Kate Morton - The Distant Hours

There was another bicycle leaning against the front steps, where Percy had taken to leaving her own when she was too tired, too lazy, or too plain rushed to put it in the stables. Which was often. This was unusual – Saffy hadn’t mentioned guests other than Juniper and the fellow, Thomas Cavill, each of whom would be arriving off buses and definitely not by bicycle.

Percy climbed the stairs and dug about in her satchel, searching for the key. Saffy had become very particular about keeping the doors locked since war started, convinced that Milderhurst would be circled in red on Hitler’s invasion map and the Blythe sisters marked out for arrest, which was fine with Percy except for the fact that her front-door key seemed always intent on hiding from her.

Ducks spluttered on the pond behind; the dark mass of Cardarker Wood quivered; thunder grumbled, closer now; and time seemed to stretch like elastic. Just as she was about to give up and start pounding on the door, it swung open and Lucy Middleton was there, a scarf over her hair and a weak-beamed bicycle lamp in her hand.

‘Oh my!’ The former housekeeper’s free hand leaped to her chest. ‘You frightened me.’

Percy opened her mouth, but finding no words closed it again. She stopped rummaging and swung her satchel over her shoulder. Still no words.

‘I – I’ve been helping in the kitchen.’ Lucy’s face was flushed. ‘Miss Saffy gave me a ring. On the telephone, earlier. Neither of her dailies was available.’

Percy cleared her throat and regretted the action immediately. The resulting croak connoted nervousness, and Lucy Middleton was the very last person before whom she wished to seem uncertain. ‘Everything’s set then, is it? For tonight?’

‘The pie’s in the oven and I’ve left Miss Saffy with instructions.’

‘I see.’

‘The dinner will cook slowly. I’d be expecting Miss Saffy to boil over first.’

It was a joke, an amusing one, but Percy left it too long to laugh. She sought something else to say, but there was too much and too little and Lucy Middleton, who had been standing, waiting for something further, must have realized that it wasn’t coming because she moved now, somewhat awkwardly, around Percy to retrieve her bicycle.

No, it wasn’t Middleton any more. Lucy Rogers. It had been over a year since she and Harry had wed. Almost eighteen months.

‘Good day, Miss Blythe.’ Lucy climbed onto her bicycle.

‘Your husband?’ said Percy quickly, despising herself as she did so. ‘Is he well?’

Lucy didn’t meet her eyes. ‘He is.’

‘And you too, of course?’

‘Yes.’

‘And the babe.’

Almost a whisper: ‘Yes.’

Her posture was that of a child expecting to be scolded or, worse, thrashed, and Percy was overcome with the sudden, hot desire to fulfil the expectation. She didn’t, of course, adopting instead a casual tone, less precipitate than before, almost light, and saying, ‘You might mention to your husband that the grandfather in the hall is still gaining. We arrive at the hour ten minutes sooner than we should.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘I don’t think I imagined that he bore some special sentiment towards our old clock?’

Lucy refused to meet her eyes but uttered a vague reply before mounting her bicycle and pushing off towards the top of the driveway, lamplight scribbling a shaky message on the ground before her.

At the shudder of the front door downstairs Saffy clapped the journal shut. Her blood thrummed warm beneath her temples, her cheeks, the skin stretched taut above her breasts. Her pulse beat faster than a small bird’s heart. Well. She stood shakily, pushing herself up from the ground. That certainly took away some of the guesswork: the mystery of the evening ahead, the alteration of the dress, the young male guest. Not a gallant stranger at all. No. Not a stranger.

‘Saffy?’ Percy’s voice cut sharp and angry through the layers of floorboards.

Saffy pressed a hand to her forehead, steeling herself to the task ahead. She knew what she had to do: she needed to get herself dressed and downstairs, she needed to assess how much cajoling Percy was going to require, then she needed to make sure the evening was a great success. And there was the grandfather chiming six o’clock so she had to do it at once. Juniper and her young man – whose name, Saffy was sure she remembered correctly, was the same as that she’d glimpsed in the journal entry – would be arriving within the hour, the strength with which Percy had slammed the front door foretold a dark mood, and Saffy herself was still dressed like someone who’d spent the day digging for victory.

Pile of liberated crockery forgotten, she waded hurriedly through the paper so she could close the remaining windows and draw the blackout curtains. Movement on the driveway caught her eye – Lucy crossing the first bridge on her bicycle – but Saffy looked away. A flock of birds soared across the distant sky, way over by the hop fields, and she watched them go. ‘Free as a bird’ was the expression, and yet they weren’t free at all, not as far as Saffy could tell: they were bound to one another by their habits, their seasonal needs, their biology, their nature, their birth. No freer than anyone else. Still, they knew the exhilaration of flight. What Saffy wouldn’t give sometimes to spread her wings and fly, right now, drifting from the window to soar above the fields, over the top of the woods, following the planes towards London.

She’d tried once, when she was a girl. She’d climbed out of the attic window, walked along the ridge of the roof, and scrambled down to the ledge below Daddy’s tower. She’d made herself a pair of wings first, the most glorious pair of silken wings, bound with twine to fine, light sticks she’d salvaged from the woods; she’d even sewn elastic loops on the back so she could wear them. They’d been so beautiful – neither pink nor red but vermilion, gleaming in the sun, just like the plumage on real birds – and for a few seconds after she’d launched herself into the air she’d really flown. The wind had buffeted her from beneath, whipping up through the valley to push her arms behind her, and everything had slowed, slowed, slowed, briefly but brilliantly, and she’d glimpsed what heaven it was to fly. Then things had begun to speed up, her descent had been rapid, and when she’d hit the ground, her wings and her arms had been broken.

‘Saffy?’ The shout came again. ‘Are you hiding from me?’

The birds disappeared into the swollen sky and Saffy pulled the window shut, sealing the blackouts so not a chink of light would be seen. Outside, the storm clouds rumbled like a full stomach, the gluttonous belly of a gentleman who’d escaped the frugalities of a rationed pantry. Saffy smiled, amusing herself, and made a mental note to jot down the description in her journal.

It was quiet inside, too quiet, and Percy’s lips tightened with familiar agitation; Saffy had always been the sort to hide when confrontation reared its bitter head. Percy had been fighting her twin’s battles all their lives, something she excelled at and actually quite enjoyed, and which worked very well indeed until dispute arose between them and Saffy, woefully out of practice, was ill equipped to meet it. Incapable of fight, she was left with only two options: flight or abject denial. In this instance, judging by the emphatic silence which met Percy’s attempts to find her, Saffy had chosen the former. Which was frustrating, exceedingly frustrating, for there was a fierce, spiky ball inside Percy, just waiting to get out. With no one to scowl at or take to task, however, Percy was stuck nursing it, and the fierce, spiky ball wasn’t the sort of affliction to shrivel of its own accord. With nowhere to fling it, she would need to seek satisfaction elsewhere. Whisky perhaps would help: it certainly wouldn’t hurt.