This Cold Country (12 page)

“I thought for a moment you weren't going to let me in,” he said affectionately.

“I thought you were the hotel detective,” Daisy said breathlessly, standing in the doorway, a hand on the knob.

“May I come in now?”

“Oh. Sorry.” And Daisy stepped back to let him in.

She closed the door, Patrick set his things down on a chair and looked back at her. Daisy did not meet his eye.

“Were you scared?” he asked.

“A little,” she mumbled.

He took her by the arms and looked at her gently.

“You needn't be,” he said. “Look at me.”

Daisy reluctantly raised her eyes to meet his.

“Trust me,” he said, and looked at her kindly until she nodded. “I'm not sure there are such people as hotel detectives,” he added. “I've never seen one.”

“That wouldn't prove anything unless you spend a lot of time in hotel rooms with girls of dubious chastity.”

“That is not the kind of question girls are supposed to ask,” Patrick said just as kindly as before, but quite firmly.

Daisy was sorry to hear it. She understood that Patrick was behaving like a gentleman and also protecting both her and himself against the possibility of a sooner or later jealous scene, but she was more curious than jealous. She had hoped he was somewhat experienced; surely one of them, at least, should know how to proceed now.

During the silence that followed, Patrick took her in his arms and held her close to him. Her evening dress left her arms and shoulders bare and she felt the comforting warmth of his dressing gown against her skin. One hand on her waist and one on the naked part of her back pressed her closer; Daisy began instinctively to draw away from him.

“Trust me,” Patrick repeated, and Daisy willed herself to melt into his embrace.

They had had few opportunities for physical intimacy and none in which Daisy had been so lightly dressed. The greater part of their courtship had taken place by letter. Since their engagement they had written letters every second day. These letters were difficult to write for Patrick, because he was not allowed to describe his daily routine at the training course in a country house outside London; for Daisy, because she knew so little of her fiance's life. She had not—apart from the Westmoreland Nugents—met any member of his family. The letters served to emphasize how little each knew about the other, and neither had developed a knack for exchanging the small, telling details of everyday life, or developing intimacy through the written word. And an awareness of the censor's eye was an inhibiting factor not to be discounted.

“You're so beautiful ... I love you,” he said before he kissed her.

Daisy closed her eyes and felt, for a moment, a dreamy pleasure in his kiss before her body stiffened, not only in fear of the physical act so close at hand, but at his words. She knew she wasn't beautiful; she was young, healthy, maybe even pretty. And how could he love her; they hardly knew each other.

This was the fifth time they'd been in each other's company. There had been the day the
Royal Oak
had been sunk, when she had stood, stocking-footed, in the library at Aberneth Farm, holding a ferret in one hand as they listened to the BBC. And then the visit to Bannock when she and James had disappointed each other. After a self-conscious exchange of letters, on a wet Sunday afternoon, in a teashop with rain streaming down the windows, he had proposed to her over weak tea and sandwiches made with margarine. And after the briefest of hesitations, she had accepted him. Then there had been the awkward day when they had told her parents of their plans; and now, the commitment she had made so casually, so lightly, was to have its first consequence.

“I love you, too,” she said, knowing the words were necessary if they were to make love, sleep together, marry. She felt as though the war had taken time from its normal pattern and sequence and flung it into the arbitrary rhythm of a dream.

Patrick, without loosening his embrace, had one-handedly unfastened the first button on the back of Daisy's dress, when the siren sounded. Daisy had just felt the first twinge of desire—occasioned, she noticed with surprise, by the adept manner in which Patrick was beginning to undress her—when the air-raid warning threw her sense of time further into the random, formless swirl she had felt a moment before.

Daisy had never been in an air raid before. She had watched the oil tanks in Wales light up the night sky, but she had never been the victim or the target of an enemy attack. Her fear seemed to be diluted by her inability to feel that anything was real. Patrick, who was not experiencing so many things for the first time, seemed calm. But, since he was an officer and a gent, she hardly expected him to panic; it was hard to tell how much danger they were in. Patrick was dressing quickly, getting back into his uniform.

“Get something comfortable and warm; this may take all night.”

A few minutes later they joined the crowd of hotel guests streaming down the stairs. Patrick, handsome and impressive in his uniform; Daisy, a little crumpled in the coat and skirt in which she had traveled. They carried his overcoat, dressing gown, and a couple of pillows and a blanket from the bed.

Outside, the sky to the south glowed red through a dark haze; the clanging of fire engines, anti-aircraft guns firing in the distance, and, closer, a warden's whistle contributed to an atmosphere of resilient confusion.

“The docks,” Patrick said. “Those poor bastards in the East End have no luck. Come on.”

Daisy followed, scampering to stay close to him in the crowd, to the steps of the unidentified underground station. Beside her, a pale young woman with circles under her eyes carried a sleeping baby; a little girl, in pajamas, bedroom slippers, and a dressing gown, held on to her skirt. The child was not fully awake; Daisy took her other hand to help her down the steep, metal-topped steps, and soon they were all on the platform.

Underground it was quite light; there was noise but different from the one they had heard above. The sounds of sirens and gunfire were fainter, replaced by human voices, the grizzling of a sleepy child and, at the far end of the platform, singing. The wall sign with the name of the station had been removed, and Daisy did not know where they were. Daisy felt as she had as a new girl at school—wide-eyed at strange rituals familiar to everyone else.

“Let's find a place—as far as possible from what looks like quite a jolly party,” Patrick said, and Daisy followed him along the platform to the darker, quieter end. Once there, he spread out the blanket on the
concrete
floor and propped the pillows against the tiled wall. Daisy stifled a protest at the casual way he was treating hotel property, and sat down beside him.

“What happens now?” Daisy asked, surprised by how quickly her fear was being replaced by a feeling of how inconvenient it all was.

“This goes on for a little while, then when everyone is in, it gets quieter and people go to sleep until the All Clear. Most of them have got it down to a routine.”

“Even the children?”

“Look.” Patrick gestured at the little family who had come down to the shelter with them. The young mother, her baby, and little girl were already asleep. They lay in an uncomfortable nest of coats and blankets, the baby in its mother's arms, the little girl snuggled into the small of her back.

“Londoners,” Patrick said. “They can adapt to anything on their home ground. Rosemary's evacuees didn't last long, did they?”

“In and out in two weeks. Rosemary couldn't have been kinder—when they went she felt guilty but relieved.”

“They could get used to bombs, rationing, noise, and danger, but they couldn't deal with the horrors of fresh air, cows, and meals not wrapped in newspaper.”

“They missed their homes and their families and friends, and they probably couldn't get used to being looked down on or condescended to,” Daisy said, surprising herself with a sharp note of defensiveness in her voice. “I think it's somewhat to their credit.”

“So do I,” Patrick said, smiling. “I shouldn't like to live somewhere that when I left, the best of them felt guilty but relieved.”

“What would it be you couldn't manage without?” Daisy asked, after a moment. The platform was filling with bodies, but it had already become a little quieter. She spoke in a lower tone.

“Someone like-minded to talk to, I suppose. And you?”

“Kindness,” Daisy said, feeling a little silly. “It's less lonely.”

“So we both depend on other people to get through this—through anything, I suppose.”

“My mother depends on books, silence, and privacy.”

“Privacy is quite a usual one, I imagine. It's probably one of the worst things about being a prisoner.”

“Lack of privacy. And no control over noise. Or having the window open.”

Patrick nodded; it went without saying that they were talking about aspects of imprisonment other than death, physical pain, fear, or starvation.

“Music seems to be the main—the essential—comfort for an extraordinary number of people. People who didn't seem to pay it much attention in peacetime. Any kind of concert is packed out. There's a fellow in my regiment who sits by himself every evening and reads music. He doesn't even hum; every now and again he nods as though acknowledging something. No one ever disturbs him.”

“Tea.”

“Tea and teddy bears and the BBC,” Patrick said, laughing. “Lie down, we're probably going to be here all night.”

Daisy, a little awkwardly, wriggled herself forward until she was lying down. Patrick lifted his dressing gown and spread it loosely over her.

“You might want to take off your coat,” he said.

Daisy sat up, took off her jacket, and lay back on the pillow. Patrick took off his shoes and lay down beside her.

“Teddy bears,” he repeated thoughtfully, and put an arm over her body and drew her to him. “How little I know about you, my sweet Daisy. Are you afraid?”

“No.”

He did not reply; instead he tucked her shoulder under his armpit and slid his other arm under hers, taking her breast in his cupped palm.

“Of course I'm afraid,” Daisy said, her voice a little breathless.

“You'd be mad or unusually unimaginative if you weren't.” Patrick's fingers gently squeezed her breast as his thumb, just as softly, stroked it. “What are you afraid of?”

“You know.”

“I do, but it's—ah—helpful to name one's fears.”

“I'm afraid of the bombs. I'm afraid of sleeping with you. I'm afraid of getting married. I'm afraid—although more often the idea gives me pleasure—of not having any idea of what it will be like after the war. If it ever ends.”

“Very reasonable fears. And do you want reassurance and comforting meaningless platitudes?”

“No,” Daisy said dubiously; a large part of her wanted exactly that, but she also thought Patrick might have something better to offer.

“What do you do when you're afraid? What do you hold on to?”

“What do you mean?” It was the most intimate question she had ever been asked.

“There has to be a thought, a memory, an image, that you invoke and use to supplant the fear. What is it?”

Daisy lay quiet for a moment; the feeling of Patrick's body against hers, larger, stronger, and, it seemed, protective, encouraged her to confide in him. It felt like an offering, a submission of her will to his.

“Poetry. The first two and a bit lines of ‘Dover Beach.'

The sea is calm to-night.

The tide is full, the moon lies fair

Upon the straits.

It makes me feel calm and still.”

“Yes,” Patrick said, and nodded.

“And you?”

Patrick hesitated, but he did not simulate incomprehension.

“I've never told anyone this.”

“Did you think I had?” Daisy said, indignant.

“No. Of course not. Mine's just a memory. From when I was a boy.”

Patrick paused a moment, Daisy imagined him concentrating before he started. “Hacking home from hunting—in the mist. With James. Tiny gray drops of water on our jackets, and the smell of autumn—leaves, the wet earth, smoke from a cottage chimney. I thought the rest of my life would be like that. The way my father had lived—he was already dead, killed in the Great War. The house, the horses, gun dogs, turf burning in the fireplaces. I imagined James often there. We thought it would go on forever. Now I tell myself there could be moments of it again, if we were lucky.... That's what I hang onto when it all seems...”

“Yes,” Daisy said softly, stroking his hand.

“Very Granchester I know,” he said smiling, “but at least we had the grace to know we were happy. And now there's you.”

They lay quietly together for a while. Daisy's body now relaxed, as she thought that she and Patrick were not strangers after all. When she had hurriedly changed out of her evening dress at the hotel she had put on, instead of her brassiere, a slip that was slightly gathered under her breasts. The fine, flimsy silk—Valerie had been very firm about the quality of what she called “lingerie” necessary for the weekend—although perhaps less intimate than the touch of skin on skin, was, it seemed to Daisy, sensuous in a sophisticated way. Patrick was running the tips of his fingers so lightly over her nipples that she could not be sure what was the pressure of his fingers, the weight of the silk, or her own aroused imagination. She felt her body move against his and an involuntary low moan escaped her lips.

“Yes,” he said, “it's going to be wonderful.”

The other people in the station had become silent, except for a small group singing sentimental songs at the far end of the platform; even they were singing in lower voices and in a manner that suggested they were winding down. Behind Patrick's raised shoulder, the woman with the small children slept soundly, beyond them the lighted entrance to the platform.