Wives at War (9 page)

A dentist's wife got there first.

A slender woman with a heart-shaped face, even in a white cotton overall and mobcap she exuded a delicate sort of arrogance. She smiled, raised her brows and deliberately blocked the doorway. Rosie pushed her to one side, stumbled into the corridor, tripped and fell on all fours.

The cramp in her stomach became violent and expulsive. She felt blood on her thighs, a great warm, oddly soothing splash. The dentist's wife stepped up to her and eight, ten, a dozen women stared down at her from a great height. She couldn't see their faces, only their stockings and shoes.

She rocked on her elbows and knees in a puddle of watery blood.

She cried out, ‘
Muh-Muh-Maaa-maaay!
'

She was still crying for her mammy when the ambulance arrived.

*   *   *

The telephone rang on and off all afternoon. Polly ignored it. It would only be Fin calling to remind her that correspondence was piling up on her desk and that as his diary was full for the rest of the week perhaps it would be advisable to put in an appearance before the end of the day.

As a rule Polly answered her letters personally, typing replies on an Underwood at the old roll-top desk that filled the niche beneath the window on the fifth floor of the Baltic Chambers. Fin liked to think that he was indispensable, however, and on that score at least she did not dare disillusion him. She wasn't entirely convinced that she needed an office at all but Fin had pointed out that even in wartime tax inspectors, bank managers and government agencies were invariably impressed by a city centre address and that given the level of income her investments generated she could certainly afford premises up town.

Making money in troubled times wasn't easy, however. Financial controls were tight. Currency restrictions necessitated the setting up of special accounts to handle payments in US dollars or Argentine pesos, but the hard currency markets of America and Canada remained open and it was still possible to arrange credit facilities for particular transactions, loopholes that Polly, with Fin's assistance, had learned to use to advantage.

She wasn't thinking of money that Monday evening, however. She was thinking of Dominic, Dominic and the intrusive American.

She'd heard nothing from her husband for months. The children wrote her every so often, dutiful little letters filled with news about their progress at school and Stuart's triumphs on a local softball team; Polly didn't even know what softball was. She'd requested photographs, more out of curiosity than anything else, but so far none had been forthcoming. Given the state of North Atlantic shipping, it was possible that a letter or two had wound up on the bottom of the ocean; Polly consoled herself with that thought when, in the wee small hours, guilt and loneliness took too firm a hold on her heart.

At first she'd considered breaking out the silver and setting the long table in the dining room. But the big basement kitchen was cosier and in the end she settled for a red-check tablecloth, matching napkins and the thick painted plates that Dominic had once imported by the crateload from Italy.

At half-past seven, with everything on hold in the kitchen, she rushed upstairs to bathe and change. She put on underwear that Fin had given her, filmy knickers, flawless silk stockings, a black lace-edged half-slip and matching brassiere, then an informal ready-to-wear dress that had never been out of the wardrobe before. She arranged her hair, applied make-up and perfume, then, seated before the mirror at her dressing table, realised that for the first time in many months she felt like herself again – quite like the old Polly, in fact.

At eight precisely the doorbell rang.

Polly ran downstairs.

She switched off the overhead light, opened the door and looked out into the clear night air. He was standing in the driveway. He wore a black reefer jacket, baggy corduroy trousers and ankle-high boots. He looked, she thought, like a tradesman, his only concession to formality a check-patterned shirt and a florid necktie.

‘Hi,' he said. ‘Mrs Manone?'

‘You're Christy, are you?' Polly said. ‘Please, do come in.'

He wore no gloves, no scarf or muffler. His hands were small, almost pudgy. He held a small parcel cupped like a football in one hand. He stepped into the hallway and carefully closed the door behind him.

He turned and offered her the parcel.

‘What's this?'

‘Cigarettes. Churchman's.'

‘How – how nice.'

‘Your sister told me you prefer that brand.'

‘I do,' said Polly. ‘Where did you find them?'

‘Had them sent up from our London office.'

‘Your London office?'

‘Brockway's.'

‘Ah yes, of course.'

Polly placed the parcel, unopened, on the hallstand and led her guest towards the front parlour. She had lighted a fire there and laid out drinks, but the room remained gloomy.

He looked around, swivelling his head.

‘Some room!'

‘Don't you like it?'

‘Not much.'

‘Nor I,' said Polly. ‘It used to be my husband's lair and it's too clubby for my taste. Why don't you grab a bottle of anything you fancy and we'll go downstairs. We're eating in the kitchen anyway. I hope you don't mind?'

‘Why would I mind?'

‘I – I don't know. Honoured guest and all that.'

‘I'll just be glad to have somewhere to rest my weary butt – I mean bones.'

Polly laughed. She waited by the door while he selected a bottle of malt whisky and another of gin from the trolley and carrying a bottle in each hand, followed her out of the parlour and downstairs.

He entered the kitchen, sniffing.

‘Now this,' he said, ‘I do like. What's that wonderful smell?'

‘Meatloaf.'

‘Hey,' he said. ‘Haven't had a decent slice of meatloaf since I left home.'

‘You may not be having one tonight either,' Polly said, ‘if I don't leave you to your own devices for a moment or two. Do the honours, will you?'

‘Honours again?'

‘Drinkies,' Polly said.

She felt relaxed with him already and could readily understand why Babs had been instantly smitten. His dark eyes reminded her of Dominic's but Christy Cameron was a good deal less polished than her husband. She put on an apron and watched him slip out of the reefer jacket. He unbuttoned his shirt cuffs and rolled them a little way up his forearms, hairy forearms, knotted with muscle. What, she wondered, had built muscle like that? Surely not just fiddling with cameras and light meters?

He looked around the kitchen, found two glasses on the dresser shelf and brought them down. ‘How,' he said, ‘and what?'

‘Gin, tonic. I've no ice, I'm afraid, and no fresh lemons.'

She kneeled before the oven. She knew he was studying her with the same relaxed curiosity as she had studied him. She hoped he liked what he saw. She was glad now that she'd decided to serve supper in the kitchen. Christy Cameron did
not
remind her of Dominic or of Tony Lombard. Christy Cameron was nobody's stand-in. She attended to the loaf and the potatoes. The cabbage could take care of itself. She got to her feet. He handed her the glass. He poured himself a whisky. She looked at him directly for the first time and, standing there in the kitchen in her ready-made dress and floral apron, realised that she was happier than she had been in many months; that, for good or ill, Mr Christy Cameron had already given her something to look forward to.

‘Chin-chin,' she said.

He touched his glass to hers.

‘To absent friends,' he said.

‘Friends across the water, do you mean?' Polly said.

‘Just so,' said Christy Cameron, and winked.

*   *   *

It was very peaceful in Redlands Hospital. The maternity wards were never quiet, of course, and the fretful wails of the newborn echoed faintly in the polished corridors. Rosie couldn't hear the infant sounds but even in antiseptic solitude behind the white muslin curtain that surrounded her bed she thought she could smell their milky odours.

Mammy patted her hand.

‘Didn't you know you were carryin'?'

‘Nuh-no,' Rosie answered.

She was dry-eyed now, dry through and through.

She had been ten minutes on a table in a delivery room with one elderly male and one younger female doctor bent over her. A sheet had been stretched up into a sort of tent so that she couldn't see what they were doing and they had worn gauze masks that hid their mouths.

There had been surprisingly little pain. She'd expected more pain, would have welcomed more pain, some astonishing reminder of or punishment for her neglect. It simply hadn't occurred to her that the absence of periods might signal the presence of a foetus. She'd assumed that her periods, like everything else, had gone into hibernation to suit the demands of war.

‘Well,' Mammy said, ‘it's just as well it happened early.'

‘How old was it?'

Mammy hesitated. She was seated by the bed, her big, ungainly body perched on a little steel-framed chair. ‘Only seven weeks.'

‘What have they done to me?'

‘Tidied you up, that's all.'

‘I don't feel much different.'

Mammy patted her hand again.

Mammy smelled like pea soup and new-washed clothes. There was a faint trace of peppermint on her breath too and Rosie realised that she was sucking an Imperial sweet, a little Sunday comforter.

‘Well,' Mammy said, ‘I lost two…'

‘Pardon?'

‘I lost two myself.'

Rosie raised herself from the pillows.

‘I had no idea…'

‘I never said anythin' to any o' you about it,' Mammy said. ‘I lost one before Polly was born an' another a year after.'

‘Duh-dear God!'

‘Nobody's fault. The first was hardly anythin',' Mammy said, with a sigh. ‘Six or seven weeks formed. Shed it while I was scrubbin' stairs.'

‘Did you know you were expecting?'

‘Aye.'

‘And the other one?'

‘Ten weeks or thereabouts. I was sick for a while afterwards.'

Rosie lay back. She had lived with this woman all her life and had never once suspected that there had been sisters or brothers who had failed to form and that there should have been five little Conways instead of only three.

‘What was it?' Rosie said. ‘Boy or girl?'

Mammy shook her head. ‘I don't think they know at that age.'

‘Perhaps they just don't want to tell us.'

‘Poor soul,' Mammy said, ‘poor wee soul,' and began, quietly, to weep.

*   *   *

Christy sat back from the table and watched her clear the pudding plates. He had helped her finish a whole bottle of Chianti before he went back to whisky. He had, Polly thought, as much if not more of a capacity for alcohol as she had, and a better head for it.

He lifted the gin bottle and offered to pour.

‘Not for me,' Polly said.

‘I'll help you wash up.'

‘Certainly not.'

‘I am house-trained, you know.'

‘Who trained you – a wife?'

‘My old ma. She wouldn't let us off with anything.'

‘Do you wash up for Babs?'

‘Sure.'

‘Do you ply her with strong drink too?'

‘Nightcaps, that's all. She isn't much of a drinker, your sister.'

‘I know,' said Polly. ‘It goes straight to her head. Do you like her?'

‘What's not to like?' Christy said.

‘Why did you make contact with Babs, not directly with me?'

‘Make contact? I don't know what you mean.'

Polly took off her apron and put it on the rail by the stove. She poured a cup of coffee and carried it to the table. She seated herself across the chequered cloth from him, holding the cup in both hands.

She hadn't mentioned Dominic during supper and had avoided the question of what he, Christy Cameron, wanted with her. He had warmed quickly to the game of double entendre, of giving a little but not a lot. It was, she thought, like old-time country dancing with its flirtatious advances, passes, touches and retreats, and she was surprised that the American knew how to play the game.

It was late now, well after ten. Christy would have to leave by eleven if he hoped to catch the last tramcar along Paisley Road. Before the war she would have rolled the Wolseley from the garage to drive him back to Raines Drive but blackout and petrol shortages had confined the car to the garage.

‘My husband sent you, didn't he?'

‘Nope.'

‘You do know Dominic, though?'

‘We've never met.'

‘Didn't he send you here?'

‘Nope.'

‘Who did?' Polly frowned. ‘Not Tony?'

‘Who's Tony?'

‘Look, either you tell me what you want with me or—'

‘Or what?' Christy said.

He wore a military-style watch on a chewed leather strap. She waited for him to glance at it, tell her that time was up and that he'd best be leaving.

She didn't want him to leave. She was intrigued and unsatisfied, burning with a combination of curiosity and something she didn't care to put a name to. She was not naïve and neither, apparently, was Christy Cameron. He had charmed Babs and now he was in process of charming her but, Polly reminded herself, she wasn't made of the same generous stuff as her sister.

‘Babs thinks you're attractive.'

‘I know she does.'

‘Are you seducing her?'

‘Maybe it's the other way around.'

‘You do have a wife, don't you?'

‘I told you – no wife.'

‘And you've never met my husband?'

‘Persistent lady, aren't you?'

‘Very persistent,' Polly said. ‘If Dominic didn't send you then someone else did. Are you with the FBI?'