The Dearest and the Best Read online

  ‘Grandmother,’ admonished Bess. She was ready to leave and began to tap her foot.

  Harry laughed. ‘The other one, I expect,’ he said.

  ‘No, you’re not. I remember. You were the boy always into some trouble. Your brother kept his nose clean. A bit sly, I always thought.’ She pointed accusingly. ‘You were the one in the summer house, I recall.’ She turned the finger on Bess like a gun changing target. Harry felt his face redden. Bess’s mouth tightened.

  ‘Please, grandmother. If you don’t mind, we’ll be on our way.’

  The old lady regarded them steadily, individually. She moved her hands together as though washing them. ‘Well, let’s have no more hanky or panky,’ she warned. She looked darkly at Bess. ‘There’s been enough trouble in London.’

  The girl turned away, annoyed, and made for the door. ‘We must be off,’ she sniffed. ‘I have my key, I’ll let myself in.’ Harry followed her, nervously wishing Mrs Spofforth good night, bowing a little as he went.

  ‘Give my love to your mother and regards to your father, young man,’ she ordered. ‘I saw him at Lampard’s the other day. Heavy going as ever, isn’t he? Can’t think why a nice little woman like your mother ever married him. Still, down here there’s not much choice, I suppose. Good night.’

  ‘Yes . . . good night,’ bowed Harry, backing towards the door. He almost fell over himself trying to get out. Bess was fuming in the hall, glaring at him as if he had abetted the old lady. She pushed past him haughtily as he opened the weighty door. They went around to the front of the house where her car was standing. Harry had arrived on his bicycle which he had rested under the garden hedge. As they passed the window they saw that Mrs Spofforth had donned the gas mask again and was outlined in profile against the pane.

  ‘Old pig,’ snorted Bess. With sudden spite she banged on the window, causing the grotesque half trunk to turn. With difficulty the mask was taken off and the crimson face appeared. ‘They’re coming!’ shouted Bess through the glass. ‘The Germans are coming! They’ll get you!’

  The old lady laughed uproariously and replaced the gas mask. Bess turned furiously, almost dragging the bemused Harry with her. They got into her car and she started the engine which croaked noisily as if it were an extension of her anger. ‘My God,’ she said bitterly, ‘I ought to drive this car straight back to London and to hell with them all.’ She stared accusingly at his blank expression. ‘I hate this bloody place.’

  Bess drove, removed and silent, through the forest, only interrupting her mood to curse and brake as some sauntering wild ponies appeared in the sliver of headlights. Harry dutifully cursed them with her. ‘You don’t have to agree with me,’ she retorted rudely. He slumped lower in the seat.

  They turned off the long street in Lyndhurst and bumped through the arch of the hotel into the former coaching yard. There were a few cars there, four buses which had brought contingents from outlying places, and a muddle of bicycles. They left the car, Bess striding a pace in front of him as they went through the wooden porch at the front of the hotel. Her backside and legs were slender beneath the plaid skirt. He remembered those legs, that dusty day in the summer house. At the door she turned to him and he was faced again with the white blouse, two straps of lace running from the shoulders over her breasts. ‘Do I look passable?’ she asked, more pleasantly.

  ‘Beautiful,’ he replied honestly. ‘I wouldn’t have wanted to come with anyone else.’

  At last she smiled. ‘Liar,’ she said. They walked into the ante-room to the hall which was being used as a bar. He touched her on the fresh blouse, at her waist and asked her what she would like to drink.

  ‘I’ll have a gin and tonic, please, Harry,’ she said. Her eyes were moving about the crowd. ‘The last time you bought me a drink it must have been a bottle of pop,’ she added.

  Harry, pleased and conscious of his naval officer’s uniform among the dusty dinner jackets and the odd patches of khaki and air-force blue, looked around the bar. They knew most of the people. Several of the girls looked at him keenly, their expressions drooping when they saw Bess. ‘It’s a bit like being back at school again, isn’t it,’ he whispered to Bess. ‘Except the boys are in long trousers.’

  ‘And two of the girls are in trouble,’ giggled Bess. ‘Angela Phipps and Teresa Goodridge, see? Paid-up members of the pudding club.’

  ‘They’re both married,’ he pointed out primly.

  ‘They’re still in trouble,’ she said. ‘In my book they are, anyway. God, fancy getting in that state when you’re twenty.’ Harry watched her, fascinated, as she moved a couple of paces to one side and beamed at Angela Phipps, a rosy, always-round girl, now much rounder. ‘Angela, how are you?’ asked Bess. ‘How wonderful, you’re having a baby.’

  ‘October,’ simpered Angela. Her eyes went to the man responsible, a field-faced farmer they all called ‘Dungo’ at school. ‘You remember William, don’t you, of course?’ Bess said she did. ‘Hello, Harry,’ Angela said, half turning away. She hung out a rosy hand which Harry shook gently before exchanging it for the flat paw of William.

  Dungo had grown outwards, but not upwards. His eyes were farming blue, and seemed to be peering into the distance. ‘In the navy, eh,’ he said after gazing long at Harry’s uniform. He let out a humphing laugh. ‘Good job we’ve got an air force, eh?’

  ‘What price glory?’ asked another voice. A flour-skinned young man, his head trapped by his collar, stood beaming through perspiration. At school they had called him Pissington, although his name was Tissington. He was now an agricultural auctioneer. ‘What price glory?’ he repeated as if checking a bid. He tugged at Harry’s sleeve.

  ‘What price farm prices?’ Bess put in quickly. ‘You seem to be getting fat on the war. When are you going to join up?’

  ‘I’m unfit,’ said Tissington with a nervous jerk away from the attack.

  ‘Never!’ she returned, apparently amazed. ‘You, unfit?’

  ‘Can you imagine that we ever grew up with this lot?’ she demanded of Harry as they moved away. ‘Christ, they’re so ghastly. Just look at them – glug, glug, glug, gobble, gobble. Like a turkey house.’ She turned on him sharply. Her breasts touched his jacket and he felt them give. ‘And you should learn to stand up for yourself a bit. Letting that idiot make rude remarks about your being in the navy.’

  ‘Thanks for defending me,’ he said. She had remained close and his knee went out and made contact with her leg. ‘I couldn’t see any point in bothering.’

  They moved to the table, shaking hands with their immediate neighbours and exchanging insignificant comments on days remembered, before grace was said deeply and the company sat down to soup and salmon, roast beef, trifle loaded with fruit and rum, wines and beers. Bess had always been a hearty eater. He recalled how, even at school, she had stolen pieces from his plate and the plates of others. Now she delved into the excellent repast with energy. Her mouth full of fresh salmon, she leaned towards him and mumbled: ‘Grandma was right about greedy farmers, wasn’t she.’

  Ben Bennett and his New Forest Arcadians, an ensemble which had played at social functions in the region for as long as anyone present could recall, took up their place on the rostrum and began to perform tunes to accompany the eating, including ‘Run, Rabbit, Run’, with a solo on a newly purchased saxophone of which Ben, who blew it, was particularly proud. It had been made in Germany, something Ben kept private, and there were unlikely to be any further supplies available until the conclusion of hostilities. During the trifle another sound filtered through the heavy talk and the music, the air-raid siren. Ben thought he heard his Arcadians waver and his long arm went out like a derrick to urge them together.

  The tune staggered to a ragged end. The clatter of cutlery could now be heard over the voices. Ben, shining with effort, reached for the microphone, and announced: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, that, in case you didn’t know, was “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square”, accompanied by the air-raid siren.’ Some
people laughed. ‘If you wish to leave the ’all,’ continued the bandleader, ‘you’re welcome to. But don’t expect your trifle to be there when you get back. It’s probably only another false alarm anyway. Adolf wouldn’t dare bomb Lyndhurst. The Arcadians are carrying on, you’ll be pleased to know, and our next selection is –’

  Another sound was heard in the room at that moment, tuneless whistles blowing. Through the main doors at the far end rushed two air-raid wardens, the letters ARP emblazoned on their basin helmets, so dramatic and furtive that they might have been fugitives. One man’s helmet had fallen forward in his hurry and only his nose and his whistle protruded. They were small men of equal size, like armoured twins. ‘Stop! Stop the orchestra!’ shouted the leading warden, tugging his whistle from his lips like a cork. He replaced it and shrieked a further cautionary blast.

  The band, collectively blinking at the compliment, ceased and the eyes of the eaters were all on the intruders. The first warden pushed his helmet rim back importantly. There were some catcalls and laughter as he was recognized as an ordinary man. ‘It’s old Barney,’ shouted a man. ‘Drunk again!’ Angrily he waved his finger and was about to shout something else when a shattering explosion occurred overhead. The hall windows rattled. Dust shot in clouds from the floor. ‘Take cover!’ howled the warden, providing an instant example by flinging himself beneath the bar. The warning was hardly issued before there was another heavy explosion and then everyone in the room was on the floor, piled on top of each other, calling, crawling towards the flimsy cover of the side tables. The men from the band scuttled below the stage, crammed there curiously like castaways on an inverted raft, Ben Bennett reappearing briefly to rescue his new German saxophone.

  Two more violent bangs followed, close on each other. Harry had pulled Bess below one of the tables and was lying enjoyably close to her. The skin of their cheeks was touching. Hers felt cool.

  ‘Let’s clear out,’ said Bess firmly. ‘I’d rather take my chance outside. This mob will panic.’

  A clattering like heavy rain sounded on the roof above them. ‘Shrapnel,’ said Harry. He held on to her. ‘You’re staying here.’

  ‘Were those bombs?’ she asked. ‘Those bangs?’

  ‘Somebody farting,’ retorted a sad drunken voice nearby.

  ‘Guns, or a gun anyway,’ said Harry. ‘I didn’t know they had an anti-aircraft gun here.’

  ‘Right behind the hotel,’ muttered a man on the other side. ‘It’s only been there three days.’

  As if to confirm its presence the gun exploded again, shaking the building and provoking further clouds of ancient dust from the floor. People choked on the deposits from generations of dancing pumps. Silence followed, a stretched silence, everyone on edge for another spasm. Nothing happened. Eventually Ben, the bandleader, peered out from the short curtain below the rostrum, and sneezed in the dust. Carefully he reached up and put one of the music stands on its feet. His appearance was followed by a sneaking run on the part of the senior warden, the man called Barney, scuttling like a crab across the floor to the doorway. ‘Don’t half smell out there,’ he confided loudly to his following comrade. ‘Gas, I reckon.’

  ‘Gas!’ howled a woman who overheard. ‘Poison gas!’

  ‘Grab the silly cow, Herb,’ ordered Barney brusquely. His colleague slapped a hand across the woman’s mouth and her husband, seizing the opportunity, reinforced the gag with his own palm. Barney looked with fearful eyes out of the door. In the distance the air-raid all-clear signal sounded, the long-tailed wail curling through the night. ‘Everybody, keep calm, please,’ ordered the warden. ‘No rushing to the door. There’s nothing to see. And there’s no danger. Remain where you are until the authorities have checked.’

  His colleague, Herb, stared at him with a mixture of mystery and admiration. ‘The authorities?’ he whispered.

  ‘Us, you bloody fool,’ answered Barney. ‘Us.’

  They disappeared into the acrid street. The moon was sidling through the gunsmoke. Inside the hall everyone but the extra-nervous had straightened up and brushed themselves down. Ben had taken the saxophone to pieces and by blowing was forcing dust and spit from one of its tubes.

  ‘I didn’t hear any aircraft,’ mentioned Harry.

  ‘Nor did I,’ confirmed Bess. ‘Only that deafening damned gun. Can we get out of this place? I’ve had enough of it.’

  They edged towards the door and were almost there when the ARP wardens returned and announced grandly, as if they had personally accomplished it, that everything was indeed all clear. The band re-embarked on ‘Run, Rabbit, Run’ and some diners returned to their abandoned food. Most went to peer cautiously out in the street.

  Everywhere heads were prodding from doors and windows. Gritty smoke remained suspended above the town like a lace curtain across the modest moon.

  ‘It’s they trigger-’appy buggers on that AA gun, I reckon,’ Barney said to Harry as he and Bess reached the open air. ‘They been dyin’ to fire the thing all this week.’ His tone was confiding, one uniformed man, one warrior, to another.

  ‘They must have been firing at something, they must have been given orders,’ pointed out Harry.

  Like a croaking spectre an upright policeman on a bicycle materialized through the fumes in the street. Around his neck he had suspended a notice board. He braked adjacent to the group outside the hall and producing a torch shone it with mute importance on the notice which said: ‘All Clear. Raider Passed.’

  There was scarcely time to digest this reassurance when the anti-aircraft gun behind the hotel fired again, a violent bang and a flash like white lightning. Everyone tumbled back into the hall, including the policeman who leapt smartly from his machine and let it and the false tidings of the notice fall to the ground. As if in shock he began to blow furiously on his whistle. Because of the crush in the porch he could only just get under cover and even then had to make additional room for his head by pushing backwards with his rump. He held his steel helmet forward over his forehead, whistle still shrieking below its rim, as the hot shrapnel clattered about them.

  ‘Bloody fine all clear that was,’ suggested a voice in the crush. ‘Stop whistling will you!’

  ‘’T’wasn’t my fault,’ moaned the policeman. ‘I heard the all clear and as far as I’m concerned it means all clear. It’s those madmen with the gun.’

  They began cautiously, though prepared for another explosion, to pick themselves up. Harry helped Bess to her feet. Her face was puffed with anger. The policeman shone his torch on them and seeing the uniform came to a fierce attention and salute. ‘Good evening, sir.’

  Harry’s surprised response was curtailed by the howling of every dog and wailing of every cat in Lyndhurst, suddenly as if secretly arranged between themselves. The chorus issued from the gardens, alleys and backways of the town and from the overcast houses. It was joined, at once, by an echoing drubbing. The crowd in the hall doorway watched, fixed, as the cause of the sound came up the street, a flying herd of ponies, one galloping in the lead.

  ‘A zebra,’ breathed a voice in disbelief. ‘It’s a zebra.’

  ‘Ponies,’ corrected the policeman officially from the crowd. ‘Striped.’

  They were. Forest ponies painted in luminous stripes, half a dozen following the leader. The policeman embarked officially into the road, followed by the wardens with a deference indicating that the horses were outside their orbit of action. The animals wheeled and reared, neighing belligerently. One, backing on to the pavement, kicked out, viciously smashing the window of a greengrocery shop. Apples and potatoes rolled into the street. At that moment another round was fired by the anti-aircraft gun, a blinding flash and report that sent the humans stumbling back into the porch, falling on top of each other. The panicked ponies turned and snorted back the way they had come. Shrapnel again showered the street, old tiles slid from roofs, dogs and cats began to howl again. ‘Barmy bastards, what do they think they’re shooting at?’ sobbed the policeman. When h
e thought it was safe he gazed up at the sky. ‘There’s nothing up there!’ he bawled. ‘Not a bloody sausage!’

  A suspicious silence settled on the little town. The animal howls diminished to a few cat calls. People regained their feet. The street was occupied only by wandering smoke. ‘Everybody stay under cover,’ ordered the policeman. ‘It’s no use taking risks with these lunatics. I’ll try and make my way over there.’

  There was a murmur of approval at his forthcoming bravery. He stood up and squared his helmet followed by his shoulders. His foray was rendered unnecessary, however, by the casual appearance of an army car, a camouflaged Austin that groped along the street like a hedgehog and stopped sedately in front of the crowd at the hall door. A buoyant army officer pushed his moustached face from the window and called: ‘Everybody hunky-dory?’

  Nobody was capable of framing an adequate answer. One of the ARP wardens nudged the policeman who, after some hesitation, trudged the few paces out into the road, giving it the aspect of a considerable journey. Patently looking to the sky and once more adjusting his helmet he said: ‘We was under the impression, sir, that the all clear had sounded.’

  ‘Good deduction, officer,’ grinned the young man behind the moustache. ‘Operational mistake, that’s all.’

  ‘What was it you was shooting at, sir? An owl perhaps?’

  ‘No, constable,’ returned the officer, apparently seriously considering the possibility. ‘Barrage balloon, we now think.’

  ‘Barrage balloon?’ asked someone in the crowd. ‘I thought they were on our side.’

  ‘Adrift,’ smiled the officer, unruffled. ‘Broke adrift. Danger to aircraft. Good night all.’ He threw up a half wave, half salute, and the car rolled on.