The HOPEFUL TRAVELLER Read online

  Kerren walked from Abercrombie Terrace to Oxford Circus station, watching the dawn dusting the roofs of the buildings with pink, smelling the wet grass in the park, covered with ground mist thick as cotton wool. She passed only a policeman as she walked by the side of the park. Along Oxford Street the pulse was beginning to beat slowly; she saw a post office van, a road sweeper, in a side road someone put out a milk bottle with a note in it. London was a village at this hour.

  The Elephant and Castle was a rude shock. They crossed a big junction with wide roads narrowing away from it. There were tall grey buildings with sad, vacant spaces between. The buildings all had an institutional look. There was nothing green, nothing living, except the weeds straggling over the bomb sites. It was all brick and concrete festooned with overhead wires, like a child’s meccano set blown up to nightmare proportions.

  ‘Do people live here?’ Kerren asked looking round her. It was so arid, surely not a place where human beings could take root?

  ‘I suppose they must. Those would be rooms over those shops there,’ Mrs. Bishop answered. She spoke as though it was possible that some totally different existence took place here; she had lived all her life in West London and this was foreign territory to her.

  They came to the side street where the shop was situated. A small queue had already formed, there were several women with the outlines of curlers showing through headscarves and a couple with curlers and no headscarves. They all seemed to know each other and were talking and laughing among themselves. The woman in front of Kerren laughed a lot revealing teeth like tombstones interspersed with dark gaps. If these women were deprived, they did not seem aware of it. There was a gusto about their exchanges which Kerren liked and which her companions found distasteful. Kerren wanted very much to know where they lived but it was impossible to get into conversation with them; they were a tight- knit group, not interested in outsiders. Kerren made a resolution to spend some of her evenings and week-ends getting round London, meeting people and finding out something about their lives. She decided that, since it was going to take so long to become a borough librarian, she would try journalism instead.

  It was chilly and they had a long time to wait. They decided to take it in turns to walk around. Kerren and Mrs. Bishop went first and soon found a stall where lorry drivers were drinking coffee and tea.

  ‘Just the place!’ Kerren pulled the reluctant Mrs. Bishop towards the stall. The stall owner served them rather dubiously; Mrs. Bishop was dubious, too – they both knew their place in the social structure. While Mrs. Bishop drank her coffee looking genteelly remote, Kerren engaged a lorry driver in conversation. The stall was in the middle of a heap of rubble and the driver told her, ‘There were nine people buried under here. They never got them out.’

  ‘When are they going to do something about all this?’ she wondered, looking at the rubble.

  ‘Do something? Them!’

  And suddenly it was another man’s voice that she heard. ‘What are they supposed to do? Stand around wringing their hands?’

  She and Peter had been walking through the streets of Plymouth. She had said, ‘In Ireland . . .’ and he had taken her up impatiently, ‘In a few years’ time this rubble will be cleared away; in Ireland it would remain like this until the end of time.’

  Everything had irritated him.

  It all came back to her with a sickening lurch of the heart. The tears came, as they had not then. If only she had understood as she did now, the unbearable tension, the constant pressure on the nerves that was wearing away his courage and self-respect. She felt that if the clock could be turned back, she could resolve it all; she would know exactly what to say and do. Why did one learn so much, so late? She put the cup down on the counter, her hands shaking. Peter was dead and here was she, queueing for black market nylons! She turned and walked away. Mrs. Bishop called after her, but she took no notice. She went on walking through the strange, featureless streets until she came at last, quite by chance, to Waterloo station.

  ‘My dear!’ Mrs. Bishop recounted later. ‘I didn’t know what to do.’ She conveyed vividly the horror of being left stranded in the wilds of South London. ‘I didn’t get her any nylons.’ No one blamed her for that.

  Chapter Eight

  ‘. . . And so I have this lovely flat . . .’ Robin put Kerren’s letter aside and turned to Jan’s again. It was rather formal and his convoluted writing and poor command of English made it difficult to read; nevertheless she was excited by it. She read through sentences such as ‘We have excellent cook but meat is not good’ with a racing pulse.

  Terence was crying. Through the half-open door she could see Clyde walking up and down the landing with the baby humped on his shoulder. He thumped Terence’s back and Terence burped encouragingly. Robin put the letter back in Kerren’s envelope and slipped it in her dressing-table drawer. She took a thin string of pearls from her jewel case and bowed her head as she adjusted the clasp at the back of her neck. Clyde came to the door with Terence.

  ‘That’s my favourite jumper,’ he said. ‘Green suits you so well.’

  ‘I put it on especially for you.’ She got up and kissed him, then laid her head against his shoulder because she did not want to look him in the eyes. Terence’s fingers clawed at the pearls. Robin’s shoulders stiffened and Clyde said at once, ‘He won’t hurt them.’ There was a tension between the three of them, they were constantly poised on the edge of a situation where Terence, or Robin, or both of them, would cry. Robin wondered whether this was a part of the closeness of family life to which people referred so glowingly or whether they were peculiarly unfortunate. Clyde was prising the baby’s fingers apart with expert firmness; he released the pearls and Robin stepped back. Terence began to cry again. Clyde said, ‘He wants you.’ It wasn’t true and they both knew it, but Robin stretched out her arms for the baby. As soon as she took him up he began to pull her hair, his lower lip thrust out determinedly. Motherhood was a never-ending torment; why no one had ever pointed this out she did not know. If you stayed awake at night with insomnia people were sorry for you, but if the baby waked you from a sound slumber night after night they laughed. Terence had a cry like rending calico.

  ‘I think he wants changing,’ Clyde said. ‘Let me do it, you have him all the week.’ He pretended that they competed for these chores.

  Robin handed Terence back. ‘I think he can go out, it’s quite mild. Will you put him down when you’ve changed him? I’ll pour you a drink.’

  She felt a need to be nice to Clyde now that Jan’s letter was lying in her drawer.

  Clyde went down the stairs. Over his shoulder Terence looked up at her, his eyes alert as he worked out his next demand. Babies were not nearly such helpless creatures as she had imagined, they had the most primitive sense of their needs and were astonishingly well-equipped with the means to achieve them. She had discovered, too, that Terence was remarkably intuitive; he might as yet have little intellectual power, but his physical responses were highly developed. Every time she took him to her breast she knew that he sensed her repugnance and immediately he reacted by asserting his rights greedily. Breast feeding, she had been told, was supposed to give a woman a deep satisfaction. Neither she, nor Terence, had appeared to benefit from it. He reacted violently to the faintest tension or irritation on her part. His strong, clutching hands clawed at her, buffeted her, his face swayed around in front of her, blowing itself up with fury like a gigantic frog. There was no peace, no concealment; she might deceive others, but she betrayed herself completely to Terence. Perhaps when he was older they would adapt to each other. She hoped that by then she would not have done him any irreparable harm; all the psychiatrists stressed the importance of the first few years.

  She put a comb through her hair and tidied her clothes. Her face was thin and strained; physical demands told on her. She should never have married, the occasional affair was her limit, emotionally and physically. She heard Clyde go through to the front of the house; w
hen he had opened the front door she went down to the lounge. She poured drinks, whisky and dry ginger for Clyde, gin and tonic for herself. She walked to the window. The sun was out, but there was a hint of rain in the air; a gentle, liquid light filled the garden. The house was on the outskirts of Cheltenham and there was a wood to the right. The bare branches brushed the pale lemon sky; there was no movement, it was very peaceful. She sat down and eased the tension in the back of her neck by moving her head from side to side. How much she loved this one hour on Sunday morning when they sat over their drinks and no one disturbed them! It was the one ritual that they had built up together and at these times she thought that things might work out eventually. It was easier to be hopeful now that there was Jan in the background. This did not make sense, but it was a fact, nevertheless; it made her feel less trapped.

  Clyde was adjusting the hood of the pram and making faces at Terence as he did so. Clyde had put on a lot of weight. He was pear-shaped and he had a face like a rubber ball. She had heard that some people put on weight when they are unhappy. She picked up her glass; it was beautifully cool, frosting a little. She would not drink until he joined her; it was pleasant to sit and wait. She thought about Clyde as she watched him through the window. It was not only that he was putting on weight. He talked a lot, words gushed out like the froth on a glass of beer; and he never remained still. When his family came for the evening, or if a friend dropped in, and he was expected to sit in the lounge, she could see his eyes searching the room for some task to perform. When they were on their own, he moved about all the time, doing odd jobs here and there, rushing to make an unnecessary telephone call, darting into the hall because he thought he had heard a sound from Terence, endlessly searching for his pipe, his tobacco pouch, a match, an ashtray. He seemed to do this unconsciously and he did not appear to be nervy; he was just consumingly active. And talkative. He was developing into the jolly fat man without any apparent sign of playing a part; it was a natural protection, like a creature growing a heavy coat in the winter.

  There was a knock on the window. The baby had done something amusing and Clyde was miming so that she could join in the joke, his arms thrashing about like the sails of a windmill. She laughed and he seemed satisfied. He moved away from the window, leaving a misty patch on the pane which reminded her that the windows needed cleaning. Clyde shut the front door and came into the room saying:

  ‘He’s very active this morning, toys all round the garden!’

  He picked up his drink and stretched out on the couch, making a welt across the carpet with his feet. Through the window they could see the pram hood bobbing up and down like a ship riding a heavy gale. They laughed.

  ‘He’s incredibly strong,’ Robin murmured.

  She felt a sense of wonder at all that furious energy emanating from something so tiny. She could imagine the fat legs jerking and twisting beneath the strait-jacket of blankets, the bunched fists making indecipherable gestures to the sky. When she wheeled him out he would look up at the sky, the trees, the birds, and his arms would thrash about as though he was conducting nature’s orchestra. She loved him then; she would lean over the pram rail and they would laugh delightedly at each other. Clyde said, ‘He’s changing every day now.’

  She answered, reading his thoughts, ‘He won’t walk or anything world-shattering by next week-end.’

  Clyde was having a golfing weekend. She was pleased about this as she felt it was something which could be credited to her account, a week-end in London to be claimed in lieu.

  ‘I don’t know that I ought to go,’ he said.

  ‘Nonsense! I think it’s good for a man to do some things on his own.’

  ‘Not this one! You wouldn’t like to come, too?’

  ‘With Terence!’

  ‘Mother would look after him.’

  ‘I can’t make use of your mother too often. Besides, there’s a lot I can get on with while you’re away.’

  She was a competent housewife, so he accepted this. But it was the nights alone for which she longed. Clyde did not make the mistake of asking whether she would miss him.

  ‘What do you do on these occasions?’ she asked. ‘I mean in the evening when you’re not knocking that little ball around.’

  ‘Drink in the clubhouse.’ He did not enjoy that sort of thing, but it helped in his work.

  ‘Do clients talk about their affairs when they’re playing?’

  ‘God forbid!’

  ‘And when they’re drinking?’

  ‘Not if I can prevent them.’

  ‘They just feel more secure knowing that their solicitor plays golf and downs his whisky with the best of them?’

  He smiled uneasily and looked out of the window. He thought she was getting at him, but in fact she accepted this aspect of his work; she had been brought up in this atmosphere and her period of rebellion against it had passed. She got up and took his glass.

  ‘Well, it’s better than having to drink endless cups of tea like the vicar.’ She poured more whisky and brought the glass across to him. ‘And golf is good for you, it will get your weight down.’ I sound as though I’ve been married a hundred years, she thought. On an impulse she bent forward and kissed him lightly on the forehead.

  ‘What was that for?’ he asked.

  ‘For being you. Does there have to be any other reason?’

  He grinned as though he had been given a present and pulled her on to his lap. She was a little apprehensive of what might come next, but he picked up his drink and sipped it, one arm lightly round her waist. It didn’t take much to make him happy.

  ‘How is Kerren?’ he asked. ‘I see you had a letter from her yesterday.’

  Robin lay back against his shoulder and looked up at the ceiling; she hoped the movement had concealed the very slight start she had given. He often asked about Kerren because he realized that in some way that he could not understand she was important to Robin.

  ‘Kerren now has a flat at the top of a Georgian house. She acquired it through Adam Grieve, who was our Met. officer at Holly Green. She is lyrical about the flat, it is Heaven off the Bayswater Road. Adam himself seems to have been rather a disappointment to her.’

  ‘You must go and inspect this flat.’

  ‘Oh, sometime . . .’

  She eased off his lap on to the settee, but kept her hand in his. Measuring out happiness in coffee spoons.

  ‘We could go up for Easter?’ he suggested.

  ‘I don’t fancy London at Easter.’

  She did not want to visit London with Clyde, but there was some truth in her remark nevertheless; Easter had always seemed to her a particularly lovely time of the year in the country.

  ‘Perhaps we could go to the Cotswolds,’ she suggested. ‘And I could have a short week-end with Kerren sometime later.’

  ‘What a marvellous idea!’ He was immensely glad to do something that would please her. He would work hard on it from now on. ‘What about Broadway?’

  ‘Anywhere in the Cotswolds. I don’t mind . . .’ Having agreed in principle she would have preferred to be spared the detail. ‘You don’t like Stow, do you? You always say it’s cold.’

  ‘Yes, it is cold.’

  ‘And you said you thought Moreton-in-the-Marsh was rather dreary.’

  ‘It was lousy with RAF types. It may be better now.’

  ‘I don’t think there’s a hotel at Lower Slaughter, otherwise that would be the place, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘It would indeed!’

  ‘Is Burford too much on the edge of the Cotswolds?’

  ‘There’s a couple of good hotels there . . .’

  ‘And nothing much at Chipping Campden . . .’

  ‘Darling, I leave it to you. I’m not fussy.’

  ‘But we must get the right place. Moreton’s a good centre, of course . . .’

  Robin got up and went across the room to pick up her drink. She finished it quickly and mixed another. In a day or so she would regret ever having mention
ed the Cotswolds. Clyde was talking about Bourton-on-the-Water. It was nearly one o’clock; their quiet hour had run out. She said:

  ‘I’ll go and put the vegetables on.’

  ‘I’ve been smelling something nice for some time. What is it?’

  ‘A tiny shrivelled piece of lamb, saved especially for me so the butcher assured me.’

  ‘I can hardly wait.’

  ‘You’ll have to wait until the First Sitting has been served.’ She had been adamant in her refusal to eat at the same time as Terence; Clyde might enjoy the sight of regurgitated food, but she did not.

  ‘I’ll feed him.’ He was longing to get moving again.

  ‘No!’ She had to demonstrate her motherliness from time to time. ‘You sit here and rest.’

  It was agony for both of them, caught in their respective traps. Perhaps things would be easier if she allowed him to take over at week-ends. Their families would say that she was lazy, but did that matter if they were both happier? Unfortunately, yes. She was not one to flout convention; if her marriage broke up it would be largely because she had tried to be a good wife and mother.

  Chapter Nine

  Cath was helping to organize a boys’ camp at Easter. She suggested that Kerren might like to join her but Kerren replied that she had had enough of camp life over the last three years.

  ‘Some of these boys have never seen a green field,’ Cath reproved.