Chapter Twenty-Five
Dorset, July 1943
Down the dusty lane he dragged his trunk, through the beautiful, familiar little meadow of nodding wild flowers, the cheery yellow ragwort, orange and red poppies, and baby-blue scabious – Dinah called them pincushions, Ant didn’t know their name. He had been travelling for twenty-four hours to get home and had wondered whether he’d ever make it, but now he was here, after the months and months of longing for the place. The sky was a soaring pale periwinkle blue; swallows looped above him. From here you could not see the dragon’s teeth concrete defences that led down to the shore, only the sound of the sea below him, the wind in the grasses.
Instead of coming in from the lane Ant hastily hauled his trunk up the porch steps, hoping to surprise her and – there she was, standing over something in the kitchen! He raised his hand to knock on the French windows, but then suddenly paused and looked back. Something wasn’t right.
He saw now the porch was filthy, covered in bird droppings – rat droppings too, if he wasn’t mistaken – and littered with books, books splayed out obscenely on the wood, spines cracked. One even had pages torn out, and these had been blown into the four corners of the wooden railings.
The yellow rose that smothered the side of the Bosky, that was gone too, cut off entirely so that all that remained was a brown fork at the base of the house. It made the place seem bare, open to the world.
Dinah was singing, snatches of something, and she moved furtively, in odd, fast little movements, so unlike her usual expansiveness. She took a cylindrical-shaped piece of marble out of a wooden box and, crooning gently, wrapping it in muslin, put it into another box on the floor, and whispered something, smiling to herself. He peered intently at her, suddenly and unaccountably unable to alert her to his presence . . . Then she looked up and her expression changed, and Ant was terrified, and he didn’t know why.
‘No one’s been here for ages – I’ve become rather lazy,’ Dinah said, by way of explanation, as though that accounted for the dirty plates, the stale air, the shrivelled dead flowers in the glass vase on the dresser. ‘I’ve lost track of time, Ant dear – I should have prepared the fatted calf and there’s no tea.’ She laughed in a jittery way. ‘Rations are awfully slim at the moment. I did try keeping chickens again but they only lasted a few days, the foxes got ’em. I hope it was foxes, anyway.’ She looked up and around, slightly blankly, then wrapped the worn peacock kimono around herself. Moths had devoured it; huge bare patches bloomed across the pattern. ‘I’ll just put this in your room.’ She picked up the handle of his own trunk and pulled it along the parquet floor, carving a large scratch into the wood.
‘Aunt Dinah—! Careful,’ he said, impulsively.
‘What?’
‘The floor.’
And she called back to him, a little sharply, ‘Don’t be a maiden aunt, dear. That’s my job. Gently she goes, into her cloth, hey ho.’
Ant was very tired. He’d come from London where he’d gone with two schoolmates to see Blithe Spirit, a birthday treat for one of them, Campbell. In a little over twenty-four hours he’d taken six different trains with a wait of around an hour between most. On the last train they’d been held at a signal for over half an hour near Southampton. Ant had stood sandwiched between a group of raucous Land Girls, who’d tried to flirt with him in a way that made him uncomfortable as he didn’t understand many of their jokes, and a slightly sinister-looking husband and wife, who were identical and who kept asking him where he was going and whether he’d be all right. He wasn’t confident enough yet to deal with either of them, and he was exhausted with the effort of assessing the behaviour of other humans.
The show had been wonderful; Margaret Rutherford was awfully funny. But going back to London – seeing it in ruins, the false gaiety everywhere, the eerie calm now the bombing had stopped for the most part – had been more than strange; it had disturbed him deeply. For it was clear just how much time had passed, how everything was different. His schoolmates, Campbell who was half decent, and an idiot called Bailey, had both gone into a chemist’s and bought French letters – he had gone along with them, and bought one himself, because they’d teased him so much about not buying one, dead-arming him, laughing and ruffling his hair. This was what he hated about school – the crudeness, the cruelty. He’d never have told any of them about Julia, and he suspected from guarded, half-questioning boasts they made that not one boy in his class had any experience of girls, bar Elwood and he lived in a castle and had once forced a maid to kiss him, and that hardly counted.
He hadn’t gone back to Camden – how would he explain it to his schoolmates? And besides, what was there but ghosts, and a neat gap in the terraced row of houses, like a tooth missing from a child’s mouth?
‘I might just get some water,’ he called, awkwardly, moving towards the kitchen. A fly buzzed unhappily amongst the listless curtains that hung over the window seat.
‘Sorry,’ Dinah said, reappearing. ‘I’ve been rather preoccupied. I wanted to make it all fine for you when you got here, dear Ant. And it’s not.’
‘It is,’ he said, weakly, staring round at the dingy kitchen where the thin curtains were still drawn and the mess of several days’ plates and meals adorned every surface of the kitchen. ‘Are you – is everything all right?’
‘Absolutely! I’m putting my house in order. A saying, and an actuality . . .’ She gazed at him, almost hungrily. ‘Gosh, I have missed you. You’re so grown up, dear. I’d hardly know you.’
The school had been evacuated in the New Year to the Lake District and he hadn’t been able to come home. It was a day’s travelling from London to Dorset, but even longer from Dorset to Windermere.
You sent me away, he wanted to say, but didn’t. Of course I’ve changed. He felt a vibrating soft mass against his leg and looked down. ‘Sweep!’ He scooped the fluffy, gangly bundle up, and Sweep purred even more furiously, urgently pressing her face against his hands. ‘Sweep.’ He nuzzled the soft spot between her ragged ears. ‘Ah, you’re older.’
‘She keeps me company. She’s no trouble. She sleeps in that enormous wardrobe in your room.’
Ant set the cat down on the floor again, and she immediately jumped into a box of old books and sat looking at him with unblinking glass-green eyes. ‘How’s Daphne?’ he said, without really thinking.
‘How should I know? Ant dear, I haven’t seen her for an age, not since she abandoned us last year.’
‘I just thought you might have heard from her.’
She looked up, her thin shoulders hunched. The hair that Daphne had cut so short the previous summer was now past her shoulders, greyer and wilder than ever, and she didn’t put it up as she formerly had done, so it hung in lank streaks around her face.
But her green eyes flashed suddenly as she said, ‘I don’t need to hear from her. I can tell you what she’s up to, Ant dear. She’s having fun. Dancing. Seeing who’ll buy her dinner. You know dear Daphne. She wouldn’t cross the road for a good cause but she’d jolly well cross the country for a good party. Oh, yes. Now, I absolutely must feed you.’ She went over to the kitchen counter and began slicing clumsy hunks of crumbling National Loaf. ‘We’ll have dripping and toast for tea, and I’ve some actual tea leaves from the Rev.’
‘Good old Rev,’ said Ant.
‘Oh, he’s a darling man, a good friend. And what luck, Ant, we’ve a few plums he brought round this morning from their orchard. We’ll have a real feast. And afterwards – ah-ha!’ She slapped her hands together. ‘What do you say to a game of mah-jong?’
He nodded happily and their eyes locked. ‘Sounds marvellous.’ Her eyes shone and she was Dinah again, caught up in the joyous enthusiasm of the moment. Ant honestly believed then that everything might still be all right.
They sat in the kitchen with the remains of tea and a soporific warmth stealing over both of them as the afternoon sun gave a golden glow to the wooden room. A vase of dying dahlias, velvet red and hot pink, bent under their own weight, scattering pollen on the slightly sticky table. He found he could ignore the mess. He smiled, gazing out of the window at the bay and the sky, and when he looked at his great-aunt she was smiling at him. She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her kimono.
‘I want to talk to you about something, Ant dear.’ She got up, and opened the French windows. ‘That’s better. Some fresh air.’
‘What is it, Aunt D? Want me to find another game I can beat you at, is that it? Happy Families is over there—’
She laughed, then hesitated for a moment, looking out at the sea and back at him. ‘Ho – no, thank you, dear. Listen, Ant. I’m afraid it’s rather serious.’ And Dinah cleared her throat. ‘I told you about my daddy, didn’t I? Your great-grandfather? He built the Bosky for my mother, as a surprise.’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘He was a gambler, Ant, did I ever tell you that?’
‘Yes, you did.’
‘Good. Well, don’t forget it, dear boy.’ She gripped his hands, suddenly. ‘Oh, Ant. He gambled, he won, and he built this house, and then he gambled again and lost. Lost everything. And it killed him. Well, I took a sacred oath in the Temple of Ishtar. I stood there, I held up my hand, it was all terribly dramatic. “I won’t be like him.”’
She got up, and said bleakly, ‘Well. I failed. I’m his daughter after all, you see. I’ve gambled, Ant. And I’ve lost everything.’
Ant didn’t understand. ‘You’ve lost the – the house?’
‘Not the house. Not yet. That’s what I want to talk to you about.’ She stood up, moving towards the sideboard slowly, as though she were lame, or in pain. She took out some papers. ‘Ant dear, I wonder if you would sign these. I had them drawn up by Mr Hill. I’d always have given the place to you anyway, but if you sign them then all will be fine.’ Something more was muttered under the breath. ‘It will all be fine.’
Ant moved towards her, took the papers from her and set them on the kitchen counter. He glanced at them briefly. ‘“Title Deeds”. “Transfer of Assets”. I don’t understand—’
‘I’m giving you the Bosky,’ she said, jutting out her chin. There was a martial light in her eye. ‘Then they can’t take it away from me.’
‘Who’s “they”?’ he asked, with a creeping, nauseous feeling of unease.
‘Oh – people who want to destroy me. She came back for it,’ she said, slowly. ‘Couldn’t find it. Even thought it was right under her nose, hanging there, all the time. Above her nose, I should say . . .’
‘Aunt Dinah . . .’
She put out one shaking hand. ‘It’s yours. Then you’ll always have something. No matter what happens. No matter what they try to do.’
And she pushed the sheaf of thick papers towards him.
‘Oh,’ Ant said, shrugging, and feeling rather sick at the sight of the official words, the huge seal at the bottom of the letter. ‘Aunt D, let’s not worry about this right now. You boil the kettle. I’ll go and put my old pair of flannels on. Why don’t we go for a walk? We can plot the summer—’
Dinah slapped the folded papers down in front of him. ‘No. Please, dear. Here,’ she said, opening one page and then flattening it down with her outstretched palm. ‘Sign here, and then it’s done, and it can’t be changed.’
‘But it’s your house, not mine.’
‘Please,’ she said, urgently. ‘Dear Ant, for me. Do it for me . . .’ She watched as he scratched his name in his looping hand by the black-inked ‘X’ and then gave a great sigh. ‘Wonderful,’ she said, and she smiled at him, raising her shoulders and letting them drop, as though releasing herself of a great weight. ‘That’s that!’
Ant handed the fountain pen back, looking at her. ‘I wish I hadn’t.’
‘Nothing will change,’ she said, and she stood up and put the sheaf of papers on the sideboard. ‘Nothing at all, dear. It’ll still be my house to all intents and purposes, but if they come for me, or try to take it away—’
‘Who’d try to take it away from you?’
She gave a thin smile, and scratched her nose. ‘No one! It’s just silly talk, a precaution. But what if I have to travel and you need to stay on here? Well, then – it’s yours. It’s always yours and everything in it. We’ll just carry on as normal, yes? You understand?’
He didn’t, and he wouldn’t, not for a while, but he nodded, and just then a face loomed through the French window, and he started.
‘Ah,’ said Dinah, with satisfaction. ‘She said she’d call round. Come in, dear! He’s here!’
There, knocking happily at the window, smiling broadly, was Julia. At the sight of her Ant blushed, the impure thoughts he’d had about her all year since the previous summer rushing back. She rattled at the metal door frame, trying to open it, her curls bouncing around her head, and when nothing happened Ant stood up to help her. He pulled at the heavy cold handle and eventually the door gave way, and she stumbled into the sitting room, almost landing on the floor but for Ant’s arm.
‘Oh, I say – thanks.’ She leaned heavily against him, and smiled up at him, her eyes gleaming with delight.
He smiled back at her. She was tanned, and the halter-neck strap of her swimming costume was slightly too small, cutting into her plump, golden flesh. He tried not to stare at her breasts. She had grown since last year, was taller than ever and her breasts were larger too. Her slim, strong fingers gripped his arm; there was a smattering of freckles across her nose, on her cheeks.
‘Hello, Julia,’ he said, and she squeezed a little harder on his arm, moving against him.
‘Well,’ she said, in that low, clear voice of hers, full of laughter, ‘hello, old bean.’
‘Julia’s been here most days, asking when you were arriving – haven’t you?’ said Dinah, and Julia nodded, unabashed at this display of enthusiasm – indeed, it was one of the things he’d always liked so much about her, that she never tried to be aloof.
‘We broke up ten days ago and came straight down and Ian’s already driven Father almost to distraction. I’ve been so utterly bored, waiting for you, Ant,’ she said, and he could smell the salt on her skin and the faint sweetness of her. ‘We missed all the action – did you hear about the Mustangs crashing over at Smedmore in May?’ She turned to Dinah. ‘Did you see them, Miss Wilde?’
‘Yes,’ said Dinah vaguely. ‘Terrible.’ But she had picked up an old, gold-tooled book and was flicking purposefully through it; Ant glanced down, and could only see pictures of burial chambers and rows of skeletons, golden headdresses, the shine on the photographic paper that gleamed in the darkened room.
‘You had your hair cut,’ Ant told Julia, touching the bouncing bob of curly hair. ‘It suits you.’
‘Run along, why don’t you, and go for a walk by the dragon’s teeth,’ Dinah said, glancing up. ‘You must be dying for some fresh air, Ant, cooped up on trains all that time. Watch out for the barbed wire – they’ve repositioned some of it, and it’s a nasty shock if you’re not careful. And I know it doesn’t need saying, but don’t go on the beach. They’ve evacuated everyone down at Shell Bay, did you know? Joe saw them moving the concrete in the other day. Big army nobs down here all lined up inspecting the bay. Something’s happening there. I’m sure of it.’
She tapped her nose and Ant nodded, but he wasn’t sure if she was telling the truth or not.
‘Maybe they’ll come for us next,’ she said. ‘Tell us to move on.’
‘Oh, Miss Wilde, I’m sure they won’t,’ said Julia. She glanced over at Ant. ‘Well? Shall we go?’
He didn’t want to leave Dinah alone, but Ant realised he couldn’t bear the stuffy, dirty, too-hot house that was now his, not for a moment longer. He nodded. ‘I’ll see you later, Aunt D,’ he said to his aunt, picking up his blazer. ‘Won’t be long.’
‘Take your time, all fine,’ she said, in a sing-song voice, and she stood up, and began peering into the boxes again, lifting things out, putting other things in. ‘Never fear, Ant dear, never fear.’