N or M?

Tuppence said:

‘It’s a depressing world at the moment.’

There was a pause and then Tommy said:

‘Well, why don’t you ask? No need to be so damned tactful.’

‘I know,’ admitted Tuppence. ‘There is something about conscious tact that is very irritating. But then it irritates you if I do ask. And anyway I don’t need to ask. It’s written all over you.’

‘I wasn’t conscious of looking a Dismal Desmond.’

‘No, darling,’ said Tuppence. ‘You had a kind of nailed to the mast smile which was one of the most heartrending things I have ever seen.’

Tommy said with a grin:

‘No, was it really as bad as all that?’

‘And more! Well, come on, out with it. Nothing doing?’

‘Nothing doing. They don’t want me in any capacity. I tell you, Tuppence, it’s pretty thick when a man of forty-six is made to feel like a doddering grandfather. Army, Navy, Air Force, Foreign Office, one and all say the same thing—I’m too old. I may be required later.’

Tuppence said:

‘Well, it’s the same for me. They don’t want people of my age for nursing—no, thank you. Nor for anything else. They’d rather have a fluffy chit who’s never seen a wound or sterilised a dressing than they would have me who worked for three years, 1915 to 1918, in various capacities, nurse in the surgical ward and operating theatre, driver of a trade delivery van and later of a General. This, that and the other—all, I assert firmly, with conspicuous success. And now I’m a poor, pushing, tiresome, middle-aged woman who won’t sit at home quietly and knit as she ought to do.’

Tommy said gloomily:

‘This war is hell.’

‘It’s bad enough having a war,’ said Tuppence, ‘but not being allowed to do anything in it just puts the lid on.’

Tommy said consolingly:

‘Well, at any rate Deborah has got a job.’

Deborah’s mother said:

‘Oh, she’s all right. I expect she’s good at it, too. But I still think, Tommy, that I could hold my own with Deborah.’

Tommy grinned.

‘She wouldn’t think so.’

Tuppence said:

‘Daughters can be very trying. Especially when they will be so kind to you.’

Tommy murmured:

‘The way young Derek makes allowances for me is sometimes rather hard to bear. That “poor old Dad” look in his eye.’

‘In fact,’ said Tuppence, ‘our children, although quite adorable, are also quite maddening.’

But at the mention of the twins, Derek and Deborah, her eyes were very tender.

‘I suppose,’ said Tommy thoughtfully, ‘that it’s always hard for people themselves to realise that they’re getting middle-aged and past doing things.’

Tuppence gave a snort of rage, tossed her glossy dark head, and sent her ball of khaki wool spinning from her lap.

‘Are we past doing things? Are we? Or is it only that everyone keeps insinuating that we are. Sometimes I feel that we never were any use.’

‘Quite likely,’ said Tommy.

‘Perhaps so. But at any rate we did once feel important. And now I’m beginning to feel that all that never really happened. Did it happen, Tommy? Is it true that you were once crashed on the head and kidnapped by German agents? Is it true that we once tracked down a dangerous criminal—and got him! Is it true that we rescued a girl and got hold of important secret papers, and were practically thanked by a grateful country? Us! You and me! Despised, unwanted Mr and Mrs Beresford.’

‘Now dry up, darling. All this does no good.’

‘All the same,’ said Tuppence, blinking back a tear, ‘I’m disappointed in our Mr Carter.’

‘He wrote us a very nice letter.’

‘He didn’t do anything—he didn’t even hold out any hope.’

‘Well, he’s out of it all nowadays. Like us. He’s quite old. Lives in Scotland and fishes.’

Tuppence said wistfully:

‘They might have let us do something in the Intelligence.’

‘Perhaps we couldn’t,’ said Tommy. ‘Perhaps, nowadays, we wouldn’t have the nerve.’

‘I wonder,’ said Tuppence. ‘One feels just the same. But perhaps, as you say, when it came to the point—’

She sighed. She said:

‘I wish we could find a job of some kind. It’s so rotten when one has so much time to think.’

Her eyes rested just for a minute on the photograph of the very young man in the Air Force uniform, with the wide grinning smile so like Tommy’s.

Tommy said:

‘It’s worse for a man. Women can knit, after all—and do up parcels and help at canteens.’

Tuppence said:

‘I can do all that twenty years from now. I’m not old enough to be content with that. I’m neither one thing nor the other.’

The front door bell rang. Tuppence got up. The flat was a small service one.