The Wayward Wife

by Jessica Stirling

  ‘You was lucky Mr King didn’t ’ave your neck.’

  ‘Harry made Rita go through the books with an accountant an’ the accountant gave her the benefit of the doubt.’ Steve paused, then said wistfully, ‘Used to be just jam on Harry King’s bread, the old Brooklyn, but these past six months – a goldmine. You tell Ron about Vince’s visit?’

  ‘Nah, Ron’s got enough on ’is plate without frettin’ about my old man.’ She reached across the desk, stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray and let her hand rest on Steve’s knee. ‘What you gonna do to me?’

  ‘Nothin’,’ Steve told her. ‘You ha’n’t seen Leo and, my guess, you’re not gonna. Fact is, if Harry lays his hands on Leo you might never see your old man again.’

  ‘Harry wouldn’t kill ’im, would he?’

  ‘Maybe not,’ Steve said, ‘not if he gets his money back.’

  Breda said, ‘How much went over the wall exactly?’

  Steve shrugged. ‘Three grand, probably more.’

  Breda whistled and removed her hand from Steve’s knee. ‘That is a lotta dough,’ she said. ‘Make quite an ’ole in anybody’s pocket.’

  ‘What’s on your mind, Breda?’ said Steve suspiciously. ‘Come on, out with it.’

  ‘Well, I’m thinkin’, if someone got Mr King all ’is money back …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Would there be a reward?’

  ‘A reward?’

  ‘Hmm,’ Breda said. ‘Ten per cent would do nicely.’

  The restaurant below ground, shared by both staff and guest broadcasters, was a good deal less colourful now the entertainers had moved out. It maintained a certain modest elegance, however, and, thank heaven, continued to serve a decent afternoon tea. After her voice test Mr Willets had carried Miss Proudfoot off to the restaurant, an invitation that, rather pointedly, did not include Susan.

  Squeezed behind her little desk Susan was typing up her notes when the producer, looking rather smug, returned.

  ‘That went well, don’t you think?’ he said.

  Susan was tempted to ask if he meant the test or the tiffin but prudently kept her mouth shut. She typed rapidly, noisily, taking out her irritation on the keys.

  Mr Willets eased himself into the chair behind the desk and lit a cigarette. He folded an arm behind his head and blew a series of reflective, if imperfect, smoke rings.

  Susan typed furiously.

  ‘Now,’ Mr Willets said, ‘which of us is going to give in before that poor old Underwood catches fire?’

  Susan ripped the paper from the platen.

  ‘It’s really none of my business, sir,’ she said stiffly, ‘but I do feel as if I’ve been used.’

  ‘Used? Hardly, Miss Hooper, though there’s nothing wrong with a bit of nepotism, is there? The BBC’s not alone in favouring those who are in the know.’

  ‘I didn’t even know I was in the know,’ said Susan. ‘Was it Vivian’s recommendation got me this job?’

  ‘On the contrary,’ Mr Willets said. ‘Indeed, if we, the BBC, hadn’t been in the midst of a frantic recruiting drive I question if your application would have been considered.’

  ‘But you knew, didn’t you?’

  ‘Let’s just say, I found out. Quite by chance I received your file from Personnel and found Vivian’s letter of character.’

  He attempted another smoke ring, gave up and dropped the cigarette into the ashtray.

  ‘I’d kept track in a vague sort of way of Vivian’s progress. Read a couple of her books and her articles in The Times and did, I confess, consider calling her. When you put her name forward for Speaking Up, it provided me with a perfect excuse for seeing her again. By the bye, that piece she read …’

  ‘It’s from her new book.’

  ‘I thought it might be. Quite powerful, if somewhat …’

  ‘Opinionated,’ Susan suggested.

  ‘She was always opinionated. I’m rather inclined to be opinionated myself which is why, I suspect, we hit it off so well.’ He paused again. ‘I’m surprised she never married. She does actually like men, I suppose?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Susan. ‘There’s nothing ambiguous about Vivian.’

  Susan had never really thought of Viv as young or of Mr Willets in the days when he had hair. She could not for the life of her imagine them together.

  ‘I was at school with her brother, David,’ Mr Willets went on. ‘When war came I enlisted in the East Kent Regiment, the Buffs. Wounded in Salonika, not too seriously. But I fell so ill afterwards that I was sent back to Blighty. David invited me to convalesce on his farm. That’s where I met Vivian.’

  ‘Who nursed you back to health and strength.’

  ‘No, Vivian isn’t the nursing type. But it was summer and the apple orchards were heavy with fruit – and the rest, I fear, is a terrible cliché. Alas, after the war ended we went our separate ways. I joined the fledgling BBC – it was a company in those days, not a corporation – and broadcasting became my life.’

  ‘And Vivian?’

  ‘You would know more about that than I do.’

  ‘I don’t, really,’ Susan said. ‘Were you never tempted to take up with her again?’

  ‘No. You see, by that time I had a wife.’

  ‘I didn’t know you had a wife.’

  ‘I don’t. We hadn’t been married long when cancer took her away,’ Mr Willets said. ‘After that experience, shall we say, I had little inclination to try again.’ He glanced up at Susan. ‘Well, Miss Hooper, now you know more about me than anyone in this building. I’m depending on you not to gossip. I prefer my private life, such as it is, to remain a closed book to my colleagues.’

  ‘Of course,’ Susan said. ‘I do have one question I’d like you to answer, though.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Are we taking Vivian on board?’

  ‘Now what do you think?’ Mr Willets said with a bashful little giggle that seemed totally at odds with his character.

  7

  After consultation with welfare staff the billeting officer who had been responsible for the gaffe in the first place reluctantly agreed that Miss Cottrell might remain lodged with the Pells until a place could be found in one of the ‘all-girl’ farmhouses or a room in town that didn’t have two slavering males in close proximity. Mrs Pell’s willingness to take on the role of moral watchdog had much to do with the decision, added to the fact that more and more ‘foreigners’ were arriving in Evesham every week and congenial accommodation, especially for females, was at a premium.

  In the dog days of February, Griff and Danny saw less of Kate than they’d hoped. Indeed, as Griff glumly pointed out, during her training phase they saw more of Kate’s knickers hanging on the washing line than they did of Kate herself.

  She hadn’t been drawn into any of the little cliques that formed among the foreign-language monitors, however, for the German-speaking group was less tight-knit than most and arguments over entries in the monitor’s logbook and Teutonic debates about points of style proved heated and divisive.

  Even in the relaxed atmosphere of the Greenhill subtle tensions remained and Mrs Pell’s lodgers tended to keep to themselves. On that evening, all together for once, Kate and Danny were seated on a couch in an alcove off the main lounge drinking beer while Griff hovered by the piano in the hope that the present incumbent of the stool, a female, would weary of butchering Rachmaninoff.

  ‘How long have you been married?’ Kate asked.

  ‘Couple of years, give or take,’ Danny answered.

  ‘It must be hard for you being apart for so long.’

  ‘You get used to it,’ Danny said.

  ‘What did you do, what job, before you came here?’

  ‘Sub-editor on the Star.’

  ‘Did you enjoy working on Fleet Street?’

  ‘There are worse jobs,’ Danny said. ‘Are you wonderin’ why I’m not in uniform?’

  ‘The thought never entered my head,’ said Kate.

&n
bsp; Danny shrugged. ‘I failed the medical.’

  ‘On what grounds?’

  ‘Flat feet an’ poor eyesight. I’m off to an optician’s for a proper eye test as soon as I can get myself up to London. Are you home tonight or are you on late shift?’

  ‘Home,’ she said. ‘Lie in tomorrow. I start at noon on a twelve-hour stretch. They tell me February has been a quiet month but it hasn’t seemed so to me.’

  ‘Are you havin’ trouble with the translations?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ Kate said. ‘Frequently, if I’m honest.’

  Back in the East End, when he’d lodged with Nora Romano, Danny had been an arbitrator, a problem solver, the dependable chap to whom everyone, including Susan, had turned for advice. All that had changed when Susan had gone to work for Vivian Proudfoot and had fallen for the agent, Mercer Hughes, after which he had been nothing more than a bridge between what Susan had been and what she was in process of becoming.

  He watched Kate put down the beer mug and, stifling a yawn, stretch her arms above her head.

  ‘I must admit I do find it exhausting sitting for hours listening to strange voices crackling through a pair of headphones,’ she said.

  ‘What you need,’ Danny said, ‘is a couple of days off.’

  ‘We’re not entitled to leave, are we?’

  ‘You’ve heard what’s comin’ down the wires from Germany. Now Europe’s thawin’ out an invasion looks inevitable. Be no leave for any of us when that happens.’

  ‘Have you been up in London recently?’ Kate said.

  ‘Not since Christmas.’

  ‘Don’t you want to see your wife?’

  ‘’Course I do,’ said Danny, hiding his ambivalence.

  ‘Then why not ask for a forty-eight-hour pass and go home for a day or two, have a proper eye test and spend some time with your wife?’

  ‘I could certainly do with an eye test,’ Danny said. ‘I can barely read the transcripts these days.’

  ‘Headaches?’ Kate asked.

  ‘Now an’ then.’

  ‘Time you did something about it, Danny.’

  ‘Aye,’ he said grudgingly. ‘I suppose it is.’

  If Billy had inherited an argumentative streak from his grandfather – a suggestion Matt vehemently denied – his appetite had surely come down from his dad. He happily devoured anything that was put before him and even opened his beak willingly to receive the daily dose of cod liver oil that Breda ladled into him.

  ‘I wonder if he needs to be wormed,’ Ron said.

  ‘Don’t be bleedin’ stupid. He’s a growin’ boy who likes ’is vittles,’ Breda said. ‘Don’t you, darlin’?’

  ‘Yar,’ Billy answered through a mouthful of sausage.

  It was breakfast time in the Hoopers’ kitchen. Since Ron had started shift work at the fire station, it always seemed to be breakfast time for someone and the frying pan was seldom off the stove for long.

  Unusually, Billy’s routine and Ron’s had coincided on that brisk March morning and the whole family, all three of them, were eating together.

  Breda scooped two slices of toast from under the grill and spread them with butter. She added marmalade to one and strawberry jam to the other and put the jammy slice on a plate where Billy could reach it without effort. The marmalade she ate herself, standing by the stove and puffing on a cigarette between mouthfuls.

  ‘What would you do if we ’ad money?’ she asked.

  Ron, who was being very careful not to stain his uniform, looked up, a rasher of black-market bacon poised daintily on the end of his fork.

  ‘How much money?’

  ‘Say, three hundred quid.’

  ‘Spend it all on drink.’

  ‘I’m serious,’ Breda told him.

  ‘What? You won the pools, or somethin’?’

  ‘It’s two years’ wages, close enough.’

  ‘Oh, sure,’ said Ron. ‘We could retire to the country.’

  ‘Wouldn’t be bad, that.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t like the country.’

  ‘I could get used to it, I suppose. Be good for Billy.’

  ‘Billy’s all right here. Ain’t yah, son?’

  ‘Yar,’ said Billy obligingly.

  Breda finished her toast and, with the cigarette dangling from her lip, said, ‘Three hundred quid would make a nice nest egg for when the war’s over.’

  ‘What you talkin’ about?’ Ron said. ‘Where’s all this money comin’ from?’

  Breda dropped her cigarette into a tin ashtray at the sink and ran a washcloth under the tap.

  Billy, still eating, stiffened.

  ‘Nowhere: I’m just dreamin’,’ she said and, before he could bolt, snared her son by the scruff of the neck and vigorously applied the washcloth to his jammy face.

  ‘He’s making more of it than it deserves,’ Vivian said. ‘I wasn’t much more than a child that summer.’

  ‘By my calculation you were twenty-four,’ said Susan.

  ‘Three,’ said Vivian. ‘In those dear, dead days that was practically a child. You have no idea just how repressive society could be when I was young.’

  ‘Hadn’t you “come out” by then?’

  ‘Come out?’ Vivian said. ‘What do you take me for? I was never a debutante. We were poor – relatively poor. In any case, Papa made his money from trade and the Old Bailey was the closest any of our lot was ever going to get to appearing at court. Basil Willets and I were thrown together for less than a month, and he wasn’t very well for most of it.’

  ‘What was wrong with him?’

  ‘I don’t know. Yes, actually I do. He had an infection of the blood, a condition that almost killed him. He also had a bit of a limp which I see has gone.’

  ‘So,’ said Susan, ‘he was pale and interesting, was he?’

  ‘More pale than interesting, unfortunately.’

  ‘He says you were in love.’

  ‘He may have been in love but I certainly wasn’t.’

  ‘I think he’s still a little bit in love with you.’

  ‘He’s fast approaching middle age and, I suppose, tends to infuse the past with a rosy glow.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me you knew Basil Willets?’

  ‘Because I thought you’d go all huffy and accuse me of securing you the BBC job which, I might add, you secured entirely on your own merits. Have you been in touch with your husband, by the way? The papers are full of rumours that Hitler is drawing up invasion plans again.’

  ‘Don’t change the subject,’ Susan said. ‘You’re going out with him, aren’t you? Basil, I mean, not Hitler.’

  ‘We’re meeting for a professional lunch,’ Viv admitted.

  ‘A “professional” lunch; what’s that?’

  ‘He’s hinted – just hinted – that he wishes to use me on the programme. I can’t think why.’

  ‘Can’t you?’ Susan said. ‘I can.’

  ‘At least I wasn’t foolish enough to marry a man I didn’t love out of – out of – I don’t know what. Pity, maybe.’

  ‘Oh, that’s below the belt, Vivian.’

  ‘If you really are in love with Danny Cahill,’ Vivian pressed on, ‘why are you chasing after other men?’

  ‘Other men? If you mean Robert Gaines, we want him for the programme and I was sent out to get him. Ask Mr Willets if you don’t believe me. Besides, I do love Danny.’

  ‘But,’ said Vivian, ‘not as much as Danny loves you?’

  ‘I’ve no idea how much Danny loves me. How on earth do you measure it? I married him, didn’t I? It certainly wasn’t a marriage of convenience. It’s not as if I was pregnant, or anything.’

  ‘Might have been better if you had been.’

  ‘Danny doesn’t want children,’ Susan said.

  ‘How do you know? Have you asked him?’

  ‘I don’t have to ask him,’ Susan said. ‘We have a tacit understanding.’

  ‘At least if you had a baby to look after he’d know where yo
u were.’

  ‘In some dismal council property in Shadwell, like as not, struggling to make ends meet.’

  ‘God, what a snob you’ve become, Susan.’

  ‘Snob? I’m no snob. I’ve worked bleedin’ hard to get where I am and, for your information, woman or not, I earn just as much as Danny.’

  ‘I’m not sure that’s something to boast about.’

  ‘What’s wrong with taking advantage of changing circumstances?’ Susan said.

  ‘Oh,’ said Vivian. ‘Is that what you call it? Most people think of it as being in danger of losing their freedom, if not their lives. To you it’s just another opportunity to haul yourself up the ladder.’

  ‘Yes,’ Susan said. ‘I have a career now and I intend to hang on to it for as long as possible. How can you, of all people, grudge me a bit of independence?’

  ‘I don’t grudge you anything,’ Vivian said, ‘but I do hope you’re aware what you may be giving up.”

  ‘A home and children?’ said Susan. ‘A home that might be shelled out of existence before the summer’s over, and children who’ll learn to salute the swastika before they can walk. No, Vivian, I do know what this damned war with Germany might lead to, but until it does I aim to make the most of what time I have and plan for a future that might never come to pass.’

  ‘A future without Danny Cahill?’

  Susan ignored the question. ‘God knows, we might all be dead this time next year. Not you, of course. Oh, no, not a woman who took tea with Dr Goebbels and has a brother who’ll be first on to the podium, grinning like an ape, when Hitler marches into Trafalgar Square.’

  ‘I have work to do,’ said Vivian curtly. ‘I think it’s time you left. I’ll fetch your coat.’

  ‘No need,’ said Susan. ‘I’ll fetch it myself,’ and, a moment later, stepped out into the darkness of Salt Street and set off, fizzing, for home.

  They were eating at the dining table in the living room, all together for once. With the table pulled out from the wall to accommodate an extra chair the living room seemed more cramped than ever and a certain amount of conga-dancing and scraping of chairs was required before everyone was seated and Mrs Pell, with Kate’s help, ferried dishes in from the kitchen.