Waiting For the Day

by Leslie Thomas

  She took her tunic off and became busy in a housewifely way, going into the kitchen and putting the kettle on the gas stove. When she returned she had a box of matches and, brushing aside Martin’s offer of assistance, she knelt and lit the gas fire. ‘It works. That will cheer the place up,’ she said. She looked compact, neat, in her linen blouse and fitted khaki skirt.

  Paget looked along the sparse bookshelves. ‘Round the World in Eighty Days,’ he said. ‘I’ve read that. About twenty years ago. And A Thousand Happy Hobbies. That might be worthwhile.’

  She laughed. ‘Nobody is resident long enough to get into War and Peace,’ she said. She returned to the kitchen and called back: ‘Strong, with milk and one sugar, isn’t it?’ He said it was. ‘It’s on your file,’ she said. ‘I know all sorts of things about you. Now we’re here, can I call you Martin? In these circumstances we’re permitted to drop the formalities.’

  ‘I wish you would,’ he said. ‘Do you like Penelope or Penny?’

  ‘Penelope,’ she said. ‘My mother always says that Penny has the sound of a shopgirl about it. Incidentally, I have to go shopping. I have some decent sandwiches, smoked salmon, would you believe, from Harrods, especially packed for the War Office, which we can have now with the tea. I’ll do some shopping for dinner.’

  ‘It’s extremely domesticated,’ he observed. She put the tea tray on a low table, took it away again and returned with a duster which she rubbed over the table’s surface. ‘It gets a little disused, I’m afraid.’

  They sat, oddly comfortable, by the spluttering fire, with the sandwiches and tea. The day before he had been eating shrimp paste in Lyon’s Corner House. ‘Secret agents seem to do themselves well,’ he said.

  ‘And why not? Heaven knows what you’ll manage to eat in France.’

  Paget said: ‘In the country it’s not too bad, or by the sea, although you have to really like fish. The French will always manage.’

  ‘To look after number one?’ she finished. ‘My father says that. Even in war.’

  ‘They haven’t any choice at the moment. When they surrendered, the old man Pétain told them country, family, work. Many French people just keep their heads down and wait for better times. On the farms and in the vineyards they eat and drink enough and they enjoy selling wine to the Germans at exorbitant prices.’

  ‘What about the resistance?’ she asked.

  ‘Many people in France curse it. Some boy, seventeen, tried foolishly to do something brave and the Germans caught him and executed him. His mother committed suicide and when his father came back from her funeral he did the same.’

  She finished her tea and said in a matter-of-fact way: ‘Imagine what it would be like.’ She took the cups, saucers and plates to the kitchen. ‘I’ll wash up later,’ she said. ‘I’ll have to go.’

  ‘Before the shops shut.’

  ‘This is a special shop,’ she said. She put on her tunic. ‘You may be surprised.’

  There was a double bedroom and a single in the flat. When she had left he opened the wardrobe in the double room and saw the civilian clothes hanging there: a worn jacket and trousers, a collarless shirt and a rough blue jersey. On the floor was a pair of thick black shoes and on a shelf socks and underwear. He checked the labels on each garment. You could buy them anywhere in France.

  The seaside wind buffeting at the window woke him. There was a wartime alarm clock, marked ‘Utility’ on the bedside table. He had been asleep for two hours. Penelope had come back without waking him and he could hear her in the kitchen.

  She brought him a cup of tea. ‘You’re like my mother,’ he grinned.

  ‘That is what I’m supposed to be. I have to look after you.’ She went from the room and returned quickly with two newspapers. ‘One Daily Mail, one Bournemouth Echo,’ she said.

  ‘Let the war wait,’ said Paget, selecting the local paper. ‘Let’s see what the council is up to.’

  She laughed pleasingly. ‘I prefer to read about a wedding than some faraway battle.’

  ‘You did your shopping?’

  ‘Yes. I hope you like Fortnum and Mason’s chicken pie. Winston Churchill doesn’t get any better. Cold with boiled potatoes and vegetables. Smoked trout to start.’

  ‘There’s a Fortnum’s in Bournemouth?’

  ‘Only by special arrangement,’ she said, putting a finger to her lips. ‘They send groceries down for us. I also managed some wine, French, one red, one white. Rare stuff these days, so they inform me. And some gin and proper tonic water.’ She regarded him quizzically. ‘I should have asked you if you drink gin. I do.’

  ‘So do I,’ he said. While he was stirring the tea she said: ‘If we had dinner early we could go to the cinema. There’s an Abbott and Costello funny.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘Not tonight.’

  ‘It’s not always the best idea. One chap I looked after here wanted to go and the film was Before I Die.’

  Momentarily she looked shamefaced and left the room. ‘On the other hand,’ she said, putting her head around the door, ‘they’re broadcasting a jolly good play. The Good Companions, J. B. Priestley.’

  ‘That sounds more like it,’ he said. ‘An evening by the wireless.’

  He drank the tea and scanned the newspaper. ‘Would you like me to run a bath for you?’ she asked from the door. He said he would and heard her turning the taps. She began to sing. A light, sweet voice.

  ‘I don’t know that song,’ he called.

  ‘“Shining Hour”,’ she responded. ‘It’s always on American Forces Network. They have all the latest songs. It’s from a Broadway show, I think.’ She paused. ‘Wouldn’t it be blissful to see a show on Broadway?’

  When she said it was ready, he went into the bathroom. There was a fresh towelling dressing-gown behind the door. He lay in the soapy water and wondered how long it would be before he would get another bath. Afterwards he put on the French civilian clothes. ‘Might as well wear them in,’ he said when he went into the sitting-room. The gas fire sizzled amiably, the curtains were tightly drawn and the commonplace lights mellowed the room.

  ‘One of the fellows going to France had to wear sabots,’ said Penelope. ‘He had trouble walking in them.’

  ‘To be a saboteur you have to wear sabots,’ he said. ‘It wouldn’t do to let the Germans spot you hobbling.’

  They sat domestically in front of the fire. ‘Houses are very expensive down here,’ she said, paging through the local newspaper. ‘Eight hundred pounds. Here’s another almost a thousand.’

  ‘This used to be one of the so-called “safe areas” estate agents once advertised,’ he recalled. ‘Very few turned out to be safe. Dover was one, Croydon another.’

  ‘The Germans will probably stop bombing soon,’ she said. ‘They’ll run out of planes. Or bombs. No more nights like last night.’

  Paget laughed reflectively. ‘I was caught bang in the middle of it. A ceiling fell on my head.’

  She looked shocked. ‘But you should have said. You ought to have a medical before you go.’

  ‘Too late now,’ he said. ‘And it was quite a small ceiling.’

  They each had a gin and tonic. ‘This taste always makes me think of pre-war days,’ she said. ‘I remember my very first gin. What was your life like then?’

  ‘Ordinary,’ he said. ‘Grammar school, lived in a village in the West Country. Started in a land agent’s office. Along came the war. Put in for an exciting job, rather recklessly. And here I am. What about you?’

  ‘Posh, I’m afraid,’ she said. ‘My father’s in the House of Lords. Mummy was bringing me up nicely. As far as she knew, anyway. I was going to be a debutante, presented at court and off to polo, Henley Regatta and weeks of balls.’ Wryly she glanced up. ‘Dancing, that is.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘The war saved me. God, I dreaded the deb part. Photographed with all those lumpish girls.’

  She knew where everything was in the apartment. She laid a white c
loth and set the table for two with quality cutlery and glasses. ‘We have an hour before the play,’ she said. ‘That’s providing the wireless is working.’ She turned a knob on the mahogany cabinet and after a moment while it warmed up, jaunty organ music came out. ‘Sandy MacPherson,’ said Paget. ‘The man who played for hours and hours the day they declared war. Between the official forecasts of doom, and the warning of immediate air raids which never happened.’

  ‘I know,’ she sighed. ‘Unfortunately you can’t stop him playing the thing now. I’ll try the Forces Programme if you like. It’s a bit more lively. I don’t think I’ll be able to get AFN on here.’

  ‘Don’t bother. I’ll just sit with this gin and stare into the fire, thanks.’

  She switched it off and went into the kitchen. ‘In France, people listen to American programmes,’ she called. ‘While they’re waiting for the BBC news and those everlasting secret messages. Glenn Miller and his Orchestra are very popular. Even the Germans listen.’

  ‘We pinched the Germans’ best song, “Lili Marlene”,’ pointed out Paget. ‘Everyone sings it now, no matter which side they’re on.’

  ‘How odd that you can capture a song,’ she said. She walked into the second bedroom and reappeared wearing a blue jumper and a pair of dark trousers. ‘I’m off duty now,’ she explained. ‘I had to be in uniform when I went for the shopping. They like you to be dressed the part.’ She put a bowl of small, bright spring flowers on the table. ‘Martin, will you open the wine?’ she said, as if it had been his task for years. ‘It will give the red time to see if it feels like being poured, as my father says every evening.’

  A corkscrew was on the kitchen table and the white wine in a refrigerator. He could not remember opening a domestic refrigerator before. He opened and shut the door twice, watching the light go on and off. He felt how cold the wine was. ‘How do you feel about women wearing slacks?’ she asked from the other room. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Some men object. Something to do with being threatened, women taking over. There was that picture in the papers of Princess Elizabeth in the ATS, wearing khaki trousers.’

  When the potatoes were boiled she suggested he sat at the table. A bemused, comfortable sensation had come over him; the warmth of the room, the odd homeliness of the situation. She brought in the smoked trout and they followed it with the chicken pie. They drank the red wine with the pie. He raised his glass. ‘Thank you for all you’ve done for me,’ he said. ‘It’s almost worth going.’

  She regarded him seriously. ‘You could be taken ill,’ she suggested. ‘Right now, Martin.’

  He laughed and then realised she meant it. ‘If everybody cried off sick,’ he said, ‘we’d never get the war finished.’

  ‘Of course not,’ she agreed over the top of her glass. ‘Cheers.’ She seemed embarrassed. ‘God look after you.’

  They ate the meal and then listened to the play, one each side of the wireless set. They leaned attentively towards it, hardly exchanging a word in an hour and a half, while the gas fire stuttered and sometimes a vehicle sounded as it passed beyond the windows. They finished the white wine while they listened. When the play was finished Penelope went to the curtains, putting her head between them and wrapping them around her neck so that only a little light escaped.

  ‘There’s a large moon now,’ she said from the other side of the drapes. ‘It’s shining on the sea.’

  ‘Would you like to go for a walk?’ Martin asked.

  ‘I was thinking that. I’ll get our coats.’

  They went down the single run of stairs and out of the door on to the beach-side road. They crossed it with scarcely the need to look either way. It was as empty as a canyon. Then they walked, the easy wind coming through the night and brushing against their faces. Bright moonlight made the scene silvery. ‘They can’t black out the moon,’ she said, singing a line of a popular song.

  ‘They’ve tried,’ he laughed. ‘Smokescreens, those Heath Robinson boilers on lorries belching out smoke, enough to choke anybody within ten miles, then the breeze comes up and blows it all away and there’s the moon. Just loitering up there.’

  She put her coated arm in his and they walked familiarly. ‘You’re quite a romantic, Martin.’

  ‘For a land agent,’ he laughed. ‘I can make up a good yarn, which is probably why I was dragooned into this business.’

  He wondered what Margaret might say if she could see him now. They strolled silently for twenty minutes until from the shadow of one of the decayed machine-gun posts a policeman materialised. He might have been having a secret smoke. They wished him good evening and he asked to see Martin’s papers. ‘Not many suspects around to ask tonight, constable,’ said Penelope.

  The policeman looked puzzled and said: ‘Have to do my job, miss. Can I see your identity card too, please?’

  She shrugged and handed it to him. He returned Paget’s papers and checked hers. He was impressed. ‘Sorry to have troubled you both,’ he said. ‘In civvies like you are, it’s hard to tell.’ He pointed to himself. ‘I’m glad to get out of this get-up, I can tell you, especially the boots. It’s them that kill you. We just got a new issue and we was forced to take them because nobody knows when there’ll be another. But they’re tight as rissoles.’

  They walked on, keeping their laughter subdued. ‘Tight as rissoles,’ repeated Penelope. ‘Wherever did he get that?’

  ‘Heard it somewhere and repeated it without thinking. Maybe he didn’t see the joke.’

  She pushed her arm into his more firmly and dropped her voice. ‘It would have been very strange if you had been arrested as a spy in this country.’ Abruptly she turned her small, neat face to him. ‘Shall we go back?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ he said. ‘I enjoyed the walk.’

  They let themselves in and felt the warmth of the apartment as they went up the stairs. They had left the fire burning low. She took their coats and poured the last of the red wine. ‘There’ll be some music on now,’ she said. ‘It’s late.’ She switched on the wireless. A dance band was playing.

  Martin said: ‘May I have this waltz?’ They smiled at each other and he held out his arms. They danced formally in front of the fire until the end of the tune when a BBC voice announced: ‘The Forces Programme is now going off the air until tomorrow at six o’clock.’ The National Anthem began to play. Penelope giggled, leaning her head against him. ‘I simply can’t stand to attention at this time of night. Not straight from a waltz,’ she said. ‘I’m getting ready for bed.’

  With sudden sadness Martin sat in front of the fire. Where would he be this time tomorrow? What would his fate be? When would this strange life end? The gas fire was reflecting on his face, the orange and blue gas jets hummed. He heard her come from the bedroom. ‘Me, too,’ he said. ‘I’d better get some sleep when I can.’

  He only turned as he rose from the chair. She was wearing a woolly dressing-gown with pyjama legs protruding from the bottom. Her feet were bare and her face was touched with the same sadness. She undid the belt of the dressing-gown and let it open. He said: ‘Khaki pyjamas.’

  ‘Army issue,’ she said.

  They set out on an overcast morning at eight, heading west, hardly conversing, driving along the grey coast and to the ferry at Poole harbour. As they waited, a military policeman noted the number of the car and strode towards them. ‘Sorry about this, sir. Aircraft about to land. We have to stop the traffic’

  They were both now in uniform. ‘Where is there for a plane to land?’ asked Penelope looking at the English Channel on one side of the car and the ample but hemmed-in reaches of the harbour on the other.

  ‘It’s a Sunderland,’ Paget said.

  As though he had given it an introduction the rotund but graceful flying boat appeared noisily from seawards, coming to the narrow entrance of the anchorage, its floats just above the roof levels of the waiting traffic, and ploughed confidently through the enclosed water,
tossing up waves of white spray. The clamour of its four engines filled the morning. Penelope put her fingers in her ears. It had almost disappeared from view before the roar ceased and then they saw it returning passively to the landing place.

  ‘Where does that come from?’ she asked. ‘Or is that careless talk?’

  ‘It probably was once but everybody for miles around knows by now. It’s the comfortable way from the US, across the Atlantic to the Azores, up to Madeira or Lisbon and then here. It’s for top brass and people like Bob Hope and Joe Louis, the boxer, when they come over to entertain the Americans. It’s a lot more cosy than the northern route.’

  The ungainly chain ferry across the narrow channel began busily loading now. Confidently Penelope drove the car aboard. Some smirking GIs squatted on a truck and with pretended coyness crooked their fingers at her but she ignored them. When she drove up the ramp on the other bank the Americans, all together, stood and saluted extravagantly. ‘You wouldn’t think they were soldiers,’ she smiled. ‘They’re like boys.’

  ‘They will be until they land on the beach.’

  Now they were travelling through slight hills which fell serenely towards the sea, their flanks touched with the green of spring. ‘Thomas Hardy country,’ said Paget.

  ‘We read him at school. Tess was my first heroine.’

  Mostly they were quiet. They reached Honiton and were held up for half an hour by a Sherman tank blocking the main street, the Devon country people taking only mild notice from the pavements. A heavy crane was clumsily shifting it. A man in a muffler and a cap tapped on the window of the car and Penelope wound it down. ‘They tanks won’t never be as good as ’orses,’ said the man.

  ‘’Orses don’t break down,’ said his wife, from the depths of a voluminous old coat. As though encouraged she went on: ‘Throwed us out of our cottage, they Yanks did.’