The Wayward Wife (2 page)

‘Gaines? Oh, is that his name?'

‘Do stop sulking, Susan.'

‘I'm not sulking. You'd hardly be full of beans if you were about to spend hours trailing some producer from pillar to post with a notebook in your hand.'

Vivian was a robust woman in her forties and in a military-style overcoat and fur hat had the imposing bearing of a Soviet commissar. She smoked a cigarette in a short amber holder and, with a certain panache, blew smoke skywards. ‘I'm just as surprised as you are that an American newsman was more interested in hearing my opinions than flirting with you.'

‘He was certainly impressed by your latest book.'

‘Oh, that old thing,' said Vivian. ‘Dashed it off in a couple of weeks when I'd nothing better to do.'

‘Ha-ha,' said Susan.

‘Ha-ha, indeed,' said Vivian. ‘We sweated blood on
The Great Betrayal
, didn't we, my dear?'

‘Is it selling well?'

‘Better than I expected. Something to be said for cheap paper editions put out for the masses. Handy size for reading in air-raid shelters, apparently.'

‘I'm sorry, Vivian, but I really must go,' Susan said.

‘Of course.' Vivian tapped the cigarette from its holder. ‘I must say, you've been a model of restraint.'

‘I don't know what you mean?'

‘Not one question about the rough-hewn Mr Gaines.'

‘I was there. I heard how he flattered you. He seems to regard you as some sort of oracle.' Susan paused. ‘He certainly had no time for me.'

‘Ah!' said Viv. ‘There you're wrong. Unless my old eyes deceive me our Mr Gaines is loitering by the staff entrance even as we speak.'

Susan, with difficulty, did not turn round.

‘What's he doing there?' she said.

‘He obviously expected you to have shaken off the boring old battleaxe and is seizing an opportunity to whisper a few sweet nothings in your shell-like without me around,' Vivian said. ‘He's a nomad, Susan, a newsman, a stranger in a strange land. He's probably hoping you'll take pity on him and show him, shall we say, the sights. It's your own fault for flirting with him in the first place.'

‘I did
not
flirt with him, Vivian.'

‘Try telling him that,' Viv said, then, turning on her heel, headed for Oxford Street and left it to Susan to repair her tarnished reputation as best she could.

When the Welshman touched him Danny Cahill flinched and sat up. It was pitch dark in the bedroom, so dark that the hand that brushed his hair seemed disembodied.

There was nothing remotely sensual in Silwyn Griffiths's touch. He was merely being careful not to poke a finger into Danny's eye or up one frozen nostril. As soon as Danny sat up the hand floated away, swallowed by the all-encompassing darkness.

‘What time is it?' Danny whispered.

‘Ten to six.'

‘What the hell're you doin' up so early?'

The stealthy creak of floorboards and a soft little ‘ow' as Griff barked his shin on the dressing table were followed by the sound of the blackout shutter being raised.

‘It's crisp out there,' Griff intoned in the sing-song baritone that Danny hadn't quite got used to yet. ‘Deep and crisp and even, one might say.'

‘You mean, it's snowin' again?'

‘Heavily.'

Danny propped himself up on the pillow.

‘Therefore, no bus,' he said.

‘No bikes either,' said Griffiths. ‘We're on the hoof this morning, boyo, by the look of it.'

He lowered the noisy blackout shutter and switched on a bedside lamp. He was clad in a roll-neck sweater that one of his innumerable girlfriends had knitted for him, and the sheepskin coat his father, a hill farmer in Brecon, had handed down.

Danny had been raised in a Catholic orphanage where cleanliness was next to godliness but the prolonged spell of wintry weather had undermined his principles too. He slept in his underwear and settled for a dab with a damp washcloth in Mrs Pell's kitchenette in preference to the icy cold of the bathroom on the landing.

Sucking in a breath, he flung aside the bedclothes, reached for his shirt and trousers and dressed quickly.

‘What if we can't make it, Griff?'

‘The boys on the night shift will stay on. We are, however, obliged to gird our sturdy loins and give it a go. You're a Scot, for heaven's sake,' said Griff. ‘I thought you'd be used to weather like this.'

‘I haven't set foot in Scotland in years,' Danny said. ‘Anyroads, I was reared in Glasgow not a bloody Highland croft. Are you ready for breakfast?'

‘I am. Indeed, I am,' Griff said, and led the way downstairs to the only warm room in the house: the kitchen.

They were billeted in a semi-detached council house in Deaconsfield, a tiny hamlet three miles from the monitoring unit in the grounds of the Wood Norton estate. They were more fortunate than some of their colleagues, for certain members of the rural community were suspicious of, not to say downright hostile towards, the eccentric foreigners that the BBC had dumped on their doorsteps.

The Pells were not of that ilk. Mr Pell was a lanky man with a laconic sense of humour and Mrs Pell, as small and chirpy as a sparrow, wasn't fazed by her lodgers' erratic hours and gave good value for her billeting fee when it came to dishing up the required two hot meals a day.

‘My dear lady,' Griffiths purred, ‘we'd no intention of dragging you from your beauty sleep at this unholy hour. I do hope we didn't wake you and, if we did, I can only offer my apologies. I say, is that French toast?'

The sight of thick slices of bread dipped in egg and fried to a golden brown made Danny's stomach rumble. He balanced his plate on the edge of the dresser and attacked the toast with a fork.

‘Fifty-seven below in Finland, Mr Pell tells me,' Mrs Pell said. ‘Heard it on the news. Even the Russians are dropping like flies, Mr Pell says. You'll know all about that, I suppose.'

The Pells were aware that Griffiths and Danny helped compile the daily Digest of Foreign Broadcasts, a thirty-thousand-word document dispatched to an ever-growing number of ministries and government departments, and were forever fishing for inside information on the state of the war in Europe, information that Griff and Danny mischievously refused to surrender.

‘Fifty-seven below, eh?' said Griff. ‘I wonder what sort of reading we have in Deaconsfield this morning. Whatever it is, we'd better get a move on before it gets any worse.'

He picked up the last piece of toast, stuffed it into his mouth and washed it down with tea. He wiped his fingers on the skirts of his coat, fished a knitted woollen cap from his pocket and fitted it snugly over his curly hair.

Danny settled for an old cloth cap.

‘Got your gas masks, both of you?' Mrs Pell asked.

‘Fully equipped, Mrs P,' Griff assured her.

‘Will you be home for supper?'

‘Lap of the gods, I'm afraid,' said Griff. ‘Especially in this weather.' He unlatched the back door and stepped into the porch.

Drifting snow covered the steps and formed a steep bank against the side of the garden shed. There wasn't a warden within miles of Deaconsfield but Mrs Pell, taking no chances, swiftly closed the door behind them.

‘God, what a mornin',' Danny said, shivering. ‘Be no mail delivered today, I doubt.'

‘And no letters from your lovely wife,' said Griff and yelped when Danny shoved him out into the snow.

Many of the women who worked in Broadcasting House would have been flattered by Robert Gaines's attentions, others would have been irritated by his inability to come to the point and one or two shy virgins, fresh up from the country and not yet wise in the ways of the world, would perhaps have viewed him as a serious threat to their maidenhood.

Susan, however, was neither impatient nor virginal and after four years consorting with Vivian's gang of right-wing toffs and sleazy intellectuals regarded herself as flatter-proof.

Her sister-in-law, Breda, would undoubtedly have forced the issue by throwing herself, bosom first, at Robert Gaines.

Breda had always been attracted to large, bear-like men. In her halcyon days, before Ronnie had knocked her up and had gallantly agreed to marry her, Breda had run up an impressive tally of wrestlers and boxers, not to mention the odd Irish scallywag, all of whom, being the kind of men they were, had ridden off into the sunset as soon as they'd had their way with her. At least, Susan thought wistfully, Breda had had some fun before she'd settled down;
her
solitary affair had brought nothing but heartache in the end.

No more broken hearts now, she told herself, as she stood before the mirror in the ladies' cloakroom on the third floor of Broadcasting House and applied a light touch of natural lipstick and an even lighter dusting of face powder to disguise the fatigue that several hours of taking dictation from Mr Basil Willets had laid upon her.

She was no longer the uncultured young girl who'd crept out of Shadwell to work as a temporary secretary to lawyers, doctors and City gents but she was, she supposed, still pretty enough to attract the attention of sensible men now she'd learned to disguise her East End origins.

In fact, she'd left her roots and her family far behind even before she'd stumbled into marriage with kind, caring and utterly dependable Danny Cahill, a marriage that war, and her job with the BBC, threatened to undermine.

Now, with Danny out of sight if not entirely out of mind and every day tainted by uncertainty she was almost, if not quite, ready to throw caution to the winds and embrace the opportunity for a romantic adventure that chance, mere chance, had blown her way.

She put on her overcoat, hat, scarf and woollen gloves and made her way down by the stairs to the main reception area at the front of the building.

No light now, no gleam or glow was allowed to spill out into the street, for Broadcasting House was no longer a beacon to the world. ‘The BBC must set an example,' the memo had read. ‘It is the responsibility of all staff members to ensure that blackout restrictions are strictly observed.' Thick layers of dark green paint and metal shutters had taken care of the windows, all the windows on all floors, but the foyer and reception hall had caused problems.

She crossed the gloomy reception hall to the huge, heavily weighted drapes that covered the bronze doorway, curtains stolen, it was said, from the old Hoxton Empire; a rumour that, like so many rumours these days, had turned out to be false. The elderly commissionaire heaved aside the slip curtain and let her enter the muffled passage between the curtains and then, with much flapping, the duty policeman opened the doors and released her on to the pavement.

Half past six o'clock, the cold so keen that it scalded your skin: Susan turned up her coat collar and glanced towards the steps of All Souls Church where Robert Gaines might or might not be waiting.

There was no sign tonight of the American. If she'd been younger and less sure of herself she would have lingered on the pavement in the hope that he might show up but she was no wan little typist desperate for love and, like time and tide, would wait for no man. Besides, she had a gut feeling that Mr Gaines might be playing a game, not to tease but to test her; a novel kind of seduction that she found both irksome and exciting.

Of their three casual encounters in the past week none had led to dinner and dancing but only to coffee and cake in a café off Wigmore Street, surrounded by noisy young nurses and doctors in smart new uniforms, and a half-hour's guarded conversation in which neither Robert nor she seemed willing to give much away.

Squaring her shoulders, she walked on without breaking step. If he comes, he comes, she thought, and if he doesn't, well, that's up to him. He was, after all, a hard-pressed working journalist with deadlines to meet and for all she knew, for all he'd told her, might even now be on a boat heading for France or Italy or even off home to New York.

She had almost convinced herself that she didn't care when, waving his hat in the air, Robert Gaines appeared out of nowhere and, calling her name, hurried to join her.

‘I thought I'd missed you,' he said.

‘You almost did,' said Susan.

‘Coffee,' he said, ‘or would you rather have a drink?'

‘Coffee,' she said, ‘will be fine, particularly if you're pushed for time.'

‘I'm always pushed for time. You know how it is.'

‘Of course,' Susan said and, taking his arm, accompanied him through the darkened streets to the café just off Wigmore Street to play another cautious game of pussyfoot for the next half-hour or so.

Breda's mother, Nora Romano, thought that Ronnie in his fireman's uniform was the handsomest thing on two legs. Lots of women in Shadwell agreed with her. Even the old croakers, who should have known better, simpered a little when Ron strode up Fawley Street with the peak of his cap pulled down to hide the gimlet gaze he'd developed since trading a butcher's apron for a heavy wool tunic with a double row of chrome buttons.

It wasn't the old croakers that worried Breda as much as the young chicks who breezed about the East End at the wheel of ambulances or manned telephones in command posts and who, in Breda's jaundiced opinion, would have the trousers off any feller under the age of seventy who looked as if he might be up for a bit of hanky-panky now that conscription had thinned the ranks of available males, including husbands.

For that reason, among others, Breda had retreated from the school on the Commercial Road where, at the crack of dawn on the last day of August, half the mothers and children in the East End had assembled, complete with gas masks, rucksacks, suitcases and a mournful assortment of dolls and teddy bears, to be herded off to God knows where.

She'd taken one look at the doleful mob and, with Billy clinging to her hand, had turned tail and legged it back to the terraced house in Pitt Street where Ronnie, in vest and drawers, had been seated at the kitchen table bleakly toying with a poached egg.