Уильям Николсон - Motherland

‘You were at the wedding, George,’ says Kitty.

‘Yes, I was. You’re perfectly right.’

The butler appears, in response to a bell George has rung.

‘Lott,’ George says, ‘we have guests. What are we to give them?’

‘We don’t need anything,’ says Kitty. ‘We’ve only come to let Geraldine have a peep at the house.’

‘Our last visit was so rushed,’ says Geraldine. ‘I hardly saw a thing.’

‘Maybe Mrs Lott could keep an eye on Elizabeth,’ says Kitty.

The butler goes in search of his wife. The baby is sleeping contentedly. George becomes more animated at the prospect of showing off the house. He has done this many times, and finds himself on familiar ground. Ed and Larry opt out of the tour, and Pamela, who also knows the house well, runs off to the billiard room to play with the electric scoreboard. This leaves Kitty and Geraldine to follow in George’s wake.

‘The short tour please, George,’ says Kitty. ‘We don’t want to bore Geraldine.’

‘Oh, you won’t bore me!’ exclaims Geraldine. ‘I adore old houses.’

‘We’ll start in the hall,’ says George. ‘You have to look up. The roof is the big thing here. The ridge beam is forty feet above us. All English oak. The architect was John Norton, who was a friend of Pugin. He built Elveden Hall in Suffolk, too. And this portrait here, this is my father, painted by Lorimer. He’s wearing the uniform he served in, in South Africa. I’ve never been in uniform myself. I rather regret that.’

Meanwhile Ed and Larry settle down in the library.

‘You’ve never told me about India,’ Ed says. ‘Was it fun?’

‘You obviously don’t know what’s happening over there,’ says Larry. ‘Don’t you read the newspapers?’

‘Never,’ says Ed. ‘What’s the point? I don’t need a daily list of horrors to tell me what sort of world we live in.’

‘Well, India’s joined the horrors,’ says Larry. ‘God knows how many have died since independence. Hundreds of thousands.’

‘Another glorious triumph for Mountbatten, then.’

‘Actually I don’t blame Dickie,’ says Larry. ‘It had all gone too far long before he got out there. But my God! The savagery. The hatred. It makes our war look like a gentlemanly scrap.’

‘And your God looks on like a fat nanny, too lazy to get up off the park bench.’

‘They’ve got their own gods. They don’t need ours.’

‘And here you are, still convinced of the essential goodness of the human race. I take my hat off to you, Larry. The triumph of hope over experience.’

‘That’s Dr Johnson on marriage.’

‘The great doctor,’ says Ed.

He’s smiling at Larry, but his eyes are sad.

‘I’ve had my own little brush with experience,’ says Larry. ‘As a matter of fact, it’s one of the reasons I’ve ended up married. I was in a car with a friend of mine, a Muslim, when it was attacked by a Hindu mob. They wanted to murder my friend, just because he was a Muslim. They shot him and wounded him, but when they tried to finish him off I leaned over him and got in the way.’

‘You saved his life.’

‘I suppose so. I wasn’t hurt at all. And afterwards – I don’t know how to put it – I felt like I was floating on air. I got myself back, and went looking for Geraldine, and – well, here we are.’

‘The intoxication of self-sacrifice,’ says Ed. ‘Strong medicine.’

‘Don’t laugh at me, Ed. That day on the beach in Dieppe left me thinking I wasn’t worth all that much. Those few minutes in the car, holding Syed in my arms …’

He doesn’t say any more. Ed is gazing at him now with nothing but affection in his eyes.

‘You’re a fine man, Larry,’ he says. ‘You always have been. I admire you. Did you know that? I wish I could be you.’

‘You’re the one with the VC.’

‘Oh, that dammed VC! Can’t you see you’re worth a hundred of me?’

‘What are you talking about? You were just telling me how your business is about to take off. You’ve got a beautiful new baby girl. Kitty loves you.’

‘Has Kitty told you about my secret vice?’

‘No.’

‘She will. No need to look so alarmed, it’s only good old booze. Not very original, I admit. Naturally I struggle against it. Naturally I lose.’

Larry gazes at his friend in sorrow.

‘Why, Ed?’

‘The horror,’ says Ed. ‘As told in the newspapers. Which I don’t read.’

On their tour of the house, George and Kitty and Geraldine have reached the bedroom floor.

‘You said you were billeted here in the war,’ Geraldine says to Kitty. ‘Did you have one of the grand rooms, like me and Larry on our wedding night?’

‘Oh, no,’ says Kitty with a laugh. ‘Louisa and I were up in the attics.’ She indicates a narrow servants’ staircase. ‘Up there.’

‘You were in the nursery, weren’t you, Kitty?’ says George.

‘Yes,’ says Kitty. She remembers how she came back one evening to find Ed lying on her bed. ‘We were in the nursery.’

‘I haven’t been up there for years,’ says George. ‘I’ve no idea what state it’s in. Do you want to take a look, for old times’ sake?’

‘Why not?’ says Kitty.

George leads them up the narrow stairs. They go along the passage, with its steep sloping ceiling and its peeling walls. Kitty remembers it all.

The nursery door is closed. George opens it and goes in.

‘I used to sleep here when I was a little boy,’ he says. Then he falls silent, staring at the room.

It’s bright and clean. The beds are made with fresh linen. On one bed sits a smiling doll, on the other a teddy bear. Four tiny cotton hand-embroidered nightdresses hang from a rail. Four pairs of knitted bootees are lined up below them. A baby’s basket, lined with rosebud-printed fabric, sits on the old rocking chair. A book lies open, face down, on the floor beside it. It’s The Common Book of Baby and Child Care .

‘How extraordinary,’ says George. ‘I had no idea.’

He moves round the room as if in a dream.

‘Odd place to put the nursery,’ he says. ‘Up among the servants’ bedrooms. But I was very fond of it. You see here, it has a tower window in one corner. I used to go in there and draw the curtains. I think I believed when I was in there no one could find me.’

‘Such a pretty room,’ says Geraldine.

‘Yes,’ says George. ‘How extraordinary.’

‘It’s not so very extraordinary, George,’ says Kitty. ‘You are going to have a baby, after all.’

‘The odd thing is,’ says George, ‘you don’t quite realise it at first. I suppose he’ll have this room, just as I did.’

‘Isn’t it more of a servant’s room?’ says Geraldine.

‘No,’ George insists. ‘This is the nursery. I’m glad Louisa understands that.’

As they descend the main staircase they hear the sound of the gramophone coming from the drawing room. They go through the anteroom into the great room. Its red damask walls are brightly lit by the spring sunlight streaming in through the three tall south-facing windows. There on the red carpet between the sofas Ed is dancing with Pamela to the singing of the Ink Spots.

He looks round and smiles as they come to a stop in the doorway.

‘Pammy found it,’ he says. ‘She insisted on a dance.’

Kitty watches them as they dance, Pamela gravely concentrating, looking up from time to time at her handsome father. Ed seems carefree, happy in a way that is all too rare these days.

‘That is such a charming sight,’ says Geraldine. ‘Where have you hidden my husband?’

‘I’m here,’ says Larry, speaking from behind them.

‘We should dance,’ says Geraldine. Her dancing is generally admired.