The fact that Lionel Eastcott was apparently stepping right out of character by accepting Waldo’s invitation to join him in London for a schedule of high stake and standard bridge games was of far less interest to Bexham society than the question of quite was what going on. There was an air of curious disquiet abroad, as if the little seaside port was a pond whose normally tranquil surface had been disturbed by a succession of stones being skimmed across it as their American visitor – who it seemed must now be recognised as having semi-residential status – continued his game of ducks and drakes with their normally placid existences. So although Lionel’s possible temptation was certainly of interest to those who frequented the local bridge tables, it was small beer compared to the rumours and whispers about much more important matters, most particularly the precise nature of the business Mr Waldo Astley was undertaking in Bexham.
There were all sorts of rumours flying about, the first and most obvious being that Waldo had been Gloria Morrison’s lover but had left her bed for that of another, someone who could possibly be Loopy Tate who was going around behaving really rather strangely. Then there was a very positive notion that Meggie Gore-Stewart was having a torrid affair with a married man, the no-surprise being that the most likely candidate had to be Judy Tate’s husband Walter who had also been seen acting in uncharacteristic fashion (this to include going out regularly on weekend walks all by himself). The ostensible reason for the affair was that Meggie and Walter had always been in love – at least Meggie Gore-Stewart had always been in love with Walter Tate and everyone knew what a man-eater Miss Gore-Stewart was. Then there was the tale that Peter Sykes was trading in cars that his father had stolen during the war and had kept hidden away ever since, the enterprise now given a cloak of respectability by the investment of Waldo Astley who was also deeply involved, an added refinement being that some of the cars were American and contained guns being run for the hoodlums back in Mr Astley’s home country. Then some let it be known that the father of Mathilda Eastcott’s illegitimate child was not some GI Johnny as first supposed but actually John Tate, and that Miss Eastcott was finally blackmailing him into marrying her, while her father apparently had lost so much at the card tables that Waldo Astley had paid off his gambling debts in return for some sort of Faustian deal that involved cheating at high-stake card games.
For the few good people in Bexham who preferred the truth to these Chinese whispers, it was as obvious as ever that the knowledge gleaned under the chestnut tree on the village green was about as accurate as the Reverend David Anderson’s spin bowling during the village cricket match.
But not so the gossipmongers. And such is the power of gossip that the rumour spreaders were able quite to change the atmosphere of Bexham, an alteration that they all too willingly ascribed to the arrival of Mr Waldo Astley in their midst. Happily the incomer appeared to be totally oblivious of the sensation he was creating, continuing to conduct himself in a way that was, on the surface at any rate, totally without reproach. He greeted everyone with a smile, a touch of his hat or a wave of his hand as he wandered blithely through the streets on his way to or from the Three Tuns, or drove around the lanes and the immediate vicinity in his new Jaguar. His constant good humour might have given the lie to at least some of the rumours, yet the fact remained: everyone refused to take him at his face value.
For a short while it seemed even Loopy might have begun to doubt his integrity, particularly after witnessing what she now suspected to be collusion between her husband and her new found friend, although she was unable to ascribe such a liaison to any reasonable motive.
‘I have to ask you something,’ she said to Waldo one Friday morning when he had telephoned her about her forthcoming art exhibition. ‘You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to – but I believe I saw my husband leaving your house last Saturday, early evening.’
‘You saw this from where, Loopy?’ Waldo enquired politely. ‘Were you out sailing perhaps?’
‘No, no I wasn’t,’ Loopy said quickly, now well and truly annoyed with herself for saying something without thinking it properly through. She knew what Waldo was going to say next, and sure enough he did.
‘The only way you could have seen what you say you saw would be from your house, right? Through field glasses?’
‘I was watching some birds on the water. Some egrets I think they were.’
‘And you happened to put your glasses up just as Hugh was leaving my house. That’s OK – I don’t have anything to hide.’
‘My husband might have. He never mentioned it.’
‘Chaps’ stuff, as your husband would say. Men’s palaver.’
Seeing the door from the drawing room beginning to open and knowing that Gwen was about to emerge and listen in to her side of the conversation, Loopy walked into the porch still holding the telephone and firmly shut the door between.
‘Your husband called because he said he needed to talk to me,’ she heard Waldo continuing. ‘Actually not quite true. He needed someone to talk to, would be a whole lot more accurate, and he was passing my house, he saw me out on the stoop as it were – and he stopped by.’
‘Confucius say – better the ear of a stranger.’
‘Can I ask what it was about?’
‘If I may make so bold, you should ask your husband. I’m bound by convention not to tell you any more. I really think this is something you must discuss with Hugh.’
Waldo excused himself with his usual perfect manners, at the same time explaining that the reason he had called was to tell her he had to hurry off up to London to see Richard Oliver on her behalf and as soon as their meeting had been concluded he would telephone her again.
Puzzled by their enigmatic exchange mid-conversation, Loopy lit a cigarette and returned to the conservatory, which was once again serving as her fine-weather studio. She had made no mention to Hugh of his mysterious midweek appearance at the deserted boatyard, simply because she saw no way to bring the matter up naturally. Her husband had arrived home as usual at his appointed time on Friday evening as if there were nothing untoward. He behaved as he always did nowadays when he got home – pouring himself a couple of large drinks, the first of which he drank far too quickly, before bolting his dinner and then taking himself off to the Yacht Club to meet friends and enjoy a few more drinks. But Loopy knew in her heart that even if the opportunity had arisen to ask Hugh what had been the purpose of his apparently mysterious meeting she would not have taken it for fear of finding out an unpalatable truth. And now, as darkness fell outside, and the landscape she had been painting slowly disappeared into the night, she found herself hoping against hope that Hugh’s meetings might indeed be just part of his work. After all, Meggie had worked for SOE during the war, and Loopy thought it was perfectly possible that Hugh might have been trying to re-recruit her, which would make sense of the conversation she had overheard. But Meggie was also an extremely attractive young woman, perhaps made even more attractive by her courageous underground exploits, and, as Loopy knew too well, younger, prettier, and particularly singular women always posed a threat to any marriage, however stable it had previously been.
Having washed and dried her paintbrushes she covered her canvas and took herself inside for a drink. As she sat sipping her whisky and smoking a chain of Du Maurier cigarettes, she tried to put all suspicion out of her head, but finally found it impossible. The trouble was that anyone engaged in undercover work for the government was more or less untouchable. Other than your superiors, no-one had the right to know what you were doing and when and why, so as Loopy very soon concluded security work was surely the greatest cover for having an affair ever invented.
She finished her drink, stubbed out her cigarette and went out onto the terrace for a breath of the fresh night air. She stood gazing up at a star-filled sky and came to her conclusion, namely that she would believe that Hugh was innocent until proved otherwise. She must and would believe that whatever he was doing was for the best reasons, and above all she would always believe that he loved her as much as she loved him. To do otherwise would not only be unfair, it might well destroy their happiness.
Hugh was late driving down from London that evening, and by the time he got in it was midnight and Loopy was fast asleep in bed. He went straight to his dressing room rather than disturb Loopy, who must have guessed that he would, because on his pillow he found a handwritten note. It simply said I love you – as always – Night and Day.
He sat slowly on the edge of his bed with the note in his hand, staring at it.
I love you – as always – Night and Day.
Then screwing the scrap of paper slowly up he lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling, worrying yet again that the figure he thought he had caught a fleeting glimpse of ten days ago, half hidden in the shadows behind the old boat shed, might possibly have been his wife.
Waldo was hardly able to contain his delight when he arrived at Shelborne the following Wednesday with news from London. It seemed that although Richard Oliver had been called away on business to New York and thus could not make his planned personal visit to see Loopy’s work he was nevertheless perfectly happy to take Waldo’s word for the quality of the rest of her portfolio and so to let him go ahead and make all the arrangements for the exhibition in his absence. Moreover there was a week that had suddenly become free in October so Waldo had taken the liberty of pencilling Loopy’s exhibition in for that date.
Such unexpected news at once threw Loopy into a state of panic and she began to hurry round her conservatory studio going through the paintings Waldo and she had selected for the show, now rejecting half of them and worrying aloud about the remaining half.
‘None of these are any damned good, let’s face it!’ she exclaimed, putting one small canvas after another to one side under a notice she had long since pinned to the wall that said Rejected. ‘In fact when you take a good look, it is all just amateur rubbish.’
Waldo laughed, retrieved the rejected paintings and put them all back under the other pencilled notice that read Selected. From that moment neither of them took any further notice of the other. Loopy continued to move her paintings from one set to another while Waldo quietly returned them to their rightful stack.
‘My dear Loopy,’ he finally sighed, taking her by the hand and leading her outside into the garden and well away from her paintings. ‘We have to talk. Come out onto the terrace and let’s sit down, shall we?’
Outside they sat at the small iron table and Waldo helped them both to some more coffee from the Thermos flask that had been keeping it warm. Loopy lit a cigarette and sat back with her eyes closed, exhaling her first deep draw. Waldo smiled to himself, shook his head, carefully cut the end of a fresh cigar and slowly lit it, examining the end to make sure he had done a proper job before sticking it in the side of his mouth and drawing thoughtfully on it.
‘I want you to know that I understand how you feel at this moment,’ he said after several long, pensive puffs. ‘I really do, but even so – in spite of my great and infinite compassion and understanding – you are going to have to take hold of yourself and not give in to your feelings, which I imagine you would describe as doubts and anxieties.’
‘You can’t possibly know how I feel,’ Loopy replied. ‘No-one but an artist can possibly understand how exposed one feels when people look at your work – or worse, don’t look at it. The thought of it makes me feel as if I shall be walking around the gallery without a stitch of clothing on. No, I’m sorry, Waldo, but you really can have no idea how exposed the thought of an exhibition makes one feel.’
‘I’m sure that’s the very reason they call them exhibitions.’
‘Can’t you just be serious for one moment, please? I am having severe doubts as to whether or not I am up to facing a roomful of total strangers come to stare at my infamous daubs and then laughing away behind their fans.’
‘Behind their what?’ Waldo laughed.
‘Their hands! I meant their hands,’ Loopy corrected herself, not finding it at all amusing. ‘I really am fast coming to the conclusion that this sort of thing just – just is not me. OK?’
‘No. No, it most certainly is not OK, Loopy,’ Waldo replied gruffly, looking once more at the end of his cigar to make sure it was still alight. ‘A lot of people are going to a lot of trouble on your behalf and they are doing so because they believe in you. In your talent. So I do not consider that it is perfectly OK for you suddenly to get cold feet. Or maybe you consider perhaps that a public exhibition of your works is not the sort of thing in which someone like you should partake?’
‘I never said that! I never said such a thing!’
‘I really am fast coming to the conclusion that this sort of thing just is not me?’ Waldo quoted back at her.
‘I meant I’m not sure I can measure up to it.’
‘How do you know until you try?’
‘Sure. And you know all about putting your head above the parapet, right?’
Loopy glared at him angrily and tapped the end of her cigarette so hard on the edge of the ashtray she knocked off the end. Even more angrily she ground out the now wasted smoke and got up to walk away out into the garden. Waldo let her go at first, carefully relighting his cigar, then wandered off after her, catching up with her as she reached the wall at the end of the lawns that directly overlooked the estuary.
‘As a matter of academic interest you have cleared the matter with Hugh, I take it?’ he asked her as she stood with her back deliberately to him. ‘We don’t want this coming out of the blue.’
‘It doesn’t really matter whether I have or not since I won’t be going through with it,’ Loopy answered, still well and truly on her high horse. ‘So you can put that in your pipe and smoke it. Or your silly cigar rather.’
‘This isn’t really about whether or not this is the sort of thing in which you should partake,’ Waldo said, coming to stand beside her. ‘This is about something else altogether. Something that has upset you – upset you considerably, I would say.’
Loopy turned to glance at him in surprise, before turning away again. ‘I want to know what Hugh was doing at your house,’ she said quietly, and immediately regretted the question. ‘I know – I know you said I should ask Hugh—’
‘And so you should.’
‘Is there something I don’t know?
‘Ask Hugh,’ Waldo insisted. ‘If you don’t, your imagination will get the better of you.’
‘I can’t agree to this exhibition until I find out.’
‘That’s entirely your decision.’
Loopy remained standing with her back half turned to him.
‘I saw Hugh with another woman,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I saw him with Meggie Gore-Stewart. The same afternoon you called on me, two weeks ago. I went for a walk, thought I saw his car, when he was meant to be in London still, and went after it. He was having some sort of tryst with Meggie. I mean I didn’t hear everything – but I heard enough to make me think that – that something was going on between them.’
‘As I said, Loopy,’ Waldo said gently, carefully stubbing his cigar out on the wall and blowing the ash off into the wind. ‘This is something you should discuss with Hugh. And now I really should go.’
Loopy said nothing to stop him, instead walking to the nearest flowerbed where she drew a light pink rose to her, inhaling its fragrance before letting the flower go to stare out across the sea.
‘I was convinced Hugh was having an affair,’ she said, as Waldo was on the point of leaving. ‘It’s a pretty dismal feeling, I assure you. To imagine the person you love is being unfaithful to you. That he’s been telling you lies, carrying on behind your back.’
‘I know.’
‘How could you?’
‘How could I what? How could I know how it feels? Because I can imagine it, Loopy. I’ve had my share of associations with the opposite sex, and not all of them have been sleigh rides. I know what it’s like to be cheated on.’
‘Not within a marriage.’
‘Imagination is a powerful tool, Loopy. Besides, I have the example of my parents.’
‘Your parents.’
‘I think we have more pressing things to discuss than my family life.’
‘I thought you were going. It looked as though you were leaving.’
‘Hugh wouldn’t approve of my having an exhibition,’ Loopy said decisively, as if to close the matter.
‘It might have been easier all round if you’d asked him first,’ Waldo retorted. ‘Would have saved a lot of people a lot of work.’ He stared out over the stretch of water that lay between the two long fingers of land. The sea was looking particularly beautiful at that moment, with the sunlight glancing off its restless activity, neither white nor grey, just a stretch of shimmering blue and silver.
‘The thing about life, Loopy, is that it’s a bit like the sea. It’s always changing, shifting. Life never stands still. If we understand that, then we can make of it some of each of our own lives. We mustn’t stand still, just accept the way we are – or rather the way we think we are. We must rise to each and every challenge, the way the tides respond to the pull of the moon. If we don’t, we drown. We drown in our own lives. We drown under waves of ennui and apathy and – worst of all – of fear. Maybe you should have an exhibition, and maybe you shouldn’t. But you’ll never know the answer if you don’t pick up the challenge. This is an opportunity to find out something more about yourself, more about the Loopy Tate I’ve been hearing so much of lately – and who knows what you might find on that voyage of discovery? I’m not saying it’s going to be easy – it might be sheer hell for all we know – and there again it might not. It might do what you were talking about the other day – before you let doubt creep into your mind. It might make sense of the rest of your life. And if it doesn’t, what will you have lost? You’ll have exposed yourself to a few derogatory comments maybe. Maybe you’ll find out that you and I were wrong and that you’re nothing more than a very good amateur painter – and if that’s the sole sum of the bad parts, you’ll soon recover. That won’t kill you. And if you have to live with Hugh’s disapproval – that’ll only be transient. If he loves you – which I am sure he does – the ship’ll soon be back on an even keel.’
‘And if he doesn’t?’ Loopy interrupted.
‘You know I can’t answer that.’
‘I need to walk,’ Loopy said suddenly. ‘I have to sort all this out.’
‘Shall I leave you to it?’
‘Yes,’ Loopy said, striding off. Then she stopped and turned back. ‘No!’ she called. ‘No. Come with, please? But just don’t say anything. Don’t say another thing. Let’s just walk, OK?’
‘OK.’
So they walked. They walked eastwards along the waterside path, watching the ducks and the gulls truffling for food now the tide was out, gazing at dinghies and small yachts trying to catch some sort of wind in the almost still summer afternoon, breathing in lungfuls of clean sea air and kicking pebbles along the stretch of sand where they found themselves when Loopy finally decided to break her silence.
‘The trouble is, women did almost too much during the war, you know, and now – thanks to the wise guys up there in Westminster – we’re being told to go back to the way things were. And that’s not making us feel so good – it’s making us just a little bit fretful, making us seem a little smaller than we’d gotten used to thinking we were. And that’s not good.’
‘Interesting,’ Waldo agreed. ‘But where exactly is it taking us?’
‘Try imagining what it’s like, Waldo. You won’t find it easy because this sort of thing doesn’t happen to men – but since as you said a while back, imagination is a powerful tool, use it. Use it and try to imagine what it’s like not being needed at your workplace any more. There you are – you’ve been beavering away, doing things you’ve never done before, things they said you weren’t capable of doing, things you didn’t think you were capable of doing, yet lo and behold you are. And the stuff you’re doing is helping your side win the war – because believe you me, Waldo, that war wouldn’t have been won if women had stayed at home. So there we all are, mighty proud of what we’ve done, of how we helped win the war, and what happens? They hand us back our pinnies and just expect us to tie ’em back on and go to it back at the oven and sink. I mean. I mean, what a waste! What a waste of ability! There we are one moment making munitions and aeroplanes, building ships and packing explosives, joining the armed services, dropping behind enemy lines as secret agents, fire fighting, delivering aeroplanes, let alone having babies without anaesthetics – and suddenly it’s get back in to the kitchen time.’
‘OK, OK – everything you say makes sense, but what’s it to do with the matter in hand?’
‘What I’m saying is it’s little wonder we’ve lost our confidence.’
‘Ah. You mean that because of being expected to be the dutiful housewife and mother once again, you’ve lost your nerve. Women like you have lost their self-belief and that’s the reason you won’t allow yourself go stick a few pictures on a wall somewhere.’
‘You haven’t understood a word I’ve said.’
Loopy began to walk more quickly.
‘You’re just using all this as an excuse,’ said Waldo, catching up with her.
‘I am not!’
‘You most certainly are. You’re saying that if it was still wartime it would be different – as a woman you’d not only be allowed to do such a thing, you’d be positively encouraged. But now the war is over everyone is going to stand ready to jeer, saying what in hell does this woman think she’s at? Having an art exhibition? For God’s sake, she’s a woman! Doesn’t she know? Hasn’t she heard that her place is in the kitchen? Hogwash.’
‘Hogwash?’
‘Pure hogwash and utter hokum, Mrs Tate. You’re trying to find some high and mighty reason for not having the nerve to go through with this. That’s what you’re trying to do.’
‘Waldo—’
‘Not that you’re not damn’ right what you just said about what women are expected to do now. I think that’s just crazy, and is going to store up a whole lot of trouble – but like I said, it has sweet nothing to do with hanging a few daubs of paint up on a wall somewhere.’
‘Waldo!’ Loopy continued to protest, now looking up into his face and seeing the gleam of sheer good humour and mischief in the pair of large dark eyes looking back down at her. And finding herself being quite unable to stop herself from smiling. ‘You …’ she added weakly.
‘Yes, Mrs Tate?’
‘You’re only too damn’ right yourself, that’s all.’ Loopy took his arm, leading him further along the beach.
‘I give in,’ she said. ‘I was actually coming to that – I was about to concede anyway.’
‘Sure you were.’
‘I just thought you ought to hear it from us ladies’ point of view.’
‘I was riveted. Now let’s talk about this exhibition of yours, OK?’
‘OK.’ She stopped for a moment. ‘I’ll tell Hugh about it this weekend.’
‘You’ll tell him before,’ Waldo contradicted. ‘You’ll telephone him and tell him. It’ll be too late by the weekend. We have to start arranging things as of now.’
And so on they strolled, talking in fine detail about the exhibition that had now been agreed. It was a lovely day, still fine and unclouded, with the weather turned pleasurably cooler now as August ran into September. The breezes coming off the sea blew stronger and were more bracing, while beyond the mouth of the estuary the seas themselves could be seen to be beginning to run higher as the autumn tides began to build. With the first intimations of autumn gone was the air of oppression that had hung in the air with the all but unbearable heat wave, allowing people to move more freely and in a better mental disposition, since most were only too glad to see the end of what had been a tropical heat. Now the beaches were populated again with children playing energetic games, with barking dogs running in and out of the sea, and with lovers strolling happily hand in hand barefoot in the shallows.
Meanwhile Waldo and Loopy had reached the far end of the beach where it ended in a dramatic landscape of monumental blue-black rocks that had possibly tumbled down onto the sands centuries ago. They were about to turn for home when Loopy caught sight of a pair of lovers detached from the main body of those on the beach, lying on the sand fast in each other’s arms.
‘I suppose this is something else we will have to get used to in these post-war times.’ Loopy raised her eyebrows.
‘I guess so,’ Waldo agreed. ‘I have to say it’s not something I can understand. I mean if you want to make love, surely the first thing you want is privacy?’
‘Absolutely,’ Loopy replied, before suddenly taking Waldo’s arm and swinging him sharply about.
‘I take it that was something we shouldn’t have seen, perhaps?’
‘It’s not something we shouldn’t have seen,’ Loopy replied, walking away with ever increasing speed. ‘Rather it’s someone we shouldn’t have seen.’
‘Might I enquire who?’ Waldo asked, trying unsuccessfully to look behind him, while all the time being prevented from doing so.
‘You can enquire as much as you like, Waldo – but I’m not telling.’
The hold on his arm tightened as Loopy increased her pace, walking as quickly as she could away from the scene of whatever it was she had just witnessed.
‘Are you sure you don’t want to tell me?’ he pleaded as he found himself finally led off the sands and back up on to Estuary Lane. ‘You seem upset.’
‘I am quite sure I don’t want to tell you,’ Loopy assured him, without another backward glance. ‘And you’re also right about my being upset, because believe me – I am.’
Which was unsurprising really, since the young man she had seen kissing the girl at the bottom of Tumble Rocks was none other than her eldest son.