Уильям Николсон - Motherland

‘Not all that poor. He’s a millionaire, and a lord. There’s a limit to how sorry you can feel for him.’

‘Anyway, I told him my heart was pledged to another.’

‘Even though that’s a whopping lie.’

‘Actually it isn’t,’ says Kitty. ‘It turns out I’m in love with Ed.’

‘Kitty! When did this happen?’

‘I don’t quite know. I only realised it this morning, when I was watching the boys going away. I just want him to come home safe.’

‘Oh, Kitty.’ Louisa is touched by Kitty’s trembling voice. ‘Have you really fallen in love at last?’

‘I think so. I’m not sure.’

The rain passes, blown away by strong south-westerly winds. They bicycle home down the empty road, side by side, with the wind on their backs.

‘So what’s going to happen to poor George?’ says Louisa.

‘He’ll be fine,’ says Kitty. ‘Some strong-minded female will gobble him up.’

‘You make him sound like a canapé.’

‘He’s rich and titled. Someone’ll have him.’

‘What about poor Stephen?’

‘I’ll write to him. Oh, God. Isn’t it all difficult?’

‘You know what,’ says Louisa, ‘now that you’re out of the running with George, I might have a go myself.’

Kitty wobbles wildly on her bike and regains control.

‘Are you serious? You know he’s practically blind?’

‘I haven’t had a single proposal, Kitty. My people have no money to speak of. God has billeted me in the house of a young unmarried man with a title and a fortune. It would be ungrateful to the Almighty not to give it a shot.’

Kitty pedals on without further comment.

‘I expect you despise me for seeing things this way,’ Louisa says.

‘No, not at all,’ says Kitty. ‘I just want you to be happy.’

‘Don’t you think I’d be happy with George?’

‘If you loved him you would.’

‘If he marries me,’ says Louisa simply, ‘I shall love him.’

They bicycle down the back lane into the camp. A small crowd has gathered round the front of the NAAFI to share such news as there is. Everyone is asking if this is the start of the second front.

Kitty sees Larry Cornford come out of the big house onto the west terrace. He gives her a wave, and they meet up in the lime avenue. They too talk about the big show.

‘I saw them go,’ says Kitty.

‘I don’t like this wind,’ says Larry. ‘They need calm seas for the crossing.’

‘Do you know where they’re going?’

‘I know,’ says Larry, ‘but I can’t say.’

‘Has to be somewhere in France.’

‘Nothing we can do now till they come back.’

Kitty says, ‘I think Ed’s with them.’

‘It’s quite likely.’

‘Will you promise to come and tell me if you hear anything?’

‘Yes, of course.’

They walk on in silence to the lake. The lake house stands empty before them.

‘How are you getting along with Middlemarch ?’ says Larry.

‘I can’t read,’ says Kitty. ‘I can’t do anything.’

‘He’ll come back,’ says Larry.

‘You don’t know that. He may not.’

Larry says nothing to that.

‘At least you’ve not gone,’ she says. ‘You, and George.’

Larry looks away over the wind-ruffled lake.

‘I expect my turn will come,’ he says.

*

That night the winds grow stronger, and rattle the casement in the nursery window. Kitty sleeps fitfully, tormented by half-dreams in which Ed is reaching for her from a distance she can’t cross.

In the morning word spreads round the camp that the fleet is still standing offshore, and has not yet sailed. The forecast is that the weather will worsen. In the way of such things, half-understood terms are passed from mouth to mouth. ‘They’ll miss the tide.’ ‘The RAF won’t fly in this.’ ‘You need air cover for a big op.’

The day passes slowly. In the late afternoon rain begins to fall again. Larry rides over to Divisional HQ and takes part in a meeting with the Acting CO. When he comes out he goes looking for Kitty and finds her cleaning the Humber in the garage.

‘You could eat your dinner off that,’ he says.

‘What’s the news?’

‘The show’s off. Don’t say I told you.’

‘It’s off?’

‘All troops to be disembarked.’

‘He’ll come back?’

‘Yes.’

Kitty feels a surge of relief beyond her power to control. There in front of Larry’s kind concerned gaze she bursts into tears.

‘Honestly,’ she says, dabbing at her eyes, ‘what have I got to cry about now?’

Larry smiles and offers her a handkerchief.

‘He’s a lucky sod,’ he says. ‘I hope he knows it.’

‘You won’t tell him, will you?’

‘Not if you don’t want.’

‘It’s too silly, crying like that.’

‘If I was Ed,’ says Larry, ‘I’d be proud to know you cried for me.’

Just after six in the evening the order comes through for all drivers to muster at Newhaven harbour. Kitty makes the short journey with a light heart. No one has been wounded. No one has died. But as she sees the men file off the ships, all their former swagger gone, she realises that for them this is a kind of failure. Standing by her car, she scans the hundreds of moving figures for the group that will contain Ed, but she doesn’t find him. The trucks fill with men and grind past on the way back to the camp. Brigadier Wills comes stamping out to find her.

‘Good girl. I’ll be with you when I’ve seen to the navy chaps.’

So she waits on. She’s used to it. A staff driver spends more time waiting than driving. This is usually when she reads, but recent events have unsettled her. So she stays beside the car, watching the slow dispersal of an army.

Soldiers go by laughing, grumbling.

‘That was a fucking waste of time. I’d like to meet the genius dreamed that one up.’

One Canadian soldier mimics a British officer: ‘I say, you chaps! The colonials are getting restless. Let’s shut them in the hold for twenty-four hours and spray them with vomit, eh, what?’

Their laughter recedes into the distance.

‘What’s a nice girl like you doing in a dump like this?’

‘Ed!’

She spins round, eyes glowing, and there he is. He’s wearing rumpled battledress and carrying all sorts of bundles and his face is smeared with black. But underneath he’s just the same. The same cool gaze in those blue eyes.

‘Oh, Eddy!’

She throws her arms round him and kisses him. He holds her for a moment, and then gently eases her away.

‘There’s a welcome,’ he says.

‘I thought you’d never come back.’

‘No chance of that,’ he says. ‘We never even went away.’

‘Oh, Ed. I’m so happy.’

She can’t disguise how she feels, and makes no attempt to. He smiles to see her happiness.

‘Seeing you almost makes it worth it,’ he says.

‘Was it horrible?’

‘I’ll tell you,’ he says, ‘I’d rather parachute naked behind enemy lines than do that again.’

Kitty sees the brigadier heading across the yard towards the cars, accompanied by two of his staff.

‘When can I see you, Ed?’

‘Soon,’ he says. ‘I can’t give you a day. Very soon.’

His eyes rest on her, suddenly gentle in that wild black-smeared face.

‘My lovely angel,’ he says.

Then he’s gone.

The brigadier reaches the car.

‘Well, that was Operation Rutter,’ he says. ‘Now you see it, now you don’t.’

William Cornford is not an old man, but his bald head, together with a slight stoop in his posture, makes him appear more than his fifty or so years. He stands now in the doorway of the company offices at 95 Aldwych, feeling for his hat, watching as his son climbs off his motorbike. He hasn’t seen him for many weeks. He looks on as he removes his helmet and gloves, noting every remembered detail of the boy who is all his family, his only child, the one he loves more than himself.