He nodded. “That’s me, I’m afraid.”
She smiled in a way that he thought was aristocratic. “What is more, you have an intimate relationship with that charming, plump English gel who drives you. Which means that a woman such as I—one who sees you socially—is safe from your more, shall we say, lubricous instincts? Those are taken care of.”
“You are entirely safe from those, Anne. Even without Cecily, you would be safe from those.”
She laughed. “Come now, Jack! Even though you have Cecily, no woman is entirely safe with you. You’ve a reputation, you see.”
“God help me!”
Four
GETTING AWAY FROM CECILY TO GO TO ANNE BECAME A PROBlem for Jack. He began to drive the car sometimes. Although it was very awkward for him to drive on the left side of the road through blacked-out streets, he made excuses to Cecily and drove himself to York Terrace and the exquisite flat that belonged to Anne, Countess of Weldon.
When they were alone there, he and Anne kissed. That was the extent of their intimacy. Gradually he kissed her more fervently. She accepted it.
“I went down to the USAF field in Kent again today,” he told her one evening. “The bombers are meeting no Luftwaffe fighters and little flak. Our smaller planes are bombing and strafing at will. It’s over, Anne. We’ve won.”
She nodded. “Too late for many.”
He held her. She was wearing a simple cream-white linen dress. “I know, Anne. I know what you mean,” he said somberly. “And a lot more men are going to die. But there’s no doubt anymore. God, when I saw that attack in Belgium in 1940—”
She kissed him, running her moist lips gently over his. “Why couldn’t you have helped us sooner?”
“God, we wanted to! I mean, Roosevelt wanted to. / wanted to. Anne . . .” He glanced around her sumptuous living room. “Do you have any brandy? I’d have brought some, but—”
“I still have some of yours. A lot of yours.”
He sat down, and she poured.
“Obviously we must be glad that the war is over, or nearly over,” he said. “But it’s going to be like it was after the last war. The problems of the peace will be as great as those of the war.”
She handed him a snifter. “I have a sense that you are not talking about politics but about your personal life.”
He sipped brandy. “You’ve been hurt by the war. I haven’t. But you are going to be just as bored as I’m going to be when it’s over. In wartime, we’ve known who we are and what we have had to do. Circumstances have made our decisions for us. Now we are going to have to make decisions for ourselves again, and it isn’t going to be easy.”
“What decisions are you going to have to make, Jack?”
“Business decisions. I’ve let them slide since 1942. Then . . . personal decisions.”
Anne put her hand on his. “You’ve got one hell of a problem, Jack. So does General Eisenhower. I’m going to be very interested to see how you both solve them.”
Five
SUNDAY, JUNE 18, 1944
LATE AT NIGHT JACK LAY IN BED IN HIS SUITE IN THE PARK Lane Hotel. He was listening to the BBC, trying to match the place-names he heard to the names on a board-mounted map he had propped up against his knees.
Forces of the American Seventh Corps, under the command of General Bradley, were reported to have taken a port city named Barneville. If that was true, it meant that the Cotentin Peninsula had been cut in half and that the great port city of Cherbourg was isolated from the German lines.
He would have liked to be in touch with Curt, who, as of their last contact, was in a French town called Carentan, which couldn’t be far from Barneville. This news had to be significant.
Cecily would not let him ponder it. She had smothered his scrotum in her big wet kisses and was now licking her way up his shaft.
Jack closed his eyes and let the map fall.
His hours with Anne were nothing like that.
He usually visited Anne on Sunday afternoon, when she had time off from her work at ATS. Cecily welcomed the opportunity to spend that time with her family. Jack would drop Cecily at home, giving her some story about where he would be during the afternoon, and then would pick her up before sunset.
On the afternoon of Sunday, June 18, he dropped Cecily in the Elephant and Castle neighborhood south of the Thames and drove immediately to York Terrace.
Anne was not alone. A man and a woman were with her—Arthur, the new Earl of Weldon, and his wife, who had just finished having lunch with Anne. Jack couldn’t help but notice that they were put off by him. They kept glancing at the small woven hamper of cheeses and lunch meats he’d brought. Obviously they were wondering about the nature of the relationship between Anne and this American general whose name they had never heard before. They stayed only long enough to be civil, then hurried away.
The nature of the relationship between Jack and Anne was affectionate, even amorous, but not erotic.
Jack moved to the sofa where Anne sat and embraced her. They kissed fervently. They sat together and kissed during much of the time he spent there. Occasionally he would very tentatively touch her breast or her leg, and she would firmly—though in no great hurry—push his hand aside. He was careful not to press her too much, out of fear that she would simply dismiss him.
London came under buzz-bomb attack again that afternoon. Anne poured whiskies, and she and Jack stepped out on her south terrace to see what was happening. Others were out on adjacent terraces, staring half apprehensively and half curiously at the sky.
The V-ls had what were called pulse-jet engines and made a staccato noise as they approached. London Defense put up a storm of antiaircraft fire, but it was not very effective. Jack and Anne and her neighbors on the other terraces saw one bright flash in the sky and realized that the flak had hit one of the buzz bombs. Others came on and dived to the ground. Dark yellowish columns of smoke and dust rose over the city.
Anne took Jack’s hand. “So damned random,” she said. “Where would you go to hide? I understand these bombs can even blast open the shelters.”
“I’m going to try to persuade Betsy Frederick to go home to Boston. She’s in greater danger here than Curt is in on the Continent.”
Anne squeezed his hand. “For a time I was almost sorry the Blitz had ended. I thought maybe I could go out and walk along the river and wait to be hit. But now I don’t want to die. I’ve gotten over that.”
“I haven’t suffered what you have,” Jack said quietly, “but I think I can understand why you felt that way.”
“Let’s go back inside. At least we can be in each other’s arms if one of them comes down here.”
Inside, Jack pulled her against him and kissed her so passionately that he bruised their lips. “If it had to happen, would you want it to happen while you were in my arms?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.
Anne nodded.
Six
AT FIVE-FORTY THAT EVENING ANNE’S DOORBELL RANG. When she opened the door, she was surprised to find Jack standing there. He’d left her flat less than a half hour ago.
He staggered into the foyer, stopped, and turned to Anne. “Cecily is dead!”
She embraced him and found he was shaking. “Oh, Jack! How?”
“One of those goddamned flying bombs. Her whole family, plus two or three other families. When I drove into the neighborhood I could see a bomb had hit. When I reached her street, all that was left was a crater and wreckage. Wreckage of houses—no legitimate target anywhere near. What the hell kind of war is this?”
“That is the kind of war it is,” said Anne. “You saw them strafe the Belgian refugees. You should have seen what happened here during the Blitz. Legitimate targets? Buckingham Palace? The House of Commons? And Oxford Street, for God’s sake—stores! Not a factory within miles. I’d walk out on that terrace in the morning and find that ashes had drifted down in the night and turned the whole thing gray. I’d find shreds of charred fabric and wonder if they wer
e from the stock in some shop or the clothes of someone who’d died during the night. That’s what kind of war it is. And—Oh, forgive me, Jack, for lecturing you. Poor Cecily!”
She took his arm and led him into her living room, where he sank down on the sofa and covered his face with his hands while he shook with sobs.
She poured him a whisky. She sat beside him and put her arms around him.
Two hours later he still sat slumped and, for the most part, silent.
“Jack, I want to say something to you.”
He lifted his head and focused his attention on her.
“Thank you for coming to me,” said Anne.
Seven
JULY 22, 1944
JACK SAT BESIDE ANNE IN HER LIVING ROOM. THEY WERE going out to dinner shortly. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a letter. With a solemn shake of his head, he handed it to her.
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Jack Lear
Brigadier General
American Information Service
London, U.K.
Dear General Lear,
First, let me extend to you my personal gratitude for the magnificent job you have done as head of the American Information Service. Your broadcasts to the British people have achieved every objective we had in mind for them, and more.
It is precisely because they have been so successful that the decision has now been made to discontinue them.
Within a few days you will receive from the War Department orders to disassemble your operation. That done, your orders will be to return to the United States, where you will be discharged from the armed forces.
I know you must be eager to return to civilian life, to your family, and to the management of your business, so your new orders will be good news to you.
Once again, my personal thanks for your sacrifice and service.
It was signed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
“I’ve dreaded this,” said Jack.
“Something else the war has done to us,” Anne said sadly. “And you know there’s nothing we can do about it.”
“I dreaded having to go home and leave Cecily. And now . . .”
“We never had a chance, Jack. We deceived ourselves if we thought we did.”
“So what do we do now? The noble thing?”
“Name the alternative,” Anne murmured sadly.
He bent over and kissed her. “I’ll be going home without one wonderful memory I had hoped to take.”
She sighed. “Not . . . necessarily, I suppose.” She glanced toward the bedroom door. “I am not unwilling to give you that memory. So . . . not necessarily.”
Jack shook his head decisively. “Necessarily,” he said.
SIXTEEN
One
SEPTEMBER 1944
KIMBERLY RAISED HER HEAD AND SMILED LAZILY AT DODGE Hallowell. He put his foot against her chin and gave her a gentle shove. She had no balance, no control of herself whatsoever, and fell over on her side. She was wearing two pairs of handcuffs, one pair attaching her right wrist to her left ankle, the other chaining her left wrist to her right ankle—behind her back. It bound her in a painful and awkward posture, and she had just struggled up on her knees when he shoved her and she toppled over.
“Don’t kick me, you bastard!”
“That was no kick.”
“Okay. Kick me and let me see the difference.”
He stood up and gave her a sharp kick on the hip. “Oww!” she cried as she rolled over. The sole of his shoe left a smudge on her hip but not a bruise. “You hurt me, dammit!”
“I gave you what you said you wanted.”
“Well . . .”
“You want loose from those?”
“I want you to hook me up in front, so I can get my butt up in the air and you can give it to me doggie-style.”
He took a tiny key from his pocket and unlocked the handcuffs from her ankles. “Uh-oh,” he said. “Bruises. Jesus Christ! They’ll be there when Jack gets back.”
“Put the cuffs on a little looser.”
“They don’t go on looser around your ankles. They weren’t made for ankles.”
“Well, I’ll take care of Jack. But—Okay. Cuff me to the rafter.”
“Then what?”
“Then anything you want!”
As she stood with her hands fastened above her head, he took her from behind. She wailed in ecstasy.
After he let her down, he put both pairs of handcuffs in his briefcase, along with some lengths of chain and half a dozen little padlocks. On top of those he put two pairs of crotchless panties, a brassiere with holes cut to expose her nipples, and a strip set: a transparent bra and a G-string.
Kimberly sat nude on the couch and watched him sadly. “I don’t intend to give up these times,” she said simply. “We just have to find someplace else.”
“I don’t know where,” he said resignedly.
“Rent a place, for Christ’s sake! Is it unheard of for a couple to have a love nest? We just can’t have ours in the attic of this house anymore.”
“What would Jack do if he found out?” Dodge asked.
“What will I do if I find out what he’s been doing in London the past two and a half years?”
TWO
THE NIGHT OF HIS HOMECOMING WAS ALL THAT JACK COULD have imagined. The family sat down to a dinner that Kimberly and Joan served, having sent the cook and maid home. Jack put the children’s presents on the table. For John he had brought a set of authentic USAF identification models, painted black and made to aid American pilots in identifying German aircraft, an assortment of shoulder patches and other insignia from the USAF, the RAF, and the Luftwaffe, and an Iron Cross taken from a shot-down German pilot. For Joan he had brought a gold bracelet hung with miniature medallions of the Victoria Cross and other British decorations, also a white silk scarf taken from a downed German fighter pilot.
The two children sipped champagne and later a distinguished Bordeaux that Kimberly had bought and saved for the homecoming dinner. They dined on caviar, then slices of roast beef with Yorkshire pudding.
The only sad note of the evening was sounded when John said, “Tell us about Cecily, Father.”
Jack glanced at Kimberly. He frowned and said, “All I can tell you is that what happened to Cecily happened instantly. She suffered no pain. One second she was alive, and the next second she was . . . gone. And there was nothing anyone could have done to prevent it. The same thing could have happened to me that afternoon.”
In their bedroom an hour later, Kimberly lit a cigarette—the first she had smoked in weeks—and said, “You may as well admit it. You loved Cecily. You had her, even when she worked here; and in London she became very, very convenient. But you’re not the kind of man who humps women he doesn’t care about. You cared about Cecily.”
Jack hung up the Savile Row suit he’d worn for dinner and turned to face Kimberly. “All right. I cared about her.”
“You loved her.”
He nodded.
“I’m prepared to forget it. Circumstances—”
“Fate took care of it, right?” he asked crisply.
“I didn’t suggest any such thing.”
“You didn’t. That’s right, you didn’t. But I’m not going to kid you. I cried. I shed a lot of tears.”
“War . . .” said Kimberly. “What we have to do now is forget it. No, not forget it. But live with what it did to us.”
Jack gave Kimberly the presents he’d brought back for her: an emerald bracelet and a personally autographed photo of King George VI and the Queen.
The night was everything he could have expected.
Three
KIMBERLY INSISTED THAT JACK APPEAR IN UNIFORM AT THE welcome-home party she gave for him in the house on Louisburg Square. She seemed much more pleased with the uniforms he’d had tailored on Savile Row than she’d been with the hastily made uniforms he had worn before he left for London—apart from the fact that he now ha
d stars instead of captain’s bars on his shoulders.
She was in fact eager to show him off. He had attained a higher rank than any of their friends or acquaintances. As she prepared for the party, Kimberly found herself wishing he’d won some kind of decoration. He’d had the President’s letter to him framed, and it would hang in his office, but he couldn’t wear it on his uniform. All he had was the modest ribbon that indicated he had served in the European Theater of Operations. But even that, she conceded, was a distinction some men they knew had not achieved, because they had spent the entire war in Boston or Washington.
“Jack did see something up front and personal of the war,” she told a friend at the party. “He was in Belgium, you remember, and witnessed the strafing of Belgian civilians, plus the German attack across the Meuse at Sedan. Besides, his personal driver was killed in a buzz-bomb attack on London.”
Dodge Hallowell shook Jack’s hand firmly and declared himself overjoyed to see that Jack had returned safely. “You know, it’s been a source of considerable embarrassment to me that I was too young for the old war and too old for this one.”
“War is a young man’s game, Dodge,” Jack said. “I was too old for any real part in it, too, except for the kind of office job I did.”
“But you were there. You saw something of it, experienced some of the tragedy, I understand. I can’t say I envy you, but I have a sense that I have lived my life on the periphery.”
“I’m glad to be back on the periphery, Dodge,” Jack assured him, clapping him on the back and then moving on. He had just laid eyes on an irresistible sight.
Connie Horan extended both her hands and clasped his warmly. ‘I’ve been so worried! About Dan and about you. They’ve shut down the buzz-bomb sites, haven’t they? I mean we’ve overrun the places where they came from.”
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