The Wayward Wife (9 page)

Mr Pell was tall enough to reach the shelf above the fireplace without leaving his seat. He steadied the painted vase, a fairground trophy, with one hand, removed the letter with the other and passed it across the table to Danny.

BBC stationery, the address not typed but printed in Susan's loopy handwriting: Danny put down his spoon, turned the envelope over and, to his embarrassment, saw that Susan had sealed it with a tiny red-ink heart.

He cleared his throat. ‘Anyone mind if I …'

‘Be my guest,' said Griffiths.

‘It's from his wife,' Mrs Pell confided to Kate. ‘It's got a kiss on the back.'

‘It's not a …' Danny began, then, thinking better of it, wiped a knife on a serviette and slit open the envelope.

He was well aware that everyone was watching him while appearing not to. He held the letter below the level of the tablecloth and scanned it quickly.

‘
My darling,
'
it read,
‘
please come home soon, if you can. I miss you so much. I long to hear your voice again and to feel your arms about me. With all my love, Susan.
'

He folded the letter, returned it to the envelope and stuffed it hastily into his trouser pocket.

‘Not bad news, I hope?' said Mr Pell.

‘No,' Danny said. ‘Nothin' of any consequence,' then, not meeting Kate Cottrell's eye, reached for the cider jug to refill his empty glass.

Tasty, Pete Slocum had called her, and ripe for the plucking, yet still the kind of girl who would climb all over you and, when it suited her, toss you in the trash like yesterday's newspaper. Pete was usually right about women. He could spot calculating females at a thousand yards and made it a rule to avoid them, but he, Bob Gaines, wasn't as cynical as old Slocum – at least not yet.

She looked so eager as she surveyed the people passing through the ground-floor reception area that he was tempted to believe that maybe she just wanted to see him again, to be his friend. She looked good, too, in a smart, slightly sassy way that reminded him of the Girl Fridays who worked in the newspaper offices back in New York.

Pleated skirt, plain white blouse, half-heeled shoes, hair cut short to fit under a gas mask; she bore no resemblance to Pearl, his wife – his ex-wife – who was full-breasted and broad-hipped and wore her hair in a thick, plaited pigtail that she unfurled only at bedtime.

The cop handed him back his press card and ushered him through the big glass door.

Susan came across the foyer to greet him, the shape of her breasts, modestly English, showing beneath her blouse.

She reached out and shook his hand.

‘So glad you could come, Robert. How was Paris? Was it dreadful? We're upstairs, by the way. Mr Willets is dying to meet you. We'll take the elevator, shall we?'

At that moment, married or not, he wanted her.

And all he could think of to say was, ‘Yes.'

Nora had been married to Leo Romano for the best part of thirty years but had barely exchanged a dozen civil words with him since he'd run off with the brassy blonde from the Fawley Street fish bar twenty years ago. Ancient history now for most folk in Shadwell, the gossip as cold as cod on a slab, but Leo's desertion had left a scar on Nora's heart that had never quite healed.

‘You're bleedin' nuts not to apply for an annulment an' let Matt make an honest woman of yah,' Breda told her.

Nora saw sense in her daughter's argument and didn't doubt that her ‘lodger', Matt Hooper, would lead her to the altar if she were free to marry again. But which altar? That, in Nora's book, was the rub.

Matt Hooper was a godless Protestant and she was a good Catholic girl who by letting Matt share her bed had become no better than a harlot and, as such, would burn in the fires of hell. She had given up going to confession but still drew comfort from hearing Mass in the fragile belief that, whatever God thought of her, Our Lady would manage to smuggle her into heaven by the back door.

She enjoyed Matt's kisses and cuddles and even the other thing but had a habit of confusing her few brief moments of post-coital guilt with a fear of eternal damnation and would roll away from Matt, sniffing tearfully.

‘Do you love me, Matt?'

‘'Course I love you. Wouldn't be 'ere if I didn't.'

‘If the German Menace comes, will you look after me?'

‘The Germans won't come 'ere.'

‘But if they do?'

‘I won't let 'em take you alive, Nora, I promise.'

Nora's concept of the ‘German Menace' was limited not by a paucity of information but by a lack of imagination.

Ron and Matt were forever ranting about the nasty Nazis but Nora contrived to hear only that which she wished to hear.

She refused to glance at the picture magazines Ron traded with his father that were filled with photographs of tanks and aeroplanes, marching men and queues of poor folk pushing handcarts. The closest she came to understanding the nature of combat was when she watched her grandson, Billy, play with his toy soldiers and heard him mimic the sounds of bullets and exploding bombs, and it didn't cross her mind that danger might be lurking on the doorstep.

‘That guy in the soft 'at, Ma, you seen 'im before?'

‘Can't say I have, dear. He comes in with Chalky.'

‘Chalky?' Breda said.

‘Mrs Greene's old man.'

‘Did Dad know 'im?'

‘Sure an' I expect he did. Chalky's been on the India Docks for years. Why you asking?'

‘No reason, just curious.'

Nora's vagueness drove Breda to despair, especially now that every stranger might be packing a razor or a gun. Nipping between the tables and the steam-filled kitchen, she framed her questions carefully.

‘Seen anythin' of Dad lately?'

‘Leo never shows his face in Shadwell, you know that.'

‘How long since we last seen 'im?'

‘Not since Georgie's funeral, I suppose.'

Leo had paid for the funeral and a stone, a very handsome stone, to mark the spot where his eldest lay but then he'd vanished into the shadows once more.

‘Nobody round 'ere seems to remember Dad,' Breda said. ‘I mean, nobody ever asks after 'im these days.'

‘Some do.'

‘Like who?'

‘Them as used to fancy him.'

‘Women, you mean?'

‘Mrs Brighouse – Clara – she fancied him.'

‘What about men?' said Breda.

‘Leo was never like that, no.'

‘I mean men askin' after 'im.'

‘No,' said Nora, all unaware. ‘No men.'

When March washed in with a mixture of sleet and warm rain and no further sign of Vince or Steve, Breda began to relax her vigilance. She was caught off guard therefore when two men in trench-coats and soft hats turned up in the dining rooms one morning and asked to speak to Nora.

There were three customers in the café, two charladies, just off work, nattering over a pot of tea, and one grey-haired cabman who, when the trench-coats entered, folded his
Racing Pink
, paid his tab and quietly took his leave.

Breda explained, truthfully, that her mother had gone to buy butcher meat and wouldn't be back for at least an hour. She asked if she could be of assistance.

‘Could do with a coffee, love,' one of the men suggested.

She waited for them to be seated but when she went behind the counter to fill the cups from the coffee urn they followed her.

‘Do you live here with your mother?' one man asked.

‘No,' Breda said. ‘I live with me 'usband in Pitt Street.'

‘Your husband, what does he do?'

She put the cups on saucers and pushed them across the counter. ‘I'd like to know who's askin' before I tell you anythin'. I mean, you might be Jerry spies, all I know.'

One of the hats, the elder, smiled. ‘Quite right.'

He showed Breda a card that identified him as an officer of the Special Branch and left her in no doubt she was dealing with the genuine article this time.

‘Okay,' she said. ‘What you want from me?'

‘Your husband …'

‘Fireman. Oxmoor Road. We 'ave one kid.'

‘Your mother, where does she live?'

Breda gestured with her thumb. ‘Upstairs. My 'usband's father stays over most nights. Makes us feel safe case there's an air raid, know what I mean?'

‘Your father-in-law, what's his name?'

‘Matt Hooper, crane driver down the docks.'

The younger of the men heaped sugar into his coffee, lifted the cup and blew across the surface to cool it. ‘What does
your
father have to say about that arrangement?'

‘If 'e even knows – which I doubt – 'e wouldn't care.'

‘So Mr Romano doesn't come round much?'

‘Don't come round at all,' Breda said. ‘We ha'n't clapped an eye on 'im since we buried my brother, Georgie, at the time of the Cable Street riots.'

‘I remember that,' the younger man said to his companion. ‘Kid got clobbered and died. Bad business. Home Office was involved.'

Breda leaned her forearms on the counter top. ‘I know my daddy mixes with some bad company, but I don't know any more than that.'

‘What about Steve Millar? Have you seen him lately?'

Half a lie, Breda decided, was the best way of covering the whole truth. ‘Steve?' she said. ‘Oh, sure. Saw 'im about a month ago. He dropped by my kid's school in 'is car an' picked me up for a chat.'

‘A chat about what?'

‘He was lookin' for me father, too.'

‘Was he now?'

‘Wouldn't tell me why, though,' Breda said. ‘What's 'e done, my daddy? I mean, what you after 'im for?'

‘Good coffee.' The older man drained his cup. ‘You make good coffee. What do we owe you, Mrs Hooper?'

‘Nothin',' said Breda. ‘It's on the house. Ain't you gonna wait to speak to my mother?'

‘That won't be necessary,' the older man said.

He reached across the counter, detached a leaf from Breda's check pad and removed the pencil from behind her ear. He printed a telephone number on the leaf and a name – Jessop – and slid the little oblong of paper towards her. He leaned further across the counter and looked her straight in the eye.

‘You hear anything from Leo,' he said, ‘you call this number. You ask for me, nobody else.'

Breda said, ‘In other words, shop my old man?'

‘Better us than others,' the officer told her.

Breda nodded. ‘Yeah, I see what you mean,' she said, and carefully folding the leaf from the check pad, tucked it into her bra.

It had all gone swimmingly, much better than Susan had expected. For someone who had never broadcast before Robert had been quick to grasp what was required of him. He had taken to the mike like a veteran and, with his hat still on his head and a cigarette smouldering in the ashtray on the table, had read without faltering the script samples Mr Willets had laid out.

After the test Mr Willets had taken Robert off to lunch outside the building and Susan, on tenterhooks, had been left to twiddle her thumbs for the best part of three hours.

Mr Willets was smiling when he returned to the office.

‘I,' he said, ‘have h-had a drop too much to drink. I do believe I'll h-head off home. If anyone does happen to be looking for me …'

‘Is he acceptable?' Susan blurted out. ‘Will he do?'

Mr Willets had removed neither his hat nor his overcoat. Swaying slightly, he planted an elbow on his desk for support.

‘Well,' he said, ‘the question isn't if Mr Gaines will do for us but if we w-will do for Mr Gaines.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘He's employed by the
Post
and, understandably, he's reluctant to surrender his position with the paper.'

‘Mr Willets, are you drunk?'

Basil Willets drew in a deep breath, pushed himself away from the desk and stood upright.

‘Certainly not, not drunk. Perhaps a t-tiny bit tipsy. I will not, however, be matching glass with glass with Mr Gaines again. Dear G-God, can he put away the booze.'

‘Mr Willets, sir, do we want him?'

‘We do, we do, we do – I think.' Another deep breath to clear his head: ‘Certain conditions will have to be met before we can claim Mr Gaines as one of our own. Will the powers that be upstairs agree to take on a foreign correspondent? Will the owners of the
Post
release him from his contract? Will we be able to afford him on our budget and what will the Controller have to say about employing a Yankee presenter?' He blew out his cheeks. ‘And then there's the question of what we're going to do about you?'

‘About me?'

‘He doesn't like you.'

‘What?'

‘He's worried about working with you. I offered to have you replaced but he thought that was a bit harsh – which, actually, it is.'

Susan sank back against the edge of her desk.

‘Replaced?' she said. ‘What a bleedin' cheek!'

‘I did point out,' Mr Willets said, ‘that you'd recommended him in the first place – but that cut no ice.'

‘
Are
you replacing me?'

‘No, no,' said Mr Willets. ‘No, no, no.'

‘Did Mr Gaines tell you why he doesn't like me?'

‘Actually,' Mr Willets said, ‘I think he likes you too much. He never stopped talking about you. I believe our American cousin is a teeny bit afraid of you.'

‘Oh,' said Susan. ‘I can't think why.'

‘Because,' Basil Willets said, ‘you're married. Whatever it says on your employment record you do have a husband. Dennis, is it?'

‘Danny,' Susan said. ‘I don't see what my marriage has to do with Robert Gaines.'

‘All things being equal – which they seldom are – I'd like to have Robert Gaines as our lead newscaster. We'll have Mr Gaines in again as soon as I've talked to the folk upstairs. Meanwhile, Susan, I'm depending on you to convince him that he has a future in Broadcasting House.'