A Song for Summer

She paused, surveying in her mind the current population of Crowthorpe. "The land girls are all right, and so are the evacuees that came first, the little Cockney ones, but then we had two more lots from Coventry and Birmingham and they hate each other and their children make Molotov Cocktails in lemonade bottles and throw them out of the window, and the people I wanted like my mother and Sophie can't get away; Sophie's in Cambridge and Leon's joined the pioneers, so I'm left with people like Tamara-

-"'

"Tamara! You're not serious? The Little Cabbage?"'

She nodded. "She's not there all the time but she doesn't get on with her mother and I don't mind her too much because she plays the gramophone with Kendrick and he tells her about Dostoevsky. Of course it would be nice if she brought her ration book and stopped stealing the flowers from the conservatory, but it's not easy for Kendrick, me being so busy ... and none of it matters because it's wartime and compared to people all over the world--"' She broke off and he saw her pass a finger along her lower eyelid, in the gesture he had seen her use at Hallendorf to stem the tears of a child.

"Ellen, I don't understand this," he said, gathering her into his arms. "I don't understand what you're saying. Nora said ... that's why I didn't come ... Not because of Kendrick--he can go to the devil--but because of you."

"Nora," said Ellen, bewildered. "How does Nora know?"'

"She came up to see you." But he could not go on. Nora's description of Ellen in her fruit-filled orchard still had the power to sear him. "She was like that girl in the Mille Fleurs tapestry," she had said. "The one with the unicorn. You must let her be, Marek. You must promise me to let her be." Forcing himself, he tried to put into words what Nora had told him. "That's why I didn't come; because of the child."

Ellen stared at him; a searchlight fingering the sky passed over her face and he saw the huge, bewildered eyes.

"Oh God!"

The bleakness in her voice made him overcome his own misery. Somehow he must enter into what now seemed her reason for living.

"What is it, the baby? A boy or a girl?"'

She lay back against the pillows. "I don't know," she said wearily. "It might have been Tyrone or Errol or Gary ... there are so many of them and they're all named after film stars."

He pulled her up, grasping her shoulders. "Explain," he said urgently. "Don't play games with me."

She tried to smile. "I told you about sanctuaries; you can't choose. The billeting people asked me if I'd take unmarried mothers--the idea is they help with light housework in exchange for their keep and then when they've had their babies, after a month, they go away and put their babies in a cr@eche and find work. The first part works all right--they're nice enough girls; they've mostly been made pregnant by some soldier who's posted overseas. It's when they're

supposed to go away that it's not so good."

But he was scarcely listening. "You mean you haven't got a child; you're not even expecting one?"'

She gave a forlorn shake of the head. "Nor likely to," she could have said, but did not, for it seemed important to protect Kendrick. The move from the master bedroom to the old nursery had not made much difference. Kendrick continued to stammer out his adoration and to beg her night after night not to leave him alone, but that was as far as it went. At first the knowledge that his talentless fumblings were unlikely to produce a child had devastated Ellen, but the endless infants produced by her unmarried mothers had calmed her distress. There would be plenty of children after the war in need of homes. She would adopt one then.

But Marek was transfigured. He would not have taken her from her child, or deprived a man of his flesh and blood, but now there was no obstacle.

"Thank God," he said. "You're mine then"--and reached for her again.

The second time is better than the first; more certainty and already that touch of recognition that is one of the most precious elements of love. Marek now was a conqueror; the relief, the joy he felt transmitted in every gesture, and Ellen followed him movement for movement ... remembering as if her life depended on it the feel of his skin, the muscles of his shoulder, the touch of his hair.

So that when morning came and she said she must go back, he did not believe it.

"You're mad. You're absolutely mad.

Do you think you're making that poor devil happy with your pity? Surely he deserves better than that?"'

But he was not frightened yet. He was still certain of victory.

"I promised," she kept repeating. "I promised I wouldn't leave him alone. Night after night, I promised.

He's always been alone. His brothers bullied him and his mother despises him. The whole house is full of photos of Roland and William and not one of Kendrick--"'

"For God's sake, Ellen, do you suppose

I care about any of that? I remember him from school--he was always by a radiator. You can't help people like that."