The Dangerous Years (4 page)

A snatch of jealousy seized Kelly. Albert Edward Kimister had been hanging round Charley ever since she’d been taken to Dartmouth by Kelly’s mother to see Kelly. He’d fallen in love with her even as she’d fallen in love with Kelly and, like Charley’s for Kelly, his affections for her had never wavered.

‘When?’ he asked.

‘Soon after the Armistice.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘He’s in
Queen Elizabeth
. She’s going to the Mediterranean.’

‘How do you know?’

‘He writes to me.’

‘Often?’

‘All the time.’

‘Why?’

She laughed at his expression. ‘It’s obvious, you idiot! He’s potty about me. He even asked me if I’d marry him.’

‘When?’

‘When we were here. At this very table.’

Kelly stared down at the table as if it were guilty of the basest treachery. ‘What did you say?’

‘What do you think I said?’ She laughed again. ‘I haven’t been trying to get you all these years to give up now for someone else.’

Kelly swallowed. He felt he had little to offer and he knew Kimister’s family had money. ‘I couldn’t stop you if you wanted to,’ he muttered. ‘If you wanted Kimister, well–’

He stopped and she put a hand over his. ‘Would you want me to marry Kimister?’

‘No,’ he growled. ‘You deserve something better than
him.
’

In the taxi back to Bessborough Terrace, he leaned towards her to kiss her. She responded at once, pressing against him. He was startled at the need she showed and responded willingly, roused and eager, ridden full pelt by his desires.

It was raining hard, large drops slapping against the taxi windows. They’d not carried an umbrella and were soaked as they hurried across the pavement into the house. As Kelly shook the water from his cap, he saw that Charley’s dress was plastered to her, moulded to the shape of her young body. Immediately, he became aware of the emptiness of the house and the suffocating darkness about them. There wasn’t a sound except the beating of rain on the windows. Charley stared at him in an odd way.

‘I shall have to change,’ she said quietly.

Her voice was low and there was something unexpected in it. He looked at her quickly but she stared back at him, unblinking, so that his heart suddenly thumped and the blood began to course through his veins, as though somebody had opened a sluice gate.

‘You’d better take your jacket off,’ she said. ‘I’ll dry it for you. It can go in the airing cupboard. Come upstairs.’

He was looking directly into her face and he knew at once – and knew that she knew, too – that this was the moment towards which the current of their lives together had been moving all the time. She said nothing and slowly began to climb the stairs. Without a word he began to follow her.

Reaching the top step, she didn’t pause or look round but moved along the dark landing towards the door of her room. Pushing it open, she stood to one side to let him follow. The bed had a strange menacing look about it that he’d never noticed before in such an ordinary article of furniture.

Charley hadn’t moved and he stood behind her, holding his jacket in his hand. As he laid it on the chair, she still didn’t move so he stepped up to her from behind, drawing her shoulders back against him and folding his forearms over her breasts. They stood that way for some time, her arms loosely by her side. Then she lifted her hands and put them on his.

‘Oh, Kelly,’ she sighed.

She still didn’t move and he kissed the base of her neck.

‘It’s all right, Kelly,’ she breathed, and he reached over her shoulder and began to undo the buttons of her dress. She stood absolutely still, making no protest, but he found his hands were clumsy because his fingers were trembling. She still didn’t say anything until in his confusion he tried to ease the dress down over her hips, then she gave a little sigh.

‘The other way,’ she said, and lifted her arms.

He drew the dress carefully over her head, anxious not to ruffle her hair, and laid it neatly on a chair. In the light coming through the window her bare shoulders gleamed beneath the straps of the slip she wore. They looked fragile and almost transparent in their whiteness. She still said nothing, waiting, continuing to hold up her arms so that he assumed that the slip was to come off in the same way. He did the job meticulously, as if he might tear it, terrified of touching her. Now that he’d arrived at the critical point in their lifelong affair, he found his courage was barely up to it. Even with his blood hammering in his veins, he felt inexperienced and uncertain.

Her eyes met his and, somehow, what moved him most was the honesty in them. As he began to remove the rest of her clothes, she looked down at him. ‘We don’t wear as much since the war as we used to,’ she whispered.

He was still careful not to touch her skin, but it was difficult because his breathing was quick and shallow and his hands were awkward. As she stepped out of her shoes, he was surprised how small she seemed, standing with her feet flat on the floor, her arms folded across her breasts.

The rain was spattering against the window so that the darkened room, lit only by the street lights outside, seemed to be full of small unspoken urgings. He began to fumble with the buttons of his shirt, tearing one off in his haste. She watched him for a moment then she walked to the bed and sat down, her feet and knees close together, her arms still across her breasts, her eyes on him, solemn and huge. He stared back at her, unable to speak, and she lay back on the counterpane, punctiliously straight, both feet together, her arms by her side, the curve of her breasts catching the light from outside.

There seemed to be a stone in his throat and he swallowed with difficulty, his face as hot as if he’d just returned to his cabin from the bridge on a bitter day at sea. Suddenly he became scared. This was Charley! This was the girl he was going to marry! You didn’t do this sort of thing with the girl you were going to marry! This was something you saved until afterwards!

‘Charley,’ he said hoarsely.

If he’d touched her or if she’d giggled a little or pulled his leg, there would have been no question of hesitation. But she’d been composed, as silent as if she were some sacrifice. Then she lifted her hand to reach out for his and he knew he was lost. All his good intentions went whistling down the wind in a great wave of desire but, as he snatched again at his shirt, he heard a taxi draw up outside with a squeak of brakes and immediately he recognised the sound of Mabel’s voice, then her mother’s, and finally, worst of all, Verschoyle’s.

Charley sat up abruptly. ‘They’ve come back,’ she gasped.

For a second they stared at each other, horrified, then she came to life. ‘Oh, God!’ She was on her feet at once. ‘Go to the bathroom. Get dressed there. I’ll go down the back stairs to the kitchen.’ As she spoke, she was flinging her clothes on as fast as she could. Because they’d not embraced each other, her hair was undisturbed. ‘Hurry,’ she said, and as she pushed him out of the room he saw there were tears in her eyes.

Furious, frustrated, yet curiously relieved that nothing had happened that they might later regret, when he appeared downstairs she was standing by the range in the kitchen as if nothing had happened and he could hear voices in the drawing room.

‘Charley,’ he murmured.

She didn’t answer and refused to meet his look. She was feeling cheap and tawdry, yet knowing she never would have if what they’d intended had taken place. It was being caught that placed the occurrence in another category altogether – shifty, somehow dirty – and her feeling of guilt caused her to push the blame on Kelly.

He stared at her bewildered. ‘Charley,’ he tried again.

She lifted her head, her face pink and unhappy. ‘Oh, go to the devil,’ she snapped. ‘Go and talk to them.’

Disconcerted by her reply, he went to the drawing room. Her sister, Mabel, was pouring brandy into goblets. ‘Hello, Kelly,’ she said, crossing the room to kiss him. ‘When did you arrive ?’

‘Today. We went out for a meal.’

She smiled, friendlier than he’d ever known her. ‘Charley’s making coffee.
You’d
better have a brandy, too.’

Mrs Upfold came towards him. She’d always disapproved of him but now, for the first time in his life, she pecked his cheek.

‘Kelly,’ she said, and he realised that it was also the first time she’d ever called him by his first name since he’d been a boy.

Then he saw Verschoyle. Languid, lean and handsome, he was leaning dramatically on a stick, making the most of his wound. On his chest was the blue and red ribbon of the DSO.

‘Hello, Maguire,’ he said.

‘Congratulations on the medal, Cruiser,’ Kelly said.

Verschoyle touched Kelly’s chest. ‘That’s the one I’d have liked,’ he said quietly, his voice tinged with envy.

At that moment, Charley appeared with the coffee, resolutely avoiding Kelly’s look. When she finally met his gaze, he saw there was a faint redness about her eyes, but her mother went on chattering happily, unaware of what had happened because the room was lit only by shaded bulbs.

As she handed him his cup, Verschoyle moved alongside him and touched his leg with the walking stick. There was a cynical smile on his face.

‘Tie, old boy,’ he murmured. ‘If I were you I should hoist it up two blocks. Shows what you were up to.’

Kelly had enough control to put his cup down without rattling it and hitch his tie above his stud. Verschoyle watched him and, as he reached for his cup again, he raised his brandy glass.

‘That’s better, old boy,’ he murmured. ‘Well done.’

If no one else had guessed what had been happening at the moment of their arrival, Verschoyle had, and in that moment, Kelly decided once again that of everyone he knew Verschoyle was the one person he disliked most.

Scapa had a stripped look, as empty as Kelly’s emotions.

His leave had not been a great success and for some time Charley had even remained curiously distant, as though she blamed him for the catastrophe at Bessborough Terrace. He’d telephoned her the following day but she’d been at the hospital and it had been Mabel who’d answered instead. She’d seemed to be fishing for an invitation to lunch, and he’d fought her off with difficulty, deciding she went better with Verschoyle.

A gust of wind came across the Flow, blustering against his cheek, and he could feel the touch of rain that denied the late spring. The interned German ships, more depressingly dingy than ever, stretched in a long line to the north and west of Cava, with the destroyers and other small craft moored in pairs in Gutter Sound. He felt strangely glad to be back. There was a rumour that they were due any day for the Mediterranean and he had a feeling that perhaps it would be for the best. The war seemed to have changed more than just the way of living. There was trouble in Ireland and the beginnings of industrial strife, and civilian life seemed a maelstrom of emotions.

When he’d returned from Thakeham to London, Charley had seemed to be hiding from him. In the end, he’d waited outside the hospital for her to appear and whipped her into a taxi, uniform, apron and all, and taken her to the Savoy for tea.

She had managed a little laugh. ‘Oh, Kelly, wasn’t it awful?’ she said. ‘What must you have thought of me? Thank Heavens nobody noticed.’

Only Verschoyle, Kelly thought, with his yellow fox’s eyes that missed nothing, and his dagger-sharp brain that was able to put two very doubtful twos together and come up with a very certain four. And if Mrs Upfold hadn’t guessed at the time what they’d been up to, she had since and they’d never managed to be entirely alone together after that. Since the weather had precluded any trips into the country, all they’d managed were snatched kisses in the kitchen and a few wild clutches in taxi cabs.

The wind came again across the Flow and this time there was no mistaking the rain in it. Perhaps a foreign station was a good idea, Kelly thought, because something was bound to happen soon between himself and Charley, and despite his wish to consummate his desires, he was still old-fashioned enough to feel that, with the years of waiting the Admiralty forced on him, he might regret it.

Certainly, overseas service wouldn’t be difficult because, contrary to the general belief, the war seemed to be far from finished. A civil conflict was going on in Russia and British ships had been despatched to the Baltic, Murmansk, the Black Sea and Vladivostok, and there was a separate flare-up in Asia Minor where the Greeks, encouraged by the Prime Minister, Lloyd George, were stirring up a cauldron of Turkish hatred. The world seemed to be full of places where an ambitious officer might push himself up the ladder.

Kelly frowned. What Charley would say when she learned he’d disappeared again, he could well imagine. But he
was
a naval officer and he could hardly expect to advance his career swinging round a buoy at Scapa.

He stared shorewards. On the curve of the land there was a litter of unoccupied huts and empty concrete gun positions, relics from the war; afloat there seemed only the Germans, and between them and the sea, the solitary battle squadron that supplied the guard, the turgid water patrolled by nothing more dangerous than drifters.

The Germans were model prisoners. They gave no trouble and it seemed that any last chance of defiance had gone when two dirty Hamburg transports had taken away all but skeleton crews. Now there were no more than twenty men to a destroyer and two hundred to a battle cruiser, and their silent hulls were rusted, dirt-streaked and unscrubbed. His own last visit to
Grosser Kurfürst
had left him depressed. Her fires were dead, and the thump and groan of pumps, the hum of blowers and dynamos, the breathing of a living ship, had gone, and his footsteps had rung hollowly in empty steel passages peopled with ghosts.

Three days later, as they’d been half-expecting,
Mordant
received orders for Gibraltar.

‘It’s Constantinople,’ Orrmont said. ‘And probably even further. The Greeks and the Turks are at each others’ throats and in Russia the Red Army seems to be knocking hell out of the anti-Bolshevik forces so that they’re screaming for assistance.’