The Happy Prisoner Read online

  On Oliver’s last night, John and Heather had come in from a drive hand in hand and Heather had said: “Don’t laugh, folks. I’m going to marry this.” Mrs. North had cried and Oliver had felt a little jealous, not understanding that this was her reaction to the strain of not crying over him. The curving blonde, her thoughts turned to matrimony, had made large eyes and provocative remarks at Oliver, souring slightly when he did not.

  Oliver went to France; and soon after John joined up, Heather and he were married. What with their leaves never coinciding and John being sent out East when Oliver came home for good, he had hardly seen his brother-in-law and knew nothing of his life with Heather until she had told him a few weeks ago.

  As a repatriated prisoner of war, one had expected John to look wasted, or worn and seedy, or at least slightly yellow. Mrs. North had made elaborate plans about feeding him up and had saved her own butter ration for weeks. She had abandoned her scruples about never asking Fred Williams for anything, because he always gave it her, however inconvenient, and had laid in two hams, a duck and a boiling fowl. She had bought a magnum of cod-liver oil and malt and told Heather that she was going to force John to have a milky drink in the middle of the morning and last thing at night.

  “You won’t have to force him,” Heather said scornfully. “He loves milk.”

  “We must be prepared to find a great change in him,” Mrs. North kept saying, but when he arrived the only change was that he was slightly fatter and ruddier than when he went away. His waiting time in Australia had repaired the ravages of what had been one of the better Japanese prison camps. Violet wanted horror stories from him, but all he could offer were blurred photographs of jungle vegetation and unknown, bearded men with enormous knees and skinny calves emerging from shrunken shorts. Although he spoke of boredom and hunger and of brewing the same tea-leaves a dozen times and then tossing for who should eat the leaves, he made none of it seem uncomfortably real. Oliver thought that if he had had to suffer several months in a Japanese prison camp he would have made a much better story out of it than this.

  John talked much more of the wonders and delights of Melbourne than of the horrors of the Malay Peninsula. Heather was justifiably aggrieved to find that he had brought neither the butter nor the sugar nor the chocolate for which she had so scandalised Mrs. Ogilvie by asking.

  “But Heather Bell darling”—Oliver had forgotten that he used to call Heather that—“we weren’t allowed to bring food. They issued a special order.”

  “I bet everyone else did.”

  “I don’t think so. They searched our gear pretty carefully at Southampton.” However, he had brought Mrs. North a huge bottle of eau-de-Cologne, cigars for Oliver, impossibly advanced toys for his children, a bushranger’s fly switch for Violet, and for Heather six pairs of silk stockings and a length of peacock-blue brocade threaded with gold which he had had made into an evening coat.

  This evening coat did more to make John’s homecoming a success than anything else. Heather was touched to the verge of tears, not so much by the coat itself, although it was a glorious thing, as by the thought of John, who had always fled in terror from hairdressers and dressmakers and anything connected with feminine mysteries, bargaining for the brocade with a tout in the hotel and solemnly seeking out a French dressmaker, describing Heather’s shape and discussing how she might like it made up. Because he liked plump women, John had remembered Heather as slightly fatter than she had been when he left her, so it fitted her perfectly now. He was thrilled with himself about it. For months he had looked forward to showing her off in it when he took her out, hardly daring to consider her not liking it. Having overcome a slight chagrin at her declaring that it was a housecoat and must be worn as that and not as an evening wrap, John sat back beaming his gratification while Heather paraded before them all, preening herself, kicking out the stiff skirt as she turned, gold clips in her hair, gold ear-rings, a big filigree brooch and most of her bracelets decking her to suit her mood.

  “Johnny, you are sweet, you are sweet,” she kept saying.

  “You look stunning. I’m awfully glad you like it. It’s a shame about the butter and things, Heather Bell, but you do see, don’t you?” A momentary frown clouded her face at his tactlessness in reminding her of what she had forgiven and forgotten, and she said quickly: “It’s not the coat so much, though I adore it; it’s you thinking of having it made and taking all that trouble. You are sweet. Isn’t he sweet?” she enquired of the room at large, her eye unfortunately lighting on Fred, who went scarlet, half rose, cleared his throat, opened his mouth and took a deep breath as if he were going to say something important, then let all the breath out on a “Yes” and subsided deflated into his chair.

  “It certainly was darling of you to bring something for all of us,” said Mrs. North, who was settled beatifically over her cocktail, without her usual shuttle trips to and from the kitchen.

  “Oh, that’s all right,” said John in the deep, pleasant voice which was one of his best features. He never called Mrs. North anything, not knowing what to substitute for everyone else’s “Ma”, to which he could not quite bring himself. He was a hefty, blue-chinned, settled-looking man of forty. Most men retain something of the boy in their face or expression all their life, and can never be called a completely finished adult product. Oliver, after his months of illness, noticed that even at his worst he sometimes looked like a peaky adolescent, but John was one of the few people who could be accurately described as “grown up”. He had been husband and son and supporter and adviser and saviour to a frittering widowed mother ever since he was twenty. By the time he met and fell in love with Heather, fascinated by the insouciance in her which he lacked, he had realised that life was a thing of serious substance; even its jokes and pleasures must be given a certain weight of consideration. That was why he laughed louder and danced and played games more energetically than most people. He also worked harder and worried more and had meant every word of what he promised when he stood beside Heather in Hinkley church.

  He was good-looking in a dark, square-jawed way, his face rather too broad for its length, as if a heavy weight were pressing the crown of his head too close to his chin and causing the permanent horizontal wrinkles in his forehead. He was solid and muscular, with huge feet and knobbly, practical hands. In the grey flannel suit he had bought in Melbourne, and a white shirt that emphasised his tan, he looked attractive enough for anyone to love.

  Heather did seem to love him. Her doubts and fears had evaporated and left her blithe. On his first night, she followed John about the house in a fascinated way, tending to his wants, and he was just as fascinated and eager to wait on her. The deadlock caused by each one’s insistence that the other should empty the cocktail shaker was only resolved by Mrs. North making another drink all round, with a lavish disregard of the gin shortage.

  It was an evening of celebration. They all had dinner in Oliver’s room, and everyone, including Oliver, had quite a lot of the champagne which Mrs. North had been hoarding behind a padlock for just such an occasion. Fred burned like fire and held forth on race form, Violet went black in the face twice with laughing and fell off her chair. Mrs. North, who had had a plastic hair set and a mauve-tinted rinse the day before, wore her black watered taffeta with the juvenile bows in which she could be heard coming a whole floor away and was not devastated because the meat was overcooked and the apples sour. Elizabeth became quite animated and Oliver thought, as always, that it was a pity she did not spend more of her time smiling. The pure, balanced structure of her face was too composed as a rule, but when it curved and sparkled in a smile she was very pretty. He looked at her once when every one else, even Fred, who felt safer making the same noise as the others, like a canary trilling to a sewing machine, was laughing at some family allusion unknown to her, and caught her looking rather wistful. But she gave herself a little jerk and, getting up, began to collect plates.

  Evelyn, who had been allowed to stay up to dinn
er, sat on John’s knee afterwards and he told her about riding in Australia. He had an idea of applying for a transfer to the Australian branch of the shipping firm for whom he had worked before the war and transplanting his family out there when he was demobilised. When he mentioned it tentatively, Heather had been so enthusiastic that he had had to say: “Steady, steady, old girl; it’ll want a lot of thinking about yet.”

  “If we go Down Under, as they call it,” he told Evelyn, “you’ll have to come out and stay with us. You can get all the riding you want there.”

  “Too much wire,” said Evelyn knowledgeably.

  “The kids are never off their ponies,” went on John, resting his chin on the top of her head so that she could feel his voice rumbling through her skull. “The ones that live in the country ride into town to school every day.”

  “So they do in California,” said Evelyn. “Daddy’s going to buy a ranch, you know, so I’ll be going out there as soon as he comes for me. I shan’t be able to come to Australia, thank you very much all the same, Uncle John. Perhaps you could come and stay with us. And Heather, of course,” she added politely.

  Heather had gone over to Oliver, swaying self-consciously in the housecoat whose brilliant colour was reflected in her eyes. He held out a hand. “Happy?” he asked.

  “A new woman,” she answered with the smile that had settled on her face for the evening. “Look, Ollie, I don’t have to tell you—forget everything I said, hm? You were quite right. I was tired and worried and imagining things. Everything’s fine.” She looked quickly round at John’s broad shoulders and the short curly hair at the back of his head. “You do like him, don’t you, Ollie?” she said urgently.

  “An awful lot. I always have.”

  “No, but you never knew each other very well before, and he’s a bit shy of you now, you know, I can see that. He’s always been so healthy himself, he’s scared of seeing anyone in bed.”

  Oliver patted her hand. “You don’t have to sell him to me,” he said. “I’ve always liked him, I’m going to get up and have a round of golf with him tomorrow.” As always, when he had had a few more drinks than Dr. Trevor allowed him, he felt he could do great deeds. His head felt light as thistledown and his heart was going like a clockwork toy in his breast, chasing the blood into his limbs and making them strong and active and craving for movement.

  “You look lovely in that coat,” he said, and put his arm round her waist, feeling his legs sliding to the floor and moving into a dance. The wireless was playing a waltz and he could feel himself dancing; the rhythm was in his legs, he could feel the dip and sway of his hips and shoulders as he danced down the stretch of shining floor, with Heather’s waist straining against his firm arm and her head flung back. The lighted walls and pale, staring faces flashed past them like the wheeling crowd seen from a roundabout. They were at the end of the room and the band was louder. Poised for a moment on one leg, that miraculous leg which was better than ever since he had last seen it smeared all over the stretcher in the dressing tent, he threw Heather into a smooth reverse. The wheeling walls went whirling round again and they were waltzing up the room, working harder against the slight slope. Panting, he opened his eyes to see the flat white counterpane in front of him and Heather standing uncomfortably within his arm.

  She looked relieved. “Golly,” she said, letting out her breath, “you did give me a fright. I thought you were going to pass out or something, you looked so queer.” He felt queer. His head was swimming and his leg twitching and the clockwork toy in his breast had become a sledgehammer. He grinned and told her he felt fine, and when she had gone back to John he caught Elizabeth’s eye, and bless her, she coped without making a commotion and gave him two of his pills and made herself unpopular by turning everyone out of his room, letting them think she was fussing unnecessarily.

  Heather said: “It’s ridiculous, Ollie, she never lets you have any fun. All this Irma Grese stuff. Just because she’s your nurse, she thinks she can treat you like a child.”

  Even his mother said: “Of course, you’re in charge, dear, but I do think, Elizabeth, that now he’s much better you needn’t pamper him quite so much. After all, he’ll be getting up soon.”

  Oliver drew up the sheet as she came to his bed, so that she could not see the thudding of his heart under his pyjama jacket. Elizabeth was polite but firm. They all went away, and when Elizabeth came back from taking Evelyn up to bed, Oliver said: “Sorry to let you down. I couldn’t spoil the party, though, and have them all think I was going to peg out. I didn’t know they were going to round on you.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” she said, raising her eyebrows slightly. “I don’t mind what they think so long as they don’t interfere with my treatment of you.”

  “I’m sorry, anyway,” he persisted. “They were horrid.”

  “I don’t care,” she said, sticking a thermometer in his mouth and picking up his wrist. “I can take care of myself. You evidently can’t. One drink too many and your heart starts tachycardia-ing all over the place.” She sounded quite cross.

  He took the thermometer out to say: “You’ve been here for too long. You’re getting sick of me. Why don’t you chuck it up? I’ll never get any better.”

  “When I take on a case,” said Elizabeth, without taking her eyes from her watch, “I like to see it through till it either gets better or dies.”

  “Doesn’t matter which I do so long as it’s one or the other?”

  “No. Put that thermometer back and for heaven’s sake let me count. I’ve had to start again six times.”

  Guiltily, after he was settled, his mother stole into his room in her dressing-gown. He was lying looking out of the window, not sleeping, hardly breathing, trying not to think, just keeping everything as still as possible. His mother stumbled over something, so he switched on the bedside light. The plastic set was carefully pinned into a myriad Grecian whirls, highlights of cold cream larded her face, and she wore the cotton gloves in which she slept after she had greased her hands.

  “I know I shouldn’t come in,” she said, “because Elizabeth said you were to settle early, but really I think I might be allowed to judge what I can and can’t do with my own son. You’re perfectly all right, aren’t you, darling? The party didn’t make you feel bad?”

  “Of course not, Ma, I’m fine,” he said. “Don’t fuss.”

  “It’s Elizabeth who fusses, not me. I was a little sore with her tonight, when we were all having such a good time. I thought she was too, but she doesn’t like to have your schedule upset; I suppose it’s what they teach them in hospital. Maybe she’s right, but—I don’t know—she’s such an odd girl. She works so well in the house and she couldn’t be more careful with you.

  She’s good to me too, but–” She laughed. “It sounds kind of silly, but I don’t even know if she likes me or not. It makes me nervous, d’you know it?” She suddenly gave a gasp. “Well, for heaven’s sake! What d’you think I’ve forgotten? Your thermos, darling. Fancy me forgetting your tea! You can’t think much of me as a mother, when a little bit of excitement goes to my head and drives everything out of it. Silly old fool that I am.…” She started to go out, grumbling at herself.

  “Don’t bother now, Ma, for heaven’s sake,” said Oliver, who wanted peace more than tea. “I don’t think I shall wake tonight; I feel pretty sleepy.”

  “You might, though, and then what would you think of me? It won’t take long to boil the kettle,” she said from the door. “I’ll be right back.”

  When she came back with the thermos, she had remembered what she had originally come in to say. “Isn’t it lovely to see Heather so happy?” she asked, making vicious efforts to tighten the thermos cap beyond its limit. “It’s just as I said all along, you see, when everything seemed to get in her hair. She was only that way because she was missing John, though she wouldn’t let on to it. And I’m not surprised; he’s such a lovely person. And listen, darling, he may look perfectly fit, but that
time in prison has told on him. There’s a strain behind the eyes, I can see. I’m going to insist on his resting up and eating properly … I’ve been wondering whether I ought to have him see a doctor.” She was determined that not even John’s rude health should cheat her of her debilitated prisoner. “I wonder what he thinks about her Turning,” she went on, untucking the bottom corner of Oliver’s bed and retucking it. “Have either of them talked about it to you?”

  “Why should they?” he said languidly. “It’s no one else’s business but theirs.”

  “Except that Heather happens to be my daughter,” said his mother a little huffily, “and I want to know that nothing’s going to spoil her happiness.” Her eyes took on their far-away gaze. She looked through the pince-nez into a mother’s paradise. “I can’t tell you how lovely it is to me to see them together. And those children … little David taking to his father at once, didn’t you love it? He’s going to look just like John, with those very black eyes.…” She rambled on, while Oliver waited patiently. She would stop some time, but the unaccustomed wine had stimulated her to even more than her ordinary nocturnal volubility. She began to make plans about Heather and John in Australia: where they would live, whether they would be able to afford servants, how soon David could start school, whether she might not combine visits to them with visits to Philadelphia.