“Maybe.” Hannah shrugged. “But you’re also writing with new warmth. Might as well enjoy that too. And Phoebe . . . make up with Joan already, will you?”
Joy wrapped in a reprimand. Phoebe had far more important worries on her mind than Joan—Mona, for one, who was declining fast, and Anne, who hadn’t written in too many weeks to ignore. And, of course, whoever was following them around London, and why, and what they might do. But the joy overtook her. A single script could just be luck. Two meant she was a professional, to be taken seriously. She smiled. She was a real writer again.
* * *
• • •
As she approached number seven, Freddie lunged forward to greet her, his face solemn with duty.
“This telegram come for you, miss, marked urgent. They didn’t like to leave it, but I told them I’d get it right to you, miss.”
Phoebe took it with shaking hands, absently thrusting a coin into Freddie’s palm. He hovered beside her, brimming with anxiety. She read the contents three times before any words began to sink in. Come to Southampton, meet at the tea shop, as soon as possible. Southampton, where the ships came in from New York. An hour by train at least, and this had been waiting. She warned Freddie to sound the alarm if she wasn’t there in the morning, but there was no time to contact anyone else, or to check if the telegram was legit. There was no question of going, going at once, because the telegram was signed “Anne.”
* * *
• • •
Even when she arrived, breathless, glancing around wildly, she knew it could be a trap. Why anyone would go to such efforts, she couldn’t imagine, but one thing was always clear from crime reports: logic was rarely a criminal’s hallmark.
But there, hunched at a table, looking small and lost, was indeed Anne. Phoebe walked to her in a daze, hardly believing it.
“Hi,” Anne said softly. She was pale and drawn, looking down into an empty teacup. “Do you have a cigarette?”
Phoebe handed her a pack. She didn’t know what to say. Anne’s voice was low and furtive, her expression nervous and wary. She didn’t seem like Anne at all.
“Stop looking at me like that,” she ordered Phoebe. “I was sick the whole time on the ship, but I’m not a ghost yet.” The words were more like Anne, but the tone was so sad.
Phoebe hailed a waitress and ordered coffee and sandwiches.
“Look at you, all trousers and tweeds,” Anne said, perking up with the arrival of the food. “And bright-eyed. England is agreeing with you.”
“Sometimes I don’t recognize myself without a skirt and heels,” Phoebe admitted. “It’s like being incognito.”
“Good way to commit a crime,” Anne said.
“Not me, I’d rather catch the criminal,” Phoebe replied.
They laughed, and it almost felt like no time had passed at all. They could be holding court at their favorite table in Floyd and Leo’s, eating cheesecake with cherries and whispering over which man at the counter was most likely to be a murderer, a confidence trickster, or just a garden-variety creep. Anne drew police sketches while Phoebe made notes, and their targets glared at them as they laughed. A lump rose in Phoebe’s throat. There was a lot of fun to be had while you were waiting for your real life to begin.
“Please tell me you’re here for a long trip,” Phoebe said. “You can stay as long as you want. Maybe between us we can spruce my place up a bit.”
Anne gave her a rueful look.
“I’m headed for Paris. A second cousin lives there, she can spare me a room. It’s a good place for artists, you know, especially when one is trying to be a cliché.”
“The last thing you are is a cliché.”
“Well, we’ll see,” Anne said with a shrug.
Phoebe knew she wasn’t imagining the discouragement in Anne’s face. Or the nervous, guilty looks that slipped out from under her banter. If she had a sketch of herself amid their old selection, she’d be an obvious culprit.
“Why didn’t you sail to France directly?”
“Oh, you know, beggars, choosers—this ship left first.” Anne lit another cigarette.
Phoebe exhaled in a low whistle as realization hit her. Anne must have fallen prey to the FBI and HUAC herself. Anne saw the understanding in Phoebe’s eyes and nodded sadly.
“Good old HUAC, keeping us all safe from the big, bad Reds like me.”
Phoebe’s cup paused halfway to her mouth.
“You . . . you’re actually a Communist?”
Anne shrugged. “I joined the party when I turned eighteen. It wasn’t illegal. And it made a lot of sense for someone like me. It still does. You know the Communist Party is completely against any form of racial discrimination? Not only that, they think the whole concept of classing people by race is hogwash. What reasonable person wouldn’t want to be a part of that?”
Phoebe knew this, because of Shirley and Will. She knew that a lot of the members of the NAACP were, or had been, members of the Communist Party, and that white members of the party were active in the South, trying to help black people gain voting rights. Dolores Goldstein used to rave about the absurdity of Jim Crow, and point out that the north wasn’t without its biases and bigotry, too, but Anne never joined in that conversation. Like Phoebe, she never seemed very interested in politics, beyond winning the war.
“Anyway,” said Anne with a toss of her curls. “I prefer to call myself a Marxist. I still like to believe we can build a fairer society, ain’t that a joke?”
“But you were always so busy with art.” Phoebe was confused. This wasn’t the way Anne talked.
“Oh, look, I know I could have told you, but you were always so uninterested in politics and busy with your own stuff.”
“What does that mean?” Phoebe was hurt. Was Anne suggesting she hadn’t been a supportive friend?
“It was good, it was right,” Anne consoled her, putting her hand on Phoebe’s. “You had to take care of Mona. Why burden you with secrets?”
“Dolores Goldstein didn’t keep it a secret.”
Anne gave her a long look, then lowered her voice. “I didn’t care about racism because I’m a crusader. I cared—care—because I’m what they call a mulatto.”
Phoebe felt her mouth drop open. She wished she could control it, because she didn’t want to make Anne uncomfortable. But she couldn’t help being surprised. They’d been friends so long, and here was something so important to who Anne was, yet she’d never felt she could tell Phoebe.
“So, what with that and the party, I was five kinds of an idiot for taking a teaching job,” Anne said, stabbing a sandwich with a knife.
“Oh, Anne, you had to sign a loyalty oath, didn’t you?”
“I did.” Anne scooped up sugar and let it snow back into the bowl. “Hell, I’m lucky they caught me on the party membership, not my race. Old Dolores Goldstein was right—even New York wouldn’t have loved learning that.”
“For the love of Pete, what were you thinking?” Phoebe scolded. “You knew what they could find and you became a teacher? Signed that damn oath? Why didn’t you just skip Go and ask for a stint in the Women’s House of Detention?”
“I needed the money, all right?” Anne snapped. “I figured if I signed the damn oath, it would be fine. It’s not perjury, I am a loyal citizen. More so ’cause I want to make the country better.” She went back to fiddling with the sugar spoon. “Look, it came down even faster than it did for you. I was able to sell some stuff, the rest I asked a friend to take, but who knows? Anyway, I’m sorry. Here’s your share.” She slid folded bills across the table to Phoebe.
Phoebe fingered the little wad like it was an ancient relic, brushing over the glare of Andrew Jackson. The paper felt foreign. She clutched it, trying to remember having such items in her handbag, using it to buy groceries, stockings, pay installments on her furniture and treasures.
>
Which were all gone now. Phoebe closed her eyes, willing her rage back down her throat. That rage wasn’t for Anne. Phoebe knew exactly whose fault it was that she no longer owned any of the things she’d bought with her own money.
“Do you think it was Jimmy who ratted on you?”
Another shrug. “Even if he was, so what? The end is the same.” She bit into the last sandwich. “I guess I wouldn’t be surprised. He didn’t bawl to see the back of you. Vindictive little worm.”
“He’ll get his,” Phoebe insisted. Anne shrugged again. Phoebe slid the wad of bills back to her. “You’ll need this more than I do. I’m getting by all right.”
Surprise and faint hope filled Anne’s eyes, but she shook her head.
“You should have it, I’m . . . I’ll be fine. I didn’t want to . . . It was just all so quick . . .” Her voice cracked and she gulped down more coffee. “They tapped my phone, of course. Broke in, too, not that they needed to by then.”
Phoebe remembered Joan telling a similar story. She gaped at Anne.
“It’s legal,” Anne growled. “Completely legal, ’cause I’m supposed to be so dangerous. Just because I think people should be treated equally. Land of the free. So determined not to be like the Soviets and treating citizens like this. What a joke.”
Phoebe ordered more sandwiches, wishing the place sold gin. “You were with me pushing for a union, they could have nailed you on that.”
“You’re right. Nice of us, giving them options.”
“Listen,” Phoebe said. “I don’t know about Paris, but it’s not all peaches and cream in London.” Her voice dropped to a whisper a bat would have strained to catch. “The Hounds are still baying at us here.”
She’d never seen Anne look incredulous before. It was a novelty she could have done without. A man at the next table coughed, and both women jumped.
This is HUAC’s real legacy, isn’t it? There are plenty of ways to destroy a person without ever laying a finger on them.
“I should be heading to the ferry,” Anne said at last.
“Can’t you stay a few days at least? We can run wild, like old times.”
“Old times are called that because they’re gone,” Anne said with finality. Then she sighed. “I’m sorry. It’s great to see you. But I’ve got to get there and get started.”
She was still so beautiful, with all those red curls and freckles. But the thing that made her so magnetic was missing.
“Look, take this, really,” Phoebe said, thrusting the bills into Anne’s hand. “I just sold another script, I’m in clover.” She took her key from her bag and used it to cut open the stitches in her coat lining, retrieving the fifty dollars Anne had sewn there. “And I can pay you back this too.”
Phoebe knew she didn’t imagine the look of stunned relief on Anne’s face.
“But . . . Mona?” Anne asked.
Phoebe hesitated. But Mona was dying, and her friend needed this. She flung her arms around Anne, squeezing her tight, as if she could hug her memory of her friend back into her living body. Anne clung to her a minute, then pulled away and looked around nervously.
“We should be careful. Can’t have anyone saying we’re dykes on top of all of it.”
Phoebe laughed. “There’s a story that would fall apart in two seconds.”
Anne gave her another pitying look. “You can’t be too careful.” Then she softened, clutching Phoebe’s hand. “Thanks. So much. Really. I better go. I’ll write, I promise.”
“See you in the funny papers,” Phoebe said. They turned away. A moment later, Phoebe turned back to call to Anne, to make their old gesture, pointing at each other, acknowledging their mutual greatness. But Anne had already disappeared.
* * *
• • •
Phoebe could see Reg pacing in a circle under the streetlight outside number seven as she trudged down Meard Street. She sighed, not sure if she wanted company or some quiet time alone, and wished she had the option to decide. He pounced on her.
“What the devil happened to you?” he demanded.
“Where do you want me to start?” she asked.
He ran his hand through his hair several times, looking wild. “I came round to see you, and young Freddie tells me you got an urgent telegram and ran off and might be in danger. I’ve been half out of my mind for ages!” He actually glared at her.
“Oh, I am sorry!” Phoebe blazed in a sudden temper. “How awful for you to have to stand around and fret while I’m getting dragged off to the Tower of London for a lovely afternoon’s beheading.”
She heard a passerby giggle.
“How was I to know what to do?” Reg asked. “Your neighbor wasn’t home, and you haven’t introduced me to any of your friends. How was I meant to try to find you?”
“Oh, for crying out loud.” Phoebe threw up her hands. “You’ve heard me mention Miss Wolfson. You might have tried going to a phone box and asking an operator to find her number—there aren’t that many Wolfsons in London.”
“She’s got you there, mate,” a man who’d stopped to watch chimed in.
Phoebe rounded on him. “Hey, aren’t you meant to be British? I’m a stranger here, and even I know you’re supposed to ignore other people’s arguments.”
The man shrugged and headed off, saying only to Reg, “Hope you’re getting some value for money with this one.”
“What am I, chattel?” Phoebe bellowed after him.
Reg took her hand and stroked it. For a moment, she was ready to sink against his chest. She snapped back suddenly, half turning from him. “I can’t. I can’t have anyone else worrying, can’t have more people to worry about. I can’t love you right now, I can’t, I just can’t, it’s too hard, all of this is too hard.”
The words made no sense, but they wouldn’t stop coming. Every contraction of his face made her hurt more, when wave after wave of pain was already washing over her. She wanted to push him away. She wanted to grab him tight and never let him go. She’d lost Anne. She was losing Mona. She’d lost a home, and now the last of the things that had made it home. She’d even lost her name. She didn’t want to lose Reg just as she was starting to find him.
But she couldn’t stop seeing Anne’s face, so beaten down and anxious. She couldn’t stop seeing Hannah’s face, sad and bitter. The blacklist broke love everywhere. Phoebe couldn’t bear to let it happen to her, when she’d already lost so much.
“I have to be alone right now,” she said. “Please, I just need to be alone.”
“Of course, if that’s what you want,” he began, “But . . .”
“Stop, stop, stop!” she cried. “If you want company, go to the library, see if there’s another woman willing to give you a kicking.”
As soon as she said it, she was sorry, but her throat was too tight to say anything more. She slammed the door behind her and ran upstairs, wiping her eyes. She pulled out her key, then turned and looked at Joan’s door. Hannah was right. They needed each other. It was what kept them all going here on Mars. And she missed Joan. Missed her terribly.
Even before she knocked, her scalp tingled, telling her something was wrong. She knocked and listened, waiting, wondering. A shiver went right down her spine as she realized what she was hearing. Nothing. Not a single note of big band music.
She knocked again, harder. “Joan!” she yelled, giving the door one big pound and then wiggling the handle. To her shock, it gave way to her touch and the door opened.
It was like walking through a house in a dream, where nothing was quite as it usually was. The furniture was there, but stripped of tablecloth, throws, doilies. Phoebe’s eyes adjusted further, seeing no photographs, no magazines, no vases, no radio. She crept through the two small bedrooms, seeing the surfaces empty of toys, books, the sewing box, and Charlie’s typewriter. Seeing the vast expanse of nothing, but unabl
e to believe what she knew was right before her eyes.
She didn’t need Hannah or Shirley to tell her there was no way the family had gone to a cheaper place in London. Because they hadn’t. Because Charlie was a man at the end of his rope, and he would sooner reach for the cushiest lifeline than compromise his pride.
He’d contacted the FBI, contacted HUAC, and agreed to name names in exchange for a golden ticket back to America and his professional life.
He was going to point a finger at Robin Hood, and every last one of them here in London.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
* * *
After she’d talked Phoebe back from the brink, Hannah debated what to say to Sidney. He believed in Sapphire’s unwritten mission, and even incidents like Beryl’s posing as a writer he found little more than shrug-worthy—a quirk of doing business with Americans and their peculiarities. The show was such a hit, it was impossible anything so absurd as the blacklist could touch it.
“But it can, can’t it?” Hannah mused to Shirley that afternoon. “HUAC could insist CBS stop airing the show. CBS could say no, but would they? I don’t know.”
“One ‘no’ like that might bring about an end to the blacklist,” Shirley said, pouring Hannah tea and adding a few splashes of gin, for “flavoring.” “I expect you know something of Denmark’s actions during the war, yes?”
Hannah smiled. “Yes. They helped their Jewish population escape, rather than agree to hand them over to the Nazis. Hitler must have yowled about it for weeks.”
“‘No’ can be a mighty word,” Shirley said. “Imagine if more people used it.”
History rolled over Hannah. People might have said no to allowing slavery, or the racial laws, or keeping women from voting. It was a risk, but what wasn’t?
“People don’t have much stomach for risk,” Hannah said.
“They do not,” Shirley agreed. “Quel dommage.”
Hannah knocked back her tea and didn’t need to ask for a refill.
Red Letter Days Page 29