The Parrot Cage, page 12
‘I suppose so,’ said Gerry slowly, stubbing her half-smoked cigarette out in the ashtray. ‘And I quite see that you’d never go behind his back … So why have you told me?’
Eynsham smiled kindly at her through a cloud of smoke.
‘Because Mike’s behaviour was hurting you. Because I think he needs the kind of help a girl like you could give him. Because I trust your discretion. I think that about wraps it up.’
‘Thank you, Antoine. My discretion sometimes gets a little threadbare, but I’ll stick to it …’
‘Yes, do. Peter can be … unpleasant when he’s angry.’
So you love him, too, thought Gerry as she looked at the homely face and gentle brown eyes of the American academic. Eynsham
wondered why she suddenly blushed.
Chapter Nine
On Thursday evening as Gerry was getting ready to leave the office Suvarov looked up from his papers.
‘Don’t forget to bring your bag in tomorrow morning – as it’s an official car we oughtn’t to make a detour to pick it up, and I don’t suppose Ming could carry hers as well as yours.’
‘You mean … you want me to come as well?’ said Gerry as though in a daze.
His lined face seemed somehow smoothed as his mouth twisted into a kind of smile and his long dark eyes narrowed at the corners.
‘I can’t do without my assistant, Gerry. I know it means working on Sunday, but it’s important. Bob’s my only contact with the Americans, and we need to know what they’re up to with Vichy.’
‘But they’re not part of the war,’ said Gerry, forgetting for a welcome moment all the tricky tangle of feelings and constraints that seemed to absorb so much of her energy in those days.
‘Not yet, but it can’t be long now. But Gerry, would you mind staying at Evelyn’s? It’s going to be hard work and I shall need you where I can get at you quickly. You don’t mind not staying with your mother?’
At that she laughed.
‘If you knew how much of my girlhood I spent wishing that I lived with the Adamsons! It’s such a gorgeous house; and it’s so easy to be there, no fuss.’
‘Yes, it’s strange how Bob has taught Evelyn to mellow.’ It was so unlike Suvarov to gossip that Gerry could not think how to answer him and so she just waited. ‘She used to be so – so tense and spiky.’ Another pause followed, which Gerry eventually felt she had to break.
‘Was that in Russia?’ Suvarov came to with a bump.
‘That’s right, but I mustn’t waste any more time. Off with you.’
She stood by the door looking back at him, his silvered dark head outlined by the small circle of light from his small brass reading lamp. She pulled at her courage.
‘Peter, I’ve some more steak in the flat. Would you like to dine later?’
‘Gerry, that is kind, but I mustn’t. There is just too much to be done. Good night.’
It was dismissal. She obeyed, feeling stupid and wishing that she had never invited him. Obviously the friendly warmth of the one evening they had spent, when he had been relaxed enough to fall asleep in her chair, was to be ignored, forgotten. Acknowledging Andrew’s legitimate claims on her, she told herself that that was just as well as she put her head round the analysts’door to wave to the few who were still working. But it would have been easier to keep her husband at the front of her mind if he were not so far away. And it would be easier to think of him with more of the old love if she could only straighten out with him the real reasons for his refusal to let her join the WRNS. Her work in RE(1)R was much more congenial to her than what she had heard of life in the lower echelons of the women’s services, but that was not the point, and try as she might she could not get rid of a nasty taste in her mouth whenever she thought of Andrew’s apparent selfishness, in spite of the fact that she missed him more and more each week.
When she reached her flat she ignored the steaks in favour of looking through her clothes to decide what would be most suitable for the weekend. Trying to choose between the practicality of trousers, which she knew that Evelyn did not mind, and a more conventional country coat and skirt she had had made before the war from pale greenish-blue tweed, it occurred to her that she had not spent so much time on such things for months. Perhaps it was when her mother had been buying her trousseau that she had last cared about clothes as anything more than providers of warmth and comfort. Andrew’s lack of interest in any aspect of her appearance except tidiness and convention had started to kill off her own pleasure in the things she wore and then the miscarriage and long, dismal convalescence had completed the process.
She tried on the trousers but, deciding that they really were not very becoming, put on the tweed skirt instead. Its pre-war pleats hung well and swung luxuriously as she turned in front of the long looking-glass Anna Kingsley had lent her. But if she wore the jacket, most of the effect would be lost. Rummaging in her bottom drawer, she came up with a soft cashmere jersey in an unusual petrol colour. She pulled it on over her ecru crêpe-de-chine petticoat and smoothed it over her waist and slim hips. That was much better. That would do.
Getting back into the clothes she had worn all day in the office, she went up to see Ming, who was staying with Anna Kingsley in the empty flat on the first floor, which Jeremy Oldridge had persuaded her to rent until she decided what she was going to do about a new house.
Suvarov wanted to leave London by three the following afternoon, in order to get most of the way to Gloucestershire before dark, and the journey was the usual mixture of frustration and boredom. At one moment Ming said in her quiet voice, which seemed to have become even thinner and gentler since the bomb:
‘I thought people weren’t supposed to go on journeys if they didn’t have to, but this is just as bad as pre-war Fridays.’
‘You’re quite right, Ming,’ answered Suvarov seriously, ‘but nothing will stop them while they have the petrol. Once it’s rationed all this will be over.’
‘Are they going to ration it?’ asked Gerry.
‘Think, Gerry,’ he said in a voice quite different from the one he used to speak to Ming, ‘they’ll have to; and more categories of food and clothes and everything else. I don’t know how many tons of shipping have been lost so far, but it must run into tens – even hundreds – of thousands. It is just not going to be possible to supply this population with all its imported luxuries at the pre-war levels.’
‘You sound quite abrasive, Peter. Do you have something against “this population”?’ Gerry could hear a certain acerbity in her own voice, but could not suppress it as she thought of the analysts’ discussion of his political preferences.
‘No, of course not, but a lot of people do not seem to understand that there’s a war on.’
‘I think everyone in London must,’ said Ming and the other two were silent.
After nearly three and a half hours the blunt-nosed black car turned into the short drive of the Alderbrooks’house. Gerry opened the car door as though to get out, but Suvarov put a hand on her arm.
‘It’s all right, Gerry, I’ll take Ming in. You just stay here.’
She sank back against the worn leather of the seat, wondering how he had known just how much she dreaded going into the house, and grateful that he should bother about her feelings, particularly after their small, mainly unspoken disagreement. Even she had not expected the tightening lurch of dismay as she saw the house lit up by the car’s half-shuttered headlights; the ugliness of its proportions, the atmosphere of disapproval and striving she felt she could almost touch made her shudder. She lay back against the seat and closed her eyes, waiting for Suvarov to come back and take her to that other house, where everything was simple and where the atmosphere was of luxurious untidiness and un-threatened tolerance.
He spent nearly a quarter of an hour with her mother, but when he came back into the car all he said was:
‘Well that’s that. I think Ming was pleased to be back. She hugged your mother, anyway.’
‘Isn’t it odd? The younger two never seemed to have quite the problems Flixe and I had. They don’t mind going back.’
‘Did you at their age?’
‘I can’t really remember. I thought I did, but perhaps my memory’s faulty. Now, tell me who it is we’re meeting this weekend?’
He shook his head and looked at the strong back of the official chauffeur. Gerry winced at her indiscretion and tried to cover it, speaking in a chatty, social tone:
‘Evelyn always has such interesting guests.’
‘Yes, doesn’t she? I’ll never forget that day when you arrived in your breeches and muddy boots,’ he contributed. ‘I had never seen anyone so tense melt as you did that day. I asked Bob all about you, you know.’
‘Did you, Peter? And what did he tell you?’
‘Oh, lots of things, but the one that interested me most was when he said that you were the brightest thing he’d met in England and the most wasted.’
‘He did? Golly, I wonder where he got that idea,’ said Gerry, embarrassed as she had never yet been in his company. ‘I hope you haven’t been too dreadfully disappointed.’ She felt Suvarov’s thin hand on her wrist, just above her brown leather glove.
‘Gerry, you have never disappointed me.’
The car turned into the drive of the Adamsons’house then, and Gerry concentrated on the way the stone lions lit up in the swinging swathe of light, hoping that that might curb her confusion. But she could feel that she was still blushing as she preceded Peter into the hall. There was no one there and from behind her he called out:
‘Evelyn, duschinka, we’re here.’
‘Oh, Piotr,’ called her voice from upstairs. Then Gerry saw her at the top of the broad, shallow stairs. She came running down to fling her arms around Suvarov’s neck. ‘“Duschinka”! I haven’t heard you say that for years. How are you?’
‘Fine. Tired, though. We both are.’ Evelyn stepped back and held out her hands to Gerry.
‘I’m sure you are. Come on up, Gerry; dinner’s not for an hour so you’ll have a chance to rest a while. Peter, what about your driver?’
‘Don’t worry, Eve. He’s going on to Stroud. He’ll pick us up again on Sunday afternoon. I’ll see you later, Gerry.’
She turned from the second stair to smile at him and did not see Evelyn’s shrewd brown eyes narrowing as she looked at them both. She did not comment but insisted on carrying Gerry’s small suitcase upstairs.
‘Gerry, I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve had to put you right upstairs. Since you know the house and all the others don’t it seemed more sensible.’
‘Yes of course – anyway I love those rooms with their windows in the roof. Please don’t worry. Evelyn …’ Then she stopped.
‘Yes. Is something bothering you? I mean something apart from Annie? Gerry, I was so sorry when I heard the news.’ Gerry turned impulsively and Evelyn noticed how the girl had recovered most of the prettiness she had lost during her illness, despite the recent tragedy.
‘Heavens no. It’s just that: Annie, and what the dreadful business has done to Ming. And missing Andrew; being a bit lonely in London. It’s so wonderful to be here. There’s so much I want to ask you, when we have time I mean, and it is such bliss not to have to … I mean to be able to be here without worrying about what my parents think.’
‘Get along with you,’ said her hostess comfortably. ‘Now, here you are.’
‘Lovely. Thank you so much, Evelyn.’
‘Dinner at eight. We’re not dressing, but I’ll probably change into a short frock.’
‘Right. I’ll be down.’
As the white-painted door clicked behind Evelyn, Gerry began to unpack her few clothes and hang up the skirts and frocks in the wardrobe. Something had happened, she was not sure what it was – or what it meant – but for the moment she had been released from her sadness about Annie. It was not that she no longer mourned her sister, or that she could forget what had happened, but that she had been able to put it into a different compartment of her mind. The sense of release brought a smile to her lips, and a kind of luxurious laziness to her movements. She realised that she could not rest and decided to take up some of the hour before dinner by having a bath.
The bathroom, which had been shared by the maids in the days when the Adamsons still had maids, was plain and rather bleak, but the hot tap let out a gush of nearly boiling water and Gerry could ignore the chipped enamel of the bath and the plain yellowed walls in the face of such glorious abundance. For the past months she had had to make do with shallow, tepid baths in her basement flat, and so she let herself fill the bath tub unpatriotically full and then lay in the hot water luxuriating in the sense of ease it brought her – and the comfort.
Suddenly she stretched her arms out above her head and rubbed her hot cheek against the wetness of her shoulder. All her muscles seemed to have been unlocked and she felt freed of something she had not known existed, as though she had been at the end of a chain, not knowing that if she could only uncouple it she would be free to move outside the circle of which it was the radius. Her head tipped back against the hard enamel rim of the bath and she felt the water lapping at the back of her hair. It would damage the set, but she could not care.
Gerry lay there in the bath until the skin of her hands and toes began to ripple and pucker, and the water felt cold when she moved. It took huge resolution to make herself stand up and feel the blast of cold air on her newly sensitive skin, but she did it and quickly huddled in one of the thick, soft towels Evelyn had provided. Then she rubbed herself until the friction made her skin glow all over again before she put on her underclothes. Feeling the silk of her petticoat falling down round her body was an extraordinary sensation and she shivered suddenly and hurried back to her bedroom to dress.
She had brought only one informal dress and quickly pulled it over her head and zipped it up before rolling on her stockings and shoving her feet into a pair of plain court shoes. Then she stood in front of the room’s only mirror to deal with her face and hair. The violet colour of the wool frock made her eyes seem a much darker blue than usual, and accentuated the fairness of her hair. She began to regret that she had allowed the back of it to get wet as she tried to brush it into shape, not seeing how much more becoming the slight waywardness was than its usual sleek lines. But there was nothing to be done and, seeing how late it was, she flung the brush on to the bed and went downstairs.
Evelyn was standing in front of the hall fire, a glass of sherry in her hand, talking to a tall, dark-suited man, while Suvarov and Bob Adamson were standing with another stranger by the table with the drinks tray. For a moment no one turned as Gerry started down the last flight of stairs and she wondered what she should say, or whether she should just slide as quietly as possible to Evelyn’s side. Then Suvarov turned, while she was still four or five steps from the bottom. He stood there just looking at her and then very deliberately smiled and raised his glass as though in a toast. Gerry smiled back and walked down the last few stairs and crossed the hall to his side.
‘Gerry, it is good to see you. And looking so well.’ It was Robert Adamson’s voice that broke whatever spell was holding them silent and she turned to him from Suvarov.
‘Thank you, Bob. It is wonderful to be here.’
‘London’s a bit rough, I imagine.’
She nodded, and to her shame felt tears swimming into her eyes at the memory of Annie’s body, filthy, tumbled on the wet black road in front of the ruins of her godmother’s house. Bob gripped her hand and in a quite ordinary voice said:
‘Gerry, you must let me introduce you to an old friend of mine from Washington, George Hillier. George, this is Mrs Gerry Kyrle.’
He was a youngish man, dressed in a dark suit of such extreme smoothness that Gerry was surprised. Neither Bob Adamson nor Tony Eynsham ever wore such elegantly cut clothes and she had unconsciously assumed that their comfortable informality was shared by all Americans. This unknown denizen of Washington’s political circles was quite different. His mouse-coloured hair was cut very short and lay in impeccable order against his well-shaped head. Only his lively dark eyes betrayed the fact that hidden behind the elegant façade was a man of individual character – and perhaps humour.
‘How do you do?’ said Gerry, politely, holding out her hand. The young American took it firmly in a warm, dry clasp.
‘Fine. It’s good to be over here again.’
‘You’ve visited England before the war, then?’
‘Oh, yes, I’ve spent some time in Cambridge.’
‘Really? When was that? I was due to go up in ’35.’
‘Yes, I was there then, off and on. What happened to stop you going there?’
‘Oh, this and that … My father disapproved of women’s education,’ Gerry said.
‘That’s tough,’ he said. ‘You ought to meet Bill; he had a tyrannical parent too. Hey, Bill, come and meet Mrs Kyrle.’
The other stranger, who was both older and far more ordinary looking, obediently deserted his hostess and strolled over to be introduced as Bill Ramsden. The three of them chatted easily together until Evelyn interrupted them.
‘I think we ought to go in now if the rabbit is not to spoil.’
It was exactly like Evelyn, Gerry thought, to announce that she was feeding these clearly rather distinguished visitors on the humble, despised animal instead of bringing it in disguised as chicken as Mrs Alderbrook would have done.
‘Evelyn, would you like me to help bring things?’ Gerry asked.
‘That’s all right, Gerry, I’d rather you took the others in. You and me at the ends and the men between. You take Bob and Peter; I’ll have the other two.’ She did not miss Gerry’s sudden pleasure and as she went to the kitchen began to rehearse, a little grimly, what she might be able to say to her.
