The Face of Eve

by Betty Burton

  The room they were taken to was the same one in which Eve had been interviewed last winter when the snow had come thick and blinding. Now, the April sun was still bright but sinking into the sea beyond the pier. It had become a very pretty room.

  Keef settled in a chair behind a smart desk. ‘Some drinks on their way.’ Glasspool came in, nodded archly at Eve and raised her eyebrows questioningly at Dimitri and Ken. ‘G&T or vodka with ice?’

  When they had all settled for the vodka, Keef continued, ‘Wickham Village. You were there this morning, right?’

  Eve spoke. ‘I imagine that you know about me and the major?’

  Keef nodded. ‘Something happened at Wickham today, and there are a few things to be sorted out with the civilian police. We’ll deal with this as quickly as we can, but I shall need to ask you a few things about your stay in Wickham. I don’t intend spending too much time on this. It’s a local thing, but seeing as you may have evidence, I have to report to the Hampshire Constabulary. Drink up.’

  They all emptied their glasses rather quickly and Keef refilled them generously. Eve felt the welcome burn of the vodka sliding into her stomach, where it settled on the wedding cake May had insisted she eat. The matured cake itself could have been 50% proof. The thought of all that fat and sugar and flour fermenting revolted her, and she excused herself and made a dash for the ladies’ room. There, the wedding breakfast didn’t need any help in being thrown up.

  With her make-up repaired and her face cooled, she stood facing herself in the mirror around which were merciless light bulbs, not wanting to meet her own gaze because she knew that Lu would be there looking back. Lu’s disgust. Eve’s guilt.

  Why do you do this?

  It was May’s fault, she insisted.

  You’re stronger than May. It wouldn’t have mattered.

  I didn’t want to resist.

  Why keep doing it? Your old body was pretty good.

  Eve smoothed powder over her cheekbones that had appeared when she had completed the weeks of banting. She put her hands on her waistline and knew how super she looked in the slim-fitting WRNS uniform. She turned heads everywhere. She loved being this elegant Eve. It was worth the occasional bout with Lu to be able to walk into a room and turn heads.

  But you always could.

  Lu always had the last word.

  Dimitri stood up at once when she re-entered the room. ‘Eve, are you not well?’

  ‘Too much excitement and vodka. I’m fine.’ Keef questioned them for a short time, asking about who was where and when, but not a clue as to why. Eve couldn’t care less why they wanted to know, and was glad that Keef was able to distance them from whatever had gone on in Wickham that day.

  ‘All right, people, leave it to me. I’ll settle with the local bobbies.’

  * * *

  Glasspool said that as there wouldn’t be a train to take them on to London tonight, she was preparing rooms for them here.

  ‘Keep us well clear of the FiFis. The major is probably ready for something to eat so I’ll ring if we want anything. However, I think that my brother might like to have a table in the dining room.’

  Glasspool winked. ‘I’ll be glad to entertain him myself.’

  Upstairs, Eve took one of the low wooden chairs on the balcony outside the French doors that overlooked the sea. Dimitri, having exchanged his shoes and socks for leather mules, and taken off his uniform jacket, collar and tie, came to stand behind her, the heat emanating from his thighs warming her back, his large hands warming her shoulders. ‘Are you feeling better now?’

  ‘I feel fine. Don’t fuss.’

  ‘OK, OK. You think maybe you like to remember today?’

  ‘Always. And the last couple of days. I loved being with you again where there were ordinary people around. You are so much better at all that stuff than I am.’

  ‘My own family was big. Not all easy, not all nice people, but we were Vladims.’

  ‘Once the war is over, you will be able to go back.’

  He didn’t reply.

  ‘Come and sit here and let me sit on your lap.’

  Why can’t I love this loving and generous man? Eve asked herself. I could tell him that I did. Not Dimitri… any other man but not Dimitri. He deserves a woman who really will have and hold him from this day forward, as I promised him this morning.

  Wanting to comfort him, she put her arms round his neck and kissed him. ‘Dimitri! Your beard is wet – have you been crying?’

  He gave her a strong hug, not letting go. ‘We Russians are so passionate, you know that. Emotion bursts from us, we exclaim too loud, we sing too loud, we laugh too loud. The word I think is… “spontaneous”?’

  ‘Dimitri, I said, your beard is wet – have you been crying?’

  ‘A little. I played a fantasy with your family. It felt good to be scratching the pig and carrying logs. What a man, to have tears in his beard when many people are with nothing, are killed all the time, are without food, afraid of dictators, in prison for reading wrong books, for thinking wrong thoughts. I have beautiful woman sitting with arms round me…’ he paused and said in a loud whisper in her ear, ‘and making me hard for her.’

  ‘You always say the right thing. But I’m more hungry for food first.’

  ‘You like that I ring bell for something?’

  ‘No, put a jumper on and I’ll take you to a fish-and-chip shop.’

  ‘I like fish and chips. The English have this one food only that is better than any other, but your other things are rubbish.’

  She laughed and jumped up. ‘Russians are not only emotional and loud – they are very opinionated.’

  ‘I agree, but our opinions are very sound. Is right word, “sound”?’

  A momentary flash of him with Fran Haddon asking her ‘Is right word?’ – and Eve felt possessive. Logically, a woman like Fran would be suited cerebrally, like-minded they might be with their codes and ciphering, but Fran Haddon would never understand the subtlety of the whole man. In the time that they had been together, Dimitri and Eve had shared every kind of experience, had seen one another in every mood, had looked after one another.

  As her head emerged from the neck of a navy-issue jumper she was putting on, his voice penetrated her meandering thoughts.

  ‘Come on, woman, fish and chips. Stand still, I will lace your shoes.’

  If they should still be together when they were seventy, he would lace her shoes, help her, care for her. He would still love her. She didn’t have that kind of commitment. She was ‘the cat who walked by itself’.

  ‘You want chips now, or next year?’

  ‘Of course now. If I don’t have them, I shan’t be able to stop thinking of them. Lots of vinegar. Extra bag of scraps. Come on, it’s our wedding night, and chips are only five minutes away.’

  The shop was full of soldiers from the barracks. Noisy. Jolly. Beery breath. Cigarette smoke and hot oil. At the rear of the shop were a few plain tables covered with oilcloth. They each had a plate piled high with thick potato chips with a slab of golden plaice, thick bread, dark tea. Eve couldn’t finish hers, so Dimitri pulled her plate towards him and finished it for her.

  Then they walked up and down the terraced streets, reading the names – Adair, Kassasin… One street had a solid wall built across it. Dimitri refused to go back until he had satisfied his curiosity about what lay beyond, and hung on with his fingertips, peering over.

  ‘Is only more houses.’

  ‘Better ones?’

  ‘Nyet.’

  ‘Maybe it’s the people who are better.’

  ‘People who think they are better are not better. Is true? You agree?’

  ‘Lift me up so that I can see. The houses are all the same. But those people are not better.’

  ‘So we agree.’

  ‘Yes, you daft Russian.’

  ‘I like it when we agree.’

  ‘Have you been at the vodka?’

  ‘I have no need for vodka now. Somet
imes I have great need for vodka. We Russians also drink too much.’

  ‘I know.’ She had seen the occasions, mostly in Australia, when he had taken himself off with a bottle, and not come back until he was restored to normal. Fran Haddon wouldn’t leave him in that state; she would try to cure him. He didn’t need to be cured. It was how he was, how he dealt with insoluble problems.

  And I eat.

  This was not Lu intruding into her thoughts. This was Eve. I eat, but I don’t have the sense to sleep it off like Dimitri. That thought was a revelation. All the food in the world won’t fill the emptiness, not if I keep throwing it up… making myself feel guilty every time… every time…

  ‘You are very quiet.’

  She searched for his hand. ‘You are noisy enough for both of us.’

  ‘That is good. I should not like to think that you were worrying about the police. Are you worrying about the police?’

  ‘No. I was thinking about me.’

  ‘That is good.’

  Forced to retrace their steps, they dawdled along, his arm lightly round her shoulders like other couples making the most of the spring evening.

  ‘Let’s walk along the beach.’

  ‘Is a hard beach, full of stones.’

  ‘Not if you walk along the tide-line. Carry your shoes and socks, roll up your trouser legs.’

  The tide was well out, leaving a wide strand of hard sand studded here and there with large rounded boulders and pebbles. At no time was this stretch of coastline interesting or picturesque but people did find it attractive because of its unobstructed view for mile after gently curving mile. Tonight it was made quite beautiful by light from the moon playing on the small lapping waves.

  ‘When I was a child, this was everybody’s holiday place. People came from London in trainloads. I remember mothers lifting their skirts above their knees and shrieking like girls again when a wave hit them. Little girls had their skirts tucked into their knickers. Some wore old underclothes cut down for swimming. Nobody cared. We just wanted to plunge into the water. Ray bought me a proper bathing suit. Ray was good to me.’

  Dimitri waited for her to continue. She thought that she could leave her family, but he knew that she could not. Wherever she went, she would drag them with her. ‘I was scared at first, but I had to honour the bathing suit. Not many children learned to swim. There’s a kind of superstition in families where the men go to sea: if they don’t learn to swim, then they’ll never need to. Daft, isn’t it?’

  ‘Come on, we swim.’

  ‘It’s too cold. We’d die of frostbite.’

  He wouldn’t hear of it, but put his shoes down and stripped off his clothes.

  ‘Dimitri! You’ll get arrested.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Mr Keef will come and rescue us.’

  Eve couldn’t believe that she was doing this. She was right, the water was icy. She plunged under once and ran back to rub herself with her underwear and pull her skirt and jumper over her sticky skin.

  ‘I have been swimming in colder water than this.’ Even so, he was shivering. ‘Was good?’

  ‘No, was bad… very bad.’

  ‘Come on, we run fast, get blood warm.’

  They ran towards the pier, fast, and stopped panting when they reached it. ‘You see, you are warm again.’

  Suddenly, they were stopped in their tracks by a flash, followed by a deafening crump. Two people who had survived the bombardment of Barcelona, and she more recently in London, froze at the sound. Automatically, they threw their arms around each other.

  The western sky burst into a red ball. The ground vibrated. The fireball expanded, yellow, orange, red, then settled into a flaring line. Again. Again.

  In quick succession bombs pounded into the dockyard and the little houses around it.

  Perhaps because they had been cavorting and diving into the waves, Eve and Dimitri had heard no sound of the warning siren. Now the raiders were overhead. They could hear the throb of aircraft engines, loaded, bomb-doors open. They clung to one another watching the dockland area exploding and could do nothing.

  It was all happening again.

  Dimitri couldn’t stop trembling, and when Eve began to cry, she made no effort to stop herself.

  Huddled together, they did not move until the all clear sounded, when they climbed the pebbled slope and started back towards Griffon House.

  In the street an air-raid warden shone a light on their faces. ‘Are you all right?’

  They nodded.

  ‘I should get inside soon as you can. It’s been a bad night. A lot of casualties.’

  Eve and Dimitri realised how lucky they’d been to escape injury, but each knew how unnecessary it was to say anything.

  24

  Had it not been for last night’s air raid, what had happened in Wickham might have warranted more than the line it got in the local paper. But one death would hardly be noticed among so many.

  Ken was already in Keef’s office when Eve and Dimitri entered, and so, surprisingly, was David Hatton, who rose politely and waited for Eve to be seated.

  Looking at the notes he had before him, David said, ‘There was a death in the area of Wickham Village yesterday. I shall issue a statement to the Hampshire Constabulary that will say simply that none of the witnesses questioned in Portsmouth has anything to add to their statements.’

  Ken spoke up loudly. ‘Excuse me, David, would you mind not speaking for us until we know what you are giving us an alibi for? We were there. However inconvenient it might be, I don’t like cover-ups.’

  ‘Did you know this man James Gunner?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Were you in this place—’ he looked at his notes – ‘Swallit Wood or Swallit Pool at some time between eleven and two thirty p.m.?’

  Eve went cold. Ken didn’t look in her direction. Nevertheless she felt that his eyes were upon her.

  ‘No, I was in Wickham Village then.’

  ‘So you didn’t see this man floating in the water with a blow to the head?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I know that your sister and Major Vladim were with the rest of your family, on their way to the church, right, Major… Eve…?’

  ‘We were in a beautiful parade of many people of my wife’s clan.’

  ‘So neither of you saw anything?’

  ‘It was as I have just told you, Lieutenant Hatton… sir.’

  ‘So I may take it then, that none of you can add anything to what you told the police yesterday?’ David Hatton took silence as assent. ‘Good. I am glad that none of you is to be delayed any further because of some civil matter. Major, you have a train to catch and your wife has to return to Ford aerodrome.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ Eve interrupted. ‘May I make something clear? I would prefer it if I was not referred to as Major Vladim’s wife. It makes me sound as though I am a possession. You all know that I chose my own name. I wish to keep it, as you men all keep yours.’ She knew that they would think her unnecessarily assertive, but bad luck!

  Suddenly, Eve began to sweat profusely and feel dizzy. ‘I’m sorry, but could I have some water, please?’

  Only Keef did not jump into action.

  As she drank, a terrible nausea arose in her and she rushed from the room, retching into an inadequate handkerchief. She blacked out and crumpled to the floor.

  The next thing she was aware of was being on a cot-bed, and Glasspool wafting sal volatile under her nose.

  ‘Did I faint? I’m sorry, I suddenly felt so awful.’

  ‘How are you now, ma’am?’

  In other circumstances, Eve might have smiled. ‘I’m fine. We had a long day yesterday and then there was the air raid. I’m all right.’

  ‘It’s probably your period. There are some stains on your stockings. I have put a hand-towel under you. Don’t move. There’s a doctor staying here and I’ve told one of the boys to fetch him.’ Suddenly Eve was convulsed by sharp pains drawing her womb up and clutching and pulsating h
er back. With shock and dread, she recognised the awful pains of the onset of miscarriage, and again she was dragged into blackness.

  * * *

  She was between sheets, with the smell of Lysol and ether hanging around her. Way, way in the distance, an echoing voice said, ‘She’s with us again, sir.’

  She felt warm… grateful for feeling warm again. Thirsty, but warm feet. Woollen socks. The pain had stopped. Her neck felt limp, her head heavy, she allowed it to sink further into the pillow.

  ‘Can you hear me, ma’am? She’s coming out of it, sir.’

  The voice became normal and the sir became a head in a white coat with a stethoscope hanging from his neck. He picked up her hand and felt her pulse, then pulled her eyelid down and peered closely.

  ‘How’s the bleeding, Sister?’

  ‘Hardly anything, sir.’

  Eve wanted them to go away so that she could go back to sleep again.

  She remembered the extreme pain, hearing screaming and knowing that it was herself. She remembered Dimitri gathering her in his arms and carrying her down the steps and into the ambulance, and the ambulance bell ringing and ringing.

  She remembered Dimitri. ‘You will be fine, Eve. The doctor says you will be well. Hold on, hold on.’ Then to someone else, ‘No, no, I will not go outside. This is my wife. I insist to be with her. You can make all the orders you wish, but I shall not leave.’

  She remembered the bright, white light, then darkness and then this hard, comfortable, warm bed.

  ‘She can have a cup of tea, plenty of sugar.’

  The nursing sister loomed over her. ‘Nice cup of tea, ma’am?’

  Eve nodded. Tea. Then sleep. Silence. To be on her own. No one telling her anything. No decisions to make. The pain was gone. Peace. Peace. Peace. Sweet, sweet tea and peace.

  ‘Do you know where you are?’

  ‘Where is my… where is Major Vladim… my husband?’

  She remembered David saying, ‘Major, you have a train to catch,’ and visualised Dimitri seated on a train rushing away, taking him back to Scotland. Suddenly she experienced a terrible sense of loss. The emptiness and aloneness was too much to handle, and she drifted away into the temporary oblivion again. She needed help. Where was Janet McKenzie when she was needed? Tears trickled out from beneath her closed lids. For God’s sake, Eve, pull yourself together. I can’t. Don’t want to. The cat who walks by itself.