‘I’m all right,’ said Rosa. ‘I was just looking for you. I think I would like an aspirin.’
‘Come up to the office.’
By this time Charlie was outside. He put his face up for a kiss. ‘Good night.’
‘Oh – you,’ said Rosa. ‘Piss off before you get me the sack.’ And with a smile on her face she went back upstairs.
The old sister looked at her quizzically. ‘You’re having a disturbed night.’ Was that a twinkle in her eye?
‘I’ll be all right now.’
‘I expect you will,’ said the sister, deadpan.
The next day came the news that a plane with Glenn Miller aboard had mysteriously disappeared over the Atlantic. Not shot down; there was no wreckage. It was a famous mystery. It was widely speculated that Miller was on some sort of secret mission. Nobody knew. Was he a spy? Had he been kidnapped? Would there be a ransom demand? He was survived by his music that became indelibly associated with the dark days of the war.
*
Corporal Gross sat in the upper circle of the cinema that was being used for the AmDram performance of Dick Whittington. The first half dragged along as though it was trying to make it to the New Year. There was too much singing and lots of dancing from the local school; inept lumps of girls bumping into each other without a smile as they were concentrating hard on their moves. The comic business between the dame and the cheeky comic was tragic, and the orchestra of local musicians didn’t know when to start or stop. He knew that if he had been in it he wouldn’t have had these misgivings. When you were on stage performing all critical faculties were suspended. You mucked in, tried to raise morale, kept going in the face of general indifference. But Flora, her trim legs in tights, the boyish girl, could have charmed the skin off a rice pudding, seduced an archbishop, led a whole army over a cliff. She knew this. It was in her eyes. He didn’t flatter himself that she was just projecting at him. No. Her appeal was general. She had the artlessness, the projected naïvety, the knowingness of the impression she was making on anything male, to go on to better venues, on stage or maybe film. The other people on stage seemed to be aware of her lustre. She was allowed to dominate.
The other performers had a resigned air. They knew that nobody was looking at them while Flora was on stage. No wonder her parents were looking out for her and didn’t want her tampered with on her way to fame and fortune. Why didn’t he want to marry her? He could. Would she outshine him? Was he just frightened about the competition?
Whatever happened he was in first. If she became a big star, in Hollywood, he would be able to stare at the screen and think: I was the first. He had released the magic, made her a woman, liberated her repressed sexuality, made her aware of herself as a mantrap.
Ah, they were getting to the interval. The kids were coming on stage out of the audience to sing a silly song. ‘Run, Rabbit, Run!’ Flora was good at coaxing them. The girl had charm to spare! He got up and made his way to the back of the stalls and out into the vestibule. He found the door to backstage. He would be waiting when she came off. She came dashing by and he called, ‘Flora.’ She turned and gave a little mock-curtsy in his direction. He walked towards her and held out his arms to embrace her.
‘Don’t do that,’ she said sharply. ‘I’ve got my makeup on.’
‘Can I see you after the show?’
She shook her head. ‘There’s a show party after, for the performers, I mean.’
Desperately he said, ‘Do you want to get married?’
She looked at him with ill-disguised scorn. ‘I am getting married. To Alice Fitzwarren, at the end of the show.’
He could have kicked himself. He had exposed himself to humiliation. Why hadn’t he spotted the girl’s talent? She was young and beautiful but also had that tricky characteristic that got men up on their hind legs. Betty Grable had it. Ann Sheridan had it. Ginger Rogers had it: being good-natured and understanding about sex. That all feverish desires were understood and accepted. And he was the one who had brought her on. Transformed her from a shy virgin to a knowing icon. Gave her confidence in herself, boosted her self-esteem.
He didn’t return for the second half. He wandered into a pub. It had all gone wrong. Christ! He could have been her agent. If she did well, and he knew she would, there’d be pots of money. Oh hell, there was her father, looking at him as though he’d been caught petty pilfering.
He came over. ‘Doing well, isn’t she?’
‘Yes. She’s got real talent.’
‘I’m beginning to see that,’ her father said importantly.
‘She was a bit shy at first,’ Gross ventured. ‘Needed bringing out of herself.’
Flora’s father looked as though he knew the part that Gross had played in his daughter’s transformation. He didn’t approve, but he acknowledged it.
Harry got back around midday. His mind was a jumble. He knew what he was going to do, and he felt bad about it. To abandon his wife and child and move from one end of the country to another was a momentous decision. He was going to ring Joan and see if she could come down to Manchester for a weekend. He would test himself. Feel the contrast between the unemotional acceptance of Renee and the enthusiastic embrace of Joan.
He went to the Major’s room. There was no reply to his discreet knock. He turned the handle and peered in. The curtains were still drawn. He switched on the light. The room was neat and tidy. On a table were some official-looking letters. He glanced at them. They were about the inquiry about the death of the German officer at the hospital. He knew the old man was worried about this situation. He found Daft Charlie trying to sew up a rip in his pants. Charlie said that the old man had gone out early evening and had not returned.
‘So he was out all last night?’
‘Must have been.’
Harry couldn’t remember the Major staying out overnight, except when they were together. Then he got a telephone call from Mrs Grantley. This was the old bird who’d been chasing the Major.
‘Eon asked me to ring you. Just to let you know he’s all right.’
‘Yes. Well, thank you, Mrs … Where is he?’
‘He’s in the hospital.’
‘Hospital! Why? What happened?’
‘It appears that he’s had a heart attack. Not serious, I think, but they’re keeping him in.’
‘I’ll get over and see him.’
‘You see I had no idea.’
‘No idea of what?’
‘Of how it might affect him.’
Christ! Had the silly cow got him at it? He knew she was keen. But the old man was past all that.
The Major looked shattered. He was white, with red eyes. But he was propped up and offered the vestige of a smile when Harry came in. ‘Harry.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Harry. Everything is in a bloody awful mess. I’ve been trying to cope, but I fear that it’s all got too much for me.’
Harry stared. ‘Anything I can do?’
‘Harry, I’m sure you could. Better than me. These inquiries. Put me in the devil of a hole.’
‘And is that why you … ?’
‘I don’t know. I’ve been worrying about it all. And then Gryce. It wasn’t her fault …’
Between the rambling disjointed sentences Harry deduced that the Major had tried to oblige Grace and nearly died in the attempt. He’d had a mild heart attack. But apart from this the incident with the German officer was weighing heavily on his mind. The old man was terrified about people delving into the exact circumstances of the murder and how he would come out of it.
Harry felt some compassion for the old fool. He really ought to have retired by now, but he didn’t know any other life. He’d been married to the army. A cadet at school, then Sandhurst, active service in the first bust-up, in charge of training units and finally put in charge of a unit of duckers and divers who could run rings around him.
Nobody could have foreseen the ramifications of the death of the German officer. The Major was in it up
to his neck, and young Jimmy Fossett, whose bayonet became the murder weapon. Was there a way out of the mess?
Mayer had learnt how to play brag and was getting good at it. He played with whoever was on guard in the guardhouse, and some of his opponents had started to refuse his invitation. Invariably he had a good hand.
‘He’s a bloody conjurer,’ Taffy said.
Mayer’s crafty face dared them to call his hand. The money didn’t mean anything to him. He couldn’t spend it. Secretly he gave most of it to Jimmy, whom he seemed to have adopted. He got chocolate and cigarettes for Mayer, but Jimmy invariably found the stuff in his own pocket. He was slightly embarrassed about the connection, but there was no doubt that Mayer had taken him under his wing. Comments such as ‘Your dad’s been looking for you’ made Jimmy go red with embarrassment.
Harry had noticed the bond between the two. Late at night he went to the guardroom and sat with Mayer. ‘Has Jimmy been in?’ he said.
Mayer shook his head. ‘Not tonight. He comes every day. Takes me out. A walk. He’s a goot boy. He very sad. Not a soldier.’
‘Like most of us,’ said Harry. ‘You know he’s in trouble?’
Mayer looked worried. ‘I know. The bajonett. Not his fault.’
‘You know he could go to prison?’
‘Timmy? Prison! No.’
Harry laid it on thick. ‘It was his bayonet.’
‘Yes, but I took it.’
‘You took it?’
‘Yes. I didn’t kill anybody. I just passed it on.’
‘But you knew that someone was going to use it.’
‘Goot. I glad. That man. Schweinhund!’
Harry wondered how he could use this information. Mayer wasn’t going to incriminate himself without some inducement. ‘You still want to join the British Army?’
‘I am in British Army. I desert Germany.’
‘Yes, but – on paper – you are still in the German Army.’
The little German was getting excited.
‘You need papers to become a British citizen. How are you going to get them?’
‘Goot safe the Kink and Queen Elizee!’
‘No good,’ said Harry. ‘You need papers.’
‘Goot,’ said Mayer. ‘You tell me. You help me!’
Harry sat very still. Outwardly he seemed calm, but his brain was seething. Was there some way this situation could be used to everyone’s advantage? ‘If you were – No. It wouldn’t work.’
‘No. You tell. I don’t want to go back to Germany. They kill me for being a traitor.’
‘Jimmy will have a court martial soon. Now if you were to say that you took his bayonet, in the dark –’
‘Yes. Yes. But then I will be shot by the British instead of the Germans.’
Harry looked hard at the German. The man had knocked about a bit, known hardship and fear. He had learnt how to protect himself. He was nobody’s fool.
‘You wouldn’t be shot,’ Harry said, ‘but you would go to prison, but it wouldn’t be for ever. I reckon I could get the Major to put in a good word for you. Then, when you come out, you could get your papers.’
‘I don’t want to go to prison.’
‘Neither does Jimmy.’
The German groaned. ‘I know.’
15
KING’S Row wasn’t a happy film. It was about a mad doctor who amputated Ronald Reagan’s legs unnecessarily. Reagan laughed when Ann Sheridan told him that the doctor had done it to spoil their romance. ‘Where’s the rest of me?’ said Reagan, when he came round after the operation. Ann Sheridan said it wouldn’t make any difference to how she felt about him. But it was bound to be a bit awkward, wasn’t it?
But at the time Jimmy wouldn’t have cared much what film was being shown. He was sitting next to Peggy, who had put her head on his shoulder. He could smell her hair, and he put his arm around her waist. She was very easy about the contact. She seemed to take it as natural. This was what cinemas were for. The film was incidental. What they had come for was canoodling. After the films there was the Pathe News, showing grimy British soldiers in the battle zone. They were smiling and giving the thumbs-up sign, as though they were on a picnic. Well, they wouldn’t show them writhing on the floor with half their face shot off, would they?
From the cosy dark of the cinema they went into the brash interior of John Lewis. On the top floor there was a restaurant where they had tea and cakes.
‘What are you going to do when the war is over?’ she asked.
‘Going back to London.’
‘But what will you do?’
‘I’m in the print,’ he said smiling.
‘What’s that? Sounds like a secret society.’
‘It is a bit like that. I’ve got me card. What about you?’
Peggy looked at him directly. ‘I’m going to finish my training first.’
‘And then?’
‘Well, you can do nursing all over the world. I’d like to see the olive groves in Greece. I might go to Israel – somewhere like that.’
This was a shock to Jimmy who had already got Peggy set up in a semi-detached mock-Tudor house in Ealing, waiting for him to come home from work with a nicely cooked meal. That was what his mother did, and he had assumed that was how it was going to be for him. When girls got married they knew they were opting for a life of domestic drudgery. Jimmy’s father never did a thing in the house, never touched a plate. Jimmy’s mother cooked and cleaned, did the laundry, mending and anything else that came into her domain. If his father were ever chided for his indolence he would say, ‘Don’t keep a dog and bark myself.’ His father wasn’t especially unpleasant. It was the way things were. And the idea of his wife going out to work would have sent Jimmy’s dad into a frenzy. A man was expected to provide for his family and would feel a weight of disgrace if the woman were forced out to work to make ends meet. Of course it was different during the war. Women were called up to work in jobs allied to the war effort and had to get a doctor’s certificate if they didn’t want to go. But after the war everything would go back to how it was before, wouldn’t it?
‘What about coming down to London?’
‘You Londoners make me sick,’ said Peggy. ‘You talk as though it’s the only place on earth. Let me tell you there’s millions of people in this country that have never been there.’
‘Yeah. But it’s exciting. Lot’s of things to see. Museums, art galleries and theatres.’
‘Is that where you go?’
‘No. But I could. I could show you around. The Tower of London. St Paul’s …’
‘No. It’s full of nobs and snobs. We’re all on a level up here. That’s how I like it.’ She stood up. ‘Come on. I’ll show you some real life.’
She lived in a street called Cheetham Hill, which turned out to be a very long one indeed. It was dark before they got to the house. It was a large house four storeys high. Peggy’s mother was in the kitchen, surrounded by bubbling pans. She slipped flat trays in and out of the oven with the dexterity of a conjuror.
‘This is Jimmy,’ announced Peggy.
‘Sit down, Jimmy. I’ll get you something in a minute.’
‘I haven’t come for me tea,’ he said.
‘Yes you have,’ said Peggy’s mother. ‘And her, too. They don’t feed her properly in that hospital.’
In the living-room there was a long table. Hot food was brought in tin trays and cold food on large white plates. People came and loaded plates and took them away to other rooms in the house. Some of the men wore black trilbies and sometimes overcoats, which seemed odd inside the house. Others had tight skullcaps, worn on the back of the head. It was impossible to count how many people lived here. There were lots of women, mainly dressed in black, with their faces made up and lots of jewellery around their necks and wrists, often accompanied by solemn-faced children with dark knowing eyes. Nobody seemed to question Jimmy. He had come with Peggy, and that was all right. She didn’t introduce him to anybody. There were too many
of them, and they all seemed to be deeply involved with their own private thoughts. Occasionally one of the men would stop and declaim something odd, in a voice that didn’t expect any argument.
‘If it weren’t for Uncle Joe, we would all be dead’ or ‘If the Germans came here the British would turn us in.’
‘I think your friend is a bit puzzled,’ said Peggy’s mother. There was a very old man sitting at the head of the table. Some of the women brought him bits of food, while he waved them away, looking skywards for the Almighty to rescue him.
Later, when they were walking back to the hospital, Peggy said, ‘Well, now you know the horrible truth.’
‘What?’
‘I’m a Jew. Well, a Jewess, I suppose. My name is Stella. Well, Estelle really.’
Jimmy was lost. What was going on here? ‘So why do you call yourself Peggy?’
‘Don’t want everyone to know everything. You know what’s happening to Jews in Germany?’
‘Yes, but that’s Germany. This is England. You’re safe here. Safe as houses.’
‘Jews never feel safe. Not anywhere.’
He stopped and took her face in his hands. She looked up at him, her eyes slightly apprehensive. He kissed her on her lips, a solid juicy kiss.
‘What’s that for?’ she gasped.
‘Just to let you know I’m gone on you,’ he said. ‘We’ll be all right.’
She held her face up for another kiss. ‘Well, come on then,’ she said. ‘It’s not catching, is it?’
Although he had been smitten by a fierce fondness for the girl who had suddenly changed from a matey Peggy to a challenging Stella, he could see problems ahead.
His father and mother had often told him not to trust a Jew. His father firmly believed the Jews were responsible for all the ills of the world, and it was a common sentiment that the only thing that Hitler had got right was targeting the Jews. And suddenly he saw the hurt and wary eyes of Alf, always ready to expect the casual insult. The way he was talked about behind his back and to his face, as though he was some kind of subhuman species, without feelings. No wonder Peggy was afraid to come out in her true colours.
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