The Wages of Desire (25 page)

“Well, I'm afraid I don't know much, really,” Vera said. “I went with my father when Miss Wheatley led him to the body of the tramp, and I have to say that I found it all rather sad, the old man dying alone in the wood like that.”

“Yes. It is very sad—how someone can become so invisible to the rest of the world.”

“Did you know him at all? The man who died in the wood?”

“No, though I saw him about the village now and again. He never came to our door, though I understand he came to Flora's.”

Vera knew that her father had released very little information about what the police had found at the tramp's campsite and so was reluctant to say more about it. “Do you remember the trouble with the O'Hares?” she asked Julia.

“Yes, I remember it; I was about Lilly's age then. I lived in Winchester, of course, but we followed the story. They lived in a house that is not far from here.”

“How has Lilly been taking the recent upsets?” Vera asked. She wondered if Julia knew of Lilly's nocturnal wanderings about the village, and if she should tell Julia of Lilly's claims of having followed Miss Wheatley and Mr. Tigue in the night, and of Lilly's fanciful theories about the fate of Alba Tigue. Although Lilly might consider it a betrayal of confidence, Vera had felt from the beginning that Lilly would be better off if her mother knew to what lengths Lilly had gone to stave off her loneliness. Even so, she held off saying anything for the moment.

“Well, it seems not to have affected her too much,” Julia said. “But you never know with children her age. They often seek to hide their emotions from their parents, unfortunately. We all do it. She's about the village somewhere at the moment, off riding her bicycle. I'm afraid she's a little lonely these days, with her father gone and school out for the summer term. And I've taken a night-shift job working in Southampton.” She sighed. “The war has been hard on Lilly—hard on all of us.”

With that, the two women became silent for a moment. They walked about fifty meters past the church before they reached a narrow road on the left called Lennox Lane that wound slightly uphill. “This is it,” Julia said. “Our house is at the very end.”

Tall English oaks lined Lennox Lane, shading it from the hot, midday sun.

“Have you lived in the village long?” Vera asked.

“Fourteen years—since my husband, Brian, and I married. He was born and grew up here. We live in the house that belonged to his parents; his father was the doctor here. His parents both were quite old, really, when they had Brian, who was their only child. We met in Winchester, where I'm from. Brian had come there after studying art at university.” She smiled, as if she considered the memory a pleasant one. “I was just finishing secondary school when we met. Six months later we were married.” She shrugged slightly. “But life is like that, isn't it?”

Vera was curious about Julia Martin—her life and family, the choices she'd made. She thought that she could do worse than ending up as Julia had, or seemed to have. Julia clearly was intelligent and possessed a kind of quiet elegance, along with youthfulness and an unpretentious beauty. She knew from Lilly that Brian Martin was in North Africa, gone from their lives.

“Is your husband a doctor, too, then?” she asked.

Julia laughed a little. “No, nothing like that,” she said. “He's a painter—an artist. He paints portraits on commission and makes a decent enough living at it. He's quite good. We came to Winstead so we could take possession of the family house. His father had passed on by the time we were married, and we came to live in the house with his mother. Two years later, Lilly was born. Then Brian's mother died. That's been ten years ago and we've lived in the house, the three of us, since. That is, until Brian left in April.” She looked at Vera. “He volunteered, silly man,” she added. “He felt embarrassed in some way, within himself, by the fact that his life has been relatively easy. Most people around here don't lead easy lives, but Brian believes his has been so. He thought it was time that he threw himself into the fray.”

Vera wasn't sure how to respond. She thought that being a doctor's son and a painter probably did make for rather an easy life. She was slightly surprised that Julia had told her so much about herself and so soon and all at once, as if she had been waiting for an opportunity to speak of it.

About a hundred meters down the road they came to a large white house. A stone path led from the lane to the front door.

“Well, this is it,” Julia said. “I hope you'll come in for tea, Miss Lamb, so that I can repay the favor.”

“That would be very nice, thanks,” Vera said. “And please call me Vera.”

They entered the foyer, where Julia took the bag from Vera and bade her to find a seat in a neat sitting room off the hall. Vera sat on a yellow couch with large, firm cushions.

“Make yourself comfortable,” Julia said. “I'll just be a minute.” She disappeared in the direction of the kitchen.

A piano dominated the far side of the room. Vera wondered who played and decided that it was Julia. Perhaps Lilly also played. Vera regretted that she'd never mastered a musical instrument. In grade school, she'd played around with the clarinet for a time but had gotten bored and dropped it. She rose from the sofa, moved to the piano, and pressed one of the white keys. It sounded out of tune.

She noticed two framed portraits on the piano. The first was of Lilly at about age eight. The smiling girl in the photo seemed confident and happy. But preadolescence and the war had denuded that cheerfulness, Vera thought.

The other photo was of a man who, Vera guessed, must be Brian Martin. He was nothing like what Vera had envisioned. She had pictured a roguishly handsome man with an aquiline nose, intelligent eyes, and longish hair—an artist, a painter. She thought that perhaps she'd expected this because she considered Julia to be an attractive woman—the sort of woman who would have found it easy to win a handsome man's attention. It was not so much that the man in the photo
wasn't
handsome—he was, in his way. He had a roundish face and dark hair and happy-seeming eyes. She saw signs of Lilly in the shape of his face and the fineness of his hair. But he radiated nothing that Vera would have called “special.” But was “special” really the word she wanted? In any case, she had thought that Julia Martin's husband would have been less ordinary looking.

Julia returned carrying a wooden tray bearing a steaming green ceramic teapot, cups, saucers, a small carafe of milk, a bowl of sugar, a plate containing four slices of the National Wheatmeal Loaf, and a small bowl into which she'd spooned strawberry jam. She sat on the sofa next to Vera and poured.

“What do you do in Southampton?” Vera asked.

“I work a lathe, of all things. I fashion handles for screwdrivers out of solid plastic tubing. Lord knows, I never would have thought that I'd work a lathe—I hardly knew what one was before I took this job.” She smiled. “But there it is. We need the money and I was lucky to get the job, considering my lack of experience.” She smiled a little and added, “Normally, I should be sleeping now, I suppose, but I couldn't, so I thought I would go to the shop.”

“Do you like the job?” Vera asked.

“Very much, actually—surprisingly so—though it involves a circuitous bus ride to and from Southampton. I sometimes feel as if I spend half my life these days on a bus. And, of course, it keeps me away at night. I feel guilty about that—leaving Lilly alone. But I tell myself that she's old enough now and that, in the end, it's for the best. As I said, we need the money.” She smiled again—a forced smile, Vera thought. “But we manage. Plenty of others have had it much worse, losing their homes and loved ones in the bombings and the rest of it. I don't like to sound as if I'm complaining.”

“I have to admit to snooping about while you were getting the tea,” Vera said. “Is the man in the photo your husband?”

“Yes, that's Brian. I miss him. Lilly misses him,” Julia said. “I got lucky with Brian. You never can tell with men, can you? So many of them seem to have no feel for children. But Brian is different. He loves Lilly very much, and she most certainly loves him.”

“It must be hard for you.”

Julia looked at her. “It is.” Julia clearly had wanted to talk—to unburden herself—but did not want to come apart, Vera thought. She wondered if Julia worried that if she allowed herself to come apart, she might not be able to pull herself together again.

“But how about you?” Julia asked. “How long have you been your father's driver?”

“Only a few days and only because he sprained his ankle and found it too painful to work the pedals on the car,” Vera said. “I shouldn't think the job would last more than a week, maybe two. I think my father is devising ways to avoid me being called up.”

“He must love you very much, then.”

“He does, yes. But I suppose I want to tell him that I can look after myself—that I
should
look after myself. I'm not sure he's ready for that yet, though he says he is.”

The front door opened and Lilly appeared in the foyer, flush from a jaunt on her bike around the village.

“Hello, darling,” Julia said as Lilly entered the room. “Miss Lamb has stopped in for a visit.”

Lilly appeared stunned to see Vera. They hadn't spoken since Lilly had revealed to Vera the details of her nocturnal spying on Miss Wheatley and the Tigues. Vera knew that Lilly must be thinking:
Has she told mother about me?

“Hello,” Lilly said to Vera.

“Hello, Lilly,” Vera said. “Your mother and I were just talking about our jobs.”

“Oh,” Lilly said. She turned to her mother. “Is there anything for lunch?”

“I've just been to the shop. There's bread and sardines in the kitchen if you'd like. And I bought some strawberry jam.”

“All right, then,” Lilly said. She abruptly turned and left the room.

“I'm sorry, Vera,” Julia said. “She doesn't mean to be rude.”

“It's quite all right, really.” She smiled. “I should be going, anyhow. My father's going to want to be driven somewhere or another soon enough.” She stood. “Thank you for the tea.”

“You're quite welcome. I hope that you'll come and see us again.”

“I'd like that,” Vera said. She had thought it very generous of Julia to have so readily shared her ration of strawberry jam.

As Vera headed back up Lennox Lane, Doris White moved up the path from the village to the church. She'd made up her face in the same way as she had on the previous night, when Gerald had come to her. She was on her way to luncheon with Gerald at the vicarage. Before last night, Gerald had never invited her to luncheon.

The events of the previous night had gone as she'd hoped and planned. Gerald had ravished her by candlelight, just as he had done when she had been his mistress, his naughty secret. Though, once upon a time, he had then set her aside as so much rubbish, she remained drawn to him—dangerously, she knew—like a moth to flame. On the previous night, when they'd finished and were lying together, he had told her that he was developing a plan to rid them of Wilhemina.

He'd told Doris that he'd sent Wilhemina to London, to get her out of the way so that he could have time to think. He was devising a plan, he'd said, and suggested they have lunch at the vicarage on the following day so that they could discuss it—though he'd added that she should dress as if she were coming to clean the vicarage, as usual, in case someone saw her and became suspicious. He'd looked into her eyes and said, “This will be our secret—yours and mine.”

Although she'd dressed as Gerald had instructed, she'd defied him slightly by making up her face. She knew that he was right about not raising other people's suspicions, but a part of her was almost beyond caring about such matters. As she strode toward the vicarage, she felt firmly in control of her life for the first time since she'd met Gerald. She was set on taking him back forever.