The Kissing Garden Page 5

  ‘Whatever is the matter now, George?’ she asked, trying to keep the disappointment out of her voice.

  ‘I want you to promise me something, Amelia. If you can.’

  ‘You know I always hate it when you ask me that,’ Amelia sighed.

  ‘This isn’t like that. It isn’t like when we were children.’

  ‘Even so, you’re going to have to tell me what it is you want me to promise before I’ll promise it.’

  ‘That means you don’t trust me. Which is the whole point.’

  ‘George? You just said this isn’t like when we were children, remember?’

  Amelia smiled as if to show she was half teasing, but she was not. More than anything she had wanted George to kiss her, just once. One kiss would have sufficed to make this moment a magical one, but instead George was determined to elicit the promise he was demanding from her.

  ‘I just want you to promise me that you will always love me,’ he said, still holding her hands.

  ‘Just? Is that all? I thought it was going to be something important.’

  ‘I’m serious, Amelia.’ George tightened his grip on her hands.

  ‘Ow!’ Amelia protested. ‘So I gather.’

  George relaxed his grip but refused to let go. ‘Well?’

  ‘You want me to promise that I will love you for ever, George? Why else do you think I said I’ll marry you?’

  ‘That’s not an answer, Amelia. At least not the one I want. I want you to promise me that you will always love me – whatever.’

  ‘Whatever? I don’t understand. Whatever what?’

  ‘Whatever might happen.’

  ‘Whatever could happen, George?’

  ‘I don’t know. I just know things can – and do. And if they do, when they do – people can change.’

  ‘I see. For a moment I thought perhaps you were going to ask me to love you whatever you do – the way some men ask their wives, or fiancées rather. So that they can go off and be unfaithful with a clear conscience.’

  ‘That is not what I meant. I will never be unfaithful to you. Never.’

  ‘Is that a promise?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘In that case I promise you I will always love you. Whatever happens.’

  Amelia looked back at him, and seeing the obvious anguish in his eyes at once regretted her teasing.

  ‘I love you, George,’ she said again, squeezing both the hands which held hers. ‘And I promise that I always will. Until death do us part.’

  ‘And I shall always love you, Amelia,’ George replied. ‘I promise. Whatever you do, or I do, whatever happens to us both I shall always love you.’

  And so at last he kissed her. He kissed her with the first of many thousands of kisses they would share in a lifetime, although perhaps no kiss after this was ever quite so special nor so sublime. He kissed her once, then he kissed her twice, then he put both his arms round her, hugged her tightly and slowly lifting her up off the ground kissed her again.

  It was all just as Amelia had dreamed.

  * * *

  ‘So what was it like?’ Hermione demanded when she entertained Amelia for tea the following day at her family’s summer house in Bosham. ‘I want to know exactly what you felt.’

  ‘I can’t tell you,’ Amelia sighed. ‘There aren’t words to describe it.’

  ‘You could try.’

  ‘I couldn’t. Even the word heavenly falls a long way short.’

  ‘Lucky you.’

  ‘Lucky me.’ Amelia grinned and popped another tiny sandwich in her mouth.

  ‘Pig.’ It was Hermione’s turn to sigh. ‘Sometimes you are an utter and a complete pig.’

  ‘I thought I would faint actually,’ Amelia confessed. ‘The one thing I can tell you is that for one moment I really couldn’t see straight, and then I thought I would pass out.’

  ‘As in swoon?’ Hermione giggled. ‘With the back of one hand to the forehead? And a cry for the sal volatile?’

  ‘I’d have made quite sure to fall into his arms,’ Amelia replied. ‘Don’t you worry.’

  Hermione thought for a moment with half-closed eyes, while carefully nibbling on a piece of sponge cake.

  ‘I wonder what it’s going to be like when you’re actually married?’ she said.

  ‘What what’s going to be like?’

  ‘It. What It’s going to be like.’

  ‘Oh,’ Amelia said, before giving it some thought. ‘Ravishing, I suppose. Or else we wouldn’t have the word ravished. Would we?’

  ‘Ravishing,’ Hermione echoed. ‘Always been one of my favourite words.’

  ‘Except do you actually know what actually happens, Hermione?’ Amelia wondered.

  ‘Happens, Amelia? You mean as in It?’

  ‘Yes. Exactly.’

  ‘Yes, well of course,’ Hermione said, as if the question need never be asked. ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘Well yes of course,’ Amelia lied. ‘Who told you?’

  ‘My mother, naturally,’ Hermione replied. ‘You?’

  ‘Same here. Naturally.’

  ‘Even so,’ Hermione went on with her usual surface confidence. ‘I don’t think we should talk about it. It is not the sort of thing people like us discuss.’

  ‘I think it’s all right if you’re just about to get married.’

  ‘Probably.’ Hermione gave an envious sigh and a sly smile. ‘Anyway – you’ll soon find out, won’t you? Lucky you.’

  Amelia fared no better with her mother when the subject came up, albeit by accident. They had been sitting out in the garden discussing marriage in general rather than in the particular, with Constance propounding her usual views on what constituted happiness in wedlock.

  ‘That’s the way it is, my darling girl. The way it is with marriage, anyway. People simply don’t get to know each other until it’s too late sometimes. I’ve often said as much to your father. You meet someone and you’re attracted to them, you go to a church where they read this service over you – and abracadabra! You are now in marital bliss, expected to spend the rest of your lives together in happy – happy – whatever is the dratted word? The same as that thing in grammar – yes, conjugation ! You’re meant to happily conjugate for the rest of your life with the same person just because you both wanted to make love. I mean really!’

  Constance closed her eyes the way she always did when a bad bout of laughter overtook her, tipping her head back and dissolving in mirth while Amelia, more than a little taken aback by the outburst, began to examine one of her fingernails in mock anxiety.

  ‘Actually, while we’re on the subject, Mama—’ she began.

  ‘What subject?’ her mother wondered, stilling her laughter. ‘I do sincerely hope you don’t wish to discuss anything intimate, Amelia dear.’

  ‘Yes, I do, as it happens,’ Amelia replied, dropping her eyes and pretending now to look at the pictures in the magazine on her knee. ‘As it so happens it’s about what you were just talking about. Marriage. And – well. It. Conjugation, that is.’

  ‘Oh lord,’ Constance said, pulling a suddenly over-concerned face. ‘What is it you want to know? I mean there’s nothing to be afraid of, if that’s what you’re afraid of.’

  ‘No, I know. At least I hope there isn’t.’

  ‘Oh lord,’ Constance sighed again, sitting back and rearranging her skirts. ‘It really is so difficult, and for girls in particular. It’s a wonder any of us ever survive the shock.’

  ‘The shock?’ Amelia wondered anxiously. ‘What shock are you talking about?’

  ‘The shock of our wedding night, of course. What else? Your grandmother – no, no I can’t tell you that, not now,’ Constance said, pulling herself up short. ‘When you’re older maybe, but certainly not now. No, no, no.’

  ‘What, Mama? What can’t you tell me about Grandmother?’

  ‘When you’re older, Amelia darling.’

  Amelia frowned at her mother and fell silent, wondering what specific marital ho
rror her mother was keeping from her. She had heard similar dark hints in conversations with her closest girl friends, Hermione in particular, but nothing had ever been specified other than vague intimations of pain and rumours of horrified surprise. But before she could press her mother further Constance suddenly leaned forward and took her hands in hers.

  ‘Amelia darling,’ she said with genuine concern. ‘You are au fait with what matters, n’est-ce pas ? Because if you are not, I am quite and utterly hopeless at explaining this sort of thing in any way. Besides, I don’t really think it’s for a mother to say. Not unless it’s a sort of last gasp situation. Much better to learn it from one’s girl friends, just as I did. Much, much better because then it is like to like, if you see what I mean. I’m quite sure you and Hermione must have discussed this sort of thing on countless occasions, just the way I did with my friend Agatha – who, I have to tell you, knew it all and taught me everything. So really, darling girl, if you still have any doubts or worries then for heaven’s sake ask Hermione.’

  ‘I already have, Mama,’ Amelia replied, somewhat bleakly.

  ‘Well there you are then,’ Constance concluded, sitting back once more with another deep sigh and picking up her magazine. ‘People the same age talk the same way, so it’s much the best way. Now why don’t you ring for some tea? And come and sit here beside me and tell me what you think of the latest fashions from Paris. I think they’re quite appalling.’

  After tea Amelia took Sam, their jolly little fox terrier, for a walk, having arranged to meet George on the Downs. With the little dog barking happily at her heels Amelia set off out into the cool of the early summer evening. When they got to the Downs the dog ran on ahead, nose to the ground as he endeavoured to pick up the most recent rabbit scent, the success of his searches flagged by the activity of his stumpy little white tail. As Amelia strolled onto the springy downland turf she selected a fresh grass to chew, called to Sam not to run too far ahead and scanned the landscape for a sight of George.

  As she walked she began to recite a verse from one of her father’s war poems.

  ‘They shall not sleep now

  Nor shall their eyes

  Lose sight of the bitter darkness

  In which they fought

  Beneath the glare of a foreign sun.

  ‘I wonder if that’s true of George, Sam?’ she continued out loud, addressing the dog who was not in the least bit interested. ‘Maybe once you’ve experienced something quite dreadful you just can’t ever forget it, however hard you try. Except George is different from most men, Sam. He’s the stuff of heroes. George once dived into the Solent to rescue a drowning man with absolutely no thought for his own safety.’

  A moment later she saw him on the horizon, followed by his dogs. At once Amelia changed direction and hurried up the hill towards him, calling his name while keeping her sunhat on her head with one hand. As soon as she reached him he kissed her on the cheek, smiled and took her hand, leading her off on a long walk that encompassed all the old familiar and favourite places. For a while they were happy just rambling, caught up more in their past than in their future, remembering childhood days spent up in the green hills long before the roof of the world had fallen in. The dogs dropped back to follow quietly at heel as if they sensed the importance of these shared memories, and for a long while as they walked it was as if life had always been like this and they had simply picked up where they had left off five long years ago.

  As George pointed out all the old familiar landmarks, Amelia kept glancing at the handsome man beside her, unable quite to believe that now he really was hers. What made her even happier was to see him so much more relaxed and so much more himself, restored it would seem nearly to his old self. His open face seemed to have lost its look of perpetual worry, his blue eyes were bright and clear again, and even the set of his jaw appeared to have regained its determination. He was almost absurdly good-looking, Amelia realized, recalling how everyone had thought just the same about him when he was a boy. Like a little Greek god, her mother would laugh when the two of them would return tousle-haired and flush-faced from some daunting tree climbing expedition, or some journey of exploration up on the Downs.

  A little Greek god and a little tangle-haired wood sprite found on the Downs, Clarence had written under the photograph he had taken of them one day in fancy dress.

  Yet she was never the tomboy, always just what she was: a pretty dark-eyed and dark-haired girl with what George called a permanently startled look, as if she had been suddenly surprised. Her mother used to tease her, saying that she must have got a fright being born, so that for a long time as she was growing up Amelia would try to change the nature of her expression by affecting a deeply puzzled frown.

  She only abandoned the attempt to alter her natural appearance when George told her he actually thought hers was the most beguiling look he had ever seen on a girl, the evening of her sixteenth birthday when he had danced with her for most of the party. Amelia had at once pulled a funny face and told him in reply that she was plain and her look simply a silly one, but George had insisted she was wrong. So persuasive had he been that Amelia had believed him and begun to look at herself differently, now seeing quite a pretty face gazing back at her from her looking-glass rather than one she considered plain and frankly boring. The more she looked the more she realized George was right. Her wide eyes were her best feature, so instead of frowning all the time and trying to hide them under a fringe of dark hair she wore her hair differently, pulled back from her face and tied into a long plait down her back, a style which made her appear faintly Egyptian, for in spite of her large round eyes she had what her father called a Mesopotamian profile, with her straight nose, high cheekbones and a pretty mouth albeit with its slightly protuberant upper lip. You’re not going to be a beauty in the classical sense of the word, Amelia, Clarence would say as he sat her on his knee, but you will be a beauty certainly in a most distinctive way.

  In fact the only thing about herself she really still regretted was that she never grew to be tall. She felt that with more height she might the better match up to George. George on the other hand would not hear of such a thing, even when they had finished growing, assuring Amelia that he had no wish for competition.

  By now they had climbed to Peter’s Point, a beacon on top of their favourite hill, and George had fallen silent, slipping free of Amelia’s arm and walking on ahead of her to stand on the highest point gazing southwards to the sea, as if looking beyond the horizon to France and the days of his warfare. Amelia rested on the pile of old stones which marked the site of the beacon, waiting for George to break his reverie so that they might continue their walk in the same relaxed frame of mind. But when he did decide to go on he did so without calling her to him, suddenly walking briskly away from the Point with only a whistle to his dogs.

  As soon as she heard his signal and saw his dogs jump up to follow their master Amelia jumped up too, catching him up before he had gone more than a hundred yards. She grabbed his arm again, this time in an attempt to halt his progress, but George seemed hardly to notice her or the fact that she had hold of him, walking on steadily with his eyes still fixed on some unknown mark.

  ‘George?’ Amelia tried to catch her breath. ‘George – what is it? Is something the matter?’

  Her question must have momentarily caught his attention because he came to a sudden halt, looking at her for a long moment before walking on. Still attached to his arm, Amelia was pulled along with him, at a pace too fast for her.

  ‘George?’ she protested. ‘George – please slow down! Please – and tell me what is the matter with you.’

  ‘Nothing,’ George said, screwing his eyes up at the horizon. ‘It’s just – sometimes it’s just these things get into my head, that’s all. Things that have happened. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Would it help if you talked them out?’ Amelia wanted to know. ‘I know I can’t really have any idea of what you’ve been through, but perhaps if you
talked about it, it might help us both?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know where to start.’

  ‘Just say whatever’s in your head. Whatever’s bothering you.’

  George thought for a long while, then took a deep breath and shook his head. ‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘I don’t think so. I really don’t think so, thank you all the same.’

  He walked on again, with Amelia following in silence, knowing better than to prompt him any more.

  ‘What this is like, if you understand me—’ he said finally after they had walked another couple of hundred yards. ‘I’ll try to explain. What this is like is— It’s like a dream. Try and imagine if you can being used to waking up with the air full of the noise of gunfire. With the whole sky alight with the blaze of the big guns. Think of practically every waking minute being like that – because that’s how it seems – the noise seems eternal, although sometimes you would go days without a shot being fired. Yet all you remember is this incessant noise. Fantastic noise. Noise such as you have never heard before, noise like a thousand thunderstorms happening all at once. Then think what it’s like to wake up at night and see a sky that is dark. And silent. With no shells screaming through the air and bursting or bullets flying past your head but just the sound of perhaps an owl hooting and nothing else. Not a thing. Then in the morning someone brings you breakfast in bed and you find you’re lying in clean crisp linen instead of filthy, freezing mud. And the summer sun is streaming in through the window and there’s the sound of birdsong outside. Over there – if you even saw a bird it was like a miracle, particularly a songbird. I remember once – it was at Ypres – after one particularly bad bombardment when the guns had fallen silent – a song thrush began to sing. Right out of the blue. Listening to it, it was as if you were home again, sitting in your garden some early spring morning and just listening to the birds sing. Instead of lying up to your waist in mud with the dead and the dying all around us. Think of that, imagine that if you can, then tell me I’m not going mad.’