Rush to Glory

by Robert L Hecker

  As Hal helped Betty into her coat, the cloth felt thin and worn to his touch, and he was again reminded that these people had been at war for more than five years.

  He was reaching for the doorknob when the major came up and took hold of Betty’s arm. “Hey,” he said, and Hal could tell he was well past the tipsy stage. “Where the hell do you think you’re goin’?”

  “Just after a breath of fresh air, darling.” She patted his flushed cheek. “You don’t mind, do you?”

  “Well, hell yes!” His voice was so loud that some of the people near the door turned to watch. “You’re with me. Get your ass back in here.”

  Betty’s eyes clouded in anger. “We’ll talk about that later,” she said stiffly and turned back toward the door.

  But the major grabbed her arm. “Later, hell. You leave the party now an’ the deal is off.”

  The words dismayed Hal. Until now, he had been able to delude himself into believing that she was an ordinary working girl. Now the drunken officer had taken the moonlight out of the night.

  “Let’s talk about it tomorrow,” Betty said, her voice tight. “You’ve had a little too much to drink tonight.”

  “We’ll talk about it now!”

  The major tried to pull Betty into the room, and Hal’s resentment spilled over into white anger, and he snapped, “The lady doesn’t want to talk about it now.”

  He slapped the major’s hand away from Betty’s arm and pushed him back into the room so hard he almost fell. Betty quickly walked away, and Hal followed, leaving the major glaring, his face red with anger.

  At the elevator, she punched angrily at the button while she gripped her coat close around her neck. Her face was half turned away from Hal, and he couldn’t be sure if she was crying.

  When they left the elevator, he had to hurry to keep up with her as she strode across the lobby. Outside, a fine drizzle was falling, but miraculously, the doorman found a cab. Hal told the driver to take them anywhere, and the man gave him a knowing wink as he moved out into the traffic. When the taxi rounded a sharply angled corner, Betty was forced against Hal’s shoulder, and he was able to see her face. She wasn’t crying. Her features were taut with fury. But was she angry at him or the major? More likely at all men.

  The silence made Hal uncomfortable, and he said, “I’m sorry about what happened back there. I didn’t mean to ruin it for you.”

  “You didn’t ruin anything. He’ll get over it.”

  Hal cleared his throat. “I don’t know how much your deal was for, but I’ll be glad to match it.”

  She looked at him blankly. “Match it?”

  “You know. Your deal; how much was it?”

  Her expression cleared as she realized his implication. Then her eyes hardened. “I see. You want to make your own deal.”

  “Well, no, but . . . I don’t want you to lose anything because of me.”

  “So, your conscience is bothering you. What is it you want? A discount?”

  “No, of course not. I don’t believe in . . . paying for it.”

  “Oh. You condemn women who take money for sex, but you take money to kill people. Is that your moral code?”

  Hal’s chin came up. “It’s not the same thing, and you know it.”

  “Yes, I know that. But I also believe there’s nothing wrong with taking money for . . .” she paused, and he saw her lips curve in a hard smile, “. . . services rendered.”

  “No,” Hal murmured. “I suppose not.” But he was disappointed. He realized then how much he had wanted to hear her say that it was a lie.

  Instead, she said, “My, aren’t we full of morality. I suppose it doesn’t matter that I’m not one of your typical Piccadilly commandos.”

  “Should it matter?” His voice was flat, hard.

  She shook her head. “No. You can drop me off any place. I’ll get a cab back.”

  “Back to the party?”

  “Why not?” She smiled grimly. “Maybe I can get my ‘deal’ back with the major.”

  “Don’t go back,” he said impulsively. “Come with me.”

  She turned her head to look at him. The bitterness was still there. “All right,” she said. “But it’ll cost you twenty pounds. That’s what I would’ve earned at the party.”

  Hal’s face stiffened. “How much just to have dinner? You can keep your body to yourself.”

  “Dinner?” She laughed then, but the laugh was without humor. “I can’t make a living that way.”

  “All right,” Hal answered harshly. “Forget it.” He moved forward to tell the driver to turn around when she put a restraining hand on his arm.

  “No,” she said, “I think that tonight I’d like to have dinner.”

  “Okay. Maybe the driver knows a restaurant.”

  “I know a little place . . . the Green Parrot,” she said. “It isn’t far.”

  She told the driver to take them to an address on Kings Road in Chelsea, and they rode in silence. Betty borrowed a cigarette from the driver, and she curled up in one corner, smoking and staring silently out the window. The anger she had carried into the cab had been transferred to Hal, and he too stared bitterly out the window. He told himself he couldn’t blame her. In a way, she was a lot like Luke. They were both getting what they could out of the war. He remembered that at one time, Luke had said, “Hell, we’re all being used like whores. And it’s a pretty damn stupid whore who doesn’t get something out of spreading her legs.” Maybe Luke and Betty were right. Certainly, the war hadn’t been their idea, although if Luke had thought of its potential, he probably would have done his best to start it.

  The “Green Parrot” was a small restaurant held fast between two taller apartment buildings. Entering an ancient doorway, they walked up a flight of steep wooden steps to a second-floor dining room. It wasn’t a large room, and it contained few people at its scattered tables, most of them servicemen. A portly dark-complexioned man with black, curly hair, a curling mustache, and bright, cheery eyes showed them to a table near the heavily curtained windows. As he gave Hal a single menu, he smiled broadly, and light gleamed from a gold tooth. “Perhaps you would care for wine before dinner? We have an excellent claret. Only one glass each, I regret.”

  Claret? That was red wine. Hal was not familiar with wine even though Fairview was in a wine district, and his father would bring home an inexpensive bottle of Bordeaux or Chablis if the occasion warranted. But Hal had never really cared for any of it. Here, with the war halting all shipments, it had to be expensive.

  He was about to tell the waiter no when Betty asked if they had any white wine. The waiter shrugged regretfully, so she asked him to bring two glasses of the claret.

  Hal held the menu toward Betty. “What would you like?”

  Instead of taking the menu, she put her head near his so they could read it together. Her hair had a faint, clean smell of soap, and Hal remembered that shampoo was a hard-to-get luxury. The menu must have been printed before the war because now it was a mess of crossed-out items and penciled-in prices. Betty laboriously traced one of the lines until her finger stopped at a blotch of ink.

  “I think I’ll have that,” she said. “It looks delicious.”

  Hal chuckled, and when she looked at him, the tension had gone from her face. She smiled, and Hal felt a tingle of delight. She could have picked any man at the party, and they would gladly have gone with her. But she had picked him. The wonder of it made him forget who she really was. Almost.

  The waiter brought their wine in elegant crystal glasses. “Are you ready to order?”

  “We would if we could figure this out,” Hal told him.

  The waiter laughed and picked up the menus. “Those are for show. All we have are fish and tomatoes.”

  “In that case, how about two orders of fish and to
matoes?”

  “Yes, sir,” he said and bustled away.

  They sat silently for a moment, and Hal searched for a topic of conversation.

  “Betty,” he said. “Is that short for something, like Barbra or Bernice?”

  “Would you believe. It’s really Betty. Just Betty.”

  He groped for words. “I would have . . . Elizibeth. Like Elizabeth Taylor, the movie star.”

  “Movie star? No thanks. Besides, I like Betty. It has a good, earthy sound.”

  “I like it too,” Hal said. “It fits you.”

  They sat in silence for a moment, until Betty said, “Your name is Hal. Is that for Harold or Howard?

  “Harold. Howard would be Howie.”

  She smiled. “You Americans always use nicknames.”

  “Seems like it.”

  Hal toyed with his fork while he groped for a way to bring the conversation to a subject that would keep clear of the girl’s occupation, even though it was a facet of her character that intrigued him. Why did she do it? How could she possibly bring herself to do it?

  “Do you go to many parties?” he finally said. “I mean . . .” He corrected hastily. “. . . just for the party. What I mean is . . .”

  “I know what you mean,” she said, smiling. “No, I don’t go to many parties, business or otherwise.”

  “Are you from here? . . .London, I mean.”

  “No. I’m Yorkshire.”

  “That’s north of here, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. I left there three years ago. It seems like a lifetime.”

  “I can imagine.”

  She glanced at him, and her eyes sparkled with amusement. “You’re dying to ask me, aren’t you?”

  “Ask you? What?”

  “What is a nice girl like you doing in a business like this?”

  Hal felt his face redden, and he shook his head. “No. It isn’t important.”

  “Well, that’s refreshing. I’m not apologizing for what I do, but I don’t see why you seem to think it’s such a major crime. It’s natural. That’s all.”

  “Depends on how you look at it.”

  “Well, is making love natural, or isn’t it? Just you answer me that.”

  “Yes! But taking money for it isn’t.”

  “Oh,” she said and looked down at the table. Then she quickly looked up with a roguish tilt of her head. “I don’t always take money. Not if it’s someone I like.”

  It was Hal’s turn to stare at the table. “What about Colonel Sutton?”

  “At your base? Would it make a difference if I said that was strictly business?”

  “And that major back at the party? That was the same kind of business, I suppose.”

  “Believe it or not, it was. Would you like a rundown?”

  “No thank you. Spare me the details.”

  “Too bad. You’re missing the good part.” She lifted her glass. “Drink up, for tomorrow we may be hit by a bomb.” She sipped her wine, but Hal did not join her. He could see no reason to toast either the war or her profession.

  “I guess you were here during the blitz.”

  She nodded, suddenly sober. “We lived in a flat in Gramercy. They bombed us out in ’41.”

  “We? Your parents?”

  “No. My husband.”

  Hal slid back in his seat and put his glass down gently. “Your husband?”

  When she saw the expression on his face, she smiled. “Don’t run out and kill yourself. Your morals haven’t been compromised. He’s dead.”

  Hal pressed back a wave of quick anger. They had just met, and already she had labeled him as a puritanical idiot. “I’m sorry,” he said. “The war?”

  She nodded. “RAF. One day he went up and never came back.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “So am I. Lawrence was a nice boy. A very nice boy.” She sat quietly for a moment. Then she said, “There are a lot of us war widows these days. I’m glad mine happened a long time ago; God, it seems forever. I have to look at his picture to remember what he looked like. I only remember the good things. We didn’t have time for very many unpleasant things. Lawrence was away so much of the time, and when he did get home, it was for such a short while. He knew he wasn’t going to last long, and I suppose I did too.”

  She dug the tip of her knife into the tablecloth without seeing it, a half-smile twisting her lips. “Did you know,” she said suddenly, “that all soldiers are frightened?”

  An image of Luke flashed across Hal’s mind. Was it possible that Luke could be frightened? Probably. But not about dying. His deepest fear would be of being wounded, crippled like Adel. And suddenly, the reason why Luke had not wanted to visit Adel fell into place. Of course. Adel was the personification of Luke’s worst nightmare. The end of his career. The end of everything except life itself. And such a life would have no meaning for Luke. For the first time in his life, Hal felt a sense of pity for his brother. How awful it must be to have your life’s goal balanced on such a shallow base. “I suppose we all have our fears,” he said.

  “That was when I discovered what a woman can do.”

  “Do?”

  “In a sense. You can’t stop the fear permanently. But a woman can help for a little while.”

  “By making love?”

  She smiled, a small tight smile, blessed with memories. “It was the one small time that Lawrence could forget.”

  It was not a new philosophy. Women, through the ages, had instinctively known the power of their bodies. The ancient Greek and Roman soldiers engaged in orgies before going into battle. Submerging themselves in sex had both overwhelmed the terror of battle and had also given the warriors one last memory of pleasure. And human nature had not changed. Soldiers were still afraid to die, no matter how noble the cause. What had been true five thousand years ago was just as valid today. “Are you telling me you only make love to men who fight?”

  She lifted one shoulder in a deprecatory shrug. “Let’s just say that I’m selective.”

  “And did Lawrence pay you for it?” Hal’s voice was brutal. He wanted to hurt her, wanted to smash her carefully constructed, righteous rationale for doing something that they both knew was dirty.

  She looked up sharply, her eyes angry. But the anger died, and she smiled. “Don’t the girls in California ever do it for money?”

  Not for money, Hal thought. Not in Fairview. They did it for power, for the right to be the football hero’s girl. They did it to gain entrance to the restricted world of private clubs and private parties. And they had no greater moral compunctions about lying than they did about laying.

  His bitter memories were interrupted by the arrival of a waitress wearing a gold cloth cap over black ringlets who brought their fish and tomatoes.

  Hal looked at the plate and made a face. “Fried tomatoes?”

  “You don’t fry them in California?”

  “They’re not fried anywhere that I know of.”

  “How do you eat them?

  “Well, with a little mayonnaise, or in a salad.”

  “Raw? How uncivilized.”

  She giggled, and Hal shook his head. It was so easy to like her. Why the hell couldn’t she be a nice ordinary gold-digger?

  As they left the restaurant, Hal contemplated the dark streets. Except for a few trucks and military vehicles, all driving with blackout lights, there was little traffic. And no taxis.

  “It’s all right,” Betty said. “You can take the Underground back to Piccadilly. The R.P. is right there, you know. I expect the party will still be going on.”

  “Aren’t you going back?”

  “No. I’m going home. My flat is just over there.”

  She pointed down one of the dark streets. It did not look like a
good place for a girl to walk alone, although wartime London had an unbelievably low crime rate. The thought also crossed Hal’s mind that being raped couldn’t hold many terrors for her. But she could be hurt so he volunteered to walk her home.

  The reminder of Betty’s occupation made Hal feel despondent, and they walked in silence, their footsteps echoing eerily from the walls of battle-damaged buildings. In the night shadows and with the rubble neatly stacked with typical English tidiness, it was easy to believe that people had not died here.

  If Betty noticed his moodiness, she gave no indication. Walking beside him, she radiated vitality, warmth. Even in her silence, she was so very alive that she made it possible to forget yesterday’s dead and tomorrow’s dying.

  “Have you thought about what I asked you the other night at the party?” Her voice out of the darkness startled him.

  “What you asked me?”

  “About going on a mission.”

  Then he remembered. What a stupid idea. “Impossible. Besides, why would you want to do such a thing?”

  “Curiosity. I’d like to see how it feels to be frightened, really frightened.”

  “Try riding in a London taxi.”

  Betty stopped in front of a three-story brick building that thrust naked, burned timbers into the night sky. “Here we are.”

  Instead of relief that the evening was over, Hal felt a sharp disappointment. Despite his depression, he had enjoyed the walk through the old streets in the misty darkness. It was certainly a world away from the wide, well-lighted streets and the dry air of Fairview.

  “Okay,” he said. “I . . . I’ve really had a good time.”

  She giggled. “I’ll bet. You were about as comfortable as a member of the bomb squad disarming a dud.”

  “Well, I . . . I’m sorry.” Why was he apologizing? He wasn’t the one selling his body.

  “The entrance to the Underground is at the corner, next to the Green Parrot. Can you find your way back?”

  “Four blocks? I think I can handle that.” He held out his hand, feeling foolish. “Well. Maybe we’ll meet again.”

  She took his hand, and he experienced an unexpected pleasure. She looked at him, not smiling, and he was fascinated by her lips, wondering how they would feel against his. A rumbling sound in the night sky intruded on his dream. The sound grew into a rhythmic popping like the engine of a Model-T Ford with a broken muffler. Betty looked toward the sound. “It’s all right if it doesn’t stop.”