Lyddie parked the car in the only space left in the narrow road, coaxed the weary Bosun out onto the pavement and went into the house to change. Saturday nights at The Place were rather special: tables had to be reserved and a certain formality of dress was observed, although there was no specific rule. It seemed that there was a kind of implicit understanding amongst the clientele that Saturday nights were different and they took a certain pleasure in making an effort. Lyddie enjoyed the opportunity of dressing up and, this evening, chose a soft, velvet, figure-hugging dress in such a dark navy blue that it was almost black. The hemline flared around her slender calves and the scalloped edge of the boat-shaped neckline was bound with navy satin ribbon. She showered quickly, brushed her black hair until it flew about her face and then chose some pretty silver bangles, which the three-quarter-length sleeves showed to advantage. Grey stockings and navy suede pumps completed the outfit, and she paused to look at herself in the glass, gaining confidence from the reflection that smiled back at her. She picked up her long, well-worn, wool and cashmere coat – her London coat – and ran quickly down the stairs.
The Bosun, who had fallen asleep again in the hall, lifted his head and stared at her in disbelief as she urged him up. He’d spent the day fending off three small dogs and two children, been hauled from pillar to post, encouraged to swim in blood-chilling water and now, after another long journey in the car, he was being dragged out yet again. Good grief, he hadn’t even had his supper! Struggling into a sitting position he sat for a moment, swamped with self-pity, until he heard the familiar sounds of biscuits being poured into a bowl and the grind of a tin-opener. Brightening a little he stood up and pottered into the kitchen. Ah, yes! His supper was being prepared. His tail waved very slightly and his tongue came out and polished up his chops a little. He felt that after all the demands that had been placed upon him in the last few hours he deserved some kind of nourishment. He ate heartily whilst his water bowl was being filled, and then drank some of the cold fresh water, looking forward to resuming a good, long sleep. However, before he could take up his favourite position, stretched out in the hall, the lead was being clipped about his neck and he was being hurried through the windy streets.
‘You know you’ll like it when you get there,’ Lyddie told him encouragingly as he padded wearily at her side. ‘You love it when people tell you how wonderful you are. You’re getting to be a sort of mascot.’
This was perfectly true. The regulars greeted him cheerily as the Bosun and Lyddie went in together, delighted to show the few new punters that they were ‘locals’, an impression they hoped to build on later when Liam made his round of the tables to chat. In the summer, The Place had been written up with enthusiasm in the Independent, and now a rumour was circulating that Jonathan Meades might be paying a visit: the locals were thrilled and everyone wanted to be in on that particular act.
Lyddie made her way between the tables to the snug, surprised at how nervous she felt at the thought of seeing Liam again. Despite the reconciliation she felt a fluttering anticipation that was not wholly joyful: there was some almost imperceptible change. Joe was behind the bar and he smiled at her as he pulled a pint, although his greeting was lost in the babble of voices and background music. She took the Bosun with her to the snug, pausing briefly at one or two tables so that he could be patted and admired but not allowing him to be a nuisance, and made him sit out of the way of the path from the kitchen and the bar. He was very glad to slump down, nose on paws, raising his head politely to acknowledge his most ardent admirers, but ready for a nap. Lyddie shrugged herself out of her coat. She knew that Joe would bring her a glass of wine when he had a moment; meanwhile she sat on the outer edge of the bench where she could see the bar and a few of the tables.
Linda was on duty tonight, helping Joe behind the bar, and Mickey came swinging through the kitchen door, two plates held shoulder high, and winked at her as he passed. Lyddie wondered where Liam was but she didn’t have the courage to go upstairs to the office, or into the kitchen to see if he were discussing the menu with Angelo, the chef, and she wondered if she would ever see herself as anything more than a privileged guest. During a brief lull, leaving Linda in charge of the bar, Joe brought her a drink and leaned beside her, looking out over the rapidly filling tables.
‘Thanks.’ She raised the glass to him. ‘Is everything OK? You look a bit fraught.’
‘Oh, I’m OK.’ He didn’t return her smile. ‘Liam’ll be down in a minute. He’s just finishing off in the office.’
She sipped her wine, feeling oddly uneasy. ‘It’s busy tonight, isn’t it? Is Rosie in? I don’t see her anywhere.’
‘No, she’s not in.’ A pause. ‘She’s not working here any more. Didn’t Liam tell you?’
‘No.’ She stared up at him, shocked. ‘But why? Has she got a better place somewhere?’
‘I don’t really know. We’ve split up. I don’t know her plans. She’s staying with a friend for a while.’
‘But that’s awful. I’m so sorry, Joe.’ Lyddie remembered the low, furious voices, Rosie’s look as she came out of the snug with Joe behind her, and reached out to touch his crossed arms, not knowing what else to say.
‘It’s been coming for a while but I have to say that it’s still a bit of a whammy.’ He remained standing above her, remote, unapproachable. ‘Here’s Liam.’
Before she could speak to him again Joe moved back behind the bar as Liam crossed between the tables, raising a hand to this one, nodding to another, but not pausing until he reached the snug.
‘So here you are. Safely back again. And how are the Aunts? And Jack?’ He bent to kiss her, then leaned back again to study her. ‘Your eyes are blue tonight, do you know that? I’ve never known a woman whose eyes change with the colour of her clothes.’
She was foolishly pleased with such an uncharacteristically public display of affection, aware of the glances of several of the women diners, and tried to think of something sensible to say.
‘I’m sorry to hear about Rosie,’ was all she could think of. ‘It’s such a shock. Poor old Joe.’
‘Well, that’s just life, isn’t it? Some you win, some you lose.’
He sounded philosophical, indifferent even, in the face of Joe’s misfortune, and she looked surprised. He read disapproval in her face and leaned to kiss her again.
‘If you ask me,’ he murmured against her ear, ‘he’s well out of it. Joe can do better than that, I’ve always thought so.’
‘Well, probably.’ Lyddie, who believed this herself, could hardly argue with him. ‘But it doesn’t mean that he’s not cut up about it.’
‘Sure.’ Liam nodded, straightening up and looking about as if he’d had enough of the topic, assessing the atmosphere of the bar, his eyes missing nothing. He glanced back at her. ‘Could you manage some supper, do you think?’
‘Yes. Yes, I could.’ Lyddie was faintly annoyed by his indifference to Joe’s plight. ‘Unless, of course, it’s time for the royal walkabout.’
His eyes narrowed a little, amused, acknowledging her thrust. ‘Let ’em wait,’ he said, and sat down opposite. ‘Tell me about your day while we decide what to eat.’
Later that evening, Nest sat in bed, propped about by pillows, her book lying face downwards on her knees. She’d been unable to concentrate on the book, seeing Mina’s face on its pages, hearing her voice.
‘We were so cut off here, you see,’ she’d said, sitting at the kitchen table, holding her mug of hot tea. ‘Isolated as we were, the war was simply a dreary, boring time of endless shortages. We were often cold and hungry but we were never truly scared. Mama was so reclusive, she hardly ever listened to the wireless and was always careful not to let the little ones be made frightened. Ottercombe was another world. It wasn’t until I went up to London, in nineteen forty-four, that I first experienced the greediness for life: the frenzy for extracting the most out of every single minute. Georgie and I talked about Tony. Actually, she was very sweet to me. She was in her element: the town mouse dispensing wisdom and guidance to the newly arrived country mouse.’
‘Did she think that you should have forgiven him?’
‘Part of her did.’ Mina was trying to remember. ‘She could sympathize with how it might have been for him. The other chaps egging him on, the pressure and that genetic imperative which we interpret as “I don’t want to die before I’ve had sex” feeling which is so prevalent in times of real danger. But part of her didn’t want me to be the first to be married – Georgie always needed to be the first – but, to be fair, she also wanted me to have a good time. She thought that I’d been buried alive down at Ottercombe and she genuinely wanted me to enjoy myself. She felt that I deserved it.’
‘War-time London, just before the invasion, must have come as a fearful shock.’
‘Oh, it did. But it was a relief too not to have any time to think. And I used it to take my mind off Tony. He’d started to turn up at Ottercombe whenever he could get any kind of pass or leave, and the strain was frightful. I had to get away.’
‘That’s the bit I could remember,’ agreed Nest. ‘His pleading with Mama.’
‘I didn’t understand, you see. I was still living in the thirties. The war made a huge chasm in the world we knew but I discovered it too late. And, anyway, I was barely nineteen. The only men I knew were in books, cardboard and paste; a real flesh-and-blood one was beyond my ken. I knew nothing, then, about the complexities of human nature. How priggish I must have been!’
‘You were never priggish,’ protested Nest. ‘Of course it was a shock. It was just a pity that you reacted to it so drastically.’
‘Ah, yes. You mean Richard?’ Mina shook her head, swirling the remains of the tea around in her mug. ‘Yes, I was a fool. You were much wiser when it was your turn.’
‘We were both fools. But Richard Bryce, Mina. Did you really think you were in love with him?’
‘Oh, po-po-po . . .’ She leaned back in her chair, thinking about it. ‘I suppose I felt that it didn’t really matter in the circumstances. And Richard was kind and very good for my morale – and he had no parents to put a brake on it. He fell for me like a ton of bricks and his fellow officers were so excited about it. It was rather as though I were marrying all of them, not just Richard. The wedding and everything was entirely unreal, like some great stage production. Wild and romantic and crazy, typical war-time stuff. It was only then that I began to realize a little of what Tony had experienced when he was down in Cornwall. That sense of unreality allows one to behave quite out of character; a game that has nothing to do with real life.’
‘And then,’ Nest took the story up when Mina fell silent, ‘Richard was killed when the King David Hotel in Jerusalem was blown up. It always sounded so odd, it being a hotel. Of course I was only twelve but I overheard Mama talking on the telephone and I could see it quite clearly inside my head. A big white building with pillars and palm trees and camels. Although I never quite understood why Richard was staying in a hotel in Jerusalem.’
‘It was the British HQ,’ said Mina. ‘Jordan had been granted independence. The war was over. How cruel life is.’
‘And you came back to Ottercombe,’ said Nest, after an even longer silence, ‘and in the autumn I went away to school. But you seemed so calm about it all. Not like you were after Tony.’
‘I am ashamed to say that there was almost relief at Richard’s death.’ Mina set the mug back on the table. ‘Once he’d gone back to the Middle East I realized what a fool I’d been. He was a stranger, a nice, kind stranger, but a stranger, and the thought of spending the rest of my life with him was terrifying. By his death I was released and because of it I’ve felt guilty ever since. Stupid, isn’t it?’
‘Did you ever think of getting in contact with Tony again?’
An almost humorous look smoothed away Mina’s expression of self-disgust. ‘The Sneerwells went out of their way to tell me that he was happily married,’ she said. ‘It was too late.’
‘Lord,’ said Nest at last, ‘what fools we mortals be.’
‘It’s late.’ Mina glanced at her watch and pushed back her chair. ‘Much too late on top of an exhausting day. Away you go to bed. I’ll clear up here while the dogs have their last run.’ She bent to kiss Nest, her eyes still shadowed with memories. ‘God bless.’
So Nest had wheeled herself across the hall into her room and begun the long preparations for bed. At last, longing for sleep but still unable to concentrate on her book, she’d settled herself more comfortably, switching off the light, putting the book on the bedside table, closing her eyes against the pictures that still danced before them.
Tony’s little sports car is parked on the drive and Mama sits in the drawing-room watching him with anguish as he paces to and fro before her, the fist of one hand twisting and twisting into the palm of the other, his face wretched. There is no sign of Mina. Outside in the hall, Nest can hear his voice.
‘Please let me see her, Mrs Shaw. I must try to explain to her. It was nothing, you see. Nothing that counted.’
‘My dear boy, I have tried to talk to Mina. I do understand, I promise you.’
‘Do you?’ In his eagerness he stops pacing and sits beside her, half-turned so that he can see her face. ‘Do you, really? Then can’t you explain it to Mina? We were all behaving rather foolishly, you see. The training was very intense and we began to get an inkling of what the real thing might be like. This woman had lost her husband at Dunkirk and she was lonely.’ He peers at her anxiously lest he should offend her, longing for her to understand him. ‘There were several of us all having a drink together and it got a bit out of hand. She started to get a bit weepy and then . . . well, the others were egging me on. You know how it is?’
Mama covers his restless hands with her own. Her face is sad as she watches him, rather as she might look at one of her own children.
‘You see, Tony, the whole point is that Mina can’t understand it. She is a romantic and this is her first love. To her it was the most precious thing in the world—’
‘And to me!’ he cries passionately. ‘This was . . . outside all that. I must try to make her see it my way.’
‘I don’t think she’s capable of separating it.’ Mama holds his hands tightly. ‘Oh, not because she is cruel but because it is beyond her experience. Nothing she’s read or known could possibly have prepared her for it. I’ve talked to her. I’ve tried to explain how, in times of war, other energies and needs can take over and we break the usual rules that govern ordinary life, but she can’t get to grips with it. This love was something fragile and beautiful and it’s been smashed.’
He bends over their joined hands, sobbing so bitterly that, outside the door, Nest is frightened. Tears come to her own eyes for Tony – and for poor Mina too. Something terrible must have happened for Mina to allow Tony to be so unhappy.
‘Why did you tell her?’ Mama’s voice is full of compassion. ‘My dear boy! Whatever made you do it?’
Tony swallows, wiping his eyes on the backs of his hands, still clasping hers tightly so that she can feel the tears.
‘I was shy about seeing her again. I know it sounds silly but I was. I felt shy and nervous and uncertain of myself. There was something else too. I’d changed a bit, down in Cornwall on exercise. I’d begun to feel I was really part of the war and I was proud of it. I hadn’t done the other thing before, either, so that when I drove down here and saw Mina again there was an unreality about it that was almost frightening. There seemed to be two separate worlds – hers and mine – and for a moment I couldn’t mesh them together. It was important that she knew I’d changed, grown, and that I wasn’t just a kid any longer. I wanted her to know that I was a man now, and so, before we could adjust ourselves properly, these crass things were coming out of my mouth. It was only when I saw her expression that I suddenly realized what I was doing. Everything swung back into focus but it was too late.’
‘My poor boy. Can’t you see that Mina will not be able to believe that you could possibly love her if you can be like that with another woman? It would need a much more worldly woman than Mina is to be able to accept it. That woman in Cornwall has taken something vitally important, which Mina thought was hers, and you, apparently, gave it to this woman very willingly. Mina’s trust and pride is smashed to pieces.’
‘Oh God . . .’ he begins to sob again, whilst Mama comforts him, and Nest turns away to look for Mina.
She is huddling in the corner of the morning-room sofa, weeping silently. Nest watches her through the crack in the half-opened door, wishing that time could roll back to those happier earlier years.
This autumn, Timmie has been sent away to school and Nest misses him quite dreadfully; she creeps into his room to look at his Meccano constructions; staring up at his model aeroplanes suspended in continuous flight from the ceiling, touching with tender fingers his old knitted soldier propped against the pillow. During those weeks before Tony’s return, Mina has done everything she can to keep Nest occupied: letters are written to Timmie, plans made for the games to be played in the holidays; suggestions for his Christmas present to be discussed. Suddenly, however, Mina is no longer interested in these diversions. Her eyes are swollen with tears and she seems unable to concentrate.
‘Try not to worry her,’ says Mama. ‘She’s had some bad news. No, of course not about Timmie, you foolish child. It’s nobody you need to worry about.’
Now, peeping through the crack in the door, Nest decides that at least she can try to comfort her big sister. Slipping into the room, she climbs up beside Mina and curls beside her, resting her head against her shoulder, saying nothing. Presently, Mina wriggles her arm free and draws her nearer so that they sit close together, silent but sharing.