The Wardrobe Mistress_A heart-wrenching wartime love story

by Natalie Meg Evans

  The bathroom was a temple to masculine luxury. The jewel on the altar was a tablet of Imperial Leather soap. Vanessa filled the bath no higher than the statutory four inches, a wartime rule to save water and heat. Hitching up her dress, she immersed feet that felt sticky from The Wishbone’s dance floor. Then, deciding it would be criminal to waste water, she gave herself a swift, all-over wash. As the water drained away, she put on a white towelling robe she found hanging behind the door. It was surprisingly snug. It must have been Bo’s rather than Alistair’s. Vanessa checked herself in the mirror. Her hair curled mistily against her shoulders. Running her hands over her breasts, stomach, narrow hips, she took pleasure in the firm contours. Imagining Leo standing behind her reflection, she whispered, ‘I’ve every right to a second tilt at love. You abused ours and now I love someone else.’

  A seed sewn in a frozen graveyard had born fruit. Nothing mattered right now but her and Alistair.

  His cleaning woman had laid his post on the kitchen table, and Alistair noticed the pile as he put slices of bread under the grill. Ignoring personal letters and those that felt like bills, he sliced open a small, cardboard package. It seemed empty, but when he tapped it on the table, photographic negatives fell out. He held one up to the light and saw that Fern had kept her word, returning compromising evidence to him. Her lawyer must have assured her that divorce proceedings were beyond the point of no return. He’d have to trust that she’d sent them all.

  He shoved them into the cutlery drawer and turned the toast over. From nowhere came a deflating doubt.

  What was love? Was it, like kindness, a form of delinquency? Marrying Fern, he’d felt every kind of uncertainty about the world they lived in, but of her love, her loyalty, not a single misgiving. Her betrayal still rocked him at unexpected

  moments.

  What if Vanessa proved the same? Sometimes, he feared he’d lost the power to judge. He heard a door clicking shut, and counted the seconds until his ears picked up her light tread. A slight scrape, an agitated breath, told him she was watching him from the kitchen doorway. ‘Bovril or Gentlemen’s Relish on your toast?’

  ‘Gosh. How did you know I was here?’

  He turned and looked down at her bare toes, pink rosebuds under the white hem of the robe. ‘ASDIC.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Sonar detection. I carry a form of it in my head.’

  ‘But I’m not a submarine. I travel on the surface.’

  ‘I heard you opening and closing doors.’

  ‘I couldn’t resist checking out your bedroom on the way. I adore the Chinese silk eiderdown.’

  ‘Bo bought it in Shanghai.’ He checked the progress of the toast. A few seconds more would do it. ‘I hope the water was hot enough.’

  He saw her take a steadying breath. ‘Alistair, I love you. I always have, straight out of the gun-barrel.’

  He knew that at this moment, a man like Patrick Carnford would say something bone-meltingly debonair and they would dissolve into each other. All he managed was a dry cough that sounded like embarrassment. ‘Don’t you think we should take a step back from this?’

  Vanessa rushed forward so fast, he had to save himself from crashing into the cooker. She pressed herself to him and he felt an immediate stirring in his thighs, his groin. He turned back to his toast, but she laid her hand on his stomach, finding a flat band of muscle, pushing between the buttons of his shirt to discover the light scrim of hair. The heat of the grill warmed him, and must have warmed her too.

  He covered her hand, controlling the direction of her touch. ‘We don’t have to end up in bed.’

  ‘Too late. You invited me home.’

  ‘You invited yourself, to be truthful.’

  ‘To be truthful, you put the desire in my head.’

  ‘It’s been a numbingly long day, Vanessa. I can’t think straight.’

  She could. Vanessa leaned her cheek against his spine. Daringly, she undid all the shirt buttons, feeling her way. Undid the cuffs and pulled the shirt off him. Her teeth inflicted a row of gentle nips. She felt arousal swell and his hand clamped harder on hers. He wanted her, and she wasn’t going to let him waste this moment because something – she didn’t know what – wasn’t quite right.

  Her free hand delivered cobweb caresses as her breath skimmed his shoulder blades. ‘You’re back-tracking because . . . you believe – hope – that Fern is coming back to you?’

  ‘Bit late for that. Why mention Fern? Shall I mention Leo? Oh, God!’ Alistair hauled out the grill pan, slamming it down on top of the cooker as smoke filled the kitchen. He’d incinerated the toast. ‘Let’s talk about the men you fell in love with after Leo.’

  He’s snatching for excuses. Hitting the ball off the field but all right, I’ll go fetch it back. ‘Did Fern tell you that I went down like a skittle for every man in uniform who asked me out?’

  ‘Pretty much.’

  ‘I didn’t, actually. When you’re with a man who might be dead by the next night, you can’t help but love him. It’s human instinct. Did Fern also tell you how desperately tame my affairs were? Dancing and kissing and lots of talking. So don’t dare use that as an excuse to reject me. You wanted me, now you don’t.’

  His breathing was changing. Perhaps because she was stroking his belly where his body hair concentrated, creating turmoil. She sensed he was desperate for her to stop, and famished for what she offered.

  ‘I can’t sleep with you while I’m in the throes of divorce.’

  ‘Because the world will call you a rotter and me a tart? Sod the world.’

  ‘It’s not in me. I need to do the right thing.’

  ‘What is the right thing? You’re like the captain of a sinking ship who won’t jump off, though he’s the last man on board and there’s room in the lifeboat. You’ll go down just to make some damn stupid point?’ She wished him luck. ‘It’s going to be a long, cold stretch, the rest of your life as a monk.’

  He turned in a movement that flung her hands away, the desolation in his eyes proving that she’d painted a vision he’d already seen for himself. ‘I was on a ship that went down and I jumped in the end or I wouldn’t be here. Plunging into the freezing water, I imagined myself swimming towards Fern.’

  ‘Has Fern’s muck-spreading got between us?’

  ‘No, because you stuck up for me. Your friend with the platinum hair said so.’ Alistair unscrewed his facial muscles enough to smile.

  ‘You were at war and the rules were different.’ She sat down at the table, because she’d suddenly grasped that something bigger than divorce, hurt and exhaustion lay between them. Until it was exorcised, they’d bicker and argue. ‘Tell me about the Monarda.’

  He said nothing for a moment, cutting the blackened crusts from the toast, scraping the charred surface over the sink. Then he fetched in a long breath. ‘The first year of war was a slaughter-ground, every convoy losing up to half its ships. We welcomed stormy weather because calm seas made us sitting targets. Sometimes we seemed to be waiting our turn to die. When a sister ship or a tanker was hit, we’d hear the impact, see a ball of orange fire a thousand yards away. I’d give the order to steam closer and we’d carve a path through charred bodies to find survivors burning in the water. We rescued all we could, most of whom died anyway from their injuries or cold. I kept sane, Vanessa, by handing over my soul. I handed it over in exchange for killing the enemy in sufficient number to help bring the horror to an end.’

  He rinsed his hands under the tap, then came to the table, gripping Vanessa’s wrist, his fingers cold to her flesh. His eyes searched hers, demanding proof she understood.

  ‘Go on,’ she said, looking up at him.

  ‘Fern was my Holy Ground, where I dreamed of returning. I imagined her waiting, a glorious full-stop to the hell I’d been through. And yes, I was an idiot, but I needed something. Decisions I made cost other men their lives. It’s right what Fern says about the Monarda. It was my utter low point.’

&
nbsp; ‘She’s no right to an opinion!’

  ‘It doesn’t stop her having one. The Monarda was a corvette. By this time, I was captain of the Quarrel, in command of the convoy. Monarda was astern of us, following close, and we’d warned her there were enemy U-boats on our tail. It was an intensely bright, starlit night as only mid-Atlantic nights can be. When she was struck and exploded and began to sink, we saw every detail, even the men on the bridge struggling into life-jackets. She put up her flares. I ordered my ship to sail away from her because my orders were to pursue the submarine that fired the torpedo. Those men swimming towards us, shouting, drowning, will always haunt me.’ He engaged in a brief nightmare. ‘Some of my crew would have lynched me if they could. But we finished off the closest U-boat, and by doing so, saved maybe ten other ships. If I’d slowed our engines, we might have picked up fifty survivors, of whom forty would never have made it to port. I’m just saying – ’ he lifted Vanessa to her feet to bring her nearer his eye-level, ‘that I can’t make a crucial choice one day then say, “to hell with it” the next. Abandoning the Monarda’s crew would then be just another duff choice. Leaving the Navy, taking on The Farren, hiring a nervous wreck like Cottrill . . . hiring you, my pushy little darling . . . would be up for argument. If I can’t stand by my decisions, what’s the point of me?’

  ‘If we become lovers, we hurt no one.’ Reaching up, she kissed the place beside his mouth where beard-shadow was breaking through.

  Hard resolution melted in his face and she thought she had him but he resumed control with a self-mocking smile. She’d seen the inner struggle, the forward step, the retreat. ‘I appreciate your honesty, Alistair. Let’s have that toast.’

  Had Macduff been there with them, he’d have had the lion’s share of their supper. Vanessa’s throat could hardly swallow as she formulated a plan. Alistair wanted her. Let him be complex. Let him be honourable. She would resort to trickery. She wiped her fingers on a napkin. ‘It’s too late for me to make my way home. Is there a spare room?’

  ‘Yes, the bed’s made up.’

  ‘I’ll be gone before you wake.’

  In the poky bedroom, she turned down the bed covers, felt the cold sheets. In her dad’s jaunty voice, she whispered, ‘See, Toots? If you want something badly enough, it happens. It’s not wrong to want something so badly, it hurts.’

  In the lounge, Alistair swigged down colourless liquid. Water. He’d given up drinking entirely during hostilities because he’d seen other ships’ officers going headfirst into the rum barrel, or the gin bottle. He sat down, reflecting that he’d never smell burned toast again without recalling the ardour in Vanessa’s eyes. I love you. I can’t help it.

  He’d been brought up to believe in fidelity. His parents had loved each other – so deeply, it excluded him. His mother had accompanied his father on every voyage and had died two weeks after her husband. To dispel the memory of his childhood isolation, he reached for his glass. As he bent, something under the chair caught his eye. It was the script of Cottrill’s first play, shyly handed to him a few days ago.

  Unreadable, un-performable. But within it, an unlit fuse of talent. He intended to tell Cottrill, ‘You’ve got out all your rage and disappointment. Now write about what’s good in your life.’

  Perhaps Vanessa should write about her marriage, though her script would be short and brutal. Her letter had sketched that unhappy interlude, and his subsequent telephone call to Fern had added human layers.

  Fern had told him, ‘In the days before he died, Leo and his section had been flying sorties to exhaustion, from first light to midnight. His best friend had crashed on the runway, asleep at the controls. One can understand if his personality changed.’ Fern recalled Vanessa describing Leo’s home-comings, the few hours’ snatched leave, when he’d arrive like a coiled spring, dangerous and angry. On the last, fateful night, the spring had snapped. ‘Vanessa was sleeping and he woke her. She immediately smelled another woman’s perfume on him, but he wouldn’t say where he’d been. He just wanted Vanessa’s flesh. She turned her back. He pulled her out of bed and had her on the floor.’

  Had? ‘Raped?’ Alistair had stumbled over the word. This could be Fern exaggerating.

  ‘Not technically, since they were married. He got into bed while Nessie stayed curled on the lino. When she was finally able to get up, she kicked him out – even though it was the middle of the night – and flung her wedding ring at him, telling him to sell it to pay for their divorce. The next day – ’

  Leo Kingcourt had been shot down. Vanessa’s violated love had been reborn in terrible guilt. He wondered what it had cost her to fall in love again.

  He washed, brushed his teeth. In token good manners, he wrapped a towel around his waist and went to the spare room. The thought of her separated from him by a single door brought a hardness to his groin. His hand strayed towards the handle. In his urgency, he might forget to be gentle. ‘Vanessa?’

  He listened for breathing, heard none. He went in and found the bed empty. Surely, she hadn’t gone home? ‘Damn idiot. I don’t love you – ’

  He found the front door locked, from the inside. That meant –

  He went to his bedroom. Throwing off his towel, he pulled back the covers and slid in to bed, into a body-warm aura that smelled of Bo’s Imperial Leather.

  ‘Vanessa?’

  Arms wrapped around him, and a flat belly and slim thighs rolled against him, sweet salve to burning skin. Fingers slewed along his shoulders, along his neck, into his hair, as lips opened against his mouth. She breathed, ‘I don’t care if you can’t love me.’

  ‘I don’t love you, I adore you.’

  As a young midshipman, he’d witnessed a deckhand being punched overboard by a freak wave, hurled into the deep and lost. Alistair went the same way.

  Part Five

  And now, face to face

  Chapter 32

  They played to packed houses through December. Audiences flocked to a play that guaranteed laughter and a gorgeous spectacle. Alistair whistled as he moved between the theatre’s compass points – until he was heard doing so and made to turn round three times and swear. His naval obscenities were agreed – by Patrick Carnford and Billy Chalker, who witnessed them – to be among the best they’d ever heard.

  A new vein of optimism ran through the company and even Tom Cottrill admitted that he might have over-reacted to the shadows in the upper circle.

  Vanessa and Alistair kept their love secret. Not easy. A theatre has eyes front, back, high and low. They met clandestinely, like agents in enemy territory. Alistair’s divorce was moving through the legal system, in his words, ‘like an over-loaded coal freighter through mud’. Until he was free he refused even to hold Vanessa’s hand in public. She continued to call him ‘Alistair’ while he stayed with ‘Mrs Kingcourt’. The masquerade was an aphrodisiac.

  Christmas was celebrated on the 22nd of December, a Sunday, with carols sung on stage and dinner cooked on gas burners in Doyle’s office, shared with members of the company who had nowhere else to go. Twelve of them, including Gwenda, Billy Chalker and Doyle, dined in the foyer. Vanessa invited Joanne. They all wore hats from the wardrobe room, except Macduff, who donned Doyle’s blue seaman’s cap.

  Christmas Eve was business as usual, with a matinee and evening performance. On Christmas Day, they closed. Vanessa and Alistair went to morning carols at St Martin-in-the-Fields, then back to his flat. Together, they helped Macduff up and down the stairs and walked him through near-deserted streets. As the light faded, they ate dinner in front of the fire. Christmas week felt like a honeymoon, which ended the following Sunday when Alistair woke her and murmured in her ear, ‘Would you like a trip out to Epping or Chislehurst, to walk in the woods?’

  Her fingertips strolled across his groin and he hardened at once. She stroked his inner thigh and he sighed. She asked, ‘Have you got fuel?’

  He pulled her on top of him. ‘Plenty, darling.’

  ‘In th
e Alfa! Take me to Brookwood. I want to see my mother’s grave again. And Dad’s. And the other Vanessa’s.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound fun.’ But he took her there, for all that.

  On their return, Alistair parked the Alfa in a street off Leicester Square, and they walked to Cecil Court in silence. The weather had turned to chill, a light sleet stinging the skin. Alistair broke convention, keeping his arm around Vanessa because she looked close to fainting. At Brookwood, they’d found Billy Chalker tidying the grass in front of Eva’s headstone, kneeling to his work. Seeing them, he’d got painfully to his feet. The pouchy eyes had been hostile.

  Vanessa explained why they’d come and Alistair’s heart had bled for her as Billy put up a hand, silencing her.

  ‘I don’t know who you are, Mrs Kingcourt, but I know who you’re not.’ He’d indicated the child’s grave beside Eva’s. ‘There was only one Vanessa and she died.’

  She’d had tried to get a word in. ‘I am Vanessa. We were born the same day and – ’

  ‘No.’ Anger had crimsoned Chalker’s face. ‘That’s my niece under the turf. I carried her tiny coffin. I can even tell you what it said on the death certificate. Neonatal death. She was born at The Farren and survived a couple of weeks. Johnny Quinnell was to blame.’

  Vanessa had refused to believe it but Billy persisted.

  ‘It was his fault. Eva was having labour pains but instead of calling for help, or taking her to the hospital, Johnny told her to sit tight. It was the first night of a new play, and we both had a part. I was worried, Eva didn’t look good but Johnny wasn’t going to waste his big moment taking care of a woman in childbirth. “You’ll be right as rain, my sweet.” Very persuasive, Johnny, when he wanted to be.’

  That was when Vanessa turned on her heels. Alistair had remained with Chalker long enough to hear how Johnny Quinnell had responded to his baby’s death.