by Isla Dewar
‘You’ll be able to practise married life. You can warm his slippers by the fire, cook his supper and go to bed early.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Julia. ‘He doesn’t own any slippers. We’re going out to eat. But we might go to bed early.’
Claire came along behind. She was worrying as usual about her children, but, from time to time, Simon would come to mind. His face was what she imagined. Just that, a good face that made her smile every time she saw it. She wanted to wake up in the morning and see that face. She wanted one night when she didn’t have to get out of bed and go home.
Soon, she’d get her wish. They were going to London for a couple of days. They wouldn’t stay in her house at Hampstead. That would be taking her unfaithfulness too far. They’d booked a hotel. They’d laze in bed in the morning, eat breakfast together, walk hand in hand, kiss when the need grabbed them. For a while, they’d openly do all the things lovers did.
It was warm. Izzy wore her flying overalls without a jacket. The Spitfire she was delivering had been sitting in the sun and was hot inside. While in the air, she saw several huge convoys – trucks, ambulances and tanks, heading south. Several American bombers were also flying south, and, at the base, there was another. The CO had flown it in earlier, bringing the giant thing easily over the hedge and landing it as if it was light as a butterfly. All these bombers, all the GIs suddenly disappearing, Izzy thought, Something’s up.
Walter was at the cottage when she arrived home. His case was in the hall. He was in the kitchen making tea. Julia was with him. ‘Walter’s staying for a few days,’ she said. ‘We can play at being an old married couple.’ She turned to Walter. ‘Izzy was asking me this morning if I warmed your slippers by the fire.’
‘I don’t own a pair of slippers,’ Walter said. ‘But, soon as this war’s over, I’ll get a pair. I’ll settle down, get a dog, start smoking a pipe and live a quiet life.’
Julia told him he’d find that impossible. ‘You love what you do. You’re hooked on it. You love talking to your colleagues about war and you love danger. You get high on it.’
He didn’t deny this. Admitted that he’d found the desk-bound months since he’d come back from Africa boring. ‘Met some fascinating people. But I miss being where the action is.’ This put him off drinking tea, and he reached for the whisky he’d brought. He held it towards Izzy. Did she want a glass? She shook her head, lifted the lid of the pot Mrs Brent had left on the cooker and peered in. Sighed. ‘Some kind of sausage thing with bits of apple and onions.’
Julia said Izzy could have her portion. ‘We’re off out in a while.’ She took a glass of whisky and said she’d drink it in the bath.
Walter leaned against the sink. ‘Well, Izzy, had a good day?’
‘Excellent.’ Though, the heat in the Spitfire had made her feel nauseous. And, she was beginning to wonder if the daily drone of engines thrumming in her ears meant she would be deaf before she was thirty. All that, and she ached from sitting all day, every day, in cramped cockpits. More than all that, she’d been terrified. She’d constantly checked her gauges, watching for a sudden drop in the fuel tank. She’d been plagued by images of the burning plane. Her hands had been clammy, sweat oozed from her brow. As soon as she was back on the ground, she’d gone to the ladies’ loo, locked herself in, leaned on the wall, breathing, clenching her fists, trying to stop shaking.
‘What did you do?’
‘Flew a couple of aeroplanes. You know I can’t say more. You?’ She grinned. Mustn’t admit to the fear. Mustn’t let it show.
‘I had a very good day. A splendid day. Can’t say more.’
‘You seem very jolly,’ said Izzy. ‘Well, you would be. You don’t have to eat Mrs Brent’s sausage thing.’
‘Come eat with Julia and me if you don’t want your sausage thing.’
Izzy shook her head. ‘It’s important not to incur Mrs Brent’s wrath by spurning her food.’
Julia came in, dressed in a simple red dress, high collar, tight at the waist. Walter whistled.
‘Ready?’ she asked.
He drained his glass and told her, ‘Yes.’
This was the routine for the next few days. Julia and Walter went out to the hotel to eat and, once, to Blackpool to Bertram’s, to dance, eat atrocious food and listen to jazz – Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Billie Holiday.
The place was smoky and noisy, but Walter liked it. ‘This is much better than the stuffy, tinkling, genteel atmosphere at that hotel you frequent,’ he told Julia. ‘Though the food’s ghastly.’
‘Just eat it,’ she said. ‘It’ll do you good to taste the sort of thing ordinary folk have to put up with instead of the perks you enjoy as a war correspondent.’ At that, she shoved her own plate away, almost untouched.
She asked what he was going to do when the war was over. ‘Find a new war, somewhere?’
He said there would always be some skirmish or other somewhere across the globe. ‘But, I’m rather taken with the pipe and slippers we were discussing earlier.’
‘I have difficulty imagining it,’ she said. ‘How would you earn a living?’
‘I’d write. I’ve seen enough to fill a book or two. I could do a jazz column for some magazine. I’d enjoy that.’
‘Reviews?’
‘Yes.’ He leaned over, touched her cheek, ran his thumb over her lips. ‘I could write a review of your mouth, and a lavish review of your body.’
She sighed. ‘Flattery will get you everywhere.’ She took his hand and suggested they dance. A slightly crackling record of ‘Muskrat Ramble’ by Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five was playing on the gramophone. Walter’s feet were tapping.
He swirled her round the floor, gripped her waist, leaned into her, kissed her neck and whispered, ‘For God’s sake, just once, could you let me lead?’
She said she’d try, but it was hard. She was naturally bossy.
They stayed in on Friday night. Walter said they should have a trial run at domesticity. They sat on the sofa, shoeless feet sharing a footstool placed close to the fire. They held hands, listened to the wireless, drank too much whisky and agreed they could get used to this. They went to bed early.
In the morning Julia woke, yawned, stretched and reached for Walter. He wasn’t there, had left a note on the pillow.
My darling,
I just hate to leave you. But things are happening that I can’t resist seeing and reporting. It’s in my blood, I think. Will be back to be with you very soon. Then I will make an effort at the pipe and slippers life, I promise.
W x
PS I love you very much. Did I ever tell you that?
On Tuesday the sky was black with bombers, hundreds of them roaring south. Izzy and Julia stood at the window of the mess, watching, listening to John Snagge read a special bulletin –
‘D-Day has come. Early this morning . . .’
‘This is it,’ said Izzy.
Julia nodded. ‘Walter’s there.’
Everyone was grounded that day. Julia stayed in the mess, listening to reports on the wireless, drinking hot orangeade. When, eventually, Julia did go home, there was a letter for her on the small table in the hall, propped up beside the telephone.
My darling,
I suppose by now, you’ll have guessed what I’m up to. Soon I will board the Lance Empire and join the Northumbrian Division I travelled with for a while in North Africa. I won’t be able to contact you once I’m aboard. The ship will be sealed, as everyone will know when we will attack, and where and how.
I am watching troops scramble up the rope ladders onto the ship and I can hear music playing on a minesweeper not far away, and I am thinking about you.
I will be safe – at least six miles offshore, watching events from a distance. But this was too good to miss. I have my steel helmet and a bottle of whisky, I have everything I need. Don’t worry about me.
I love you.
W x
Chapter Thirty-three
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p; Mrs Middleton
AT FIRST, CLAIRE and Simon planned to travel to London separately. They didn’t want to be seen together at the railway station. It would look suspicious. But there was a war on, trains were unreliable – noisy, busy, dirty, unpunctual, prone to breaking down, too. They met on the platform of the railway station instead.
The place was a haze of brown and blue uniforms, couples saying goodbye and porters, all of them women, bustling past them.
They sat next to one another on the train, didn’t hold hands, though they wanted to. Claire looked out of the window, watched the world she knew so well from above go by. Simon read. From time to time, they’d smile at each other. Right now, they were too filled with anticipation about their two days, and two nights, together to feel any guilt.
In London, they got a taxi to the hotel near Hyde Park that Simon had booked. Wanting to savour Simon’s company on the last small part of their journey, Claire asked the driver to drop them at the end of the street, they’d walk the rest of the way. It was away from the main drag of traffic. Now, they held hands.
Their bliss didn’t last long. The hotel wasn’t there. Instead, there was a huge heap of rubble where it, and a neighbouring building, had been. ‘Buzz bomb,’ said a passer-by who saw the two gazing in dismay at the ruined building. ‘Couple of nights ago. Everyone was killed.’
Claire said, ‘How awful.’ There was still the acrid smell of cordite in the air. ‘Awful, awful,’ she said. She wasn’t just lamenting the people who’d died in the hotel. She was lamenting her ruined weekend. ‘That’s it now. It’s over.’
‘No, it isn’t. We can find another hotel. There are lots of them. We could go to the Savoy.’
They started to walk towards Hyde Park.
‘We’ll get a taxi to Oxford Street,’ said Simon.
‘Not the Savoy,’ said Claire. ‘I’m known there. So is Richard.’
She hadn’t been there since she’d been based in Skimpton and doubted if anyone would remember her. Indeed most of the staff who’d known her then would probably have been called up, replaced by new faces. But, no doubt, there would be some old friends there – people who knew Richard. ‘No definitely not the Savoy.’
‘Well, we’ll find somewhere,’ said Simon.
‘It’s not the same now,’ said Claire. They’d decided to book in as Mr and Mrs Middleton, and Claire had for the last few hours been enjoying her new identity. It had been quite a thrill to be someone else for a while. But this, the rubble that had once been a hotel, was an omen, she thought. The affair was doomed.
‘Have you ever seen a buzz bomb?’ asked Simon.
Claire shook her head.
‘I have. I was flying up the coast, saw this thing buzzing along. Thought it was a plane, at first. A plane, one of ours, came after it, shot it down. The blast was enormous, shook the plane I was in, huge shock waves.’
‘Horrible things,’ said Claire. ‘Come on. I’ll take you home. Haven’t been there in months and months, time I had a look at it.’
The house was musty. Claire swept the covers from the furniture in the living room, opened the curtains to reveal windows with taped-up panes, looked out into the garden. ‘It’s neglected.’
She took bedlinen from a cupboard in the hall and went upstairs to make up the bed in the spare room. She couldn’t face sleeping with Simon in the bed she’d shared with Richard.
They went out for a meal since there was no food in the house. ‘Not even a tin of Spam,’ said Claire. Afterwards, on the way back to the house, they kept their distance, walking slowly, chatting, not touching. Claire hoped they wouldn’t run into anyone she knew. Here she was, Mrs Alton, wife of Richard, mother of two, churchgoer, hostess of tea parties and dinner parties, keen gardener and a respectable member of the community.
She preferred Mrs Middleton. She was impulsive, rather wild, danced a lot, never, ever, went to tea parties and was passionately in love with Mr Middleton. Claire liked her a lot.
Mrs Middleton knew all about love. Mrs Alton didn’t. The feelings she had now were new to her. The only word of affection she could say with honesty was ‘fond’. She was fond of Richard. He was kind, handsome (in his way), humorous and generous. What was there not to be fond of?
Mrs Middleton’s passion surprised Claire. She hadn’t known she had it in her. The way she unbuttoned Mr Middleton’s shirt, pressed her naked self against him, explored him with her tongue, thought about him all the time, felt a strange tremor within when their eyes met, by accident, in the mess. Mrs Middleton was unashamed in lust.
Claire had married Richard to get away from her parents and their bleak, cold, ghastly house. Also, because it had seemed impolite not to say yes when Richard had asked her. ‘Marry me,’ he’d said. ‘Please.’ Claire was never very good at saying no.
Mrs Middleton would be. She’d have said no to Richard, and then left home. Mrs Middleton was a woman who knew what she wanted, and got it. She would have waited for love.
Claire did have one wish come true. She woke up next to Simon. After they’d made love, she put on her robe and went downstairs. ‘I may be able to find some tea.’
She found some coffee. Oh joy. Brewed a pot and was about to take it upstairs when Simon appeared. He sat at the table, smiled at her and asked if she’d mind listening to the news.
‘. . . troops are moving inland in a front broad enough to be more than a bridgehead . . .’
‘It will be over soon,’ said Claire.
‘But not yet. They won’t give up without a fight. We’ve still got time together.’ He said he liked her house. ‘Bigger than mine.’ Then, he said, ‘That was the spare room we slept in, wasn’t it?’
She said it was. ‘Couldn’t quite allow myself to sleep with you in the bed I share with Richard. Sorry, I shouldn’t have brought you here.’
‘Oh no. I like it. I’m glad I’ve seen where you live. Where you’ll be when the war is over. When I think of you, I’ll imagine you here.’
He’d meant it kindly. He’d wanted her to know he’d never forget her. But he’d told her what she already knew, and hadn’t faced up to. When the war was over, they’d part. Claire felt Mrs Middleton slip away.
Chapter Thirty-four
Useless, Useless
ELSPETH DECIDED IT was time for a holiday. She was allowed one week off a year. She’d no money for a trip. And, even if she had, it would take so long to get anywhere, she’d have had to turn round and return almost as soon as she arrived. So, she stayed put.
On Monday, she filled a bottle with cold tea, took a sandwich from the kitchen and cycled down past the stables, past Duncan’s cottage and on – out of the forest into the hills beyond.
The road was narrow, neglected, gravel gathered at the edges, grass pushing through the tired tarmac. She left it, followed a track that led into the hills. Pedalling was hard work, now. The track was bumpy; there were dips, holes and boulders to avoid. Eventually, she dumped her bike.
Clutching clumps of heather, she climbed, till she found a spot where constant winds had kept the grass short. It had grown into a dense soft carpet, not unlike Lady McKenzie’s Wilton. Elspeth sat down, leaned against a stunted pine tree, bent by gales, gnarled and lonely, defying the elements. She took her bottle of tea and sandwich from the deep pocket of her dungarees and surveyed the world about her. The view was splendid. Miles and miles of nothing but heather, hills and sky.
This was the perfect place for a woman to contemplate her stupid life. Elspeth was never kind to herself when she considered her past. She thought she was a fool, an impulsive fool. Being prone to notions was all right, she supposed. Acting on them was madness.
Once, years ago, in another lifetime, when she was a different person, Elspeth had stood in the hallway of her home in London, eavesdropping on the conversation her parents were having in the living room. Her mother had told her father that Elspeth was the most gifted musician she’d come across in all her years of teaching.
&nbs
p; Now, swigging tea, Elspeth wondered why she hadn’t just been pleased to hear such a compliment. Young and rebellious at the time, she’d thought that her mother shouldn’t tell her father about her gifts. She’d clenched her fists and been enraged that this valuable information hadn’t been handed to her.
Only now did it occur to her that neither her mother nor her father had ever encouraged her or praised her talents. It wasn’t their way. In fact, now she thought about it, they had barely said a kind word to each other. Elspeth had never seen them kiss or put their arms round one another.
‘Didn’t want me to get above myself,’ Elspeth said aloud. She sighed, bit into her sandwich and added, ‘But in this world, above yourself is where you have to be. Otherwise, you’ll get trampled.’
Two weeks after Elspeth had stood listening to her parents discussing her, her father dropped dead in Hammersmith underground station – a heart attack. Four months after he was buried, her mother – bent and grey with grief – had announced she was going to Scotland to live in the small Perthshire village where she’d been born. ‘Going to Fortham, back to my roots. I want the peace of the countryside around me. And this house is too full of memories. It breaks my heart to live in it.’
It was only now that it crossed Elspeth’s mind that perhaps the memories weren’t good. Perhaps that house had been filled with dis appointments, lost ambitions, a life-long wishing for tenderness. ‘Gosh,’ she said. ‘Never thought of that.’
Elspeth had refused to go with her mother to Scotland. ‘I’m not giving up my job. There are women who’d die to work on the perfume counter at Selfridges. Mr Selfridge himself stopped by once and said, “How’re you today, Miss Moon?” He knows my name, a man as famous and rich as that.’
It was agreed that Elspeth would stay in London. She would lodge with Sylvia Hatton-Smythe, an old friend of her mother’s. The house was in Chelsea; Elspeth’s room was on the third floor. It was small, and was rented at a reduced rate as she had agreed to entertain Mrs Hatton-Smythe’s friends in her lushly patterned lounge – thick velvet drapes, Persian rugs hung on ornately papered walls – on candlelit Thursday evenings, playing Mozart, Chopin and Brahms on the pianoforte, as Mrs Hatton-Smythe called it.