Camomile Lawn Read online

  ‘Not love, of course not.’ Sarah went on peeling potatoes. The world might be about to end but her husband expected Sunday lunch. ‘I am so unused to cooking,’ she muttered, peering into the oven at the joint of beef. ‘Do you think it’s doing all right?’

  ‘I expect so.’ Helena looked up at the feet passing by the area railing. ‘He had a fine war record. That seemed to matter. Shall I do the greens? I know how.’

  ‘Yes, please, be an angel. Here’s a knife.’

  Helena picked up the knife and a handful of spinach. ‘I’ve suddenly realized why I married Richard.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘His leg, it was his leg.’

  ‘But surely that’s why you are leaving him.’ Sarah’s eyes, brilliant as Oliver’s, caught Helena’s worried ones. Both women burst out laughing, an outburst of hilarity which filled the kitchen. George’s voice shouting down the stairs was drowned. He repeated himself, running down the stone steps followed by Oliver.

  ‘What did you say, darling?’ Sarah wiped her eyes.

  ‘You missed the announcement.’ George looked at the laughing women. ‘We are at war.’

  ‘Bother, I’d meant to listen to that jackass.’

  ‘In a way it’s a relief.’ Helena had stopped laughing, drew in her breath. Sarah and George had a son. ‘Oh God,’ she said, ‘dear God.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t believe any more,’ Oliver pounced on her.

  ‘In time of stress—’ If she had been able to say more Helena would not have been heard. The first siren of the war started its whoop. They went up to the balcony to look at the sky, standing in a row behind the geranium-filled flower-boxes.

  ‘Take cover, get your gas masks,’ a hurrying warden shouted up at them.

  The calm of a London Sunday continued. An owl hooted some distance away in Thurloe Square. ‘Must have been woken by that filthy noise. Nobody seems to be taking cover.’ George thrust his chin forward to ease his neck. He had been changing while listening to Chamberlain and tied his tie too tight. He felt half throttled.

  ‘Loosen your tie, darling, you will choke. Oh, look!’

  A taxi. Calypso’s head craned out of the window, looking up at the sky. Calypso, Polly and the twins got out.

  ‘Any bombs?’ shouted Polly.

  ‘Gas?’ called the twins. ‘Any gas?’

  ‘Seven and six,’ said the taximan.

  ‘Want to take cover?’ George called down from the balcony.

  ‘Nah. Thanks all the same.’

  ‘Let them in, Oliver.’ Sarah looked up at the sky, innocently blue.

  ‘Where’s Walter?’ Helena leant over the balcony.

  ‘Got off at Plymouth to join the Navy. Marvellous smell of beef.’

  ‘Oh, my God, the joint!’ Sarah fled down to the kitchen to switch off the oven.

  It was later, while they ate an overcooked lunch, that Oliver told them he had enlisted in the Army. ‘I’m in the ranks but having been in the O.T.C. helped a bit. I fixed myself up before I went down to Cornwall.’

  ‘What about Spain?’ asked a twin.

  ‘They didn’t ask, so I didn’t tell.’

  ‘We must hurry. I wonder where we go. Any idea?’ They looked at George.

  ‘Try the Air Ministry.’ George was preoccupied.

  ‘There will be posters, let’s go and look. Our country needs us.’

  ‘Where are you all staying?’ Sarah looked round the table.

  ‘With me,’ said Polly. ‘Mother and Father have got rooms near the hospital in the country. They said Calypso could stay and the twins until they are fixed up.’

  ‘What are you girls going to do?’

  ‘Jobs? Any ideas, Uncle George?’ Calypso looked beguiling.

  ‘I can give you some introductions, I suppose.’

  ‘I’ve got a job,’ said Polly. ‘I fixed myself up months ago.’

  ‘Oh, lucky you. Is it glamorous?’

  ‘I hardly think so, just War Office.’

  Richard telephoned that night. When was Helena coming home?

  ‘I must do my shopping.’ How lame that sounded. ‘There will be shortages. I am going to stock up.’ This sounded reasonable.

  ‘It’s very inconvenient without the car.’

  ‘Get the General to drive you.’

  ‘He’s very busy organizing things.’

  ‘Get him to give you a job. You will be needed now.’

  ‘Helena, he put the hounds down, can you believe it? I ask—’

  ‘Poor Richard. What do you feel?’

  ‘You may be right about Hitler.’

  ‘Richard, are you all right?’

  ‘Of course I am. The General thinks so too.’

  ‘Thinks what?’

  ‘Thinks Hitler’s a jumped-up cad, only a ranker could behave like that.’

  ‘Richard, that’s the best joke you’ve ever made.’

  ‘I wasn’t joking.’

  Helena heard him replace the receiver, cutting her off.

  ‘Are you going back?’ Sarah looked troubled.

  ‘Not yet. I have to think.’

  ‘What about? Sophy?’

  ‘Sophy is what a lot of it’s about. It’s not altogether the leg, it’s Sophy too. Sarah, I don’t like Sophy—’

  ‘I know,’ said Sarah. ‘I know. Why don’t you send her to school?’

  ‘In war time?’

  ‘Helena, life’s not stopping, it’s going on, war or not. Find the child a school, send her away, you will both be much happier.’

  ‘Do you think so?’ Helena respected Sarah.

  ‘Ask Polly. She was quite happy at her school. They might take Sophy. Calypso’s wouldn’t do, she was expelled, supposed to have flirted with the gardener.’

  ‘But Polly’s was near Cambridge—’

  ‘There are such things as trains. Ask Polly and check with her mother. They will help you. Why don’t you make a list? Start it with Leg, then Sophy, then your shopping. You can cross out Leg straight away since there’s nothing you can do about it.’ Anxiety made Sarah sarcastic.

  ‘I knew you would help.’ Helena reached for a piece of paper and wrote on it ‘List’, which she underlined, then underneath she wrote ‘Leg’ and ticked it, followed by ‘Sophy? Food and clothes’. ‘What shall we run short of?’ she asked, but Sarah was busy and left her.

  It was the following day after an exhaustive spree in Harrods that, taking a short cut through the pet department, she bought a dachshund puppy. Her attempt to get the price reduced on the grounds that it was German met with contempt. She was, though, able to make arrangements to have it sent to Richard by train. ‘I was mindful of your carpets,’ she told Sarah.

  ‘Carpets aren’t going to matter much. I have telephoned Polly’s mother about Sophy for you.’

  ‘And what did she say?’

  ‘Said it’s a good school, send the child and she can stay with Polly when she has to pass through London or for half terms.’

  ‘You’ve done my job for me.’ Helena was huffed.

  ‘You can visit the school, here’s the address. Telephone tonight. Get it done, Helena.’

  ‘You are rushing me.’

  ‘There is a rush. Being hated at Sophy’s age isn’t right.’

  ‘I never said I hated her.’

  ‘But you do.’

  Helena went to visit the school. When she got back to London she found a message from Richard to ring him urgently. ‘Something has happened to Sophy,’ said Sarah.

  ‘What?’

  ‘He won’t or can’t say. He sounds desperate.’

  ‘All right, I’ll go.’ Helena gave in.

  This time alone, Helena had an unpleasant drive down the winding roads. From now on, she thought, petrol rationing would restrict what freedom the car gave her.

  Richard came out to meet her, carrying the dachshund puppy in his arms.

  ‘So you got my present.’

  ‘It chews everything, it’s eaten my best card
igan.’

  ‘Where is Sophy?’

  ‘In bed at the Rectory.’

  ‘Why? What happened?’

  ‘Child won’t or can’t speak. The Rectory offered. It seemed better for her to be with a woman. I can’t do much with my leg. Monika Erstweiler sits with her. The doctor said to keep her quiet.’

  ‘But what happened, for God’s sake?’

  ‘Don’t know.’ Richard put the puppy down on the grass and watched it make a puddle. ‘Good little chap. Nice thought of yours.’

  ‘What happened to Sophy?’ Helena felt furious impatience.

  ‘Went out for a walk. You know how she wanders. I don’t know where. I’ve been stuck here with my leg—’

  ‘Damn your leg!’

  ‘Yes.’ Richard looked at his wife with sympathy. ‘Must be as trying for you as it is for me. Sorry. Must ignore it. I hear there’s a chap with no legs who flies, chap called Bader trying to get back into the Air Force with no legs, I ask you.’

  ‘Sophy?’

  ‘The Rector found her wandering on the cliff road. Thought she looked odd, offered her a lift and she passed out in his car. She hasn’t spoken, just lies there. It’s unnerving.’

  ‘Any bumps or bruises?’

  ‘Nothing, had some sort of fit, I’d say.’

  ‘Rubbish.’

  ‘Well, yes. The doctor says shock, but round here, it’s ridiculous, how could she get a shock?’

  ‘We’d better go to her.’ Helena opened the car door and Richard got in holding the puppy.

  ‘Doesn’t even respond to the puppy. You’d think she’d like it.’

  ‘Did the doctor say, I mean has he—’ Helena hesitated.

  ‘Not interfered with. Nothing. Can’t have seen anything of Penrose either. Wrong place, wrong time.’

  ‘Penrose? Who is Penrose?’

  ‘Coastguard chap, you know him. The Army are wiring off the path against invaders, I ask you. Hitler’s not going to invade up perpendicular cliffs. Of course with my leg I never walk along it. Oh, sorry, mentioned it again.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ Helena drew up at the Rectory. ‘What about Penrose?’

  ‘Fell over the cliff. Drunk, I suppose, or suicide, moody fellow his wife says. Anyway the Army found him, saw him floating. The police are being quite active, gives them something to do. If I had my leg I’d—’

  Helena got out of the car and rang the Rectory bell. The Rector opened the door. Helena kissed him on the cheek.

  ‘Like to go straight up? Monika’s with her. The room at the top on the left. Mildred had to go out.’

  Sophy lay propped on pillows, eyes dark in a face no paler than usual. Monika sat by the open window sewing.

  ‘Hullo, darling.’ I never call her darling, thought Helena, feeling embarrassed. ‘Hullo, Sophy, I’ve come home. How are you?’

  Sophy did not answer; her eyes looked at some point other than Helena.

  ‘While I was in London I bought that puppy and I bought you a lot of clothes, too.’ No response. Helena looked at Monika, who smiled encouragingly and pointed at a chair near the bed. Helena sat.

  ‘Polly’s got a war job and Calypso is looking for one. Walter is joining the Navy, the twins the Air Force. Oliver has got into the Army, in the ranks, he doesn’t want to be an officer.’ The child lay limp, eyes unblinking, disconcerting. Helena felt her sense of exasperation rise. Why couldn’t the child answer? She looked at Monika for comfort.

  ‘Aunt Sarah and I thought you might like to go away to school, so I went and saw Polly’s old school near Cambridge. I think you will like it.’ Monika nodded approval. ‘There will be children of your age, games, and so on. Polly says you can stay with her on your way through London. What’s that noise?’ Monika was looking out of the window.

  ‘Police,’ said Monika Erstweiler. ‘Police.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Helena dropped her voice to a whisper, which Sophy heard perfectly but Monika not, since she was leaning out of the window. ‘I hear there was an accident to a coastguard, so unfortunate.’

  ‘For us.’ Monika turned back into the room, white-faced. ‘Not the coastguard,’ she said. ‘Your kind brother-in-law warned us. We are to be interned. We are enemy aliens.’

  ‘How totally absurd,’ said Helena, speaking loudly from anger.

  ‘I must find my husband.’ Monika came close to Sophy. ‘Be brave, my child.’ She bent and kissed her. ‘These are English police not the Gestapo.’

  Sophy sat up abruptly. ‘We will get you out, write to our Member of Parliament, write to The Times.’ She scrambled out of bed. Helena and Monika, taken aback by this adult attitude, began to laugh.

  ‘Sophy, I love you.’ Monika put her arms round Sophy and hugged her.

  It would make my life easier if I did, thought Helena, watching them.

  ‘Uncle Richard can write the letters.’ Sophy had run down the stairs calling loudly, ‘Uncle Richard, Uncle Richard, please!’

  ‘And he did write,’ said Helena to her driver. ‘He wrote to The Times, to all the Members of Parliament he could think of, he became very passionate about it.’

  ‘About what?’ Her driver overtook a large lorry, causing Helena to wince.

  ‘About the wrong aliens getting interned.’

  ‘Like Arthur Koestler?’

  ‘Yes. He was well known, but the Erstweilers were hardly known in those days. He wrote to Calypso’s husband, got him interested. He was quite helpful, very helpful really.’

  ‘My father?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I’d forgotten for a moment that Calypso is your mother.’

  ‘That’s quite all right.’

  ‘It gave Richard something to do, made him forget his leg.’

  ‘What was wrong with it?’

  ‘He lost it in Flanders.’

  ‘Wouldn’t have stopped him writing, surely?’

  ‘It didn’t. The injustice gave him a lift.’

  ‘Did he get them out?’

  ‘Yes, eventually.’

  ‘Then he remembered his leg.’ Helena’s driver considered himself a student of psychology.

  ‘Yes, yes, he did.’ Helena sighed. ‘He remembered the bloody thing.’

  Helena’s driver, Calypso’s son, raised his eyebrows. In his book middle-class old ladies did not swear, not in their eighties.

  ‘Of course, looking back, being among the first to be interned was a great help to Max.’

  ‘How was that?’

  ‘His name became familiar in the papers, favourably compared with Furtwängler who had stayed in Germany. He wasn’t Jewish, of course, like Max, and very pro-Hitler. Monika and Max were released just when all the others were gathered in. He got a head start professionally.’

  ‘Became famous in this country.’

  ‘I’ve always believed it was the General’s doing.’

  ‘What General?’

  ‘General Peachum, a friend of your great-uncle’s, a neighbour, loathed Jews, an admirer of Hitler and Ribbentrop, rather a silly man, Master of Hounds, urged the local police and coastguards to watch for spies, a typical “country gentleman”, a good man. They do a lot of harm.’

  Nine

  CALYPSO’S MARRIAGE TO HECTOR Grant, during the early days of the war, when for months nothing happened except a tremendous freeze, came as welcome entertainment. One day she was working in the glamorous secret job she had found for herself and the next inviting everybody to her wedding at Caxton Hall.

  Hector Grant, a tall, elegant Member of Parliament for a Scottish constituency, had been married before with no issue and was extremely rich, with a house in Westminster and a castle in the Highlands. The trouble in the eyes of Calypso’s parents was that he was the same age as Calypso’s father; indeed it was he who had introduced them.

  ‘How could John have been so stupid?’ cried Sarah, on hearing the news.

  ‘I don’t suppose it occurred to him,’ replied George. ‘The man is supposed to be uncatchable. How was John t
o know the advent of war made Hector determined to beget a son and heir?’

  ‘But he’s had a wife.’

  ‘Who wouldn’t or couldn’t oblige.’

  ‘Perhaps Hector can’t.’

  ‘We shall see, won’t we?’ And George had gone gloomily off to his office, leaving Sarah to telephone what she called the Cornish Contingent, Helena and Richard.

  Richard refused Calypso’s invitation, excusing himself on the grounds of pressure of work. ‘I’ve written to Hector of course about the Erstweilers, knew him in the war, splendid chap, got a very good D.S.O.’ Richard had received no decoration for losing his leg. Sarah suspected that Richard resented this. She asked to speak to Helena, putting this point to her.

  ‘Don’t be absurd, Sarah,’ Helena had said briskly. ‘His leg blew off when he had his back to the enemy and was drinking a mug of tea. He remembers it perfectly. He never expected a medal. He really is busy.’

  ‘Will you come, then? Stay with us.’

  ‘I’d love to. I’ve never been to a registry office wedding.’

  ‘The reception is at the Ritz.’

  ‘I daresay he can afford it. I gather he’s paying for all of us to have lunch.’

  ‘Yes. He won’t allow Calypso’s parents to spend a penny.’

  ‘They have no pennies, that’s their trouble. Calypso wants money.’

  ‘Helena, you will bring Sophy, won’t you?’

  ‘She’s at school.’

  ‘They might let her come. Try.’

  ‘I’ll have to see.’

  See that she doesn’t, Sarah thought, but did not say, and Sophy did not come. In the event George, too, was too busy. Sarah and Helena sat with Calypso’s mother, watching a stony-faced John give his only child to Hector, magnificent in a morning suit with hardly a grey hair in his thick thatch, his black eyebrows like moths’ wings meeting above his nose.

  Calypso shone triumphant in a white coat and skirt, satin shirt, a wreath of gardenias on her sleek head.

  ‘I’ve never seen anyone look so smug,’ one twin in Air Force uniform whispered to the other. Polly, overhearing, grinned. Walter arrived in time for the luncheon, a scrubbed and healthy Able Seaman. Oliver came late but in time to kiss the bride, hugging her against his rough khaki uniform.