A Christmas Gift

by Ruby Jackson

  ‘There must be so much more to tell, Jon. Have you written it all down?’

  ‘Most of it, in those letters to you that you never received.’

  ‘How tragic. I would have loved to have read them. And their content must have been vitally important to you.’

  ‘They were never sent, Sally. Emmanuel took them to the local priest who read them. Stupidly, in my early letters I named names and so the good Father hid the letters instead of attempting to pass them on to agents who would have tried to get them to you. More tragedy if they fell into the wrong hands.’

  ‘And are they still with the priest?’

  ‘He too was a Maquisard, Sally; he disappeared the night Emmanuel died and we don’t know where he is.’

  ‘How very sad.’ What else could she say?

  Jon pushed up the right sleeve of his uniform jacket, and looked at his watch. ‘It’s time, Sally. Bob will see you on to the train.’

  He took her hand and together they walked back towards the main building. Jon stopped beside a great tree whose branches screened them from the road. ‘May I kiss you, Sally? I have wanted to for such a long time.’

  In reply she put her arms around his neck and he bent his head to kiss her. Desire such as she had never before experienced swept through her and she responded to him with as much passion as he was showing her.

  ‘Will you come back to see me?’ he said when he could speak. ‘I don’t know when they plan to let me return to duty but that’s what I want, what I know I must do for the boys who were lost. My dearest girl, I need to return to active service but will you wait for me?’

  He released her and walked away a few steps and then returned but he did not touch her. ‘My wife is another tragedy of this war, Sally; she died in one of the ghastly attacks on Malta. Had she survived we would certainly have divorced; the proceedings had already started, but I do regret her death. There, you know all my secrets. Will you write to me and perhaps, when you’re free, come to see me again?’

  ‘With all my heart, Jon.’

  Sally wrote her first letter that night, sitting up in bed, propped up with pillows. Jon had asked for more personal knowledge, for instance, the date of her birthday, her favourite flowers, colours, food, everything she could think of that would allow him to see something of the first twenty years of her life. She felt there was little to tell; she liked primroses and roses, her colours were lilac or yellow, and as for food, she could eat anything except liver and she did not like blackcurrant jam. She wrote of primary school where she had made friends with the Petrie twins and the orphan, Grace Paterson. She said that she had loved English, French and history at school, had loathed maths and science of any kind. She enjoyed reading novels but that more than anything she loved films, moving pictures, and, since her father was the projectionist in the cinema next door, she saw almost every film that was sent to them.

  She wrote too of how wonderful it had been to see him and that she longed, with all her heart, to see him again soon.

  She read her letter over and thought it terribly boring but she knew that it was important to be completely honest.

  Next morning, with some trepidation, she posted it on the way to Drury Lane and decided to forget all about it.

  It did niggle away at the back of her mind but since they were recording a performance to be broadcast on the BBC Forces Programme, she was kept very busy. She was surprised when Lal took her aside after the broadcast rehearsal.

  ‘You know that it’s highly unlikely that Sylvia will be with us in Europe – Max did speak to you about it?’

  Sally tried to appear calm and professional. ‘Yes,’ was all she said.

  Lal smiled. ‘This afternoon we want you to deliver Ophelia’s speech from Act Three; terrific practice for you. Now we’ll spend some time working on it.’ She looked at Sally, who had tensed up. ‘Con calma, Sally; in some ways radio is more relaxing that an actual appearance. After all, you don’t need to be in costume; no one can see you, but the voice, the delivery, is more important than ever. All right, ready to try?’

  ‘Yes, please, Lal. Thank you.’ Sally was filled with excitement and apprehension in equal measure. Ophelia’s great speech on the wireless; Jon could hear it. Oh dear, I should have thought of my parents first.

  They worked until Sybil called them to come back to the studio. ‘We’re ready to go, Sally. Is she ready, Lal?’

  Lalita smiled and nodded. ‘Absolutely. A believable fragile Ophelia takes to the stage.’

  Praise from Lal, who was herself more than qualified to portray Ophelia, gave Sally an enormous boost. She went into the studio in a relaxed and confident manner that was obvious to technicians, directors and eventually listeners everywhere there was a British outpost of any kind. But when the recording machines were finally switched off, it was to her Hamlet that Sally turned.

  ‘Sebastian, I didn’t let you down, did I?’

  He hugged her, an obviously very brotherly hug. ‘Had any other woman asked me that, Lady Ophelia, I’d know she was fishing for a compliment, but you, little doubting Thomasina … You were very good, Sally, thank you.’

  He turned to Lal, who was busy sorting out scripts on a small table. ‘Well done, Lal.’

  ‘Everyone worked hard on this, especially Sally, but we have to remember that she is squeezing years of study into months.’ She picked up her files. ‘Come along, Sally, I think we deserve a drink. If you’d agree to pay, Seb, you may join us. We’ll find Millie on our way out.’

  There were four envelopes on the carpet when Sebastian opened the door that evening and ushered his flatmates inside. One was addressed to Millie, two were obviously business letters for Sebastian and the fourth was an unstamped envelope with ‘Sally Brewer’ written on it in small, very neat letters.

  Sebastian picked it up. ‘Someone delivered this by hand, Sally, but who? Only residents with keys can get in the front door.’

  Sally had opened it. ‘It’s from Jon, she said, ‘but he said nothing about coming up to London.’

  ‘Might have been at the Admiralty – unexpected orders,’ suggested Millie. ‘What’s he say, Sal?’

  Sally unfolded the sheet of white paper and read it silently.

  My dear Sally,

  You are probably still on your journey back to London, but I had to sit down and write to you straight away to tell you how very much your visit meant to me today. I know the world would say that we don’t know each other at all but I feel as if you have been an important part of my life for ever. The world would say, ‘Nonsense’, but I hear what my heart is telling me and I believe it. Even though a ghastly war is still raging and I am here and you are there, I hope to see you often.

  A colleague will post this or drop it into your flat. I only wish I could deliver it myself.

  Jon

  She finished reading, folded the paper and returned it to the matching envelope. ‘A friend dropped it in but I have no idea how he got in.’

  ‘There will be an explanation. Probably gave it to Dmitri. Everything all right?’

  A broad smile lit up Sally’s face. ‘Yes, thank you. Everything’s fine.’

  SIXTEEN

  May 1942

  The date for Sally’s first appearance in an advertising campaign arrived and, of course, it was on a day when she had arranged to go to see Jon, who was still living at the hospital. It seemed to Sally that he spent most of his time poring over maps of Corsica and France and trying to dredge from his memory every name, every meeting, every action of le Maquis.

  ‘There were deaths and disappearances, Sally, and so they are looking for clues, coincidences – I don’t really know. Once they’re sure that nothing important is hiding in my head, I’ll be back on duty – on a battleship, if I’m lucky.’

  Ben Templeton had been returned, not to active duty, which he wanted, but to an office job.

  Now, on a beautiful spring day, Sally walked quietly round Berkeley Square, trying to decide what to do. He
r tortured thoughts walked with her. I want to see Jon. It’s been three weeks and I want to see him so badly. A photograph for an advertisement isn’t going to do much for my career. What will happen if I ask them to find someone else? There are bound to be hundreds of pretty girls who would be only too delighted to take my place.

  As always she discussed her problem with Sebastian and Millie.

  ‘You’re out of your mind, Sally. You’re at the very beginning of your career and to ruin your reputation this way is insanity.’ Millie was adamant.

  ‘But Jon needs me.’

  ‘He’ll understand, Sal. You miss one visit. It’s not as if he’s desperately ill. Physically he’s absolutely fine, from what you say.’ Sebastian looked at Millie for moral support.

  ‘Seb’s right, Sally. Of course you two will miss seeing each other but it looks as if you’ll have the rest of your lives to look at each other.’

  Sally, only too aware that no matter what Maudie had said, Jon had never actually said the words ‘I love you’, was still unsure. Sometimes, when she was with Jon or talking to him on the telephone, she felt that he had stopped himself as if he was about to say something and had then decided that he had better not. ‘We’re not anywhere like that yet, but surely giving up one little job to visit an injured serviceman won’t hurt my career?’

  ‘Every agent in the business will be told that you can’t be relied on, Sally. Professional suicide. I’ve told you what I think – know, from experience – but it’s entirely up to you.’

  Sally was torn. Would Cedric Arnold, the agent who had offered her the job, refuse to represent her? Would he tell every other agent that she had backed out of a commitment? Was it possible that he would feel that her promise to Jon should come first?

  ‘No, Sally,’ she assured herself, ‘he absolutely would not.’

  She rang Jon from Sebastian’s flat that evening and, just as the others had said, Jon was adamant that she keep her promise to the agent. ‘I’m excited for you that you have the opportunity, Sally. Just wait, when I see the advertisement I shall proudly show it to all my friends.’

  ‘And?’ demanded Sebastian when Sally joined Millie and Sebastian in the kitchen where they were listening to the wireless.

  ‘He wants me to do the shoot.’

  ‘Of course he does.’

  A week later, Elsie Brewer took the train to London to chaperone her daughter while the advertisement was being made. There was actually very little of the glitz and glamour that Elsie had expected. They were taken by car from Cedric Arnold’s office to a photographer’s studio on Piccadilly, where a production assistant showed Elsie to a chair, gave her a cup of tea and a newspaper, and took Sally off to change. Sybil had not been accepted as stylist or make-up artist by either the photographer or the film studio, and so Sally was left to the ministrations of the photographer’s staff. Her face was made up quite heavily and after sighing because her hair was long ‘and there really isn’t time to cut it’, the hairstylist wound Sally’s hair into a fashionable roll, which he pinned at the back of her head, praying all the time that the Wren’s cap they were using would still look particularly attractive perched ‘on all that hair’.

  It did.

  Next came the dresser, who showed Sally two uniforms. ‘Please put on the one you think will fit, Miss Brewer.’

  Aghast, Sally looked at them. The uniforms were quite genuine but one was much too big and the other far too short. ‘Neither will fit,’ she said, wondering sadly if her modelling career had come to an abrupt end.

  ‘I’ll make it fit,’ said the dresser, holding the bigger one out to Sally. ‘Put this on.’

  The length of the skirt was perfect but nothing else was near her size. The dresser walked round her a few times, pins in her mouth and a tape measure in her hand. ‘You do stay lovely and slim, I must say. All the exercise you Wrens get, I suppose.’

  ‘I’m not in the navy; I’m with ENSA and I’m natur-ally thin.’

  The girl was unable to speak for the amount of pins sticking out of her mouth but she got behind Sally and pulled and hauled at the skirt and jacket as she pinned great flaps of material together. Sally watched in awe as the front of the jacket and skirt grew smaller and smaller.

  ‘Won’t the pins show?’

  The dresser removed the pins left in her mouth. ‘God love you, no, pet. He’ll shoot you from the front as you hold up your lovely tin of cleaning fluid. It’s actually the product that’s important, not the vehicle – you’re the vehicle. Don’t worry, the picture will be nice – he’s good – and neither your gigantic bustle nor the pins’ll show.’

  And so it proved. Sally, wary of making any unnecessary moves, hobbled into the studio and was positioned in front of what looked like a giant bed sheet.

  ‘Bit more lippy, Mildred,’ said the photographer, and then he turned back to Sally while more bright red lipstick was being applied to her lips. ‘Sorry about the pins, love, but I can’t possibly afford a uniform for every size. You got a lovely figure, and face, don’t make near enough of those come-to-bed eyes. Right then. Product, please.’

  A tin of the product, a ‘revolutionary cleaning agent’, was brought in and put into Sally’s left hand, which was manipulated into the exact distance from her face that the photographer wanted.

  ‘That’s it. Smile at it, ducky, pretend it’s your fella.’

  Sally lost count of the number of photographs he took. Her face grew sore from constant smiling and she had been startled by a despairing cry from the photographer at one point –‘Mildred, you’ve got lippy on her teeth.’

  The lipstick was wiped off and they started again.

  ‘Great. You’re a natural, love. They’ll send you one or two for your portfolio.’

  Sally was unpinned and was delighted to get back into her own clothes. Her mother was waiting. ‘What did it look like, Mum?’

  ‘You looked lovely. Don’t like all that muck on your face but Mildred says it will look perfectly normal in the photographs.’

  Cedric had originally promised them lunch at the Savoy Grill, and Sally was keen for her mother to experience the service at the luxury hotel, but Cedric apologised. ‘I have a client, Mrs Brewer, not a patch on your daughter for talent or looks but thinks she’s the reincarnation of Sarah Bernhardt and the producer on the film she’s mangling – apologies, making – is, according to Madame “an arrogant, talentless” and I won’t repeat the third adjective she put before “oaf”. I simply have to go and sort it out. Delightful to meet you, though, Mrs Brewer, and I’m quite sure we’ll be meeting again very soon, and we’ll lunch. Sally, bisous,’ and he was gone.

  ‘What a peculiar man, Sally. What on earth does bisous mean?’

  ‘Just ignore it, Mum,’ advised Sally, who could work out what the word meant. ‘It’s harmless, a stupidly clever thing that everyone in the industry understands.’

  ‘I’m not going to tell your dad what that photographer had the cheek to say about your eyes. Where shall we go for a sandwich?’

  ‘Sebastian’s flat. I can’t interrupt a rehearsal so that you could meet everyone but at least I can show you where I’m living.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be at ease in someone else’s house while they’re out, Sally, and I want to do a bit of shopping. Let’s go to Covent Garden market. I always seem to find something nice on at least one of the stalls.’

  Mother and daughter had a delightful time and when they finally sat down in a little café Sally decided that it was time to tell her mother all about Jon. She felt as if someone had turned on a tap or as if she had suddenly become a storm-swollen stream, for words poured out of her mouth. She told her mother everything and Elsie sat holding her daughter’s hands and listening until at last the flood stopped.

  ‘You love him, Sally.’

  It was not a question but a statement.

  Sally could only nod.

  ‘And he’s a naval officer who’s been through a dreadful time but wants to go b
ack to sea.’

  ‘Yes, Mum. He feels it’s his duty and besides, he loves the navy.’

  ‘And he really is a lord.’

  Sally rarely considered Jon’s title. Discovering that he had one had been … not a shock, but a surprise and not a very welcome one, but Lord Hedges seemed to have nothing at all to do with Just Jon. ‘Yes,’ she answered her mother quietly.

  Elsie shrugged. ‘God alone knows what your father will say – if he ever has to find out.’

  But there was no more time and they took the underground to the railway station. Sally was really sad when she saw her mother onto the train that passed through Dartford but she felt, in some way, relieved of a burden.

  ‘Tell your friends I’ll meet them next time, Sally,’ Elsie called from the train, ‘and come home when you can. Bring them. I’ll find something for them to eat.’

  Sally waved until the train was out of sight and then, even though she had been given the whole day off she went back to Drury Lane where everyone was anxious to hear all about her experience.

  ‘We should have warned the poor darling about the old “stick in some pins and shoot from the front” trick,’ laughed Sybil.

  ‘I didn’t mind it actually,’ Sally told them, ‘not when he explained. It was quite sensible really, and now I understand the faint smell of mothballs. The uniforms were probably older than I am.’

  ‘Wouldn’t doubt it for a minute. All set to do it again?’

  Sally didn’t answer immediately. When she had been offered the job, she had been filled with anticipation and excitement; this was surely the wonderful beginning of her true career. But there had been no excitement. She would withhold judgement until she saw the photographs.

  ‘Possibly,’ she said with a smile.

  *

  She had to repeat everything later that evening for Millie and Sebastian, and then she decided that, instead of writing quick notes to Jon and to her parents, she would try to make up for the time she had been away making the commercial by studying Ophelia’s speeches – just in case.