How could he possibly have forgotten that the anniversary of their first meeting was also the day Walter had jilted her – the day she had expected to be married?
But why should he remember such a detail? It was only important to Kate – and only if she let it be.
Chapter Fifteen
From the outset, it was clear that the advertising postcards were going to be a roaring success. The enthusiasm of the photographer and his lovely model, coupled with that of Theodore Wesley’s keen eye for the potential for increased sales, saw to that. And with the large fees the magnanimous Wesley was prepared to pay, Luke abandoned any idea of approaching other companies for advertising for now. Even though Wesley hadn’t stipulated in their contract that his motor company was to have exclusive rights to the postcard advertising, Luke saw the ethics of it.
The cards began flooding the market at the end of February, showing Kate snuggled into a fur-trimmed coat and matching cloche hat, and looking appealingly into the camera as she leaned against the bonnet of the gleaming car. Wesley was delighted with the image. Kate looked the epitome of the rich young woman about town, he told her approvingly, and it was an image that was definitely going to promote car sales. There was a set of six different winter poses, and he thought that folk would start collecting them.
Later, once the new spring batch of postcards appeared, showing Kate in flimsy, fashionable summer frocks and smiling that glorious smile, other companies began approaching Luke.
Kate was settling a client’s account in the studio one Monday towards the end of April, when Luke answered the phone, and put his hand over the receiver for a second.
“It’s Pollard’s,” he mouthed at Kate.
Her eyes sparkled. They were one of the big new soap companies in the area. She didn’t mind posing in front of the motors, but it was a man’s world, and in Kate’s mind there was something infinitely more feminine in advertising soap.
When she had sent the first batch of motor cards to her family, there had been all the disapproval she had expected.
“Your Dada’s not so sure he likes the thought of all and sundry seeing your face on these cards, our Kate,” her mother had written. “And Donal says you should have told us what you were doing before now. There’s even a few of the cards on sale at the village shop. That nasty little gossipy person, Violet Parsons, stopped Donal the other day and told him to pass on her best wishes to you, and to say she always knew you’d come up smelling of roses, and not to worry if the priest thinks it’s wickedness gone mad.”
Kate could just imagine how Donal would hate to be approached by Vi in that arch voice of hers which always intimated that she knew something he didn’t.
And so she did, in this case, Kate thought, with a shiver. But Donal never did have time for Vi and would have dismissed her words as just her usual gossipy nonsense.
Kate had written straight back home again, reassuring her family that everything was respectable, and enclosing an amount of money that must have made their eyes pop out. Since then, she had heard nothing more about the wickedness of the postcards, from the priest or anywhere else.
She ushered out the client from the studio, while Luke was still talking on the phone. But once they were alone, he grabbed her hands.
“We’re going to see the managing director of Pollard’s tomorrow afternoon, Kate, but there’s no doubt that he intends to offer us a contract.”
“That’s marvellous,” she said, with genuine delight. “But do you think Mr Wesley will have any objections?”
“I’ll phone him right away, but I can’t see why there should be. He keeps boasting that we’ve increased his car sales, and your face on different cards will only endorse the importance of it.”
“It’s not just my face, Luke,” Kate protested, not wanting to take the credit or the responsibility of it all. “It’s your photography that’s at the heart of it.”
“You’re wrong, sweetheart. It’s you who’s at the heart of it all. Without you, none of it would be possible.”
She wasn’t sure about that. He could always get another model, but at the thought, her heart froze.
There were already a couple of other photographic firms jumping on the advertising bandwagon, but they were the first, and the most successful. Kate Sullivan was just what Luke had intended her to be. Even if she wasn’t his, by now she was the nation’s postcard sweetheart.
Luke put through the call to Theodore Wesley, and he was smiling at the end of it.
“He was perfectly all right when I pointed out that your face was obviously the one destined to launch a thousand different advertising ships, Kate.”
When she looked totally blank, he laughed.
“It’s literature, darling. Marlowe wrote that Helen of Troy had the face that would launch a thousand ships.”
“Oh, I see.”
But she didn’t, not really. All she saw was that Luke was well versed in the classics, while she didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. There were times, and this was one of them, when she was sharply reminded that she was still little Kate Sullivan, country girl; despite the new, smart clothes and bobbed haircut, and the fashionable places where she and Luke were seen in the city, and where her face was occasionally recognised. She brushed the feeling aside, knowing it was silly to feel inadequate when the girls at the boarding house were almost in awe of her now, telling her she had the world at her feet, and Thomas Lord Tannersley was forever booming at her that she should be on the stage with her looks.
“And there’s only one thing wrong with that,” she always told him. “I can’t act!”
But she had acted a part at the Charlton Hotel all those months ago, and she was still acting a part now, she sometimes thought uneasily.
“I keep wondering when you’re going to move out of here and get your own place,” Doris said one night, quite tartly.
Kate’s eyes widened. “Why on earth would I want to do that?”
“Well, with all the money you’re making now, and the posh clothes you’re buying, don’t you want to act the way the model girls do and have a flashy apartment overlooking the river?”
“No thanks,” Kate said. “I’m perfectly happy here with Mrs Wood. She hasn’t said anything about wanting me to move out, has she?” she added as the sudden thought struck her.
“Course not,” Doris said with a shrug. “Me and Faye just thought you’d want to. Either that or move in with Lukey.”
“Luke and I are business colleagues, and nothing more,” Kate snapped. “How many more times do I have to tell you?”
“You’re more of a fool than we took you for then – unless you’ve got some other well-heeled gent on the horizon.”
“Sometimes, Doris, you really disgust me.”
“Yeah, well, that’s because I ain’t got your looks or your money, or your chances,” she said sullenly.
Kate put it all down to jealousy and tried to ignore it. Though it didn’t help the occasional frosty atmosphere between them to know that Mrs Wood had the complete collection of postcards pinned up in her kitchen for all to see.
Luke had also sent them all off to the American friend who had put the idea in his head in the first place.
Pollard’s Soap Company wanted to hire Luke and Kate immediately to help promote a new pink facial soap they were in the process of putting on the market. Their artists had already drawn up sketches showing how they wanted Kate smiling into the camera in a head and shoulder pose, holding a pink rose to her cheek, with the bar of soap behind her and a suitable caption beneath.
“Why should we argue, since they’ve already formed their own ideas?” Luke said to her, when the deal was settled. “It will be a completely different angle from Wesley’s, and it’ll do us no harm to show our versatility.”
“Whatever that is,” Kate murmured.
“Come on, you’re not that dumb,” Luke said with a smile. “In fact, you’re not dumb at all, so don’t pretend that you are. You p
ut across some very pertinent points at the meeting with Pollard’s, about make-up and flattering necklines.”
“Oh yes, I’m learning,” she said.
He glanced at her as they drove back to the studio.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Good Lord, nothing at all. Whatever could be wrong with the glamorous and successful – and almost disgustingly rich – Kate Sullivan!” she said.
“Well, something is. I know you too well, and sarcasm doesn’t become you. So get it sorted out in your head, and when we get back to town you can tell me all about it.”
Oh yes, of course she could do just that! She could tell him that she was feeling increasingly restless of late. That success didn’t always equate with happiness. That she loved him, and wanted him, and that frustration was a word she was beginning to know all too well.
There was also the certainty that as the months went by Luke increasingly wanted more from their relationship. It couldn’t be long before he was going to demand an answer from her, and she couldn’t hold him off for ever. He’d been far more patient than Walter had ever been.
She rarely thought about Walter these days. If ever his name reared up in her consciousness it gave her a nasty little lurch in her stomach. And that in turn reminded her of what he’d done to her, and how her life had been ruined because of him. She tried to push all such thoughts away as they returned through the congested streets of London.
“If the general strike goes ahead, as it surely will, the streets won’t be busy like this for very much longer,” Luke observed. “With all public transport out of action, and industry grinding to a halt, London will be in chaos.”
“It won’t really be that bad, will it?” Kate said, thankful to be talking about something else, something that had been the main topic of conversation in the city for days now, ever since the miners had called their strike for the first of May. The Trades Unions had decided to join their cause and decreed that from May the fourth there would be a general strike throughout the country. The date was drawing near, and nothing had been done to resolve matters.
“Things have gone too far now for it to be averted,” Luke said. “Don’t you read anything in the newspapers?”
“Of course I do, some of it, anyway,” Kate said defensively, “but if the miners want more money than they’re already getting, it seems even dafter to go on strike and not get any pay at all.”
“You try telling that to those poor devils who can’t make ends meet already, and are now being expected to accept lower wages. People have to stand by their principles, Kate, and the government should listen to their views.”
Kate hadn’t read the newspaper reports in any great detail, and it was mainly due to Thomas’s ramblings on how he’d run the country if it was left to him, and Mrs Wood’s arguments on behalf of the miners’ plight, that Kate knew as much as she did. But Luke took a fairly keen interest in political matters, especially those that affected business.
“There’s rallies being held everywhere, by militant leaders and anybody else who wants their voice to be heard, all trying to inform the public of what’s going on, and getting their support,” he went on. “I’m going to one up west tomorrow night, if only to be better informed from the horses’ mouths, so to speak. Do you want to come along?”
“All right,” she said, having no idea what would be involved, but not wanting to appear a complete ninny. “Though if everything’s so settled already I can’t see what help a lot of shouting and arguing is going to do.”
“The miners and the union men will still want to know that people are behind them. God knows how long the strike will last, but it’s going to cause disruption everywhere. Vehicle owners will suddenly find themselves very popular when trams and buses are no longer available to get people to work, which is why I’m thinking of locking the Bentley safely away out of sight as soon as it starts.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because I’m not so public-spirited that I want to see my motor crushed by a frenzied crowd of people trying to get a free lift to work, or anywhere else. Selfish or not.”
“I don’t think it’s selfish to want to keep something you’ve worked for. It’s not as if you need the car for work yourself, and I can walk to the studio from Jubilee Terrace.”
“Or you can move in with me until all the fuss is over.”
Kate’s face flamed. “That’s not an option, Luke.”
“I didn’t think it would be. But you can’t blame a fellow for trying,” he said teasingly.
They joined the crowds at the evening rally in the park on the following night, where a hoarse young man with a heavy Welsh accent was ranting and raving at some hecklers in the front, asking how they would care to try and survive on the pittance he and his wife and family had to exist on.
“He’ll be just a token speaker,” Luke said in Kate’s ear, “a poorly-dressed miner put up by the union men to get the initial sympathy vote in the crowd. The real heavy speakers will be on later, and the hecklers are probably planted there as well to make the miner’s plight sound even worse.”
“How cynical you make it sound!” Kate said. “I can’t believe it’s like you say, Luke.”
“Then keep watching. When the miner moves away into the crowd, he’ll be slipped a few coppers from a well-dressed man who’ll be the next speaker.”
Kate watched, disliking the falseness of it all, but still fascinated by the implied machinations. And that was about all. If this was politics, you could keep it, she thought. In fact, you could keep all of it. It just seemed like a lot of shouting; like kids at school. She had every sympathy for those who couldn’t support their families, and indignation against a government who gave with one hand and took away with the other. But she had never understood the devious workings of politics, and if all this bawling and yelling was an example she didn’t really want to start now.
She was only here in the park listening to the men on their soapboxes because Luke had suggested it, but as the noise in the crowd grew louder she couldn’t even make out any sensible conversation among all the shouting and rabble-rousing, and she quickly became bored. They had been pressed ever more forward into the crowd when some ugly scuffling broke out among those at the front, and by then Kate decided she had had enough.
“Luke, can we go now? I really don’t like the way things are going here.”
He saw her pale face and nodded. He’d willingly gone to war for his country, but he had no intention of getting caught up in an angry civil mob. The constables had little chance of controlling the crowd, and once the strike began in earnest, even they would be off the streets, with only the special volunteers and the troops enlisted to try to keep order and distribute the lorry loads of food that would be taken to a huge central dump in Hyde Park.
By the time they decided to leave the scene, there were more people behind them, and they were somehow in the middle of it all. They had to fight their way through, and more than one elbow and boot found its way into Kate’s body, until she thought she would be black and blue by tomorrow. But at last they left the park and reached the end of the road where the Bentley was parked. As she slid inside it, Kate was fervently in agreement with Luke, to keep the car off the streets for as long as the strike lasted.
She gave a grateful sigh as he started up the Bentley’s engine, relaxing against the leather upholstery and feeling more than thankful to be heading back towards the comparative sanity of Jubilee Terrace. But if she hadn’t had her eyes closed for those few blissful moments, all her complacency would have disappeared in an instant.
The man in the smart striped suit with wide lapels, and hair slicked down with oil, was wandering aimlessly aroud the West End to fill in time before making his way back to the hostelry where he had temporary lodgings. He didn’t really care for London all that much, although there were rich pickings in the markets for a go-ahead travelling man with goods to sell and a ready patter for the ladies. He especia
lly didn’t care for the gap in the evenings, when work was over, and the night-time activities hadn’t yet got going. He wasn’t particularly interested in this bloody strike which was going to paralyse the country, either, and he was already thinking he’d do best to get back up north where he belonged, before he was left here like a stranded fish.
He was on the edge of the crowd, craning his neck to see what the belligerent speaker was on about, when he suddenly stood perfectly still, stopping so quickly that people cannoned into him, cursing his stupidity. He hardly noticed. He was too busy staring after the green Bentley disappearing around the corner, wondering if he’d been seeing things.
It couldn’t really have been Kate Sullivan, all dolled up and looking fancier than he’d ever seen her in his life before, a world away from the frightened-eyed country girl who’d begged him to marry her.
Walter Radcliffe frowned, unwilling to have too many reminders of that time, almost a year ago now, knowing full well what a bastard he had been. He frowned again, as his memories forced him into thinking about something else. Something he’d pushed squarely out of his mind all these months when he’d been so neglectful in sending money home to Kate, like he’d promised. Money for the kid.
His eyes narrowed. From the look of her, sliding into that bloody flash motor car and looking like Lady Muck, she wasn’t short of money. The car was far more swanky than the piddling thing he drove, spluttering around the country.
If it was Kate, she’d come up trumps all right, and he’d like to know just how. And more than that, he’d like to know just what she’d done with the kid. Her kid. His kid.
All the talk back at Jubilee Terrace was about the strike. Luke stayed long enough to join in the discussion with Thomas, who was sounding off as usual in his booming voice, while Doris and Faye made themselves scarce. Even darling Lukey’s presence couldn’t make them interested in politics.
“I say give the miners what they deserve,” Mrs Wood said stoutly. “A man has a right to a living wage, and if those poor buggers ain’t getting it – pardon my French – then the government should be ashamed of itself.”
A Different Kind of Love Page 23