by Erica James
‘Simpatty what?’
‘Not compatible. We’re two very different people and I’m absolutely of the opinion we wouldn’t get the best out of each other.’
‘Now Romily, honey, are you sure you gave Red a chance to prove himself?’
‘I don’t think for one second Mr St Clair needs any encouragement to prove himself.’
Gabe guffawed. ‘Are you saying he tried it on with you, Romily?’
‘Certainly not! And had he done so I would most assuredly have put him in his place.’
Gabe let rip with another guffaw. ‘I don’t doubt that you would have! You’re one scary dame when you want to be.’
‘What on earth do you mean?’
‘Ah, c’mon, you know jolly well what I’m saying. Now look, get down from your uppity high-horse and give the guy a break; he’s a war hero, you know. He’s not some nobody with straw behind his ears. Sit down together and—’
‘We’ve already tried that over lunch today.’
‘So what the hell went wrong? Did he use the wrong cutlery or something?’
‘Gabe, are you trying to imply that I’m a shallow snob?’
‘Well, you Brits get pretty hung up on all that etiquette stuff, don’t you?’
‘I’d like to think I’m above such things.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. Now do me a favour and meet with Red tomorrow. Loosen your stays and go have some fun together. And bear in mind the old cliché, Romily.’
Every ounce of her body fizzing with indignation, she said, ‘Which would be what exactly?’
‘Honey, even you, with your will of iron, must accept the most obvious goddamn cliché in the book, that opposites attract. Ciao for now!’
Very carefully Romily put down the receiver, resisting the urge to hurl the wretched device across the room.
Within seconds the telephone rang again. ‘Yes,’ she snapped, ‘was there something else with which you wanted to harangue me?’
‘Not as far as I’m aware.’
‘Who is this?’ she asked, thrown off guard.
‘It’s me, Red. Have I caught you at a bad time? Or is it always a bad time for you?’
Romily inwardly groaned. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘I thought you were somebody else.’
‘Whoever it was, I wish him luck when he does call you. Do you give all the men in your life a hard time?’
‘Why do you think I was expecting a man to be at the other end of the line?’
‘Just a wild guess on my part. So, do you?’
‘Do I what precisely?’
‘Give the men in your life a hard time?’
‘Only the ones who go the extra mile to annoy me.’
‘In that case, how am I doing?’
Recalling Gabe’s request for her to be nice, she said, ‘Barely registering.’
‘Gee, I’m hurt.’
‘Did you ring for something specific, or was this just a social call?’
‘I was wondering if you’d reached a decision about our working together.’
‘I’d like to sleep on it,’ she said. Another prevaricating lie. Why didn’t she just get it over with and flatly refuse to consider the project any further?
‘Look, I know I’m as pushy as hell and as subtle as a typhoon, but I have to tell you, I have a good feeling about a collaboration between us.’
She suddenly thought of his words at lunchtime – If in doubt, do it. It was exactly the kind of thing she would normally say. And hadn’t she always enjoyed the challenge of deliberately flouting convention and doing something for the sheer hell of it?
Just as she couldn’t recall the last occasion when she’d truly laughed and had disgraceful fun, she tried to remember when she had done anything for the sheer devil-may-care hell of it. Drawing a blank, she recoiled at the awful conclusion that somewhere along the line she had become an anathema to herself – boringly conventional. Where had her spirit of adventure gone?
‘Red,’ she said on impulse, ‘do you have plans for the rest of the evening?’
‘A whole ton of nothing. Why?’
‘I’d like to experience the desert at night while I’m here.’
‘With me?’
‘Yes. If it wouldn’t be too much trouble.’
‘No trouble at all. I can’t think of anything I’d like better: you, me and the desert stars.’
Chapter Twelve
Palm Springs
October 1962
Red
It was a hell of thing. This being with a woman who intrigued him the way she did.
To his bemusement Red hadn’t felt like this in a heck of a time. He could not have felt himself more precariously placed had he been carrying a large tray of glasses while walking a tightrope in a gusting wind. He suspected a lot of men had experienced the same reaction on meeting Romily Devereux-Temple for the first time.
Usually he didn’t give a damn what people thought of him, and nor did he usually have any trouble in persuading them to do what he wanted. But Romily was a whole different ball game. Which meant he had thrown his reliable rule-book out of the window for the simple reason he gave a huge damn about what she thought of him.
And that was based on three things.
Firstly, she was damned easy on the eye, a classy regal beauty who held herself tall and proud.
Secondly, when she’d removed her sunglasses during lunch today – the better to scrutinise him, he’d imagined – he’d been struck by the extraordinary violet hue of her irises.
And thirdly, what really piqued his interest was her blatant disdain for him. This was a new phenomenon for him, and he’d be damned if he didn’t rise to the challenge to win her round, to make her think well of him.
He had picked her up at Casa Santa Rosa half an hour after calling her, and had been gratified by her reaction to his Alfa Romeo. ‘A Giulietta Sprint convertible,’ she’d remarked, when he’d held the door open for her to get in. ‘I fancied one of these myself. Does she handle as well as I’ve heard?’
‘Like a dream. The clutch is as light and fluid as it comes and she holds the road like a barnacle clinging to the hull of a boat. You’re welcome to drive if you’d like?’
‘No, no, I’m happy to be a passenger.’
He’d sensed her politely doing her best not to watch as he’d eased himself stiffly into the driver’s seat. Her only comment was to observe how accommodating the car was for a man of his height. ‘It’s a damned miracle, given the build of your average Italian,’ he’d quipped, turning the key in the ignition and firing up the engine with a satisfying throaty roar.
He’d driven her along empty roads that were as familiar to him as any he knew, and out to his favourite spot in the desert. It was where few other people ventured. Most visitors to Palm Springs, particularly the ritzy crowd, didn’t go more than a few hundred yards from where they were staying, going only as far as the golf course and tennis courts, and the shops on the main strip, and the currently fashionable hotel bars, restaurants and nightspots. The artificial Palm Springs as he called it. They didn’t come to see the real desert by taking time to explore one of the many trails, either on foot or horseback, where they could enjoy a picnic beside a creek and breathe in the scent of wild tarragon. The thought of having a close encounter with a rattlesnake or scorpion put a stop to them experiencing the true majestic beauty of the mountains, where even in June there could be snow at the summit of Mount San Jacinto.
‘Do you trust me?’ he asked Romily when he brought the car to a halt on the side of a narrow dirt track, and switched the engine off, plunging them into sudden blackness.
‘It would appear I have no choice,’ she said, peering into the dark.
‘I promise no harm will come to you. If it does, Gabe and Melvyn will come for my scalp, and toss my carcas
s to the coyotes.’
‘Then we’d better do all we can to avoid that happening,’ she responded with a wry tone to her voice.
Out of the car, he popped open the trunk and retrieved a duffle bag and a folded travel rug. He then proceeded to light a kerosene lantern. ‘Are you bothered by snakes?’ he asked.
‘Not particularly.’
‘Good,’ he said with a laugh. ‘You can protect me from them.’
‘How about I carry something?’ she asked as he began slinging the duffle bag over his shoulder.
‘No need, I can manage.’
‘But it might be easier if I take something.’
He relinquished the rug to her and carrying the lantern, he led the way up a gentle, but rocky incline. ‘Watch out for the barrel cactus,’ he warned her, ‘their needles are lethal.’ As they climbed higher, he willed his leg with its new prosthetic to comply. Goddammit, he’d sooner gnaw off his good leg than admit he was in pain. A man has his pride, after all. And he was determined, at whatever cost, to make a good impression tonight.
He found his preferred spot in a semicircle of towering rocks that provided both shelter and warmth. With the sun beating down on the rocks all day, they acted as a great heat source at night.
He began assembling a campfire on the ashes of the last one he’d lit a few nights ago. Behind him, and in silence, Romily laid out the rug. When the first flames of the fire took hold, he joined her on the rug and waited for her to speak. It wasn’t in his nature to hold his tongue, but he was giving it his best shot in this instance. But then the desert had that effect on him, it slowed him down, gave him space to think.
The silence deepened between them. Staring towards the mountain, its shadowy broad outline just discernible against the dark sky, Red heard a rustling sound in the scrubby undergrowth. A lizard perhaps. Or maybe a scorpion.
‘I feel as though I can see every star in the galaxy,’ Romily murmured finally, her head tilted back as she took in the infinite sky above them.
‘Did you know the Milky Way contains about a hundred billion stars, give or take?’
‘No I didn’t.’
‘Now isn’t the best time to see it, spring is better. You should come again then.’
She said nothing.
‘I love being up here,’ he continued, his voice low. ‘I usually come alone. It’s where I come to get a fresh perspective. Especially if I’ve just spent any time in Hollywood. What’s your opinion of Tinsel Town?’
She sat up straighter, drew her knees in the cotton slacks she was wearing towards her chest. ‘It is what it is,’ she said, staring at him, her hands clasped around her knees. ‘It doesn’t pretend to be anything other than a brash carousel that never stops revolving.’
‘You like that in life, do you? Transparency?’
‘Yes. I can’t abide affectation, people pretending to be something they’re not.’
‘But isn’t the movie industry based on that? Nothing but lies and illusion?’
‘My ward Isabella is a young actress, and she tells me that to be a great actor, to get the most out of the part you’re playing, you have to be yourself and forget about acting.’
‘She’s a smart girl. It’s the same with writing. You and I both know that it’s got to be authentic, and from the heart, otherwise it’s a load of horse—’ he hastily checked himself, ‘a load of baloney.’
‘Horse shit will do just fine,’ she said, ‘no need to stand on ceremony with me.’
‘Strangely that’s exactly what I thought I had to do.’
She looked at him more intently in the flickering firelight, her eyes shining, her pale skin radiant with a roseate tint, a few strands of grey in her dark hair resembling threads of silver. ‘Is your leg troubling you?’ she asked.
Too late he realised that unconsciously he had been rubbing at the painful area where his stump and new artificial limb met. ‘It’s taking some getting used to,’ he said with a shrug. ‘It generally does.’
‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have imposed on you tonight.’
‘I could have said no.’
The corners of her mouth lifted. ‘I would hazard a guess that’s something you rarely do.’
He smiled. ‘Like I said at lunch, if in doubt, do it.’ He rummaged in the duffle bag next to him. ‘I brought you a sweater in case you got cold.’ He held it out for her and she took it.
‘Thank you,’ she said, draping it around her shoulders, ‘that was kind of you.’
He rummaged some more in the bag and pulled out a plastic tub and a bunch of wooden skewers. ‘Now here’s the most important question of the night – how do you like toasted marshmallows?’
She smiled. ‘I like them a lot.’
He went to move nearer the fire, but she held out a hand. ‘Why don’t you let me do it?’
He was smart enough to know that allowing Romily to be more than a bystander would go a long way to improving relations between them.
‘Tell me about yourself, Red,’ she said, when she had the marshmallows placed on the end of the sharp pointed wooden sticks and held them a short distance from the glowing embers of the fire.
‘What do you want to know?’
‘When did you develop an affinity with the desert here?’
He retrieved a bottle of bourbon from the duffle bag, along with two billy-cans.
‘During the war. The El Mirador Hotel was turned into a hospital – the Torrey Army Hospital – and that was where I was sent to recuperate after I’d had my leg amputated. Drink?’
She nodded. ‘That must have been a difficult time for you.’
He shook his head. ‘There were men worse off than me. I was one of the lucky ones, I was soon able to hobble around on crutches and used to get one of the orderlies to take me out in his time off. He was a local guy, a Native American who knew everything there was to know about the wildlife and local traditions that were so important to his people. He’d drive me here, and I’d go as far as I could on my crutches. Each day I came he’d teach me something new and I’d push myself that little bit further.’
‘You’re a determined fellow, then?’ She took one of the mugs from him and in exchange passed him one of the marshmallow sticks.
‘I’m as stubborn as hell,’ he said, ‘and some. As you’ve already found.’
‘You should know that I’m also as stubborn as hell.’
‘I already figured that.’
In the quiet that followed, and worried that the cooling air temperature might not agree with Romily, he added some tinder-dry twigs on the fire, together with some larger pieces of tree branches that he’d gathered and hoarded during previous visits.
‘I’m just a caveman at heart,’ he said when she commented how organised he was. ‘Or maybe I’m instinctively preparing for my own funeral pyre.’
‘What a strange thing to say.’
‘We’re all nothing but a heartbeat away from death. I have no problem accepting my life is finite. Who knows, it might be tomorrow for us all if Kennedy can’t stop the Soviets from plunging the world into a nuclear war.’
‘Some deaths you just never see coming,’ she said thoughtfully.
‘Yeah,’ he agreed. ‘Like Marilyn Monroe’s. When she died back in August, you’d have thought the world would stop turning such was the shock.’
‘Did you ever meet her?’
‘Sure, a few times.’
‘Was she as beautiful in real life as she was on the screen?’
He shrugged. ‘I guess.’
Romily raised an eyebrow. ‘You must be one of the few men in the world not to rave about her exceptional beauty.’
‘I am that rare man who prizes brains above beauty,’ he said with a smile. ‘Not that she was stupid. She wasn’t.’
‘The gossip columns would have us believ
e otherwise, that you prize beauty above all else.’
He laughed. ‘Have you been doing your homework on me?’
‘I found a pile of old magazines in the guest cottage in a cupboard. You’re quite the ladies’ man, aren’t you?’
‘You should know better than to believe a word of that trash. But enough about me, I’m much more interested in hearing something of your wartime escapades flying with the ATA.’
‘How do you know about that?’
He tapped his nose. ‘I’ve been doing my homework.’
‘In that case you know all you need to know.’
‘Hardly.’
‘Why would you want to know any more?’
‘Because I’m genuinely interested. Because we’re two friends sitting in the desert getting to know each other over a mug of bourbon.’
And because I could sit here all night chatting with you, he thought. Or did he mean sparring?
Chapter Thirteen
Hamble, Hampshire
April 1944
Romily
The day had started off just as any normal day did; that is to say, I had no idea what to expect. Ever since I’d joined the Air Transport Auxiliary, no two days were ever the same; we took whatever was thrown at us.
It had been a busy period for me. According to my logbook, in the last six weeks I’d delivered a total of sixty-one military aircraft from British factories and maintenance units to RAF airfields. I’d flown Mustangs, Mosquitos, Spitfires, Hurricanes, a couple of Grumman Avengers and a Corsair, and my most hated of machines, the Walrus. I had also notched up ten taxi-days, ferrying pilots about the country.
Much to my amusement, there were still some RAF aircrew who resented a woman in the cockpit, believing we should be at home darning socks and making jam. But as with all my female colleagues, I took the sneers and put-downs in my stride. We had more important things to worry about.
For some weeks now, large-scale military exercises had been taking place on the south coast in readiness for the much-talked about Allied invasion of Europe. The trains were full of troops moving about the country and roads too were congested with military vehicles. I knew from Florence’s husband Billy, and Isabella’s father, Elijah, that they had both been deployed there, though naturally their exact whereabouts was secret.