The Londoners

by Margaret Pemberton

  ‘’Course it isn’t,’ Carrie said minutes later as she sat at her dressing-table, carefully continuing with her task of painting her nails a searing scarlet. ‘I’m sick to death of hearing about Chamberlain and Munich. There’s been no other subject of conversation in this house all day. Dad thinks Chamberlain should be certified and put in an asylum and Mum keeps asking why it is the King doesn’t intervene. She’s such a royalist she believes one word of reprimand from the House of Windsor will bring Hitler to his knees.’

  ‘Then what was it you wanted to tell me?’ Kate asked, settling herself comfortably on Carrie’s bed.

  Being careful not to smudge her nails, Carrie screwed the cap back on her nail varnish bottle and then turned to face her, her pretty, square-jawed face radiant. ‘I’m having a baby,’ she said jubilantly. ‘Isn’t it wonderful news? Isn’t it absolutely blooming marvellous?’

  Chapter Six

  Kate could only agree with her that it was, indeed, marvellous news. Even as she said the words she was aware, however, of a very peculiar sensation. A baby. In some odd way she realized that she had only ever thought of mature women having babies, not girls of her own age. And even though Carrie was now married, her marriage had changed things between them so little that it had never seemed quite real. Carrie being pregnant would, however, change things quite a lot. It would mean her friend embarking on experiences and responsibilities that were still quite alien to herself; experiences and responsibilities she could scarcely imagine.

  Immediately the thought occurred to her, her thoughts flew to Toby Harvey and the familiar sensation of heat that engulfed her whenever she allowed her thoughts to dwell on him again suffused her. It would be easy to imagine herself married to Toby and bearing his child.

  She said a little sheepishly, ‘I have some news for you as well.’

  Carrie’s cat-green eyes widened in anticipation. ‘What?’ She began to giggle. ‘You’re not pregnant as well, are you?’

  At the ludicrousness of the remark Kate grinned and threw a pillow at her. ‘No, idiot,’ she said as Carrie ducked adroitly. ‘It’s something I should have told you about weeks ago but I didn’t want to put it into words because I was so sure nothing would come of it.’

  ‘What’s his name and where did you meet him?’ Carrie asked, coming to the correct conclusion immediately and waving her scarlet-tipped nails in the air in order to dry them a little quicker.

  Knowing very well the shock that Carrie was in for and experiencing a sense of fizzing excitement at the mere prospect of it, she said as casually as she was able, ‘Toby Harvey and I met him at work.’

  ‘Harvey?’ Carrie was visibly bemused. ‘That’s a bit of a coincidence, isn’t it? Meeting a bloke at Harvey’s with the name Harvey.’

  ‘Not really,’ Kate said, keeping a straight face with difficulty. ‘His grandfather is old man Harvey.’

  Carrie’s jaw dropped and as she stared goggle-eyed it was Kate’s turn to giggle. ‘I’m surprised Mavis hasn’t already told you about what she terms my “posh” boyfriend. She saw us earlier and it would have been typical of her to have already broadcast the news far and wide.’

  ‘I haven’t spoken to Mavis for days. We had a row over the amount of time she spends talking to Jack Robson whenever she’s coming back from shopping or taking the kids to and from school and he’s messing about in the Square with his motor bike. I told her people would begin talking about it and that it would get back to Ted but she wouldn’t have any of it. She says the idea of her being interested in Jack Robson in any way other than as someone to have a laugh and a joke with is just plain daft and that she doesn’t give a fig what the old biddies in the Square think about it.’

  She rose from her dressing-table stool and crossed the small room to sit next to Kate on the bed. ‘So,’ she asked, getting back to the real subject of interest, ‘just how the hell did you manage to snare the grandson of the richest man in the neighbourhood?’

  ‘I didn’t snare him,’ Kate replied with mock indignation. ‘It just happened, that’s all. He came into my office a few weeks ago for a meeting with Mr Muff. We exchanged a few words. Not very amicable words, actually. Then I kept seeing him in the canteen and I realized he was a much nicer a person than I had first thought . . .’

  ‘Hang on a minute! What do you mean “we exchanged a few words not very amicably?”’ Carrie’s thick tangle of hair, which never fell into a sleek fall to her shoulders no matter how she coaxed and brushed it, tumbled hoydenishly around her rosy-cheeked face. ‘How can you fall out with a bloke you’ve never set eyes on before within seconds of him walking into your office? Especially a bloke who is the boss’s grandson?’

  Kate curled her legs beneath her on the bed, knowing that the ensuing gossip was going to be a long one. ‘I didn’t know he was the boss’s grandson when he swanned into Mr Muff’s office as if he owned it.’

  ‘Well if he doesn’t own it right at this very moment, he will one day,’ Carrie interrupted dryly.

  Kate let the comment slide by. She wasn’t interested in Toby Harvey because he would, in all likelihood, one day inherit his grandfather’s company. She was interested in him because he was the most likeable man she had ever met; because they thought alike and instinctively understood one another; because he was kind and tolerant; and because he made her laugh. Her cheeks warmed. And because she thought him unbelievably handsome and because he had the most devastating physical effect on her.

  ‘Are you going to let me continue or not?’ she asked chidingly.

  Carrie swung her legs up on to the bed and hugged her knees to her chest. ‘I’m going to let you continue,’ she said, her curiosity nearly a physical pain. ‘Just get on with it, will you? What happened after you kept seeing him in the canteen? Did he ask you out? Did he take you somewhere really swish like the Café Royal? Has he got a flash car?’

  ‘For God’s sake, Carrie, one thing at a time! No, he didn’t speak to me in the canteen. In fact he never spoke to me again until this lunchtime.’

  ‘Then how do you know that he’s seriously interested in you? And he must be seriously interested or you wouldn’t be looking like a cat that’s just swallowed the cream.’

  ‘I know he’s seriously interested in me because he told me so. We talked together at lunchtime and again earlier on this evening when he took me for a drink at The Princess of Wales. He’s joined the RAF and leaves for training camp tomorrow and he’s asked me if I’ll write to him and go out with him when he has his first leave. As for your Mavis knowing about him. He brought me home from The Princess of Wales because he wanted to meet my dad and Mavis saw the three of us talking together by the gate.’

  She didn’t add that Mavis had viewed the proceedings leaning companionably with Jack Robson against his motor bike.

  ‘Hell’s bells and little fishes!’ Carrie said graphically. ‘Toby Harvey! Trust you to hook the most eligible bachelor Blackheath possesses! What on earth did your father say when he met him? Do you think anything will come of it? Do you think you might actually marry him and end up living in one of those posh houses overlooking the Heath?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Carrie,’ Kate said, with not too much conviction. ‘We’ve had a drink together, that’s all. He might never get in touch with me again.’

  Carrie cocked her head to one side and regarded Kate with sudden shrewdness. ‘You don’t really believe that, do you? You think this is the real thing, don’t you?’

  In all their years of being friends Kate could never remember lying to Carrie and she didn’t do so now. ‘Yes,’ she said, unable to help herself from blushing slightly. ‘I do.’

  Carrie’s grin nearly split her face from ear to ear. ‘Blimey, Kate. That’s just as marvellous news as my news. Why on earth didn’t you bring him down here to meet me? How am I supposed to contain my impatience about what he looks like? Is he tall, dark and handsome? Is he anything like the man Miss Helliwell predicted you would marry?’

>   The answering grin on Kate’s face faltered. It had been years since she had thought about her disquieting experience at Miss Helliwell’s. What was it Miss Helliwell had said to her? That there was very great happiness in her future but that it would only come after heartache? That heartache had, surely, been Jerry Robson’s terrible death in the bullring at Badajoz and was now over and done with.

  ‘Miss Helliwell didn’t give me a detailed description of my husband-to-be as she did to you,’ she said, dismissing her momentary flash of uneasiness. ‘And no, Toby isn’t tall, dark and handsome. He’s tall, fair-haired and handsome.’

  ‘And rich,’ Carrie said with satisfaction.

  Kate frowned slightly. ‘That’s not why I’m interested in him, despite what Mavis might think and despite what other people might think in the future.’

  ‘Well I don’t think that!’ Carrie said truthfully. ‘I know you too well to ever think you would go out with anyone just for their money. It’s just that it’s nice he has money. I mean, it’s such a blinkin’ novelty, isn’t it? Who else do you know who has a rich boyfriend or ever had a rich boyfriend? Mavis certainly didn’t, though God knows she tried hard enough! And I certainly didn’t. If Danny took me out for a fish and chip supper I thought myself lucky.’ She began to giggle again. ‘Now we’re married I don’t even get taken out for fish and chips. All he does is bring them home and we eat them out of the paper in front of the fire while he listens to the football commentary on the wireless!’

  Years later Kate was to remember that evening of girlish giggles and chatter very clearly. Not because of what was said between herself and Carrie but because of what was not said by other members of the Jennings family as she left the house.

  Normally, Miriam Jennings went out of her way to have a cheery word with her, no matter how busy she might be with her household tasks. Normally, too, Leah would bustle out of the kitchen to open the front door for her, a beaming smile on her face as she asked her if she would like a bagel or blintz or anything else that she might have baked that day.

  Now, however, as she walked down the stairs, no-one emerged to have a couple of friendly words with her. Assuming that for once no-one had heard her footsteps on the thin carpeting, she walked down the narrow cluttered hallway to the closed kitchen door, tapped on one of its coloured frosted-glass panels and opened it.

  ‘Bye everyone,’ she said affectionately, popping her head around the door.

  Carrie’s mum and dad and grandmother were still sat around the kitchen table with Christina. At the interruption all of them raised their heads looking towards her. Though the affection in Kate’s voice had not been particularly for Christina, she shot her a politely friendly smile. Christina made not the slightest attempt to respond in a like manner. Dark grey eyes held hers, as glacial as a mid-winter sea.

  Neither Miriam nor Leah made any response to her. Instead, almost the minute they looked towards her, they looked away again, Miriam’s eyes steadfastly on the table in front of her, Leah’s fixed on to hands clasped so tightly that even from the doorway Kate could see that the knuckles were white. Only Albert spoke to her.

  ‘Goodbye Kate,’ he said gruffly and with obvious awkwardness.

  Feeling as if she had committed some dreadful faux pas, and not understanding what it was, Kate stared at them all for a moment in bewilderment and then, as no explanation was forthcoming and her presence was so obviously an unwelcome intrusion, she turned on her heels, eager for the first time in her life to be out of the house.

  Once out in the mild night air, her breathing, which had become as erratic as if she had been running in a race, steadied. She hurried home, scolding herself as she did so. What on earth was she becoming so panic-stricken about? She had known when she had entered the house and had glimpsed Miriam, Albert, Leah and Christina seated around the kitchen table that they were all in a sombre mood and were no doubt discussing Prime Minister Chamberlain’s sell-out to Hitler. There had been nothing personal in what had just happened. Miriam and Leah had simply had too much on their minds to respond to her cheery leave-taking as they would usually have done. That Christina hadn’t said goodbye to her was nothing exceptional. What would have been exceptional was Christina behaving any differently.

  Cross with herself for having become so disconcerted by such a trivial incident, she opened the front gate leading to her home. Ever since Carrie had been a small child, Carl had referred to her affectionately as ‘harum-scarum Carrie’ because she had always been so scatter-brained and boisterous. A smile touched the corners of her mouth as she opened the front door. What on earth was her father going to say when she broke the news to him that harum-scarum Carrie was going to be a mother?

  For the next few days her thoughts centred entirely on the postman. Would he bring her a letter from Toby? Unless he did, she couldn’t possibly write to him because he had given her no address. Five days went past and then a week. Was he not writing to her because he was too busy settling in to his new and no doubt extremely demanding life? Or was he not writing to her because he had already forgotten all about her? Because he had never seriously intended corresponding with her but had simply been playing games?

  As the second week drew to a close she became so edgy and withdrawn that not even her father or Mr Muff could get a smile or chatty conversation from her. She read in her father’s copy of The Times that Duff Cooper, the First Lord of the Admiralty, had resigned his office over the Munich affair just as Toby had predicted he would do. Other news reports were of Jews in Berlin being ordered to hand in their passports within a fortnight and a report of how attacks had taken place on Jews and Jewish property all over Germany on the same night. The report stated that more than 7,000 Jewish shops had been looted and hundreds of synagogues burnt down. There were reports too of how, in Italy, many Jews were being rounded up and charged with plotting against the government.

  Depressed by the news of Europe’s increasingly rapid descent into hell and depressed by the lack of any communication from Toby, Kate walked despondently across the Heath to work and back each day, wondering if she had been a fool to have been so euphoric over her few brief hours in Toby Harvey’s company.

  ‘What’s the matter, Liebling?’ her father asked her at the end of the second week as she returned home from work on Friday evening. ‘You look as if you’ve lost a pound and found a penny. There’s a letter for you on the mantelpiece. It came this morning after you had gone to work. The postmark is a Kent one and I don’t recognize the handwriting. It certainly isn’t from anyone I know.’

  With a gasp of relief and elation Kate darted past him, running into the living-room. The handwriting was bold and unmistakably masculine. Picking the envelope up and hugging it to her breast, she hurried with it up the stairs to read it in the privacy of her bedroom.

  My dear Kate, he had written, and immediately her heart began to slam in thick, heavy strokes. The ‘My’ meant it was going to be far from an impersonal letter. She wasn’t just ‘Dear Kate’, she was his dear Kate. Unsteadily she sat down on her dressing-table stool and continued reading.

  Life’s been pretty hectic this last couple of weeks and I’m sorry I wasn’t able to write to you any sooner. The camp I’m at is packed to the hilt with prospective pilots and we’re all going to be here for at least six months until we get our ‘wings’.

  I may get a few days leave at Christmas, I certainly shan’t get any before then. It feels very odd to be in uniform. I never realized my hair was so thick until I tried to cram my RAF cap on it! Now I know why women find hat-pins so useful! It also feels very odd sharing sleeping quarters with so many other people. Almost like being back at school. There are seven of us in one billet but as we all share the same kind of educational background, (we’re all here for officer training), shaking down together hasn’t been too difficult.

  The one thing I really miss is you. In retrospect I realize I was an over-cautious fool in not telling you how I felt about you long ago. I
threw at least two months away, two months when we could have been spending precious time together. It’s the kind of mistake I shan’t make in the future. When I’m not in a classroom, in a plane or under a plane I think of you (if the real truth were told I think of you in the classroom and plane as well, but I don’t want you to think I’m coming on too strong and to be scared off and not write back to me!). When you do write to me, (and you will, won’t you?), will you send me a photograph of yourself.

  Yours,

  Toby

  Her relief that she had not been mistaken about his feelings for her was so intense that she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry and ended up by doing both as she re-read the letter and then re-read it again. What photograph could she send him? Did she have a decent enough photograph? Nearly every photograph she had ever had taken had Carrie in it too and she wondered if he would mind if the photograph she sent him featured her friend as well.

  ‘Are you all right up there, Liebling?’ her father called up to her a little anxiously from the bottom of the stairs.

  Hastily she crossed to her bedroom door and opened it. Crossing the landing, she leaned over the bannisters. ‘I’m fine, Dad,’ she shouted back down to him. ‘The letter was from Toby.’

  ‘Then that’s all right then,’ she heard her father say, a glimmer of amusement in his voice as he returned to their comfy sitting-room and his evening paper.

  Kate thought it was all right as well. The frantic anxiety she had been living with for the past couple of weeks vanished as if it had never existed. She now had an address at which to write to him. And if Toby did indeed have leave at Christmas, she could now look forward to the best Christmas of her life.

  The letter she wrote to him that night, enclosing a photograph of herself and Carrie taken on the last Cricket Club outing to Folkestone and showing them both perched laughingly on the railings that separated the promenade from the beach, the sea breezes tugging at their hair, ice-cream cones in their hands, was so speedily answered that for the rest of the week she felt as if she were walking on air.