At the Dark Hour

by John Wilson

  Yours faithfully,

  Betty Sharples.

  Jones finished reading the letter and then read it through twice more. He stared at his frosted glass window and the blurred mauve shape of Sonia moving around beyond it. He got up and walked over to his window, looked down on the damaged streets and thought of this woman whom he had only seen once, wearing her best dress and wandering lost around the echoing cathedral that was the main hall of the Royal Courts because he hadn’t told her not to come.

  After a long while he returned to his desk and slumped down in his chair. He picked up the letter for a fourth time and read it through again. He could not simply dictate a reply to it; he would have to write out his response long-hand for Sonia to type. He read it through again and his eyes snagged on the reference to “Mr Falling’s case”. Why would she refer to Adam so formally? “I had to let somebody know”. Why not contact Adam to find out what had happened? There was nothing to suggest that she had done so. Nor did it sound as though she would be willing to come to court again.

  He called Sonia through and asked her to get him a line through to Lamb Building and to Roland Blytheway.

  Chapter Seventy-two

  (Wednesday 19th March 1941)

  Storman was sitting at a small table in Gordon’s Wine Bar near Charing Cross. Under the cavernous arches of the Embankment all was dark, lit only by candles perched in bottles at every table. Their flickering lights threw up ghostly shadow-play on the old brick walls. It was early but already the place was filling up with the evening crowd. A bottle of red wine was open on the table. He lifted the glass to his lips and took a cautious sip. Not bad. The other glass was still empty, as was the seat opposite him. He felt an almost impious thrill, which he was quick to suppress. It was only half past five. He was trying to read the evening paper through the gloom but it was not easy; at least he had brought something to read this time. He glanced again at his watch. He had only been there ten minutes.

  Catherine Falling was coming down the stairs. He knew that before she reached the bottom of them. He was beginning to recognise the sound of her footsteps. She walked into the room, her eyes narrowing as she adjusted to the darkness, and then she saw him, smiled and made her way over to the table. She had come straight from the office and was wearing a tidy two-piece cotton navy suit under a pink raincoat. She had a book in her right hand – Planning Under Socialism by Beveridge. Storman had never heard either of it or him. He stood to shake her hand but she gave him a warm hug instead and kissed him on the cheek.

  – Thank you so much for agreeing to meet with me, Jack.

  – Oh, it’s a pleasure. It’s always good to see you.

  They sat down and he began to pour out a glass for her.

  – A whole bottle? Are you expecting company?

  – Not at all. It just seemed like a good opportunity to try and forget the war for an hour or so.

  – Well, you’ll have to drink most of it. I get squiffy even after a glass. And I’m not sure I’ll be able to stay for an hour. I want to be home before it all starts up again. How’s Margaret?

  – Oh, very well … Actually, not so good … these raids are beginning to get to her. Last week was bloody. We were in and out of our shelter like yo-yos what with the warnings and then the “all clears” and then the warnings again. Our near neighbours got badly hit and two or three houses got burnt out. It’s affecting her nerves.

  – I’m very sorry. Please give her my best.

  – Of course. I can’t stay too long either – for the same reasons.

  They clinked glasses. Catherine seemed more assured even than last time – happier too. He hadn’t realised how beautiful she was and understood why she thought Adam “a bloody fool”.

  – I see that you’ve finished with that other book?

  – The Keynes? Oh no. I’m still only half way through it but it’s a bit much for the train. Everyone at the office seems to be reading this and so I borrowed a copy.

  – It doesn’t look very racy.

  – It’s not. But very interesting. All being well I think we’ll be hearing a lot more from Mr Beveridge.

  – So work’s going well?

  – Oh, very well. I’ve been promoted! I’m not tied to a typewriter anymore and they’re letting me make decisions.

  Storman was looking for the word that described her and it came to him: “liberated”. She seemed to have been liberated. He wondered whether she would go back to Adam now even if he wanted her to. It was as though her work had given her intellect a focus, as a magnifying glass intensifies sunlight. She had telephoned him at home the previous evening and left a message with Margaret. She needed to see him urgently.

  – I expect you want to know what’s going on with Adam’s trial?

  – I knew you’d realise. It’s just that when we met last month you told me that it would all be over by now. But I’ve seen nothing in the papers about it and I couldn’t believe it would pass without a single mention. What happened?

  – It hasn’t happened yet.

  – What!? What do you mean it hasn’t happened yet? I’m sure you told me that it would happen last week. That by now it would all be over?

  Storman felt his shoulders slump. The story had been so hot as it swirled around the Temple that he had just assumed everyone would know. He had forgotten that Catherine had severed contact with that world, with Adam, and would have had no way of knowing. He hadn’t thought to contact her about it. There were so many small worlds in London spinning around in ignorance of one another. He put his head in his hands.

  – What’s happened Jack?

  – I’m sorry. I didn’t think. I just thought that you would know about it.

  – About what?

  – Did you know that the Café de Paris was bombed about ten days ago?

  – Yes, of course. Everyone knows about that. What’s that got to do with anything?

  – Pemberton’s daughter – Jenny – was there. I’m afraid she was killed outright.

  There was a long silence. Storman took his hands away from his face and looked into Catherine’s eyes. She looked shocked and her mouth, in her pale features, was open in a little “o” of surprise as though she had lost the ability to speak. Candle-shadows flickered like wraiths across her face. When she picked up her glass her hand was shaking. She downed it in one and gestured for it to be refilled. Her voice when she spoke was very quiet:

  – She was at that party wasn’t she? She was very young …

  – It happened just before the trial was due to start. It couldn’t go on. Everyone was devastated. And Pemberton’s gone back on the drink.

  – What do you mean “back on the drink”? I didn’t know he had ever been a drinker.

  – It was before you knew him. When his first wife died. He was notorious for a few years before Julia came along.

  – Bloody Preston!

  Catherine was suddenly loud and vehement.

  – He was the one who was saying that it was the safest place in London! Bloody, bloody man!

  Storman cleared his throat.

  – And I’m afraid there’s another problem.

  – Another?

  – I’m afraid Adam is ill again. He collapsed during the same air raid. More bleeding from the lungs.

  – Is he all right?

  – He’ll be fine. Blytheway has taken him under his wing.

  – What a bloody mess! Is there any chance that Pemberton will stop all this?

  – Quite the reverse I’m afraid. Julia has moved out.

  The bottle was more than half drunk. It was quarter past six now and the place was filling up with people and noise. Storman poured out some more and they clinked glasses in silence and tipped back a little more wine.

  – Jack?

  – Yes.

  – It’s about Deborah. I’m really not happy about her being out in Edenbridge. I want to bring her back to London.

  – Catherine! We’ve just been talking about Jenn
y! It would be madness.

  – I’m not happy Jack. It’s her letters. They’re so long and her writing has deteriorated. It’s more of a scrawl. That’s not like Deborah. I know something’s not right.

  – Wait until Easter. This is no place for her now.

  Catherine reluctantly subsided. She was getting ready to leave. She spoke as she rose to her feet.

  – So what’s going to happen to this trial?

  – It’s being rearranged. So is the McKechnie case. It looks as if it’s going to happen on the 5th May. The other one will apparently start on 28th April. So it looks as though Pemberton wasn’t able to get finished by Easter after all.

  Chapter Seventy-three

  (Friday 21st March 1941)

  Julia stood looking out of her new window. The evening sun turned her into a silhouette: elegant and stylish. The light was beginning to fade but she wanted to see the square properly for the first time. She had moved to Mecklenburg Square near to the heart of Bloomsbury. Buds of spring were beginning to green the central garden although many of the surrounding buildings had been crushed and cratered. A heavy dust hung in the air. Annie and Julia’s friend Antonia had helped her to ferry her belongings across from Eaton Square. Annie told her she would look after her room until she came back.

  She had not taken much and now it had been largely tidied away. Only one thing remained to be sorted out. She held Jenny’s diary in her hands. The leather-bound book felt smooth and comforting. Julia turned the key in its lock and ran her fingers over the creamy smoothness of the flyleaf, where she saw in Jenny’s hand:

  “Please don’t read the contents of my journal. It is very private!”

  She let the pages riffle through her fingers from the first to the last and individual words hit her retinas, shorn of context, as Jenny’s inner life flickered past on paper: “sad …happy … cross … sad … unfair … cross … love … love … love …”

  Julia turned from the window and closed her eyes, wiping away little traces of tears. Her shoulders sagged and she made her way to the armchair that came with the apartment. She closed the diary, locked it and placed it in her lap, looking again at her new surroundings. The furniture was ugly and makeshift but she had shared access to a cellar in the event of any bombings. It had also been cheap.

  There was a reason for this. Caught in the inaccurate cross-hairs that targeted Kings Cross, Euston and Waterloo stations, Holborn area had been subject to appalling damage. Julia had moved into the most dangerous part of central London. Buildings had been turned inside out and gaped. Everywhere there were lines of men in uniform wearing hard hats passing endless wicker baskets of rubble away from the damage. Cranes with metal buckets were swinging through the sky around broken buildings. Signs set down in the roads warned of danger from escaping gas and unexploded bombs. Some houses and shops had disappeared altogether leaving only a mess of footings and debris. There were vast gaps, and from time to time an occasional building would be standing untouched in the middle of the devastation.

  Jenny’s name had been embossed in gold on the cover of the diary. She was holding the inner life of someone who no longer lived. The hopes and expectations it contained would never be fulfilled. And scattered through its pages she knew there were crosses added in by Jenny in her innocent conspiracy with her step-mother.

  She took it through and, unlocking the drawer in her escritoire that held her private papers, she slipped it in with them and then locked the drawer again, placing the key in her pocket. It was time for her to leave.

  Locking the front door behind her she walked off towards Rosebery Avenue. It had no longer been feasible for her to continue her war work in the Westminster Report Centre and, through contacts, she had been able to procure a similar position with the Metropolitan Water Board. They too needed to chart the fall of the bombs, although their primary concern was with maintaining the water supply rather than the immediate protection of human life. Some volunteers had died and others had left under the ferocity of the onslaught upon central London, so that her offer to assist was gratefully accepted.

  Walking to Mount Pleasant and looking at all the destruction as she passed, she thought back to the day of the funeral. The cortege had finally arrived back at Eaton Square where a modest wake had been arranged. It was very clear that Julia was not welcome and that Simon was merely being tolerated. She had only the briefest conversations with her children before they were whisked away and sent back to the country. They were all that was left now of Jeremy’s flesh and blood, and he intended to keep them for himself. Pemberton, who had abjured drink for the whole time she had known him, had ensured that there were three large bottles of whisky standing on the tray next to the obligatory sherry. He had immediately opened the first of these, poured himself a large glass and knocked it back in one before refilling it. He was also smoking.

  At a convenient moment she had excused herself and, looking towards Simon Jenkins, indicated with her eyes that he should follow her. This he gladly did, limping awkwardly towards her, with the heel of his crutch rasping along the parquet flooring. They exited the house and Julia hailed a cab to take them back to Westminster Hospital. Neither of them spoke during the journey or on the difficult route back up to his hospital bed. Julia had so many questions in her mind about Jenny, about her letters, but something inside her held her back from asking.

  They had said their goodbyes. She did not know whether she would ever see him again. As he subsided into his blankets she hovered over him, and once again kissed him on the forehead.

  – I’m so sorry, Simon.

  And then she turned and left, her high heels clicking on the marble floor.

  She had reached New River House now and walked into the Water Board. When she had told Antonia that she was leaving Eaton Square and moving to Bloomsbury, Antonia had told her she was mad. Why would anyone want to go somewhere so dangerous?

  Julia had simply shrugged her shoulders. Perhaps it was guilt and shame at her reaction to Jenny’s death? Perhaps it was the sense of a certainty, now, that she would never see her children again in the same way, in which case whether she lived or died scarcely mattered anymore. But whilst both these things were true, she knew that, at bottom, she wanted to be near the Temple. There were other things she wanted; but when one is forced by circumstance into a world of deception, one can also end up deceiving oneself just to keep safe that underlying lie. Sometimes these lies might last a lifetime.

  Chapter Seventy-four

  (Saturday 22nd March 1941)

  The blackout screens were down and a three-bar electric fire glowed in the corner of his bedroom. Tiny lamps gave the room a subdued glow. Half-sitting, half-lying in an armchair, Adam was breathing heavily as he struggled to pull on his black-tie trousers. When finally he had them up round his waist he paused for a few moments before buttoning them up. Eventually he struggled to his feet; a giddy sensation made him sway. In the full-length mirror his chest was pale and hollow under his vest and the trousers drooped, puckering out around the front buttons. He saw, in the reflection behind him, the peacock colours of the silk pyjamas that Roly had lent him lying in a mess across his bed.

  Caldwell had put some braces on his dressing table and so he fixed them, somewhat awkwardly, into the trouser buttons until they hung properly. He pulled a freshly ironed dress shirt out of the wardrobe and wrestled the studs through the buttonholes. He fixed the black bow-tie and pulled on his jacket, slipping a white kerchief into the breast pocket, then smoothed down his hair. This was to be the first time he had been down for dinner since arriving. Prior to this all meals had been brought to him in bed by Caldwell. A farewell dinner. Blytheway had assured him that he could stay in Bedford Square as long as he wanted to, but Adam was anxious to return to Dr Johnson’s Buildings.

  – If I didn’t know you better I would be affronted at your choice of accommodation!

  – Oh, Roly! Don’t get me wrong. I’ve loved being here. And you’ve been very k
ind and generous. I just think I should be nearer to Chambers.

  – Nonsense! And anyway I had your diary cleared.

  – You did what!?

  – You’re in no fit state. The doctor said three weeks at least.

  – When did you do that?

  – Immediately after your arrival.

  – But you didn’t say anything to me!

  – If I told you everything, sweetheart, I would never stop talking. If I were at the Board of Trade I would ration pointless conversations.

  Adam had thought that rather rich.

  – I still feel I ought to go back.

  – It’s quite a while now since there have been any services in the church.

  – I know that, Roly.

  – Very well. I’ll let you have one of our electric fires. And will you agree to leave your cat behind?

  – Delia? I thought you didn’t like cats? – Blytheway had insisted that Delia be kept in Caldwell’s rooms.

  – I don’t. Cat hair gets everywhere. However, Caldwell has taken quite a shine to it and he can keep it in his quarters. He’s even suggested putting in a cat-flap so that it can play around in our vegetable patch. You’ll get it back, I promise.

  – I suppose Delia would be happier here.

  – Even a cat shouldn’t be kept cooped up all day. And besides, you are going to be very busy in the coming weeks.

  And so Blytheway accepted Adam’s decision to return to the Temple and Adam agreed to leave Delia behind.

  There was a knock on the door and Caldwell slipped in to announce that there would be drinks in the Salon in fifteen minutes. Adam thanked him and he withdrew, closing the door behind him. He heard the butler limping down the stairs.