Red Letter Days

by Sarah-Jane Stratford

  Phoebe’s eyes welled up. “You’d do all that for me?”

  He patted her hand again. “I’ve always liked you, even without owing you my life. And London is all the better for people like you in it.”

  Glynn returned, accompanied by Miss Gould. “We’re clear to go,” he said to Phoebe, though he was glowering at Nigel. “You’ll be allowed to sit with your ‘representative’ there, so long as there’s no funny business.”

  “I was supposed to make a phone call,” Phoebe protested. “And where’s my passport?”

  “It’s been sequestered,” Miss Gould said smilingly. “But I’ve let them know you were cooperative.”

  Betrayed. Betrayed by a neighborhood girl. Not that Phoebe had had a choice. And maybe Miss Gould didn’t, either, but Phoebe hated every last bit of her anyway.

  “I need to send a telegram,” she said, more to Nigel than Glynn. “It’s urgent.”

  “You don’t get any more rights now, honey,” Glynn informed her. “Let’s go.”

  Nigel took her arm protectively, and Phoebe clung to him. She couldn’t believe she was actually having to leave, without even being able to say goodbye.

  * * *

  • • •

  Since the day she’d started building planes, she wanted to ride in one. Faced with the chance at last, Phoebe would give anything to be huddled over her typewriter in her damp little flat instead. But the huge silver beast was stunning, she had to admit. The acme of postwar freshness, brimming with speed and power and possibility. For a moment, as the engines roared and the plane sped down the runway and then tipped upward and went up, up, up, leaving the earth behind, Phoebe almost forgot her horror at why she was getting to fly at last.

  “You can really get on one of these whenever you want?” she asked Nigel as they broke through the clouds into blue sky.

  “A diplomatic passport is most useful that way,” Nigel said. “Though I do prefer sailing. One meets such fascinating people.”

  She wanted to ask him if this whole business of being a diplomat was really code for his MI5 affiliation, but now was not the time. Whatever it was, Nigel clearly had enough sway to be able to bear Phoebe off to the first class lounge for a drink. Glynn shrugged.

  “Do whatever you want. It ain’t like you can run away.”

  “Charming fellow,” Nigel said when they were out of earshot. “A Hound indeed.”

  The lounge was small but very elegant, all dark paneling and leather chairs. Nigel ordered them gin and tonics.

  “Your Miss Wolfson is a very fine woman. I do admire her. You did very well, you know. The program is quite in the clear, thanks to your admittance of guilt.”

  “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for Hannah, or the show,” Phoebe said. “I mean that. I just wish . . .” She took a shuddery breath. “What’s going to happen to me?”

  “You’re going to have a hearing. Beyond that, it rather depends.”

  A hearing. The thing Mona had insisted she run from was going to happen. And if she didn’t name names, or admit Communism herself, she could be convicted of contempt and go to prison. There wasn’t even anyone left to visit her.

  “I can’t go to prison,” she said. “I look lousy in stripes. Look, Glynn busted into my place, faked a warrant, broke my stuff—”

  “Forget all that. He can say you resisted arrest, that he was working with the CIA and MI5, and it can all be arranged. None of that matters until you’re cleared.”

  “You think I can be cleared?” She had to be. She couldn’t accept anything else.

  “It does happen. There’s the easy route, of course. Give them names they already have, you surely know some. Then you’re seen to be cooperative. Play a bit innocent and dim—no jokes or cleverness—and they’ll likely decide you’re not worth any further trouble.”

  “I can’t name names,” she said. “Play dumb, sure, but name names, no.”

  “People under—”

  “No.” She wasn’t arguing. Just stating a fact. “It’s not who I am. I won’t play their game. I’d rather go to prison.”

  “Now you do sound like a fool,” Nigel said scornfully. “You’re not a martyr, Phoebe, and there’s little money in it.”

  She knew what he meant. It wasn’t hard now to understand why Charlie had taken that path. She’d get her name back. But the name would be tainted, if not from being on the blacklist, then by having named others.

  “I don’t care if I stay on the blacklist forever,” she said with vehemence. “All I want is to go home. To London.”

  She hadn’t known till just then how true that was. London had Hannah, Reg, Shirley, Freddie, and opportunities. She’d become a better writer there. Possibly even a better person. New York still held a part of her heart, but she knew that one walk through a London park with Reg would make New York melt away. She couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.

  “Good girl,” Nigel congratulated her. “Well, as I say, you have to mind your tongue. They want to catch you out, and they’re clever. Everything you say becomes something else. And you’re at a disadvantage. You’re not pretty, you’re not famous, you’re not brilliant—”

  “This is delightful.”

  He gave her a reproachful look. Phoebe sighed. She knew what Nigel meant. She wasn’t the sort to sway the public to her side.

  “And that subpoena is quite the sticky wicket,” he continued. “You’ll have to play the fool there. Beyond that, well, I suppose you’ve heard of Lillian Hellman?”

  “She’s only the most famous female playwright in America,” Phoebe said. “Maybe the world. Good luck finding a girl who sits down to a typewriter and writes ‘Act One’ without hoping to be the next Lillian Hellman.”

  “So you know of her,” Nigel said. “Good. Then you likely know she was blacklisted as well and brought in to testify. They took every penny she had. But she avoided prison.”

  “I’m not Lillian Hellman,” Phoebe pointed out. And what worked for one was unlikely to work for another. But she listened, just the same. And began to see a possibility.

  However unlikely.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  * * *

  Glynn assumed control of Phoebe just before they landed. Nigel melted away, promising to arrange her a lawyer and telling her not to worry. A hard directive to follow, but she had to try. Mona would expect nothing less.

  Like most New Yorkers, Phoebe thought of Washington, DC, as nothing but a self-important small town. The drive past all the huge white buildings did nothing to change her perception. Once, she would at least have felt a swell of pride in this, her nation’s capital. Now she just felt revulsion for all it was doing to her and so many others—this persecution in the name of patriotism. It’s not right, she thought, over and over. It’s just not right.

  They gave her a room in a small hotel. She was surprised, expecting to be kept more of a prisoner, but Glynn explained that she was being watched. Besides, without her passport, where could she go now?

  The room wasn’t much, but it had a bathtub, so she filled it full of sudsy water and soaked a long time. It was tempting to make a phone call, just to talk to someone. Hannah would be so comforting right now. And Reg, who must be so worried about her. But the phone must be bugged—the whole room was likely bugged. She had to keep Hannah safe. As for Reg, she wasn’t letting anyone listen to what they had to say to each other. Reg was for her alone.

  She wondered when she’d hear from Nigel, and how. He needed to be careful himself, of course. He was a powerful man, but he had a secret that could hurt him. If someone didn’t like his helping her, they would only have to string together enough of an accusation—the word “proclivities” would likely be used—and then not his wife, his wealth, his name, or his position could be trusted to protect him.

  Some kind of nutty world we live in.

  She
propped up the two halves of the photo of Mona. She wished she could be her sister walking into the hearing. Mona wouldn’t need jokes to make the committee look like fools. And if she were sent to prison, she’d be friends with all the inmates within a week.

  “Give me strength, Mona,” Phoebe whispered. “You always said I was the luckiest Adler. If that’s true, let me have it in droves. If I get out of this, I’m going to keep living for you. I promise.”

  * * *

  • • •

  A knock came much earlier than she expected. Phoebe opened the door to a tall man with a briefcase. He had a chiseled chin and cheekbones to rival Hepburn’s.

  “Miss Adler?” he greeted her in a deep voice. “I’m Mr. Briggs, your attorney.”

  She had to hand it to Nigel. The man looked straight out of central casting.

  Briggs was looking her up and down like she was cattle on the market.

  “Very good, very good. Nigel said you cleaned up nicely.” He studied her hair. “Let’s adjust this.” To Phoebe’s astonishment, he produced several pins from his pocket and twisted her hair into an elegant bun.

  “You do this for all your clients?” she asked. “Or just the most hopeless?”

  He pulled her into the corridor, closed the door behind them, and lowered his voice. “I do it for the ones I believe in.”

  “You must not know a lot about my case,” Phoebe said. But she couldn’t help feeling hopeful. Briggs took her to a coffee shop around the corner, bought her coffee and doughnuts, and whispered instructions.

  “We’ll do the best we can,” he said as they readied to leave. “And, Miss Adler, don’t make jokes.”

  “Don’t worry,” she assured him. “The last thing I think any of this is, is funny.”

  Glynn was waiting outside the small room where the committee was convening. His green hat sported a new feather. “It took longer than it should have, Miss Adler, but I knew you’d get here. I always complete my assignments.”

  Phoebe wasn’t even tempted to retort. She felt herself draw closer to Briggs as the one ray of sanity in this strange place. Because standing just behind Glynn, looking almost as pleased as Glynn himself, was Jimmy.

  * * *

  • • •

  Mrs. Cotley looked at Hannah with little pleasure. Hannah knew what Phoebe’s landlady saw. Another American, when two had already been so unreliable. The women were about the same age, but Hannah looked a decade younger—the effects of wealth, comfort, a good tailor, and, until recently, a happier life. She would have liked to tell Mrs. Cotley that the woman had an edge on her. A husband killed in the war was at least noble, and there was a tidy finality about death. A husband who fell out of love with you and went to find love—or anyway, another woman—elsewhere was a messier blow, and one that made even friends look askance at you. It was only having money and Robin Hood that would keep people from treating her with open contempt, unless she married again.

  “Taken off by a copper, she was,” Mrs. Cotley complained about Phoebe. “I can’t have that back, not for nothing. This is a respectable house.”

  “It was a serious misunderstanding, I assure you,” Hannah said. “Miss Adler is as upstanding a young woman as you could hope for in a tenant. If you’ll just allow me to guarantee her rent until she returns, plus some extra for your trouble, of course, I promise you’ll never be bothered by such nonsense again.”

  “I don’t know,” Mrs. Cotley said more doubtfully, eyeing Hannah’s expensive handbag. “She was sent to me by those Morrisons, and they as good as scarpered off in the night, leaving me two weeks out, them being behind already.”

  “Shameful,” Hannah said. “I’d be glad to compensate you for that as well.”

  Mrs. Cotley still hesitated, and Hannah wondered if she was being shaken down or if the woman was legitimately unsure about Phoebe.

  “Had a man up there, she did,” Mrs. Cotley said. “I’ve got a son to protect.”

  “Protect from what?” Freddie burst in then, unable to contain himself. “Miss Adler is the best woman I’ve ever met besides you, Mum, and I want her back here.”

  “Now listen, Freddie—”

  “No, Mum, I won’t. You’re to listen to me!” Freddie blazed at her, looking both older and younger than his twelve years. “I know her well, and she’s excellent, so if this lady is going to pay the rent till Miss Adler returns, you’ll take it.”

  Whether it was the passion of her son, or the sight of the folded notes Hannah handed her, Mrs. Cotley finally relented. Freddie walked Hannah out.

  “Miss Adler will be back, won’t she?” he asked worriedly.

  “Of course she will,” Hannah said. Though she wasn’t confident. Nigel had said he would move heaven and earth, but those things were very different from the House Un-American Activities Committee.

  Hannah dropped a sovereign into the boy’s hand. He gazed at her adoringly.

  “You know Miss Adler’s boyfriend, I think? He’s likely in a great panic. When you have a minute, go and tell him I said she’ll be fine. He can call me if he likes.”

  She’s got to be fine. She’s just got to. She can’t go down this way.

  * * *

  • • •

  “Hiya, Adler,” Jimmy greeted her. “How’d you like Limey Land?”

  “What the bloody hell are you doing here?” she breathed.

  “Picked up some lingo, huh? And wrote some shows. You sure did have all the luck. Anyway, since you ask, I’m here ’cause, you know, ‘services rendered.’ The Village is crawling with Reds. I’m doing all right, got a lot of work fronting.”

  Phoebe saw his mouth move, heard every word, and still couldn’t believe it. Jimmy! Well, she’d known, hadn’t she? Back before she knew, she used him as a model for murderers. And it turned out instead he was a spy, murdering people’s careers. She looked at him. Wearing a very good suit, fine shoes, a gold watch. That’s what helping the FBI and working as a front for the writers you ruined bought you.

  “You sure do look well, Jimmy,” she said. He didn’t even blush.

  The room seemed like something built for television. Five congressmen from HUAC sat at a semicircular table on a raised platform, looming over the witness table. They were interchangeable in dark suits and dull ties. Their severe, brilliantined hair made it tricky to tell if they were graying or balding, which was surely the point. They glared down at Phoebe, and it was hard not to feel small and guilty. She looked around for Nigel, but didn’t see him.

  A gavel. It began.

  “Phoebe Berneice Adler. Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party?”

  She clenched her hands together to keep from wiping them on her skirt. She took a deep breath, and leaned toward the microphone.

  “No,” she said, simply.

  She heard rustling behind her. Briggs had told her about the regulars—housewives, mostly—who liked to attend hearings. Phoebe’s ladylike look and voice unsettled them. She hoped they were wondering if there must be some mistake.

  “Can you account for having been blacklisted?” came another question.

  “I wasn’t given a reason,” Phoebe said.

  “We understand you were an instigator during the war,” someone clarified.

  More rustling. Curiosity. Could Phoebe be a spy?

  “Not at all,” Phoebe said. “I perhaps annoyed my superiors at the airfield where I worked, but I had to ask for fair wages. Not so much for myself, but lots of the other women were supporting their kids with their men at war. It didn’t seem right that they not be paid properly, not when they were doing such fine work.”

  Now there were murmurs, sounds of displeasure. Some of these women had been on their own during the war as well, and had worked. Plenty of women had said, at least when interviewed, that it made sense to pay them less than men, being we
aker and whatnot. But many others felt differently. And if that was all Phoebe had done, well, that wasn’t the stuff of treason, was it?

  “Nonetheless, you were blacklisted from your work as a television writer and refused to sign a loyalty oath, is that correct?”

  There. That looked suspicious all right.

  “I was given to understand that signing the oath wouldn’t help me,” she said.

  “So you wanted help? You didn’t want to profess loyalty to your country?”

  “I have always been loyal to America. That’s why I went to work defending her before I was of age. Anyone can sign a paper. That doesn’t prove anything.”

  “But you didn’t sign. You weren’t even willing to go that far.” The congressman had a bulgy forehead that turned pink when he talked.

  “Oh, I would, of course, now that I understand it better. Though my parents and sister—God rest their souls—they always were skittish about signing things. My sister, especially, she wondered if maybe making people sign loyalty oaths seemed a bit Soviet? Or something Hitler made his top men do? Of course, she was awfully ill, confined to a sanitarium, and didn’t understand too much about the outside world. Honestly, if President Eisenhower thinks it’s right, then I’ll be glad to sign.”

  A gamble, but she knew she had to give at least partway. Briggs’s finger brushed hers. Was it congratulations? She knew she sounded like the brassy best friend in countless comedies. She could feel the crowd liking her for it. Convincing the crowd might help convince the committee, Briggs had said. He leaned into the microphone and spoke commandingly.

  “My client is prepared to sign a loyalty oath now, should one be at hand.”

  It wasn’t, and the bulgy-headed congressman pushed on.

  “You say you are not a Communist, but you have been known to associate with Communists, have you not?” A question poised to negate her growing popularity.

  “I don’t know,” Phoebe said earnestly. “I don’t discuss politics with my friends. Heck, I don’t even like to talk politics with my enemies.”