Holding On Read Free Page B

wasn’t pregnant. Fliss will hate to have her baby so far away from us all.
    Aloud, she said, ‘Come on down and talk about it. You can’t stop people worrying. It’s best to be open about it. Stiff upper lips are all very well but sometimes a good weep is just as beneficial. Don’t bottle things up, Flissy dear.’
    Fliss smiled at her gratefully. ‘I’m a bit wound up about it all,’ she admitted. ‘Silly, isn’t it? There’s nothing to it, really. Miles says that it’s what naval wives have to expect. They have a saying, you know: “If you can’t take a joke you shouldn’t have joined.” You shouldn’t marry a sailor and expect him to stay at home.’
    â€˜That’s quite true,’ agreed Caroline, following Fliss out on to the landing. ‘But then Miles has no family to leave. And it isn’t him having the baby.’
    Fliss descended the stairs from the nursery quarters on the second floor thoughtfully. She couldn’t argue with Caroline’s observations but in the end it made no difference. The situation had to be faced and there was no use whining about it.
    â€˜I’ve been very lucky,’ she said as they reached the landing. ‘Starting as a naval wife with Miles in a shore job was a tremendous bonus. He’s hardly been away at all. I can’t tell you how thrilled he is to be given the command of HMS Yarnton . He’s terribly excited about the whole thing.’
    â€˜Yes,’ said Caroline, remembering a time when she had imagined herself to be in love with Miles. ‘Yes, he would be. And about the baby, too, I expect.’
    Fliss’s answer was rather a long time in coming and slightly confused. ‘Well, he is but it’s rather . . . You know. Perhaps the timing is a bit unfortunate . . . Of course, I’d rather have my baby here but I couldn’t possibly leave Miles for that long. He’d be very hurt . . .’
    Watching Fliss, noting the downcast face, the thick fair hair pulled back into a loose plait, the slender figure with a long Indian skirt wrapped about the still-narrow waist and a cheesecloth shirt knotted above it, Caroline was seized by a variety of sensations. She felt the old tenderness for the child she had known, a new respect for the woman Fliss was becoming, and an overwhelming relief that she herself had stood aside from the complex bonds which tied the wife and mother. As she watched Fliss struggling with her confused emotions, she was profoundly thankful that she would never know that particular division of loyalty. Who should come first: husband or child? She slipped an arm about the slim, square shoulders as they passed through the hall.
    â€˜A glass of sherry,’ she suggested. ‘Yes? You shall sit and have a drink while I peel the potatoes. Ellen is over with Fox, changing his sheets and sorting him out. We’ll have a quiet half an hour.’
    In the kitchen Mrs Pooter’s descendent, Polly Perkins, lay in the enormous dog basket. Mrs Pooter and her son, Mugwump, were both dead, but Perks was just such another large, woolly Border collie, crossed with spaniel or retriever, with a rusty coloured coat, flopping ears and dark brown eyes. She was of a more passive disposition than the greedy, cunning and ungrateful Mrs Pooter but she had Mugwump’s sense of fun, and she enjoyed her walks on the hill behind The Keep or in the deep, quiet lane where Caroline had exercised her earlier, after tea. She lay curled in a ball, nose on tail, sleeping peacefully, and the mere sight of her brought some measure of tranquillity to Fliss’s anxious mind.
    As usual she looked around the kitchen with pleasure. For as long as she could remember it seemed unchanged, her favourite place. Here, when they had returned from Kenya, she had felt safest, sharing the responsibility of her siblings with Ellen and Fox, playing dominoes at the kitchen table or