The FitzOsbornes at War (55 page)

Oh, I nearly cried! Even though weddings are such happy occasions, they can be a bit sad, too, for the people not getting married. When I arrived home, I felt quite flat. Veronica had gone off to the Foreign Office to catch up with some work, which made me feel even more useless. What was I
doing
here in London? I didn’t have a paid job any more, and I wasn’t really needed to help Toby. Julia had found someone to come in four days a week for the housework, and said that she was teaching herself to cook out of
Mrs Beeton
. She also told me I was welcome to stay with them whenever I liked, but their cottage is tiny – only two bedrooms, each about the size of a shoebox – and it’s even more crowded now that Aunt Charlotte’s sent over all Toby’s books and gramophone records and so on from Milford. I know Julia and Toby aren’t exactly typical newly-weds, but I’d still feel in the way. I really ought to go back to Milford to help Barnes and Aunt Charlotte, but I confess, I keep putting it off. It’s mostly because if I were there, I’d never see Rupert at all. He spends most of his time travelling up and down the coast, but has the occasional meeting at Whitehall, and on those days, he can sometimes get away for an hour or two, after a bit of complicated rearranging of his schedule.

That’s what happened today. We had luncheon at a little restaurant near Piccadilly, and then he came back to the flat. I dragged him onto the sofa (somehow, the sitting room seemed more respectable than my bedroom, even though we were what Aunt Charlotte would have called ‘completely unchaperoned’) and there was kissing. If truth be told, there was quite a bit
more
than kissing, although no actual clothes were shed. It’s a good thing Rupert’s such a gentleman, because there were moments when I felt really bold and reckless. At one stage, Rupert grabbed my hand, which had wandered a fair way, and gasped, ‘Have you done this before?’ And I snatched my hand back and turned scarlet and mumbled, ‘Sort of.’ I felt absolutely
mortified
, but he just said, ‘Oh, thank God one of us knows what to do,’ and put my hand back where it’d been. Soon after that, though, he had to leave, because he needed to be in Portsmouth by four o’clock. Which I suppose was all for the best – for the sake of his virtue, and whatever’s left of mine.

Oh, I am so
lucky
to have found him! It’s true that things are a bit complicated because we hardly ever have any time together at the moment. But then,
life
is complicated – and at least being in love with Rupert is an
enjoyable
complication.

16th May, 1944

J
ULIA CAUGHT THE TRAIN UP
to London yesterday morning to have her hair cut and make sure her house hadn’t been demolished by bombs in her absence. Then she came over to the flat so I could show her how to make a Spanish omelette out of dried eggs.

‘Hmm, I see,’ she said, studying my every move as though I were a Cordon Bleu chef demonstrating how to debone a quail. ‘Yes – I believe I’ve got it now.’

‘The most important thing is to remember to hold your breath when you open the tin of eggs, because they smell absolutely disgusting,’ I said. ‘But they don’t taste too bad, as long as you mix them properly. Next time, I’ll show you how to do scrambled eggs.’

‘That would be lovely,’ she said, as we sat down to our luncheon of Spanish omelette and salad. ‘One would think that reading the recipes ought to be enough, but the problem is, they’re written for people who already
know
how to cook. Still, it keeps Toby amused, watching me floundering about the kitchen. And then he gets to guess what his dinner is supposed to
be
, which is even more entertaining.’

‘I’m sure you’re not that bad,’ I said, ‘and he’s perfectly capable of making a sandwich if he doesn’t like it.’

‘Oh, he never
complains
,’ she said. ‘And you know, he’s much tidier than I am, and awfully good at washing up and things like that. And then dear old Mrs Bunn comes in to help with the cleaning and do the laundry, so there really isn’t all that much I have to do except cook . . . well,
learn
to cook. Toby’s far busier than I am, actually – appointments at the hospital at least twice a week, and exercises to do at home, and he tries to go for a walk each day. He was even talking about digging up the garden beds and planting some vegetables, although there’s not much point unless we’re going to be there to pick them.’

‘Won’t you be?’

‘Well, the doctors say he’ll probably only need one more set of skin grafts on his arm. Once they’ve decided they’ve done as much as they can, he’ll get his medical discharge from the RAF. Then we can come back to London. Or go to Milford, or Astley, or wherever he wants – I don’t mind.’

‘Has he talked about that? About his plans for the future?’

‘Oh . . . not exactly. I mean, it’s hard for anyone to plan
anything
, really, when this ghastly war just keeps going on and on. I know the Second Front is supposed to start any minute now, but who knows how long the fighting will go on after that.’

‘Does he talk at
all
?’

‘Oh, yes! Yes, we chat about the books we’re reading, and what’s in the newspapers, and Mrs Bunn always has some scandalous bit of village gossip to tell us . . .’ Julia trailed off, then glanced over at me. ‘Actually, I wanted to discuss that with you.’

She put down her fork.

‘He
does
talk, but not about anything important – not about how he feels or about what happened to him. And I can understand why he wouldn’t want to think about that, but Sophie, it’s
festering
inside him. He has the most awful nightmares – talks in his sleep, wakes up screaming, the lot. I’m afraid he’s going to start sleepwalking and really hurt himself. It’s not as bad when he takes sleeping pills, but it can’t be healthy to take as many as he does. I really believe he needs to have a good long talk to someone. Not me, it’s obvious he won’t talk to
me
. He sometimes gets these notions that he’s a burden – which is utterly ridiculous, I keep telling him that – so I think he’d feel reluctant to offload anything
else
upon me. But he’s always trusted
you
, Sophie. And he could tell
you
things, even horrible things, because you aren’t living with him all the time. You wouldn’t be constantly around afterwards to . . . to
judge
him, or whatever it is that he’s worried about.’

I was reminded of Rupert saying Toby needed to ‘confess’.

‘Of course I’d be willing to listen to him,’ I said. ‘But I don’t think he
wants
to talk to me – or anyone else, for that matter. And we can’t force him to speak.’

‘Ah, but I’ve got a plan!’ said Julia eagerly. ‘You come down and tell him the Colonel desperately needs an account of what happened. Make up some reason – the Colonel’s trying to prove a certain group in Belgium is working for the Resistance or something. Tell Toby you’ll write everything down in that secret code of yours, and no one but you and the Colonel will ever know who said it.’

‘You want me to
lie
?’ I said. ‘To my own brother?’

‘It won’t be a lie if you
do
send it to the Colonel! He’ll back you up, you know he will. And you don’t have to tell me or anyone else any of the details. You can burn your notes afterwards if you want – although you’d be the only person who could possibly read them. The important thing is that Toby gets an excuse to talk about the whole thing.’

‘I don’t know,’ I said uneasily. Apart from the dubious morality of lying to someone for their own good, I wasn’t certain it
would
make Toby feel better. ‘I mean, even if he
were
to confide in me . . . I don’t think he’s ever going to revert to the cheerful, carefree boy we used to know.’

‘Oh, I’m not expecting the old Toby to return,’ she said. ‘I’m not even sure I want that person back –’ She caught my look. ‘And no, it’s
not
because I like having him all helpless and dependent on me. What I meant was that he used to be a beautiful, funny, self-centred
child
– well, I wasn’t much different – and now he’s grown up. I keep catching glimpses of how he might have turned out, if he hadn’t been tangled up in this horrible war. He still has a sense of humour, and he’s far more perceptive and considerate than he might have been otherwise. He has the potential to be such an interesting, compassionate man. But he’s been so terribly wounded, inside and out, and it’s only his outside scars that anyone’s tried to fix. Not that he’d
ever
consent to seeing a psychiatrist or someone like that –’

‘No, he wouldn’t,’ I agreed.

‘But he might speak to you,’ said Julia. ‘Please just think about it, Sophie. Even if all it might do is give him a decent night’s sleep, it’s worth trying.’

She left that piteous note to reverberate around the kitchen for a minute, then changed the subject. Of course, after she left, I could think of nothing else but Toby. Still, I wasn’t at all sure I could persuade him to cooperate. He’d seemed so angry at me for so long, and if he found out I’d deceived him in this, he might never forgive me.

On the other hand, was there really any danger of being discovered? Julia would never tell. And I
did
have a reputation within the family (not entirely deserved) for being scrupulously honest in all the little things in life, which made it easier for me to get away with the occasional whopping lie. And of course, I’d do anything to help Toby . . .

So this morning, I came down here to the cottage and told my carefully planned story to Toby – and he believed me. The weather has been lovely, so we sat out in the garden, I with my shorthand notebook, he in a wicker armchair, under a flowering cherry that kept shaking its incongruous pink confetti across my pages. I’d deliberately made the Colonel’s ‘request’ vague, telling Toby to say anything he could remember, no matter how trivial, in any sequence he liked. But he seemed to find it easiest to start at the very beginning and go on in chronological order from there – in fact, after the first few halting sentences, the words began to pour out and he seemed to forget all about the Colonel. Apart from occasionally asking him to slow down, I didn’t interrupt, so the following is entirely Toby’s story, in his own words.

Toby's Account of Events from May, 1942 to January, 1944; transcribed 16th May 1944

I
DON’T SUPPOSE THE
C
OLONEL
needs to know much about the plane? There wasn’t anything wrong with my Spit. It was just me. I was too slow. We were over Belgium, nearing the Channel, when a couple of Messerschmitts caught up with us. There was a tremendous bang and suddenly I was covered in glycol – that’s what they use to cool the engine. All I could think about was getting out before the whole thing blew up. I shoved back the cockpit hood, flipped the plane over and fell out. I’d never bailed out of a plane before, but I knew I wasn’t meant to pull the rip cord of the parachute straight away. I had to get clear of the planes – also, the longer I waited, the faster my drop would be, which would give me more time to hide on the ground before the German patrols arrived. I might have waited a bit
too
long, though. The chute opened with a horrible jolt, and what seemed like a few seconds later, I looked down and there were green fields looming up at me and then I hit the ground with an almighty thud.