Wives at War

by Jessica Stirling

  ‘And his wife,’ said Polly. ‘Why did you come round here?’

  ‘Babs said you wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘What if I do mind?’

  ‘I guess I’ll have to sleep in the park.’

  Polly laughed. She couldn’t help herself. She thought of the double bed upstairs with its fresh white linen sheets and gigantic peacock-patterned eiderdown and also of the cot downstairs, so tight and narrow and warm.

  She jerked the torch, tossing a faint beam of light to the head of the stairs.

  ‘Down there,’ she said.

  His fingers found the flesh of her wrist.

  He tapped the bone, two or three quick little taps, like code.

  ‘Is it really okay with you?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course it is,’ said Polly.

  * * *

  It had been a long time since Babs had looked at her body from that peculiar angle. She saw a stomach ribboned with silvery stretch marks, a tuft of coarse brown hair, plump knees and calves and small feet – though not as small as Polly’s – braced against the bed end.

  Raising her head, she watched Jackie step out of his army trousers and lay them neatly across a chair. He had never been one for holding back and she was puzzled by his patience. He was ready for her, that much was obvious, but there was something different about him, something reticent, almost modest.

  ‘Hurry, darlin’, hurry,’ she whispered with more urgency than she felt.

  In fact, she felt as if she were speaking his lines for him, trying to erase the months of separation and restore the Jackie of old, brash and bold and ever so impatient to be getting on with it. But he was wary now and deliberate, not the same. Perhaps nothing between them would ever be the same, not until the war was over and the children came home and she had time to make amends.

  He had insisted on leaving the ceiling light on. The bulb in its tasselled shade hung over her, swaying slightly in the draft from the hall. He had gone to look in on April but hadn’t lifted her up, had let her sleep. He had looked at April with the same indifference as he looked down on her now. Babs wondered what had changed in him, if she had changed him, if one lousy photograph, one trivial misjudgement on her part had made all the difference or if it was something out there, something else.

  He folded his shirt, smoothing out the creases, and placed it on top of his trousers on the chair.

  Given the state of him up front, his patience seemed ridiculous, almost farcical. It was as if he were preparing himself for a kit inspection, not to make love to her for the first time in months.

  She sat up. ‘For God’s sake, Jackie, what’s wrong with you?’

  ‘It’s been a long time, Babs, a bloody long time.’

  She tried to make light of it. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten how?’

  He didn’t laugh, didn’t even crack a smile.

  He said, ‘I thought you’d wait for me.’

  She punched the mattress furiously with her fist. ‘I did wait for you. I did. Damn it, Jackie, why don’t you believe me?’

  ‘I didn’t say I didn’t.’

  ‘Is it that stupid photo? If it is, I’ll—’

  ‘Stand up.’

  ‘Pa’din?’

  ‘Go on, stand up. Lemme look at you.’

  She rose from the bed and stood before him, more awkward and self-conscious now than she had been when she’d lain on her back with everything on show. She didn’t know what to do with her hands, how to position her legs, whether he expected modesty or contrition.

  He said, ‘Has he been out on ma bike?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The lodger; has he been ridin’ ma motorbike?’

  She had all but forgotten about the Excelsior tucked under a big green tarpaulin in the shed at the side of the bungalow. She hadn’t seen the motorcycle since the last time Angus had been home and had insisted she let him sit on it. A tremor of pure rage shot through her. Jackie hadn’t been thinking about her at all. He had only been going through the motions.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Christy doesn’t even know it’s there.’

  ‘That’s all right then,’ Jackie said, nodding.

  He wore an army vest of heavy wool, discoloured by careless washing. He tugged it over his head, folded it and put it too on the chair. His chest was hairless but no longer shrunken. He wasn’t fat, would never be fat, but he had acquired muscle, little hard strands and straps of muscle that altered his shape and made him appear strong. He looked, she thought, as smooth and hard as a leather saddle. Her willingness to let him make love to her suddenly flared into need. Impulsively, she flung up an arm, fingers flared, tossed back her head and cocked her hip, mocking the pose in which Christy had caught her that drab November morning on her way to work.

  ‘Is this it?’ she said, pouting. ‘Is this what you want?’

  ‘Aye,’ Jackie said, soberly. ‘I think maybe it is.’

  She turned away, peeled back the bedclothes, leaped into bed and drew the sheet up to her chin.

  ‘All right,’ she said, huskily. ‘If you want it, come and get it.’

  ‘Aw hell!’ said Jackie. ‘Maybe I will at that.’

  Kicking off his underpants, he heaved himself into bed beside her and, with all his old impatience, bridged her hips, kissed her on the nose and eagerly set to.

  * * *

  They were seated on opposite sides of the kitchen table. He drank whisky. She sipped tea and casually turned the pages of the magazine.

  ‘Where did you take this one?’ Polly asked.

  ‘South Street, close to the docks.’

  ‘And the girls in the locker room?’

  ‘Ostler’s.’

  ‘Didn’t the girls mind taking their clothes off for you?’

  ‘I told them to forget I was there.’

  ‘Easier said than done,’ said Polly. ‘Why did you photograph Babs?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Christy said, shrugging. ‘I liked the look of her, I guess.’

  ‘Did you tell her how to pose?’

  ‘Heck, no! I don’t make pictures, I find pictures.’

  ‘An artist with a camera,’ said Polly.

  ‘I’m no artist. I’m a craftsman, that’s all. Camera artists are notoriously slow when it comes to producing the goods. Commercial pressure speeds up your reflexes and you learn not to chew the rug when something gets ruined in processing. Most of the time you work in a vacuum, though, because you can’t see what’s on the negatives. You shoot the stuff, label the rolls, fill in the caption forms and ship the batch out as fast as you can. All that matters is the feel of the shot and your timing. Sometimes you’re lucky, most times you ain’t.’

  ‘Were you lucky with Babs?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘How would you photograph me?’

  ‘I wouldn’t even try,’ Christy said.

  ‘Why not? Amn’t I pretty enough?’

  ‘I wouldn’t photograph you,’ Christy said, ‘because I’d never be able to catch you off guard long enough to make it seem natural.’

  ‘You just beggared the question.’

  ‘I know I did.’

  Polly turned a page, not looking at him.

  ‘When you shoot photographs in a war zone,’ Christy went on, ‘you learn to stop motion just before the obvious point; that way you capture the unexpected.’

  ‘But this isn’t a war zone,’ Polly said. ‘In spite of what you told me out at the farm, all that doom and gloom and prophetic fantasy, I don’t think the Germans will invade Britain now.’ She paused. ‘Am I not unexpected enough for you?’

  ‘I didn’t expect you to be the way you are, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘How did you think I’d be? Like Babs?’ She glanced up. ‘Am I embarrassing you, Mr Cameron?’

  ‘Yeah, you are.’

  She closed the magazine. ‘Did you study photography at college?’

  ‘My old man didn’t earn enough to send us to college,’ Christy said. ‘Jamie bumm
ed around for a couple of years after he left high school, then enlisted in the navy. I talked my way into a job as a darkroom assistant at Brockway’s. Brockway’s was more of a newspaper in those days, running splash stories under big banner headlines. I worked for a guy named Eiber, a German, one of the best photographers in the business. I made the coffee, fetched the doughnuts, lugged equipment, delivered photos, anything and everything. He called me his little Laufbub, which is German for “gofer”, so pretty soon that’s who I became – Bub Cameron.’

  He took a mouthful of whisky and held it in his cheek for a moment. ‘Poor old Fritzy Eiber drank himself into an early grave. Most of the rest of the guys in the old Brockway’s gang from twenty years back are still around, though, still chasing the news, still stalking the unexpected.’

  ‘Bub Cameron,’ Polly said. ‘The name suits you.’

  ‘Nobody calls me Bub any more,’ Christy said. ‘I left that name behind years ago.’

  ‘Before you became a spy?’

  ‘For the last time—’

  ‘You’re not a spy; all right,’ Polly said. ‘I believe you.’

  ‘Have you thought about what I asked you to do?’

  ‘A little,’ Polly said.

  ‘But you haven’t reached a decision yet?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or spoken to Hughes?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You don’t want to do it, do you?’

  ‘Of course I don’t want to do it,’ Polly said.

  ‘I don’t see how you can refuse,’ Christy said.

  ‘Put it down to traits in my character that wouldn’t show on a negative.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, why should I give up what I’ve got to buy my husband—’

  ‘And your children.’

  ‘All right – and my children – American citizenship?’

  ‘If you don’t come through,’ said Christy, ‘my government will probably deport him back to Italy.’

  ‘Dominic’s a British citizen.’

  ‘Maybe that’s what it says on his passport, but in the eyes of the federal authorities he’s the elder son of Carlo Manone and heir apparent to a criminal empire.’

  ‘Surely you’re exaggerating.’

  ‘Am I?’

  What Christy said was the simple truth. Britain had been ruthless in dealing with immigrants and foreign nationals, and America, she suspected, would be even more so. She was unsure just how much she owed Dominic, how much loyalty. She had a feeling that this was just a beginning and that Dominic was playing another of his deadly little games not just with her but with the Government.

  ‘What’s in the bag?’ she said.

  ‘My cameras,’ Christy said. ‘I left most of my stuff with Babs.’

  ‘So you intend to go back there, do you, after Jackie leaves?’

  ‘I hadn’t given it much thought.’

  ‘I can put you up,’ Polly heard herself say. ‘I’ve lots of room upstairs. You can take the big bed tonight, my bed. It’s made up. I’ll fill you a bottle.’

  ‘A bottle?’

  ‘A hot-water bottle, to warm the bed.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ Christy said. ‘Where will you sleep?’

  ‘Down here,’ said Polly. ‘I prefer it down here.’

  ‘Because of the air raids?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What if there’s a raid tonight?’

  ‘Come down,’ she said.

  ‘Down where?’

  She got up from the table, crossed around behind him and pushed open the larder door. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘I shelter here.’

  He stood behind her, glass in hand, looking at the narrow cot bathed in warm light from the little lamp, sheets and blankets turned back.

  ‘Cosy,’ he said.

  ‘And safe,’ said Polly, and led him, reluctantly, upstairs.

  * * *

  Jackie opened one bleary eye and peered at his daughter. She looked, he thought, like something off a Christmas card in a heavy red overcoat and a woollen cap.

  ‘Hullo, darlin’,’ Jackie said. ‘Are you glad t’ see me?’

  ‘Where’s Christy?’

  It was pitch-dark outside, the bedroom lit only by a shaft of light from the hall. It was also cold, colder than it ever got in the barracks where a big barrel stove burned all night. His breath hung in the air and when he moved his legs he found only frosty space beside him. He pulled the clothes up and offered an unshaven cheek to his child.

  ‘Come on, April, give Daddy a kiss.’

  She backed away, frowning.

  ‘Where’s Christy?’

  ‘What’s wrong, honey? Don’t you remember me?’

  ‘Yes. Where’s Christy?’

  From the doorway, Babs said, ‘Christy’s gone to stay with Aunt Polly.’

  ‘Will he be comin’ back?’ April said.

  ‘She doesn’t remember me,’ said Jackie.

  ‘It’s Daddy,’ said Babs, standing behind April now.

  ‘I know,’ said April and, turning on her heel and brushing past her mother, darted out into the hall.

  Jackie sighed, sank back and stared at his breath in the air above him.

  ‘Time is it?’

  ‘Half-past seven.’

  ‘She doesn’t remember.’

  ‘She’s only young,’ Babs said. ‘Give her time.’

  ‘I don’t have time.’ He turned his head. ‘Where are you goin’?’

  ‘To work,’ said Babs.

  She got down on her knees beside the bed.

  He peered into her face and said. ‘I thought you’d be stayin’ home today. Can’t you phone in, tell them you’re sick or somethin’?’

  ‘I can’t,’ said Babs. ‘Anyway, I have to take April to nursery.’

  ‘Stay home, both o’ you. We’ll go to the farm an’ fetch the others.’

  ‘Jackie…’

  ‘Christ!’ he said, without emphasis.

  ‘I’ve left out two real eggs an’ some bacon. Fry up when you feel like it. There’s tinned soup in the cupboard an’ a pie as well, if you’re hungry.’ She kissed him on the cheek and got to her feet. ‘You need sleep, m’lad, that’s what you need. I’ll be home about six.’

  ‘Phone in,’ Jackie said in a pathetic whisper. ‘Why can’t you?’

  ‘I wish I could, darlin’,’ Babs said, ‘but I don’t want to let Archie down.’

  ‘Archie? Who’s Archie?’

  ‘Mummy,’ April called, clear as a bell, from the hall. ‘Late.’

  ‘Gotta go.’ Babs kissed him once more and tucked the blankets under his chin. ‘Great to have you home, honey,’ she said, and left him lying there in the darkness, wide awake and all alone.

  9

  The Anglia had been ordered only weeks before the war. There had been much hemming and hawing in council meetings about whether the order should or should not be cancelled. In the end, delivery of the Ford had been taken on the very forenoon that Chamberlain had made his announcement that Britain was at war with Germany and nobody in the Breslin Council offices had taken much pleasure in the arrival of a motorcar that might in a matter of weeks be blown to smithereens or, worse, be filled with German officers.

  Since neither fate had befallen the car so far, however, the scramble among local government officers to use the machine had become intense, a little war within a war, as it were, and Bernard had to pull out all the stops to borrow the car for an hour or so that chill December morning.

  He was not the most assured of drivers. He drove, in fact, just as methodically as he did most other things, which included planning his campaign to ensure that the Belgian widow got everything she deserved and perhaps a little more than she bargained for.

  Bernard could not explain why he found the woman’s plight so affecting. He was neither pro- nor anti-Semitic and, as a rule, suffered none of the emotional confusion about Jewish people that troubled his stepdaughters and most of the district councillors. He drove dir
ectly from the council building to Breslin Primary School where Miss Wilma Stewart, the headmistress, and Mr Lachlan Boyd, the janitor, were waiting for him, together with six little evacuees from the lower rungs of the social ladder.

  Miss Stewart and Mr Peabody were old friends, for billeting and schooling were two hands in the same glove and, to mix a metaphor, there had been a good deal of mutual back-scratching between the schoolteacher and the council servant since the war began.

  A drive in a motorcar was just what the doctor ordered for the sickly six. Their little faces were flushed with excitement as Miss Stewart ushered them into the rear seat of the Anglia and Mr Boyd, fat as a toad and smelling of lavatory fluid, clambered in beside them. They pressed their runny noses to the windows and clutched the seat with cold little hands as the gentleman from the council slid behind the wheel and, with Miss Stewart at his side, drove away from the school and turned uphill into Antonine Way.

  Close to the top of the hill, just before the stately mansions of the very rich gave way to rugged moorland, Miss Stewart swung round to face her pupils and began her lesson. ‘Now, children,’ she said, in a dry Highland voice, ‘Breslin is famous for being one of the forts on the Roman wall. The Romans were a bit like the Germans. They wanted to conquer Europe and a man called Julius Caesar led an army over here and conquered the English.’

  ‘But not the Scots, eh?’ put in Mr Boyd who, at that opportune moment, had discovered a bag of toffees in his pocket and was quietly handing them out. ‘Naw, they Romans never got the better o’ the Scots.’

  ‘Thank you for your contribution, Mr Boyd,’ Miss Stewart said. ‘Now, one hundred and fifty years after Julius Caesar’s invasion, the Romans ruled England. They wanted to rule Scotland too but the Scots were not going to have any of it and gave the Romans a lot of trouble by attacking them. So what do you think the Romans did?’

  ‘Runned awa’, Miss.’

  ‘Choppit them up, Miss.’

  ‘I’ll bet they brung in the tanks.’

  ‘Unfortunately they didn’t have tanks in those days, Iain.’ Miss Stewart paused and glanced at Bernard, who gave her the nod. ‘What the Romans did –’ the Anglia came to a halt exactly on cue – ‘was build a wall. That wall.’

  Six pairs of eyes swivelled to starboard and gaped out at the misty moor. There was nothing much to see: a ragged birch tree, some gorse and, jutting from the edge of the moor, a jumble of shaped stones.