Wives at War (30 page)

‘Jackie goes back tonight,' Polly said.

‘Are you sure it's tonight?' said Christy.

‘I met him at the shops. He was mooching around like a lost soul. He misses the children. Babs had to go to work and April's at nursery and he seemed so – I don't know…'

‘Are you angry because I wasn't here,' Christy said, ‘or because Jackie's leaving and you think I'm gonna run back to Babs?'

‘He seemed so pathetic. As if he didn't belong here.'

‘He's a soldier,' Christy said. ‘He doesn't belong here.'

‘Callous, that is so callous.'

‘I don't belong here either.'

‘Yes, yes, you do. We have things to do together.' She turned her face up and allowed him to kiss her, then said, ‘Babs needs you more than I do.'

‘Not true,' said Christy.

‘No,' Polly admitted. ‘Not true.'

He wondered if this little performance was calculated to tighten her hold over him or if she was really afraid of losing him to her sister.

She sniffed. ‘Did you call in on Fin?'

‘Uh?'

‘To carve it up between you?'

‘Carve what up?' Christy said.

‘Me,' said Polly. ‘My future.'

‘Hey,' he said, ‘I'm not in cahoots with Hughes.'

‘Tolerance, communication, thoughtfulness,' said Polly, ‘but not trust – is that what you're offering me, Christy?'

‘Jeeze,' Christy said, ‘you sure know how to spoil a surprise.' He brought up the big square parcel and unwrapped it. ‘If you must know, I went up town to buy mounts for these. They cost me an arm and a leg, too.'

‘Oh!' said Polly, chastened.

He placed the heavy, velvet-soft grey card mounts before her and exhibited the photographs with which he had intended to surprise her.

‘Gifts,' he said, ‘for Christmas.'

He watched her expression soften. She glanced up at him.

‘Is one for me?' she said.

‘Sure,' Christy said. ‘The pig's for the boy, but any other you fancy…'

‘There isn't one of you. I want one of you.'

He was pleased and flattered. ‘What the hell for?'

‘To remember you by,' said Polly.

*   *   *

Everyone knew Danny Brown's, the big posh restaurant on St Vincent Street. Rosie had often passed it when she'd worked in Shelby's bookshop and had peeked through the plate-glass windows and wondered what it would be like to be one of the elegant ladies who dined amid the potted palms.

When ‘the girls' at Merryweather's began planning their Christmas dinner Rosie wasn't at all surprised when Danny Brown's came top of the list.

By choosing Brown's, of course, the ruling élite excluded those poor souls who simply couldn't afford to stump up seventeen shillings and sixpence for a night on the town. Rosie no longer felt much affinity with those who struggled to make ends meet, however. Ever since her confrontation with Aileen Ashford she had been accepted as one of the ladies of the line and in a remarkably short space of time had adopted all the airs and graces that she had once despised.

What really turned things in Rosie's favour was the revelation that her husband was acquainted with Sir Charles Huserall. Rosie knew little of the connection between Kenny and Sir Charles, and when the ladies of the line became too inquisitive she simply invented three or four dark little cases that were vague and plausible enough to leave the ladies agog for more.

‘Brown's?' Kenny said, when Rosie informed him that she was dining out with the girls. ‘Well, well, you are going up in the world, aren't you?'

‘It's my money,' Rosie responded. ‘I can spend it how I please.'

‘It isn't the money,' Kenny said, mildly. ‘It isn't anything. I'll grab a bite at the canteen. You go off and enjoy yourself.'

‘I will,' said Rosie. ‘Believe me, I will.'

Instructed by the ladies of the line, she had learned to assert herself in a dozen little ways that her mother had never dreamed of to keep her husband on the hop, and as soon as the girls were seated around the long table in Brown's, Aileen asked, ‘What did your husband say when you told him you were going out without him? Made a great song and dance, I'll be bound.'

‘He said he'd eat in the canteen,' Rosie replied.

There were fourteen at table. Rosie had been placed in the middle so that she could lip-read the conversations without bobbing up and down.

‘Oh, the poor chap,' said Eleanor Brough, sarcastically.

‘He's trying to make you feel bad,' said Aileen.

‘Playing the martyr,' said Constance. ‘Men are all the same.'

‘Did you leave him something in the oven?' Mrs Findlater asked.

Rosie glanced down at the napkin in her lap. ‘I think he may be going to a meeting later this evening.'

‘A meeting?'

‘Oh, we all know what that means, don't we?' said Doris Maybury.

‘A meeting with Sir Charles,' said Rosie.

She had learned to fib without a blush but she was a cautious liar and had scanned the
Glasgow Herald
to make sure that Sir Charles Huserall hadn't popped off that morning. She certainly wasn't going to admit to the ladies of the line that whatever business had brought her husband and the political dreamboat together had been concluded and that Kenny had gone back to dealing with criminals and crusty-faced lawyers.

‘Did he say as much?' Aileen asked.

‘Oh, nuh-no,' said Rosie. ‘He can't say much.'

‘Official Secrets Act.' Doris Maybury nodded as knowingly as if she had drafted the document herself.

Fortunately at that moment a grey-haired waitress appeared at the table and began distributing menus.

The good old days of slim-hipped young men in green waistcoats and tight black trousers were gone. The wine waiter was a man but he was about a hundred and ten years old and remained unimpressed by a bunch of snotty women out on the tiles. He recommended something cheap and sweet which, after much discussion, the ladies ordered, one bottle at a time.

Brown Windsor, split-pea and cauliflower, beef consommé, pigeon pie, beef steak and mushroom, mock goose patties, potato croquettes, onions in butter – ‘If that's butter I'll eat my hat' – prune roly-poly, American creams, royal fruit mould and a dozen bottles of wine later it seemed that the ladies had buried their differences and shed their inhibitions.

Eleanor and Constance, who ‘rarely touched a drop', were listing in their chairs, Doris Maybury was in danger of descending into sentimental tears and Aileen was humming carols under her breath. Two ladies, whose names Rosie had forgotten, were kissing each other under a sprig of mistletoe.

Three or four or five glasses of wine had made Rosie's ears buzz but she was just sober enough to realise that the ladies of the line were making fools of themselves. She thought of Kenny, picking over pie and beans in police headquarters, of her nephew and nieces exiled in a lonely farmhouse in the country, of Mammy growing old and wrinkled with worry about the war, and Bernard, dear, darling Bernard, who had always looked out for her before she'd married Kenny and embraced independence. Thought of Babs, and Jackie going off to war, and Polly and Dominic and how her big sister had wrung so much out of life and how she had wrung nothing worth talking about. Then, still dwelling on Dominic, so smooth and handsome and urbane, she opened her mouth and said, ‘We should have gone to Goodman's instead.'

‘Goodman's?' said Aileen, blinking her blue eyes. ‘Why Goodman's?'

‘My sister has a stake in Goodman's.'

‘I've been in Goodman's,' said Mrs Findlater. ‘The steaks are excellent.'

‘Nuh-no,' said Rosie. ‘A stake, a holding. She owns it.'

‘No, she doesn't,' said Eleanor Brough, scornfully. ‘The Italians own it.'

‘Or did,' said Constance, ‘before the war.'

‘My sister is married to an Italian,' Rosie said.

Silence swept the length of the table like an icy draft and Rosie, realising that she had made a dreadful mistake, fashioned a helpless little gesture with her hands as if to erase her last remark.

‘Where is the fellow now, this Eyetie?' said Mrs Findlater.

‘Prison,' said one of the kissing ladies. ‘Where he should be.'

‘Too good for him,' said Doris Maybury. ‘He should have been shot.'

‘He's in America,' said Rosie. ‘He – uh – he…'

‘Wait one moment, young lady,' said Mrs Findlater. ‘If I'm not mistaken Goodman's was once owned by one of the Manones.'

Rosie fluttered her hands again. The singing in her ears had become strident. She watched Aileen lay a cigarette carefully on the rim of a crystal ashtray and saw Aileen's lips open and close like the petals of a dahlia.

She sensed that Aileen was shouting.

‘Are you related to the Manones?'

‘What if I am?'

‘Are you? Are you?'

‘Dominic Manone's my brother-in-law,' Rosie said and, broken by her stupid confession, covered her face with her hands.

*   *   *

‘There, there now,' Kenny said. ‘It wasn't your fault. You had a drop too much to drink, that's all.'

‘I'm nuh-not drunk.'

‘No, no, of course you're not.'

He put his arms about her and drew her to him.

She had been lying on the bed when he'd arrived home, face down, fully clothed and sobbing her heart out. When he'd touched her she'd swung round with such force that she'd almost knocked him to the floor, then she'd thrown herself, sobbing, into his arms. She was more than a little drunk and when he learned that the gang from Merryweather's had abandoned her on the pavement outside Brown's, he felt an anger that was hard to disguise as compassion.

Rosie was so limp and exhausted that it took him all his time to undress her. Whatever brittle truce she had managed to forge with her colleagues at Merryweather's was well and truly broken. He would have to get her out of there, persuade her that given her handicap and his recent promotion, she had no need to work at all.

He kneeled by the bed and peeled down her stockings.

She shivered violently.

He tugged down her underskirt and knickers and reached behind him to find her nightdress. When he turned back she was lying naked across the bed with an arm over her face. He could see everything he had ever loved in her, not just her delicate hips and the long curve of her belly but her helplessness, her vulnerability. He wanted her as he had never wanted her before. It was all he could do not to unbutton his trousers and thrust into her, take her just as she was. Biting his lip, he sat beside her, slipped the nightdress over her head, pulled back the bedclothes and helped her into bed.

She lay flat under the blankets, head on the pillow, staring up at him.

‘I tuh-told them about Dominic,' she said. ‘Why did I have to tell them about Dominic?'

‘I don't know,' Kenny said.

‘I wanted to impress them. I wanted them to like me.'

‘But you don't like them, Rosie, do you?'

‘Nuh-no.'

‘Well,' Kenny said, ‘for what it's worth, dearest, I like you.'

‘Do you?' She frowned. ‘I thought you hated me?'

‘Of course I don't hate you. I love you.'

‘How can you love somebody like me?' she said. ‘After what I've done to you. After the – the buh-baby. I – I wanted the baby, Kenny. I didn't want to lose the baby.' She began to cry again. ‘Oh, Kenny, I did want the baby.'

‘I know,' he said. ‘I know you did.'

His desire for her melted into an odd mixture of compassion, tenderness and anxiety that could only be interpreted as love. He sat with her, shivering in the cold bedroom, until she talked herself out and, with a final little sob, a little sigh, turned on her side to sleep.

*   *   *

Archie insisted that she leave the office at half-past two and spend the rest of the afternoon with her husband.

On her arrival at Raines Drive, however, Babs found that Jackie and the motorbike were both missing and assumed that he had ridden over to Blackstone to say goodbye to the children. She prepared dinner and then went round to the Millses' house to pick up April.

It was Jackie's last evening at home and she didn't know how to cope.

Jackie had told her that once the Italians surrendered he would be sent back to Devon or, at worst, to somewhere in France or Holland which, when she looked at a map, seemed a whole lot closer to home than the backside of Africa.

She collected April and carried her home through a grey-etched wintry darkness. Plenty of cloud overhead, Babs noticed, which might stave off the threat of bombing. Please, no raid, tonight, she prayed, as she piggybacked April up Raines Drive, not tonight when, raid or no raid, Jackie would have to catch a bus to the railway station. She'd hate to have to say goodbye from the depth of an Anderson shelter with bombs falling, uncertain if he would reach Glasgow in one piece, let alone Southampton, let alone North Africa.

April tugged at Babs's earlobe and said, ‘Daddy.'

He was pushing the Excelsior, stooped into it, shaped to the motorcycle. He wore the scuffed leather coat and a Balaclava, goggles pushed up on to his brow like an extra pair of eyes. She could hear him grunting as he struggled to keep the bike moving on the slope of the hill.

‘Run out of petrol?' she called.

He looked up. ‘Aye, squeezed out the last bloody drop to reach Govan.'

‘Have you pushed it all that way?'

‘Aye.'

Babs swung April from her back and placed her in the saddle. ‘Hold on tight, honey,' she said. ‘Daddy an' I are going to push you home.'

One hand on her daughter's back, Babs applied herself to the offside handlebar and threw her weight into the machine. April nodded stoically and gripped her father's forearm with both hands as he pressed forward. The bike picked up a little speed, trundling along the edge of the pavement.