Wives at War

by Jessica Stirling

  ‘It will do,’ Evelyn Reeder said. ‘Yes, Mr Peabody, it is satisfactory.’

  ‘When will you—’ He cleared his throat. ‘When will you move in?’

  ‘At the weekend.’

  ‘I’ll be here,’ Bernard said.

  ‘Will you?’ she said. ‘Why?’

  ‘To hand over the keys,’ said Bernard.

  * * *

  ‘Marzipan?’

  ‘Yes,’ guardedly.

  ‘I’ve been trying to reach you all goddamned day.’

  ‘Well, now you have me. What’s the problem?’

  ‘It isn’t a problem. I’d say it’s more of an advance. I’m in.’

  ‘In?’ said Marzipan. ‘What do you mean by “in”?’

  ‘In the house, with the— with her.’

  ‘Is she there with you now?’

  ‘Nope, she’s gone out.’

  ‘Are you calling from a box?’

  ‘I just told you, I’m calling from the house, her house.’

  ‘Haven’t you ever heard of telephone bills?’ said Marzipan, testily.

  ‘She isn’t gonna check her telephone bill,’ Christy said. ‘Jesus, I thought you’d be pleased.’

  ‘I am,’ Marzipan said. ‘I just wish you’d be a little more cautious.’

  ‘That’s one of the things I wanna ask you: just how cautious do I have to be?’

  ‘I don’t understand the question.’

  ‘How much can I tell her?’

  ‘As little as possible but as much as you have to.’

  ‘That’s some help, that is,’ said Christy.

  ‘What more do you require?’

  ‘Clear guidelines,’ said Christy. ‘For one thing, pretty soon she’s gonna want to know how you intend to ship the money out of the country.’

  ‘That’s up to her.’

  ‘I think you’ve lost the thread, Marzie, old boy,’ said Christy. ‘It isn’t up to her. You can’t have it both ways. If you intend to skin her of all her money the least you can do is pretend to co-operate while you’re doing it.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ Marzipan said. ‘Technically it’s called creating dependency.’

  ‘Call it what the hell you like,’ said Christy. ‘Soon, real soon, you’ll have to tell me what’s going on and trust me to take it from there.’

  There were several seconds of silence on the line. Christy, leaning against the wall in Polly’s hallway, could almost hear Marzipan’s brain ticking.

  At length, Marzipan said, ‘You do have a point.’

  ‘I know I do,’ said Christy.

  ‘I’ll give the matter my consideration.’

  ‘What you mean,’ said Christy, ‘is you’ll have to consult your superiors. Who are your superiors, Marzie? How far up the heap does this thing go?’

  ‘I’ll get back to you.’

  ‘How?’ said Christy.

  ‘By letter.’

  ‘I guess you have her address.’

  ‘And I,’ said Marzipan, ‘I guess you have more parts of your anatomy than your feet under her table.’

  ‘Oh nasty!’ said Christy. ‘Look, don’t send letters to this address. For someone as addicted to caution as you are, letters are a giveaway. I’ll call you, all right?’

  ‘All right,’ said Marzipan, and rather huffily, Christy thought, hung up.

  * * *

  The quarrel had nothing much to do with Christy Cameron or the Brockway’s photograph or even Babs’s frustration at being unable to visit her sick children.

  She spent much time in the office writing letters and wrapping up little parcels of sweets and comics to send them. Archie uttered not a word of reprimand and even donated several bars of chocolate to add to the packets. Archie, it seemed, had changed his tune about the offspring of working mothers, though he pretended he was only being nice because he valued Babs’s contribution to the production war and didn’t want to have to break in another assistant.

  In Raines Drive, however, things were less serene and Jackie a good deal less than co-operative. His unexpected arrival had completely disrupted Babs’s routine and his insistence that she spend all her time with him seemed unreasonable. She couldn’t make him understand that she had a life of her own now and that, in eight or nine days, he would be gone and all she would be left with was the life she had created for herself. It was only when she refused to trail across town to the Gorbals to visit his mother, however, that Jackie lost his temper and accused her of being a snob and a selfish cow.

  She might have agreed with him save for the fact that she knew she couldn’t give Jackie what he really wanted. He wanted everything back the way it had been before the war, before Dominic had flown the coop, before he’d lost the motoring salon. He wanted her to be the way she’d been when they’d been living in squalor off the Calcutta Road. He wanted her to pretend that he was cock of the walk again, a big fish in a small pond, a flash Harry with cash in his pocket, not just a good competent mechanic with a wife and kids to support.

  ‘Have you seen her lately?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘My mother.’

  ‘No, Jackie, I haven’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I haven’t had time.’

  ‘Half an hour away on the tram an’ you haven’t had time.’

  How could she explain that she feared the Hallop influence on her children and wouldn’t risk letting old Ma Hallop into her life again. When she did take the children to visit Gran and Grandpa Hallop she was greeted with sly and greasy indifference. The children hated the tenement in Lavender Court. Even Angus was intimidated by the bony old woman with her stale smell and wheedling ways, and the girls were frightened of the old man, reeking of beer, who sprawled like a hog on the chair by the fire with his trousers unbuttoned.

  ‘Your mother never comes to visit us,’ said Babs.

  ‘She’s an old woman.’

  ‘Not that old,’ said Babs.

  ‘She’s got nobody t’ look after her.’

  ‘She’s got your father an’ the girls, your sisters.’

  ‘They don’t care.’

  ‘Well, heck, Jackie, if they don’t care why should I?’

  ‘God, but you’re a cold-hearted bitch.’

  ‘I’m not going to Lavender Court, an’ that’s flat.’

  ‘Then I’ll take April on the bike an’—’

  ‘Damned if you will.’

  ‘Who’s gonna stop me?’

  ‘Not the bike, Jackie, please.’

  ‘Aw right then, on the tram.’

  ‘I – I don’t think April will want to go.’

  ‘She’s a kid. She’ll do what she’s told.’

  ‘She won’t want to miss a day at nursery.’

  ‘She’ll come for a ride on the tram wi’ her dad?’

  ‘No, Jackie, she won’t.’

  ‘Are you tellin’ me I can’t take ma daughter to see her gran?’ Jackie cried. ‘Jesus Christ! What kind of a homecomin’ is this? What kind of a wife have you turned into? Nothin’s the way I thought it’d be.’

  ‘It’s the chickenpox…’

  ‘Chickenpox, bloody chickenpox,’ Jackie shouted at the top of his voice. ‘It’s got nothin’ to do with chickenpox. It’s you, you an’ – an’ everyone else.’

  Then he began to call her names, all sorts of filthy names and though it was late in the evening and raining, he rushed through the kitchen into the garden and, a minute or so later, roared away into the darkness on his motorbike and didn’t come back that night.

  * * *

  ‘Is this your office?’ Polly asked. ‘If it is, I don’t think much of it.’

  ‘It isn’t my office,’ Kenny told her. ‘It’s an interview room.’

  ‘Where you beat the truth out of suspects?’

  ‘What do you want, Polly?’

  ‘I shouldn’t really have come here, should I?’

  ‘No,’ Kenny said. ‘You shouldn’t.’

  ‘I didn’t want to bothe
r you at the flat.’

  ‘I’m seldom there,’ said Kenny.

  ‘How is Rosie, by the way?’

  ‘She’s still not well,’ Kenny said. ‘She works too hard.’

  ‘Has she been to see a doctor?’

  ‘Won’t go. Refuses point-blank.’

  Polly nodded. ‘Rosie’s always been stubborn.’

  ‘Polly, I don’t have much time at my disposal.’

  ‘Nor do I,’ said Polly. ‘I just thought I’d pop in to inform you that I am now living with the enemy or, rather, that the enemy is living with me.’

  ‘Plain English, please.’

  ‘I’ve taken in the American. Rosie will be scandalised.’

  ‘Has she reason to be?’

  ‘God, not you too, Kenneth. I thought you had more sense.’

  The room was very small and very dirty. Polly was surprised at the lack of hygiene. Scraps of food and cigarette ends lay on the floor under the scarred table and an abandoned bottle of milk sprouted green mould on the window ledge. She could see nothing from the window, not even sky.

  ‘I’ve taken him in,’ Polly said, ‘as an emergency measure and on a temporary basis only because Jackie turned up out of the blue. No,’ she held up her hand, ‘it’s not what you think, Kenneth. Our Jackie hasn’t deserted. He’s being shipped out in a week’s time and this is official leave.’

  Kenny lay back in one of the two hard wooden chairs with which the room was furnished. He wore a bulky wool overcoat buttoned up to the throat, and looked, Polly thought, not only cold but exhausted. He surveyed her with what appeared to be a complete lack of interest and she wondered for a moment if he was actually in the process of falling asleep.

  She had always felt herself superior to the young policeman but here in the heart of his territory she was much less sure of herself.

  ‘Does Jackie know where he’s being sent?’ Kenny said.

  ‘North Africa, probably.’

  ‘Poor bastard!’

  ‘You don’t envy him then?’

  ‘I do not.’ Kenny drew in his legs and propped an elbow on the table. ‘Did Cameron send you here?’

  Surprised by the question, Polly said, ‘No. Why?’

  ‘Because Cameron is just the point man on something big.’

  ‘Point man?’

  ‘The tip of an iceberg,’ said Kenny MacGregor. ‘Everyone’s treading cautiously at the moment. US Military Intelligence is pretty much a closed shop. They’re disinclined to trust us after the débâcle in France, though some sort of uneasy alliance has been forged between the chaps in Whitehall. I’m not cleared to receive field intelligence unless it relates to Irish Republican activity or illegal arms dealing, so I can’t tell you much more than that.’

  ‘And even if you could, you probably wouldn’t?’

  ‘I certainly wouldn’t,’ Kenny said.

  ‘Because I’m married to Dominic Manone?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘And you aren’t really nice Uncle Kenny, are you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do I have to be careful of you too?’

  ‘Yes, Polly, you do.’

  ‘All right,’ Polly said. ‘I appreciate your candour. One last question and then I’ll go. Who do I have to watch out for, who can do me most harm – Dominic or Christy Cameron?’

  ‘It’s too early to say.’

  ‘Are you telling me I’m out on a limb?’

  Kenny hoisted himself from the chair, walked around the table and opened the door. ‘You’ll have to go now, Polly.’

  ‘Wait,’ she said. ‘Are you trying to tell me that I have to make the running on my own?’

  ‘I’m not telling you anything.’

  Polly rose, straightened her skirt, adjusted her hat and followed him out into the corridor. He walked a half-step ahead of her and she noticed that the long, steady stride of the beat constable had been replaced by a shambling gait that made her brother-in-law seem furtive.

  He stopped at the head of the stairs and looked down the spiral of the banister rail, down at clerks and uniformed officers visible on the landings below, then he turned, put a hand on her arm and drew her close.

  ‘Hughes,’ he said softly. ‘I’d watch out for Hughes, if I were you.’

  ‘Fin, but—’

  ‘Goodbye, Polly. I’m sure you can find your own way out.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure I can,’ said Polly, and with more bewilderment than gratitude, kissed him quickly on the cheek and hurried downstairs to the street.

  * * *

  He felt like a heel, a real piece of low-life, but that didn’t stop him prowling through the house. He started on the top floor and worked his way down, room by room, consoled by the thought that Polly would expect nothing less of a spy. He hadn’t been trained in the so-called art of spying, of course. He had been shoved into the field with only his wits and a contact number to guide him and wasn’t even sure that Marzipan and Jamie were working towards the same end.

  Funding the Italian Resistance? Yeah, right! He’d watched the Polish Resistance in action and had been less impressed by their organisational skills than by their courage. Italian soldiers, sailors and airmen weren’t shedding their blood because they despised Mussolini, however, or because the Nazis were prodding their asses with bayonets. He’d seen for himself the situation in Spain. He knew why Franco had so far refused to declare for Hitler. Spain was flat broke and gripped by famine, and needed to maintain trading relations with Britain, Canada and the USA. When it came to Italy, though, he was forced to rely on what Jamie had told him and for that reason felt that he was no better than a spear-carrier standing at the back of a very big, very crowded stage.

  Goddamn it, he was a seasoned photojournalist who’d been in some pretty rough spots so what the hell was he doing in an empty house in Scotland rifling through a lady’s drawers? What secrets did he hope to uncover in Polly’s closets that would help the Allies win the war?

  The lady’s drawers, though, did contain a few surprises.

  First off there was the matter of the passports.

  Mrs Manone had two of the precious things.

  They were hidden where you’d least expect to find them, not tucked under her frillies in the master bedroom or in a shoebox on the top shelf of a closet. They were up in the nursery suite, or what had once been the nursery suite. Christy was surprised to find the rooms untouched since that morning sixteen months ago when Manone had lifted his kids from their beds and carried them off to New York.

  The beds had been made in both the little bedrooms and in the nanny’s room – Patricia’s room – too.

  Clean sheets, pillows plumped, windows unmarred by blackout material; pretty curtains printed with goldfish and mermaids, let in a flood of daylight. Toy boxes, books, a doll’s house, teddy bears, a rank of lead soldiers, a miniature fire truck, the low, square table in the centre of the playroom still set with cups and plates. All that seemed to be missing was buttered bread and strawberry jam – and the kids themselves, of course.

  In the smaller of the toy boxes were jigsaws, comic papers, colouring books, a paint box all dried out, and, right at the bottom, a pale blue stationery box fastened with a cute blue ribbon.

  Kneeling, Christy fished out the stationery box and untied the ribbon.

  At that precise moment, he reckoned he knew how Babs must have felt when she found the photographs of Polly’s kids in his bag: a feeling of guilt justified, of minor misdemeanours excused. He wondered if Babs had sat back on her heels and let out a grunt of satisfaction too.

  The passports had never been used. One was date-stamped June 1937 and might, Christy reckoned, be obsolete. The other was new issue, a wartime special with the blind stamp of a government department impressed on the cover. He held it to the light and read the blood-red letters stamped across the top of the page: ‘Travel Approved’.

  Travel where? Approved by whom?

  He had no idea, just a vague suspicion that the l
awyer Hughes might have supplied Polly with the valuable document in case he and she ever had to make a break for it.

  He looked at the photograph.

  Poor lighting had leeched the shadows from her face and her mouth was prominent, lip rouge pure black as if it had been inked in afterwards. She had longer hair and a startled, wide-eyed expression that made her appear almost childishly naïve. He studied the photograph for several seconds then put the passports back in the stationery box and examined the rest of the papers.

  Letters, letters from her children, from Stuart and Ishbel, postcards of New York landmarks with polite pencilled greetings on the back. No suggestion of codes or secret messages and nary a mention of Patricia or of Jamie, which indicated either unusual juvenile discretion or censorship on Manone’s part.

  There was no correspondence from Manone hidden in the stationery box or the nursery or, so far as Christy could discover, anywhere in the house. And only when he’d finished his search did it dawn on him that what he’d really been seeking in the lady’s drawers was evidence of duplicity, some shred of proof that Manone was playing the US State Department for a sucker, and that Polly was part of it. If she was, she was playing it clever, too clever for a dim-witted, half-baked amateur to stumble on at his first fumbling attempt.

  No, if he wanted to catch Polly out he would have to make her trust him enough to be careless or – and the thought made him wince – convince her that he loved her and that come hell or high water, he wouldn’t let her down.

  * * *

  ‘Oh, for God’s sweet sake, Polly,’ Fin Hughes said, ‘don’t tell me you’re falling for this chap?’

  ‘I’m not that much of a fool.’

  ‘Oh, you are, you are,’ Fin said. ‘You may not care to admit it but you’re just like all the rest.’

  ‘The rest of what?’

  ‘Women, snuggling up to any chap who gives you a bit of attention.’

  ‘Is that why I “snuggled up” to you?’

  ‘Of course it is,’ Fin said, ‘in addition to the fact that I represent a degree of stability in troubled times. I also know where the bodies are buried.’

  Polly glanced up sharply. ‘Bodies?’

  ‘Purely a figure of speech. Are you really giving me the heave-ho?’

  ‘You have the audacity to criticise women and yet you can stand there and ask me a daft question like that. Dear God, Fin, all I said was that it might not be a good idea to pop over on Saturday night because Christy Cameron is staying at my house temporarily. Do you hear me – tem-por-arily.’