Wives at War (3 page)

‘Barbara, please, do not be obtuse,' said Archie. ‘What we need to ascertain is whether he is or is not a foreigner. When he answers, you should be able to tell, A: if he speakada English; B: if he has a sound grasp of colloquialisms.'

‘Of what?'

‘Never mind,' said Archie. ‘Just tell me what he says, how he responds.'

‘Like – furtively?'

‘Precisely.'

‘An' if he does?'

‘I'll contact the proper authorities.'

‘Who are the proper authorities?'

Archie looked blank for a moment. ‘The cops, I suppose.'

‘My sister Rosie's husband – he's a copper. He'd know what to do.'

‘What beat's he on?'

‘He isn't on a beat. He's with the CID.'

‘Really!' Archie was impressed. ‘You never told me that.'

‘You never asked.'

‘Friends in high places,' said Archie. ‘Well, well! Might come in handy if this chap on the tramcar does turn out to be a wrong ‘un.'

‘So you don't think I'm making a fuss over nothing?'

‘Absolutely not,' said Archie.

*   *   *

As a rule Babs was untroubled by the sort of deep-seated anxieties that tormented her sister Rosie, but that Friday morning she was so nervous that it was all she could do not to snap at poor April during breakfast. She'd been awake half the night rehearsing how she would approach the stranger and lure him into revealing his intentions, and by the time she boarded the single-decker she'd smoked four cigarettes and her throat hurt.

The interior of the tramcar was dank, the windows dripping with condensation. The smell of stale smoke and unwashed bodies clung like sticky tendrils to the worn upholstery. The driver had a streaming head cold, the conductor a hacking cough. Fat lot of use they'd be, Babs thought, if she happened to need protection.

The tram hurtled towards Aerodrome Road. Familiar landmarks whizzed past – a derelict farmhouse, potato sheds, a wrecked and rusting tractor – then the tram began its grinding descent and finally jerked to a halt. Her handsome stranger, her spy, her Johnny Foreigner, neat and self-contained, hopped aboard and seated himself on the long bench.

The camera was well hidden. Babs could see nothing of it. He glanced down the aisle, gave her the ghost of a smile then fished in his jacket pocket and produced a packet of cigarettes, an odd-looking packet, all soft and crinkly. He flicked his wrist, knocked out a single cigarette, put the pack into his pocket and brought out a big metal lighter.

Babs found herself stumbling down the aisle.

He glanced up, the soft yellow flame of the lighter flickering under his nose, the tip of the cigarette dabbing about in space. His eyes were dark, not like Dominic Manone's or Angus's, but liquid black, like engine oil. The skin around his eyes crinkled a little as she lurched towards him and, shaken by the motion of the tram, toppled into his lap.

‘Hey, lady,' he said, ‘take care now.'

Babs thrust herself away, legs wide apart, shoulders sliding against the window glass then, raw and breathless, cheeks scarlet, plonked herself down on the seat beside him and growled in unabashed Glaswegian, ‘'Scuse me. Huv youse gotta light?'

‘Pardon me?'

‘A light, a light, for God's sake. Don't you speak English?'

‘Sure I do' he said. ‘Would you care for a cigarette too?'

‘I've got my own cigarettes,' Babs said. ‘What are those anyway?'

He brought out the packet and held it up between finger and thumb. ‘Lucky Strike,' he said. ‘I guess you don't have them over here.'

‘American?'

‘Sure. American,' he said. ‘Take one. Take a couple if you want.'

‘You're an American.'

‘That I am.'

The Americans were our allies and an American wouldn't lie; it didn't cross Babs's mind that he might be a German or an Italian pretending to be an American. Engulfed by a wave of relief, she snuggled closer.

‘My brother-in-law lives on Staten Island. Do you know where that is?'

He laughed. ‘Every New Yorker's been to Staten Island.'

‘New York!' said Babs. ‘I've always wanted to see New York.'

He tapped out a cigarette and offered it to her. She took it. He lit it, cautiously holding the big scarf-like flame of the lighter at a safe angle. She inhaled deeply, smothered a cough, and blew out smoke in a breathy cloud.

‘Maybe you know my brother-in-law. His name's Dominic Manone.'

‘I don't think I do.'

‘He took the kids away when the war started.'

‘Because he's Italian?'

It dawned on Babs that perhaps she'd been a little too generous with the personal stuff and that mentioning Dominic's name had not been a good idea.

She said, ‘Are you an Italian?'

‘You're not the first person to ask that.'

‘You
look
Italian,' said Babs, adding lamely, ‘or Greek.'

‘Believe it or not,' the man said, ‘I'm almost as Scottish as you are. My old man was born in Greenock, my ma in Helensburgh. They emigrated soon after they got married.'

‘So where were you born?'

‘Milwaukee, me and my brother both.'

‘Before you moved to New York?'

‘Yeah.'

‘And,' said Babs, as casually as possible, ‘how long ago was that?'

‘I'm thirty-five,' he said. ‘You work it out.'

She was too caught up in the conversation to suspect that he might be trying to give her the brush-off. He had a little gold cap on one of his front teeth. She had never met anyone with a gold-capped tooth before. It seemed to fit with his liquid black eyes and curly hair and the faint, rich smell of American cigarettes that clung to his reefer jacket. It was the smile, though, particularly the smile about the eyes that really deceived her.

‘Huh!' Babs said. ‘An' I thought you were a spy.'

‘Really! What made you think that?'

‘The camera.'

‘Aw yeah, the camera.'

‘An' because you got on where you did. What are you doing here? Are you a sailor?'

Before he could answer, the conductor lurched back from the platform and bawled, ‘End o' the line. All off, all off,' and coughed in staccato fashion, filling the damp air with germs.

Babs dropped her cigarette and made to rise. Her newfound friend offered his arm like one of the gentlemen at a ball in a Bette Davis film. Babs let him squire her on to the platform and down on to the cobbles.

Reluctantly she lifted her hand from his arm and stepped back. There were a dozen questions she hadn't asked yet, a hundred things she wanted to know, but Archie would be standing in the office doorway, champing at the bit. He had a nine o'clock appointment with a Labour Supply Board investigator over at Ostler's Engineering and required her to man the office. He would also, no doubt, be keen to learn if she had really unmasked a spy and if there would be glory in it for both of them.

‘I – I have to go,' Babs said. ‘Thank you for the – the cigarette.'

‘My pleasure,' the American said.

‘Tomorrow – maybe see you tomorrow.'

‘Sure.'

He didn't turn away, didn't head for the pavement.

The tram trundled on, the conductor walking ahead with a long iron key to change the points. Babs felt space behind her, the moist sky bearing down on cranes and scaffolding and half-built ships, felt too the tug of Cyprus Street and Archie's impatience.

‘I really do have to go,' she said.

‘Sure,' he said again and, without moving, watched her leave.

She trotted across the cobbles to the corner of Cyprus Street before she checked and turned. She expected to find that he had vanished – but he hadn't. He was squatting on his heels in the middle of the road, pointing the camera at her. Babs opened her mouth to protest, then, on impulse, flung up an arm, flared her fingers and gave him the long haughty over-the-shoulder look that Jackie said made her look like a tart.

The delicate cocking of the photographer's middle finger was too discreet to be visible. He went on snapping, shot after shot, until Babs, suddenly and unexpectedly shy, dismantled her pose and darted round the corner out of sight.

*   *   *

Archie
was
hopping mad. He paused only long enough to enquire, ‘Well, what is he? Is he a Greek or Italian? What did he have to say for himself?'

‘He's American.'

‘Oh, is he? What's he doing over here then?'

‘Visiting relatives in Greenock,' said Babs, ‘I think.'

‘Huh!' Archie snorted. ‘Is that all?' then grabbing his gas mask from the hook behind the front door, sprinted off to catch the tram.

It wasn't the first time that Archie had left her in sole command and she was much more assured than she had been a couple of months ago. The telephone was already ringing in Archie's office. Babs answered it. Shaken by her encounter with the American and puzzled as to why he had taken her photograph, she listened with only half an ear to the complaints that sizzled down the line, complaints about the inappropriateness of three young women whom Archie had sent over to the Riverside Bolt, Rivet & Nut Company yesterday, young women who didn't fancy working on a packing line and wanted a job that wouldn't damage their fingernails.

She remembered the girls vividly, three sisters, a bit like Polly, Rosie and she had been at eighteen, nineteen, unwilling to conform, unwilling to compromise and always on the look out for the easy option. There had been few easy options in the Gorbals, though, which was why Polly had given in to Dominic Manone and she had surrendered to Jackie Hallop.

She held the receiver away from her ear and let Riverside's personnel officer rant on for a while before she informed him that Archie would be out all day but would attend to the matter as soon as possible tomorrow.

She hung up the telephone, which immediately began to ring again. Ignoring it, she went to unearth the files on the three girls from the tall metal cabinet in the outer office.

Her American friend was leaning in the doorway, camera in hand.

‘I shouldn't have done that,' he said. ‘I'm sorry.'

‘Done what?' said Babs.

‘Photographed you without permission.'

‘Why did you then?'

‘You looked good,' he said. ‘You looked right.'

‘Right for what?' said Babs.

The phone was still ringing next door and she wished, sort of, that Archie hadn't gone out and left her alone.

‘I'll send you prints,' he said.

‘How can you send me prints when you don't know where I live?'

‘I'm hoping you'll tell me,' he said.

‘I'm not in the habit of giving my address to strangers.'

‘Isn't this a welfare office?'

‘Yes, but what does that have to do with you?'

‘I'm looking for welfare,' he said.

‘Welfare?' said Babs. ‘What sort of welfare?'

‘A place to stay. Digs.'

‘For – for how long?'

‘Couple of months. Maybe three.'

Babs closed the door to Archie's office, muffling the sound of the telephone. She seated herself at her desk, extracted a form from the drawer and uncapped a fountain pen. The form was an application for maternity leave, but the photographer didn't know that.

‘Name?'

‘Is this necessary?' he said.

‘Of course it's necessary. We're a government department. Name?'

‘Cameron. Christopher Ewan Cameron. Everyone calls me Christy.'

‘Date of birth.'

‘November tenth, nineteen-nought-five.'

‘Nature of current occupation?'

‘I'm a professional photographer,' he said.

‘It isn't just a hobby then?'

‘Nope, I'm in Scotland to cover the war for
Brockway's
magazine. When my security clearance comes through I'll be shipping out to do a series about the hazards of the North Atlantic crossing.'

‘
Brockway's
magazine?'

‘You've heard of it?'

‘Yes,' said Babs. ‘It's not as good as the
Picture Post.
'

‘I've sold stuff to the
Post
too, and
Life
, and even
Ce Soir.
'

‘Really!' said Babs. ‘Current address, please?'

‘I'm billeted with a unit of the Civil Defence in a concrete bunker with no running water and no cooking stove.'

‘Who dumped you there?'

‘Brockway's London office. Their idea of a joke, I guess.'

‘What sort of accommodation are you looking for?'

‘A clean bed and a bathroom where the taps work.'

‘You'll have to pay through the nose for a place like that.'

‘I'm sure I will.'

Babs scribbled away with the fountain pen, filling boxes at random on the useless form. When she glanced up she thought how forlorn he looked, how far from home. ‘Well, Mr Cameron,' she heard herself say, ‘I've a spare room at the moment and I'm prepared to take in a lodger on a temporary basis. You can come home with me if you like.'

‘Oh yeah,' said Christy Cameron. ‘I definitely like.'

‘Five o'clock at the depot? Is that a problem?'

‘No problem, Miss…?'

‘Babs,' Babs told him. ‘You'd better just call me Babs.'

2

‘Well,' Rosie said, ‘I think it's a scandal and someone should put a stop to it.'

‘I hope you don't mean me,' Kenny said.

‘You?' said Rosie. ‘Oh no, dear me no. You're far too busy.'

‘For God's sake, Rosie, there's a—'

‘A war on – yes, I huh-have noticed.'

She had been deaf since childhood and had never mastered sign language. Her talent for lip-reading was almost uncanny, however. Her sisters, mother and stepfather, Bernard, had learned to shape their vowels without effort but Kenny still had to apply a degree of concentration that Rosie regarded as unnecessary and, in the worst of her moods, insulting.