‘Oh God, I thought it would never end. I told myself, if one more young man praises the band or asks me how I’m enjoying it all I shall scream until they send for the fire brigade.’
‘You looked as if you were enjoying yourself well enough,’ Clio said reasonably. ‘You were laughing so much with Anthony Brock I thought you might be on the point of creating a frisson of interest.’
Grace sighed. ‘Oh, Anthony Brock.’ She flung herself down on Clio’s bed and patted the pocket of her robe. Then she extracted a flat cigarette case and a small gold lighter. She selected a cigarette and snapped her lighter. The flame lit one side of her face with a brief coppery glow, transforming her instantly into a woman of the world.
‘Grace.’ Clio was shocked.
Grace held out the case. ‘Want one? No?’ She breathed out a long, efficient plume of smoke and leant back against Clio’s pillows. ‘It’s so bloody cold in here. Get in under the covers, for God’s sake.’
Clio did as she was told. They pulled the heavy blankets up around their shoulders. The cigarette smoke wreathed their heads.
‘Anthony Brock said he’s going to marry me. Didn’t ask me, told me.’
‘I know.’
Grace’s eyebrows went up. ‘How?’
‘He said so. At supper. We also agreed to be friends, and shook hands on it.’
‘Cosy.’
‘It was, rather. And so what did you say in response to this news?’
‘Told him I wasn’t going to marry anyone.’ She sighed again, tilting her chin to stare up at the plaster fruit and flowers wreathing the cornice. ‘Oh, Clio. Darling Clio. Why is it always marriage? Is that all there is for us?’
‘Not for me,’ Clio said, with a touch of smugness.
Grace turned on one side then, so that she could see her cousin’s face. ‘You’re right. Not for you. How lucky you are, how very lucky. All there is for me is an extension of tonight. Politeness, and good form, and utter tedium.’
Clio was surprised by her vehemence. ‘You always look happy. I thought you were. Tonight, for instance.’
Grace shrugged. ‘I try to. One has to do that much.’
‘You are very good at it. Much better than I’ll ever be. Listen, Grace. You don’t have to be conventional and do the right thing and marry whoever it is Blanche and John single out for you. Anthony Brock or anyone else.’
There was a voice within Clio whispering that Grace was lucky, as always, and that she would not reject Anthony as readily herself. But she ignored it and went on, ‘Five years ago you might have had to, but the war has changed all that. Women can live their own lives now. They have proved it, by doing men’s work. Look at all the women in shops and factories. I’m going to get my degree and then work as a translator. Live abroad.’ She began to be fired by her own fantasy. ‘Be what I want to be, not just a wife and mother. It was right for Eleanor and Blanche, Victorian ladies. But it’s not right for me. Not for us, Grace.’
Grace stabbed out her cigarette and sat upright, wrapping her arms around her knees. ‘Yes. You’re right, of course you are.’ She looked down at Clio with shining eyes. ‘Have you forgiven me?’
There was a moment’s silence. No, the voice whispered within Clio’s head.
She said, ‘Yes.’
A year seemed a long time.
Grace laughed, a little wildly. ‘Good. That’s very good. Let’s make a pact, Clio. Let’s promise each other that we won’t submit to the yoke. Let’s do what we do only because we want to do it, not because we think we ought to. We must be determined to enjoy ourselves. We must be free.’
Clio thought that Grace’s resolution was grandiose, but typically vague. She wasn’t quite sure what freedom from the yoke would mean in detail, and she didn’t think Grace did either. But she was beguiled by the passion of her declaration.
‘Modern women,’ she said, and Grace echoed her fiercely.
‘Modern women.’
If they had had wine they would have drunk a toast. Instead Grace proffered her cigarette case again. Clio took one now, and inexpertly lit it with the gold briquet. She inhaled, and coughed out a puff of swirling smoke.
Jake and Julius walked out into Belgrave Square together. The June night air was sweet and cool and they lingered under the trees opposite the house.
‘Duty done,’ Julius said, with some satisfaction. ‘It was an adequate evening, I think, as such evenings go.’
It had even been more enjoyable than he had expected. Armstrong and the others had apparently met his mother’s requirements, and his friends in their turn seemed to have had plenty to eat and drink. They had gone off a little earlier in Zuckerman’s car. And for Julius himself, there had been the bonus of two dances with Grace. He put his hands in his pockets and looked up through the black fretwork of leaves over his head, into the sky where he could see a dusting of stars. He let himself remember the scent of her skin and hair, and the way that she reached up, putting her mouth close to his ear, so that he could hear what she said over the dance music. He found that he was smiling.
Jake was moody and restless. He had undone his white tie and the ends hung unevenly over his shirt studs. He wanted some more to drink, something stronger than hock or his uncle’s third-best claret. He had not wished to penetrate the card room where whisky, brandy and port were on offer to John Leominster’s friends.
‘Adequate is a compliment,’ he grumbled. ‘Did you ever see such insipid girls? Were you introduced to the lisping Miss Beauchamp? Complexion like orange crêpe-paper?’
‘I can’t remember,’ Julius said cheerfully. His Grace-induced good humour was unshakeable.
Jake put a heavy arm around his shoulder. ‘Well then, we’ve done our filial duty. Where shall we go to finish the evening off? Nightclub, d’you think?’
‘Not me,’ Julius answered without hesitation. ‘I’ve got work to do tomorrow.’
‘Come on.’
‘No thanks. I’m going to walk quietly home up Park Lane.’ Julius’s rented rooms were behind Marble Arch. It was late enough, he was thinking, for his neighbour to have been in bed for hours. There was no chance that she would be lying in wait for him as he came up the stairs.
Jake scowled at him. He was on the point of protesting when he saw the door of the house open and close behind Hugo and Farmiloe. Hugo walked stiffly now, on a wooden leg, with the aid of a stick.
‘All right, Julius. I shall have to fling myself on the mercy of Hugo and his brother officer. They will certainly have a plan of action.’
Julius knew that Jake was half drunk. ‘Don’t do anything reckless.’
Jake shouted, ‘If you would just do something reckless, for once. Something other than
