be spending money like there’s no tomorrow. Or rather there was no yesterday. To annihilate. To forget.’ Another silence. ‘So I do think it’s an excellent time. Both to raise money and to start new ventures. And I really would appreciate your help. I know you’d be very good at it all. Where are you going?’
‘To get a bottle of wine. To toast your future.’
‘Our future,’ said Julian firmly. ‘Our company.’
He was right: there was a boom. But it was a little longer coming than he had anticipated. The first two years after the war were almost as austere as the preceding five. Companies were manufacturing as fast as they could but the AttleeGovernment was obsessed with economic recovery and everything worth having was being exported. One of the more enraging sights of 1946 was a windowful of desirable things bearing the message ‘for export only’. Everything the heart and indeed the stomach could desire was still rationed; and without the patriotic fervour of war to ease the pangs, people were growing immensely irritable.
One night James Morell, who had become increasingly estranged from his brother, came in from the farm, sat down and ate his supper without a word, and then, taking a deep breath, announced that he would like Julian to move out of Maltings; he was planning on getting married, he said, and sharing a home with anyone, however agreeable, was not a good beginning to any marriage. The house was his, he ran the farm, Julian had been talking for months about how he was going to start his own business; it was time, James felt, that he went and got on with it. He had some money, after all; James was tired of supporting him.
Julian, first amused, became irritable; his outrage increased when Letitia took James’ side and said she quite agreed, that he should go, and that she had no intention of encroaching on James’ marital status either.
‘We shall go to London together, and start a new life,’ she said, somewhat dramatically, adding that James was perfectly right in his view, that Julian had been talking about his plans for quite long enough and that it was time he put them into practice.
‘It’s all very well,’ said Julian, reeling slightly at this double onslaught, ‘but I don’t have any money, I can’t get a house in London. Or start a business. There’s no money to be had anywhere.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ said Letitia, ‘have you not heard of the mortgage? And you have some money your father left you. You said yourself only the other day that it was melting away, as if that fact had nothing to do with you. Very silly. I’ve thought so for a long time. And anyway, I’ve got a little money. We’ll manage.’
James, relieved that the interview with his mother and brother had been less embarrassing and painful than he hadfeared, said he thought he would go and visit Caroline Reever Smith, the noisily good-natured object of his affections, and hurriedly left; Julian looked at Letitia over the supper table a trifle darkly.
‘Thanks for your support,’ he said. ‘I hope you realize you’ve just talked us out of a home.’
‘Oh, Julian, don’t be so ridiculous. You sound like a spoilt child. Of course I haven’t. Where is your spirit of adventure? I’ve talked us into a new one. It’ll be the greatest fun. I’ve been thinking about it for quite a long time, as a matter of fact. Now, I think we should live in Chelsea. In fact I don’t want to contemplate living anywhere else. Goodness, I can’t even begin to believe it after all these years. Just off Walton Street, I think: Harrods round the corner, Peter Jones down the road, Harvey Nichols, Woolland’s.’
‘You sound as if you’re reciting a litany,’ said Julian, laughing.
‘I am. I feel exactly like someone who’s been excommunicated, and just been allowed back into the fold.’
‘All right, I don’t care where we go. Lots of pretty girls in Chelsea anyway.’
‘Lots. Now darling,
‘To get a bottle of wine. To toast your future.’
‘Our future,’ said Julian firmly. ‘Our company.’
He was right: there was a boom. But it was a little longer coming than he had anticipated. The first two years after the war were almost as austere as the preceding five. Companies were manufacturing as fast as they could but the AttleeGovernment was obsessed with economic recovery and everything worth having was being exported. One of the more enraging sights of 1946 was a windowful of desirable things bearing the message ‘for export only’. Everything the heart and indeed the stomach could desire was still rationed; and without the patriotic fervour of war to ease the pangs, people were growing immensely irritable.
One night James Morell, who had become increasingly estranged from his brother, came in from the farm, sat down and ate his supper without a word, and then, taking a deep breath, announced that he would like Julian to move out of Maltings; he was planning on getting married, he said, and sharing a home with anyone, however agreeable, was not a good beginning to any marriage. The house was his, he ran the farm, Julian had been talking for months about how he was going to start his own business; it was time, James felt, that he went and got on with it. He had some money, after all; James was tired of supporting him.
Julian, first amused, became irritable; his outrage increased when Letitia took James’ side and said she quite agreed, that he should go, and that she had no intention of encroaching on James’ marital status either.
‘We shall go to London together, and start a new life,’ she said, somewhat dramatically, adding that James was perfectly right in his view, that Julian had been talking about his plans for quite long enough and that it was time he put them into practice.
‘It’s all very well,’ said Julian, reeling slightly at this double onslaught, ‘but I don’t have any money, I can’t get a house in London. Or start a business. There’s no money to be had anywhere.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ said Letitia, ‘have you not heard of the mortgage? And you have some money your father left you. You said yourself only the other day that it was melting away, as if that fact had nothing to do with you. Very silly. I’ve thought so for a long time. And anyway, I’ve got a little money. We’ll manage.’
James, relieved that the interview with his mother and brother had been less embarrassing and painful than he hadfeared, said he thought he would go and visit Caroline Reever Smith, the noisily good-natured object of his affections, and hurriedly left; Julian looked at Letitia over the supper table a trifle darkly.
‘Thanks for your support,’ he said. ‘I hope you realize you’ve just talked us out of a home.’
‘Oh, Julian, don’t be so ridiculous. You sound like a spoilt child. Of course I haven’t. Where is your spirit of adventure? I’ve talked us into a new one. It’ll be the greatest fun. I’ve been thinking about it for quite a long time, as a matter of fact. Now, I think we should live in Chelsea. In fact I don’t want to contemplate living anywhere else. Goodness, I can’t even begin to believe it after all these years. Just off Walton Street, I think: Harrods round the corner, Peter Jones down the road, Harvey Nichols, Woolland’s.’
‘You sound as if you’re reciting a litany,’ said Julian, laughing.
‘I am. I feel exactly like someone who’s been excommunicated, and just been allowed back into the fold.’
‘All right, I don’t care where we go. Lots of pretty girls in Chelsea anyway.’
‘Lots. Now darling,
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