – she has hinted at it once or twice.’
‘Are you sure that she meant another woman?’
‘I’m sure.’
‘I shall not leave for two weeks – you have time to consider. Don’t do anything hastily.’
‘Why in two weeks?’
‘That is when I join my unit.’
‘Mother! A unit? What unit? You have it all planned?’
‘Yes. It is about the only thing I can do where age is of no importance. They are so short of aviators that they will take anybody who can fly anything.’
‘Fly, Ma?’
Suddenly Connie looked eager, became animated. ‘Collecting and delivering aircraft. I’ve had a full pilot’s licence all my life. I’ve had a try-out at Eastleigh – they welcomed me with open arms. It is essential work.’
‘Goodness!’
Had her mother said that she had joined a troupe of acrobats, Eve Hardy would not have been more surprised.
Connie blinked nervously and smiled with caution. ‘I thought of a hundred different ways of breaking the news to you, but there seemed to be no easy way.’
Eve’s hand crept across the table to take Connie’s. ‘Oh Ma, I’m so proud of you.’