The Parrot Cage, page 39
‘Ming, could you go? If I leave it now it’ll be ruined and there’s nothing else.’
‘Of course.… Hello, Mike. Gerry’s in the kitchen making scrambled egg. Come in.’
‘Not if I’m disturbing you,’ called Mike.
‘Not at all, Mike. Come on in and let Ming give you a drink.’
‘Thank you. By the way I’ve brought some sardines. Would they help the egg?’
‘Wonderful!’ exclaimed Gerry leaning around the doorway, with the pan in her hands. ‘Will you open them while I divide this nauseating-looking mess?’
As they sat round the cherrywood table eating their depressing food, it struck Gerry that Mike’s ability to get on with her sisters was remarkable. He had somehow fitted himself into their lives without trying to smash through the walls and tunnels of character that connected and divided them. It was as though he felt no need to establish a place for himself, and so their lives had been able to absorb him and give him a space in their very centre. They existed, and he existed, and all of them could allow the others just to be.
In her sudden delight at the thought she laughed. The other two, who had been talking about bathing off the south coast again when the war was over, looked up.
‘What’s so funny?’ asked Ming, and her voice sounded infinitely lighter and more relaxed than when she and Gerry had been talking earlier.
‘Oh, I was just thinking of something. Wouldn’t it be nice if Flixe were here too?’
‘Lovely,’ agreed Mike. ‘But there’ll be lots of times when peace comes when we can be together, eh, Ming?’
‘Yes … yes I suppose there will,’ she answered with a curious kind of significance, which Gerry could not altogether understand. ‘I say, Gerry, when are you going to take Mike home? Mother ought to meet him soon.’
‘I know. It is partly that we’re so busy …’
‘Now, come on, Gerry. Why not take him soon? It’ll be so much easier while she’s happy with the evacuees. When the war’s over and Father comes home again, don’t you think it might all revert?’
Remembering the timidity of Ming’s dealings with their mother in the summer holidays after France had fallen, and the way she had often tried to temper her elder sisters’complaints about their parents, Gerry was amazed, both at Ming’s perception and the freedom with which she had expressed it. Suppressing her shock, she smiled.
‘I think you’re probably right, Mingie. It’s just that Mother liked Andrew so much … It was the only time she approved of me, when he and I got engaged I mean…’
‘You sound almost as though you’re frightened of her,’ said Mike. ‘Surely not?’
‘Not precisely. Though I see now that I was for years and the rage was just hiding it from me. No, it’s …’ She stopped, looked at him, blushed a little and then took his hand in both of hers. ‘It’s just that this is the best thing that’s ever happened to me and I don’t want her spoiling it.’
He leaned forward to kiss her. Then he said: ‘Nothing could, Gerry.’ Then, with a sensitivity that made Gerry’s heart rejoice, he turned to her sister to say teasingly: ‘I apologise for that exhibition of appalling sentimentality, Ming.’
‘Don’t,’ she said, smiling at him in delight. ‘It’s lovely to see Gerry so happy again.’
Chapter Thirty-One
During the next week or so it became very clear that the Nazis must surrender soon. They had been defeated on all fronts. Monty had crossed the Rhine on 23 March, and the Russians were racing for Berlin. Then at the end of April, when they had encircled the city, came the news of Hitler’s suicide in the bunker, followed on 7 May by the formal surrender of the German High Command.
The first news of the surrender was announced on German radio and picked up by the BBC and broadcast at lunchtime. The only person at RE(1)R who was listening in at the time was Jenkins, the janitor. Madge, who would have been there at any other time, was brewing up a huge pot of thick brown tea for the analysts who had had to work through lunch. She had just turned on the tap of the urn and was watching the steaming, boiling water gush down on to the tea leaves when Jenkins burst into the cubby-hole, yelling:
‘We’ve done it! We’ve done it! They’ve just given in.’ Madge started at his first shout and rounded on him for making her splash boiling water on her hand. She was still grumbling as he tried to organise his triumphant mind enough to explain. At last he said:
‘Madge, my only love, we have won the war. The fighting is over. The Jerries have surrendered.’
‘Well, I never,’ she answered. ‘At last. You’d have thought they could have done it all on the same day, wouldn’t you? I mean. Think of that there general giving in to Monty. I thought it was all over then.’ She heaved the heavy, two-handled brown enamel pot up on to the stained shelf where she kept the cups and saucers and then turned back to Jenkins. ‘You better run up to tell the boys. They don’t have no wireless up there. They oughter know.’
‘Right. And then we’ll celebrate, eh, Madge?’
‘Get along with you,’ she said to him, wiggling her shoulders coyly and ducking her chin into her chest.
He patted her ample backside and hurried off up the stairs, two and three at a time. At the top he met Lieutenant Endlesham and poured out his news in breathless excitement. Mike gave Jenkins’s shoulder a tremendous buffet.
‘Great news, old boy! Thanks for coming up with it.’
‘Aren’t you going to tell the others, sir?’
‘Of course. Oh, you want to see the excitement, do you? Well, you’ve earned it for bringing the news. OK. Come on.’ He strode to the door of the analysts’ room and flung it back. ‘Listen to Jenkins, chaps – and chappess – he’s a bit of news for you. I’m off to break it to the chief.’
‘And the lovely Mrs Kyrle, no doubt,’ called Eynsham caustically. But Mike only laughed, said, ‘You just wait for it, Tony,’ and waltzed out again. He had sobered up by the time he reached Suvarov’s office and he gave the announcement quite quietly. But his face was alight with pleasure and affection as he turned to Gerry, to say:
‘So now we can get on with our lives.’ She stretched out her left hand instinctively and he gripped it. Together they faced Suvarov, who was sitting in his swivel chair with his head thrown back and his hands loosely relaxed on the blotter. After a minute or so he straightened his head and smiled, not the smile of the man who had once made love to Gerry in that very room, not even the comforting smile of the exhausted and tense chief of RE(1)R; it was the smile of a small boy who has just pulled off some splendid coup in a conker fight or marble match. The other two grinned back.
‘Well, thank God for that. Not that it’s much surprise after the Luneberg surrender, but even so …’
‘Oh, Peter,’ said Gerry, ‘after six years nearly …’
‘Of course the problems in Europe will be only just starting now. And the Japanese haven’t surrendered yet.’
‘No, but they will, surely, as soon as they’ve found a face-saving way to do it.’
‘What problems, Peter?’ asked Gerry, rather upset and not thinking at all. He laughed.
‘I seem to remember explaining to you once exactly how many wars were being fought out in Europe alone. Only the one against National Socialism is over today. The rest will carry on, in less obvious ways perhaps, but carry on they will.’ He caught himself up as he saw the stricken look in her eyes and the tension with which she clutched Mike’s hand. Peter’s face softened and he smiled again. ‘But your life won’t be affected, Gerry. You and Mike are all set to walk hand in hand into the sunset. You two will be all right.’
The red telephone on his desk shrilled before either of them could answer. He listened, answered shortly and then replaced the receiver.
‘Well, I’m summoned. See you both later.’
He went out, leaving them to look at each other. In spite of his chiefs depressing forecast, Mike could not keep down the exultation that was beating through his mind. Without speaking, he pulled Gerry out of her chair and put both arms around her in an enormous hug. She let her head go down on his shoulder and together they stood in a shaft of dusty sunlight from the window over Suvarov’s desk.
Before they left that evening, they invited Flixe to join them in a celebration dinner at the Ritz with Anna Kingsley and Ming and Johnny, but Flixe shook her head.
‘No. Thank you, though. I think this is one evening you two ought to have to yourselves. Have fun.’ She watched them go, wishing she had someone to celebrate with, thinking for the first time in weeks of Jean-Pierre, wondering whether Suvarov would come back to the office after his meeting, and trying to feel the kind of pleasure at victory she ought to feel. A hand came down on her shoulder and she looked up quickly.
‘Antoine! What can I do for you?’
‘Sandy and I quite see why you didn’t want to be gooseberry to the two young lovers, but we wondered if you’d come and dine with us two old men?’
There was the faintest moment of hesitation and Sandy filled it by saying:
‘We tried to get the chief too, but he thought he’d have to dine with our original master at the club.’
Flixe smiled gratefully and accepted their invitation. They took her to a tiny restaurant in Soho, where they fed her on various delicacies of unknown origin but delectable taste, and insisted on standing her champagne. Flixe enjoyed herself and tried to show them her enjoyment, but there were other feelings mixed in with her pleasure: sadness that Peter was not with them; humiliation that they had known that she had been hoping to spend the evening with them; envy of Gerry, not for Mike himself but for being settled; and above all a horrible feeling that with her war now over most of her character and talents were redundant.
That feeling persisted as the two middle-aged analysts escorted her home through streets that were packed with laughing, singing, dancing, cheering people, past houses decked with Union Jacks and occasionally the red hammer-and-sickle flag of the Soviet Union. And she woke with it at the front of her mind the following morning.
Looking out of the window at about half-past seven she was even further disheartened to see that a thin cold rain was dripping down from a grey and miserable sky. She turned over in bed and buried her face in the pillow, trying to force herself back to sleep. Today was a national holiday; even if she could not feel flooded with rejoicing, she might at least get a decent night’s sleep, she thought crossly.
An hour later, she gave up the struggle and got out of bed. Self-pity was the most useless waste of energy, she told herself. The war was over; she was only twenty-six years old; there must be a million things she would be able to do with her life. Anna Kingsley would help her to learn how to put her past behind her and forget Peter Suvarov. Gerry and Ming, even if they did both marry their young men, were still her sisters and would be a part of her life.
None of her bracing thoughts helped at all. Wrapping herself in her old grey school dressing gown, she pushed her untidy hair behind her ears and went to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee. Then she took it back to bed and thought about pretending to be ill. At least that would stop her having to go out and join the revellers in the world outside her little flat.
At nine-fifteen the telephone rang and she leaned across the empty half of the double bed to pick up the receiver. Her elder sister’s voice came vibrantly down the wire.
‘At last. I’ve been trying to get through for forty minutes. Flixie, we’re all going to St Paul’s. Will you come too?’
‘St Paul’s, why? Who?’ said Flixe, unable to cope with such evident exuberance.
‘It seems such a symbol, having survived I mean. And Mike wants to go to one of the thanksgiving services they’re having. Ming’s coming too, and Anna, and it would be lovely if you did. …’
‘Oh, Gerry, I’m sorry. I’m still in bed. I’d hold you all up so much. And I’ve … I’m not at my best just now. You go. We could meet later.’
‘All right, ducky. Have fun. ’Bye.’
‘Goodbye,’ answered Flixe and put the receiver back, glad that they were taking Ming. Then she thought she had better get dressed.
Just as she was pulling up her utterly unglamorous but practical lisle stockings, the door bell rang. Thanking heaven that at least she was not still in her dressing gown, Flixe went to open it.
In the doorway stood Suvarov, dressed in an old dark-grey civilian suit. He looked tired, and his skin had a yellow tinge to it, but he smiled as he said:
‘May I come in, Flixe?’
‘Of course,’ she said, stepping backwards and wishing to goodness she had washed her hair, or at least brushed it. ‘I’m sorry I’m such a mess.’ He shook his head, as though to contradict her, and followed her into the small sitting room.
‘Would you like coffee, or sherry or something?’
‘Not just yet, Flixe. I want to talk to you.’
‘Oh?’ she said inadequately.
‘Yes,’ he went on more firmly. ‘I’ve wanted to wait until I could face you as I am – not as your senior officer, and all that.’
This time she could not even manage to say oh, and just sat down on the sofa. He came and sat at the other end of it.
‘Flixe, I went down to Etchingham a few weeks ago to see Diana.’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘I went to ask her … to explain to her that I had fallen in love, and to ask her whether I could tell you.’
‘Peter,’ said Flixe, at last finding her voice. ‘That wasn’t fair. She’s so ill.’
‘I know, Flixe. But she said to me years ago that I wasn’t her prisoner, that she wanted me to be free to love her and that to do so meant that I had to be free of her. I’m not certain if you’ll understand this, but I want to tell you. I do love her; I always shall. I admire her and care for her and enjoy her company. But the illness – and the fact that she is far happier living at Etchingham with Connie than she ever could be with me and my clumsier care – means that we cannot have a marriage. And she told me all those years ago that if I ever fell in love with someone with whom I could have a marriage then I was to tell her.
‘Well, I did. And she gave us her blessing. So, Flixe, such as I am, I’m yours – if you’ll have me.’
He sat, half-turned towards her, not making any move to touch her. She looked into his face, trying to see what he really meant, searching the long, dark eyes that had always been able to hide what he was really thinking.
‘Will you, Flixe?’ he said, still not moving towards her. It would have been so much easier if he had seized her passionately so that there would have been no need for words. But part of her brain recognised that there had to be words and so with an enormous effort, of the kind that a dreamer feels trying to wake herself out of a nightmare, she said:
‘Peter, how much has this to do with Gerry?’ For a moment he was completely at a loss, his face relaxing out of the tensions that had held it, but puzzled and a little worried.
‘Gerry? Nothing. What could it have to do with her?’
‘Well, now that she is marrying Mike. I mean…’ She looked up at the ceiling so that she did not have to see the wise, all-searching eyes directed at her face. ‘I mean, I couldn’t bear it if you were asking me because you couldn’t have her.’
At that he did move, and seize hold of her and kiss her with such urgency that she hardly had time to think before sensation engulfed her. After a few breathless, terrifyingly exhilarating moments, he released her, but only to hold her face between his long, cool hands and say quietly:
‘So, my very dear Felicity, will you have me?’
‘Yes, Peter, I will.’
Much later, as they were sitting with his head on her shoulder and her head on his, he attempted to answer her question.
‘Flixe, shall I try to explain about Gerry? I behaved so badly – so stupidly – that … Oh, darling, I was such a fool, but I never thought that you didn’t understand.’
She lifted her head for a moment and took one of his thin hands in hers.
‘Tell me now.’
‘She’s so like you, you know.’
‘Yes, I know. But you of all people could hardly have mistaken us.’
He laughed at that with a sound infinitely warm and infinitely reassuring.
‘That wasn’t what I was going to say; nor that I wondered whether she might not do me instead.’ Flixe laughed back at him, thawing every moment out of the frozen unhappiness into which she had woken that morning. ‘She looks like you, sometimes she sounds as though it’s you speaking; you share gestures, phrases, expressions. And yet, you are completely different.
‘As she probably told you, there was a moment, way back at the beginning of the war, when she and I were lovers.’
‘She never quite told me, but I gathered as much.’
‘Of course I shouldn’t have done it. There’s no excuse. But she’s lovely, we’d had a weekend at Evelyn’s that somehow stirred up everything I’d ever felt about you – I couldn’t have you; I’d sent you to do difficult, dangerous, “unsuitable” work; I felt as though I used everybody and gave no one anything. And there was Gerry, looking at me with those eyes of yours, but filled with what looked like love—’
‘Peter,’ Flixe interrupted, ‘you don’t have to tell me anything about it. I only wanted to be sure that it wasn’t her you wanted – that I wasn’t second best.’
‘That’s what I was trying to explain. But I got sidetracked. Gerry’s lovely and I care about her, but she is not you. I could no more have made love to you in amongst all that than I could have … could have killed you. It was when I understood that, even when we met that day for your report at the Round Pond when you said … asked … do you remember?’
‘Yes, I remember.’
‘It was then that I understood that with you I was different. Something in you forces me to be honest and to want more than the simple pleasure I’ve found so easily with other people.’
‘Ah, Peter,’ she said, every ancient wound healing under his hands.
