INDIFFERENT HEROES Read online

  Angus went on talking as though he had not heard; Irene, flushed, responded rather more vivaciously than was required.

  Ben tried to think of something offensive to say about Hitler; language, however, proved inadequate to this task. The best he could manage was, ‘Hitler is a raving lunatic, and the sooner he is smashed the better.’

  Drummond said smoothly, ‘You’d better do something about it then, hadn’t you, old son.’ He patted Ben’s civilian shoulder and passed on. A few of Drummond’s naval comrades laughed.

  Angus and Irene joined Ben. ‘It never does to take on my father,’ Angus said. ‘He is so utterly sure he is in the right, it makes him quite impregnable. My one hope is that he will step on a live shell – I don’t think he would cope well with dismemberment.’

  Irene glanced at him sharply; and Ben, not for the first time, was taken aback by Angus’s hatred of his father.

  ‘What are you talking about so intently?’ Daphne asked, holding out a plate of olives.

  Angus said, ‘I was predicting that our devil-may-care father will get a VC without a hair of his head being touched.’

  She shook his arm affectionately. ‘Brother dear, you mustn’t be tetchy and spoil our lovely family party. Tell us about your exciting life at the Foreign Office.’

  Angus’s rather sombre face relaxed. He was as handsome as his father when he smiled, and rather more distinguished. ‘That enquiry was nicely timed. The Foreign Office has decided the Army has the greater need of me.’

  Ben thought, the sardonic tone notwithstanding, it was typical of the Drummond male that he should think in terms of there being a particular need of his services. Angus and Daphne moved away to impart the news to their sister, Cecily. Irene sighed. ‘Straight out of Dornford Yates!’

  Ben said, ‘They seem an odd family.’

  ‘Odder than you think.’ She did not elaborate. Before Ben could pursue this, Mrs Drummond came up to them. Fragile and elegant, she was mistily draped in the style of another period.

  ‘You’re Alice, aren’t you?’ she said.

  ‘No. Irene.’

  ‘Ah, yes.’ Her manner suggested it was vulgar to remember names, let alone faces. She talked with a distracted air, flashing distraught glances around the room, as though expecting that at any moment something untoward would occur. She had the look of a superficial person on whom someone has leaned too heavily. ‘You’re in the Wrens, aren’t you?’

  ‘No, that’s Alice. I’m at London University.’

  ‘Oh?’ Mrs Drummond wrinkled her forehead, not sure what might be said of London University. ‘Neither of my girls seems that way inclined. Daphne talks about flying aeroplanes.’ She looked at Ben, apparently expecting him to advise on this extravagance. ‘I can’t think where she gets it from.’

  Irene said, changing the subject, ‘We hear Angus is going into the Army.’

  ‘Angus!’ Mrs Drummond’s voice rose sharply. ‘Oh no, that’s not possible! He’s at the Foreign Office, doing very important work that he can’t even talk about. They would never let him go.’

  ‘I expect I was mistaken,’ Irene said hastily.

  Mrs Drummond looked at her, alerted to the truth by this attempt to retract. ‘It’s very silly of me.’ She made a pathetically inadequate attempt at dignity. ‘Other people’s sons will go.’ She bit on this thought, her eyes closed. It was plain she believed other people had less need of their sons.

  Commander Drummond came and put a glass in her hand. ‘Splendid news about Angus, my dear! I know how proud you must feel.’ His eyes were bright with mirth. It was apparent to Irene and Ben, standing close to him, that it was his wife’s distress which gave rise to this jubilation. ‘We must all drink to this!’ He held his glass aloft and made an announcement in a ringing voice. He might, Ben thought, have been referring to something of real significance – like the United States declaring war.

  Mrs Drummond considered her glass as distastefully as if she had been invited to drink poison. A reasonable alternative occurred to her. She said, ‘No, I shall not drink to it.’

  Her husband stared at her in astonishment – rather as though sone of the maids had made a lewd gesture. He was at a disadvantage, his usual methods of getting his own way not being open to him with a room full of people. He decided to ignore his wife and proposed a toast. While he drank, Mrs Drummond raised her glass high, and poured its contents over his head.

  It was, as Irene remarked to Ben, a fitting end to the evening. Ben had agreed to see her home. Angus had said to him, ‘I dare not leave my mother.’

  As they walked down the drive, Irene looked back at the house. ‘I don’t like to think what is going on in there.’ Her tone suggested she would very much like to know.

  Ben said, ‘I expect they are trying to repair the damage to the King’s uniform!’ Wine stains weren’t in the same category as worn gold braid.

  ‘That will be the least of their problems, I fear.’

  Now, cloaked in the anonymity of darkness, she was prepared to say more. But although he was curious, he was reluctant to take the first step into her knowledge. To defer the moment, he said, ‘I didn’t know you knew Angus so well.’

  ‘Oh, no one knows Angus. He’s fathoms deep, or so he would have one think.’ They walked in silence for a few paces, then she said, ‘What great store we set by knowing, don’t we? I’m sure half the troubles of the world would be solved if we were more ignorant.’

  ‘We’d certainly have a shorter life expectancy.’

  ‘But you’re in the law, not medicine. So ignorance is much more profitable, surely?’

  Her mind leapt ahead of topics. She did not bother to elaborate on her remarks, just assumed her hearer would follow her leaps. Ben thought she was probably highly intelligent. From what he remembered of her at the party, he imagined she was equally highly-strung – a diminutive creature, with big eyes which drowned the small face. In contrast, Daphne had seemed sturdy and down- to-earth. At the moment when he thought of Daphne, Irene’s flow of talk suddenly petered out. They seemed to share a common unease, as though there had been no intervening conversation. He

  said, ‘Even so, being friendly with Angus and Daphne, you must know the Drummond parents quite well.’

  ‘I’ve made it my business not to know them.’

  ‘Why do they stay together if they dislike each other so much?’

  ‘For the sake of the children.’

  ‘He didn’t strike me as the self-sacrificing type.’

  The desire to make her point overrode discretion, and she answered, ‘To be precise, it’s for Daphne that he stays. And I think indulge would be a better word for his activities.’ She surely can’t mean . . . Even as the question formed in his mind, she said, regretting her lapse, ‘Of course, I’m not saying anything has actually happened . . .’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  Neither wanted to continue the conversation. It was a bright, frosty night and they walked quickly, soon reaching Norland Square, where she lived. She said, ‘Come in and have a sandwich. You must be starving – I know I am.’

  He said, ‘Thank you,’ reluctant to be left with his own thoughts.

  As she opened the front door, a voice called, ‘Is that you, Irene?’ The voice was confident, the enquiry more an acknowledgement that the house now had its full complement.

  Irene led Ben into the drawing room. Her parents were seated in easy chairs one on either side of the hearth. An unrecognizable substance, unrelated to coal, was burning, giving out smoke and a smell not unlike manure. Mr and Mrs Kimberley were reading, unperturbed, he the newspaper, she a book. One had the impression that they had been quiet for a long time. Ben could not remember when he had last come into a room where there was such a profound sense of peace. It not being his peace, he immediately felt defensive, as though a statement had been made about his own turbulence. Mr Kimberley looked round the side of his paper, and Mrs Kimberley turned her head, keeping a finger on the page of
the book. The greeting was without effort. Had Ben not been there, nothing else might have passed between the three of them.

  Mr Kimberley, registering the intruder’s presence, smiled, politely uninterested, as Irene made brief introductions. Mrs Kimberley looked at him benevolently over the rim of her spectacles.

  ‘They didn’t feed us,’ Irene said to her mother. ‘I’ll make sandwiches.’ There was a wry exchange of glances between mother and daughter. The housekeeping here was not as efficient as that of the Fairleys – nor, apparently, as important. There was amusement in Mrs Kimberley’s unspoken acknowledgement of deficiency as she followed her daughter into the kitchen.

  Mr Kimberley and Ben were left to make the best of each other. Ben looked up at the mirror over the mantelpiece, which gave him a good view of the room without his seeming to stare. It was a long, uncluttered room, furnished in a style to which he was unaccustomed, elegant, but not ostentatious. The furniture had the appearance of having been used by more than one generation of Kimberleys. Age had darkened the pictures on the walls, giving added obscurity to wild seascapes and craggy moorland. Ben imagined the pictures must be valuable, since, in their dingy state, there seemed little else to commend them. But if the Kimberleys lived well, then they were used to it. Nothing here was on display, or called for comment.

  Mr Kimberley said, ‘We’ve boarded the Altmark. Did you know?’

  Ben realized with surprise how little he had thought about the progress of the war in recent weeks. The Altmark, he recalled, was the auxiliary of the Graf Spee.

  ‘Apparently she had several hundred British merchant seamen prisoner on board. The first they knew of it, was someone crying “The Navy’s here!” ’ Mr Kimberley handed the paper to Ben. ‘Nice for their families; but I’m afraid it won’t do the Norwegians much good.’

  Ben said, ‘You think Hider will invade?’

  ‘Well, of course he will.’ Mr Kimberley was mildly surprised by the fatuity of the remark. Ben bowed his head over the newspaper.

  The sandwiches, when they arrived, had a mashed filling tasting of paraffin. The tea was even more unpleasant. Mr Kimberley, who was watching Ben quizzically, said, ‘Do you like it? It was sent to my assistant by some relatives in South America. It is supposed to have healing properties.’

  ‘I don’t much like it,’ Ben said.

  ‘No, I think I’d prefer not to be healed myself.’

  There was silence while Ben and Irene ate. This was a house of frequent silences which had no need to be broken. For guests, however, it was acknowledged that something different was required. Mrs Kimberley asked, ‘How were the Drummonds?’

  ‘As usual. He is like one of those awful bounders in Buchan.’

  Mr Kimberley said, ‘Sapper, surely?’

  Buchan acceptable, Ben noted. Sapper not.

  Mrs Kimberley said to her husband, ‘Ben is a barrister’ – having put him in possession of this fact, she left him to deal with their guest accordingly. Mr Kimberley mentioned several well-known names. He did not seem to expect Ben to be impressed. Ben found conversation with someone at once well-connected and unconcerned about it rather unnerving, demanding as it did a similar detachment on his part.

  Yet, uncomfortable though he had felt in their presence, when he left the Kimberleys he found that, despite the black-out and the piles of sandbags, the world seemed a saner place. Frost had silvered the pavements and the bitter air took his breath away. He could not keep any line of thought going. Ideas took shape in his mind against which he had no defence. By the time he reached his lodgings, he knew that whatever he might have felt for Daphne, there was no way forward.

  Irene wrote to Alice later that week, ‘I have been out with Angus Drummond once or twice. Nothing serious, just that we found we both like Mozart. He took me to a party at his home the other evening – too much to drink and nothing to eat. I am sorry to tell you, Alice, that Drummond père is now a Lieutenant Commander – aren’t you ashamed of the Navy? It must have been a wangle – he’s quite old. I hope he never comes your way. Could you bring yourself to salute him?

  ‘Angus is going into the Army, doing something rather hush-hush. There is a certain inevitability about people’s lives, I begin to suspect. It is so suitable that Angus, who never gives much of himself away, should be doing secret work. Daphne seemed a bit subdued, I thought. Perhaps she had a cold. She looked what Mother would call “peaky” and too bright about the eyes.

  ‘You will never believe me when I tell you who upstaged the gallant Commander at this scintillating party – Mrs Drummond! I hope I can convey something of the piquancy of that moment when . . .’

  Mrs Drummond’s gesture notwithstanding, the main impression which Alice gained from the letter was that Irene’s social life was more interesting than her own. The mansion in which she was quartered was on the fringe of a small town in Hertfordshire, and the only outing was to the village pub, where the company was not lively. The pub was mainly frequented by Scottish soldiers who drank heavily, all the while subjecting the female company to intense and gloomy scrutiny. At closing time, they lurched towards the females whom they calculated best suited to their purpose. ‘Ye’re a fine lassie,’ one brawny sergeant, pausing in his passage, assured Alice. ‘But there’s nae the time – ye ken?’ He patted her shoulder, and stumbled off into the arms of a neat little ATS corporal with demurely downcast eyes and a face like one of the junior miss models in a Weldon’s pattern book.

  Alice was in the paradoxical situation of wanting to be the sergeant’s choice without wanting the man himself. Obviously she had a lot to learn.

  Conversation in the cabin at night assumed experience of men. Many of the girls were from homes not unlike Alice’s own, and she wondered how they had come by such extensive knowledge. Soon, she realized it had been acquired in the few weeks since they left home. They had discovered themselves to be possessed of gifts which had lain unused, waiting just such a time of freedom. Freedom extended the range of their giving. Only a year ago, their encounters would have been limited to their own kind, but now the field had widened considerably. From being Pat and Jean and John and George, they had become archetypal men and women. The languageof the day favoured principalities and powers. Had not Chamberlain said, ‘It is evil things that we shall be fighting against . . .’? In such circumstances, men who were about the stern business of killing could hardly be expected to observe the niceties of a well-ordered peacetime society. Alice’s companions had adapted to this situation. Ideas of virtue and discretion had been cast aside with the same ease with which they had surrendered their civilian identity cards. Their experiences seemed to have had little adverse effect on them: innocent, wide-eyed, retaining all the freshness of the ‘nice girl’, they recounted with amusement the various attempts to rid them of their virginity. A few even admitted to not being virgins. If this was done with style, it ensured respect. Style was all-important. Girls who went into the first field with a man were regarded as ‘sordid’. West End hotels were not sordid, and had not yet become a joke.

  There were, however, three girls who maintained their virtue at little cost to their popularity. Each had a fiancé to whom she was completely devoted; but in his absence allowed other men to take her out – provided it was understood they were to be ‘just friends’. The ‘just friends’ status won for them treatment of such a superior order – dining at the Berkeley and country house week-ends – that Alice regretted her own refusal to become engaged to Ted Peterson before he joined the Rifle Brigade.

  In answer to a letter from Alice, Irene wrote, ‘No, I’m sorry to disappoint you. But I am not falling for Angus Drummond. I’m not taken in by these reserved men who give the impression of being very deep. Men who are interesting are usually only too pleased to demonstrate the fact. Our relationship is based entirely on Mozart.

  ‘And speaking of men who don’t hide their light under a bushel – did you know that Ben is going out with Daphne? Quite surprising, that . .
.’

  Alice was more than surprised.

  Most of her life she had accepted occupying second place, a not uncomfortable position. In her friendships, she had not been possessive; at home, she had not competed for her parents’ attention, as had Claire. If there was one thing on which she could modestly congratulate herself, it was that hers was not an envious disposition.

  All this changed when she read Irene’s letter. It was not, of course, that she was in love with Ben. It was simply that he was hers; and not only by virtue of their being distantly related. It was she who had struck up a friendship with him when she was staying with her grandparents in Cornwall, and – findings being keepings – he had belonged to her ever since. They had seemed to have an unspoken understanding of each other’s moods and problems. He would sometimes say, ‘Alice is my girl.’ Although this was meant, and accepted, as a jest, it was nevertheless a statement of a particular affection which he made no effort to conceal. He was reputed to have been enamoured of Louise, but he had not treated her with that special warmth he reserved for Alice. She never felt it was something she had to earn: he liked her as she was. This was the most precious thing of all – the feeling that in the eyes of one person at least, she was intrinsically likeable.

  He had had girl friends. But as Alice had never met any of them, she had never been obliged to measure their likeableness against her own. But Daphne was different. Daphne was one of her oldest friends, and that Ben should find something in her that he had not found in Alice was shockingly hurtful. Hitherto, her friends and family had belonged to a charmed company of people interweaving in some mysterious dance. It would never be the same again, now that these two had waltzed away on their own. She realized, what most of her contemporaries had known long ago, that even those whom we love can on occasions be a threat.

  It did not stop with Daphne and Ben, this pain. By their choice of each other, they had excluded her. And Irene, by her very presence at the party, had become a part of this conspiracy. She had seen them together, watched their faces as they looked at each other. Try as she might, Alice could not imagine how Daphne looked at Ben, or Ben at Daphne – but Irene knew. Oh, it was incredibly wounding, this knowing of theirs! She was being left behind in the maturing process. She had never questioned the precise nature of her relationship with Ben – or, indeed, with any other young man of her acquaintance. She had thought they would remain constant until, at some undefined future date, she was ready. The readiness she had seen as happening, rather than as being achieved by any effort of growth on her part.