Marriages are Made in Bond Street

by Penrose Halson

  I am getting into the swim, thank you, but need your advice about some tricky ones. There’s a retired stockbroker, Mr Irving, said he’s sixty but he’s sixty-five if he’s a day, very polished, said he was enquiring for a friend but that’s a fib if ever I heard one. Claimed that he was a good husband but that his wife left him without reason, so he divorced her. The more I talked to him the less I liked him, he was creepy though I couldn’t put my finger on it. He insisted on registering so I helped him fill in his form. He didn’t put down much apart from the usual ‘Must be a lady’. To my surprise he didn’t want a young girl, he’s not a dirty old man. But yesterday he sent a letter stating that he wants introductions to ladies who are strong and healthy, and willing to wear male attire in the house and in public. I am at a loss. Advice, please!

  All love, Picot

  P.S. Could you possibly bring down some potatoes and onions next time? One of the typewriters needs mending, and there’s a little man who’ll do it in return for some veg – it’s so difficult to get anything fresh in London. We have to do either barter or the black market. And if you could bring some bottled fruit too I could probably get you some real wax furniture polish.

  Heather read this letter while standing in the huge farm kitchen, absent-mindedly stirring an increasingly lumpy sauce. Slowly the spoon slid out of her hand and into the pan as she mulled over Mr Irving’s requirements. In the early days, she and Mary had been taken aback by clients with strange stipulations, but had learned to listen attentively while trying to elicit the reasons behind the words. She remembered recoiling from a man who had insisted that his bride should have only one leg – until he explained that his sister had lost a leg in a vicious bombing raid on Portsmouth. She had been sheltering in the cupboard under the stairs when the house was hit, and was lucky to survive. He looked after her, developing a huge sympathy with such victims, and wanted to help someone in similar distress.

  Heather also cast her mind back to an immaculately dressed, wealthy man of fifty-five, Mr Scott-Gilmour, who had drifted into the office one day and, in languid, high-pitched tones, apprised her of the fact that he had never married, but that his mama’s dying wish had been that he should find a wife. He had already filled in the registration form, which he placed with a theatrical flourish on Heather’s desk. Mama had just expired, so he was obeying her, his life-long habit.

  Expecting him to describe, as did most men of his age and class, a young woman in her twenties or thirties who would bear him an heir, Heather had been astonished to read that his chosen age range was fifty to sixty, and that she must be ‘a sports type, strong, active, preferring sensible clothes, tailor made, jumpers, felt hats, flat-heeled walking shoes or brogues. Fair or dark hair, eyes blue, blue-grey or blue-green, hair bobbed square, forehead clear and open. Must be of good recognised family, top-drawer class.’

  ‘Of course!’ Heather had suddenly realized, ‘He’s queer – probably his father was too. He’s lost without his mummy, and needs a replacement.’

  Abandoning the unappetizingly blobby sauce and the pan of anaemic cauliflower which had been boiling for half an hour, Heather wrote immediately to Picot describing Mr Scott-Gilmour and continuing:

  And I am sure that your Mr Irving is the same. They both lack a manly person in their life, telling them what to do. They would really like a man, but because of the law – which in my view is even more asinine about homosexuality than about most subjects – they have to find a woman in a man’s clothing. Luckily there are several lady clients, especially over about forty-five, who would be very content in that role: bossing all day and being blessedly sex-free all night – their idea of heaven! I’ll look through my cards and send you some suggestions; and you keep your eye out for a Lady or perhaps a Lady For Here + of the masculine type: brown felt hat stuck with partridge feathers, clumpy lace-up shoes, shiny face, pudding-basin haircut and so on. You’re an actress, you know all about looks and style, I’m sure you will easily recognise the signs!

  Heather was overjoyed by news of the MP’s heir, only hoping that the baby was healthy, since the MP had been so overbearing and dictatorial that if his child was less than the perfection he demanded, he would take it out on his luckless wife, Lady M. She was even more pleased, and touched, that the Baldwins, the very nicest of clients, were happy and grateful, and wished she were back in the office to see their roses.

  Before leaving London for Scotland, Heather had prepared for life on a farm by buying a mackintosh and a pair of stout sensible shoes. She had never lived in the country, which she found a strange and far from agreeable place. There was scarcely any petrol for personal use, so her car remained on blocks in the garage while she sailed around, an imposing figure sitting bolt upright on an antique bicycle, practically a penny-farthing. She also had a sturdy little Welsh pony called Gwendoline who used to pull her along the narrow bumpy roads in a cart, with her darling dog Cupid by her side. So she had transport, of a kind; but nowhere particular to go.

  Heather tried to do her bit, but farming held no more appeal than cooking. A journalist and photographer from the Tatler & Bystander, producing a feature entitled ‘Down on the Farm Up North’, photographed her engaged in utterly uncharacteristic activities: holding a squirming squealing piglet in each hand, she was captioned ‘Mrs Michael Cox and Friends’. Squatting in a cow pen to hold out a handful of hay to a dribbling calf, she was ‘Fattening up the Calf’. Equally unconvincing to anyone who knew Heather were photographs of her hoeing the weeds between rows of vegetables, building stooks of corn, unloading unruly sheep from a filthy lorry, digging potatoes and controlling a tank-like tractor, all bearing out the text, which ran:

  It has been said that ‘farmers fatten most when famine reigns’. Be that as it may, during four years of war, with possible starvation staring us in the face, it is largely due to the magnificent efforts of landowners and farmers in Great Britain that we still enjoy such a high standard of living. Mr Michael Cox, laird of Easter Denoon, in Angus, works hard in the good cause, cultivating some 1,200 acres and raising a variety of livestock. Mrs Cox, a daughter of Brig-Gen. C. A. Lyon, gives her husband some very valuable help.

  Heather recalled her relief as the journalist and photographer departed, leaving her to unlace her muddy shoes, wipe the calf slobber from her jacket, flick bits of hay out of her hair, and look with distaste at her earth-stained hands and chipped scarlet nail polish: ‘The last straw was taking a photograph of me with the chickens. The photographer insisted I smile and scatter food for them. It was bad enough having to look after the smelly scruffy creatures every day: I loathed them and obviously the feeling was mutual as they always laid far fewer eggs when I was around than when I was away. But to be forced to smile at them was too much. I daresay that, stupid as they are, they could spot the malevolence in my forced grin, for I distinctly remember that they refused to lay a single egg the next day. Lord, how I needed a trip to London!’

  Soon after, Heather made one of her monthly visitations to the Bureau. The train journey from Perth to Euston was long and tedious, but she was absorbed in her mating, and in anticipation of the buzz of the Bureau. On the luggage rack sat a suitcase full of accounts books and bills – for she continued to run the financial side of the Bureau – and a large holdall bulging with vegetables, meat and eggs for Picot’s purposes.

  Back at last in her office, Heather heaved a gusty sigh of happiness and took Picot out for a long, gossipy, updating lunch, leaving Dorothy Harbottle in charge.

  About twice Mary Oliver’s age, and very different in looks, Dorothy resembled her predecessor in the warmth of her sympathy, particularly for the less sophisticated and more troubled clients. Her deep concern for them produced such letters as:

  The minute I met Miss Harbottle I knew she would do all she could to help me. I felt as if she had wrapped me in a big woolly blanket where I would be warm and safe for ever. She made me feel like a much-loved puppy!

  One of Dorothy’s first clie
nts was Cyril King, an RAF pilot who had been hideously burned when his plane was shot down early in the war. His face and much of his body had been partially reconstructed with skin grafts in Stoke Mandeville Hospital, but he did not look normal, and knew he never would. Undeterred, he was tenaciously making the very best of the life which he considered himself fortunate still to possess.

  RAF pilots were much in demand. In the match-makers’ experience, naval men were still very popular, but the air force had gradually overtaken the navy in the search for desirable husbands. Indeed, so many letters expressed a desire to meet an RAF man that the match-makers could not keep up with the demand. They realized that pilots were so sought-after as husbands because they had a highly developed sense of proportion: they knew what truly mattered. Reported in the press, the Bureau’s assessment was: ‘You cannot fight 1941 air battles and have a mind for petty quarrels and disturbances.’

  When Cyril came into the office Dorothy pushed her cigarettes to the back of her drawer, feeling that the smell of smoke might unnerve him, despite his apparent confidence. Despite the popularity of pilots, Dorothy knew that many young women would be repelled by Cyril’s appearance, so she wanted to find one with great insight and understanding. He thought a girl in the nursing profession might be sympathetic to his injuries. He also wanted her to be prepared to take the risk of going to a strange country and setting up a business of their own, as he hoped after the war to settle in one of the colonies, perhaps New Zealand, as he had friends there.

  Dorothy assured him that quite a lot of young women were very keen on the idea of a new start, in a far-away place such as Australia, South Africa or Hong Kong. She understood his reasons for wanting a nurse, but thought there might well be girls of other professions who would suit. She asked him to tell her more and he continued, in his noticeably warm, humorous, well-modulated voice.

  Cyril was an engineer, who before the war had worked in a steelworks in the Midlands. Then he got into what he really enjoyed: running a club for the Scottish lads employed in the factory, and who were a bit lost in a strange country, ‘and England is strange when you’ve been brought up in Scotland!’ He learned to fly because he could see war coming; but he had hardly had a chance to fight before being shot down.

  Cyril’s main aim was to meet a girl who, like him, had had some trouble in her life. Together they could build something worthwhile, for he loved life, and was certain that, with the right woman, he could really live again.

  Dorothy was determined to help, but she had not been in the Bureau long enough to think immediately of a suitable introduction. So when Cyril had left she lit a thought-aiding cigarette and decided to consult Heather, who breezed in full of joie de vivre after a deeply interesting discussion with Picot.

  But Dorothy was forestalled, for hot on Heather’s heels came a tall, uniformed man, radiating good health and high spirits, who grabbed Heather round the waist, spun her round, planted a smacking kiss on each of her cheeks and whooped, ‘Hiya, honey! Great to see you! How’re you doing?’

  Startled but overjoyed, Heather greeted one of her all-time favourite clients, Hank, an American pilot who had married another of Heather’s special protégés, a bewitching sweetheart of an actress currently serving in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force. ‘Hank the Yank’ had become a friend and was always popping in to see Heather and give her bottles of perfume and bourbon whisky. Since she had gone to Scotland he had missed her, but had taken to bringing in packets of cigarettes for Dorothy, a heavy smoker for whom Lucky Strikes were manna from heaven. Everyone felt warmed and cheered by Hank’s open-heartedness and generosity.

  ‘Picot told me you were coming, so I’ve got a special gift for you,’ Hank announced to Heather, picking up a large awkward-shaped object shrouded in brown paper, which he had dropped in order to kiss her. ‘Guess it’s something you wouldn’t ever have thought of. Here!’

  Heather untied the string and pulled off the paper, which Dorothy picked up, unknotted and smoothed out for future use.

  There on Heather’s desk sat a large, dented, dirty, bent bit of grey metal. Baffled, she walked round to look at the other side, where she was appalled to see an enormous painted swastika.

  ‘What on earth?’ she yelped. ‘What in heaven’s name is this? Where did you get it?’

  ‘Shot it down,’ said Hank. ‘Leastwise, my squadron shot it down. Got the bastards, thought we’d keep a few little souvenirs.’

  Heather was lost for words, but rapidly found some as she perceived that, for all his breeziness, Hank was in an emotional state, giving her a present of huge personal significance. She thanked him profusely, diverted him with tales of life on the farm, and kissed him a fond farewell. As he closed the door, she turned to Dorothy and Picot, laughing and frowning simultaneously. ‘Whatever are we going to do with it? It’s a ghastly piece of junk – and it smells nasty too: some peculiar chemical, it must be the paint. We can’t possibly have it in the office, and I’m certainly not carting it back to the farm on the train. I can’t throw it away because Hank would be mortally offended. Any bright ideas welcomed!’

  They puzzled and cogitated, until inspiration struck Dorothy: ‘Let’s hang it out of the window! Maybe the smell will dissipate. Nobody looks up this high, and if they do, they’ll just think it’s a bit which fell off a German plane during the Blitz.’

  Heather sought help from Alf, who produced a length of strong wire, three stout nails and a hammer. Leaning out of the window he banged the nails into the wooden frame, ran one end of the wire tightly round the offending souvenir and the other round the nails, making a series of twists and turns of which any Boy Scout would have been inordinately proud.

  Heather always meant to haul in the suspended token, to test the smell, but she never did. So there it remained, dangling above Bond Street for the rest of the war, noticed only by a triumphant Hank.

  15

  Picot and Dorothy Hold the Fort

  Hundreds of miles away in Scotland, Heather listened anxiously to wireless broadcasts of renewed terror in London. In January 1944 the Luftwaffe launched a ‘Little Blitz’ of air raids, followed by their most deadly new weapons: V1s and V2s. The macabre drone of these pilotless missiles, catapulted over the Channel from Europe, caused extreme panic. But the silence when the sound suddenly cut out was even more dreaded, for it presaged a ton of high explosive plummeting to the ground.

  Heather feared for the safety of her staff, the building and her business. But surrounded by ever more unnerving death and destruction, Dorothy and Picot carried on, busily doing the mating, listening, advising and making introductions, swinging from sorrow for the troubles of some clients to rapture when a happy couple announced their engagement.

  Picot’s correspondence with Heather continued briskly. She stemmed her employer’s anxiety by reassurances that, far from causing the Bureau to lose money, if anything the Luftwaffe had increased takings, which were in a healthy state:

  Darling Heather

  Back to a better week again. I wrote to you last week that the returns were £64 10s. I have not had a reply from you so I hope you got that letter. The postal service is not always reliable, hardly surprisingly! I am glad to say that takings this week are £94 3s! We are very busy.

  There is a huge contingent of Americans in town. I do not like them much, though I know you are fond of them. But I must say that they are very good with people when the bombs drop, partly I think because they practically talk a foreign language. As I was walking to the office I heard one say to a very plain old woman who I should think had been a Wilton Road prostitute, ‘Say, lady, that’s a lovely scrummie you’ve got!’ He was referring to a very nasty cut on her forehead and cheek, but from her expression I think she thought he was paying her a compliment!

  I went to see the new film Love Story, a romance, rather soppy and over-acted. Margaret Lockwood is a concert pianist who’s dying of heart failure, and meets Stewart Granger, a former RAF pilot who’s going bli
nd. It reminded me of Bottle’s latest coup, at least we all hope it’s going to be a real coup. She’s introduced that pilot with the horrible burns, Cyril King, to a lovely girl who was blind, Cora Church, you interviewed her so you may remember her.

  This evening I am having dinner with my new friend Maurice and we shall reminisce about the theatre, which I always enjoy, I do so miss that life. I must get home in time to cook – Spam fritters and cabbage, not exactly a gourmet meal! So I must stop this and write out some more introductions.

  All love, Picot

  Cigarette in hand, for she was an incorrigible chain-smoker, Bottle had thought long and hard about Cyril, thoroughly examining the Black Book and the card indexes until she lighted upon Cora Church.

  Cora was one of the most enchanting clients the Bureau had ever known. All the staff shared the view of a man to whom Heather had introduced her: ‘When Cora comes into the room, it’s as if the sun has descended from the heavens and entered by her side. She radiates, she illuminates, she warms, she makes you feel glad to be alive, regardless of the bombs crashing outside.’

  Each and every man who had met Cora had become her friend; but she was still looking for the right one to marry. Her life had been fraught with tragedy, for she had been completely blind for ten years, until a revolutionary operation had largely restored her sight. It had been ten more years before she could see clearly, a decade of difficulty which Cora treated as lightly as if it had been an endless round of frivolity and amusement. At the interview she told Heather that at first she had been able to see only in a haze. One day she had walked with a friend to post a letter and, thinking she saw a pillar box, was puzzled that it seemed to be moving. So she walked closer and, as the red box remained stationary, she asked her friend to give her the letter to post.