to say, I am looking forward; with such delicious smells coming from the kitchen I find I am hungry. It seems odd that you and I only arrived here this morning, Marjorie, it feels as though we have been here much longer than that.’
‘I know what you mean,’ said Delia. ‘It’s our first day, really, for last night with that sandy gale we hardly knew where we were. It’s a very welcoming sort of house, I think.’
Jessica laughed. ‘Not like your pa’s house, then.’ She explained to the others, ‘Delia’s father’s house is about the same size as the Villa Dante, but Lord, what a difference!’
‘It is bleak,’ said Delia. ‘It’s just right for my father, though. He has a bleak nature, so he and the house suit one another.’
‘What does your father do?’ George asked, and then apologised. ‘How rude of me, to be so inquisitive, and to ask personal questions.’
Delia shrugged. ‘I don’t mind questions. It’s probably the same thing in the air that made us talk about religion. My father’s in manufacturing.’
Not just rich landed gentry then. More a grinder of the faces of the poor, and Marjorie’s mind was off at the mill, toiling hands, in clogs and shawls, mean, sooty streets, brass bands…Factories, full of dangerous machinery…Not so much of a toff as all that, then, thought Marjorie. Bet her mother is, though. Delia didn’t behave like the daughter of parents who’d climbed up from the gutter. He’d probably inherited some vast concern from his father; rich as anything, those northerners who made beer or mustard or sauces. Manufacturing what? There was a caginess there, as though Delia didn’t care to say exactly what he manufactured. Well, Marjorie didn’t mind being thought rude.
‘What does he manufacture?’ she asked. ‘Don’t tell me he’s an armament king, like in Bernard Shaw.’
‘Not at all,’ said Delia. ‘Textiles. The closest he came to anything to do with the war was making parachute silk.’
Jessica jumped in. ‘Are there any armament kings left? Aren’t they obsolete now, with our new blow-the-world-to-bits bombs?’
Whatever had Jessica said, to cause such a look of pain on George’s face? Marjorie looked at him intently. ‘I know what kind of scientist you are. You’re an atom scientist,’ she said.
He looked taken aback. ‘I’m a physicist…yes, you could call me an atom scientist. It is what the press like to call us. My field is isotopes.’
Isotopes? Did isotopes have anything to do with making the bomb? Probably. Then he was that kind of atom scientist. And one with a conscience by the look of it, poor man. She’d often wished she had a gift for science, a clear, cerebral world, so much easier, surely, than her own field, she’d always thought. Now, looking at George, she realised that was a facile judgement. Haunted; he was a haunted man.
A gong sounded, making them all jump. Then Benedetta’s chivvying voice, the tone unmistakable, even if the words meant little to them.
‘Dinner, I think,’ said George, attempting a smile.
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