Dunswold--Part 2
The next morning, Deborah lay in the bath until the skin on the pads of her fingers and toes puckered up, and the water was cold.
When she could stand it no longer, she climbed out and dried herself on the rough white towels, then went into the bedroom and began to dress. Downstairs, the front door opened, and Mrs Haylock shouted up, “It’s me, Mrs Mulcahey. I’m here to do for you.”
Deborah quickly finished dressing, covering up her useless body with clothes that at least made her feel normal.
By the time she was ready, Mrs Haylock had finished using the vacuum cleaner and had started dusting the dining room.
“There’s a cup of tea in the pot,” she said when Deborah came in. “I’ll have another one too.”
Mrs Haylock dusted quickly and expertly, removing things, dusting and replacing them. She ran the duster over the intricate sculptures of the clock on the mantelpiece. She had a tin of beeswax that she used on the table surface until it shone.
“How are you getting on, Mrs Mulcahey?” Mrs Haylock said when they were sitting at the kitchen table with their tea.
“It’s a little early to say. Everyone seems very nice.”
“No, not that.” Mrs Haylock seemed impatient. “The other thing—your loss.”
“I don’t know how…”
“Don’t worry, dearie. It’s written all over your face. Something only another woman would see. Lots of us have been through the same thing. I lost my first in ‘43, just after Mr Haylock had gone off to Italy. Then another two after the war”. She leaned forward and touched Deborah’s knee. “Now I’ve got a fine strapping young man for a son. Things turned out all right in the end, you see. That’s what I’m trying to say.”
“Do you think so?” Deborah said. “It doesn’t feel like it at the moment.”
“I know so. A woman in your position should have a little one to look after. It’s the natural way of things. You’ll see, it’ll happen soon enough.” She took a biscuit from the plate and dunked it into her tea. “Before the next moon I shouldn’t wonder.”
“Martin wants to, but I’m frightened.”
“Let things run their natural course,” Mrs Haylock said. “Nature knows best.”
A knock came at the front door.
“That’ll be my son now,” she said. “I’m taking him to Leiston—he needs new shoes. Such a fine boy he is, and still growing.”
They went out into the hall. A hulking shape lurked behind the door, swaying slightly from side to side.
“Here he is, my Walter. Always ready on time.”
Behind the door stood a young man, tall and broad-shouldered, the physique of a regular swimmer. In spite of his height, his features were those of child. His skin seemed too taught over his face and hands, as though there wasn’t quite enough to cover his whole body because something huge had been crammed into a much smaller form that could barely contain it.
“Hello, Mummy,” he said in an unbroken voice. “Hello, Mrs Mulcahey.” He held out a hand to Deborah.
“Such nice manners,” Mrs Haylock said.
“Hello, Walter,” Deborah said.
“When do you want me to come and tidy the garden?” Walter said. “I’m free every evening after school. I’m a hard worker, aren’t I, Mum?”
Mrs Haylock ushered him away from the door. “Now don’t bother Mrs Mulcahey with silly questions like that. I’ll tell you when you should come over.”
The pair of them retreated down the garden path to the gate. “See you on Thursday, “Mrs Mulcahey,” Mrs Haylock said. The boy was uncommonly huge for his age. To imagine him being born from that little woman brought visions that Deborah quickly shrouded from her horrified imagination. Her hand was damp where Walter had touched it, and she could smell the sea. She could always smell the sea. Its odour pervaded the entire village—seaweedy, acerbic, and rotten.
***
When Martin came home that evening, he told her that they’d been invited to a garden party on Sunday, Bob Wickham’s house, his Number 1 at the base.
“It will do you good to get out of the house and meet some women your own age,” he said.
“You think so?” she said.
“Yes, I do. Don’t you? Women of your own age, with similar tastes and interests. I don’t think it would be a good idea to ‘go native’ around here.”
“I had no intention of ‘going native’ as you put it, but you know I’m no good with new people.”
That hadn’t always been the case, but now she was set apart. She looked the same, but she wasn’t the same inside. She was different—she must be. Those days of feeling comfortable in a room full of strangers had gone. Now she felt naked and as though everyone knew about her. People had said, ‘Don’t worry, it happens to a lot of women’. That was no help—it had happened to her. She didn’t care about ‘a lot of women’. Some women didn’t seem to be affected by it at all. Deborah imagined Mrs Haylock, jauntily popping out dead foetuses in a trail behind her until she finally managed to hold on to her ‘fine strapping young man’. Maybe it was uncharitable, but there was definitely something wrong with Walter. She didn’t think she had the fortitude to bear such a child. If it was Walter or nothing, then perhaps nothing would have to suffice.
***
It was a warm Sunday afternoon when Deborah and Martin walked the short distance to the Wickham’s house.
“Stand by your beds, here comes the boss,” Bob Wickham said when he opened the front door to them.
Martin introduced her to Bob.
“It’s so nice to meet you, Deborah. Come through, the gang’s out in the garden. Don’t mind the mess, there’s no standing on ceremony here.”
The Wickham’s house bore the hallmarks of them having lived there a few years. Family portraits on the sideboard—two children, twins by the looks of it, a large bookcase crammed with paperbacks, and in the corner, the television Mrs Haylock had mentioned with disapproval. Deborah would have liked a television, but Martin said there was nothing worth watching. The kitchen was untidy, with evidence of sandwiches having been prepared—a chopping board with a half-used can of luncheon meat and the stalk-ends of several tomatoes that, for a moment, Deborah mistook for huge spiders. Out in the back garden a trestle table held one third food and two thirds bottles of beer and spirits. A small company of people stood around, or sat on dining chairs taken from inside the house.
“Hail the conquering hero comes,” Bob Wickham announced to the assembly. “You all know Martin, and this is Deborah, his wife.
All eyes turned towards them, and Deborah felt herself shrinking inside. For a moment, she hated them, and she hated Martin for bringing her here. Bob went through the names of those present, but Deborah forgot them almost immediately. Mainly scientists and technicians attached to the base. The only other woman who wasn’t involved with technical crowd, was Laura, Bob’s wife.
“Gin?” Bob said. “Or there’s whiskey or rum. I did buy some beer for the W.O.1, but he hasn’t turned up yet.”
Gin would be fine.
“You don’t mind if I kidnap Deborah for a moment, do you, Major Mulcahey?” Laura linked her arm with Deborah’s and started guiding her away from the gaze of the others to a pair of vacant chairs under an apple tree.
“As long as you give her back later,” Martin replied.
“Only if you’re good.”
The tree had a piece of sticky paper around its waist which was teeming with ants, stuck fast on the gummy coating. Some were still moving feebly.
“Thank God,” Laura said when Bob had brought Deborah’s drink over. “Someone to talk to who’s not involved in the base. Jenny and Maureen,” she indicated two tweedy-looking women who were stood talking to two equally tweedy-looking men. “They’re nice enough but all they talk about is stuff I don’t understand.” She lowered her voice, “I think they might be lesbians.”
“Oh, really? I thought one of them was married.”
“Jenny. Yes she’s married to Jonny, but I’m pretty sure it’s a marriage of convenience. You can sort of tell, can’t you?”
“Um…yes I suppose so.”
Laura’s directness was rather refreshing, Deborah thought. All the other officers’ wives she’d met in London had been rather stuck-up. They’d talked about people she hadn’t known and went to parties out at Reigate where they had swimming pools in the gardens.
“It’ll be nice to have someone to go shopping with in Great Yarmouth. You do like shopping, don’t you?”
Deborah hadn’t really thought about shopping as something to enjoy or not. It was something that occasionally she had to do. When she’d been pregnant, she had liked looking at the baby clothes and toys in Selfridge’s—although she’d never tempted fate by buying anything. That hadn’t made a difference. Fate obviously didn’t need tempting to take an interest in you.
“Well, yes, I suppose I do. It’s ages since I’ve been actually. Mrs Haylock said she’d do it if I gave her a list.”
“Not that sort of shopping. I mean shopping for yourself—not your husband or your children—you don’t have children yet do you; you wait for that pleasure.”
“Yes. It must be demanding.”
“Oh it’s all right, I suppose.” Deborah sensed Laura was one who said things for effect at first and then recanted. “You should make more time for yourself once in a while. I told Bob, don’t come home early on a Friday, that’s when I’ll be seeing my new lover.”
“Really?”
Laura looked at Deborah, her gin halfway to her lips, gauging whether she spoke in earnest.
“No, not any more. The chance would be a fine thing—you may have noticed, not much happens around here.”
“Yes, it’s certainly a change from London.”
“Get back there as quick as you can, that’s my advice,” Laura said. “I can’t wait for Bob to receive a new posting. He’s due one soon. Two years here is enough for anyone. It’s a different world—still the same as it was before the war—the first war.”
“Aren’t you going to introduce me properly, Laura?”
A man stood nearby under the tree. He had a whiskey in his hand, and it was plain to Deborah that he had already been drinking for some time. “Roger, yes of course. This is Deborah, Major Mulcahey’s wife. Deborah, this is Roger Bryant, he’s the M.O. up at the camp in Aldeburgh, so he’s not really one of us.”
“An honorary member, surely?” the doctor said and took Deborah’s hand. “Enchanted Deborah. He’s a good man, your husband—everyone says so.”
“Yes, he is a good man,” Deborah said. Everybody said that, ‘Martin is a good man’. She knew he was—he must be if everyone said so.
“And how is life amongst the great unwashed in Aldeburgh?” Laura said.
“The usual. You know what the lower ranks are like (some of the upper ones too), usual things—thank God for penicillin. Your Sunday afternoon gatherings are the only beacons of light in an otherwise sunless sea.”
Whilst he spoke, Bryant kept his eye on Deborah, appraising her, the way she imagined doctors couldn’t help themselves from doing. Making judgements about her physiology, the curve of her thigh under the summer dress, the plumpness of her breasts. She started to feel hot and uncomfortable under his gaze. Could he see the broken thing inside her? Did it show up under a professional eye, like an x-ray?
“That’s why we have them, Roger,” Laura said. “For your benefit mainly—we know how starved of intellectual cut and thrust you are up at the camp.”
Roger Bryant reeled back on his heels for a moment, and Deborah thought he might be about to topple over. “You’re right, you’re right,” he crowed enthusiastically. “Intellectual cut and thrust—absolutely.”
“You all right, Roger?” Bob said as he passed carrying a bucket of ice cubes. “Let me refresh your whiskey there, old chap.” He plopped two of the chunks into Bryant’s drink. “Maybe you’d like a chair?”
“No, no, I’m fine, Bob.”
He plainly wasn’t.
“Spend my life sitting on my fundament.” He turned his attention back to Deborah.
“Where were you before here?” he said fixing her with drunken concentration.
“London—South London.”
“Oh really? Whereabouts—my old stomping ground.”
She told him and hoped he didn’t know it. Bryant was one of those people who wanted to know everything, usually so that they could pick up on some small detail and make a connection between themselves and you. She supposed that most people thought it was an admirable trait, but not one that she enjoyed in others. She didn’t want any scrutiny of herself.
“Caterham, eh? Can’t say as I know the place myself—Clapham and Tooting more my area of expertise—although last time I went back, hardly recognized the place. More like Trinidad and Tobago.” He laughed at his own joke.
“Dr Bryant, really,” Laura said. “You’re incorrigible. And also a little drunk.”
“Guilty as charged,” Bryant said. “All pure inbreeds around here, though. You can tell from the family likenesses—a hundred families, but only one face.”
“Oh don’t put Deborah off the place. She’s only just arrived, and she’s my new friend.” Laura took hold of Deborah’s hand. “Don’t listen to silly old Roger. It’s perfectly lovely here, and the people are poppets. Roger’s just bitter.”
“Am I, Laura? Is that what it is?” Bryant’s demeanour had changed as though a dark cloud had passed over him. “You’d know, I suppose,” he said.
Two children appeared at Laura’s side; a boy and a girl of about six years old—twins. The boy had a toy aeroplane in his hand.
“Mummy, Timmy won’t let me play with his toys,” the girl said in a whiny voice. “He says I’ll break them, but I won’t.”
“He’s learning fast,” Bryant said quietly.
“She has already,” the boy said and held out the toy plane as evidence. One wing hung limply from the fuselage.
“I don’t think it’s broken,” Laura said. “It’s just come out of it’s slot—Daddy will fix it. Bob; can you sort this out—and I think Roger might like a coffee.”
Bob came over, took the aeroplane and slotted the errant wing back into its place.
“There you go, young fellow. Julie, leave your brother’s toys alone.” The children ran off into another part of the garden.
“I don’t think that’s quite what I meant,” Laura said.
“Come on, Roge. Let’s get you a coffee—with a drop of Brandy to follow.” He led Bryant away from them and into the kitchen.
“Don’t mind Roger,” Laura said when they’d gone. “He’s drunk and rather depressed because he was passed over for a London posting. It was a bit of a blow. When I finished our affair, he took it badly. Oh no, don’t worry, Bob knows. We were going through a rough patch. He understands. I think we’re stronger for it now. Have you had an affair?”
“Uhm…no,” Deborah said, unsure of how to respond.
“Oh, I’ve embarrassed you. This is what comes of being cut off from one’s friends out here. I’m too familiar; always have been. It’s just odd to have someone of one’s own age to talk to. Do say you’ll come shopping with me still, even though I’m a dreadful slut.”
Suddenly Deborah felt sorry for her. “Yes, of course I will. Don’t be silly I’d love to come.”
“Oh good. I thought I might have put you off. We’ll have a jolly time, you’ll see.”
Deborah looked for Martin. He was deep in earnest conversation with one of the tweedy men she’d seen earlier; an academic-looking type of the sort that Martin had always been drawn to. He had the knack of finding the most uninspiring and shy person at any gathering and making them the sole recipient of his attention. It was one of the things she had liked about him—he had made people feel included.
“Who is that funny little man Martin’s talking to?” she asked Laura.
“Dicky Rawlinson. One of the civvies—some boffin, cryptography.”
“You mean like puzzles, codes, and whatnot?”
“I suppose so. You don’t want to know. I made the mistake of asking once. Had to pretend to be ill to get away from him.”
“Darling?” It was Bob. “Roger’s driven home. Said he felt a bit worse for wear. Look, I think we could do with a few more sandwiches—do you mind? Something to soak up the booze.”
“Come on, Deborah,” Laura said. “You can show me how they make sandwiches in Caterham.”
***
Deborah imposed a three-gin limit on herself. She hadn’t drunk alcohol for a long time and by eight o’clock she was beginning to feel the tiredness brought on by over-indulgence. She looked across at Martin and hoped he would understand. He was speaking to Bob and the Warrant Officer. Thankfully, he excused himself and came over to her.
“Do you mind if we go? I’m feeling dreadfully tired.”
If he did mind he made a good job of hiding it. They said their goodbyes and were soon walking back through the twilight lanes.
“You enjoyed yourself, yes?” Martin said.
“Yes. Laura’s very nice. We’re going to go to Great Yarmouth together for shopping.”
“That’s my girl,” he said. “We’ll soon have you back into the swing of things.”
Yes, she needed to be back in ‘the swing of things’. If you weren’t in ‘the swing of things’ what hope for you was there? Destined to be forever outside perhaps, nose pressed up against the window, looking in at the ‘swingers’. Laura was in ‘the swing of things’. Both her and Bob. They’d been through a rough patch, Laura had had an affair with the odious Roger Bryant (he struck her as odious, but she couldn’t be sure whether he was, or not). Laura didn’t seem to find him odious—perhaps odiousness was just a matter of angle and distance.
They walked away from Bob’s house and turned left up a narrow thread of street that stitched together two larger roads. The tart, fishy smell of the sea came in on the breeze, and she heard the church’s mournful bell under the hooting and guffawing from Bob’s back garden. From this angle and distance, Bob’s party seemed raucous and loud.
“They’re noisy, aren’t they?” she said.
“Yes, but they’re good people,” Martin said as though she had cast an aspersion on them for mentioning it.
“Yes, yes, they’re lovely people,” she said. She was as far away from him now than she ever had been—and drifting farther.