The Wayward Wife

by Jessica Stirling

  ‘Fifty-seven below in Finland, Mr Pell tells me,’ Mrs Pell said. ‘Heard it on the news. Even the Russians are dropping like flies, Mr Pell says. You’ll know all about that, I suppose.’

  The Pells were aware that Griffiths and Danny helped compile the daily Digest of Foreign Broadcasts, a thirty-thousand-word document dispatched to an ever-growing number of ministries and government departments, and were forever fishing for inside information on the state of the war in Europe, information that Griff and Danny mischievously refused to surrender.

  ‘Fifty-seven below, eh?’ said Griff. ‘I wonder what sort of reading we have in Deaconsfield this morning. Whatever it is, we’d better get a move on before it gets any worse.’

  He picked up the last piece of toast, stuffed it into his mouth and washed it down with tea. He wiped his fingers on the skirts of his coat, fished a knitted woollen cap from his pocket and fitted it snugly over his curly hair.

  Danny settled for an old cloth cap.

  ‘Got your gas masks, both of you?’ Mrs Pell asked.

  ‘Fully equipped, Mrs P,’ Griff assured her.

  ‘Will you be home for supper?’

  ‘Lap of the gods, I’m afraid,’ said Griff. ‘Especially in this weather.’ He unlatched the back door and stepped into the porch.

  Drifting snow covered the steps and formed a steep bank against the side of the garden shed. There wasn’t a warden within miles of Deaconsfield but Mrs Pell, taking no chances, swiftly closed the door behind them.

  ‘God, what a mornin’,’ Danny said, shivering. ‘Be no mail delivered today, I doubt.’

  ‘And no letters from your lovely wife,’ said Griff and yelped when Danny shoved him out into the snow.

  Many of the women who worked in Broadcasting House would have been flattered by Robert Gaines’s attentions, others would have been irritated by his inability to come to the point and one or two shy virgins, fresh up from the country and not yet wise in the ways of the world, would perhaps have viewed him as a serious threat to their maidenhood.

  Susan, however, was neither impatient nor virginal and after four years consorting with Vivian’s gang of right-wing toffs and sleazy intellectuals regarded herself as flatter-proof.

  Her sister-in-law, Breda, would undoubtedly have forced the issue by throwing herself, bosom first, at Robert Gaines.

  Breda had always been attracted to large, bear-like men. In her halcyon days, before Ronnie had knocked her up and had gallantly agreed to marry her, Breda had run up an impressive tally of wrestlers and boxers, not to mention the odd Irish scallywag, all of whom, being the kind of men they were, had ridden off into the sunset as soon as they’d had their way with her. At least, Susan thought wistfully, Breda had had some fun before she’d settled down; her solitary affair had brought nothing but heartache in the end.

  No more broken hearts now, she told herself, as she stood before the mirror in the ladies’ cloakroom on the third floor of Broadcasting House and applied a light touch of natural lipstick and an even lighter dusting of face powder to disguise the fatigue that several hours of taking dictation from Mr Basil Willets had laid upon her.

  She was no longer the uncultured young girl who’d crept out of Shadwell to work as a temporary secretary to lawyers, doctors and City gents but she was, she supposed, still pretty enough to attract the attention of sensible men now she’d learned to disguise her East End origins.

  In fact, she’d left her roots and her family far behind even before she’d stumbled into marriage with kind, caring and utterly dependable Danny Cahill, a marriage that war, and her job with the BBC, threatened to undermine.

  Now, with Danny out of sight if not entirely out of mind and every day tainted by uncertainty she was almost, if not quite, ready to throw caution to the winds and embrace the opportunity for a romantic adventure that chance, mere chance, had blown her way.

  She put on her overcoat, hat, scarf and woollen gloves and made her way down by the stairs to the main reception area at the front of the building.

  No light now, no gleam or glow was allowed to spill out into the street, for Broadcasting House was no longer a beacon to the world. ‘The BBC must set an example,’ the memo had read. ‘It is the responsibility of all staff members to ensure that blackout restrictions are strictly observed.’ Thick layers of dark green paint and metal shutters had taken care of the windows, all the windows on all floors, but the foyer and reception hall had caused problems.

  She crossed the gloomy reception hall to the huge, heavily weighted drapes that covered the bronze doorway, curtains stolen, it was said, from the old Hoxton Empire; a rumour that, like so many rumours these days, had turned out to be false. The elderly commissionaire heaved aside the slip curtain and let her enter the muffled passage between the curtains and then, with much flapping, the duty policeman opened the doors and released her on to the pavement.

  Half past six o’clock, the cold so keen that it scalded your skin: Susan turned up her coat collar and glanced towards the steps of All Souls Church where Robert Gaines might or might not be waiting.

  There was no sign tonight of the American. If she’d been younger and less sure of herself she would have lingered on the pavement in the hope that he might show up but she was no wan little typist desperate for love and, like time and tide, would wait for no man. Besides, she had a gut feeling that Mr Gaines might be playing a game, not to tease but to test her; a novel kind of seduction that she found both irksome and exciting.

  Of their three casual encounters in the past week none had led to dinner and dancing but only to coffee and cake in a café off Wigmore Street, surrounded by noisy young nurses and doctors in smart new uniforms, and a half-hour’s guarded conversation in which neither Robert nor she seemed willing to give much away.

  Squaring her shoulders, she walked on without breaking step. If he comes, he comes, she thought, and if he doesn’t, well, that’s up to him. He was, after all, a hard-pressed working journalist with deadlines to meet and for all she knew, for all he’d told her, might even now be on a boat heading for France or Italy or even off home to New York.

  She had almost convinced herself that she didn’t care when, waving his hat in the air, Robert Gaines appeared out of nowhere and, calling her name, hurried to join her.

  ‘I thought I’d missed you,’ he said.

  ‘You almost did,’ said Susan.

  ‘Coffee,’ he said, ‘or would you rather have a drink?’

  ‘Coffee,’ she said, ‘will be fine, particularly if you’re pushed for time.’

  ‘I’m always pushed for time. You know how it is.’

  ‘Of course,’ Susan said and, taking his arm, accompanied him through the darkened streets to the café just off Wigmore Street to play another cautious game of pussyfoot for the next half-hour or so.

  Breda’s mother, Nora Romano, thought that Ronnie in his fireman’s uniform was the handsomest thing on two legs. Lots of women in Shadwell agreed with her. Even the old croakers, who should have known better, simpered a little when Ron strode up Fawley Street with the peak of his cap pulled down to hide the gimlet gaze he’d developed since trading a butcher’s apron for a heavy wool tunic with a double row of chrome buttons.

  It wasn’t the old croakers that worried Breda as much as the young chicks who breezed about the East End at the wheel of ambulances or manned telephones in command posts and who, in Breda’s jaundiced opinion, would have the trousers off any feller under the age of seventy who looked as if he might be up for a bit of hanky-panky now that conscription had thinned the ranks of available males, including husbands.

  For that reason, among others, Breda had retreated from the school on the Commercial Road where, at the crack of dawn on the last day of August, half the mothers and children in the East End had assembled, complete with gas masks, rucksacks, suitcases and a mournful assortment of dolls and teddy bears, to be herded off to God knows where.

  She’d taken one look at the doleful mob and, with Bil
ly clinging to her hand, had turned tail and legged it back to the terraced house in Pitt Street where Ronnie, in vest and drawers, had been seated at the kitchen table bleakly toying with a poached egg.

  ‘Changed your mind, ’ave you, love?’ he’d said. ‘Can’t say I blame you,’ and that, much to Breda’s relief, had brought an end to all talk of leaving Shadwell.

  As penance for remaining in London she was obliged to escort Billy to a school on the far side of Cable Street where in a half-empty classroom the handful of kiddies who’d stayed behind were taught the three Rs by a bad-tempered old spinster. The teacher did not like Billy, Billy did not care for the teacher, and Breda didn’t like anything about the school, particularly the earth-filled sandbags that leaked filthy brown sludge across the playground, sludge that winter had turned to ice.

  On that particular morning, she gave her son a kiss, made sure he had tuppence for his dinner and, with the usual twinge of anxiety, watched him join his chums on the slides that criss-crossed the playground. Then, flipping up her coat collar and sticking her hands in her pockets, she set off for Stratton’s Dining Rooms where her mother continued to dish up grub to cabmen and dock workers and, increasingly, to men and women in unfamiliar uniforms who popped in off the street in search of a sandwich or a bowl of soup.

  She had barely left the school gate when a long, black, bullet-nosed motorcar prowled up behind her and drew to a halt at the kerb. The nearside door swung open.

  ‘Get in,’ the driver said.

  Clutching her coat to her throat, Breda stepped back.

  ‘For God’s sake, Breda, will you just get in.’

  ‘Is ’e with you?’ she asked.

  ‘Nope. It’s just me. Get in an’ I’ll drive you home.’

  ‘I ain’t goin’ ’ome.’

  ‘All right. I’ll drop you wherever you wanna go.’

  She had no fear of Steve Millar, her father’s right-hand man. In fact, when Ronnie had been off fighting in Spain, she’d almost given her all to Steve in the back row of a local cinema. She hadn’t clapped eyes on him for a couple of years, though, and was gratified to note that he was still smooth and fresh-faced and so fit you could almost see his muscles rippling under his alpaca overcoat.

  She tucked a straggle of bleached blonde hair under her headscarf and then, sighing, climbed into the passenger seat. Steve reached across her lap and closed the door.

  ‘That Billy?’ he said.

  ‘Who else would it be?’ said Breda.

  ‘He’s grown since I saw him last.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Breda said. ‘He’s gonna be tall, like ’is dad.’

  Steve took off his gloves, dug a packet of Player’s from his overcoat pocket, knocked out two cigarettes, lit them and passed one to Breda.

  ‘I got a kid too,’ he said.

  A faint sense of disappointment stirred in Breda, as if fathering a child had robbed Steve Millar of virility.

  She said, ‘Boy or girl?’

  ‘Boy. Cyril.’

  ‘Cyril?’

  ‘Rita picked it, not me.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you married that redhead?’

  ‘Who said anything about marriage?’

  ‘Nah.’ Breda blew smoke. ‘You aren’t that sort, Steve. You’ve given over to the old ball an’ chain. Admit it.’

  He grinned. ‘Yeah, you’re right. I’m spliced good an’ proper.’

  ‘Why’d you do it? To keep out of the army?’

  ‘Havin’ a kid ain’t gonna keep nobody out of the army,’ Steve said, ‘leastways not for long. When things get really nasty we’ll all be fair game for cannon fodder.’

  ‘Where you living?’

  ‘Got a flat not far from the club.’

  As a child Breda had been unaware that her absent father earned his living on the shady side of the street. It had shocked her to discover that the Brooklyn Club, which her dad managed on behalf of some big-shot gangster, wasn’t much more than a glorified knocking shop.

  ‘Is he still runnin’ that dump?’ she said. ‘I thought it might ’ave closed ’cause of the war.’

  ‘One thing about a war,’ Steve said, ‘especially a phoney war, it brings all these young geezers with cash in their pockets pouring into London. All they want is to get a leg over before they ship out. It’s like takin’ candy off a baby.’

  Breda hesitated then, unable to resist, asked, ‘Your wife, Rita, she still work there?’

  ‘Now an’ then.’

  ‘Doin’ what?’

  ‘She helps your old man with the books an’ stuff.’

  ‘What sorta stuff?’

  Steve assumed the clamped-down expression that Danny Cahill described as deadpan, but Danny and Steve, as different as chalk from cheese, had never really got on.

  ‘She looks after the girls, if you must know,’ he said. ‘You goin’ to your ma’s place?’

  ‘Yeah, Stratton’s,’ said Breda.

  He released the handbrake, fiddled with the gear-stick and eased the car into motion.

  Breda said, ‘How’d you know where to find me?’

  ‘Leo always knows where to find you.’

  ‘Is me dad in trouble?’

  ‘Not him. He just don’t want to get you involved in anything shifty, especially right now.’

  They drove into Shannon Street at the top of Oxmoor Road where the fire station was. She resisted the temptation to point it out, for some folk regarded auxiliary firemen as little better than cowards.

  She said, ‘You coming in to see Ma?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘What are you doin’ doggin’ my footsteps?’

  ‘Leo wants to know why you an’ Billy ha’n’t left London for a safe place in the country.’

  ‘Does ’e?’ Breda said. ‘Well, you tell ’im to mind ’is own damned business.’

  ‘He can get you out, you want out?’

  ‘Out?’ said Breda. ‘Out where?’

  ‘Canada.’

  ‘Canada? What would I want to go there for?’

  ‘Leo knows people in Canada who’ll give you a new home an’ a new life.’

  ‘The three of us, you mean?’

  Steve paused. ‘He can’t get a passport for Ronnie.’

  ‘Well, I ain’t leavin’ without Ronnie.’

  ‘When did you become so bloody loyal?’ Steve said. ‘If I was you I’d jump at the chance of gettin’ out.’

  ‘Why don’cha then?’

  ‘I got responsibilities.’

  ‘An’ I haven’t?’ said Breda.

  There wasn’t much traffic in Shannon Street, even less in Thornton Street, just two blokes on bicycles and a taxi-cab with a big hand-printed sign pasted to the rear window announcing that the driver was engaged in Civil Defence.

  The window of the pork butcher’s shop where Ronnie had worked was boarded up. Herr Brauschmidt and his wife, having suffered discrimination during the last war, had thrown in the towel and gone off to live with one of their sons in Milwaukee. Gertler’s Kosher Butchers remained open, though, for there were still plenty of Jews in Shadwell to keep the tills ringing.

  ‘If you’re not comin’ in to see Ma, drop me ’ere.’

  Steve shrugged and brought the car to a halt fifty yards short of the dining rooms.

  Ronnie and his father, Matt, had boarded up Stratton’s big window but had left a neat slot of glass, like a letterbox, at eye level so you could peep inside and see steam rising from the coffee urn and the rock cakes Nora had baked slanted towards you on a tray. The daily Bill of Fare, chalked on a blackboard, was propped against the wall below the window, though Matt and the local ARP warden argued heatedly whether or not it constituted a hazard to pedestrians and should be removed.

  Canada, Breda thought: Canada was just trees and mountains, all wide-open spaces. If there was one thing she hated it was wide-open spaces.

  She sighed and tapped Steve’s arm.

  ‘Listen,’ she said, ‘tell ’im thanks, but no thanks. I appre
ciate the offer, like, but I’m London born an’ bred an’ I’m not about to go runnin’ off an’ abandon the old homestead just ’cause some loony says I got to.’

  ‘Your old man ain’t no loony.’

  ‘I didn’t mean him; I meant Adolf.’

  ‘Things is pretty quiet right now,’ Steve said, ‘but don’t kid yourself. As soon as Hitler claws in Belgium, France and any place else he fancies England will be next. When that happens it’ll be too late.’

  ‘Too late for what?’

  ‘To get out.’

  ‘Told you once, tell you again, I don’t want out.’

  ‘Breda, Breda.’ Steve Millar shook his head. ‘You always was a stubborn cow. I just hope you know what you’re lettin’ yourself in for.’

  ‘’Course I do. I listen to the wireless.’

  ‘Well, at least let me tell Leo you’re thinkin’ about it.’

  ‘If it makes you feel any better, okay,’ Breda said. ‘But don’t let ’im get ’is hopes up.’

  She leaned back to let him open the door, slid from the car with as much poise as she could muster, closed the door with her knee then rapped on the window and watched it roll down.

  ‘What?’ Steve said.

  ‘Give Cyril a kiss from me, will yah?’

  He laughed. ‘Sure I will,’ he said and drove off down Thornton Street into Docklands Road, leaving Breda shivering on the pavement and more than a little confused.

  3

  Three days passed before Susan saw Robert again. He was waiting for her outside Broadcasting House and led her through the side streets to Oxford Circus. Blackout restrictions had eased in the past few weeks but the glimmer of light from reopened theatres and cinemas and the hooded headlamps of buses and taxis was still too dim to make the crossing anything but hazardous.

  ‘I feel bad about this,’ Robert Gaines said.

  ‘Bad about what?’ said Susan.

  ‘Stealing you away from Viv at this ungodly hour.’

  ‘Viv’s only my friend, not my keeper,’ Susan said, ‘and she’s had quite enough of my company lately. Is she still bending your ear with tales of Tom Mosley and his dastardly crew or has she finally run out of interesting things to say?’