by Anna Hope
“Who wants to know?”
Evelyn crosses to her door, holding out her hand with a confidence she doesn’t feel. “My name’s Evelyn Montfort. I—work in a pensions office in Camden Town.” She tries a smile but feels it fall to the ground somewhere between their feet. “Your husband came to see me, two days ago. He was looking for help. I said that I couldn’t help him. But now I—find that I can.”
The woman is silent. Behind her Evelyn can see an uncarpeted hallway and the little girl, staring out.
“Is he there? Is he at home?”
The woman shakes her head. “He’s at work.”
“I see.”
“He’s a salesman,” she says, with a pale hint of pride. “Door-to-door.”
She nods. “Of course. It was silly of me to come so early.”
The woman’s eyes dart over Evelyn’s face. “Is he in trouble? He’s not in any trouble, is he?”
“He’s not in trouble, no,” she says softly, coming closer to the door. “Look. I realize that this must seem very strange, me coming out here like this, but I would very much like to talk to your husband. Do you think you could tell me what time he finishes work?”
“Four.” The woman narrows her eyes. “There or thereabouts.’
“Then if it’s all right, I’ll come back at four?”
There’s a silence.
“Mrs. Hind?”
The woman nods, briefly, and goes to shut the door.
When she reaches the end of the road, Evelyn turns, expecting to see the children still watching, but their fleeting interest has passed. They have knitted inward, and are playing again whatever noisy game they were playing before.
. . . . . . . . . . .
Two hours after it weighed anchor, the ship begins to move. It leaves the destroyers behind and starts to steam slowly to the eastern entrance of Dover Port, skirting the high, reared cliffs.
A young naval officer stands at the stern of the ship. The coffin is in front of him, covered with wreaths, with more wreaths piled high around it. The young officer had to help carry those wreaths aboard. Some of them took four men to lift. He wonders if it is a peculiarly French thing. They seem to go in for their flowers, all right.
He stands, legs spread, arms held behind his back. He can see the massed crowds, now, clustered deep around the port. High up on the cliffs, faces are fixed on the ship. On the ramparts of the castle, he can see the cannons readying to fire.
The cannon fire echoes and booms around the still harbor, causing the water to lift in tiny, shivering waves. A nineteen-gun salute. A field marshal’s welcome.
After the guns comes silence. An astonishing silence, clean and bare. Then the ship’s horn sounds briefly, once, and the young man moves to man his rope.
. . . . . . . . . . .
Hettie turns over in bed.
Rock-a-bye your rock-a-bye baby
With a Dixie melody
The music is coming from somewhere nearby. Someone is singing along underneath. For a moment, in the darkness, she wonders if it is her brother, thinking hazily that Fred must have gone and bought himself a gramophone, but when she stretches her leg out, something feels immediately wrong, since the bed she is in is enormous. Then she sits up, hugging her arms around her, breathing hard. She is still wearing Di’s dress; its sequins have pressed themselves into her arm. It comes back to her then in a sort of sick, horrified rush.
It didn’t happen.
None of it. None of it happened in the way she had hoped.
At first—when they came in here, it had seemed as though it would. And when his mouth was on her neck, and they were lying, side by side, it was happening, and she was ready for it—and then—
Then there was space, and air; he had rolled away from her and was lying on the other side of the bed.
“Sorry,” he said, his voice muffled by his hands.
“What?”
“I just—” He started muttering then, just on the edge of hearing, something about losing something, about something being lost. Hettie watched, horrified, until after a moment he stopped and lifted his head. “Stay,” he said. “You can stay here till the tubes start running.”
“No.” She shook her head violently. “I’ll go.”
“Please!” He held his hands out as though to press her down into the bed. Please just … stay. I want you to stay here. You’ll be safe. I promise. Just—” He ran his hands through his hair, tugging at it. “Just stay.” He moved away from her, over to the door. “You’re safe,” he said again.
Then he turned off the light and shut the door, and she lay there, heart hammering in the dark, wanting to run but unable to move, listening to him walking around, talking to himself outside. After what seemed like hours, he was finally quiet, and then she must have fallen asleep herself, because she doesn’t remember anything more.
The music has stopped now. Hettie slips out of bed, crossing the carpet to where a crack of light comes through the curtains. She pulls them apart, leaning forward, her fingertips pressed against the cold glass. The house she is in is part of a line of cream terraces, and she is high up, on the fifth floor or so. Part of a park, the branches of the trees almost leafless, stretches away up a hill to the right of where she stands. The day is cold looking, and from the light, which looks to be failing, it must be afternoon, at least. Then she has slept through the day. She has to be at work at six. She has to go home.
She finds the bathroom, uses the lavatory as quietly as she can, then picks up her shoes and pads to the door. She does all of this mechanically and quickly, because if she thinks too much then she might cry.
Behind the door the living room stretches, curtains drawn, the only light a corner lamp. The table is still shoved over to one side, the carpet rolled away. She can see the powder box on the chessboard. The Victrola hisses and scratches in the corner of the room.
Tsss du tsss du tsss du.
A large wing-backed chair is in front of her, and beyond that she can see her coat and hat still draped over the back of the sofa. She sets off toward them.
“Morning.”
She jumps and whirls around; Ed is leaning around the side of the chair, frowning. “I hope you weren’t planning to go without saying good-bye?”
She grips her shoes and shakes her head.
“That’s good.” He nods. “Sleep well?”
She stares at him. He is smiling now, acting as though nothing strange happened last night at all. “I’m—not sure,” she manages. “Why. Did—you?”
He takes his time thinking about her question. His white shirt is untucked and unbuttoned. He has taken his collar off, and the collar and his tie are lying on the floor. There’s a decanter of whiskey on the table beside him and a half-empty glass in his hand. “I’m not sure I’ve slept at all,” he says finally. “Although … I may have nodded off for a minute just then. There was music on, I think. It’s finished now.” He lifts his glass toward her. “Like a drink? I think I might have another now you’re here.” He is speaking very precisely, as though it is an effort for him to do so, but the edges of his words are slurred.
She can feel a twisting in her stomach. She doesn’t want another drink—doesn’t want to be here in this dark room, with this man she cannot read. She is tired and on the edge of tears and wants to go home. “Do you know the time?”
“Time?” He shakes his head. “Don’t bother about time. Time’s a useless, useless thing.”
A flash of anger passes through her. “I have to be at work soon.”
“All right.” Ed stretches his neck around the wing of his chair. “It’s half past three,” he says, as a clock on a side table whirrs and clicks out the half hour. “Early still,” he says, shaking his glass with a blurry smile. “Come and have a drink.”
“I have to go.” She bends down, pulls on her
shoes, and starts to buckle them.
“Whiskey?”
“No, thank you.”
“Vodka?”
She shakes her head, straightening back up.
His face creases in thought. “Tea?”
Silence. The Victrola hisses. They regard each other across the space.
“Tea,” he says decisively. “Just the thing for the afternoon.”
He pushes himself up out of his chair, and makes his unsteady way over to a door, on the other side of which is a small kitchen. “Come on,” he says, turning to her at the door. “Come and keep me company.”
And there is something in the way he says it, something so helpless suddenly, that she relents and follows him, standing in the door while he fills the kettle, hugging herself against the cold.
He doesn’t open the blind, just puts a little electric light on and roots through tins, opening them and smelling them. It’s as though he’s never made a cup of tea in his life. After a moment he straightens up and turns to her, seeming to read her thoughts. “I usually have help,” he says, “with things like this.”
“Oh. Yes.” Of course.
“But …” He turns back and starts rooting around in the cupboards again. “I gave my man the morning off. “A-ha.” He lights on the right tin, shakes leaves from it into the pot, then takes a knife and holds it up. “Not entirely sure where he keeps the teaspoons,” he says, apologetically, before dunking the knife and using it to stir. “Come on, then. Shall we take it next door?”
He carries the pot and a cup and saucer carefully over to the table in the living room. “Sit down, please,” he says, He sits opposite her, frowning as though weighing something up. “Think I’ll leave it awhile,” he says after a minute, pointing in the direction of the teapot. “And then I’ll pour.”
She puts her hands under her thighs. Her arms are covered with gooseflesh. Last night’s fire is an ashy pile in the grate. She thinks about putting her coat on. Under normal circumstances that would be impolite. But the normal rules of behavior seem no longer to apply, so she reaches for it, sliding it over her lap.
Ed smiles hazily in her direction. “We need music, don’t we? Hang on.” He stands again, weaving his way over to the Victrola, and bending forward to wind it up. The scratching stops and the singing returns—the same song that woke her. He joins in softly, his back to her, swaying to and fro.
Rock-a-bye your baby
with a Dixie melody
When you croon, croon a tune
from the heart of Dixie.
“You know this one?” He turns to her.
“No.”
“It’s an old one. A lullaby.”
He lifts his arms up and starts moving with a ghostly partner around the floor. “Come on,” he says after a bit.
Hettie stays where she is.
“Come on. You’re no fun.”
Fun?
Was what happened last night fun then?
She stands defiantly and walks over to him. He puts his hands on her shoulders, leaning his weight on her, and they move a little, side to side.
“This is nice,” he says, his eyes almost closed. He reeks of drink. When he tries to turn, he catches himself on the low table and begins to sway, like a tree half-felled, and she has to move to save herself as he falls onto the floor.
“Fuck.” He puts his hands up to cover his eyes.
“I’m sorry.” She kneels beside him. “Are you hurt?”
“S’all right. S’not your fault. Shouldn’t be so—goddamn tight.” He lies there for a moment without moving. “God,” he says. “I’m just—so bloody drunk.” He closes his eyes. “Think I must be tired, too,” he says. “Hard to tell.”
Over on the Victrola the singing warbles to a stop and the scratching comes back. Hettie eyes the door. Ed opens his eyes and smiles up at her. “Would you mind awfully giving me a hand to my feet?”
She puts her hands out and he takes them, nearly toppling her over as he pulls himself up. “That’s better.” He pats himself down. “Nothing broken.” He is still swaying a bit. “Shall we sit down?” he says. “I think I need to sit.”
He makes it to the sofa, where he sits heavily, shading his eyes to look at her, closing one of them as though he were in sudden, blinding sun. “That’s better,” he says. “Two of you, then. Come and sit beside me.”
“I have to go,” she says.
“Please?”
She sits on the very edge of the sofa, the bit nearest to the door. She feels him lean closer to her.
“Did I tell you you remind me of someone?”
She threads her fingers together in her lap. “Yes. You did.” She can feel his eyes on her face.
“And did I tell you who it was?”
“No.”
There’s a silence, then, “How old are you?” he says.
“Nineteen.”
“Nineteen?”
She turns to his gaze, which is steadier all of a sudden, tender, and she is caught in it. It is as though some of his drunkenness has left him in his fall. And her stomach plunges, because he is still here, this man she met at Dalton’s, this man who is unlike anyone she has ever known. “Why?” she says. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-seven.” He shakes his head. “Twenty-eight soon. Ancient history.” He fishes a cigarette case out of his pocket, taps one out, and puts it in his mouth. “You remember,” he says, leaning forward to light it. “Last night. How we were going to speak to each other. How we were going to tell each other the truth?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I didn’t. I’m a liar.”
His eyes find hers. Her heart thuds.
“And I want to tell you now.”
“I should leave—” she says.
“Not yet. There’s time. Just stay. For a minute. Please.” He gives a small smile. “You look frightened.”
“I’m not frightened.”
“You’ve no reason to be. You’re perfectly safe. I can’t do any of that stuff, even if I wanted to.”
“What do you mean?”
“All that stuff,” he says, waving with his hand. “Down there.”
She swallows.
“That’s it,” he says. “That’s the truth.” He sits back, opening his hands. “There it is.” Then he looks back up, his hands still open, as though offering her something. It is as though he wants her to do something, with this thing he has said. Take it from him somehow.
She doesn’t want it.
She wants him to stop.
But he doesn’t stop. He carries on speaking.
“Happened in France first,” he says. “One of those girls behind the line.”
Hettie brings her arms around herself.
“Country girls. Their fathers would open the houses for the men.”
For a second she wonders if she has heard him right. “Their fathers?”
He nods, looks up at her. “They’d do it to make money. They were desperate by then. They were starving. Their farms had been destroyed. You’d pay more for it, you see, if it was in a house. But they were always clean. You were less likely to get the clap.”
She cannot imagine it. She heard the stories, in the beginning, about German soldiers, and Belgian women, and the rapes, but this is different somehow. Her father would never have done a thing like that. He would have protected her. Wouldn’t he?
But the idea has a creeping fascination—a war in London; coming to Hammersmith; soldiers in the street.
Some fathers would. Some fathers might.
How hungry would she have to be to do it herself?
“What happened?” she says. “In the houses, I mean, how did it work?”
He shrugs. “Usually … you’d queue up—”
“How many—people—men—how many wo
uld there be in the queue?”
“Depended.” He shrugs. “Army-sanctioned whores … they’d be doing it for days at a time. There’d be forty, fifty, sixty men waiting their turn. They didn’t last too long though, the women, they were usually on their last legs. This house was for officers, and the girls were fresh. I only had to wait two or three until my turn.” He grows quiet. “She was young.”
“How old?”
“About your age. Perhaps a bit younger.” He stares ahead of him. “I went in and I washed myself. They always had a little sink in the corner for that. Then, when I turned to her, she was looking at me. Mostly they didn’t, you see. And she had such a lovely face. In the midst of all of that—awfulness.” His face contracts. “She was so … fresh. And then she lay back, and I lay on top of her and”—he gestures with his hand: a flat line—“nothing.” He gives a brief, rueful laugh. “I couldn’t touch her.” He looks up at Hettie. “She had hair like yours. Long and brown and unbroken. And that’s what I thought, when I saw you in that terrible club; I’d been about to go home, but then I saw you standing there. And I thought, maybe I can get it back. That thing I lost. Maybe you can help me get it back.”
He is not making sense.
“You cut your hair,” he says, and there is something terrible, imploring, in his face. “Why did you do it? Why?”
Hettie shakes her head. She can feel anger now, rising in her. She is angry with him. With all of them. All of the men, waiting their turn. For those young girls. And those women. On their last legs. What happened to them, after that? Where did they end up?
“Why does it matter?” she says. “Why does it matter if I cut my hair?”
“Because you can never go back,” he says.
“Hair grows.”
“I know it does,” he says sadly. “But you can never go back.” And he bends forward, putting his head in his hands.
She can hear him, breathing hard.
She should touch him, she thinks. This is her job here. She should reach out and touch his arm. Say something to make him come back to himself. Rouse him to his manhood somehow. She thinks this, but she is angry, and this anger is a fierce, clear thing, and she does not.