Their Finest Hour and a Half

by Lissa Evans

From his current bed in men’s orthopaedic, he could see Horace Crike, who’d tripped in the blackout and broken his ankle, Vic Shineman, who’d lost a leg when a parachute mine exploded opposite his shop, and Salvatore Cipriano, who was overspill from men’s surgical, and who was awaiting the repair of a large hernia in his groin. Ambrose knew it was large, because Salvatore had showed it to him, flinging aside the covers one tedious afternoon to reveal a scrotum the size and shape of a boxing glove. ‘Is agony,’ he’d said, unnecessarily.

  Five days on from the accident, Ambrose himself was in very little pain, unless one counted the mental anguish caused by his surroundings. What was driving him to utter distraction, however, was the incessant itching. The plaster cast extended in a rigid right-angle from his armpit down to his knuckles, and as it dried, a myriad tiny particles had started to shift and prick within it. Using his other hand, it was only possible to reach under the cast to scratch an inch or so of skin at either end. Unbearable. It was absolutely bloody unbearable.

  Cecy had promised to bring in something that might help, and when visiting hour crawled round at last, he’d hoped that she’d be first into the ward as usual, but it was Vic Shineman’s wife who led the charge, followed, surprisingly, by Sophie Smith.

  ‘And how are you, Mr Hilliard?’ she asked, arranging herself carefully on the visitor’s chair.

  ‘Beginning to feel very slightly better,’ he said, ‘thank you.’

  ‘I am so glad. I telephoned the hospital yesterday and they said that you were doing as well as might be expected given your age and condition, so I was a little worried.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I won’t stay very long, I don’t want to tire you, but I needed to have a word about one or two rather important things.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘Before I forget—’ She reached into her bag and took out a tissue-wrapped bunch of purple grapes and placed it on the bedside locker. Grapes! A gush of saliva filled his mouth; Good God, she must have gone to Harrods and paid a guinea at least for those. Almost involuntarily, he reached out and took one, felt the tug of the stalk, placed the fruit in his mouth, held the wonderful turgid weight of it on his tongue. He bit down, and was immediately disappointed: sour and full of pips.

  ‘. . . rather fortunate,’ Sophie was saying.

  Ambrose ejected the pips into his hand. ‘I’m afraid I missed that,’ he said.

  ‘The role that you were offered.’

  ‘Which role?’

  ‘The role that I was going to speak to you about on the last day of the studio. I wasn’t sure, then, how you might respond, but now it all seems rather fortunate. Bearing in mind your indisposition.’

  ‘And why’s that?’ he asked, warily. What part had she dredged up for him now? A buffoon in a bath chair? A crippled mute?

  ‘Because you would be using your voice,’ said Sophie. ‘And only your voice.’

  ‘You mean wireless?’

  ‘No. I mean you would be providing the narration for the current film.’

  ‘But I thought that the American character was going to be the . . .’

  Sophie tilted her head very slightly.

  ‘Oh Christ,’ said Ambrose, revelation dawning. ‘They want me to be Lundback.’

  ‘Apparently you’ve been helping him with his lines, and your voices are a very good match.’

  ‘They want me to do Lundback’s acting for him.’

  ‘And I have seen the script for the narration, and it’s most eloquent and witty. They say it should be a notable feature of the film.’

  ‘For which Lundback will get the credit.’

  ‘And to compensate for that I shall be insisting that you be paid really rather well. I will also be ensuring that a taxi is provided for all your journeys to and from the dubbing suite, and that food considerably more substantial than a sandwich should be available for your luncheon.’

  There was a long pause.

  ‘Where’s it being dubbed?’ asked Ambrose.

  ‘I believe in Dean Street.’

  ‘The Maison Basque is in Dean Street.’

  ‘I shall make a note of the fact.’

  She sat with her gloved hands in her lap, very elegant and upright, the expression in her fine dark eyes faintly sardonic. She was clever, he realized with a jolt; far cleverer than her poor old brother – dangerously clever, the sort of cleverness that it would be best to keep in with. The old agency, with its wood-wormed offices, was gone; Sophie would be re-building in steel.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, rather mechanically. ‘Those terms may be acceptable to me.’ His arm, which he had forgotten about for a blessed minute or so, began to itch again.

  ‘If you’re not too tired,’ she said, ‘there is one other subject I’d like to discuss.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘It is Cerberus.’

  ‘Is he well?’

  ‘No, not very. He has stopped eating and he whines a great deal.’

  ‘Have you taken him to a veterinary surgeon?’

  ‘I believe he is pining for you, Mr Hilliard.’

  Ambrose closed his eyes, heard again the crash of the lamp, felt the boat lurch, saw the others fall into the water, and a second later saw them whirl away as the far side of the tank disappeared and the pond became a mill-race. And the sole reason that he hadn’t been dragged after the others, hadn’t been tumbled and buffeted across the studio floor and through the scene-dock doors, was because he’d grabbed the propeller shaft with his right hand. He would thus have been the only one entirely uninjured had Cerberus not then jumped from the stern of the Redoubtable, all three stone of him landing squarely on Ambrose’s extended arm. The pain had been so excruciating that he’d passed out and hit his head, and had come to ten minutes later to find the dog licking his face. The ambulance-woman had talked about nothing else – ‘the little fellow brought you round, he did’ – as if canine spittle were a famous restorative.

  ‘He broke my elbow in two places,’ he said to Sophie.

  ‘He jumped to your rescue. Don’t forget that he is a dog who is afraid of water.’ She stood up and smoothed her skirt. ‘I cannot pretend, Mr Hilliard, that I have any understanding of how this could have occurred, but the fact is that Cerberus loved my brother, and now he has transferred that love to you. He is, we could say, your legacy from Sammy, and of course it is extremely bad luck to refuse a legacy.’

  She rested her gaze upon him, steady and implacable, and he understood, instantly, the nature of the bad luck in question: a dogless future was an agentless future. A tricky decision. He took a deep breath.

  ‘I shall have to think about it,’ he said. Sophie smiled.

  All the men on the ward turned to watch her leave.

  Cecy arrived a minute or two later. ‘You will never guess why I’m late,’ she said. ‘I was passing a greengrocer’s on the way to the station and what should I see but a—’ She stopped speaking, her gaze fixed on the bunch of grapes on the bedside locker. ‘Oh,’ she said, in quite a different tone. ‘Goodness. Don’t those look nice.’

  ‘My agent brought them, and as a matter of fact they’re not.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Bitter.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ Cecy looked slightly mollified. ‘Well, I don’t know if these are any better,’ she said, taking another, smaller bunch from her bag. ‘I had to queue for three-quarters of an hour to buy them. And I’ve brought the cuttings I promised you. Oh, and some marsh marigolds from the bottom of the garden, only a wild flower of course, but rather gay. Let me see if I can find a vase . . .’ And she swept off again, exchanging little waves with the other occupants of the ward, smiling her toothy smile at the nurses.

  ‘Next of kin?’ they’d asked Ambrose, when he’d arrived at the hospital, and he’d tried, rather fuzzily, to recollect the location of his second cousin in Reigate, and had given them, instead, Cecy’s address: The Ducklings, Thames Ditton. Peculiar thing, concussion.

  He sifted thro
ugh the cuttings she’d placed on the counterpane. STUDIO HORROR: WRITER CRUSHED TO DEATH. A photograph of Lundback on crutches surrounded by pretty nurses. DUNKIRK EPIC WILL BE FINISHED, VOWS PRODUCER. Another photograph of Lundback on crutches surrounded by pretty nurses. DOG SAVES ACTOR.

  He pushed the pile of paper aside.

  ‘Another lovely quiet night,’ said Cecy, returning with a jug. ‘Wouldn’t it be marvellous if Mr Hitler has decided to go and bother another country instead? And don’t these look madly cheerful?’ She gave the flowers an admiring tweak.

  ‘Very pleasant,’ said Ambrose.

  ‘So what did your agent say?’ she asked, settling herself on the chair, and taking a piece of knitting out of her bag.

  ‘Oh this and that. Spot of post-synchronization work for the current feature.’

  ‘Anything coming up after that?’

  ‘Not that I’ve heard of. You?’

  ‘Ipswich hinting about a summer season. I’ve told them very firmly that it’ll depend on whether or not my house guest is sufficiently recovered. No, really—’ she said, as Ambrose began to protest. ‘You may not be homeless, but you certainly can’t manage to look after yourself in your current state, now can you? Besides, I’d rather hang on and see whether anything more interesting comes my way. I hear that British National are going to be adapting a novel by Mr Priestley, and, of course, I’ve just been in a play of his at Windsor . . .’

  She paused, appearing to take a mesmerized interest in the ball of wool she was winding.

  ‘Didn’t you get a good notice?’ asked Ambrose, taking his cue.

  ‘Oh, just a little mention . . . you think it might be worth sending it to the casting director?’

  ‘Undoubtedly.’

  She nodded, pleased. For a while there was only the clack of her needles.

  ‘Incidentally,’ said Ambrose, scratching his knuckles, ‘I may have to impose a second house guest upon you. I’ve managed to persuade my agent that Cerberus’s place is by my side. As we’ve been through so much together.’

  ‘Oh but that’s splendid.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what a difficult conversation that must have been.’

  He looked at her sharply but her expression was bland.

  ‘Yes it was, rather,’ he said.

  He reached for the bunch of grapes she’d brought, and broke off one of them. It had a dimpled, senile look and a brown mark or two. He hesitated, turning it over between his fingers.

  ‘Oh, I forgot,’ said Cecy. ‘I had a brainwave.’ She reached into her bag and took out another knitting needle. ‘An anti-itching solution. You should be able to reach almost anywhere with this,’ and she mimed inserting it under the plaster cast and giving a vigorous scratch.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Ambrose. ‘Very thoughtful.’ Almost absently, he lifted the grape to his mouth.

  ‘What’s it like?’ asked Cecy.

  He bit into it, chewed, swallowed. Took another one.

  ‘Surprisingly good,’ he said.

  *

  August 1941

  Dolly Clifford spotted Edith coming through the door of the Lyons Corner House, and waved her hand and shouted ‘Cooeee! Over here! Long time no see!’ and kept on waving her hand in a very deliberate fashion, so that there was no possible chance of Edith missing the engagement ring that glinted on her fourth finger.

  ‘Canadian military policeman,’ she said, as soon as Edith was within earshot. ‘A sergeant!’

  ‘And where did you meet him?’ asked Edith, taking off her head-scarf.

  ‘At a dance. Ooh, is your hair different?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Edith. ‘It’s started raining outside, maybe the ends have curled a bit.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s your lipstick, then. I’ve ordered tea and scones.’

  ‘Thank you. So when did you get engaged?’

  ‘Last month. He’s called Robert but all his pals call him “Tiny”.’ She held up her finger so that Edith could admire the ring more closely. ‘He wanted to get me a ruby but I told him that rubies were unlucky. My aunt had a ruby engagement ring and she’d only been married a week when her husband ran off with the next-door neighbour’s daughter. They say sapphires are even worse.’

  ‘It’s very nice,’ said Edith, peering at the diamond mote. ‘And when are you getting married?’

  ‘We haven’t fixed a date yet. He always promised his mother he’d tell her in person if he ever met someone, so it’ll all depend on when he next gets home leave. Here—’ She took a snapshot out of her handbag and Edith looked at the doughy, uncertain-looking man, his arm pinioned firmly in Dolly’s. ‘He owns a petrol station in Saskatchewan,’ added Dolly. ‘Well, his mother owns it really, but it’ll be his one day.’ She smiled with determined brightness. ‘And how’s your husband?’

  ‘Arthur’s very well.’

  ‘Has he been sent abroad yet?’

  ‘No. He was transferred. The army’s setting up a catering corps, and they’re taking men who’ve worked at that type of thing in civilian life,’ and even saying the words was a pleasure, for they meant that rather than being torpedoed or sniped at or shelled or imprisoned or stung by mosquitoes, Arthur (at least for the time being) was in Aldershot debating tinned-meat requirements and the standardization of milk-to-cornflour proportions in the provision of custard to the forces, and these were things that he really and truly knew about, and the last time she’d seen him, nearly three weeks ago, she had detected about him a slight but definite air of assurance. The other men had nicknamed him ‘Custard King’, he’d told her. He’d seemed rather pleased by the soubriquet.

  ‘And that must make you the Custard Queen,’ he’d pointed out, and he’d bought her (by way of a crown) a maize-yellow Maltese cotton headscarf in La Mode in Acton High Street, just round the corner from her digs. She’d worn it to work the next day. It wasn’t her usual choice of colour – it was rather startling, in fact – but the costume designer at Ealing had given her a long appraising look and said, ‘Yes. It suits you’, before shooing her off to the crowd room where thirty-five extras were waiting to be measured for Nazi uniforms for the new Will Hay picture. She’d worn the scarf every day since.

  ‘And what’s happened about the house?’ asked Dolly, as the tea arrived.

  Edith shook her head. ‘Not very much, really. The site’s being cleared and Arthur’s had to fill in an awfully long form. They’ve said he’ll get government compensation, but not until after the war ends. Whenever that will be.’

  ‘Next year,’ said Dolly, with absolute conviction. ‘My brother-in-law’s neighbour’s a barber and he was shaving a man who works in the – well, I shouldn’t say, really, it’s a hush-hush government place – but anyway he was telling my brother-in-law’s neighbour that they’re developing a new deadly weapon, a kind of glue that they’ll drop on to the German forces. They’re still working on it, but once it’s ready, the whole war will be over in a weekend.’

  ‘Well . . . good,’ said Edith, somewhat inadequately.

  ‘Did I tell you we’re opening a Gallery of the Boffins at Tussaud’s to celebrate scientific achievements of the Empire? I’ve been ironing an actual pair of R. J. Mitchell’s trousers.’

  Something about the phrase made Edith laugh, and Dolly stopped speaking and looked at her carefully.

  ‘Now don’t get offended,’ she said, ‘but do you think that your terrible experience in the Morrison shelter might have affected you in some way?’

  ‘I suppose it might have done,’ said Edith.

  ‘Only you don’t seem quite as . . . as serious as you used to be.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing.’ She smiled at Edith, and Edith smiled back, and half-listened as Dolly related an anecdote about the Head of Moulds, and half-thought about the coming weekend, when Arthur would have two days’ leave. She had designed and made herself a nightdress out of a remnant of plum-coloured sateen. She t
hought that he might rather like the result.

  *

  That summer it felt to Catrin as if time had slowed down. The raids had ceased, and with them the sirens, and now there was nothing to distinguish one week from another. London seemed half-empty, half-demolished, as shabby as its inhabitants. The war news was enervating; there was no progress or drama. She worked long hours, sometimes at Baker’s, sometimes at the Ministry, and at night she slept badly. When she dreamed she often heard Buckley speaking, but she could never remember the sound of his voice when she awoke.

  She tried to imagine what would have happened if he hadn’t died. She saw the banter turning to friction, she saw them living and working together, she saw them arguing and quickly parting, she saw them talking for thirty years. She saw all the possible futures lined up alongside each other, untouched, sardines in a keyless tin.

  Summer became autumn and there were still no raids. The treatment for the ARP film was rejected, rewritten, accepted and then placed in a pending tray somewhere in the Ministry of Information. Parfitt went to Gainsborough for six weeks to write jokes for the Crazy Gang, and then came back and slept through most of a month. Catrin ground out dialogue for a series of dull shorts about War Bonds. It rained incessantly. On a sodden September day, the gutter outside Baker’s overflowed and an unexploded bomb was found lodged in the road gulley; that afternoon Catrin helped to carry a hundred and thirty-five boxes of paperwork around the corner to a temporary billet in Beak Street.

  She was allocated half a table in a tiny basement room that was bathed in greenish light from a double row of glass bricks set in the pavement above her head. She tried to concentrate on a list of rewrites requested by the Ministry of Economic Warfare, but the door was opening and closing every five minutes as the office boy hauled more boxes into the room, and she gave up, eventually, and stared upwards instead at the shoes of passers-by as they slapped wetly across the glass ceiling. They seemed to have such purpose, such a sense of urgency. They knew where they were going.

  ‘Last one,’ said the office boy, plumping a stack of pasteboard files on to the table beside her and then exiting again. A sheaf of photographs slid from the top one, and Catrin caught at them before they could fall to the floor – glossy six-by-fours of Carl Lundback in his role as Hannigan, his signature, neat and rather schoolboyish, written across one corner. She looked through the other files in the stack and found signed portraits of Hadley Best, of Doris Cleavely and Angela Ralli-Thomas and of the dog, the latter stamped with a smudged paw-print.