Lying Together (6 page)

‘You're lucky they're not on your face,' she said.

‘Yes,' I said. ‘Although I'd be a blinking sight luckier if I didn't have them at all.' Then she asked me if I thought it would make any difference to my getting married, and I could see her thinking of my poor husband and the shock he would have on our wedding night. ‘I don't think I'll get married,' I said.

‘Don't you want kids? I want to have three kids,' she said, as if that were the only point in getting married.

‘Maybe you won't stop at three. Maybe you'll have seven. One every eighteen months like my ma,' I said callously. ‘I'd rather keep out of all that. Anyway, I want to get on in life.'

* * *

And get on I did, although I never forgot Jack. He kept himself in some hidden part of me even when I thought I'd grown out of my romantic stage. I still went to the flicks, of course, and I still held a candle for Leslie Howard, but I knew a bit more about the way of the world. I almost blushed thinking how I must have appeared to Jack that day – a flat-chested kid with bad skin and cow's eyes, holding a box of sanitary towels. My only comfort was that Jack wouldn't have remembered me at all; and that we were never going to meet again.

So it was a shock to me when I saw him a few years later. It was about the middle of the war and I was dead tired with all the endless work and making do – not to mention the sleepless nights in the cellars because of the bombing. It was Mr Reeves' half-day off (he had a lot of half-days then), and I was on my way to the kitchens to check the rations with Mr Mullan. As I passed the dining room I glanced in casually to check on the new girl, not expecting anything out of the ordinary. But there he was, silhouetted against the window, handsome as ever. I caught my breath, thinking I must be imagining things. Maybe it was just someone else who looked like him; someone else slim and dark. Then he glanced towards the door where I was standing, and I was in no doubt.

Just like the first time, the dining room was pretty empty. The tea dance was in full swing in the ballroom and the sound of a saxophone was echoing down the hall. I could see the new waitress sauntering towards Jack's table in a half-soaked sort of way, and I headed her off quickly. ‘I'll see to this gentleman, Jean,' I said, pulling down my cuffs and pulling up my collar.

He wasn't reading this time; he was alert, on edge, eyes flicking from window to door. I knew the signs, of course: he was waiting for someone. It was bound to be a woman. Why wouldn't it be – he was young and handsome, and if I'd fallen for him on sight, surely some other woman would have? I wanted him to myself, though, to talk about tea and jam and hot buttered toast. I didn't know if I could bear to see another woman sitting across from him, taking his lovely soft hands into hers.

‘May I take your order, sir?' I smiled, hoping he'd recognize me. But he gave no sign. His face, as he turned to look at me, was thinner and paler than I remembered and the dark lashes around his eyes looked even more intense.

‘Not yet, thank you. I'm waiting for someone.' He added, ‘My mother and sisters. They're always late. Ah, here they –'

He rose with a smile, colour coming to his cheeks, and I turned and saw in the doorway a plump, middle-aged woman in a mushroom-coloured two-piece, followed by two very smartly dressed young ladies. They all rushed forward and clung to him, laughing and crying at the same time. Jack had trouble keeping upright underneath their assault, and it struck me again that he seemed rather frailer than before. I knew what all the excitement meant, of course: Jack was off to battle, and his family had come to say goodbye. We'd had plenty of scenes like this in the last two or three years. The only thing that was strange was that he wasn't in uniform – just a plain dark suit which didn't fit him very well. He still looked lovely, though, and I wanted to eat him with my eyes.

I was a bit disappointed that his mother had no exotic scarves and no plaits of foreign-looking hair. In fact, she looked just like any of the women who regularly came to lunch at the hotel – little hat with a feather perched on her head, a fox fur around her shoulders. Only the colour of her skin marked her out. It had that old rose colour and velvety texture that I so admired in Jack, and she had the same striking eyelashes. The sisters were equally dark, with lots of black curls. Their velvet tams, worn on one side, were especially fashionable. All three took a long time to get seated, deciding who should sit next to Jack and who should sit opposite. ‘Oh, Jack!' they kept saying, jumping up and down, and kissing him over and over, and, ‘Oh, Jack,' again when they finished. And even when they were seated, it seemed the mother could not take her eyes off her son. She patted his hand and even leant across the table and stroked his head. He didn't seem at all embarrassed and looked at them all and gave a smile which was much wider than I'd seen from him before. He seemed full of love for them, and not at all absent-minded.

‘Would you care to look at the menu?' I asked, once they were slightly more settled. ‘We have a selection of cakes and pastries as well as muffins and hot buttered toast.' I handed the menu to Jack. ‘Jam's included, needless to say.' I wanted to see if he'd remembered. He looked up at me for a moment, as if an old memory was stirring but he couldn't quite place what it was. But seconds later his sisters had distracted him, saying, my goodness, didn't they know there was a war on down here in Devon and gosh, he must have a custard slice, or was he hungry and did he want sardines on toast or an omelette? ‘Oh, Jack,' they kept saying. ‘We can't believe you're back with us.' They touched him again and again as if to make sure he wasn't a ghost. And he laughed and raised his hand to pat the younger sister affectionately on the back.

And that's when I saw his fingers. The skin was black and blistered and scarred right up to the knuckles, and his nails were uneven and torn. I wanted to cry out with shock. It was like a pain going through me to see his lovely hands in such a state and I couldn't imagine what had happened to them. But I kept my pencil steady and wrote down the entire order, crossing it out as they changed their minds and changed them back again. ‘Oh, we're so sorry, Miss,' said the older sister. ‘Please excuse us. We're just so excited.'

When I came back with the tray, they were all so wrapped up in each other that they didn't notice how I was trembling, how I nearly spilled the tea and the hot water, how I seemed to get egg custard on the fruit cake and trailed a line of sardine scales along the milk jug, how the spoon fell out of the strawberry jam, and the tongs over-balanced from the sugar basin. ‘How lovely,' murmured the mother, as she surveyed it all, tea and children. ‘How long has it been since we all ate a meal together?'

‘Now, Mother! Don't be morbid,' the younger and livelier of the sisters piped up. ‘The worst is over. We have to think of the future, now.'

How could the worst be over? And as for the future – was I about to lose Jack as soon as Fate had brought him back to me? I watched them from the till as they talked and laughed. It was such a different Jack, so lively and happy. I wanted to be part of his family, to be able to touch him and joke with him as they did in their easy way.

When I was clearing the dishes, the mother opened her handbag and discreetly passed a five pound note across to him, but he shook his head and wouldn't take it. ‘You have to have some money, Jack. However you feel about it, you can't live on air,' she said. I couldn't help wondering what had happened to the private income and why his mother was giving him money like he was a child. She then tried a pound, and finally a ten shilling note, which he took as if he really didn't want to and only because his sister pushed it into his pocket, saying, ‘Even a saint like you needs to eat and drink.' It struck me as a funny thing to say about your brother. None of my brothers were anything like saints, especially Douglas, who was always in some sort of trouble, pinching things and being places he shouldn't be. Dad had had to take the strap to him more than once. I was surprised, though, when they all got up and said goodbye in quite a happy way. Much too happy, I thought, considering that next week he could be sunk in a convoy or shot down from a burning plane.

Jack's mother paid the bill and said they had to hurry or they would miss the train to London. Jack ushered them out, and I followed, loitering in the doorway, thinking he might ask for his hat and coat and I could help him on with them, feeling the soft cashmere or the silk lining as I made my own private farewell. It was only when his mother kissed him again and said, ‘Goodbye, darling. And don't forget to write!' that I realized they were going without him. And then, when he'd waved them off, he turned back and went past me up the stairs. I could hardly believe it. I slipped behind the counter and checked in the visitors' book. There on the bottom line,
Jack Thompson, Cavendish Square, London
, in dark, neat handwriting. Such an English name. And such a posh-sounding address. And how posh all of them had been, his mother and sisters. I must have seemed really stupid to refuse his shilling three years before.

I wanted to make amends for my stupidity, by serving Jack the very best cuts of meat and one of the secret desserts Mr Mullan kept in the cold larder for favoured customers. I'd show Jack how sophisticated I'd got and perhaps, this time, he would tell me something about his real self. From seven o'clock on I had my eyes trained on the dining room entrance, and nearly ran into Mavis three times. ‘What's the matter, Elsie?' she said. ‘You're a real clodhopper tonight!' But nine o'clock came, the dining room emptied, and Jack hadn't come.

‘How long is Mr Thompson staying?' I asked Mr Reeves casually when we were laying up for the next day's breakfast. Mr Reeves said only the one night, booked from London by telephone he believed, and could I be a dear and take some cocoa up to twenty-one as Mavis was washing up and the new girl had gone home with a sick headache. ‘I wouldn't normally ask you to do room service, but I know I can rely on you when the chips are down.'

‘Of course,' I said. ‘Anything to help the war effort, Mr Reeves.'

In fact, I made two cups of cocoa and after taking the first to twenty-one, I knocked on the adjoining door. Jack opened it. His shirt sleeves were rolled up, his arms all golden and smooth. He must have been reading again, as his book was open on the bed. I could see the dent on the coverlet where he'd been lying. ‘Your cocoa, Mr Thompson,' I said.

He frowned. ‘You've made a mistake, I think,' he said.

‘No, it's for you. I made it specially. Only you mustn't let it go cold like you usually do.'

‘I beg your pardon?'

I felt embarrassed now. He clearly didn't remember and I was near to making a fool of myself. But it was worth one more go.

‘We've met before. Three years ago. You gave me a shilling tip and I didn't want to take it.'

He laughed. ‘Good lord! When I came down for that PPU meeting! I'm so sorry – I didn't recognize you. You were a lot younger, I think. Well, obviously you were, but I mean – not so elegant and grown-up.' I blushed, glad I had put my hair up before dinner and dabbed on a little lipstick. He surveyed me as I stood in the doorway, cup in hand, and I wondered whether he was considering if I was now more worthy of his notice. But he only said, ‘I'm afraid I can't give you any kind of tip this time. I've only got a ten shilling note.'

‘Take it anyway,' I said, holding out the cocoa. ‘Or I'll have to pour it down the sink, and that would be a waste of rations.'

‘Well, we can't have that.' He took the cup, then paused. ‘Are you allowed to come in while I drink it? I could do with some company. Or is that against the rules?'

My heart thudded in my chest. ‘I'm off duty now,' I lied. ‘So I can do as I please.'

‘
Will
you come in then?'

And so I found myself stepping into Jack's bedroom with Jack there in his shirt sleeves and his book on the bed, and the bedside lamp glowing just as dimly as the one on the corner table three years before. I didn't care if Mr Reeves saw me. I didn't care if I got the sack. I was alone with Jack. It was like the night before battle when men and women do all kinds of foolish things.

‘Do sit down.' He removed his jacket from the back of the rickety bedroom chair, moved his book onto the chest of drawers and sat on the edge of the bed. He lifted the cup to his lips. I didn't look at his fingers, just concentrated on the burnished shine of his forearms in the lamplight. I could feel myself trembling. I had no idea what was going to happen.

We sat in silence for a bit while he drank. He didn't seem to mind the silence but I felt so wound up that I had to speak. ‘What is it you're reading?' I said, nodding at the book. I almost bit back the words as I said them, because I hated it when people said the same thing to me. Mr Reeves and Mavis were always asking me that question, though they had no interest whatsoever in the answer.

He hesitated, and I could see he didn't want to seem too highbrow. But he just said, ‘Bertrand Russell.'

I'd heard the name, but I'd never seen his books in the lending library. ‘What sort of thing does he write?'

‘Philosophy, mainly.'

‘Really?' I couldn't help grinning. I really had been right in that old guess of mine.

‘And mathematics too. But I don't understand a lot of that.' He smiled, and I knew he was trying to make me feel better about being uneducated. That was the sort of gentleman he was.

But I put him right. ‘Oh, I'm pretty good at figures. I'm responsible for the till and have to do the balance at the end of the day. Mr Reeves hates it if we're a farthing out – not that we are usually, but Mavis forgets things sometimes.'

‘Oh,' he said. ‘Arithmetic. Rather you than me. I could never do all those calculations – you know, the ones involving thirty pounds of bananas at fivepence halfpenny a pound.' He laughed.