The Wardrobe Mistress_A heart-wrenching wartime love story

by Natalie Meg Evans

  ‘Can we go to a club?’ she asked.

  ‘I was thinking of ordering coffee, then taking you home.’

  ‘Not yet, please. I never go out! Oh, Alistair, please.’

  ‘All right.’

  Vanessa thought, when he’s a father, little fingers will tie him in knots. Would he ever be a father? Fern had often said that she wasn’t the least bit maternal. ‘I don’t feel we should go to Hugo’s club somehow.’

  ‘No, we’ll give that one a miss. We’ll try the Wishbone, a few doors down. An hour, no more, because I’m getting Tanith home by midnight.’

  ‘Me, I can stay out as late as I like,’ said Vanessa, then kicked herself because she was forgetting that this was Alistair, out-of-bounds and possibly predatory.

  He said, ‘Me too. Shame we play by the rules.’

  She and Tanith followed Alistair down into the Wishbone’s seething belly, where shouted conversation competed with a sobbing clarinet. Vanessa instantly regretted her skirt and jumper. If she’d known where this evening would end up, she’d have put on a party dress. Within moments, though, she realised that this was a dress-down club: men wore tweed and soft collars, and girls a more erotic variant of her outfit with tight jerseys and thigh-skimming skirts.

  Alistair found them a table. ‘You can have your Coca-Cola, Tanith. Beer, Vanessa? I wouldn’t drink the wine here.’

  ‘Same as Tanith, please.’ As she slid on to the bench, something sweet and musky flooded her nose. ‘Tanith, did you put your scent on with a ladle tonight?’

  Tanith replied, ‘Wouldn’t you be more comfortable on a chair?’

  ‘I’m fine here.’ Clearly, the girl wanted Alistair next to her on the banquette. Unsubtle in every way.

  The clarinettist finished to energetic applause. Some people clapped with raised hands, while others whooped their approval. A drummer came on and began a fast riff. The clarinettist joined back in, and other musicians ambled on to the tiny stage. The music became livelier and couples seeped on to the dance floor.

  Vanessa peeled off her jumper, glad that she had on one of her more attractive blouses, an apricot cotton with a V-neck that showed a shadow of cleavage. The golden key hung round her neck as was her habit, but she’d changed the cord for yellow silk ribbon.

  Tanith also tugged off her jersey, with much arm-waving. Vanessa helped her pull down her blouse, which was bronze silk with a kerchief at the neck. The kerchief was printed with what Vanessa at first thought were daisies, but which on closer inspection turned out to be aircraft propellers. She was intrigued. A souvenir from an operational station?

  ‘The scarves were for a Spitfire Party – to raise money to buy one. I hemmed a hundred of the things,’ Tanith explained. ‘They feature different fighter-plane propellers. This one’s “Hurricane”.’

  Alistair came with their drinks as Vanessa said, ‘No, those are Spitfire props. Hurricanes have three blades, these have four.’

  Tanith asked Alistair, ‘What do you think?’

  He set down the glasses. ‘Defer to Vanessa. She saw planes from every angle.’

  Vanessa agreed. ‘Even from the inside. During one of my Lincolnshire postings, I was taken on a test flight in a Beaufighter. Things were quiet at the station and they offered joyrides to us Watch Room girls. I sat in the navigator’s seat, behind the pilot, and saw the world through angels’ eyes. I’ll never forget it.’ For more reasons than that: after they’d landed, the pilot had asked her out to a dance in a nearby village. After a moonlit walk home, he’d kissed her, just out of sight of the WAAF quarters’ guard hut. Her first kiss since Leo’s death. Her lips had been as cold as the moon and he’d laughed, saying, ‘Thank goodness you don’t dance like you kiss.’ A challenge that she’d taken, astounding him with a surge of passion. She’d fallen a little in love . . . Joanne hadn’t lied. She fell too easily. He’d been shot down a week later over the North Sea. How it was, back then. You gulped down the nectar, then the sorrow, and got on with your job. Was it wrong to long to be loved and wanted? To be held . . . danced with?

  ‘I envy you,’ Alistair fished her attention from the dance floor. ‘I flew once, as a passenger, and so wanted to see my ocean from a pilot’s viewpoint, but fog wrapped us up straight away. What is it like to see buildings from ten thousand feet?’

  ‘It’s like – ’

  Tanith squealed, putting her Cola glass down with a bump. ‘Bubbles are rushing up my nose!’ Resting her chin on the back of her hand, she said wistfully, ‘I’d love to dance, Alistair.’

  ‘Then so you shall.’

  Vanessa reflected sorely, Can’t he say no? But instead of holding his hand out to Tanith, Alistair approached a group of young men huddled near the bar. He exchanged words with one and a moment later, was bringing him over. Vanessa recognised one of Aubrey Hinshaw’s assistants, ‘third assistant director’ or some such. He’d arrived at The Farren a few days ago, to begin measuring and sketching the stage, touring the lighting rigs.

  With a little prompting from Alistair, he asked Tanith to dance. It looked as if she might refuse, but in the end she sighed. ‘I suppose so. I hope you can dance.’

  ‘I hope you can too,’ the young man swiped back.

  Alistair returned to his seat. The band had settled into a repertoire of old-fashioned melodies, playing a slowed-down ‘It Had to Be You’.

  He held his hand out. ‘Shall we?’

  ‘Dance?’

  ‘I wasn’t imagining we’d try a spot of goose-stepping.’

  ‘Can you?’ A smile pushed across her face.

  ‘Only one way to find out.’

  The dance floor allowed no chance of a light, polite embrace. They were grain in a slow-rolling mill. Crushed against each other, they moved counter-clockwise, other people’s heat and perfume binding them. Alistair’s hand sank into her waist and they moved in an uncomplicated, swaying walk. Her cheek rested on his collarbone and she caught wafts of shaving lotion. ‘It Had to Be You’ ended and the band struck up ‘Moonglow’. Alistair gathered her closer, looking down at the yellow ribbon between her breasts. His eyes held a smoky intent that warned her he was deciding something. I’m not falling in love, she reminded herself. I loved him by the end of the first day I met him.

  She closed her eyes. Happiness was a mayfly, dead within hours, and she knew in her bone marrow that Fern would ultimately reclaim Alistair. She must make the most of being in his arms.

  He asked, ‘Are you really what you seem, Vanessa? Free?’

  ‘I’m spoken for, actually.’ She felt his step choke, though it might have been because the floor was sticky with spilled drink. ‘I’m already in love with my work. I know it’s rather soon, but that’s how I am. My wardrobe department will be a byword for insane levels of enthusiasm. I’ll keep Hugo focussed. You won’t have to lose sleep over costumes.’

  ‘That will leave me free to lose sleep over other things.’

  ‘Alistair, your life is none of my business . . .’

  ‘But?’ Alistair prodded.

  ‘There’s no point digging a hole and sitting in it.’

  ‘Tell that to the infantry. But I get your point. You’re suggesting I give Fern a divorce?’

  ‘A new start for you both.’

  ‘There’s a problem.’ It was like listening to a wireless slip abruptly into another waveband. She opened her eyes. ‘You love her too much to let her go?’

  ‘There’s an obstacle to divorce that you couldn’t begin to understand. It’s to do with reputation. Honour. Character. Yes, pride too. You’d have to be a man to grasp it, and a man you most definitely are not.’

  They danced twice more, then Alistair danced once with Tanith. Vanessa sipped warm Coca-Cola, trying not to mind that Tanith was draped shamelessly against Alistair. To his credit, he kept scooping her upright. But then, she told herself sourly, he knows I’m watching. He knows that I know that the obstacle to divorce isn’t male pride, it’s that he doesn’t want it.r />
  He took them away after that and at her request, dropped Vanessa off first. She had a headache and was craving a darkened room.

  Chapter 13

  This arrangement misfired badly on Alistair. Following Tanith’s directions, he parked on Lupus Street, Pimlico. Opening the passenger door to let her out, he stared at the stars so there was no chance of him glimpsing stockinged leg as she climbed out. He wanted a woman tonight but not this one.

  ‘Which flat?’ he asked.

  Tanith pointed to a curtained window above a shop. He knocked at the side door, but Mrs Stacey, it seemed, slept like the dead.

  ‘Don’t you have your own key?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m not allowed.’

  ‘Friendly neighbours, other family nearby?’

  ‘Nobody, I’m afraid. Lordy, what shall we do?’

  We? Cursing unnatural mothers and top floor flats, Alistair suggested she get back in the car. Driving slowly along the Embankment to conserve fuel, he considered his options. Her hand, meanwhile, kept moving towards his thigh.

  The following morning, he woke with pins and needles in one arm. His initial thought was the one he always had – the moment a German torpedo exploded against the Sundew’s stern. Followed by a flicker-book of drowning faces. He threw back the covers and rid himself of the ghosts with a swift walk to the theatre. His phone was ringing; it was Terence Rolf. Their conversation gave him the excuse he needed to walk across to the wardrobe room.

  From her doorway, he watched Vanessa. She was perched on the table edge, unpicking the lining of a garment. Sunshine – unsullied this morning by smog or traffic vapours – splashed the table, which was lighter and smoother than he’d ever seen it. Vanessa had done a meticulous job of repairing it.

  She, however, was everything he remembered. Curls flopped over her cheek. Her skirt was strained tight around the thigh and her legs were shown to advantage in nylons. Had she joined one of the mile-long queues that sprang up outside department stores whenever a delivery came in? One shoe hung off her heel, displaying the stocking’s petal-shaped reinforcement, which rose in a pencil-line seam. A fluttering sensation moved across his shoulders. She had on one of her neat, fitted blouses. Blue, today. Her bent neck had a fragility that made him loath what he was about to do.

  She looked up just then and nodded as though his arrival was part of her daily routine. She hadn’t woken up disliking him, by the looks of things, but in a moment she would.

  ‘I really enjoyed that meal, Alistair. Thank you for taking us.’

  ‘Think nothing of it. It’s Miss Bovary and the Rolfs’ turn tonight, then tomorrow, our Promotions Director and his wife. Has to be done.’

  ‘Oh. I see.’

  Last night, as they’d danced, he’d felt need crawling through his veins. Driving along Embankment it had stalked him. He wouldn’t – couldn’t – allow such need to strike roots. Dismantling his world, leaving Ledbury Terrace and the Navy, moving into Bo’s flat in Cecil Court, he’d reached decisions about his marriage that he would not go back on, because to do so would blow apart everything he was and believed in.

  He would never give Fern a divorce.

  It wasn’t fair to want Vanessa and it would help if she began to actively dislike him.

  When she said, ‘I hope you have a good supply of Pepto-

  Bismol,’ in a voice as flinty as his own, he silently praised her. But he had to make sure. ‘As we danced together I had a feeling you thought you might organise my future. I just wanted to say that, along with my desk, it’s out of bounds.’

  Red spots flamed in her cheeks. ‘Did Tanith get in safely?’

  To his shame, he hesitated, saying after he’d cleared his throat, ‘She was fine.’

  ‘Good.’

  When it became clear she’d gone back to her unpicking, he turned to one of his notional reasons for being there. ‘Any idea what Brennan’s up to today?’

  ‘Visiting fabric wholesalers. There’s cloth to be had, he says, if you know whom to bribe. He’s hoping for offcuts or reject rolls. I’m trying to help, honestly I am.’

  ‘But is Brennan helping himself? So much rides on this production, Vanessa. If Hugo’s having some kind of creative seizure, I need to know.’

  Instead of answering, she showed him what she was doing – unpicking the violet silk lining from a man’s evening jacket. ‘We have enough suits to clothe the male characters and luckily, men’s fashion doesn’t change much decade to decade. They just need cleaning and some new buttons.’

  ‘The lining looks in good condition.’

  ‘That’s why I’m stealing it.’ She let the fabric spill over her hand. ‘If I strip every jacket, I’ll have enough for sleeves, bodices, sashes, that sort of thing. Hugo wants a uniform colour scheme, and all the linings are from the same dye lot.’

  ‘I should think they were made by Grunberg’s – costumiers who went bust in the Depression. Will you re-line the jackets?’ He was chit-chatting, which he never did, but he’d just been struck by the most ludicrous jealousy. Last night, Vanessa had told him that she was falling in love with her work. He wanted to rip the silk from her and take hold of her. He wanted to say, ‘Listen, I’m married and it’s going to stay that way. But I want you so badly it’s crucifying me.’ Instead he kept on about coat linings until the mechanical crump of the lift, followed by the rattle of crockery, announced the approach of the tea trolley. The tea lady trundled up to the open door. The Farren employed people on long shifts, and was entitled to serve extra rations.

  ‘Your usual, Mrs K?’ the tea lady asked, pouring steaming liquid into a tin mug. She reacted to Alistair’s presence with undisguised fascination. ‘Didn’t spot you there, sir. Usual, is it?’ She filled another mug even though he declined.

  Perhaps she was a little deaf. Her forearms were powerful and she’d told him once that she’d made munitions casings during the war. Endless machine noise scarred the eardrums. ‘Nice buns today,’ she bugled at them, shovelling a couple on to plates. They were so dry, they reminded him of fossilised ammonites on display at the Science Museum. They had a lick of sugar topping, but no sultanas and no spice. But they had their use . . . because now he must stay.

  He wanted to stay.

  He and Vanessa took their elevenses sitting on the table. It took her two tries to break her bun in half and her shoulders shook. Her mirth summed up the awfulness of food rationing, of the same dreary ‘make-do’. A loveless ever-after, when even Chelsea buns were robbed of their sultanas.

  ‘I’m keeping mine for Macduff,’ he said.

  ‘He can have mine too,’ Vanessa said. ‘The tea’s good, though. Cheers.’ They clinked tin rims and anyone looking in would have thought they were fast friends. Her court shoe finally slipped off her heel entirely and fell to the floor. She gazed down at her nyloned foot, evidently unsure what to do.

  He picked the shoe up, and then didn’t know what to do with it either. To slip it back on would require him to touch the silky arch of her foot and a slender ankle. He could not do it without his mind going further, literally travelling upward. So he handed the shoe to her, saying, ‘They must be a size too big.’

  ‘I bought them off a friend of Joanne’s, hardly worn. Of course they’ll oblige by shrinking to fit. You know how it is.’

  Not really. For years, he’d had his shoes made for him at Lobb’s. The pair he had on now, bought in 1939, was hardy. He’d spent most of his war in sea boots, keeping a much-mended pair of Oxfords for travelling.

  Vanessa replaced her shoe, and the yellow satin ribbon bowed outwards.

  He said, ‘That key – is it worn to inspire mystery?’

  She slipped the ribbon over her head. ‘Eva St Clair gave it to me.’

  Alistair cradled the key in the palm of his hand. Eva St Clair had been an enduring presence at The Farren. To visit her here in the wardrobe room was to get a hug, which he’d found uncomfortable, and a shortbread biscuit from a tin, far more acceptable. He
knew of the tragic end to her career in September, 1940.

  Only the other day, he’d asked Miss Bovary about pension payments made to Eva that showed up in the wage books. Bo, who’d cared deeply for Eva, had been providing her with a retirement income.

  Miss Bovary had confirmed it. ‘We’ve been paying for her lodgings too. She lives under the care of the Catholic Church.’

  ‘“Lives?”’ he’d queried, discerning a fractional hesitation before Miss Bovary answered, ‘Indeed, yes. One has to admire Miss St Clair. Can’t talk, can hardly eat, but as the poet said, the creaking gate hangs longest.’

  He’d thanked Miss Bovary, who had gone away ignorant that she had blundered, that Alistair’s ear for voices was acute. Afterwards, he’d studied the wage books and dug deep into the theatre accounts. He’d learned that Miss St Clair had been receiving her pension since December 1940, three months after falling victim to an air raid. The payments continued, though the account into which they were paid had changed recently. A call to the bank had disclosed that the money was now going into an account owned by somebody else entirely. Alistair was still waiting for Miss Bovary to mention the fact. He now asked Vanessa, ‘You met Eva here, didn’t you?’

  ‘Didn’t I say? My father brought me to see her. They were – um, acquaintances.’

  ‘She gave you the key then?’

  ‘No, much later. At dad’s funeral. She said it was mine, by right. Take it –’ Vanessa tried to pass it over, but Alistair refused it. It wasn’t just voices he was good at. What people didn’t say could be just as informative. To put it charitably, Vanessa was under-explaining.

  ‘Pity we can’t ask Eva what it unlocks,’ Alistair said. ‘You know she was almost killed when the pub next door was bombed?’ He pulled chairs up to the high window, and standing on one, he invited Vanessa to join him in looking out over the waste-ground. ‘See there?’ he pointed. ‘Those exposed cellars are the site of the Nun’s Head, which for decades was The Farren’s unofficial rehearsal space and drinking-parlour. Three hundred pounds of TNT destroyed an historic pub in seconds. This window blew right in from the force of the explosion.’