Victorine stirred in her sleep, her leg shooting out suddenly and they both laughed. The girl’s eyes flew open. ‘You came back,’ she said sleepily to Dan and he sat on the bed beside her and stroked her hair. Within half a minute she was asleep again.
‘Will you read this?’ Jess asked abruptly.
In the faint glow of the kerosene lamp, sitting on her bed, Victorine asleep beside him, Dan read her words about Victorine while Jess kept her back turned studiously towards him. When she could no longer hear pages rustling, she said, ‘I don’t want to send it to my editor unless you approve.’
‘You should definitely send it,’ was all he said before he gave Victorine a quick kiss on the cheek and left to get Jennings.
Six
Jess’s story about Victorine and the accompanying pictures were syndicated worldwide. I can’t thank you enough, Bel had written. You’ve given Vogue credibility during this period of war that it wouldn’t otherwise have. Jess’s name was one people now knew for something other than how she looked in a dress.
When she’d first learned how far and wide her photographs would travel, Jess sat in the near empty bath at the Savoy Hotel and cried. She cried for Victorine, for the men who made it off the mountain that day only to die by nightfall, for the nurses who had to patch up the men and send them back out into the field, for the people who saw her pictures and didn’t understand that each moment was underlit, hauntingly so, by what had come before, and what would come after.
Beneath the tears, she was so thankful that she’d returned to Italy, despite the fear, and that she’d told a story worth telling.
But that night she saw Warren Stone in the bar shaking his head over a newspaper and she knew her picture well enough to recognise it as the one of Victorine and Dan. Warren still didn’t have his promotion. But Jess had a set of well-regarded pictures behind her name. It would be best if she kept well out of his way and did nothing to provoke him. Not that she really thought there was anything much he could do to her, other than waste her time with disagreeable exchanges.
So, after a short break, where she spent as much time as she could outside, tracing the unfamiliar geography of a wounded city where bedrolls littered tube stations and women with scarves wrapped around their hair sat atop piles of rubble and drank cups of tea and children pretended to shoot one another with crumpled iron bars fallen from buildings, she got herself another set of orders to go back to Italy, to search out another story, thankful that Warren Stone was now on a week’s leave and she didn’t have to deal with him.
She waited in London for a few more days, hoping to see Martha – who was on her way back from visiting her husband in the States – and had almost given up when Martha phoned her room and told Jess she was downstairs. Jess made her way across the black-and-white marble floors and through the mahogany opulence of the lobby until she reached the American Bar where the US Army Press Office had set itself up. She sank into a booth opposite Martha, who had two large whiskies in front of her.
‘Wait till you hear this,’ Martha said to Jess.
‘What?’
‘Collier’s has made my dear husband their war correspondent.’
‘But you’re the Collier’s war correspondent,’ Jess said uncomprehendingly.
‘They want someone who can go into combat zones. Especially now that rumour confidently predicts an Allied invasion of Europe within two months. Because I’m a woman, I can’t do the job they want done.’ Martha downed her whiskey in one swallow. ‘The RAF even flew him to London. I had to hitch a ride on a Norwegian freighter.’
‘How could he do that to you?’
Martha shrugged, a gesture that might seem nonchalant on anyone else but on Martha it was like a cowering in, an enfolding of herself into something that could not, would not, be hurt. But of course she had been hurt, and not just emotionally, as her next words confirmed, making her action – her attempt to deflect what was likely still to follow from her husband – all the more affecting. ‘That’s Hem for you,’ she said dully. ‘I asked him for a divorce, of course. He laughed, after he hit me.’
‘I’m so sorry.’ Jess reached for her friend’s hand. But that wasn’t enough. She moved across and wrapped her arms around Marty, all the while knowing that no matter how much they tried to shield themselves, the wounds were still getting through.
‘Last year, if you’d told me this would happen, I wouldn’t have believed you. We were in love.’ Martha blinked, hard. ‘Then when I told him I was returning to Europe, he said to me, “Are you a war correspondent, or wife in my bed?”’
Two opposing choices. A binary the world seemed determined to force upon the women who wanted something more inclusive, limiting them to this single moment of a shared embrace, a shared pain, a broken heart and the uncertainty of what was to come when they declared that an either/or choice was not enough.
Into the silence following Martha’s words, Jess heard her name spoken by the men at the next table, accompanied by uproarious laughter and she knew that the bar at the Savoy was not a place she wanted to spend any more time in. And nor should Martha, especially if her husband was here too. ‘Let’s go to Italy.’
‘Not so fast.’ Warren Stone shifted into the seat beside Jess.
Damn. She’d waited in London too long and now Warren’s leave was obviously over, or he’d been recalled. And he was cockier than ever. Why?
‘You haven’t heard?’ Martha said sardonically to Jess.
‘Heard what? That a nude painting of me is on display at the Tate Gallery or something equally ridiculous?’ Jess said, smiling sweetly at Warren.
‘You know they show the men a picture of a naked woman painted in camouflage colours at the infantry training school to arrest the men’s attention when it wanders,’ Warren said as he sipped his whiskey.
Jess knew she was gaping, open-mouthed. ‘That’s a lie,’ she insisted.
‘It’s not,’ Martha said sadly.
‘And it’s not what’s important right now,’ Warren said, a grin spreading wide across his face. ‘There are a lot of shiny new women being sent here and they’re very inexperienced. We want to protect you all. So every female correspondent is quarantined in London for now.’
Jess knew that half of what Warren had said was true. As well as wanting to have reporters on the ground if the rumoured invasion really was imminent, the American newspapers had seen the success among readers of Ruth Cowan’s pieces on the WACs in North Africa, Iris Carpenter’s reportage of the Blitz, and Martha’s by-line, albeit hidden behind the ‘Mrs Ernest Hemingway’ title. Which had meant the arrival in England of a dozen more unblooded female reporters, raising the latrine business and the cloakroom question – as the British more politely put it – to bar-room conversation status. And if they were quarantining women already, then it confirmed the invasion was not a rumour, but an action soon to be taken.
‘How long are you going to keep us here?’ Jess asked, provoked by his comments into breaking her pact not to deliberately antagonise him. ‘And you can’t keep us here. I’ll speak to your boss.’
‘But I am my boss now. Feel free to congratulate me on my promotion,’ Warren said.
Jess and Martha looked at one another in disbelief.
‘And in answer to your question,’ Warren continued cheerfully, having noted with satisfaction the women’s expressions, ‘you’re to stay here indefinitely.’
‘Just because the new reporters are as green as an English paddock, we don’t all need to be treated the same way. Marty and I certainly aren’t inexperienced, nor are we prone to hysterics,’ Jess said flatly. Just last week she’d been so proud that her photographs were being syndicated all over the world and now here she was being told she’d be kept away from the invasion just because she was a woman. From beautiful success to ridiculous failure, with the snap of a finger. ‘How do you expect us to report on an invasion in mainland Europe if we’re stuck here in London?’
‘We don’t. The
men will do that. You can go with the Red Cross doughnut girls to the camps in the south of England and spread smiles and anything else you care to.’ Warren ground out his cigarette.
‘You can’t make us stay.’ Martha was firm.
‘Did I forget to mention that we have official rules now?’ Warren leaned back, relaxed, legs wide apart, arms stretched along the back of the booth, unlike Jess and Martha who were hunched over their drinks.
‘The rules state, in writing at last, everything that’s already in practice.’ Warren began to recite: ‘The inherent difficulties, such as housing facilities, which arise due to the presence of women in the forward areas naturally make their ready acceptance as Correspondents a problem. It is believed that sufficient male Correspondents are available to make it unnecessary to utilise women in the forward areas to cover spot news and technical subjects. It is recognised, however, that certain stories, such as those concerning nurses, can best be handled from a woman’s point of view. I hope you’re grateful to me for conceding that you do a better job of writing about nurses. But none of your nurse stories can be filed until the men have filed their war stories. You have to wait at the back of the line for censoring, transmitting; everything. Cheers.’ He finished his drink and stood up, having done the damage, leaving them to wallow in it.
‘Shit,’ Martha said. ‘I heard that only the men will be going across with the invasion fleet, whatever and wherever that is. But I didn’t know …’
‘That the heretofore unrecorded rules are now printed in black and white for all the PROs to beat us over the head with,’ Jess finished. ‘What a joke. It’ll never be safe. Not until somebody wins. Does that mean they’ll never let us over there?’
Neither woman spoke. They drank instead, and smoked.
Then Jess said, ‘It’s lucky that I got a set of orders before Warren returned from leave. If I go now, I might just get myself on a transport that doesn’t know anything about women being quarantined.’
‘Warren will not only kill you when he finds out, he’ll do it with his bare hands,’ Martha said, staring at her.
‘But I can’t be a war correspondent in the bar of the Savoy. There’s no war here. I’ve had one piece published. If I’m quarantined now, I might never have another piece published again.’
‘Then go pack your bags. And good luck.’
Jess slipped away, heart hammering both at the thought of her own daring, and at what Warren really would do to her when he found out.
Jennings was waiting for Jess when she stepped off the ship, his face obviously hastily scrubbed clean for the assignment, faint dirt streaks showing where his fingers had swiped over his brow and chin.
‘Captain May,’ he stuttered.
‘To whom do I owe the pleasure of being provided with an escort?’ Jess asked.
‘Anne told Major Hallworth you were coming again and he said he has to provide escorts for all the male correspondents who come over so he didn’t see why you should have to hitch through Italy. Last month, I even had to carry one fellow’s camera lenses around for a week.’
Jess snorted. How could the army honestly think a woman who didn’t get ground transport or ask for assistance was more trouble than a man? A curious rustle of noise made her realise there was quite a line of GIs assembled at port, and that the Naples PRO who’d been so irate with her several months ago was smiling at her in a way that was certainly not friendly.
‘Look what I have,’ he said, stepping forward to show her a crumpled picture he’d taken from his pocket. It was of Jess. Louise Dahl-Wolfe had shot it for Harper’s Bazaar in 1940 in the early days of Jess’s modelling career. In it, Jess was sitting on the floor reading a book, back to the camera, naked except for her knickers, but all you could see of her in the photograph was her bare back and the very top of her hipbones. She’d been waiting for her next outfit when Louise decided Jess didn’t need an outfit; the shoot was meant to show off the diamond clip in Jess’s hair, rather than a dress. For the first time, Jess wondered how many people actually noticed the hairclip.
‘I’ve got one too,’ another man joined in the fun, pulling a different picture out of his pocket, this time of Jess in a swimsuit.
‘One of the public relations guys in London was real helpful in finding these for us,’ the Naples PRO said. ‘Now, here you are in the flesh.’
He made sure to linger over the word flesh, and Jess just stopped herself from shuddering. Warren Stone, Jess knew, was the one who’d made sure the men had so many pictures of her.
But that wasn’t the worst of it. ‘I have a telegram here for you.’ The PRO handed her a piece of paper.
Her orders had been countermanded. She was to return immediately to London. It’ll be more fun to watch you leave in disgrace later, just when you think you’ve settled in, Warren had said to her. And she wondered if Warren had let her go, had wanted to make sure that, before he ordered her to come back and sit in a bar and watch the war from a distance, she would see that every man in the US Army had a picture of Jess to paw over.
‘When’s the next ship back?’ she asked, as if she didn’t care about any of it.
‘Tomorrow. Take her to one of the hotels for the night,’ the PRO said to Jennings.
At that, Jennings hitched Jess’s bag onto his shoulder and walked away to the jeep. Jess followed. What else could she do? Stand at the port and watch the GIs compare pictures of her? She hadn’t won when her story and her photos of Victorine were published. Warren Stone had just wanted her to think she had because he knew that would make the loss hurt all the more.
Jennings pulled the jeep out onto the road. ‘My orders from my CO are to take you to the hospital at Cassino,’ he said shyly. ‘I could bring you back early enough tomorrow to catch the ship.’
Jess leaned over and kissed his cheeks, which were, as always, suffused with the endearing blush that matched the colour of his hair. ‘Thank you.’
When Jess woke the next morning, it was to find Victorine curled up in bed beside her, staring at her, obviously willing her to wake. ‘You came back too!’ Victorine said and Jess realised it was what she said every time she saw Dan, and now Jess. As if the little girl could never quite believe that anyone would return, as if being passed by her mother to a convoy of medics, never to meet again, was trapped in her psyche like a leaf fossil in rock, barely visible to anyone who didn’t know what they were looking for.
Jess hugged Victorine. ‘I did.’
They climbed out of bed, even though it was before sun-up, and the mundane tasks of the morning were transformed, by both the marvellous lack of rain and Victorine’s assistance, into something more delightful than collecting water in her helmet to wash her face, than eating a breakfast K-ration of egg yolk mixed with spam.
They were walking through the tents to visit Anne when Jess heard a voice say, ‘I thought I’d better take you somewhere this morning before you leave so that you have your own set of pictures to show Warren Stone.’
She whirled around and saw Victorine leap into Dan’s arms.
‘I will come too,’ Victorine announced but Jess knew that wasn’t going to happen. The hospital was dangerous enough, let alone going anywhere else.
‘But I have a job for you,’ Jess said quickly. ‘Come with me.’
She retrieved a stack of Vogue magazines from her tent. ‘There are pictures of you in here,’ Jess said to Victorine, ‘and pictures of Anne and some of the soldiers. And one of Dan,’ she added. ‘Can you show the magazines to Anne and the men in the convalescent tent?’
Victorine hopped up and down with excitement. ‘Yes!’ she cried.
Jess opened up the magazines and showed Victorine the photograph of the little girl in Dan’s arms. Victorine’s smile was infinite now, carved onto her face in black and white by Jess’s camera, this one moment of immense love unable to ever be destroyed. Dan’s face in profile was unguarded and Jess had had to close the covers the first time she’d seen it because it made her
realise that he was vulnerable; that, without him, Victorine had nobody. Jess had wanted to shout: Don’t you damn well die!
She wondered now if he’d be able to look at himself. She understood all too well – because it had been done to her – that a photograph could trap a person in an incarnation unknown to them, that seeing such an image could feel like nakedness, bringing with it the revelation that the photographer had exposed a part of them that would ordinarily be hidden from the world. Jess hadn’t comprehended just what she’d caught and it was only in seeing the print that she realised it was a one-in-a-million shot, that she might never photograph anything quite as poignant again.
Dan’s head jerked back as Victorine held the magazine aloft and awareness hit him. Then the nurses crowded around and Jess said, ‘Let’s go,’ wanting to get him away from seeing what Jess had seen: evidence of the fracture in his armour.
She knew now that everything Emile had told her about photography, her entire experience of it as both her parents’ child-photographer and as a model before the lens was wrong. The chance moment was what mattered out here, that and the premonition before the moment happened so that one was ready. Not the careful positioning of a person or an object or a light source, not the fully imagined outcome of what would be caught after aligning the camera and pressing the button. Her job was to extemporise – not to plan – and thus expose the reality that had been obscured by the reduction of everything around them into three letters and one simple word: war.
And that’s what she’d do once again on this outing with Dan. ‘Where are we going?’ she asked as they neared the jeep.
‘It’s Easter,’ Dan said as if that explained everything.
Jess thought for a moment and realised he was right, but that in this place divorced from real time, each day blended into the next; nameless. ‘And we’re going to church?’ she quipped.
‘Sort of,’ he said and Jess just about burst with curiosity.
Then he added, ‘I’ll be in England soon. My division’s been recalled. I’m taking Victorine back with me, putting her in a boarding school there.’
The French Photographer Page 8