Coronation Wives

by Lizzie Lane

  ‘So what made you become a doctor?’

  He told her how he’d left his family on their Suffolk farm. ‘My mother had polio,’ he said and lowered his eyes to his coffee. As if to overcome his deep felt hurt, he took a hefty swig before continuing. ‘She got it about the same time as Franklin D. Roosevelt. I felt I had to do something about it once I was old enough.’ He shrugged. ‘In my own small way of course, not on the grand scale like some who are trying to perfect a vaccine. I’ve done a lot of research on the subject and feel I have a lot to offer, but you know how it is. The old guard of the medical profession are not always appreciative of progress.’

  His frankness surprised and delighted her. He was talking to her as if she were an equal and not merely someone who typed up the notes after the preliminary examinations. She asked him, ‘Is your mother dead?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’m sorry, it’s just that I thought …’ Her voice petered out. She hated making mistakes like that and possibly upsetting people.

  Jonathan seemed unconcerned. It was as though he’d been waiting for someone who would understand what he was talking about and not just on a medical level. He said, ‘That’s why I went to work at the sanatorium under Professor Pritchard. My mother thinks it’s wonderful. She’s a brave lady. Life goes on, she said to me. You can’t just lie back and die when things happen to your body that you have no control over. You have to go forward. Don’t you think so?’

  ‘Yes. Yes. Of course.’

  He smiled broadly as though he’d broken through some sort of barrier. ‘I knew you’d agree. We’re alike, you and me.’

  She grinned ruefully. ‘We must be. We both hated the Coronation Ball.’

  He laughed at her flippancy then surprised her by taking both her hands in his. Her first inclination was to draw back, but his expression had turned deadly serious. This was not an attempt at seduction. He spoke profoundly.

  ‘Never let anyone force you into doing something or being anything other than what you are.’

  ‘I don’t intend to.’

  His smile returned. He let go her hands. ‘I’m glad. Really glad.’

  Both in the coffee bar and on the way home he talked incessantly about his job. He became increasingly animated as he expounded theories on how patients might better be served.

  ‘At present they have this crazy idea that even when the contagious period is over, parents should be kept at arm’s length from their children. To the outside world they appear insensitive, but in their learned opinion they really feel that emotional upset – parents visiting, children getting upset when they leave – is detrimental to recovery. I think otherwise.’

  No doctor, not even her father, had ever spoken to her like this. His openness gave her confidence.

  ‘I know little about polio except how debilitating it can be. I’ve seen people – children even – with irons up their legs or withered arms. I understand it attacks the nervous system to varying degrees.’

  He nodded vigorously. ‘It does indeed. And every summer is the same – a batch of cases, mostly children. Incubation of the disease is approximately from three to thirty-five days. In some cases it attacks the respiratory system. These are the patients that need the help of an iron lung for a while.’

  They hardly noticed the taxi coming to a standstill.

  ‘Are you both getting out,’ said the cab driver, half-turning in his seat. If he was hoping to see them in an intimate clinch, he was disappointed.

  ‘We’re there?’ Janet peered out at her home in Royal York Crescent in disbelief. The journey home had gone so quickly. And she was so calm! She could hardly believe it. This was the first time since the attack that she’d been alone with a man. Medicine, and principally polio, had been their main topic of conversation.

  ‘Are you in the telephone directory?’ he asked as she pushed the door open.

  The question caught her unawares. What he really meant was could he ring her, perhaps see her again?

  She paused, fully prepared to tell him not to bother, but their conversation burned in her brain. He’d made her feel more worthy than she had felt for a long while.

  Her smile was hesitant, but she managed to say, ‘Yes. You’ll find it under my father’s name.’

  She turned away from the taxi and told herself that he would not telephone and, even if he did, she would not go out with him. Before she got to the front door, she found herself trying to remember what he looked like, her immediate impression of him.

  It came to her quickly. Bedside manner. He had the perfect bedside manner. When he talked his expression was completely in tune with what he was saying. Even the most crotchety of patients couldn’t help but be impressed.

  Charlotte was coming out of the study when Janet entered the hallway of the tall Regency town house with its high ceilings and tall windows. She wore a dressing gown of soft green wool that highlighted the gleam of her hair and the greyness of her eyes. She smiled warmly, though her eyes looked tired.

  ‘Did you have a nice time, dear?’

  Janet kissed her mother’s cheek. ‘It didn’t start too well, but it got much better as the evening went on.’

  ‘Good,’ said Charlotte.

  Janet felt her eyes watching her as she made her way up the stairs to bed. Deep down she knew that her mother wanted to know more about her evening, just as any mother would. But Janet had never been inclined to talk openly with her mother, not since that incident from her youth, which she remembered, but had never spoken about.

  Chapter Eight

  Nathaniel Brookman wore an old-fashioned shirt collar, the wings of which met tightly at the front, threatening to cut off his oxygen supply and forcing him to hold his head high. This made him seem to be constantly looking down his nose.

  Charlotte judged him to be around her own age, though his clothes and attitude placed him firmly in the last century. She was sitting across from him on the other side of his very large, very dark and very solid oak desk. Excited by what she had remembered about the men on the building site, she presumed that he would be too.

  ‘There were two men fighting, right there at my feet. They came tumbling out, arguing angrily. What they said didn’t quite register at first, then the other day I realized why I couldn’t get them out of my mind. They were shouting at each other—’

  ‘My dear lady,’ said Brookman, hardly raising his eyes from the papers in front of him, ‘please do not worry yourself about what they were saying. I think it advisable that their words were incoherent. Gentlemen,’ he said condescendingly, ‘do not always act like gentlemen or use words suitable for a lady’s ears.’

  Charlotte took a deep breath and counted to ten. Brookman wouldn’t understand that his comment was insulting and he would look at her aghast if she mentioned having intuitive suspicions about the building site and the men employed there. But she had to get through to him, so she pressed on determinedly.

  ‘They weren’t swearing,’ she began, but stopped when she realized her words were falling on deaf ears. Brookman was already re-engrossed in his files, his head held stiffly over the page.

  The rudeness of the man!

  At times like these she wished she could belt out a few well-chosen, Anglo-Saxon expletives. Polly would have done so. But Charlotte wasn’t Polly. Instead she adopted her most superior expression and said loudly and clearly, ‘I do not think I was mistaken. They were speaking Polish. If no one here is brave enough to enquire further, then all I can say is if you want a man to do a difficult job, get a woman!’

  Too angry even to say goodbye, she slammed the door behind her. Damn him! Hopefully the slamming of the door was enough to cause a big enough draught to blow his papers all over the floor.

  Curiosity fuelled her determination to snoop a little. Who were the men she’d seen and, most important of all, were alien workers being employed on a building site? So far refugees from Europe had only been allotted the most menial jobs, certainly not the more highl
y paid ones in construction. Neither she nor any of her colleagues had placed these men on the site. So where had they come from? Today was as good a time as any other to start nosing around.

  Outside the sunshine was very bright, bouncing off parked cars and the plate glass of new shop windows. It was in marked contrast to the office she had just left and she was obliged to don a pair of yellow-framed sunglasses.

  The building site was a short walk from the offices of the ministry that protected the rights of alien workers, a most definite incongruity if her suspicions were correct.

  Concrete mixers filled the air with a sound like grinding teeth chomping through meals of dust, sand, cement and chippings. Armies of men in dusty clothes with red faces and brawny arms tended them. As some tipped the finished product out and wheeled it away to form floors, walls and load bearing pillars, others refilled the machines with fresh fodder.

  A few men stopped work and stared after her. I’m not surprised, she thought. It can’t be usual to see a woman smartly dressed and wearing shoes completely unsuitable for walking in their territory. All the same the more mature doffed their caps or touched their forelocks.

  I wonder what they’d have done if I’d been younger? she thought. A wolf whistle perhaps? She smiled to herself. Respect and some answers to her questions would be better appreciated.

  After picking her way carefully over the rutted, dusty ground she reached a green painted shed that seemed to be disguising itself as an office. Moss clung to the wooden steps leading up to it and a wooden handrail, long dried in the sun and an obvious source of splinters, ran up one side.

  The door opened just as she was about to knock. The young man who came out looked surprised.

  ‘Madam!’ He held the door wide open and inclined his head in a stiffly formal bow. ‘Good morning.’

  She noticed he spoke the words very precisely, almost as if he’d been rehearsing them for the arrival of someone important. Obviously she was not expected so it couldn’t be for her.

  ‘Thank you.’ She noted the almond-shaped eyes, the wide cheekbones and crisp curly hair, possibly Slavic.

  No pre-judgements, she told herself. And keep smiling. It pays to keep smiling.

  The man behind the desk sprang to his feet, stared at her as if about to speak then immediately thought better of it and addressed the young man who still stood at the door.

  ‘You’re not paid to stand and stare. Get that mixer going.’

  The young man started to shut the door. The older man grabbed it and heaved it open. ‘The lady’s not staying. I think she maybe lost her way.’

  Charlotte did a quick appraisal of the man in front of her. Skin the colour of uncooked dough, pale blue eyes, broad-shouldered, but weak-chinned and with a hairline that was gradually waving goodbye to his forehead. Hostile eyes glared at her from beneath a beetled brow. She was certain that if she’d been a man he would have manhandled her off of the site immediately.

  His tone was brusque. ‘Building sites are no place for a lady!’

  He grabbed a battered brown trilby from a four-inch nail, stuck it on his head, then picked up rolls of crisp blueprints and tucked them under his arm.

  A line from the Bible that was also very well advertised on the side of a tin of Lyle’s treacle, skipped unbidden into Charlotte’s head. Out of the strong came forth sweetness.

  She smiled her most sugary smile and leaned towards him as though he was a film star and she was his greatest fan. Her voice was pure treacle. ‘I do apologize, but I thought I might enquire how the two men are, the ones that were fighting the other day.’

  He flashed her a sharp look before gathering up more bits of paper and rolls of drawings. Obviously he was preparing to leave the office and get her off the site.

  ‘You weren’t the man who broke them apart, were you?’ she asked with an air of genuine concern.

  ‘No. I was not.’ He glared at her with open hostility. Charlotte continued to smile although her jaw ached. Her handbag was looped over one arm. Her white-gloved fists were tightly clenched. She had a strong urge to punch him on the nose.

  ‘So how are those poor men?’

  He came round from behind the desk, grabbed her elbow in a pincer-like grip and propelled her to the door. ‘They’re OK. Just two men fighting. Happens all the time. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got work to do.’

  Charlotte kept talking. ‘Were they foreign? I couldn’t help thinking they were. It was their voices, you see. They sounded so different.’

  She fancied his grip loosened and a wary anger simmered in his eyes.

  ‘Lady,’ he said, poking a finger at his sweat-stained trilby so it sat further back on his head, ‘I wouldn’t like to say. You wouldn’t believe the kind of language the men use on this site. And quite frankly, I don’t think you should stay around to hear it.’

  She stumbled slightly as he guided her out of the door and down the three rough steps. Once firm ground was reached she started to fumble in her handbag.

  ‘If any men on your site do get hurt, perhaps you could get in touch. My husband is a doctor.’ She passed him a neat little black and white card she’d had printed which stated, Dr and Mrs D.L.E. Hennessey-White. The cards were mainly for handing out at social gatherings, far better than rummaging in a handbag or pocket for pen and note-paper.

  He took it but continued to guide her physically and forcibly towards the entrance, the pavement and the crowds of shoppers walking and laughing in the warm summer sun.

  ‘Well, goodbye, Mr … ?’ she said, once her feet were on less pitted ground. ‘Goodbye!’

  He turned smartly away, his broad shoulders rolling and his stride lengthening like some down-market John Wayne. Her dismissal was absolute.

  She studied him thoughtfully as he went back up the steps and into the office. His surly behaviour made her even more suspicious than she had been. She made herself an instant promise. As soon as she had the time she would satisfy her curiosity. Life was too busy at the moment, what with sorting out work and accommodation for the people in her care, plus finding time for David, who was never well nowadays. Thank goodness Geoffrey was away studying in Cambridge and that Janet had a good job and seemed happy enough, though she did worry at times that she was seeing less and less of her.

  Between refugee, community and hospital work, she would approach Brookman again, ask his opinion and see if there was any way he could investigate matters.

  It seemed a satisfactory way forward. As she walked into the crowds she chanced to glance back. A shiny black car had pulled into the kerb. Curious, though she couldn’t quite say why, she stood and watched as the driver got out, went round to the passenger side and opened the door. A tall, well-made man got out. He paused, eyed the entrance with a look of serious intent, then fixed his hat firmly on his head.

  Charlotte’s heart beat like a drum. The man in the double-breasted suit again! Some memory from the past attempted to resurface, but didn’t quite make it. The feeling that she knew him from somewhere would not go away. Much as she racked her brain, his name and the place she’d first seen him refused to come to mind.

  The foreman on the building site flicked the card she’d given him between his fingers. The man who had just arrived listened attentively to him, his driver standing close to his shoulder.

  ‘A snooper,’ he said. ‘Doctor’s wife according to this card.’

  ‘And she saw us break up the fight between Stanislav and Kubenchski?’

  ‘Yes, Mr O’Hara.’

  The man called Mr O’Hara took a deep breath. At first he looked as though he would throw the card away, but suddenly seemed to change his mind.

  ‘I know her from somewhere.’

  ‘Is that right?’ said the foreman. His eyes fixed expectantly on O’Hara’s face in the belief he was about to get an explanation.

  O’Hara was explaining nothing. Hell, he thought, eyeing the neatly printed name and address. I do know that dame. He smiled as he slid the ca
rd into his trouser pocket. ‘Let me know if the lady comes sniffing round again.’

  ‘Do you want me to warn her off?’

  O’Hara eyed the foreman as though he had more chance of becoming Miss Weston-super-Mare than taking care of Mrs Hennessey-White.

  ‘No. That’s my department.’

  After the business was done and money – a lot of money – had changed hands, he got back in his car. As his chauffeur drove, O’Hara looked out of the car window, his lips drawn in a laconic smile. My, he thought, but there was a lot of rebuilding going on in Europe. It was so easy to make money if you didn’t do it by the book. And wasn’t it great being a big fish in a little pond? That’s what Bristol was compared to Chicago or New York. He’d known the latter cities well before the war. His business had been less than legal there too. The war had intervened and, along with a lot of other city boys, he’d been shipped to Europe and managed to spend most of the war in England.

  Under normal circumstances he should have gone back home once the war had ended. New York and Chicago were cities where men like him could make money just by ensuring the right union was paying the right dues to the right people. New York had become rich on wartime business. Labour had been at a premium and had continued into the post-war period. But he couldn’t go home, and although he sometimes felt bitter about it, he consoled himself with the fact that he was doing pretty well in England.

  He was a respectable businessman, though respect ability was not an issue for Mickey O’Hara. He’d paid good money for a fake passport, ration and identity papers, and best of all he had paid for the fact that Mickey O’Hara had never committed a crime.

  Charlotte needed Colin’s help but, as always, she didn’t want to ask him for it outright. She also thought she might snatch a moment with Edna, perhaps test the water before deciding to hand over the letter.

  ‘I’m going to take you on a trip and then for tea and buns,’ she said, having bumped into Edna in Whiteladies Road where she was shopping for new shoes for her energetic and shoe-destroying son. ‘I’ll pick you up at ten o’clock on Saturday morning and I won’t take no for an answer.’