Wives at War (27 page)

*   *   *

Bernard slipped on his overcoat and kissed her cheek.

Lizzie said, ‘Are you goin' out again?'

‘It's business, Lizzie, council business.'

‘On Sunday afternoon. Is it a meetin'?'

‘No, I'm helping a – a family move house.'

‘Can nobody else do it?'

‘It's my placement, my responsibility. I have to be there.'

‘Where?'

‘Breslin. Well – near Breslin.'

He looked just the same as he'd done when he'd come in from church shortly after noon, shaved and smooth, his hair slicked down. He looked the same, he smelled the same and yet there was something different about him.

‘Will you be home for your dinner?'

‘I'll try my best, but,' Bernard said, ‘no guarantees.'

‘I'll keep something hot.'

‘Yes,' he said, ‘you do that.' Then he went out by the front door, whistling a jaunty little hymn tune more suited to Easter than Christmas.

*   *   *

On Saturday evening instead of trotting round to Raines Drive to pay her respects to her brother-in-law, Polly had gone to the pictures with Christy. They had queued for the best part of an hour to see Gary Cooper and Ray Milland behaving nobly in
Beau Geste
, and afterwards had strolled along Paisley Road eating fish suppers and laughing.

Home again, Polly had drunk one gin and tonic to Christy's three whiskies and had kissed him before she'd gone to bed. During all the time they had spent together Christy hadn't once mentioned Fin Hughes and by Sunday morning Polly had given up waiting for the axe to fall.

The thin grey rain had eased not at all and the garden was drowned in fine grey mist; a winter Sunday, still and timeless, church bells silenced by the war. The kitchen below stairs was warmed by the odours of fried bacon, coffee and cigarette smoke. The Sunday newspapers that Christy had fetched from a corner shop on the far side of the park were scattered on the table and Polly, revelling in idleness, lolled about in her dressing gown and pompom slippers as if she had no intention of dressing at all that day.

Christy knew nothing of her past beyond the few scant facts his masters had provided and the half-baked gossip he had picked up from Babs.

She wanted him to ask about Dominic, if she had ever loved him, if Dominic had treated her well. For years she had scorned the mundane values by which others lived and had taken a lover, a dangerous lover, Tony Lombard. When Tony had deserted her she had taken up with Fin Hughes only because she preferred to trust an enemy rather than a friend. But now, suddenly, she was free of constraint, free to give everything away – the empty house, the ill-wrought fortune, the motorcar, her fine clothes, her body, even her heart.

‘Christy,' she said, ‘whatever you want, whatever you need, whatever you've been told to do, I'll help you if I can.'

He stared at her solemnly, almost sorrowfully, then reached across the table, pinched the collar of her dressing gown between forefinger and thumb and tugged it down. He took the folds in both fists and pulled them apart.

He was rough like Tony and gentle like Dominic, less practised and calculating than Fin, but when he slid his hands inside her pyjama top and placed them on her breasts she felt the dominating force of his self-assurance.

Balanced awkwardly on the kitchen chair, she leaned forward so that he could peel down the garment and kiss her but when, out of habit, she tried to push her tongue into his mouth, he resisted, pressing his lips together. And Polly thought: he knows, he knows what it means and how it will change things and what I'm offering him and he will take it because that's the sort of man he is.

She was wet now and waited not patiently but passively for him to kiss her again. When he did, she knew why he wouldn't let her work her tongue into his mouth and pretend that this unromantic intimacy wasn't love and that what would happen next wasn't as natural and mundane as love itself.

‘Do you want to go upstairs,' he asked in a thick little whisper, ‘or is this not a proper time?'

‘No,' she heard herself say, ‘this is a proper time. Yes, this is the time.'

The doorbell rang.

They stared at each other.

Christy blew out his cheeks and said, ‘Seems not.'

‘Ignore it,' Polly told him. ‘Whoever it is, they'll go away.'

‘Do you want them to go away?'

‘Yes, I do.'

‘What if it's Babs?'

‘What if it is?'

‘She'll jump to the wrong conclusions.'

Polly laughed wryly. ‘The
wrong
conclusions?'

The doorbell continued to ring, its persistence jarring in the calm half-light of the winter forenoon.

‘All right,' said Polly. ‘Stay right here. Don't move.'

She hurried upstairs to the hall and opened the door.

Fin stood on the top step, a glove in his mouth, his big bare forefinger thrust into the bell push. When he saw her he removed the glove from his mouth and said, ‘Ah, you're in. Did I waken you?'

‘Fin,' Polly said, ‘what do you want at this hour?'

‘I come on a mission of mercy.' Fin waved an arm towards the drive. ‘Sorry if it isn't convenient but it isn't easy to find glass, let alone glaziers, these days and you have to take it when you can get it.'

Clutching her dressing gown about her, Polly peeped outside.

Fin's Vauxhall was parked close to the house. Behind it was a small blue-painted van with pine-wood framing bolted to its side. In the frame, padded with straw and canvas, were several large sheets of glass. Leaning against the bonnet of the van were two men, one old, one very young, both dressed in brown overalls and cloth caps.

‘The window?' Fin said, raising an eyebrow. ‘In the lounge?'

‘Yes,' said Polly. ‘The window, of course.'

‘Shouldn't take long,' said Fin. ‘Half an hour or so then you can go back to what you were doing when I so rudely interrupted you.'

‘You'd best come in,' Polly said.

Fin signalled to the workmen, who immediately began to tease a pane of glass from the padded frame. Then, leaning close to Polly, he said, ‘Is he here?'

‘Yes.'

‘Is he up?'

‘Of course,' Polly said. ‘We're having breakfast.'

‘Breakfast? Why, it's almost lunch time.'

‘Not in this household, it's not,' said Polly and, stepping back, allowed Fin and his little team of workmen to enter the hall.

*   *   *

On Sunday mornings Margaret Dawlish bathed, trimmed her nails and hair and put on a tailored suit, a black swagger coat and the sort of high-crowned hat that never went out of fashion.

If it hadn't been for the floppy rubber boots Dougie might have been tempted to go down on one knee and request her hand in marriage there and then, but she carried her shoes in an oilskin bag to change at the end of the track and hid the Wellingtons in a clump of gorse to collect on her return from church.

Dougie's only connection with church was to deliver Babs's children to afternoon Sunday School. He didn't know if the simple preaching of God's eternal love made any impression on his young charges and pointedly refrained from engaging in theological discussion with June who, unlike her sister and brother, seemed to take the whole thing seriously.

Now and then Dougie was tempted to remind June that the God who made the sun to shine, who shaped the little lambs and clad the lilies of the field was precisely the same God who created the germs that gave you chickenpox and influenza but, of course, he did nothing of the sort, for however much tragedy and booze had destroyed his personal belief in the divine, he envied the young their innocence and would do nothing to undermine it.

He tapped a finger gently on Angus's breastbone. ‘I'll be gone for a quarter of an hour, so stay right where you are, an' make sure your sisters stay right where they are too. Got me?'

‘What if the house catches fire?'

‘The house won't catch fire.'

‘What if it does, though?'

‘Then you'll have t' carry your sisters out into the yard,' said Dougie, ‘but make sure you get the cat out first.'

Angus laughed. He was feeling better. Boric acid had cooled the itch to the point where it bothered him hardly at all. The bed was covered in comics, books and toffee papers, and the wireless set that Dougie had lugged upstairs droned out some dreary English church service in the girls' room next door.

‘Are we not going to Sunday School?'

‘Not today,' said Dougie.

‘What about the Christmas party?'

‘We'll have t' see about the Christmas party,' said Dougie.

‘I want to see Santa.'

‘Santa!'

‘I know it's only Miss White wearin' a beard, but it's good for a laugh.'

Dougie sighed.

Angus said, ‘Do you think Mum'll come today?'

‘I doubt it, son. Maybe next weekend.'

‘What about Dad?'

‘Possibly,' Dougie said.

‘If Dad hasn't any petrol left for the bike maybe Auntie Polly'll bring him over in the motorcar with Mr Cameron.'

‘Maybe she will,' said Dougie. ‘Look, I'm walkin' Miss Dawlish—'

‘Down to the road,' said Angus. ‘Stay put. Message received loud an' clear, Admiral.'

‘Admiral!' Dougie muttered and, shaking his head, went downstairs.

Margaret and he had barely left the shelter of the yard before she took his arm, something she had never done before.

‘What's wrong,' Dougie said. ‘Are the knees bad today?'

‘My knees are my own business,' Margaret said. ‘Anyway, it's not my knees that are bothering me. It's that American chap.'

‘Why should he bother you?'

‘What's he up to?'

‘I don't think he's up to anything, nothin' that concerns us.'

‘What concerns those children concerns me.'

Dougie said, ‘Any business Christy Cameron might have wi' this family would hardly be likely to affect the children.'

‘Polly's keen on him, is she not?'

‘Is she? Can't say I noticed.'

‘Take it from me, she's very keen on him,' said Margaret. ‘Why hasn't she been to visit us lately?'

‘Babs'll have warned her off.'

‘I wonder what Jackie has to say about it.'

‘Jackie's a man o' the world.'

‘Hah!' said Margaret, scornfully.

For a woman she had a fair length of stride; it was all Dougie could do to match his step to hers. He glanced at her out of the side of his eyes. She had dusted her fiery cheeks with powder and defined her lips with lipstick. She didn't look at all mannish in her Sunday morning garb and he experienced an odd little tug of desire, an emotion so unfamiliar that he almost failed to recognise it for what it was.

‘Don't you like the American?' Dougie said.

‘I like him fine,' Margaret said.

‘But,' said Dougie, ‘you're wonderin' why Polly brought him here.'

‘Rivalry between sisters,' Margaret said, by way of an answer, ‘can be terribly destructive.'

‘Rivalry?' said Dougie. ‘You think they both fancy him?'

‘I'm sure they do.'

‘If you were younger…' Dougie paused, tactfully. ‘I mean, if you were one of the Conway girls, would
you
fancy him?'

‘Wouldn't I just?' said Margaret.

‘Funny, I never thought you'd fancy anyone.'

‘What do you mean by that?'

‘I always had the impression you weren't much interested in men.'

‘There are,' Margaret Dawlish said, ‘men and men.'

Dougie was tempted to ask if she'd ever had a boyfriend or a lover, how she defined maleness, what made one man attractive and another repulsive and what category he fell into, if he fell into any category at all.

‘They might be Barbara's children,' Margaret went on, ‘but Polly pays the bills. If Polly were to do anything rash, or if Babs and she were to fall out…'

‘Uh-huh!' Dougie said. ‘You think we'd be left high an' dry.'

‘Well, wouldn't we?'

‘We'd struggle through somehow.'

‘If she took away the farm…'

‘She can't,' said Dougie.

‘Why can't she?' said Margaret Dawlish.

‘Polly doesn't own the farm,' Dougie said.

‘Really? Who does then? Dominic?'

‘I do.'

‘You?'

‘I thought you knew that, Margaret?'

‘No, I most certainly did not know that.'

‘So, there you are,' Dougie said smugly. ‘You're not walkin' arm in arm with a mere caretaker; you're walkin' arm in arm with a landowner.'

‘Well!' Margaret said. ‘Well, well, well! How much land?'

‘I sold the land.' Dougie immediately regretted his candour. ‘Not all of it, though,' he added. ‘I still have a few acres put by for a rainy day.'

‘How many acres?' Margaret said.

Dougie smiled. ‘Put it this way: more than enough for the two of us.'

‘The two of us?'

‘Us plus the kiddies, if Polly does decide to fly the coop.'

‘Douglas, what are you suggesting?'

‘I'm not suggestin' anythin',' Dougie said. ‘I'm just puttin' your mind at rest, Margaret, that's all.'

‘Hold me,' she said.

‘Pardon?'

‘Give me something to hold on to while I change into my shoes.'

‘By all means,' said Dougie, and gallantly stuck out his hand.

*   *   *

‘Polly,' Fin Hughes said, ‘why don't you trot upstairs and make yourself decent while Mr Cameron and I exchange pleasantries?

‘I wasn't aware that I wasn't decent,' Polly said.

‘Well, you aren't,' Fin said. ‘If not indecent, distracting, lounging about in that revealing bathrobe. What do you say, Mr Cameron? Don't you find the presence of this lovely lady
en déshabillé
just a tad distracting?'