The Wayward Wife (33 page)

‘Same question I asked,' said Bob. ‘Look, I'll leave you to it. You obviously have things to talk about. I'll be up in the office when you're through, Susan.'

No matter how urbane she pretended to be, she could not meet her lover's eye while her husband stood by. She nodded, saw the men shake hands and Bob give Danny's shoulder a little slap, the way men do, before he hefted up the briefcase and headed for the stairs.

Danny watched him go.

‘Nice guy,' he said. ‘You could do worse, Susie.'

It occurred to her that whatever had brought her husband to Broadcasting House it wasn't a meeting with Rupert Talbot or anyone else from the News Department. Even Danny wouldn't turn up for a crucial interview looking like a ragamuffin.

Danny said, ‘I wasn't sure I'd find you here.'

‘Where else would I be?' Susan said.

‘I thought maybe you'd taken shelter with Mr Gaines.'

‘No,' she said. ‘I've been here all night.'

‘Then you don't know about the flat?'

‘Oh, that!' she said. ‘Yes, in fact I do know about the flat. Have you been down there this morning?'

‘Aye,' Danny told her. ‘About an hour ago.'

‘How soon can we move back in?'

‘Are you kiddin'? The block's been declared unsafe, same as Stratton's. Chances are it'll be demolished.'

‘What about my stuff?'

‘The salvage crews won't risk their necks for your stuff, or mine, or anybody's else. Anyroads, there could be another raid tonight – probably will be – and who's to say another bomb won't finish the job. The flat's still in your name so you better do the paperwork if you want some money back on the rent. There's insurance on the contents, too, isn't there?'

‘Why must you always be so bloody practical, Danny?'

‘Badly brought up, I suppose,' Danny said. ‘Are you gonna lodge with Gaines?'

‘I don't know. Perhaps.'

‘There's always Vivian to fall back on if you have to.'

‘What about you, Danny? Do you have somewhere to go?'

‘Back to Wood Norton.'

‘I mean tonight,' Susan said.

‘I'll stay at St Vee's,' Danny said.

‘You can stay here if you wish. You're staff, after all.'

He shook his head, stooped and brought up one of the brown paper parcels. ‘I brought you a few things I thought you might need. Knickers, stockings an' the like.'

She took the parcel and hugged it to her chest.

‘Don't tell me you walked into Marshall and Snelgrove's ladies' department and—'

‘Crossland's: you know what a cheapskate I am.'

‘No, never that. Whatever else, never that,' Susan said. ‘Thank you. I mean it. Thank you very, very much.' She looked down at the parcel at his feet. ‘Is that one for your girl?'

‘My girl?'

‘Your girl in Evesham.'

‘I don't have a girl in Evesham.'

‘I thought you said …'

‘I didn't say it; you did.' He bent down, picked up the parcel from the floor and tucked it under his arm. ‘Look, I've done what I came here to do so I'd better push off.'

‘Who's the other parcel for, Danny?'

He seemed surprised that she even had to ask.

‘Breda,' he said. ‘Who else?'

It was only after Danny went back to Evesham that Breda began to accept that Ron was dead. There were too many loose ends, nothing but loose ends, and the biggest loose end of all was that she would never see Ronnie again, never hear his voice or see his face or feel him inside her and that her bed, wherever her bed might be, was empty without him.

She tried not to feel sorry for herself and she certainly wasn't idle. Her hands, fortunately, were almost healed and she'd had the bandages taken off. She had plenty to do – too much, in fact – but there was no pattern to her life, no centre now that Stratton's, her house in Pitt Street and, of course, Ron were gone.

She was interviewed by council officers. She filled in forms. She took Billy to a First Aid post to have his dressing changed and helped Nora compose a letter to the aunts in Limerick. She gritted her teeth and ventured up to Oxmoor Road to set in motion the process of obtaining a certificate from the Fire Service that would allow her to register Ron's death and claim a little bit of money from the government.

What troubled her more than lack of income, though, was the effect the nightly bombings were having on Billy.

When the siren sounded, as it did every evening, he would throw himself upon her, drag her to the bunk and cower under the blankets, fists clenched and face pressed into her breast. He could not be persuaded to join in the boisterous games Father Joe organised to amuse the children, or sit cross-legged in a circle while one of the nuns told the story of Moses or Noah, how Daniel survived the lions in King Darius's den or how Jesus made a crippled man walk again.

He shunned Nora, avoided Matt, and refused to be bribed with sweets, comics or even an ice cream that his grandfather had limped half a mile to fetch for him.

When his head ached, which it did quite often, he stuck his fists in his mouth and closed his eyes so tightly that it was all the tears could do to squeeze out from under the lids. And when Breda finally took him back to the First Aid post to have his stitches removed, he screamed and struggled and had to be held down until the deed was done and, afterwards, kicked Breda's shins as if the pain were her fault.

All Breda had to hang on to in that dismal week was the postcard Danny had hidden in the parcel of clothes he'd brought back from town. The postcard had a pretty picture on one side: a thatched cottage with apple trees in the sunny garden and a creature that was either a dog or a lamb peeping out from under a rose bush.

On the back of the card Danny had printed two words:
Stay Put.
Nothing more: no promise to return to London or send money or that he had any plans to involve himself in her future.

Just:
Stay Put
.

She showed the postcard to no one, not even Nora and certainly not to Matt. She kept it hidden under the blanket she used as a pillow. When the lights were switched off and the bombardment raged upstairs, she would fish out the postcard and a pocket torch and, hidden beneath the blanket, study the pretty picture and Danny's enigmatic instruction and puzzle over what, if anything, it signified.

She knew that Danny had her interests at heart and she was determined to sit tight in Shadwell and scratch along as best she could until the situation improved.

Sooner or later the council would have to start repairing the damaged houses, though whether they'd do so while the skies were filled with German bombers was doubtful. Ronnie would probably have told her that borough councillors don't think like ordinary men and women and were quite capable of ordering Shadwell's broken houses and warehouses razed to the ground and starting all over again after the war.

After the war, after the war: Breda was already sick of hearing about after the war. Now her daddy's legacy had been stolen from her the future had lost its gilt. It offered only the same sort of drudgery that had gone on before Britain had entered the war – except that she wouldn't have a husband. With her breasts sagging, her face turned to mince and a kid to contend with she'd be unlikely to find anyone to take her on.

The prospect of escaping to neutral Ireland with her mother and Matt Hooper held no appeal. She regarded Ireland in somewhat the same sort of way as she regarded Canada, somewhere distant and inhospitable. And the very idea of lodging in a stranger's house filled her with horror.

No, she thought, tucking her head beneath the blanket, here we are, Billy and me, and here we'll stay.

But the next afternoon, at approximately half past four o'clock, she suddenly changed her mind.

The bulldog spirit had finally taken hold and, to mix one of Basil's favourite metaphors, the stiff upper lip was much in evidence within the confines of Broadcasting House. No more weeping over the porridge plates, no hysteria, no signs of panic, just a general air of determination to make the best of it, whatever ‘it' might be.

Filling up the schedule for Basil's twice-weekly programme had become more difficult as September wore on and the nightly blitzkrieg continued without let or halt. Rail and road links suffered. The West End was slapped, theatres closed and visiting celebrities were few and far between. Fortunately there were still a few brave souls willing to risk their necks trekking to Portland Place to venture an opinion on the progress of the war or, prodded by Robert Gaines, predict if Adolf would attack before winter set in or hold off until spring.

Figures from CBC and cables from the BBC's New York office indicated that
Speaking Up
was gathering an audience across much of North America. The postbag, too, increased in size and a fair portion of Basil's mornings were taken up dictating replies that Susan, aided by a couple of secretaries, typed up and dispatched.

Late one week night, just as Baz was brushing his teeth before hitting the mattress, a call came through from no less a person than the Prime Minister and Basil was hastily summoned back to his office to listen to Churchill's barking voice thanking him for his efforts on behalf of the nation. Though he was by no means the first producer to receive a personal call from the PM, Basil was very pleased and tottered off to bed in the shade of the grand piano purring like a pussycat.

Five days on and a weekend off became the pattern for Basil Willets's crew. Bob, a free agent, spent less time in the House and, in spite of pleas from Basil and Susan, struck out for the Lansdowne no matter how late the hour or how intense the bombing. He did not invite Susan to join him, for if she was injured or, God forbid, killed because of him he said he would never be able to forgive himself.

To compensate for his neglect, he invited her to lunch at L'Étoile,
only to discover that Charlotte Street was closed; a solitary bay tree in a pot in the middle of the road bore a warning notice: ‘Police. Danger. Unexploded Bomb'.

‘We could go to Scott's, I guess,' Bob said. ‘The oysters don't know there's a war on.'

‘Too much of a man's club,' Susan said. ‘I'm not dressed to impress.'

‘You look just dandy to me,' Bob said.

‘Do I?' Susan said.

‘Sure you do.'

‘Sometimes I wonder.'

‘Well,' he said. ‘Don't,' and gave her a kiss. ‘Hatchett's?'

‘A little too far. I have to be back by three.'

‘You work too hard.'

‘Not as hard as you.'

‘The point's moot,' Bob said. ‘Hey, what's going on down there in the alley?'

In the lane at the rear of a characterless building a brace of cooks in white jackets and a chef in a tall white hat were fussing over a battery of pots and pans balanced on two Calor gas stoves while a couple of pretty young waitresses in traditional black and white dresses stood by to carry the dishes indoors.

The rich aroma of beef stew filled the alleyway.

‘Good lord!' said Susan. ‘They're cooking outside by the look of it. Now that's what I call enterprising.'

‘Kitchen must be out of commission,' Bob said. ‘What place is this and where's the front entrance?'

‘Taylor's Hotel, I think, on Goodge Street.'

‘Then that's the place for us,' Bob said.

The window table, set for two, provided a view of sandbags and rubble and, now and then, the blink of a bus going by, barely visible between the lattice of brown paper strips that all but covered the glass. The lights were off but some enterprising person had seen fit to place a fat wax candle in a saucer on each of the tables which, when lit, gave the low-beamed dining room a cosy air more suited to a winter night than a warm autumn afternoon.

Bob disposed of a Scotch and soda before the soup arrived and insisted on ordering an expensive bottle of claret to wash down the stew.

‘You're drinking a lot these days?' Susan said.

‘Steadies the nerves.'

‘You don't have a nerve in your body, Mr Gaines.'

‘Don't you believe it,' Bob said. ‘I'm just as scared as everyone else. Well, maybe not everyone. I've been through this sort of thing before, remember.'

‘In Madrid?'

‘Yep, and elsewhere.'

‘And you love it, don't you?'

He grinned, poured wine into her glass and into his own. He raised the glass and offered her a casual toast. ‘You've sure got my measure, Mrs Cahill.'

‘If it's excitement you're after,' Susan said, ‘perhaps you should join the London fire service.'

‘Ouch!'

‘I'm sorry,' Susan said. ‘That's unfair.'

‘Nope, it's perfectly fair. How are they bearing up?'

‘They?'

‘Your folks. The widow. Your pappy.'

‘Oh,' said Susan. ‘They'll survive.'

‘Sure they will. They're cockneys, oin't they?'

‘Please, don't mock them.'

‘I wouldn't dream of it,' Bob said. ‘I've nothing but admiration for the way the poor are putting up with the vicissitudes of all-out war.'

‘They're not poor,' Susan said. ‘Whatever you may think of them, they're not poor.'

He reached out and touched her hand. ‘Look, Susan, I didn't bring you here to argue.'

‘Why did you bring me here?'

‘To relax and enjoy yourself.'

‘Not an easy thing to do these days.'

‘A glass or two of wine might help.'

‘I think not,' Susan said. ‘Red wine and shorthand do not go well together.' She hesitated. ‘How are things at the Lansdowne? Is Mr Slocum still throwing wild parties?'

‘No, that's all come to a grinding halt,' Bob said. ‘We're busy boys these days.' It was his turn to hesitate. ‘It's not that I don't miss you. I do. But you're safer in Salt Street with Vivian. Goering's gang seems to have taken a special shine to Berkeley Square. We've been fire-bombed four times this week. An oil bomb put three apartments out of commission – ours not among them, fortunately – but the whole place stinks.' Another pause: ‘You are okay at Vivian's, aren't you?'