Coming Home (134 page)

I've come to the end now. It's funny but I'm just beginning to realise how heavy was that great load of uncertainty, never knowing for sure what had happened to Dad and Mummy and Jess. Now, at least, I don't have to lug it around any more. The void their going has left is unfillable, but gradually some sort of a future is starting to be possible again. So I'm all right. You're not to worry about me.

The only thing is, I'm twenty-four now and it's a bit depressing to realise that in all those years I don't seem to have
achieved
anything. I haven't even been properly educated, because of never getting to University. Getting back to England, and picking up the threads, will be a bit like starting all over again, at the beginning. But the beginning of what, I haven't worked out. However, I suppose I will.

Lots of love, darling Biddy, to you and everybody,

Judith

Seven in the morning; pearly and still, the coolest hour of the day. Barefoot, wrapped in a thin robe, Judith emerged from her bedroom and made her way down the marble passage, through the house and so out onto the veranda. The mali was watering the grass with a hose, and there could be heard much twittering of birds, over a distant hum that was the traffic in the Galle Road.

She found Bob already there, breakfasting in peaceful solitude, having eaten a slice of papaya and now onto his third cup of black coffee. He was glancing through the early edition of
The Ceylon Times
and did not hear her come.

‘Bob.’

‘Good God.’ Taken unawares, he hastily laid aside his paper. ‘What are you doing, up at this hour?’

She stooped to kiss him, and then sat facing him across the table.

‘I wanted to ask something.’

‘Have some breakfast while you're asking!’ Thomas, hearing voices, was already on his way, bearing a tray with another dish of papaya, freshly made toast, and Judith's pot of China tea. This morning it was a frangipani blossom that he had tucked behind his ear.

‘Thank you, Thomas.’

Gold teeth flashed a smile. ‘And a boil' egg?’

‘No. Just papaya.’

Thomas arranged the table to his satisfaction, and retreated.

‘What do you want to ask?’

Grey-haired, deeply tanned, showered, shaved and dressed in clean whites, with his Rear Admiral's epaulettes heavy with gold braid, Bob both looked and smelt incredibly toothsome.

‘I must do some shopping. Would it be all right if I borrowed the car, and Azid to drive me?’

‘Of course. You didn't need to get up so early to ask.’

‘I thought I'd better. Anyway, I was awake.’ She yawned. ‘Where's David Beatty?’

‘Already left. Got an early meeting this morning. What are you going to buy?’

‘Some clothes. I haven't a thing to wear.’

‘I've heard that one before.’

‘It's true. Hugo's asked me out again and I've run out of dresses. Something of a problem.’

‘What's the problem? Haven't you got any money?’

‘Yes, I'm all right for cash. It's just that I've never been much of a shopper, and I don't know if I'm very good at it.’

‘I thought all women were good at shopping.’

‘That's a generalisation. Everything needs practice, even shopping. Mummy was always a bit timid when we had to go and buy things, and she never had much to spend at the best of times. And by the time Biddy and I were living together, the war was on and it was all clothes coupons and horrible utility frocks. Much easier to make do and mend.’ She reached for the pot and poured a cup of scalding tea. ‘The only person I ever knew who was really experienced and expert was Diana Carey-Lewis. She used to whiz through Harvey Nichols and Debenham and Freebodys like a hot knife through butter, and the shop assistants never got cross or bored with her.’

He was laughing at her. ‘Do you think they're going to get cross and bored with you?’

‘No. But it would be nice to have a really resolute girlfriend to come with me.’

‘I'm afraid I can't oblige, but I am sure that despite your lack of experience you will do very well. What time do you want to start?’

‘Before it gets too hot. About nine?’

‘I'll tell Thomas to tell Azid. Now, my car will be waiting, so I must go. Have a good day.’

Her memories of the streets and shops of Colombo were vague and their precise location even vaguer. But she told Azid to take her to Whiteaway & Laidlaw, the store that Molly had used to patronise, gravitating in its direction much as ladies, in London, gravitated towards Harrods. Once there, he unloaded her onto the hot and crowded pavement, and asked when he should return to pick her up.

Standing in the blazing sunshine, bumped and barged by passers-by, Judith considered. ‘About eleven? Eleven o'clock.’

‘I will be waiting.’ He pointed down at his feet. ‘Here.’

She went up the steps, under the shade of the deep awning, and in through the doorway. At first, confusion. But then she got her bearings and climbed the stairs, and found her way to the dress department, an Aladdin's cave of mirrors and models, racks and rails and an overwhelming profusion of clothes. She couldn't think where she should start, and was standing dithering, in the middle of the floor, when she was rescued by the approach of a salesgirl, neat in a black skirt and a little white blouse. A bird-boned Eurasian, with huge dark eyes and black hair tied back in a ribbon.

‘Would you like me to help you?’ she asked diffidently, and after that things got a bit easier.
What did you want to buy?
she was asked, and she tried to think. Dresses, to go to cocktail parties. Perhaps a long dress for dancing. Cotton dresses for daytime wear…?

‘We have everything. You are very slim. Come, and we will look.’

Garments were scooped at random from racks and cupboards, piled on the salesgirl's arm. ‘You must try them all on.’ In a curtained changing room Judith stripped off her shirt and cotton skirt, and suffered dress after dress to be slipped over her head, admired, considered, and then removed as yet another was produced. Silks and cottons and fine voiles; brilliant peacock shades, and pastels and the stark simplicity of white and of black. A ball gown of Indian pink sari silk, with gold stars embroidered around its hem. A cocktail dress of azure blue crêpe de Chine, splashed with huge white flowers. A sheath of wheat-coloured shantung, very simple and sophisticated; and then a black dress, made of mousseline-de-soire, its gauzy skirts lined with petticoats and a huge white organza collar framing the deep neckline…

It was agonising to have to choose, but in the end she bought the ball gown and three of the cocktail dresses (including the irresistible black with the white collar). As well, three dresses for daytime and a sun-frock with a halter neck.

By now all reservations had melted, and Judith had the bit between her teeth. New dresses necessitated new accessories. Purposefully, she set off in search of the shoe department, where she bought sandals and brightly coloured pumps, and a pair of wicked black sling-backs with four-inch heels, to wear with the black dress. Moving on, she found handbags, one gold and one black for evening, and a beautiful soft red hide shoulder-bag. Then scarves and bracelets, a kashmir shawl, dark glasses and a brown leather belt with a chased silver buckle.

Back on the ground floor now, the cosmetic department, scented and glittering with seduction, counters stacked with pastel-coloured boxes and jars, cut-glass bottles of perfume, golden lipsticks and jewelled compacts, and swansdown powder-puffs set in drifts of chiffon. Mouth-watering. She had long ago used up the last of her supplies of Elizabeth Arden, and Trincomalee did not boast so much as a proper chemist's shop. So she bought lipsticks and scent, and talcum powder and soap, and eyebrow pencils and eye-shadow and mascara, and bath-oil and shampoo and nail varnish and hand-cream…

She was late for Azid, but he waited there, as she staggered forth into the street, laden with boxes and bags and parcels. Seeing her, he sprang forward to relieve her of her baggage, stow it all in the back of the car, hold the door open so that she could climb in, to collapse wilting onto the sizzling leather seat.

He jumped behind the wheel and slammed shut his door. In the driving mirror he caught her eye and smiled.

‘You have had a good time?’

‘Yes, Azid. Thank you. I'm sorry I kept you waiting.’

‘It is not important.’

Driving back to the Galle Road, with white-wrapped packages piled about her, the windows of the car open and the breeze cooling her sweaty face, Judith realised two things. One was that, for at least two hours, she had not thought about Mummy, nor Dad, nor Jess. The other was that, although hot and exhausted, she also felt both stimulated and…sleek. There was no other word. She mulled over this for a bit, and then came to the conclusion that for the first time in her life, she understood the compulsion that drove women to shop; to buy and spend money, and accumulate about them a plethora of material possessions, luxurious and even unnecessary.

It seemed that shopping could provide consolation if one was unhappy; a buzz of excitement if one was bored; self-indulgence if one had been rejected. Extravagant and frivolous maybe, but better surely than self-pity, turning for comfort to casual lovers or taking to the bottle.

She found herself smiling. The black dress was delicious. She must go shopping again.

And then remembered all the money she had spent, and added a prudent rider.
But not too often.

Darkness had fallen. Beyond the open windows a palm tree was silhouetted against a blue velvet sky, pricked with the first stars. Judith sat at her dressing-table and fixed an earring. From the veranda, where Bob Somerville sat, with a whisky and soda and his pipe, came the sound of a piano, dimmed by distance and the closed door, the faint notes seeping through the house like drops of water. He had put a record on his gramophone, music still his constant pleasure and solace. She paused to listen. Rachmaninoff's Theme on Paganini. She reached for the other earring. With that secured, chose one of the new lipsticks, unscrewed the golden case, and concentrating, carefully painted her mouth. Her reflection, in the soft light, gazed back at her; pale-blue eyes fringed with darkened lashes, smudged shadows beneath her cheekbones, the curve of reddened lips. She had washed her hair, and it lay sleek and short on her head, bleached blonde by the sun.