If it had been in the movies, her mother would have swept down the stairs in a beautiful gown, her hair waved, her face glowing; her father would have thrust Rusty aside and cried, ‘Peggy!’ and she would have replied ‘Roger!’; they would have rushed into each other’s arms and embraced against a background of violin music. Instead, Rusty gaped stupefied at the man, repeating, ‘Father?’
Her grandmother rediscovered the use of her legs and came running into the hall, and her father gave his mother a polite peck on the cheek, while she clasped him to her bosom.
After recovering from the shock, Rusty ran up the stairs, yelling. Minutes later, her mother appeared on the landing, her face shining from the steam of the bathroom, her short hair damp and tousled. Charlie was in her arms, wrapped up in a towel, his hair sticking up wildly.
And no one moved.
Her father glanced quickly at her mother’s trousers while she gazed down at him, stunned.
Eventually she walked down the stairs.
‘I had no idea,’ she began weakly. ‘Why didn’t you let me know you were coming?’
‘I tried to,’ he said. ‘But the phone always seemed to be engaged.’
Mrs Dickinson Senior looked a little guilty. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I can’t stand that thing ringing, so I sometimes just take it off the hook.’
Rusty noticed a flicker of anger pass across her mother’s face and then it was gone.
‘So,’ he said abruptly. ‘This is Charles.’
‘Yes.’ She smoothed his hair down. ‘Charlie,’ she murmured, ‘this is your daddy.’
Charlie put his arms round Peggy’s neck and buried his face in it.
Mr Dickinson placed his hands awkwardly behind his back.
‘I’ll put him to bed,’ said Peggy. ‘He’ll catch cold in this towel.’
He gave a nod.
‘And perhaps you could change into something a little more respectable,’ said Mrs Dickinson Senior, lightly.
Peggy blushed. ‘We’ve only just returned from Devon,’ she explained. ‘It was Virginia’s half-term.’
‘Roger,’ gushed Rusty’s grandmother suddenly, ‘for goodness’ sake, let me take your coat and cap, and come and sit in the drawing room. You’ll find it just as you left it.’
Rusty followed on behind him.
‘Yes,’ he said on entering. ‘It is.’ He looked puzzled. ‘I thought this was requisitioned.’
‘It was, but I had everything put in storage, and luckily it survived the bombs. I managed to have it all moved back and arranged before Margaret and Virginia and Charles’came back. Margaret didn’t do a thing. I mean, she didn’t have to do a thing. Sit down.’
As Rusty sat down in one of the armchairs, she heard her grandmother whisper, ‘You’ve come back just in time, my dear. Your son needs a father’s hand.’ She leaned back and took a long hard look at him. ‘You’ve changed so much,’ she remarked.
‘I expect we’ve all changed a little,’ he said, and he glanced at Rusty. ‘I hardly recognized Virginia.’
‘Oh, you can call me Rusty. Everyone back home does.’
‘My dear,’ said her grandmother stiffly. ‘You are back home.’
‘I mean,’ Rusty stammered, ‘back in Connecticut.’
‘Rusty?’ he repeated.
‘On account of my hair. Uncle Bruno said it reminded him of leaves in the fall.’
‘That’s Mr Omsk,’ explained her grandmother.
‘Well, if you don’t mind, I shall continue to call you Virginia. After all, that is what we christened you.’
‘O.K.’ She leaned forward. ‘I guess we’re a little bit the same, really. I mean, we were both sent away from England. The tea’s the worst thing here. I still haven’t gotten used to it yet.’
‘Well, actually, I wouldn’t mind a cup right now.’
‘Oh, Roger,’ said his mother, ‘how foolish of me. I’m afraid it’s Mrs Grace’s day off. I’ll go and make a nice pot for us all.’
As she left the room, Rusty and her father stared awkwardly at each other.
‘And how was your half-term?’ he said.
‘O.K. We went to Beatie’s place.’
He nodded. ‘And how is she? Your mother has told me quite a lot about her in her letters.’
‘Oh,’ said Rusty quietly. ‘She died. We had to go hear the will read on Saturday.’
‘I see. I’m sorry about that. Your mother sounded very fond of her.’
‘Beatie was the tops.’ Some instinct told her to steer clear of the subject of the will. ‘I go back to school tomorrow morning,’ she said. ‘But maybe they’d let me have a Week off-1 mean, with you coming back and all.’
‘If everyone did that, there’d be chaos.’
‘I guess,’ said Rusty, disappointed. He could at least have put up a fight, though. ‘Anyway,’ she added, ‘I’ll see you on Friday night.’
‘Oh? What’s happening on Friday?’
‘I come back here for the weekend.’
‘You come back here for the weekends?’ he said slowly.
Just then her mother walked in. Her father sprang to his feet. Rusty knew that her mother was wearing her better clothes, but she suspected that her father did not. Above an old tweed skirt she wore a simple cream blouse and a grey cardigan that had been darned at the elbows and cuffs. She drew out a packet of cigarettes from her cardigan pocket and took one out.
‘Do you have a light?’ she asked.
‘No. I’m afraid not.’ He sat down again.
She walked over to the fire. There was a spill of rolled newspaper by the grate. She pushed it into the fire, lit the cigarette, and stood leaning against the mantelpiece.
‘I didn’t know you smoked, Margaret.’ He tapped his fingers on his knee.
She nodded. ‘Someone handed me one during a raid in Plymouth.’
The W. V.S. had helped collect half a street of mutilated bodies that night, and then one by one they had accompanied the surviving relatives and friends to the mortuary to comfort them as they identified what remained.
‘I was as sick as a dog at first,’ she said quickly, ‘but after that I suppose I got used to it.’
‘I didn’t know you had cut your hair either,’ he said.
‘Well, yes. It was far more convenient.’
They heard the clatter of the tea-trolley in the hall. Peggy hastily placed her cigarette on the mantelpiece so that the lit end jutted out over the edge. ‘Sit down, Mother,’ she said. ‘I’ll bring it in.’
‘Thank you. I was beginning to think I’d been forgotten.’ And she gave a short laugh.
To Rusty’s surprise, her grandmother sat down beside her father, almost as if she was a chaperone.
Peggy drew out two low tables and laid the cups and saucers out.
‘I’ll be mother,’ said Mrs Dickinson Senior.
At first Rusty didn’t understand, but then she realized that ‘being mother’ meant that you were the one who poured out the tea.
Peggy picked up her cigarette from the mantelpiece and sat on the edge of the winged armchair, opposite Rusty. Rusty stared at her father. He looked so uncomfortable and out of place sitting on a sofa in his uniform. He sat, bolt upright, as stiff as if he had a poker up his back. If there were grades for good carriage, Jar ey would have given him an A.
‘I hear,’ he said, turning to Peggy, ‘that the woman whose house you were billeted in has just died.’
She turned swiftly. ‘Yes,’ she said.
‘And what about the other woman who lived there?’
‘She’s moved into rented accommodation in Southampton with Susan. She married a G.I. She’s waiting there to be posted out to America.’ She drew on the cigarette. ‘Actually, I’ve had some good news this weekend. She’s expecting a baby.’
‘Yes, well, that’s hardly the thing to talk about over tea,’ said Mrs Dickinson Senior, casting a swift glance in Rusty’s direction.
Peggy ignored her. ‘I’m glad for her. She’s had enough unhappiness. Captain Flannagan is a kind man. Susan adores him.’
‘We’ve all had to suffer unhappiness,’ said Rusty’s grandmother lightly, ‘but we don’t all run off with G.I.s to cure it.’
Rusty again saw the flicker of anger in her mother’s eyes.
‘You see,’ Peggy explained, ‘soon after she received a telegram informing her that her husband was Missing Believed Dead, her younger child was killed in an air-raid on Plymouth.’
‘Yes,’ went on Mrs Dickinson Senior relentlessly, ‘I lost my husband in the First War, but I wouldn’t have dreamt of remarrying.’
No one’d have you, thought Rusty.
‘By the way, Roger,’ said her grandmother, ‘I saw Mr Bartholomew, and he told me to remind you that your old post is waiting for you and that you can take it up any time you like.’
‘There’s no rush, is there?’ said Peggy. ‘After all, Roger might want to start something fresh.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Mrs Dickinson Senior. ‘Jobs are hard to find.’
‘Mother does have a point,’ he said, putting his cup clumsily back on the saucer.
And then Rusty’s grandmother said something so staggering that Rusty almost fell out of the armchair.
‘And we’ve just had some delightful news. This friend of Margaret’s has left her the house in Devon. We can sell it and do some repairs on this house.’
Rusty and Peggy stared at her, absolutely speechless.
‘Is this true?’ said Rusty’s father.
‘What?’ said Peggy, as if in a dream. ‘Well, yes and no. Yes, she has left the house to me, and no, I won’t be selling it.’
Her mother-in-law looked aghast. ‘You don’t intend to keep it?’
‘Yes.’
‘But how are you going to look after it?’
‘Mother does have a point.’
‘Odd weekends. The children’s holidays. Who knows, we might want to move down there.’
‘But Margaret, you can’t possibly keep it,’ said Mrs Dickinson Senior. She paused. ‘I think you should at least put it in Roger’s name.’
‘I’m afraid I can’t do that either.’
‘But Margaret,’ said her husband, ‘you know how impractical you are. You wouldn’t have a clue.’
‘I have changed, you know. I’m not quite as useless as I used to be five years ago. And anyway, I’m afraid it’s legally impossible. I’m not allowed to sell it for seventeen years, and it’s a stipulation of the will that it remains in a woman’s name.’ Peggy threw her cigarette end into the fire. Crafty Beatie, she thought, she must have foreseen all this.
‘It is rather odd, I must say,’ said her husband.
‘No, I don’t think so,’ said Peggy. ‘Charlie loves it there. So do I. I suppose Beatie thought she’d like us at least to have the opportunity of spending our holidays there. I’m sure you’d like it, too. We could all go there in Virginia’s Christmas holidays.’
‘I was rather looking forward to spending Christmas here.’
‘Of course you were,’ put in his mother. ‘I’ve never heard such nonsense.’
‘I didn’t mean Christmas Day. I meant in the New Year.’
‘We’ll see,’ he said.
‘More tea, Roger?’ said his mother.
He nodded and pushed his cup and saucer in her direction.
The next morning, to Rusty’s relief her mother agreed readily to letting her catch an earlier train. She seemed pleased that Rusty was eager to return to school, and relieved to get out of the house. For the first time she brought Charlie with her. It couldn’t have been more perfect for, with Charlie for Peggy to look after, Rusty could easily insist on carrying the grip without arousing suspicion.
They were sitting on a platform bench a full ten minutes before the train drew in. Rusty was shocked by her mother’s appearance: her face was ashen and she looked as though she had had no sleep.
‘When is that man going away?’ Charlie said suddenly. He was sitting with his teddy-bear on Peggy’s lap.
‘What man, darling?’
‘You know,’ he said, twisting himself around. ‘The man with the moustache.’
‘Oh, Charlie!’ she exclaimed. ‘You are a funniosity. I told you. He’s your daddy.’
‘Can’t I have Uncle Harvey instead?’
‘Of course not. Don’t be silly.’
‘I don’t like that man.’
‘You wait. You’ll have lots of fun with him.’
‘Why doesn’t he smile?’
‘I expect it’s because he’s very tired.’
‘Oh.’
‘Next weekend we’ll all do something together,’ she said. ‘It’ll be like being a real family again.’
‘Grandmother too?’ asked Rusty.
‘I expect so.’ But when Peggy saw Rusty’s expression, she burst out laughing. ‘Oh, Virginia,’ she said, ‘you’re quite dreadful!’
‘So’s she.’
‘Oh, stop it.’ And she attempted to smother her laughter. Charlie started giggling too, though he wasn’t quite sure what it was all about.
For a moment Rusty wished she could stay there with her mother and Charlie, and the three of them could just go off somewhere together but, before she could say anything, her train pulled into the station.
She stood up, kissed her mother, and then bent down and kissed Charlie on the cheek.
‘Ugh!’ he said, rubbing his face hastily, but Rusty could see he liked it. When she looked at her mother, she was surprised to see that she had turned quite red and there were tears in her eyes.
‘I guess I better be going,’ she muttered.
Her mother nodded. ‘I’ll see you on Friday.’
Rusty pulled open one of the train doors, slammed it quickly, and leaned out of the window. The whistle blew and the train began to move away in a cloud of steam.
‘So long!’ she yelled.
Her mother laughed. ‘So long!’
Charlie thrust his teddy-bear forward and made one of the paws go up and down.
‘Monster,’ she muttered warmly.
It was easy smuggling the tools into Benwood House. Immediately Rusty entered the school grounds, she sneaked around to the back, ran across the lacrosse pitches, threw the bundle of tools over the wall, and sprinted back towards the Fourth Form cloakroom of Butt House.
Gradually, the other girls started drifting into the cloakroom, chatting and laughing, while Rusty sat on one of the benches, her heart beating.
Within minutes a bell started to ring. It was time for assembly.