Aunt Letitia Page 14

  He began walking, turned into the Brompton Road. London basked in sunshine, the terror of the air raids fading, the war remote; but Hugh merely felt miserable as he made his way slowly back to Letitia’s.

  Preoccupied as he was when he got back, even he could not fail to notice that there was an atmosphere in the house. Mrs Mansell’s expression, grim at the best of times, was this afternoon positively splenetic. What was wrong now? Hugh hesitated to ask.

  ‘It’s Peggy,’ said Letitia, sotto voce. ‘She is with child as they say in polite society.’

  ‘But I thought her husband was a POW?’

  ‘So he is.’

  ‘Then … ah, I see.’

  Hugh sighed. Letitia’s house, once a refuge, a haven of peace, was anything but now that the Mansells had taken root. He decided that, all things considered, he would be glad when the time came for him to return to Buckinghamshire.

  Peggy’s baby caused a great deal of trouble one way or another. Stubborn and sulking, Peggy said that she had ‘done nothing wrong’ and ‘couldn’t say’ how she came to be pregnant. ‘In which case,’ Mrs Mansell remarked sourly, ‘it must be the second Immaculate Conception.’ The name of Ian was not mentioned but with hints and dark looks Mrs Mansell made it clear that she thought him not entirely blameless in the matter. After careful consideration, Letitia felt that Mrs Mansell might have a point. But Peggy had told her story and she stuck to it.

  The child, Peggy’s second, was born in February 1942, Ian still entirely in the dark. As it happened, whilst his daughter was making her debut in the world, he was arriving in Alexandria on leave, the front having stabilized for the moment after Rommel’s rapid advance to Gazala. Alexandria was teeming. A fierce sun beat down from a bleached sky. A forest of masts and funnels marked the docks. In the dusty streets, the crowds ebbed and flowed in the face of packed trams and army trucks and all manner of horse-drawn vehicles. Beggars and salesmen accosted passers-by.

  Ian took refuge in the cool and shade of a shop, pushing his way past piles of rugs, and bales of silk and cotton. The shelves on either side were stacked with jewellery and perfume in bottles.

  ‘Something for your wife, sir?’ said the shopkeeper. ‘For your fiancée?’

  ‘No wife,’ said Ian. ‘No fiancée.’

  ‘Then this, sir. Ambergris. Very good, very potent. Will make you a powerful lover, sir.’

  Ian laughed. ‘After all those months in the desert, I’ve no need of help in that department, trust me.’

  ‘But, sir! You are not going, sir? You have bought nothing, sir!’

  Outside the shop, Ian mopped the sweat off his brow as Egyptian boys came running, grabbed his hands, tugged on his arms.

  ‘Soldier! Hey, soldier! You want a bint? Then you see my sister! She very nice, very clean.’

  And Ian allowed himself to be led through the crowds, resolved to make the most of his leave, to forget the war – forget everything – until he had to return to the front for another instalment of the Benghazi Handicap.

  It was just over a month later when Hugh, snatching a weekend away from Buckinghamshire, travelled to London, reading his newspaper from front to back as the train inched its way towards Euston. The war news was all bad. Singapore had fallen, Rangoon was occupied, the Japanese march on India looked unstoppable. But the printed words blurred and shifted as he turned page after page, thinking of the letter burning a hole in his pocket.

  It should not have come as a surprise. By rights, they should have divorced years ago. He accepted that his marriage was over, but divorce marked The End, ruled a line under that chapter of his life, forced him to take stock. And why now: why had Cynthia chosen this moment to act, after all this time? Could it be that she’d found someone else, wanted to marry again?

  She had never been short of admirers. Some of them she had singled out for special attention even before their marriage had disintegrated. Your lovers, Hugh had once called them in a fit of pique – said it to her face; and lovers they had remained in Hugh’s mind. But Cynthia at the time had laughed, as if the idea was absurd: which it was, for Hugh knew that it was not just him who was forever barred from her bed. Sex she found repellent, but men she loved. She craved attention, longed to be admired. Yet the men she took up with! There was one Hugh particularly remembered from their time in Germany, a superior specimen of Aryan manhood called Ulf, who had been a staunch anti-communist and later, so Hugh had heard, a captain in the SS. But many of Cynthia’s other ‘lovers’ had been equally unpalatable. Hugh had felt humiliated by them, though he’d never been able to decide if this was because of the way she flirted with them openly in front of him, or because her choice seemed in some way to reflect badly on him.

  Hugh sighed, folded his newspaper, put it aside, looked out at the heavy grey sky pressing down on the grey London suburbs. He wondered if he should tell Aunt Letitia about his impending divorce. Perhaps not. Going over and over it would be like rubbing salt in the wound. And his aunt would not be able to enlighten him as to Cynthia’s plans. It would be better to question Ian surreptitiously next time he came on leave – if he ever did come on leave again. There’d been no word from him in months. There seemed to be a lull in the desert just now, but no news did not necessarily mean good news. Anything might be happening out there.

  Letitia’s house was bedlam. Hugh, craving peace and quiet, wondered how she put up with it, yet she seemed to be thriving. There was a new addition to the inhabitants, a fractious baby whose shrieking reduced Hugh’s overtaxed nerves to shreds. He couldn’t understand, either, why Mrs Mansell kept casting black looks in his direction. She had never exactly taken to him – the feeling was mutual – but had hitherto contented herself with largely ignoring him. What had changed?

  It was Megan, of all people, who appraised him of the situation. She had called round to see Letitia – in a non-professional capacity – and sat with the old lady over a pot of tea, talking about— Well, Hugh didn’t know what they talked about, couldn’t begin to guess, took himself out of the way, feeling surplus to requirements. But he was driven out of one room after another by the Mansell hoards until in desperation he stepped out into the area to get away from it all. There he bumped into Megan smoking a cigarette.

  They eyed one another warily.

  ‘This is the only place where one can find any peace,’ said Hugh at length, feeling for some reason that he needed to justify his presence.

  ‘The soothing lullaby of London.’ Megan blew out smoke, smiled, the hum of the city all round them, a constant background noise one scarcely noticed.

  It was her smile that did it, sabotaging all the careful months when he’d gradually weaned himself away from thoughts of her. His heart skipped a beat, the hum of London not so much a lullaby as a soaring symphony, celebrating his love for her. Love. At his age. It was ridiculous, he told himself. But he couldn’t help it.

  Even out here, however, that was no escape from the pandemonium. The shrill sound of the baby’s wailing seemed to follow one – as did Mrs Mansell’s dark disapproval.

  ‘It’s as if she suspected me of wanting to bash its brains out,’ said Hugh, aggrieved.

  ‘It’s not that,’ said Megan. ‘It has more to do with the child’s putative father.’ She stubbed out her cigarette, explaining about the Immaculate Conception and the part Ian was suspected of having played.

  Hugh was aghast. ‘Why did nobody tell me? Why was I kept in the dark?’

  Megan shrugged. ‘It’s one of those things that everybody knows but no one admits to knowing.’

  ‘What can Ian have been thinking of? The girl is married, for pity’s sake. What is that husband of hers – this POW – what is he going to make of it all? Is he likely to want retribution? Should Ian be warned?’

  ‘We are all likely to be dead long before then, the way the war is going.’

  ‘All the more reason,’ said Hugh, ‘to make the most of every moment. But this house is impossible. I can’t hear myself
think, let alone have a quiet word with you. Could we not go to your house?’

  ‘My place is just as busy and a lot smaller. Four of us are sharing.’

  ‘Then there’s nowhere.’

  Megan looked at him speculatively, as if weighing him up. ‘There might be somewhere,’ she said slowly. ‘A house in Paddington. It’s often empty.’

  ‘A house? What house?’

  ‘Eleanor Lambton’s house. She’s doesn’t use it much. I have some spare keys.’

  ‘You have spare keys? To Eleanor Lambton’s house? Surely you don’t mean Julian Lambton’s widow? I haven’t heard of her in years! How on earth did you get to know Eleanor Lambton?’

  ‘You sound surprised. Do you think she is above my level?’

  ‘Of course I don’t think that! You are putting words into my mouth. Well, if we are going, let’s go now and put this madhouse behind us!’

  Hugh had surprised himself, being so pushy, taking charge, giving orders. It was not his usual manner, had been born out of weariness, irritation, frustration, with news of Ian’s trespass the last straw. Throwing his weight around might have ended in disaster but instead – improbably – it had worked wonders. Megan had acquiesced, which must prove something; and so here they were, alone together, in Eleanor Lambton’s Paddington house.

  Being alone with her was a lot more awkward than he had bargained for. He was suddenly tongue-tied again. Megan seemed inhibited too. They avoided looking at each other and Hugh, unable to sit still, drifted around the room, scrutinizing Eleanor Lambton’s possessions as if they were of the utmost importance. There was something impersonal about the place, he decided. It was spic and span, spacious, comfortable; but he got the impression that it was not much used. He wondered how often Eleanor came here and where she lived the rest of the time. Did the family still own the Manor at Binley as in the old days? He could remember very little about Eleanor. He had met her perhaps half a dozen times; but that had been years ago.

  He formed questions in his mind, they were on the tip of his tongue, but he thought better of it, recalling his faux pas earlier and Megan’s angry response: Do you think she is above my level? He had not meant to imply that by his question; but it was certainly an odd association, one had to admit. How had Megan and Eleanor ever come to meet?

  It was just one more reminder of how little he knew about Megan.

  ‘We need a drink.’ She had been sitting in the window seat, looking through the glass, but she now got to her feet, businesslike. ‘A proper drink, I mean.’ She made it sound like a prescription.

  ‘Is there any to be had?’

  ‘Eleanor hides it in vases.’

  ‘In vases?’ Hugh gaped at her.

  ‘And other places.’ Megan laughed at Hugh’s expression: they were looking at each other now. ‘Jimmy, Eleanor’s son, sometimes uses this place,’ she explained. ‘He eats all her food and drinks all her drink and never replaces anything. He sounds rather self-centred, I often think; but of course one can’t say that to his mother. However, Eleanor has found a solution. She secretes emergency supplies in unlikely places. We have only to look.’

  After a short search, Hugh unearthed a bottle of gin and found glasses to go with it.

  ‘But there are no mixers, not even any ice,’ he said, handing Megan her drink. She was back in the window seat, framed there against a background of grey daylight.

  He sat down in an easy chair, cradling his glass, watched Megan as she took a sip of her drink, grimaced, put it aside.

  ‘I’m sorry. I can’t stomach gin.’

  ‘I didn’t know. Perhaps I can find something else?’

  Megan shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter. It’s broken the ice, anyway. At least we are talking now.’

  Talking, but getting nowhere. Hugh took a convulsive gulp of his drink, said, ‘It’s hopeless. I know nothing about you, not even what you like to drink. And you know nothing about me.’

  ‘That’s not entirely true. And it could be fun finding out about each other.’

  ‘Fun?’

  ‘We will have plenty to talk about.’

  ‘But it doesn’t seem right, starting with the basics at our age.’

  ‘Oh, Hugh, we are not that old!’

  She smiled and then turned to look out of the window. It had grown brighter outside and her hair shone red in the sunlight. Hugh felt an intense desire to touch it, to stroke it, to let it run through his fingers as he done before – years ago.

  He tore his eyes away, looked down at his drink, was surprised to find his glass empty. Surely the gin would take effect soon, loosen his tongue?

  When he looked up, he found Megan’s eyes on him.

  ‘Tell me something. Anything. Something about you that I don’t know. Something about your life, your past.’

  His life. What was his life but a catalogue of failure and missed opportunities? Even now there was letter in his pocket reminding him of the débâcle of his marriage. He couldn’t tell Megan about that. He didn’t want to whine and complain. He didn’t want her to feel sorry for him.

  Then he rallied. Thoughts of Cynthia and her ‘lovers’ put him in mind of the time he’d spent in Germany in the 1920s. He could tell Megan about that.

  ‘We’d been fighting Germans all those years. Now that peace had come, I wanted to find out more about them.’

  ‘That makes sense. Go on.’

  ‘You see, at times during the war I felt that we soldiers in the trenches had more in common with our supposed enemy on the other side of no-man’s land than we did with the generals living in the comfortable chateaux behind the lines – let alone the Hun-hating civilians back home, obsessed with the shortage of sugar.’

  ‘I have never thought of it like that before. One felt that the country had come together, that we were all on the same side for once, rich and poor, high and low. But I can see that the war also drove people apart.’

  ‘It was not the war which drove us apart!’ Hugh blurted out. The gin was having an effect now: making him hasty.

  ‘Then what did? God’s punishment for our sins?’

  High felt himself blushing, recalling how he’d blundered last summer in Hyde Park, talking about sin and feeling guilty. Megan had not forgotten either, but her voice was amused now rather than accusatory. Her eyes gently mocked him. It had been the same all those years ago, talking dismissively about men, an ardent suffragette. His heart skipped a beat, remembering her breathless and glowing in Russell Square.

  ‘God,’ he said firmly, ‘did not come into it. It did not take me much time to work out that I was far too insignificant for God to have taken an interest.’

  ‘You were never insignificant to me,’ said Megan, and smiled.

  Later, in the master bedroom, Megan let out a world-weary sigh and moved away from him, terminating their inconclusive fumbling.

  ‘You were right. About us being old. I am too old for this. Forty-seven is too old.’

  ‘You are not old.’ Hugh gently stroked her arm, looking down at her. ‘You are beautiful.’

  ‘I do not feel beautiful. I feel as if I am all frayed round the edges. Desiccated. I am sorry, Hugh.’

  She reached for her cigarettes and Hugh lay back, disappointed, helpless. However hard he tried, the gap between them never seemed to grow any less. Maybe after all this time it was unbridgeable.

  They had closed the curtains, shutting themselves in, but they could not keep out the world entirely. The sound of traffic, the cooing of a pigeon percolated into the room. In 1912, thought Hugh, I did not notice those things; there was nothing else, just us.

  ‘It’s not you,’ said Megan, breathing out smoke as she spoke. ‘Please don’t think it’s you.’

  ‘Is there any hope at all, do you think?’

  ‘For us?’ Megan regarded the cigarette between her fingers as if the answer lay there, as if it was an oracle. ‘Maybe we have left it too long,’ she said at last. ‘Maybe we missed our chance.’


  Flecks of ash dropped from the cigarette, scattered across the counterpane. They lay there, silent.

  In the train heading back to Buckinghamshire, Hugh tried to remember the laughing, vivacious girl he had known in London so long ago, but all he could summon into his mind was an image of Megan’s unhappy face on Eleanor Lambton’s pillow. All his old dreams were disappearing, the Megan who had haunted him for so long slowly fading from view. Would he be left with nothing?

  Looking out of the window, seeing his own tired reflection in the glass, he wondered if it might have been better had they never met again.

  Chapter Eight

  THE WAR WAS never-ending, thought Letitia, leaning heavily on her stick as she shuffled along the pavement. Here they were, yet another spring passing into yet another summer and still no sign of the finishing post. I am likely to come to my end before the war ever does, she said to herself as she struggled to reach the corner of her square. Gone were the days when she meandered at leisure along Oxford Street and browsed in the bookshops of Charing Cross Road before sitting to a lunchtime concert in the National Gallery. Those early days of the war seemed like a lifetime ago now. She remembered on the day of her tumble – nearly four years ago – she had said to that gallant policeman, The day I can’t walk from here to Trafalgar Square is the day you can put me down. Well, that day had come; but she was not ready to give up on life just yet: not with things so unsettled, not with the war still raging.

  The sun was shining. The warmth of it on her wrinkled face revived her. Her daily dose of fresh air breathed new life into her. She hobbled forward, her stick tap-tapping, and she smiled, thinking what an old crock she must look, wondering if anyone was watching from the many windows that glinted in the white-fronted terrace. She had rather lost track of her neighbours. People came and went so quickly these days. Perhaps there were still some who knew her, peering out and saying to one another, ‘There’s old Mrs Warner from number twelve. Getting vague, she is. Didn’t recognize me yesterday when I passed her in the square. The old are so forgetful.’