‘We haven’t examined your heart in a long time,’ Moira smiled, ‘not since that talk about your old flame, Dexter what’s-his-name in high school.’
Teddy remained silent, amazed that she had ever breathed a word about Dexter. She couldn’t remember thinking about him in the last 10 years. But when Moira got her chatting she could hardly stop herself. Now she was conscious of a great stillness. Everything in the room seemed frozen except for her thumping heart. She inhaled deeply and opened her mouth although she didn’t know what she would say.
Moira, who was uncomfortable with silence, spoke first. Deciding she had embarrassed Teddy long enough for one evening, she changed the topic. ‘So when is Dawn coming to dinner?’
Moira watched a funny flicker in Teddy’s eyes and grew nervous about intruding.
Astonished by her friend’s prescience, Teddy regarded Moira closely. She saw a girl she had trusted for years and she reckoned there was something of a witch in Moira.
‘I’d like to invite Dawn and Sandra here next weekend.’ Teddy couldn’t believe the words. ‘But there’s something you should know about them before they come.’
Moira’s eyes widened in sudden clarity. She was at once shocked and relieved. Smiling at Teddy, she said, ‘I think I get it. They’re homosexuals, aren’t they?’
‘How did you figure it out?’
‘Oh, something about those bars they took you to.’
‘So you know.’ Teddy could hardly believe her ears.
Moira watched with caution. Yes, she nodded, she believed she did know, now.
‘That I’m a homosexual too.’ Once it was out of her mouth, it sounded like a medical diagnosis, rather than her magnificent secret. ‘I mean I’m in love with a woman.’
‘With Angela,’ Moira said.
Teddy noticed Moira was talking as if she were asking Ann about Reuben. Had she been hiding unnecessarily all this time? What would Ann and Wanda say? ‘Yes. How did you know?’
‘Well, there were all those movies you two went to.’ Moira tried to remain calm. Still fairly shocked at the accuracy of her half guess, she considered that Randy was right all along. Had she known too? She recalled two lesbian actresses she met last year. She had liked them well enough so what was the big deal? But Teddy didn’t behave like them. ‘And the letters from Texas. The phone calls. There was something in the way you looked at each other.’
‘So how long have you known?’ Teddy leaned forward, then sat back nervously.
‘Oh, for the last five minutes,’ Moira grinned. She stood and put her arms around Teddy. ‘You know how you know something and then light dawns and you really know it? Dawn it was. When I mentioned her and you looked back so meaningfully, it all became clear.’
‘You don’t mind?’ Teddy faced her friend squarely. She was feeling easier. Still, she needed to be completely sure.
‘Yeah, it’s OK. I guess it’s a little odd. But if it makes you happy, it’s all right with me. I don’t mean odd; I mean different, oh hell, I’m not sure what I mean. But I know one thing — I’m glad you have someone who loves you and who you love. It makes me feel easier about you.’
Teddy hugged her.
‘And selfishly,’ Moira continued, ‘this is good news because it means I can talk more about Randy. I know he’s not your favorite topic. But we could swap stories about our sweethearts in the war!’ Was it OK to speak like this, oh, she had a lot to think about.
Teddy had to laugh at Moira’s quick resolution. She knew this talk was just one step. She would need to tell other people. But she would settle for this, for now.
They looked at each other and laughed.
Chapter Seventeen
Mid-winter 1944, London
DE GAULLE AND CHURCHILL MEET AT MARRAKESH
BRITISH AND AMERICAN FORCES LAND AT ANZIO
LIBERIA DECLARES WAR ON JAPAN AND GERMANY
AMERICANS LAND IN MARSHALL ISLANDS
ANN WALKED FROM the Finsbury Park tube station, along Seven Sisters Road, trying not to feel oppressed by the early darkness of British winter. She supposed this gloom was a fair trade for long June nights. But she had a hard time recalling the glories of summer evenings during a rainy, dark 4 p.m. in January. Besides, there was a special ominous quality about night during war. The land was more vulnerable. And London was getting the heaviest air raids since 1941. Some people were calling this the ‘Little Blitz’. The bomb craters brought back Mr Minelli’s tales of the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco — buildings there one minute and gone the next. She was never scared during the day. However a darkness that might connote peace or reassurance in another era frightened her now. Coughing and sniffing, she trudged ahead.
Lorries pounded down the road, roaring defiantly, spewing exhaust. The grass in the park was sleek and fragrant. Should she walk home through the park or stay on the sidewalk, the pavement as they called it here, next to the blaring traffic? Ann felt now, as she often felt on dim English afternoons, that she was treading on the edge of a nightmare. Which was real, the park or the roadway? Was she mad? Looking around at the people marching briskly past, loaded with shopping, she wondered if the real problem was her flu. Normally, she hustled along as preoccupied as the others.
The walk home took ten minutes. Every Saturday morning she came to Finsbury Park to write letters. Reuben teased her about it, but she felt too confined writing inside. The park was a neutral zone, a place where she could pretend. She might be in San Francisco. It was easier to reach out when you didn’t feel so far away. Besides the park was one of the few touches of beauty in her life. She loved to stroll around the pond and the flower plots. Last June she had been delighted when the gardeners had offered the last tulips and bulbs to passers-by. So this spring she would have her own tulips, if the window box got enough light. When would the light come, when would spring come, when would this darkness end? She felt drops of rain on her shoulders, then on her head. Soon it was raining steadily and she walked faster, dodging cars across Queen’s Drive and then beginning her last leg up Chester Court.
Everyone at work asked why she didn’t live closer to the hostel. But the truth was, when she originally moved to London, she was attracted to the very English names in this section of Hackney — Seven Sisters Road, Blackstock Road, Portland Rise. And then Mrs MacDonald enchanted her with those grey, Scottish eyes. Mrs Mac reminded her of Moira’s mother — a shorter, warmer version. Mrs Mac’s house was cheap, as bedsitters went. And Ann got along tolerantly with the other tenants, except for that American journalist who had the big room downstairs. She had looked for weeks for a place and now she could never imagine moving. However, today she felt particularly cold and tired. She prayed there would be enough coal in her room to take her through tomorrow, when the fever was sure to be gone.
Chester Court — when she had first read the ad, she dreamed of a stately road with Georgian houses set in quaint gardens, well back from the pavement. The reality was just as quaint, but less stately. The street, now lined with tattered, Victorian bedsitters, was formerly a neighborhood of one-family residences set apart from the bustle of central London. The block between Queen’s Drive and Seven Sisters Road did give the illusion of community. At first she hoped to get a room at the top of the house with a view of the park, but then she realized she would also have a view of Seven Sisters highway and she needed to retain some of her illusions. Also, she knew those rooms in the upper reaches would be the coldest in the house. The top floor was now inhabited by two Dutch women who worked for the Red Cross. She kept meaning to chat with them, but their schedules conflicted with hers. And they seemed to go away at weekends. So she remained cordial strangers with most of the tenants — Ginny, the nurse on the first floor, and Henry, the librarian on the ground floor, and Mrs MacDonald. They were all as busy as she was. Amiable enough — except for that American — but very preoccupied.
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sp; Ann unlatched the heavy front door, a sturdy, solid British door. She breathed in the acrid-sweet smell of coal. Someone was home. Maybe Mrs MacDonald had finished her volunteer tasks for the day. She felt a sudden rush of comfort, imagining Mrs MacDonald tending her with tea and toast. No, she reminded herself, she was twenty-five years old, long past coddling. And Mrs MacDonald had better uses for her time. Just a little rest was all she needed and she was perfectly capable of fixing her own tea.
She shut the door quietly, careful not to disturb anyone, for people slept at odd hours here. On the small table by the stairwell, she saw two airletters. They were either for her or for the journalist. Maybe that’s why she resented him so much. Maybe she was just angry that he stole letters from her. Rather, she imagined he did. How often had she come home and found American post on this table, assumed it was hers, only to be disappointed to see it addressed to Mr Mark Speidel as she took the first step up to her room. She thought of making a little set of mailboxes to avoid this confusion. But Mrs MacDonald had her ways, not to be altered for the whims of a lonely tenant.
Ann hung her wet coat on the hook at the end of the dark wooden rack. Small pearls of rain ran down the front and made her shiver. Rubbing her hands together for warmth, she approached the table and glanced down with determined indifference to find that both letters were for her. One was from Papa, which she had half expected since he was so reliable. And one from Wanda. It had been a long time since she had heard from Wanda. She was very busy teaching and taking care of the family now that Howard was in Europe. Ann had pieced together fragments of Wanda’s life from Moira’s and Teddy’s letters, but there was nothing like direct communication. Well, this would surpass Mrs MacDonald’s ministrations. She would have tea with Wanda and save Papa for after dinner.
The house smelled especially damp today and Ann couldn’t help noticing the wallpaper next to the stair lamp had unpeeled another ½ inch. She was alternately fascinated and beleaguered by life in this cold, musty house. The most exotic aspect was leaving your cosy room in the middle of the evening for the lav and finding yourself breathing fog in the hallway. The British prized their ability to survive. London Pride they called that flower which grew like weeds from bomb craters. Suffering was a test of virtue. Why was she in this ratty mood today? Must be the flu.
Tucking the letters into her purse, she climbed to her room. The door was latched with yarn on the outside, to keep out Mrs Mac’s five cats. Unhooking the yarn, she entered the room, switching on the light. Suddenly she was overcome with sentimentality for her nest of London treasures: the lace curtains from Petticoat Lane; the Indian rug from Portobello Road; the framed broadsheet of ‘A Valediction Forbidding Mourning’ she had found in St Martin’s Lane. She sat down on the small, hard bed and felt a rush of affection for the city she had inhabited this last nine months. The notion of deserting London at some point in the future filled her with a dull dread. Of course she would have to leave; she never intended to stay. So why the tension? She would leave when the war was over. If the war was ever over. Deserting London, is that what bothered her, or was it deserting Reuben? Reuben and that child, Leah.
Enough. She needed a cup of tea. And a biscuit. God, she was even feeling weepy about these digestive biscuits. She could get herself to bed immediately. Ann set her kettle on the hot plate, put out the pot, pulled down the tea canister and opened the condensed milk. Somehow she had grown accustomed to this gruesome imitation milk. What had happened to her voracious appetite for rich, black coffee and bittersweet chocolate? Well, the rations had cured that, with only 12 ounces of sweets allowed per month. The war got to you on all levels. Now, as she stood waiting for the water to boil on the hot plate, she felt fine. Maybe she didn’t have the flu after all. Had she left Esther with all those files on account of a little cold? Or was she simply more comfortable now that she was home?
Home, she considered the empty hearth and decided to start a small fire. A bit extravagant this early in the day, but she was sick. Yes, as she listed across the room she knew she was quite ill. Oh, dear. She grabbed a bedpost for support. Bending down to fill the grate, she suddenly felt nauseated by the oily coal. She reached forward, arranging the chunks evenly, struck a match and sat back on her haunches, savoring the first rays of warmth.
All her life she had this problem of not knowing if she were really sick until she had a high fever and grew dizzy. She knew Papa would be disappointed in her because she was stronger than Daniel. And there was no more room for illness at home. Ann and Daniel conspired to survive, to be well, to do well. When she had her appendix removed at age seven, he believed she had defected. She couldn’t wait to leave the hospital, to prove that she was all right, that they would be all right. Even now as an adult, she felt uneasy about her illness, as if she had done something to warrant it or as if it were an attention-getting ruse.
Ann sat down at the blue wooden table by the window, watching steam rise from the tea. Down on the street three school girls — she recognized the little one from two doors along — shouted and pulled at each other. So many of the London kids had been removed to the country. These English girls were different from the kids at the shelter, who played at a much quieter pitch. They took so long to emerge from their shells and, when they did, often became little adults — responsible and guarded. Ann looked down again. She couldn’t hear the words. How did she know they were English? It was something about their bearing, a confidence in their childishness. Kids at the hostel were accessible only through their darkened eyes at the rare moments when they returned your look directly. The tea had cooled. And yes, she did feel better with the first sip. The biscuit loomed too large and sweet. Resting her head on the table, she was overcome with exhaustion.
Startled by a knock on the door, Ann found herself in bed. The ceiling lamp still burned and she checked her watch. 7.30. She looked down to discover that she was fully clothed. Then she responded automatically. ‘Come in.’ A stab of memory warned her too late. The man who broke into her room on Turk Street. He came back to her at odd moments. Usually in dreams. But she wasn’t dreaming, even though she was in bed, was she? ‘Never open your door to strangers,’ Papa had warned. Well, she hadn’t opened the door — any door — he had come through the window. This one was coming through the door. Who?
‘Mark Speidel.’ He spoke shyly from the doorframe. He was taller than she remembered. And blonder. His hair was curly, receding around the forehead. His eyes were a cerulean blue, but slightly too close together. Then he grew more embarrassed, taking in her wrinkled clothes, watching her rise shakily from the bed, ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you. But it’s fairly early. I didn’t mean …’
‘Yes,’ she said in what she noticed was a reassuring tone. ‘It’s fine. I’m fine.’ Then she swayed, holding on to the wall.
‘You don’t look fine.’ He took her arm and led her back to bed. ‘Can I get you something? A doctor maybe? What’s wrong?’
‘Doctor, no. It’s just the flu. Thank you very much.’
‘Hey, calm down. I didn’t say you had typhoid fever. Doctors are pretty benign characters, you know. My dad is a doctor in Englewood, New Jersey.’
She knew he was trying to be kind, but she simply wished he would leave. She sat tall on the bed. Then she saw the airletter in his hand. Her letter probably.
‘The letter.’ He smiled and his great white teeth were an advertisement for suburban dentistry. ‘Almost forgot. I took this by mistake. You get so eager for news from home. I saw the stamps so I grabbed it on the way out. Came yesterday, but I was gone last night and all day on a story.’ He stopped, suddenly aware of her distraught expression. ‘It’s OK, isn’t it? I mean you weren’t expecting a legacy? Or a passionate love letter?’ He inspected the handwriting before giving it to her. ‘Nope, looks like it’s from a woman.’
She couldn’t tell whether or not she hated his cheerful confidence. After all, he had
n’t stolen the letter intentionally. Accepting it now, she read the address and answered, wondering in the middle of her sentence whether she was foolish to be so forthcoming. ‘No, my girl friends in San Francisco. People I used to share a house with.’
‘Like this?’ he asked. ‘Folks were more friendly there, I guess. Can’t imagine corresponding with Mrs MacDonald or the nurse next door.’
‘No,’ she answered too quickly to catch his drift. ‘We shared the house — you know: the rent, the living room, the garden.’
‘Ah, you were friends. All girls. Hey, that’s nice. Independent. Sounds more cosy than this place.’
She caught his glance and, in spite of herself, she laughed.
He laughed too, a deep, ironic laugh. ‘Well, you can’t be dying if you’ve still got a sense of humor. Anyway, Dad would recommend bland foods and lots of liquids, especially fruit juice. Grant you, fruit is fairly exotic for London under siege. Might as well be prescribing heroin. But I’ve got some rice down in my room. Why don’t you let me make you a bowl of rice? I can even concoct another pot of that foul tea,’ he glanced at the pot by the window.
‘That’s very kind of you,’ she said, groping for words to free her from his sunny American presence. She had found herself avoiding Americans in recent months. He looked like an athlete, relaxed after a long race. She couldn’t help but admire the breadth of his shoulders, yet there was something off-putting about his perfect posture. The poor man had offered to do her a favor and she was turning him into a monster. She desperately wished to be alone with her letters. What on earth could she do to make him leave?
She sat straighter. ‘I’m kind of tired tonight. Perhaps tomorrow? Perhaps I could impose on you another time?’
‘Impose.’ He was taken aback, then amused. ‘You’ve been in this country too long. But I get the point. I’ll leave you alone now. And check back tomorrow.’
All Good Women Page 23
