A Woman of Integrity

by J David Simons

  I asked Doug more questions about Max but I didn’t glean very much, just that he was still married, still living in London.

  ‘How often do you see him?’ I asked.

  ‘Just when I get anchored in the office. Which isn’t much.’

  ‘Will you see him now that you’re back in London?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Would you give him a message… a letter for me?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘He’s an old friend.’

  ‘No harm in catching up with old friends,’ he said, with just a tinge of sarcasm. ‘In times like these.’

  After we landed at White Waltham, Doug said he could give me half an hour to write out my letter, he didn’t want to keep his own crew hanging around much longer than that, they had a van waiting to take them back into central London. It was actually good I was under a little bit of pressure, it made me stick to the essentials, plenty of time for details later if Max decided he wanted to see me. I gave Doug the envelope, he said he’d probably catch up with Max the following day.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Let’s Spend the Night Together

  With Quentin gone, Laura swivelled in Georgie’s well-worn chair, feeling possessed of a sense that her heroine’s spirit was hovering behind and above her, embracing her, whispering into her ear. ‘I am watching you,’ she imagined Georgie saying. ‘I am watching you. Can I trust you?’ ‘Of course, you can,’ Laura said out loud. ‘Of course, you can.’ In her excitement, she felt playful, swinging herself quickly from side to side like a little girl, before settling into a more sombre, more respectful, more adult mood. She steadied herself, then moved gently in an arc, surveying as she did so the panorama of photographs adorning every inch of wall space, some framed, others simply pinned into place. There didn’t seem to be any order to their positioning, more a mosaic than any sequence of a career. She wondered whether Georgie herself had organized them or whether this was Quentin’s own homage. Where to begin She swung round to address the filing cabinets. At the beginning, of course. The thought intrigued her for she was aware of the little known fact that Georgina Hepburn had once been an actress in the silent movies. She had always wondered why Georgie had not pursued that particular career and now here was her chance to find out. Filing cabinet number one. Top left. Cue lights. Cue curtains. The story of Georgie by Georgie was about to unfold.

  She became absolutely enthralled by the details that emerged from Georgie’s early career. How she used to hang around the studio sets waiting to be picked up as an extra, her first minor role as a simple cashier girl in On the Pleasure Pier, acting lessons, bit parts, taking on summer jobs just to survive, typical of an actress as much back then as it was now. She read about her relationship with the screenwriter Max Rosen and how it led to her success in The Woman Walks Free, the press clippings, a day out at Ascot with the great Ivor Novello. She found the CD of her interview with the BBC which she played through the computer. It was wonderful to just sit there in Georgie’s study, in Georgie’s chair, with her eyes closed, listening to Georgie talk about her life. There was so much richness in her voice, an accent hard to determine, somewhere between refined English and American drawl, the kind of throaty timbre a smoker might possess, yet as far as Laura knew Georgie didn’t smoke. She rocked gently in her chair, let Georgie talk on, it was as if she were in the same room. So engrossed was she with the interview that she didn’t hear Quentin’s arrival.

  ‘I did knock,’ he said. ‘But there was no answer.’

  ‘I was just so absorbed,’ she said, clicking off the recording. ‘I feel… I don’t know… so emotional about all of this.’

  ‘The silent movie years. She could have been such a star.’

  ‘Why did she give it up?’

  ‘Never talked about it.’

  ‘Was she always like that? Without a mind to the past?’

  ‘Not at all. She would chat about her time as a pilot for days on end. But about her film career? Not a word. She forbade the subject even being mentioned.’

  ‘It does seem odd though. One minute she was riding high. And then nothing. Was it something to do with her relationship with Max Rosen?’

  ‘Perhaps.’ He clapped his hands to bring an end to that particular strand of conversation. ‘I didn’t want to disturb you. But it is late.’

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Just after nine.’

  ‘Really. The hours just flew by.’

  ‘Hungry?’

  ‘To be honest, I’m starving.’

  ‘Cook has gone home. But I brought you something.’ Quentin stepped back out through the doorway then returned holding a tray which he managed to slip onto the table beside the various scattered documents. ‘Roast beef sandwiches,’ he announced with a mock flourish. ‘You’re not veggie, are you?’

  ‘Roast beef is perfect.’

  ‘And a glass of Beaujolais. A Juliénas.’

  ‘This is all very kind of you.’

  ‘All part of the service. I can bring up the bottle if you want?’

  ‘One glass is fine at this time of night.’

  He hung about in front of her, seemingly unsure what to do next. There was no other chair in the room. He placed a hand on the desk, started to drum away with his fingers. ‘I was wondering if you would like to stay the night.’

  Laura picked up her glass, gently allowed the wine to swirl beneath her nostrils, breathed in the vanilla scent, paused to admire the red ruby hue. If this were a scene in a movie, this is exactly what she would do to add to the tension. It was such a heavily laden question. What did Quentin actually mean by his offer? Was he literally providing her with a bed for the night? Or was there a more subtle proposal embedded in his question? After all, here was a divorced man, one who had declared himself a fan of hers, a man no doubt still full of sexual urges, although she did not put him down as being a great seducer. She sipped at the Juliénas. It was her favourite of the Cru Beaujolais, rich and spicy, the taste for which she had acquired from her father. Good cigars and good wine, that was about all she had to thank him for. She said nothing. She certainly wasn’t going to flatter Quentin with his fortuitous choice of vineyard.

  Her host moved into a proper lean on the desk, perhaps unnerved by the delay which could be turning what might have been a simple gentlemanly suggestion into one laden with meaning. ‘The roads are quite badly lit in this part of the world,’ he said.

  She put down her wine, reached for the roast beef sandwich, took a bite. Thick crusts, French mustard, just the way she liked it. She chewed slowly. ‘I didn’t bring an overnight bag,’ she said once she had swallowed.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about that. The guest room has everything you need. En suite. Toothbrush. Night clothes.’

  Night clothes? What an odd choice of words, she thought. She really was making Quentin nervous. She glanced out of the window. A summer’s eve but the light was fading fast. Red sky at night and all that. It would be dark by the time she set off. She looked back at Quentin who had turned one of the papers on the desk round towards himself. The playbill for The Woman Walks Free. Yes, she thought. I can definitely handle him.

  ‘I shall stay,’ she announced. ‘I can continue with some more of my research in the morning.’

  ‘That’s settled then,’ Quentin said, breathing out a huge sigh.

  The bedroom was lovely, adorned with fabrics of muted grey and pinks, the en suite bathroom tiled in the same colours. There was a view to the front of the house with its massive lawn and gravelled driveway. She opened one of the hinged lead-paned windows, set it fully on its stay, sucked in the air with its dewy moisture and smell of pine. Down below, she could see the outline of her little Mini fading away into the darkness, the glass of the headlights just catching the glint of the rising moon. The hoot of an owl then a thick silence. Apart from these night creatures, there was probably nothing around for miles to make a sound. She turned back to the room. The night clothes Quen
tin had referred to were contained in a sealed plastic bag from M&S – checked pyjama bottoms and a loose cotton T-shirt. But she had ignored those in favour of the luxurious bathrobe she had donned after her shower. She laid down on top of the queen size bed, stared at the ceiling. She thought of Georgie’s exploits as a pilot.

  She had read somewhere before that Georgie had worked for the Air Transport Auxiliary during the war but imagined her in some kind of role as an aerial photographer not as an actual pilot. Yet now she had discovered that Georgie had been one of the actual pioneers in the Golden Age of Flight. Laura still possessed a certain squeamishness about flying even in the present era, how hard must the conditions have been then. A tiny aircraft, some simple navigation aids, exposed to the elements, crammed into a tiny cockpit with only the drone of the engine for company. And these weren’t just little joyrides above London, but flights of thousands of miles, not knowing if there was enough fuel to get you to the next destination, not even knowing if there was a place to properly land. Or if the welcome would be friendly or hostile. And here she was, Laura Scott, wrapped up in a warm bathrobe, worried about driving back to London in the darkness because of the absence of a few street lights. She inwardly chastised herself for her own temerity.

  A couple of hours later, still unable to sleep, she returned to the open window. She had abandoned her duvet cover, thrown off her bathrobe and tried to sleep naked through the sultry night but that hadn’t worked either. She had then put on the M&S sleep-suit which she wore now as she stared out into the darkness. She would have loved a cigarette, hadn’t smoked for years apart from the occasional cigar, but she craved one right now to calm her moody restlessness. She was hungry too. That one roast beef sandwich had not been nearly enough. Perhaps it was the acid in her stomach that was keeping her awake. She would go downstairs, try to find something to eat.

  She hated wandering around other people’s houses like this, fearful of waking up her host, not knowing whether to switch on lights, not even knowing where the switches were even if she wanted to, trying to remember where the kitchen was, careful not to trip over the stair rods. She eventually made it down to the bottom of the stairway, the moonlight through a window in the eaves helping her up until that point. But here in the narrow dark corridor she needed to search for the nipple of a light switch, stumbling into a low table in the process. Which apart from hurting her knee did turn out to be supporting a large lamp. She felt her way up the base until she found the toggle, turned it on. She recognized where she was. The kitchen lay ahead of her then through there to the conservatory where she and Sal had taken tea on their first visit. It was also at this point she remembered Quentin owned a large dog.

  She played with the handle of the kitchen door without opening it, waited for a bark or a growl but none came. She eased the door slightly ajar, inserted her hand, felt up and down the wall on the other side, until she found the dimmer knob, turned it up. The dog basket was empty. The hound must be sleeping with its master.

  She found a plate of cold cuts and cheeses in the fridge, added butter, crackers and a glass of milk to a tray then took it through to the moonlit conservatory. She moved across to one of the sofas, turned on a table lamp, started to work on her post-midnight feast. Once she had satisfied her hunger, she took up her glass of milk, walked over to the wall of windows. The moon and stars had clouded over, there was not much to be seen, she could hardly even make out the swimming pool. A slight movement in the glass distracted her. She realised she was looking at Quentin’s reflection.

  ‘It seems I have disturbed you again,’ he said quietly.

  She didn’t turn round, just watched on as he stepped up close beside her, almost shoulder to shoulder.

  ‘I couldn’t sleep,’ she said, addressing his image in the glass. He wore a blue silk dressing-gown, his hair was slightly mussed which seemed so out of character for him. ‘Same?’

  ‘I’m something of a night person,’ he confessed. ‘It’s not unusual for me to be wandering around at this hour.’

  ‘I hope you don’t mind, but I helped myself to something out of the fridge.’

  Mi casa es su casa.’

  ‘I appreciate that.’

  She felt that he had inched even closer to her, she wasn’t sure. Then moonlight broke through the clouds and she saw that the swimming pool had been drained. She shivered at the sight of it.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Quentin asked, briefly touching her forearm.

  ‘I have a phobia about empty swimming pools,’ she said. ‘I don’t know why. It must come from some suppressed childhood memory.’

  ‘There were some cracks in the tiles,’ he said. ‘I had to drain it. I don’t use it much anyway these days.’

  She felt rooted to her spot. Even with this view of the empty pool, she couldn’t pull away. It was as if Quentin – or at least his reflection – had hypnotized her.

  ‘I love this garden,’ he said eventually. ‘Georgie moved into her nature photography phase not long after she came to live here.’

  ‘I noticed all those close-up prints of flowers up in her study. I’d never seen any of those before.’

  ‘It was the portraits that made her famous, of course. But it was nature rather than people that fascinated her in the end. I used to follow her around the garden helping carry her equipment. I would have been five or six at the time.’

  ‘You must have many wonderful memories of her.’

  ‘You can’t see it from here in the dark. But there is a small orchard over there to the left. That is where she died.’

  ‘I only know she passed away at home. What happened exactly?’

  ‘She loved to pick the apples,’ he said. ‘She had her own small step-ladder. Even in her eighties, nothing could stop her from getting up on it and foraging among the branches. I discovered her lying on the ground at the foot of one of the trees. No life in her at all.’

  ‘That must have been quite traumatic for you.’

  ‘Traumatic indeed. But for Georgie, it was a good way to die. Quickly. In the garden she loved. My mother was devastated though. Are your parents still alive, Laura?’

  ‘They both are. My father unfortunately has latter-stage dementia. He is in a home now, doesn’t know who I am.’

  ‘How awful for you. And for him too, of course. Your mother?’

  ‘Oh, she’s having the time of her life. She’s become one of these cruise junkies. Just loves to hop from one ship to the next. I hardly ever see her these days. But then again I very rarely did.’

  ‘Ah yes, parents,’ Quentin sighed. ‘I never knew my father at all. He left almost as soon as I was born.’

  ‘Your mother lived to a ripe old age though.’

  ‘She was also in her eighties when she passed.’

  Laura suddenly felt very cold. And very tired. ‘I think I’ll go back to bed,’ she said. But as she turned away from the window, Quentin caught her by the arm.

  ‘I know you don’t like me very much,’ he said.

  The question startled her but she quickly regained her composure. ‘Why do you think that?’

  ‘I have an instinct for such things. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. What’s important is that we have a good professional relationship. I was impressed by the work you did for my play. And I’m sure you’ll do a good job with Georgie.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I also hope that as time progresses, you might begin to think more kindly towards me. After all, my only interest is in protecting Georgie.’

  ‘I can see that.’ Although protecting Georgie from what, she wasn’t sure.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  The Hepburn Archives

  Extract from an unpublished memoir

  I remember I was filling in my daily logbook in the hut at the White Waltham base where we female pilots used to change in and out of our uniforms. I had just flown down from somewhere up north in one of the brand-new Spits and I was feeling as high as a kite. Perhaps we wouldn’t have
described it in such a way back then but there was a kind of sexual ecstasy experienced from flying one of these planes. The control, the speed, the manoeuvrability, the power, the thrum and thrust of the engine, the sensitivity of the throttle, the potential (one denied we women pilots) to shoot another aircraft out of the sky. To put it simply – and I can say this now – it was like having a bloody orgasm flying one of those things. So there I was, all flushed and buzzing, finding it difficult to keep my pen focused on the narrow lines and little boxes to be filled in when I looked up and there was Doug Mitchell standing in the doorway. It had been three days since I had given the film director my letter for Max so it was with a little bit of a disappointment that it was Doug who was blocking out my light and not my ex-lover.

  ‘Busy?’ he asked with the same ease as if it were my own senior commander standing there putting the question.

  ‘Boring paperwork.’

  ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘Please enter,’ I said, surprised by his reticence then remembering the Women Only sign on the door.

  He was dressed casually in a sports jacket and open shirt collar, something manly and slightly predatory about him which made me both excited and wary at the same time. Although having just jumped down off a Spit, any male, even Old Tom our mechanic, would probably have had the same effect. ‘I didn’t think I’d see you again,’ I said, all primed up for a bit of banter until I picked up that Doug’s mood was sombre. ‘Did you see Max?’ I asked.

  He shook his head, then moved in a bit closer to where I sat. ‘It’s bad news, I’m afraid.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Although I knew perfectly well what he meant. How many times had a person heard that phrase – it’s bad news, I’m afraid – over the course of the war?

  Doug came and sat down beside me, placed his hand over my hand, the one that held the pen. I had a desperate desire to continue filling in my logbook, I was annoyed Doug’s clasp was stopping me. ‘Georgie,’ he said softly. ‘A bombing raid. Only a few days ago. I’m sorry.’