The Soldier’s Wife. Margaret Leroy
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in under the curtains. And there is another darkness—a dark so profound you cannot begin to imagine it, cannot conjure it up in your mind. A darkness that blots out all you remember or hope for. A darkness that teaches that all that consoles you is false.
I don’t think I was in there for long. Auntie Aggie realised what had happened; scolded Iris, came and unlocked the door. But I don’t remember that clearly at all—the moment when she let me out into the cheerful day again. It’s the darkness I remember.
How much did that loss of my mother shape the course of my life? Hugely, I can see that now—though it’s taken me years to learn this. Now I even wonder if that was why I married the very first man I went out with—whether my decision had something to do with that loss. Wanting to have something settled; longing for safety, wanting to keep things the same—so frightened of change and uncertainty.
I was nineteen when I met Eugene, and still living in the house in Evington Road. I was working as a secretary, in an insurance firm in Clapham. I met Eugene at a church social; he was a bank clerk with the National Provincial bank, living in digs in Streatham that always smelt of broccoli. He’d been excited to move to London, but had hoped for something from it that it had somehow failed to give. He was already longing to go back to Guernsey when I met him. There was a faint mothball scent of disappointment that hung about him, though at first I wasn’t aware of it. He was a good-looking man—clear eyes, symmetrical features, sleeked-down hair—a clean-cut face that made him seem much younger than his years. Our daughters have that face as well, that open, candid look. And he was always very well turned-out—his business suits pressed with a razor-sharp edge, his shoes as shiny as mirror-glass. ‘He’s so handsome,’ everyone said. ‘He looks just like Jack Pickford. Well, haven’t you done well for yourself?’ There was something reassuring about his effortless, practised courtship of me—the yellow roses, the boxes of New Berry Fruits—a feeling that I could leave it to him, that he would take control, make the decisions. What did he see in me, I wonder? I don’t know, can’t imagine now—though he would always be very flattering about my looks, my clothes. He knows how to flatter a woman. Maybe my rather French-sounding name reassured him in some way, suggested I would fit in on his island. That may sound rather fanciful, yet people will often let themselves be guided by such things, making a weighty decision because some small hand beckons: I’ve seen this. Whatever the reason—he couldn’t wait to gather me up and bring me back to Guernsey.
But from our very first night together, it wasn’t as I’d imagined. I didn’t feel the way I knew I was meant to feel. I thought it must be my fault—that there was something wrong with me, something missing. Or, to put it more precisely, something misplaced. Because I knew I could feel these things—just not in bed with Eugene. I’d see a man—a stranger—loosen his tie, unbutton his cuffs, push up the sleeves of his shirt, and my stomach would tighten, I’d feel the thrill go through me. Or I’d dream a dream in which a man who stood behind me was brushing my hair, and I’d lean against him and feel the warmth of him pressing into my back, and I’d wake in a haze of longing.
Maybe he felt something similar—that sense of something missing. Because we made love only rarely, and, once I was pregnant with Millie, never again. We never talked about it—well, how could you possibly talk about such a thing? Slowly, insidiously, with a little shake of the heart, I became aware that there were rumours. Eugene loved amateur dramatics, and he joined a society that rehearsed in St Peter Port: he had a pleasant, eloquent voice, he loved to play a role. There was a woman there—Monica Charles—who sometimes played opposite him. Red hair, an abundant cleavage, pointy lacquered nails; and the plush velvet scent of Shalimar, which she always wore. She was rather outspoken—the sort of woman who seems to use up all the air in the room: she always made me feel somehow small and faded.
Gwen said once—carefully, with a slight anxious frown, not quite looking at me: ‘Does it worry you—Eugene being so friendly with Monica Charles?’
My heart lurched. ‘No. Why should it?’
‘I just wondered,’ she said.
‘He loves the theatre, he’s passionate about it,’ I said. Putting the words down with such care, like little stones, between us. ‘It’s good that he has something to do that he enjoys so much …’
‘You’re very strong—I admire you,’ said Gwen, and moved the conversation on. I closed my mind to what she’d said, careful never to touch on that conversation again—as though her words were sharp things that could cut me.
There was an evening when I took the girls to see him backstage. He’d been starring in Private Lives opposite Monica Charles. Millie was two; she was tired out after the performance, and heavy and warm in my arms. I knocked, he didn’t answer, I pushed at the door. The scent of Shalimar brushed against me, darkly velvet, insidious. Eugene was there with Monica Charles. She was standing with one foot on a chair, her skirt bunched up round her thighs: he was easing down her stocking, very slowly. There was a sensuousness in the caressing movement of his hand that was entirely unfamiliar to me. They looked up, saw me, moved apart. I saw the shock—then all the excuses, forming, hardening, in his eyes. I didn’t stay to hear them. Blanche was behind me, Millie was dozing. ‘He isn’t here,’ I said. ‘We must have missed him.’ I bundled the girls away, I don’t think they saw anything.
We never talked about it, just carried on as we were. But something closed in me then, irrevocable as the sound of the dressing-room door that I’d slammed shut behind me. Something was over for me.
Sometimes I’ve wondered about it—this thing that was so lacking in my marriage—this part of me that it seemed could never be expressed, yet could be stirred up so suddenly, randomly almost, by a dream or a glance at a stranger, or a stranger glancing at me.
I remember a moment from long before, from when I first knew Eugene, when I was still in London. There was a man who looked at me as I walked along the Embankment by the Thames—who turned around to look at me. It wasn’t long before the wedding—I was on my way to meet Iris at the Lyons Corner House in Tottenham Court Road. She was going to be the maid of honour at my wedding, and I wanted to show her some fabric samples for her dress. I was wearing a neat navy suit, my high-heeled strappy suede shoes, my best silk stockings, the seams exact, a hat in dusty-pink felt with a petersham ribbon around it. I was a little late for our meeting—probably off in a dream as usual, perhaps with a line of poetry running through my mind—and I must have been flushed from walking in the chill autumn air. The man was older than me, and tall, with a rather worn, lived-in face. He had a serious look, no smile: a look that required something of me, a look beyond approbation or flattery. His glance felt as real to me as the touch of a hand. I felt the heat go through me, the bright thread of sensation passing down through my body, and all around the brown leaves fluttering, falling, the shining river surging: everything fluid, dancing.
I still sometimes think of that moment. If he had asked, I’d have gone with him.
Thursday. I go up the hill to see Angie. I’m wearing one of my two best dresses—the everyday dress that I’d normally wear isn’t fit to be seen. It’s the one I wore on the day of the bombing, and I’ve soaked it again and again, but I still can’t get the bloodstains out.
This morning there’s no sign of the Germans at Les Vinaires: they must have gone to their work already. Though I can’t imagine what occupies them: it can’t be very strenuous, keeping our island under control. The weather lifts my spirits a little. It’s a bright, breezy day, the summer wind smelling of salt and earth and flowers. The hedgebanks are gorgeous with foxgloves and purple woundwort, and the stream that runs beside the lane is overgrown with green harts’ tongue fern, little cresses, mother-of-thousands. The thread of water that runs through the ferns squirms in the light like a live thing. Just for a moment I can dream that all is as it always was, that the Occupation hasn’t happened.
I’ve brought Angie a cake, and some blackberry jelly left from last year’s batch. Though I wonder if I’m bringing