Уильям Николсон - Motherland

Then his son is before him, reaching out one hand, and the old formality returns.

‘Spot on time,’ Larry says. ‘That’s what the army’s done to me.’

‘Good to see you.’ The father shakes the son’s hand. ‘Good to see you.’

‘So what’s the plan?’

‘Lunch at Rules, I thought. Give us a chance to catch up.’

They walk round Aldwych and up Catherine Street, talking as they go. Larry asks about the company, knowing that this is what occupies his father’s waking hours.

‘Difficult times,’ says William Cornford. ‘Very difficult. But we’ve managed to keep all our people on so far.’

This is a major achievement in itself, as Larry knows. Since November 1940 bananas have been a prohibited food.

‘No signs of a change of heart at the Ministry?’

‘No,’ says William Cornford. ‘Woolton has told me himself the ban is for the duration. At least I’ve managed to convince him to do something for the growers in Jamaica.’

‘The war can’t go on for ever.’

‘That’s what I tell our people. In the meantime, we’ve become the vegetable distribution arm of the Ministry of Food. When the war’s over, we’ll just have to start again from scratch.’

‘And how’s Cookie?’

Miss Cookson is his father’s housekeeper, at the family home in Kensington.

‘Same as ever. Asks after you. Do look her up some day.’

Larry realises they’ve walked on past their turning.

‘We should go down Tavistock Street, surely?’

‘I thought we might take a turn past the old building,’ says his father.

‘Isn’t that rather depressing?’ says Larry.

‘I find it has some value. Lacrimae rerum , you know.’

They walk up Bow Street to the place where the company headquarters building once stood. A direct hit in January last year destroyed the entire six-storey structure, leaving the tall side of the adjoining building standing, fireplaces exposed, doors agape. The site is still filled with rubble.

‘Fifty years,’ says William Cornford. ‘Almost my entire life. This is where my father built the company up from nothing.’

Larry too remembers it well. The dark panelled room where his father worked. Where they had their one and only terrible quarrel.

‘Why are we here?’

‘Thirteen of our people died that night.’

‘Yes, Dad. I know.’

‘Eight company ships sunk since the start of hostilities. Over six hundred members of staff on active service. All still on the payroll.’

‘Yes, Dad. I know.’

‘This is the front line too, Larry. We’re fighting this war too.’

Larry says nothing to this. He understands what his father would like to say, but will never say. How does his son serve his country any better by wearing a uniform and riding a motorbike?

William Cornford was and remains deeply hurt that his son has not chosen to enter the family firm. The company built by his father, the first Lawrence Cornford, and made great by himself in the second generation, should be passed on, its culture and traditions intact, to the third. But Larry dreams a different dream.

Father and son walk on to Rules. They take their usual table under the stairs.

‘Not what it was, of course,’ says William Cornford, glancing over the menu. ‘But they’ve still got shepherd’s pie.’

‘So how’s Bennett?’ says Larry.

‘At his desk every morning. You know he’ll be seventy this year?’

‘I don’t believe he ever actually goes home.’

‘He asks after you from time to time. Maybe you could stop by after lunch and give him five minutes.’

‘Yes, of course.’

The long-serving employees of the company are Larry’s greater family. Most of them still believe he’ll take his proper place in the hierarchy in time.

William Cornford studies the wine list.

‘Care to share a bottle of Côte Rôtie?’

Larry asks his father to tell him more about the trading conditions of the company, framing his questions to show he understands the current difficulties; aware there’s no one else his father can speak to of his worries.

‘The branch depots are actually all running at full capacity, believe it or not. But the truth is I’ve been turned into a sort of a civil servant. I have to take my orders from the Ministry, which goes against the grain a little. I’ve never been a man for committees.’

‘My God! You must hate it.’

‘I’m not as patient as perhaps I should be.’

He gives his son a quick shy smile.

‘But I expect you have your frustrations too.’

‘Soldiering is ninety-nine per cent frustration,’ says Larry.

‘And the other one per cent?’

‘They say it’s terror.’

‘Ah, yes,’ says William Cornford. ‘Battle.’

He himself has never been a soldier. In the Great War he remained in the company, which was then the nation’s sole importer of fruit. Larry fully understands his father’s complex feelings about his son’s war service. He represents the family on the sacrificial altar of war, even as he deserts the company in its hour of need.

‘So is Mountbatten looking after you?’ his father asks him.

‘Oh, I’m just a glorified messenger boy.’

‘Still, I don’t want you to come to any harm.’

This is the war his father has arranged for him: if not safe in Fyffes, then safe in a headquarters building in London.

‘As it happens,’ Larry says, ‘the division I’m attached to looks like it’s going into action soon.’

He sees his father’s face, and at once regrets his words. He feels ashamed of pretending to a coming military action that will give his father sleepless nights.

‘Though I doubt if they’ll be taking me along. I’m afraid I’m doomed to be a paper-pusher.’

The wine comes. His father thanks the waiter with his usual courtesy.

‘An excellent Rhône,’ he says. ‘We shall drink to the liberation of France.’

‘Do you have any news of the house?’

The family has a house in Normandy, in the Forêt d’Eawy.

‘I believe it’s been requisitioned by German officers,’ says his father.

He meets his son’s eyes over their raised glasses. They share a love of France. For William Cornford it’s the land of the great cathedrals: Amiens, Chartres, Albi, Beauvais. For Larry it’s the land of Courbet and Cézanne.

‘To France,’ says Larry.

With the cancellation of Operation Rutter an uneasy calm settles over the Sussex countryside. The thousands of troops encamped on the Downs resume the training exercises designed more to occupy them than to raise their fighting form. More beer is drunk in the long evenings, and more brawls break out in the warm nights. The storms of early July pass, leaving overcast skies and a heavy sunless heat by day. No one believes the operation will be off for good. Everyone is waiting.

On a rare bright day Larry gathers up his paints and his portable easel and goes down to the water meadows by Glynde Reach. He sets up his easel on the hay-strewn ground and starts work preparing the board he’s using as a canvas. He has in mind to paint a view of Mount Caburn.

As he works away, a figure appears from the direction of the farm. It turns out to be Ed.

‘Thank God someone’s around,’ he says. ‘I come all the way from the other side of the country to see Kitty and she’s not bloody there.’

‘Did you tell her you were coming?’

‘How could I? I didn’t know myself.’

He stands behind Larry, looking at the sketch forming on the board.

‘I really admire you for this,’ he says.

‘Good Lord! Why?’

‘Because it’s something you love to do.’ He kicks moodily at the hay on the ground. ‘There’s nothing I really want to do. I feel like a spectator.’