A Ripple from the Storm

‘You won’t be allowed to marry her.’

‘The war won’t last for ever.’

‘And besides, we took a decision that the RAF must not have personal relations with the Coloured women, because it would give the reactionaries a stick to beat us with.’

That was what he had been waiting to hear. He turned the full force of his resentment on her and said: ‘Who took decisions? I’m not bound by any colour-minded decisions. If Comrade Anton wants to have colour prejudice, then he should be ashamed, but I’m not bound by it.’

‘You know it’s not a question of colour prejudice.’

‘Is it not then? For me it is. And if you ask me, Comrade Anton should examine his attitudes. I don’t like them at all.’

‘Then why didn’t you say so in the group meeting?’

‘There’s a lot wrong with the group,’ he said.

‘Then why don’t you say so in the group? It’s no use saying so outside.’

‘I’ll say my mind any place I want to say it. I’m not going to be told what I’m to say or where. I’m telling you, comrade, there’s altogether too many middle-class ideas in this group for my taste. And for the taste of the lads from the camp.’

He left the room suddenly, letting the door crash behind him. Martha lay still, arranging in her mind the words she would use to describe the scene to Anton. Instinctively she softened it. She had an impulse not to say anything: ‘Jimmy’s personal feelings are his own affair.’ But they were not his own affair. It was her duty to tell Anton.

She said to Anton that Jimmy seemed to be in an emotional state, and should be ‘handled’. Then she reported what he had said.

At this, Anton’s personality changed: the gentleman who had sat by her as a nurse vanished. He became the chairman: stern and cold, with compressed lips and judging eyes.

‘There can’t be one set of rules for one person and another set for another. A decision was taken, and until the decision is changed by a majority vote of the group, then Comrade Jimmy will have to abide by it.’

‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have told you,’ she asked herself, and Anton. To which he replied: ‘It is the duty of a comrade to report infringements of discipline. It is our duty to aid and support each other.’

She felt him to be logically right; she felt him to be inhuman and wrong. There was no way for her to make these two feelings fit together. She was still weak and sick, and she let the problem slide away from her.

Soon she was convalescent; and the members of the group came in to see her, at lunch-hour, or in the intervals of meetings. The RAF, however, did not come: Jasmine reported that they were in a bad mood about something.

It was now accepted that Martha and Anton were a couple.

Chapter Two (#ulink_120c2586-a8d5-5d2d-b2ef-2a1833203b5e)

Mr Maynard and his wife took breakfast at the opposite ends of the big table which was fully furnished with white damask, silver and cut-glass dishes displaying the yellows, browns, and golds of five different types of marmalade. Mrs Maynard took a cup of coffee and half a piece of toast; Mr Maynard a cup of tea. The problem which occupied the two minds behind the large, dark jowled faces did not reach words: the native servant stood at attention throughout the meal by the sideboard.

Mr Maynard said: ‘I have to be at the Magistrates’ Court in forty minutes.’ Mrs Maynard said: ‘I believe the living-room is empty.’ Mr Maynard waited by the door of the living-room, watching the morning sun quiver on the glossy leaves of the veranda plants. Mrs Maynard, tucking a white handkerchief into the bosom of her stiff navy-blue dress, where it stood up like a small stiff fan, came to a stop beside him, remarking: ‘I think you had better let me see the girl.’ She said ‘gal’.

He said: ‘I saw her last time, and she was quite amenable to persuasion.’

‘It’s a woman’s thing,’ she said, but without force.

‘How much are we prepared to go to?’

‘I shouldn’t think we’d get out of it under a hundred.’

‘Doesn’t do to give that sort of person a handle, I should be careful,’ she said. Her eyes were already marshalling her rose bushes, which offered white and pink cups of petal to the wind; they shook gently under a cloud of greenish-white butterflies. She frowned, saying: ‘I must get the garden boy to spray those roses this morning.’

He nodded, saying: ‘I might not be back for lunch,’ and walked off, hands behind his back, towards the gate.

Mrs Maynard, a solid dark blue shape, moved frowning over the crisp lawn, narrowing her eyes at the roses.

Maisie Gale had a room in one of the avenues, and it was not more than five minutes out of Mr Maynard’s morning walk to the Magistrates’ Court. He was counting on catching her before she left for work. In fact she was just wheeling her bicycle towards the gate when he appeared.

She said amiably: Thank you for coming, Mr Maynard,’ and leaned the bicycle against the trunk of a jacaranda tree.

Some weeks before, Mr Maynard had visited her, in order to persuade her not to marry his son, or at least to wait until Binkie returned on his next leave. He had expected opposition, but met none. Yesterday she had written him a letter saying she was pregnant. ‘I would like to talk this over with you at your convenience, Yours truly, Maisie Gale.’

She seemed to be agreeably surprised that his convenience was so readily at her service.

‘I suppose you are quite sure about this?’ he inquired.

Maisie leaned against the brown stem of a young jacaranda tree, one bare arm wrapped about it, the other propped on her lazy hip. Her pretty plump face showed blue stains under the eyes. She said: ‘Oh, yes, I’m two weeks over.’

‘And I suppose you are quite sure Binkie is the father?’

She turned wide blue eyes on him, studying him as dispassionately as he was studying her. ‘Oh, yes. You see, we were engaged.’ This, offered with the conviction that it must make the ethics of the situation perfectly plain, caused Mr Maynard to frown, and to raise his black brows at her.

‘What I thought was this,’ she said. ‘Binkie told me Mrs Maynard has friends high up in the RAF. I thought Binkie could get compassionate leave. Yes, I know it’s a long way off, and they say the lads’ll be in Italy by now perhaps, but I thought perhaps it could be worked.’

Mr Maynard’s eyes focused on her face with a suddenness he must have felt himself, for he lowered them, allowing himself a small knowing smile.

‘I know a girl who had a friend in the office. She got pregnant, but her boy got compassionate leave and came home to marry her.’

‘My dear girl,’ he said, his voice weighted with ironical meaning. ‘I assure you it is quite out of the question.’

She looked puzzled. She had begun to blush. ‘Well, if it is, it is,’ she said, and grasped the handlebars of her bicycle.

His face was hard. ‘The CO must be pretty well used to the cries of complaint from the girls left behind, you know – whether justified or not.’

She looked even more upset. Her face was a clear scarlet. ‘I don’t know what you’re saying,’ she queried.

He did not reply save for the ironical stare. She shrugged and got on to her bicycle.

‘Wait,’ he said. She waited, moving the bicycle along the earth under her, back and forth, back and forth. He grimaced with irritation. ‘There’s no need to fly off. What are you going to do?’

Her eyes filled with tears, and she turned her face away.

‘The sad thing is this, with my other two husbands I wished I could have a baby, and we didn’t do anything but I didn’t get pregnant. This time, Binkie and I took precautions because we were only engaged and not married, and I’m pregnant. Well, that’s life.’ She ended humorously, but the tears were running down her face.

‘But my dear girl, you can’t have an illegitimate baby,’ he said, making his voice scandalized.

She replied coldly, because of the falseness of his tone: ‘I never said I should. What I said was, couldn’t Binkie come on leave so we could get married and I could have the baby.’

His stare at her was prolonged. She met it with wet eyes. There was a look of distaste on her face.