She crouched down and made a fuss of the dog. Perhaps slightly more of a fuss than she had made of Teddy, Teddy thought. Not that he resented that.
He had expected they would stay in London but she said it would be “nice to get away” for the night (she seemed intent on forgetting the war) and so they had crossed town to another station and taken a train to the coast. She had booked a room in a large hotel (“guest-house landladies are far too nosy”) and had come prepared with a wedding ring (“Woolworth’s”). They discovered that the hotel was full of naval officers and their wives, although it was mostly the landlocked wives as the officers seemed to be busy elsewhere, doing whatever it was naval officers did when they were ashore. Teddy had felt rather self-conscious in his RAF uniform.
One of the officers’ wives had come up to him while he was waiting in the bar for Nancy to appear and, touching him on the forearm, said, “I just wanted to tell you that I think you chaps are doing a splendid job. It’s not all about the Senior Service, even though they think it is, of course.” Teddy had never thought it was—as far as he could see, the bombers were the only ones taking the war to the enemy—but he smiled and nodded politely and said, “Thanks.” He felt more pressure from her hand on his arm and smelt her gardenia scent. She took out a cigarette case and said, “Would you like one?” and she was just leaning in to catch the flame from his lighter when Nancy appeared, looking lovely in pale blue, and the officer’s wife said, “Gosh, is this your wife, aren’t you a lucky man? Just cadging a light,” she added for Nancy’s benefit and drifted rather gracefully away.
“That was well done,” Nancy laughed. “She saved herself with the manner of her exit.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, darling, don’t be na?ve, surely you understood what she was after?”
“What?”
“You, naturally.”
Yes, of course he had known that, and he wondered what would have happened if he had been on his own. He supposed he would have gone to bed with her. He was continually surprised by how forward the war had made women and he was in a state of mind that made him easy prey. She had lovely shoulders and a certain panache, as if she knew her own worth.
“She would have eaten you alive,” Nancy said. She was presuming, he noticed, that he wouldn’t have liked that. Or that he wouldn’t have been up to it somehow. “I’ll have a gin, please,” she added.
“You look lovely,” Teddy said.
“Why, thank you, kind sir. And you look very handsome.”
Nancy had been right, he admitted rather grudgingly to himself, it was nice to get away. He woke early and found that his arm was trapped awkwardly beneath her body. The bed sheets smelt of her lily of the valley, more wholesome than cloying gardenia.
The seagulls must have woken him. They were making a dreadful racket but he rather liked their rowdiness. He realized what an inland life he had been living since the war began (flying over the North Sea in the dark didn’t really count as “seaside”). The light had a quite different quality too, even the little that had found its way through the gap in the heavy brocade curtains. They had rather a good room, French windows opening on to a wrought-iron balcony and a sea view. Nancy said that she had paid “a king’s ransom” for the room and they had only got it because a rear admiral didn’t need it for the night. She was very au fait with naval ranks, much more so than Teddy, who had an airman’s contempt for the other forces. Naval codes, he thought, that must be what she was working on.
The dog, attuned to his every breath, had woken up at the same time. They had made a bed for it overnight in a drawer that they had pulled from the dressing-table and padded with a spare blanket foraged from the wardrobe. “Gosh,” Nancy said, “that looks more comfortable than our own bed.” Teddy—absurdly in his own eyes—felt self-conscious about making love to Nancy with the dog in the same room. He imagined it regarding them with perplexity if not downright alarm, but when he had glanced over at the drawer in the middle of the “act” (“Is everything all right, darling?” Nancy asked) the dog appeared to be fast asleep. Discretion being the better part of valour.