Spitfire Girls (12 page)

Edith had heard that the British bathed in cold muck and relieved themselves outdoors. Literature had invented Oz, but that was somewhere in America. Had she crashed in the middle of the Atlantic?

Unable to speak, she stared at the aproned matron, who did not seem interested in conversation anyway, and when
she was left alone with real bath bubbles and heat and an elaborate wardrobe of designer clothes laid out on the antique sofa, she stripped off slowly, her slim body still smelling fragrant from cologne applied twenty-four hours previously to a scrubbed skin, within earshot of her Negro lover in a house on Florence Avenue. Stepping into this breathtaking bathtub, with its gold taps and pearl facings, its ‘B' motif shimmering through the water from the bottom of the tub, and its palatial marble surrounds, she thought of Valerie Cobb and of the rumours that had been spread at her club back home. If the MP's daughter lived with another woman, would it be dangerous to be in a room with her alone?

On the other hand, could her friendship be the most valuable acquisition she might make on the eve of war?

Here in Britain, Edith felt the imminence of a world conflict, and as she soaked in the very hot water, her heart jumped at the thought of an association with Valerie, and it sank just as quickly on thoughts of Errol Carnaby. Running her hand along the insides of her thighs, she shuddered at the memory of his fierce penis breaking through her delicate barriers and expelling its endless contents that had brought her to the brink of ecstasy, and now in this splendid state of immersion she felt she might come with even greater intensity. Lying back and letting the hair on the back of her head become moist, she shut her eyes and thought of nothing, only her nipples hitting the air and becoming erect.

Rustling noises made her sit up, and water splashed over the sides of her marble encampment. Another aproned lady had wandered into this pleasure palace. Did this one talk?

‘Excuse me, could you please tell me where I am?' shouted Edith.

As if instructed to flee if spoken to, Apron Number Two scurried away, shutting the door behind her. Craning her dripping neck, Edith noticed the arrival of fruit and cheeses. She laughed, scrubbing herself and rising out of the soiled, lukewarm water. Drying each leg, she rubbed more vigorously as she neared her groin, still wishing Errol's semen away. Towelling her abdomen, she wondered if Valerie's body was identical to hers. She stroked her breasts with the now-soggy towel, remembering Errol's tongue. A stirring in her vagina became a spasm and she yearned to complete its urgings. Terrified another Apron might come in at any moment, she held the towel tightly and crossed her legs, sighing deeply …

Walking to the sofa, Edith caressed the smooth nylons – where on earth did Beaverbrook get these things in such times? – and dressed herself in a Chanel. As if timing her every movement, a visitor knocked at the door. Edith turned the doorknob to reveal another female, clad in a suit tailored to hug her most intimate contour.

‘Valerie Cobb,' she announced herself.

This was the first voice she had heard since her lemon chauffeur. Here was a magnificent woman, and Edith took a deep breath. They shook hands, and the American forgot all fear of being alone in the other's company.

‘Your legend has preceded you,' said Valerie.

‘Same to you. Incidentally, it was nice to meet your father. He arrested my three friends and snitched Raine Fischtal's film.'

‘It was Tim Haydon's idea. Daddy is on our side, after a fashion.' Valerie smiled broadly at the weary American.

They sat facing each other on the two sofas. Edith
noticed Valerie's skin – it was not the English Rose complexion she had expected, but a tough surface lined with character and framed by dimples on either side of a powerful chin.

‘It astonishes me that a world-renowned photographer can also fly aeroplanes.'

‘American girls do lots of things.'

‘Is your father big on Wall Street?'

‘My father is not big anywhere, and my family lives in a little row house in West Philadelphia – that's about it.'

‘So much the better. That means you will be able to recruit ordinary working-class girls into an air arm.'

Edith stared at Valerie for a few moments and wondered if she was hearing correctly.

‘Are you saying you'd like me to find pilots?'

‘Before we go in to see Beaverbrook, who, believe me, we can count on to be on our side, let me fill you in on the latest. There will most likely be a war, and nobody is in the least bit ready. At the beginning, it looks as if male ferry pilots will be moving Magisters from Woodley, and we'll be moving Moth trainers, taking things to places like Perth, Kemble, Lyneham or Llandow, and returning on sleeper trains. Sometimes pilots will report back after a three-day trip and a night train only to be sent off once more without a moment in their own beds. It will be a hell of a responsibilty, and a fiendish life for the duration of a war. If you can find a handful of good people to help us out, so much the better. Balfour and Lady Londonderry are on our side, and so is d'Erlanger, who is the head of BOAC. It is a promising picture. Now let's go to the old man.'

‘Before we do, Valerie, can I tell you about America?'

‘Please do.' She sat back, smiling.

‘We enjoy life, and things have been terrific since the Depression un-depressed. It'll be tough getting boys – let alone girls – to join your squadron. Who the hell wants to go to war when you can spend your life at the movies and down at the corner soda fountain? But I'll try.'

Gazing at each other in the humid room, the fragrance of Edith's bath bubbles still lingering in the air, the two women felt a mutual excitement that came from being blessed with the energy their mothers had lost in bearing them.

‘Let's go to the old man,' Valerie said, taking the American's arm. For the time being, Edith had forgotten Errol, and all she wanted was to find an incinerator in which to burn the carry-all containing a meaningless bedsheet.

Beaverbrook greeted her with indifference.

‘Who arranged all that luxury?' she asked.

‘We treat our guests with generosity – please keep the dresses,' he said brusquely.

‘Edith has access to an assortment of healthy people,' Valerie prompted him.

‘You have brought the country an invaluable film, a trio of Germans, and a fascinating aircraft,' conceded Beaverbrook.

‘Why is it fascinating?'

‘It has components never before seen in this country. His Majesty's Government is amazed Germany allowed it to land in America and then be let loose with a foreign pilot.'

‘I'm glad you didn't say woman pilot,' Edith murmured.

Valerie winked.

Beaverbrook was pacing the room.

‘In any case,' he continued, ‘We will be sending your German friends back in their own plane, so as not to provoke Hitler, and we will provide you with anything you choose. All we ask is that you come back with one load of Americans, and then cross over to Australia to bring us some of their lot.'

‘Australia!' exclaimed Edith.

‘It's a staggering opportunity,' Valerie whispered.

Beaverbrook observed the two females, stopping in his tracks to breathe a great sigh.

‘It is my intention to get as many ferry pilots from all over the world as possible,' he asserted. ‘Did you know people are still saying that Germany thinks Britain is at the end of its pilot reserve because we are perceived as using women to ferry toy trainers from A to B?'

‘What are toy trainers?'

‘Tiger Moths,' Valerie replied.

Beaverbrook had missed the exchange, and was pacing the chamber once more.

‘Maybe there won't even be a war,' suggested Edith.

‘By the time you've mobilized this Australian–American exercise, which will be covered by the world's press, there
will
be a war.'

‘You're going to organize one especially for me?'

Beaverbrook had finally noticed her. ‘Do you have a husband – children?' he demanded.

‘Not really,' she responded, remembering Errol and her souvenir sheet.

‘You either have a husband, or you don't, woman,' boomed His Lordship.

‘I am single,' muttered Edith, snatching a quick glance at Valerie, as if seeking help.

‘Then go home, and find us some good pilots. When you return, there will always be a place for you in an air transport auxiliary.'

‘I thought Valerie had to test girls before they were allowed to join.'

‘I do, and you will,' Valerie murmured tensely.

‘The
Daily Record
is paying you for your troubles, and for your photographs. Also for your story – a three-pronged deal.' Beaverbrook turned to Valerie. ‘I don't want the girl being tested.' On that note His Lordship departed.

Valerie and Edith were left in the sumptuous room, which seemed to echo even when they breathed.

‘Anyone who thinks we will be at peace a year from now is mad,' Valerie remarked, looking up at the ornate ceiling.

‘So you think I should do this job?'

‘Of course. In any case, I want to meet your lover.'

‘Pardon me?'

‘He was in your mind's eye when Beaverbrook mentioned husbands. Bring him with you.'

‘He wouldn't fit in here.'

‘Why not?' Valerie demanded sharply.

‘He's a Negro.'

‘Good Lord!' Valerie walked to the door and stopped. ‘That is rather a calamity.'

‘Whatever you want to call it, he's mine and the world
will just have to accept him,' Edith paused. ‘Do you like men at all?'

‘Do you?'

‘I just told you I have a lover who isn't my husband.'

‘I've one as well,' Valerie said dreamily. ‘Can your chap fly?'

‘What a question!' giggled Edith, leaning against a large mahogany boardroom table for support.

‘It's important,' Valerie said, frowning.

‘Errol is a film projectionist who quotes Blake. He can't fly. Maybe he could learn.'

‘Maybe he could. Bring him.'

‘Do you really think I could make it into your air squad?'

‘What I foresee is a group of fifty, clearing new aircraft from the main factories to the RAF installations. You may find it boring, after crossing the Atlantic and photographing the ‘Hindenburg'. But if there is an ugly confrontation with Hitler, we may even reach a point where some of us are eye-to-eye with the Luftwaffe.'

‘Honestly?'

‘We are so ill-prepared it disturbs my sleep. Most of the women pilots I know are as proficient as the men to hand at this very moment. If it is in a woman to kill, so be it.'

‘Women are killing in Germany and Poland!' Edith's intensity took Valerie by surprise.

‘How do you know this?' she asked.

‘Raine Fischtal's film – it shows women killing.'

Valerie was glad she had followed her father's orders this one time. She had wanted to meet the American girl. Her presence was a revelation – this is what the British woman will begin to be like in fifty years, she thought,
smiling to herself. What will the American woman be like then? This girl's species had evolved because it had not been shackled.

Valerie opened the door. ‘Now you will meet the press, become an even greater legend, and discover that war can make profits for all concerned.'

They left the chamber and walked back to the luxury suite. Edith folded the dresses into her bag, atop the lemons and the oranges and the nylons and the sheet, thinking of her chauffeur. Had he got through all the chocolate and Camels by now? What day was this?

She turned around and found Valerie had disappeared. Edith's dirty overall was on the floor, and she folded it carefully, placing it on top of the expensive
haute couture
. Stopping to look at herself in the full-length mirror, she reached for the fruit that had been left by the aproned lady, and stuffed it in with her overall. One never knew when one might go hungry again, she thought. At the door, she could hear a commotion outside and her heart thumped. Did she want Errol, or was she missing Valerie's company already? They had hardly spoken. She would want to see her again. If shipping a load of Aussies and Yanks back to this island meant continuing their conversation, she would pursue the task with vigour, starting now.

What about Raine?

Edith went back to her bag and thrust her hand into the folded flying suit. Searching frantically, her fingers rested on the receipt Haydon and Cobb had given her in exchange for the precious film. Burt Malone would crucify her if she did not return with something, after being AWOL so long. She wanted to see Raine and the Germans before
nightfall, and she wanted to sleep. Fatigue was overtaking the American, but her urge to find the trio was relentless. That fruit might come in handy, she thought – could British immigration police be bribed with a lemon for their malnourished babies? She hoped they might not, after all, be as honourable as their Movietone image.

Warsaw was a bustling city, making it all the more impossible for Hana Bukova to believe that her favourite boy might be starving inside the walls of a man-made ghetto. Animals in the wild marked out their territory by choice, snarling at intruders who sought to destroy a unified existence. Hana had long ceased thinking of her Jews as animals, and, as she waited for Josef Ratusz to gain clearance for special leave from his Polish Air Force detachment, her spirit rumbled inside, wanting to escape the lofty halls of this nineteenth-century building and run to the Ghetto.

Would her mother be successful in her mission?

What if Benno Kranz and his family were found out?

Mother would slope off to a café and wait for another assignment to come along, thinking, ‘Too bad for those Jews.'

‘Can we get out of the country by sunset?' Josef was beside her, his uniform decorously coloured with his many military honours representing weird skirmishes from an ancient war. He would have to change into a suit before their mission.