Miss Carter's War

by Sheila Hancock

  Marguerite waited for him to say more. Eventually he took a deep breath.

  ‘I have this secret life, you see, and that describes it perfectly, if somewhat more poetically than it merits.’

  ‘It sounds so lonely.’

  ‘It has to be. I dream of meeting the love of my life, but it is not allowed. So I make do with hanging around Hyde Park looking for guardsmen who want to earn a few bob, or lurking around shop windows in Piccadilly till someone asks me for a light, and we go and spend the night in the Savoy Turkish Baths on Jermyn Street. Or I find a bit of rough in Trafalgar Square.’

  Marguerite wanted him to stop. She felt sickened.

  ‘Yes, it sounds squalid, I know. Just sex really. But we have some jolly times together too. There’s all sorts of clubs, pubs where we meet and shock the natives with our camping about, before we go back to our schools, banks, hospitals, whatever, and become respectable citizens again.’

  Marguerite tried to equate this new image with the Tony she thought she knew.

  ‘Does it make you happy?’

  He laughed.

  ‘God, no. But it’s a relief not to have to pretend all the time. We cling together, us poofs. We belong to a Masonic society with its own language and rules. And some of it is more elegant. There is a famous theatrical producer who has parties with all the stars that I go to as decoration, and a very clever art historian who has fabulous parties in a flat on the top of the Courtauld Gallery. The conversation is slightly more superior than the average orgy. He’s very left wing, and we are delightfully classless, we pansies. Intellectuals, the odd Tory MP, bank clerks, politicians, actors, judges, soldiers, sailors, navvies, anyone is welcome, especially if they’ve got a bona bod.’

  ‘What if you get caught?’

  ‘Well, the game’s up. My proper life, the one I’m proud of, my work, my place in society, will be destroyed. No room for queers. It would kill my mum and dad. I’m the one bright spot of their lives – their son, the teacher. Two world wars, and a lifetime of drudgery. They don’t deserve a pervert for a son.’

  ‘Oh Tony, don’t, please. Don’t talk of yourself like that.’

  He looked straight at her.

  ‘Well, they are not “experts in sexual deviation”.’

  She closed her eyes.

  ‘I am so very, very sorry I said that.’

  ‘Don’t worry, it’s normal. Unlike me.’

  ‘Don’t—’

  ‘No, let’s face it, we are pariahs and they’re out to get us. Anyone caught is used as an example by our erudite press. Especially if they’re important and clever people, as many queers are. Like poor John Gielgud. You, and the great British public, would be amazed if I told you how many of the people you admire are pansies.’

  ‘Oh Lord. Why does sex, love, whatever you call it, have to be so furtive? Same with Elsie. Full of guilt and fear.’

  ‘Well now you know about me, I’m in your power. You could blackmail me, which is another of our little worries.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Tony. But I’m now very scared for you.’

  ‘I’m Lady Luck, don’t worry. Last week I was in a club in Soho, full of screamers, and Lilly Law raided it and started taking everyone’s names. The young copper who came up to me had a northern accent so I reverted to my Oldham lingo that my mum tried so hard to get rid of. He said, “Where are you from?” and when I told him it turned out he grew up a few streets away from me, so he let me nip out the back way, and pinched my bottom as I left.’

  ‘Thank God.’

  Tony helped Marguerite lay the knives and forks on her yellow Formica table, and she brought the welcome distraction of the rabbit pie from the oven. As they ate, she with some difficulty, he looked at her across the table.

  ‘You asked about happiness. I’m happy now. Here with you. Bona mangarie and Judy singing. What more could a girl want?’

  ‘But where do I fit in?’

  ‘You’re everything I want. Companionship, beauty, style, shared tastes, shared ideals. I love you. You are the relationship of my dreams.’

  ‘But you don’t desire me.’

  ‘I don’t want to possess you. I don’t need to own you. I just would like to be part of your life for as long as you want me or need me. But I’ll quite understand if you prefer to back off, after what I’ve just told you.’

  She just shook her head, not knowing what to say to such a strange proposal. Of what? Not marriage obviously. And not a normal friendship. It was definitely not a normal situation. There was a long pause.

  Then, as though at a polite dinner party, Tony said, ‘This is delicious.’

  ‘It was my mother’s recipe. I used to have it as a child.’

  He nodded and concentrated on his plate.

  ‘Thank you, Maman, that was delicious.’

  Why are they so solemn, why aren’t they talking like they usually do over supper? Why are there long pauses?

  ‘Marguerite, we are going away.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘And you are going to stay with Henri and Anne.’

  ‘Why? When?’

  ‘After supper I’m taking you there. I have packed your bag.’

  ‘I don’t want to go and stay with them. What about the leaflets? Who will deliver them?’

  ‘Marguerite. You must forget all that. Never tell anyone what you have been doing.’

  ‘Why aren’t you coming?’

  ‘The work needs to go on. But you must go tonight.’

  Tony was looking at her anxiously.

  ‘I’m sorry I’ve upset you so.’

  ‘It’s not you. I was just remembering something.’

  ‘About your parents?’

  ‘Yes. Temps perdu. It’s the taste of the rabbit. It’s my madeleine. We had this pie the last night I saw them. A week later they were killed. For distributing anti-Nazi propaganda. They and a group of like-minded intellectuals produced a newspaper and posters and stickers attacking the occupation. I used to deliver some of them. I took them round Paris hidden in the frame of my bike, or in my satchel or music case. They suspected they had been betrayed and planned to get me away before they were arrested.’

  ‘Did you know at the time they had been killed?’

  ‘Not until I got to England and joined the SOE and they found out for me that they had been taken to Fresnes Prison. My beautiful mother was tortured to death and my father was shot.’

  ‘God, you’ve never told me any of that before.’

  ‘No, I don’t talk about it. It’s bloody Judy Garland, she’s lowered my defences. Forget it.’

  ‘But you worked in the Resistance—?’

  ‘Please. Enough. It’s all in the past. I can’t talk about it.’

  She genuinely couldn’t; she did not know how to gather the fragments into a whole that could be voiced out loud. It was buried deep in her mind, where she did her best to keep it.

  ‘Fair’s fair,’ Tony persisted, ‘I’ve been honest with you. It’s confession time. How did you get to England?’

  ‘OK, but no more after this. I was fine. My parents had organised my escape through France to Spain and eventually to England.’

  ‘On your own?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How old were you?’

  ‘Fifteen.’

  ‘Christ. Younger than Elsie and Irene.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘See? And look at you now. You survived all that.’

  ‘Only just. Many didn’t. My best friend Rachel and her sister were taken away, with many of our Jewish friends. I discovered later that she spent six days shut up in a sports stadium called the Vélodrome d’Hiver.’

  Marguerite was now fighting to block the memory but the words forced their way out.

  ‘Six thousand of them, six days in the blistering heat. No shelter, no food, no water, no lavatories. Those that didn’t die there were carted off in cattle trucks, where more died. She was thirteen, her sister was four years old, crouched on the fl
oor amongst the shit and corpses for days, only to be stripped, gassed and incinerated at Auschwitz.’

  Tony had his head in his hands.

  ‘Oh my God.’

  ‘And from my bedroom window I watched them taking her away. And did nothing. Which is why I can’t do nothing ever again.’

  Tony hurried round the table, lifted her to her feet, and wrapped his arms around her.

  ‘My valiant little love, I’m back now. You’ve got me. We’ll “not do nothing” together.’

  Chapter 13

  After the night of the sharing of demons, Marguerite and Tony moved into a deeper relationship. She stopped trying to define it; they were more than friends, yet less than lovers, was the best that she could achieve. But was it really less? Life was a damn sight more pleasant with him than without him, she knew that.

  She found out, through Pauline, that Irene had settled into her job, and that Elsie was going to have the baby, although she did not know whether Elsie intended to give it up for adoption. On Tony’s insistence, she did not pursue the matter further and jeopardise her job by defying Miss Fryer. As she had already learnt, it was pointless anyway; there was nothing she could do to help the girl. Best move on. Put it behind her.

  Having discovered the other’s vulnerability, Marguerite and Tony were solicitous of each other. One of the ways this was expressed was through their mutual love of cooking, which Tony had been nervous of sharing with her before, lest she should think him effeminate; it was true he was the only man she had ever met who would set foot in a kitchen, or undertake any household chore. Judging that it was now safe to visit her flat without there being any sexual expectations he could not fulfil, he would don her pinny, and, Elizabeth David’s French Country Cooking in hand, conjure up fragrant dishes reminiscent of her childhood family holidays in Provence. His pièce de résistance was David’s coq au vin, which was produced on the few occasions they entertained. The nature of their relationship was never discussed, as everyone at school seemed to have unconventional partnerships, the definition of which was irrelevant. Their usual guests were Miss Lewin, History, and Miss Haynes, Domestic Science, ‘the plaited ones’ as they became, who holidayed together, and Miss Belcher and Miss Farringdon, English, who argued like an old married couple, but it was hard to put a label on exactly what they were to each other.

  For the coq au vin they took it in turns to chat up the butcher for a chicken. They had to save up several weeks of their 6-ounce butter ration. The other ingredients were still difficult to obtain. The only olive oil available was a nasty, yellow medicinal version from Boots, and when asked for basil, the local greengrocer said he knew no one of that name. A trip to Soho was the only answer. With the help of some of the many women plying their trade from doorways, they located small shops that miraculously stocked Italian olive oil, fresh mushrooms, lemons, basil and a fine Châteauneuf du Pape red wine that Elizabeth David insisted was essential.

  Marguerite could hardly bear to watch as a whole bottle was poured into the pot, especially as it followed a glass of fine brandy that had been used to set on fire the scraggy little bird. On top of the hunter-gathering, the actual cooking took hours, with a lot of flamboyant flambéing, glazing, and sautéing, whilst Marguerite rushed around washing the many utensils Tony used and generally acting as his commis chef.

  Tony seemed to enjoy cooking in Marguerite’s kitchenette, even with the restrictions of the Baby Belling, with its tiny oven and hotplate. He bought her a pressure cooker, but she was much too frightened to use it lest it explode. Their fare was less ambitious when they cooked for themselves alone, Tony’s specialities being shepherd’s pie and bangers and mash and Marguerite’s her omelette and her mother’s cassoulet, with the occasional foray into a novel spaghetti bolognese; more appetising than had been the wartime whale meat and Spam fritters and in France an excess of wild boar, rabbit, even, one desperate time, mule.

  Marguerite and Tony’s joint quest ‘not to do nothing’ led to occasional suppers with anti-bomb campaigners and other political activists. Coq au vin was not on the menu on these occasions, lest it be deemed too bourgeois. They usually settled for fish and chips from the shop round the corner, eaten on the knees, out of the newspaper wrapping and salted and vinegared in the shop – Tony did however add a northern flourish with his mushy peas concocted out of the newfangled frozen peas.

  The discussions were intense; more so now the Labour Party was in opposition, the country having voted back the aged Churchill. Opposition suited them both, unleashing their aggressive instincts in the face of the foe. They both did their level best to show the electorate the error of their ways. They sought out any public meeting held by Margaret Thatcher, who popped up everywhere in her quest for political office. Another victim of their heckling was Edward Heath, the newly elected MP for Bexley. He was a bumbling young man who could very easily be reduced to satisfying red-faced rage. Whilst Tony went easy on Heath because of the constant jibes at his unmarried state, Marguerite felt a sneaking regard for Thatcher. She pointed out to Tony that the woman had managed to qualify for the bar four months after the birth of her twin children and written a series of articles headed ‘Wake Up, Women’ for the Sunday Graphic, about women being permitted to work. ‘Why not a woman Chancellor – or Foreign Secretary?’ Mrs Thatcher had posited, somewhat optimistically.

  ‘Anyway. We will soon have a woman in the top job after Elizabeth is crowned.’

  Marguerite knew that mention of the planned coronation riled Tony.

  ‘All that campery. We can’t afford it.’

  ‘Oh shut up, Tony. You’ll love it more than anyone.’

  ‘You’re probably right. I can’t resist nice frocks and a bit of jewellery. Not to mention trumpets. I cherish a well-blown trumpet.’

  On Marguerite’s insistence Tony rented a television set so they could watch the big event in his digs.

  Tony lived in a boarding house run by a German. He liked and respected Mrs Schneider. When he told Marguerite the woman’s story, despite her instinctive reservations regarding all things German, she could understand why. Mrs Schneider had left Germany with her husband and two sons in 1937, when the children, who had been forced by their school to join Hitler Youth, were cross-examined about their Communist parents. They were not Jewish, and Mr Schneider was an eminent surgeon, but they could not bear to stay in a country that was in the hands of what they considered to be criminal lunatics, who were polluting their sons’ minds with Master Race claptrap. The summer camps, the rallies, the uniforms, the dedication to Aryan purity, the vows of loyalty to Hitler and the flag were exciting to young minds and the children did not want to leave their country. By forcing them to do so their parents saved their lives, for the indoctrinated members of Hitler Youth were being turned into fierce fighters, many of whom were decimated once the war began. A few of the survivors remained loyal to their vow, even when Hitler and his thugs were cowering in his bunker, before escaping through suicide or flight, leaving the children to be slaughtered by the invading Russians.

  At the start of the war the Schneiders were interned in England. Mrs Schneider was released, but Mr Schneider was held at a camp for aliens near Liverpool where the appalling conditions contributed to his death. Mrs Schneider was left to bring up and support her sons alone. A wise and compassionate woman, she rented a big house and took four paying guests under her sheltering wing. Tony had told her about his sexuality and she was fiercely protective of him. In return he endeavoured to provide the boys with a father figure.

  The tenants were a motley crew. Tony, for once, felt he was not the motliest. The others at 112 Blomfield Road seemed to have little contact with the real world. Miss Allum went once a week to have a shampoo and rigid set, with the occasional trim, at the local hairdresser, but as it was always exactly the same style, no words were exchanged with the lady in the shop other than ‘Good afternoon’ and ‘Thank you’. A cheery new girl once tried to engage her in the usual, ‘And w
hat are you doing for Easter, madam?’ only to be silenced with a firm, ‘Nothing.’ Which was almost certainly true. The highlight of her day was settling in the one armchair in her room, a tray with a pot of Earl Grey tea, milk, sugar and two Garibaldi biscuits on the table beside her, to do the Telegraph crossword. No one knew or dared to ask what she had done with the previous, at a guess, sixty years of her life, the only clue being a small sapphire ring on her engagement finger.

  Equally uncommunicative was Mr Humphreys. If addressed by anyone other than Mrs Schneider, whom he seemed to trust, he would mutter a reply and scuttle away like a threatened mouse. He always wore the same navy-blue three-piece suit, with a watch chain draped across the front, and a stiff-collared shirt and spotted bow tie, which would have been smart, but for the egg stains on the waistcoat and the button missing on the flies of his sagging trousers, which he constantly tried to conceal. Mrs Schneider once boldly offered to replace it, but he recoiled in horror at the thought of her handling his trousers. Every now and then, he shed the suit and appeared in a startling rambling outfit. Knee-length baggy shorts, Aran sweater and heavy boots with woolly socks. Where he rambled to no one knew, but it was almost certainly on his own. Every Monday night he went out somewhere, and Tony and Marguerite hoped he had a secret lover of either sex, but none but Mrs Schneider knew his destination.

  The last, but in her own opinion certainly not the least, boarder was Moira Devine, the leading lady at the local repertory theatre. Rising above the tattiness of the company, Miss Devine was the epitome of glamour. In accord with the biggest stars of her profession, she believed it her duty never to let her public, in her case the residents of Dartford – or a few of them – see her less than perfectly groomed, with immaculate pancake make-up, coiffed red-gold hair with no black roots, pencil skirts or figure-hugging frocks and costumes, revealing nylon-clad perfect legs, with high-heeled, expensive court shoes. Her voice was attractively husky from the chain-smoking of the du Maurier cigarettes in an ivory holder that she wielded dramatically à la Bette Davis. They did a different play each week, rehearsing a new piece during the day whilst playing the current one at night. This demanded commitment which she gave selflessly for her ‘art’, and versatility, which was harder for her to come by.