Wiltshire, France, London, 1939–1948
JULIAN MORELL’S ENEMIES often said he could never quite make up his mind who he loved more, his mother or himself.
This judgement, pronounced as frequently in company boardrooms as at dinner parties, might well have been considered just a little harsh; but there was certainly sufficient truth in it to ensure its frequent repetition. And certainly anyone observing the two of them dining together at the Ritz one evening in the autumn of 1952 would have been irresistibly reminded of it – watching Julian looking alternately fondly at his mother, and almost as fondly into the mirror behind her.
They looked alike to a degree; they were both dark-haired, both tall and slim, but Julian’s eyes were brown and his face was long and already threatening to be gaunt. Letitia had deep, almost purple, blue eyes and the kind of bone structure that would look good for another fifty years: high cheekbones, and a very slight squarishness to the jaw. She had the sort of mouth possessed by all great beauties of the twenties and thirties: a perfect bow, neither full nor thin; and a nose of classical straightness. But the most remarkable thing about her (and this would not have seemed quite so remarkable to anybody who had not known she was fifty-four years old) was her skin. It was not only much admired, Letitia’s skin, it was hugely commented upon; it not only inspired admiration, it defied science. It was soft and dewy, and extraordinarily unlined, and one of her more florid admirers had once said (rather unfortunately for him) that as he sat looking at it, it seemed to him to be more and more like looking into a rose petal.
Everything else about Letitia Morell’s extraordinary beauty could be explained away by face lifts (she was rumoured to have had three already), expensive skin treatments, skilled maquillage, and the attentions of the best cosmetic chemists in the country placed permanently at her disposal, but the fact was that Miss Arden and Madame Rubinstein, with many of the same advantages, did not look nearly as young as she did.
Julian, on the other hand, could easily have been older than his thirty-two years; he had the kind of looks that settle on a face in their owner’s mid twenties, and stay, relatively unchanged, for thirty years or more. He was conventionally good-looking; he had his mother’s straight nose, and rather sharply defined mouth, but his eyes were very dark. They were remarkable eyes, curiously expressionless for much of the time, but with a capacity to light up and to dance when he was amused or setting out to charm (which was frequently) and to disturb, particularly women; they held an expression that was almost insolent, probing, amused, shrewd; they were hard eyes to meet, without feeling threatened, in some way or another, pleasurably or otherwise. His hair was a little longer than the current vogue; and his clothes bore the unmistakable mark of much attention and a strong sense of style. His dark grey suit, beautifully and clearly hand made, nevertheless had lapels just fractionally wider, the jacket a touch longer, flaring only a little more at the back, than the classic style his tailor would have offered him; his shirt was not white or cream, but very pale blue; his red silk tie was tied in a Windsor knot; and his shoes (hand made for him by Lobb) were softer, and lighter-looking, than those on most of the feet under most of the tables in the room. His watch was a classic gold Cartier, on a black leather strap; on the little finger of his left hand he wore a heavy gold signet ring; and although he did not smoke himself, he always had with him a slim gold cigarette case, permanently filled with the oval Passing Clouds cigarettes so beloved by the stylish of the fifties, and a gold Dunhill lighter. These lay between them on the table now; Letitia, who had been young in the twenties (and had once most famously danced the Charleston with the Prince of Wales in the Glass Slipper Nightclub, an event she was given to reliving in ever greater detail after a glass or two of champagne), and had seen the cigarette as a symbol of emancipation and sophistication, still occasionally smoked before or after a meal through a long black cigarette holder. She was using it now, as she studied the menu, reaching out to cover Julian’s hand with her own as he lit it for her, smiling at him through the cloud of smoke; certainly they did not look, the two of them, like mother and son at all, but a wonderful-looking couple amusing and interesting one another intensely.
‘Mother,’ said Julian fondly, ‘you do look particularly amazing. How long have you spent with Adam Sarsted this evening?’
‘Oh, darling, hours,’ said Letitia, smiling at him and stroking his cheek appreciatively, ‘he takes longer and longer every single time. He’s got a marvellous new foundation he wanted to demonstrate and I do have to say I think it’s extremely good. But I had to listen to him extolling its virtues for at least twice as long as it took to put it on.’
‘Well, he works on his own,’ said Julian, ‘he needs to talk about the things he’s been doing from time to time. Listening to him is an investment. He was talking to me about that foundation. I’m glad it’s good. He’s a clever chap. Worth all that money I pay him. Or don’t you think so?’
‘Mmm,’ said Letitia thoughtfully. ‘Just. Yes, I suppose so. But I do keep telling you, darling, the very best cosmetic chemists are in New York. You really should think about finding some people over there. Next time you go I might come with you and talk to a few, if you won’t.’
‘Well, maybe I will – when I go,’ said Julian, ‘and I’d love to have you with me. But I honestly don’t think you’re going to find anyone better than Sarsted. The man’s a genius.’
‘No, he’s not a genius,’ said Letitia, ‘he’s a very good chemist and that’s all. He hasn’t got any creativity. He isn’t inspired. He doesn’t have any ideas.’
‘Mother, darling, we have enough ideas between us to keep a dozen cosmetic companies afloat. Stop fussing. What do you want to drink?’
‘Gin and french. And I’m hungry. Do let’s order quickly. Last time we had dinner here I seem to remember eating so much melba toast I scrunched when I moved. So common, nibbling.’
‘Mother,’ said Julian, laughing and signalling at the waiter, ‘you could never look common. However much you nibbled. Not in that dress, anyway.’
‘Do you like it, darling? Good. Cavanagh. Such a clever man.’ She glanced over her shoulder into the mirror behind her and smiled briefly at her reflection; white crepe dress, accordion pleated from the shoulders, swathed across the bosom and drawn into a tiny waist with a narrow, pale suede cummerbund; her dark hair was swept back, around her neck she wore the fabled treble-stranded Morell pearls given to her by her mother-in-law on her wedding day, and the overtly fake cluster of beads and diamante in her ears gave a style and wit to the discreet taste of the rest.
‘Where on earth did you get those Christmas trees?’ said Julian, touching one of the earrings. ‘I’ve never seen anything like them in my life.’
‘I’m very glad to hear it. I’d have thought it was a fearful waste of twenty pounds if you had. I got them at the Dior boutique in Paris. It’s a heavenly place. Full of all sorts of wonderful things. Next time you want an amusing present for someone, I suggest you go there.’
‘Ah,’ said Julian, ‘I’ll remember. Thank you. It’s no use looking at me in that hopeful way, Mother, you’re not going to get any gossip out of me about anyone I might or might not want to find an amusing present for. Now just tell me what you want to eat.’
‘I’m not looking hopeful,’ said Letitia, ‘quite the reverse. I find it much more restful when you aren’t in love with anybody. I just thought it must be about time, that’s all. Quails’ eggs, I think. And the turbot. Lovely. Lots of potatoes and spinach. To give me strength for tomorrow.’
‘What are you doing tomorrow?’
‘Meeting the accountants.’
‘There’s nothing to worry about, is there?’ said Julian sharply.
‘No, of course not. Don’t fuss. You’re more of an old woman than I am, Julian, when it comes to money. It’s just that I dislike the new man rather, and I know they’re going to query the investment budget.’
‘Are you sure it’s the right way to go? Should we talk about it?’
‘Absolutely, and no we shouldn’t. We’ve talked about it quite enough already. We need the new factory and we need a complete new range of filling machinery. Don’t worry about it, I’ll deal with them. That’s my department, you stick to cosmetic concepts.’
‘Don’t patronize me, Mother. I don’t like it.’ The lighthearted look left his face briefly; his eyes grew darker and he pushed his hair back from his forehead with a rough, impatient gesture. It was an act that his fellow directors and his mistresses came to know swiftly; it meant trouble and got him his way. ‘Do you want another drink?’
‘Yes, please. And I’m not patronizing you. The secret of success, as you’re so fond of telling everybody else, is knowing what you’re good at and doing it. I’m good at sums. You’re good at concepts. Although . . .’
‘What?’
‘Well, that brings me back to the chemist. Julian, you really do need someone better than Sarsted. The truly great cosmetic chemists are artists as well as scientists. They think laterally. They don’t just look at a formula and mix it; they look at a formula and dream or they dream and then look at formulas.’
‘So where are we failing, Mother?’ said Julian, pushing his hair back again, crumbling a bread roll to pieces and pushing it round his plate. ‘Just tell me that. Everything seems fine to me. We’re doing brilliantly. Snapping at Arden’s heels, worrying Rubinstein. I had lunch with Norman Parkinson yesterday. He said that every model he’s worked with for the past three months was using Juliana make-up. Audrey Withers told me only last week they keep permanent sets of it in the Vogue studios. We can’t meet the demand for Je. I just can’t see what basis you have for criticism.’
‘Julian, do calm down,’ said Letitia. ‘I’m not criticizing you. I’m simply saying we could do even better with a truly inspired chemist.’
‘And I’m saying we’re quite inspired enough,’ said Julian, ‘I don’t want any more creativity in the company.’
‘No,’ said Letitia tartly, ‘you wouldn’t like the competition. Now get on with your food. Perhaps it’s time you did have a new girlfriend. It might improve your temper. Or even,’ she added, looking at him thoughtfully, ‘a wife. Thirty-two is far too old to be a bachelor.’
She looked at him with amusement as he tried not to show how ruffled he was; pushing his food around his plate just as he had when he was a small boy and she thwarted him taking huge gulps of milk – rather as the hugely expensive sancerre was going down now.
Letitia had always loved Julian in a curiously unmaternal way, and they had both of them known it; his elder brother James had been the perfect textbook little boy, exactly like his father, serious, quiet, blue-eyed, fair-haired, fascinated by farming as soon as he could walk, tramping round in his wellington boots after the cowman, up at dawn with his father every day, keeping logbooks of milk yields and stock prices as soon as he could write.
Julian, three years younger, was extraordinarily different; with his dark hair and eyes, his passion for reading, his sociable nature (at five he was already pinning party invitations on to the wall in his bedroom and counting the days to each one). He took a polite interest in the farm, but no more; he was more likely to be found reading in the drawing room, or listening to the radio, or best of all chatting to anybody at all who was prepared to listen to him, than outside or in the barns, or even the stables. He did have a considerable passion for his pony, and rode her extremely well, if rather showily: ‘Like a girl,’ James said more than once rather scornfully, and indeed he was far more likely to win the show classes than the children’s gymkhana games like Walk, Trot and Gallop or an Obstacle Race. He was clever, quick and very funny, even as a small boy, full of amusing observations and quick sharp comment; he and his mother became very early friends, companions and confidants. His father, Edward, kind, good-natured and absolutely conventional, adored James, but found Julian hard to understand.
The difference between the two little boys was the subject of much gossip in Wiltshire; and nobody ever understood in any case why a nice, straightforward man like Edward Morell had married someone as patently unsuited to the life of farmer’s wife as Letitia Farnworth, but there it was, he had brought her down to meet his parents, having met her at a party in London, quite literally blushing with pride, in 1915, and married her a year later.
The reason for that was perfectly simple and straightforward, of course: he had fallen deeply in love with her, and remained so until the day he died. The real puzzle, and one recognized by the more discerning, was why Letitia should have married Edward; beautiful, sparkling, witty as she was, and he so quiet, so shy, so modest. It was on Julian’s twenty-first when, given that this was London in 1941, she still managed to orchestrate a very good birthday party for him (supper and dancing at the gallant Savoy, which like most of the great London hotels was resolutely refusing even to acknowledge that the war was much more than a minor inconvenience), that she told him: ‘You’re old enough to know now, my angel, and I don’t want anyone giving you a garbled version.’ She had been engaged to and much in love with a young officer in the Guards, Harry Whigham, who had gone to France, and been blown to pieces before even her first letter had reached him. Confronted by this and the almost equally appalling fact that virtually every other young man in England was facing the same fate, and terrified at seventeen by the prospect of spinsterhood, she had seen salvation in Edward Morell. He would not be going to France because he was a farmer; he was good-looking, he was kind, and he was modestly well off. Still in shock from Harry Whigham’s death, she accepted Edward’s proposal of marriage only three months later; they were married two months after that, this being wartime and the normal conventions set aside, and it was only after the birth of James that she properly realized what she had done.
‘But Julian, darling,’ she said, filling her champagne glass and raising it to him for at least the dozenth time that night, ‘I don’t want you to think it was a bad marriage. I made Edward, your father, very happy, he never knew for an instant that he wasn’t the great love of my life, and to the day he died I was certainly his.’
She said this not with any kind of conceit, but a serene conviction; Julian looked at her and leant forward and kissed her on the cheek.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘but what about you? Were you happy? It sounds like hell.’
‘Oh, not at all,’ said Letitia lightly, ‘I’m not the going-through-hell sort. You of all people ought to know that. Positive, that’s what we are, my angel, both of us; I made the most of it, and I was perfectly happy. There was you, and there was James, and Edward was the sweetest man on God’s earth. The only really sad thing was when your little sisters died. But you know all about that, and you were a great comfort to me at the time. Even though you were only two. Now let’s dance, this is getting maudlin, and then we’d better – oh, hell, there’s the siren. Shall we go to the shelter or dance?’
‘I’d like to dance,’ said Julian, slightly reluctantly, for he had often longed to talk to her about the death of his small twin sisters, and had always been briskly discouraged, ‘with the bravest and most beautiful woman in the room.’
Edward Morell had died in 1939. For the duration of the war, James ran the farm, while Julian enlisted in the Signals (rejecting the infantry regiments as too predictable), and spent a frustrated two years in England, rising to the rank of captain; finally by a combination of shameless string-pulling on the part of Letitia’s cousin, a colonel in Intelligence, and some sheer bloody-minded persistence on his own, he managed to gain an interview with the SOE, the Special Operations Executive directing the British leg of the Resistance movement.
Julian had a considerable talent for languages, he was a brilliant radio operator, and he was immensely self-confident; he was sent for the preliminary selection for F Section, and passed with distinction. He then went to Scotland where he learnt such assorted skills as living off the land, handling explosives, dropping off a train moving at 40 mph and killing competently in a wide spectrum of ways. His instructor in this was a venerable-looking, white-haired gentleman who looked like a particularly benevolent academic; he personally taught Julian a Chinese method of stifling a man to death, leaving no traces whatsoever of violence. A pamphlet was produced by the Germans in 1942 describing this and some of Syke’s other methods, the ultimate tribute to their efficiency.
Finally Julian was sent to an establishment in the New Forest where he was trained in the more conventional skills of espionage, ciphers, secret inks and, perhaps most crucially, of withstanding interrogation.
He was one of the youngest men on the course; permanently under suspicion because of it, he never cracked, never did anything remotely to suggest that he would be unable to deal with any of the demands made of him; he was just twenty-two when he was finally sent to France after a personal interview with the famous commander of F Section, Maurice Buckmaster.
He was not required, to his inevitable disappointment, to set lines of explosives across the Normandy countryside, or personally scale the walls of German prison camps in order to free his comrades, but what he did have to do required in its own way as much courage, as much ice-cold determination and steadfastness, and it was certainly as essential.
His task was to gather information – perfectly basic, simple information in the area around Chartres – about such unremarkable things as bus and train routes, and timetables, stamp prices, curfew regulations, and relay these things, so crucial in the planning of covers and escape routes, to SOE in London by radio. His cover was as tutor to the small son of a French countess, herself an extraordinarily brave member of the Resistance; her husband had been a colonel in the French artillery and killed in the first three months of the war. Julian’s code name was Philippe Renard, his age on his forged papers given as eighteen; the image he set out to project was of someone effete, a little fey, possibly homosexual, certainly timid. It was the first time in his life that he could give rein to his considerable talents as an actor, to display his ability to climb inside another person’s skin, however briefly, and he played the part brilliantly; even Amelie Dessange was half inclined to believe in it, and regarded him with a mixture of tolerance and contempt. Her small son Maurice, on the other hand, adored him and was permanently tagging along behind him, a small devoted slave. This provided further useful cover; it was easy to stand unsuspected in shop queues, at bus stops and in post offices, chatting pleasantly to the locals and asking them how best to reach such and such a place on which bus or train, with a small boy clinging to his hand.
His radio transmitter, smuggled into the Comtesse’s house in the gardener’s wheelbarrow, was kept in an upper attic; the door to the tiny room, leading out from one of the servants’ bedrooms, was covered by a huge trunk, filled with the dead Comte’s uniforms, medals and sword. Every night Julian would read to Maurice until he fell asleep, dine alone in the kitchen and then climb the stairs for his appointment with London. Sometimes there was little information, sometimes a lot; in any case he had to make contact to let them know he was safe.
He lived with Amelie Dessange for over a year, in a curious mixture of closeness and detachment. She was to him a remote, unsmiling figure, who occasionally asked him if he had enough to eat, or how Maurice was getting along with his lessons, always hurrying about the house, leaving it for brief spells, supposedly to visit her mother in the next village, or to take some of her garden produce to the market. He did not like her particularly, but he knew how brave she was, and how clever, and he admired her; she was not exactly beautiful, she had rather strange, strong colouring, very dark red hair and white, immensely freckled skin; her eyes, which snapped at him impatiently while she talked, were brown, dark dark brown, without a fleck of green, and her mouth was narrow and tense. But she had a certain grace, and a tension which made him very aware of her sexually; in other circumstances he would have talked to her, made her laugh, flirted with her, as it was he kept quietly to himself and allowed her to think of him whatever she wished.
One night, the Germans had come to call, as they put it, a routine visit; he was passing along the upper landing on his way to his room, and he heard them come into the hall. They meant no great harm, and there were only two of them, they were simply obeying orders and making sure nothing overtly out of order was taking place at the chateau, but Amelie was exceptionally rude that night; she shouted at them to leave her house, and when one of them put his hand on her arm, she spat at him. The other grabbed her, shouting at the old man who had opened the door to fetch the boy; Julian, racing down the stairs, watched her, panting struggling in the soldier’s arms while little Maurice was led down from his bedroom in his nightgown. For a long time they all stood there; nobody spoke, nobody moved. Then the soldier tipped his gun under Maurice’s chin, his eyes on Amelie’s face. ‘You should learn some manners, Madame la Comtesse,’ he said, ‘otherwise we may have to teach some to the boy.’
He flung her aside, motioned the other soldier to release Maurice, and they left, clanging the door shut behind them. Julian moved towards Amelie as she stood weeping quietly, held out his arms; she moved into them. Maurice joined them, and they stood there, the three of them holding one another in the cold dark hall, for a long time.
‘Come, Maurice,’ she said in the end, ‘you must go back to bed. The Germans have gone, they did us no harm, and you were very brave. Jean-Michel,’ she added to the old man, who was sitting silent and shaking on the stairs, looking at her helplessly like a child himself, ‘you too, are you all right?’
‘Yes,’ he said, getting wearily to his feet, ‘I’m all right. Let me take you up to your room, Maurice.’
‘Maman, you come with me, please.’
The boy was white-faced, sobbing quietly, shaking with fear and cold.
‘It’s all right, Jean-Michel,’ said Amelie, ‘I’ll put him back to bed. Go and take a brandy for yourself and try to sleep.’
They started up the stairs together, and Maurice looked back, holding out his hand to Julian. ‘Can Philippe come too, Maman, and read me a story?’
‘Of course, and I will come and hear the story too.’
Julian was reading a translation of the Just So Stories to Maurice. He found the stories soothing, their humour refreshing, and when he was homesick comforting, and Maurice adored them all. Tonight he read the story of The Elephant’s Child, for a long time, unwilling to relinquish the mood of closeness and tenderness that bound them together; finally Maurice fell asleep and Amelie led Julian out of the room and into her sitting room.
‘Brandy?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘Thank you for all you did tonight. You are so good for Maurice. I should have said so before. I’m sorry. And I’m glad you are here.’
‘I am too,’ he said, smiling at her.
‘Are you really only eighteen?’
‘No. A little more.’
‘I thought so.’
They drank the brandy. ‘Come and sit here by me,’ she said, and started suddenly to cry.
‘Don’t,’ he said, ‘don’t. It’s all right. You’re so brave.’
‘I’m lonely,’ she said, ‘so lonely. And so hopeless.’
‘Don’t be. You’re not alone. And we can’t afford to lose hope,’ he said. And he took her in his arms, simply to comfort her, and suddenly there was another mood between them, urgent, almost shocking in its violence. He turned her face to kiss it.
‘No,’ she said, ‘not here. Maurice might come. Upstairs.’
It was the first time he had slept with anyone so sexually accomplished. He was not totally inexperienced, but the things Amelie showed him that night, a blend of gentleness and almost brutal passion, stayed with him always. They made love over and over again, until the dawn had broken, and they were both exhausted, and the world for both of them had narrowed entirely to one room, one bed; to piercing desire, to tender exploration, and again and again, the surging roar of release. In the morning she looked at him as they lay there, unable to feel anything any more but a sweet weariness, and she kissed him, all of him, first his lips, then his shoulders, his chest, his stomach, buried her face in his pubic hair, tongued his penis gently, and then raised herself on her elbow and smiled at him.
‘I haven’t done much of this sort of thing,’ he said, taking her fingers and kissing them tenderly, one by one, ‘not with anyone who – well, who knew so much. I’m not very practised.’
‘You did very beautifully,’ she said, in English, ‘you are a fine lover. Now,’ briskly, getting up from the bed and pulling on her robe, ‘get up. This is not a good idea. It would get out and they would be suspicious. It must not happen again.’
It never did.
In time Julian did more challenging and dangerous work. He became, amongst other things, quite a formidable forger, and spent a year in the house of a country postman, who produced a large percentage of the documents issued to escaping prisoners en route to the South or to England.
He developed a love of Northern France and its curiously English, lush countryside; he was captured, interrogated and escaped; he spent three months of the German occupation hiding, his cover finally blown, living rough, killing wild animals, catching fish; he made himself extremely ill eating poisonous fungi he mistook for mushrooms and lay for days in a cave, too weak and in too much pain even to crawl from his own vomit. But he recovered. And he escaped from all of it, returning home in 1945 hugely changed; the charming, flippant boy a complex man, his courage and his brilliance unquestionably established. He had learnt to live with solitude and with fear; he had learnt to fix his mind absolutely on the end and to disregard the means; he had learnt to be ruthless, cruel, devious and totally pragmatic; he had learnt to trust no one but himself; to set aside sentiment, personal loyalty, and perhaps most crucially self-doubt.
Letitia looked at him as he sat before the fire in the drawing room at Maltings the night he came home, his initial joy and pleasure lost in exhaustion and hurtful memories, and realized that he had aged not five years but a lifetime.
Before her sat an old man who had seen and faced the very worst and now had to remember and live with it for the rest of his life; and the fact that he was only twenty-five years old was absolutely irrelevant.
He had lost innocence, he had lost faith in human nature, he had lost trust and to a degree he had lost happiness. And what, she wondered, gazing into the fire with him, and trying to imagine what he saw there, had he found?
Julian turned to her and smiled suddenly; aware, as he always had been, of the drift of her thoughts. ‘It’s all right, Mother, I’m not going to crack up on you. You mustn’t worry about me. It’s not all been bad.’
‘Hasn’t it?’
‘No. A lot of it has been good.’
‘In what way?’
‘Oh, the loyalty, the friendship. And seeing the sheer power of people’s courage. People were so brave. They risked not just death, that was the easy option; they risked terrible things: prison, torture, the capture of their families. But they went on. It was extraordinary.’
‘It’s a powerful thing, hope,’ said Letitia. Her eyes were bright with tears.
‘Yes, it is. So powerful that it worked. In the end. But it was a long time. And we couldn’t forget, any of us, ever.’
‘Will you go back, will you see any of them again?’
‘I don’t know. I might. It’s hard to know. Nothing would be the same. After being so close, knowing such trust, such – well, love I suppose. Could you go back just on an idle visit? I don’t think so.’
‘Maybe not.’ She was silent. ‘Where did you live? How did you live?’
‘Oh, all kinds of places. All over Northern France. With Amelie Dessange, I told you about her, for a long time. I stayed on a farm for a while, labouring, towards the end. I lived rough for a while, as you know. Most recently I was further up the coast, quite near Deauville, lodging with a funny old chap. You’d have liked him. He was a chemist. Still is, of course. He escaped. God knows how. Only one in his family who did.’ He was quiet suddenly, his jaw tightening; he took a gulp of whisky and then looked at her and tried to smile.
‘Knowing him was very good for me. It’s given me lots of ideas. In fact I know what I want to do now. With my life, I mean.’
‘What, my darling?’ said Letitia, turning the evening determinedly back into a positive occasion. ‘Tell me. I’ve thought about it so much, I do hope it’s not a career in the Foreign Office. Or the army.’
‘God forbid,’ said Julian, ‘they both require a degree of self-abnegation, and I’ve had quite enough of that. No, I want to go into the pharmaceutical business. And possibly cosmetics.’
‘Julian, darling,’ said Letitia, half amused, half astonished, ‘whatever gave you that idea?’
‘Oh,’ said Julian, his eyes dancing, enjoying her slight unease with the situation and this rather unmasculine notion. ‘This old boy. I worked in his lab with him quite a lot. You know I loved chemistry at school. I’d have read it at Oxford if the war hadn’t happened.’
‘Do you think you’ll ever want to go now?’ said Letitia. ‘They said they’d keep your place.’
‘No. Fooling around with a lot of kids. Couldn’t possibly.’
‘It’s a pity in a way.’
‘So are lots of things.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Well, anyway, you’d be surprised what I learnt. I can make all kinds of things. A jolly good cough mixture. A sleeping draught. Anti-inflammatory medicine. All sorts. And then I started fiddling around with creams and lotions and that sort of thing.’
‘Do you mean skin creams?’
‘Darling,’ said Letitia, patting his hand, ‘I’d sell my soul for something like that. All you can buy now is Pond’s Cold Cream. Too awful. You didn’t bring any of your creams back with you, did you?’
‘Fraid not. But I have got the formulas. And when I’ve settled down a bit I thought I’d fix up some sort of lab in one of the outhouses and play about a bit. It’s fascinating stuff, Mother. I know it’s an odd thing to bring back with you from the war, but there it is. I think I could make a business of it. It must be better than an addiction to pornography, or the burning desire to write a manual on fifty-five new ways to kill a man. So many of the chaps got bitter and defeated.’
‘Weren’t you afraid of that?’ said Letitia.
‘No, not at all. I knew I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t allow it.’
It was an extraordinarily revealing remark. Letitia took it in, put it temporarily aside, and then turned back to the future.
‘I love the idea, Julian, but how are you going to get started? It’s not a world that either of us knows a lot about.’
‘No,’ said Julian, accepting her involvement without question, ‘but we can learn. Would you like to help?’
‘Of course I would. I’d love to. But I haven’t got any money. Not on the scale you’d need, anyway. And James certainly hasn’t. It’s no use looking here for backing. And I can’t imagine there will be any about for quite a long while.’
‘I didn’t mean money. You can always find money if you’ve got ideas. And I’ve got lots. And anyway there’s going to be a big boom in a year or two, you see. People will be spending money like there’s no tomorrow. Or rather there was no yesterday. To annihilate. To forget.’ Another silence. ‘So I do think it’s an excellent time. Both to raise money and to start new ventures. And I really would appreciate your help. I know you’d be very good at it all. Where are you going?’
‘To get a bottle of wine. To toast your future.’
‘Our future,’ said Julian firmly. ‘Our company.’
He was right: there was a boom. But it was a little longer coming than he had anticipated. The first two years after the war were almost as austere as the preceding five. Companies were manufacturing as fast as they could but the Attlee Government was obsessed with economic recovery and everything worth having was being exported. One of the more enraging sights of 1946 was a windowful of desirable things bearing the message ‘for export only’. Everything the heart and indeed the stomach could desire was still rationed; and without the patriotic fervour of war to ease the pangs, people were growing immensely irritable.
One night James Morell, who had become increasingly estranged from his brother, came in from the farm, sat down and ate his supper without a word, and then, taking a deep breath, announced that he would like Julian to move out of Maltings; he was planning on getting married, he said, and sharing a home with anyone, however agreeable, was not a good beginning to any marriage. The house was his, he ran the farm, Julian had been talking for months about how he was going to start his own business; it was time, James felt, that he went and got on with it. He had some money, after all; James was tired of supporting him.
Julian, first amused, became irritable; his outrage increased when Letitia took James’ side and said she quite agreed, that he should go, and that she had no intention of encroaching on James’ marital status either.
‘We shall go to London together, and start a new life,’ she said, somewhat dramatically, adding that James was perfectly right in his view, that Julian had been talking about his plans for quite long enough and that it was time he put them into practice.
‘It’s all very well,’ said Julian, reeling slightly at this double onslaught, ‘but I don’t have any money, I can’t get a house in London. Or start a business. There’s no money to be had anywhere.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ said Letitia, ‘have you not heard of the mortgage? And you have some money your father left you. You said yourself only the other day that it was melting away, as if that fact had nothing to do with you. Very silly. I’ve thought so for a long time. And anyway, I’ve got a little money. We’ll manage.’
James, relieved that the interview with his mother and brother had been less embarrassing and painful than he had feared, said he thought he would go and visit Caroline Reever Smith, the noisily good-natured object of his affections, and hurriedly left; Julian looked at Letitia over the supper table a trifle darkly.
‘Thanks for your support,’ he said. ‘I hope you realize you’ve just talked us out of a home.’
‘Oh, Julian, don’t be so ridiculous. You sound like a spoilt child. Of course I haven’t. Where is your spirit of adventure? I’ve talked us into a new one. It’ll be the greatest fun. I’ve been thinking about it for quite a long time, as a matter of fact. Now, I think we should live in Chelsea. In fact I don’t want to contemplate living anywhere else. Goodness, I can’t even begin to believe it after all these years. Just off Walton Street, I think: Harrods round the corner, Peter Jones down the road, Harvey Nichols, Woolland’s.’
‘You sound as if you’re reciting a litany,’ said Julian, laughing.
‘I am. I feel exactly like someone who’s been excommunicated, and just been allowed back into the fold.’
‘All right, I don’t care where we go. Lots of pretty girls in Chelsea anyway.’
‘Lots. Now darling, you’ve also got to think about premises. For your business. Let’s forget about starting big and waiting for the banks, and just start. All you need is something very modest, a big garage even would do for now, which you could fit out as a lab. I expect you could contract out any kind of bottling and labelling. The thing to do at this stage is get the biggest mortgage available on the house, and keep your capital for the business. You’ll find that harder to raise money for, and you’ll get a bigger tax concession on a personal mortgage than anything. Anyway, I’ll put in any money I can rake up. I’ve been meaning to sell a few shares anyway, they’re just beginning to recover nicely. Only I’ll leave it as long as I can.’
‘Mother, you really are full of surprises,’ said Julian looking at her in genuine admiration, ‘first cash-flow forecasting for the farm, then capital investment programme for Morell Pharmaceuticals, all in one evening. You will be financial director, won’t you? And my factory manager as well?’
‘Until I get a better offer,’ said Letitia. ‘Of course I will, Julian, I’ve always loved the idea of money and business and making more. It excites me. Only it’s something I’ve never had much of a chance to do anything about in the wilds of Wiltshire. I’ve often tried to suggest improvements and investment on the farm, but James and your father would never listen to me.’
‘Well, I’ll listen. Gratefully. And as often as I can. And now while we’re in such communicative mood, Mother, and I’ve sat so politely while you put me just ever so gently in my place, will you tell me something? Something I’ve always wanted to know?’
‘I can’t imagine what,’ said Letitia, just a trifle too lightly.
‘Yes, you can. The twins.’
‘What about the twins?’
‘Well, I don’t know, I just know there was more to that than you’ve ever admitted. Some mystery. Something strange.’
‘Nonsense. Nothing of the sort. They were born . . . prematurely. They died. Nothing more to tell than that.’ But her eyes shadowed, and her jaw tightened; Julian watching her felt the emotion struggling in her.
‘Mother, please tell me, If it’s something that concerns me in some way, I have a right to know what it is. And I can find out anyway. I think James has some idea about it.’
‘Why?’ said Letitia sharply.
‘Oh, the odd thing he’s said. One night, when we were talking, just after I got home. About how there seemed to be a mystery about it all. How various people still gossiped about it. About all of us. He clammed up after that, wouldn’t say any more. But I shall just pester him if you won’t tell me.’
Letitia looked at him for a long time. Then she sighed and stood up.
‘Where are you going?’
‘To pour myself a stiff drink,’ she said. ‘And one for you. I will tell you. If only to stop you worrying James with it. I had no idea that gossip was still going on. Of course he would never ask me, he’s much too shy. You do have a right to know, I suppose. And it does concern you. You, but not James. So I would much rather you didn’t talk to him about it. Will you promise me that, Julian?’
‘Of course.’ He watched her as she sat down again. ‘I’m very intrigued now, Mother,’ he said, as lightly as he could, knowing, sensing what he was to hear was hugely important for both of them. ‘I can’t imagine what you’re going to tell me.’
‘No,’ she said, ‘no you couldn’t possibly.’
He listened, as she told him, in complete silence; afterwards he sat for a long time, just holding her hand and watching the fire, marvelling at her courage and at the human capacity for love and its power to keep silent.