“Yes, I read your advert. You must be doing well.”
“Not that. I’ve got rehearsals all day. You coming to see us?”
“Perhaps. If I have the time.”
“You always used to.”
Ned turned and looked out over the grey field. He didn’t want to look at her any more. “There’s a different audience there now, V,” he told her.
“Only in one half. You don’t have to sit with them. They’re quite separate.”
“When they choose to be.”
“You can’t blame them for wanting company, Ned. We all want company.”
“So I saw.” He regretted saying it the moment it left his mouth.
“You been talking to my father?” Veronica’s whisper rose in intensity. “You crossed me off, remember.” She paused. “God, listen to the pair of us. To think we could have been married by now.”
“You’d have regretted it.”
“Possibly. Possibly not. You would, though. You had other ambitions. Well, they haven’t come to much, have they? You’re stuck here, Ned Luscombe, whether you like it or not. So make the best of it. Like we all have to.” She started to walk away.
“V, I didn’t mean…” But she had gone.
It was cold in his bedroom, cold and uncomfortable. Outside the wind was picking up again. Across the landing he could hear Mum snoring. At least she was safe in bed. She’d taken to sleepwalking in the last few months. Three to four in the morning was the chosen time. Usually he’d be alerted by the sound of her stumbling into a chair; once he’d woken to find the kettle singing its heart out on the stove with her gone and the back door swinging open. He’d thrown his coat over his pyjamas and followed the opened back gate and the silver trail of footsteps on the wet cobwebbed grass with his police torch. He’d found her half a mile away, walking along the hedgerows picking imaginary blackberries in her wicker basket, her nightdress bedraggled and torn, her arms all bloody from the tangle of thorns. Since that time usually he slept with his bedroom door open and the back-door key under his pillow. But not tonight. His quarrel with Veronica and the thought of Isobel had made him weary and forgetrul. Tomorrow he would see Isobel again. Must see you, she had written. Must see you. She would confide in him, ask his help, declare…declare her what? He waited for sleep behind a closed door trying to picture her and what she might say, but thinking too of Tommy and letters and most irritatingly of all, Veronica swimming in the sea.
The Major took a last look at the drawing room, with the half-empty bottles and stubbed-out cigarette ends littering the sideboard, the parquet floor strewn with the set of Christmas paper hats and streamers that Zep had found in a box in the cellar. In the far corner he could see a nurse’s skirt and jacket, her shoes laid carefully on top. Molly lay curled up on the sofa, nursing a brandy she didn’t want to drink. She was just trying to keep awake, to look alive for the Captain’s return. He took pity on her.
“You can come upstairs if you want.”
“What?” Molly looked up, both confased and surprised at such an unexpected proposition.
“No, no, I wasn’t suggesting—” He broke off. “I meant the Captain’s room. Under the circumstances I would have no objections.”
For a moment Molly looked disappointed, not because she desired him, but because he did not desire her. She ran her hand through her hair as if to remind herself of her irrepressible allure, then swung her legs out from under.
“That’s kind of you, Gerhard, but I’d better not. You might not object but Zep probably would.”
“After tonight? I don’t think so.”
“But you can’t be sure, can you?” Lentsch opened his hands. “See? It’s not worth the risk.”
“Some cocoa then, before I retire?”
“That would be nice.”
He marched purposefully down to the kitchen, Albert’s domain. The light was bright and bare, everything washed and put away. He found the tin quickly enough, with a pencil mark on the outside marking the content level, but he couldn’t find any sugar. Hadn’t he asked Albert to get some? He couldn’t remember.
“You’re the cream in my coffee,” he sang out loud. “You’re the milk in my tea.”
Stirring the powdered chocolate into the milk made him dizzy. He walked back with exaggerated precision, banging into one of the Russell Flints before stumbling into the drawing room, holding the cups high in the air as if he were a steward keeping balance on a pitching yacht. Molly was putting away her lipstick and mirror.
“Piping hot and not a drop spilt,” he announced loudly, “though I nearly scalded the naked ladies on the way.”
Molly took the cup without batting an eyelid. She wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. “I’m sorry?”
“The paintings in the hall! I nearly lost my balance and poured cocoa all over the walls.”
“Mrs H. wouldn’t like that.”
“No.” He swayed in front of her and took a tentative sip. “Good old Mrs H.”
Molly was beginning to reassert herself. “That’s right,” she said. “Good old Mrs H.” She stretched out her legs and admiring what she saw, wriggled her painted toes. “And here am I slouched in her best furniture.”
“You knew her well before?”
She laughed. “We moved in different circles, Gerhard, apart from the amateur dramatics.”
“Ah, yes, your plays and shows. Everyone seems to have taken part in them at one time or another, all except Albert, that is.”
“Well, there’s not a lot to do in a place like Guernsey. Dressing up on stage kept us out of mischief.”
“Really?”
“No, not really. Quite the reverse, in fact. In fact I think Mrs H. thought she had to be there to see we didn’t get carried away. The young flowers of Guernsey and all that. I bet she never imagined for one minute that one day I’d be a regular guest in her house, sleeping in one of her feather beds. Equality of the classes was never her strong point.”
Down the corridor they could hear laughter. Wedel was enjoying his unexpected time with the ill-mannered nurse from Bremen.
“Some people have all the luck,” Molly said and reaching down for her glass tipped the rest of her brandy into the hot drink. “You and me seem to have missed out tonight. Yours never turned up and mine ran out on me.”
“There are always other times.”
“You hope. Take it while you can, that’s my motto.” She stood up. “Go on, then, off to beddy-byes. I’ll make my myself useful down here.”
The Major lay on his bed, listening to her clearing up. He was surprised that the Captain had not yet returned. It must be important, to keep him from Molly, waiting so patiently to fill his bed. In a way he was pleased Isobel hadn’t turned up. There was no delicacy to these parties any more. The way everyone was carrying on, the house was becoming little better than a brothel. He should have known it would turn out like this. He remembered the time when, unknown to her father, Isobel had stayed overnight. Zep and he had come down to a late breakfast. The girls had already left. Albert had just brought in a plate of black pudding, made from the blood of rabbits.
“Well,” Zep had demanded, helping himself from Albert’s tray, “what’s she like, then?”
Lentsch had been shocked at his matter-of-fact boldness.
“Really, Zep. I don’t think…”
Zep laughed. “Don’t look so outraged, Gerhard. Haven’t you ever looked at Molly and asked yourself the same question? Of course you have.” He waved his fork in the air and leant across. “I’ll tell you what she’s like. Like a good watch; well oiled, superb moving parts and keeps perfect time. If I were a genereus man I would let you wear her for a while.” He looked at Lentsch, grinning. “But I’m not.”
What would have happened, Lentsch wondered, if he had taken Molly’s arm and hauled her up here without another word? Would she have resisted? Temporarily perhaps but not for long. And why not? Fear? Drunken lust? Or simply another consequence of ordinary war? And what would it have been like making love with her while listening for the sound of Zep’s car coming up the drive? It would be exciting, taking her like that, wouldn’t it? He touched himself. God, were they all mad?