‘And the petrol?’
‘I’ve got a little stashed away.’
This exchange, on a comfortable grumbling note, had sent Betty to sleep. She lay, her infant on top of her, her long brown arms, long brown legs, extended, her dark hair loose across her face.
Daphne raised herself on an elbow and looked at the charming scene. Tears were not far off. She did want a baby. She had lost one in a miscarriage and now greeted the regular appearance of her monthlies with a feeling that she was a failure: yet they took precautions, or, rather, Joe did: yet they both wanted a baby.
She thought that Betty was the only person among a pretty large circle of acquaintances she could ‘really’ talk to. They knew everything about each other. This happy state of affairs had begun from the moment she, Daphne, had arrived in Cape Town to marry Joe.
Daphne had been an English girl, in an English country town, when handsome Joe Wright arrived to visit a school friend. He was on leave from Simonstown in South Africa. It was I937. They had danced all night at the Summer Ball, and he had swept her off her feet. ‘He swept you off your feet.’ Well, he had. ‘Marry me,’ he said, or commanded, and she followed him on the next Union Castle ship to Cape Town. The Stirling Castle. (Perhaps the same ship that they were expecting now.) There was a fancy wedding. Joe was one of an old Cape family. Daphne, with her narrow experience, could have been overwhelmed, but she was not. The girl who arrived in Cape Town was not the Daphne who had embarked. On board were a group of South African girls returning from good times and trips around Europe. At first she had been shocked, and then envious. They were different in style from English girls, free and easy, loud, assertive, and wearing clothes she had at first thought showy. She had overheard one say to another, about herself, ‘She’s English, you know, baby-blue English. Little Miss Muffet.’
Daphne, a blonde, with blue eyes and a pearly complexion, did wear baby blue a lot. ‘It is your colour.’ She wore charming dresses in crepe de chine with lace collars and little buttons down the front; she wore hats and little white gloves. ‘A lady is known by her gloves.’ Now she knew herself to be insipid and timid.
No sooner had she arrived in Cape Town, than she jettisoned her trousseau and wore strong colours, and her pale gold hair with its little puffs and tendrils became a heavy yellow chignon; her voice loudened and she lost the shy soft ways she had been taught. She bloomed into a Cape Town hostess, gave parties that were written up in the gossip columns and was generally a credit to her husband.
And what did he think about all this? He had fallen for her because of those qualities she had discarded. A refreshing change from the South African girls, he had said, playing with those girlish pale gold wisps, con in lending her English skin and her rosebud mouth which she now kept slashed with red lipstick. In fact she out-did the South African girls who had despised her; she was more daring than they. Joe protested once or twice during the transformation, ‘Come on Dafil Isn’t that overdoing it a bit?’Did he mourn that timid girl-bride? But they were good pals, that’s what he told her and everyone. How could he not be proud of her, overtopping the wives of his fellow officers, for dash, style; and, too, she was funny and brave in everything.
Betty, the South African wife of Captain Henry Stubbs, lived in a house similar to this one, next door, was the same age, twenty-four; the two husbands were the same rank: they were Simonstown wives. That they should have ‘known’ each other had been inevitable, but they became friends. Real friends. Only friends. Best friends.
Daphne lay propped on her elbow watching that friend of hers, lovely Betty Stubbs, lost to the world with her infant spread on top of her, both mysterious in sleep, and she thought, feeling cold and frightened, that she had her good pal Joe and her good pal Betty beside her in this alarming continent, but apart from them she was alone, without them she would be adrift. Alone, far from home and with a war on. ‘Don’t forget, there’s a war on.’ Funny how people liked saying that; no one was likely to forget, were they?
If I had a baby I’d have something of my own, she thought, forlorn and vulnerable and as if she were a bit of flotsam washed up at Cape Town all the way from England. A ‘baby-blue’ English girl with a bold front who had learned to enjoy shocking people. Just a little, just enough.
‘I’m in a mood,’ she thought, lying back, but turning her head so she could see the two faces, the woman’s and the babe’s. She did get moods. When she had her first, and wept and shivered, Betty told her she was homesick and the house girl made her strong coffee and said, ‘Poor medem, you are far from home.’ Yet she thanked her luck daily that she was not in Britain, where they were having such a bad time. Yes, she did miss her mummy and her dada and her little brother but she was now so different from that Daphne who had been a daughter and an elder sister. A young man who had been besotted with her had told her she was like a trembling flower. She had laughed at him, but now she thought, well, trembling flower will do for me today.
‘But I do want a baby, yes, I do, I do,’ and she allowed tears to trickle down and lose themselves in the mass of her chignon. ‘I’m going to talk to Joe again.’ And she, too, fell asleep. When the two young women woke, because the infant had let out a yell, the nanny was bending to take the child, and indicating that a big ship was coming fast towards the shore.
‘There’s the ship, medem,’ said she. ‘So now we can have a nice party.’
As the ship docked, alien in its camouflage, lines of cars were already creeping down the hilly streets towards it. All had been issued with an extra petrol ration, because this cause, giving the British troops a good time, overrode the need to save petrol. Daphne was in her car, and behind her Betty was in hers. Both women were known to the welcoming committees, who trusted them to entertain as many men as hospitality would stretch to. The sad truth was, there were too many men, not enough hostesses, and a lot of women whom normally these Cape Town matrons would not look at were being smiled at today. Somewhere a little band was playing but the bustle and sounds from the ship and the shouting of orders were too much for it.
Joe had telephoned Daphne to say, ‘They’ve had a rotten time, I’m afraid. And a sub nearly got them but they don’t know that. They deserve everything we can give them. Tell Betty her old man’s down with the Welcome Committee. And we’ve got to get a couple of hundred of them into hospital - see what we can do in four days.’ ‘Oh, so it’ll be four days?’ ‘Yes, but don’t spread it abroad. And don’t you get sick, because the hospitals’!! be full. Every spare hospital bed for miles … Don’t expect us home tonight.’
When the soldiers began to descend the gangplank, it was evident they had had a bad time. They were more like invalids than soldiers. They held on to handrails, they stared about, they were gaunt and unwell. The first of them had their hands shaken and had to stand unsteadily at ease while speeches of welcome were made. On they came towards the waiting cars, hesitated, and then, invited by welcoming waves and opening car doors, piled in, as many as could cram. Officers first. Last troopship Daphne had entertained officers, and had told Joe that this time she would take what came. And on they did come, no end to the lines of soldiers, and the ground was clearly unsteady under them; one man actually fell and had to be helped up. Daphne opened her car door to non- commissioned officers, who got in the back, five of them, and then she saw a tall lanky, awkwardly moving soldier who was reaching out his hand as if he wished there was something to hold on to. She opened the door to the seat beside hers, and he turned and blundered towards the car, held on to the door’s edge to steady himself, and collapsed into the seat. He was sweating and pale.
‘It’s been a bit of a rough voyage,’ she heard in a familiar accent from the back seat. That was a West Country
