The London Restoration

by Rachel McMillan

  Alex Tibbs was blond and what most women would consider handsome, with the exception of slightly crooked bottom teeth and a cauliflower ear from years of varsity boxing at Manchester. “I know that when we’re in the thick of it I will regret saying that, but sometimes just sitting waiting for something to boil is worse.”

  Holt agreed with him. He was tall with deep-black hair and an overbite. When he wasn’t boring them to tears about how he would rather have been a pilot, he was talking about a girlfriend back home.

  Brent tugged at the pressed shirt beneath his green woolen serge coat and straightened his tie. His leave was to be from Christmas to New Year’s. Usually a time he would spend with his vicar uncle, who had cabled him more than once. But Brent had something else in mind. The Jerry bombs were terrorizing London in what journalists coined a blitzkrieg—some German word for “lightning war.”

  When he had spoken to Diana, the telephone static did little but exacerbate her tears. Her churches were toppling and she felt each like a personal wound. Christ Church Greyfriars cracked her heart and St. Mary Aldermanbury set her sobbing. “It’s like I can feel their loss. Way down deep inside. It’s like . . .” It was like her father dying all over again, he filled in.

  There was nothing like hearing her shaking voice at the prospect of fallen Wren churches to stir him to eternity. He wanted to belong to her. But he also didn’t want to take advantage of her without a lifetime commitment. He had seen too many men in his barracks in Tipton cashing in on the possibility of one last chance in the fervor of too much ale and too few tomorrows.

  “I suppose you’ll be seeing that goddess Diana,” Holt said, more than once casting a look over Brent’s shoulder when he was sketching her or taking out a picture he kept with him. In it, she was in her natural habitat, staring up at a church, the light catching her high cheekbones and the curve of her chin. He could never quite capture the fluid lines of her face. She couldn’t be contained by charcoal.

  “I suppose I will.” Brent had kept Diana from them for a long time. He had no use for the men in the barracks hoisting up their latest conquests alongside ale slopping over the side of their mugs. He wanted a part of himself that wasn’t khaki, mud, and early roll calls.

  But with Holt, Tibbs, and Ross trying to forge a sense of camaraderie, he finally gave in. Proud, of course, at their assessment and low whistles.

  “She’s gorgeous,” Holt said.

  “That figure.” Tibbs did an impressive double take. “You’re sure this is not just a cutout of Veronica Lake?” He held the photograph to its side and against the sun.

  Ross snatched the photograph. “I can’t believe our tweed-wearing padre here landed this goddess. Diana, you say? You’re sure she’s not out of Photoplay?”

  The padre moniker had started when Brent told them his profession and about his uncle.

  “When have you ever seen me wear tweed?” Brent tucked the photo into his sketch pad. “She’s intelligent.”

  “Intelligent.” Holt chuckled. “Brent Somerville’s in love with the girl’s intelligence.”

  Tibbs added, “She has such an exceptionally shaped . . . brain.”

  Brent ignored them, but when the idea of proposing had first popped into his head, he waited until he found Ross on his own. Matthew Ross annoyed Brent to the point of distraction their first week of training camp. He was a perfectionist, and he asked incessant questions. He was at least five years younger than Brent, and while Brent’s hair was a dark, serviceable red that could look almost brown when wet or in the shade, Matthew Ross was a carrot top. With a snub nose. But despite his scrawny stature he was deceptively strong, and his Quaker background meant that he appreciated Brent’s profession.

  “Propose, Padre!” Ross had said. He was always excited when Brent spoke of a member of the opposite sex: a language thoroughly foreign to him. “Or Holt was saying that he didn’t even need to go that far with his fiancée. If you go and spend a weekend with her at a hotel, give her a real wedding after the war. Give her something to live for if we don’t make it through.” Ross whistled. “And a little something for yourself too.”

  “Stop twisting your appalling lack of romantic instincts into a philosophical mantra.” Brent kicked the boot Ross had just polished so he had to descuff it again.

  “I’m sorry.”

  When Brent packed his belongings for his weekend in London, Ross watched him carefully. “I think she must be the most beautiful lady in the world.”

  Brent squeezed his shoulder. “You’re a good lad, Ross. If you promise not to follow these two louts around at the weekend I’ll give her your wishes.”

  Train rides seemed longer now that he had someone waiting at the platform. Behind him, a rather ribald rendition of “Jingle Bells” occupied several servicemen who had clearly tipped into the festive cheer before boarding.

  Brent smiled through his annoyance. It was loud and raucous and he couldn’t get two pages sketched in his book, but he didn’t mind. He pressed his face to the glass pane and ignored the mothball scent of the woman snoring loudly beside him. He smiled because he could smell and taste Diana already. Could imagine the way her blue eyes would light as he came into view and she’d immediately trip over herself to tell him about her week.

  The train screeched into the station and, of course, Diana was there with her red lips and perfect figure. Before he could swallow or think or take a breath, he blurted: “I think we should get married.”

  Diana spluttered, “N-not even a hello first. Straight into the proposal.”

  “I would have proposed to you the second I met you, but it seemed a little too Heloise and Abelard. And I didn’t want you to think I was merely interested in your looks.” He slid her a side glance. “Though . . .”

  Diana blinked. “Before you go?”

  Brent nodded. “Partly so I don’t give in to my baser instincts and take you to a hotel in Paddington. Oh, don’t blush. Heck, everyone is willing to give their contribution to the war effort.” Brent looked at her a moment. A long moment. “Mostly”—he ironed out his playful tone—“because I love you with my whole heart and mind, body, spirit, soul. All of it. All seven Greek words for it and more and I always will. Seven is really a trifle of a number when you think about it.” He kissed her softly. “Not nearly enough.” He pressed his lips to hers again.

  “I always wanted to get married at . . .”

  “All Hallows-by-the-Tower.”

  “You remembered.”

  “Shh! Don’t tell the Luftwaffe.”

  “But . . .”

  “Jerry keeps bombing steeples. Terribly inconvenient, Di. And, of course, frightfully rude.”

  “Brent . . .”

  “We’ll have to be quick about it then, won’t we? So we don’t get singed.”

  * * *

  The moment he had stepped off the train, Diana beamed at the sight of Brent in his smart uniform with buttons that caught the gold flecks in his eyes and matched the sheen of red hair gleaming under the station lights. Her heart couldn’t say yes fast enough. She blinked to make sure she was actually awake and walking beside him.

  “I’ve been to see Silas Henderson.”

  He looped his arm around her and pulled her close. Pressed a kiss to her hair. “Shocking.” He straightened his shoulders. “And what fascinating and previously uncovered fact about Christopher Wren are you about to talk to me for hours about?”

  “Actually.” Diana focused her eyes ahead. She couldn’t look at him and speak the words she rehearsed on the Tube. “I think he’s found something for me to do when you leave.” She swallowed. “I’ll be far away from here. Safe as houses.” “You can win the war while using your brain,” she remembered Silas saying before she left for her interview.

  Brent, green eyes lit with what she imagined was the prospect of her forging herself to him and in a blasted hurry to send off a telegram to his uncle to take the next morning’s train to oversee the whole thing, merely beamed at he
r. Half listening, eyes all desire.

  And she loved him so completely it startled her.

  They wouldn’t marry before New Year’s, fudging Christmas as all Londoners did with carols on the staticky wireless and rationed versions of plum pudding while the blackout dimmed Oxford Street and Piccadilly Circus, the holidays taking the German threat in stride.

  The new year approached a city at the end of its rope when Jerry blasted it with thousands and thousands of explosives in an unending assault. Londoners frayed by terror and exhaustion called it the Second Great Fire. Bells were silenced with the attempt at complete annihilation through a ceaseless barrage of explosive destruction. Priceless architectural treasures fell victim to the German inferno. Newspaper headlines blared with statistics of lives lost, but somehow Brent’s uncle had made it to the guesthouse the night before.

  * * *

  A small red pillbox hat clashed deliciously against her blonde hair. It had a tiny veil that covered her forehead and skimmed her blue eyes. But her lips were on full display and slightly turned up. “What are you thinking?”

  “I was thinking I could kiss you, but it would be a shame to ruin your lipstick.”

  “I have more in my handbag.” She laughed. “But it might be bad luck to kiss before we say our vows.”

  Brent looked pointedly at the pigeons molting over the remains of the altar and a stray tabby that hovered, tail in straight salute, near the vestry before it scurried away at the sight of a fire hose. “Yes, clearly our kissing would be bad luck.”

  “Should it be a bad omen?” Diana said while Brent kept a tight hold on her hand. “A church relegated to rubble?” Her gaze took in the four corners, the remnants of the walls.

  “But it’s still here.” He followed her gaze. “Almost.” He had a relatively clear view of the still-standing Tower and the bridge beyond to the banks of Southwark. It was a little murky with leftover smoke, the Thames catching the barrage balloons in bulged shadow. Diana seemed eager to see what it could become again.

  “Don’t twist your ankle, Di. Would be a rotten thing to do on our wedding day.”

  “Your wedding day?” A worker took in the floral bouquet draped by Diana’s hip and Brent’s pressed uniform. “You don’t want to get married here, miss. We can barely put out the remaining fires. There’s a shortage of water. It’s not safe.”

  “Oh yes, I do!” Diana said brightly, without missing a beat. She charmed him with a dazzling smile, and he doffed his hat. “He’s shipping out tomorrow and we only have this. Please. We’ll be quick about it and we’ve brought our own vicar.”

  Brent assumed Diana had a million and one childhood dreams about her wedding, in which smoke snaking like thin rope from a vestry and sanctuary indistinguishable amidst an eruption of rock didn’t play a central role. Centuries of brick had toppled in an instant, a steeple lying vulnerable at Brent’s and Diana’s feet, yet she was willing to forge her faith and her heart with his amidst the desecration of the rocks surrounding them.

  But she loved him for some strange and incomprehensible reason. He felt it with every pulse in his fingertips. And while she so easily recited her vows, he tucked them into his heartbeat. He was a little sarcastic and a lot unworthy. He had a past and had made several horrible attempts at emotional connection with women he wouldn’t have cast a second glance at had he known that life would procure a Diana.

  “It has a strong foundation,” Brent’s uncle said.

  The firefighters and city workers popped the caps off bottles of ale in spontaneous celebration. Two of whom had acted as quick witnesses, keeping eyes and ears peeled for the figure and bellow of the foreman.

  Diana gripped his arm. There would be no blurred line between where he ended and she began. “I wanted this moment since I first sat next to you on that bench.”

  Brent snickered. “Ah yes, nothing quite sets off my ardor like ham and tomato in a medieval church lot.” He squeezed her hand. “Which devastatingly charming line, Di?”

  “I told you the Greeks had seven forms of love. And you said I’d need a teacher.”

  Brent sobered a moment. “I did. Didn’t I?”

  “I always wanted that teacher to be you.”

  * * *

  Diana’s wedding was rushed and far from perfect. Her lipstick was smudged and her best pumps scuffed, but she plumb forgot the moment Brent swept her up to carry her over the threshold—at least he tried to carry her over the threshold—her knees a swath of fabric and nylon over the crook of his arm as he ascended the steps to their second-floor flat, not compensating for the narrow turn on the landing and swerving her into the wall.

  “Ow,” Diana said.

  “Oh.” Brent recalibrated.

  The sweeping gesture resulted in Diana poorly balancing and almost breaking the bottle of wine Brent’s uncle had given them as they approached the door. “You’re very strong.”

  “Years of rowing, as you know. And easy when I have a goddess in my arms. You feel weightless.” He clasped her to him while attempting to finagle the key into the lock. The awkward angle put her at odds with the wall again with a loud clamor that prompted a slammed door overhead.

  Diana giggled. “Ow.” She buried her nose in his neck, feeling the freshly cut bristles from his recent regulation cut at his hairline.

  Brent set her down and she saw that the flat had been scrubbed to within an inch of its life. It smelled like disinfectant and something floral, and then she spied the large bouquet of two-day-old roses erupting on the coffee table in the front room. Diana smiled at his efforts. It almost made her forget the smoke and the buildings they had passed bearing the scars of a Clerkenwell not completely immune from the bomb assault of the last few days.

  Not standing on ceremony, Diana looked around Brent’s sitting room. Books, like waiting friends, filled every corner. Uneven in toppling towers and unassuming in perfect chaos. “Our books can finally meet each other and live together on the shelves! The best part about being married, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Darling, if you think the best part about being married is doubling up dusty old tomes in my dodgy flat, then your education is sorely lacking.”

  “I suppose that’s where you come in.”

  He lifted a curl from above her right ear. “I suppose.”

  This was her home now. Even as he spirited off to war and she to Buckinghamshire. Even as the uncertainty of their future spread. She must familiarize herself with the mismatched carpet, the sofa, the chipped teacups, the crevices and shelves and table space laden with books while he fought far away and she attempted to survive without him.

  “You’re a smart man.” Diana grazed her lips over the stubble at his chin, and his Adam’s apple bobbed in response to the trail of her lips down his neck and into the space of his shirt offering the slightest view of collarbone.

  They were close enough for her to feel the slightest intake of breath reverberate. For her to see the peak of his eyebrows and read every last freckle, every last crease at his mouth and eyes, the little flecks of gold overtaking the green of his eyes.

  “Would you like tea?” His voice sounded as if it had been railed over several tracks.

  “Tea?” She raised an eyebrow. “Am I to understand that you swept me over the doorway in your arms on the night of our wedding and your first thought is if I want tea?”

  “Di, darling, give a man some credit for at least feigning a semblance of self-control.” He slowly closed his eyes, then lowered his mouth to hers.

  They explored and finessed. They experimented. They formed words their tongues had never previously found a way to verbally express. They continued.

  Tea forgotten.

  “You’ll teach me all the Greek words for love?” she asked much later, feeling a little like Diana but also a lot like a woman she was just meeting for the first time.

  “Did I teach you agape?” His voice was a little thick and unfamiliar in the shadows.

  “Yes. You did. But don
’t tell me all of the rest of them at once,” she said into his collarbone. “I just want one more.”

  “You could just go and open any of my books . . .”

  She didn’t want to leave his side. “I don’t want what the books would say. Isn’t it true that you changed your mind about them when you met me? You said that once.”

  “Yes. And every day after that.” He interlaced their fingers. “I think if I had to choose just one. Right now. Philia.”

  “Philia,” she repeated, trying it on for size, lifting onto her elbow to watch the shadows of moonlight unsullied by streetlights stealing through the blinds to dance across his face.

  “Deep friendship,” he explained.

  Diana laughed. “Friendship? Seems a little ironic . . .”

  Brent lay still a moment, staring silently at the ceiling. Was he considering the expectation of his time on the Front? Was he recalling the hastiness of their vows? She wondered . . .

  She turned over until she was crooked into his side. He sighed and pulled her against his rib cage where no line could distinguish where he ended and she began.

  “What are you thinking?” she whispered.

  “That this is the longest you’ve ever gone without talking about Christopher Wren.”

  * * *

  When the searchlights blared their warning as loud as the air-raid sirens, Brent cursed. “Jerry couldn’t have just given us one night?”

  Diana woke with a start, pushing back her blonde hair. She was so beautiful through the striped blinds it hurt his heart.

  Brent dressed quickly in the dark. “I can’t possibly resume all of the many biblically ordained moments I had prepared for intervals throughout our wedding night if we’re squished like sardines on the bloody Farringdon platform overlooking the Hammersmith Line!”

  The sirens rumbled through him in a discordant clash with the low engines of the dipping airplanes. Brent’s chest hitched. Before, he would adhere to his own routine and spill out into the street with the throngs, satchel slung over his shoulder. He had to put Diana first. He had to protect her. The wave of the new responsibility shook him. She wriggled into a skirt and sweater. He looked for her coat and a scarf with the torch he kept on the bedside table.