‘I’ll try,’ said Miss Ranskill. ‘But–’
‘I know: not easy. I would have told them tonight, I think, if things had been normal. But, you see, the trouble is the mater’s never grown up, and she won’t believe that I have either. She’s playing at soldiers all the time, but I’m a real airman. And yet,’ he laughed, ‘she doesn’t mind air-raids a bit, and I’m scared stiff of them when I’m on the wrong side of the bombs. I like to be well above ’em: much safer.’
The booming voice of the Carpenter filled Miss Ranskill’s mind.
Automatically she continued the song herself:
‘Jolly good show!’
The approval came, not from Marjorie’s son, but from Marjorie herself. Her voice came rollicking down the cellar stairs.
‘Good old Nona! Do you remember the sing-song we had at St Cat’s the night of the big thunderstorm? Your voice hasn’t changed a bit.’
Yes, Miss Ranskill remembered, and continued to remember so vividly that if the feet, clattering down the steps, had carried a crocodile of schoolgirls into the cellar she would not have been surprised.
Marjorie was followed by two other people. One was middle-aged, plump and fair, the other was little and slim.
‘Rex!’ shouted Marjorie. ‘Darling, wherever did you spring from? Grand to see you! Nona, I don’t think you know – may I introduce Miss Ranskill – Mrs Brown – Miss Lucy Brown. Nona, Mrs Brown’s house has just been blitzed and she’s magnificent about it, simply magnificent. Mrs Brown, Miss Ranskill is an old school-friend of mine. She has just returned from one of our islands.’
‘Really,’ said Mrs Brown, ‘I do think it’s splendid the way women are turning up from all parts of the Empire to help in our war effort, really I do.’ Her voice was a little tremulous.
‘You must get her to tell you all about it,’ added Marjorie. ‘Rex, it is wizard to see you. Have you seen Daddy yet? Have you had any good prangs lately?’
The cellar was very full of people who were all talking at once. Mrs Bostock had joined the company and was shouting descriptions of the quantity, the quality, and the permeating powers of the dust in the kitchen.
Doctor Mallison had returned from the candle-lit bedroom of a woman who had given birth to twins. He was now trying humbly and eagerly to bridge by words the great gulf of years that lay between him and his son. He longed to know him as one man knows another, to forego all relationship, and make a new friend, but he could only sound patronising. Once, when the boy was four, he had looked up from his porridge bowl and said, ‘Hullo, Mallison!’ through milky lips, and, as his father had replied with a grave ‘Hullo, Mallison,’ he had had a vision of a day when they would talk as equals and exchange opinions, forgetting that the years would not lessen the division that lay between them then.
‘What about a whisky and soda?’ he suggested.
‘Bit too early in the day for me, thanks, Dad.’
Sixteen years ago the father had refused toffee for the same reason.
‘How you can eat that muck at this time in the morning!’
He remembered his anger on the day when the boy had spurned his own profession.
‘There’s no future in the air. You’d have fun for a few years and then be done for – nothing to do, but idle your life away.’
‘Depends if there’s a war or not. Anyway, I want to live while I can.’
And now there was a war and the boy was living – while he could.
Doctor Mallison tried to make amends now for all past misunderstandings by saying – ‘I’d give a lot to be doing what you’re doing now.’
The younger man, wary of sentiment, replied. ‘Oh! I don’t know. Better stick to your baby-snatching, Dad, it’s more profitable than bombing them.’
Mrs Brown spoke from her seat in a deck-chair.
‘I’m certain you never bomb babies, Rex. I’m sure none of our boys do.’
Marjorie took up her Casabianca stance.
‘My son must obey his orders, whatever they are.’
‘Oh! they don’t send us out to bomb crèches. Funny, though, we must be lining the pockets of the Hun doctors. Still, I don’t suppose Jerry does Dad’s practice much harm. Bought any boxes of fur coats lately, mater?’
‘Darling,’ begged Marjorie, ‘don’t, even in fun, suggest that I could ever be a war profiteer.’
‘Twenty-five years ago,’ said Doctor Mallison, ‘if I had been making what you’re making now…’
‘Oh! I don’t do too badly as a hired assassin.’
‘Now, Rex,’ Mrs Brown wagged a plump forefinger, ‘you won’t get any nice girl to marry you if you talk like that.’
‘Rex likes engines better than girls,’ announced Marjorie. ‘All the same, he doesn’t mean a word he says: he’s as proud of his uniform as I am of mine.’
Rex gave a slight shudder, and his mother continued:
‘Now, we’d better see about making up beds. Even if the Browns’ house has been blitzed and ours badly shaken we’re not going to give Hitler the satisfaction of keeping us up all night.’
‘You never said their house had been blitzed,’ said Doctor Mallison.
‘Didn’t I?’ said Marjorie casually. ‘But, that’s why they’re here, of course. Mrs Brown was magnificent, quite magnificent. And now we’re not going to talk about that any more, are we, Mrs Brown?’
‘I don’t seem to realise it yet. I’m bound to suffer for it later though, and have a reaction. I’m like that. I always have been. I remember when–’
‘Well, you won’t this time,’ Marjorie’s voice was fierce. ‘Action and reaction are equal and opposite, so we won’t think about them. Come along now, Mrs Bostock, you and I will go and make up some beds: that will take us out of ourselves.’
‘Mike up beds at this time of night indeed!’ shrilled Mrs Bostock. ‘Have you seen the stite of the rooms?’
‘Oh! please don’t bother about beds,’ begged Mrs Brown. ‘If I could just have a blanket I shan’t need anything else. I shall be perfectly warm in my siren-suit.’
She pushed her hands into the pocket of a blue-serge garment that reminded Miss Ranskill of the one-piece pyjama suits worn by small children.
‘I’m sure I don’t know what I should ever have done without this one, though my husband did pretend to be shocked when I bought it. “You’ll be going into rompers next,” he said. Rompers, indeed! “Never you mind,” I said, “the time may come –” Well, the time has come,’ she sighed. ‘Yes, indeed it has.’
Now the girl spoke for the first time, addressing, so Miss Ranskill knew, not the two women but Marjorie’s son.