by Anne Bennett
‘What are you saving for, girl?’ Maureen had asked Linda with a sly grin one Saturday morning.
‘Nothing really,’ Linda said. ‘I’m just saving. What d’you mean?’
‘There’s not a young man in the offing?’
‘Some bloody chance,’ Linda scoffed. ‘If I ever had a young man, when the hell would I get to see him?’ But she did see him, of course, and at the farm, though she made sure all she did was see him. She spoke to him only when necessary and usually when someone else was present too.
Maureen supposed Linda was right. It was a bleak time for many young women. She decided to change the subject. ‘How are things up at the house now?’ she asked.
‘Doesn’t Jenny tell you?’
‘Jenny wraps things up so as not to worry me,’ Maureen said. ‘Now you are another like myself, who says things straight out.’
‘Well, yes I do,’ Linda admitted. ‘But really Gran, there’s not much to tell you. I mean, Geraldine’s getting about more. At least she’s not lying in bed all bloody day like she was.’
‘So now she sees to her own wee ones?’ Maureen asked. ‘And about time too, for it’s better to keep busy and Jenny has enough to do.’
In truth, Geraldine still didn’t seem to do a great deal. All she seemed to want to do was to sit before the fire with her mother and drink cup after cup of their precious tea ration and talk about Dan for hours. It got on Linda’s nerves. It was so bloody depressing and although she was sad Dan had died, for she’d liked him too, she knew it did no good to keep going on about it. It wouldn’t help Geraldine get over it quicker, nor would it help the children.
Since that first awful day when the telegram arrived, neither Geraldine nor her mother seemed to care where Linda went at the weekend. On Saturday after the rations had been collected, she, Jenny and the children usually went to Maureen’s or Jan’s, and they were welcome in both houses, but on Sundays they always wanted to head for the farm. They liked the feel of open space and all the animals.
Both children were fascinated by the large fat pink and black sow. She was so fat, her skin lay in rolls and she lay supine on the pigsty floor, while thirteen baby piglets crawled squealing over her body. ‘Can she walk?’ Rosemarie had asked one day. ‘I mean, she looks so fat.’
‘She can walk,’ Sally had told her. ‘Only there’s no great place to go, is there? I mean, she’s got to stay in the sty.’
‘And her teats would probably hang on the ground,’ Charlie had put in.
Rosemarie had turned beetroot red and said, ‘You shouldn’t say that, it’s a bad word.’
‘What is?’
‘That word you said.’
‘What word?’ Charlie was genuinely puzzled and Rosemarie wasn’t going to enlighten him about it.
It was Sally who’d cried out, ‘It’s teat, isn’t it? You think it’s a bad word. That’s a daft idea. It’s what mothers feed their babies with, their teats.’
Her face aflame Rosemarie felt shame seep through her and she said with some venom, ‘That’s wicked talk.’
‘No, it isn’t,’ Sally cried, and she appealed to Max who was crossing the yard at the time. ‘It isn’t wicked to say “teat” is it, Max?’
Rosemarie had told Linda this as she’d tucked her into bed that same night. ‘And what did Max say?’ Linda asked.
‘He said it wasn’t wicked, Sally was right.’
‘And so she was,’ Linda said. ‘But don’t you go shouting the word around the tea-table now or, wicked or not, you’ll get your bottom skelped.’
Rosemarie raised her eyes to the ceiling and said, ‘And don’t I just know it.’
Linda smiled at the child’s woebegone expression, but her mind was on Max – as it so often was. The children loved him, that much was obvious. Didn’t that make him out as a decent person? Wasn’t it said that animals and children had a sort of sixth sense where people were concerned, and were not fazed by a veneer of respectability or charm, but saw the real person beneath? She wasn’t sure if it was true or not, but if it was, what then? It just meant whatever Germany had done, he was an all-right human being. What did it matter, anyway? He’d soon be gone and out of her life for good, and the sooner the better.
She was surprised with the children liking the man so much, that neither mentioned Max at home, although they actually said little of what they did at the farm and neither their mother or grandmother seemed the least bit interested. She wasn’t going to ask them not to talk about Max, for that would have made him seem important – important enough for them to be secretive about him. She didn’t want that, and yet in the beginning she braced herself for the row to come. But it didn’t come, for the children seemed to have another sixth sense regarding what to say at home and what not to say. Max’s name never passed their lips, for never would they give their mother or grandmother ammunition to stop them going to the Phelps’s farm.
‘Don’t you just love it there?’ Sally asked Linda one Sunday night as she’d gone upstairs to say goodnight.
And Linda had to admit she did, and she knew why, and though every sensible bone in her body said she should not go near the place, she still went, longing for the sight of Max Schulz so much, she was often unable to sleep on the Saturday night.
The tide had turned in the war and now it was time for the German cities to be pounded. Most British people thought it about bloody time, especially after the Russian troops reached Auschwitz concentration camp in late January. The conditions of the 2,819 inmates, with their shaven heads and skeletal bodies, had shocked the world, as did the stories of the gas chambers and mass graves and the smell of death that hung over the whole place.
However, the incendiary raid on Dresden, which left 350,000 people dead, stunned many people with its ferocity. Churchill, for the first time, expressed doubts and concern as he said, ‘The destruction of Dresden remains a serious query against the conduct of Allied bombing.’
Many people were still talking about it when Linda and Flora were at Packington Hall the following Friday evening. They sat at the bar during their break and listened to the rights and wrongs of the case, but neither took any part in the discussion.
Suddenly Flora nudged Linda in the ribs and whispered, ‘He’s coming over.’ Linda saw the man Jenny had described as her admirer some weeks before get up from the table and make his way towards them. Linda couldn’t understand him.
This was her fourth week at Packington Hall, and since the first night the man had come every night she performed and had never spoken a word to her. He’d given her the creeps, and if it hadn’t been for her needing the money – and the venue at Packington Hall being such a safe place to gain experience – she’d have jacked it in long before.
She had plenty of time to observe him as he approached, for she held her head up to show she was not afraid, and saw he was very handsome. His skin was fairly dark and yet his hair so light it was almost blond, his eyes were deep set, his nose fairly long and his lips thin and perfectly formed, and he had high cheekbones and a chiselled chin. He wore an extremely smart dark blue suit with a pristine white shirt and a tie that matched the handkerchief poking out of his top pocket. The cuffs peeping out from the sleeves of his jacket were fastened with gold studs.
The man smiled when he saw Linda scrutinizing him and it transformed his whole face. Despite herself, Linda found herself smiling back, ‘Good evening,’ he said, and his voice was pleasant on the ear. And when he went on to say, ‘I must compliment you ladies on your beautiful performance,’ Linda realized he had no accent at all.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
Flora simpered a little and said, ‘How kind of you to say so.’
‘Can I buy you both a drink?’
‘No thanks,’ Linda said bluntly. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I don’t mind if I do,’ Flora put in.
‘And what is your poison?’
‘Gin and it, please,’ Flora said,
and she eyed Linda’s empty glass. ‘I’m sure Linda would like another orange.’
‘Just an orange?’
‘Yes,’ Linda said, annoyed at Flora deciding things for her. ‘Alcohol doesn’t help my voice for one thing,’ she snapped, ‘and for another, I’m not seventeen yet.’
‘Ah, so young and so wise,’ the man said. ‘While I am almost twice your age and quite stupid.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t call you stupid, Mr …?’
‘Haversham. Charles Haversham,’ the man said. ‘And you are?’
‘Flora McMillan,’ Flora said, shaking the hand the man extended.
He turned to Linda and said, ‘I know your name. It is Linda Lennox, though I always think of you as “the little nightingale”. And now I will buy you both a drink.’
‘Please don’t trouble yourself,’ Linda said. ‘Our break is almost up and we’ll have no time to enjoy extra drinks.’
‘Oh, but Linda …’
Linda slipped from the stool and, cutting across what Flora was saying, she went on, ‘And, if you will both excuse me, I must go and powder my nose,’ and so saying, she walked away from them.
She was surprised how angry she felt at the man Charles Haversham. Just being the type of man he was annoyed her, and Flora was playing up to him, expecting her to do the same. Linda peered at herself in the mirror. She had no illusions about herself – she was slim and pretty enough, but she considered her only truly beautiful attribute was her voice. She looked her age and her accent betrayed her as a Brummie, and she had no idea what Charles Haversham was doing, bothering with her and Flora. If he’d liked her voice, why hadn’t he come over the first night and said so casually? Lots of people had done just that, but he’d had to make a drama of it, to sit staring for weeks and then approach her as he might walk across a stage in a play.
She was annoyed with herself for even thinking about the man at all, and for her display of bad manners; that probably showed him she was disturbed. She decided she’d go back in and be polite, but no more, proving that she thought him no more important than any other patron of the restaurant.
And it really seemed as if it was going to work. She walked up to Flora, still talking to Charles Haversham and sipping at her second gin and it and said, ‘Are you ready, Flora?’
Flora took one look at Linda’s angry eyes and quickly gulped down the rest of her drink. As Linda sang, the agitation left her and it wasn’t until the end of the evening that it surfaced again – tenfold.
The taxi that brought them in the early evening came to fetch them around twelve o’clock when the taxi driver parked in the car park and called in to the restaurant to pick up the two ladies. But that night, no taxi arrived. Linda was peering into the black night to see if she could see a sign of it, and didn’t notice Charles with Flora’s and Linda’s coats over his arm until her attention was drawn to it.
‘I took the liberty of cancelling your taxi,’ Charles said smoothly. ‘I have my car outside and would consider it an honour to take you both home.
‘You what?’ Linda said, her voice almost a shout.
‘Miss McMillan was quite amenable. I asked her at the break. I thought she would have mentioned it when you returned.’
‘Oh, did you? Well, she didn’t,’ Linda cried. She glared at Charles and then said, ‘Would you excuse me a minute? I have to speak to my friend.’
‘Of course.’
Linda barely waited till he was out of earshot before she rounded on Flora. ‘How could you be so stupid? We know nothing about this man.’
‘I do. I asked the manager. He’s a millionaire, Linda.’
‘Yeah, well he could still be a mass murderer.’
‘Don’t be silly.’
‘Me being silly? That’s a laugh,’ Linda cried. ‘You’re being plain stupid.’
‘I’m not.’ Flora had gone red. ‘They know him well here, the manager said so.’
‘Bully for them, but we don’t.’
‘Oh, please Linda. He’s a really nice person, a gentleman. He owns a factory in Aston that makes parts for guns, he was telling me about it and because of that, he was exempt from active service.’
‘Oh yeah. So he wangled that as well,’ Linda said scathingly.
‘It wasn’t his fault,’ Flora said placatingly. ‘Our armies couldn’t fight without guns and that, could they?’ Linda didn’t answer and Flora went on, ‘Oh, go on, Linda. Say yes? He’s got a Rolls and I’ve never ridden in a Rolls in my life.’
Neither had Linda. Indeed, she thought, neither had most of the nation. In fact, a ride in any type of car was a novelty, but a Rolls …
‘And after all, he’s cancelled the taxi now.’
‘Rather high-handed of him, don’t you think?’
‘He asked me,’ Flora said. ‘I said it was all right. I forgot to mention it, that’s all. If you’re cross with anyone it should be me.’
‘It is you. I’m so flaming mad I could clout you,’ Linda said.
She wondered what she should do now, accept the man’s offer or insist the manager order another taxi. He wouldn’t like that, especially if Charles was as well-heeled as Flora said. He was certainly a regular at the restaurant and if she refused, then it might make things awkward. Also, time was getting on and if she had to wait for another taxi to be sent out, it would be very late when she got home, and Jenny waited up. Then of course, she’d have given her eye teeth for a chance for a ride in a Rolls. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Just this once. Don’t do anything like this again and I’ll tell you now, if he tries any funny business, I’ll slap his bleeding face for him.’
Charles drove well, although before the war he’d actually driven very little, for his chauffeur Grimes had taken him everywhere. But Grimes had enlisted as soon as war had been declared, and Charles was surprised to find how much he enjoyed driving himself.
He glanced across at Linda, struck again by the uncanny resemblance she had to his late mother. Not, of course, the way his mother had looked just before she’d died six short months before. Then she’d become wizened with the weight she’d lost, and her skin had a yellowish tinge to it, but before that Charles had spent hours looking at the photographs of her as a girl and a young woman, and Linda Lennox could have been her double.
Charles had adored his mother. His father hadn’t needed to ask him to look after her as he lay dying on a hospital bed when Charles was in his early teens. From the moment his father had breathed his last, he’d refused to return to his boarding school. Instead, he’d gone into the factory daily, learning the business that he would one day be in charge of. His Uncle Reginald, brought in to oversee the factory until Charles was old enough to take up the reins himself, was astounded at the young boy’s dedication to follow in his father’s footsteps, both in business and in caring for his mother.
Girls had never interested Charles. At his school he’d had relationships with a couple of boys, but those encounters hadn’t really done anything for him either. Sex was unimportant to him. His mother was pleased to have such an attentive and devoted son and had no desire for any woman, however suitable, to take Charles’s attention from her; she said so often. Charles told her not to worry; he had no wish to go out with anyone, let alone marry.
He was surprised how lonely he’d felt since his mother had died. There was no one waiting for him when he walked in the door in the evening, to mix him a drink and listen to him talking of the events of the day. He had few true friends, but money and privilege ensured he had many acquaintances and of course business colleagues, but their company could not make up for the loss of his mother and he mourned her deeply and sincerely.
At first, he had no desire to leave the house. It was comfortable for him with the daily help they had to clean the place. Amy Sallenger had been his mother’s companion and she now ran the house in place of her mistress. Amy saw to the laundry, talked over the menu with old Bessie the cook and saw to Charles’s clothes herself, starching his collars and cuffs and pres
sing his suits.
So Charles had little to do when he returned home in the evening but mix his own drink. Later, he would eat the meal Bessie would cook, always alone, for though he’d asked Amy many times to sit at the table with him, she never would. It wouldn’t be right, she said, and she was happier in the kitchen. Charles was sure she was, but he would have welcomed another face across the table some nights.
In the end, crushing boredom had sent him to Packington Hall with a small crowd of business associates to try out the restaurant, and from the moment he saw Linda Lennox, he was almost transfixed. It was as if his mother had returned to him and all night he’d been unable to keep his eyes off her; when she began to sing, he was bewitched. The uncanny likeness to his mother made it imperative that he speak to her.
However, his nerve had failed him, though he was there every time she sang. That evening at home, while he had his pre-dinner drink, he’d got out his mother’s photograph albums again. She’d been born while Queen Victoria was on the throne, but had grown up in the elegant Edwardian era, and he saw photographs of her at summer picnics in her long flowing dresses and the parasol and bonnet to protect her pretty skin from the sun’s rays. He saw her being rowed in a punt by a young man in a striped blazer, and at parties and gatherings of young people together and eventually, she and her handsome husband were photographed on their wedding day. Linda’s floor-length dress of apricot satin that she still wore while she sang, made the similarity between her and Charles’s mother even more marked, and that evening he knew he must speak to her.
And he had. And now he was taking her home, although he’d sensed her hostility to him. Even while he didn’t understand it, he told himself to tread carefully. He behaved impeccably, and Linda, unaware of his thoughts, was able to enjoy the sensation of being carried along in a car that just purred its way forward. Both women sat in the back on the plush leather seats and felt like royalty.
Charles took them both home again the following Saturday evening. While they were waiting for Flora to fetch her coat, he asked Linda for a date, and she politely refused. ‘The management at Packington Hall wouldn’t like me to have relationships with the patrons of the place,’ she’d said in explanation.
