It couldn’t really be true. Homecoming couldn’t really be like this. It wasn’t fair that, after all the loneliness of the island and the emptiness of the sea, she should have returned to a worse desolation of scorn.
All the comforting small pictures she had made for herself of bedroom armchairs, tea by the fireside, the welcome of friends and the safe luxury of houses had left her mind. There was nothing left of them.
Had she really come back all that way to see nothing but four white walls, the ugly furnishing of a water-closet and a roll of toilet-paper – enough paper to have made the island fire-lighting easy for weeks.
Until this moment other pictures had persisted – snapshots of England, needing only a touching-up or a toning-down.
See now, Miss Ranskill, I’d give most all I’ve got at home to be able to make you a cup of good hot tea. That’d make you feel different. Just you think of all the cups of tea we’ll have when we get home to England.
And now, with not even a stream to cross, no further away than two flights of carpeted stairs, a cup of coffee was waiting for her, for a fool who was lucky to be between any walls at all.
She opened the door a crack and the sound of voices made her pause.
Another woman was talking to the attendant. She was a small, thin person dressed in black.
‘My own girl wants to join the ATS, but I’d sooner she was a WAAF. myself. Bert’ll have to register soon. He’s mad to get at the Nasties after the time he had in London.’
‘I thought Bert was an Objector.’
‘Not now. He says they’re nothing but a lot of Fifth Columnists, and that all conchies are Quislings. No, Bert’s been mad to get at the Nasties ever since he was through one of the bad blitzes in London that time. It was seeing his uncle’s barber’s head in the gutter that changed him.’
The attendant sucked her teeth.
‘How was that then?’
‘Bert had been staying with his uncle near Victoria and they’d been dropping a packet. When it was over, see, they went out to look at the damage. He says you’ve got to see the broken glass to believe it. Well, they thought they’d go across the road to have a quick one, and while they was stepping across, Bert’s uncle clutched his arm and pointed at the gutter. There was a head laying by the pavement – clean cut off by the flying glass, they thought. But what gave uncle such a turn was that the head was his barber’s, the little fellow that shaved him regular every Saturday.’
‘You don’t say!’
‘Shocking, wasn’t it. Bert’s mad to join the Ack-Ack now. Well, I’ll have to be getting on or I’ll miss my Woolton eggs. And I’ve got to get some shoes for Emma. Five coupons for a pair of gym shoes. Wicked, isn’t it?’
‘Wicked! Well, bye-bye.’
‘Ta-ta, I’ll be seeing you, Ducks. Give my love to your sister. How is she these days?’
‘Never been the same since that blitzing, but she’s a NAAFI now.’
‘I’d forgot she was blitzed.’
‘Oh! ever so long ago – three times altogether – the last was a land-mine. Luckily they was all out at the time. They’d evacuated the kiddies at the beginning, and it was her night on for fire-watching at the office. Her husband (he’s a key man, you know) was out on ARP. Yes, they was lucky all right, but the house got it properly: the demolition squad said they’d never seen such a sight. Well, I must go.’
Miss Ranskill put a hand to her aching head. Had the language changed or had she forgotten words? Was she, perhaps, a trifle mad? Rip Van Winkle could scarcely have felt more puzzled than she did. What had happened in her absence that fantastic horrors could be described so casually? Even the language was secret from her, full of strange words and alphabetical sequences.
She emerged from her cell now. She must hurry or the coffee would be cold.
As she moved towards the outer door the attendant stared at her – a strangely hostile stare. How stupid! she had forgotten to tip her. She fumbled for and found two pennies among the change in her coat pocket.
‘Good morning,’ said Miss Ranskill, ‘and thank you.’
‘I’ll take that roll of paper too, if you please,’ said the attendant, and there was a bullying note in her voice.
Miss Ranskill became aware that she was clutching the roll of paper she had noticed in the water-closet.
‘Oh!’ she gasped, ‘I am so sorry. I never noticed I’d taken it.’
The attendant pursed her lips obstinately, clattered the pennies on to a tray and held out her hand.
‘I must explain,’ pursued Miss Ranskill. ‘You see on the – I mean where I was before I came here we hadn’t any paper for fire-lighting, and I suppose when I saw so much–’
‘There’d not be much for salvage if everyone went on like that. Toilet-paper for fire-lighting, indeed!’
‘It was, was absentmindedness. If you had been on a desert island–’
Here the roll slipped from Miss Ranskill’s fingers and trundled away across the floor under the basin, trailing a long streamer of paper after it.
‘There now!’ shrilled the attendant. ‘We can’t use that after it’s been sopping up all the slop from the wash-basins. If I did my duty I’d report to the Manageress.’
‘I am more than willing to pay for it, and more than willing to explain to the Manageress.’
Then the looking-glass above the basins humiliated Miss Ranskill again, and she gave a sad little gulp.
‘You’ll see her right enough if you come here again. The public conveniences in the town are meant for people like you.’
Shame took further possession of Miss Ranskill as she hurried down the stairs. Some day, of course, she would be able to laugh about this, but not this morning, not if she were really looking as the mirror on the stairs told her.
It seemed an hour since she had left the downstairs room.
Supposing the attendant reported her to the Manageress, and supposing, while having coffee, she was to be accused of petty pilfering?
‘In mixed company, too,’ thought Miss Ranskill. ‘In Naval company “to the Derogation of God’s Honour and the Corruption of Good Manners.”’ For the first time that morning a smile cracked the parched skin of her lips.
It would be better to be accused of stealing a ring – more dignified and not nearly so humiliating.
A figure in blue uniform was standing with his back to a table by the door. Beside him, slick from ash-blonde head to silky ankles was the owner of the sapphire ring. Her voice was raised.
‘Well, from your description, it must have been your girl friend I met when I was powdering my nose. Darling, I do think you’re marvellous! You ought to get a GM for being seen alive with her. She’s positively septic.’
Miss Ranskill tiptoed down the last two stairs and hurried out into the street. Tomorrow she would write a note to the ship, and make some excuse for not accepting the kind invitation to coffee.
CHAPTER SIX
It was better outside in the pale wavering sunlight. The wind, blowing inland, carried gallantry with it, ruffled the puddles to a mackerel shimmering, snatched the scents of a flower-shop at the corner and made Miss Ranskill the swift present of them.
She raised her head. The world would be better in half an hour, for she would be wearing silk against her skin and her shoes would fit. The tautness of her stockings would make her a woman again and her story might take on more dignity if she wore a new dress.
A flash of red in a draper’s window caught her eye and she stopped to look. The sight of a jersey-suit in soft vermilion made her realise how much she had missed all the red shades of the world and how tired she was of blue and grey. But she must not begin with the frock – that must be kept to the end like the cherry on the cake. First of all she would buy some of the little trappings of civilisation.