He stayed at Guildford Park for longer than he had planned; two weeks went past, and he would have extended them had he not been ordered back to his regiment. He had joined the Welsh Guards, his father and grandfather’s regiment, without waiting for call-up as had his brothers. His regiment was still in training in Scotland and he went straight up there without going to see Diana. She was living with her parents in Hampshire again, since London was so dangerous, and he had no desire to see them, without being quite sure why. A psychiatrist could have told him it was in part at least because both their sons were still unscathed and on a subconscious level he saw this as a piece of injustice. The fact that it could change any moment didn’t help very much. Michael was at Barts, caring nightly for the casualties of the Blitz, and Richard, the younger boy, had joined his father’s regiment and was, like Johnathan, awaiting a posting.
Diana had never been so bored, or so miserable. A year into the war, the excitement and happiness of the first four months of marriage seemed like a distant memory. Her father was deeply disgruntled, having failed to obtain a job at the War Office, and dissipated his energies by berating just about everyone who came into his orbit; and her mother had joined the WVS, partly to keep out of the house and her husband’s way. She urged Diana to join too but spoilt as she was by amusing London society, the bossy and overbearing ladies of the county were not Diana’s idea of desirable companions. So, like her father, she moped about the house, rode a lot and fretted over Johnathan, both his safety and the fact that she had failed him with his grief over Piers. It was not the only way she had failed him, she knew, reflecting rather sadly on the first year of her marriage. She was not his intellectual equal in any way; and her scanty education had been no preparation for his sophisticated range of interests. Yes, they had lots of fun together, but he also loved to read, liked going to art galleries, adored music and opera was his great love.
Not much of this had emerged during their courtship, and Diana felt, with a completely illogical resentment, that he should have made it all clearer. She supposed, since most of the time they spent together that first year had been taken up either with the events of the London Season, then the engagement, meeting Johnathan’s vast circle of friends and visiting his family, that the opportunity for such leisurely occupations hardly arose.
They bought a pretty little mews house in Knightsbridge, exactly what she had dreamed of, and she had the greatest fun decorating and furnishing it and then settled into what seemed at first a perfect life as London continued to ignore the fact that there was a war on. She enjoyed looking after Johnathan and being a good wife; she ran the house beautifully, was a wonderful hostess, entertaining his clients as well as their friends, never overspent on her admittedly generous household budget, and even cooked some simple meals herself when they were alone at home, which he liked very much.
But gradually she had to face the fact that they didn’t have very much in common. His mind was far more serious and analytical than hers and she was horribly aware that very often her responses to his observations and indeed conversations were a disappointment to him. The only time she really felt at one with him was when they were in the country, either at her parents’ home or at Guildford Park, riding, hunting, accompanying him on shoots.
Then there was the worst thing: sex. She did not enjoy sex. It was a shock, for she had been easily aroused before they were married, as he kissed and held her close to him, but their wedding night had been a disappointment and they both knew it. She was, of course, a virgin, and there was a certain amount of discomfort and anxiety involved, but neither of them worried too much about it, assuming things would swiftly improve. They did not, although she pretended to him that they had and that she was enjoying it, but actually she found it an increasing chore and was relieved when she had the curse as an excuse.
Her lack of enjoyment distressed her and he seemed to have very little awareness of what she wanted; on the rare occasions when something pleasurable did begin to happen, he would suddenly have his orgasm and roll off her, thanking her dutifully and leaving her close to tears of frustration and disappointment.
There was no one she could talk to about it. Her mother had said, unusually frankly, when they had what she called a little chat one day shortly before the wedding, that it was all rather nice and she hoped Diana would enjoy it as much as she did. So confessing to her mother that she didn’t in the very least would make Diana feel even more of a failure. Maybe, when they were consciously making babies, it would be more fun – although she couldn’t quite think why. They had agreed that babies must wait. Neither of them wanted her left alone with a child while Johnathan was away for months at a time or worse.
‘Time to reproduce ourselves when the war is over,’ Johnathan said, kissing her, ‘and that will be wonderful, won’t it, lots of jolly little things running about.’
Diana said very wonderful, and indeed she liked children, was already a godmother several times over. She found children fun, loved reading to them and playing games like Snakes and Ladders and Ludo, and invented the most wonderful games herself. But that was rather different from full-time care of a baby; they were, from her observation, demanding, exhausting and frequently smelly. So it was as well, she thought, that for now there would be no question of having one – although such was her boredom that she occasionally thought wistfully that the decision might have been a mistake. At least it would have given her something to do.
Ned was throwing up. He threw up relentlessly, day after day; he tried to think of it as something nobler than run-of-the-mill seasickness, as his war effort, but that didn’t help. He had thought he would get used to it, get used to the sea and its horrors – it was always said you did and it was wrong. It was awful. Someone had described the progress of one of the Motor Torpedo Boats – the MTBs as they were known – as being like driving a sports car with no springs along a bumpy road while being shot at. These had been his chosen vessels, once he had obtained his commission, but he was beginning to doubt the wisdom of it.
He thought, as he tried uselessly to control the vomiting, of how he could have been on dry land, very dry land, on the wards at Barts. Still useful, possibly in less danger – although that was dubious as long as the Blitz endured. Why had he done this insane thing, leaving a reserved occupation? It had made his father angrier than he had ever seen him – although beneath the rage was a fierce pride – putting himself literally into the firing line. And of course he knew. He knew that it wasn’t so much courage as buying off fate, of keeping people from finding out, or even suspecting; it was brave beyond anything, what he had so unnecessarily done. He would probably have been called up anyway, for he would have been qualified, no longer a student, and the exemption had only been on the grounds of his student status.