Winter of the World

Fitz looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. ‘Dash it, I’ve got to go. Thank you, Grout.’ He looked at Boy. ‘Don’t make a final decision until we’ve talked some more. This is not right.’

‘Very well, Papa.’

Fitz looked at Bea. ‘Forgive me, my dear, for leaving in the middle of dinner.’

‘Of course,’ she said.

Fitz got up from the table and walked to the door. Daisy noticed his limp, a grim reminder of what the last war had done.

The rest of dinner was gloomy. They were all wondering whether the Prime Minister would declare war.

When the ladies got up to withdraw, May asked Andy to take her arm. He excused himself to the two remaining men, saying: ‘My wife is in a delicate condition.’ It was the usual euphemism for pregnancy.

Boy said: ‘I wish my wife were as quick to get delicate.’

It was a cheap shot, and Daisy felt herself blush bright red. She repressed a retort, then asked herself why she should be silent. ‘You know what footballers say, Boy,’ she said loudly. ‘You have to shoot to score.’

It was Boy’s turn to blush. ‘How dare you!’ he said furiously.

Andy laughed. ‘You asked for it, brother.’

Bea said: ‘Stop it, both of you. I expect my sons to wait until the ladies are out of earshot before indulging in such disgusting talk.’ She swept out of the room.

Daisy followed, but she parted company from the other women on the landing and went on upstairs, still feeling angry, wanting to be alone. How could Boy say such a thing? Did he really believe it had to be her fault that she was not pregnant? It could just as easily be his! Perhaps he knew that, and tried to blame her because he was afraid people would think he was infertile. That was probably the truth, but it was no excuse for a public insult.

She went to his old room. After they had married the two of them had lived here for three months while their own house was being redecorated. They had used Boy’s old bedroom and the one next door, although in those days they had slept together every night.

She went in and turned on the light. To her surprise she saw that Boy appeared not to have completely moved out. There was a razor on the wash stand and a copy of Flight magazine on the bedside table. She opened a drawer and found a tin of Leonard’s Liver-Aid, which he took every morning before breakfast. Did he sleep here when he was too disgustingly drunk to face his wife?

The lower drawer was locked, but she knew he kept the key in a pot on the mantelpiece. She had no qualms about prying: in her view a husband should have no secrets from his wife. She opened the drawer.

The first thing she found was a book of photographs of naked women. In artistic paintings and photographs, the women generally posed to half conceal their private parts, but these girls were doing the opposite: legs akimbo, buttocks held open, even the lips of their vaginas spread to show the inside. Daisy would pretend to be shocked if anyone caught her, but in truth she was fascinated. She looked through the entire book with great interest, comparing the women with herself: the size and shape of their breasts, the amount of hair, their sexual organs. What a wonderful variety there was in women’s bodies!

Some of the girls were stimulating themselves, or pretending to, and some were photographed in pairs, doing it to each other. Daisy was not really surprised that men liked this sort of thing.

She felt like an eavesdropper. It reminded her of the time she had gone to his room at Tŷ Gwyn, before they were married. Then she had been desperate to learn more about him, to gain intimate knowledge of the man she loved, to find a way to make him her own. What was she doing now? Spying on a husband who seemed no longer to love her, trying to understand where she had failed.

Beneath the book was a brown paper bag. Inside were several small, square paper envelopes, white with red lettering on the front. She read:

‘Prentif ’ Reg. Trade Mark

SERVISPAK

NOTICE

Do not leave the envelope

or contents in public places

as this is likely to cause offence

British made

Latex rubber

Withstands all climates

None of it made any sense. Nowhere did it say what the package actually contained. So she opened it.

Inside was a piece of rubber. She unfolded it. It was shaped like a tube, closed at one end. She took a few seconds to figure out what it was.

She had never seen one, but she had heard people talk about such things. Americans called it a Trojan, the British a rubber johnny. The correct term was condom, and it was to stop you getting pregnant.

Why did her husband have a bag of them? There could be only one answer. They were to be used with another woman.