Ultimate Prizes. Susan Howatch
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DO NOT TRAVEL. I at once felt guiltily that we should have stayed at home after all.
To my dismay I discovered that in a new burst of austerity the restaurant car had been withdrawn from the train, but fortunately Grace – perfect as always – had foreseen this danger and packed a picnic basket. The children alleviated the tedium of the journey by guzzling biscuits which for some reason were one of the few foods still in plentiful supply.
I mention these details of life on the Home Front not merely to underline the essential dreariness of the war, punctuated as it was for us by the almost inconceivable horror of random murder by travel guide, but to show that I was living in an atmosphere of austerity and repression which drove better men than I to seek refuge in the insanity of a grand passion. I’m not offering an excuse for myself, and I’m certainly not suggesting my madness had its origins in a two-ounce sweet ration and a shortage of bread, but when deprived in one area of life human beings tend to compensate themselves in another, and if a fully accurate picture of my crisis is to be drawn, an explanation of my insanity must include the drab stress of existence on the Home Front.
A clergyman with a wife and five children can seldom afford the luxury of taking his family on holiday to a hotel, and even when the children were fewer in number I had found it less awkward as well as more economical to rent a neat, clean, spacious cottage near Woolacombe in Devon for our annual sojourn by the sea. I had discovered this idyllic retreat while exploring the advertising columns of the Church Gazette, and when in May I had embarked on a search there for a cottage in the Lake District, it had never occurred to me that I might not repeat my earlier success. Having spotted an advertisement which lyrically described an appropriate haven for my large family I had written without a second thought to the owner to secure a booking.
When we eventually arrived at this idyllic retreat after an exhausting journey on an erratic train, a bone-jolting excursion in a decrepit bus and a muddy walk up a lonely lane, I realized in rather less than three seconds that I had brought my family to a rural slum. The key lay under the front doormat, just as the landlord had promised, but no other facility matched my expectations. Fortunately, since it was summer, the evening was light; the prospect of being obliged to master oil lamps and an old-fashioned kitchen range was bad enough, but in the dark it would have been intolerable. I can never understand why people become dewy-eyed and sentimental about the past. Life without gas, electricity and decent plumbing must have been one long unromantic round of time-consuming inconvenience.
Primrose, stupefied by tiredness, began to wail that she was hungry. Christian, after a speedy reconnaissance, reported: ‘There appears to be no lavatory. Shall I start digging a hole in the garden?’ Grace said: ‘I think I have a migraine coming on,’ and sank down on the nearest chair. Sandy, who had been asleep in her arms, was woken by this abrupt manœuvre; he promptly started to scream. James said: ‘I don’t want to go to the lavatory in the garden,’ and Norman commented gloomily: ‘I wish we were in Devon.’ Setting down the heavy suitcases which I had been carrying, I dredged up my last ounce of strength, tossed off a quick prayer for divine support and prepared to perform any miracle not contrary to the laws of physics.
Grace was ordered to lie down on the moth-eaten material which covered the sofa. Christian was dispatched to make a second attempt to find something which resembled a lavatory. Norman and James were sent upstairs to make the beds. Primrose was given an apple, left over from our picnic lunch, and put in charge of Sandy. In the picnic-basket I also found a half-eaten roll which I stuffed into Sandy’s mouth to keep him quiet. Then having assembled some logs from a pile which I found outside the back door I lit the kitchen range with the aid of an old newspaper which I found on the filthy floor of the larder. As I morosely watched the feeble smouldering of the logs I tried not to remember that a mere week ago I had been dining in the height of luxury at Starmouth Court.
‘I’ll make some tea,’ said Grace, struggling nobly from the sofa.
‘No, you stay exactly where you are.’ I filled the kettle, found the ration we had brought with us and unearthed a teapot from a cupboard which stank. Meanwhile Christian had returned to report the existence of a privy and Norman was shouting from upstairs that there were no sheets but plenty of blankets. We appeared to be making progress.
‘Take the suitcases upstairs and start unpacking,’ I said to Christian. ‘Do Sandy’s first.’
‘That infant smells as bad as the privy,’ remarked Christian, who was fastidious.
‘Why do you think I told you to unpack his bag first? We need a clean nappy.’ I had taken a plate from the dresser and was now busy extracting some spam from a large tin.
‘I’ll find the nappy,’ said Grace, making a new effort to struggle to her feet.
Sandy started to roar again.
‘I simply can’t understand,’ observed Christian languidly, ‘why infanticide isn’t more common.’
‘What’s infanticide?’ said Primrose as Christian and Grace trailed away upstairs together.
‘Baby-killing, my love.’ I opened two large cans of baked beans just as the kettle showed signs that it might one day come to the boil. Sandy was still roaring but when I gave him a baked bean he spat it out. Turning back to the table I found that the spam was being investigated by a mouse. Without thinking I snarled: ‘Bugger off, you bally blighter!’ – a response which avoided blasphemy (just) but was hardly a fitting exclamation for a clergyman. In a paroxysm of rage I hurled a spoon, but the animal merely frisked down the table-leg and scampered to safety across the floor. Primrose screamed. Sandy stopped crying and immediately began to chant: ‘Bugger, bugger, bugger!’ with zest. (Why is it that small children have such an unfailing talent for picking up bad language?) Seconds later Christian, Norman and James, all waving nappies, clattered down the stairs to inform me that Grace had had to rest again as she was feeling faint.
‘Well, don’t just stand there waving nappies as if they were Union Jacks! Get some cotton wool and the talcum powder – and some lavatory paper might be useful too, if one can judge by the smell –’
‘There isn’t any lavatory paper,’ said Christian.
‘Nonsense, there must be.’
‘I don’t feel very hungry,’ said Norman, eyeing the spam. ‘This conversation’s putting me off my food.’
‘Rubbish – stop being so feeble!’ I said with a robust good humour which bordered on the saintly. ‘Is that the spirit which built the Empire?’
‘Daddy,’ said Primrose, ‘I think the mouse went to the lavatory on the table.’
‘Bugger, bugger, bugger!’ shouted Sandy.
‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ said Norman, bolting for the back door.
‘Who taught Sandy to say bugger?’ demanded Christian in delight as he searched the kitchen cupboards for lavatory paper.
‘Daddy, did you hear me? I said: “I think the mouse – ”’
‘Yes, my love. Pass me that rag hanging by the sink, please.’
‘Neville.’ Looking up I saw Grace, white as a winding-sheet, in the doorway. She was carrying the cotton wool and the talcum powder. ‘I’ll change Sandy.’
‘Very well,’ I said, deciding that this was the moment when I would be ungrateful if I continued to refuse my wife’s noble offers of help, ‘but afterwards you’re to go straight to bed – and let’s hope there are no bedbugs.’
‘I simply can’t understand how the Church Gazette could have allowed –’
‘It’s not the fault of the Church Gazette. One can’t expect them to inspect all the properties they advertise. The fault was mine for not immediately realizing that “old-world charm” meant “no modern conveniences”.’
‘Gaudeamus igitur!’ cried Christian, flourishing a roll of toilet paper.