“You hated the office, didn’t you?” Eve said. He had been a misfit from the moment he had come into the room, a big, burly boy who could not move without knocking something over. It was a comment on civilization, she reflected, that it had taken a war to settle him into his right place.
“Well, who wouldn’t? It was just a live grave.”
Eve offered him the final cake. She could not explain that to her the office was a haven, a place where she could grow, the first freedom that she had ever known. Rural life was delightful if you enjoyed growing peas and feeding chickens as her sisters did; but from the time that she could remember, she, herself, had liked cities. She loved the lamps coming out at dusk in peacetime, the sky that hung above the shops as if it were an orchid hung between blocks of buried masonry. It was less lonely here in a single room than in the crowded farm house with her sisters moving backwards and forwards with apples and knitting and chicken food, chattering and grumbling, “It’s so selfish of you, Eve, to read when we want to talk.” Joe was a kind boy but he was like her family; there were things in life that he would never understand.
Mary collected the cups with a great clatter from a table that two customers had just left. She wished she could persuade Cook to come to the Underground with her. Old Tippett disapproved of the least bit of fun. They had games in the big shelter and you could meet nice friends, like the boy at Miss Eve’s table who was stuffing himself with muffins. Cook was stupidly afraid of the extra walk in the blackout, but it was not so difficult as she complained, if you had a torch.
“There are lots of opportunities now,” Joe continued eagerly. “One fellow who had been an apprentice told me that we were learning more in a month than he had in a year. Things are moving so fast; why, they are flying speeds as routine that we thought were impossible, and it’s come to stay. Do you know,” he went on, in a sudden burst of confidence, “most of the time since I joined up I’ve been doing the things I really enjoy.” He was only afraid that Fate might snatch him from machinery again, and he wanted to be sure that he would have oil on his hands and the rhythm of an engine in his ears as long as he lived. That and food. “Do you think,” he asked, looking at the table, “they would let us have another plate of cake?”
Horatio looked up angrily at Mary as she passed his table with a second dish of gingerbread and scones. It was strictly against the regulations, but Miss Tippett, for some reason or another, was still upstairs. Didn’t that boy know that there was a war on? The young seemed to have no sense of responsibility these days. Why did a girl like Eve waste her time with a lout who could not even talk to her; for nobody could call that muttering between mouthfuls conversation? People who spoke about living on memories were fools. Just to recall the Sunday evenings when he had moved among his pupils, speaking of art, was to know that he was just as capable of enjoyment today as he had been twenty years ago. It was opportunity—and money—that were lacking. What a calendar he could paint of Eve just as she was sitting now, her cheeks like berries in October’s hedges; but he had nothing to offer her, he could not even, until Agatha wrote, invite her to a cup of tea. Yet she needed him to talk to her. “There are aspects of life,” he would say, “that I hope, my dear, you will never know, but is it wise, do you think, to sit in a public place with that boy you brought in the other afternoon? Would your mother approve of him? Oh, I have nothing against the young fellow, and of course times have changed since I was young, but he was so obviously not … not …” what could he say, Eve only laughed if he used the word class, “… one of us. We should set our standards high, Eve, very high; and believe me, then we shall never disappoint ourselves.” Horatio finished the last morsel of the solitary cake that he dared permit himself until at least some of the arrears he owed Miss Tippett had been settled; and then, leaning back in his chair, he scowled at Joe’s neck.
Eve wondered desperately how to start another conversation. Boys naturally were enthusiastic about football, but it was hard to think of a phrase that would start Joe talking about it. They ought to have gone to a gayer place; the faded chintz cushions and the blackout curtains made the room seem dingier than it was. It was
