A Rather English Marriage (41 page)

He dropped his letter disconsolately into the box outside
the post office, waited for the sound of its rustle, but instead of heading towards the Downs Tavern, he set off briskly, or as briskly as his legs could manage in the damp evening air, down Woodbury Park Road. He knew that all day he had been resisting the temptation to go and share his troubles with Molly. He could resist no longer.

Her curtains were drawn, but light shone behind the front door. Roy rang the bell, heard shuffling feet, and the door opened a couple of inches, stopped by the safety-chain. Molly peered shortsightedly into the darkness.

‘Who's there?'

‘It's me. Roy.'

‘Speak up. Who is it?'

This time Roy heard the undertone of fear in her voice. Much more loudly, he said, ‘Roy Southgate. It's me, Molly. Can I come in?'

‘What you doing at this hour? Another ten minutes and I'd have been getting ready to turn in. Come on, I'll make you some hot chocolate.'

In Molly's kitchen the table was already laid for breakfast. A blue-and-white-striped egg cup, one side-plate, one teacup and saucer, a knife, teaspoon, salt cellar and a jar of marmalade with a jam spoon on a dish were arranged ready for the next morning. She stood with her back to him heating milk at the stove. Roy told her about the telephone conversation he had overheard.

‘Serves you right!' she scolded. ‘Eavesdroppers never hear good of themselves!'

‘I never thought to see the day … under my own roof, she was arranging to meet some fellow she can't hardly know, since she's only been here seven or eight weeks … and Alan dead three months! Makes you think, don't it? I'm that ashamed.'

‘Ashamed of yourself, I hope.'

‘I were so full of myself earlier on – what with the doctor saying I had the heart of a man fifteen years younger –'

‘Did
he?' she exclaimed. ‘Well that's good news!'

‘Yes, he did, not that June cared.'

‘No reason why she should. But
I
care. Look here, Roy Southgate, I'll wait no longer to say what's staring you in the face. You ought to ask me to marry you, then you can give up what ain't right or proper and ain't never going to work – which is trying to live under one roof with that young woman and two young lads. You can move in with me.'

Roy looked at her. He was flattered, shocked, amazed.

‘Well!' he said. ‘You take the biscuit! Well! Bless me if I don't know what to say!'

‘I told you what you got to say. You got to ask me to marry you.'

‘Do you want to?'

‘Course I do!'

‘Will you?'

‘Yes.'

‘Look out – the milk's boiling over.'

‘Are you going to give me a kiss?' she said. ‘Or do I have to do everything for you?'

He put his arms round her, felt the soft loops of her flesh under his hands, smelled the dry, crisp smell of her dyed blonde curls, saw the grey springing through at their roots, touched the pale wrinkles of her lips, looked into the curving folds around her eyes. He bent his head towards her, smelled the soap on her skin, and had just time to see her smile before he closed his eyes and kissed her.

‘Will you marry me, Molly?'

‘I told you, yes. We don't have to … you know …
do
anything if you don't want – if you can't manage, it won't matter.'

‘I expect it'll take a bit of time,' Roy said. He felt foolish because he couldn't stop himself smiling and he felt she wanted to be serious.

‘What you grinning about?' asked Molly.

‘We'll have to get used to each other.' He smiled again.

‘You know something, Roy Southgate?'

‘What's that?'

‘You look happy. You look really and truly happy, for the first time in a year.'

He had nearly forgotten what his own laugh sounded like. It was hoarse and squeaky, both at once.

Just before Christmas, Roy set out to visit the Squadron Leader in the Three Pines Nursing Home, only a few doors down from The Cedars in Nevill Park. He went to the house first to pick up the post. There was a For Sale board up outside. He let himself in and picked up a handful of square white envelopes from the doormat, to which he added the Christmas card from himself and Molly. The radiators hadn't been turned on all autumn and the rooms were cold and silent. There were dust-sheets covering the furniture in the drawing-room. The mantelpiece had a fine layer of powdery dust and the little carriage clock with the sweet high chime had stopped.

Roy rubbed the dining table with the back of his sleeve, but the broad shining sweep of darker mahogany only emphasized the unloved look of everything else. Downstairs in the kitchen the stone-flagged floors were clammy and chill. Crockery stood in piles on the kitchen table; a couple of crates filled with newspaper waited on the floor. The refrigerator door was open; nothing inside. In the pantry, a few bags of flour and breakfast cereal and some old coronation cake tins were all that remained. He took a couple of dusters from the drawer at the end of the kitchen table and went back upstairs.

Roy dusted the dining table and the sideboard, checking the drawers where the silver cutlery was kept. It had all gone. He flicked the duster over the mantelpiece in the drawing-room and, on his way past it, the pretty semicircular table with marquetry inlay that stood to one side of the hall. Then he went back to the basement. No point in airing the bedrooms or checking the beds. If I start I'll never stop, he thought. Time to get over to the nursing home.

He put on his hat and coat and new fur-lined gloves and
tucked the Squadron Leader's post into his pocket. Double-locking the front door, he stepped down into the gravelled drive. The leafless roses were dripping and one branch of the big cedar by the front gate was hanging down as though broken by the wind. Roy headed down the road. It was already dusk and Molly would worry if he were late home for his tea.

A harassed young foreign woman – Filipino, perhaps, like some of the cleaners at the hospital – answered the door.

‘I've come to see the Squadron Leader,' Roy stated clearly. She looked blank. ‘Mr Conynghame-Jervis.' he added.

‘Oh, him,' she said. ‘Mr Reginald. I think he's in the television room.'

She led the way towards the sound of a raucous children's programme. Seven or eight residents were grouped in a semicircle around the set, some in wheelchairs, others in dressing-gowns. One had a large long-haired cat on his lap, which he was stroking rhythmically. The cat focused its huge orange eyes upon Roy as he stood in the doorway.

He recognized the Squadron Leader more by his dressing-gown than anything else. Dark red and navy stripes separated by a narrow yellow line: Roy had often held it out for him first thing in the morning, after running his bath. He walked towards the dressing-gown.

‘Sir!' he said.

Reggie looked up.

‘Oh, hello, it's you,' he said, in a single monotonous note.

‘How are you, sir?' Roy asked. ‘I've brought you your Christmas post.'

‘Not too bad,' said Reggie. His gaze returned to the television set.

‘Is there a visitor's room?' Roy asked. ‘Or can we go to yours?'

‘Not now,' said Reginald. ‘Soon be suppertime. Not allowed till after supper.'

He put his hands down to the wheels of his chair and began laboriously to propel himself forward.

‘Let me push you, sir,' Roy said. ‘You just show me the way.'

Reggie waved an arm down the corridor. ‘Doesn't matter. Anywhere. It's all the same,' he said.

Roy found that the Squadron Leader's speech was fairly easy to follow once you got used to it, but his mind wandered off. His concentration would falter and, as though he were aware of this, he would quickly ask a question, but one with no apparent point to it.

‘When can you come out of here?' Roy asked eventually.

‘Don't know,' said Reginald. ‘Ask Susan. She found it. Her idea. Do you know where my hat is? If you would find my hat I could go home.'

Alarmed, Roy said, ‘No, sir, don't do that.'

‘He giving you trouble?' said a nurse, her fixed smile belying the severity of her voice. ‘Come on now, Mr Reginald. None of your nonsense. Have you been a bad lad? He probably needs the toilet,' she added in an undertone.

‘Shall I take him?' Roy asked.

‘He can't manage by himself. It takes two of us.
Do you need the toilet?'
she asked emphatically. ‘You haven't been dirty, have you?'

Reggie shook his head.

‘He won't do it while you're here,' she said, ‘case he's made a mess of himself and we have to clean him up. He doesn't like that. Tries to get cross with us.'

‘I must be off now, sir,' said Roy, taking the hint. He swivelled the wheelchair away from the intrusive nurse and wheeled Reginald towards the front door. ‘I'll try to visit you once more before Christmas.'

‘If you would be kind enough to look out my hat, I could go home,' Reginald said again. ‘Don't remember where I put it.'

‘I'm afraid it's not as simple as that, sir,' Roy said. ‘I'm awfully sorry.' He buttoned his coat, rummaged for his gloves, and settled the cap on his head. He bent towards the Squadron Leader and tried to smile. ‘I'll be back soon, see how you're getting on. Not to worry.' As he opened the heavy front door, a nurse came towards them down the corridor.

‘Take me with you,' said Reginald urgently. ‘Take me with you. I want to go home. Why doesn't someone find Mary and tell her I want to go home?'

‘Your wife is dead, sir, you know that, and
I
can't take you with me,' Roy said, gulping. ‘I
can't
, sir. I'm married. Me and Molly have got married, that's why I can't. Otherwise, God knows, sir, I would.'

He opened the door.

‘Take me home with you,' Reginald implored. ‘I want to go home. Don't leave me. Look after me. I will behave myself.'

‘Course
you'll be good, Mr Reginald,' was the last Roy heard as he stepped out into the winter evening.

The ages given are those in June 1990, when the book opens
.

REGINALD VIVIAN CONYNGHAME-JERVIS former RAF Squadron Leader, aged 71, born 1919, married 1942

MARIGOLD (MARY) ELIZABETH his wife, born 1922, died 2 June 1990

VIVIAN GERALD his nephew LORD BLYTHGOWRIE, 3rd Baron; aged 54, born 1937, inherited title 1949

SUSAN Vivian's second wife, aged 43

CELIA aged 26, and FELICITY, aged 26, Vivian's twin daughters from his first marriage, born 1964

ROYSTON WILLIAM SOUTHGATE aged 71, born 1918, married 1939

GRACE EDITH his wife, aged 69, born 1920, died 2 June 1990

ALAN his son, aged 43, born 1948, married 1973

JUNE Alan's wife, aged 39

WILLIAM ALAN
(Billy)
aged 10

JOSEPH ROY
(Joe)
aged 8; Alan's sons, Royston's grandsons

GLORIA June's illegitimate daughter, aged 20

SHEILA Alan's girlfriend, aged 35

VERA aged 45, born 1946; Royston's married daughter, living in Australia with her husband Stan and two teenage sons

MOLLY TUCKER aged 68, friend of Royston and Grace Southgate

ELIZABETH FRANKS aged 51, divorcée, dress shop owner and Reginald's girlfriend

ALICIA
(Lissy)
Liz's daughter, aged 27

MANDY HOPE aged 29, social worker to Reginald and Royston

MRS O'MURPHY Reginald's cleaning woman

MRS ‘AGGIE' ODEJAYI another cleaning woman

JAMES TIDMARSH aged 54, a solicitor

CONSTANCE LIDDELL aged 50, a librarian

SABRINA a London prostitute

WHITTINGTON a bank manager

for Tony Price
my love, my love

This electronic edition published in July 2011 by Bloomsbury Reader

Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP

Copyright © Angela Lambert, 1992

The moral right of the author has been asserted

All rights reserved
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make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means
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may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages

ISBN: 9781448204021
eISBN 9781448203437

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