A Fire Sparkling

by MacLean, Julianne

  “Go back inside, sir. Vivian is coming with me.”

  “Like hell she is.” He pushed Theodore, who retaliated by shoving her father forcibly up against the wall and pressing a forearm to his throat.

  “Now see here, Mr. Hughes,” he said in a cool, tempered voice. “Your daughter has had enough of your abuse, and she is putting a stop to it today. If you ever raise a hand to her again, I will come back here personally and rip you apart. Do you understand?”

  Her father could only nod his head in agreement because of Theodore’s arm across his throat.

  Theodore stepped back, picked up Vivian’s suitcase, and escorted her down the stairs and into the car.

  “Go now, Jackson,” he said to his driver.

  As they pulled away, Vivian breathed a sigh of relief, then glanced back and wondered if she would miss anything about this neighborhood and the wine shop.

  No. She would not, for there had been nothing but fear and loneliness here. She regretted not leaving sooner with her sister. Vivian had tried to convince herself that she’d been the self-sacrificing and responsible one, but maybe she had simply been afraid to leap into the unknown. She’d always played it safe. At least until today.

  Vivian closed her eyes and took a deep, calming breath, but when they reached the intersection, she realized she’d forgotten something. “Wait—is it possible to bring my bicycle?”

  Theodore seemed unshaken, undaunted. “Of course. Where is it?”

  “Back at the shop. Outside on the street.”

  He sat forward. “Jackson, turn around, please.”

  “Yes, sir. Right away.”

  A moment later, they pulled up to the curb in front of the shop, and Theodore got out. “Which one is it?” he asked, looking at two identical bikes that leaned against the outer brick wall of the building.

  Vivian pointed. “That one. The other belongs to my sister.”

  He glanced back at her. “You have a sister?”

  “Yes, but she’s in France, singing in a nightclub.”

  He considered that for a moment. “Perhaps we should bring them both. Keep them together?”

  Vivian nodded.

  He picked up her bicycle and carried it around to the boot while Jackson got out and helped with the other.

  Soon, they were on their way again, motoring down the street toward the Tower Bridge.

  “Thank you so much,” Vivian said breathlessly, not wanting to look back again. “I feel like you’ve saved my life.”

  “No thanks are necessary,” Theodore replied. “I’m pleased to have been of service.”

  He reached for her hand, and she squeezed his tightly before she realized the impropriety of touching the man who was now her employer.

  Although she was grateful for what he had done, another part of her was disappointed that she could no longer be the glamorous singer he had met that first night at the Savoy. He knew too much about her now—he knew the real Vivian—and it was important that she remember her place when she arrived at the ministry to start work in the morning.

  Forcing herself to let go of Theodore’s hand, she turned her face away and looked out the window toward the West End.

  CHAPTER SIX

  2011

  “So that’s how you met him,” Dad said when Gram paused and stopped talking for a moment.

  I had the distinct feeling that she was lost in a memory—perhaps something she hadn’t told us about yet.

  “Yes,” she finally replied. “I wanted you to know that it was real. That Theodore was a good man—a wonderful man—and it was true love. It was a beautiful love story, and it deserves to be told. It shouldn’t be buried.”

  “Then how could you be with someone else?” Dad asked. “Because to me, those pictures of you and the Nazi look like true love.”

  “Dad,” I interjected, scolding him a little. “Give her a chance. She hasn’t finished telling us the whole story yet.”

  The phone rang just then, and he stood up to answer it.

  “Don’t be too hard on him,” Gram said. “He’s upset, and I understand. It’s not every day you wake up and suspect that your mother was in love with a German Nazi.”

  My face sank into a frown. “But were you? Is it true? And if it is, how could that be possible when . . .”

  The words skidded to a halt on my lips when Dad hung up the phone and returned to the living room. “It was the nursing home,” he said to Gram. “They’re wondering if you can play for a Christmas party for family members next month. It’s on the fifteenth.”

  “Probably,” she replied. “We don’t have anything else planned that day, do we?”

  “Not that I can think of.” He sat down and slouched back on the sofa with a heavy sigh of regret. “I’m sorry, Mom. I shouldn’t be so quick to judge you. You were right before. I don’t know what it was like back then. I want to hear more. Will you keep going?”

  I turned to Gram, eager to listen to the rest of her story, but she turned away from us. “I think . . . maybe I need to take a nap.”

  “A nap?” Dad and I said in unison.

  “I just realized I missed my nap today. And the gin makes me sleepy.” She rose from her chair and headed upstairs.

  As soon as she was gone, I whispered to Dad, “We shouldn’t have given her a second one.”

  “It’s been a long day for her,” he said. “But she’ll be back down later. She’s always been a night owl.”

  Tipping my head back, I thought about everything she’d told us so far. “I never knew she had an abusive father,” I said to Dad. “Did you?”

  He nodded. “I did, actually. She mentioned it once when I was in high school and Jack grounded me for something . . . I forget what. When I complained about the punishment, she told me how lucky I was to have a father who didn’t use his fists to teach me a lesson, because that’s what her father used to do. She said he was a drinker, but that’s all she would tell me about it. I had no idea it was that bad, that he actually tried to choke her. That he might have killed her if she hadn’t left when she did.”

  “Poor Gram. It’s lucky that she met Theodore, just at the right time.”

  Knowing it would be at least an hour before she woke from her nap, I decided to make myself useful and put the drinks away. “It’s five o’clock,” I said as I carried the tray to the kitchen. “How about I make up some supper? Gram will probably be hungry when she wakes up.”

  “That sounds good. Do you need any help?”

  “No, I’ve got it. I want to keep busy. It’ll help take my mind off you-know-what.” I was referring to Malcolm’s infidelity, of course, and Dad understood that. But when I reached the kitchen, it was impossible not to think about what had happened, to replay it over and over in my mind—Malcolm sitting in the front row of the private theater, having sex with another woman. The shock of it hadn’t left me, and I squeezed my eyes shut to try and purge it from my brain.

  It was hopeless. The image stayed with me while I hunted around the kitchen for ingredients to make a casserole. I found some pasta in the cupboard and started cooking it on the stove.

  While I stood at the counter chopping leftover chicken, I felt like such a fool for trusting Malcolm so completely. I’d leaped into the relationship without the slightest hesitation, believing that I’d hit the jackpot with a man like him. But how could I have missed that cheating side of him? Was there something wrong with me?

  What a stupid question. Of course there was.

  I froze and set the knife down, bowed my head, and closed my eyes to brace myself for the familiar wave of guilt that was about to hit me. I was well acquainted with it by now and could always feel it approaching. I could expect it to crash over me with a pounding force and make me relive the night of my mother’s death and accept the punishing weight of that memory, because no one should be allowed to get away with something like that and not pay for it somehow. Right?

  I had been only nineteen when my mother died, and though e
veryone said it was the cancer treatments that killed her, I knew it was my fault.

  I’d been left home alone with her in the apartment one night while Dad went to work to catch up on what he’d missed that day when he took Mom to the hospital for her chemo. I ran a bath for her, hoping to steal an hour or two to study for a midterm the following day.

  While I sat at my desk with my headphones on, I was grateful for every undisturbed minute that ticked by on the clock. Soon, my father would be home to care for my mom, and I’d be free to go and join my friends at the library.

  Regret, like poisonous acid, coursed through my veins, because I’d been so selfish that night, so ignorant and unaware of what was most important.

  When Dad arrived home from work and asked how Mom was doing, I explained that she was in the tub, but then it occurred to me that the water must have grown cold by then. It had been well over an hour since I ran the bath. He asked how long she’d been in there, and when I told him, he ran to check on her. I heard him knocking and calling to her, but she didn’t respond. He began pounding on the door, begging her to open it, but still there was no response. By that time, I was standing in the hall, praying she’d say something. Anything.

  My father had to break down the bathroom door. He shoved his shoulder up against it numerous times, over and over, then finally kicked it in with his boot.

  There she lay, my darling mother, beneath the water’s surface, her body ghostly white. A deep, soul-crushing agony had erupted within me, and I collapsed in front of the bathtub, screaming, as if I’d been plunged into a fiery pit and my body was going up in flames.

  My dad pulled my mother out of the water and ran to call an ambulance, but it was too late. When he came back into the room, I was crying over her, rocking her back and forth in my arms, saying, “Mom, please wake up.” My father stood with his back against the wall, watching and weeping until the paramedics came and had to pry me away from her so that they could take her away.

  Before that night, I’d never seen my father cry before, and I haven’t seen him so much as tear up since.

  Afterward, the doctors reasoned that Mom had lost consciousness in the bath and drowned. We knew it couldn’t have been intentional. She loved us too much, and she wasn’t depressed. When it came to the cancer, she was a fighter.

  I was pulled back to the present when I heard Gram say, “I couldn’t sleep” to my father in the living room. Then I realized the pot of pasta was boiling over on the stove. I quickly removed it from the burner and turned down the heat.

  Dad walked into the kitchen. “She’s up. I’m going to make her a cup of tea.”

  I tried to hide the fact that I had just relived Mom’s death and was still shaken from it. “This will be ready in no time,” I said. “I just need to toss a few things into the casserole dish and cook it in the oven for a bit.”

  He moved past me to fill the kettle.

  By the time Gram finished her tea, the casserole was ready, and we all sat down to eat. But none of us ate very much. We were too distracted by the next part of Gram’s story, which she continued as soon as she sat down.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  August 1939

  Throughout the summer, Vivian proved herself to be a conscientious member of the staff at the Ministry of Supply. She worked in the accounts department, which meant that Theodore rarely saw her, but sometimes he encountered her sitting on a bench outside in Victoria Embankment Gardens, eating a sandwich. Whenever he spotted her, even from a distance, he always approached to say hello.

  As the weeks wore on, it happened more frequently, but it was no coincidence because Vivian had told him that she always sat there at noon, on the same bench, to eat her lunch. From that day forward, Theodore took his own lunch break at the same time and ventured out to the gardens, where he was pleased to find Vivian sitting in the sunshine.

  They talked of many things during those friendly encounters among the flower beds, monuments, and pigeons. Vivian told him about her new life in the West End and the close friendships she’d formed with her flatmates. She had not traveled home to visit her father since the day Theodore had arrived with the job offer, and she was relieved that he had not come looking for her to drag her back to the wine shop. Sometimes she felt a twinge of guilt about staying away, but then she thought of all the nights he had gotten drunk and beaten her, and she had no regrets.

  “I feel very optimistic about the future,” she said one afternoon as she bit into an apple.

  Theodore looked away, because he couldn’t bring himself to spoil her mood by telling her that Hitler and the Soviets had just formed an agreement—a pact of nonaggression toward each other in the event of an invasion of Poland.

  Prime Minister Chamberlain had responded by informing Hitler that Britain would honor its obligations to defend Poland if her independence were threatened. War seemed almost certainly imminent.

  Nevertheless, while Theodore sat under the clear blue sky with Vivian, eating his roast beef sandwich and tossing crumbs to cooing pigeons, he was somehow able to forget about the dark realities of the world. The breeze sang like a song in the treetops, and the flowers sent a sublime perfume into the air. He, too, felt nothing but optimism. How strange, considering what was going on in the world.

  Vivian smiled at him and tapped his arm. “I have news. It’s quite exciting, actually. I’ve been asked to sing at the Café de Paris next Wednesday.”

  Theodore’s head drew back. “You don’t say.”

  “Can you believe it? I’ve never even set foot in the place, but I always dreamed of singing there. You should come. I’ll be nervous.”

  “There’s no reason to be. They’ll love you.”

  “I hope so.”

  He checked his pocket watch and realized he was late for a meeting. “I’m so sorry, but I have to go.”

  “Will you come and hear me sing on Wednesday?” she asked.

  “I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he replied, feeling a profound sense of eagerness that was positively electrifying.

  With its glittering crystal chandelier over the dance floor and deeply buttoned leather upholstery in the circular booths, the Café de Paris was the most exclusive and sultry nightclub in London. A second-level balcony overlooked the stage where the band performed, and the dress code required formal evening wear. The guests were the social cream of the crop. There were beautiful women in every direction.

  Theodore should have known he would encounter his brother, Henry, in such a place. It was a Friday night, after all, and with all the stressful talk of war, the champagne was flowing faster than ever.

  “Look who it is. My baby brother.” Henry slid into the booth, forcing Theodore to crowd up against the others at the white-clothed table. Henry set down his Scotch glass and rested his arm along the back of the leather seat, lounging back lazily. “What are you doing here, Theo? I didn’t think you knew how to escape your desk and leave the office behind. How goes the war effort? Are we winning yet?”

  Theodore could see no humor in his brother’s cavalier attitude, nor could anyone else at the table, for they were highly respected cabinet ministers with their wives. They knew the situation was dire.

  “We are not at war, Henry. At least not yet.”

  Henry withdrew a gold-plated cigarette box from his breast pocket and struck a match. “I bloody well know we aren’t at war. I’m just teasing you. You never could take a joke.”

  Theodore glanced apologetically at the gentlemen sitting across from him, for they all knew of Henry’s reputation as a cad and a ne’er-do-well. But he was heir to an earldom, so he could get away with anything.

  When Vivian began to sing “The Way You Look Tonight,” the others at the table got up to dance, which left Theodore behind to sit alone with Henry.

  “She’s something else, isn’t she?” Henry said, taking a deep drag from his cigarette. “Where in the world did she come from? Why haven’t I seen her before?”

  Theodore�
��s insides coiled into a knot. “She’s new,” he replied, with no intention of revealing any further information about her, because Henry might latch onto it and use it somehow to twist a knife, for their rivalry was bone deep. It wasn’t the title, of course—Theodore was fulfilled in his work and in his place in the world—but Henry was not. He resented Theodore for being the favorite son.

  Vivian stepped forward and wrapped her hand around the microphone. The stage lights reflected off her shiny red nail polish and sparkling lipstick. Theodore was enraptured, and at the same time, he loathed the idea of his brother sharing in that rapture.

  Someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned abruptly in the seat, as if ripped out of a dream.

  “I thought it was you. What a surprise.” Lady Clara squeezed his shoulder and slid into the booth on the opposite side, across from him. “Hello, Henry,” she said, setting down her champagne glass and tapping cigarette ashes into the crystal ashtray. “I’m not surprised to see you here. You’re a fixture in these places.”

  Henry merely shrugged.

  “Theodore, I’m very angry with you,” she said. “Why haven’t you come to visit me in London? The summer is practically over, and my mother won’t stop asking about you. I believe she might have a crush.” She raised a delicately arched eyebrow and smiled at him teasingly.

  Theodore chuckled softly. “You know I adore your mother.”

  “Yes,” Clara replied. “Both our mothers are like a couple of schoolgirls when they get together, aren’t they?” She tapped her cigarette again. “Did you know they used to sneak out of the house when they were girls, whenever our grandparents had parties and were probably too drunk to realize what their daughters were up to? My darling mama confessed this to me, just the other day. She told me that she and your mother went skinny-dipping once, at four in the morning, when they were barely fifteen. What do you think of that?”

  Henry threw his head back and laughed. “Good God! I wish I’d known that years ago. I could have used it against her every time she made a fuss when I staggered home at dawn.” He snuffed out what remained of his cigarette.