‘Is that a posh way of saying yes?’
‘Look, I just want to get one thing out of the way. This obsession with class that you have is so tedious. I can’t help being born into whatever class it was. Nor can you. So can we just stop talking about it, for ever?’
‘For ever is a very long time. But for a bit yes, of course. And having got that out of the way, what is your answer?’
‘What do you think it is, you rude arrogant, boring, incredibly lovely man?’
‘I don’t know. You’ll have to tell me.’
‘It’s yes, of course. Yes, yes, yes!’
Alice looked at him. He was smiling. She realised that he had become someone different. Someone more confident, less confused. Which was exactly how he felt, although he couldn’t have told anyone why.
‘Now,’ he said, and she took the hand he held out to her. ‘We’re going to get a taxi – yes, not wait for a bus, the way most people have to do, because we aren’t most people; we’re privileged, thank God – and get the hell over to Islington, and if you don’t come then you really never will see me again.’
An hour later they were in Tom’s mercifully recently changed bed; Alice had been duly deflowered and while not entirely enjoying it, could see the huge potential of it at least and she had agreed, in a rather quavery voice, that they should marry in the fairly near future.
‘Very near if I’m pregnant,’ she added, with a hiccup. ‘But Tom, are you sure about all this? It’s a bit sudden. You’re not going to change your mind, are you?’
‘No. I’m not going to change my mind. And it’s not really sudden. I’m a bit thick, that’s all. I couldn’t see how much I loved you.’
‘I still don’t quite understand.’
‘You don’t need to.’
And with that Alice had to be, if not content, at least fully persuaded, and was very happy to be so.
Chapter 24
1951
Tom’s enthusiasm for the June wedding, so yearned after by both Alice and her mother – a mere two months after the announcement of the engagement – was something of a surprise as well as a relief to both of them. Alice quite simply couldn’t wait to become Mrs Knelston and to commence her role by wafting down the aisle on her father’s arm in a dress and veil as much like those featured in the pages of wedding magazines as possible. June was the month to be married, everybody knew that; warm, sunny, with gardens at their rose-filled, lush-lawned best. It was also perfect for honeymoons, ideally in a seaside location. Mrs Miller did have a slight anxiety that it might look just a little too hasty, as if Alice might have something to hide beneath the bouquet, but a rather embarrassing conversation reassured her on that score. Although when the wedding date actually had to be set for the middle of July, the church being so fully booked through June, it came as something of a relief.
Tom’s enthusiasm, which he would not have admitted to Alice even under torture, was due to two facts: he knew that the election looming in the autumn would consume a great deal more of his time than a wedding and was also impressed by the frequent assertions of Donald Herbert that a pretty young wife would do his political progress no harm. The sooner his journey to the altar and then the honeymoon was completed, the better it would suit him. The only problem was that he seemed unable to choose a best man; he knew his brothers would be horrified by the idea, far too shy to stand up and make the requisite speech. Alice had suggested one of his workmates, but he said he didn’t care enough about any of them to award them the honour. Which was all very well, but time was passing and plans generally made. He told her not to fuss, it really didn’t matter that much surely; he suggested Donald Herbert which frightened her to death, until she found he was teasing her. ‘Well, if we can’t find anyone else, he’ll have to do it,’ said Tom. He was taking a perverse pleasure in the whole affair, it being the only way he could fall short of total submission to her plans.
This did not mean he was not in love with Alice; he was, deeply so. The more he got to know her, the real her, rather than the one she had been so carefully presenting to him, the more he loved her. She was very much her own person and now she had shaken off the spectre of Laura as rival, the more she pleased him. She didn’t have Laura’s intellect, but she was loyal, caring, and tender hearted almost to the point of absurdity. Her tendency to accept people at face value he found particularly refreshing, embedded as he was in the cynicism of the politician class. She had a charm and eagerness to socialise that Donald Herbert was not the only person to appreciate. She also thought Tom was the cleverest, most gifted person she had ever met.
Having been something of a recluse since Laura died, and not possessed of a social circle before he met Alice, Tom found the constant invitations that came their way, both formal and informal, almost bewildering. Alice had more friends than anyone he had ever known and an extraordinary tolerance of people’s shortcomings. He found himself constantly in the company of a great many people he would never previously have exchanged the time of day with; it wasn’t easy, but he did it for Alice because he loved her. He really did love her.
Alice was so happy she found it difficult to believe. She woke up in the morning glowing with it and fell asleep at night suffused with it. Her wildest dreams of Tom had had him telling her he loved her and that some day maybe, they might have a future together. That he should be marrying her in a very few weeks seemed close to impossible. It was as if Tom had stepped over some barrier that night of ‘The Row’, as she thought of it. He wasn’t very romantic, that was for sure. ‘You know I love you,’ he said slightly irritably when she hinted that the odd compliment might have been nice, when she was wearing some new dress or had changed her hair. ‘I don’t see what more you want.’ She hastened to tell him that indeed she didn’t, she was just being foolish, and he would agree that she was. She still had a considerable rival in the form of the Labour Party, but she could accept that; his beliefs and ambitions were as much part of him as his auburn hair and his glorious smile.
And sex – well, sex was so wonderful. She couldn’t believe she had lived through twenty-three years – or at least through a grown-up life – without discovering how wonderful it was. She found herself looking forward to an evening in bed with him as passionately as she would once have looked forward to being taken to the theatre or out to dinner. The month she was on night duty, deprived of this glorious new pleasure, was almost unbearable. She became irritable and altogether miserable. When she told Tom he flushed with pleasure and said nothing could have pleased him more.