Two Silver Crosses, page 21
Still, he told himself cheerfully, if he hurried, he could be there and back before lunchtime — and still have two whole days before he had to catch the boat train.
Unfortunately, his interpreter was in a meeting which went on for so long that it was mid-afternoon before he finally obtained the money. By the time he got back to Amiens it was too late to meet the two girls when they came out of work. It was a disappointment, but he would just have to make the most of Tuesday and Wednesday.
On Tuesday morning, he found the newspaper office and paid for the advertisement, issuing careful instructions (with the help of his phrase book), that it was to be printed in the personal column of the weekend editions and all enquiries were to be sent to Hedgethorn and Crabbit. Then, and at last, he was free to go down to the old town and find the place where Jeannie worked. After so much time and effort, he felt he’d earned the right to see her again.
She didn’t even look at him. Veronique did, and was very happy to accept his invitation to lunch. It was a difficult meal because Charlie couldn’t understand half the things she was chattering about, and he was thinking about Jeannie all the time.
Afterwards, he walked her back to the factory, hoping to meet up with Jeannie there. But there was no sign of her.
‘Tomorrow,’ he said in careful French, ‘we dine again?’
‘Mais oui.’
‘You and your friend Jeannie? If you please.’
She was disappointed and showed it but promised to pass on his invitation.
‘He’s very handsome,’ she said to Ginny, when they were both back at work and Monsieur Guerin was out of earshot, ‘but he isn’t interested in me. It’s you he wants.’
‘That’s nonsense.’
‘No. It’s true. He talks about you all the time and now he wants you to have lunch with him tomorrow.’
‘I told you he was an idiot,’ Ginny said. Even so, there was something about the young man’s persistence that was rather flattering.
‘Shall you go?’
‘I might. I’ll think about it.’
She didn’t think about it at all. But when they stopped work that evening and put on their hats and coats, she saw the idiot anglais standing by the gate.
‘I was wondering whether we might not have coffee again tonight,’ he said as they came face to face.
‘I’m going to the cinema,’ she said.
His face fell so visibly she felt sorry for him despite herself. ‘We could all meet up at the café afterwards, if you’d like,’ she said. That was kind and it wouldn’t commit her to anything.
So they met at the café. This time she allowed him to talk to her and discovered that he had a sense of humour, which surprised her.
‘Tomorrow?’ he hoped as they parted. ‘It’s my last day. I go back to London tomorrow evening.’
‘All right, then,’ she said. There’d be no risk in it. If he was going back to England, she wouldn’t be likely to see him again afterwards.
So on that warm Wednesday afternoon, Charlie Commoner had lunch with his bewitching girl. Their conversation was exploratory and happy but guarded. They told one another about their lives; about Monsieur Guerin and his velvets and Mr Crabbit and his cigars, about London and Amiens and the boredom of paperwork. He was careful not to say anything about his mission, in order to keep his promise to Mr Hedgethorn, and she was careful to conceal her English origins to keep her promise to Maman. They got on so well that, by the end of the meal, Ginny had revised her original opinion of him, and Charlie was so happy he felt light-headed.
He knew he would have to travel back overnight and wasn’t at all sure whether he’d have time to get to Clapham first thing in the morning to change into his office clothes for work, but he didn’t care. He was in France, and he was in love, and so full of hope and apprehension that everything else in his life seemed insignificant by contrast.
Chapter 14
Oh, the pain of being parted from your very first love! Nothing is so exquisite, so unendurable, so all-absorbing.
On that fateful Wednesday, Charlie Commoner and Ken Hopkirk travelled back to England on the same overnight boat. This time they didn’t meet up with one another. They didn’t even see one another. Neither of them was aware of anything except their thoughts.
They stood by the rail, one to port and one to starboard, and gazed out to sea, seeing nothing. The Channel was calm and so inky black that the sky looked denim blue by comparison and the moon was a yellow magnet shimmering a pathway of white light across the water. But what was that to them? Charlie was reliving the trials and delights of the past three days, remembering Jeannie’s beautiful eyes, her wild springy hair and the delicious smell of her skin when he’d danced with her, and aching with anguish because he didn’t know whether she was interested in him or not and the boat was taking him in the wrong direction.
Ken was doing complicated mental arithmetic.
When he left his workshop fourteen days ago — was it really only fourteen days? — he had just completed the design of an entirely new gas meter. At the time, he’d been pleased by his skill and calculated that the gas boards might be interested in what he was doing. Now, he was determined that they shouldn’t just be interested, they should buy his design and commission his workforce to produce it in large quantities. He would badger them until they did. He’d write every day, he’d have a telephone installed and phone them constantly, he’d haunt their offices, work all hours, do anything. If the design needed adapting, he’d adapt it. If capital had to be raised, he’d raise it. In a year’s time he needed to have enough money to buy a bungalow near the factory where he and his darling Emily could live — it had to be a bungalow so that Emily wouldn’t have to manage stairs. It should have a garden he could fill with scented flowers for her to smell, and a bird-table to encourage the birds for her, and a hammock so that she could sit in the sun. In a year’s time.
As soon as the boat train sighed in to Victoria Station, Ken set off at a brisk pace for the Underground to South Wimbledon, and the work that had to be done. There was no point in going back to his flat to change his clothes. The sooner he got started the better. If he hurried, he could get in half an hour’s peaceful effort before the machines were started up.
If his workmen were surprised to see him wearing plus fours, they were far too wary of his temper to say so. It was normal for Mr Hopkirk to be in the drawing office by the time they arrived and being the boss he could wear whatever he fancied. Later, he would emerge to check how the work was going, and tell them how he’d fared in France, like he usually did. But this morning the boss didn’t stop and soon there was a stack of letters by his elbow.
‘Dear Sir,’ his pen scratched over and over again.
‘You will be interested to know…’ You may not think it yet, but you will be interested.
Charlie Commoner had to go straight from the train to his office, too. But to a rather different reception.
Mr Hedgethorn’s eyebrows rose into curves of grey amazement at the sight of him. ‘My dear young man!’ he said. ‘What is the meaning of this outlandish attire?’
His disapproval was so marked that Charlie was reduced to stuttering. It brought him down to earth and made him realise that, despite the excitement of the last four days, his mission had actually been a failure. He did his best to explain and tried hard not to blush. Fortunately, after a few stumbling seconds, he was rescued by the arrival of Mr Crabbit, all cigar smoke, flapping raincoat and booming cheerfulness.
‘Not to worry,’ he said, when Charlie had apologised to them all for his travelling clothes and told them about the imposters, confessing his failure to find anyone else. ‘Good work never gets done in a rush. We’ll find ’em in the end. I’ve got a hunch about it. Now if I were you, young shaver, I’d cut off home and get changed. Back after lunch. That would suit, wouldn’t it, Mr Hedgethorn?’
The young shaver cut off at once, but his sense of failure travelled home alongside him. He couldn’t help feeling that he hadn’t behaved at all well while he was in France. He had never checked back with the maison de la presse after putting in the advertisement, neither had he gone back to Le Temps. Mrs Everdale would be waiting to hear about his progress, and he couldn’t tell her anything. I’ll write to her anyway, he decided, as his tube train pulled out of Stockwell station. But it was Jeannie he really wanted to write to.
Oh Jeannie, Jeannie! he thought. I love you. I know I love you. How can I bear to be in England and not see you? And it seemed to him that everything around him was dull and grey and covered in dust; platform, escalator, pavements, plane trees, privet hedges, everything.
He was sighing as he slid his key into the lock at Abbeville Road. It was all too miserable for words.
Grandpa Jones was hobbling down the stairs, puffing and grunting, his body turned sideways to ease his descent. ‘Oh, you’ve come ’ome ’ave yer,’ he said. ‘You won’t like it back ’ere, I can tell you.’ His eyes were smaller than Charlie remembered, narrowed into red-rimmed slits of rheumy bad temper, and his jowls bristled with at least three days’ unshaven stubble; harsh, grey, dirty-looking stubble.
‘Hello Grandpa,’ Charlie said. ‘See you’re still the handsomest man in the street.’
‘You don’t wanna be so quick,’ Grandpa scowled. ‘It’s all very well you standin’ there grinning. You won’t grin so much when I tell you what’s been goin’ on.’
Oh lord, Charlie thought. He’s in a mood. Better let him get it off his chest. He’ll only belly-ache about it otherwise. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘What’s been going on?’
‘She’s moved in. That’s what. While you was away. Merry hell we’ve ’ad.’
‘Who’s moved in?’
‘That Grace. Who d’yer think? There y’are. That’s wiped the smile off a’ yer face. Knew it would. Took over the front room she ’as, bloody woman.’
She can’t have, Charlie thought. Dad wouldn’t let her. ‘Where’s Mum?’ he asked.
The old man had reached the bottom of the stairs. ‘Out shopping,’ he said. ‘The pair of ’em. She’ll get the pick a the meat come dinnertime, you bet yer life. I shan’t get a look in, you mark my words, an’ nor will you. I dunno what the world’s coming to.’
Since there was evidence of Aunt Grace’s occupation in every room in the house except the kitchen, it felt as though it had been stood on its head. Their nice tidy parlour was now an untidy bedsitter, crammed with her unfamiliar furniture and littered with her discarded clothes. The cupboard under the stairs was stuffed with travelling cases and cardboard boxes labelled Grace Allicott. Even the bathroom was affected. It now sported two new shelves on the wall, both crammed with her medicines; Carter’s Little Liver Pills, Milk of Magnesia, syrup of figs, a bottle of Sanatogen, Vick’s Vapour Rub, lozenges and embrocations and two blue eye baths.
Why two? Charlie shuddered, looking at them and imagining her with a bath to each eye like a pirate with two patches. Or was one for those awful false teeth of hers? Her towels were spread flamboyantly along the side of the bath and her scented soap had pride of place on the soap dish. He used it to wash his hands. Even a small revenge is sweet when your territory has been occupied by a foreign power.
But it was when he walked into his bedroom that he felt most upset. It was full of furniture from the front room that had obviously been thrown out to make way for hers. A heavy chest of drawers bulged in one corner, two chairs jostled edge to edge in another, and the chiffonier was wedged beside his bed, still full of curios and old calendars and presents from Brighton and Margate and Weston super Mare.
How am I supposed to get into bed? he thought, assessing the crush. There isn’t room to swing a cat. There was barely room to change his clothes, and it was impossible to hang his holiday jacket in the wardrobe because the door would only open about six inches before it was wedged against the side of the bed.
While he was still struggling to unpack, Mum and Aunt Grace came in through the front door.
‘That you, Charlie?’ Mum called up the stairs.
‘No,’ he called back crossly. ‘It’s a contortionist.’
‘What?’
He walked to the turn of the stairs and looked down at his mother. ‘What’ve you done to my bedroom?’
‘Oh,’ she said, looking sheepish. ‘I was going to tell you. Sort of break it to you.’
Aunt Grace started to flirt with him. ‘Oh, come on, sweetie,’ she wheedled, ‘you don’t mind a few bits a’ furniture, do yer, not fer yer old Aunty?’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘as it happens, I do.’
Aunt Grace wasn’t in the least abashed. ‘Naughty!’ she said, and taking firm hold of Mum’s elbow she skipped off into the kitchen.
Charlie returned to the Strand considerably earlier than he’d planned. Grandpa Jones was right. He didn’t like it a bit back home.
That evening he took himself off to his room after supper and sat on the edge of the bed to write a long, impassioned love letter, in which he remembered the celebration in the square and the evenings in the café, recalled his feelings when he was waiting outside Monsieur Guerin’s factory, and enthused about how marvellous their meal together had been.
I know I have no right to write to you like this, he confessed, but it is the truth and I have to say it. I love you. I loved you the first moment I set eyes on you and each time after that I loved you more and more. Being back in England hasn’t made me forget you. I just love you more than ever. I miss you every minute of the day. I can’t bear to think of what the night will be like knowing I can’t see you tomorrow. This evening has been absolutely lousy. It is absolutely lousy all the time without you. I don’t want to be here. I want to be in France with you even if you walk away from me and refuse to speak. I shall come back to Amiens just as soon as I can save up the fare.
Please write back and say I may write to you again unless there is someone else you love, or you are engaged, or something like that. Then I shall understand, and I won’t write again, although I shall always love you.
Always,
Charlie Commoner.
In his spartan bedsit in Merton, Ken Hopkirk was writing his last letter of the day, with only the wireless for company. The letter was as sober as he could make it because he was mindful of the fact that it would have to be read aloud to his darling and so someone else would hear it.
My dear Emily, he wrote.
Calm crossing. Good weather. No problems. Factory in good order.
I have sent out letters to all the local gas companies offering them the new meter I told you about. If all goes according to plan, I could put them into production in approximately two months and be in full production before Christmas.
I shall begin house-hunting as soon as I have amassed enough capital. I think a bungalow would be the best, all on one floor with no necessity for stairs. What do you think? I should value your opinion. It would have a garden, naturally, and a bird-table to encourage the songbirds. A hammock, too, but I might have to wait until the summer for that. Nevertheless, you will be pleased to know plans are all in hand. I am determined to succeed. The events of the last fortnight have made me determined.
I would be grateful if you could write back fairly soon. I often think of Versailles and the way the fountains played and the frogs spewed water out of their mouths to make a bower for the goddess. If I were a frog, I would make a bower for my goddess.
With very best wishes from your friend and admirer,
Kenneth Hopkirk.
PS I should perhaps mention that it is only fair to tell you that I am ugly enough to be a frog. KPH.
Please write soon, he urged his beloved as he sealed the envelope. Please write very, very soon.
He would have been surprised to know that, at that very moment, down in the hold of the cross-channel ferry among the freight and the bicycles and an awkwardness of mailbags, a postcard from Emily was already on its way to England.
On that awful Wednesday afternoon when she’d said goodbye to her dear Ken and he’d handed her gently back into Mauricette’s care, his lips so soft kissing her goodbye, Emily had stood beside her friend in the noise and stench of the Gare du Nord and listened to the gathering speed of the train that was taking him away from her — and wept with loss.
‘I miss him so much,’ she cried, as Mauricette led her to the Métro. ‘You can’t imagine how much. Oh, Mauricette, perhaps I should never have met him. Do you think I should never have met him? We’ve had such a very short time together. Hardly any time at all. A few days. Not even a fortnight. So little. Perhaps Maman was right. She said…’ But no, she thought, stopping herself just in time, that wasn’t something she could tell Mauricette. Being unhappy was making her careless. ‘Oh why does he have to be English?’ she wailed, fingering her cross for comfort. ‘If he was French, he wouldn’t be going away. We were so happy, Mauricette. And now he’s gone. Shall I ever see him again?’
‘Of course you will, ma cherie,’ Mauricette comforted. ‘He promised to write, n’est-cepas? He promised to return. Very well then. He will write. He will return. You will see him again. Dry your eyes and hold on to my arm. We are going down the stairs.’
‘If I knew where to address the letter, I could write to him,’ Emily wept. ‘You’d write for me, wouldn’t you, Mauricette?’
‘Of course,’ Mauricette said. ‘You know I would. But let me tell you it’s better for a woman to wait for her lover to write to her first. I wrote to Gérard, right at the very beginning when we first met and between you and me, I’m sure that’s why he keeps me at arm’s length now. You wait for your Englishman to write to you, Emilie, and then write back. That’s much the best way. Here’s our train.’
But Emily was in an unsettled mood that afternoon and her thoughts were never far away from the letter she wanted to write.
