Part of the Furniture (28 page)

Robert said, ‘Of course they are. How can you be so coarse?’

Priscilla said, ‘It’s plain English, in the dictionary. Oh, Robert, sorry.’

Robert said, ‘I feel I have no steering-wheel, no brakes.’ He turned to leave.

Watching him go, Priscilla called, ‘I won’t even talk to Mosley.’

J
UNO HAD SEEN THE
envelope and, recognizing her aunt’s writing, put the letter to one side. During a busy day she forgot it, but waking in the night she remembered and the thought of it lying unopened on the hall table nagged. She turned on her side and tried to sleep, but could not. After a while she got out of bed, switched on the light in the bathroom and by its glow put on Evelyn’s dressing-gown and looked keenly into her children’s cradles. Neither Inigo nor Presto stirred. Inigo lay on his back with his arms thrown back, Presto with one fist visible, the other tucked away. Both children slept with their mouths shut, breathing through their noses. Leaning to kiss them, she brushed the tops of their heads and straightened up, the sensation of silk on her lips. Then, leaving her door open, she slipped from the room and went barefoot down the stair.

In the hall she snatched up Violet’s letter and went into the library, where she switched on a lamp and, crouching by the fire, laid a log and some kindling on the hot ash. Then, because she could put it off no longer, she slit the envelope and began to read.

Some time later Robert, in his bed at the other end of the house, was woken by the need to pee. He went to his bathroom and without putting on a light eased his need. Pulling back the shutters, he looked out at the valley to see in the moonlight a fox trot across his line of vision. Watching it until it was out of sight he grew thoroughly awake, and all the aggravating thoughts and doubts which plagued him by day crowded back into his mind so that he knew he would not sleep again. Staring out at the now empty view he thought of Priscilla and wished he had not spoken so freely. It had done no good to expose his pain. All she had done was make flippant allusions to the Old Testament which he, forgetting his Bible, had not followed. What the hell was she referring to? Something to do with old age? Some sexual connotation? His lack of recall niggled. Some old woman had conceived and born a child at ninety, was it that? Or the poor old bugger, who the devil was it, who had been circumcised at the same age. Good God, what barbarity! One should look it up. Then, nearer home, she had referred to their neighbour, John Morgan, who had married again in his eightieth year and fathered many children, to the irritation of his first family. Was Priscilla hinting perhaps that his plight was not unusual? Had she not enquired as to his state of virility? It was no concern of hers. It was not Priscilla’s opinion that mattered, Robert thought irritably.

Back in his room Jessie stood by the door, asking to be let out. Sighing, Robert pulled on a pair of trousers and a sweater and followed the dog down the stairs where, reaching the hall, she did not make for the front door but padded towards the library, whose door stood open. A light showed and Juno sat on the hearthrug staring into the fire.

Surprised, Robert said, Juno?’ and seeing that she wept, ‘what’s up?’ He came forward and sat in his armchair. ‘Tell me to go away if you want to be alone.’

Juno said, ‘No.’

Robert leaned forward to throw wood on the fire. Juno folded the letter she had been reading and stuffed it back in its envelope. Robert said dryly, ‘Somebody has written something hurtful, somebody has felt themselves encumbered to put it in writing.’

Juno said, ‘My Aunt Violet.’

‘And what’s her dire news?’

‘She thinks I should know how matters stand.’

‘Yes?’

Juno said, ‘I can’t think why I mind.’

Robert said nothing.

Juno said, ‘May I lean against your legs?’ When Robert did not answer she shifted her position so that she sat facing the fire with her back against his knees. She said, ‘She’s a bloody old interfering bitch.’

Robert murmured, ‘Go on.’

‘She writes,’ Juno spoke in a monotone, ‘that after considerable soul-searching, she felt it her duty to write to my mother and apprise her of my twins, and that my mother has written back.’

‘And?’

‘She seems to have done some soul-searching, too.’

‘And?’

‘Having embarked on a new, successful and happy marriage—it appears she has given birth to a beautiful baby girl—well, I knew she’d had the baby—she is very much enjoying her new life and, although she gave me every opportunity of joining her, the twins do rather alter things. They do not fit with her husband Jack Sonntag’s prominent position. She has given the matter a lot of thought, searched her soul; she has arrived at the conclusion that, since I have behaved so irresponsibly, it will be better all round if we go our separate ways. Oh yes, she wishes me well. I rather like that bit, it rounds things off.’

Robert felt the warmth of her spine as she leaned against his legs and said nothing.

Juno said, ‘I should not be surprised. It’s interesting, though. My mother never liked me very much although she tried, I think. She never liked my father, either. He was a mistake, I was another, but this time with Mr Sonntag she seems to have got it right. She tried, she was dutiful, and now she has snatched this wonderful opportunity. She is barely forty. I thought that was old, but it isn’t, is it? What it amounts to is that I and my twins are an embarrassment. I knew we would be, that’s why I had put off telling her. She doesn’t want to be burdened with a lot of old clobber like that.’

Robert listened. He knew from her voice that her throat was sore from crying.

Juno said, ‘It was nice of her to send me back my clothes and buy me nylons; she had not yet had the dire news, had not had the shock of discovering herself to be a grandmother. I quite see that wasn’t tactful of me.’

Robert said, ‘No.’

Juno said, ‘I should not really mind. I suppose I am angry with her as she must be angry with me, but I do rather feel she might have written to me herself, not left it to Aunt Violet.’

Robert kept quiet.

Juno pulled a handkerchief out of her pocket and blew her nose. She said, ‘I shall just have to get used to the idea that I am not wanted.’

Somewhere in the neighbouring sky there sounded an aeroplane’s growling flight. Alert, Juno turned her head to listen. ‘A bomber?’

Robert said, ‘A Beaufighter, I think, one of ours.’

In Juno’s room Inigo and Presto whimpered. Juno leapt to her feet, threw Violet’s letter into the fire. ‘One of them is crying.’ She made for the door.

Robert shouted, ‘I want you. You are wanted. I want you all!’ But she was gone, she had not heard. He swore, ‘Bugger, bugger, bugger,’ and reached with the poker to push Violet’s letter, which had fallen short of the fire, in among the logs.

W
HEN ILLNESS HIT THE
village of Copplestone in 1942, its inhabitants stopped talking of Rommel’s defeat at El Alamein and the Allied invasion of North Africa; if one of their young men was serving overseas they congratulated him on being beyond reach of the most virulent strain of measles in living memory. It spread among the schoolchildren until every child was afflicted and the school closed. It reached out to far-flung farms and remote cottages; it infected any adult who had missed the disease in childhood and even some who had not. Within weeks John and Lily’s three children were in bed in the gardener’s cottage, and in the house Juno watched Inigo and Presto like a hawk, while Ann made everybody wash their hands in disinfectant and insisted that callers coming to see Robert discussed their business out of doors.

All the children had recovered and life returned to normal when Inigo and Presto came out in a rash. Within hours they had streaming colds, coughs and high temperatures. They were not yet a year old. Standing between their cots, his stethoscope dangling round his neck, the doctor told Juno and Robert that they had pneumonia.

‘I don’t want to be alarmist but their best hope is for us to have them in the hospital.’

In the hall he muttered to Robert of complications, hinted at worse to come and cursed the fact that it was impossible to obtain the wonder drug penicillin; every dose was reserved for men in the services. Juno protested at the thought of hospital, feared separation and was filled with alarm but, reading Robert’s expression, gave in.

Ann packed the children, well muffled in shawls, into Juno’s arms and Robert got into the driving seat. The doctor shouted, ‘See you at the hospital,’ and drove recklessly ahead. Robert followed more carefully, conscious of his cargo. When he looked at Juno’s face beside him it was a mask of terror; she had not slept for several nights and, like Inigo and Presto, had a streaming cold. He said, ‘They will be all right, I promise you they will. The doctor is being extra careful, that’s all.’

Juno said, ‘I don’t believe you.’

Robert snapped, ‘All right, don’t,’ fear reducing repartee to quasi-adolescence. The road to Copplestone had never seemed so long.

At the hospital cots had been made ready. Nurses in uniform snatched Inigo and Presto from their mother’s arms. There was a smell of disinfectant, and shoes squeaked on lino. The matron towered, kind but firm: the hospital would take over, no parent was allowed to stay with her child. ‘No, no,’ and again, ‘No.’ Juno could not stay, rules were rules.

Juno protested. Inigo and Presto filled their phlegmy lungs and bellowed. Matron said, ‘They will soon stop that, dear.’ Robert caught Juno’s arm, raised to strike. White-faced and sneezing, she continued to protest. The nurses whisked the babies away to their ward. Matron said, ‘Visiting hours are three in the afternoon to five, dear, come tomorrow, Mr Copplestone.’ Settled into identical cots, Inigo and Presto were surprised into silence.

The doctor joined Robert and Juno in the corridor. Producing his stethoscope, he applied it to Juno’s chest. ‘Stand still, Juno. Now let’s listen to your back. Let’s have a thermometer, matron. As I thought, one hundred and one. Take her home, Robert, put her to bed and keep her there tomorrow. I will give you a pill to give her last thing.’

Juno said, ‘I am not ill. I must stay with my children, they will think I deserted them. They will never forgive me, they will die without me.’

The doctor said, ‘What possible use can you be to them ill?’

Robert said, ‘Stop this rubbish,’ and dragged her out to the car.

When they arrived back, Ann said, ‘I will light the fire in her room and fill a hot-water bottle and when she’s in bed I will bring her some soup. She hasn’t eaten for days.’

Juno said, ‘Soup sounds familiar—’ and let Robert lead her to the library and sit her in his chair by the fire where she sat stiffly, shivering and sneezing.

Kneeling by her, Robert took her hands in his and said, ‘They are going to be all right, Juno, they are not going to die. They are going to grow up into lovely boys, fine men. I look forward to teaching them to ride and swim, shoot and fish. I shall teach them about birds and flowers. I love them. I saw them born. Please believe me.’

Juno said, ‘Orchids?’

‘Orchids, too, and peregrine falcons.’

Fumbling for her handkerchief, Juno snuffled. She said, ‘I am so terribly frightened,’ but said no more, for she could see that behind his brave words Robert was also afraid.

When she was in bed, Robert looked in. Ann had given her aspirin and there was a bowl of soup. He said, ‘I will ring the hospital last thing, I promise. Now, drink your soup while it’s hot and swallow this,’ and gave her the pill the doctor had given him. She swallowed it. Then he said, ‘Tell you what, I will telephone now and speak to that dragon.’ Coming back ten minutes later, he said, ‘Done that, she says they are both asleep. That’s good, you know.’ When she thanked him, he said, ‘Try and sleep, too.’ At midnight, when he came to tell her that he had telephoned again, Juno was deeply asleep thanks to the doctor’s pill. He was glad, because he did not want to tell her that the babies had woken and were restless, coughing and still very wheezy.

Ann kept Juno in bed the next day and Robert haunted the hospital, braving the matron, ignoring the rules to sit for hours between the babies’ cots, watching their fight.

Towards evening, the doctor came to make his examination, probing, listening, gently touching. Straightening up, he said, ‘I think you can go home now, Robert, get out from under Matron’s feet. You can honestly tell Juno they are better. I think, “turned the corner” is the colloquial term.’

Robert drove home to tell Juno, who was better too, and to eat a large meal, for he was ravenously hungry. After this, finding Juno awake and restless, he promised to telephone the hospital last thing before he went to bed, then he went out into the night and walked with his dogs across his fields and up through the wood to the top of the cliff, where he stood looking out at the sea considering his predicament.

It was long after midnight when he rang the hospital and asked to speak to the night nurse. He had undressed and stood in the cold in his pyjamas and dressing-gown. As he waited, his fear renewed itself; his heart, constricted by anxiety, thudded in his chest and he thought of Juno and the vagaries of love.

When the doctor himself answered the telephone, Robert felt complete panic. ‘Are they dead? Have they died? You said they were better—’

The doctor laughed. ‘Don’t be a fool, Robert. They are sleeping like tops.’

‘Then what the hell are you doing there?’ Robert shouted, ‘Why are you there—’

‘I do have other patients. One of them is in labour, having a hard time of it.’

‘Oh.’ Robert was deflated. ‘And the babies? Juno’s babies?’

‘As I said. Fast asleep, and by the feel of things their temperatures are normal. It’s amazing how resilient these little creatures are. You’ll have them home in no time.’

Robert groaned.

The doctor said, ‘You still there? Thought you had passed out. You can tell their mother the crisis is over.’

Robert said, ‘Thank God,’ to which the doctor retorted that he and the nurses and even matron had not been exactly idle and, ‘whoever their father was must have had a strong constitution’. Then the doctor let out a shout of laughter and said he must get back to the patient in labour. Robert replaced the receiver and went upstairs and on the landing stood for some minutes taking deep breaths.