Her eye landed on a man in the square, reading a newspaper. Only he wasn’t, was he? He glanced up at her window under his hat. Didn’t he?
If only Rhoda were here. She could nail that eye with an arrow.
Hannah turned from the eye and reached for her hat. She might not be able to stop anyone spying on her, or her family, or her show. She couldn’t stop her friends from being harassed, abused, imprisoned. But she could go to her husband and ask for his honesty. He had taken plenty. He could give her that.
* * *
• • •
It was funny, Hannah thought, the things you remember. She’d forgotten the pain of giving birth, but she remembered the first meal she’d ever made for Paul as a married couple. Roast chicken with potatoes and gravy, creamed spinach, strawberry shortcake. She made it now.
Paul ate without seeming to notice any of it, and Hannah thought she might as well have served him cardboard and bird droppings. He talked on and on about his work, stopping only when Gemma brought the girls in to say good night. Julie was already asleep in Gemma’s arms, but Rhoda clasped her arms around Paul’s legs.
“Daddy, snakes are the only true carnivores because they eat nothing but meat, not plants, not ever.”
“Is that so?” Paul asked, patting her head. “And what can you tell me about flowers, or princesses?”
Rhoda pulled a face. “Princesses don’t do anything, Daddy!” She considered. “But there’s supposed to be a flower somewhere that smells really, really bad. Really, really bad. Can we go and smell it?”
“Maybe,” Paul said dismissively. Hannah hated the disappointment on Rhoda’s face.
“The corpse flower,” Hannah said. “We’ll go smell it next time it’s in bloom.”
Gemma took the girls off to bed, and Hannah served Paul coffee and cake. He reached for a newspaper. Hannah sighed. He might not always give Rhoda the answers she wanted, or anything like enough attention, but he was there. Rhoda loved him with the beautiful simplicity of a child’s love. Hannah wondered if that love gave him the same pang it gave her, if it ever took his breath away, seized him up with so much emotion, his skin swelled, because his body could never be big enough to hold all that feeling. She had never seen him look at the girls as though he could never look long enough, never memorize every feature and keep it inside him forever. He might look that way when she couldn’t see. She hoped so. For their sake, and for his.
She slipped off her shoes and wiggled her toes. “Paul,” she began. He looked at her over the paper, but the phone rang. His eyes lowered again, and Hannah took the hint and went to answer.
“Hello?”
There was no response. She heard something, though, she was sure. That wasn’t so unusual. The British telephone service often had a way of making one nostalgic for the reliability of passenger pigeons. “Can I help you?” Hannah said into the phone. But there was still nothing. After a moment, she hung up, but kept her eyes on the phone. Paul still sat, smoking and reading.
“Anyone in particular?” he roused himself to ask.
“Not really,” she answered, drumming her fingers on the table.
“Oh good.”
“Paul.” He looked up at her again. She didn’t have to do this. The pot didn’t need stirring. But she knew the question would gnaw at her till she had nothing left.
“What about Doris? Is she anyone in particular?”
His expression didn’t change, but he methodically folded the paper.
“What did you do?” A grim smile teased his lips. “Track me like you did that man Phoebe was wondering about?”
“So she’s not just someone you’re profiling for your story.”
“She started that way,” Paul admitted. “And then we got to know each other.”
“Or rather, you watched her take her clothes off, again and again and again,” Hannah couldn’t resist pointing out.
“She listens,” Paul snapped. “She listens, and she cares. She’s interested. When was the last time you paid real attention to me? It’s always the girls, or the group, or of course your work. When was the last time you actually needed me?”
Hannah was thunderstruck.
“What on earth do you mean? Of course I need you. How can you doubt that?”
“You needed my money,” he spat. “To get us here, to get your damn company set up. What do you need now? The man you talk about most is Sidney, not me.”
She might have laughed, but it was so absurd. Sidney! She would almost feel more guilty if he mentioned her admirers on the set. But Sidney?
“Paul. I love you. Just you. You’re the only one I’ve ever loved.” She paused, letting that sink in. Then she moved closer, and asked, “Do you still love me?”
The question hung too long for there to be any real doubt. Finally he said, “I don’t know. Yes, sure, but it’s different now. It’s you everyone seeks out, for anything and everything. We started off as partners, but now no one even sees me in this marriage. You’ve become this, this paragon, larger than life. Where do I fit?”
“Some paragon!” Hannah burst out. “Let me tell you what being so visible gets me. I was followed, actually followed, by what I’m sure was a Hound, and I was with Rhoda, no less—”
“Damn it!” Paul smacked the table. “Now you’ve got the children involved.”
“It wasn’t my fault!” she protested. “People have been through worse, just ask Joan and—”
“No! No. I’m sick of dealing with all your Red friends, trying to eke out something here when I could be high-flying at home.” He looked at her a long time as he reached for his pipe and lit it. “I was going to tell you. I’ve been offered an editorial job in Toronto, building up a magazine—”
“Toronto!” Hannah almost laughed. “That’s what you’re calling high-flying? Or home?” She snatched up a cigarette and lit it with a shaky hand.
“No, but I had thought it was a place you could live safely without worrying about the feds touching you,” he said, sucking on his pipe.
“And I was supposed to just leave everything?”
“That’s what wives and mothers do, you know.”
Hannah’s jaw dropped. “But . . . you love that I work. You always did.”
“We have girls, girls who think it’s normal to have a part-time mother. Look at Rhoda! She keeps on like this, she’ll be completely unmarriageable. You want her to be like that ridiculous Phoebe, scratching around for whatever work someone’s willing to throw her?”
“Independent and following her dreams? I can think of worse things,” Hannah said.
“No one wants to hire a girl for anything unless they’re desperate,” Paul told her. “Even you didn’t want to hire Phoebe, you only did because you can’t turn any of the damn blacklistees away. You could lose it all, end up with so many counts of abetting Reds, you’ll be in jail till Julie’s kids graduate from high school, you want that?”
Hannah shook so hard, she dropped her cigarette.
“I’m doing the right thing,” she insisted, grinding ash into the carpet. “You used to be proud of me for that.”
“Except now our kids are targets,” he said.
“They can’t touch me here, they can just try to scare me. I won’t be scared.”
“No,” he said softly, almost lovingly. “No, you won’t. Never were, never will be. And maybe that’s it. Maybe I’m the sort of fellow who wants a woman who gets a little scared sometimes, and needs me there for her. So there we are.”
Hannah ran her eyes hungrily over his face. The pale skin, the dark stubble along the prominent jawline, the large eyes. She still wanted to stroke that cheek, kiss his forehead, his mouth. In a film, she would. Then he’d remember how much he loved her and why. And they’d melt into their bedroom, and into each other’s bodies, and all this would be forgotten. Later they’d lie
together, making assurances, so that when the spell lifted and they got up, got dressed, went back to being themselves, something new was forged and they would go on, stronger than ever.
She felt as though someone had opened her up and scooped out all her insides. When she didn’t say anything, he took her hand.
“I need something for myself, Hannah. I can’t keep feeling forced into being here, because of you. This is a heck of an opportunity and I’m not turning it down. I’ll let you keep the girls, I’ll even give you a settlement, not that you need it.”
It was all so casual. Ten years. Two children. Reduced to a shrug. In a way, this admission of how little he cared about the girls was a relief. It would make the business of falling out of love that much easier.
He went to a hotel for the night. Or so he told her. The tears held until he left, then rolled silently down her face with no effort, as if a spigot had been flipped on behind her eyes. Still weeping, she went into the girls’ room and sat on the floor between their beds, listening to her daughters’ breathing. She was lucky, she told herself. She had wonderful children who needed her, and she had work. So many people depended on her, she couldn’t curl up inside herself and nurse any unhappiness. She just had to get on with it.
She sighed, leaning her head against a bookcase full of stories. Grown-up stories all said love should cost something. She wondered if she might be a fool after all, because she had never imagined she would have to pay for one love with another.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
* * *
Music poured from Joan’s open door. She pounced as soon as she saw Phoebe.
“Did you hear? Has the news spread to the set yet?” Joan cried eagerly.
“Is the blacklist defunct?” Phoebe asked.
“Silly! Paul’s got a mistress,” Joan said, her eyes glittering. “He’s actually leaving Hannah and the girls, moving to Canada of all places. Can you believe it?”
Phoebe couldn’t. She believed in Hannah and Paul. It was beyond sense that they should come apart.
“That’s awful,” she said. “Are you sure?”
“Oh yes!” Joan warmed to her tale, regaling Phoebe with details she couldn’t possibly know. Which meant the story had gone around already, gaining steam. Phoebe’s chest contracted with sadness for Hannah.
“It just goes to show, just like Charlie’s always said,” Joan finished triumphantly. “It’s all right for a woman to work before she’s married, if she has to, but anything else is unnatural. It won’t end well.”
Phoebe was appalled. “How can you say that? Hannah’s your friend. She’s been nothing but wonderful to you.”
“I didn’t say I’m ungrateful,” Joan explained. “Of course it’s a shame. But honestly, think of those poor girls. Rhoda’s so strange already. Take away her father, and what chance does she have to grow up healthfully?”
“There was just a big war,” Phoebe pointed out. “Lots of kids are growing up without a father. Freddie downstairs, for one, and he’s fine.”
“But he’ll never amount to anything,” Joan insisted. “He’ll leave school at sixteen, get some lousy job, and that’ll be it for him. And that’s if he’s lucky.”
Phoebe stepped up to Joan, so they were nearly nose to nose.
“You have no right to be such a snob. If your husband was so concerned with providing for his family, he could have found extra work cleaning toilets. As for Hannah’s kids, I’ll lay dollars to doughnuts they at least continue to respect their mother over the years, which is a heck of a lot more than can be said for your boys.”
Joan’s eyes flooded with tears. They might have been tears of anger, rather than remorse, but Phoebe had no patience for either. She flounced into her flat and slammed the door behind her. After a moment, she heard Joan’s door close too.
* * *
• • •
All three of the Other Girls bounded over to Phoebe when she arrived at the set the next day.
“Is it true? Is Miss Wolfson actually getting a divorce? Who would ever have thought?”
Phoebe looked at them without pleasure. Once they’d achieved détente after the Hedda Hopper incident, everyone returned to their corners. The Other Girls did their jobs, took their breaks, and clustered about together, and Phoebe was “the peculiar American” whose head was constantly buried in a script. It was comforting.
“You’ll have to ask Miss Wolfson,” Phoebe informed them. Dora, ever the leader, wrinkled her nose and stalked away, and the others tagged behind. Phoebe didn’t care. At least it meant no one else would dare think she was one to tell tales.
“Of course they know,” was Hannah’s untroubled comment that evening. She had summoned Phoebe for a drink after work in a quiet pub. “I told Beryl and Sidney, because I’ll have some dealings with lawyers in the next few weeks and it might be disruptive. They obviously found a way to let everyone else know not to try ruffling my feathers. So now everyone’s being wonderfully English and pretending to be more respectful of me than ever. It’s quaint, really.”
She seemed almost serene, except that she swallowed her gin and tonic in three gulps and ordered another.
“I’m so sor—” Phoebe began, but Hannah held up her hand.
“Don’t give me sympathy. God, I hate sympathy. Give me something to read. Don’t you have another script by now?”
“I do,” Phoebe said. “I’m finishing it up. But it’s . . .” She was about to say it was about a married couple, and did Hannah really want to read that right now, but she couldn’t manage the words.
“It’s what? Let me tell you something, Phoebe—if you’re going to succeed, you’ve got to be quicker, okay? Most people don’t want to hire women, you know that. You have to be better than all the others.”
Phoebe was stung. Hannah knew how hard she worked, how she was balancing her day job with writing. Then she thought about the time spent with Reg and became subdued.
“I am better than all the others,” she said. “I’ll drop the new script in the mail tomorrow.”
“Good,” Hannah said, knocking back another drink. “And listen, I know Joan’s a bit much, but she called me up bawling today, and that’ll continue till you make up with her—there’s no chance she’ll come to you,” Hannah pressed on, quelling Phoebe’s protest. “Please, for me? I can’t take care of her on top of everything.”
For Hannah. Of course she would do it for Hannah. Hannah, who was now fiddling with the bar mat, staring into her glass as though she were a medium.
“Listen,” Hannah muttered. “I owe you an apology. I thought you were being nutty when you said a fellow was maybe spying on you. But I saw a man watching me at least once, and I’m guessing it’s not because he was struck by my beauty.”
“So what do we do?” Phoebe whispered. She felt a twinge of alarm but also excitement. If she was right and someone was here, trying to—what? Capture them?—then fighting back with Hannah was sure to be satisfying. Add in Shirley and Will, and the so-called subversives were guaranteed to score a decisive win.
“We pay attention,” Hannah instructed. “Don’t give anyone a reason to look at us again. Do your work, Phoebe. Make your money. And don’t trust anyone if you can help it.”
It hardly sounded like Hannah at all, she was so bitter. They pressed hands quickly but that was all. There was nothing left to say.
Phoebe headed for the bus stop. She was so deep in thought, she didn’t feel the prickles at the back of her neck. By the time she was aroused enough to whip her head around, she saw only a sea of ordinary men, heading home after the drinks they felt so entitled to enjoy before settling to their dinners.
“You can’t touch me!” she shouted into the throng. Men actually jumped back, they were so startled. Phoebe laughed, not caring how she looked. Just at the moment, she wanted someone to try to give her some grief. She was done bei
ng afraid. All she wanted to do now was hit back.
* * *
• • •
Phoebe read over her script, then walked to the phone booth on Charing Cross Road to call Shirley.
“If you have a script ready and you think it’s right for Robin Hood, why on earth would you hesitate in giving it to Hannah?” Shirley was perplexed, and her honeyed voice was laced with mild contempt. It unnerved Phoebe, but she persisted.
“It’s about love and marriage, in part,” she explained. “Hannah’s not going to want to read about that right now, is she?”
“Oh, strife,” Shirley snapped. “Hannah is a professional. She won’t let anything in her personal life interfere with her work. But you might ask yourself whether a story about love and marriage is right for a kiddies’ adventure show.”
“It also involves conspiracy and torture,” Phoebe clarified.
“Then you’ll just have to see if that’s enough, won’t you?”
Phoebe sent the script. Three days later, Hannah summoned her to the office after work and presented her with seventy pounds.
“It’s the best work of yours I’ve read yet. Beryl will toughen up the soft parts.”
“Soft parts?”
Hannah smiled. “Just a few lines here and there. It’s obviously written by someone newly in love.”
Phoebe went hot and blinked away from Hannah’s intent gaze.
“Love happens,” Hannah said, sounding genuinely pleased for Phoebe. “And usually when we least expect it. You might as well enjoy it while it lasts.”
“Except it’s getting in the way of my writing time.”
Red Letter Days Page 28
