The War Widow

by Tara Moss

  Ella had her eyes on Billie, thinking something over. ‘You know, your line of work shows you the worst of people. It exposes every nasty instinct,’ she pronounced.

  ‘Isn’t that what you found exciting about it?’ Billie shot back. She leaned against the cushions and smiled, then took a sip of her sherry. This was a well-worn track for them.

  Barry Walker had been charming and, behind his sometimes tough exterior, rather soft-hearted and compassionate too, but that probably wasn’t all that had appealed to Ella von Hooft. Certainly he was the opposite of her first husband, if the stories were anything to go by, but it was more than that. Billie’s first and happiest memories were from the end of the roaring twenties, a freer time in many respects, with an aristocratic mother who was more than happy to ‘slum it’ – as others liked to say behind her back – with her dad, the baroness painting the town red each weekend with her PI, and insisting on throwing extravagant parties in her two-storey home, attended by intellectuals, performers and artists, and a fair-sized staff in keeping with the standards of her Dutch childhood. The fact that the disapproval of others never fazed Ella was just one more reason Billie respected her. She thought Alma, her loyal lady’s maid, felt the same, despite what Billie took to be more conservative leanings. Her mother rather had a taste for the gritty, Billie suspected, despite her protestations and fiercely glamorous exterior. She was indeed a woman of contrasts.

  ‘What are you working on at the moment? No peeping, I hope,’ her mother prodded, not taking the bait.

  ‘A rather clear-cut case in fact,’ Billie replied. ‘Not at all unsavoury. A mother hired me to track down her missing son.’

  ‘There must be a lot of those at the moment.’

  ‘Indeed, but not like this. He’s not MIA.’ Billie thought of Jack again and quickly pushed the thought away. This was getting to be a quite unhelpful habit, thinking of him when her mind should be on her work. ‘This one was too young to serve,’ Billie added by way of explanation.

  ‘Dear goddess, tell me it’s not like the Lindbergh baby!’ Ella exclaimed.

  ‘No. More like a teenage runaway. He’s seventeen. Hopefully the boy hasn’t got himself hurt somewhere.’

  ‘Well, you wouldn’t know what to do with one of those, anyway.’

  Babies. Billie groaned softly into her glass. ‘As I recall, you had Alma to help you out with me,’ Billie said loudly enough to include everyone in the flat. From the corner of her eye she spotted Alma’s sly grin in the doorway of the kitchen. Her mother liked to rib Billie about her domestic circumstances, or lack thereof, but Billie knew that Ella had hardly embraced the domestic life herself, and it was no accident she’d had but one child. The baroness knew about Marie Stopes and her family-planning devices and firmly believed in women controlling the fate of their wombs, despite what grey-haired men of religion had to say on the matter.

  Billie rose and moved to the window, the red gown holding to her firm curves like liquid.

  ‘That’s a lovely dress,’ her mother said, and Billie thanked her. She had to admit it fitted better now that she was not as thin. Europe had taken the weight off her, and many others besides. The only people who got fat on wars were the ones who weren’t really there – weren’t on the front lines or in the factories, or starving at home, but were pushing pawns around as on a chessboard, far from the action.

  ‘It’s for The Dancers,’ Billie explained of her attire.

  ‘Ahh,’ Ella responded, understanding.

  Billie looked around her, glass in hand. The baroness had a sweeping view over Edgecliff, Double Bay shimmering in the distance, in what was year by year becoming a rather too sparsely furnished apartment. What was still in place was impressive and in impeccable taste, but the pieces were gradually receding, like a glacier. There was a large space where a Steinway baby grand piano had recently stood, Billie noticed. Not that anyone had played it much since they’d sold the stately house in Potts Point and moved to Cliffside Flats. She took another sip of the sherry. If only things were going a bit better at the agency, she’d be able to support her mother as well as herself. Perhaps in time, she thought.

  Her mother was giving her a look. ‘Where is your mind tonight? You look like you are somewhere else.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  Ella wasn’t going to let it go. ‘It pains me to see you single like this, Billie my girl. Men throw themselves at you. Surely you see that? Why don’t you take one of them up on it?’

  Billie put the sherry down, folded her arms and pulled her brows together. She didn’t like this conversation. She had a puzzle to solve and it wasn’t this one.

  Ella raised her eyebrows. ‘All I’m saying is take advantage of it, Billie. Enjoy yourself. You only live once and there are plenty of nice young men out there. They certainly notice you.’

  Jack was back at the forefront of Billie’s mind now: that smile, that soft mouth, those warm, strong hands. Billie, wait for me. I want you. I want to be yours. She hungered for him, for that deep, reassuring voice, that physical chemistry, that touch her body recalled so achingly, so devastatingly well.

  Her mother seemed to read her thoughts. ‘Darling, he’s not coming back,’ she said, as gently as she could. But, of course, there was no way to say it gently. ‘He may have been a good man, but he’s gone.’

  Billie’s whole body erupted in gooseflesh, a feeling of sickness sweeping over her, mingled with unbearable longing. She’d long suspected that Jack and his Argus camera had taken on one too many assignments. If she was truly ‘brave’, as he’d often said she was, then he was a step beyond, positively reckless in his pursuit of the Nazis and their war crimes. The two of them had played a small part in turning the tide, but a part nonetheless: Billie’s words and his photographs helping to tell a story to the world of cruelty against civilians, against children, in what had been a bold attempt at absolute and total genocide. Together they’d been part of something larger than themselves, Billie and Jack. His last assignment that she knew of had been in Warsaw in ’44, when the Polish Home Army, an underground resistance group, had risen against the German occupation forces. It had been risky for a press photographer by then, far riskier than it had been in 1938. He’d sent one letter from Warsaw – and then nothing. Word had come on the wireless that the rebellion had been crushed, the Soviet forces having failed to help. The centre of the city had been razed in October of that year, with over one hundred thousand killed. And no word from Jack. Nothing. The British paper he’d worked for had no information on his whereabouts.

  He’d vanished only months after he and Billie had married, following a wartime affair of several years, broken up into romantic interludes and stolen weekends of intense intimacy. Then Jack was gone. And Billie had left Paris to return to Australia and her ailing father, arriving too late. In no time at all she had lost not one but the two most important men in her life. It had been more than two years now since she’d seen Jack, she reminded herself again, but time moved strangely after the war.

  Billie looked down at the luxurious fabric of her evening gown, finding it surreal against her thoughts of the war. Everything had changed when the war began, and now it was so different again. So little was the same; her whole life before was almost like a dream. Sometimes it were as if she watched her world through the lens of Jack’s Argus, distant and somehow disconnected, everything in monochrome.

  ‘Darling, being a spinster suits some, but not you. I know you yearn for something else,’ her mother was saying.

  ‘I made a vow to Jack,’ Billie managed, in a tight voice. Her mouth felt as dry as the outback. Their vows had to do with each other, but also their common cause. They would do whatever they had to in order to bring the truth of what was happening to the world, and especially to America where isolationist public sentiment had finally turned, changing the course of the war. Hitler had wanted more than Poland and Austria, more than all of Europe. He had wanted the world reflected in his terrifying image. He ha
d come closer than many cared to admit.

  ‘You may well have done, my girl,’ Billie’s mother said, bringing her back to the moment. ‘You may well have made a vow to that man, but that was the war. Things are different now. The war is over and you have no ring, no papers and no husband. There were two witnesses and you haven’t seen them since. Such things happened in the Great War too. No one would begrudge you moving on. He wouldn’t.’

  ‘You never met him,’ Billie said softly. It wasn’t much of an argument, but it was true. They would have got on, she thought. Both were free spirits in their own ways. Complicated. Stubborn. Exciting.

  Love was often more intense in times of war, she knew. But that knowledge didn’t change the shape of it, didn’t release her from her feelings about Jack Rake, wherever he was, whatever fate he’d faced in Warsaw. It’s true their wedding had been makeshift – a borrowed dress, a homemade cake – but that made it no less real to her. Their lovemaking had been real. What was still in her heart was real.

  ‘You need to face facts, Billie. You are a war widow,’ her mother said.

  War widow.

  Spoken out loud, the words stung, though it wasn’t the first time she’d heard them. Through her work, Billie knew the fate of war widows in Australia – some were objects of pity, others considered a threat. Widows were the common targets of gossip, thieves and swindlers, men on the prowl, and the suspicions of married women who believed any widow was looking for a new husband and willing to do anything to get one. Society defined women with those two words, and they were stigmatized by it – until they could change their status by marrying again, that is. Though the words might be accurate, they made Billie squirm, extinguishing all hope of Jack’s return, and like Mrs or Miss, defining Billie by her marital status. Further, despite the tireless advocacy of the War Widows’ Guild, widows with children received but a pittance, and a young civilian widow of the war, with no children, was not eligible for anything. Their sacrifices during the war were not recognized by the government, and the men in charge believed that what a charming, young childless widow needed was not a pension, but another husband. If Billie wanted to remarry, she would need to seek a certificate of presumption of death, but she would have to provide evidence first, and that was not something she had yet.

  ‘But I . . .’ Billie began to protest, and her mouth closed again.

  If not a war widow, what was she? If Jack was alive she would be within her rights to seek divorce on the grounds of desertion, something she had helped other women attain through her investigation agency. Unless he turned up or she could furnish more information about precisely when and where he was last seen, she could have no way of knowing what had happened to him. She didn’t want a divorce. She wanted Jack. Or at least answers.

  She swallowed back the bitter taste that had settled on her tongue.

  ‘Let’s talk about something else, can we?’ Billie pleaded. She stalked off to the kitchen to get herself a glass of water. Alma was there, bent over an open oven. The air coming from it was hot and sweet.

  She downed a glass of water and returned to the settee. ‘What can I do for you tonight? You said there was something you needed help with. Urgent, was it?’ Billie watched her mother take a long, slow sip of sherry. ‘There’s not really anything, is there?’ Billie looked at the thin watch on her wrist. ‘Lunch on Sunday? The usual?’ She stood impatiently and gave her mother a kiss. ‘I have to go and fix my hair, Ella. I’m half-dressed.’

  ‘I didn’t want to say anything,’ her mother teased.

  ‘Well now, that is unlike you.’ Billie smiled. Some of the tension had dispersed. She just couldn’t talk about Jack with her mother. It wasn’t helpful.

  ‘Your neck is too bare, my girl. Alma, could you fetch the sapphires? The drop set?’ Ella called.

  ‘No, no. I have plenty of adequate costume jewellery,’ Billie protested, but it was no use. In a few moments her throat and earlobes were decorated by a stunning deep-blue sapphire and diamond Art Deco set, which she accepted without further fuss. She caught a glimpse in the mirror of the coat rack at the door and did a double take. Billie had to admit her mother had picked it right. The drop earrings held ten little square sapphires in a vertical line, surrounded by small diamonds. The matching pendant drew attention to her slender clavicle and long neck. A small round diamond hung off the bottom of each earring, swaying gently and catching the light. The blue set off the dress and subtle red hues in her brunette hair perfectly, and made her eyes seem larger and more striking. The jury was out on whether Billie’s eyes were blue or green, and even Jack hadn’t been able to make up his mind.

  Billie laughed. ‘You’re right. You win. It’s perfect. I’ll return these on Sunday when I pick you up for lunch.’

  ‘Would you like the car? Alma could drive you?’

  ‘No, thank you,’ she answered. She strode across the flat to give her mother another kiss. ‘I love you.’

  Billie left the matriarch with her book and her sherry, and Alma’s loyal company. As she retreated down the hall towards the stairwell, she heard the soft sounds of the wireless being turned on.

  Chapter Six

  Resplendent in her dark ruby-red silk gown and her mother’s shining blue sapphires, Billie returned to her office by taxi cab. Despite her mother’s diversion she got there in plenty of time for Sam’s arrival, and busied herself with paperwork, leaning back in her chair with her stockinged feet up on the desk, the split in her gown falling open to just above her knee. The prospect of an interesting evening ahead made the tedium of her least favourite part of the job bearable.

  It was but twenty minutes later when she heard the outer door of the office open, and the little buzzer that alerted her to visitors sounded. Her eyes went to the Bakelite clock. He was very punctual, that Sam. Billie closed her file, pulled her feet down and slipped them into her shoes. Soon the doorway filled with the outline of one Samuel Baker. He had the kind of shoulders that could plug a doorway handsomely. He was several axe-handles across, as the saying went.

  ‘Do I pass?’ he asked and turned for her.

  She looked him over. ‘Indeed you do pass muster, Sam. The jacket fits perfectly.’

  Sam wore a ready smile and Billie sensed this was part of his job he rather enjoyed. He had on his new white double-breasted shawl-collar dinner jacket, worn over a button-down shirt, black bow-tie and satin-stripe black tuxedo pants. His shoes shone. Yes, he looked the part in his summer whites and that was precisely why Billie had had the jacket made for him early in his employment with her. A keen amateur seamstress herself, she had good connections with tailors, some of whom owed her favours. She’d had one good day suit and one formal wardrobe made for Sam. This was the first outing for the black-tie ensemble. Far from a luxury, Sam’s wardrobe was as vital to his work for Billie as a wrench was for a plumber. They needed to be able to fit in anywhere without raising eyebrows; tonight they had to slide into the top end of town. With freshly combed hair and a sparkling white jacket Sam looked every bit the leading man, though his gloved hand gave him a slightly dark edge, which was not entirely unwelcome considering where the trade sometimes took them. She pushed back her chair and stood, and he looked her over briefly, keeping his appraisal polite and professional. ‘Ms Walker, I must say you look as pretty as a diamond.’

  ‘You do have a way with words, Sam.’ Billie smoothed down her silk dress and caught a glimpse of the shining sapphires at her throat. She dearly hoped her mother would never need to sell them, though she knew her jewellery collection was dwindling as fast as her furniture. ‘It’s balmy out,’ she said. ‘Shall we walk?’

  ‘You can walk in that?’

  ‘Watch me.’ She grabbed her stole and tossed it elegantly around her shoulders.

  Billie never sacrificed mobility for style, just as she wouldn’t sacrifice style for much of anything. These were practical considerations, after all. If she didn’t look the part, she wouldn’t get far at their destina
tion, and if she couldn’t get far in her shoes, she might miss some vital clues. She shared her mother’s belief that attractive shoes needn’t be ankle breaking. In fact, the baroness still wore the low 1920s style, which was a bit out of date for Billie’s taste. She didn’t need to do the Charleston all night, she just needed to walk four level city blocks, and who knew how much further later on. Her shoes had a two-inch heel, a little satin bow above the toe and fabric soles. Leather was still quite dear, having been needed for men’s boots. But equally, fabric was quiet. Billie liked quiet shoes. Not for her those clanging leather soles that announced your arrival like a marching band.

  ‘What’s this about tonight?’ Sam asked as they stepped onto the street. It would take little more than ten minutes to hit the theatre district.

  ‘Our boy was hanging around The Dancers, apparently, and spoke with a doorman. I’d like to know what he was doing there and what was said,’ Billie explained.

  ‘Really? Was he looking for a job as a dishwasher?’

  ‘Precisely my first thought, but no. He was trying to get in as a customer, it seems.’

  Sam’s eyebrows went up. ‘Now, I haven’t met the kid, but I reckon he’d have more success tattooing a soap bubble than getting served at The Dancers.’

  Billie grinned. Sam was absolutely right, but that didn’t always stop young men trying things, particularly if there was a girl involved.

  In no time they were upon the George Street theatre district, which was in full swing, most of the theatres having just let out. As they crossed Liverpool Street Billie pushed out the crook of her elbow and Sam linked his arm with hers. A couple of actors on a mission, they walked arm in arm to the narrow Art Deco street entrance of The Dancers on Victory Lane, as the passage off George Street was colloquially known, smiling and looking to all the world like any other couple coming from the shows. A Rolls-Royce was pulling in as they neared the entry, and a uniformed doorman who was as thin as a shadow opened the door to greet a grey-haired gentleman and his somewhat younger platinum-haired female companion. ‘That might be our doorman,’ Billie remarked under her breath, and they waited for him to turn, but missed the opportunity to talk to him as he escorted the couple inside.