by Maggie Ford
Lucy came to inspect it, of course, breaking a year of silence, having sided with Vinny over Christopher. Vinny stayed away – had never forgiven Letty for taking the boy from her.
Dad and Ada came, warned her she was biting off more than she could chew, had tea and departed early. Dad at sixty-six was beginning to stoop; he walked heavily on a stick, already coughing in readiness for winter. With him and Billy the flat had resembled a sanitorium.
‘I hope you’ll come often,’ Letty said as Dad and Ada left. She doubted they would.
With Christmas six weeks away, Letty had taken on an assistant. A widow in her thirties, Mrs Nelly Warnes had a quiet self-assurance that pleased the customers. Letty could leave the shop in her hands much of the time allowing herself the chance to see to Billy.
Thick yellow November fog muffled the sounds of the world outside. Car and omnibus headlights peered through it like myopic old men. Billy gone downhill lately, the smoke-laden air attacking his lungs in full force. It was a setback after a decent summer, but as Letty told herself, you can never have things too good for too long.
Now it was heartrending to see him propped up in bed by three or four pillows, discreetly covered spittoon at his side, each breath laboured, each cough racking his thin body. Letty was beginning to grow frightened about him and plagued Doctor Cavarolli, their new doctor, for reassurance. She worried every minute of the day she was downstairs, though smiling sweetly persuasively at her customers.
‘You ain’t … doin’ yerself … no good neither,’ said Billy between gasps for breath. ‘Doin’ two jobs at once. Yer mustn’t overdo it.’
‘And you mustn’t talk so much,’ Letty said as she straightened his pillows to make him more comfortable. ‘I’m fine. I’m an old soldier at doing two jobs at once – three sometimes.’
She reminded him of when she had nursed Dad through winters like this (‘And him still going strong at sixty-six, which goes to show,’ she said significantly), and had held down their old shop and did all the housework, and without an assistant to help her in those days.
‘So you stop worrying,’ she said sternly, pouring his cough mixture.
The place was filled with Christmas shoppers. In back streets behind the glittering façade of London’s affluent West End, and in the East End, there was still the grinding poverty of those with not enough to buy decent food, much less Christmas presents. But in Letty’s shop the better off browsed, found a bargain and went away happy, even though she had raised her prices and her sights with confidence in her ability to sell.
Moving through the thriving gallery, she knew she was seen as a woman very much in control. Poised, tastefully dressed in the slim loose style of the day, she smiled pleasantly at the more opulent of her customers. It wasn’t a façade – she really did feel confident; felt that life was settling down at last. Chris was no longer the sullen boy who had first come to live with her. He had settled well into his new school, and he now called her Mum, without reservation. Nor did it worry her that Vinny was still not speaking to her. According to Lucy, she had met a gentleman, a widower. Letty privately wished her luck and hoped it might rid her sister of some of her bitterness.
Above the jostling sea of heads, she watched the door opening and shutting, letting in even more people as well as the cold afternoon air. It was already dark at four o’clock. Letty thought with gratitude how crowds tended to attract crowds; that had the shop been empty no one would have ventured in. She hoped that nothing would get broken.
A tallish man with a fine pencil slim moustache, well dressed in an expensive topcoat and trilby – the type of customer she welcomed – was holding the door open for a handsome sharp-faced woman, no doubt his wife, in a fur coat and a fur-trimmed cloche hat. Letty noticed how bad-tempered the woman looked. Her eyes moved casually on, only to turn back instantly in shock and disbelief.
‘Do you have any jade things?’ A voice at her elbow forced Letty to switch her gaze to an elderly speaker, hardly seeing her for the thoughts racing through her head.
‘Yes, certainly, madam. One of my assistants …’ Already she was signalling to Violet, the temporary assistant, her own mind elsewhere.
The couple were inside the shop now, their backs to her, looking at the porcelain. For the next few minutes, while answering customers’ enquiries and attending to their demands, Letty’s eyes were on the couple, willing them to turn round. When at last they did, she felt dizzy. Take away the moustache and the man was the image of David.
He was beckoning to Mrs Warnes. Letty watched as he indicated a Sevres porcelain figurine, saw her assistant hurry away to get the box for it, return, and guide the couple through the throng towards the till beside which Letty stood.
She had already taken control of her emotions, annoyed that she had let herself get all breathless like some film-struck flapper over someone who merely reminded her of David. She forced her eyes down to the purchase and began writing the receipt ‘One Sevres Figurine – Man with Hunting Dog’.
‘What name?’ she asked.
‘D. R. Baron.’
The voice was deep and well-remembered. Letty’s pencil froze. She raised her eyes in disbelief. The face looking back at her held a similar expression of shock, deep brown eyes staring, brows drawn together above a long straight nose. It was David. He hadn’t been killed. He was alive …
Letty’s mouth had gone dry. She was vaguely aware of the woman looking impatiently at her, the silly person gaping at her husband instead of doing what she was supposed to. Coming quickly to her senses, Letty realised she must not betray herself. Hardly able to credit it wasn’t overwork and worry over Billy that was playing tricks on her, she bent her head swiftly to the receipt she had been writing, trying to combat the tightness in her chest. It was like being suffocated.
When she looked up, David’s expression had changed to a blank stare. He was married then. Letty saw the large diamond and the chased wedding ring on his haughty wife’s finger – Letty herself was his past, was nothing more than an embarrassment. He needn’t have feared, she wasn’t about to humiliate him. Affecting serenity, she handed him his purchase and his receipt, nodded her thanks, and watched him go without appearing to.
At the door, his wife preceded him. David turned briefly, saw Letty otherwise occupied, making towards the rear of the shop, and went out, following his wife into the cold breezy December evening.
Fleeing to the little office behind the shop, Letty did not see the desolate look he cast after her retreating figure. She hurried on up the carpeted stairs to the flat above with some vague notion of seeing how Billy was. If she tended to him, the suffocating feeling inside her chest might be forced away. It was a long time before she felt it recede.
Two days later the phone rang in the little office behind the shop. Letty answered it, trying to focus her mind on the fact that she must reorder. Stock was dwindling fast. Not having enough to meet demand, especially at this time of year, was as bad as a lack of demand. But it had been hard to think of anything but David these last two days.
Day and night, his face haunted her. The nights were worst. His face was older, of course – he would be forty-five now. Her heart groaned under the burden of re-awakened love, at the waste of it all, with nothing to be done about it now. All far too late.
She felt angry as well. With fate. With her own stupidity in believing his mother whose grieving voice had rung so sincere all that time ago; for not having made more enquiries, accepted what she had thought was the gospel truth. Her rage against the woman had robbed her of sleep and of the ability to work calmly. And she had been short-tempered with Billy for the first time ever.
Most of all she was bitter against David himself. Never to come seeking her, to have married and forgotten her! Coming face to face with her, his expression of dismay had betrayed him.
Damn him! How dare he awaken her heart when he had never bothered to look for her? Why should he come back now – just when her life had become o
rderly and contented? And then to look through her like that as if she was nothing. He didn’t even know he had a son …
She lifted the telephone. ‘Letitia Beans, The Treasure Chest.’
‘Letitia?’
Letty caught her breath. Only one man other than Dad had ever called her by her full name.
‘David?’ She was hardly able to believe she was uttering his name after all these years. She made herself businesslike.
‘Was your purchase to your satisfaction?’
‘Letitia.’ His voice sounded tight, strangled. ‘I don’t know what to say. I felt I’d been hit with a hammer when I saw you.’
Me too, she thought, but said: ‘All these years, David. I was given to understand you’d been killed. Your mother said you had been and I believed her …’
She stopped in confusion. The line was quiet for a time, then he replied: ‘She too was given to believe it. I was a prisoner of war but not listed for a long time.’ With a lame attempt at humour, he added, ‘I’m afraid the Turks weren’t terribly efficient in that direction.’
There was another long pause, then, his voice flat, all humour dissipated, he said: ‘My mother told me that you had married.’
‘Yes,’ she began, then it dawned on her that there was something not quite right in what he had said.
‘But she couldn’t have known!’ she cried. ‘I wasn’t married when I spoke to her in 1916. I never contacted her again.’
‘But she said you told her you had married?’ David sounded bewildered.
‘I never did no such thing!’ Letty cried hotly, forgetting her grammar. There was a time he’d have laughed at her for it. He didn’t laugh now and nor was she ready for him to. ‘She lied to you!’
‘She must have misheard you.’
‘She never misheard anything!’ Letty blurted out. ‘She knew what she was doing all right. She never thought I was good enough for you. Never wanted us to marry. Well, she’s got her wish, hasn’t she? It was a wicked thing to do, saying that to you …’
‘Letitia,’ he broke in sharply, ‘my mother died two years ago.’
‘Oh.’ She should have bitten out her tongue. ‘Oh, David – I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’
‘You weren’t expected to.’ His tone had become formal. ‘I rang you because seeing you – the shock – I suppose you were shocked as well, imagining I was … I felt I should get in touch and apologise.’
She too became formal for all her heart ached. ‘No need. But it was nice of you to ring me. Nice to know you’re happy and settled now. Nice …’ Stupid word! Letting her down. Showing her upbringing.
‘Letitia.’ Emotion trembled in his voice. ‘To see you after all these years … I don’t know how to say it. Letitia … I have to talk to you. Can I meet you somewhere?’
She heard herself saying, ‘I don’t think that would be right, do you, David? You and me – both of us married. No, I don’t think so.’
But she did want to see him, wanted so desperately to see him, was suddenly asking where, agreeing as he gave the name of a restaurant in Oxford Circus not far away, limply agreeing to lunch tomorrow and replacing the telephone on its hook, not able to believe she was soon to see David again.
Bright with holly and Christmas baubles, the place was crowded. Half of London was unemployed and lived hand to mouth; the other half ate in cafes and restaurants like this at midday.
David had found a table in the far corner. Letty, with little appetite, ordered coffee and a Chelsea bun which she found herself unable to eat anyway. David had only coffee, also in no mood for eating. Around them all was chatter and clatter.
‘Well then?’ Letty asked as she stirred her coffee almost to lukewarm. ‘What was it you wanted to see me for?’
He’d been there already when she came in. In a neat grey suit, his face drawn with anxiety that she would not turn up. His large dark eyes had brightened at her appearance. He’d risen, taken her hand while she sat down. She withdrew it quickly and the pair of them sat down opposite each other, David’s expression apprehensive again.
He leaned forward now, hands on the table to either side of his cup.
‘Letitia, darling …’
She stiffened. ‘Look, David, I’m not your darling.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said quickly, looking down into his cup. ‘I just thought …’
‘That you could pick up where you left off?’ she finished for him, hating herself for saying it like that as he looked up sharply. But she ploughed on, pouring out her feelings.
‘You took everything your mother said about me as gospel truth,’ she said, refusing to spare him. ‘But I’m telling you, she didn’t misunderstand or mishear anything. She told you a pack of lies, David. Oh, I know she’s dead. And I am sorry. But I’ve got to speak as I find. She lied to you, David. I loved you. I loved you all those years I thought you’d been killed. I’ve never stopped loving you. And I …’
She stopped herself, took a deep breath. He had to be told.
‘I had a baby. Your baby. His name’s Christopher. He’s nine now.’
‘Oh, Christ!’ His face was white, his eyes tightly closed. ‘She never told me that.’
‘She didn’t know.’ Hate his mother though she had, Letty had to be fair. ‘I never told your parents because I thought they might take him away from me. Then I’d have lost the only thing I had left of you.’
Quietly but resolutely she told him how Vinny had taken Chris and brought him up; she obdurately evaded David’s interruptions, asking what his son was like, if he knew about his father, how he’d taken it, if he could see the boy? He must see him!
She went on doggedly, her coffee growing cold, seeing the pain behind his gaze as she told of how she had claimed her son back after so many years and eventually married Billy, a victim of gas during the war; how, married, she could better reclaim her son.
‘He’s a wonderful man – Billy,’ she said. ‘I owe a lot to him. I’m very fond on him.’
David looked worn. ‘Fond?’ he queried bleakly. ‘Not in love with him then?’
‘I don’t know what you’d call love, David,’ she said tonelessly. ‘I don’t know if love is what we had, or if it’s the respect I feel for Billy. All I know is that he’s been a wonderful husband to me and a good father to Christopher, despite being so ill. He never complains and does all he can to make things lighter for me. It’s an honour to look after him.’
‘You nurse both him and your father?’ David questioned.
‘No – Dad got married again. To Ada Hall who used to help in the flat. They live in Stratford now. I suppose that was another reason I married Billy. I was so lonely after Dad left.’
David was frowning at her in pitying amazement. ‘Is that how he thanked you for all you sacrificed for him? He went off and left you on your own! And yet he stopped us time after time from marrying. Jesus Christ!’
‘I was all right,’ Letty said quickly. She didn’t want his sympathy. ‘I had the shop. When I married Billy, we pooled our resources and I bought the one we have now. I’m doing very well, thank you.’
‘And I no longer figure in your life,’ he said half to himself.
Letty wanted in that moment to cry: ‘You do, David. Yes, you do!’ But she held herself in check and saw his shoulders slump.
‘Perhaps it’s for the best,’ she went on, needing to touch him, to know again what his skin felt like. ‘Billy is a wonderful man and I respect him so very much.’
David was looking beyond her into the distance. ‘I envy you. What I wouldn’t give to be able to say the same of my marriage.’
It sounded so terribly bitter that Letty felt tears sting her eyes. She put out her hand then and touched his briefly.
‘Oh, David, I didn’t know,’ she said, seeing him shrug.
‘We tolerate each other,’ he told her. ‘We’ve no children. She’s frightened of having any. I respected her wishes but that wasn’t enough. Now she despises me. She never says so
, but I can see it there in the way she looks at me. She considers me weak. Perhaps I am. I suppose I gave up after the war. All those years in captivity, then coming home, finding you … thinking you’d married, forgotten me. I felt let down. Angry. Hurt. God, I felt so bloody hurt! After all that – to come home and … There was this girl. My father had gone into partnership with her father. They have a large department store now in north London – Baron & Lampton’s. You may have heard of it?’
Hardly waiting for her to shake her head, she having little to do with north London departmental stores, he went on, his fingers toying with the coffee spoon: ‘They thought it might be an idea for me and their daughter to marry. Make the business more of a family concern. We married in 1920.’
He let his voice die away. Letty thought that, yes, she could see how the sharp-faced woman she’d met would regard him as weak. She forced her mind back to the day Lucy had first introduced David to her, when she had learned that he’d been married before. That marriage too had been arranged by his family rather than him. Letty recalled how she herself had fended him off time and time again because of her father – David resigned to it without any of the arguments and anger some men would have displayed. Only once had he been really angry. But instead of claiming her, he had gone away and enlisted.
It came to her that David had never really possessed a will of his own – at least not one he’d impose on others; he was by no means a weak character, merely easy going, vulnerable to the pressure exerted by others. It was monstrous that any woman could take advantage of that and with the realisation of her sympathy for him, Letty felt love for him again.
Her hand reached out, touched his, tightened on it. She felt love flow from her to him, saw him look up, saw his expression and knew that what had been between them had not died but merely lain dormant, was now reawakened beyond anyone’s capacity to stem it.
For a moment Letty thought of Billy with an overwhelming sadness; she wanted to run away from here, run to him and comfort him with a sort of need to do penance. She could never desert him, but she also knew she would deceive him, unable to control herself as she held tightly to David’s hand across the restaurant table.