by Isla Dewar
‘There will be a queue. There is always a queue for everything these days – bread, sausages and Myra Hess playing at the National Gallery.’ She kissed him again and left.
There was a queue. Julia joined it, thinking that if she’d taken the bus she’d have been here earlier and would have a place nearer the door. But she’d walked. It gave her time to think about last night.
They had gone to a club in the West End, sat at a table on the edge of the dance floor. She had paid for their steaks and champagne since Charles, as usual, had no money. It had cost her more than a week’s wages. ‘It would, these days,’ she said.
‘You earn more than me.’
She had shrugged.
‘I don’t mind,’ he’d told her. ‘In fact, I rather like the idea of being a kept man.’
She had asked what that meant. ‘Do you intend to live with me and not work? Is this some kind of backhanded proposal?’
‘Good heavens, no,’ he’d said. ‘I’ll never propose to anybody ever. I don’t fancy marriage. I don’t hold with all that loving and honouring, having and holding till death do us part. Especially not in public. Vows should be made in private, in the dark, in bed preferably.’
She’d cut up her steak, pointed her fork at him and said that it was the obeying bit that she objected to.
‘There you go,’ he’d said. ‘We’ll have none of it. We’ll live in sin. So much more interesting than marriage. And we’ll have lots of little bastards running around with no pressure on them to be anything other than what they are.’
She’d said she wasn’t convinced about the bastards bit. ‘I don’t think I want children. And if I did, I wouldn’t want them lumbered with that label.’
The band had started playing ‘Moonlight Serenade’. Julia asked if he wanted to dance. He’d told her no. ‘You know I hate dancing.’ So she’d picked up her glass of champagne and gone to find someone who didn’t.
The rest of her evening had been spent on the dance floor. She had no shortage of partners, plenty of her friends were in the club. She waltzed, jitterbugged and foxtrotted to the rhythm of Snakehips Jonson and his jazz band. The room glittered, trumpets soared, saxophones crooned and, in her red silk dress, she whirled round the floor, laughing, singing along to the tunes she knew and only occasionally glancing across at Charles who sat smoking, watching her. He looked distant, almost cynical, she thought. Then, a long familiar note sounded, the band started to play ‘Take the “A” Train’. She had joined a conga line skipping and jigging across the floor, lacing its way through the dining tables. Such fun. For a while she’d forgotten about Charles.
They’d left shortly after two o’clock, headed towards Oxford Street, looking for a taxi. He put his arm round her, kissed the top of her head. It was the time of day he loved most – early morning, and he was doing the thing he loved most – going home. London was still thrumming mostly with servicemen on leave. It was dark. Julia wondered if she would ever see the like again – this city, lit only by the moon.
They were both a little downhearted. Charles, because he was leaving soon for a land he didn’t want to visit. Julia, because it had occurred to her that she was having the time of her life, she had danced all night and tomorrow she’d take the train back to her base. She’d be flying again. Who’d have thought a war could make her so fulfilled, so utterly happy. But if this was the best of her times, what would happen when the war was won? Life would never be this good again. After this, she’d thought, it would be all downhill. There would be nothing.
When they’d eventually made it to bed and turned to one another, the love they made was slow, gentle and filled with melancholy.
She sighed, walked more quickly. Her trouble, she decided, was that she knew very little about anything except flying. She’d been educated at home by a governess. Once she’d grasped the rudiments of the three Rs, the governess had been dismissed. ‘No need for a girl to learn anything,’ her father said. ‘All she needs is a few womanly wiles.’
It sometimes shook her to remember how ignorant she’d been. She’d known nothing about sex. Her mother assumed she’d find out one day. Probably when she married and her husband would tell her what was expected of her.
‘Huh,’ said Julia, striding along. ‘Too much stiff upper lip.’
But then, her family had never discussed anything other than horses, dogs and who was coming to dinner and what to serve them.
Once, when her younger brother had been very ill with pneumonia, Julia had been sent away to live with her grandmother. When she returned, her brother wasn’t there. ‘Where’s Lawrence?’ Julia had asked.
‘He’s gorn,’ her mother said stiffly.
‘When’s he coming back?’
‘Don’t be silly,’ mother scolded. ‘He’s not coming back.’
In the end it was Ralph the butler who’d told her that Lawrence had died. Oh, of course, the family had wept, but all the sobbing went on in secret behind closed doors. They never spoke about grief, ever.
‘Well, I’m not going to have children. But if, by some mishap, I do, I’ll never treat them like that. And they won’t be bastards, either.’
The queue outside the National Gallery started to move forwards. The man behind her said, ‘At last.’
She turned and smiled.
‘I spend half my life queuing these days,’ he said.
Julia agreed.
He walked with her to the Barry Rooms, where the lunchtime concerts were held. The place looked ghostly without the paintings. ‘Nobody knows where they are,’ Julia said. ‘It’s a secret.’ She tripped along beside him, six steps to every one of his.
He asked Julia about her uniform.
‘Well, I’ve heard of the Spitfire girls, of course, but I never thought I’d be lucky enough to meet one of you. You actually fly the planes?’
‘Oh, yes,’ Julia told him. ‘Aren’t these concerts wonderful? Such a bloody good use of the space. And it’s absolutely darling to be able to come here and listen to music. It’s as if everything stops. No bombs, no war. Only the sound of Beethoven or Brahms. It’s so uplifting. I just love it.’
He grunted. It wasn’t that he didn’t agree. He just wasn’t prone to waxing lyrical about anything. ‘I’m more of a Bach man, myself. Find Brahms overly lush sometimes.’
‘Oh, I love a bit of Brahms.’
He was taller than her, but then, who wasn’t? Older, too, about forty, she reckoned. He was wearing a long coat, collar up, and a hat, brim down, so she couldn’t really see his face. She asked what he did.
‘War correspondent.’
She said, ‘Ah.’
Not that she minded newspapermen. They often turned up at the base looking for a story. And women flying Spitfires was a story. She and other female pilots were photographed sitting in planes smiling, looking glamorous. Or they might be asked to be photographed running in a group, carrying their map bags and parachutes, towards a plane. Nobody minded being snapped sitting looking demure in an open cockpit, they hated the running, though. Parachutes weighed forty pounds, and photographers were never happy with their first shot and wanted them to do it over and over, till, sweaty, aching and puffed, they refused.
They chose seats near the back of the Barry Rooms and stared ahead at the gleaming Steinway on the platform, waiting for Myra Hess to come flowing out to play for them.
It never lasted long enough, Julia said afterwards. She had been rapt, sitting with hands clasped on her knee for the whole concert, hardly moving. ‘But it is a tonic. Oh, I wish I’d stuck in at the piano.’ Standing on the steps leading to Trafalgar Square, she demonstrated piano playing, gloved fingers twinkling through air. ‘She plays so deftly, such precision, don’t you think? And it’s all so heartfelt.’
He nodded, agreeing. He was not a man who went in for criticism. He liked a film, a book, a song, or he didn’t. Explaining or defining his position on such matters never appealed to him. He had enjoyed the concert, but hadn’t spent much time looking at
the pianist. Instead, he had watched Julia watching her.
He thought Julia lovely. He was taken with her energy and enthusiasm. Coming here had made today a good day after months of dreadful days. He’d recently returned from Tripoli, weakened after a bout of dysentery. Most of the voyage home had been spent lying in his cabin, too ill to care if the ship was attacked, sunk even, by an enemy submarine. Now he was working from an office in Dean Street, despondent at being desk-bound, perhaps for the rest of the war.
Still, here was Julia. She had cheered him. He asked if she’d like to join him for a cup of tea. He knew a café nearby.
‘Ooh, tea, lovely,’ said Julia. ‘Just what the doctor ordered.’
He had his hands plunged deep in his pockets, but held out his crooked arm for her to link into. ‘Come on, then.’ He led her towards Soho.
It wasn’t a part of London she knew. She’d imagined Soho’s streets to be lined with illicit drinking dens and gambling joints, and thronging with spivs, prostitutes and other ne’er-do-wells.
The café was small, steamy and smoky. The customers were mostly people in uniform, but then there were people in uniform everywhere these days. They took a table near the back.
He shouted his order, ‘Two teas, two buns, Rita!’
Rita said, ‘Okey-dokey, coming up.’
‘Ooh, a bun. I love buns,’ said Julia. She considered the tabletop, wooden decorated with teacup rings and cigarette burns, and becrumbed. ‘Julia Forsythe-Jones,’ she said, holding out her hand.
‘Walter Cruickshank.’ He took the hand and shook it. ‘Do you enthuse about everything?’
‘No, darling. But I do enthuse a lot. It’s annoying, I know, but it keeps me sane. It blows away my worries.’ She smiled. ‘And in fact, I do love buns.’ She paused, thought about this. ‘Perhaps I like the word, more than the actual thing.’
He agreed. It was a good word. ‘Bun,’ he said. Enjoying how it slid off his tongue.
The waitress brought two steaming cups and two buns nestling on one plate. Julia was used to daintier service. She looked round and said she rather liked it here. ‘It’s got character. Quite cosy, really.’
He nodded. He liked it, too. Came here often.
A group of soldiers at a table nearby started to laugh. Julia watched them. They gulped tea, flicked their cigarettes into the ashtray, nicotined fingers. These days, she couldn’t look at groups of young uniformed men without thinking about the boy she’d seen die. She’d been present at that final intimate moment in his life, and always felt she could have done more for him. She could have held his hand, though he was gone before she reached him. But still, he shouldn’t have left this world so suddenly and so alone.
Some of these men laughing, bantering would die. Others would witness death. Julia hated to think of this. It saddened her, frightened her and made her feel old. She pulled apart her bun, put a small lump of it into her mouth, ‘War,’ she said. ‘It will change us all.’
He agreed.
It was odd, Julia was to think later, that she had chatted to this man for over an hour, discovering that they had nothing in common – he had no interest in flying, didn’t like horses, had never owned a pet, country life bored him, he’d travelled to places she hadn’t even heard of, hated dancing and liked drinking whisky with his friends and reading – yet loving his company.
‘I do like talking to my friends, but not the whisky,’ she said. ‘Gin for me. I just take it how it comes these days, can’t get a slice of lemon for love nor money. You’ve never had a pet? Not even a dog? You’ve got to get a dog, they’re lovely.’
‘I’m away too much.’
‘Well, your wife could take care of it.’
He shook his head. ‘No wife.’
She said, ‘Ah.’ And thought, Oh good.
‘You?’
‘Oh no, darling. I’m not married, either. My mother is distraught about that. I’m past twenty-five. She thinks I should have a husband and a clutch of children by now. Luckily this war has come along and all the young men I know are orff serving somewhere. Mother has temporarily stopped nagging.’
‘You sound rich,’ he said. ‘I bet your family is loaded.’
‘Yes, as a matter of fact, they are. But I’m just a working girl these days. Not rich at all.’
Outside a slow fog was creeping down – yellow, acrid. Julia looked at it and said, ‘Bugger, fog. I hate fog.’
He had, by now, removed his hat. She could see his face. An excellent face, she thought. He would be stunningly handsome, if time and life – disappointment, loneliness, too much whisky and laughter, probably – hadn’t left a mark. There were wrinkles, creases, lines, also some time in his past his nose had been broken and hadn’t been fixed properly. Still, she liked what she saw. She never did trust overly good-looking men.
He caught her looking at his nose, and touched it. ‘Boxing,’ he said.
‘You box?’
‘Not any more. I got old.’
‘Did you win any cups or titles?’
He told her a few. ‘I had my moments.’
She looked at her watch and apologised. She had to go, she had an appointment. She had agreed to be ravished one more time before Charles left for Burma, though she didn’t mention any of that.
He had to go, too. ‘Better get back to work.’
He walked her to Oxford Street and hailed her a taxi. ‘Can I call you?’
‘Oh yes, please. Lovely.’ She took the pen he offered and wrote her number on the inside of his cigarette packet.
‘I’ll come up and see you,’ he said. ‘Take you to dinner.’
‘Lovely, darling. I’ll look forward to it.’ And she climbed into the taxi, slammed the door.
He watched it trundle into the afternoon traffic, disappear into the fog. He hated privileged, rich women with their dogs and horses, who said ‘orff’ instead of ‘off’ and who called you ‘darling’ when they hardly knew you. Yet, he thought Julia charming. He stepped into the road, could just make out the taxi and Julia sitting in the back. He wondered if she’d turn and wave to him. Bet himself half-a-crown she wouldn’t. She wasn’t the type to look back, but she’d know he was watching her go. She didn’t turn. I won, he thought. And felt a little sad about that.
Chapter Fifteen
The Toast
‘I’M MOVING YOU to work with the horses,’ Duncan told Elspeth. ‘You’ll be taking over from Avril. She’s not coming back. She’s in a sanatorium outside Edinburgh. Got the TB.’
It took a few seconds for this to sink in. Elspeth stared at him, mouth open. ‘Poor Avril.’
Duncan said, ‘Aye. It’s not a good thing to have, TB.’
‘Tuberculosis? Isn’t that infectious? We could all have it.’
‘Do you get sweats at night? Have you got a cough?’
Elspeth shook her head.
‘Well, ye’ve not got the TB, then. There’s a war on, and we’ve got quotas to fill. People are wanting their wood, there’s no time for anybody else to get ill.’ He told her to report to the stables next day. ‘Frazer will show you the ropes.’ Then he waved her away, dismissing her.
At half past five the next morning, Elspeth stumbled through the dark, struggling to keep herself awake and upright. Frazer looked her up and down and told her she’d do, even if she was a woman. ‘Not my favourite kind of person. Look at you, there’s not much of you.’
He was a man with a face of a thousand wrinkles. Its features – nose, eyes, lips – were lost in a maze of interlinking creases and pouches. It was weathered dark brown, though his forehead above the cap line was shockingly pale. Frazer didn’t smile often, but when he did, he gave observers an unashamed sighting of his teeth – both of them.
He always wore a striped collarless shirt, long grey waistcoat and grey herringbone trousers tied tight at the ankles with string. His ancient boots were moulded into the shape of his feet and looked as if they could walk the daily paths he trod on their own. He’d spent h
is life working in these forests and would sometimes stand in front of a tree, stare up into its growth, forty or more feet above him, and say he remembered well when it was planted. Nobody knew how old he was, just that he was old. He limped.
As he spoke, the day outside the stables spread across the sky, red and gold. Elspeth watched, transfixed. Frazer wanted to know what she was looking at.
‘The sun coming up,’ she said. ‘It’s beautiful. I want to gaze and gaze.’
‘The sun’ll come up tomorrow. And it’ll come up on your day off. You can look at it then.’
Behind them three other stable workers swept out the stalls. Two were Italian and spoke a constant stream of their own language, stopping now and then to gesticulate. Neither Elspeth nor Frazer understood a word, but Elspeth felt they were talking about her. A thin stream of sunlight filtered in through the door, lighting up flecks of straw and a thick dance of dust motes. The place smelled of bran mash heating on a pot-bellied stove in the far corner. It was warm here. Elspeth felt a pang of jealousy that the horses were better housed and fed than she was.
Frazer pointed to a steaming heap on the floor and handed her a shovel. ‘Clear all that up. That’s your first job every morning.’
Elspeth took the shovel.
‘You put the muck outside on the dung heap and on Friday you fill that barrow and wheel it down to Duncan.’
‘Why do I have to do that? Why can’t one of them?’ She pointed at the Italians.
‘Because you’re the wee-est, and you’re the last one here. It’s always the job of the last to join the stables.’
She was about to complain that trundling horse manure for several miles was not part of her contract, but she was butted in the back and swept off to one side.
‘It knows,’ said Frazer.
She turned to glare at the horse that had shunted her aside. ‘It knows what?’
‘It knows you know nothing about horses.’
‘It’s right,’ said Elspeth.
‘Of course it’s right. Horses are always right. And when you’re done with the shit you can groom Harry. She’s your horse, now. Used to be Avril’s’