Chapter Thirty-Three
Dorset, 1943
For a while, everything continued as normal but it wasn’t normal, he knew it. Strange things kept happening. Sweep vanished, never to be seen again. One day he was there, purring on the window seat in a contented ball, the next he was gone, and no trace of him was ever found. The weather was odd; sharp, cool, unpredictable. Dinah suddenly embarked upon a frenzied cleaning programme, clearing out the boxes everywhere and donating half her things to the church jumble sale. She had mended her bike, too: they were to go on their favourite ride up to St Aldhelm’s Head the following day. She was due to travel to London next week; Ant didn’t want her to go, even though the Blitz was over. He was afraid for her these days, for she seemed fragile, breakable: she who had won a bet to get on the last boat out of Basra, she who had survived desert storms and poisonous snakes, who had rescued him, borne him away from London.
At the beginning of the holiday, Ant had cycled into Swanage and found a chemist on Station Road who would sell him French letters. Depending on their plans for each day, either in the late afternoon or in the evening after dinner if she could manage to slip out, he and Julia met at the edge of the beach, and wandered together until they found an absolutely secluded spot, away from the dragon’s teeth and the wire.
Though he would search ceaselessly for it Tony would never get it back, the ecstasy and joy of those nights with Julia. He came to know her body better than his own, the crease between her groin and her leg, her round breasts, the freckles on her forearms and face, her long neck with the moles at the clavicle, her green eyes and the way she reacted when he stroked her and pushed inside her.
He would have more explosive sex, more illicit, more thrilling, more intense, but he would never find the same compatibility again, nor the secretive, joyous thrill of it that was, at the same time, entirely harmless. He would spend the rest of his life trying to recreate it, in dressing rooms and bedsits and hotel rooms.
‘Look,’ Ant said to Julia one night, as he lay in the crook of her arm, the soft sand cold beneath his shoulder blades. ‘Up there?’
Her fingers stroked his hair, his ear. ‘What’s that?’
‘The Milky Way. You can see it. It’s the blackout, Dinah says it makes it much easier to see the stars.’
‘She says a lot of things.’ She moved down further against him. ‘It’s colder tonight, don’t you think?’
‘It’s August. Always a little colder than you imagine, August nights. I remember, my first summer here, how chilly it was . . . Here, put your dress on.’
‘How puritanical you are.’ But she slipped the dress on over her head. ‘We should get back soon.’
‘Where does he think you are tonight?’
‘Oh, the same as ever, that I’m with you at the Bosky and we’re reading Shakespeare together . . . I’m not lying to him, I am with you. He thinks your aunt’s house is one of study and intellectual retreat, so I’m in the clear. She wouldn’t tell on us, would she?’
‘It’s not Aunt Dinah one needs to worry about,’ Ant said heavily. ‘It’s Daphne. She’s supposed to be coming back.’
‘That awful old leech? How tedious. Why?’
‘She wrote last week, and since then – Oh, I don’t know.’ How to explain the incessant tidying, the mysterious shuffling about at all hours of the day and night, the muttering, the opening of drawers and putting things away? He pulled her closer to him, wishing it was always them, just them, that she wouldn’t ever break away from him. ‘She has some hold over Aunt D and I’m just not sure what.’
‘Is it like mistresses at school?’ He looked blank. ‘The kind that move in with each other and take up golf – like that?’
‘No – well, not sure. Not Daphne, no.’ He knew that much, at least. ‘With Aunt D one never knows.’
‘Yes,’ said Julia. ‘She’s an enigma. She could be an Egyptian princess in disguise and it wouldn’t be that much of a surprise, would it. I used to simply long to be like her, when you were both first here,’ she said suddenly.
‘Dinah? Really?’ He was incredulous.
She knelt beside him, stroked his chest, ran her hands over his bare hips and bottom. ‘Oh, yes. When I had crushes on girls, before you. Miss Bright. Terrific sex appeal. And Dinah.’
Ant was appalled. ‘Aunt Dinah? I really don’t think she has any sex appeal. I don’t think she ever even thinks about . . . it . . . sex.’
She pulled lightly at his penis, stroked his thighs, then patted his cheek. ‘My beautiful naked fool, how little you understand,’ she said, in the way she sometimes still liked to mock him. ‘She’s repressed. Awfully repressed. You should read Freud.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t always go on about Freud,’ Ant grumbled. ‘I don’t want to read him. Hey, don’t go,’ he said, as she picked up her shoes.
‘I must,’ she said, flinging out her hand, the thin nail-bitten fingers blowing him a kiss. ‘Don’t stay out here too long, naked and alone. You’ll be arrested. And I’d miss you awfully.’
He could hear her whistling as she retreated, and he sat up and got dressed, thinking about Dinah, wondering when Daphne would appear, what she’d want this time. Julia’s faint whistling stopped, and he heard her footsteps return. Just as he was putting on his plimsolls, she reappeared amongst the bracken, her face pale.
‘Hello again,’ he said. ‘Everything all right?’
‘Of course,’ she said, quickly. ‘It’s just – often when I’ve left you, or you’ve gone, I wish I’d said it to you and I don’t and I often think there might not be another time.’
‘Said what?’
‘Said that – well.’ She cleared her throat. ‘Well, the thing is, that I love you.’
‘Oh.’ Tony scrambled to his feet. ‘Julia—’
‘Let me finish. I want to say it. It’s wonderful, being with you. I feel alive – I hadn’t really ever felt that way before. Yes, ever. I liked acting, because it made things more dramatic when they were drab and awful. Well, now I’ve got this with you and suddenly I do care, and I wish everything wasn’t dramatic. I’m afraid all the time – it’s as though you’ve made me come alive. I don’t want you to leave me. I don’t want us to be killed by a bomb. I don’t want my father to find out. I don’t want to have a baby by accident.’
He caught her hands. ‘I love you. I do. I love you too.’ He stared at her, feeling her heart beating fast in her chest, her mouth, glowing a rose-red pink as it always did after he had been kissing her for a while. He kissed her now, pulling her as close to him as he could, and murmured into her neck, ‘I want you to marry me. Will you marry me, when we’re old enough?’
She gave a small cry, a moan in her throat, as his lips moved over her skin.
‘Ant – Tony – don’t you see it? I won’t be here, I won’t. I’ll have gone away. I can’t stay here, not with Daddy . . . not with Ian.’
‘Yes,’ he said fiercely, gripping her shoulders. ‘You can if I’m with you. You can.’
‘We’re fifteen,’ she said, taking one hand and cupping it over her breast, and he squeezed it, aroused again, and then let his hand fall to his side. ‘They don’t let people our age do what we want.’
‘There’s boys a couple of years older than us fighting in the war. It doesn’t matter.’
‘Yes, it does, darling. I don’t want to stay here for ever. The war will be over soon. I want to live, to get away from here, to do something afterwards to help. You want to go to drama school, your aunt is arranging the audition—’
‘None of that matters,’ he said, his voice cracking. ‘We should be together, that’s the most important thing—’
‘Hell,’ she said suddenly. ‘Do you hear that?’
Over the sand dunes they could hear her name being called, faintly. ‘Julia! Where are you?’
Together, they ran quickly back past the barricades and the beach huts. He tried to take her hand but she brushed his fingers away. ‘Not now, Ant, honestly.’
They went past the Bosky towards the lane, where Alastair Fletcher stood, hands on hips, and at the sight of both of them he took a step back. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Hello, hello there, Ant.’ He turned to his daughter. ‘I went to look for you at the Bosky, Julia. Miss Wilde said you’d gone out walking together.’
‘We were walking in the sand dunes,’ said Ant, and he knew instantly how to play it, that it was easier to hide behind the truth than a lie. ‘Sorry, we should have noticed the time, but it’s such a lovely evening, we were looking at the stars come out. And talking.’ He took Julia’s hand, and squeezed it, and smiled at her. She, eyes wide with terror, looked from him to her father.
‘Sorry, Daddy,’ she said. ‘No harm in it.’ But her voice was wooden, her hands that had been alive and playing with him hung limply by her side, shoulders drooping, and she was unconvincing; Tony knew he had to carry them both along, that he could do it.
‘No harm, but you must have been worried. I’m sorry, sir.’
Alastair Fletcher stared at them both, his jaw clenched tightly shut. Please believe me, Ant found himself praying, willing that he could pull it off.
‘Ah,’ he said eventually. ‘I suppose you’re both sensible, aren’t you? You’re a good boy, Ant. Aren’t you? I’ve always thought that you were.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Ant, and suddenly he was terrified, of himself, of his ability to lie so easily.
‘Come in now, Julia. There.’ He pushed his daughter gently inside.
‘Night night, Ant,’ said Julia, patting her father’s shoulder. ‘See you tomorrow.’
‘Goodnight,’ he said, giving them both a casual wave, and he watched her go, mouthing, I love you.
When he arrived home, Aunt Dinah was already in her room and the lower floor was dark. ‘Hello, Ant,’ she called out as he came down the stairs.
‘Hello. I was out walking, hope you don’t mind.’
Her voice was muffled. ‘Super. Looking forward to our trip tomorrow.’
‘What trip?’
‘The bike ride to St Aldhelm’s,’ she said. ‘Do you remember? We said we’d do it weeks ago. If you don’t want—’
‘Absolutely, of course,’ he called, and he was glad to be alone, in the dark, so that no one could see his flushing cheeks, his clammy hands.
He dreamed of camomile flowers, and of compasses and dandelion clocks, and of Julia’s shoes growing huge, stamping across the beach and down the lane so loudly he had to beg her to walk on tiptoe, and when he awoke, the sun was not shining in rods through the holes in the blackout. Ant stared at his watch. It was ten o’clock. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept that late: life with Dinah, and then boarding school, had reset his body clock and he was usually up hours earlier.
He washed his face and shaved, carefully – he was still not quite at home with the razor – and then dressed, humming to himself, though he wasn’t sure why he felt so happy.
‘Dinah?’ he said, coming into the kitchen, but there was no sign of her, and then he heard her voice on the porch, and stepped out with relief.
‘There you are!’ he said. ‘I’m so late I know I’ve probably missed breakfast, but do you want – Oh. Hello.’
There, sitting next to Dinah, as pristine and cool as ever, was Daphne, in a teal silk dress, a moth-eaten fox fur around her shoulders, smoking a cigarette, hand cupping her chin. Her other arm was stretched out along the back of the cane sofa, as though she’d always been there. The fox stared at Ant, unblinking. Daphne wiggled her fingers at him, then patted the sofa cushion.
‘Come here, sit down, dear Ant,’ she said. ‘How nice to see you. You’ve slept well, haven’t you!’
‘I’m a little late, yes,’ he said, rubbing his chin. ‘Hello, Daphne.’ He bent down to kiss her, feeling the sharp bones of her cheek, the pucker of the scar as it rubbed against his skin. Dinah had caused that. Dinah had dropped something on a glass table, had cut her . . .
Suddenly, she reached up, stroked his cheek. He started back, as if she’d pricked him.
‘I see you’re shaving now,’ said Daphne, removing her hand and leaning back again. ‘Quite grown up, isn’t he, Dinah?’
‘Absolutely,’ said Dinah. Ant stared at his aunt, looking for any reaction, any sign that he might be able to interpret. But her face was immobile, the green eyes fixed on something in the distance.
Why’s she here? he wanted to shout at her. Why’ve you let her come back?
Instead, she avoided his gaze and stood up. ‘Poor Daphne’s come all the way from London. She begged a lift with a chap from the museum but he dropped her at Corfe and she’s had to walk from there.’ She squeezed Ant’s shoulder. ‘We’ll go for that bike ride later,’ she said, brightly. ‘I’ll – well, yes, I’ll go inside and get some tea. Ant dear, tell Daphne how you’re getting on at school.’
‘Oh, do,’ said Daphne, stubbing out her cigarette as Dinah disappeared inside. ‘Tell me all. French? Biology? Everything a young man needs to know all present and correct?’
She was glossier than ever, her white-blonde bob shaped and shiny, her fingernails perfect, glossy, coral-coloured ovals. She didn’t look like someone who’d walked five miles over barrows and down dusty lanes. I don’t believe a word she says. Nothing about her. She smiled at him. The gap in her teeth was like another eye, watching him.
‘It’s all right,’ said Tony. He shrugged. ‘I haven’t thought about school much since I got back.’
‘Oh, there must be some jolly japes you can tell me about, Tony.’ Her gaze raked over him.
He considered telling her about the beatings, the bigger boys and what they did to the smaller boys, the feeling of ice water in the hip baths, the slicing pain of chilblained hands and feet, the sound of sobbing at night . . . the darkness that was as bad as it had been when he was first at Aunt Dinah’s, and how at school he could never tell anyone about it. He hadn’t told Dinah, because he knew there was no point. She wouldn’t listen. So he’d just got used to compartmentalising it, this unhappiness. He certainly wouldn’t tell Daphne. Ant smiled at her again.
‘You keep staring at me,’ she said, picking a piece of tobacco from her teeth. ‘As though I have two heads or something.’
‘No,’ said Ant. ‘You look different, and I can’t quite tell how, forgive me.’
‘Here.’ Daphne beckoned him closer with one finger and, when he was inches away, said it again. ‘Here, I’ll tell you. Come closer. Here . . .’
He came as close as he could. The fresh morning air prickled his skin, deliciously tickling him. He could see the fine golden hairs on her cheek, smell the honeyed, musky scent which she always wore. Her silk shirt was thick, heavy, and he glanced down, and could see the lace edging of her brassiere, the swollen curve of her breast . . .
‘Yes . . .?’ he said, politely. ‘What is it?’
‘A secret, a secret you’ll know about soon,’ said Daphne softly and clearly into his ear, and she laughed, delightedly, and he drew back, trying not to show his disgust, and also his shame, for he was aroused by her.
Gulls cawed triumphantly overhead. Ant sat on the chair as far from her as he could, and looked out to sea. Already he was impatient – it was a treasured day out with his great-aunt, cycling to St Aldhelm’s, talking and thinking, but now he resented it as time when he could be with Julia, could hold her, see her green-blue eyes like the sea, count the freckles that multiplied daily across her nose . . . He felt weak as always at the thought of a whole day to be got through before he could see her again. She loves me. I love her and she loves me.
So they sat in silence until Dinah kicked open the door with one leg and appeared with a tray. ‘Tea! Breakfast is cake, if you want it, Ant dear.’
It was weak tea made from yesterday’s tea leaves and some cake that Mrs Hill had brought over only the other day; she, like so many others, was fond of Dinah, bringing her little gifts of food, or help or encouragement, as though they knew she needed it. ‘Isn’t this nice!’ Dinah said.
‘Oh, just super,’ said Daphne, and Ant saw the look of disdain she shot Dinah, covertly, as she set down the tray.
Dinah led the conversation, brightly telling Daphne about Ant and what they’d done that summer. In fact, she was more animated than he’d seen her in a long time, bright, and chirpy. He noticed she had done something to her hair, washed it perhaps, and it was fastened with clips at the side, instead of hanging around her face. And she was in a relatively clean navy cotton drop-waisted dress, and her lilac velvet kimono; she looked almost smart. She asked Daphne about the museum, about a colleague they’d recently lost fighting in Italy, and about Daphne’s own work.
By contrast Daphne said very little.
‘It’s remarkable how they’ve managed to remove the lion, given the difficulties of the site,’ Dinah was saying. ‘I would love to return to Egypt, one day. And to Syria, if time allows. Do you know what plans for digs, if any, the museum has in that direction?’
Daphne was fiddling with her packet of matches. Ant thought she looked rather impatient. ‘Don’t be silly, Dinah. There’s no digs in Egypt, or Ur, at the moment. Nothing at all.’
Dinah said quite calmly, ‘Oh, but the British retook Baghdad last year. All is in order there now.’
‘Hardly!’
‘Nonetheless, I’m sure I’ll find them.’ Ant was gripped with fear, at her blank tone. ‘That reminds me. There’s something I must attend to.’ She turned around and looked up at the porch door, but did not move, just stared at it.
‘Let’s face it, darling, you’re not going to be allowed to leave—’ Daphne was saying.
‘What does that mean?’ Ant began.
‘And even if you did leave Blighty you’d never manage to make it out to Iraq, Dinah.’ She held up her cup. ‘I say, darling, get me another cup of tea, or whatever that stuff is. And some cake.’
‘She’s not your servant,’ said Ant, furiously, and he felt something snap inside his head. He slammed his hand on the wall; the wooden timbers of the house shook. ‘Honestly, Dinah, why on earth do you let her come down here and—’
Dinah was humming, her hands resting lightly on her knees, and didn’t hear him.
‘Oh, dear me, Ant. Dear, dear Ant,’ said Daphne. ‘You know nothing of the matter. Of any matters. Dinah, darling, keep your boy quiet, will you?’
Still Dinah said nothing.
Ant looked at her. Her eyes were calm, her hands weren’t shaking. But she refilled Daphne’s cup, still humming quietly, and handed her some more cake.
In her melodious voice she said, ‘We must remember Jane Goudge is coming round to collect the last of the jumble for the Summer Bazaar, Ant – you will make sure she knows where the crates are if I’m not here.’
‘Yes,’ said Ant. ‘You’ve told me before. Downstairs in the hall, bric-a-brac first box, toys second box, curios third box.’
‘Wonderful. Now, I’ll go and put my other shoes on, and we can go off on our bike ride.’ She reached over and took down the angel from her resting place above the door. She held it in her hand, looking at it. Daphne sat up a little straighter, and Ant thought she was about to reach out, as though she expected Dinah to hand it to her.
‘Oh, Aunt D, she looks so comfortable there,’ said Ant, impulsively. ‘Don’t take her down.’
‘The truth is the lintel is rather wobbly,’ said Dinah, ignoring Daphne, who was staring at the angel, and Ant heard the sharp intake of breath, like a hiss. ‘And there’s a little chip on the owl which needs looking at, because she fell off a couple of months ago when you were at school.’ She turned to him and said, softly, ‘She’s yours, Ant, but I have to look after her. I’ve never told you this before, Ant: Daphne knows it, but she’s rather valuable. And I’d hate, hate for her to be damaged or to be unloved or not appreciated . . . She’s the heart of this house, isn’t she? Don’t you remember?’
Daphne was staring at her with a most curious expression on her face. A spot of red at the base of her throat was creeping slowly up her neck.
‘Don’t you remember, Ant?’ Dinah repeated, holding the angel out towards him, and then she scratched her nose, pulling her hair away from her face, and her lovely eyes shone at him. ‘I’ll bring her back. Promise. I said she’d look after you, didn’t I?’ Ant was silent. ‘Didn’t I?’ Dinah said, loudly, and he looked into her green eyes, saw her flushed cheeks. ‘She has, hasn’t she? Looked after you, and me? Do you believe me? Do you believe I’ll bring her back?’
Ant nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said, smiling at her. ‘Absolutely.’
He leaned forward and touched the proffered angel, stroked her downward-pointing wings. Dinah kissed his forehead, a brief, brushing kiss.
‘That’s good,’ she said, and she wrapped the angel in her giant Liberty handkerchief and went back inside. At the doorway she paused. ‘I’ll just change my shoes, Ant, and we – we can go. Daphne, perhaps you’ll have to stay here. In case Jane comes for the jumble.’
Her hand rested lightly on his shoulder, a small squeeze. Then she turned and went inside. Moments later the sound of the Home programme on the radio came on, very loud.
‘Bit quieter, please, Dinah dearest,’ Daphne called, but there was no answer. She looked at her watch. ‘I did want to talk to her properly – you won’t be too long on this bike ride, now, will you?’
‘I’d like to be back this afternoon,’ said Ant, thinking of Julia. ‘Around teatime.’
‘Terrific,’ said Daphne, with satisfaction, and she pulled out her sunglasses, and leaned back against the sofa. ‘I shall have a nap. That blasted racket. She’s impossible, your aunt, worse and worse.’
‘Where are you staying now, in London?’ he asked, suddenly. ‘Now Dinah’s flat’s gone.’
‘Oh, different places. Awful bore. Having to beg, all the time.’
‘I know,’ said Ant. ‘But I don’t understand why you don’t have anything of your own.’
‘The truth is, Ant, I’m lazy, and I spend it on things I want. Life’s so awful. I spend it on nice things, and nice meals, and nice clothes and drinks. And I persuade other people to pay for the rest. It’s easy once you’ve worked out how to do it.’ She slid the sunglasses over her eyes. ‘That’s the damned truth for once. Take that figure above the door. She lied to me – said it was a cheap plaster cast. But I’ll have it, eventually. I deserve it.’ She fluffed out her hair, gritting her sharp little teeth, and was silent. Then she said: ‘Listen, I’m absolutely shattered. Do you mind if I close my eyes for forty winks?’
‘Of course not,’ said Ant politely.
He waited a few moments, looking out at the waves, and then he got up and went inside, with the teacups. He turned the radio down, and heard a car on the lane, a crying seagull, a distant conversation. He thought of the bicycle ride ahead, of the time in her company, of the endless blue sky, the promise of Julia’s body that evening . . . Whistling, he changed his shoes too, and used the bathroom, and then sat on the stairs, and it wasn’t until he had waited five minutes or more that he called his aunt’s name, and only when there was no answer did he open her bedroom door.
There was no sign of her. Not in the bathroom, or anywhere in the house. He even looked in the huge wardrobe in his room, where she’d said once someone could simply get lost. And the final few boxes, too – where were they? Where were all her things? Nothing in her room . . . and when, with a sickening feeling of certain dread, Ant looked out on to the lane, her car had gone; only the tracks remained. He followed them up to Beeches, to the road, saw the faint skids as she had turned the corner, nothing more.
There was no note, no message. No sign of the angel, too.She was gone, just as she had whirled into his life three years before, like a sandstorm, conjured up out of nowhere.