The Wayward Wife

by Jessica Stirling

  Also by Jessica Stirling

  The Spoiled Earth

  The Hiring Fair

  The Dark Pasture

  The Deep Well at Noon

  The Blue Evening Gone

  The Gates of Midnight

  Treasures on Earth

  Hearts of Gold

  Creature Comforts

  The Good Provider

  The Asking Price

  The Wise Child

  The Welcome Light

  A Lantern for the Dark

  Shadows on the Shore

  The Penny Wedding

  The Marrying Kind

  The Workhouse Girl

  The Island Wife

  The Wind from the Hills

  The Strawberry Season

  Prized Possessions

  Sisters Three

  Wives at War

  The Piper’s Tune

  Shamrock Green

  The Captive Heart

  One True Love

  Blessings in Disguise

  The Fields of Fortune

  A Kiss and a Promise

  The Paradise Waltz

  A Corner of the Heart

  The Last Voyage

  About the author

  Born in Glasgow, Jessica Stirling is the author of many heartwarming novels, most of which have Scottish backgrounds. She has enjoyed a highly successful career since THE SPOILED EARTH was published in 1974.

  THE WAYWARD WIFE

  Jessica Stirling

  www.hodder.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain in 2013 by Hodder & Stoughton

  An Hachette UK Company

  Copyright © by Jessica Stirling 2013

  The right of Jessica Stirling to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  Ebook ISBN 978 1 444 74461 3

  Hardback ISBN 978 1 444 74459 0

  Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

  338 Euston Road

  London NW1 3BH

  www.hodder.co.uk

  Contents

  Also by Jessica Stirling

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Part One: Tempting Fate

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Part Two: The Long Hot Summer

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Part Three: Blitz

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  PART ONE

  Tempting Fate

  1

  To ease the sting of losing her husband Vivian had invited Susan to lunch at L’Étoile. In fact, Susan hadn’t ‘lost’ her husband at all. Danny wasn’t dodging U-boats in the North Atlantic, digging in along the Maginot Line with the British Expeditionary Force or training to fly a Spitfire on an airfield in Kent. Flat feet, indifferent eyesight and a talent for editing had condemned him to a reserve posting with the BBC’s monitoring unit in Evesham where the only thing he might die of was frostbite.

  It had been a bitterly cold winter so far. The first few weeks of 1940 had brought no respite. Even within the restaurant the air was sufficiently chill to hold a hint of frosty breath mingled with cigarette smoke, a great cloud of which hung over the round table under the skylight where reporters and broadcasters met informally for lunch.

  Susan and Vivian were seated at a corner table for two. Vivian had kept on her overcoat and fur hat. Taking a lead from the older woman, Susan too had retained her coat, a tweed swagger, and a pert little hat which, though chic, did nothing to keep her ears warm.

  The men who commandeered the round table had checked in their overcoats and scarves and lounged, chatting and laughing, as if they were indifferent to the cold, though one of them, Susan noticed, still sported a battered, sweat-stained fedora that not so long ago would have had him evicted by the management.

  ‘Well,’ Vivian said, ‘that didn’t take long.’

  ‘What didn’t take long?’ said Susan.

  ‘For someone to catch your eye. Who is he?’

  ‘I’ve absolutely no idea,’ Susan said.

  ‘They’re Americans, aren’t they?’

  ‘The boys from CBS, I think. The slim one with his back to us is Edward Murrow, if I’m not mistaken. And that may be Bill Shirer, though I was rather under the impression he was still reporting from Berlin.’

  ‘And the fellow in the awful hat of whom the maître d’ so clearly disapproves, have you bumped into him in the corridors of power?’ Vivian said. ‘He’s certainly giving you the once-over.’

  ‘I’d hardly call Broadcasting House the corridors of power,’ said Susan. ‘In any case, if we had met I’m quite sure I’d remember him.’

  Vivian sniffed and slid a menu into Susan’s hand.

  ‘You may have fibbed about your marital status to secure a job with the BBC but it must be all above board now they’ve removed the bar on hiring married women,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you wear your wedding ring?’

  ‘Because it’s written into my contract that married women will be expected to resign the instant the war’s over.’

  ‘The war,’ Vivian said, ‘has barely begun. No one’s naïve enough to suppose it’ll be over soon and, if it is, chances are we’ll all be jabbering in German and bowing the knee to Herr Hitler.’

  ‘I’m sure you wouldn’t mind that too much.’

  ‘Now, now!’ said Vivian. ‘I may have taken tea with Dr Goebbels and had some of my books published by that Nazi, Martin Teague, but I’ve completely changed my tune since then, as well you know.’

  ‘My brother, Ronnie, thinks you’re a hypocrite.’

  ‘At least I stayed in England. I could have fled to the United States like half the literary crowd – well, the fascist half anyway.’

  ‘Fish,’ Susan said. ‘I do believe I’ll have the fish.’

  Vivian peered at the menu. ‘In deference to my new-found patriotism, I will forgo the beef and settle for a mushroom soufflé and the sole meunière. What about wine: a nice dry Riesling?’

  ‘Patriotism only stretches so far, I see.’

  ‘We can pretend it’s from Alsace,’ said Vivian.

  For the best part of four years Susan had been employed by Vivian Proudfoot to transcribe the controversial books that had earned Viv a degree of notoriety and quite a bit of money but in the spring of 1939, with the possibility of war looming, Vivian had urged Susan to
apply for a ‘safe’ job with the BBC.

  The interview had been conducted in one of the Corporation’s poky little offices in Duchess Street.

  ‘Where were you born, Miss Hooper?’

  ‘Shadwell.’

  ‘You don’t sound like a person from the East End, if you don’t mind me saying so.’

  ‘My father felt it would be to my advantage to learn to speak properly.’

  ‘And your mother?’

  ‘She died when I was a child.’

  ‘You were raised by a female relative, I take it?’

  ‘No, I was raised by my father.’

  ‘And what does he do? I mean, his profession?’

  ‘He’s a docker; a crane driver to be precise.’

  ‘Really? How remarkable!’

  The interviewer’s air of superiority had galled her. He was nothing but a middle-aged, middle-rank staffer with a public school accent who clearly disapproved of the gender shift in BBC policy.

  ‘I see from your application that you were an assistant to Vivian Proudfoot until very recently. Do you share Miss Proudfoot’s political views?’

  ‘I attended two or three rallies with Miss Proudfoot for the purposes of research. I’m certainly not a supporter of fascism and, may I point out, neither is Miss Proudfoot.’

  ‘Forgive my caution, Miss Hooper. One can’t be too careful these days. By the bye, I assume you’re not married?’

  ‘No,’ she’d answered without a blush. ‘No, I’m not married,’ and three weeks later had received a contract of employment.

  Unfit for army service and thoroughly unsettled, Danny had lost his job in Fleet Street and been coopted on to the staff of the BBC. From that point on their marriage had deteriorated into sharing a bed occasionally and nodding as they passed on the stairs.

  Susan was well aware that the chap in the soiled fedora was interested in her. Hat notwithstanding, he was quite prepossessing in an unruly, un-English sort of way, not all stiff and haughty like so many of the young men she encountered in Broadcasting House. He held her gaze for four or five seconds, then, leaning forward, put a question to the men at his table. They were journalists, foreign correspondents, men of the world and far too polite to look round at her.

  Vivian covered her mouth with the edge of the menu.

  ‘Now see what you’ve done,’ she whispered. ‘He thinks he’s on to a good thing. Oh, God, he’s coming over.’

  He was broad-shouldered and heavy-set but walked with a curiously light step, like a boxer or a dancer. He had the decency to take off the fedora and hold it down by his side. His hair needed trimming and the dark stubble on his chin suggested that he hadn’t shaved for days.

  Fancifully, Susan imagined he might have stepped off a freighter from Murmansk or, less fancifully, the boat-train from Calais. He certainly had the air of a man who had been places and done things.

  She glanced up, gave him the wisp of a smile and waited, a little breathlessly, for him to introduce himself.

  ‘Miss Proudfoot? Vivian Proudfoot?’

  ‘Yes,’ Vivian said in her West End voice. ‘I am she.’

  ‘It’s a real pleasure to meet you,’ he said and, ignoring Susan completely, offered Vivian his hand.

  On the few occasions when Susan had persuaded her brother Ronnie to take her up town after dark she’d been intrigued by the massive cream-coloured edifice in Portland Place that looked more like an ocean liner moored in a narrow canal than a building in the heart of London.

  She had wondered then at the magic that the wizards cooked up within: dance bands and orchestras, singers, comedians, plays, talks and interviews with famous people all miraculously transmitted to the wireless in the Hoopers’ kitchen in Shadwell. After she’d gone to work in Broadcasting House, though, it hadn’t taken her long to realise that the only magical thing about the organisation was that ‘the voice of the nation’ wasn’t smothered by the avalanche of memos that poured down from the boardroom or drowned out by the bickering that went on between controllers and producers.

  Now, with the walls painted drab green to fool German bombers, sandbags piled against the porticos and policemen on guard at every entrance, the seat of national conscience had the same down-at-heel appearance as most of London’s other monumental institutions.

  Vivian said, ‘Why the long face? What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘It’s not my fault Mr Gaines recognised me.’

  ‘Gaines? Oh, is that his name?’

  ‘Do stop sulking, Susan.’

  ‘I’m not sulking. You’d hardly be full of beans if you were about to spend hours trailing some producer from pillar to post with a notebook in your hand.’

  Vivian was a robust woman in her forties and in a military-style overcoat and fur hat had the imposing bearing of a Soviet commissar. She smoked a cigarette in a short amber holder and, with a certain panache, blew smoke skywards. ‘I’m just as surprised as you are that an American newsman was more interested in hearing my opinions than flirting with you.’

  ‘He was certainly impressed by your latest book.’

  ‘Oh, that old thing,’ said Vivian. ‘Dashed it off in a couple of weeks when I’d nothing better to do.’

  ‘Ha-ha,’ said Susan.

  ‘Ha-ha, indeed,’ said Vivian. ‘We sweated blood on The Great Betrayal, didn’t we, my dear?’

  ‘Is it selling well?’

  ‘Better than I expected. Something to be said for cheap paper editions put out for the masses. Handy size for reading in air-raid shelters, apparently.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Vivian, but I really must go,’ Susan said.

  ‘Of course.’ Vivian tapped the cigarette from its holder. ‘I must say, you’ve been a model of restraint.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean?’

  ‘Not one question about the rough-hewn Mr Gaines.’

  ‘I was there. I heard how he flattered you. He seems to regard you as some sort of oracle.’ Susan paused. ‘He certainly had no time for me.’

  ‘Ah!’ said Viv. ‘There you’re wrong. Unless my old eyes deceive me our Mr Gaines is loitering by the staff entrance even as we speak.’

  Susan, with difficulty, did not turn round.

  ‘What’s he doing there?’ she said.

  ‘He obviously expected you to have shaken off the boring old battleaxe and is seizing an opportunity to whisper a few sweet nothings in your shell-like without me around,’ Vivian said. ‘He’s a nomad, Susan, a newsman, a stranger in a strange land. He’s probably hoping you’ll take pity on him and show him, shall we say, the sights. It’s your own fault for flirting with him in the first place.’

  ‘I did not flirt with him, Vivian.’

  ‘Try telling him that,’ Viv said, then, turning on her heel, headed for Oxford Street and left it to Susan to repair her tarnished reputation as best she could.

  2

  When the Welshman touched him Danny Cahill flinched and sat up. It was pitch dark in the bedroom, so dark that the hand that brushed his hair seemed disembodied.

  There was nothing remotely sensual in Silwyn Griffiths’s touch. He was merely being careful not to poke a finger into Danny’s eye or up one frozen nostril. As soon as Danny sat up the hand floated away, swallowed by the all-encompassing darkness.

  ‘What time is it?’ Danny whispered.

  ‘Ten to six.’

  ‘What the hell’re you doin’ up so early?’

  The stealthy creak of floorboards and a soft little ‘ow’ as Griff barked his shin on the dressing table were followed by the sound of the blackout shutter being raised.

  ‘It’s crisp out there,’ Griff intoned in the sing-song baritone that Danny hadn’t quite got used to yet. ‘Deep and crisp and even, one might say.’

  ‘You mean, it’s snowin’ again?’

  ‘Heavily.’

  Danny propped himself up on the pillow.

  ‘Therefore, no bus,’ he said.

  ‘No bikes either,�
� said Griffiths. ‘We’re on the hoof this morning, boyo, by the look of it.’

  He lowered the noisy blackout shutter and switched on a bedside lamp. He was clad in a roll-neck sweater that one of his innumerable girlfriends had knitted for him, and the sheepskin coat his father, a hill farmer in Brecon, had handed down.

  Danny had been raised in a Catholic orphanage where cleanliness was next to godliness but the prolonged spell of wintry weather had undermined his principles too. He slept in his underwear and settled for a dab with a damp washcloth in Mrs Pell’s kitchenette in preference to the icy cold of the bathroom on the landing.

  Sucking in a breath, he flung aside the bedclothes, reached for his shirt and trousers and dressed quickly.

  ‘What if we can’t make it, Griff?’

  ‘The boys on the night shift will stay on. We are, however, obliged to gird our sturdy loins and give it a go. You’re a Scot, for heaven’s sake,’ said Griff. ‘I thought you’d be used to weather like this.’

  ‘I haven’t set foot in Scotland in years,’ Danny said. ‘Anyroads, I was reared in Glasgow not a bloody Highland croft. Are you ready for breakfast?’

  ‘I am. Indeed, I am,’ Griff said, and led the way downstairs to the only warm room in the house: the kitchen.

  They were billeted in a semi-detached council house in Deaconsfield, a tiny hamlet three miles from the monitoring unit in the grounds of the Wood Norton estate. They were more fortunate than some of their colleagues, for certain members of the rural community were suspicious of, not to say downright hostile towards, the eccentric foreigners that the BBC had dumped on their doorsteps.

  The Pells were not of that ilk. Mr Pell was a lanky man with a laconic sense of humour and Mrs Pell, as small and chirpy as a sparrow, wasn’t fazed by her lodgers’ erratic hours and gave good value for her billeting fee when it came to dishing up the required two hot meals a day.

  ‘My dear lady,’ Griffiths purred, ‘we’d no intention of dragging you from your beauty sleep at this unholy hour. I do hope we didn’t wake you and, if we did, I can only offer my apologies. I say, is that French toast?’

  The sight of thick slices of bread dipped in egg and fried to a golden brown made Danny’s stomach rumble. He balanced his plate on the edge of the dresser and attacked the toast with a fork.