The Jewel Box Part 13

"He'll love it. You look divine in it."

The waitress came over and Grace ordered two gla.s.ses of white wine. The quartet was playing something familiar and cloying.

"Who wrote this music?" Grace asked.

"It was all anger about the war," said Nancy. "George, I mean. Pent-up rage. Boiling blood. Those nightmares...I couldn't wake him out of them. I just had to cling tightly to the bed and wait for them to end. I suppose that was what I was doing more generally. Clinging on and hoping it would all come right again. And then it did."

The waitress brought the wine over. They clinked gla.s.ses.

"To you. Happy birthday for tomorrow. Is this Vivaldi, do you think?"

"And to you, too." Nancy clinked again. "For being such a brick. Really, I think it was you who held us together."

"Rubbish." Grace took a mouthful of wine. "Let's look to the future. Speaking of which, what time are you meeting Mummy?"

"Five o'clock. Grace, there's something I want to tell you."

"You'd better drink up then. It's almost half past four. Which film are you going to see?"

The lying had been going on for a very long time. One could argue it started that night in the summer of 1915 when George proposed to Nancy at the farewell dance. Or perhaps it wasn't so much lying as keeping silent. George and Grace had kept silent about what had taken place between them on the Heath earlier that day.

The "keeping silent" continued when he told her about how Steven had really died, and asked her not to speak about it. And then came the letters. He'd asked her to write to him while he was away. How could she have refused him and why should she? They weren't love letters, after all. They were impersonal and newsy-rea.s.suring him that Nancy was well and content, but that she talked about him constantly and missed him. She pa.s.sed on the Hampstead gossip: Philippa Green's pregnancy; Tabitha Ferrier's roving eye; Frederick Perry-Johnson's return home after losing an arm. She bemoaned the state the house was getting into: the blocked drains, the broken door handle, the damp patch in the kitchen, the drafts. She told him that he'd better come home soon or the house would fall down around them. She said little about herself.

It seemed right to keep silent about the letters. It wasn't that she had anything to hide. It was just that she didn't know how to explain why she had suddenly taken to writing frequently to her sister's husband. It seemed such an odd thing to be doing. And the longer it went on, the less easy it was to speak of, particularly as George was keeping quiet, too.

The spring of 1918 arrived, and George continued to write only to Nancy, making no mention of the letters he received from Grace. His letters talked mostly of how he missed them all at home, but also of train journeys through lovely scenery, of long days spent marching, of trench foot, boredom and singing. His were letters unaltered by the censors. He kept off subjects that would frighten his wife. But the Rutherford sisters were reading about the big German offensive in the newspapers and listening to the reports. They knew George must be in the thick of it all, and that he couldn't possibly be telling them the whole story. Nancy showed the letters to Grace, who began to think she could discern secret messages through the trivia-messages intended for her only.

When he talks about the heavy rain, she decided, he is speaking about the experience of being sh.e.l.led. Stories of kicking a football around with the boys back at the billets are really telling a much darker tale. He knows she won't see that. He knows that I will.

Over time, Grace felt increasingly ent.i.tled to read George's letters, and if Nancy didn't show her one, she would go digging about in her sister's bureau on the quiet, searching for it. She had begun to see herself as George's secret confidante. Her own letters became less self-conscious and more personal. The fact that George didn't write back to her directly made it easier for her to unburden herself. His silence was a warm one, a welcoming one. By the end of the summer, with all the news reports declaring the German army to be on its knees and the war all but over, Grace's letters had evolved into a kind of episodic diary from which there was little that she held back.

The much-heralded return was destined to prove difficult for all concerned. George's smiles seemed forced. He was overly polite, awkward and twitchy. He appeared to want to hide as much as possible: in bed, behind newspapers, at his job in the City, at the pub with old friends. Late at night, Grace would hear Nancy crying and railing at him. His replies were curt and quiet.

For herself, Grace was only too glad of George's reclusiveness. It was one thing to tell an absent and silent George all her greatest secrets and desires, and quite another to find herself sharing a home with him again. Just to be in a room with him was squirmingly embarra.s.sing. The things he knew about her...There was no way to take them back. But she was already going out to work by this time, and took to leaving the house early and coming home late. Quietly she began to save money for a deposit on a flat of her own.

As 1919 wore on, it all got worse. George absented himself more often and drank more heavily. His moody silences were interspersed with episodes of anger. Nancy's disastrous twenty-first birthday party was the last straw. But when Grace announced her plan to move out imminently to a little flat in Bayswater, Nancy grabbed both her hands and begged her not to go.

"I can't cope with him alone...He listens listens to you. Yes, he does. He reins himself in when you're here because he doesn't want you to think badly of him. When it's just me, he doesn't care what he says or does." to you. Yes, he does. He reins himself in when you're here because he doesn't want you to think badly of him. When it's just me, he doesn't care what he says or does."

"You have Mummy," Grace reasoned.

"Gracie, please please stay for a bit longer. I need you to help me get him back on track. If you could spend a bit of time with him...Talk to him..." stay for a bit longer. I need you to help me get him back on track. If you could spend a bit of time with him...Talk to him..."

They began taking walks together on the Heath every few days, Grace and George, at her suggestion. They'd talk a little but often they'd just walk silently. It was an easy silence between them. He seemed to relax in her company, her arm linked through his. Sometimes they'd sit for a while on the bench, near the top of Parliament Hill, where he'd once declared his feelings for her. Grace thought about it whenever they sat there, and she knew he was thinking about it, too. On the return to Tofts Walk, he'd begin to tense up. The silence would have turned stony by the time they reached the house.

Nancy seemed grateful out of all proportion.

"We just walk," Grace would tell her. "And sometimes we sit. He hasn't told me anything. Nothing about the war. Nothing about you. I can't see that it can be helping very much."

"But it is is helping." helping."

And evidently it was. He was softening, gradually but tangibly. Thawing. He stayed at home more. He eased up on the drinking.

The walks continued. One day, as they sat on their bench, George reached out for her hand, and she let him hold it. There was nothing more-just her hand held in his as they sat there. When they got back to the house, he was positively chipper for the rest of the day. On the next walk he did it again, and this time they sat much longer together. She was aware of his breathing, the sound of it, the subtle movements in his body. The warmth of their joined hands. But she didn't allow herself to turn and look at him. Kept her gaze fixed on the view: London, reduced to the size of a toy town below them.

On the next occasion, when it happened again, she did turn and look at him, at the golden strands running through his coppery hair, at his pale, hollow face-hollowed out by unhappiness and perhaps by memories he couldn't speak about. His hazel eyes were not tranquil as they had been before the war. But they weren't empty anymore either, as they had been when he'd first arrived home.

"Would you let me hold you, Grace?" he said. "Just hold you?"

She moved closer and his arms came around her. Leaning in to him, she tucked her head under his chin, and listened to the beating of his heart while all around them leaves were falling.

There was comfort in the way they'd sit holding each other-and it happened every time after that, of course. They'd sit longer and longer, even when winter arrived and the Heath was cold and wet and windswept. Where they touched, a sort of current ran between them and gave them both sustenance. Each time it happened she sensed how obvious and natural it would be to simply lift her head and bring her mouth to his, but knew this was the boundary she must not cross. It wasn't exactly innocent, what they were doing together, but there was still an ambiguity to it. They simply had to stay the right side of the boundary.

Then, one snowy January day, as they huddled together on the bench, it all became too much.

The trouble is, she said to herself, I'm dwelling on this more and more, and I think he is, too. The longer we resist it, the more obsessed we both become. Maybe if we give in, we can get past it, leave it behind.

She was going to do it, any moment now. She was going to lift her head and kiss him. It simply had to happen.

The Heath was m.u.f.fled by a layer of snow. Flakes were falling silently, wetly, into their hair, onto their shoulders. Somewhere in the distance, some children were squealing as they hurled s...o...b..a.l.l.s at each other. But it was all very distant. Grace took a steadying breath...And George, still holding her, began to speak.

He talked about a time in October of 1915, the La Ba.s.see offensive in the Loos Battle, when his company was waiting in a trench for the order to go over. They'd thought they'd be waiting a few hours, but almost a week later they were still there in the rain and the mud, drinking copious amounts of whisky to keep their heads together, and failing to sleep when their turn came about. All around them were the corpses of their fellow men, growing more and more awful each day, their stomachs swelling and bloating and collapsing, their skin changing color. They watched rats feeding on the bodies of the dead. The stench, he said, was indescribable.

He talked about a soldier from the East Surrey regiment dying in No-Man's-Land.

"We could hear him-his agony-it went on and on and it was terrible to listen to but we couldn't go to help him. The sh.e.l.ling was too heavy. He kept apologizing for the racket he was making. When the stretcher-bearers finally found him, dead, he'd stuffed his entire fist into his mouth-so as to spare us, you see. And so as to be sure none of us would try some foolhardy rescue attempt.

"We never did go over, not that time. Word came eventually that the show had ended and we were to go back."

Grace looked up at him, expecting to see tears, but his face was all white anger.

"Do you know something? Hardest of all were my brief spells at home. All that bogus 'home service' that was all about, while life went on as normal. Women like your mother strutting about in their uniforms, absurd poems about the crimson cornfields and the spilled blood of the brave. We had no idea no idea why we were there, Grace. Frankly we had more hatred for our d.a.m.ned colonel than we had for the Germans. You know, he complained, immediately after La Ba.s.see, about the sloppy informality of officers who allowed soldiers to address them by their first names. I don't think any of us who were there could go on believing in G.o.d or England or anything much. But I tell you, Grace, it was easier being out there than it was being here, where everyone was so b.l.o.o.d.y ridiculous about it all. And now, too, with all those empty patriots with their grand words who saw not a moment of the war as it really was, having simply forgotten all about it, resuming the peacetime complacency and ignorance that we went out there to fight for." why we were there, Grace. Frankly we had more hatred for our d.a.m.ned colonel than we had for the Germans. You know, he complained, immediately after La Ba.s.see, about the sloppy informality of officers who allowed soldiers to address them by their first names. I don't think any of us who were there could go on believing in G.o.d or England or anything much. But I tell you, Grace, it was easier being out there than it was being here, where everyone was so b.l.o.o.d.y ridiculous about it all. And now, too, with all those empty patriots with their grand words who saw not a moment of the war as it really was, having simply forgotten all about it, resuming the peacetime complacency and ignorance that we went out there to fight for."

Without any discussion, Grace and George stopped their walks. She felt they both knew how close they'd come to crossing that invisible line of theirs. Ironically, his decision to talk to her about his war experiences had prevented anything happening between them. How could the desire for an illicit kiss survive such talk? And yet their shared understanding had deepened as a result of his decision to speak to her. On the walk home he'd held so tightly to her hand that she thought he'd break her fingers.

"I'm going to crack on with my move," she told Nancy. "George is so much more himself again. You don't need me around anymore."

"You're right about George being better," said Nancy. "Life is really quite pleasant at home now, isn't it? In which case, why leave?"

A few days later she was up in her room, packing, the case open on her bed. Everyone was out and the house was quiet. She'd told Nancy she couldn't be dissuaded. It was time for her to get out from under their feet. They needed some privacy, and frankly, so did she.

When the front door banged and heavy feet came running up the stairs, she knew it had to be George. A moment later he came crashing in without knocking. He was red in the face and disheveled.

"You can't go."

"Why not? Because Nancy said so? Has she been crying on your shoulder in some cafe or other? Asking you to come straight here and try talking me out of it?"

"This has nothing to do with Nancy." He was still breathless from all the running. Just how far had he run?

She sighed. "You know why I have to go."

He appeared to be struggling for the right retort. She was reminded, as she looked into his eyes-all pent-up pa.s.sion and words unspoken-of what she'd said to him on the Heath years before. Say it. Make it real. Say it. Make it real. But then the struggle was over and he was sweeping aside the packing case and her carefully folded clothing so that it all crashed and tumbled down onto the floor. And then he was pushing her down on the bed and she was pulling open his clothes, and finally-finally-they were giving in to the thing that had gripped them both for such a long time, and the relief was immense. But then the struggle was over and he was sweeping aside the packing case and her carefully folded clothing so that it all crashed and tumbled down onto the floor. And then he was pushing her down on the bed and she was pulling open his clothes, and finally-finally-they were giving in to the thing that had gripped them both for such a long time, and the relief was immense.

Grace had pondered, in those days when she and George had clutched each other on the Heath, the possibility that if they gave in they could get past it-whatever "it" was. Predictably, this proved not to be the case.

They'd sc.r.a.ped themselves off the bed and dressed in the half-light, awkwardly and shamefacedly. He'd slipped away downstairs without either of them speaking a word about what had happened between them. But once she was alone again, the first thing she did was to push her case back under the bed and put her clothes back in the wardrobe.

From that day on, whenever Grace and George found themselves alone in the house, they were at each other. It was a compulsion. Both quietly encouraged special little outings for Nancy and Mother. Both would absent themselves from gatherings and events if they knew the other was at home on their own. Increasingly, they took risks-creeping about the house at night, sometimes even stealing into the garden shed together. Occasionally, they'd meet at a small hotel near Russell Square, signing the register as Mr. and Mrs. Sharp.

Grace wondered, sometimes, how she'd feel about George if it wasn't for all the subterfuge. Was she in love with the man for himself or simply because he was Forbidden Fruit? She hoped that it was the latter because that meant it would fizzle out over time. The novelty would wear off and they'd withdraw from each other. This, really, was the best way it could end. The least painful way. And it had to end one way or another-there was too much at stake for it to be otherwise.

But it was their sense of guilt, rather than their desire for each other, that wore itself out. The lying became second nature. They stopped worrying that they'd be found out. They even began to believe it was in everyone's best interests that their affair continued. They were all happier this way, after all, including Nancy.

This was the reasoning that gradually shaped itself in Grace's mind during the two years and ten months of her affair with George. This was the way she saw the situation up until the eve of Nancy's twenty-fourth birthday, when she dispatched her sister and mother to the pictures and went home to sleep with her brother in-law as she'd done so many times before.

But something about October 17, 1922, was different. Grace sensed it, knew it when she heard keys rattling in the front door a good hour or so early, and before she heard her mother's voice saying, "That's it, dear. You go and lie down on the couch and I'll get you a nice cup of camomile tea."

George was deeply asleep, his head on her chest. She had to prod him in the shoulder three or four times before he stirred and coughed and half sat up.

"Shh." She held a finger to his lips. "They're back. Nancy's ill or something. I'll dress and go down. Wait a few minutes before you follow on."

As she slipped out of the room and down the stairs, there was a foreboding that sat, heavy and toadlike, in Grace's stomach. It wasn't so much about the possibility of having been caught, they'd had near-misses before-nearer than this-and somehow they'd always gotten away with it. If a person is trusting and unsuspicious, they simply don't see what's right in front of them. They don't see it because they're not looking for it. No, this was about something else.

"Nancy, darling!" Grace entered the lounge to find Nancy on the sofa looking pale, and Mother holding a hand to her forehead to feel her temperature. "What on earth has happened?"

"She fainted at the cinema," said Catherine. "Came over all weak and wan. Five minutes later she was claiming to be tickety-boo, but I thought it best we came straight home. Right. I'll go and make that camomile tea."

"Must you?" pleaded the patient.

Grace peered at her sister as their mother left the room. Yes, she was pale. But she looked...Well, she looked extremely happy. "Nancy, what's going on? Are you ill or not?"

"Not." And now Nancy smiled her biggest ever smile. "It's what I wanted to tell you earlier, Gracie, but I couldn't get a word in edgeways and then the moment sort of pa.s.sed, and anyway I thought I really ought to tell George first."

"Oh, my darling!" Grace rushed forward, arms open, and in that moment her world shifted utterly. Holding Nancy tight, she glanced up and saw George standing hesitant in the doorway, his face in shadow.

"Well, look who's here," she said, as warmly as she could. "Nancy has something important to tell you." And then, in a slightly quieter voice, "I think I'd better leave you two alone."

Piccadilly Herald The West-Ender May 16, 1927 I've never been much of a one for cards. I don't have the patience for bridge, canasta confuses me and rummy reminds me of those wet Sunday afternoons in childhood which made me want to scream about the unbearable dreariness of life and rip my hair out at the roots (this was in my pre-bob era, when my hair was long and such a gesture would have been highly dramatic). So you can imagine how thrilled I was at the prospect of the Silvestra Club's new innovation, Wednesday Whist. Frankly, even the thought of a whole evening of card play accompanied by the Silvestra's sluggish jazz was almost enough to send me to sleep. But reader, how wrong I was!

First, I discovered that since my last sojourn, Dan Craven's orchestra has gone decidedly uptempo. Well done, Mr. Craven, for heeding my advice! Then came the revelation that whist is simple, quick and easy (rather like one or two acquaintances of mine, but we'll say no more about that). I swiftly mastered the rules and discovered-oh shock-that I was actually enjoying the game. I attempted an att.i.tude of great seriousness-it seemed the thing to do, what with the tables being specially dressed for the night in green baize and topped with smart little lamps, and the packs of cards all being so new and pristine. But it was hard to keep a straight face when it turned out my gentleman partner was the most outrageous cheat! Really, this should have come as no surprise to me. It stands to reason that any bachelor as handsome and clever as he simply has to be a filthy rotten scoundrel or he'd have been snapped up and married off years ago. In fact, I suggest a trip to Wednesday Whist as an effective way of vetting the character of your new beau. My devilish friend's audacity was staggering, though he remained insistent that it was all down to skill and that no foul play was involved.

But the really fun feature of Wednesday Whist is what happens in between games. After each hand, and before you and your partner move on to the next table, the winning girl chooses to dance either with her own partner or with the opposition fellow. It was so delightful, deliberating between my chap and the other (we won quite a bit, due to the Devil's aforementioned dubious tactics), while the losing lady sat fuming and waiting for her fate to be decided. The resulting Charleston is all the more fun for the mild cruelty involved in these shenanigans, and what's more, there's no tiresome cutting-in.

Also, girls, you should get along to Selfridges to survey the new season's swimwear. It's what they're all wearing in Deauville and down on the Riviera, so I'm reliably told. Plenty of bold horizontal stripes, so probably not for the larger lady. And don't forget your bathing cap. Your bob needs thorough protection from all that sand and salt.

Finally, we should all be thinking, later this week, of Charles A. Lindbergh, a daring American mail pilot (yes, they fly their post from place to place over there!) who, weather permitting, is to embark on what could be the first nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic, in his airplane, The Spirit of St. Louis The Spirit of St. Louis. Cross your fingers for this fine hero as he takes off from Long Island on the twentieth. Cross your toes, too. Cross everything you have. They'll throw the party of the century for him when he lands in Paris.

I bet he doesn't cheat at cards either.

Diamond Sharp

Eight.

Marylebone Library was packed. People were seated on folding chairs arranged in rows, but the standing s.p.a.ce at the back was crammed, too. The room was usually cavernous and cold, but tonight it was sweltering. The heat came primarily from bodies. Heavy suits and hats had been donned on this warm May evening by people who wanted to look smart, and the effect was to swaddle and insulate the entire room. Much of the formal clothing was black, so the audience had a somewhat funereal persona. The library's habitual dusty aroma was intensified by a strong scent of mothb.a.l.l.s and the backs of wardrobes. Library was packed. People were seated on folding chairs arranged in rows, but the standing s.p.a.ce at the back was crammed, too. The room was usually cavernous and cold, but tonight it was sweltering. The heat came primarily from bodies. Heavy suits and hats had been donned on this warm May evening by people who wanted to look smart, and the effect was to swaddle and insulate the entire room. Much of the formal clothing was black, so the audience had a somewhat funereal persona. The library's habitual dusty aroma was intensified by a strong scent of mothb.a.l.l.s and the backs of wardrobes.

The only noises in the crowd were the occasional cough or sniff, the rasp and drag of breath, and a muted something that might have been the sounds of people fanning themselves with hands and pieces of paper, or could even have been the sound of generalized antic.i.p.ation and anxiety. But now a low hum was added to the subtle soundscape-a hum that vibrated unpleasantly in the ears, the teeth, the stomach. A hum that seemed to Grace to be an explicit escalation of the ever-present background hum that lies behind life; the hum that you sometimes hear when you sit alone in an empty house, or when you lie down in bed at night trying to sleep. Perhaps the sound of the blood in your head.

This hum-the vibrating hum running through the crowded library-was being emitted by the seated woman at the front of the room who was the focus of this gathering, and who faced the audience with eyes closed and palms held out, slightly cupped. She'd been in this pose for over five minutes already when she began her humming.

Grace, who was sitting beside O'Connell in the ninth row (near the back of the room), was trying to guess Mrs. McKellar's age. Her face, devoid of makeup, was pallid, with a suggestion of numerous years, yet there were few lines around the closed eyes and mouth and on the brow. She was dressed in a shapeless yellow robe, and her colorless hair was mostly concealed by a knotted yellow headscarf. She could be a sixty-year-old who'd somehow escaped the effects of age using her own psychic powers, a forty-year-old who had no idea how to dress and present herself, or anything in between. Whatever her age, she was strange, slightly frightening and almost certainly on the make.

The humming had lasted three or four minutes now. The audience as a whole was still and rapt, but Grace shifted on her seat and tried to stifle a yawn. When her stomach gurgled, O'Connell turned and raised an eyebrow.

"I can't help it," Grace whispered. "I haven't eaten since breakfast."

"What happened to lunch? Are you on some crazy diet that doesn't allow you to eat during daylight hours?"

"I had a deadline. But you wouldn't understand the prosaic necessities of my working life, would you? The meat and vegetables of it all." Heads were turning. They were like naughty children at the back of a cla.s.sroom with their whispers and their giggles. "Where shall we go when this pantomime is over?"

"I think we'd better go someplace that'll give me a better understanding of the meat and vegetables of your working life. Since I obviously want to understand you completely and utterly, my darling." This was delivered with a squeeze of the hand.

"What are you up to?"

"Shh." O'Connell placed a finger on his lips. "You're disturbing the 'ether.'"

"Well, we certainly don't want that." Grace peered again at the humming woman, and then at the crowd around her. "There'll need to be a lot of spirits in that ether if everyone here's to get their money's worth!"

The humming grew louder and climbed a note or two up the octave. The woman sitting to Grace's right clutched at the jet beads around her neck with gnarled hands.

"Imagine how many shillings have changed hands here tonight," whispered Grace. "What sort of person makes a living out of other people's deaths?"

"An undertaker? A florist, a stonemason, a grave digger, a doctor, a lawyer...I imagine Mrs. McKellar would say she has a G.o.d-given gift and a vocation to help the needy, but that she also has costs to cover and mouths to feed."

"Yes, I expect she would."

"Quiet at the back!" The woman's green eyes were open and directing a ferocious glare at Grace. "Keep your trap shut or sling your hook."

"Very spiritual," Grace muttered as Mrs McKellar's eyes slid closed again and the humming was resumed. From all around the room, people were staring at Grace. They should by rights have been a bunch of elderly people, this audience. This ought not to have been an appealing evening excursion for men and women in their thirties and twenties; for boys and girls barely over the age of consent.

Everyone in this room has been floored by grief, thought Grace. None of them is free of it yet.

"Ah, Edwin, there you are. And about time, too." Mrs. McKellar rose to her feet, the yellow gown hanging in voluminous folds as she swayed gently, one hand clutched to her forehead. She had already explained to the audience that her "spirit guide" was a boy by the name of Edwin who'd died in the influenza epidemic after the war. It was Edwin who would communicate with the spirits on her behalf. "Who is he, Edwin? Tell us his name." She paused then, cupped her hand to her ear. "Did you say Archie?" Her eyes were open again now. "Or Alfie?" At this last name there was a sharp intake of breath from a woman near the front. "Alfie," Mrs McKellar confirmed. "What do you have to say, Alfie? Something about the children?"