Joe shook his head. “In some ways, you know, I’ll be glad to get back.” Camp life was more vivid. He did love Mother and Dad, but they seemed to talk only of ailments and old age; there was nothing in his own life that they really cared about at all. Home was stiff, he did not know what to say to them, it was all so different from the rough, warm, joking comradeship of his unit. Even Eve was aloof, though girls of course were difficult and he liked her calmness and her voice. “Well,” he added, glancing up at the clock, “I suppose it’s time to get cracking.” It fussed his mother if he were out when the sirens went. “They have supper so early at home,” he added, to excuse himself.
Eve tried to smooth things over. “Your mother gets tired, I expect, and likes her evenings by the fire. My aunt is just the same, the one I used to tell you about, she always eats at six.”
“A nice place.” Joe got into his overcoat and gave Beowulf a mock salute. Eve felt relieved as she stopped to pay the bill; she had been wondering all the time if they ought not to have gone to the West End. “They do their best with the cakes.” It must have been the eleventh time that she had made the same remark. She pulled her scarf up to her ears and wished she were one of the people who always knew the right thing to say.
There was just enough light to see the pavement, but the sky was dark, it was a black violet with slits and tatters of a lighter colour visible between the chimney pots; a beautiful night for those who could forget the cold, but Eve looked up, missing the lamps. “Don’t you wait in this wind,” Joe said, as they turned the corner; “and next time,” he added boldly, “you come out with me.” By a stroke of good fortune the bus he took stopped just in front of them.
“Here’s some cigarettes.” Eve thrust a packet into his hand. “I’ll write.”
“Take my advice, get into the Army, and thanks awfully for the tea.” He jumped onto the step. Everybody wanted to be home, and the conductor pushed the bell impatiently. Eve waved, but the splinter-net and the blackout over the windows hid the passengers as the bus rumbled off into the gathering darkness.
9
BEOWULF STOOD AS smugly in the recess that had once been a fireplace as if he had been its sentinel since the Warming Pan had opened. The painted muzzle might be lifelike at a distance, but to Horatio, sitting in the neighbouring corner, the jaws were those of a distorted monster, grinning at him from a cavern, symbol of the times and people rushing towards their own destruction. What an unfortunate day it had been, beginning with Dobbie’s rudeness! He could have eaten, too, at least one dish of scones for his tea; these alerts surprisingly made one hungry. He shivered, for there was a draught, but he was not going upstairs yet, though Mary, he knew, wanted to chase him away. “I’m waiting for the post,” he called, as she passed him, collecting the spoons and sorting them into a baize-lined wicker tray. “Don’t bother about me.”
“O.K., sir,” Mary said, switching off all the lights except the one in the centre near the front door, “but do you think the postman will come? It’s awfully late.”
“I’m in no hurry.” It was really worrying that Agatha had not written; a fussy, bad-tempered woman, Horatio thought, remembering how he had once caught her laughing at his sketches. It was petty, but the only time she had sent him even a Christmas card had been that year when his England’s Pride had been in every stationer’s window. He thought affectionately of the drawing, a clipper off Southampton Water with a hint of one of those sunsets he loved so much in the clouds behind the sails.
The door opened but it was not the postman, it was Eve. Horatio looked up in surprise, for a second door led to the staircase without the occupants of the house having to enter the shop. “I popped in to see if Miss Tippett was downstairs,” she explained. “I wanted to ask her if she could spare me a cake occasionally to send to Joe.”
“And who is Joe, if it is not presumptuous to ask?”
“Joe?” Eve’s voice could not have been more indifferent. “He’s the boy who used to work in our office.”
“Times change, Miss Eve, times change. I venture to think not for the better. My sisters would never have allowed themselves to be seen in a public place with a complete stranger.”
“Joe isn’t a stranger, Mr. Rashleigh,” Eve laughed. “We worked together at the same table for over a year.” Old people were tiresome, they made everything so complicated; how could you make them understand casual office meetings and partings? Don’t worry, she wanted to say, looking down at Horatio’s white, thin hair. Joe isn’t my boy friend, he doesn’t care for anything except food and football. So direct a statement would shock the old fellow profoundly, and he looked so sad. “Did you have a very bad time last night?”
“I tried to conquer the torture of it all by making envelopes to save buying them, but who could work in such a fiendish din? At last there came a glorious silence, and I fairly sank into my armchair in which I rarely sit because I love my art too much, and Miss Tippett came in with a nice, hot cup of tea.”
“Oh, that was where Selina was! I missed her from the shelter.”
“It seemed to put
