Free Camomile Lawn by Mary Wesley Page B

own mind.’
    ‘I am.’
    ‘I hope you will both be very happy. It’s two people’s job to make a success of it.’
    ‘I realize that.’ Polly got off the couch. ‘Thank you very much.’ She smiled warmly. ‘The war doesn’t help,’ she added.
    ‘The war shouldn’t be allowed to destroy values.’ Seeing Polly’s face, the doctor added, ‘That’s my only bromide.’
    ‘I’m hanging on to my values.’ Polly held out her hand. ‘Thank you very much for your help.’
    The older woman looked thoughtfully at Polly’s green eyes, bright hair. They shook hands. Her values are not the usual run of the mill, the doctor thought. She rang for the next patient. While she waited she watched Polly skip down the steps into the street and run a few yards before crossing the road. Rather a monkey, that one. She wondered what Polly was really up to. She had not seen any reason to tell her that she had trained with Martin. Any child of Martin Cuthbertson’s would be likely to manage her own business.
    Polly went alone to see The Wizard of Oz and was singing ‘Somewhere over the Rainbow’ when she let herself into her parents’ house. She shut the street door and fumbled her way round the house, drawing the blackout curtains before switching on lights. A musty smell of tobacco and alcohol seeped down from the floor above her parents’ room, which she had made her own since there was a telephone beside the bed. She cursed Oliver and the twins who had disturbed her on their way up the night before. She had left without waking them that morning. She ran up to Walter’s room to fling open a window. A bitter wind blew in then sucked out the sour air. A lump on one of the beds groaned. Polly spun round. Unable to see, she tripped over an obstacle wrapped in cloth and fell full length on the floor.
    ‘Curse it!’
    ‘Who is that?’ A grumpy voice she recognized as her Uncle Richard’s emanated from the bed. Polly disentangled herself from his trousers, drew the curtains and switched on the light.
    ‘Uncle Richard, what are you doing here? I fell over your leg.’
    ‘Arrived last night. Must have overslept. What time is it?’
    ‘Sevenish.’
    ‘I’ll be up for breakfast.’
    ‘Supper. It’s seven in the evening.’
    ‘Oh.’ Her uncle dragged himself into a sitting position. Polly had never seen him grey and unshaven.
    ‘We were celebrating. I remember that. I wonder how I got here?’
    ‘I heard Oliver and the twins making an awful noise going to bed. I suppose they were putting you away.’
    ‘Where’s Sophy?’
    ‘The twins took her back to school this morning. That was their plan. They were all asleep when I went out.’
    ‘She was pleased about the Erstweilers.’
    ‘What about them?’
    ‘They are out, getting out. What day is it?’
    ‘Wednesday.’
    ‘Tomorrow they get to London.’
    ‘How thrilling! Did you do it?’
    ‘Pulled strings, made a fuss, got drunk, I remember now, brandy with Calypso’s Hector, gin when I got here, haven’t been drunk since 1918, not like that, what will Helena say, I ask you?’
    ‘No need to tell her. Why don’t you have a bath? I’ll see what I can find for supper. There’s a razor of father’s somewhere.’
    ‘Feel woeful.’ Richard Cuthbertson lay back with a groan. ‘Woe, woe.’
    ‘I’ll mix you some Alka Seltzer. When you’ve had a bath come down and have supper. I live in the kitchen nowadays.’ Polly went for Alka Seltzer and stood over her uncle as he drank it.
    ‘My God, how disgusting.’
    ‘It helps.’ Polly waited while he drained the glass.
    ‘I remember now, I had a few whiskies before going to the Home Office. You won’t tell Helena?’
    ‘Of course not.’
    ‘They all laughed last night when I told them what I’d said to those bureaucrats, found it funny. Helena finds me funny too, can’t think why, I never make jokes, do you find me funny?’
    ‘Not at the moment. Come down when you’re ready, Uncle. I’ll make some