Liberty Silk (2 page)

‘Unless there’s another war and they all get killed again.’

‘There’ll never be another war, ever. Humankind isn’t that stupid.’

‘Anyway, I don’t want to get married and have snotty-nosed brats. I’d much rather keep cats. Just think – all over France soon there’ll be hundreds and hundreds of cats roaming around. It’ll be great. Will there be millions of cats in England too?’

‘I expect so.’

With or without cats, there’d be millions of women living
solitaire
all over Europe, Jessie knew: spinsters, old maids, widows; women too mired in penury to be footloose or fancy free. At home in Blighty many of her friends were unmarried and would remain so: on her wedding day, decked out in satin and Carrickmacross lace, the guilt Jessie had felt as she glided down the aisle observed by those envious eyes could have marred her happiness if she’d allowed it to. But Jessie’s obdurate streak would allow nothing to impinge upon her bliss; not then, not now.

Bliss, for her, was sitting on a doorstep, safeguarding the paintbox while watching Scotch work. It was finding a creek where they could fling off their clothes and dive in; it was lounging in bed after love in the afternoon; it was dozing on a riverbank listening to him whistling; it was a
pichet
of wine shared on the terrace of some small café over omelettes and
fougasse
; it was looking up from a book and finding his eyes upon her.

‘Drink up!’ Suzette told her, moving to the threshold. ‘Remember what I said about the vanishing croissants. I’m surprised your husband isn’t as fat as Big Bertha.’ The door shut behind her with a thud, and Jessie smiled.

She was glad to hear that Scotch was demolishing croissants: just a month ago, in Chambéry, he had been so ill that he hadn’t been able to eat anything. He had caught a chill after they’d spent a night sleeping on the station platform at Turin, and had been diagnosed with congestion of the lungs and prescribed all kinds of concoctions: magnesia and quinine and a horrid plaster-poultice thing that Jessie had asked the
patronne
of the hotel they were staying in to apply and peel off, because she could not bear to see him in pain. She had been feeling so young and incapable that in a moment of weakness she’d written home in a panic, scared half to death and feeling frightfully alone; then regretted it as soon as she’d sent the letter, convinced that her mother might write back saying, ‘I knew it would end in tears.’

Draining her coffee, Jessie moved to the window and settled herself on the window seat to admire the view as she brushed her hair. The vista beyond the casement was of terracotta rooftops, with pigeons perched on chimneypots and a church spire pointing to a cloudless sky above. Below her on the street a gaggle of women were gossiping, their voices ajangle, like Indian bells. They fell mute as a much younger woman sauntered past in a cloche hat and a flirty kick-pleated skirt, and sent poisonous looks in her direction before resuming their tittle-tattle.

What should Jessie wear on this last day of her honeymoon? Her bathing dress, of course, and over it something she wouldn’t mind getting mucky. That frock she’d spilled ink over would fit the bill. A year or so ago she’d simply have chucked it out, but she couldn’t afford to do that now. She was learning thrift.

Anyway, Scotch didn’t seem to mind her looking – as she had written home –‘dirty and disreputable and poor!’ (She had been careful to add the exclamation mark, to show what a lark it was, honestly.) He loved her best, she knew, with nothing on at all, and mostly thought of clothes as a nuisance. The only time she had dressed up for him –
really
dressed up – had been at Christmas, at the dance in the little hotel in Rouen when they had announced their engagement. She had asked her mother to send over the flower-patterned silk gown from Liberty for the occasion, the one that reminded her of summer meadows. It was tiered like a Grecian tunic: a classic Doric column when one stood still; in motion, a swirl of colour – primrose and geranium and cornflower blue and moss green. And that night, as Scotch presented her with the ring, he had murmured into her ear a verse by Robert Herrick, substituting her name for that of the poet’s mistress:

Whenas in silks my Jessie goes
,

Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flows

That liquefaction of her clothes.

Setting down her hairbrush, Jessie poured water into the basin and set about washing, humming a little tune as she ran the flannel over her tummy, wondering when her baby would start to show. When should she tell Scotch? She knew she should leave it for a while, just in case something went wrong, but to hell with it! She’d tell him today. It would be a ripping way to cheer him up before they bade farewell to France and Finistère.

What serendipity, that they should have finished up here! Over the course of the past two months she and Scotch had travelled all over France and Italy, and now that they had reached ‘
Finis Terrae
– the end of the earth’, they could journey no further. The honeymoon was finally over, and real life beckoned.

Real life. Cripes. Real life meant going back to Blighty, to where her mother would be waiting for her in that big house in Mayfair with her tight-lipped expression and her tragic eyes. Nothing had been able to convince Mrs Beaufoy that the marriage of her princess to the penniless painter was a good idea, but Jessie was determined to prove her wrong. Some day her husband would be so famous that he would sell every picture before it was touch-dry, like Picasso.

Still humming her silly song –‘
Y’a une pie dans l’poirier, J’entends la mère qui chante
’ – Jessie slid into her bathing dress, pulled her frock over her head, and ran downstairs.

Scotch was sitting in the sun-splashed breakfast room, spreading apricot conserve onto a croissant and chatting with Suzette. The little girl was leaning her elbows on the table, listening intently.

‘Good morning!’ Jessie dropped a kiss on her husband’s forehead before sitting opposite and helping herself to the last croissant in the breadbasket.

‘I was guarding that for you,’ Suzette told her.

‘Thank you, poppet.’ She gave her husband a look of mock-rebuke. ‘If it hadn’t been for Suzette I suspect I’d have had no breakfast at all this morning.’

‘It would serve you right for being such a lazybones,’ Scotch told her. ‘I’ve been up for hours.’

‘He has been telling me the story about how his hand got hacked off,’ announced Suzette. ‘Did it hurt awful bad, Scotch?’

‘Yep.’

‘Did you cry?’

‘Like a baby.’

‘Was there masses of blood?’

‘Bucket loads.’

‘What did you
do
with the hand?’

‘Suzette!’ Her mother – who had been refilling cups at a nearby table – came bustling up, her face scarlet with embarrassment. ‘What a shocking thing to ask! Now, leave the honeymooners alone and come and help me in the kitchen. I can’t say how sorry I am for my daughter’s rudeness, Monsieur.’

Madame was overcompensating, Jessie thought, for Suzette had not been unusually rude.
Where did you lose your arm, or your leg, or your eye?
was a perfectly legitimate question to ask of young men these days, since so many of them sported pinned-up sleeves, or crutches or eye-patches. The answer was usually ‘at Verdun’ (or Marne, or Ypres), but Scotch’s accident had happened before the war, when he was just fourteen. He’d been lucky, unlike millions of PBIs – poor bloody infantrymen – who had been horribly mutilated on the battlefields.

‘No apology necessary, Madame Simonet. I’m quite happy to answer Suzette’s questions.’ Turning back to Suzette, whose eyes were agleam with interest, Scotch continued his story. ‘After the scythe sliced through my arm – whoosh! shwoosh! vamoosh! – a farmer’s dog seized the hand and took off with it—’

‘No!’

‘Oh, yes. The field workers chased the animal across the field with an almighty yelling and hullaballoo. They eventually cornered it by a well, but the bold thing wouldn’t let go, and what with all the pulling and tugging the poor beastie tumbled backwards with the hand still between his jaws, and when they got him out of the well, there was no sign of it.’ Scotch’s tone was ominous. ‘
And no-one has ever dared to drink the water from that well again.
The end.’

Both Suzette and her mother were by now open mouthed. So, for that matter, was Jessie. But Madame Simonet snapped her mouth shut abruptly and cuffed her daughter sharply on her ear. ‘The kitchen, Suzette. Now.’

Unchastened, Suzette got down from her chair. ‘My uncle told me a horror story once about a severed hand that has a life of its own. It goes around terrorizing people and—’

‘
Suzette!
’

Suzette made a face. ‘
Ouay ouay ouay
,’ she intoned as she drifted off kitchenward.

With an apologetic smile, Madame backed away. ‘I’ll have your picnic ready for you presently, Monsieur, Madame. Enjoy the rest of your day.’

‘Thank you, Madame.’ Scotch gave Madame Simonet the kind of smile that turned women to mush, before returning his attention to his croissant, tearing off a hunk and wolfing it down.

‘Did a dog really run away with your hand?’ asked an incredulous Jessie.

‘Not at all. My hand was buried. But the truth wouldn’t have made such a good story, would it?’

Jessie smiled at him, then leaned across the table and touched his face. ‘No wonder children love you. No wonder
everyone
loves you. You’re a complete charmer.’

Scotch wiped his mouth with his napkin, then set it aside. ‘Talking of charms, where’s the little Egyptian fellow I gave you?’

‘He’s here, in my pocket. I got him tangled in my hair when I was dressing.’ She pulled the minuscule jade charm from her pocket, and held it up on the silk ribbon to which Scotch had attached it.

‘Allow me.’ Rising from his chair, Scotch moved behind her. Jessie held the ends of the ribbon together at the nape of her neck, and within seconds they were made fast. His adroitness never failed to amaze her.

‘Eat up, youngster,’ he said, dropping a kiss on her shoulder. ‘We’ve a train to catch.’

‘
WHAT DO YOU
think of Lisa as a stage name? Lisa La Touche?’

‘Sounds like a Burlesque dancer, darling,’

‘But “Baba” is so childish! And everyone pronounces my surname wrong.’

Baba MacLeod and her friend Dorothy Baxter were sitting in the Lyons Corner House on Oxford Street, having been to yet another screening of their favourite film –
A Star is Born
. They came here a lot because (a) they were fanatical film-goers, (b) the sticky buns were scrumptious, and (c) the manager of the joint was the spit of Errol Flynn.

They had visited a casting agency earlier, to make enquiries about Baba getting work as a movie extra, and Dorothy was sneaking looks at the application form her friend was filling in. Baba had cut out a square-inch head and shoulders photograph from a contact sheet and attached it to the form, which read like this:

Lisa La Touche.

Age: 19

Height: 5 ft 5½ ins.

Weight: 8 stone

Colouring:
Auburn
.
Titian
. Rousse.

Type: Smart crowd.

Experience: Phoebe in ‘As You Like it’, Mayfair Players, 1938

Special accomplishments: Dancing, fencing, swimming, singing, tennis.

‘Where did “La Touche” come from?’ asked Dorothy.

‘One of my ancestors was a La Touche – some old baronet or something. It’s in
Debrett’s
.’

‘You’ve put an awful lot of fibs on here. Are you really only eight stone?’

‘I will be once I start that diet Paulette Goddard recommends.’

‘And you’ve put “singing” and “tennis” as special accomplishments. You don’t have a note in your head, Baba, and you can scarcely manage a return serve.’

‘Pah! Do you honestly think I’ll ever be asked to play tennis as an audition piece? As for singing – name me one aspiring actress who doesn’t list it as a special accomplishment, and I’ll name you a liar.’ Baba returned her attention to the application form. ‘Let’s see. What else would look good? Hmm. I fancy I’d look rather fetching on a mount, sitting sidesaddle and wearing a riding habit and one of those elegant little veiled top hats. I’ll put down riding too, even though I hate the brutes.’

Dorothy shot her a sceptical look. ‘
Can
you ride?’

‘Of course not. But I can learn, if needs be.’

Baba wrote ‘Riding’ under ‘Special accomplishments’, then signed with a flourish. It was a shame, she thought, as she screwed the cap back on her pen, that she hadn’t been able to add more to the ‘Experience’ section of the form. Playing Phoebe in the Mayfair Players’ production of
As You Like It
had been terrific fun, and she’d had a reasonably good write-up in the parish circular, but she’d really much rather have played the gutsier role of Rosalind, who gets to dress up as a boy and run away from home. However, there was absolutely no question of Baba passing herself off as a boy. Baba had been a late developer, but the past two years had seen a remarkable transformation in the girl who had once been a skinny adolescent. It had taken her a very long time to get used to being perceived as quintessentially womanly, and she still found it confusing sometimes. But she was learning.

She held the form at arm’s length and regarded her film-starrish new signature with satisfaction. ‘I like it. It has style, and sparkle, and it suits my new persona better.’

Dorothy gave her an uncomprehending look.

‘You know – like in a play. The characters are always called “dramatis personae”. Lisa la Touche is mine.’

‘Your persona?’

‘Yes.’

‘That sounds a little bonkers, darling, if you don’t mind me saying so.’

Baba shrugged. She was used to Dorothy calling her bonkers.

‘It works.’

‘How?’

‘Promise you won’t laugh?’

‘I’ll try.’

‘It’s something about the way . . . No! I can’t explain it. It’s too weird. More tea?’ Baba reached for the pot, and poured, trying to ignore the curious expression on her friend’s face.