by Rhys Bowen
Then he found himself thinking not of his assignment, but of Mavis herself. She was an attractive girl. Vivacious. Fun. But did he really fancy her? Was it just that she was nothing like Pamela, and he needed to take his mind off the girl he couldn’t have? His thoughts drifted to her now—how soft and serene and elegant she always looked. How her eyes sparkled when she smiled. How her hair smelled somehow like fresh gardens.
Stop it! he commanded himself. Think of something else. Pamela’s friend, Trixie. She had seemed interested in him, which he found amazing, because clearly she was the kind of debby girl who would go more for the Jeremy Prescotts of this world. The party might prove interesting after all.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Mayfair
Jeremy’s flat
“You’re looking remarkably couth tonight,” Guy Harcourt said as he stopped by Ben’s room. “Don’t tell me you’re going somewhere civilised?”
“A party in Mayfair, actually,” Ben said.
“Good God. Are there still such things?”
“It’s being given by a friend who has taken over his father’s flat,” Ben said.
“Anyone I know?”
“Jeremy Prescott. I think you do know him. He was up at Oxford at the same time as us.”
Guy nodded. “Of course, I know him. We used to cruise around together on the deb circuit and then Oxford, of course, although he was a Balliol man, wasn’t he? Do you think he’d mind if I tag along? I am actually in the slough of despond and in desperate need of cheering up.”
“I don’t see why not,” Ben said. “He seemed to be asking all and sundry.”
“Wizard! I’ll go and change.”
“I’d better give you the address,” Ben said. “I have to pick up a girl at the station.”
“You’re bringing a date, you sly dog?”
“You don’t know everything about me,” Ben said with a grin. “However, I’m not sure how much of a date she is . . .”
“But she’s a warm body. That’s all that counts in wartime,” Guy said. “God, I’m feeling positively sex-starved, aren’t you? And all this having to keep silent about what we’re doing. It really cramps one’s style. The girls who would be impressed by my chasing German spies now think that I’m a physical wreck who is a filing clerk.”
Ben nodded agreement. “It definitely is trying. But cheer up. You can drown your troubles in Sir William Prescott’s good wine.”
He left Guy putting on evening clothes and made his way to the station. Mavis was waiting for him. She smiled when she saw him, but there was a flicker of nervousness, too.
“Cripes, I didn’t realise it was to be a formal affair,” she said. “I’m dressed for an ordinary party.”
“I’m sure you look just fine,” Ben said. “And I’m also sure there will be some people there not wearing formal dress. I put this on just in case and because I don’t have a decent-looking suit anymore. Mine was made before the war, and I’ve filled out since then.”
“I think you look just right,” she said and slipped her hand through his arm. She was wearing a little too much perfume, and her dress was a little too frilly, but her eyes sparkled and he liked the feel of her closeness.
“You didn’t have any problem getting away, then?” he asked.
She made a face. “My mother wasn’t at all keen on my going up to London alone, but I told her I was going with a group of friends from work, and we were going dancing.”
“What time do you have to be back?” Ben asked.
“I told her I might spend the night at Cynthia’s house,” she said, giving him a knowing look. “I’m not sure that she believed me, but Cynthia’s family doesn’t have a telephone, and I know my mum is not about to walk two miles to check on us.”
They caught the bus down to Marble Arch. Ben wondered if he should have splurged for a taxi but reasoned that there were precious few to be found these days, and all sorts of people took public transportation. From Marble Arch they walked down Park Lane. It was almost nine o’clock at night but not dark yet, and people were still out and about, enjoying the fine weather. Several men in uniform were going into Grosvenor House, and Ben heard the faint strains of a dance band. So there were elegant evenings still for those who could afford it. An ARP warden, one of the volunteers who handled air-raid precautions, was standing watch on the corner of Curzon Street, ready to pounce on blackout violators.
“Off somewhere nice, then?” he asked as they passed him.
“We’re going to a party,” Mavis said.
“Make sure you keep the noise down, and don’t let any lights show,” he said. “Your lot in this area think you can disregard all the rules just because you have money.”
“Pleasant sort of chap,” Ben whispered as they walked away. Mavis laughed, and slipped her hand into his. Her hand felt warm and comforting. He looked at her, and they exchanged a smile.
Jeremy’s flat was not in a large block, but occupied an entire floor of an older Georgian house. A small lift had been installed beside the staircase, and they rode this to the third floor. Ben was conscious of Mavis’s presence and suspected that she was deliberately pressing herself against him. As the lift doors opened, the wailing of Benny Goodman’s clarinet came to greet them. The front door to the flat was half-open, and music and cigarette smoke wafted out to them as they entered a foyer. Beyond it was a large and well-appointed drawing room. The blackout curtains hadn’t yet been drawn, and the room was still lit by the last of the twilight. It was hard to make out the colours of the upholstery or to identify the Old Masters on the white walls tinged with a rosy hue. There were a dozen or more people inside. Two couples were dancing, but Ben didn’t recognize either pair. Jeremy was playing bartender. He looked up and waved a cocktail glass as he saw them.
“Come on in!” he called. “I’m just about to open a twenty-year-old Châteauneuf-du-Pape.”
“Won’t your father kill you when he finds out?” Ben asked as they approached the bar.
“Doing him a favour, old man. What if we got a direct hit and all that lovely wine flowed into the gutter? At least we’ll be enjoying it. And knowing my father, he’ll find out where to acquire more once the war is over.”
“Only it may be hock and Mosel,” someone standing near joked.
“Oh gosh, you don’t really believe the Germans will invade, do you?” Mavis turned frightened eyes on them.
“It’s a possibility we have to face,” the young man who had made the joke replied. “They had little trouble invading every other country in Europe. There are only twenty miles of Channel separating us.”
“Let’s not talk about gloomy things tonight,” Jeremy said. “I’m home. I’m in a cosy flat with my friends around me, and we’re damned well going to enjoy ourselves. Wine or cocktails? Help yourselves.” Then he looked up as Guy came into the room. “Good God, it’s Harcourt. How did he get here?”
“I invited him,” Ben said. “He shares digs with me. I hope that was all right?”
“Of course,” Jeremy said. “The more, the merrier.” But Ben could tell that he wasn’t pleased. Guy came over to shake hands. “Long time no see, Prescott,” he said.
“Absolutely. What are you doing with yourself, Harcourt?”
“Pen pushing, I’m afraid. I failed the medical. I know I look like a strapping specimen, but apparently I have a weak heart.”
“That’s too bad,” Jeremy said. “Well, drink up. They say red wine is fortifying, don’t they? Now I must take a glass of wine to my favourite woman.”
Ben had been surreptitiously scanning the room, looking for Pamela. Then he saw her standing in the doorway, and looking a little shy, which was unusual for her. Then he noticed she wasn’t alone. Trixie came in with her, dressed in a black sheath dress with an emerald green opera cape over it.
“Hello, Ben,” she said, deliberately pushing past Pamela to give him a kiss on the cheek.
“I must say you look stunning,” he replied.
“Why, thank you for the compliment, kind sir,” she replied. “Now where is our host?”
“Pouring drinks,” Pamela replied. Then Ben noticed that Dido stood behind her, wearing more makeup than her father would have approved of and a slinky red Chinese-style dress, which made her look older than her eighteen years. Her face broke into a big smile when she saw Ben.
“Hello, Ben,” she called. “I didn’t know you were going to be here. How super. Won’t it be fun?”
“However did you get your father to agree to this?” Ben asked.
“Pamela swore to watch me like a hawk and put me on the milk train home in the morning. But as you can imagine I had to beg, plead, whine, and pout before he said yes. I wish I had known that you’d be coming because he would have been happier knowing that you’d keep an eye on me. He thinks you are a wonderfully steadying influence.”
“Gosh, what a responsibility,” Ben said. Then he remembered Mavis standing at his side. “Dido, this is Mavis. Mavis, this is”—he hesitated and might have been about to say “Lady Diana Sutton,” but Dido cut him off.
“Hello, I’m Dido,” she said. “Golly, we didn’t know Ben had a girlfriend. You are so secretive and naughty, Benjamin.”
“We only met recently.” Ben gave an embarrassed smile.
“Do you work together?” Dido asked.
“No, not usually. We met when I had to deliver some papers to the place where Mavis works.”
Dido turned to Mavis. “They wouldn’t have a job for me where you work, would they? I am desperate to do something useful.”
“It’s in Buckinghamshire, Dido,” Ben said. “You know your father wouldn’t let you live away from home.”
“Pamela does. Mavis does,” Dido said.
Mavis chuckled. “No, I don’t. I live with my mother, worse luck. I had to tell some enormous fibs to come out with Ben tonight.”
“Well done you,” Dido said. “A girl after my own heart.”
Jeremy handed Pamela and Dido glasses of wine. Then he saw Trixie. “Hello, another familiar face from the past,” he said.
“I’m flattered that you remember me,” Trixie replied.
“How could I forget? You were a brilliant dancer. I say, your season was a lot of fun, wasn’t it? And as it happens, the last for a while.”
“Don’t remind me,” Dido said. “Have pity on poor girls like me who will never come out now.”
“You look as if you’re doing quite well without coming out, young Dido,” Jeremy said. “Drink up. There’s plenty more. And food through in the dining room. Sorry that the eats won’t be up to the same standard as the drinks,” he added. “I had cook make a mousse from a couple of tins of salmon, and we smoked a trout from the lake, and I’ve some early strawberries from the garden, so we’ll have to make do with those.”
“Make do with those,” Mavis whispered to Ben. “Where did he manage to get his hands on tins of salmon?”
“Better not to ask,” Ben whispered back. She gave him a conspiratorial smile.
“Come and dance with me,” she said. “I like this song.”
“I have to warn you, I’m a mediocre dancer,” Ben replied.
“No, you’re not. You’re a good dancer; don’t be so modest,” Pamela said. As Ben led Mavis toward the parquet floor where others were dancing, Pamela muttered to him, “She’s nice. I fully approve.”
It was a slow foxtrot. Mavis demonstrated that she was quite willing to rest her cheek against his. But it wasn’t even quite dark outside, and Ben felt it was a little early in the evening for such things.
“So are those the two girls from the titled family?” she asked him.
Ben nodded.
“They seem awfully nice. Not snooty at all.”
“They are nice. I’ve known them all my life. We grew up together.”
“And what about the sexy girl in black? She seemed rather keen on you.”
“I expect she flirts with anything in trousers,” Ben said. “She works with Pamela at—at another government department out in the country.”
“I can see I have stiff competition for you,” Mavis said. She looked around. “You have such glamorous friends. Your friend Jeremy is so handsome. He and Pamela make a lovely couple, don’t they?”
Ben glanced up to see that Jeremy was now dancing with Pamela. He had no such reserve as Ben. His arms were wrapped tightly around her, and they moved as one across the floor. Her head was on his shoulder. Her eyes were closed. She looked perfectly content. Ben tightened his grip on Mavis, and she responded, moving closer to him.
At around eleven o’clock, the air-raid sirens went off.
“Should we go down to a basement or an air-raid shelter or something?” one of the girls asked nervously.
“You don’t think they dare to bomb Mayfair, do you?” a man replied, making everyone laugh.
“I know,” Jeremy shouted. “Let’s go up onto the roof! We’ll have a great view from there. Wait while I open the champagne first. It’s Veuve Clicquot, the old man’s favourite.”
There was a loud pop. Champagne welled over the top of the bottle, and glasses were held out to be filled.
“Come on, this way!” Jeremy called, and as if he were the Pied Piper, they followed him through to the kitchen. “It’s a bit tricky, but we’ll manage,” he shouted back over the drone of approaching aircraft. “I used to do it all the time.” He pushed up the window, climbed out onto a narrow parapet. Others followed. Ben went first, then helped Mavis, who proved to be agile and fearless. Along the parapet they went and then up a short ladder to a flat roof above. Once there, they laughed at their own bravado and clinked champagne glasses. Jeremy went down and reappeared with the gramophone, and “In the Mood” blasted out. Some revellers started dancing.
Around them, London lay in darkness, but above, searchlights strafed the sky, making barrage balloons suddenly sparkle as they were caught in the beam. Big Ben was highlighted, and then disappeared again. And then the shape of approaching aircraft, flying in formation. To the south came the staccato sound of ack-ack guns, punctuated with the deeper boom as a bomb was dropped. The bombs must have been incendiaries because fires had now broken out across the river.
A girl jumped up on the parapet that ran around the rim of the roof.
“We’re not afraid of you, Mr. Hitler! Do your worst!” she shouted, waving her champagne glass at the sky. A bomb fell nearer now, then another, shattering the calm of the night with deep booms that could almost be felt rather than heard. Then they heard explosions close by, and fire rose beyond the blackness of trees.
“What is that big building?” the girl on the parapet said.
“They’ve hit the palace!” someone shouted. “Oh God, they’ve hit the palace.”
Ben felt his heart jerk. Was this the promised attack, the one they had been warned of? The Royal Fireworks music? The deposing of a king? The palace is huge, he told himself. The royal family would be safely in the basement. They might have damaged a few rooms, but they couldn’t make the whole place burn down . . .
The first wave of aircraft was now overhead. Responding gunfire sent bright traces into the night, coming from close by in Hyde Park. Another bomb, closer now.
“That was around St. James’s,” one of the men said. “Getting too close for comfort.”
“Don’t be such a ninny,” a girl behind Ben replied. It sounded like Trixie. “We’re not going down. We’re not going to show them that we’re scared. We need Jeremy to bring us some more champagne. Where is he?”
Ben looked around and didn’t see him. Then Pamela tugged at his sleeve. “Where is Dido? I can’t see her,” she whispered.
“Perhaps she was afraid and went back down,” he said.
Pamela shook her head. “When have you ever known Dido to be afraid?”
“I’ll come and help you look for her,” Ben said. “Don’t worry. She’s probably only gone to the loo.” He turned to Mavis. “Be right back.”
Then he helped Pamela down the ladder and along the parapet. Not that she needed help. She walked with that same confidence he remembered from their tree-climbing days. He was just assisting her to climb in through the window when there was a whistling sound, a flash, a boom, and a blast that almost knocked him over. A building across the street burst into flames. Glass and debris came flying at them. He shoved Pamela inside, shielding her.
“Were we hit?” she asked, her voice shaking.
“No. Across the street.”
They could hear shouting from the roof and a man’s voice saying, “Get down from here, now. This is madness.”
As they emerged from the kitchen, a door at the end of the hall opened and Dido came flying out. She was wearing only her slip and her hair was in disarray. “Have we been bombed?” she asked. “The windows just blew in. Oh my God. There is glass everywhere.”
“It’s all right. It’s across the street.” Jeremy came to join her. He was holding a towel around his waist.
Pamela looked at them, then said in a clipped voice, “Dido, get dressed now. I’m taking you home.” She looked at Ben. “Do you think there will be a train at this time of night?”
“You might catch the last train if you hurry,” he said. “If you miss it, you can come back to my place. I’ll go and find a taxi.”
Other people were now climbing in through the kitchen window, laughing a little too loudly, as those who have escaped danger often do.
“More champagne,” a male voice commanded. “Bartender! Give us your best.”
Jeremy had also gone back into the dark room, but emerged again, having hastily put on a shirt and trousers but no jacket and tie. “Of course. Drinks all around,” he said with forced gaiety. As he passed Pamela, he touched her sleeve. “Pamma, I can explain . . .”
She shook him loose. “Don’t touch me!” she said coldly. “Can we go now, please, Ben?”
Then she remembered. “I must just tell Trixie that I have to go, and I’ll see her tomorrow. Someone will take her to the station.”