The Last Pier Part 17

It was time to return to Palmyra House and take an overdue pill. She needed to keep calm but the voices were pestering her.

What happened next?

After Sunday lunch, when Joe was piling up the cut gra.s.s in readiness for a bonfire and Selwyn was looking for his tools, and Rose had done her disappearing act, Cecily took Tom around the farm.

'How many days are there before the tennis match?' Tom asked.

'Twelve.'

'And who does your sister love?'

Cecily thought he sounded like a policeman. All he needed was a notebook and a licked pencil.

'Is it Carlo? Or the tinker's son?'

'He's called Bellamy,' Cecily told him.

Large blackberries, looking like shoe b.u.t.tons, were scattered amongst the mauve pink and white flowers.

'A hard winter lies ahead,' Tom remarked.

He had begun to get on Cecily's nerves.

They crossed the field where flies settled in cl.u.s.ters on the horses' eyes. Unanswered questions swarmed around Cecily like the flies. One uppermost in her mind had to be asked first.

'Have you met Hitler?'

Tom looked at her sideways.

'Have you met the King?' he asked, sarcastically.

They reached the end of the field and the barn, when they went in, was dark. In the beam of light and the fly-clouded afternoon, the cows appeared restless. Sunlight came in hot spears through the cracks in the roof to lie on the straw and milk-sprinkled dung.

'Is this the barn you dream of?' the counsellor had asked her, years later when she had come to her, heavy with hopelessness. It was.

And there was Pinky Wilson's car parked in the damson lane.

'h.e.l.lo Cecily,' he said, smiling. 'Is this your new friend?'

'I'm Tom,' the boy said and held out his hand.

'Yes. Nice for Cecily to have a friend, eh Cecily? Oh and don't worry... I meant to tell you, your secret is safe with me!'

Cecily stared at him. The damsons were getting ripe. Some of them had already fallen and dark purple skins, split golden by the wasps, lay scattered on the ground.

'What secret?' Tom asked.

'Oh nothing,' Robert Wilson said. 'Nothing a little cycle ride to the pier wouldn't cure!'

'You saw me!'

Robert Wilson laughed easily. Then he took out a packet of cigarettes and tapped one on the packet before putting it in his mouth.

'You saw me!' he said.

Cecily opened her mouth but then thought better of it.

'Have you taken Tom to the Hokey-Pokey Parlour yet?'

'I arrived last night,' Tom told him.

'Ah! Well you must get Cecily to take you there. You'll find the best ice cream in the whole of England there. In fact...' he reached into his pocket, 'here, buy yourself some on me.'

He handed Tom a sixpence.

Tom eyed him doubtfully.

'Do you have a spare bicycle?' he asked Cecily.

Cecily, still winded, could not answer. And then Robert-Pinky-Wilson did another unexpected thing. He gave Cecily a hug.

'Gos.h.!.+ You're so like your older sister,' he said. 'Soon you'll have all the boys after you, just like your sister.'

Cecily swallowed. In the hard glitter of the August day, Pinky Wilson's face looked cruel and shadowless.

'Stop looking so worried,' Pinky Wilson said. 'I shan't breathe a word. Your mother has quite enough to think about! In any case you children ought to have a bit more freedom.'

All around, the wheat was rising heavy and dark in the sultry air. Soon it would be time for the harvest. Pinky Wilson told them he had to go into the town himself, on some important business. He drove his car across the rough track flanked by golden-crested stonecrop in flower. And apart from the low hum of the engine it was impossible to detect his big beetle from the house.

Maybe it was the sixpence or maybe it was his knowing her secret but to Cecily's surprise, she saw Tom distrusted Pinky, too.

'He spied on you?' he asked. 'And now he's blackmailing you? That's against the law.'

Impressed, Cecily nodded.

'You can tell from that,' Tom added with the same grown-up loftiness as Rose, 'the sort of man he is. He promised to keep your secret just so you'd trust him. He's being provocative.'

Under the weight of evidence she could not disagree and the subject was dropped.

At suppertime Kitty had another bunch of sweet williams. They had been delivered by a boy from the flower shop in Eelburton. Replacing the others that weren't even old yet.

'Lovely!' she said, and she hummed a little tune.

Aunt Kitty had so many admirers it was difficult to keep track of who sent what. How many had she invited to the dance? Agnes' laugh was like a bite into an unripe apple.

While Selwyn, of course, was marked like an absence chalked up on a blackboard.

'Another important meeting,' Agnes said, adding with a laugh, 'I'm going to write my Ma.s.s Observation notes, now.'

Agnes didn't sound as if she cared one way or the other about Selwyn's absence any more. So that staring at her beautiful mother a little slyly, a little puzzled, Cecily remembered her secret nightlife and thought how happy she looked in the dim glow of the lamp.

'Better get used to duller lights,' Joe told them.

'I can't say I'm looking forward to blackouts,' Aunt Kitty added, before letting herself out through the kitchen door.

Rose's eyes had a gleam in them that no one would blackout. Later in their shared bedroom she began to darn her stocking.

'It tore,' she said even before Cecily could ask the question.

But she didn't say how and Cecily couldn't ask. Couldn't-ask was like an itch on her arm. So Cecily asked another question instead. It was like scratching the wrong place, unsatisfactory but necessary in order to keep your mind off the Real Itch.

'Have you seen Pinky?' she asked, instead.

'Why should I?' Rose replied, head bent over her needle.

'I saw him today.'

'Good for you.'

'He was having a cigarette,' Cecily ventured, hoping to jog her sister's memory in some way.

Her sister looked up then. And the secret, soft look on her face was replaced first by irritation and then by slight amus.e.m.e.nt.

'Curiouser and curiouser,' Rose said.

Which meant nothing at all.

But, Belatedly, now, on this August afternoon, the newly returned Cecily realised she had spent far too much time wandering the town. What had she hoped to discover all these years later? Any moment now she was in danger of being recognised. Crossing the road as quickly as she could, she hurried back to the house. It was almost four o'clock. Time had flown backwards without a glance. The voices were quiet. Cecily could tell they liked this part of the story, having heard it once before.

On Monday morning Kitty announced she was going up to Exeter to visit an old friend. She would be back for the harvest in a few days and if Agnes wanted to go to a concert in London she could use Kitty's flat.

'Not much of a broken heart, then,' Cecily overheard Cook tell The Help.

Agnes was bottling fruit.

The last time she had been to a concert in London had been before Rose was born. They had gone to a party afterwards and although Selwyn did not like that sort of thing he hadn't minded showing off his young wife on that occasion. Arthur Balfour, the Foreign Secretary, had praised Agnes' eyes.

'You wear them like jewels, m'dear,' he had said in his loud-enough-to-be-noticed boom.

A man at the piano began playing 'When Irish Eyes Are Smiling' and Selwyn had nodded, as though her eyes had been his doing. At the time Agnes had believed he loved her but that his feelings simply lagged a little behind hers. His emotions, she had believed, were merely folded like the wings of a nesting bird. He was simply a discreet man, she had thought.

Then.

These days she hardly went anywhere.

'Is it true?' asked Robert Wilson, popping his head in through the pantry door. 'That Selwyn has been asked to join the Anti-Aircraft Division?'

Agnes nodded.

'Yes,' she said.

It had happened the previous week.

Robert Wilson handed her a small bunch of violets.

'Kitty isn't here,' Agnes said.

'No these are for you!'

She smiled, inviting him in for a cup of tea.

'They're all out playing in the fields,' she said, meaning Cecily, believing it was so.

'Bit of a handful, eh!' Robert laughed and Agnes nodded ruefully.

There was an advertis.e.m.e.nt cut out from Picture Post on the table. 'Hints for a Happy Marriage', it said. Robert raised his eyebrows and Agnes laughed. She looked around for a small gla.s.s to put the violets in.

'No, don't do that, wear them!'

'It's an advertis.e.m.e.nt for ammonia,' she said, still laughing.

She liked Robert Wilson.

'Do you need ammonia for a happy marriage?'

Agnes looked for a pin to wear her violets but she was laughing so much that she almost p.r.i.c.ked her finger.

'Here, let me,' Robert said.

They drank their tea sitting outside in the kitchen garden, out of Cook's way.

'You never stop working, do you?' Robert said.

'There's a lot to do on a farm this size.'

'What do you do for relaxation? Apart from the ballet?'

'I used to play the piano.'

'And...' he shook his head.

'Inquisitive fellow,' The Help, overhearing, remarked. 'What's he doing asking her all them questions?'

Cook sniffed but would not comment.

'What's Selwyn up to with the Anti-Aircraft Unit?'

Cecily, about to sneeze, stopped herself in the nick of time. Was Pinky Wilson trying to steal secrets from her father, now?