Recovery and the Return of Ethan Hart

by Stephen Benatar

  Tonight nothing is unsuitable. Evening garments saved from prewar days, full skirts, hobble skirts, backless dresses, long-sleeved day dresses; strangely you don’t see many pairs of slacks.

  We get to Rainbow Corner.

  “Isn’t this great!” Walt greets us. “Who said the British never let their hair down!”

  “I don’t know,” I reply, a little drily. “Tell us. Who did?”

  “But listen, kids, we’ve managed to get two hotel rooms in some little place called Bayswater.”

  People are trying to get enough stuff together to start a bonfire in the middle of the street; there’s even a hawker’s barrow to which a strip of card is still attached (‘Flags of all the Allies’). “Some bloody profiteer trying to charge five quid for a single Union Jack!” self-justifies the swaggerer who’s commandeered and overturned it. There’s much aggressive laughter. I say to Matt: “I thought that we were driving back tonight.”

  “Me, too. Walt? What is all this?”

  “Don’t be a schmuck. Me and Trix managed to pull a few strings.” They look at each other proudly. “In fact, we just about had to move heaven and earth—didn’t we, babe? ’Cause who in their right mind wants to be driving back to camp through half the friggin’ night? Matt, you sap! This is Victory-in-Europe Day! Hasn’t anybody told you?”

  Trixie grips my arm, imploringly. “Come on, Roz. Don’t be a spoilsport. You know how much you like the lad.”

  She adds in a whisper, “And you needn’t worry. We’ve even been and got some of those…well, thingamabobs. So everything’s been taken care of.”

  Oh, Trix. You’ll maybe never guess how much I do like the lad. Nor how sorely tempted I could feel.

  But it wouldn’t be right; I know it wouldn’t be right. And I don’t mean just because of Marjorie or because of morals. It’s all much vaguer than that. More the thought of some seedy jumped-up boarding house in Bayswater, its every nook and cranny let out to servicemen and their girls at hugely inflated prices, and of some oily little clerk peering with a knowing smirk at what we’ve written in the register.

  I look at the pavement, see that somebody’s been sick. Transfer my gaze to the upturned barrow in the middle of the road, where things seem to be growing increasingly unpleasant.

  “No,” Matt says quickly. “You two take the jeep. I guess it won’t be any problem getting rid of that second room.” He suggests we all meet up again at noon the following day.

  I slip my hand into his—and squeeze—and hope this pressure will tell him my reaction was in no way a rejection of Matt Cassidy, only of Bayswater. But, after all, I remind myself: isn’t he the Great Clairvoyant? The Amazing Mr Mind-Reader? Surely he already knows.

  “Then what are you gonna do?” asks Walt. “Wander round the streets all night?”

  “Why not? There’ll be more than enough going on. It’s all part of history and we don’t mean to let a single moment of it pass us by.”

  “That’s right,” I say. “And even if we do change our minds I know my mother would be glad to put us up.” I plan to ring her, anyway, as soon as I get the chance—simply to say, Hello, isn’t this great, just listen to London. “Chesham’s only some twenty-five miles away.”

  Matthew grins. “In other words we could take the jeep and these two can walk or thumb a lift.”

  I agree, cheerfully. “Plenty of trams around! Pity about the taxis.”

  Trixie looks at Walt and gives a tolerant shrug. “The pair of them are loony but so far as I’m concerned they’re more than welcome to the jeep—eh, sweetheart? In any case, we won’t be walking. We’ll be flying, more like!”

  9

  Thursday. I spend an aimless day on my own. Am unable to concentrate on books or newspapers or television. Go for a walk on Hampstead Heath and do a small amount of marketing, even a bit of vacuuming. Can’t stop worrying about my future. Or my past.

  I now look back almost with fondness on our hours of trekking round hotels.

  Cooking the evening meal is the only thing that affords me any true escape. All that cutting meat and bacon into cubes, peeling shallots, slicing mushrooms and onions, foraging for garlic and bay leaves and thyme, searing and browning and sprinkling and stirring. Pouring in cider. The sauce is rich, the chuck steak tender. By halving the quantities, I’ve cooked enough—allegedly—for three. Tom and I dispose of it with ease. He even wipes some bread around his plate, then round the cooking pot. “Perhaps,” he says, “we shouldn’t have gone to reception to ask about missing guests. We should have marched right into the kitchens to ask about missing chefs.”

  “It would certainly have gotten us as far.”

  He tells me he’s employed a firm to phone the bed-and-breakfasts.

  “I’ve also been faxing off copies of that snapshot to various contacts round the country.”

  “Why?”

  “To try to identify the church. With a magnifying glass one can make out a fair amount of detail. I spent an hour at the Royal Institute of British Architecture. Hoped that Pevsner or some other authority might come up with the answer.”

  “I don’t see that it’s important. She was only a day-tripper.”

  “Any pudding?” he asks.

  “Cheesecake.” I start to clear the dishes and Tom gets up to help. “No,” I say, “I’ll do it!” My tone sounds testy.

  “Why just you?”

  “Earn my keep.”

  “Balls.” He continues to help. He says after a minute, “No, I agree with you. About the photo. It does have an air of holiday. But at the moment it’s the only thing we’ve got.”

  He hesitates.

  “And if we locate that church it will at least give us an area to home in on. Maybe we could even publish the picture in the local press.”

  “In the hope that our doing so will produce my father’s name?”

  “It could do.”

  “I’d have thought he’d have produced it himself—if he was missing me.”

  Tom bites his lip. Doesn’t answer.

  “Oh, sure. Not that anyone does appear to be missing me.” There hasn’t been any word from Herb Kramer. Nor from Sergeant Payne.

  “No… Well, I’d say it now looks increasingly as though you came to London on your own.”

  “No loving wife? No family?”

  “Not here at all events.”

  “Or anywhere, I guess. A married man doesn’t vacation without his wife. And I was hardly dressed for business.”

  “Perhaps you were taking the day off.”

  “On a Monday?”

  “Why not?”

  “I can’t continue to impose on you like this.”

  “That’s a dazzlingly logical progression!” He grins that grin of his—the one that had stopped me leaving his office within the first fifteen minutes.

  This time it doesn’t work so well.

  “Having everything bought for me: T-shirts, socks, shorts. Even having to take pocket money, for God’s sake! Couldn’t I find a job someplace; someplace I wouldn’t need a permit? Get myself a room?”

  “If that’s what you want. It’s not what I want.”

  “I don’t know.” I’m spooning coffee into the filter.

  “What don’t you know?”

  “Your friend said amnesia could sometimes last for years.”

  “He thought it more likely to last a week.”

  “But you don’t, do you? Otherwise you wouldn’t be working so hard to try to trace this woman? And supposing you’re right and he’s wrong? If I had a job I could at least be starting to pay you back.”

  “Ranjit said you needed rest. Not that I think your shopping—cleaning—cooking—are really what he had in mind. Frankly, I’m not all that worried about your paying me back. The thing that does worry me…”

  “What?”

  “You sound so negative.”

  “Negative? Because I feel you’re wasting your time looking for some woman who…well, even if she turns out still to be
alive…?”

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t see the point, that’s all. Because, in this instance, I’m inclined to side with the experts. If medical opinion truly leans towards a week…”

  He looks at the two pieces of cheesecake he’s now transferring from their box. I expect some comment on my change of tune. I reckon I should have known better.

  “When you put it that way I’m not honestly sure I see the point myself.”

  Possibly I now wear a slightly sheepish look. I shrug. “I guess you want to make me feel we’re making progress.”

  “No. I think you’ll have to put it down to more than that. Let’s call it instinct.”

  “Instinct?”

  “Gut feeling. Something that’s hounding me on. I just believe we’ve got to find this woman.”

  10

  And then the lights come on!

  The lights come on! And some of London’s most historic buildings are seen floodlit for the first time since the coronation.

  St Paul’s…

  Two sections of the A.T.S have brought their mobile searchlights, have turned their beams on the cathedral. A third picks out the dome and its surmounting cross from a bombsite lower down the hill.

  In the precincts, people either sit on the protective coverings to the cellars or—like us—they stand in groups around the searchlights, watching the girls in charge.

  One of the girls talks to Matt and me. She’s blonde and pretty and wears a lot of shiny scarlet lipstick. “They never could get it, could they? Don’t you think that’s sort of symbolic?”

  Sort of miraculous, too. This splendid old structure stands triumphant in the midst of devastation, having watched over London through all the fires and explosions of many hundreds of air raids. Inspirational in its isolation. Surely as imposing now as it must have been at the time of its completed resurrection.

  Plenty of other buildings are adding to the glow that hangs above the city. From the top of the hill we can see the brightly lit newspaper offices in Fleet Street, also the lofty tower of the Shell-Mex edifice, illuminated by flares which are constantly changing colour. All this is the more impressive since we’ve again been without any form of street lighting for a week (it wasn’t restored to us for very long!) and shall have to be without it for a further ten; it’s only for tonight and tomorrow—such beneficence.

  Walking back along the Strand we pass dozens of men and women sitting on the kerb, raising tankards and toasting the victory. (All the pubs tonight are open until twelve.) We have to stand aside for sailors marching six abreast with linked arms and singing ‘Tipperary’—a song more of the last war than of this. However, it makes a change from the equally dated ‘Over There’, which even Matt, good American though he is, feels we’ve had quite enough of for the time being. Anyway, me, I much prefer ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’ to either of them. That’s another song we’re hearing pretty frequently.

  We get back to Buckingham Palace just before ten-thirty, and at precisely the appointed minute all the floodlights and lamps above the gates are switched on to bathe the great grey building in pools of soft white light. As this happens, cheer upon cheer bursts from the delighted crowd. Word goes round that the two princesses, escorted by Guards’ officers, are now walking amongst us. We hope to catch a glimpse of them close to, until a quarter of an hour later they once again appear with their parents on the balcony; after that we reckon it’s time to see Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, while we still have the chance. People say the lighting will go off at twelve.

  But we get detained in Whitehall. The Grenadier Guards are playing ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ to a crowd which is uncannily hushed until, little by little, the people themselves start to sing the words. Tears mist my eyes. Then we have a further view of Mr Churchill—this time in his siren suit and black homburg—taking over as conductor.

  We’d like to stay in Whitehall but there’s still something we’ve been told we shouldn’t miss. The view from Waterloo Bridge is panoramic. St Paul’s in one direction; Parliament in the other. Ever-shifting searchlights making tracks into the sky. Many of the wharves lit up. Lamps shining on the bridges and Embankment. The magnificence of County Hall. Trains moving slowly in or out of Charing Cross. All mirrored in the water. Magical. Even when we pull ourselves away we have to keep stopping to look back. Matt bemoans the fact we haven’t got a camera. I ask him why. You can’t encapsulate enchantment.

  Afterwards, we make again for Piccadilly Circus, the true vulgar heart of the West End, the place which always calls you back. (Whereas we find we couldn’t now return to Waterloo Bridge, for fear of disappointment.) A floodlight plays across the site of Eros, although Eros himself is hidden behind tiers of seating. But when the floodlight gets turned off a universal groan bursts out. It isn’t even midnight.

  However, searchlight beams soon swing across the sky. A column of men and women forms at once—each person with both hands upon the shoulders of the reveller in front—and goes marching off down Coventry Street with a drummer beating a tin box.

  Then the floodlight is switched on again. The crowd had earlier shown signs of dispersing but now it begins to be drawn back.

  The underground’s still open. Police are marshalling people in and out. Near one exit a woman faints. The night’s grown sultry; we’ve seen ambulance after ambulance. Despite their clanging bells these appear to make progress only with bobbies walking in front or riding on their running-boards. A U.S. military police van, slowly forcing its way across the Circus, is brought to a prolonged standstill. Before it finally disappears, along Piccadilly, about six men are sitting on its roof. I agree with a fellow in a dinner jacket, and an older woman in a veiled and wispy hat, this certainly shows a fair degree of insouciance.

  So, perhaps, does a small family party inching its way from the opposite direction in a flag-bedecked governess cart. But what about the pony? A bonfire is already blazing—complete with effigy of Hitler—airmen are letting off fireworks. (Not that the pony seems in any way disturbed.) Little groups gyrate around the flames or else form into crazy, jigging circles. Crocodiles of dancing civilians—many with masks and streamers and wearing grotesque fancy dress—keep pushing their way through. Flashes of news photographers. Shouting, singing, laughter. Din of rattles, bells, whistles, bangers, rockets. Trumpets, too. Champagne corks. (Champagne flows; we see dozens drinking straight from the bottle—nearest us, a little party of Norwegian airmen and sailors flourishing a huge Norwegian flag.) It’s a night of noise and brilliance. Suddenly we turn to one another…and know we’ve had enough.

  “Maybe we’re hungry,” says Matt.

  It isn’t something I’ve thought about, yet now I realize it’s true. The restaurants and hotels fronting on the Circus have closed their doors (and Swan & Edgar’s and other shops have barred all their windows) but anyway I suddenly remember the nearby Trocadero, which years ago I used to think so smart. In fact it goes with its location—it’s a bit vulgar: lots of elaborate decoration and variegated marble in the neo-classical style. But it’s large and there’s only a short queue waiting for tables and people do seem to be leaving.

  Here, too, the champagne flows. There appears to be no rationing of it whatsoever, unless the fact they’re charging six pounds a bottle can be seen as rationing. (And obviously it can’t. “Rosalind, it’s only money and that looks like nectar they’re giving in exchange. So please. Quit worrying.” I do…to the extent we eventually work our way through two bottles. It’s been a thirst-making kind of night—as we now, rather belatedly, realize.)

  Matt also orders scrambled egg, which goes surprisingly well with the champagne, considering it’s made with powder and sits so solidly upon the toast. It resembles a moist yellow cake—fun to cut slices from.

  We then have castle puddings with jam sauce: a far cry from the crêpes suzettes I’d eaten here before the war, with a young man I had thought the very acme of sophistication. But I feel tonight I wouldn’t change dried e
gg and castle puddings for any amount of roast duck or sophistication or balanced menu planning.

  At the Troc, moreover, I find a nice lavatory—not such an easy undertaking in London at the moment—and a nice telephone, not only working but actually unqueued-for, on which I ring my mother. Matt then pays our bill, leaves an extraordinary tip for the waiter (it must be a good night for waiters, porters and the like) and we return, feeling fortified, to face the hubbub.

  Before two-thirty, however, we are back in Northumberland Avenue and by this time the crowds have definitely diminished. Matt has little trouble in getting to Baker Street, and from then on our way is clear. We should arrive in Chesham by four.

  “We might just beat the milkman! Are you sure your mother’s going to greet us with such squeals of joy?”

  “Of course I am. She said she’d put the key under the mat and make up our beds and leave us out a snack. If she’s awake she may get up and say hello; if not she’ll meet you in the morning.”

  “To which she’s looking forward.”

  “To which she’s looking forward.”

  “I think you must be drunk. You’ve already told me all of this.”

  “Well, if I must be drunk you must be drunk. Which is by far the more dangerous. In my opinion.” And I put my hand on his, to offer him assistance with the steering.

  “No. Women have a lower tolerance to alcohol.” He smiles at me, smugly.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Completely.”

  “Life isn’t fair. Why do men have all the fun? What nice hands you have.”

  “Thank you. You have nice hands as well.”

  “One of the first things I noticed. So strong. And nice. And…nice.” I caress the hand with my forefinger, stroking the hairs on his wrist and causing them to stand up.