Fallen Skies Read online

  “They just don’t care.”

  “You would have thought with a million people unemployed that they would want the work!”

  “They were spoiled during the war. Ridiculous wages and too much freedom. We’ll never get the old days back again.”

  “Stephen must wonder what he fought for, he really must.”

  “Yes,” Muriel said, suddenly descending from indignation. “I am afraid he does. It is not the England he left in 1917. Nor the sort of world he thought he would come home to.”

  The maid burst into the room, holding Muriel’s summer jacket. “Beg pardon, M’m. I was out the back.”

  Muriel took the jacket.

  “He should have what he wants,” Jane said. “He was a hero, after all.”

  Muriel nodded. “Yes,” she said. “I’ll bring Lily to see you on Thursday. She is quite presentable, really, you’ll see.”

  • • •

  Lily and Stephen were shopping together in Palmerston Road, Southsea. It was an attractive street, busy with trams running up and down and horse-drawn delivery wagons, boys on bicycles with big iron baskets and the occasional private car. A band of crippled ex-soldiers played a ragged march with a collecting bucket placed before them. A label propped against it read: “Veterans of the Great War. Please give generously. No work, no pensions, no hope.” Lily and Stephen crossed the road to avoid them without comment. They were going to buy Lily’s engagement ring.

  “A sapphire, to match your eyes,” Stephen said.

  Lily remembered her daydream of swanning into the dressing room with a large and expensive ring on her finger. She summoned a smile. “That would be nice,” she said.

  The jeweller was expecting them. Stephen’s clerk had telephoned from work to say they would be coming. “It’s better that way,” Stephen explained. “Then they know who they’re dealing with. It saves time and you get better service.”

  The man had a tray of sapphires ready. Stephen picked out the largest at once. It was a big square-cut stone, set on its own in a claw setting on a thin band of gold. “That’s a beauty.”

  The jeweller manifested intense surprise. “Captain Winters, I had no idea you had any experience with gems.”

  Stephen smiled and smoothed his moustache. “A man of the world has a certain eye . . .”

  “A very certain eye if I may say so. Would the young lady like to try?”

  Lily put out her hand. The ring slid on, the band was far too big. “It’s too big.” She felt it drowned her hand, the big stone and the bright blue of the colour.

  “We can alter it to your size, Madam. Any one of these can be altered to your size. Don’t let that distract you from your choice.”

  Lily pointed to a smaller stone set either side with white diamonds. “That’s pretty.”

  “Charming,” the jeweller said. “A charming choice. A modest little ring which suits a small hand.” He slid it on.

  “Paltry,” Stephen declared. He picked up the ring with the big stone again.

  “Nothing to compare with that beauty of course. But a very pretty ring and exquisitely set. You certainly know craftsmanship when you see it, Madam.”

  “Try this one.” Stephen indicated another.

  Lily slid it on. It was another large stone, only a little smaller than the first. It bumped against her knuckle and weighed heavy on her hand.

  “It feels heavy.”

  “You’ll get used to it. You’ll have to get used to a wedding ring as well, Lily, remember!”

  Lily nodded. She spread her hand and moved it under the lights, making the stone sparkle. It covered the whole of the lower joint of her finger from knuckle to the first joint. Under the smart electric lights it glowed like a blue flame.

  “Either this one, or the bigger one,” Stephen decided. “Don’t you think, Lily? It’s your choice of course.”

  “Whichever you prefer.” Lily could feel a deep weariness spreading through her. She had felt tired for days, ever since the funeral. She wondered if she had caught her mother’s flu.

  Stephen chuckled. “It’s not which I like best, my little darling. It’s which you like best.”

  The jeweller stepped discreetly back from the counter, out of earshot, keeping his eye on the tray of rings.

  “You’re the one that will wear it, dearest.”

  Lily looked up at Stephen; her pale face was quite indifferent. “But you’re the one who will see it.”

  “You’ll see it, little goose! It will be on your hand!”

  She shook her head. “I won’t see it any more than I see my fingernails or my face in the mirror. I shall get accustomed to it. I shall get accustomed to everything in time.”

  “I shall never get accustomed to you.”

  They were silent for a moment.

  “Which one do you really prefer?” Lily asked politely.

  It struck Stephen that they were jointly incapable of taking a decision. Lily was too young and her tastes were still unformed. For instance, she had chosen the small sparkly ring in preference to the large stone which was clearly more valuable.

  Fortunately she had the good sense to give way to him in all decisions, and it would be his duty as her husband to guide and form her taste. Consultation was a courtesy and he would never neglect it. But you couldn’t run a regiment democratically. In any relationship there was a leader and the led. In his relationship with Lily he would lead her and guide her, and, if needs be—order her. She was to be his wife after all. Not an equal but a helpmeet.

  In any case Lily and Stephen had no language for ordinary conversation. In the days of their brief courtship Lily had chattered and he had listened. Now Lily was silent there were no patterns of speech between them that could be adapted to making decisions. Even important decisions about the wedding and their future life had been made by Stephen; Lily only ever consented.

  “We’ll have the big one. Damn the expense.”

  “Is it very expensive?”

  Stephen chuckled indulgently. “And what if it is? I can afford it, and you deserve it.”

  The jeweller measured Lily’s finger and promised that it would be altered at once.

  “Could you send it round when it’s done? We’d want it at once.”

  “Of course, Sir.”

  Stephen passed him a card. The man noted the select address. “I could probably have it ready for this evening. I will deliver it myself. With a jewel of this quality I wouldn’t trust it to anyone else.”

  “We’ll have it safely on your finger in no time,” Stephen said, smiling at Lily.

  “Yes.”

  Coventry had been ordered to meet them after driving Mrs. Winters home. “Let’s stroll towards home and window shop,” Stephen suggested. “You’d better get your skates on, Lily, and buy some clothes. When people know we’re married you’ll be invited everywhere.”

  Lily nodded.

  “You used to be mad for clothes. Every time I took you out for tea or dinner you would be looking at ladies’ clothes. Don’t you want to shop? We could have a dressmaker round, have her run some things up for you? Or London, now? We could go up to town and you could take your pick. I bet you’d like Harrods, eh, Lily?”

  Lily smiled. She hardly heard him. She felt as if she were at the bottom of a thick glass jug. A cider jug with narrow finger-sized handles at the neck, for carrying. A narrow, narrow neck through which she would never escape and a wide echoing body. Lily felt she would roll round and around inside the empty jar while people’s voices boomed and rang around her. But they could never hear her reply. And she could never quite distinguish what they said. She was as incapable of speech, of speaking truly and openly to Stephen, as she was incapable of tears.

  Lily’s grief had stunned her. All she could hear was the echoing booming of speech. All she could see was a curiously shrunken distant world, lacking in colour or interest. All she could feel was the cold lost confusion of a little doll swirling round and around in the bottom of a deep